Game Mess Mornings 11/30/23

Go be bad. It's the Internet. You're busy. Let's do this for
November thirtieth, twenty twenty three. What the hell for the next hour or
so, let me help you sort through the world of gaming on Game Mess
Mornings Live with me Jeff Grub. Today Netflix is getting grand theft auto and
Bungie is still messing up micro transactions. But first, please join me and
welcome you today's co host of Game Mess Mornings. It's Janet Choa. Everybody,
jan how are you doing? I'm doing great. Here's where I feel
old Grub. Yeah, dropped off my partner. She's a high school teacher.
And I see these young high schoolers now scooting to school on their electric
scooters. Oh on electric scooters? Okay, yes, yes, And you
know, I'm pretty sure the top speed of even like the cheapest electric scooter
is probably maybe ten or five to ten miles per hour. I bet they
get up to like twelve to fifteen even, right, and then I'm thinking
the real top of the line, guys go maybe up to like twenty maybe
maybe yo, parents, put a fucking helmet on your child, all right,
that's they're gonna die. Yeah for hey, this may make me seem
like a boomer, but fucking put a helmet on your child, all right?
Yeah that's rough stuff. Yeah I would because because like it is also
during like morning commute time when tired people are driving and trying to get to
work and are probably late. Like, yeah, you want to have helmets
on cause that's really super dangerous. I feel the same way when I see
that stuff. Uh back of Arver said he just kind of got on the
hoverboard the board yeah the first time, and I was like thinking, like,
are my girl, Like, is my six year old who's going to
be seven? Is she old enough for one of those? And I think
she's probably just getting there because but also like they're going to ride it in
the house mostly, and I don't know if I need that. I don't
know if I need that because like, hey go take that outside and they're
like no, I'm good, Okay, come on, what the hell,
especially because it's winter coming up. But then grub you gotta think about stairs.
Yep, there's a lot. Yeah we have that, yeah, right,
And it's because those things go especially in like an indoor environment, so
I'm like I could I could just see them like just go hitting the corner
really fast and suddenly just shooting down the steps. Don't want that. Don't
want that. Helmets for that. Don't want that. Helmets for that.
Yeah, how are you feeling about tomorrow being December? You shut the front
door, grub, No, it's not tomorrow. Tomorrow categories if I prepared
to talk about uh huh categories, we're talking about tomorrow. Yeah, I
keep like, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna spend some time with that.
I got plenty of time. Oh my god, it's literally tomorrow.
So yeah, we got a Game of the Year starting tomorrow. Yeah,
wait, what is that? Tell me? Just oh wait, we can't.
We can't and said what we're doing publicly yet? Okay, all right,
I'll have to looking up shit. Oh boy, it's gonna be great
though, it's Oh, it's gonna be fun. Absolutely honestly. Overall,
I feel pretty good about this year, about keeping up for the most part.
I didn't beat Balderskate three, but I'm I I wouldn't even be playing
balder Skate three still if it wasn't for Game of the Year stuff. And
then yeah, the other one, Alan Wake two. I will try to
get out like I'm gonna try to play a bunch more of that and have
that beaten by the time we're like doing our finale and stuff. But other
than that, I've kept up with all the big games. I trust Mike,
Lucy and Tam enough, and I know that they've played more Ballderskate than
I ever will this year. I trust them, and like I, I've
tried Pickman, and I'm gonna continue playing Pickman. But I defer to your
opinion and Dan's and Mike's on this as well. And you know what,
back, Laura and I got the Alan wakefront. I think Lucy as well,
and Tak so yeah, yeah, al Went Tree seems like the one
that might have like the timing going for it and uh and everything. I
mean, I think Dan's gonna have it ranked relatively high, So I think
that's the one that has the strongest chance of really doing something here at the
end of the year. Can I tell you my fantasy booking for our own
game of the year, please, I want to hear it. Okay,
all right, I think Balder's Gate three and Alan Wake two are gonna split
the vote in such a dramatic I do think that's gonna happen too, that
either Pickman four or Tiers of the Kingdom will wind up at one or two.
Right. I think Pickman four could do something similar with Zelda if like
we like try to be like, Okay, we're gonna actually make a real
move for Pickman four and so we're all gonna move it up and move Zelder
around. But I think enough people will have Zelda high enough that still has
a real shot of getting it. So yes, and I do I agree
with you. I've been thinking the same thing that Balder Skate three and Alan
Lake are gonna split the vote a little bit, but it's like things still
get points if they're like just one below that. So really, and I
think it's like the game that's on most people's list is probably gonna have the
biggest chance. Here's here's the other cog in the wheel here, Grub,
is that we have yet to decide whether or not we are going to allow
Turbo, Sean, Nikki and Bailey to throw in votes into the Eurovision machine.
Yeah. I mean, I think this is something that as we're having
the conversation getting down to the to the from the fifty and then down to
the twenty if we see that we're all like at loggerheads about some of these
things. We're like, Okay, we got to throw in a wildcard here
to make sure that things can keep us on our toes. I think that's
an entire possibility that we need to It needs to be a wild card that
we can play if needed. I think, yeah, yeah, it's I
you know what. The more that we're talking about it now, I'm getting
excited about it, which is completely undoing any of the nervousness. So that's
fucking gold. Let's get into it. Yeah, but I'm looking forward to
it. I'll play more games tonight and then be ready for tomorrow, looking
forward to it. And that's what time is that tomorrow. We're starting that
at nine am, right, No game mold mornings. Yes, no no
games tomorrow. So we're starting in when we normally start the BombCast, right,
So no no BombCast Revengeance, no upf tomorrow, Game of the Year.
We're going until the wheels fall off for day one. Yep, it'll
be. It's gonna be a beefy one. So buffalo on everybody and hang
out with us. We're gonna have a lot of topics tomorrow a lot of
the categories. I mean, all right, let's explain what we do here
in the meantime most weekdays, I, Jeff garubblehelp piece your gaming life back
together. That includes breaking news and maybe even some of our own original reporting.
For all these topics, I'll get the input of a bona fide expert
who will make me look smart. If you were watching live on twitch welcome,
You can always listen to the show later on podcast feeds by searching for
game Mes Mornings, or find therss on giant bomb dot com. You can
also catch the show later with chapters and timestamps on YouTube. Hello YouTube.
