Game Mess Mornings 11/16/23

Be bad. It's the Internet. You're busy. Let's do this for November
sixteenth, twenty twenty three. For the next hour or so, let me
help you sort through the world of gaming on Game Mess Mornings Live with me
Jeff Grebb. Today's suicide squad kind of looks fun now, and the Embraser
group of mess is getting hotter and stinkier. But first, please join me
in welcoming today's co host a Game Mess Mornings. It's Janet Show. Everybody,
jan How are you doing terrible? I only have how many days to
get hot in front of a live audience? Yeah, I've been thinking about
that too. How am I gonna get hot? I've been looking at all
the Hollywood designer drugs that turn people hot. You've got my price range,
jan Exactly, I don't. I don't know what health insurance is. You
think I look at that? No, no idea if there's making and keeping
appointments with doctors and frankly, I'm too important to do anything like that.
Exactly Exactly When do we get to the range where we just have an assistant,
because honest to God, I need someone to help fix me. Yes,
an assistant, A life coach, who's to say what their job title
will actually be, but we need them just constantly surrounding us and making sure
that we stay on the straight and narrow. Yeah, I guess you know
what. Every episode of the show until then we should just be like,
hey, everybody, we're doing a live show in Los Angeles December ninth at
noon on a Saturday. The Game of the Year like conclusion. There will
be other finale the finale. We'll be doing other like normal Game of the
Year podcast leading into that everybody, So you know, keep your briches on
about all that, but the finale will happen live in LA. Tickets are
going on sale soon still, is what we're still saying, right I do
we have any more updates there? Tickets are going on sale today. Well
shit, all right, there you go. Tickets are going on sale today.
With the information is going to be out there one way or the other
here pretty soon. I will say, if you're a premium member, a
chance, so you're going to get the information before everyone else. So just
keep that in mind. Just keep your peepers peeped peep the premium peeps.
Definitely the Moroccan Lounge in Los Angeles, Yes, and you might like,
look up the Moroccan re lounge. It's like, oh, standing room only,
there will be chairs, don't work going to be chairs? Yeah,
it just might not be a signed seating. So of you know, more
details to calm everybody, We're kind of figuring this out on the fly.
It's something we've wanted to do. I remember like when I first came like
working here, I'm like, man, it would be cool if we could
do something, especially for a game of the year that's such a big thing.
And you guys were like, yeah, Jeff, we thought we've talked
about this. I'm like, okay, cool, and it's like and then
I kind of got to a point where, oh, we're busy all the
time. That would be really hard to make happen. And suddenly backl ours
like we're making it happen. Oh, holy sh shoot, okay, let's
do this. So something that's been a long time in the making, but
yet coming together here last minute in a lot of ways. So really hoping
it comes together, really hoping everyone shows up. So again, tickets on
sale today. Look out for that again. Details if you keep your peepers
peeped. Jane, how are you feeling about it. I'm feeling good.
I feel like I've had knocking on fake Ikia would here. I feel like
I've had a semi charmed life with production and there being a lot of extenuating
circumstances that would prove things to be impossible. But because of our can do
attitude and me being able to crawl underneath tight spaces, we make everything happen.
So, you know, people be stressed about technical stuff and I'm like,
fucking chill dog, It's cool. It's cool. A certain plight I
have been like, I'm just gonna stand over here, let Jan do his
thing and just hope for the best. It's it's honestly, the more you
stress about it, the more you're gonna get stressed about it. So adopt
my mentality where you know, I trust the process. It's very zen Jan,
we appreciate it. All right. Well, let's stays in about this
show and explain what we do here most weekdays, I, Jeff Grubb,
will help 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 Mess Mornings, or find the RSS
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 rock Steady. Suicide
Squad game looks a lot more fun now. That's a headline from Michael mick
Werder over at Polygon. Batman Arkham. Developer rock Steady Studios peeled back the
curtain on Suicide Squad Killed the Justice League in a new twenty minute video on
Wednesday, a preview that sure goes a long way toward addressing the tepid reception
to the game's previous reveal rock Steadies inaugural Suicide Squad Insider video, which is
like a new series that they're doing. We talked a little bit about this
somewhere I can't remember where, maybe on Game This Mornings. It focused on
the story and the gameplay of the twenty twenty four Suicide Squad game, which
I believe is coming out in February. It re establishes that the big threat
in the upcoming game is a brainiac controlled Justice League and pretty much the entire
populace of Metropolis, which has been enhanced by alien invaders. The video shows
a video explains, excuse me, how the Suicide Squad AK Task Force X
becomes so superpowered themselves. Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang, dead Shot, and
King Shark raid the whole of Justice Museum to steal a bunch of gear from
superheroes and supervillains. Harley will use Batman's grapple gun and glider to move through
Metropolis, while Captain Boomerang wields Doctor Savanna's speed for Scauntlet and dead Shot flies
around using Gizmo's jetpack. King Shark is just King Shark. Jan How are
we feeling about Suicide Squad? I'll tell you what. I haven't really watched
this yet, so I was figuring I bring up some gameplay or some of
the video of this while we talk about it. But it does seem people
are more positive on it. Are you like we just hearing that? Are
you feeling a little bit better about this game? I think it's just in
such a tough spot in this genre specific genre of gaming, and it you're
doubling down now because of being tied to a superhero IP and we're in a
very tumultuous place right now with superhero fatigue across the board, whether it's Marvel
DC whoever else, right, I mean, what's his face, Omni Man
coming out to Moral Kombat one that it feels like a different instance of that,
and Marvel Spider Man two. I feel like it's not a fluke.
