Giant Bomb at Nite: Night 3

Thank you Toriki and Kiki keeping us company over there before we got started. This is giant bomb still at is it's still Stummer Gamefest. I don't know anymore. It was Xbox Showcase today. We're just in Los Angeles, That's all it is. I'm Jeff Grubb. I'm hosting this mess along with Quakaga here, who's been our most famous guest star this entire weekend. It's been fantastic. I'm joined by a crew of cool kids from game Spot. I got the game Spot crew here. I'msa I'm gonna introduce everybody real quick, and then we'll get into it. Jessica Howard, we got John Luke, we got not Mike Mahardy. Oh I'm I get to be me? Yeah, you get to be all right, let's go Jacob Decker, of course. And then we got Kurt Indovina. Hey, you guys doing how you guys? Do you know what actually would start? I am so worried you're gonna kick over that bottle of pineapple juice, bottle of pineapple just right under this is this whatever? It looked like they're mine. They put it back below your feet. Then if I didn't know what was juice, watch out, Yes, exactly, not gonna cross the floor. Fuck it. How you guys doing? How was the show for you? I mean I've seen you guys working pretty much non stop. It seems like it's been a lot. But I don't know if we're almost throw it, how's been going? I don't know, Jojean, look, how you been doing? That's been good? Yeah? I mean you say NonStop, but I feel like lots of stops. I definitely like just sat down for like two hours and it's like hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait, like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, waiting for things to happen, waiting for people to show up, get back from their appointments. Jazz footage. I mean, I've talked about this with Jane a lot, but like we're very much used to like the sort of like we show up and it's like okay, we have to set up everything, and it's like NonStop, and then come here and it's just like, oh, there's a studio lighting and the mics are set and the cameras are already here and I have nothing to do. Yeah. How do you feel about like being set up in the phantom offices? Like it's been kind of nice to a certain extent. I mean it's totally we're out out of the way a little bit. That's maybe a little annoying, but it's been nice, right, Yeah, totally. I feel like I should be over there right now. We're Janns like over there later to night. That's my that's my safe space. Yeah, in that awkward corner right there, because he's like not even by the board. It's like a shafull corners. Yeah. No, no, I crawl into that little corner and then I just like stick my hand up and I like hit the button. Yeah. They sleep under the desk. Yeah, no, I demand you on the couch with me. That's what I need. We're down to just two batteries on Luke. We're almost proving this. I don't know how about you, Jacob, it would have been like it's been pretty good. I'm exhausted. I've been staying up too late. Uh, working hard, but it's not as not like E three I'm used to. Uh. You know, you have like twelve appointments in a day and then you are running around all day, like bouncing around the show floor. Get back just right as much as you can't shoot as much as you can and then uh, drink as much as you can't. Yeah, but this, yeah, like he's been saying, there's been a lot of stop and in starting. Like I saw Cyberpunk earlier, embargo just let that that was really cool. But I actually had the preview. Yeah, yeah, prea the preview. But I actually had time to like write that how I wanted to, as opposed to just like here's what I saw. That's abnormal for three. For people don't know, you gotta like pick one thing from a game that you just saw, right about it, two hundred three out of words, maybe as quickly as possible, and then move on to the next five things. I guess. So, I mean when you come out here, you feel like it like you got your time's worth or whatever that you when you're out here, you get enough work done or what? Oh yeah, I mean I still, yeah, got a ton done. But yeah, I didn't enjoy it. It's still a lot of drinking. Yeah, still a lot of drinking. Of One thing I appreciate it appreciate about Summer games Fest, though, is that when we walked around the play days area, we just people, you know, everyone you see three it's a lot of Like there's a lot of like retailers and people in suits, people who look important, people who pretend to be important, people who are important. Yeah that I don't know. And there it's like I walk out of an appointment. I just just a bunch of colleagues. It really feels like a show for us, which is I suppose that's really nice. I've ever really enjoyed that part of it. The games themselves, though, I mean, Kurt, what have you seen that's really been exciting. I've seen a few games, but there's really only one game that is consumed every moment of my one Motor Fast Hot Wheels Unleash. Yeah, let's go, h but not to shame those games, but uh, tell me about Allen Wake. Let's do it. I can tell you're ready to explode about it. I mean, the first foremost it's I just want to say this is like I've went to one event in person, which was he three, and I've been to GDC twice now. But before I jump into Allen Wake beauty of things, I just want to say that it's been really beautiful being able to be in like the presence of people and like see jets and chess like I see Jean Luk all the time, but it's a different vibe to be able to be touch him in the face and which get hr called on you and take and take ubers, and uh exist in a space in which take ubers. Yeah, you know. I was in an uber yesterday with a man named Elvis and his steer, his the what do you call us little stick shift sticks? It wasn't a stick shift stick slider, Yeah, stick slider YEA was the head of it was the head of a skull. Do you think it was a real skull. It must have been the tiniest man, the tiniest freak of a little nature man. It was a little freaky. It was one of our little freak skulls. And uh, that's been nice. Elvis, if you're out there, thank you for last minute choosing to go to the other address that I had been stakenly put in. I put in the wrong address, taken a chance on a tall man. Yeah, Elvis has always wanted to do that. That's the best thing about Elvis. Absolutely. Yes. But the answer now that we've talked about not Allen Way allen Wick two is uh, I've written a preview I've done video impressions. Is it up? Is it the previews? People can't find it? Yes, because we found the inversion was today and the video impressions was yesterday. Because I gonna sit in greasy in front of a camera and rant about it. But uh, that is hands done. I'm questionably by not only the best thing I saw on the show, but like is easily the most anticipated thing I'm going to see this here? Yeah, we were kind of We've been like talking about it here and there throughout the weekend. And the thing that you mentioned because I didn't get to see it was the detective stuff. And I'm very interested to end games that are going down that route. How elaborate is it and and if it's like it seems like it's somewhat limited, But is it enough to like get you execs. I know you're someone like Shadows of Doubt, right, Oh yeah, yeah something No, but it's like no, not quite no, not at all. But I mean, but there's there's breaths of it there. The thing is with this game, the thing that I'm so excited about it is that and I've had this conversation I think most of these dudes is that I feel like the detective mystery genre has had great games, has had great games, but never seldom on a triple A scale that this like the one that always comes to mind. One of the only ones that comes to mind is Elie Noir. And in that case, though, you're still just gathering evidence, but for basically a list that you just go to use to interrogate someone. Like that's the core mechanic. The thing that makes Ellen Way two is so compelling is that, like they aren't pulling punches on being a detective, survival, horror. It is all equally those things, it is. It is quite literally a trifecta of them. So like when you you have to be a detective in order to progress the story, so you go as Saga Anderson. We still haven't seen Allen Wakes side of it, but as Saga Anderson, you have to collect evidence, and in order to progress, you have to go into her mind place, which is like an actual physical place, a mental construct that she entered. Yeah exactly, yes, perfect, but you actually have to physically put evidence on a board and at it in such a way that it actually has like the supernatural presence that manifests things from the dark place into reality that allows you as a player to progress, so you are like solving it with her, really, because I did ask as a detective boy if there was like some sort of lease by Detective boyd Detective Boy, detective thank you if you? If you, if there was, like if you had played the game already, if you could like cut corners with the knowledge you already have. But they were like, no, it's it's deliberate sents like in some places, yes, they said, but in most cases, like the whole point is that there is a supernatural tie to it that it's like Saga is bringing it into reality by investigating and solving kind of like these miniature puzzles in a way that makes me wonder. So like, clearly they're probably not going to make it so that, like you said, cut corners, but I wonder if you could still do that yourself, right, try like imagine cutting corners. And so then when the thing actually happens, some people might read that almost as a spoiler, like all these things gave it away, but it might actually make you like more connected. Yeah, right, do you think that's probably how it's going to go down? Oh? Yeah, I mean I know Jess was able to get some insight too, yeah, like go ahead, like oh no, so I when we saw it. There was somebody in the audience who asked the question of, like when you're arranging the evidence, like can you place it anywhere and see these connections or like make connections and then move a piece of evidence and you know, do something else. And they said that they spent eighteen months trying to make that work, and unfortunately the only way that they could go about it was making it to where it kind of helps you in a sense, but like you still have to do a lot of the lifting yourself, so it still makes you feel smart. But all I know is that like the big thing and I think this is like where like I'm so impressed with a big trip place or you know, a big high budget game, is that they're not limiting. It's just so good to play a detective game where like your evidence board isn't just a menu screen, like you are actually in a space you have to like physically go to at like obviously click on the wall. And I guess you could make you argument that is a menu part. Yeah you have to like you have yeah, yeah you will, you will you'll have like you'll collect like manuscript pages, pictures and like evidence as you would have any crime scene, and then you would go into the mind place and then organize it yourself and connect those dots until you get it right. Another a cool thing about it too, is then after you do that and once you have new clues that kind of open up like, well, I didn't think about this before, you can go back to interviews that you did with like certain suspects or Piece's profiler. Yeah, like the profile heads. Yeah, you know that's where like the mine Hunter sort of like influence kind of comes in. Yeah, And so you can like review these interviews that you already did and kind of you know, with with the new knowledge that you have, and it makes it to where, you know, you solve the cases that way too. It's it's really cool and honestly, and it has like a very like I don't know, like David Fincher's seven vibes, like the whole thing did it was, So it's it's like sounds of lambs, yeah, David picture, so like mine Hunter seven. But it's gonna have like they keep saying Cohen Brothers specifically, which I really appreciate. So guy, is that like you know, it's probably undertone dark Americana quirkiness in genre by yeah, and then at the same time, all at the same time, it's a survival horror like game like that requires like exploration, resource management, like puzzle solving, like in order to get like there's a shotgun that we saw that was like lock behind the case and like you have to get like a clue that will but like help you do it. And I was like, this is the most resonable force resonable shit that is like whispering beautiful things in my ear. And we haven't even seen alan Wake game play yet. So hear me out. I'm hearing. I'm listening for alan Wake's side of the story. How you progress it? You have to write a novel in real time yea, and a tote novel and like you know as pages go and novel based gameplay absolutely, yeah, you know they're gonna now like controller, it's gonna be that big, yeah, like the dream. Yeah, all I know is that shadows a doubt. It was a fantastic and it exists. That game exists, I believe. Yeah, you know what game that makes me believe as well, yeah, like it's like that's what game that won't exist really in my lifetime. Probably it's it's way too much and they'll make it voxalls and then just like step back and like, what do we really need to make a genre of of a detective game? Work of the Shadow? So doubt is all of those things that's so so impressive. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, just for you. You're out there right NonStop. Have you had a chance to sort of enjoy these guys are out drinking and party and you're going, oh gosh, no, I've I've been drinking too, Yeah, drinking and writing at the thank you all my editors. No, I yeah, I've seen so many games, Oh my gosh. I feel like I focused a lot on seeing a lot of like the indie games that were all kind of more concentrated to one area. So I was just like the person who is constantly hitting up all of these developers. So I'm so sorry if you know you're one of them. I think that the the one that maybe stands out the most to me was Cocoon. Yeah you actually yeah you were there you uh yeah, yeah you watched it and yeah, it's very like hyper Light Drifter without the combat sure, and it's more puzzle based, but yeah, it's it's kind of like an isometric just very very artsy. Uh. The music is super like cynthy and bassy, and I don't know, Yeah, I thought it was really cool. It's something that I didn't know anything about going into the show and I started playing it and I was like, this is my ship. Everyone who I've talked to about that game is talking up at the same time. I've had someone say that that was like their sleeper hit and yeah, yeah, and you played it, and I've heard it like kind of whispers in the corners, So yeah, I I in that same area. I was playing another Crab's Treasure. Yeah, the Crab Dark Souls sort of rip riff off and it's like really well done. It's it's super cute, and yet they have the a lot of ideas about Okay, you are playing as a crab in the ocean, and so like their currency is micro classics, and your shells that you can get are gonna be like thrown out cans and coke cans and bottle caps and stuff like that, and it's that they all have their own abilities. Each of these pieces of litter, but it's like the game like puts the litter sort of and the pollution off in the periphery a little bit, and then you were just actually just trying to survive against other bigger crab enemies. And it's really well done. It's really good stuff. They've really nailed that combat of of parrying and dodging, and honestly, if you've got parrying and dodgy, I'm gonna be into it these days. So that it's a really fun game. But for me, it's like a lot of other stuff that at this point we still can't talk about everything. It's kind of most through everything film that I saw it, I was like, the main thing I can talk about is cyberpunk. Yeah. Yeah, so I thought that that Cyberplunk presentation today it was pretty impressive. You can talk about it. Yeah. So, like we said the previous up, John Luke actually saw it too. We were in the same room. We got to ask a ton of questions. I think some questions that they weren't supposed to answer. Some they didn't, some we got. We got some some good info from some stuff. But I think the most impressive thing that both of us kind of away from was that this is rewriting the DNA of that game. Essentially, they're redoing the skill trees, they are redoing the cybernetics, they are redoing how the police work. The police system is much better now. They they're much more responsive. They make yeah dirt and kind of broke the illusion of the game for me in a major way. Yeah, so they've redone that they've even got to the point, or they said, if you get five stars, Bostles will start to spawn max Tack, which is that they're like the swat I guess of the cyberpunk universe. They'll show up and they're supposed to be really deadly. But yeah, like a lot of the mechanics underlying this game we've just been rewritten and changed. And then of course you've got the DLC two, which which looks cool. Well, we saw something pretty cool. I won't get into too much story stuff just in case people want to go in fresh, but but yeah, I was really impressed. I'm excited to see more. I don't know what stood out to you, because there's a lot. Oh yeah, I mean it was the pack demo. I mean, kind of like you said, like that trailer they showed an Xbox It is like that gives you a sense of like what the main story is, but like really it is like the under the hood stuff that I think probably impressed people the most, and I think a lot of that is supposed to actually be updated for free. So it's not like you know right there, this Fantom Liberty is paid, right, the Family Liberty is paid, but there's there's an update to go alongside it. Yes, yes, and they I think they said they're still determining to what degree how much of it can be in Fantom Liberty versus like a free update, but they ideally would like as much of that as possible to be free. Like I'm pretty sure that what's what's the release date on Phantom Liberty again, it was September twenty time, not a ton of time. They have little time to determine that stuff totally. But I mean, I thought the coolest thing was they straight up added car combat this game now, which is cool, like obviously, like you so they the example they should was like a car, like a James Bond style car, because the whole thing is like spy themed, and because like Martin basically put into this game with a bunch of like turds on the front that you can just like cause maham and shoot. But on top of that, you can also like GJ style, just like you know, get out of the side of the window and like shoot your gun or up. The example they showed us was you can pull your katana out while you're on your bike. WHOA, okay, perfect. I have no idea how useful that will actually be. Yeah, but you're gonna look look like the Final Fantasy seven when you're on the bike and you just have like the back drag and I'm like, all right, everywhere I go in that game, I'm just gonna whip out the katans. I'm just gonna drive around and then people are gonna shoot at me because they think I'm a crazy person because you're too cool. And the new and the new city is called Dogtown. Dogtown. That's the name of a hop dog joint in my home city, Great Us. That like is very intimate to me. So I don't know if I'm gonna be able to take it seriously. Where you know, some place where used to get you know, Rochester garbage plates and hang out in Dogtown with DRUSLBA and Cyberpunk. Do you think with Cyberpunk that this update, this patch and then the new content is going to be sort of the way that Cyberpunk is remembered in the same way that like Whitcher three is now remembered as Blood and Wine and all that stuff. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I think the people who played Cyberpunk and enjoyed it, but we're kind of hoping for more. I think this will probably satisfy them. But I think the difference with the Witcher three is like Witcher three was buggy, but I think generally it was a really good game. That everyone was first popular as it was, it wasn't like immediately as popular, played as as widely as Cyberpunk was right away and Whitcher three get you know, it's huge, but it had a build up after that. It was a curve to it. Yeah, So I don't know, Like I think, I think Cyberpunk burned a lot of people. I don't know if everyone's going to be quite red need to jump in, but like, I think it's very good, and I think what I've seen definitely feels like what they were hoping for or what they kind of intended, even with a lot of these systems, like the cybernetics, which we talked about briefly. They're kind of like the more cybernetics you get, you kind of get debuffs, and it's supposed to simulate that cyberpsychosis, which is something that's big in the lower big in the world, but you never really had that punishment for just loading yourself up with these cybernetics. So they didn't give details on how that affects the player, but it seems like it could be pretty interesting. Yeah, Jean Luca got a pulling to pick with you. How dare you mock me like this? I had to cut my hair because I've lost a bet with myself and you come in with this glorious man looking just amazing. How dare you thank you? Yeah? That has been the reoccurring, like thee my entire week. It's just people complimenting my hair, which is very nice for me. It was it was an act of laziness and an act of extreme laziness. I just grow it out. It just happened. How are you doing you wake up? You got to blow drive every morning? No, no, you can't blow dry it. Yea, it will go crazy. Huh yeah, yeah, it's very thick. It's the current Russell Escape from New York. It is like, does the same thing as glasses? You really could do like a Killer Snake cosplay right now? I could not. So at one point I had it a little bit shorter and it was like a good Auticon cosplay. But now it's like full on, Like, yeah, like Snakes, we're quite pliskin time. Oh yeah, what's the plan? Is it gonna keep gonna It's gonna get longer if I'm gonna go longer than this, but I'm gonna keep it like as is for a little bit kind of Oh that's rerounded. Yeah sure? Uh, Jake, you edit a podcast with just the real asshole named Dan Ryker. Oh, I thought you were talking about Mike. Two assholes? Excuse me? Uh, you know, how'd you get start working with them and on that? What's that? What's that been? I mean I meant Mike at game Spot and then we good friends, stayed in touch, and then they started doing fire Escape. Uh. And then when they started their Patreon, they were like, oh, we wanted to find an editor, so I jumped on helped them. Yeah, edit weeks week. It's it's pretty good. I learned a lot more about Dan than I ever thought i'd learned. For better or worse, I've heard Mike, you know, say weird shit all the time, so you know, to be expected. But yeah, it's uh, it's a good podcast reckon when people listen to. Yeah, I really enjoyed a cool cool Judge Jake Judge Ja. Yes, that was one of my favorite Game of the Year podcast segment things. Yeah, I think it's the highlight for me last year was using my power to have Dan get me a beer. Yes, that was it. They do it right now absolutely, Yeah, Dan beer. There it goes. No music. But yes, Kurt you you launched a new show. How it's been how's it been going? The Kurt Locker? Kurt Locker? Yes, I have a show. I mean these these two fellas have a show too, So well we'll get back to There's a part of me that just has to be like I love everyt I love the people to work. I don't like talking about myself entirely just by having a show with my name and it uh and being the soul focus of my show body language lying think No, I'm I'm just bringing it back, you know, I know. Yeah, well, I mean if you studio monkey. It really is actually funny that the show has your name in it and you are like genuinely the most humble person I know. I mean it happens like it's too perfect of a name, right, that is how it happened, right, It's like, but I didn't come up with it, so like so we just said, like what we have to use. We're like, we'll come up with some other stuff, and then everyone's like, fuck you. We did a lot, we tried and like so like so Chris Morris, so I have it. Who is based on my partner in crime. He's fifty percent of the show. He's the one who produces it. He's the