All right, we have a lot to get into, so let's start the
morning mess with Bungeee polls Destiny to starter pack following massive fan blash. This
is from Ben Lyons at Game Reactor. Just a couple of days ago,
Bungee kicked off the latest and final season of Destiny Too with this known with
this known as Season of the Wish. At this time, the developer also
launched the Witcher collaboration, which drew criticism for its price, released a bunch
of new playable content which has seemingly not landed with fans all too well yet,
and debuted a starter pack for new players that got absolutely blasted by fans
pretty much as soon as it was announced due to its poor offerings. Now,
Bungie has taken to Twitter to address various criticisms and to announce that the
starter pack has been pulled from sale. Bungie notes that the pack is not
something bringing joy, which is why it has been removed from the stores.
The developer adds that there are other parts of Destiny two that new players should
want to dive into before chasing these exotic weapons, cosmetics, and upgrade materials.
To add to this, Bungee registers that taking fans to the blind Well
hasn't exactly landed as it hoped, and that players will only be asked to
return to the activity once more in the season in Week six. That's in
the weeds for Destiny fans, and I'm sure they're all caring about that.
But basically what happened here, Jan is they put out the starter pack and
it was it's like kind of like really slim pickings, and I think it
was upwards of twenty dollars for this thing, and fans kind of like lost
their minds and I think it's most mostly people who would never buy this,
but I think they were like imagining someone coming into Destiny seeing this thing called
a starter pack and feeling the need to buy it, and then realizing much
later that what they were getting there would have been I think a lot of
people described it as if you just logged into any other like MMO or online
service game, you would just get these things for free, like they would
just be loging bonuses, and so a bunch us like, well, I
want to charge twenty dollars for this. I think the story here Janet continues
to be running a live service game and figuring out how to make money in
the long term and to price things fairly while also being able to extract value
from having a game that is a live service. Still difficult even for the
studio that has the most information about how to run one of these, right,
yeah, one hundred percent. And I can see those veteran players being
worried about what this could potentially forecast further down the line. If this is
how they're trying to attract new players and entice new players to be like,
Hey, if you want to hit the ground running, go get this starter
pack. What are they going to try and sell or try and fleece veteran
players of Destiny too during this whole process. I also imagine part of this
is probably in reaction in reaction to the recent layoffs as well of like,
hey, you laid off all those people, you blame the players, and
now you're going to continue to make boneheaded decisions like this. Specifically, it
wouldn't fill me with any type of confidence if I was a die hard Destiny
to player. Yeah, and that seems to be some of the sentiment here
for sure. I think they're like, oh man, do you guys still
not have the stuff figured it out? Is it really that desperate over there?
I think this is how it goes though. These companies try stuff and
in terms of micro transactions, and then the fans are very vocal and they
find out, hey, we can't with the studio finds out we can't get
away with this. We're gonna pull it back and try something different. And
you know, we've seen this not just from Bunge, although they've done it
a lot now, but we see this from like respond with Apex Legends.
They've had multiple instances there where where people like we do not like the way
that these skins are priced, and we're gonna be mad about it until you
do something forcing respond to eventually have to do something, and it's like then
they reintroduce stuff and it's not that much better, but it's a little bit
better, and then things quiet down. So at a certain point, this
almost feels like an opening and a negotiation where they're like, Hey, we're
gonna throw something out there and we'll see what the reactions like, and if
we can get away with it, we'll just leave it. And if we
don't, well, we're prepared to scale thanks back and try again. And
I think it sphinx to like, really, what you have to be with
the live service game like this is you have to be nimble and and you've
got to recognize that it's an ongoing relationship and you're gonna ge and fights with
your partner, and the partner being the game players. Right. Yeah,
it is a delicate dance that I thought Bungie would be better equipped to handle
given that they're like very dominant in this space and Destiny two has been out
for how long now? A long time? Yeah, I mean I don't
even know that we're getting like to the ten year period for since Destiny one.
I don't know how long Destiny two has been out. I don't even
know at this point if hitting the reset button and framing something as Destiny three
will entice enough people, given how much of a bad taste is currently in
people's mouths, and it's so far off even if it were to happen,
it's like a whole other world that we would be in by the time we
got to a Destiny three at this point. Yeah, I just I don't
know what's going on with Bunge Grub. I feel like they were hovering on
like the medium to okay side of news stories for the longest time, and
then this past year and some change just not doing hot. Yeah. I
think it's easy to be like, well, you know, Sony owns them
now, so this is all Sony's fault. I think this is it more
indicative of things were probably heading in this direction where they were feeling a little
bit desperate in a corner and worried about player retention, and and Sony just
happened to purchase them because they were at a point where Bunche's like, we
should just sell now while we're at a high point compared to where we're probably
going to be in a couple of years now. Do you think there is
that all a possibility? And I fully believe that you're right, Grub that
Bungee kind of was headed in this direction already and then the timing just happened
to work out of getting acquired by Sony. Do you think they were waiting
for something big, like an acquisition like this to kind of take the heat
off of themselves and like player bases or the general public would be like,
well, I guess it's Sony's fault. I mean, I think that's built
into the deal a little bit. Yeah, I think that's part of it.
Mostly though, they're like, hey, we have at you know,
sent off our final responsibility, the final say the people actually at the end
of the end of the day responsible for ensuring that Bungie is a strong business
is no longer us. And so when we get into a corner, it's
like we are going to have to like, okay, hey, people who
let Sony, what do you want us to do? And I think that
that is a better place to be in than being like, Okay, the
buck fully stops with us, and now we have to make tough decisions,
or leverage the company against itself and begin or sell off to some venture capitalist
firm. As things start to spiral out of control. It's like these things
were years and years away from happening, and obviously Bungee would have had a
lot of other suitors that would have been interested, but they could probably see
themselves heading in that direction if they can't pull themselves out of this not nosedive,
but definitely decline. And this is we're like, we talk about like
stories like this a lot, and every developer and every public seems to be
in this situation where it's like they've had a track record of success. They
see ways to continue that success, they see ways to grow that success.