But we always knew that that was a sure thing because of the lineage of
the first one and then Miles Morales a shooter where you were playing as a
suicide Squad where Harley Quinn is the most popular character there in Suicide Squad,
the movies being up and down in terms of quality and public reception. I
just don't know if the public, other than like the diehard DC fans or
the Harley Quinn pervs out there shouts out to y'all, are are going to
be flocking to this, especially after Gotham Knights. Yeah, I think you're
right, Like you diagnosed the the wider problem here of you know, the
various forms that superhero fatigue have taken recently. I think that in this game's
you know, been at too. It's benefit. There are a lot of
those pervs, right, a lot of DC fans, a lot of people
who love Harley Quinn. These characters are still very very popular in general,
at least the Justice League characters, and I think there's enough DC fans that
that actually do love the idea of Suicide Squad even before those movies came to
the scene. But you know, we did see with that second Suicide Squad
movie a much more a much better movie of a film that I really actually
enjoy a lot. Even I'm like, you know, that's it's just another
superhero movie at a certain point, even though I really enjoyed it. And
I think the wider reception, of course that was during the pandemic, but
even in the HBO reveal of that didn't seem to take over the world in
any real way. And not even thinking now that you we're close to the
first Suicide Squad movie, which is a trash fire. So it's like,
man, this is such a weird trajectory that this franchise, the singular franchise
is on, and does that have an effect on this game? A game
that definitely would have started at a time when this made a lot more sense
now as for what we're actually seeing on the screen, what this game actually
looks like. Now, it does look better to me because and it's probably
just they haven't changed a lot. I know this game got a delay.
They probably aren't fixing a ton. But for me, the big thing was
like I was just so over this idea of going online with friends and shooting
weak points, and that's what this game looked like. That's all it looked
like. Now it's like, hey, here's how these characters move, and
here's how they're powerful, and how that stuff is going to be fun,
and here's a bunch of different scenarios about how you're ex are going to get
to express that in different ways. And I'm a little bit more on board.
I guess I do have still some faith that rockstead he's going to make
a game that is very fun to play, right, Yeah, I am
with that optimism. I think the thing I fear is that when we get
to the finish line with this and we get our hands on it, it
will be a very fun game to play. But much like other games of
this ILK, I'll play it on stream with y'all have a very good time.
I think it's a very good game, but because of the multiplayer component
and playing its single player hampers the experience, I just won't check it out
again. Yeah, and that's just the general fear with games like this,
right, And I don't think the DC rappings is enough to keep me going.
I mean, maybe Harley Quinn is, but I don't know. Yeah,
I think I am one of those Harley Quinn purves. I should say
that, Okay, safe Space, you can admit, you can admit your
your your faults and your foibles here. Yeah, I think I'm exactly where
you are with that. Where I look at this game and I bet we
will have a pretty good time playing it online for content on this website.
And hey, there's nothing wrong with that. I know. A big part
of me enjoy is like experiencing these games in one or two sessions with y'all
and then move on to the next one. But you know, for this
game, it needs to be more than that for a lot more people.
And I'll say it does look like it's probably shaping up to capture some sizable
audience. At this point. They made the right choice of getting out of
twenty twenty three entirely with this one. I think though, even if,
even if they haven't made drastic changes under the underlying foundation of what this game
is and how it plays, which you know, maybe they did some stuff,
maybe they didn't, who knows, just getting out of the mailstream of
twenty twenty three, and maybe we're fining a few things here and there,
making sure that it doesn't feel super cheesy with those purple spots on airplane or
on the helicopters you have to shoot to take them down. Yeah, yeah,
if you just like shifted that stuff a little bit, got out of
the way. Some of these big games come out early next year, when
people have had a chance to have a breather after catching up on so many
games. I think this has a much better chance of doing something pretty big
in a way that like Gotha Knights never really had a chance because it just
wasn't a very good game. This could be pretty fun. And if that's
the case, all these other things that are working against it, that superhero
fatigue might not matter so much because people are Okay, hey, we'll give
it a chance. Hey, and you know what grub we've been saying,
superhero fatigue, But these are villains you're right, there's no villain fatigue.
There's no villain fatigue. Everyone wants to be the bad guy. It's like
that Billie Eilish song that keeps playing every single movie. Yes, I think
the one silver lining here is that the common comparison I keep seeing with Suicide
Squad is like, oh, this looks like crackdown, and that isn't a
bad thing, right, good thing. That's a great thing. More games
should be like cracked down, absolutely, and I think that type of game
is missing in the current offerings of the world right where if that is a
solid crackdown like crack like, then I think that maybe it's saving grace as
long as the loot part of it is not disgusting, not inane, right,
Like, Yeah, I don't want to look at listen. I can't
imagine someone thinking I want to go to a game with fucking King Shark and
Harley Quinn, these silly villains that are they just they cause chaos and go.
I can't wait to look at a stat scream that has seven bullet points
that say two point five percent plus two point five percent minus in various things.
That's inane. And the game definitely had those vibes in the last reveal.
They are not harping on that stuff in this one, as far as
I could tell, I think this in this video their harbard on the stuff
that I think it is interesting. How are you gonna get these these idiots
to be able to keep up with the flash? Well, fucking Captain Boomerang's
got a fast gauntlet now, and it's not just like, oh, alien
tech. They went into a superhero vault and took some stuff that you know,
the heroes have previously captured from villains or whatever. That's interesting. I
like that. That makes sense for these characters. So if they're putting their
focus there, that seems right. And obviously there's gonna be loot. They
haven't changed this game that much. There's gonna be loot. But you're right,
I just don't want to look at a screen that is just gonna make
my eyes glaze over. Yeah. I don't want to have to compare multiple
rib cages like I did in that Avengers game. Yes, all right,
cool, the Hulk has a different rob caage now, that makes sense.