one who edits it. He's the one who gives me some emotional stability, and he was the one who came up with the show and the title of the show. But we were like, sounds like a great name. It's so funny, but we didn't ever expected to actually be called that. But when we went through the pitch meetings and they're just like, no, no, no, that's what that's what's being called. I was like, are you really launching show called the Curt Locker? And there's a part of me that was a kind of doubtful about it. But then I like trying to put myself in the position of like someone, you know, a cigar smoking executive who's just like trying to look through it, and then I can imagine be like, what's the curt Locker, Like, that's an interesting name. I know a movie called the hurt Locker, And you're like, yes, yes, yes, yes, it's nothing like that. You're just trying to get that hurt Locker. It's great. It's the if you yeah hurt. That was exactly our intentions. And it's funny because the show is the absolute opposite of what you would think a show based off the Curt hurt Locker name is. It's not. It's meant to be like a very introspective, positive take on your individual relationship with the medium, with the medium. What's what's the production been like, what's like, you guess have a pret regular schedule. What's it like coming up with the ideas and executing on them. I mean, we are in I mean, it's it's not is. I feel like I think there's a misconception that the show it takes a lot more time to make than it actually does, because in most cases it's I'm of a I'm of in a position where it's like I get a topic, say like talking about six out of ten games, which is like, you know, an episode that was really important to me, like in defensive six out of ten games, and that for me it was like, oh, that is all I play unintentionally. It's not on purpose. It just so happens to be that the games I think are interesting, our six out of ten games. So I mean it really true. We we very were We were very deliberate and trying to be like this this we don't want this overscripted. We want this to be natural. But we still wanted to have this, uh this sort of like keep throwing like kinetic, which is, you know, a very current style of how I film and how I shoot things. So I'll show up, I'll turn the camera on, I'll wave my hands around, I'll rant a bunch, I'll change the angle and I'll ran a bunch and wait my hands around. Then i'll have a cool montage or a bunch of shit being thrown with camera, and then Chris Morris turns into something that's you know, like legible. It makes sense yeah, totally. So. Uh, it's just I started on YouTube before a game spot doing a weekly video of like of the same same kind of nature. So it's just natural. It's ever turn to form from it's it's it's are you feeling about the state of six out of ten games? So I think that they's I mean I mean, I mean, I mean I mean in SGF like right now, from like like from what as we see them today, like we do from a big showcase where it's like, uh, we see all these games coming out, like do you think that we could have a six out of ten game ever show in the Xbox showcase today? I mean, youll ever know? I mean, it's like any of those games we see could could come out to be one of them, two of them, but they will they they obviously wouldn't be considered success, right or is that not the case? I mean it's this is where you like the show is more focused on like what you care about and like what you seek in value of your experience with the game. Because the video came from me loving the game one and Dead it came out earlier this year, and like I think that to me is like the this this this trophy sort of six out of ten experience. That's like it's wonky, it's fucking rough on paper, it is a bad game, but it does so many things in such a way that simply is not attempted in other games. That makes it interesting and like not just like it's interesting because it's it's different, but like, no, it's like you don't get to see these things done in big budget of Triple A games as often. So I do believe there's there are six out of ten games that we're shown in this we just don't know it yet, right, and probably games that will do widely considered six out of tens. Yeah, I think maybe the best I think maybe the better way or maybe the angle is that like we don't see enough like double A games. Yeah, and not saying that double games are six out of ten, That's not what I'm trying to say, but like there's a certain sort of like you you know, there's a certain sort of budget game. I guess really really the impetus of like asking about that is I'm still thinking about this Prince of Persia reaction. Yeah, seen this, but the Prince of Persia game got shown off at I don't want something must have been Summer game Fest and it's a two D game, and I thought it looked pretty cool, and and and then we go and look at YouTube and it's you know, five thousand up votes and twelve thousand down votes. That's wild. I think it's wild. I'm like, it's kind of scummy of gamers to be that, right, it's crazy, kid, Oh for this is crazy. But if that's happening, that's got to be so discouraging the game developers, because I've bet a lot of people would love to make a two D game. I'm not gonna get money now. I look at the reaction. I mean, are you guys worried about them? I mean, well, especially specifically, because like the whole thing is like they've been very formulaic for a very long time, and it's I think a lot of people have been like, hey, can you try something different? Right, And here they are making something different and then everyone's like, oh, but we don't want this, And I'm like, even like I'm not even making something new. It's like it's not even so much different. It feels like like a natural evolution of what Princi Persia was at some point. That's why I'm feels like it's bringing together of everything. It's best cinematic platformer, the cool action three D platformer, and now it's like there seems like I'm put in it all into one thing. It's an evolution. It's just like, oh, they we can side a little bit more on it being a little bit more of a budget, and I think that's very exciting that a big publisher would decide to do that. I'm very very frustrated with gaming fans being like that our knee jerk reaction is not this. I also think like trailers are just like the worst way to get a sense of a lot of times, yes, especially like that, I feel like I go into a movie and they like, you know, they play like what like twenty billion trailers before a film. I feel like I hate every trailer they show. I'm just like, wow, that looks bad. Dalok's bad, Dallek's bad. And then I like actually see the movie sure, and I like it, and it is like I think, I like me personally, I am like conditioned to hate trailers for things like weirdly enough, so like I try and like not be cynical. Perfect example, Foam Stars when that got announced PlayStation. I was like being the like cool cynical guy, like it was tune at home. It's very easy to fall into that track. And then I actually played it. Hold talk about that, Yeah, okay, okay, I don't know. I'm just making sure do you want check you want checks for me? Okay? Well, anyway, this is what it's like whenever we have conversations. It's very actually very annoying. Yeah. I was like, I'm pretty sure, Yeah, we'll move along. But the point is that was the thing that I had a negative reaction to initially. But like, that's not fair, that's not fair to that game. It was like I didn't actually play the game. It wasn't even a trailer of the actual gameplay. It was just like a CG con. We definitely have people talk about phone stares on this couch while a square next person was here. Okay, okay, I think okay, cool, I think we're okay. And if not, then I just get from it. You can't get mad at me. But but yeah, I mean, like I think that it's gotta be a tough space to try to sell gamers on ideas that are a little bit different. It seems scarier than ever, and I mean even Nintendo fans, apparently, I don't think that. Apparently, Like the Nintendo trailer was the only one that didn't have complete inverted ratio. There was still an abnormal amount of dislikes, but there were still more likes on it than dislikes. I think. Yeah, I mean, but most of the Antena fans were like, yeah, I'm down. Yeah, it's like kind of this unfortunate thing where we received so much information online and through trailers and sizzle reels that it's like human nature right to want to categorize or lump things together, or this is something I know, this is something that I don't know, or como right, Like what if it's something I would like, I'm gonna latch in the things I don't like atter immediately so I don't even have to start wasting brain Internet. Yes, exactly, it's like kind of that like rapid decision making, and it's not it's it sucks because it does make us, you know, make these calls before we really know a lot about certain things. Guilty, absolutely, Oh everybody does you know. It's it's just like it's it's the decision fatigue. It's so easy to kind of like mentally be like, don't care about that one. Okay, that one's that's totally a mean thing. Don't care about that, you know, And yeah, I mean it's it's unfortunate because it does stifle creativity. And that's why, like Kurt talking about the six out of ten games and and it's it's not just because oh it's different. It's because these are games that they do something. They're not afraid to like fail or stumble or not do something perfectly. They just have this idea and they want to go for it, and it's really admirable, and unfortunately a lot of times that's not always rewarded. It's it's like it always comes back down to like the very simple thing of like judging a game for what it is, for what it isn't like like the expectation of what you want versus what it actually is, and like you're believed to like just embrace something and then you say ability. It's that's it's a skill, right, Really, skill is skill to enjoy something on its own terms, because it's very easy. The natural thing is to entertain me. I spent money, come to me and entertain me. Meeting something halfway, I think it's something it requires media literacy or requires I have enough experience with the medium that you feel comfortable taking risks on new things. And you know, I think these are maybe the benefits of game paths, and we could people talk about that a million times, but I guess more interested in like, just as someone who writes about games, do you feel responsibility to sort of be a mediator ever between gamers and people who make video games, to say we got to understand each other better? Yeah? Absolutely, Like, honestly, that's that's a lot of how I feel, because I mean, if I am not trying to understand the people who are reading what I'm writing, and if I'm not trying to understand the people who are creating the things that I'm writing about, like I feel I'm I'm not doing my job, you know, Like that's that's part of what this is. It's looking at, you know, the cultural context of things and looking at the context that these creators you know, have, and that doesn't you know, it's it's not me looking and saying, oh, well, I don't think you know, the public will like this, so I'm going to give it a low score. Or they worked really, really hard on this, So I'm going to give it a high score. But it is just considering all factors, you know, and trying to do my best to be kind and honest about you know, how I feel about things. Yeah, yeah, how about you guys when you guys are out there on the show floor, and is that something that occurs to you where it's like, I don't know. I see enough games where sometimes I can definitely fall back to that trap of I don't know if this is for me, which is like anybody else. But if I ever say is this this isn't for me? Is that ever useful to say? I don't know. I actually had a perfect example of this, which is Sonic Newer made by Arses the creators are bound Wonderworld. So I I have realized this about myself that I have like tricked myself into thinking I like Toody Sonic more than I actually like to Hey, part of that whole generation that trick. Listen, just you don't worry. And I think a lot of it comes from the fact that I really really like Sonic Mania like a lot and yeah fuck yeah. And then I've played Superstars and I saw it, I was like, oh, this looks great, and I played it and I was like, oh yeah, like I forgot this about Sonic bothers me and like the way the cameras so close, and like the way you're like the momentum like stops you, and yeah, you know, I don't know about Sonic. You just said right there, like there are there will be like three levels of platforms and they'll be you know, bump bump, bump, and then you'll have Sonic jump and there's the arc of his jump. We'll just be like put them right there in the corner of one of those things, and then you stop completely. I'm like, how am I get them to do the perfect bump bump bump jump up these platforms? Yeah, It's impossible, and you even just have to like go like figure it out, or you have to like give up and go down like the hot Sonic reviews here on Giant bombing all the way back to the nineties. But my point is like, like that's fine because like there are people who love like two D Sonic games, and I like and I think those people will absolutely love Sonic Superstars because I think it is doing like two D Sonic right, It's just more me me realizing, oh, this is not for me, and it's like, do I actually need to say that? Like do like is it is it actually valuable for me to get on the Like well I think like this is this isn't for me, so like it's fine. Yeah, well I think that's just like the important thing too with with having like diverse news rooms, right, and like people who like different things, and also you know, for readers to hopefully understand this is something that I always you know, hope that people who read the site get is like, you know, nothing is completely objective, like when when something is reviewed is a subjective review based off of, you know, the things that the person who is reviewing is interested in or doesn't like, or you know, we're all impacted by the media that we grew up with, so you know, like that's why if you have ten people who regularly do reviews, you can kind of pick a person who you know, you're like, I tend to agree with this person. I tend to align with their viewpoints, Like I'm going to hear what other people have to say, but like that's who I'm gonna I probably will side with. You know, that's who know is what I as a consumer I'm looking to buy. I also really like we have beats, you know, like it's like, you know, there's a certain there's a certain point in time when like all of us on this sofa have like the very specific things that like we have an intimate understanding of like what that is like for me, it is survival, horror, detective games. Right. That's why make is the thing that I'm covering, because I understand those genres. Like Jake is like the CD project, right, dude. And I don't know that's like a blanket statement for an entire developer, but like sure they make RPGs of a certain kind that like, so what I want to hear about, So when I want to hear someone's opinion whether they can be that mediator between the audience and like you know, Austin developers of the game itself, And I want to know a C project read that's the dude, I want to hear from like these two guys and like they're yeah, so it's like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah absolutely. Jess, I'm I'm a gaming daddy, you're a gamie mommy. Yeah, yes, that's right, could have happened. I'm here I'm really this is my kids. I wonder. I mean, it's fine for me, it's working. People make space for me. They're happy to like have you in there. Do you feel like there's a space in gaming for people who are moms. It seems like it might be a little bit more hostile or a little bit less understanding. I don't know. It's full, interesting and complex subject. I think that it depends because I can't give an answer and be like, oh, well, this is my experience, so this is how it is for women, because like, I'm very, very lucky, you know, I work with Like I think I was telling you this. We were in an uber earlier and I found it that I was pregnant while I was in the interview process for game spot. Yeah, and I remember thinking like, oh god, am I going to have to choose between like my career and like properly raising a child. Right it Did it ever occur to you like that it would be illegal for them to discriminate you or do you think like that growl, what is that going to do? Yeah? Yeah, it's one of those things like well it's like yeah, I mean it would be messed up, but like also messed up things happen to people all the time that are illegal and liked, that's discrimination. It's really hard to like do anything about that. So I mean, I am very lucky and that you know too. More who I interviewed with followed me on Twitter, right, and he saw that I announced that I was pregnant. And when I had my very first interview with him, the first thing he said before like hey, you know I'm the manager, was hey, oh my gosh, like, how are you? How's the baby? How has life been? Are you feeling okay? And like is this a good Like that's the type of person he is, you know, and so like that's the reception that I've had at game Spot is it's just a lot of people who genuinely care about my well being. Everybody always is so understanding of like if I feel like I'm you know, I don't know, like I can't extend myself as much as maybe people who don't have children can. Right, Nobody's ever made me feel bad about that. No one's ever made me feel like I'm lesser or I can't do things. You know. It's it's hard because it does impact how much you can do, right, and it there's things that you know in ways like you do have to pick and choose at times, sure, and I think ways that probably met you know, men who are parents in the industry might not have to in Yeah, because I think that when you're a mom, you're kind of, whether you like it or not, you're the default parent. If your kid gets sick at school, who do you call? You call their mom, you know, And so a lot of times, if if Andrew has to go into work, he has to go into work, and it's okay because I can stay and I can take care of it. So you know, like that's those are one of the things where it's it's hard and you do kind of have to sacrifice some things, but he's also the coolest kid in the entire world, so it's super worth it. Do you think it's a matter of education awareness that like someone like in TAM's position was just like, of course this is totally normal. Yeah, I think it. Yeah, yeah, I mean I also it's just like I think too, it's like when you're somebody who has gone through your own struggles, which I know Tam has also is with you know, just various things, and in his position, like you get it when other people are going through like similar things and you and you understand, like everybody has their own struggles. Everybody has their own things that they're working through, were things that maybe the world will try to label as like a weakness or something that makes it harder for them to do what's expected of them. And you know, I don't know if if you can treat those people with kindness and grace and patience like everybody can kind of you know, I shine, like you give people the opportunity and it makes a big difference. And he's always been that type of person. But you guys, you guys are thinking about like what it's like to grow older, start families, change your life situation in the video game industry. Well, I like to think of myself as a gaming daddy too. Don't even have pets. I don't even have pets. He has a lot of Pokemon, a lot. But I mean, you guys like like think about the future in that way ever, Like I know that for me, it was always bust my boat, thinking about work, trying to get to where I want to go, and then at the same time, oh my god, my family's just happening. It's just happening. Over here. I gotta reconcile these two things, and it was tough, but I just did what I had to do. If I maybe if I had thought, sat down a thought about it would have terrified me. But I don't know if some of you guys ever think about I mean as of late, Yeah, I've been thinking about the future a lot, and not probably for the best reasons. It's like this last year, in particular, we saw all these websites shut down. We saw a bunch of layoffs. Not to get too deep into it, but like, yeah, it's it's kind of scary. I've moved back to San Francisco. It's very expensive, and it's like I don't know how things you know, you know, it's just it's so unpredictable. The landscape is always changing. Things are happening. I mean even like I started a game spot in twenty fifteen, and like it is completely different. The videos we make are different because YouTube evolves changes, like what people want changes, the industry changes, and like, I don't know, it's, uh, it's scary. I can't think too much about the future, but it's hard not to. Yeah, I want to thank you guys. It's been nice. Just having you around all weekend. I'm looking out there and again seeing you work. It's just been really nice. Like, man, they're just doing it, They're making it happen. It's been great scene you work like this is like, this is one of the reason why I was saying that this is like a moment in time where I've like I get to see these like these faces that are in a circle on a screen and actually get to be in the presence of the real real nice. Yeah. So like, no, you've been working. We went to appointments together today. That's right, we did. It was a lot of fun. Further hype you up because seriously, like I mean, I've had so many friends who like you go from Vien you know, like a little amateur to rise it and now I'm at game spot and so people are like, how is it? Like how how are these people like when you meet them, you know, in real life, and like, genuinely, thank you so much for your kindness, because you are the type of person who you've been doing this for years and you still can identify in a room like maybe someone who is more unsure of themselves or feels excluded, and you're the type to always make the circle bigger or bring someone and then we can feel included and like it is the kindest thing to do. Thank you. I appreciate that. It's easy with cool people. It's the easiest thing game it very much is. Thank you guys for coming on here. We'll do it again next year. Hell yeah, sure, thanks for watching everybody. We're gonna be back with another segment here in a little bit after a short break. See you then. I've been one mode. I don't know what that means, but it's happened to me. It can happen to you too. We're here to warn you about it. On jianbomb dot com. Continuing our couch segments live from Los Angeles, California. Got a whole crew here, whole crew of media. We're gonna talk about video games. I suppose, I don't know. I'm gonna introduce everybody real quick. Kat Bailey, how are you doing? How are you doing? I'm doing real well, Rebecca Valentine. I've never played a video game and I never will. That's a good move, Moises Tavaris. I will intent on not letting us talk about any video games and your bloodworth. How's it going? Hey? Hello, I have. This will be the most I have talked to any single person in this room. That's that's that's true. Okay, all right, I Ron con you still regret pros and cons? Now? I think it's even better now than specifically about the name. Is what I'm talking about? Yeah, I mean I read. If the idea is to make money, then yes. If the idea is it just beats fucking stupid, then great. I respect that so much. Eric Van Allen's here, how are you doing? Then? You know I'm doing great. I'm alive. Ostensibly I got here. Can we even prove that about any of us at this point? No? No, their pulls checking me out back. This is too long what we've been doing here. I want to go home. How about you guys? If your chair is so comfortable, it is not hell, I was learning this earlier. How long have you just been like in this room talking to people? Because like we're gonna come, I'm I'm like Macro made into here. I'm stitched into this chair now. Like yesterday, like two days ago, I was wandering around like