But now making games is such a long and laborious and expensive process that by
the time they get there, things could have shifted so much from underneath them
that the ideas they had that were once good no longer feel good. And
we definitely saw that with a lot of live service games or it's you know,
people just won't care about the games themselves, and it's like that's scary,
and it feels like, oh, everything that we're doing is a risk
now. And I think that's where these companies are like, yes, it's
time to sell, it's time to exit, and with this unknown period of
what gaming is going to be like for the next couple of years, that's
what we don't want to be the ones responsible for figuring that out. And
I don't blame them, because if I have no answers either, right,
I mean, I have no idea what these companies should be doing other than
yeah, I guess make keep making Destiny to the way it is. And
I mean my idea would be like, do the thing that Overwatch two did
and just call something Destin three and update Destiny two. That doesn't seem like
it's a good idea, but that's the best I got, So I don't.
Again, I don't blame them. I don't know, add anime ladies
and dudes to it. Okay, that's a pretty good idea though, Uh
well yeah, yeah, it's it is wild grubs seeing games, ips,
companies, developers, publishers I thought, for the longest time were too big
to fail, not necessarily failing, but tripping over themselves constantly. Yep.
And I mean so when Sony purchased Bungie and the idea was Bunge's going to
bring in all of this learnings, as a executive would call it, all
these lessons that they've taken away from building live service games for years and years
now. I think really it's going to be a lot of Bunge going into
these S twos and explaining why things won't work and probably not having a lot
of answers to be like, well, how do we make this idea work
for this game? Because I think the answer seems to be, based on
what we see developers do over and over again, the answer seems to be
you're gonna have to do it the hard way and just try stuff until people
stop yelling at you, and that again that seems like really risky for these
companies to take on. I think that's why Sony is suddenly like, oh,
boy, don't know about all these live service games and not Sony's not
alone in that. Every company is sort of feeling that way. What if
Marathon is just Destiny but like stylized and not in space? Yeah, I
mean they did say it's an extraction shooter, right, So what if it's
like, yeah, just basically Destiny, but with we have this extracted Destiny
from Destiny here. It is beautiful. Yeah. Have you ever played any
of the extracted shooters? You ever try like the war Zone extraction game that
I cannot remember the name of? Or park Off? You ever get into
Tarkoff? No? Damn, No, too much pressure. Yeah, but
I'll play it if you want to play it, grub All right, Well,
DMZ is the one. I think we should probably like figure out what
is the most friendliest one to try out so we can get a good idea
of it and try it out. I don't know, We'll see at some
point point, Okay. Dan Hauser's Absurd Ventures has two new ips on the
way. This comes from Smagaliso Similane at Destructoid. Dan Hauser left an uneasable
mark on gaming through his work at Rockstar, though he has since moved on
to new projects. This includes two new ips his entertainment company is working on.
You shouldn't expect traditional gaming experiences from Absurd Ventures. The first IP,
American Caper, focuses on two families facing a world of corrupt business, inept
politic politics, and bungling crime. This will explore will explore this universe.
Three graphic novel illustrated by comic book artist Simon B. Bisley. The first
story arrives in twenty twenty four. A Better Paradise is the second ip.
It's an existential suspense thriller being made with the help of q Code Media.
Interestingly, it'll take the form of a twelve episode audio fiction series. It
also arrives in twenty twenty four. Houser is a co founder of Rockstar that
has served as a writer on the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption franchise.
Is this what your work affecting from Dan Hauser when he started up his
new thing? No, not at all. I don't want to say that
they're very generic names, but they're kind of generic names. Scrub. Yeah,
they definitely are. I mean, I guess he's probably coming at from
like Grand Theft Auto was a pretty generic thing too, But I don't know.
American Caper maybe it's even more so than that. American Caper feels like
a knockoff title, trying to ape Grant. Have you seen the logo for
it? Yes, it looks like nineteen seventies American or Captain America a little
bit. It does? It does? And when I didn't read the or
No, the part of Simon Bisley being involved in this, and it's interesting
having two different types of movie you don't know, which includes me. Simon
Bisley's responsible for Lobo. People are saying in chat, Yes, Lobo okay,
that's pretty cool. I always always enjoyed a lobou. He's a Lobo
guy, Okay, I enjoyed from a distance previously. He also I think
he did the Halo Halo graphic novel as well. Oh really okay, Yeah,
if you've ever seen, if you've familiar with the Lobo art, it's
like, really muscly dudes, right, yeah, just really mustly dudes.
American caver does look like the one of the Captain America title treatments. I
don't know. It could be fun. I just don't didn't expect this from
Dan Houser or yes, dan Hauser or Dan Hauser. Yes, I wanted
to say Dan Housen. I know me, I always do. I always
feel like I am saying it even when I'm saying dan Hauser, Dan Hauser.
Yeah, this is uh. I mean, I think it's interesting.
I guess it's probably the kind of thing where, hey, if you are
coming at it from a storytelling perspective and you want to build up these media
properties and you can always make a game later. I guess. I mean
nothing, none of this says anything about video games, so maybe none of
these things will actually interact with games at all in any way. Or he's
like testing the waters for these ideas to see if there's interest in them,
and then we'll follow up on them later. If this makes sense, And
I guess that is an interesting way of doing things. I just don't know
if it's the kind of thing. It's definitely not the thing I was expecting
for sure. Yeah, maybe dan Hauser's trying to create the universe or create
the story attachment to the story first, so then people eventually want to play
as these characters that he's introducing. Or maybe he's playing forty chess grub.
Maybe maybe the stories are so complicated with an American caper and a better paradise
that you gotta lay the foundation. Yeah. I suppose It's also likely that
he's aware of just how thirsty Hollywood is for ip oh. Yeah, and
he's like, we could make an audio podcast series for something, and then
I bet we will be able to license that to Hollywood for a film,
and then that money will pay for us as we decide to like shift into
making a game and we could synergize that stuff. That seems like the let's
put this up on the whiteboard. What does our strategy look like? I
bet that's what he's thinking. I don't know. How do you think that's
something that can be pulled off here? I think so. And you know,
Dan Hauser is definitely one of those names that have been floated around of
like, why don't you make the jump to Hollywood or trying and make the
jump to the silver screen or whatever, And as far as I know,
he hasn't or hasn't been involved with anything like that. I don't think so.