Bawk's got like seven rib cages in there. Man, That's the only way
that thing could work, all right, let's go ahead and get to this
next story. I suppose, although, look at the King Shark. We're
in a tiny little hat there. That's cute. That's good stuff. Samoa
Joe. Yeah, we should ask Samoa Joe. Yeah. Let's see what
Samojo's doing for end of the year. All right. Uh, let's move
ahead here to Embracer Group and more bad news for that company. It has
written down fifteen projects and says further studio closures and biots are planned. Not
like feared, not like on the table, they are planned. This is
from Tom Ivan at VGC. Embracer Group provided further details about its ongoing restructuring
plans during its quarterly earnings presentation on Thursday. The company announced in June that
it was implementing a restructuring program which would involve the closure of studios in the
cancelation of some projects. It has since shut studios like Saints Row developer Volition
and Campfire Cabal, while others have reportedly been put up for sale, such
as border landsmaker Gearbox. Embracer has also made layoffs at companies including tomb Raid
developer, Crystal Dynamics, Knights of the Old Republic remake studio, Beamdog and
guys that a beam Dog now that's just moved all over place, and pinball
FX makers and studios, among others. On Thursday, Embracer confirmed that the
ongoing restructure resulted in over nine hundred employees being let go during its second quarter
ended in September. Mugai Bouyan, the chief financial officer of Embracer's board game
company as Modi, who is also serving as finance workstream lead on the group's
restructuring project, said over half of the staff that were left were developers.
Embracer has written down fifteen projects that says further studio closures and buyouts are planned,
Borderland studio, gearboxes for portly a for sale, blobl and now we're
repeating things written down. Let's know, I'm not an accountant. My understandings.
Usually what that means is they're they're like they have stuff based on projections,
and now these things are either going not going to meet those work projections
or they're going to lose money, and they are. It's close to a
write off on your taxes. It's just like, oh, we're going to
kind of put this up as a loss on our top sheet here when we're
explaining it to the irs or whoever they have in the country there, and
basically a lot of stuff is just not working out the way they expected it
to and they are looking for creative accounting ways to save as much money as
possible. And that means over like, the bottom line here is less investment
in new games, more like retreating from a lot of these projects in a
lot of different ways. And that continues to be where Embracer is at.
Every time we get Embracer news story, I ask, hey, are we
close to getting on the other side of this? And at this point,
Jan, I think my expectation is we hit rock bottom with Embracer, and
Embracer just isn't really a going concern in a couple of years here, right,
Yeah, grub, have you ever found yourself at a buffet line and
you're very excited and you get everything, and then you realize you're sitting there
at your table and you're like, I didn't actually want all this, or
I don't know what to do all this. I don't know how to eat
a crab leg Yeah, and I'm like lam and I'm an irresponsible eater and
so and that's that's a personal problem right. Uh, when I do that,
it doesn't affect too many other people. Uh, it's no way to
run a company. I'll say the way I eat cod jan No. Also,
I am terrible with money. I know this. The audience knows this.
But if I was in the shoes of Embracer, I don't think I
would do that. Mm hmmm. I don't think i'd buy all these companies
and then realize I don't I don't know what to do that. It doesn't
it doesn't seem like it's working all right. Buy. Yeah. It's as
always with with stories like these. Over the last couple of weeks, we
say like, you know what, where what? Where's the out? How
do they grow? How do they get out of this? What's next?
And for Embracer, it is very very clear that there really is no answer.
There is no game they can make that is big enough to make this
all make sense. There is no number of successes they could have to make
this all makes sense. They have uh completely overextended themselves to a point where
the only way this ever could have made sense is if they could have continued
to get really cheap capital at about zero percent interest rates to for their their
expansion or to pay their their current employees, which is almost certainly how this
business was worth operating for them, you know, more than a year ago.
Now it is. You know, we're deep into interest rates going way
up. They that make borrowing money to pay your employees is not an option
anymore, and they are. So they're in a situation where despite successes,
like we said every time about this about Embracer, like Dead Island two and
a handful of others remnant too, I think is them despite those major successes
multimillion copies sold of both of those games, that has nothing to do with
their success or nothing to do with with like with the reality of their business
sheet. And now they're in a situation where they're like, Okay, yeah,
so who cares about successful games? We are going to fire almost four
hundred and fifty people who are making games for us because making games is not
the answer. And if you were a game making company and you put yourself
in a situation where making games is not the answer, something's gone very very
wrong. And I at that point, it does feel like it's going to
have to crash before you can actually get out of this. So, yeah,
I don't know any thoughts on that. It just seems especially unfortunate because
you get a success like Dead Island two, and Dead Island two was like
in Internet hiatus for however long and it comes out turns out to be a
very solid, good game, and then Remnant two, which is a solid
sequel to the original game, and you just see so much mismanagement at the
top, and I feel like we kind of saw the writing on the wall
from the get go, once this whole acquisition process was going underway. Yeah,
but I mean, what can you do from an outsider's perspective, right,
Like you can't say, like, Embracer, don't do it, no,
no, no, yeah, And I think a lot of people were
doing that. But it's like there was always that hesitation of, oh,
maybe they have a grander plan. And I think a lot of people didn't
believe that they had a grander plan, but I was like willing to have
a little bit of benefit of a doubt up to a point. And then
it's like the second the other shoe drops here and we're sitting there looking at
these headlines after headlines of Embracers shutting things down, firing people, and just
generally panicking. It's like, okay, I mean all those suspicions we had
about this being a bad idea and not having a vision were true. It's
just even like in the worst case scenario, I didn't think it was this
bad. But here we are. There's this the Knights of the Older Republic
game here. I don't think that that is actually at beam Dog. I
think that went to the company that made snow Runner, which you know,
I can't remember, and they did the Witcher three port for Switch either.