this show thing that we're all out, and I'm asking people, oh, what did you do yesterday? What did you do, and they're all like, oh, I was a giant bomb, and people just keep saying that, like, oh, were you on the couch? No, I was just there. Yeah, people were hanging out out there for sure. Yeah. I feel like you're just perpetually. Yeah. Here's here's the here's what's happening. This chair has started to creak in a way that I am convinced by the end of the night it's gonna break on me. And I'm not gonna do anything to change that. If it breaks, it breaks. That's what happened. I'm permitted for you. Yeah, I appreciate that. Mois is what do you want to talk about? Then? I actually want to stay on the topic of the chair. We've been sitting in this this whole time. Can you feel like your ass On the first I actually had Jan get me some ivyprofen like early the tonight. Yeah, yeah, helped out a little bit. On the first night, it was like, oh man, I'm starting to and I got back to the hotel room and this elbow. I think I had Tennis elbow from doing nothing, which is I think I think that's pretty impressive. Honestly, It's like I was clearly doing this too much or something. So I'm trying to trying to adjust a little bit. Grand standing in the chair yesterday when like just some part of my ribs started to hurt. Yeah, what have I been doing that made that happen? Right? And the answer is nothing. Apparently, motion is the lotion this, someone told me once, and I need to do some more of that. Get up and move around. That's why between segments have been getting nothing walking around. But I don't know. It is too long, I think, and that's not just like, oh, well, be sitting in the share for three days. You know, I've been here for I don't know, going on five days. We got to go tomorrow as well. How are you all feeling about It's a lot, right, I mean about your cat. I think it's been a pretty eventful show, honestly, stuff at seven in the morning, so I could talk about Xbox for multiple hours in a row. Yeah, and it was a really good show. So feeling okay about it. I missed old E three a little bit, sure, But I'm going around to asking people do you miss E three? And they're like, nah, not really, this isn't pretty. Do you miss it? Yeah? A little bit? Yeah, I miss the body odor and the walking through the back. Wait, what why would you think that? I get it? Cat, I miss it too, those human smells. I've been doing E three for like fifteen years before it finally went away. It just has a very particular sense. Yeah, absolutely, I'm here. Get addicted to it. You need three now? Yeah? Absolutely? Who's like first time? Is it? Anyone's first time? Like voices? Okay, so you never did E three? No, I'm a baby. I kind of got into this field professionally, at least like for money very recent weeks though, Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're constantly games. Yeah, all those bribes I don't pay off. The game you wrote about it was very I always told my friend, He's like, what do you want to do. I'm like, maybe I'll be a director, or maybe I'll write about video games. And they laughed, And this is like twenty years ago. He's like, oh, you'll make tens of dollars. He was right, definitely right. So, Boises, how are you finding it? I'm like, I saw you hanging out with Janet and some stuff before, and I'm like, now is here? Of course I want to hang out with him, But are you getting your time's worth. Yeah, I think I am. I've definitely I feel like I've gotten a very abbreviated sort of experience relative to what most folks have gotten for me. Three uh, it is also kind of just right for me. I have been winded every night coming back from the show floor and then going out with people and socializing after. I usually like to think I'm a I'm a pretty okay guy in like a social situation, but also like it's been very overstimulating. I feel moving from one conversation to another like at a breakneck pace. Yeah, that's you're not wrong, but I'm like, I'm still kind of with them, because the thing that stimulates me is people too much. People. Yeah, And it's like, well, when it's especially when in this environment, I'm like, I'm prepared for it. I see everybody, this is fine. But when it's a party e experience one person, two, three, four, or five back to back to back, I get pretty zap pretty quickly. And so I totally feel that. But I mean, when you are, you know, working during the day, going out at night, do you find this industry welcoming to a young person like yourself? Oh? Yeah, I was. I was talking with some folks at a mixer, even just yesterday that I used to go to. I mean, I still go to PAX's, specifically East because it's closer to me, and I've been going to them for years, and even though I wasn't in the industry, I've been hanging out at the lesson with where everybody congrete's eventually, and so my earliest experiences were just going there as a hobbyist and talking to people and being like, yeah, I love your games and you know this that and third and talking to other people who are coming up in media with me, and I was telling them I think I got hooked more on that feeling than anything else, and so I've kind of been looking for a way to legitimize being in those spaces and being around that energy. And so this is like my first real big professional only event like this. It's been a last Yeah, I can't thank you for having me. It's just good meeting It's it's good meeting all of y'all. It's especially good meeting you since like we kind of run in similar circles, but like online, I feel like everybody's busy. Also, everybody's ship posting all the time, a mile a minute on Twitter. But it's good to like take the time, sit on the couch and you know, just say aye to you. Speaking of ship posters, How you doing, Ron, I'm doing great. This is the so Mooises, the first three ninety three l a summer game, whateverever. This is like my twentieth or something like off and on. There there are times where I came in three times I didn't uh so, like I have that same nostalgia that Kat was talking about it, Like there were when I was at eight three before there was like a simmering level of fuck I hated here, Yeah, because I'm like, I have this many appointments. I'm walking through this just mass of human bodies on the show expect like everyone's in the same boat. She would expect empathy and numbers like leave me the fuck alone about that. I want to talk about that, Like if I was taller, I'd take a swing at you. But I though, but like he said that, I said, if I DM you that once a day, Yeah, but like I miss it in a weird way, and so of it is the last time I went to E three, I worked for a game informer when everybody wanted to talk to me, and then I worked for fan Bite when nobody wanted to talk to me. Now I wanted for no one where like it. I was like, who are you? So I am? I miss it, but also I don't have that access to really enjoy it the way I did before. So this time I just came on like I work pr now I am then the dark side. So I came because she had a hotel room. I'm just gonna stay with you, and we I slept while she was doing work. I went to a party and I was like, yeah, this is great. Yeah, whoa, what is it? What was that transition? Like it's not an unfamiliar transition for people in our space to go so we are okay. Here's the thing. I had a really weird transition in that I don't know if people know the story when I got laid off from Fami Boy, when they shut that site down. I was in Tokyo covering the Tokyo Game Show, right yeah, so like I woke up, found out about it, took a bath, and then when I'm just gonna go Tokyo Game Shower today, I've got the badge. Why not met someone there who's like, hey, I really liked your work, and like they didn't actually say it fame by they said on Twitter, I would like to work on Twitter. What I didn't leave the spend time is they were that was the job interview, And when I got back home like three days later, they're like, hey, we're they got off you a job. Well, And that's how this all works, right, I mean, those connections are That's why when I said we had Baron Jones. He runs a podcast that I been on a couple of times, the young black kids they're trying to like make it in the industry. And I was like, I'm like, hey, you should have definitely come on here. And he's like, I'm making those connections. I'm like, that's how it worked for me. It works from the bottom all the way to the top. You meet some people and they remember you, and then when they need some help, if you raise your hand, remember you and you get brought in. And it's that's why these events actually are important, right. Yeah, Like there you might call it nepotism, but it's like it's luck. It is it's honestly, it's it's where the hard work does me to luck. Everyone works hard, everyone works hard and there's like, I haven't met someone in this industry really that doesn't work hard. And a lot of times it's in their own way, but everyone works hard. When I got hired a game informer, they they told me the reason they picked me over like other people was they saw me a neo gath arguing about sales numbers and mput threats and they were like, Oh, this is the dude who cares about like the minutia bullshit of video games and like it's stuff like that. Like that wasn't work. That was unhealthy behavior, honestly, but it was something that got me my first like leg up into like I've been doing this freelance for so many years, but like got me into the professional being paid a salary for this job kind of work. Yeah, Daniel, about you guys covering this, You guys talk, you know, talk over stuff or to respond to stuff and on video you've been doing it a long time. How has it changed over the years. I Mean, the thing is, and I talked to Jeff and the other organized organizes at the event, It's like, I'm really like this may like there are definitely things I missed about Old E three, the biggest being that like old D three when you could just like walk into a booth and discover a game like Katamari nobody ever even heard of before, or you could walk a Nintendo's booth and it's like, here's something that's an experiment. Are you the one that taught me about Katamari Demassi? Is that what it was? I no, because I was writing for a Nintendo publication at the time, so it was like I didn't even write about it, walked up and played it. But so like I missed that element of V three a lot. But that's decades ago, right, Like you know, the last five ten years of E three is like very much appointment appointment, appint appointment chances of are walking up to something that's not an indie game or pretty flint. But this has been like one of my favorites because it has this good balance of that intimacy, of that connection, of there being so few people here that you sit down and you play a game, You've got the director of the game sitting next to you, talking about things you know that him inspired him about this part that part, and then just like between appointments and just constantly talking to people that I may had emailed for the past two or three years, but never once seen in person. But because I'm on camera, they recognize me and I'm like, oh, here are you. So it's like just have these moments over and over here exactly. Yeah, I'm starting to find like that's actually happening. It's like that's strange transition for me. So yeah, absolutely. Uh, Eric, how about you? How are you finding where the where the industry is right now, where coverage is. How's it working for you? I mean it's where coverage is is kind of interesting because I feel like we're all kind of trying to figure it out. That's been like the big question I've been trying to answer for myself in covering this because I'm the only one here for for Destructoid, and so I've had to kind of determine what our coverage from the floor looks like because I did you know a former US gamer here with Kat Bailey? Ye? Like, but even that part, like what is that like when before you got here, what was the conversation or was it just like, hey, I'm gonna go we'll figure this out. Yeah, it was it was you make like a pitch deck, you say, like I've got x number of appointments. I'm probably going to get this mini previews, this mini interviews. What are the values? You know, networking was surprisingly high up there, you know, in terms of talking about like what the real value is, because I do think that's the real value is, even for an old brand like destructoid, like getting face, you know, showing that we are real humans, that we are alive. And I was I was joking with someone the other day that this is the it's a big post pandemic event for a lot of people. I know that a shef was here last year. Really it's the first time I've seen everybody as she was here last year and some people some people went. But this it felt like we were all meeting Twitter mutuals for the first time, right, Like we we all followed each other, we all got to know each other, zoom discorded whatever, and now we're finally kind of like, oh, oh you're so many times I've been like hi, I'm Eric and they're like hi, and I'm like Eric at Samoucy on Twitter and they're like, oh, I love that one about Kajima and the Fraggle Rock and his cat Rebecca ign. How are you guys, feeling about hey good, How does IGN handle something like this? Does this have the Here's what I would assume that for I GEN you need a certain volume of excitement. And do you think he got there? I think with Xbox maybe it did. It's really interesting going from us Gamer to IGN because at us Gamer we had to fight and scrap for every little piece of access and every appointment. And here, developers you might be surprised, no want to talk to IGN, And so as a result, you get all the access you want, but being able to pass through all of it, being able to give voice to developers who are smaller as well as the people who are going to drive traffic. I spend a lot of time directing traffic and being like you go here, you go there, and everything, But I spend a lot more time on camera, yeah, behind the debt ESK, talking to people doing How do you like that difference, because I listen, we wrote for opinions. Yeah, I have opinions and I want to voice them. And it's easier than trying to sneak him into the when you're writing about stuff, and it's got to be a little bit more buttoned up, right, Yeah, they have to watch me the people to watch about things like God, we were talking about Oh God, what was the metaphor? Sure, yeah, yeah, I made Ryan McCaffrey let me talk about it. He's like, oh, let's put this in. When you're putting that in the bead block and I'm going to talk about this. So that's a that's a new game by the one of the creators of Persona. Yes, she looks really good. Hash you know, it looks really good. Absolutely, it's like Fantasy Persona. Yeah, I'm already Hoshi knows less desirable tendencies will service in that game. Sure, Like I love Persona. There are times where I'm like, dude, you didn't need to do this. You didn't need to put this weird homophobic scene in here. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think people write that off sometimes, is like, that's just Japanese games. Is that still what we're going I work for a Japanese studio. That is not true. I think that's not true. Yes, I mean, do you think there's a so you're worried about it, you think it's likely you or you think I think it's not enough to ruin a game. Uh, you're exact. But for some people it is. I don't want to dismiss that, like yeah, but for me, if it shows up again, I'm going to be like, Okay, this is a pattern. Uh. And it sucks that we got to deal with this from otherwise great games like the example of that is Kajima of I love so many of those games. Middle Getsaw three one of my favorite games of all time. Man, I would love it if I didn't like, we're not prompted to look at Ava's boobs in that game, but you know, that's just the way it is. A lot of people not necessarily like Japanese, honestly like Western. But bring this all the way back to Hashito again, Like I am anticipating that game. That game looks fantastic. I also like I've been playing games long enough from like I know exactly that my bugaboo about this is going to be Yeah. Yeah, I guess in terms of like where games right on that front were, I was on the show floor looking around. It feels very diverse. There's more people that that look different than me. There are more games that feel like they are coming from a different voice and different perspective. I mean, Rebecca, how do you feel about in terms of the terms of where gaming is going and growing. Well, I mean it's great, right, Like I think I think the last couple of years have been very exciting because I can't like we've talked about kind of everyone's sitting on a spectrum of how long they've been here, like which as you got here for recently, Captain Roone, You've been in the industry forever. I'm kind of sitting right in the middle. And I showed up at a time where I was hearing all about this like really crappy history that this industry has of like treating women like crap, and treating people of color light crap, and like pushing them to the sidelines and pretending that only white guys play video games and acting like that was true when it is patently not true. It's not true remotely. And I feel like I've coming at a time where we have not fixed it. To be clear, we still have so much work to do, but there's also a sense that people are able to talk about it now and able to push things forward and make things a little bit better. And like we we just watched the Xbox Showcase and it was like freaking incredible with with like diversity and like people coming out there and like talking about games that are made by all kinds of different creators. And I've seen a lot of push for that in within Xbox as well, especially with their Idea Xbox program promoting a lot of diverse developers. I get to talk to indies a lot more about those, like tons of really cool indie showcases this week that highlighted games from all kinds of diverse creators, and I We're not there yet. I know there's been some criticism of Kiley shows specifically, like we're certainly not there yet, and there's like a lot of blind spots that this industry has. But I want to believe that we're getting better and every year, like we you know, claw a little bit more, and so I'm hopeful and oh man, there's a lot of really good games. Yeah, here's what I'm worried about. It's Matt Piscatella, who MPD now Sarkana and then he writes about like, you know, what video games make money, and he does these reports for the video game the companies. When that stuff was happening with the Summer Game Fest, he put out a couple of sweet saying here is the split of how many women are playing video games, and the subtext there, which I I'm happy it's becoming text is women are a big representation in terms of the money. You can make money if you make games for a difference group of people, and I think that is a very powerful thing. But is there a concern that what has happened with bud Light can scare some of these corporations a lake where they're like, oh, maybe our money is going to go away, and we have to have maybe a stronger cultural push to say no, this is important because it's our values. Do you guys worry about that? I mean, we're we're not actually seeing that right now at the nick Merks stuff like there's there's a very real thing that one's weird because like Activision was the one who did the right thing there. Yes, and these and I mean these bros who are pushing themselves in the day. Yeah, I'm just gonna I'm sorry, just like we don't need them, Yeah, exactly don't need We don't need that time. I don't think you find every nick Marks out there that people think they need. There are thousands of equally or more talented creators who are diverse, who are thoughtful and empathetic, who could do just as well or better at the same things that he does. Who we should be elevating, Like if you want to be like freaking homophobic and bigoted and transphobic, screw you, get out. We don't need you here, right, And I think that that is I'm like, I'm hoping that that immune response in gaming is strong enough to to stay there because it, you know, feels like some of these other companies are blinking in other spaces. Is that does that come back to maybe video gaming? The video game industry is relatively small. I mean, do you feel that cat, Yeah, the video game industry is relatively small, and I think we had a moment where we had a lot of vibrant creators, very diverse creators in the mid twenty tens, and I'm afraid that the fallout from the games press the challenges in the industry are driving a lot of them away, and that's really unfortunate. Yeah, that's the case. That's definitely, that definitely happened. That was very frustrated. Some friends that I really looked up to and they were they were such great writers, and they were just like, I'm done with this since I'm a lot of very talented people are unfortunate. And I'm not just talking about the media, I'm talking about across the games industry. We're going we're gonna go on more money elsewhere, yeah, and not have to deal with this. Yeah, And it disproportionately affects more diverse people too, because like the industry is kind of founded on this idea again wrong, that only white guys play games, and therefore they have, you know, kind of been promoted to higher positions generally. And when you have like reductions like that, they tend to affect people who are sort of like in lower positions generally, who tend to disproportionately be more diverse people. And so it's just the sort of churn. And so yeah, I mean it does fall It falls on corporations. It falls on us who are here and have voices and platforms to open our mouths and say like, hey, we gotta do better and be proactive about it, like not just not just sort of passively say well, we got rid of the worst abuses, we're done. We're not. We have to like open our mouths and and say that this is important to us and take proactive steps to make sure that we're in line things. I think that there's a larger cultural thing and like this is something that I've grown up with and like growing up in the South and like being in gaming and all that stuff that we kind of don't wrestle with the idea of the white default of like when you think of someone, you think of them as white. Well, I mean we saw it in the reaction to some of the things in the Xbox showcase today, and I'd say we saw it. It's in the chat. Of course, the chat's awful, but but they, you know, don't be like the Woggee character creator and they're going to start with the base of an Asian man and it's all woke woke, wok wok woke and chat and it's like just being an Asian man existing is what is happening here. And it's like that's where they're coming from. Their prospective is the white default is that strong in their mind right? And so I think this comes back to being proactive and what it's being proactive look like though, Well, I mean if you look at the creators not just in games, but in streaming, I mean, I write a lot about entertainment as streaming kind of comes together consolidates, and everything you see places like WB increasingly going back to what they considered to be safe, anything attached to an IP, anything that's familiar, ten years of Harry Potter shows devoted to Twilight whatever. And when you get into that mindset, you start moving away from being able to give diverse voices a platform. You start getting back into kind of the battle days unfortunately, and that's happening in gaming too, because games are so expensive, games take, they're so risk averse, and so when they think we're risk averse, they're going to go to what they perceived to be the qure unquote popore right. The license game was really the cash in for a very long time, and now we're in a place where one of the biggest games this year is going to be the Harry Potter the Root game and potentially if it's good. Who knows Avatar is a very big bet from you be Soft. That is unheard of but for a long time, and now it's like it seems to be the major trend in terms of where major publishers are going. I've heard this from people I talked to that building a new IP is very hard, very expensive, and you're not going to save that much