This could be him testing the waters for that completely, or just wanting
to do the whole process himself of just having the whole trans media approach and
just doing it all within house and just waiting for it to pick up enough
steam. Do you think this would work if alexandro Ddario was involved in all
these things? Oh? I'm there with you, right there? Yeah?
Yeah, yeah? You know, first season of White Lotus, Uh huh,
first season of True Detective, Yeah yeah, first round of movies of
Percy Jackson, The Lightning Thief. Of course, yes, I can't remember
the first thing I saw right, I'm trying to remember now, but she
was one of the actors in we did the Box Office game before we started
everybody. So if you're confused about why we're talking about Alexandra Zadario, that's
the only reason. She's the new best friend of Giant Bombs. She is.
People don't know this. I'm gonn get her to write a guest list
top ten this year. It'll be great. Alright, So we're gonna take
a quick break. We got a lot more news though, and we'll get
to all that right after this. We're back. We're back. We're ready
to talking about more news over here on Game Mess Mornings on Giant Bomb Jeff
Grab that's Shannachoa. Let's get back into it. Hello. Resident Evil four
Remakes of VR mode has been given a December release date. This comes from
Chriscoing at VGC. Capcom has announced the release date for the Resident Evil for
remakes VR mode. The new mode, which will be released exclusively for PlayStation
VR two, will be available on December eighth. The mode will be available
as a free DLC update for the game, and a demo version will be
released on the same day. Although not yet confirmed, it's likely that the
VR update will let players play through the entirety of Residue before remake in virtual
reality. It's where they haven't confirmed that yet, Like, yeah, exactly
what's possible in that? But either way, I mean, I don't know
if you probably still don't have a PlayStation VR two, Dan got ours.
I don't have one. But are you curious about this at all? Yes?
Yes, Actually, after checking out the Metaquest three and really enjoying it,
really enjoy mine too, I was curious as to like a you know,
a full I don't want to say a full fledged VR device. That's
what the medic Quest three is one, but like one geared for the console
experience like the PSVR two. And I do remember when Tam and I checked
it out, like sometime last year, it being very comfortable and being very
tactile with the controllers and everything, especially with Resident Evil four. You know,
I remember a lot of folks very being in love and in fear of
RI seven and being mixed on Ari Residevil village. But Ari four, I
feel like, would strike the balance of being disgusting and gross but also very
well suited to VR, especially because Yo, this came out on the Wei
Grub. Yes it did. Yeah, so they already know how to do
the motion tracking controls in that for sure. Yeah, I'm there with you,
RAZIEVIL seven was gonna always be too scary for me to try it,
even though I know a lot of VR purist in VR enthusiasts swear by that.
They're like, that is an incredible experience, and I believe them.
I just would never have the guts to be able to do that myself.
And then in Brenzie Williams by then, I was like, yeah, I'm
good, but I've kind of come back around, and big part of it
is messing around with the Quest three and really enjoying that, and mostly that's
be impressed by the pass through, but whatever. I'm also like looking for
more VR games on there to play because that excitement. But I'm not so
excited by VR that I'm going to go out and spend another couple hundred dollars
on a VR two just to play this. I would need the promise of
more, And I think we had a ton of conversations at the time of
PlayStation VR two launching where we're like, hey, we're going to need to
see what the support looks like. And I think it was like it kind
of came in right in our lower expectations of there's not going to be a
ton convince you to get a VR two beyond what they launched with, and
that seems to have been the case with the exception of this now. And
do you think that changes the calculus at all? I don't think that changes
the calculus at all, especially knowing that I have to be hardwired into the
console, and after trying a device like the Metaquest three where it is just
a wearable and it does the tracking all on the device, I think I
would be interested in, like maybe a better graphical fidelity. But shelling out
what how how much does this now groub five fifty? I think it's still
five to fifty, Yeah, five point fifty to play Resident Evil four.
It still isn't enough of like a killer app for me to want to jump
in. I'm still on the camp that they should put out half Live Alex
on this bitch and then that would that would greatly entice me. I know
when we did that stream where we checked out the PSVR too with Dan,
there were a couple of neat things were That's what it was, Greb just
neat things. Neat things. Yeah, I mean, I think overall that's
where VR still is with the exception of Alex, and for me, that's
mostly pretty fund. That's pretty cool because there's also like a lot of cool
stuff happening in like the homebrew and that the modding scenes that makes VR interesting
at least on PC, which is why again, why I'm like, I'm
not really considered in PSVR two all that much, although the person that got
PSVR working on PC says he's pretty close to getting PSBR two working on PC,
even though he at one time, one time he was the person that
said this would be impossible. Sounds like you're gonna need to buy like a
dongle, like a specialized noggle to make it connect to a PC. But
regardless, again, that would be pretty cool. That's still not gonna.
I mean, I have the index develove index, I'm really happy with that.
I still haven't played Alex. I'm like, I'm gonna can't keep considering,
like maybe it's time to do that. We're talking about doing some stuff
with the Quest threes and maybe playing like table tennis and things like that.
I'm like, I want to be doing things in VR. I do think
that it's still an interesting tech and those small, neat things like table tennis
really get me. I really enjoy that sort of thing. But I am
not going around thinking, boy, I hope they give me a reason to
want to buy a VR two. I am not thinking about PlayStation VR two
ninety nine percent of the time until we get stories like this. Yeah.
I every time we do read a story about PSVR two, I also think,
besides bringing up Half Life Alex constantly of you know, where's where's the
next astrobot? Yep, bring out that little hooligan, Bring that little bastard
out. Stop hiding them away. We need them, Yeah, we need
them. Pick them out of that PS one he fell into. Come on,
it's right, we need him now more than ever. That's how That's
how I would put it. Netflix is bringing Grand Theft Auto the Trilogy to
mobile devices next month. This is from Jason Finelli at GameSpot. Shout out
to Jason. The ever growing Netflix mobile game catalog will receive a major addition
next month, as the company has announced to deal with Rockstar Games to bring
thet bring the Grand Theft Auto the Trilogy definitive addition to Netflix Apps on December
fourteenth. The move will see all three PlayStation two era GTA titles ported to
mobile devices exclusively to Netflix members. The games will be available available to download
through the Netflix app, which will then forward users to either the iOS app
store or the Google play Store for download. That's how it works on Netflix,
everybody. Yeah, Okay, a couple questions. One, do you
think this moves the needle for Netflix? Because this is a pretty big brand
name. But you know, the Grand Theft Auto mobile games have been available
for years and years and years, maybe not these updates, I suppose.
