Silksong Hits Over Half a Million On PC Alone

<v Speaker 1>Hey, everybody, Welcome to Game Miss Mornings, presented by MSI
<v Speaker 1>with me Jeff Grubb, your host from giant bomb dot com.
<v Speaker 2>Thank you for tuning in.
<v Speaker 1>In this episode, we're going to be talking about just
<v Speaker 1>how big of a hit Silk Song really is and
<v Speaker 1>how a big flop might have already scared off a
<v Speaker 1>new gaming publisher. It's gonna be a good one because
<v Speaker 1>we have Rhann and Bevin on the show. Rhann and
<v Speaker 1>how are you doing good?
<v Speaker 3>I'm pretty tired. I mean it's four pm my time.
<v Speaker 3>I've got no reason to be tired, but fine, not
<v Speaker 3>I am anyway.
<v Speaker 1>So four pm is the time I think of the
<v Speaker 1>day where I am the most tired. Actually, you know you,
<v Speaker 1>I haven't quite got my second win at that point,
<v Speaker 1>and the making decisions all day long is certainly caught
<v Speaker 1>up with me. I'm definitely at four pm is like
<v Speaker 1>when I'm usually taking like a coffee nap or something
<v Speaker 1>like that. But yeah, no, so I appreciate you coming through.
<v Speaker 1>Why do you tell everybody a little bit about yourself?
<v Speaker 1>It's the first time on the show, Like, how do
<v Speaker 1>you like, what is your relationship to games and all
<v Speaker 1>that stuff? Introduce yourself a little bit. Oh.
<v Speaker 3>Hi, I'm Rihannon. I've been watching the show for bits.
<v Speaker 3>This is really cool, thank you. I'm a game journalist,
<v Speaker 3>of course I have been. I've been scouting for the
<v Speaker 3>stories here really of course. Yes, I am a games journalist.
<v Speaker 3>I've been in the industry since twenty eighteen freelancing at university,
<v Speaker 3>and since twenty twenty one I've been at The Gamer.
<v Speaker 3>I am now the deputy news lead over there, so
<v Speaker 3>hence watching the show, and I kind of like, guess
<v Speaker 3>the thing, I'm just writing about news all the time
<v Speaker 3>I go. I do events. You know, if you've ever
<v Speaker 3>been to games Colm, people might have seen me running
<v Speaker 3>around there, probably drowning in the public calls because all
<v Speaker 3>the cool stuff is. But aside from that, you've probably
<v Speaker 3>just read my words. So Hi, this is me.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, we actually we do love the Gamer over here.
<v Speaker 1>We've read plenty of stories of yours on the show before,
<v Speaker 1>and yeah, I'm really happy to.
<v Speaker 2>Have you on.
<v Speaker 1>You said like you mostly are covering news. What's that
<v Speaker 1>like these days? Is it you know, kind of mostly
<v Speaker 1>just trying to keep on top of announcements.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, what's it like these days?
<v Speaker 3>It's a lot. I mean it's very competitive on the
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<v Speaker 3>of hours, but there's no one in. But then we're
<v Speaker 3>also passed, always passing the baton on to people. People
<v Speaker 3>get surprised and they find out I work weekends. It's like, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>news does happen on weekends, usually the bad stuff which
<v Speaker 3>they want to hide away. So yes, it's it's increasingly busy.
<v Speaker 3>It's only going to get busier. But yeah, it's good
<v Speaker 3>news for me. I have a job, so that's nice exactly.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, the weekend editor, Yeah, that is a thing that
<v Speaker 1>exists and people really do that job. And you're right
<v Speaker 1>that news would frequently pop off, whether that's from like
<v Speaker 1>some event or yeah, a company trying to bury something
<v Speaker 1>on a Friday evening for sure. Well let's get into
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<v Speaker 1>All right, we have a lot to get into, so
<v Speaker 1>let's start the morning mess with Hollow Night's Silksong hits
<v Speaker 1>over a half million players on PC alone after crashing Steam.
<v Speaker 2>This comes from John Walker over at Kotaku.
<v Speaker 1>Hollow Night Silksong may have crashed Steam, PSN and the
<v Speaker 1>Switch e store before its launch, but that doesn't seem
<v Speaker 1>to have hurt its success once they all crawled back online.
<v Speaker 1>Team Cherry's enormously anticipated Metro a Venus sequel has just
<v Speaker 1>reached over a half million concurrent players on Steam alone.
<v Speaker 1>That's a figure that doesn't include anything that's happening on Xbox,
<v Speaker 1>PlayStation or Switch nor indeed PC players who bought the
<v Speaker 1>game on gog or elsewhere. I guess maybe, well guess
<v Speaker 1>you've got a Kickstarter code. It probably was a Steam code,
<v Speaker 1>or people who are playing via game.
<v Speaker 2>Pass, which you know it's available on if you have
<v Speaker 2>a subscription.
<v Speaker 1>At around ten thirty this yesterday morning with John Wright's here. Basically,
<v Speaker 1>people in their slack channels started sharing some of those
<v Speaker 1>concurrent numbers because it was pretty impressive.
<v Speaker 2>Right out of the gate.
<v Speaker 1>It doubled the best concurrent player number ever for the
<v Speaker 1>original Hollow Night at one hundred and fifty thousand. That's
<v Speaker 1>for a Hollow Night Silk Song yesterday at its launch,
<v Speaker 1>but that quickly shot up to over five hundred and
<v Speaker 1>thirty four thousand concurrent players. Concurrent players, you know, what
<v Speaker 1>can we really glean from that? You know, we could
<v Speaker 1>compare it to other stuff. This would make it the
<v Speaker 1>eighteenth highest concurrent player count for any game ever on Steam,
<v Speaker 1>and a lot of those games are going to be
<v Speaker 1>free to play multiplayer games that have massive marketing budgets
<v Speaker 1>or you know, huge word of mouth campaigns, and this
<v Speaker 1>certainly falls into that category. But I think ran in
<v Speaker 1>that we can say Hollow Night Silksong a success so far, right,
<v Speaker 1>I mean.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, Like I remember before this came out, I think
<v Speaker 3>I had this horrible feeling that. I mean, obviously, Silk
<v Speaker 3>Song when that's gonna come out has been the story
<v Speaker 3>for the past I don't want to say how many
<v Speaker 3>years clus's depressing, but I think like it felt very
<v Speaker 3>industry like, you know, it was something we would.
<v Speaker 2>Joke about every circle.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and I was so worried a bit like insider Baseball,
<v Speaker 3>you know. I mean, obviously I knew Hollow Night's huge,
<v Speaker 3>but I I feel like it almost became a meme
<v Speaker 3>in itself, and it's just so good to see that
<v Speaker 3>like it. No, it really did have this dis appealed
<v Speaker 3>like that. Well, that grassroot support was genuine. It was
<v Speaker 3>perhaps the biggest word of mouth campaign, one of the
<v Speaker 3>biggest word of mouth campaigns that we've seen off the
<v Speaker 3>back of an already great initial release. Amazing. And also,
<v Speaker 3>and this is what I love about this. I know
<v Speaker 3>Team Cherry have faced so many jokes about how long
<v Speaker 3>it took them to make the game, but kudos for
<v Speaker 3>them as a studio managing to take their time on
<v Speaker 3>this game, release information when they wanted to. And it's
<v Speaker 3>still a mass success because if it we're in this
<v Speaker 3>industry where it's so volatile. If a game sells, you know,
<v Speaker 3>half a million copies is a failure. So it's it's
<v Speaker 3>good to see right out of the gate, like I
<v Speaker 3>I dread to we're not dread to think, but I'm
<v Speaker 3>looking forward to finding out what the sales are and
<v Speaker 3>what the total player count across the whole all platforms
<v Speaker 3>and game passes, because that's just going to be astronomical.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean it had to have flown past. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>like just always to explain it. Concurrent players mean the
<v Speaker 1>people online playing the game at the same time. So
<v Speaker 1>these are not people who bought it and planned plan
<v Speaker 1>to start it this weekend or we're going to start
<v Speaker 1>it later that evening. People are planning out on like
<v Speaker 1>right now because it's Friday, you know, and it's Friday
<v Speaker 1>evening for a lot of the world. It's already at
<v Speaker 1>five hundred and sixty thousand concurrent players today. It probably
<v Speaker 1>will hit an even higher peak on Saturday. That's usually
<v Speaker 1>what happens with these games that come out during the week.
<v Speaker 1>Going through the weekend, it'll hit a higher concurrent peak.
<v Speaker 1>But you're right, the the sales numbers will be much
<v Speaker 1>bigger than that, a factor larger than that.
<v Speaker 2>This thing could fly to five.
<v Speaker 1>Million copies sold instantaneously, and yeah, that's it's just impressive stuff.
<v Speaker 2>And you're right.
<v Speaker 1>I had a similar sort of feeling about this of
<v Speaker 1>is this something that we talk about. You know, the
<v Speaker 1>people that kind of listen to a podcast or show
<v Speaker 1>like this, if you know they're tapped in. We're all
<v Speaker 1>having that same joke. That's why the meme works. But
<v Speaker 1>does it go beyond that? And then you know here
<v Speaker 1>in a few weeks ago, maybe a few months ago,
<v Speaker 1>that Hollow Nights Silk Song is the number one most
<v Speaker 1>wish listed game on Steam. I'm like, Okay, then there's
<v Speaker 1>something for real there. Even with that context, this is shocking.