money avoiding those license you fees really when you when you put all that on the table. So it's much better, even if it doesn't always work. EA, just got burned by Star Wars a little bit, and they're going right back in with Marvel stuff. So I mean, you guys agree with what Kat's saying that, like voices, are you worried about this from someone who's who's young and and you know, I'm sure you have a long history of gaming. I always like tend to be like, oh, you're a baby, you started with the PlayStation four, but like, but but this is something something that you're worried about. Yeah, I mean just in general, I've I've witnessed a bunch of my friends who are also people of color, uh leaving this industry because it has not been able to properly house them and nurture them. Uh. And so like when I think of ways to be like proactive about that, I feel like the same ones keep coming up, like, oh, you know, uh, set up funds to support uh, like bipoch creators, uh, you know, mentorships and that. Not that those aren't solutions, but I just always feel like those conversations stall there and uh, we we are we already tred to believe risk averse and yeah, the shift now, especially towards huge ip things, Uh, it feels stifling at the highest creative level and the highest like executive level, and it just I felt for a while there like we were maybe breaking through a little bit. Uh, And it now feels like, yeah, we're we're treating yeah, I mean it's treating yea with our tails tucked between our legs. Right. Because earlier this year, and we've said said this bunch of times, but like the fears of recession were really strong, the headwinds as everyone has heard on economic head economic headwinds, and like January and February and everyone got together and like looking the rest of the year and like, oh, no, one's gonna be so terrible. We got we've got to retreat. And you know, of course that stuff doesn't manifest in the way they think it's going to. It's it's gonna be very different. In fact, a lot of places are doing very well. They're still like, well, it must be coming. We all said it was coming, so it must be coming. And who pays the price for that stuff. It's you know, these massive layoffs and sometimes it's targeted layoffs, but these layoffs that feel just so broad that it's like, I yeah, there's in a lot of space right now, and it's just like and those layoffs happened before they can ever like these studios or these organizations can even really meaningfully enact any change, and so it just solidifies the SaaS quo that never actually got eroded there, and so we end up in the same fucking cycles for the next ten years. Yeah, and it's a Daniela. I'm sure you see it. Like there are games that are coming out like kind of one after the other, but like we go from elden Ring and then Zelda this year, it feels like Starfields maybe trying to be this next one that is just going to be this lightning rod for people carrying about. Everybody's one to switch. Yeah, yeah, Yet on the horse of course everybody wants to switch. Do you think that there are enough people covering this stuff? Where is it all happening? Like you know, you mentioned this that we have the spectrum of coverage here where like Voices is trying to get in and you got the Patreon and you you have your personal Patreon. I like this big team Patreon and Eric you're working for a website. It's been a long around for a one time, but it's website and two podcast baby. Yeah. Literally have the gaming corporation coverage over here. It's we got this whole spectrum. It feels like we should have enough, and yet it's somehow it's not enough, right. Yeah. Well, it's interesting to the point that you make about you know, playing and safe and going back to what you know, because it's like, you know, when you're talking about these these issues and diverse creators and stuff, and like the things like I'm just I've always kind of had like the attraction to like the weird oddball ideas, you know, like electro Plankton back in the day or whatever, and like and and with with indies and stuff, and like some of the things that I like have really resonated most with me recently have come to because people have different backgrounds, right, you know, and so like Chia was just such a cool different experience for sure, you know, from the small team from the place that like most it's never even heard of before the game existed, you know. And uh, I'm really looking forward to Thirsty Suitors. You know, I got turned onto that director from falcon Age all things. You know, you like, here's a VR game at the Bird and the like, and then you like get into all the other cultural things that are happening in that story. Uh. And then then I'm just like, Okay, I want to see what his next story is. Uh. And then everything that Zelig or Nelson's one thing after another, just one completely different ideas each game Ron. When you were at fan Bite, it seemed like you guys were trying to put a team together. That is the answer to a lot of these questions that we're asking, Yeah, what was that? Like what parts were encouraging? And I mean, I think we know the descreen true parts, but is there anything that we're missing from that story? So yeah, that's the catch twenty two of games All was in a weird way. The idea of fan Bye was what if you get a bunch of people to talent people together and just let them do what they want and see what hits and what doesn't. And you can't do that unless you have like the backing of a corporation, and that corporation, it turns out even when they're telling you, yeah, do what you want to win more rewards whatever. They're like, we're gonna kick these motherfuckers out of the wall. Like it's a That's the thing that like kind of gets me about game journalism these days is good journalisms in free Yeah, And I know people wish it was. I know that, Like everyone goes to a website and be like what is what cost money? About going to ask Phil Spencer, Hey, what does your hexs and shirt mean? And like what cost money? All of this It's like it's all this. It's flying out here, it's sitting in a hotel, it's paying these people at living wage so they don't like go destitute while they're trying to like do these things and think these things. And like writing even the one two switch story took time. It took me spending time talking to sorts, stuff like that. I'm very proud of. It never comes out anymore because my last thing lega saying games riding is gonna be that fucking horse. But the Phenomena story I wrote last year was about the way that that studio crumbled, and that took a month of me just talking to people and like they're writers who are more efficient than me. They're writers who are like more talent than younger than me. I don't want to discourage them from ever like coming into this, but I would like, I would love if there was a genuine way to make sure the next era of journalism could be like funded. And I think Van Bite was that idea of let's just try it and let's see what happened. And the answer was it didn't work because we got we all got laid off. But I want waypoint is the one that I think that buzzed me out the most right now, even though like they relaunched it. I saw Patrick Kleppeger yesterday is like, hey, I'm so sorry. Also congratulations, Like remap is doing great. Apparently he could have left right, Yeah, he's donely done his time. Yeah, and he could have gone on to any number of other things. His skills are transferable, his personalities transferable. He's right, the recognition that he has earned. He couldn't left. He's a community manager for somebody, hedn't done any number of jobs. Yeah, absolutely, And the fact that he wanted to stay around. I really find that, well, thank God, because we've lost a lot of really talented people Yeah, we're talking about journalism a lot because a lot of well we're journalists, right, but I think that also content creators are an important thing part of it too. Influencers I want to shut up. People make games to do incredible or right that they figured something out right, there is something happening in like a YouTube space. Obviously those documentaries take ages to me, right, but they're really valuable. And since we're at Key three, I call upon you, Jeff Keeley, to highlight these creators during the Game Awards, because we you have categories for influencers, but you do not have categories for influencers. Like people make games, you don't have categories for good journalism. Go and highlight that good work that's being done. You heard her here from her. Absolutely, we do have to wrap up a little bit early. We're juggling some stuff over here, so we're gonna wrap this up. Thank you everybody so much. You guys were so so good. I really love talking to all of you, and I've been saying everybody to night, Uh do it again next year, Yeah, be here. Thanks for watching everybody. We'll be right back with Phil Spencer and Matt Booty in one second Damn. I had this wild idea to talk about video games with also anyone else lovely people like tomorrow is saying yeah, yeah, Licy James and Lucy James and also Phil Spencer, Matt Booty or Juno on the absolutely it's nice. Yeah, this is nice. It's uh. When I was thinking about like summer game fest things kind of getting back to normal, It's like, what is the thing that happens during the summer that makes it really feel like, oh, e three? To me, this is any three, but it is I still call it. It's bad habit, good habit, and my good habit. Yeah, come on, yeah, but it is Phil Spencer on a couch after Yeah, you could just say that, yeah out somewhere there is again look at him, recognition of the guys having to pick me up and up. I guess the first question is how are you feeling today? You just had your big showcase this morning. It's gotta be kind of non stop. Have you had a chance to reflect on it? And you're saying earlier that usually you do this kind of thing. A day later, I wouldn't call it kind of thing. I do this exact thing after. What's it been like to come here immediately. Yeah, it was so first, great job. Well, you guys like watching the content as much as I can, like between interviews and stuff, and I appreciate you reaching out and giving us the opportunity to come on and talk. So cool. Thank you, Thank you to everybody. Uh yeah, Normally we do our briefing on us Sunday and then Monday like Sony and Nintendo go and then I'd go on with Jeff on Monday night and he could kind of beat me up about bad games or something, but we'd have like a good discussion. Yeah, but I'd had a little bit of time to kind of internalize what has been going on, and literally, like from our showcase this morning, it's been like boom interview, interview, interview. So I'm a little bit less connected to like the reactions too, So am I. I've been here all day, so I talk about this stuff. So I mean maybe this would be like a little silo. We'll say a bunch of stuff that no one else is saying. Yeah. Yeah, as long as Matt and I were like yeah, you're good, good about you. What's it been like for you to to kind of like beat and then come here immediately. It just really feels good for the teams, right. Our teams they work so hard that through all the challenges and all the expectations, they got to keep their heads down and work. And it was great that we had people from Obsidian Turn ten in exile in the audience and just I mean, it's a big moment for them, right, That's the thing I wonder about the most. It seems like these assets do you have to produce for these big events take more time and effort than they've ever taken before. Is that accurate? I mean, we start working on this show in January February, so most of the teams will show up with storyboards and what they're going to present. We start looking at it like right after at six that's six months half a year. Yeah, And it's it's a lot for them because everybody you know, it's part of our process, which is great, but there's a lot of eyeballs on it. There's a lot of feedback, a lot of rework, and it pays off right. So but for the teams, for me, it's a combination that is feeling so proud for them, happy that they get their moment in the sun, especially when it's something cool and when we can surprise people, just proud of them. Right. Our team's been working so hard. Yeah, you said, you said it pays off. I mean, is there a math math that happens where you're like looking at it like, Okay, you are going to have to work on this asset for this thing that is a big promotional thing for your game, instead of maybe doing some work on the game itself. Is there a calculus there? Yeah? I mean for us, ideally, we're taking stuff that's already been put together and trying to put it in a package. Right. So Phil and I usually the day before Friday, we were at in exile. We're at Apsidian Yee and stuff. A year ago we saw Clockwork Revolution running, played it. Phil played it on a console and you can see a lot of what we saw in the trailer. So that's that's idea, because and we're trying to get more and more to that where it's less stop what you're doing, go make this trailer and more what have you got running that we can capture? That then becomes a great true Right, That's exactly what I was wondering. Yeah, I was gonna say, like, so you talked about having this stuff prepared in advance. Obviously, these showcases are no longer just we're going to show you things. It's also like a kind of a statement that you're trying to make, or you're trying to present a message, or or you're trying to make sure that the audience knows where you're going with things. How do you deal with the nature of needing to be reactive to changing times and opinions? Obviously jumping into a thick of it, you guys had a recent that the narrative around Xbox became kind of stuck on redfull and needing to kind of bounce back from that. How do you how do you react to that? Knowing that a showcase like this thought in its production six months ago, and do you suddenly have the kind of flexibility to be like, we need to change move these pieces about so we can address this thing. Yeah, we honestly don't. And I know there were like I was watching some of the salutes on the internet when the PERSONA stuff leaked and people are like, oh, that was in Summer Games Fast and they pulled it to put it in our show, and you're like, yeah, no, there's things in the our show is it again for ten days, so like you don't rewind a little bit. I think it's kind of unfair for us to go to a team and say, hey, like, the Xbox brand is in this, like has this weight on it right now, and it wouldn't it be really great if your asset could be the thing that we could point out your game could be the thing that we point at. That kind of changes. That never's just not fair to any individual team, which is one of the reasons. I mean, this position is paid to be in front of the brand, and I'll go out there and and listen and take the feedback, and I think that's important. But the show itself is the show. Like we'll pick some themes. I think we knew this is a lot of big guys. There was a lot of big guys and a lot of the trailers. We knew that first party in this show. We knew the first party, like twenty twenty two was a light year for us on first party, no doubt. But we also knew we've got over twenty studios building games and the progress that the teams were making, So I think early on we were pretty certain this was going to be a strong first party show, and then as the assets started to come together and you started to see the quality and having a couple of new IP announces, then I think is where it all really paid off. But that's obviously through the planning of months, not in the week at that time, and we'll get to that. I think that start's interesting of like figuring out when these games can actually come out. Obviously that's a problem for everybody. But you said it something a minute ago where it's it's you would feel awkward going to these studios to say you need to help the brand, so do this. It is it feels like in still and I think this is a good thing. I wonder what your opinion is on it that you want these studios to be doing the things that they want to be doing, and then you guys figure out the best way to then empower that is that it is that what's happening, and then what are the issues that that causes. I'll I think somebody asked me today like, you know, what do you what's sort of the main thing you'd love to come out of the show for me? I think one thing for us as a studio system is that this validates the approach because, as you point out, we put a lot of empowerment on our studio heads. A lot of them are creative directors. They help guide the project. We don't have a system where there's a central sort of brain trust telling everybody what to make. So there's a lot of risk in that. But when it pays off, I think you see a variety of games which is important to us, and I think to your exact point, you get the passion of what they want to make comes through in the pixels, right. So you know, we've been trying to get that going for a couple of three years and it's a little bit to Phil's point when people say did you put that character in because it's something happened last month, And okay, that character is designed two years ago. There's nothing that happened last week on this game, right, And that means that we got to be patient, we gotta know that it's going to pay off, and we got to get behind the studio ads that so much of what we do depends on them as leaders locally in their studio and owning the creative Yeah. That that also makes me wonder, like getting behind the studio you mentioned with Red full, We're not gonna like obsess over that that you guys do want to do it again? They didn't get the sport it needed. But then you said I met after that, like, you know we're doing that with star Starfield. What does that look like? I don't you don't forget the specifics, but like if there's anything like color you can add to what that looks like, what does support for Starfield look like from your Grassi's perspective? And also like how much of that support is now being put into the games that are shown today? Is fable getting that level of support? Is avowed getting that level of support, because when you first talked about it, you indicate that it was like you were still kind of getting those engines warmed up, and that's kind of kind of why it didn't work in that end. But are you at the stage now where the full kind of system is working as it should for all these other games? Thank you very good? Yeah, so first one thing disappointed I think with Zeno Max Potzda. Let's think about what's happened since acquisitions of the ship Death Loop. Yeah, good game, yes, good game, Hi Fi Rush, good games. So they got a system there, so a little bit of is it something new, not really right? I think with Redfall and Starfield, the thing that we're applying on Starfield, we talked a little bit about it this afternoon. We've got first the Advanced Technology group that sits under Sarah Bond, right, they know the Xbox hardware in and out, that's their lives and they're there to help teams get frame rate graphics. They helped with the ray tracing Onfortza. You know, you ask are they helping on a vowed That's a place where we've got the Unreal expertise or our studio, the coalition up in Vancouver. I think that outside of Epic, they are like tops in the industry Unreal. So those are the kinds of things that we're able to apply. It is that working, is that actually? Is it that effective? Is a growing? Is it better than ever? Was the state of that? Well? I think on Starfield title tell you that we've been engaged since like early last year, and I hope that it shows up in terms of how stable the game is, what they're able to put on screen in terms of graphics, but even a little bit also what it means to be a first party game It's one of the things we talk about is, you know, somebody like Double find comes in, they will never get to ship a game as just double fighting again. It will always be looked at his first party said a little unfair to them. Well, I think that's where it's on us to support them early. Maybe that's something we could have done a little better with Red Fall, but that is that transition that happens, and that's where I think the Starfield team would say that they feel supported. Yea in terms of no, I mean, I was going to jump to some third party questions, but it kind of goes into sort of looking at lineup. Obviously, the persona stuff Son of Three leaked, but we still cut the surprises and we talked about, you know, reception of the show. A lot of people so soaked to see such an incredible representation from Japanese devs in on Xbox. What has that kind of process been like, expanding in talking more to Japanese studios, Yeah, it's work. Like it is work because we're not the strongest brand in Japan. When you think about Sony Nintendo Switch, PlayStation mobile frankly and the role that it plays for a lot of this players and creators there. And I remember, like kind of five years ago it was when as an Atlas game going to come to Xbox, and so it was awesome to see three games, the two games that's right, that's right, Capcom announcing a new ip on the stage, also coming to game Pas, which is great. And I say all of that, and then I can look at my friends at Square and say, come on, so you know, I gotta get on an airplane again. And it's for me. It's it's kind of all about trust and relationship. They have to look at the global market. They have to listen and hear us in terms of what we stand for. We've done that over the years with from and have a great relationship there. We're building relationships with Sega an analysts and Capcom and Banda Namco. Like I love the work that we've done over the years. But it's always work for us in Japan specifically because we are we are the Xbox team. We're not a platform from Japan. And that's okay, Like we've got a good team there. That's hard at work. Sarah Bon and I are over there quite a bit. I'm it just continuing to build the relationships and I love that you bring up Like I just I thought our show represented those creators well. And it is nice even with the leagues, which you know, those things happen. I don't, you know, frustrated about those things, but it was nice to see the support that we had in the show. But we do have more work to do, and I hear about it from the fans. Yeah, when you when you do talk to these Japanese developers or publishers when they decide not to bring again to Xbox, what is the thing that they are saying to you that there's the reason why. Yeah, that's a heart, it's not. There's sometimes there's business deals that are done. Sometimes as a team has a focus that they're just hey, we can only support two or three platforms, and they're just kind of reduced development risk because it is real that every platform you add adds more work to the development team. And and sometimes it's just a team that doesn't have a lot of connection to Xbox and they don't necessarily see it in their local game store when they walk in. It's even why our presence on the ground with x even if we're not selling as many consoles as a competition. If you go to Yodobashi Camera, like, I want there to be an Xbox section. I want there to be games that are shown because I also want the teams at kind of the base level to know that Xbox is a game platform and it's something that they see in their day and day lives. And I love the progress that we've made I think about like over the five or six years there, But there is is obviously work for from from like the progress side, obviously it's been really difficult, and in game side, it's been difficult to get a foothold in Japan in a major way, and for the longest time that's always been in the traditional console physical you know, kind of hardware space. Japan is more perhaps more forward thinking and accepting of mobile and streaming and that kind of approach. So on the one part one of this is have you seen any changes in kind of adoption in Japan or the console side, and how does that relate to the kind of almost x cloud stuff. How's that working out in all digital stuff? Is it something that is perhaps showing that it might be a better way for you to get into that market and kind of maintain a