I guess that's what this is saying, this that these updates were actually released
on iOS or Android and now you can get them exclusively, excluively through Netflix.
But do you think that is like a big get for Netflix? Yeah?
Yeah, I think sometimes we underestimate the power of Grand Theft Auto here,
maybe just because you know, we don't really it doesn't really occupy our
mind space, and like GTA Online is just seems like another impenetrable behemoth at
this point for me personally, And we hate red Dead redemption too. We
just all of Giant Bomb, all of it, all of us. Yeah,
but I think GTA has enough name recognition and the cultural zeitgeist still,
Like on Instagram recently, there's been like a filter, like a post thing
of six games that define me, and like a bunch of friends are putting
on Vice City or San Andreas, and I didn't realize how much those two
games pecifically and to an extent GTA three has like permeated millennials across the board.
I mean, I think it was like it was defining sort of gaming
moment, even for me, someone who grew up as like such like a
Nintendo fanboy. Uh, going over to a friend's house after right as I'm
graduating high school, spending all day just smoking weed and playing Grand Theft for
three, Like that's what we did for like a year and a half.
And like so for me, Grand Theft Auto three is like that definitive experience.
And I do think about going back, and then I didn't. I
spent some time with My City and not almost no time really with San Andreas,
which is like I maybe I do want to go back and finally play
San Andreas, the one that seems to have the most going on and I
know people really love it, but even that, you know, at a
certain point it's like, oh, you know, I have more fun whenever
I go to play like China Town Wars, the DS game and stuff like
that. I'm like, I think I think Grand Theft Ato got more refined
over time, and it is still a very much a Rockstar game. But
I think the sandbox of the open world is decently fun still, and I
can have that fun in GTA five and it's not going to be that different
if I were to go to back to these other games. But I don't
know. I mean, I think someone in chat said this is a medium
sized get. I think that's right. I think this is something that is
going to draw some attention to Netflix games in a way that like Into the
Breach, despite being an incredible game, just couldn't it just couldn't do that,
right. Yeah. There's also Hades, which I feel like set the
world on fire. That's a big one. Yes, I think that's like
that was their biggest get up until this for sure, and maybe in a
way a way, Hades is still bigger like Grand Theft Auto. That name
is massive. I mean, it is up there with Mickey mouse in a
lot of ways in terms of brand recognitions. So oh definitely, yeah,
is this so? Is this I've never bothered to check this, But the
Netflix gaming is that if you have a Netflix subscription anywhere, so it's not
region locked or anything. I mean, got a good point. I don't
know, maybe that I want to say, and this is just me guessing
from what I'm basically kind of half remember, I want to say that Netflix
gaming isn't globally available yet. Okay, maybe so available in certain territories.
But but I you know, I have my Netflix subscription and I go to
play Netflix shows on my television. I don't see the games there, I
don't think still, and then I go on my phone and then there's the
games tab and that's where you can play these games because it's all mobile stuff
so far. And yeah, I've you know, played around with it a
little bit. You liked Point B, right, you played Point B.
I played too much? Point P the point P boy. Yes, I
was the Point P Boy. Yeah. It was a quick it was a
quick toilet game. Yes you were. I think you're the one that told
me about it. I was like, I had a pretty good time playing
that in the Toilet as well. That's a top tier toilet game. Maybe
that should be a category toilet Game of the Year. Write that down chat
so we remember the other thing, the other question I had about this.
Do you mind that The Grand Theft Auto the Trilogy Definitive Edition is only available
on mobile through Netflix? I don't mind. Yeah, I personally don't mind.
I've had Netflix consistently for years, right, and I'm not in any
danger of canceling it personally. But I get it. I get people who
are frustrated by this. Oh totally. Yeah. The fact that you have
to not only like downloading an app isn't that much of a hurdle to cross
anymore, But having to pay for another subscription just to play GTA the Trilogy
Definitive Edition, I can see that being a hassle for people. Yeah,
I want to. I'm like, let me just I'm gonna go to play
dot Google dot Com. I'm gonna type in Grand Theft Auto. I just
want to see what comes up, because I mean, grant, I know,
Grand Theft Auto has been available on mobile for years and years. Yeah,
there's Grand Theft Auto San Andreas for seven dollars still available right now.
Five dollars. Three is five dollars. I guess these are These are the
original versions, not the updated definitive ones. But a lot of people prefer
those anyhow, because those definitive updates, who are fucking busted in terms of
the way they looked when they launched. So oh the rain, Yeah the
rain, and yeah, all of the AI upscaling on some of the characters
that made them look like that one lady that re resurfaced that painting and made
of Jesus made them look all fuzzy. Yeah, the fuzzy Jesus versions of
Grand Aft Auto are not preferential for a lot of people. All right,
let's move along here. Remnant and Remnant two have made their way to game
Pass. This comes from Alex Hopley, a game reactor. Game Pass usually
likes to make a big song and dance when an important title lands on game
Pass, but for whatever reason, the addition of Remnant from the Ashes and
its SEQL Remnant two have been added to the subscription service without any fanfare.
Right now, you could check out the games on the front page of the
game Pass website. Unfortunately, you won't be able to pick up the Remnant
two DLC The Awaken King as part of your game Pass subscription, but the
State inter version of the game is available. This is a pretty big get,
I think. Yeah, in another year, Remnant two is one I
would have spent a lot more time with, and I kind of regret not
spending more time with it. It's one that I do want to go back
and check in on and maybe play some more of. But it also seems
like an ideal get for game Pass. It's like that is it's right in
its wheelhouse right on. I know that I've seen the next Slander crew play
a lot of Remnant two and really dig into it. Yeah, it is
another game that I've been by curious on, but now I don't have to
be because I can just download it with game Pass. Yep, they they
did. Actually this story is from last night. They did this morning post
a newswire a blog about this where they talked about Remnants coming as well as
Remnant two, and then coming soon is Spirit of the North Steam World build.
It's coming tomorrow because that's when that game launches, and I've been I've
been playing that and big thumbs up for me. Clone Drone in the Danger
Zone is coming December fifth. Rise of the Tomb Raider coming December fifth.