I can't remember their name right now. But Nights of the Older Republic remake,
that's never coming out, right, It's never coming out interact. Thank
you, Thank you, Magwhite. I guess thank you. I feel sad
because I wanted, I got very excited to check that out as someone that
has never checked out the original Knights of the Old Republic, and I thought
like, oh, I'll just wait, and I guess I'll keep waiting.
Yeah, it's a this is a it's an especially weird situation. But uh,
I think that if you we talked about that previously, when when Sony
kind of like scrubbed the relationship to Tonight's to the Old Republic remake and to
Embracer with all that stuff, because it's it's got to be like Sony talked
to Embracer. Embracer's like, uh, listen, we can't lie to you.
That would be illegal. We're not really working on that right now.
We are trying to put out all these fires. And yeah, I think
it's one of the things we probably never get an official cancelation of. We
just like eventually one day Embracer is no longer a going concern, and we
put two and two together at that point. The other one, the one
a Quantic Dream, the Quantic Dream High Republic Star Wars game. You think
that ever comes out? No, not at all. I don't think so
either. Yeah, that one I should have a better chance, but it's
like that's a big budget game, and I don't think anyone's funding it except
for Quantic Dream, and I guess Quantic Dream is under net Ease. Now.
I think I got it, can't keep it straight. But I don't
think that one comes out either. We'll see. Okay, we're gonna take
a quick break. When we get back, we have a lot more news.
Jane Ochoa will still be with me. Everybody, so don't you get
scared. Jane'll keep you safe. We'll be back after this. Yo,
We're back and Sega wants to join Nintendo not like that in looking at other
ways to bring its IP to more consumers. This is from my Nintendo News.
Sega is doing well at the moment and is currently in the process of
exploring how it can bring some of its large library of IPS to other platforms
than traditional video game consoles. This is similar to Nintendo's thinking a few years
back, which saw Nintendo creating their own theme parks in the form of Super
Nintendo World and bringing Mario to the big screen and smashing records across the board.
Sega's thinking more about movies and bringing some of its gaming properties to the
popular roadblocks. Sega also has the recently unveiled, unveiled and well received Sonic
dream Team coming exclusively to Apple Arcade next month. It will be interesting to
see where they go next. We have a related story to this after this
jam, but I just do at first blush Sega looking to put its IP
and more places. I thought Sega has already been pretty good at this.
There's always been a ton of Sonic merchandise. But I suppose they were maybe
thinking beyond Sonic at this point, they have multiple franchises that are very very
popular, Yakuza and what's the other one I'm trying to think of, right,
Oh, all the Persona stuff, Yes, all the Atlas stuff,
Right that those things could easily just be pretty massive in a bunch of different
places. This could work, right, Yeah, one hundred percent, this
could work. I think that it's surprising that they've only clung on too trying
to monetize and pimp out Sonic when you do have very beloved ip out there
on top of that, like Yakuza, like a Dragon, and especially at
the Persona series, I could definitely see like some type of serialized like a
Dragon or Yakuza TV show, Right, that could easily happen. Make a
special clothing line where they just sell cheetah print jackets and eye patches. You
know, there's a lot to do with Persona especially, right, like monetize
those pervs. Those pers are just as bad as the Harley Quinn perves exactly,
yes, And they're die hard fans at this point, and they want
to spend more money on stuff that they like from Sega, So you might
as well find more ways to provide that opportunity. There's also like I feel
like Sega does have like a rich treasure trove of like interesting ip that could
be spun off very very easily, uh, into TV series, movies,
et cetera. Like Space Channel five could be like a very fun I don't
know movie, or like like a one off thing or whatever, or like
even like a children's animated show on Amazon Prime or something like that. Yeah,
like there's so many yes, sambade amigo, Like that Little Monkey Creature
could absolutely be a fun little cartoon series that I'm super monkey ball, yes,
right, yeah, like easily. Yeah, and uh, I mean
obviously it's I think it's very easy to take that stuff and just turn it
into you know, for these kids shows, they apply a template to all
of them, and it just works for most of these properties trying and there's
a decent amount of money in there. Kid, there's a lot of money
for children's programming because that's how a big part of how people decide what streaming
services they stay so describe to like as people were like picking and choosing,
but once your kids get hooked on a show, you can't ever cancel.
And these streaming services know that, and they want to keep it that way,
and so that's why you see them invest so heavily into children's programming,
and so I think a lot of Sega properties would be would lend themselves easily
to that. But Sega is looking for home runs here as well, with
big movies that could be big blockbusters, and Persona and Yakuza seem like the
answer there. Now, I guess that does bring us to the next story.
After the success of the Sonic the Hedgehog movies, Sega wants to bring
Morbit's IP to other platforms. This is from Smengaliso Similane at Destructoid. Still
this is kind of just an extension of the last story, but here's where
most of this comes from. Sonic has been enjoying renewed popularity in recent years
thanks to the two Sonic the Hedgehog movies that have become some of the highest
grossing video game adaptations. Sega hopes to capitalize on this by bringing more of
its franchises to a non gaming audience. In an interview with CNBC, Sega's
chief operating officer, Shuji Yutsumumi, revealed that the platforms they are considering include
movies and even roadblocks. The second Sonic movie grossed at an impressive four hundred
and five point four million dollars, so it's no surprise that they hope to
reply replicate that success with its other ips. Ips that are being considered currently
include Like a Dragon, which is Yakuza and adaptations could be could be a
hit, as it already has a huge following. As Sega reveals the franchise
has sold twenty one point one million units. Persona may also find itself on
more platforms. It's easy to imagine it being adapted to a film series or
even a television series, as the franchise already features gripping narratives and plenty of
relationships and friendships to explore. Sega meanwhile also denied that it would be acquired
by Microsoft in this interview. But they've said that before. Yeah, so,
I mean we keep coming back, Persona, Yakuza, these things,
they do make a lot of sense. But do you think those could be
you know, four hundred million dollars for Sonic, that's big. Do you
think either of those could get close to that if they were movies? Or
do they make more sense as like Netflix streamings franchises? I think Yakuza makes
more sense as a Netflix streaming series. I think with Persona, because of
the nature of the main cast always being high schoolers, you run into the
problem of your actors aging out of that. Yeah, and also do you
do you make it? Do you keep a Japanese do you westernize it?