presence the hardware doesn't kind of allow you to do. Yeah, maybe I'll take that to a global level, that every market has its own unique qualities, whether it's the kind of socioeconomic situation and given market man like how much money or people free catch people just have to go spend on this hobby that can get expensive and playing video games. How big is PC? How big is mobiles? You talk about? And this is why I think for us, one of the keys has been choice. On Xbox. You've got we even have coming up your three consoles now that you could go buy in this generation. You can play on PC, you can play on mobile, you can stream, you can buy the games, you can subscribe through game paths to go play. And it's because every market feels a little bit different. If you were just focused on what I've called kind of the rich people markets, you would only sell seven other games and you'd only sell the most expensive piece of hardware that you could. When we think about three billion people playing video games on the planet, every one of those countries is going to be or even sometimes less the sub countries is going to have its own situation, and it's it adds complexity for us when we focus on choice. For the customer and where our games can show up. But clearly a market like Japan it could have an impact, but there are so many other markets where good as well. I find that when I'm thinking about the way I approached stuff, that that niching down, nitching down is effective in helping me grow. It's counterintuitive. Do you think that the idea of like three billion gamers out there is that it's distraction evert or is it something that you guys believe that you can execute on in a in a focused way. Awesome question. I'd say the thing and maybe the three billion thing is overplayed for us a little bit. The thing I really focus on is that I want the industry to grow. And if every customer we're trying to find for Xbox currently has a competitors platform and all we're doing is trying to like bludgend somebody else's platform share down so that we will grow, I don't think it's Frankly, I don't think it's that interesting for us. Like the reason at a Microsoft level the gaming industry is interesting is because it is growing, right, It's I think the most interactive is community lad form of entertainment on the planet and we come to things like fan fests and we have customers from Australia and Ireland, in the Middle East and Africa, and like they're all here in this fan fest and they're meeting each other. And gaming does that virtually every single night when people are playing. So what we're really focused on is how do we continue to grow this industry. And then, yes, from a competitive stand point, I want to make sure we're getting our share of that growth. But if all we were looking at is who else is customers are in the market and how do we go get their customers, we'd be better just kind of going away and letting the market continue what it is. But the market is growing. Yeah, I gush like I would agree with that, and I definitely believe that. But there was also like a you have to admit that there's the audience of gaming. They have an investment and an Xbox platform, and sometimes they kind of sit there like we want to see that kind of like getting down and dirty and really fighting for you know, the the audience as opposed to like, I guess they find it harder to relate to we're trying to make the gaming industry grow as opposed to like we want to see our platform get better, even like on a more basic level, it's it feels like the best way if the business need is like growing game paths, which I don't know if it is for sure, but if it is, growing game pack's like, isn't the most effective way to do that to sell more Xbox consoles? And I guess that's probably your estimate focus still, right, right, So I mean there's a two different points, so I want to make sure I get both up here. Absolutely, the people who've invested in Xbox, it's our duty to make that payoff. And that's quality games, that's games coming on a regular cadence every year. And we didn't do that in twenty twenty two, right right, And we heard the feedback. Twenty twenty one was a good year, twenty twenty two was not a good year. And this year we've had some good releases and we had Red Fall, which was not a good release. So and this show, I love seeing the reaction. But now we're gonna go ship those games and like then that's really what I think when we deliver in terms of a game pass question specifically, I just want to make sure it's not about growing game passes are we want to make sure the game industry is growing, and we do think that helps the players on our platform. It's probably a longer discussion, happy to do it, but that why that is. In terms of game paths specifically, game Pass is kind of a means to an end, which is we just want more people to be able to play more games, and the cost of a video game is something that keeps some people from playing, like the upfront cost, even from trying new things. So we think a kind of zero marginal cost way off somebody clicking on an icon and downloading a game is an awesome way for people to try games they might never have played before. Most of the people were like most of our use of cloud is actually people playing on console who are playing the game before they actually download right and and we think that's that's an awesome, awesome choice in terms of growing game paths specifically to points. Sorry, I just kind of question most of the growth in game Pass right now is on PC. Yeah, and it's just because there are hundreds of millions of PC players and game Pass kind of we started there later, and we have work to do to become kind of more native on PC and support the platform completely, and most of our growth right now comes from PC. And I think to your point of the easiest place for us to grow is actually on PCs now well, because you don't have to sell the piece of hardware. Right, So if you look on Xbox, you say a lot of the players who own an Xbox are already in game Pass, which is awesome, Like we love that. And on PC you've got kind of fresh blue ocean there where you can go and surf away and find new customers for those that want them, right, want to try it. So that's kind of I don't know if I answered anything, And that's why we continue to invest in Flight Sam. Yeah, I think that aage vampires are so important too. Is why every one of our game ships day one on PC, right, which is something we do that not everybody. Yeah, day one on PC, and this will be like I don't know, people love this statement, Like we don't look at the PC audience as a window, right, It's a market. It's a market that does we believe deserves our games day one, and that's where we're gonna ship our games. It's not about like later on I'm going to sell you those games. So that something else happens, Like we see the PC market, we can do a better job with the Xbox app and the work that we have, but our games library and even our investments and things like Bethesda was because of their PC heritage and what they can mean. Do you feel like you're convincing that the PC audience that that you believe that they're a market all I can look at our users and the business, and the business has never been bigger. I think earlier I talked about we'll do over a billion dollars in PC revenue this year and game passes over one hundred percent bigger than it was last year on PC, and our player base is almost fifty percent bigger than it was. So I just look, that's like, I don't know what else to look at. Can we do better? Yes? Absolutely, and we need to. We've gone to portfolio. Then you want to be putting those titles out that people are going to think, oh, this is synonymous with Xbox, regardless of if they get it on PC or through game Pass. How are you balancing portfolio with? You know, the big hits is the Halo, the Gears, the Fable. I guess with investing in new franchises, new teams that could potentially become the next Gears. Yeah. Well that gets back a little bit to what I hope we're trying to put together, which is a studio system that can support both of those, right. I mean I talked earlier today about it's amazing to me that we've got ten franchises that have crossed ten million life to date players. Right. So you think about something like Grounded, which kind of brings all this together. It's a game made by a super small team at Obsidian, right kind of they just say it was a passion project. Because of game pass that thing finds an audience, probably bigger than it would have if it had just launched into the wild. And now we're able to come back and support it. Now you look at Grounded, I mean that thing is well over ten million life to date. Do we have the opportunity to invest and make that a bigger game? So a lot of what I do, working with Phil, working with Jamie Leader at Xenomax, is think about what is that balance across the portfolio because I don't want to lose you know, Minecraft Dungeons was a big expansion for us on Minecraft that started with two people in Stockholm as a prototype and Unreal, and I remember very vividly a Thursday night, it's like raining after dinner. They're like, we want to show you something, and I think they expected me to sort of say, get back to work, and I'm like, you know, get the nickacs out right, It's like and no, I was like, we gotta. We built a team and we went and shipped that. It was a great expansion, and that opened the door to do things like Minecraft Legends, right, So I don't want to lose that. I also want to make sure that a team at Compulsion Games in Montreal, small studio, it's you know, it's not much bigger than all this. It's like, you know, less than a hundred people double flying or you know, they're smaller, and they make their kinds of games. I don't want them to look at a game like see if Thieves, which has been going for five years, or think about oh they're making you know, they made five years of war and think like that they can't have a place, right. So a lot of what I'm grateful to support from Phil, the support that we get from our studio heads is there's room for all of that and I think that is what's going to make us sort of that'll be what makes us unique going forward. Is if we can get that formula figured out where there's room for all of them, I think we'll get into the negrae of the actual show. But before we move on from game PASSA one question about that that I'd love to see if I can get some insight on, is what's the kind of what's the kind of difference in business? In terms of business, is there a difference in the benefit that indie developers get us as you know, a major studio like a Pathetista making a stall Field, and what is it kind of give and take that you have to you know, put factor in there because I imagine that's smaller developer you put them on game pass naturally, My thought is it raises their profile, they get more people in, and generally it's probably good for business. Whereas I'm probably wrong here, like a game like Starfield, which is the multimillion, probably billion dollars operation. Yeah, I think, yeah, it's this trillion dollars game. Yeah, it's this trillion dollar game. It wasn't okay, so's trillion dollars. It's an extremely expensive game. You put that on game Pass and it's free as well. Is it still beneficial? Are you like going, all right, we're going to take a loss on this one to raise the profile. What's the balance there? Because surely, like putting all these major games that are we're spending millions on developing, marking, and then making that away for free, given that away for free, and then also raising the profile of this service where you can buy it get it for free. You must be taking a hit somewhere, right, I don't I think everybody understands that game passes it free. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's the best marketing that people still say, Well, so game as is profitable, Xbox is profitable, and it's I've said sustainable. It was like, is that profitable or not? Like I think people get pung up on lif when you're spending seventy billion dollars playing something you know you're making seventy billion dollars a year. But but on I'm gonna take it back to console. Okay, back like in the olden days when there were we just did games on console, and every time we shipped a console, we pretended that Sony and Nintendo didn't exist. So anytime you looked at a game you said, hey, you're not shipping this game on the full console base. You're excluding let's just call it, two thirds of the market. We were like, not always the same size, but let's just say we're gonna go ship Halo two and we're not shipping it on Nintendo, We're not shipping on Sony. Nobody ever asked me, hey, how does the P and L for this game work when you're not selling it everywhere you can sell it? But now with game Pass and people kind of get stuck and they say, we'll wait a minute. You're not selling every copy that you could sell. How can you afford to go do those games? The math is actually very very similar. You just for us what you did on old school console as you said, Okay, how many consoles are you gonna sell because Halo two launches, how long will those players stay on the platform and how many games will they buy? And does that make it more cost effective to keep the game exclusive to your platform? And it like, let's be clear, we could have sold Halo two on PlayStation and we probably would have sold a couple of copies, probably could have done this something on Nintendo's platform, yeah, one or two. So when I look at at game Pass, we absolutely are going to make money on Starfield like touch Wood. That that's the plan, and we will grow game Pass and Xbox will be a better platform both on PC and console where people play. And for us, it's about expanding our platform reach and we think important games like Starfield will be catalysts for game Pass growth on a lot of different platforms. But anytime you're growing the platform, there's always this trade off with games. We are not a third party publisher, right, we do something different with our content like Starfield, but not all the content. Obviously Minecraft shifts on other platforms and we enjoy doing that as well. Just to jump in real cook on the developers, if you kind of asked like, well, okay, let's say I'm the Forts A team, Like, what's the those teams think about? For us, what's so important is the community, right, And a game like Forts Horizon five, like, the hardest thing to do is if you launch a game, you build up a community and then it dwindles and then four years later you've got to build that back up and get ready for the launch. I think that if you were to talk to the Halo team. If you were to go talk to the forts A team, they would tell you that having that community that feels like they're always engaged, it feels like they're always making money. Yeah, they don't, and they don't have to. You don't have to put that energy into they ebb and flow. But you know, you've got those customers. And I think for something like Starfield to launch into game Pass and know that, and I think Todd even said this today, it'll probably be the biggest launch that they've ever done, right because those players are there right at the start. You talked about community building, Yeah, it does. Have you got the telemetry or the day or the kind of like vision on does game Pass have a community now? Like do you see like people network? Yeah? Do you see them like migrating from one game Pass game to another? Or they come in, get their thing and then leave and come back later. It's it's obviously both, right, There's some people who pulse in and out when it games, So which one would you into the service? You want people to move around, right, But we don't make it that hard to you know, unsubscribe. I think about early Netflix, Yeah, and it turned out that you no, But actually in the beginning, so we read Hastings, who's the founder of Netflix, was on the Microsoft board and I remember talking to him about our early growth in game Pass, and he said he always wanted unsubscribed to Netflix to be right there that people, so that you do and feel like, Okay, once I get in, it's a spider web and I can't figure out how to get out. So like, we love it if people stay subscribed indefinitely, obviously, like that's in. We love if they use Our comments were to just make good games to make when to come back, that's right, that's right, And we missed, I would say, going back twenty twenty two, we we didn't have enough of those. But yeah, I was really what we have twenty one games in the show that are going to be I mean, but I think that the most surprising one to me, if I'm remembering correctly. It was. So it's been a couple of hours now, but Capcom's Path of the Goddess. Yeah, that's a major third party game. Was it beautiful? Yeah, very beautiful. It was. We haven't seen a lot of that. For like five minutes. In my mind, it was a new one game and I was soaring, But I was, I was on Cloud nine and now what now that it doesn't now? And then I came back down and then I was and then I was like, and then I was like, and then I saw it. Then I saw it looks pretty cool. And Capcom I've been absolutely killing it. I love Capcom. So I was like, benefit of that every time. But one was what was the conversation like to get one of these big publishers on board game backs. It seems like it's been a long time coming, at least when a major published like Capcom, when I recognize from playing ads games. Yeah, so I think Sarah said this in our in our meeting, that are one of our kind of buying things that all of the third party games that we're in our show that we're in game pass had previously been like those either studios or publishers had previously been in game Pass. So yeah, like day one though, it's just like because pat Capcom had a Day one. I actually I don't know, like I should, I don't know, I don't have I can't think of anything. Yeah, I found that surprising and encouraging that game Pass seems to be winning over there for new ip teams that have seen let's say, the telemetry of what happens, because even if it wasn't day one, like they understand what happens when a game goes in game Pass. Nothing I think is more of a testament to the work that the team has done on game Pass than the number of repeat teams that we have in the service. Like I just whether it's day one or not, I love them in day one, but like that's going from thirty three immortals. You know, you just think about these teams that have been in but for and I love to be able to guarantee I think you asked the question about smaller teams, you know, we sign a deal with them. I think about game Pass as a content fund. Yeah, that we're creating revenue for us that we can then go put back in the market to go create a higher floor for teams when they're thinking about, Okay, how is this going to sell? Because we don't gauge our game Pass deals on how many units it sells or something. When the game goes in, here's the payment that you get. I also like, frankly, when those games ship on other platforms. Now, not every team can from a focused standpoint, because then they can really use the community feature of game Pass to sell more copies on steage or sell more copies on switch or PlayStation, And there's a benefit to them being in games and it's part of their marketing. Do you see like game posts being used as a kind of risk mitigation opportunity away? Obviously, new ips all very difficult to get off the ground, even in this day and age. We live in a world of sequels and remakes and that kind of stuff. So does game pass Do you seek game Pass as a as a means to be like, make this new thing, put it on game Pass, maybe it will pop off. At the very least you get some baseline level of s. I might just because I'm part of the team, I might talk about it as teams inspired to maybe try to innovate a little more and kind of out of a safe zone because they have a guaranteed revenue source from us, and we've we got direct reports of teams of we wouldn't have done this if we didn't know. I remember you want this couch ten years ago to talk about like you play a lot of destiny. It's like we're seeing people don't play a lot of other games. They're playing Destiny. Why why are we making all these other games. It's like a tough conversation and it seems like the answer to that was game passed, righty, But is it is it also the same for third party Obviously the first party developers feel more encouraged though, because you know it is third party. Of third parties also being like, no, we don't want to launch this, Capcom being up, we don't want to launch this on its own, but well I'm not I won't say that. Yeah, in terms of I think Capcom, as you said, it's been killing it. Yeah, like there, they would be completely fine. Launching Paths of the Guys is like coming too. The safe of that. But when we're out there talking to teams and say, hey can I can I get a game pass deal? I want this budget for my game, sometimes we're two years ahead of time and we like if the game fits on a on like what we're trying to do and the fit then absolutely we'll sign those deals. And I think that's a good thing for the industry. Maybe a little blowdyd ego on my part, but I think it's a good thing when we have teams doing things like thirty three player co operates and yeah, I think that's awesome, very specific. That's right. Though, when it comes to the game pass catalog itself, what is the balance with obviously deals expired, stuff gets cycled in and out. What is the max number of games you think you could put on the service? Keep the that's not going to promote a kind of choice paralysis with players. Because such a good question, you know, looking at Netflix right now. Opinion on that, I mean that honestly, Like I personally feel like I didn't ask you all right, but that's fair. That's fair, that's fair. But it's a question because we talked about this. We talked about this recently about like when the algorithm is like not trying to give you what you like, but it's trying to promote what it wants. Netflix was doing. Netflix was doing that, and I can't it was I think you should leave, Yes, exactly, that's what we would everyone is everyone in our friend ship group had finished. I think you should leave season one and two, and Netflix would not push season three even though it's just launched. So with game Paths, I remember when I first started using it, I had not issues, but I felt like the curation was not there for me, and I wasn't necessarily finding the games without scrolling through. But recently there have been you know, the more like editors picks here if you like this game, you'll enjoy this, or you know RPGs, which is you know, my jam? Do you think I mean this honesty? Do you think there are too mini games today in game Paths? No? Okay, But then I'm looking at you know, logging onto Steam and just seeing just an absolute deluge of things, and I feel like game Paths is better. It's a different market, but it's more curated. I'm not being It's not everything been thrown at the wall for me, and I feel like Netflix is certainly in that position now where there is just such an overwhelming amount of content that I am I get discouraged from even going in. So, as you know, part of the team that is building a library, trying to get people in, trying to maintain their attention, do you have this magical number in mind to keep players invested in game pass? I ask you just be clear, like I ask you honestly, because we're always we're kind of thinking through that. But I wonder if I have no but I wonder if that's I feel like we have a unique position because we are living and breathing every announcement, you know, every release date. You know, I don't don't want it every day, but you know so. I feel like as people who are incredibly clued in too online, you might say, we know what's there, we know what we're looking for. But if you are someone who just dips in every so often, is that going to be more difficult for you? If there's too much choice? Do you know where you should be looking? You nailed it as usual. The number one piece of feedback we get from customers is I want the games for me. Like we thought early on that it was actually going to be I get