Oh, while The Iron's Hot is coming December fifth. World War The Aftermath
December fifth. Goat Simulator three, which I enjoyed. I wonder if that
one was fun one of that one's ever has taken off the way Goat Simulator
did with the kids. I have no idea. I bet this will help
a lot. That's coming December seventh, Against the Storm December eighth, Ten
Hearts December twelfth, and far Crist six is coming December fourteenth, So there
you go. I think Remnant and Remnant two hitting game Pass is going to
do wonders for the player base. Agreed, because I feel like it injected
a little bit more life into Greb. Do you remember Outriders? Yes,
definitely. Yeah, I feel launched on game Pass and I think that was
a huge help to that game. Yes. Yeah, I think it's since
left game Pass though, but yeah, it probably boosted their player base an
insane amount. Yes, I mean I think we probably would not have talked
about Outriders in any real way had it not been for game Pass. Yeah,
I think I think it would have been rory really like Outriders shout out
to Matt Rory's outriders. Then yeah, Rom the two's one I want to
spend some more time with though, so we'll see saying and make that happen.
Xbox is explaining why it doesn't reveal console sales anymore. This is from
Eddie Mcoo, a game spot. In twenty fifteen, Microsoft stopped announcing Xbox
sales numbers, and now the company has shed more light on that decision.
Xbox CFO Tim Stewart said it to Wills Fargo twenty twenty three TMT Summit this
week that Microsoft doesn't publicly disclose these figures because, as Microsoft sees it,
a unit sales number alone doesn't provide the clearest picture of how the Xbox brand
is performing overall. Basically, Stuart said, at first it was like,
what are you doing. You're the Xbox business and you're not giving us console
sales numbers. That makes no sense. But it was really the first point
of us saying no, no, it's about content and services. Stewart said
he measures the measures the success of Xbox by the number of customers it has
and how much money Xbox as a brand and Xbox is making these days.
And not just console sales. I continue to think, like, yeah,
that's a that's a little convenient. But at a certain point I have you
have to just start believing them right where they are deemphasizing the console sales because
they are looking beyond that already and they have been for a long time.
And they repeat this point over and over and over again. You know,
we had Phil Spencer on the couch and talked to him and he was like,
he was like, yeah, again, we are not thinking of things
that way. We're not doing the console war stuff because you know, or
not in any real way because we're in third place and we don't intend to
try to like really change that. We are looking at an alternative strategy,
and I think, I mean, it's it's hard for me still, it's
still hard to like wrap my mind around that, because again, I think
the whole idea is get people in your network, and the best way to
do that is with the console, where they can only be in your network,
so when they spend money, you get a cut of every little bit
of that money. And by not selling consoles that that becomes a much more
difficult task because Windows is open and so people are installing Steam, and then
Steam gets a cut of everything on PC and you're not getting that. So
it's definitely not in apples to apples thing where it's like, well, if
we have a user on PC versus a user on console, that's the same
thing. It's not the same thing. So but if the overall numbers are
growing for them, then I mean, it's hard to argue with the results
at a certain point. And I think that's what they're trying to say.
I don't know, do you think that this? Do you believe them?
Finally, because I think I'm getting there where I believe them that they really
have fully deemphasized console sales. I think I've been I believe them for a
while now, and it hammerd the point home when Pill and Matt Booty we're
on the GB at night couch this year, plainly saying and have continued to
plainly say that they are deemphasizing the importance of not hawking consoles, but like
making consoles the big part of their gaming strategy. Because at this point,
like I'm thinking, and what I want most from Xbox and Microsoft is give
me a small portable device to play my Xbox game Pass games. Give me
perhaps an Xbox portal maybe, or an easier ability to play it on something
like the Steam Deck or whatever. I know that there's hoops to jump through
where you can kind of get it running on a Steam Deck. I would
just like something more reliable, and I guess I could explore an Asis Roger
with that. But for the longest time now I feel like, yeah,
now I fully believe that they not that they don't care about the Xbox anymore
because that's their maybe not even their bread and butter at this point, but
like Xbox game Pass and the brand in its entirety is more important than just
the Xbox itself at this point, especially with like the different skews that they've
been making for the series S and X of like this doesn't seem like a
major thing, or it's like, all right, cool, we got these
sick raps for the Box one now all right mm hmm, yeah, one
that looks like a speaker. We've got more memory in it. I think
they know that the Xbox console itself is still very important to accomplishing their brand
goals of making people feel strong affinity for Xbox, because that that that's the
thing that like Phil Spencer talked about, and that that's email that not leaked
but was part of evidence that we got to read about of him explaining the
failures of all these third party publishers like EA and and Take two and all
these other ones that didn't have this brand affinity, so that when they got
into a world where anyone could make games, that anyone could put out games
and they had to compete with a million indie games, all these publishers were
selling a situation where it's like, Hey, we're EA, We're putting out
a game. Don't you care? Or were you we stuff? We put
out a game, don't you care? And ninety five percent of people are
like, no, we don't care that your EA or that your UBI seff
that is that means nothing to us. So Xbox has been able to create
that affinity, but that comes with expectations of like, we have this affinity
for you because we have high expectations and are you going to meet those expectations,
And it's been tough for them to actually do that. So Yeah,
it's also so interesting to think about Xbox not really having a dog in the
console wars anymore, because I feel like the Xbox die hards in PlayStation diehards
as well are continuing to fight the console war when neither of those companies are
interested in that at all anymore. Yeah, I mean, I think that
they're interested in as far as they're happy to have people who feel that strongly
about their brand, But I don't know if they're fully ready to reciprocate that
love with exactly what these people are asking for, which is to go in
there and destroy PlayStation whatever. That looks like that's just not the that's not
the game plan, that's not the strategy, and it won't be ever,
at least under this leadership. And I don't think it makes a lot of
sense, to a lot of sense for them to even try to make the
strategy. They also said during this interview, the CFO mentioned that they want
to bring Game Past to PlayStation and intended devices, so they're saying that still
they want to bring it to every Spring possible. He also talked about AI
and how developer's going to use it. But he's the CFO, what is
he now? Total Ward dev Creative Assembly is returning to real time strategy games.