<v Speaker 1>Five hundred thousand plus concurrent players for any game is
<v Speaker 1>nearly impossible, and it has been impossible for an INDE
<v Speaker 1>two D Metroid VANDIA platformer until now. And really like,
<v Speaker 1>this is the biggest game in that genre ever. You
<v Speaker 1>know Metroid we always point out like, you know, so
<v Speaker 1>the progenitor of the series has or never or almost
<v Speaker 1>never sold more than three million copies. It's kind of
<v Speaker 1>a niche game. It's not as popular in Japan. I
<v Speaker 1>don't think holl of Night has that problem. It's popular everywhere.
<v Speaker 1>It really has just found the magic recipe to get
<v Speaker 1>people's attention and kind of show them this genre in
<v Speaker 1>a new light, to really bring more people in and
<v Speaker 1>as a huge Metroid Venua fan, I'm like, yeah, that
<v Speaker 1>sounds fantastic to me. Rhiannon, have you started Silk Song?
<v Speaker 1>Have you had a chance? You know, it's it's you're
<v Speaker 1>covering news. It's a busy job.
<v Speaker 3>Oh I cover news for plenty of games. Doesn't mean
<v Speaker 3>I played them always. I do relate to a lot
<v Speaker 3>of people. I've seen this pop up or I ever
<v Speaker 3>read it of like, oh, I was ready can forward
<v Speaker 3>Silk Song? I remembered I suck. It's like, yeah, that's
<v Speaker 3>I've decided. Yeah, but that's gonna be me. That's gonna
<v Speaker 3>be like way it is news news for this, and
<v Speaker 3>I'm going to be at nails pace compared everyone else.
<v Speaker 3>But I'm looking forward to sucking at it. Quite frankly,
<v Speaker 3>it's one of those games where I won't mind sucking
<v Speaker 3>at it. I you said, it is always great when
<v Speaker 3>we see a genre which kind of like written off,
<v Speaker 3>even by Nintendo with Metroid, which set off the you know,
<v Speaker 3>the genre, like the Metroid fans are left waiting compared
<v Speaker 3>to other fans of different franchises. So it's it's just
<v Speaker 3>it's like, I mean, it's not the borders keep free
<v Speaker 3>effect where it's like showing like no, there is an
<v Speaker 3>audience here, people like it. You know, just make these
<v Speaker 3>games and people will play them. And I mean I'm
<v Speaker 3>blown away, but the number still I could keep saying that,
<v Speaker 3>but it's it's brilliant, and I mean on your point
<v Speaker 3>on concurrent players, like, yes, it will be late Saturday.
<v Speaker 3>I think probably like early Sunday for anyone in the UK.
<v Speaker 3>You'll want to keep an eye on those Steam numbers.
<v Speaker 3>Obviously Steam doesn't can be the full picture, but it's
<v Speaker 3>the pitch that we can get the most immediate from.
<v Speaker 3>And I know people are already predicting. I mean the wildest
<v Speaker 3>one I saw one point two million. I mean, it'd
<v Speaker 3>be great if we saw that. I'm gonna place my
<v Speaker 3>bets around eight hundred thousand.
<v Speaker 1>Sounds right, yeah, I think I yes, through in the
<v Speaker 1>show was like I got like really excited out of
<v Speaker 1>the gate there. I'm like, oh, I don't give you
<v Speaker 1>a million this weekend. We'll see You're right. Eight hundred
<v Speaker 1>thousand seems like the like that would be super impressive.
<v Speaker 1>And yeah, it really obviously already a huge success. It's
<v Speaker 1>a team that really kind of did take their time
<v Speaker 1>because the first games sold so well and they could
<v Speaker 1>afford to do so, and it just seems like that
<v Speaker 1>has paid off for them. And obviously we know that's
<v Speaker 1>not rep replicable by most of the people working in
<v Speaker 1>the indie game scene, right, They're not gonna be able
<v Speaker 1>to have the same They're not gonna be afforded the
<v Speaker 1>same opportunities in the same amount of time to work
<v Speaker 1>on their stuff. But when a team is, I'm glad
<v Speaker 1>that they were able to take advantage of it and
<v Speaker 1>really make this work for them. All right, let's keep
<v Speaker 1>going here. Star Wars Outlaws used as a game key
<v Speaker 1>card thanks to a flaw with the switch To. This
<v Speaker 1>is another one from John Walker, but let's just kind
<v Speaker 1>of recap it here in a more concise way. Essentially,
<v Speaker 1>an engineer for you Besoft was like got involved in
<v Speaker 1>a conversation about people being disappointed despite the very impressive
<v Speaker 1>technical aspects of Star Wars Outlaws that the game is
<v Speaker 1>on a game key card on switch To, so I've
<v Speaker 1>been playing it. Digital Foundry was mentioned that they got
<v Speaker 1>a video in the works. I'm impressed with the visuals,
<v Speaker 1>Like it really is a much much much better than
<v Speaker 1>the game ran ever on Steam Deck or the Asis
<v Speaker 1>Rock ally or anything like that, and it's like, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>this is a viable way to play this game, and
<v Speaker 1>more than viable, it's a good way to play the game.
<v Speaker 1>But people are like, I like to own these games
<v Speaker 1>on the card. I'm disappointed You'bisoft put it on a
<v Speaker 1>game key card, which, as a reminder, means you get
<v Speaker 1>a card that does not have a game on it.
<v Speaker 1>You have to download everything to the system, and the
<v Speaker 1>game key card acts as a key to unlock the game.
<v Speaker 1>The engineer from Ubisoft that got involved in this conversation
<v Speaker 1>was like, oh, you know, that's interesting. We recognize that
<v Speaker 1>people don't like these things, but basically he said that
<v Speaker 1>we never even really talked about the cost of the card.
<v Speaker 1>The sixty four gigabyte card, worth pointing out outlaws is
<v Speaker 1>about twenty gigabytes could have easily fit on that card.
<v Speaker 2>They're like, we never talked about the cost.
<v Speaker 1>What we were bothered by is that we need to
<v Speaker 1>stream our audio from the storage medium, and if it's
<v Speaker 1>on the card, we have to stream it from the card,
<v Speaker 1>and it's not fast enough for the tech.
<v Speaker 2>That we use.
<v Speaker 1>So we just had an obvious solution here and it's
<v Speaker 1>asking people to install it onto their much faster internal
<v Speaker 1>storage or even even the much faster micro SD Express storage.
<v Speaker 1>And I think that that is fair, and I'm not
<v Speaker 1>surprised by that because all these you know, the disc
<v Speaker 1>storage mediums, and you know, whether that's a Blu Ray
<v Speaker 1>or or one of these game key cards, they are
<v Speaker 1>often much slower than the internal storage. And we've seen
<v Speaker 1>people developers ask people to install games onto hard drives
<v Speaker 1>for forever, like going back to like the PS three,
<v Speaker 1>So this is something that has happened before, and I
<v Speaker 1>bet this is something that developers like, let's just default
<v Speaker 1>to that we should ask people to do that. I
<v Speaker 1>got a little hung up here though, Rhannon, because I'm like,
<v Speaker 1>what people are saying is they just want the game
<v Speaker 1>to be on the card so it'll work forever. That
<v Speaker 1>makes them feel more comfortable when they're collecting it. Is
<v Speaker 1>it not possible to just put the all the files
<v Speaker 1>to be installed on a game card and then just
<v Speaker 1>have it installed directly from that, so that you know,
<v Speaker 1>if the servers go down twenty five years from now,
<v Speaker 1>this card will still be able to enable a person
<v Speaker 1>to play Star Wars Outlaws on switch to So I
<v Speaker 1>asked about this, and I got some developers responding saying,
<v Speaker 1>Nintendo's OS the firmware does not seem to support that yet,
<v Speaker 1>and Nintendo could maybe do that, but they would have
<v Speaker 1>to like enable it themselves. And when they have this
<v Speaker 1>cheaper alternative, why would you be soft go through the
<v Speaker 1>hassle of asking Nintendo to change anything?
<v Speaker 2>Does all that sound like fair to you? Like? Do
<v Speaker 2>you believe this?
<v Speaker 1>To this developer, you'd be soft that this is probably
<v Speaker 1>what led to them choosing to use a game key card.
<v Speaker 3>I do believe then, when they say that the decision
<v Speaker 3>to go digital wasn't just cost, it wasn't just ill
<v Speaker 3>cost less, let's do that. I do believe that there
<v Speaker 3>was that. However, it is going to come back to
<v Speaker 3>cost eventually. I mean you mentioned that whole point about
<v Speaker 3>like and this is when I was looking at the story,
<v Speaker 3>I was thinking, Nintendo is getting away with this. They're
<v Speaker 3>going to keep getting away with this.
<v Speaker 1>To bring up like when everyone else get away with
<v Speaker 1>it too, like.
<v Speaker 3>Exactly it would you know what your solution to me?