end number of games for X dollars a month, or we could use free. That seems to be that it's not actually free, but en and what it's turned into, and it like for the longest time we still said we still marketed over one hundred games, even though like three hundred and fifty games, because it wasn't actually the number. What people want to do is they want to log in and find a quality thing that they can go play, and they love the surprise things, the things that weren't in there, probably retail shopping cart, but they said, oh, I can click on something and download and try it. And when we get kind of knocked, it's when we let something of lower quality in, not because of the number of games, but because they want that curation that you're hitting on exactly, and so we're always trying to balance more that i'd say the diverse city of the portfolio than an absolute number, even from what our first party's built and from the third party games that we go get. So I think your points spot on. You talked a little bit ago about about twenty twenty two being this light year, and now we're in twenty twenty three, and for a while it felt like twenty twenty three could be like this, this make or break year. I guess I think I talked myself into that. It's it's obviously not, but you do a lot of games in the showcase day. We're twenty twenty four, and as we're going through it, I'm like, oh, so this year's gonna be It's gonna be Forts and Starfield, And then you show to Starfield direct That made me feel like I don't need anything else. Is that how you guys are feel you guys are feeling pretty strong about this year about twenty twenty three. Ye, there enough games coming. Well, I think we're halfway through twenty twenty three, so I'm gonna focus on what's coming in the next six months. And I think it's between Forts and a Starfield that that's going to be a lot, right. So but remember don't go short on Monkey Island. Remember, yes, you're gonna keep getting updates from see if I'm gonna keeping updates from Fort, so you're gonna keep getting updates on Minecraft. We're gonna launch season four of Halo here this coming week, right, So those my Dune vehicle a flights what's it called that there' a bit of a dune OFFICIENT don't know that one. So, but there's gonna be content coming from all those. I have more grounded content that I'll continue to come out. So I think the Flights in team now has launched an update a month for I want to say, twenty months in a row, which is just crazy cadence of content updates, right, and then this flights into the twenty twenty four that's a new release, right. Yeah, So the team felt that there was going to be enough improvement and what we're doing with graphics. It doesn't come through. Sometimes I say to them, you guys are being a little subtle, and they assume that everybody's a kind of an airplane nerd. I don't know, if you notice there's a tornado in there and that trailer the tornado, it's not it's not canned. It happens because we're simulating. Whether that's right. So they're they've just advances in graphics in terms of how they're simulating the atmosphere of the flight dynamics. They felt it was enough of a leap forward that they're going to put a date on it and call it twenty twenty four. That'll be the new baseline. Is that is that in the wheelhouse of when you say you want to have like four major first party games per year, it is it gonna be that various scale of It could be a update to Halo, or it could be Okay, no, I don't we don't count the updates. So I mean something new or something major, right so that you know, that could be a Minecraft Dungeons, which I found something that it's not going to be a Halo Season four. It's not going to be you know, see if thieves date or something. I love the discussion, just like a little bit behind the scenes on Flights and so one of the things we do in the show is we're trying to think what things do we put dates on. We obviously had our twelve games, like everything here you see is gonna ship in the last twelve in the next twelve months, and they didn't all ship in the next twelve months. So we said, let's be a little bit smarter about our dates this time, always trying to get better. Uh, there's a lot of holler night fans out that a very up Yeah. Well and not all the games that yeah, but well it kind of is like reset the context for the show. But anyway, the the Flights in discussion was funny because we're sitting there and saying like, well, we know it's next year, and then we're like, well do we put twenty two four? Like it's called Flights, So like, gee, you're game lights in twenty twenty four, you don't get to be twenty five. I'm not gonna put out same TVC that's right. So I said, we just need every team to name their game with the year. The name maybe that will help. Yeah, yeah, I think, like we haven't actually talked about the whole press conference. I noticed. Yeah, yeah, I would like to get onto that before before he gets too far. But like we talked about it in various kind of our own corners and together, and you guys haven't seen much of the response to us, so it's worth us talking about it as well. I personally thought that it was one of the best press confis that you guys have done in a long time, not only because the content was there, but also we talked about this earlier, Like the pacing was really really well done, Like that is I don't know if that's something that people pay attention to. Serford is our producer. You killed it because also like it's it's it was Sarah at the stop, and then there was a kind of mid there was a little bit of FASA, and then you came in at the end, and in between it was trailer off the trailer, and even though some of those trailers like weren't hitting for me, I never disengaged because it was the perfect length each time. So's it weird that we're laid likely? We're your business is like putting on these shows for us Showman and like you have to produce commercial. But that's why, like we mentioned Tina, Yeah, because we don't like we don't we have Tina Greeny Greenberg. Obviously Aaron plays a big role in getting the show. Our PR teams and our marketing teams. Like, I don't know, how do you I don't feel like we actually do We're responsible for the show. Yeah. No, Like even we plug into a structure at the beginning of the year that they set up in a process. I mean, the teams have got to show up with the goods. But even then I will say, you know, there have been times when we've looked at a trailer and just said it's tough on the team, but we say, it's not going to be in this year, and let's either save it for next year or think about another beat during the year. And that's okay, right. I mean, we've really, I think got to a point where they've set up a lot of good beats for us. We've learned different places of show stuff, and you know, sometimes we make a call that that's not going to be in. I really feel a tight partnership again that you say with team's team with Aaron's team that we get to show up to a process that guides us through it and we get to feel like, hey, just here's the raw material. You know, it's like now you guys, go cook up the cook everything up. Weird though, like it still feels like gamers are judging you based on what happens today or is that is that fair? Because you said when we're talking kind of funny, it's really gonna matter when we got our hands on the controllers. That's right. Yeah, but today there's there's a it's a still a big day for Xbox even though no one played a video game really for the moment. Well there are, there are some people playing Starfield and Forced Setback. But but yes, you are right, like, until our customers have games in hands, like that's what's what's really important. I think it Xbox we continue to have to earn the trust and we're still kind of we've been in the business twenty years, but relative to the other console players, we're still the newcomers there. And I don't mind the scrutiny and kind of bar that I think we're held to. And I know for the Xbox Nation, maybe it's because we're part of a big multi nationale Microsoft, people like the whole are we in or out of gaming? Comes up every so often? Is this make or break? Which some people say and which you know isn't true, Like we have so much where the company's getting ready to spend seventy billion dollars buying a publisher for us in gaming. So there's a ton of support. But I also know that the Xbox fans they, as you said, they want to see us compete. They want to see us do well. And I'd say the flip side of that scrutiny and the questions or when things like today happen and I get we get to walk out on stage and just feel the kind of I love really of the community and the fans and see it online it's awesome. Do you prefer doing the kind of close set stuff compared to you know, Galen Center cars on stage Keanu Res Yeah, I love it. Bums me out. We're like we show uf we had play on a video like come on, I was gonna say, obviously, like you showed off Fable today. That's a big deal for you. There's a lot of games that people wanted to see that are now there now and you put like twenty twenty four on there, so you've kind of ampted people up. Now, what is your strategy now going forward to make sure that you maintain that momentum because obviously there is my is now we won't see Fable again for months and we still haven't seen any gameplay for it. Like that trailer was fantastic, really good tone piece, and I really enjoyed what was shown there. Why do you think it was gameplay because in like as in like an actual like run help to right where Yeah, yeah, it's a gameplay trail, not the stats day the last of the first time you was like, is this really gameplay? I thought there was like sections of it like I mean, I guess we could try to break something akin to the Starfield where it's like, here's what it's like to play. It has a mechanical breakdown for you know, the me and potatoes that game as want to see, so they have a good grasp of what they can look forward to. It's hard in these presentations first to recognize like what it's going to feel like when we're playing a game. We like that connection start I did. There was one moment where it's like clearly it's behind the back they running like the big giant, Like that looks like gameplay, but I think a lot of people will take it away it's like mostly it was this this cinema cinematic. Yeah, so a few things on that first. I think it's a little bit to what Phil talks about about just the earning trust. I think one of the things as we earn trust is that we can be a little more planful about how and when we announce things, because I think that's a big part of managing expectations, because we don't want to announce a game and they go dark for four years, right, So we would like to when we get to the point when we announce a game that we feel confident enough about the progress the team is making that we get into If we show up here that means next year we're here with this gameplay demo and then we launch some time that year, that'd be a great cadence to get into, right, I will say for as I because I've been thinking about this a lot as I look ahead to twenty twenty four. Everything that we're gonna ship, I've seen builds of like very recently or played them, or you know, there's I've said this for there's so much stuff un faible that I get with Alan, and I'm letty just show this and this and this and oh no, because there's a lot of cool stuff in the game right that I'm excited about as I think ahead, even as we get into twenty twenty five, you know, we've just we've seen builds of games at the initiative. We've seen I know, just because they're there in Seattle, what's going on with stated to K three, Like, we've seen these things. So as I look ahead to the next eighteen months in terms of what we're gonna be able to show and deliver and do that kind of gameplay thing, yeah, I you know, I'm cautiously confident, right because the teams are hard at work and they get that. That's kind of the bar now, which is, look, let's show it, you know, let's like show up with gameplay and let's like, you know, do a deeper dive when we show up. When it comes to uh, this year, Starfield is the big, the big thing. Uh. Today we confirmed it's it's four K thirty on consoles. Do you guys feel like gamers got used to uh sixty frames per second, and that's going to be a hard bargain to make with them, or do you guys feel confident that they're gonna get it when they're playing it. I've been playing Starfield since November. All right, you don't gonna brag upout, no brag. It was a little bit right, and the gameplay is great, and you know at some point not to get all geeky about it, but there's there's render time per frame, and teams can either want to like go horizontal or go kind of deep on a frame, and it's I think it's a creative choice. We obviously have games that are running at four K sixty on the platform. It's not a platform issue. It's a it's a creative decision. Yeah, And and I think I trust what bgs the decisions they make, and I trust what I'm playing. And we've handed the controller on a console to people here and had them play. Done the same thing with fort se And you know, I don't ever want us to turn playing games into a math exercise that as players we say, hey, you know, if the song doesn't have this number of tracks or the game and I'm not saying that sixty or resolution don't impact what you play. But I don't think we want that to turn into an selfing I think you want to give the creatives the tools to make the best decisions and and let and the game will be what it is. I think Starfield's going to be a great game, and I love the reception today, and I don't want to kind of force specs on every game before they start. Kind of diving back to the question. Before this, you talked about, like, you know, showing the games that you're planning to have out. Does the absence of a game in this showcase, I mean that it's not in your timeline for the foreseeable future, something like Perfect Doc we haven't seen for a while. Does that mean that it's not factored into the upcoming kind of the year or is it something that you're like, Oh, we just don't want to show it right now, but it could still show up soon. No. I mean we've got the show. We have different beats through the year. We gotta pick what we're going to show where when it's the right time. The what diday I was starting to Daryl Gallagher, the studiohead for Perfect Dark, and he and I joke around a lot. We've been talking a lot, and he's like, he goes, you know, today I got to watch the show as a as a fan because he hadn't been part of the process. And he goes, and I think that if I don't stay on schedule next year, I will definitely be watching it a little extreme, not the way we made it teams. But he gets it. You know, all the teams believe me, they know when they are up next. And we've already, like Aaron and I have even had conversations about like, what does this show look like next year, and what's going to be there, and who's gonna be ready how do we feel about that? So I wouldn't read anything into what's not here. And remember, we've got games Calm, We've got the Game Awards, We've got likely maybe another event earlier in the year. There's other beats for us to show stuff. Yeah, the thing I would say, I think your question is is a great one. When we sat back and looked at this show and then looked at next year's show, and even looked at next next year's show, and like all of its kind of wrong, But we were very confident in the portfolio that was coming and I don't. I'm usually not the like beat my chest person. I'm still not trying to do that. But in some ways it was kind of inevitable for us that after a slow twenty twenty two, right, we've got over twenty studios when you think about the Xmax acquisition, the acquisitions prior and the teams that were already there, that at some point unless both of us need to lose our jobs. And I've been Twitter fired a lot in the last month, that we were going to hit our stride and be in just a great rhythm of shipping games. And when I looked forward and like I had complete confidence in what the team's doing and very excited about the things that we haven't shown, right, And I think the thing that that will get a response and it will be we always here, wait till next year. I mean, what do you what do you say to someone who's like, we've heard this stance before. I'll just say that Starfield being in September, people need in October, that high fire rush shipped in January, that Age two legend like it's there is a red fall thing that I'm not going to avoid, Like that creates a mark for US, But I don't think it's fair to say we haven't shifted game this year, right, I don't think that's right. I think we're going to close the year very strong, both like relative to us and even relative to competition. I feel good, and then when I get into next year, I feel equally strong about what we're going to do. But I get the like after twenty twenty one weight on twenty twenty two, Like that's why I say we got we have to earn it, but we Yeah. I think Starfield and Forts are going to be great big releases this year. Well, I mean as well, are you talking about next year? You said twenty twenty five two? How many years ahead of you sort of even in the back of your mind have an idea full based on conversations you're having with teams on projects that might be very very early in development. We're just sitting on Friday, and it's pretty good roadmap. I mean, when you start to think about, you know, what's the future of Halo, what does that roadmap look like when you start to think about where Okay, Indiana Jones, Yeah, sure, But to specifically answer your question, we try to look out about as far as a typical production cycle. So one of the things that has come up a lot today is we've talked to people, is just is there a bit of a reset on expectations around production timelines. It seems that people still have two to three years in their head. There are a lot of games that could be made in two to three years, but a lot of big games are more four or five years. So it's my job to think about. Okay, so what happens after you ship fable, what happens after you shift motorsport? Right? Like? What is that roadmap? And it generally goes out about one production cycle which would get you into twenty twenty six, twenty seven, and it is that becoming more difficult to manage as there are more studios? Uh, well, we've got a great team. I mean it's you know, it's not like I sit there with some board, you know, moving stuffy, But we have got a whole team that looks at portfolio and honestly, the teams are the ones that manage that, right Like, so they bring to us, Look, this is our plans. Mostly for us, it's to start and this is something that great that we're in this position, like how do we avoid we don't want to shift this on top of this, like what would it mean to move this around? Now? Some of that is Phil will always point out, you know, things they don't slip early, right, so as things slip and moves, a lot of that collision takes care of what. But we definitely take a look at that, and it's going to be something that you know, I work with Jamie Leader and sant A maxwe President where we spend a lot of time thinking about, let's not have all the shooters law which in the same quarter, let's try to keep some of these RPGs. What do you guys think about that? Yeah, you know, like the traffic jams and stuff. Yeah, Starfield, Yeah, that was a lot. The biggest I think it's the biggest, biggest, Yeah. I think the thing that I now ask I'm thinking about, and it must be terrifying, is like, how do you now manage expectations for a game where you've basically shown that you can do anything everything, Because obviously, like it's now been raised to this point where people are thinking crazy things about the potential of this game when it comes out, how do you manage the expectations in the lead up to it, and are you prepared for people to be extra applying a scrutiny that they would not apply to any other game, One because it it's been raised to such a high profile, and two because Bethesda has this history where they make these games that are massive and incredible, but obviously they're also the bigger they get, the more of a house of Causet songs, seems it seems to become a single Nooky breaks xyz e thing. How are you kind of are you confident in it? Is this a different kind of BEFESTI now that we have now where they're like, we've got all this under control, it's going to be rock solid. I think we probably both jump in on this one. I'll say the team is definitely matured right and they've got you know, the Fallouts and sky Rims and Elder Scrolls under their belt. Truth be told, when the acquisition closed, this game was had a significantly earlier ship date than where we're actually launching it, even significant later than the date that we once had for the game, but it was earlier than that before. So sitting down with Todd and the team and explaining that we want to give this team the time, I think Matt says, we have every QA person in our entire company playing playing Starfield right now, looking at bug counts, looking at quality where we are. The nice thing about what we showed today, from my perspective is that was the game. Like that's I've been I said, we're not a little bit humble bread, but there, you know, we've been playing the game for quite a while, and that is the game. And and I will also say, when you look at things like Skyrim, it's not like that team hasn't launched games that have just you know, hit a level of expectation that is so it's I love the anticipation to your question about is it fair of being first party? I think part of being first party is the level of kind of attention you're gonna get, and I think Todd and the team are are really primed for that. And I love the reaction. We didn't know what the reway like forty plus minutes on one game, and we didn't know what kind of engagement was going to be like online and whether people were and it was pretty amazing to see. I don't know if you've got more no, I just echo, first, we have an awful lot of people internally playing and I didn't say I, you know, working with Todd and the team, I see bug counts and you know, I'll just say that just by the numbers, if it's shipped today, this would be the you know, have the fewest bugs in any game form, but as it has ever shipped with and what that does today? Right, So we've gotten we've got more time to go. I like, I started to think though about Skyrim and where that community is still ten some years later, and you start to think about other things that they've done with the game. I think that there's there's just potential that'll get unlocked in the game over time as people discover all the difference, and they haven't talked about everything, you know, absolutely what is left to talk about? What? Yeah, we got we got time for a couple more questions. I think the one thing is that about ten years ago you were on this couch and would you have asked, Hey, games are shipping broken, what's gonna? What's gonna? Is this is the one where Kudo looked at me instead it is yes, I think clear nothing's changed there and it's not going to So I guess the question is why not? I mean if it's making games, it's hard. So why hasn't it changed beyond that? I don't know that it hasn't changed. I think as an industry we have we gotten better at shipping quality. I don't know, like we could go back and do the math. Games have never been bigger or more complex than they are now. Like I, every time a new technology comes along, Matt and I laugh that this is going to be the technology that makes creating games easier and less expensive. And all it does is raise the bar of expectation and complexity, and teams work really hard to go meet that. I will say one of the things that we talk a lot about our teams with now is we want you to be amazing at the things you do, but you don't necessarily have to do everything that every game has ever done, me right, which has been an evolution for us. If you think about our games, you've got multiplayer, you've probably got some like creator, you've got single player, story, you maybe have co op, and when the games were a little bit less