So this comes from Georgiana GameSpot. It looks like Creative Assembly is going
back to creating games in the real time strategy genre after the cancelation of its
multiplayer shooter Jan what is it called? Remember this one? Total Total,
Total War, Totally War Hyenas. After the cancelation of Hyenas, during a
financial briefing, Siga president Haruki Satomi said, to put it simply, Creative
Assembly was good at offline games in the artist genre, but they took on
the challenge of developing hyenas at an online game in the FPS genre and then
basically said, We're not gonna have to do that anymore. I don't want
to like say what brand they're working with, but I have heard like Creative
Assembly is going hard back into RTS and then they will be working with a
major IP in the years to come. Uh, And I'm pretty excited about
it, but I'm kind of let things settle before and make sure that that
is one happening before I say what it is. But it does sound like
that is they're going to stay in that bubble and jam My question to you
is, how are you feeling about developers having a sort of stick to their
bubble. I think it makes sense they're like, oh, do what you're
good at but at a certain point, developers do want to like spread their
leg stretch their legs, Jesus Christ. Developers want to spread their legs,
Jan right, am I right? Or what? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
because they want one foot in what is old and one foot territory.
That's right, that's the rattle on that old line. Exactly. That's that's
what you meant to say, Greg, say it exactly. Yeah, yeah,
that's that's why. That's what they mean when they say spread your legs
and expand your thought. Yeah, exactly. I'm pulling for creative assembly as
always. I like to point out they carried Sega on their back throughout the
two thousands when Sega just did not know what to do, and it was
all PC gaming all the time, making them money throughout that era, and
that was you know, it was total war and a handful of other things,
and they deserve to be able to work on what they want to work.
To a certain extent, I think even like it's a shame that hyenas
didn't get a chance, but at certain point you also think, boy,
I never thought that was a good idea and I didn't care about that game,
So at a certain point, not throwing good money after bad is probably
the right choice. But hey, if they do return to the roots,
they are so the best at what they do and having a chance to go
back to their and not I have to be like shut down because of one
bad project. At least that's a good thing. I'm hoping for good things
for Creative Assembly. Give them Sonic. Yeah, give them Sonic than you
them Sonic Game. You keep fumbling the bag with certain Sonic games. Let
your actual number one studio do their thing. I want to see it.
Uh, let's see here. I'm gonna skip ahead to this next one.
Jan the new ashless Pokemon anime is finally getting its English dub. This comes
from Ken Shepherd at Kotaku. Shout out to Ken. The Pokemon anime is
entering a new era after sunsetting longtime protagonist Ash and Pikachu earlier this year.
The newest series, Pokemon Horizons, follows heroes Laco and Roy and has been
airing inch fan since April. After an excruciating weight It's finally making its way
to the West with an English dub. However, acid has become a tradition
in the States. The new season will be available only through Netflix. Jan
Are you excited about a new ashlest Pokemon anime? Sure, sure, completely
fine with it. I think I'm glad that they finally did it and not
got rid of Ash, but moved on from Ash, and I feel like
he can only be ten for so long. The people that were that men
Ash when they were young are now in their thirties and also ready to move
on to other things, but maybe past the torch. I personally would have
enjoyed if they took some of the other side companions and maybe did like a
flash forward type of deal when they're a little bit older. I am very
I was very attached to gosh. I forget what season I think it is,
you know X Y and then x y Z where Bonnie was like a
younger character on the show and wasn't of age it to be a Pokemon trainer.
I would have been a big fan if they chose to fast forward a
couple of years. But hey, this show Pokemon Horizons has Captain Pikachu,
y'all, and this is just a Pikachu with a captain's hat, so that
that makes him more official. I think they're fine giving jobs to Pokemon as
long as they're just Pikachu's detectives captain to do whatever job. Yeah, Pikachu's
probably president in that universe, right one. I'm almost don kiddle. I'll
help you in a second. Don't worry saying I don't intend to vote for
Pikachu if he chooses to run. I don't like his platform. Yeah,
I do find it would be electrifying though. I'm sorry, everybody, I'm
so sorry. Nintendo Live twenty twenty four is going to be held in Tokyo.
The showcase will run from January twentieth to the twenty first in the Tokyo
Big Site Convention Center. Uh, this is interested. They're already doing another
Nintendo Live. But I think it's a pretty cool idea. I wonder if
it's going to be like there will be a Nintendo Live in the Americas in
at like around the end of the year, around packs time, and then
they'll do one in Japan earlier in the year and kind of bounce back and
forth and do that. Because we speculated the one and washed it was like
they have all this stuff sitting in a warehouse. They could just bring it
out and do their own do their own thing pretty easily. They probably have
the equivalent in Japan, so they could kind of just like do both without
without like incurring a lot of costs. So this makes sense. I think
it's a very cool thing that they're taking this on, and it makes me
believe that one day we might get a Space World again, which was their
like own E three from the nineties that I always wanted to go to before
I was in the industry. I'm curious if we'll see any Nintendo major Nintendo
presence at all at Packs East or are they gonna really just sequester it to
Pax West specifically because their right American yeah being there to know, I feel
like Nintendo has had booths at pack ceas before. Uh yeah, like to
occupy like a whole floor of the right And they probably won't have a Nintendo
Live so Nintendo. A lot of people are asking what's Nintendo Live. That's
the thing that we went to in and around packs like Nintendo's own fan event
where they had Mario music playing in a concert series and then they showed off
all their games, whether they were coming out still or had been recent released
earlier this year. So yeah, a Nintendo Con basically, and it's not
like a full blizz con equivalent, but a mini version of that focused on
Nintendo, and we all had a really good time at it. It was
very a very pleasant experience, right, very very pleasant experience. We ran
into Doug Bowser, yes we did, took a picture of us and then
threw us back in jail. It threw us immediately back in jail. But
that's also the first time we played Super Mario Wonder. Yes, it was.
Yeah, it was great. It was We got line played it again
at a four hour long line for the merch Store. It was cool and
either I think it was a good experience. I was like, I hope
they keep doing this. So this is a sign that they're going to keep
doing this, and I think that's great. Kumba dumper Guomba dumpers. As
the people say, all right, I have the poll here somewhere. I
know, kidd, I'm almost done. Just hang on there, all right.