<v Speaker 3>I mean, I want to preface this saying I'm not
<v Speaker 3>a developer, you know, but that solution sounds like it
<v Speaker 3>makes sense, and Nintendo could do that. They won't because
<v Speaker 3>why would they know this is working? People are buying
<v Speaker 3>these games games, you know anyway. And it reminds me
<v Speaker 3>of you know, the PS three, all the problems developers
<v Speaker 3>had with that. It meant a lot of the ports
<v Speaker 3>were low quality. It meant that Sony had to it
<v Speaker 3>was a mistake they had to respond to that, they
<v Speaker 3>suffered because of it. We're not going to have that
<v Speaker 3>this time around. I can't see Nintendo suffering for it.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, like, I love Nintendo, but like they can
<v Speaker 3>just kind of do what they want.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, yeah, exactly.
<v Speaker 3>We all laugh at their online offerings, if you can
<v Speaker 3>call it that. Half the time we laugh. But the
<v Speaker 3>game chat thing, it runs at five frames per second.
<v Speaker 3>The switch too, still does well. You know, it doesn't matter.
<v Speaker 3>So I'm going to be all doomer here and say,
<v Speaker 3>like it was great. I was a little bit heartened
<v Speaker 3>at first when we saw CD Project Red got Cyberpunk
<v Speaker 3>all on that on the cartridge, using every scrap of
<v Speaker 3>data or storage base that they dated. I think that's
<v Speaker 3>going to be an outlier. I I really do. And
<v Speaker 3>maybe that's down to the fact that they've been developing
<v Speaker 3>that game for like five years now, so they've got
<v Speaker 3>that down to an art.
<v Speaker 2>But good point.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, with this, it's it's extra effort. Nintendo notoriously doesn't
<v Speaker 3>like doing things that are user friendly for the sake of,
<v Speaker 3>you know, out the kindness of their heart. They like
<v Speaker 3>doing things.
<v Speaker 1>They get things more complicated for no good reason. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>I'm trying to I got a DOC. So I had
<v Speaker 1>two switch toos that I bought right away. I gave
<v Speaker 1>one of the kids because they kept taking mind. So
<v Speaker 1>I'm like whatever, I was going to sell this to
<v Speaker 1>one of my friends at costs, but you guys are
<v Speaker 1>being annoying.
<v Speaker 2>Take this thing.
<v Speaker 1>So I have two docks around the house and I'm
<v Speaker 1>like find I'm like, you know what, I still moving
<v Speaker 1>docks around between the TV upstairs, TV downstairs and my
<v Speaker 1>computer for capture. I want one more DOC, but I
<v Speaker 1>want to like kind of maybe get something that has
<v Speaker 1>either more functionality or it is more affordable. And it's
<v Speaker 1>like Nintendo has locked that thing down to the point
<v Speaker 1>if you don't use the Nintendo power supply thing and
<v Speaker 1>you don't have the right dock that has the right
<v Speaker 1>sort of power delivery, the USBC power Delivery profile. It
<v Speaker 1>just won't It just won't work. So people have compiled
<v Speaker 1>this list of things that does work. But even then,
<v Speaker 1>I got one of those that's actually a portable capture cards.
<v Speaker 1>You can put an SD card in it and just
<v Speaker 1>capture all your gameplay from the switch to or really
<v Speaker 1>it's made for a Steam deck, but they upgraded it
<v Speaker 1>to work with the switch too, and it's still a
<v Speaker 1>halshle to get it to work because I have to.
<v Speaker 1>I still have to go get another Nintendo USB C
<v Speaker 1>power adapter because they made it proprietary and no one,
<v Speaker 1>not even Apple, has done anything like that, and there
<v Speaker 1>is no obvious good reason other than they're doing it
<v Speaker 1>because they can sell us more accessories. And it's it's
<v Speaker 1>sort of blatant in a way that's like surprising even
<v Speaker 1>for a Nintendo.
<v Speaker 2>But that's them this generation a little bit.
<v Speaker 1>So all these all these opportunities for them to get
<v Speaker 1>away with you, like reducing their costs or charging us more,
<v Speaker 1>they seem more than happy to do that.
<v Speaker 2>So that goes back to this idea.
<v Speaker 1>Of like if you're Ubisoft and you're kind of working
<v Speaker 1>within the Nintendo framework and the Nintendo ecosystem. You might
<v Speaker 1>say it's not about well, we never talked about costs,
<v Speaker 1>but really you're just what you're saying there is we
<v Speaker 1>never considered the option that might have been more work
<v Speaker 1>and more expensive because either it wasn't available to us,
<v Speaker 1>or it was like, well, we're not going to go
<v Speaker 1>ask Nintendo to change the way they do think so
<v Speaker 1>that we can install from a game card so people
<v Speaker 1>can have a game.
<v Speaker 2>Card for Star Wars Outlaws. That's not going to be
<v Speaker 2>worth it.
<v Speaker 1>Like it's just Nintendo makes it the default to like
<v Speaker 1>not even consider these things that might be better for
<v Speaker 1>the consumer because they have such a hard like iron
<v Speaker 1>fist wrapped around their go system.
<v Speaker 2>And I agree with you, they're not going to change, right.
<v Speaker 3>No, they're not. I mean that's I'm not gonna try
<v Speaker 3>not make this such a wide issue, but like it
<v Speaker 3>really is indicative of this console generation I think, or
<v Speaker 3>they're technically in the next one. Whatever we're doing the
<v Speaker 3>console generations now in that companies are finding ways to
<v Speaker 3>get around stuff. At least the other Xbox one does
<v Speaker 3>to go all in on being online always. Their first
<v Speaker 3>attempt was disastrous. They give us the carrot instead of
<v Speaker 3>the stick. With game Pass, it works.
<v Speaker 1>For a bit.
<v Speaker 3>Now Xbox is Xbox, but that's a whole other issue entirely.
<v Speaker 3>But with Nintendo, it's they don't really have the carrot
<v Speaker 3>or the stick. They just do what they're going to do,
<v Speaker 3>and like they're the only ones who have Mario, so
<v Speaker 3>you're gonna do it. You know, everyone complained about Pokemon
<v Speaker 3>scarlet violets sold really well, the next one's going to
<v Speaker 3>sell even better. So yeah, I'm such a dumal when
<v Speaker 3>it comes to the Nintendo. They're still going to do
<v Speaker 3>great stuff. They're still gonna introduce very question stable things
<v Speaker 3>into the gaming industry. But you know, no way, it
<v Speaker 3>doesn't seem to be as much as like you said,
<v Speaker 3>of Apple, And we're not going to get a laws
<v Speaker 3>over the city time soon. It's just gonna app yep.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>And even even if they did get sued or regulated,
<v Speaker 1>Nintendo is the slipperiest motherfucking company to ever exist in
<v Speaker 1>my opinion. Obviously, it's a company I paid a lot
<v Speaker 1>of attention to, but I always just think back to
<v Speaker 1>them getting in trouble for like some publishing deals that
<v Speaker 1>they had, and so consumers might have got charged more
<v Speaker 1>than they should have been in a fair competitive market,
<v Speaker 1>and Nintendo's way of paying people back was to give
<v Speaker 1>them a five dollar coupon printed in a magazine and
<v Speaker 1>that people could cut out and use that to spend
<v Speaker 1>way more than five dollars on Nintendo video games. So
<v Speaker 1>they still found a way to turn this time when
<v Speaker 1>they got punished into a way for them to make
<v Speaker 1>more money because their lawyers are just always that good.
<v Speaker 1>And I always pent Nintendo of America a law firm
<v Speaker 1>that happens to be attached to a video game company.
<v Speaker 2>All right, we'll keep going here.
<v Speaker 1>Up next, Metal Gear Solid Delta Snake Eater has already
<v Speaker 1>sold one million copies. This is from Ben Lyons at
<v Speaker 1>Game Reactor. The headline is the story. So Riannon, I'll
<v Speaker 1>just ask you, what do you think about Konami, the
<v Speaker 1>state of Konami making video games, and the future of
<v Speaker 1>Metal Gear Solid, And you can take that in any
<v Speaker 1>order you want.
<v Speaker 3>So Metal Gear Solid is one of those things where
<v Speaker 3>like I don't I don't play the game, so I
<v Speaker 3>feel like I have because I absorb so much of
<v Speaker 3>it for Osmosis and just Kanami through the industry. I
<v Speaker 3>guess it really seems like they're finally found their footing
<v Speaker 3>after years of not doing. That was so with the
<v Speaker 3>metal gear Com Metal ge Solid community. I for one
<v Speaker 3>was surprised that they've seemed to want so many back.
<v Speaker 3>It seems. Yeah, there's a lot of like all is forgiven.
<v Speaker 3>I suppose it to make sense. Kajima is doing his thing
<v Speaker 3>quite well. But I mean and Snaky, like, you know,
<v Speaker 3>we're hungry for nostalgia right now. Oh yeah, you give
<v Speaker 3>someone like you know who grew up with the original
<v Speaker 3>Snaky like the same, but it looks better, and that
<v Speaker 3>becomes the selling point. I've seen a lot of people say, like,
<v Speaker 3>what's the point. It's the same but to a lot
<v Speaker 3>of people like you know, And this is where I
<v Speaker 3>think the disconnectmeen industry. And then gamers comes in, right, Like, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>average gamer in terms of like someone who played video
<v Speaker 3>games by is like one or two games a year probably,
<v Speaker 3>I mean it's probably gone up, so that's statistic. But
<v Speaker 3>and if one of these if one game is like, oh,
<v Speaker 3>here's a game you loved as a kid and it
<v Speaker 3>looks gorgeous, like yeah, go for it. So yeah, I
<v Speaker 3>guess this is a good way to test the waters
<v Speaker 3>have done it very well. I guess from this point
<v Speaker 3>they can continue the series possibly, but I guess we'ld
<v Speaker 3>have to see what happens there.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I think so.