Right? And recast all these characters with American actors or like North American actors,
right, that could create like backlash within the assisting audience immediately. I
think that Sega has to lean into their weird stuff. I think you could
definitely have like The House of the Dead as like, hey, we already
got that Uvea Boll movie House of the Dead. We could just watch that
instead. Let's not let's please not, let's not do that. They they
could do a bunch of odd stuff, like they could do an Anhalo series,
much like Mike Michael Flanagan's series Is that pop up every year on Netflix?
Right space channel five, I'm dead set cast Ariana Grande is ooh la
la, you're there already? Man, is holy shit already done? That?
It's adding done. I would watch that one million percent. They also
own Angry Birds, right, Yeah, did they bought Rovio didn't they Holy
crap, Yeah it did. So That's on the table did pretty good,
even though that first one is really weird. You know what the plot is
of that first one. It's like other people are moving to the Red Birds
Island and he's like super upset about it. So it's basically just a story
about how the hero of the movie is racist. It's very weird, cool,
very strange. Oh no, we're all clamoring for some more vector Man,
right, Oh yeah, the kids won't. My kids won't stop talking
about vector Man. They love that Arby Boy. But here's the other thing.
Here's the other thing. You know what, Sega, you know what
brought me into you, what brought me into the fold as a little child,
other than Sonic Shanoby Yo movie whatever. That's something jan that's like,
Yeah, there's a lot of like just cool dude properties from the Sega Genesis
that Sega could if they took seriously and like actually like made like a brand
new big triple A but big budget like Shanoby game and then put out a
and head like a Netflix series at the same time, that would pop off.
For me personally, I would be very in that. Here you go
I'm I still have my casting hat on cast Andrew Kogi as Shanoby. You
good to go, baby, Andrew Cogi. He was in the Snake Eyes
movie. Oh yeah, okay, that's a good one. That's awesome.
He's in the Max uh the one to watch for HBO TV series Warrior.
Okay, let's do it, baby, it's right there man. Okay,
yeah, I'm let me be a casting director. Someone, let me cut
the check. Yeah, just consult him and pay them that big that big
consultation fee, that real money. Please, let's move it. Let's move
on here. Oh yeah, go ahead please. Streets of Rage Yeah yeah
again, Like if they took that stuff seriously, if they're like what we
could make, if they believe themselves, they could make a good movie out
of these things. I bet they would end up with something that's really cool
and really fun. You give that one, like uh fast and the furious
energy. I think where it's like, it's about the crew. It's about
the crew fighting through these streets. Yeah you know, it's not a family.
It's a crew, but it's close to a family. And I'm man,
I am on board and like a little kid comes by on roller skates,
and just beats the shit out of everybody who wouldn't want to see that?
Yo, we could we we could tie it into the Kangaroo Jack film
series film franchise. Oh man. And then someone in the chat saying,
echo the Dolphin. Yeah, give me an echo of the Dolphins series kids
TV show the kids need a new free Willie. Uh huh. Yeah.
I watched a ton of Flipper on Nick at Night as a kid. Because
I'm I'm forty years old. The grub it does not stop. Sega,
hire me cut the check to me so I can cut the check. You
know what you do. You appeal to the weird fantasy weirdos. And I'm
not talking pH fantasy. I'm talking I don't mean to disparage her. I
love her to death, the Lucy James style of fantasy. People out there,
Golden Ax, you know what we mean, everybody when we say Lucy
James style fantasy. It's yes, Golden X. I think that could be
great. God, someone just said something, Oh yeah, pans a dragoon
that is like ready made for one of those Oh hey, Netflix decided to
make one of its own anime things. You can make that with pans Dragon
pans Dragon. Saga's got a really cool story man. Yeah, I think
it's shining force. Oh my god, yes, say it's got so much.
You know the other thing that we've all completely forgotten about and danced around
Heanetta Baonetta. Yeah, but Bonetta should just be who does that? There's
like some there's some tall women I've seen on TikTok that would be great as
Bayonetta jan or least thereon. That's what I meant. Yeah, sure,
charlotte'stare on it. It would would murder as as Bayonetta. Yes, god,
there was another one that just popped into mind. Uh god, Daytona
USA. Sure, let's go with that. Yeah, man, just get
Alex Kid. Okay, now you've gone too far, Slay mccawsam. We
don't need to know Alex Kid movie. He needs to stay in this hole,
all right. We'll continue to think of awesome possible Sega franchises that could
make the believe. I think the point is Sega just needs to actually start
getting on this and really believe and not do it half assed and not let
some uh you know, slimy Hollywood producer who doesn't understand the try to adapt
it. Just actually get in there and do it most of the work themselves,
and I think they could have a lot of success with this stuff.