complex, you could maybe get away with that. But even then I think the complexity would overwhelm you at some point. So when we're talking to our teams now it's pick the things that you want to be world class at it and just go anyway. Look at like the hell Blade asset today, like you know what Ninja Theory is gonna do. They're gonna have an amazing, believable character in a world that's just mind twist game and put you inside over mind and that, and we want you to be world class on that. So we've tried to help reduce some expectation of complexity. But games are just so big, right, it's not an excuse. If you go back to twenty eighteen when you and I talked, I remember a conversation we had was like, look, we're gonna go acquire Double Fine, And I remember asking you like, are you good if double flying ships, double flying games for the next ten years because we're not going to acquire Double Fine and there's suddenly going to go, you know, create this huge open world game built by fail Official. Yeah, you know, and the Psychonuts two. To me, it was like one of my favorite games that Yeah, And so I think to your exact point, part of that is helping them set the expectation of you do you yes, right, and you and go do it well, but please don't feel that you've got to go or create this, you know, game of it decided to create a galaxy, Yeah, you got to do something about them because great jacket. Yeah, kind of like a cynical kind of observation based on Discially, I'm not cynical, but like, I'm trying to channel the people who are out there that are going to be thinking about and I've seen having discussion. One of the things that someone might say is like this broken system where people are shipping, we've also kind of formalized it and we're not like with early access and that kind of thing. So a lot of people like me see the value in early access with the game like Hades for example, an incredible experience, But at the same time, there's a just a deluge of games that come out that are half done, And what do you think the impact of having that in the ecosystem of releasing games does to games as a whole. When someone like me who's interested in the game seen as a game come out and immediately it's like this is not done, and I am like, well, I've gone all these other things, now you now that it's it's what's your intent with early access? Yeah, I think if it's you're getting, you're putting into early access as cover for it's not done for us. I Grounded was in early access for almost a year before it shipped one point. Oh. The intention there was get feedback from the community on how this thing plays and what people want to do, and how we can lean in what we've got a year, what more can we do? So I think you've got to be clear on what's the reason you're going, because I think you're You're right. You don't want to use it as cover for something. It's just not the last thing i'd say. And I know we're almost dying on the In the end, the player votes, right, like there are great games this year for people to go buy. And there are games that came out, including from us, that were below the quality that they should have been at and they didn't sell, right, And there's great games Time four as well, Like I go, yeah, choice of all over the play and and I don't love it when one of ours or another game comes out and it's not what the team had kind of gold themselves in the beginning of Aspired to Go create. But in the end, the gamers, the gamers get to vote with what they play, what they pay for, and what they buy into. And I that in the like it is kind of survival of the fittest at some level, and the market will will shake itself out and we will all learn from the things that we do and others try that that don't work. Matt Phil, thank you guys so much for spending time with us. Last thing, hex and T shirt? What's what's it? You know you should not wear a T shirt? Exist? Okay, Skane and Selary, but make it happens a pitch for you have to make yea for hexing or no? Okay, no form Kane Selary? Yeah, okay, really? What's we are we getting? Hex? Yes? Is that a video game? We're gonna this conversation offline. Everybody, Thanks for watching. Until next time, everybody, Thank you guys. I'm coming on two segments or whatever. Thanks you guys. Quack Gaga, you're out of here all right. So we're back. I said last time that this is the last segment. That's not true. I have respectable people on the couch right now. The clowns will be coming in at about an hour. For now, though, I'm just glad to be back with Johant Baumb live from Los Angeles as we talk about video games and nonsense and whatever else. I'm Jeff Rubb joining me on the couch. I have an all star crew. We have John Davis own down there at the end. John, how you doing it good? Thanks you, I'm doing pretty good. Any Panya, what's up? You got? Rihanna? Dan? Rihanna? Is it? Panya Manuela? Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Renel Crawford's doing man pretty good. But have you at Lisa mcconte hi? I got it right? Yeah, I'm not this one of the mess up Ethan. Yes, that's it. I got it. Yeah. It's too many names in one day for me. My brain's fried. But we're gonna get through this one together. I'm looking forward to it. I'm actually most interested in Rihanna, what's it like covering video games when pregnant? Like, you know, it's funny. A lot of folks did. A couple of folks over here have asked me that today. It's exhausting, much like it is for everyone. But what I found really interesting is there are a lot of accommodations that are easily made right and all you need to do is ask and usually people will help you out and hopefully they have a little patience when I need to sit down in the middle of a stadium. Was there a time where it's like I don't want to be a bother? Or are you well past that phase? Right? No? I need I need it now. I'm well past that phase. I'm absolutely going to ask for what I need. But that's just part of my personality. You think the industry is kind of a place where but where women can feel more comfortable being pregnant in the workplace and coming in and you're not gonna get you know, like I feel like you're uncomfortable or putting people out or something like that, or yeah, I think it depends on the situation and who's around you. Luckily, I have a lot of badass fishes around me who will not hesitate to stand up if I need assistance or a second voice. But it really is a situational There are sometimes when I am the only person who understands what's going on with me, and it can be hard sometimes, Ethan, Melissa, how's Kataka doing right? Excuse me? What great? Amazing? Everyone loves us obviously we actually I you'd be surprised how many people I talked to this week who are like, we love katak Yeah, why are people always talking shit, we love you guys? Right, I know, I bet that does. I'm not surprised by that at all because it's good and like, people are really weird about Kataka. They're so weird about it, and it's it's a it's a weird name. Yeah, they said they gotta we gotta change that weird, fake Japanese name that never existed. It's it's not it's not a good look. Yeah, that that was the story. Like the e GM publisher, wasn't it a John where like send it was Japanese. Yeah, it was just what you think because it thought it sounded Japanese. Right, So that's there's a long legacy there in video gaming of doing that. But yeah, I mean, I guess going into work writing about video games, how do you ignore all that cloud out there all listens as one of the newest recruits. How do you ignore all the crowds? Don't you do it? So I do it, But I think I have a unique I don't know. I also kind of like, weirdly, I love mess and so I'm just kind of like, if they're being terrible to me and it's directed towards me, I can handle it. And if I have my team who's a little bit younger, and you know, they're getting into the industry and they might be people of color or queer people or trans people who are trying to figure out how to navigate this and getting you know, a lot of comments on a lot of things that they write. I tell them to come and talk to me about it, and then I'm usually a bitch people on the internet in their stead, So I don't mind. I mean, it's a lot, but people are passionate. Yeah, people are very passionate, passionate, hoppy, it's a really passionate that's what That's what the companies say when they're getting yelled at, like pison, Yeah it's okay. And sometimes I know that I poked the bear and that's it's okay, It's okay. It's a good strategy. Yeah. I think I think you're right though, the focusing on the people that are not necessarily kind, but like that you want to help ye, right, And like again, like I have really I have thick skin. People may not have thick skin. I don't think you should have to have thick skin to be in this industry. But it helps, and yeah, I can. I can take it for now. I mean maybe I'll have a nervous break done any or who knows you? You're not a true for talking writer unless you've had one mines? Do we have a time? One right now? How about how about you? How how's this week gone for you? Have you gotten your money's worth, your time's worth? You're whatever? Hasn't been good? Spen? Uh, it's been solid. It's been solid. I think see some great games. I've seen a lot of polarizing discussions. It's always fun and latenessizing discussion in your mind, honestly, I mean, which showcase is better? Right? The PlayStation versus xbox? Obviously? Is Starfield worth caring about? Phil? After the camera stop rolling on the last one, he was like, it's so weird. How Like before it's like, oh, this game looks bad, and now it's like this game looks too good and there's too much of it. It's like, yeah, that must suck. I'm sorry, what do we do about that? It does look like when we go online that people just kind of want to be mad or it's probably very easy to see the people who are mad, right, that's it. They are just the loudest, right. They usually kind of speak that can garner likes, right, Like they say pretty strongly worded paragraphs that usually lead to likes where people who like it there's like okay, cool and then keep scrolling. So it's it's difficult, but it's fun. What you say. I'm down for the petty stuffy John. What's have been like overseeing I gen at something like this. It's it's surprisingly like an old day three. Yeah, you know for us, it is right right, I think like we were originally banded, So for us, I think we're carrying twenty something live streams over the course of like ten days. So it's a lot of planning. So we run everything out of the studio down here in La so a lot of people that are elsewhere flying for it. So it's the most people we've had in a building I think been since COVID started. There's like a hundred people in the office right now. I haven't seen that for a long time. Like previously, like we would go to games calm and they'll be like fifty people there and he's like, oh my god. People, But where whereas this one? And and we've got people coming through like demoing games and stuff as well, so it's been quite a luxury not doing we were originally we were planning on doing a booth on the show floor and we're gonna have demo pods and we're gonna do a stage like the old days, and and we were sort of like, so, who's who's gonna who's going to be there, who we're gonna put on And they're like, well, you guys are on and I'm like, well, well, there's not really any point I was being there if there's if there's no games. And then as it's sort of fractured it it's logistically it's been like it's been really tough, and because we've had people in lots of locations and we're doing video and editorial at the same time. So we've got you know, teams going backwards and forwards the Jeff's thing, and people coming in doing demos, and we've got people on stage like doing interviews, and we have the pre and post shows on the on the it was really fully playing for right because we didn't know what to expect. Yeah. Yeah, So it's it's keeping a lot of plate spinning, but it's it's the one thing that's really clear. I'm sure you also, appetite for games is bigger than I seen stuff doing and doing crazy traffic that we wouldn't have expected, to the things that are big being way bigger than we expected. We did on Jeff's thing, we did a million more views than we thought we would. Wow, congrats. But I mean, I mean Congress and Jeff. Yeah, I mean, let's quote Ronald Reagan. They rise, there's our boats, right, I mean hopefully right. Do you feel that? Yeah? And I think you know, we were looking at you know, we were thinking that this year would peak in June and we're like, how this que full look like? And then now September and October there's what twelve huge games in the space of six weeks. Oh blay Kadbaye. Yeah, yeah, it was fantastic. Earlier this week, you guys were had a little controversy Yeah, yeah, where you guys had four white guys on the stage and people pointed it out. Yeah. What was the conversation like after we deserved it? Yeah, I mean I was saying, we're juggling all these things and like sometimes you lose sight of everything that's important. It's a proactive it's a variety of thing and like you know, I think bulk of our programming is diverse. It's been a priority for us for a bunch of years now. And on that one it was like we were moving so many people around and then you catch it in a moment and you're like, well, we go live for four minutes like we can't we can't really fix it now. But what it did it prompted a bunch of conversations again to make sure the show runners are thinking about it, that the producers are thinking about it, Like it's got to be something that we're thinking about because I think because of the position that we're in, we have we have an obligation to represent, but I think we also have represation that obligation to help, you know, mental people and train people and coach people. And it's not just be a better right to be a better host. It's like you got to be thinking about all of these things that are important to because you got to look like your audience right, And it's it's it is a skill that's something we've It's been a thing that's happen we've talked about a lot this weekend, and it goes back I can't remember. It was a story on Games Industry Dopes or give Gamosetral back when it was called that where it's like the rolodex problem of it's just so easy to go in your own rolodex and who's going to most likely be in your rolodex to people that look like you? And what are the what are the skills you need to learn to get out of that trap. And it's something that is actively have to happen. It has to happen all the time. Right segment before Phil, you guys were talking about, you know, like making sure that towns diverse. We gotta we also gonna train everyone, right, we need to experience people like I'm getting all right, and I think like we need to we need to move everything forward and the people. And it's not just there are different flavors of games. General people tend to use games to generalist as a preservative when they hate us, right sure, and and they forget that there are different flavors. There's critics, there's reporters, there's you know, like people that can write great game help guides and stuff. They all need training, and they need good editors and they need like we need to like train up that next generation. I think it's something that you know, like you had cat on earlier year, and I are talking that about that a lot right now with reporters, because if we don't do that collectively, the pool of people that do this is gonna dwindle. Right, And it's uh, it is something that maybe it was easier and I love working from home. Like when we come here and we do get everyone together, it does feel like connections are being made and if we can and just by the nature of who wants to be covering games, a lot of people are showing up and and we can't say, you know what, we should come in here. I would love to come and train it. But it's like it is hard to do online, right. But yeah, no, but I have to give credit to you guys because you invite it multiple times. You've got invite to me and also Rihanna and Paris, Yeah, to be on. And it's good to see you guys supporting you know, other people that are not getting that that support, you know, because we've been doing it for a very long time, right, And yeah, but it's like nineteen o seven. Yeah, before christ uh yeah, but no, it's good to see that. You know, you guys, Ryan, you guys been very supportive about that man. So you know, I think you guys weren't thinking about like, Okay, let's have four white dudes who right, yeah, yea yeah, but look at the confidence monitor and you're like, well that doesn't that's the same thing with what happened with Jeff two. Like you know, right, he wasn't thinking like, okay, let's have a bunch of of course guys here. And I don't think and I think it's it happens. It Maybe maybe someone is saying that they're doing it delivery, but I think most people aren't recognizing that it's something that happens by the nature of just putting together a show, putting together anything. People take the path of least resistence. The brain only uses fifteen lots of power, and so it cheats all the time, and it's like it doesn't want you to think about everything all the time. So yeah, again it goes back to you've got to be proactive, Rihanna. There there's things that that people can use to like maybe think about it more quickly. In the future practice helps obviously, Also having the people making decisions not all look the same helps a lot. Right, If there's a pregnant black woman in the room as you're winning together the panel, she's probably gonna notice and say something. So it's just making sure that, like as you're saying, training people up, making sure there are decision makers who are diverse, who have those different experience and those lived experiences and can really speak up for the people who may just be overlooked because of convenience and speed. Rene, how do you view this and how you view like, has this week felt like something where you are seeing any of those connections happening for you? I think so a little bit. I mean Juneteenth is coming around, so like a lot of people, like you know what I'm saying, to send some emails to some black people September October. Yeah, it's a hot time for us. It's good to be black and things, you know. But other than that, most of the time I'm at home online, right, so it's a little difficult. I would get a couple of emails every now and then, and those are great to see. But like she said, if it's hard when not just having someone in the room at that moment. But you kind of have to force yourself to have diverse experiences in general, right, and kind of have to. If the people making decisions only got a bunch of white friends, it's going to be weird, you know what I'm saying. Where to try to get a black person or a spotty person, anybody else in the room, She's just gonna be weird. So they had to force themselves to hire someone else that can help with that perspective. And I hire. It's like hiring people's a big expensive process and people are scared. It's risky. So it's like for putting together show like this, it's little stakes, like you you can't whatever. But it's like it was. I try to be a little bit re mindful of it. But most of the time I in my normal life. I've said, at home, it's like video games, don't do much else, take care of my kids. Yeah, that's it. It's so it's like it's hard to get those experiences you're talking about where I Am going to go out and meet anyone. I don't have any friends cat the cats are but but you know, I guess I'm hoping that like little things can build into something bigger and or people knowing that they can pass along to the ton a little bit, like I'm I am after this, I am going to go home and be lazy again. This is a week of a lot of work and I'm glad that I can get a lot of different people in a room, but I'm not going to be someone who is going to be able to do this as a marathon. I'm hoping that people can take some of the stuff and and carry it forward. You get any sense that that might happen. I think it's much easier now you don't have to go to a network event to kind of see some talent. Yeah, you scroll on TikTok and see some cool people. Just kind of force algorithm to help you out a little bit. And I think it's possible, you know what I'm saying. Scroll on TikTok a little bit, follow a few different people on purpose, and then I think it'll be a lot easier that way. That's a good point. Little things at a like even the way you reach out to me if I may please, Yeah, yeah, you DM me and we've interacted on Twitter before, we follow each other, but you said, hey, I want more more representation on this panel tonight, and I'm fucking tired, like like it's been a long weekend. But the way you said, You're like, I don't want you to come here and just only talk about that one part of your old experience. I just want to hear from you. Yeah, that makes a difference. Yeah, Like that's why I responded, And those things add up, like when you really just approached something from a genuine perspective, I want to hear your story. I want to hear your perspective. That helps a lot. Yeah, and it's yeah, I like when I also do my game next morning show and it's like I'm trying to look for different places. You know, I have a hard time say names. I'm adhd. It's a bad executive no executive functions, So so keeping people's names in my head is a difficult thing. But I like that's the one thing where I'm like I want to be good about even if I'm going to struggle to say the name, that can't be a reason not to use someone's story, like that's guy. That would be a I think I would be a very bad thing. Right, you can look stupid and it's fine. Just go through that and it's so I look stupid. So what becomes actually it becomes a fun joke that the chat really likes. Where it's like, of course, Jeff messing up a name again. But I don't know is there something in that? Is there anything else I could be doing? Or what could we do? I have a question, how did everyone else get here? Paid to be in LA right now? I know some people live here, some people trash companies, So like I know Alissa and I were both being paid here, paid to be here by the company. How does everyone else get here? We're no, I live up the street. People walk back top of the skateboard. We live. We live here, ye, easy drive for us. I live in the Bay Area right right. And that so I don't I don't. You know, maybe some of the companies already doing this with content creators, with other people, but you know, Jeff does the with the future class right with the care boards. You know, you have a you have a fund to just pay We're gonna pay to bring certain people out here next year, and just to have so you can meet. Because I think one of the issues is that as companies have become more cognizant of this, and as people within those companies have tried to make a bigger effort. There are fewer opportunities to meet people in person, and so you can exchange emails, you can you know, be on Twitter and be friendly, but like if you can get people in a room together, it creates more lasting connections, It creates trust, and you just need someone to fit the bill to make that happen and then grow those connections so that you can have you know a bigger pool of people to be on panels, to be talking about games, to be at you know, showcases, to present and stuff. I mean, didn't Danny, I mean going back a long way. You didn't always just live down the street from the place you were going. I always amated wells. When I first started in No. One, I was living in New York City at that time, and I just showed up at an event, multiple events. I think my first event that I attended was Sega Net for segond Vest. Yeah yeah, And after that I learned. I learned that that Xbox and the town they were going to be in town to promote like game Que and Xbox, and I just showed up. I had no media credentials, nothing, and I asked, Hey, I'm recording this from my my show. Can I get a media badge? And they just gave it to me. So that was pretty cool, and that helped me to open, uh, to connect with a lot of people from from Microsoft and also Nintendo. And but after after