<v Speaker 1>I've played one in five, have played some of three
<v Speaker 1>in the past. I don't know if I've ever even
<v Speaker 1>touched Middle Gear Solid two or four, and I actually
<v Speaker 1>I'm definitely not touched four. But I like the game,
<v Speaker 1>like I really like one. I really really liked one
<v Speaker 1>so much that when two seem different, That's the reason
<v Speaker 1>I kind of didn't continue with the series, because I'm like,
<v Speaker 1>I just wanted more of one. But I think I'm
<v Speaker 1>a little bit in the same boat as you, where
<v Speaker 1>it's like we kind of look at this and we go, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>this is successful Konami sort of. They obviously haven't paid
<v Speaker 1>for the crimes that they did to Kojima, but it
<v Speaker 1>also seems like there's a different set of people in
<v Speaker 1>charge of things now, so it's like they are respectfully
<v Speaker 1>treating metal gear with a certain air of respect, So
<v Speaker 1>why wouldn't they be able to continue doing more new
<v Speaker 1>metal gear games in the future. And then I talk
<v Speaker 1>to my friends who are metal gear heads, and they're
<v Speaker 1>just like, there's no way they could never do that,
<v Speaker 1>that that they'll never there will never be in a
<v Speaker 1>position where people will accept a Metal Gear game from
<v Speaker 1>someone who is not Hideo Kojima, And I'm I don't.
<v Speaker 1>I don't believe that. Like I don't, I don't believe that.
<v Speaker 1>I think we get to a point here where this
<v Speaker 1>game does very well, they remake Metal Gear Solid one,
<v Speaker 1>maybe they test the waters with a like Rising two,
<v Speaker 1>a sequel to the Platinum game, and then that could
<v Speaker 1>be a new one to be like you know the
<v Speaker 1>plan the game. Sure Coachma helped with that. It was involved,
<v Speaker 1>of course he was involved, but that was always a
<v Speaker 1>Platinum game. So we're going to try to do something
<v Speaker 1>with that. And I think they can keep proving themselves.
<v Speaker 1>I think the pitfall there, though, is they prove themselves
<v Speaker 1>as much as they want to, because if one of
<v Speaker 1>these games underperforms or if there's issues with development, does
<v Speaker 1>Konami lose their their interest in this. I think that's
<v Speaker 1>the more likely scenario is they stumble on one of
<v Speaker 1>these games eventually people are a little bit less happy
<v Speaker 1>and Konami goes, what are we doing all this work for?
<v Speaker 1>It's not worth it. Let's go back to the pachinko machines.
<v Speaker 1>I think that's probably how it goes here. But as like,
<v Speaker 1>this is a very good start, right, this is a
<v Speaker 1>very good start for them coming back to Metal Gear.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, like, do I think Konami's got the audacity
<v Speaker 3>to make their own male gis solid game?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah?
<v Speaker 3>I do. I find whether or not it succeeds and
<v Speaker 3>fans are willing to maybe not forgive but like begets
<v Speaker 3>you know, man, just play and play the game. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>I think if it's good, they will, you know, but
<v Speaker 3>that's another question entirely. I guess you know, can like
<v Speaker 3>and then we have uncomfortable conversations about authorship and you
<v Speaker 3>know who owns the spirit of sounds like Discolysium. Now
<v Speaker 3>I won't go down that train of four, but like
<v Speaker 3>you know what I mean, it's it's I think they will.
<v Speaker 3>I don't think this. I don't think you just do
<v Speaker 3>a snaky a remake this with this that looks this
<v Speaker 3>amazing and then have zero plans for another game, like no,
<v Speaker 3>whether it's another remake, which they might do because it's
<v Speaker 3>one work, or where they're like, okay, this one really worked,
<v Speaker 3>then people want more gear. So yeah, I think another
<v Speaker 3>one's absolutely on the way.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean, it's it's very clear to me that
<v Speaker 1>Konami is following the Capcom Playbook right now. It's always
<v Speaker 1>worth mentioning because there's some but they acting people out
<v Speaker 1>there and be like Konami was always making more money
<v Speaker 1>than Capcom and like, yeah, sure, I get what you're
<v Speaker 1>what you mean, and they we're making them sometimes more
<v Speaker 1>money in video games like traditional traditional video games were
<v Speaker 1>like mobile and free to play games and stuff like that.
<v Speaker 1>Capcom's had the growth recently. Capcom was like, oh, we're
<v Speaker 1>up fifteen percent year over year, and that's what matters
<v Speaker 1>to these companies. They are looking for growth, and Konami
<v Speaker 1>is clearly trying to emulate that and has begun to
<v Speaker 1>get that growth with them, Like the Metal Gear Solid
<v Speaker 1>Collection was delivering that for them. So I think that
<v Speaker 1>they if they are having success with success with the
<v Speaker 1>Capcom Playbook, which is remakes of your most popular franchise
<v Speaker 1>and then new games to go alongside those remakes and
<v Speaker 1>kind of going back and forth between those two things,
<v Speaker 1>to me, it's like we just obviously end up at
<v Speaker 1>a point Wherekonomi figures out how they can pull that off.
<v Speaker 1>And again whether they can pull that off in terms
<v Speaker 1>of the quality and making fans happy as a whole
<v Speaker 1>other conversation. But I think we will see them at
<v Speaker 1>least try at some point. In the meantime.
<v Speaker 2>There's a lot of Metal Gear.
<v Speaker 1>Games that they can work with, whether that's remakes or
<v Speaker 1>the collection volume two, because they called the first one
<v Speaker 1>volume one. Volume two is still yet to come, and
<v Speaker 1>that could include Metal Gear Solid four finally getting set
<v Speaker 1>free from the PlayStation three. So they have a lot
<v Speaker 1>of runway here to figure out how to like you know,
<v Speaker 1>slowly actually people back to the idea that Meddle Gear
<v Speaker 1>Solid is an ongoing, you know, franchise that is, you know,
<v Speaker 1>still in business and still has the possibility of.
<v Speaker 2>Producing new games.
<v Speaker 1>And then as far as like Konami's the rest of
<v Speaker 1>Konami's involvement in like making new video games, you know,
<v Speaker 1>we Silent Hill, well, we'll see what happens with Silent
<v Speaker 1>Silent Health that is out here really soon.
<v Speaker 2>And then there is the rumor of them returning to
<v Speaker 2>a Castle Vania game. They still not announced that.
<v Speaker 1>But I think overall, like this strategy, I just don't
<v Speaker 1>think that Konami has been scared off, and if anything,
<v Speaker 1>they've been rewarded for their efforts, so I expect them
<v Speaker 1>to continue kind of expanding this stuff. Is that kind
<v Speaker 1>of what you're feeling as well?
<v Speaker 3>Absolutely? I mean it again, you don't do this, don't
<v Speaker 3>You don't find massive success in all of these sort
<v Speaker 3>of these these remakes and then not capitalize on that.
<v Speaker 3>The you know, the the gaming industry often has tunnel
<v Speaker 3>vision that can be a good thing or a bad thing.
<v Speaker 3>And in this case, if we keep getting loads of
<v Speaker 3>really good games from it, like I'd say, it's a
<v Speaker 3>good thing. You know, they see they see money being made,
<v Speaker 3>they'll go all in. Whether or not, you know, they
<v Speaker 3>reach too far, we'll see. But if I mean the
<v Speaker 3>Headn't remakes, no, people will keep buying them, you know,
<v Speaker 3>as long as they're they're good.
<v Speaker 1>Absolutely, all right, We are going to take a break
<v Speaker 1>to go hear from MSI. If you want to skip
<v Speaker 1>out on these, go to giant bomb dot com, slash
<v Speaker 1>join and become a premium member, get the ad free
<v Speaker 1>version of the show. We will be right back. Jam
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<v Speaker 1>more fun. Mobo, We're back. It's Game Mess Mornings. Jeff Grubb,
<v Speaker 1>Rihanna Bevan. We are going to get back into the news.
<v Speaker 1>We were just at during the break talking about Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>the former Polygon people start it's Rogue dot what's this
<v Speaker 1>Rogue dot co, Rogue dot Rogue dot.
<v Speaker 3>Say dot com?
<v Speaker 2>Hang is it dot com?
<v Speaker 3>I was just on it. It was on this.
<v Speaker 1>Uh so they basically have they're a collective of people
<v Speaker 1>covering games.
<v Speaker 2>Rogue dot site.
<v Speaker 1>Right, Yeah, it's rogue Yeah, yeah, we are rean in
<v Speaker 1>there we go there, I fixed it there. I just
<v Speaker 1>spiced that in for me.
<v Speaker 2>Jan Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Rogue dot site is like, it's a bunch like Patrick Gill,
<v Speaker 1>a bunch of other people that used to be a
<v Speaker 1>Polygon coming together starting up. That's going to be an
<v Speaker 1>ad free site. They're going to just survive on support
<v Speaker 1>from people.