Or give me the work and I'll do it, yes, Or just call
up jan Chance. Numbers now flashing on the screen, everybody there, you
go call him. Oh no, I'm sorry, that's just Dave Lang's numbering
in all right. Mass Effect veteran Mac Walters is leading a new Net East
studio in Canada. This is from Chris Sculling at VGC. Net Ease has
announced a new game development studio headed up by one of the key writers on
the Mass Effects series. Led by Mac Walters, World's Untold is a fully
remote game studio with a base in Vancouver, Canada. Walters was a prominent
member of Byway for nearly twenty years, initially joining the company in two thousand
and three. He was a writer on Jade Empire before becoming a senior writer
on the original Mass Effect. He was later lead writer on Mass Effect two
and Mass Effect three, narrative director on Anthem and creative director on Mass Effect
Andromeda, and project director on Mass Effect the Legendary Edition. Walters was working
as production director on Dragon Age Dreadwolf when he left BioWare in January, saying
he was taking a career break. According to net ease, World's Untold was
set up by Walters and his team to create ips with depth and possibility that
can't be contained in a single game or even a single medium. All right,
chill out, net eas Okay, here's that's cool. I think this
is it's always interested to hear who's start in studios who have especially people with
pedigree and pedigrees like this. But I think this comes back to there is
still a lot of money out there for people to start their own studios,
which is why it's so weird to look on the other side of things,
like there's so many layoffs happening, and yet there's all these studios still starting
up, and I think it's still kind of hard for a lot of these
big studios to come buy enough talent. So it's like, man, like,
there's still a labor shortage even though all these other companies are having layoffs.
So it continues to speak to there is something like rotten somewhere in game
development, but it's not necessarily that, oh, the whole industry is falling
apart. It's like in No, companies are still investing in games in a
big way. It's just maybe more targeted, more judicious. And the people
that got sloppy coming out of the pandemic and Embracer is of like the poster
child for that. They're the ones paying the price now and everyone else is
sort of like, no, we hey, we see a star developer,
we want to go give them a ton of money to start their own thing.
And I think this indicates that overall the video game industry is still pretty
healthy, right, Yeah, I want to That's definitely what I want to
believe and hope that we're we are all moving towards because you know, you
would hope working underneath the umbrella of like PlayStation, Xbox, Ubisoft, that
you have kind of that guaranteed insurance of too big to fail type of type
of mentality where you have that safety net working under that bigger company. But
with that bigger company comes a lot of miscalculated swings where you are at that
bottom line and you are are ready to be cut at the first first go.
I mean at those bigger companies, like contractors have it the worst,
QA testers have it the worst on top, and then you keep piling on
to other folks that get let go. It's it's terrible. So maybe this
trend of having these smaller studios, hopefully right, is better and leads to
a healthier industry. The problem grub is just people always get bought out,
and then after they get bought out, those people get let go. The
people the person at the top of that buyout can go make a whole new
studio, and like the cycle continues until you know, we can do something
about it, like unionizing perhaps, Yeah, I think, yeah, giving
people more chances to own the fruits of their labor and all that stuff,
because I think if they have a stake in it, it's harder for companies
to cut these people. Yeah, I think. But like, this is
the system working as intended right now, where it is, Hey, someone
who has this pedigree leaves a company and there's someone else ready to give them
money to start a new studio to hire even more people. And this one
is you know, fully remote, so it's even being done in the mold
of like what modern development and modern labor looks like in general. So it's
like, Okay, this is like an improvement compared to you buy aware what
is probably has a lot of remote workers, but I think they also have
a lot of people still coming into the studio. And that's just like momentum
at a certain point, that's lineage. It's like, that's the way we've
always done it, that's the way we're going to keep doing it. That's
what we're used to. All of the tools and the services that we bought
work in a way that like they all come to a central office location,
and so it just makes sense for people to still be here. So someone's
starting a new studio kind of thinking I'm going to take what works and then
I'm going to build a whole bunch of new things using new ideas around that.
It's like, okay, that's kind of the uh, you know,
capitalism meeting creativity coming together in a way that it's supposed to. And it's
kind of working in some way here. And honestly, I don't even know
how little this studio is going to be. A lot of the thing that's
changed in the most in recent years is these people who do have a pedigree
starting up studios, working with publishers like net E's, they don't spend the
first couple of years like, oh, we'll we're gonna be like five or
six people, We're gonna figure some stuff out. It's like no, they
hire up fast and suddenly they're like one hundred to one hundred and fifty people
very quickly. And that's where things have really changed, where these big publishers
have a lot more faith in these people who have put out a bunch of
games. And that's what happened with like Embark Studios, who I think did
get purchased by someone very quickly, but even before they got purchased, they
got enough investment that they were hiring up two hundred and fifty people or something
wild like that before ever releasing a game. Now they have the Finals coming
out and people seem pretty excited about that, and the other one that keeps
getting delayed, but the people are excited about that as well. It's just
like this is a new model and it's something that it has kind of come
out of nowhere. A little bit of big studios popping up frequently all over
the place, led by people who have a lot of experience and have a
lot of money to be able to hire up and make big games that can
make waves in the industry, not just like little indie things that are trying
to come in from the side and get some attention. It's like, no,
the Finals could be the next big multiplayer game. Who knows. So
I think this studio getting a chance to do that. Also net Ease,
like you think Nettie is, and I think you know almost certainly they are
gonna want live service games. And I guess that little quote they gave about
games that can't be contained in one game or even in one medium, they
are thinking very big. And I suppose if you're looking at the person who
you might think is primarily responsible or one of the people primarily responsible for Mass
Effect, you can imagine a world it's like, well, if we had
Mass Effect, we would have planned for it to be multiple games and also
probably turned into a movie or turned into an anime and all these other things,
and probably a mobile game. Nettie's is probably thinking along those lines,
right. I feel like that's the strategy moving forward for when you do get
an ip that hit, it's big, right, is like, how can
we branch out immediately? Right? Like, I honestly did not understand or
realized that there was an appetite for more Horizon content, And that's not me
poo pooing the game at all. I fully acknowledge that it doesn't speak to
me, but it speaks to a good chunk of the gaming audience out there.