From yesterday, let's bring this up. Have you played Dragon's Dogmafoo?
Yes a little bit. Fifty two percent said yes, forty eight percent said
no. That's all and that's two point seven thousand votes. Jen, Well,
that's way more than I was expecting. All right, Yes, I
mean this forty eight percent people have still ready like, hey, what is
this Dragon's Dogma two all about? That's great, but I think this bodes
well that the Dragon's Dogma series has continued to attract players over the years,
and that's that's a pretty good result for that game. I think you said
you haven't played it, right, Jen, I have not. I wouldn't
even say I'm Dragons Dogma curious at all, but I appreciate how fervid the
fan base is for the game. Not my cup of tea could potentially be.
But as it's like, all right, cool, you guys have fun.
Yep, I am've always been more curious in it than the time I
was actually spent put into it. But I don't know. I think I
started up and I'm like, people talk about this game, all this stuff
happening, and it just takes a bit long for me to get into it,
and I'm like, I don't really know what's going on, and then
I lose interest. So I want to keep trying. I want to I
want to give it one more try before Dragons Dogma two comes out, but
I will definitely be there for Dragons Dogma two. Greb, have you ever
checked the comments section for any of these polls on YouTube. Let's do it
right now. It's good. I'm gonna live dangerously. Let's see here,
uh, master works all you can't go wrong. It's for yeah, okay,
yep, playing the prolog counts. No, yeah, what's what normally
happens in here? I've never checked, and that's why I'm curious. It's
like I've checked a few times, definitely, and people sometimes will tag me,
so I definitely, And then I'm like, oh yeah, there's comment
section. I'll go there and check it out. And Rizzleton says, Jeff,
load this puppy up on the steamed steam deck with the sixty frames per
second patch and into free mod and the title theme, and you're and you'll
understand. Okay, I'm gonna do exactly what in Drizzleton is suggesting here because
he's got the Rizultan. All right, yeah, yeah, hey, if
you got the Rizzultan, let's let's go by Living Garage Trucks as they played
a two point five times Yeah, race Raise Braves is yes, and I
don't understand all the hype for it. So yeah, there's all kinds out
there, all kinds there, you go all right, we got a new
poll that we'll put up that we'll discuss on. Fuck, I have no
idea. Maybebe December eleventh. Yeah, it's gonna be a minute, everybody,
So okay that So I'm gonna say grub that we should maybe take this
Monday, December eleventh off, Yeah, because we're gonna be all getting home
after a long week of a lot of work. So well, listen,
we'll figure it out. But Game Mess Mornings listeners, thank you for sticking
with us all year so far, it's been great. We are going into
the Game of the Year stuff and that's gonna be taking up most of our
time starting tomorrow, where there will be no Game Mess Mornings because we're doing
day one deliberations with a bunch of categories. But then next week we're in
LA and we're doing a lot of stuff related to the Game of the Year.
We're doing our own the real Game of the Year. We got GB
at night next week on Wednesday, eight December sixth, starting at five pm
Eastern. Don't miss that, or a five pm Pacific time eight pm Eastern,
so don't miss out on that. That's gonna be great. So we're
gonna be busy with other stuff, but games mornings, we'll be back at
some point in December. We'll definitely do a hot week of of episodes before
uh, you know, getting too the holidays. But we'll see, yes,
so yeah, we'll talk about this topic at some point. But in
the meantime, jam what do we have going on? What we got going
on? Today is probably the last episode of voicemail dump Truck for at least
a week and a half yep as well, so dumpers getting call in and
all that jazz. We'll we'll field all those calls. But tomorrow Grub starts
the you know, the fifth actual season of the year. Forget forget Spring,
Summer, fall, Winter, It's Game of the Year season, Baby,
Game of the Year season. We did it day Day one starts tomorrow
and we're kicking off talking about seven categories. Those people involved in the discussions,
the deliberations are you, Jeff, Jeff Backlar, Dan Reikert to more
Hussein, Lucy James, myself and with Mike Manati. Seven topics, seven
people who would have thought seven maybe seven hours starting at nine a m.
Pacific tomorrow will be live on Twitch. All of these. Don't worry,
will be archived on the Giant BombCast feed and then Grub. On Tuesday,
when a BombCast episode would normally air or be recorded, we will publish day
two of our Game of the Year deliberations, talking about seven more categories,
and we're going to be traveling, so that will be a recorded episode ever,
yea, and we'll have to pre record that a YouTube premiere of that.
Yeah, that's a great idea. That's a fantastic idea. And then
Grub, as you mentioned on Wednesday, will be Giant Bomb at night.
But Thursday morning, somehow we will all wake up from the fever dream that
was GB at night and then get up to record Day three, record and
stream Day three out of a lot of the year deliberations. That will be
live as well, where we will whittle to the top twenty games of the
year. God Yeah. And then and then Grub the grand finale in person
at the Terogram Ballroom December ninth, twelve twelve noon start time. This will
be live live in person and tickets are still available if you were in the
So Cal area or you want to travel to the Southern California area. Only
a baby's handful of tickets left I've been really is Yeah, one baby's handful
of tickets now okay, and then yeah, that's the real Game of the
Year awards. So the fake game of your awards happened on Thursday, and
we'll talk over those. Oh right, yeah, I forgot because they're not
the real game. That doesn't matter exactly. I'll probably be me you Dan,
we'll see if Mike's available, but well, yeah, we'll be in
the studio. We'll kind of be hanging out talking over that'll be a lot
of fun. Yeah. The fun part is we won't be at the main
studio. The GB at night will be taking place. We've sequestered a room
to squat in a laundry room and a random hotel over by Disney or by
Universal excuse me. Yeah, it'll be privy, do it, Jan,
think I'd laced it out for everybody. Basically, look at check out our
Twitter. We'll post stuff. I we'll try to schedule up on the website,
stuff like that. I don't know, but we'll give you updates as
things are happening as well, So follow us, keep yourselves posted. Jan,
thank you so much for spinding today talk with me. We're talking with
me about video games. Man, I appreciate it. I appreciate it.
Every Thursday, I'm gonna go spread my legs over some voicemails. Sounds sounds
wonderful. Thank you everybody for listening. You're the best audience in gaming.
Until next time, whenever that may be, have a good one, take
care of yourselves and goodbye.