<v Speaker 2>I'm supporting it. I think other people should as well.
<v Speaker 1>It's nice to see that, right, that people can continue
<v Speaker 1>to make that strategy work.
<v Speaker 3>Absolutely. I mean as soon as I announced it or
<v Speaker 3>even read anything, I signed up because we just like,
<v Speaker 3>I know there's a lot of sites like this, but
<v Speaker 3>this should be and I like it, and I think
<v Speaker 3>it's great that they've all got together and do something
<v Speaker 3>because there was some incredible talent that was lost a
<v Speaker 3>Polygon and it's it wasn't fair. It shouldn't have come
<v Speaker 3>to this, but I'm I'm glad that they've they've built
<v Speaker 3>up the site. I really wish them all the best.
<v Speaker 1>Likewise, absolutely, and speaking of losing a lot of talent,
<v Speaker 1>for Axis was hit by layoffs as Take two forecast growth.
<v Speaker 1>This is from Marcus Person at Game Reactor. Take two
<v Speaker 1>is predicting another five percent in growth, So what do
<v Speaker 1>they do?
<v Speaker 2>Cut staff?
<v Speaker 1>Of course, it has now been confirmed that new layoffs
<v Speaker 1>are hitting Civilization developer for Axis Games. In a statement
<v Speaker 1>to Game Developer, a spokesperson said the studio carried out
<v Speaker 1>what they called staff reductions on Thursday as part of
<v Speaker 1>a broader restructuring. The reason, according to them, is to
<v Speaker 1>optimize processes for greater adaptability, collaboration, and creativity.
<v Speaker 2>Oh my god.
<v Speaker 1>Exactly how many have been let go remains unclear, but
<v Speaker 1>sources close to the situation claim the cuts affect dozens
<v Speaker 1>of employees. On LinkedIn, several developers have already confirmed their departure,
<v Speaker 1>including writer Emma Kidwell, who is fantastic Really sorry to
<v Speaker 1>hear that about Emma, as well as anyone everyone else
<v Speaker 1>that works there. It also includes senior QA tester Logan Blackwood,
<v Speaker 1>lead character artist Matthew Davis and producer Maya H. Kid Well,
<v Speaker 1>who had spent nearly five years at for Axis and
<v Speaker 1>wrote that she was among those affected.
<v Speaker 2>And is now seeking new opportunities. You know that this is.
<v Speaker 1>You know, it's a repeat of the story we've seen
<v Speaker 1>so many times these companies kind of a growing, growing, growing,
<v Speaker 1>with the idea of like putting out another another new
<v Speaker 1>sequel in the popular franchise, with the expectations.
<v Speaker 2>That that will grow as well. That's Civilization seven.
<v Speaker 1>It hits a couple of snags, and now that's all
<v Speaker 1>the excuse that Take two needs to cut jobs and
<v Speaker 1>save money. And with the idea and that we know
<v Speaker 1>they are going to find a way to get Civilization
<v Speaker 1>seven to the point where it is just it's going
<v Speaker 1>to sell just as well in the long run as
<v Speaker 1>all the rest of them. That's a franchise that does
<v Speaker 1>that is in a lot of ways too big to fail,
<v Speaker 1>and that's because fans want it to be good. So
<v Speaker 1>those updates will come and it'll it'll be just fine.
<v Speaker 1>And it has sold fine up to this point. Maybe
<v Speaker 1>it's not like matched what Civilization six has done, but
<v Speaker 1>that's because they did such a good job of supporting
<v Speaker 1>six a lot of people are like, I'm not going
<v Speaker 1>to go to the new one till it's at least
<v Speaker 1>as good as this one. So like that feels like
<v Speaker 1>a management issue. It feels like an expectations issue. And
<v Speaker 1>of course, as always, the people making the game are
<v Speaker 1>the ones to get punished, right.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, absolutely, I mean you get punished for failure or
<v Speaker 3>not even failure. It's never their failure, but you get
<v Speaker 3>punished for success. It's absurd that the Take two of
<v Speaker 3>all publishers says that argue that this isn't even necessary
<v Speaker 3>GT six need I say more like that is going
<v Speaker 3>to make a disgusting amount of money. They'll have to
<v Speaker 3>invent a new unit of measurement for that, and they
<v Speaker 3>can't hold on, you know, even if they're having to
<v Speaker 3>dig between the couch cushions, which they're not, you know,
<v Speaker 3>it's going to be fine. And that phrasing their optimizing processes.
<v Speaker 3>That might be the worst explanation I've heard. Yeah, there's
<v Speaker 3>some bad ones and been some real stinkers out there.
<v Speaker 3>That might be the worst one. I think that. I'm
<v Speaker 3>wonder if that was a chat GPT job.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know, but it it's like chat GBT, and
<v Speaker 1>it also sounds like they're going to be using AI.
<v Speaker 1>That's what that means, optimizing processes. Yeah, come on, I'm
<v Speaker 1>a Sieve fan. I liked SIB seven, but I also
<v Speaker 1>recognized like where it's at. It's just it's like at
<v Speaker 1>a certain point, the game, like I said, will find
<v Speaker 1>its way.
<v Speaker 2>It always feels like we see these.
<v Speaker 1>Numbers come in take two Foregrass forecast another five percent
<v Speaker 1>in growth with and that's before they get to GTA,
<v Speaker 1>which will be astronomical growth.
<v Speaker 2>They can afford to pay all these people.
<v Speaker 1>There is gonna be a situation where they are going
<v Speaker 1>to wish that they had a lot of these people
<v Speaker 1>when it comes time to figure out what's next for
<v Speaker 1>for Axis, because that is a developer that has had
<v Speaker 1>numerous hits. Ensure like Midnight Suns, didn't perform the way
<v Speaker 1>that they wanted it to. But they will find like
<v Speaker 1>another they will find their next x Com, they will
<v Speaker 1>find their next Sieve. They'll bring back sid Meyers Pirates
<v Speaker 1>and I'll be very excited. And it's like they're gonna
<v Speaker 1>need this talent and they won't have it because they
<v Speaker 1>are They just don't look for forward. They only look
<v Speaker 1>at the next immediate quarter and that five percent growth.
<v Speaker 2>Probably part of it is we're going to be paying.
<v Speaker 1>Fewer people, and it just it stinks to see Mind's
<v Speaker 1>i launch was so bad that it traumatized its publisher.
<v Speaker 1>This is from Jake Valentine at Duel Shockers. Io Interactive
<v Speaker 1>has been in business for over twenty years, primarily focusing
<v Speaker 1>on the development side of things. They're best known for
<v Speaker 1>their work on the hit Man series, which has been
<v Speaker 1>published over the years by several companies, Idos Interactive, Warner Brothers,
<v Speaker 1>Interactive Entertainment, and Square Enix, and that's when Square NOx
<v Speaker 1>owned Io Interactive for.
<v Speaker 2>Twenty twenty one's hit Man three.
<v Speaker 1>They self publish the game and will follow a similar
<v Speaker 1>road with twenty twenty six's Double O seven first Light,
<v Speaker 1>as well as their upcoming project Fantasy Game. When it
<v Speaker 1>comes to publishing games from other developers, though, that's something
<v Speaker 1>they've done only once. However, they didn't really choose the
<v Speaker 1>best of options, as it was the infamous flop Mind's
<v Speaker 1>Eye from Build a Rocket Boy. It's a launch so
<v Speaker 1>bad that now I io is possibly swear enough publishing
<v Speaker 1>games from external developers. Ever again, Hakan A Rack CEO
<v Speaker 1>of IOI recently spoke with IGN about the state of
<v Speaker 1>Mindseye and at end the fallout from its rough launch.
<v Speaker 1>The initial talks we had with Build a Rocketboy were
<v Speaker 1>to support them, he said, we thought they had some
<v Speaker 1>great ideas and a great world in the background that
<v Speaker 1>they were building, and hopefully they'll get the opportunity to
<v Speaker 1>show more of that in the future, and we just
<v Speaker 1>wanted to help them distribute the game. Well, that was
<v Speaker 1>definitely tough, right, It was a tough reception. It wasn't
<v Speaker 1>what they hoped for and also what we didn't hope
<v Speaker 1>for at Ioi Pop Partners. They're working hard on turning
<v Speaker 1>that around to regain the trust of the gamers out there,
<v Speaker 1>and they have a ton and they have tons of
<v Speaker 1>potential and content they're working on, so hopefully they'll succeed
<v Speaker 1>with that in the future. Yeah, I mean it does
<v Speaker 1>sound a little bit like a shell shock of being like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>that was tough, and really like, you know, big part
<v Speaker 1>of that is this is this was a not once
<v Speaker 1>in a generation flop, but this will be like a
<v Speaker 1>bigger flop that we've had in quite some times in
<v Speaker 1>terms of the expectation.
<v Speaker 2>The reported about money involved.
<v Speaker 1>This is a studio was able to get a lot
<v Speaker 1>of money out of the gate, and then Ioli comes
<v Speaker 1>in on the back end to publish it, and it
<v Speaker 1>didn't really seem to have the experience to kind of
<v Speaker 1>see like why no one else was picking up this game.
<v Speaker 1>What do you think about the state of like developers
<v Speaker 1>trying to like expand into the publishing business. It does
<v Speaker 1>seem kind of fraught, right because picking winners and losers.