And I didn't think that there was a need or a desire for that
show, but there is. So something blows up huge. There is a
fandom that gets built up and tied to it that and they would love more
of that across the board. Absolutely all right. Moving on here, dais
inexplicably achieves its highest ever player count over ten years after being released. This
from Andrew Heaton at Destructoid. When it comes to open world zombie survival experiences,
many can't claim to be as brutal and unforgiven as days. Bohemia Interactive
Dystopian Food Scavenger Simulator is still going strong, but recently it hit its biggest
player count on Steam, as spotted by pc Gamer. Data from steam dB
shows that the game recently hit an all time peak of sixty and forty nine
concurrent players. Nice It's an impressive number for a relatively small game that's been
around since twenty twelve. That puts it, like you know, easily in
the top twenty of most played games on any given day on Steam, maybe
like even in the close to the top ten. Mostly I put the story
in here Jan to say we should play day Z. I had a feeling
that's what this was for. We should play day Z. That would be
a fun friend like fun series like Oh I got a I played Daisy a
bunch of long time ago. I don't remember anything about it other than I
had some fun weird stories about other people either helping me out or trolling me
and like chasing me for four and a half kilometers and I want that again.
Let's play day Z. Sure, Thank you, Jan, Thanks Jane.
You can't say no when we're on the show together. You gotta say
yeah, it's true. We'll see ba goo good for dais I Yes.
Honestly keeps happening with games right where Like they go quiet for a long time,
they can pop back up at any moment, probably a lot of times
because the streamers. That's probably related to this. I have no idea they
get updates up. But I think games just don't go away, go away,
and the way they used to write no no, like games have such
a weird lifespan now like I think a lot about how there are several MMOs
out there, grub that we're never talking about, but have millions of players.
Yeah, like somehow EverQuest two is still happening right there, Yes,
it's getting people expansions EverQuest two or even though maybe the original EverQuest to still
getting expansions, Request one is still going. According to Marino, they're they're
just like a weird appetite. I don't I don't know, I'll never both
are Jesus Christ? Okay? Are there still people playing Final Fantasy eleven?
Yes, definitely yes. So you know, for the gaming industry, feels
impossible to try and predict, impossible to try and decide what is going to
to to put your energies behind, to eventually blow up because you get something
like Daisy. I haven't heard of Daisy in years, literal years, and
to hear like it still has like an obscene amount of people playing. Good
for them, if we okay, so if I did, oh no,
no, okay, right, well, just got out of the shower.
Okay, thanks for telling us, please turn your video off. It's still
going. But like there's not there's not like millions of people. I don't
know if there's even like tens of thousands of people playing that game. I
think play much game ever Question two, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
but ever Question two is like, yeah, not nearly as power popular as
ever Quest one. Uh and ever Quest one, I don't Yeah, yeah,
I think millions of players in terms of like traditional MMOs games like EverQuest
are wow, Final Fantasy fourteen. Yes, that's that sounds right. That's
my pedantic correction. You guys keep going, you're doing great. Thanks,
all right, he's gone. Okay, if if I forced us all to
play a survival game, would you rather play Daisy arc Rust or Grounded?
I'll say I'll say my piece for dais because it's the most maybe at this
point, most archaic in some ways. I think it has the most potential
to be like the one that has the best stories emerge on video. Yeah.
I was gonna say maybe not Grounded, because I know some folks have
like a fear of spidery or being really small. Most people are saying grounded,
but that's just because they think it's fun. And this isn't about fun,
everybody, No, this isn't about fun. This would be fun.
Come on, have you been to this website? Yeah? Have you been
to GiantBomb dot com before Jesus, I guess really telling on yourselves right now?
All right, let's keep going here. Expect deep cleavage and Final Fantasy
seven Rebirth. Baby Mike, you turn your video back on. Maybe let's
see it. From Ben Leon, a game reactor with Final Fantasy seven Rebirth
set to make its debut at the end of February, the ESRB has already
rated the game give us a teaser for what we can expect from it.
The rating notes that Rebirth is an action role playing game in which players follow
the story of a mercenary cloud Strife on a quest to save the planet from
evil. Players explore fantasy landscapes, perform missions, and battle monsters and soldiers
in frenetic melee combat. The rating goes on to add that we can expect
cries of pain and impact sounds, as well as explosions and blood splatters,
and pools and pools following characters. I guess blood pools following characters being slashed
by swords, often in slow motion. It's all very typical for Final Fantasy
in this regard, as as is the fact that some female characters are designed
in revealing clothing with the SRB going as far a note that we can expect
deep cleavage quote unquote. So yeah, you know, I got to applaud
Square here because I feel like with Final Fantasy seven remake and you know,
the subsequent remakes that we're getting, I think they're just leading all the way
in to gamers just being a bunch of thirsty little and pervs. Like it's
it's not just the female characters, right of people obsessing over Tifa purchasing this
very hyper specific Tifa statue erith UFI. There are people that are, like
I've seen be a little too sussio about Cloud Zach and Seproth, and people's
opinions on sep Roth being a little bit too problematic, maybe being a little
bit too concerning of like y'all need to calm down. Uh yeah, And
to be fair, it just says deep cleavage. It doesn't say that it's
a lady's deep cleavage. This could be a man's butt crack cleavage, right,
it could be Yeah, it could be some magic spell on Cloud.
He did that cross dressing scene in the first game. Who knows, maybe
that returns. What if someone is wearing a deep V neck and it's a
dude exactly, yes, yeah, a deep deep cleavage v neck on a
dude like yeah, some like really big pets. Yeah, and butt cleavage
is big right now, that's right Cosbot in chat saying that that's right,
that's right. Kills, but not that type of type of crack. Absolutely
not put more crack in games. That's what we say here at Giant Bomba
all right analytics actually yes, yes, like you know, we get a
lot of different things, but we never get the accidental butt crack when a
character is bending over. More of that. We definitely need more of that.
Where is my immersion? Let's see if I can see this real quick?
Okay, I was going to share my my soussio screenshots of residuval form.