<v Speaker 2>I couldn't do it.
<v Speaker 1>I think it's going to be one of those things.
<v Speaker 1>It's a very hard job, and the losers are bigger,
<v Speaker 1>like in terms of losing money than ever before. Right, Yeah, absolutely.
<v Speaker 3>I mean even the big big publishers that I've been
<v Speaker 3>doing this for for decades struggle at it. You know.
<v Speaker 3>I think back to the leaks at Xbox when we
<v Speaker 3>were all laughing about the money being offered to games
<v Speaker 3>to get on game parts, and they offered I'm going
<v Speaker 3>to bring BEG three up again, like you know, I
<v Speaker 3>think like a fraction of what they were going to
<v Speaker 3>offer do a side squad. You know, it's and that
<v Speaker 3>makes sense back when that email, when the email was written,
<v Speaker 3>but now we look back on it and laugh. So
<v Speaker 3>if Xbox is struggling with that, if PlayStation is struggling
<v Speaker 3>with that, also only struggling with that with Concord, and
<v Speaker 3>they have an operation around that, they have the means
<v Speaker 3>to check in on the development, and you know, it's
<v Speaker 3>a it's a whole process that they've been doing for
<v Speaker 3>years and years and years getting into this as a
<v Speaker 3>newcomer with a studio that's untested and is going off
<v Speaker 3>you know, basically a name. It's it wasn't a good
<v Speaker 3>bet and there should I mean, I'm not sure if
<v Speaker 3>I was checking in or not, you know, to see
<v Speaker 3>what was going on. And this pretty much is confirming
<v Speaker 3>that against what some people working at Build a Rocker
<v Speaker 3>Boy were hoping for, this probably isn't going to be
<v Speaker 3>a comeback story anytime soon. It sucks for everyone involved.
<v Speaker 3>You know, I do really feel for a lot of
<v Speaker 3>those developers because it must be horrible to, you know,
<v Speaker 3>be a developer on the game that everyone's pointing and
<v Speaker 3>laughing at any year. But it's it is it's just
<v Speaker 3>a cool can you call it a cautionary tale? So
<v Speaker 3>much of this is luck, So much of it is
<v Speaker 3>you know, I was we don't know the full extent
<v Speaker 3>of what went wrong, But I'm gonna go on a
<v Speaker 3>limb and say I didn't really know what it was doing,
<v Speaker 3>or perhaps didn't know how involved it had to be,
<v Speaker 3>or like you said, didn't know why other publishers were
<v Speaker 3>steering clear.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, the risk of version
<v Speaker 1>is a well told story at this point in the
<v Speaker 1>game's industry. It is that is, those are lessons that
<v Speaker 1>a lot of these companies have learned, and maybe they
<v Speaker 1>are I think they're mostly too risk averse, but there
<v Speaker 1>is a reason that has come from something, and you
<v Speaker 1>don't want to be the one that got caught publishing
<v Speaker 1>mind's eye, like that's that's what it is, and there's
<v Speaker 1>and I think it would be probably unlikely that IOI
<v Speaker 1>would return to the publishing space after this, because this
<v Speaker 1>does feel like, oh, we touched the stove. The stove
<v Speaker 1>is very hot. Why would I do that again? And
<v Speaker 1>it's a shame because you like the idea of these
<v Speaker 1>established companies like IOI does have experience publishing their own
<v Speaker 1>games very successfully on all these platforms. Now they know
<v Speaker 1>how to do that, Like they even like, you know,
<v Speaker 1>published a cloud version on Switch one. They like know
<v Speaker 1>how to like get stuff done. That's expertise that can
<v Speaker 1>help studios that don't have that those those tools available
<v Speaker 1>to them, don't have those skills ready to go, and
<v Speaker 1>so it's like it's a little bit of a shame
<v Speaker 1>if they aren't able to kind of parlay this back
<v Speaker 1>into publishing other games. But it's like, what's the alternative here?
<v Speaker 1>Is like do you start like really small and then
<v Speaker 1>is that like worth the time? I think that's what
<v Speaker 1>these companies end up thinking. We look at Private Division
<v Speaker 1>getting sold off by two K after like, ah, we
<v Speaker 1>we're going to publish these smaller games, and it's like
<v Speaker 1>a couple of them did hit, but they just aren't
<v Speaker 1>interested because this is the GTA six company. They're used
<v Speaker 1>to Grand Slam home runs and that is this is
<v Speaker 1>like a completely different business to that when it comes
<v Speaker 1>to these smaller games that they're publishing for someone else.
<v Speaker 1>I I I think does have a hit in with
<v Speaker 1>with Double seven First Light. I think that game looks
<v Speaker 1>really good and that it will hit the market and
<v Speaker 1>kind of get people excited. So it's like focus on
<v Speaker 1>that maybe and if the right opportunity presents itself, maybe
<v Speaker 1>go back to publishing.
<v Speaker 2>But I don't know.
<v Speaker 1>I'm glad it's not the business that I'm in. It
<v Speaker 1>seems very perilous.
<v Speaker 3>No, I completely agree, and I you know, Double seven
<v Speaker 3>is gonna be great for them. They're not going to
<v Speaker 3>be the victims in this, so that that's good on
<v Speaker 3>the front, I suppose. And like you said, though, is
<v Speaker 3>they've got their own systems working so well. It is
<v Speaker 3>a shame that they didn't have more luck or picks
<v Speaker 3>a developer better, because it would be really good to see.
<v Speaker 3>It would be healthy to have another publisher in the industry.
<v Speaker 3>But what incentive is there to get back into it.
<v Speaker 3>They can't control what another developer makes entirely. They can
<v Speaker 3>control what they make, and they are making games very
<v Speaker 3>well and without anything like this, like it's you know,
<v Speaker 3>when you look at their publishing history, it's going to
<v Speaker 3>go mine z I Double seven. That's going to be wild.
<v Speaker 3>But it works for them. It is just a shame
<v Speaker 3>that it minds. I was there first to go at it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I you know, and then looking at it from
<v Speaker 1>the other side of things. The leslie Benzi's who is
<v Speaker 1>the name that you were referenced earlier, there's a name
<v Speaker 1>attached to build a rocket Boy. That's Leslie Benzi's. He
<v Speaker 1>is the guy that got GTA five out the door.
<v Speaker 1>He's the guy that made sure GTR online launched with
<v Speaker 1>that game and was okay and kind of worked, I
<v Speaker 1>guess relatively quickly. He's the closer. He's the one that
<v Speaker 1>really did all the work, according to him and according
<v Speaker 1>to lawsuits, and then wasn't paid a bonus. So it's
<v Speaker 1>a huge falling out a bonus that apparently he was
<v Speaker 1>contractually due by Rockstar and that wasn't paid. So he
<v Speaker 1>left and sued them and got a bunch of money
<v Speaker 1>and then started his own studio. And you know, I
<v Speaker 1>think that is a story that we've seen here or there,
<v Speaker 1>or maybe not like with all the litigation, but at
<v Speaker 1>least a big name leaving a studio or people who
<v Speaker 1>have worked on big name games taking their their like
<v Speaker 1>their stocks that have vested and now going and taking
<v Speaker 1>investment and starting their own studios. I think this really
<v Speaker 1>speaks to like how hard that is, and like the
<v Speaker 1>idea of like, okay, when you have a studio that
<v Speaker 1>has done this over and over again, the amount of
<v Speaker 1>institutional knowledge that you kind of can't take for granted
<v Speaker 1>is enormous and at the same time, I think it
<v Speaker 1>does kind of speak to how good Kojima is because
<v Speaker 1>he's the one that I could think of that actually
<v Speaker 1>was able to pull this off with Desk Stranding. I
<v Speaker 1>don't GE's the game that everyone loved, but it's clearly
<v Speaker 1>a good game and really got there eventually, and it
<v Speaker 1>kind of came out relatively quickly. He's like the one
<v Speaker 1>altar I could think of who left their thing, started
<v Speaker 1>their own thing and was able to sort of seamlessly
<v Speaker 1>parlay that into we're just now releasing new games and
<v Speaker 1>they're they're just as good as anything else I've done before.
<v Speaker 1>Do you think that that's like he is the outlier
<v Speaker 1>or maybe the exception that kind of proves the rule
<v Speaker 1>that this is a very difficult thing to do.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, undeniably, it's got to be difficult. It helps
<v Speaker 3>him that he had a lot of name power, you know,
<v Speaker 3>ye or the build a rocker boy had. He could
<v Speaker 3>name the company after himself and people. You know, he's
<v Speaker 3>on that level. He's known in both gaming communities and
<v Speaker 3>in the industry. You know, he is a brand unto himself,
<v Speaker 3>So that helps, I guess, I, you know, especially in
<v Speaker 3>the gaming industry. It sucks that things might have to
<v Speaker 3>fall down to having an auto with you because game
<v Speaker 3>I mean, game credits are so long for a reason,
<v Speaker 3>so many people's hands go into it. Not to discredit
<v Speaker 3>the directors who obviously put their own personal flair onto stuff,
<v Speaker 3>but yeah, I want to hope he's not the exception.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, I'm looking forward to seeing what the This
<v Speaker 3>isn't on the same level, but I'm looking forward to
<v Speaker 3>seeing what the former CD Project Read developers are working on.