I installed the eight A mod. You know what here else? If
I can get this now, it's not gonna work, everybody. Sorry,
you guys don't get to see my my deep deep sense. It's not that
bad. It's just the proportions got a little bit bigger, all right.
Analog's back with another limited edition pocket lineup from Christopher Grant a Polygon. The
Analog Limited Edition Circus is back in town. If you've held out, no
glow in the dark or translucent translucent models for you, this might be your
moment to pick up an Analog pocket in one of eight new throwback colors.
You could snag a model in blue, green, indigo, spice, orange,
pink red, or silver for the usual two hundred and fifty dollars asking
price this Friday, November seventeenth, at eleven am Eastern on Analog's website.
Orders will ship out next week. These actually look really cool. The indigo
purple looks like exactly like you expect. The spice orange looks like you would
hope it would look. I am. I'm like, man, I don't
need another pocket, but I kind of want to get one of these.
Yeah. I finally got the chance to get a pocket because of front of
the site Alex Bonyellow. But man, these these look gorge They look real
nice. Speaking of new hardware going on sale, if you're watching live,
in five minutes, the Steam deck O lead goes up for pre order,
So it's we're gonna be playing real pretty It's real man. I've been playing
it NonStop and like literally, it's all I'm doing right now is playing on
my Steam deck O led. I love it. It's really good. So
if you're on the fence, you know, I'm happy to nudge you over
to make poor financial decisions. We are going to be playing Call of Duty
after this, and Shawn's like, I might be a little late. I'm
gonna try to snag one of those O leads. So he's gonna be there
trying to pre order that. So boom boom. All right, let's see,
let's get to the poll question from yesterday. Let me frame that up
properly. Here we go, should a game costs more if it has more
content? Seventy twenty six percent say yes, And I think this was the
the most generous way I could phrase that question in favor of what Strausselnik would
want. There he's the person who talked about this, saying, hey,
you know, maybe we could charge by hour, and twenty six percent of
gamers are like, maybe that makes some sense. I think if you said,
hey, he's talking about Grand Theft Auto, do you think Grand Theft
Auto should cost more than sixty or seventy dollars because because apparently you can get
more hours out of it, I think fewer people would be in favor of
this. But seventy four percent say no, jam, what do you think?
Fuck? No? Oh wait, this is so so let me refresh
this actual let's see if that changed, because that was oh okay. Sixteen
percent said no. When you have two and a half thousand votes, there
we go. So it's thirty one percent said yes. So even more people
are like, yeah, I guess why not? All right, I have
a new poll question that will go up here. It might be going up
here very soon actually, and we'll get that in a second. In the
meantime, jan what do we have happening on the website? What do you
have going on? All that good stuff? What we got going on today
is upf that's right, don't adjust to your calendars or check them. Unprofessional
Fridays happening on a Thursday today, almost immediately after this. Do you want
me to stream that? You stream that? We'll figure it out. We'll
figure it out. We'll figure out. That's a good question. We'll figure
it out. Voicemail dumb truck popping off later today as well tomorrow another episode
of Game Mess Mornings, as well as Thursday Night Throwdown on Friday, and
then BCR happening tomorrow. We're gonna be talking about the Game Awards snubs stuff
we feel like should have popped on there, and that'll be Jeff Beckler myself
tomorrow's saying, Bailey Myers. And then this Saturday and Sunday, this weekend
is part two of Giant Bomb's Extra Life grub Minati Windbag are heading over to
dance Yep, looking forward to it. I'ming on a plane, not by
this time tomorrow, but a few hours after that. I'm gonna be traveling
to Minneapolis, the Twin Cities, gonna get lost, eventually stumble my way
to dance house apparently. And then Saturday, I think, starting at noon
Eastern, will be streaming, so look out for that, everybody. And
then on Sunday, Jeff Baklar will be playing some pinball. Yep, yep.
Pinball Daddy's back, Everybody, pin and Ball Daddy's back. Also shouts
out to Will Crosby. Will Crosby, who helped us out doing the Bombathon,
is going to be streaming for twenty four hours this weekend as well.
Big Big, Big, Big Big Big. Shouts out to Zombie Pie,
Turba, Sean First, and the community. If you join the Giant Bomb
team yep, and hey, we have still the lofty goal we're trying to
get to with all this stuff, So tune in this week and help us
get as much money raised for these hospitals as possible. We really appreciate that.
And you know, if you are not any position to donate, do
not feel bad. It's a tough year for everyone across from ward though.
Yeah, tell your friends, tell your rich frends, see your rich friends.
Put it in your those rich kid discords you're in, Just drop blink
in there and tell people them. Yeah, I said, cut the check,
cut the check, all right? New poll question? Are you more
excited about Suicide Squad after it's re reveal reveal? Excuse me? You could
say yes, no, or I don't care about it at all, And
we will get to that tomorrow here on giant bomb dot com, where I
believe Tam should be joining me for Dregs Day. I think you should be
ready to go. And then yeah, and we are doing an episode tomorrow.
I'm traveling, but I'm not traveling to till until tomorrow evening. So
yes, game this morning is still happening live tomorrow one more time, everybody,
December ninth, Live in Los Angeles, the Moroccan Lounge. Tickets on
sale today. Keep your eyes peeped for peepers for the details, and yeah,
we'll let you know if you honestly, if you go to Twitter dot
com slash giant bomb, that's a good way to find out. Otherwise,
the discord is a really good way special if you're a Premium member, keep
your eyes on that and we will provide the details today at some point.
All right, Jen, thank you so much for spending today talk with me
about video games. Man, you know I love it. It's my favorite
way to start a Thursday day. Thank you all for watching. You're the
best audience in gaming. Until next time, have a good one, take
care of yourself. Goodbye. W