<v Speaker 3>The name escapes me with their game now, but I
<v Speaker 3>really like the looks of it. So but I don't
<v Speaker 3>think we're gonna get something on that scale, you know,
<v Speaker 3>And it was it was probably never gonna be. It
<v Speaker 3>was never gonna be that scale. With buld A Rocket Boy,
<v Speaker 3>I think he even of Mine's Eye wasn't as it was.
<v Speaker 3>It was never gonna be you know, destranding. It wasn't
<v Speaker 3>trying to be distruanding. But you know what I mean,
<v Speaker 3>like on that scale, it was never gonna be like,
<v Speaker 3>all right, let's be rock Star at its own game.
<v Speaker 1>You can't rebel Wolves, is what Chad is saying.
<v Speaker 2>That's the name of that.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, that's it, Yes, yes, yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I always think back, like talking to us some people
<v Speaker 1>from E a few years back about those Star Wars
<v Speaker 1>games that got canceled and sort of like they're they're
<v Speaker 1>thinking behind that, and it was like, look, we're gonna
<v Speaker 1>do all this investment for this big ip that we
<v Speaker 1>owe a lot of money on. It's very costly, and
<v Speaker 1>so there's that cost, and then there's the cost of
<v Speaker 1>just building up these studios to make these kinds of games,
<v Speaker 1>and in some cases it's games they haven't made before,
<v Speaker 1>like or maybe it's something like the the auteur Amy Hinnig.
<v Speaker 1>She's made a game like this before, and she knows
<v Speaker 1>what she wants and now she's got to kind of
<v Speaker 1>like train up this studio to make games the.
<v Speaker 2>Way Naughty Dog made games.
<v Speaker 1>And we're looking at the like realistically, what that means
<v Speaker 1>is it means like we're gonna release a seven out
<v Speaker 1>of ten. We're gonna release a game, at least for
<v Speaker 1>the first one that is sort of just figuring out,
<v Speaker 1>like how you even get a game like this to work,
<v Speaker 1>because there's just not enough institutional knowledge that's built into
<v Speaker 1>this new studio or the studio that was working on
<v Speaker 1>other kinds of games before.
<v Speaker 2>This to pull that off.
<v Speaker 1>Now, the second game that'll be shit hot, that'll be
<v Speaker 1>that well, that's when we're gonna get the game of
<v Speaker 1>the year consideration all this stuff. That'll be whenever it
<v Speaker 1>be when everything comes together. But that's two massive games now,
<v Speaker 1>huge costs associated with that, and there's no guarantee actually
<v Speaker 1>that that second game does actually become shit hot and then.
<v Speaker 2>Sells very well.
<v Speaker 1>So it's just easier for us to be risk averse
<v Speaker 1>and say, let's pull the plug on the whole thing.
<v Speaker 1>And I just most most of these teams are end
<v Speaker 1>up there, and if they don't, they actually do just
<v Speaker 1>run into that brick wall and it's worse than a
<v Speaker 1>seven out of ten in the case of mind's eye.
<v Speaker 2>It's a tough business to be in.
<v Speaker 1>Again, don't envy anyone that's got to figure this stuff out.
<v Speaker 1>All right, let's hit these last couple of stories here.
<v Speaker 1>I lost my place.
<v Speaker 2>Yes.
<v Speaker 1>Two K confirms college basketball game and big plans for
<v Speaker 1>twenty twenty seven. This is from Ben Lyons at Game Reactor. Basically,
<v Speaker 1>this is a two K saying that they are going
<v Speaker 1>to make a college basketball project. The implication there being
<v Speaker 1>that they are likely going to make a DLC for
<v Speaker 1>NBA two K twenty seven, although they said they might
<v Speaker 1>have some stuff that will happen in twenty six. But
<v Speaker 1>they are going out there and making deals with colleges universities.
<v Speaker 1>Rihannon and I know this is a weird thing because
<v Speaker 1>this is not like college sports is just not a
<v Speaker 1>thing probably throughout all of Europe, the rest of the world.
<v Speaker 1>Really it's just an American thing. But it's massive business here.
<v Speaker 1>It is big money. College football made a ton last year,
<v Speaker 1>the best selling game last year, think and then both
<v Speaker 1>EA and two K we're looking to replicate that. Sounds
<v Speaker 1>like two K is going to get there first, and
<v Speaker 1>we'll talk about EA here in a second. But I mean,
<v Speaker 1>I guess from the outside looking at what do you
<v Speaker 1>think about this idea of these companies racing to go
<v Speaker 1>make deals with colleges and college students so they can
<v Speaker 1>put them in a video game.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, I trust every cause I work with Americans
<v Speaker 3>on my news team. They pitch stories about this college
<v Speaker 3>football stuff, and I'm like, I'll trust your judgment on this,
<v Speaker 3>and people are really interested, so there's clearly a market
<v Speaker 3>for it. I'm interested to see if honing in on
<v Speaker 3>something that, as you said, is so US specific, will work.
<v Speaker 3>It probably will, you know, but even you know, people
<v Speaker 3>like sports games, so it will probably have appeal outside
<v Speaker 3>of that as well. To be honest, Yeah, so it
<v Speaker 3>does seem to me, you know, well, you know, I'm
<v Speaker 3>not a publisher.
<v Speaker 2>What do I know.
<v Speaker 3>It seems a bit risky. It's a bit mildly, but yeah,
<v Speaker 3>I would need to know more about what on earth
<v Speaker 3>this is.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, So it's interesting because basketball is a little bit
<v Speaker 1>different than than football in terms of.
<v Speaker 2>Its global appeal.
<v Speaker 1>Basketball is deep into its global moment right now, where
<v Speaker 1>it is massive in Australia, massive in Europe, it's massive
<v Speaker 1>in Asia, it is growing. It's like one of the
<v Speaker 1>biggest sports in China, and it's one of the biggest
<v Speaker 1>sports in several Eastern Eastern European countries. And a lot
<v Speaker 1>of those players, those young players will go to the
<v Speaker 1>United States and play for American universities as they're on
<v Speaker 1>their pathway to playing for the NBA. So there's gonna
<v Speaker 1>be global interest in that. There's gonna be like local
<v Speaker 1>celebrities that people like are super into, like oh, this
<v Speaker 1>young kid, he might be in the NBA one day,
<v Speaker 1>he's going to Duke Okay, I'll check that out. I
<v Speaker 1>think the interesting thing here is it does sound like
<v Speaker 1>instead of making a college basketball game, two k's idea
<v Speaker 1>here is let's at least just test the waters with
<v Speaker 1>a mode inside of the professional sports game. And that
<v Speaker 1>is as opposed to EA. And that's the other story here.
<v Speaker 1>EA isn't going to make their college basketball game, which
<v Speaker 1>was going to be a bespoke video game, because two
<v Speaker 1>K keeps getting the deals.
<v Speaker 2>And it's interesting because the.
<v Speaker 1>College licensing company who kind of handles this stuff for
<v Speaker 1>a lot of universities, again a very weird idea, but
<v Speaker 1>that exists out there, it was telling people go sign
<v Speaker 1>the deal with EA so we can get this bespoke
<v Speaker 1>video game.
<v Speaker 2>We think that will be better.
<v Speaker 1>And instead, because I think two K has a lot
<v Speaker 1>of cachet with people who follow basketball, it's a very
<v Speaker 1>popular video game, everyone was signing the two K deal instead.
<v Speaker 1>So EA's taking their ball and going home. So instead
<v Speaker 1>it's just going to be this mode inside of two
<v Speaker 1>K at least for now, and it's I don't know,
<v Speaker 1>it's very strange instead of just getting its own game,
<v Speaker 1>although I guess two K will probably get there eventually, we'll.
<v Speaker 3>See No, like you said, I think they will. One
<v Speaker 3>thing that is heartening us the right word to see
<v Speaker 3>is that it sports money deals always the case. Doesn't
<v Speaker 3>that serve as college level? It's always that.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, a ton of money involved, for sure, it's and
<v Speaker 1>I'll continue my boomer era of pointing out it was
<v Speaker 1>better when we had five different college basketball games and
<v Speaker 1>five like twelve different football games or whatever. That was
<v Speaker 1>a better time instead of these things always being locked
<v Speaker 1>down to just one game in one company. It stinks,
<v Speaker 1>all right, that does it for? Yeah, that doesn't for
<v Speaker 1>the headlines? Here we did.
<v Speaker 2>Did we do a poll question yesterday? Jam?
<v Speaker 1>We don't do that, right we go to the bomb
<v Speaker 1>twelve or no, No, we do do a poll question,
<v Speaker 1>and we don't do a new one today. So let
<v Speaker 1>me go ahead and get to the poll question real quick.
<v Speaker 1>Here I have it or on this thing? Oh my god,
<v Speaker 1>I'm playing audio. I did not mean to do that.
<v Speaker 1>All right, refreshing, Let's take a look here. Does Double
<v Speaker 1>O seven first Light look like something you'll want to play?
<v Speaker 1>Your options were yes, no, and I didn't watch the
<v Speaker 1>Double oh seven State of Play cent of people said yes,
<v Speaker 1>it's something that looks like they'll want to play, which
<v Speaker 1>is a pretty high number for any of these polls
<v Speaker 1>where we ask something like this. Thirty three percent said
<v Speaker 1>I didn't watch the Double seven state of play, so
<v Speaker 1>that just shows a lack of interest, and then thirteen
<v Speaker 1>percent set outright, no, Rannon. Earlier, you were saying that
<v Speaker 1>this looked pretty good to you as well.
<v Speaker 3>Right, yeah, yeah, it looks solid. It's you know, they trust,
<v Speaker 3>I trust they know what they're doing. It's I'm not
<v Speaker 3>even a big double O seven't head, but it looks
<v Speaker 3>it looks really good. You know, I'm sold, and I
<v Speaker 3>think it's hard to look at what they've shown so
<v Speaker 3>far and not be sold. Hence the small amount of
<v Speaker 3>people saying out right, no, it's it's you know, I
<v Speaker 3>think it's going to do incredibly well.
<v Speaker 2>Yep.
<v Speaker 1>I'm I like James Bond here or there. It's never
<v Speaker 1>been like my favorite franchise, but I think I think
<v Speaker 1>it's pretty cool. I love Golden Eye as a kid,
<v Speaker 1>of course, so the video James Bond in video games
<v Speaker 1>has actually always been like, oh yeah, that's where I
<v Speaker 1>think about him first. And it feels like this is
<v Speaker 1>part of that legacy in a really positive way. And really,
<v Speaker 1>I'm a huge Hitman fan and I like IOI a lot,
<v Speaker 1>and it looks like a good sort of mutation of
<v Speaker 1>those ideas in the right direction for a big, fun
<v Speaker 1>action game that could really hit the tone of James Bond.
<v Speaker 1>So we'll see March twenty seventh for that game. People
<v Speaker 1>get a chance to really put their money where their
<v Speaker 1>money with their mouth is for the fifty four percent
<v Speaker 1>of people here who said, yes, all right, we got
<v Speaker 1>to get to the bomb twelve here in a second
<v Speaker 1>before we do that, though, Rann And while you tell
<v Speaker 1>people where they can find you on the internet, what
<v Speaker 1>you have going on?
<v Speaker 2>All that good stuff?
<v Speaker 3>Okay on Twitter, I am re Underscore Bevan on Blue Sky,
<v Speaker 3>I am real the Witch. I'm gonna Can I do
<v Speaker 3>a little promo as a alloud yeah please? Okay. I
<v Speaker 3>have an hour ago an interview of Randy Pitcher that
<v Speaker 3>went up and it is sweet, insane. Please read it.
<v Speaker 3>I asked him about stop Killing games and we ended
<v Speaker 3>up talking about the heat death of the universe. It
<v Speaker 3>was that was a nine am Games Calm appointment. It
<v Speaker 3>was incredible.
<v Speaker 2>He did some slight hand he did some distraction there.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it seems like I know, it's like, okay, you're
<v Speaker 3>not answering your question, but I'm entertained, you know. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>I'll let you talk. It's fine. It's genuinely amazing and
<v Speaker 3>you had a great time talking to him. Please check
<v Speaker 3>that out.
<v Speaker 2>Fantastic, excellent. People should go check that out. And let's
<v Speaker 2>see here.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, let's go ahead and talk about what else.
<v Speaker 2>We have going on at Giant Bomb today.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know, because I'm leaving to go to a concert.
<v Speaker 1>Me and I could going to go see the studio
<v Speaker 1>ghibli composer Joehisaishi and concert here he's playing with the
<v Speaker 1>Cleveland Orchestra. But I do believe Jan and the crew
<v Speaker 1>intend to do some upf People should hang out for that,
<v Speaker 1>you know, I'll maybe I'll watch while we're at the
<v Speaker 1>bar before we go to the concert actually and see
<v Speaker 1>that for ourselves. We'll be back next week with a
<v Speaker 1>bunch of new stuff as well as always, But first,
<v Speaker 1>before we get out here, it.
<v Speaker 2>Is time for the Bomb twelve.
<v Speaker 1>That's right, These are the twelve games that really matter
<v Speaker 1>to people who are really playing games. We got a
<v Speaker 1>lot of responses this week. A lot of responses yesterday,
<v Speaker 1>and that's right. Hollowdight's Silk Song is your number one
<v Speaker 1>game of the week on the Bomb twelve after one day.
<v Speaker 2>That's the first time I.
<v Speaker 1>Think we've seen that, at least since Donkey Kong. Usually
<v Speaker 1>a game comes out and we do these on Friday.
<v Speaker 1>The games come out on Thursday or Friday or something
<v Speaker 1>like that, maybe Wednesday, and it takes about a week
<v Speaker 1>for enough votes to pile up.
<v Speaker 2>Not this time. Hollow Night Silk Song.
<v Speaker 1>Everyone jumped aboard right away and it had significantly more
<v Speaker 1>votes than anything else. Let's do the rest of the list,
<v Speaker 1>working our way up from the bottom here. Number twelve
<v Speaker 1>Death Stranding two on the Beach. Number eleven Cyberpunk twenty
<v Speaker 1>seventy seven. Number ten No Man Sky. The more recent
<v Speaker 1>updates for that has a lot of people playing it.
<v Speaker 1>Number nine is Hell is Us. I've not touched that.
<v Speaker 1>I keep meaning to. I need to go look at
<v Speaker 1>it and see it for myself, but I've heard good things.
<v Speaker 1>Number eight Donkey Kong Bonanza. It was number one for
<v Speaker 1>the entire run of the Bomb twelve. So far since
<v Speaker 1>we started doing this has it's dropped significantly there It
<v Speaker 1>seems like a lot of people were playing that game
<v Speaker 1>so they could and then trying to finish it so
<v Speaker 1>they can get out of the way and play Hollow
<v Speaker 1>Night Silks on their switch to instead. But that was
<v Speaker 1>a really good run for Donkey Kong Bananza. And yes,
<v Speaker 1>that does mean that it is behind Umu Masame pretty Derby,
<v Speaker 1>the Horse Girl game Everybody at number seven. Number six
<v Speaker 1>is Kirby and the Forgotten Land Nintendo switch To edition
<v Speaker 1>plus Starcross World. A lot of people playing that. Actually,
<v Speaker 1>that was one that even yesterday more people were putting
<v Speaker 1>in votes for that. I think people are kind of
<v Speaker 1>hearing good word of mouth about that DLC, which I
<v Speaker 1>found to be very entertaining. Number five Hell Divers two,
<v Speaker 1>Number four Clear Obscure Expedition thirty three, Number three Shanobi
<v Speaker 1>Art a Vengeance, really good showing for that. That's another
<v Speaker 1>one that seems to be just slowly picking up more
<v Speaker 1>votes as the good word of mouth spreads for that
<v Speaker 1>one as well. And then number two Metal Gear Solid
<v Speaker 1>Delta Snake Eater probably would have been number one if
<v Speaker 1>it wasn't for a silk song coming out of nowhere.
<v Speaker 1>But that's how it goes. What game you playing right now?
<v Speaker 1>Rannon Claire obscure.
<v Speaker 3>Actually, I Jimmy m I'm so into based Offuge. I'm there.
<v Speaker 3>So everyone was telling me for long this time, you
<v Speaker 3>have to play this, get around to get around to it.
<v Speaker 3>It's like everyone's saying you to watch like Breaking Bad
<v Speaker 3>back in the day, right, and then it sends out,
<v Speaker 3>But then like Breaking Bad, it's like, oh, oh, you're right,
<v Speaker 3>it is really good. Why didn't no one tell me
<v Speaker 3>to do this sooner?
<v Speaker 1>Like this is amazing.
<v Speaker 3>It's like I'm really early on, but it's incredible. I
<v Speaker 3>think that's my Game of the year. So it like
<v Speaker 3>I've talked Silk Song yet, so maybe, but like I'm
<v Speaker 3>feeling very confident in that.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. It was.
<v Speaker 1>Uh the other day I was talking to Mike Minatti
<v Speaker 1>and we were doing our fantasy football league and we
<v Speaker 1>were kind of like just chit chatting, and then like
<v Speaker 1>it got quiet for a second and he's like he
<v Speaker 1>Actink Expedition thirty three has Game of the Year unlock,
<v Speaker 1>Like it's it's nothing's gonna I mean, even Silk Song,
<v Speaker 1>it's a known quantity, and people are like, yeah, that
<v Speaker 1>was a really that was awesome Game of the year contender.
<v Speaker 1>But man, that Expedition thirty three came out of nowhere
<v Speaker 1>really won me over, and it did that for just
<v Speaker 1>about everyone.
<v Speaker 2>So I continue to think that game is a lock
<v Speaker 2>for Game of the Year as well.
<v Speaker 1>All Right, that's the Bomb twelve, that's Game as Mornings.
<v Speaker 1>That's the week for me. Rihann And thank you so
<v Speaker 1>much for hanging out with me today and talk about
<v Speaker 1>video games.
<v Speaker 2>I really appreciate it.
<v Speaker 3>Thank you for having me. It's been really fun.
<v Speaker 1>We'll have you on again. It was Yeah, that really
<v Speaker 1>fun is the right way of putting it. Until next time. Everybody,
<v Speaker 1>you're the best audience in gaming. Thank you for listening,
<v Speaker 1>thank you for watching. Take care of yourself, have a
<v Speaker 1>good one and goodbye.