after that, I was taking a break because of school and everything. But in two thousand and five, I was living in Miami and that's no gaming city, you know. So I had to start having events on my own in Miami to stand out and and it helped me to get a lot of the companies to go to Miami because of our parties. Like we had parties with like over a thousand people there, and that's when companies started like sponsoring us and connecting us, you know, with with other other contacts and everything. But yeah, it's been. It was. It was weird at that time because when I went to my first seat three oh five, again, I wasn't connected with anyone. I just showed up and I was giving people on my media badge. I'm not being mad to my my media kid with it has my it had my show and everything in there. CD. Yeah, so when I give it to them and I told them about podcasts. Everybody was like, what is this? This is like a week of time, everybody going me. But then in change because a month after that things Steve Jobs mentioned about adding podcasts to iTunes. That's when everything changed from me. He would do podcasts before they were on iTunes, way before. Yeah, so yeah, so yeah, after that in two thousand and six, that's when everybody started calling me, you know. But at that time, also I'm attending events, I'm lonely Latino there, and that was very difficult for me because I felt the Paris News like I see you another brother, and I'm not. I'm like, yeah, don't look. I felt I frow alone. So then, you know, meeting Paris and other people, I started like helping them also to connect with the white people. And that's going going to events or we just show up at a party and we'll lie like just to try to get into the partner and hook us up. But that's the early days for us anymore. But the reason I'm saying is because I felt like I had to work ten times harder just to stand out man, you know, And now I'm glad to see more people diverse, and then it's more than ever because before. It wasn't like that at all. Yeah, I guess my question would be, like, it hustled really hard, it took a long time, you know, it's paid off. Do you have any strategies for putting the ladder back down? What I've been doing lately is I've been helping upcoming creators as much as I can. And what I've been doing also is talking to kids and in uh in like different cities in New York and Miami, because I also want them to to feel like if Danny could do it, you know, they could do it too. And I've been doing this with my wife now for for like the past a couple of years now, and that's like our goal to pass a torch and help as many people as posible. Man. So, like even today I met someone that I've been mentoring for a while and we met through Zoom and now I see him, you know, immediate bad. She's also Latino, had Xbox and talking to everybody from the team and and I saw almost in summer game Fest and and at first he had no contacts. They don't know what to do, and I feel like it's important for me to to help out as many people as sposible because I didn't had that when when when I started, you know, so, and I think I think we're gonna do that a big time. Yeah, we're gonna go that full time time. Oh listen, when you are I'm When I think of you, I think of someone who's very young. I'm not that young. The botox is very good if you run in circles. That frightened me as a boomer. It's what I'm trying to And I wonder that's like, what's the sentiment among people who cover games or are interested in covering games from them? Like what do you hear? I mean? So it starts at a level of like like, okay, so obviously there's a there's like I think there's two pillars. There's like representation. There's people seeing themselves represented in the games that they play, or in Twitch streamers that are being centered on Twitch, or you know, writers that are getting opportunities at websites or streaming right. And then there's also like like sort of what Danny and Rihanna are doing, which is like when you're younger and education opportunities and like I'm in the New York Video Game Critics circle and they do a lot of stuff with kids in like the Bronx and like Harlem and stuff like offering them like a offering them like you know, chances to like come in and like speak to journalists and hear about what we do for work and understand like the steps that we would take to become a journalist full time, or we mentor j school kids and we offer like chances for us to raise money for them. And so I think it's like it's like a two prong approach. Like I think companies who have like the money and the means to put people like the Xbox presentation today right, there were four four black characters like centered in these trailers, right, And that's a thing that I think it's definitely shifting and moving like better. I'm not very young, but it took me a really long time to get in this industry, like it. I tried years and years and years ago, and it was just it wasn't great. It seemed like there were no opportunities. I gave up for a while. I went and got a master's degree which just told waste of time, money and not in journalism. And then I finally got into it, like only four or five years ago, but it was a dream that I had since I was a kid. But it did feel like I had to give up on it and then keep keep hounding and keep trying, and someone gave me a chance and I'm here. So it's like, yeah, there's the people who have the ability to extend like opportunities to people like do it as much as you absolutely can. And we have a lot of young writers in Kataku that we're trying to mentor that maybe they wouldn't have gotten an opportunity in this industry a couple of years ago, or maybe someone else wouldn't hire them because they don't come straight from Jay's well, or they haven't been at eight other websites, but we're you know, working to make it so that are the biggest thing is that they weren't at the event that the editor was at. Yeah, like, yeah, the editor was at the Xbox showcase or at you know, Dice Awards, and they see someone else hustling and they're like, oh, I knew I want that person on my team, right, And so if you're not already at that event to demonstrate those things, they're resistance. Yeah, throughout the entire cascade of relationships and stuff. Yeah, I'm just gonna shift up a little bit, but I want to stick with you too. Uh, how do you guys view covering games right now? Kataku? How do you mean just like it's such a weird time. Yeah, the shotgun, you know, it's it's like, obviously there are big games that act as these huge pillars. But like we see with the you know, this was one of the stories out of fan Fan but it wasn't the only story. But like you know, Eldering was really big and it was this huge money maker for them, and then it went away and it's like, oh, well now it's low tide. Everyone get the fuck out of here. Yeah. Clear, that can't be. You can't. We can't just wait for the next big game. There's gotta be a way to talk about games, you know, sustainably between these big pillars. How do you I know, a while ago to tell it did the thing where it's like, let's have beats, let's have let's let's focus on you know, one big game and you really go geep on that? Is that? How you guys are still looking at it? You know? The problem with that? I would like to I would love to hear it everyone else is doing it out too. It's a whole lot harder. Yeah, everyone else is figured out to see your formula and it's you gotta it's it's hard because I think what you find from a lot of people is you can bring the eyeballs and you can get the audience, and it's there's a whole other part, which is can the sales team make the products, sell the ads and monetize it? And you know, you being I'm sure you know, there's even if you have a big audience, it's like, all right, well, how can I actually turn this into something sustainable? And you find out even with big streamers, it's like they burn out because they can make it, but is making it actually sustainable over the long term and you've just they're like, you know, five years is in Like this is destroying my life. Can I actually have a family? Can I hang out with my kids or my spouse? Can I hang out with my friends the rest of my family and stuff? And so yeah, I don't. It's in terms of your specific question on the coverage angle, I think that is where our audience is. Like when we talk about is Summer Game Fest Xbox Showcase, is that a huge traffic driver for Kurtaku, it's not necessarily a big driver like I would say, the biggest story of this week is this stuff within the well all right inside baseball. So streamers are questioning whether or not they have danced in their heads because of headsets they are too heavy. But you also have like you have check your big contact creators like Nick merks Tin the Tatman. I'm butchering the name. It's late. I'm sorry, but uh, you know, big personalities right now wanting their skins pulled from call of duty or not because of the questions they have with with the gay in tragender community and rights and stuff. And it's like that is actually are like, that's what is blowing up with our audience. That's the stuff because those there's a whole there's like two parts of gaming. There's the part where if you tune into the Giant Bomb couch and you want to know what's happening in Summer Gamefest, like you are very cued in in a certain way. And then there's the whole other set, which is like I buy one or two games a year, maybe I play FIFA all the time. I don't read about FIFA I go to my favorite I have a one or two favorite content creators or streamers every day. Yeah, let's tell me what the card odds are, who, what the trades were doing are, what whatever EA messed up in the build and so and and that's that's many more times the audience size. Yeah, and so I think it's really about figuring out what are the things you're interested in covering, and what is the audience for that stuff interested in and then meeting them where they are and not feeling like, well, this is what the audience should be and this is where we should go, and that's what we should do. So I'm definitely guilty of that exactly. I think I wish we could stop highlighting the negativity. Allow it. It's very exhausting. Man, What do you mean by that? But because I mean Highland, I think criticism is no Christmas is different, that's differ. I'm talking about like negative, Like I'm trying to think of something that has happened recently one of the creators that is uh skin God that we're talking about. Yeah, like them, and like why let's talk about more like other things that I feel like because they because it doesn't affect an audience of lgbteacher of course know that part. Yeah, but yeah, I mean, like I know, you know what I'm saying, like, I think it's not helping the industry of just but here here's where I'll discree. I think that of this is why krit Talker is import because they could talk no of course, and then the different conversations and then we can have difference. Uh, we can have the people that do want to come in and and just honestly truly they're they're favorite kind of games, which I think is totally fine. They're coming to do that as well. And I think that's why it goes back to the diversity thing of like diverse voices of all kinds. We're gonna get this all covered hopefully. Interest. I think that that's why I was asking them, like I don't want Talkative stop doing what they're doing, because yeah, I'm not saying I'm just it's kind of I know. I think I think your point is well taken. That there is it. There's these these two types of of criticism. One, there's criticism of these companies are not doing right by people. You know, Jeff's show doesn't is not it doesn't have any women. It's all these white guys. And then there's the criticism of like just being negative on a game because you're trying to score dunks or you're trying to score conference was like boring to me, and it's like yeah, yeah, And there's ways of drifting off that that I think are like it's it's it's like, yeah, there there are times where you make mistakes and like, all right, is this a legitimate concern over the thirty frames per second in a red fall or right? So I think that point is well taken that you know, when you're trying to meet the audience somewhere, it's like who what are you? Are you meeting audience just because they'll show up, but actually they suck. I feel like it's also kind of tough too, because now I feel like gaming we have celebrities now, right, Like I don't know if we really has celebrities, but like the streamers concentrators, so obviously the audience want to hear about them, right, They're the ones that they're they're watching the majority of their time if they're talking about gaming. So now you kind of got to cover the nick mars, you know what I'm saying you kind of got to cover the almost celebrity tabloid like stuff because that's what they want to hear, that's kind of what they're on, and it gets hits. I think it's also like for me, it's like I think there's a it's tough with this kind of stuff, especially with Kataki readers. It's just like a I get it, it's Katako, but there's like a there's like a there's a nuance that's missed sometimes and things like I will I will shit on you know, Activision Blizzard for like things that I think they deserve to be shipped on for I play Overwatch every day, and I'm very open about how I play Overwatch every day. I'm write about Overwatch all the time. It's like my favorite game. I'm obsessed with it. And for me, I think there's like I've always been like this, and I was like this, I think because my parents were like my biggest fan but my biggest critic. I think you can you can critique things that you care about, and you can hold not necessarily feed to the fire, but you can have conversations about things that maybe someone doesn't want you to talk about, but not completely broad stroke you know, put it in the bad pile, Like I love Overwatch. I'm gonna play Overwatch. The devs that make Overwatch they worked really hard to have like a beautiful Pride celebration in it this year, and that meant a lot to me. And I think those are the kind of things that like we're struggling to figure out, like as writers and then seeing reader feedback and being like, you know, I wrote about Overwatch and they're like, well, I don't you hate your at division. I don't, like, like maybe you do, but it's like, so what like at a certain point, it's like I would I decide to play a game or don't not play. I didn't play Words Legacy. It was just because it transference, like it would hurt my feelings. Yeah, it was that simple. It wasn't anything more than that. And I'm not asking any of all the stuff. To bring it back to your point the original question real quick. It's people can sniff out the authenticity immediately. And so part of the MBED theory is that if you want to be able to talk authoritatively on a specific game, because guess what, there's way too many games, you can't come to this. I mean I played, you know, six or seven games over certain days, the Future Game Show, the PC Game Show, Wholesome Directs, the Xbox Showcase, Summer game Fest. There are more games that were announced that I have not had a chance to even look at the trailer at now than the opposite. And so part of the thing is like, you want to be an expert in Overwatch or your game is war Zone too, and you need to then own that with the sense of uh. And the hope is that it develops a respect for you back towards that specific game, those creators, that audience where you're not just sort of parachuting in being like, well this sucks buck this. Yeah. So since the Sony thing, we've been tracking how many trailers drop. So this isn't announcements, it's like games that have had new information dropped about them. Three Nate Sony, through Wholesome Directs, through Future Game Shows, through PC PC Game Show alone had fifty five to day, right, so like three hundred and eighty games that we're tracking that are like not out yet. I mean, you've been doing this a long time time. You did back there when it was all print. Yeah. Christmas was always a nightmare right, well, all the games. I mean, like what's interesting now is the shape of the year has changed, right, And part of it that's COVID, but it's done as a favor because we get a little bit of a blipp in Q one, and then we're getting this nice blipp in June, and then you know, we're getting one in September October. They're not all slammed into November the way they used to be. But I think to your point about like the importance of beats and like and how the audience is thinking. Is that So elden Ring was was a great learning for us. We ran about eighty stories about elden Ring after it came out last year, and they all performed twice as well as anything we wrote before it came out. So people get in this mindset of like, this is the thing that I love right now, and it's they want the stories from you know, the soloh dude, and they want to know what other people are doing in these games, and they want to find connections. And I think, you know, there's the you know, the maps and strategy guides, which is like you know, they're they're performing really well. But I think it's that that shared culture that people are craving. I think you guys have been doing a great job with this right where you're like, you know, you spot these things and we're learning that as well, because I think traditionally you think, oh, news is you know, there's this cycle of events that's informed by years ago print where it was news, previews, review, some like tips and tricks, onto the next thing. And then there's this sort of whereas now people identify with a game or two, and it's they're not we We grew up when people were gamers and it was all about sampling as many things as possible. Right now people don't self identify as a gamer. They'll self identify as an Overwatch player or as a you know, as go player or a so for us, the challenge has become what can we offer them when they're so immersed in the culture of a thing, What is news to them? Right? Because if we just like follow the usual playbook, they're in knee ject reactions. I already know that the game told me. You told me, you know, you know people, aren't you doing news about Fortnite skins? It's like, because it's right there on the screen. Yeah, all right, I think we're gonna wrap this segment up, but thank you everybody so much for coming by talk with me. I absolutely adore all of you. This was really a lot of fun for me. Thank you. Injections before the next time, right there, am I right put them in there. Thanks to watching everybody. We'll get back with I do believe this is the clown time now, everybody welcome? Are we good? We're good? Alright, alright, welcome to Giant Obama website about video games and come what what? What? Who? No? No, that's what it is about. Now, what's I'm doing? I' Jeff Grub missed something important? Is that? What's in this cup? That's I'm Jeff Grubb. We're doing one last segment. It's a it's a whole mess over here. We're gonna get throw it together. Wait, I got on this couch. Jan if you're here, who's over there? What if the ships? Oh no, the boy John Lucas. It's okay, it's okay, it's the last one. It does not matter you being quacktasting. We got Billy Lawyers, got Dan Reichert, we got him a fife. We got Mike Manati Patrick kleppis here. Everybody pass it name nothing, nothing had to think about it. I thought it forgot it from too much of an opening. Yeah yeah, I like, once we introduce you, we vactivated you, and now go don't make me spicking quake a yeah, fair enough, we're done. We did it pretty much. Patrick, How are you? How are you good? Look, Bob, this is a target. I think it really does live in a swamp? Yeah he does? What is? Oh my god, I've seen I've seen the first record in the theaters when it came out. Can you just tell me you didn't what kind of creature you think? Shreck is? Like a weird alien monster? Things? You did? Not a swamp? Yeah? Yeah? Really? Briefly, what's one movie about there? Was like a Night and a King and a Lady, And I think Cameron Diez might be him. Living in a swamp was so important for that movie. He's getting a surprising right amount right about this? So what kind of animal was was Shrek's best friend? Don? Okay? Okay, we finished finish line for me? Blank are like blank? They have layers? I can't do that? Yeah? Like ducks? All right, so we don't have any feet out tonight, right, we're not gonna oh feet. I think I said feed out. No, I can't. I can't move my legs. I got a fire sure on the wall in case your feet come out. I can't move my legs. It's not I mean, if you want to do it. They didn't say you can't. Look, we don't want to get comfy back here, Patrick. I yesterday we were playing a little game like how much money does this person have in their wallet? And we were like, I don't care any money. We talked. I think we talked about this recently. I'm I'm a zero cash lifestyle. Yeah. Actually, I think people were guessing about you and said you would be zero cast zero cash. Yes, Mike Banati was carrying five hundred and twenty dollars. Okay it are you currently carrying? No? Going to a drug deal? I was very afraid I was gonna get mud today. It's not like but on somewhere else. Sweeted by the way, I don't carry that much money on me anymore. My shirt that says I'm not carrying on five five dollars. A lot of questions about where the five hundred and twenty five dollars when? But where did you put it? How much do you have out of you? Now? Wait? Wait, should we get so much he has on him? Now, Mike, don't do it. Don't do it. Like, no, it's not very much, but it isn't once fives ten it was. It was like a twenty ten and then I bought something. And it's like what you guys are saying, like, they give me back more money because I have more paper now all that's why we don't. I don't like money. And Nicky Grigs were like, you give some money because then they give you back more money. You have to It's it's the wall. It gets so big. Yeah, I can stands the wall. I swear that I started off with like five bucks and I kept spending it and it turned into five hundred. And how it works? Can you invest my money for him? It seems like it's working out for you. I hear Krypto's big right now. This is a jolly b apple pie. Why are you asking me that? Yeah, that's why that's why. No, No, it's cool. Uh we uh we fixed race relations outside uh Nikky Grayson yep, Nicky Grayson blessed their heart. They handed me this Prior to the last segment and then I just felt full. And then I don't think race relations have been that good since Collision Course dropped. Sure with jay Z and Lincoln Park because you had Minati's favorite. Yeah, because you have jay Z, you have Mike Shinoda and Chester Benny Park. Do you know about Collision Course? Is that fruit in there? You don't have to eat anything? I like link At Park. Yeah. Yeah, it starts with one thing. I don't know why. It doesn't even matter how hard I tried to keep that in mind. I designed this war. I'm to explain it. Dude. Time Oh I know if that time is a viable thing down to the end of the day, it takes away. It's so real. You didn't look out blow watch the time go right out in the window going on. He didn't even know, wasting it all just to watch you go. Okay, I'm starting to get a DMC takedown with jam Is sitting this all down before. He's like, Patrick, you're sitting right next to Mike, and he immediately apologized. Very funny, Matrick. He loves my name Tokodo. He's a big fan. Famously, that is the funniest picture. I just want the vibes like I want my life is like pretty structured. I got kids, Yeah, it's born. I love my kids, and I just want now I want like five hundred I'm gonna start Okay. Wait if I put five hundred and twenty five dollars in my pocket, now is she gonna start getting real? It's really weird. So people start sending you RoboCop costumes. You're like, no, please, I haven't seen RoboCop and they don't care. I have to where they say, we get to Los Angeles gets weird, like you're doing up the paper and to get the suit you have to like take your sandals off and then they're really upset about your feet. I also love that you tweeted out that you were not carrying five hundred and twenty dollars on you, as if like every person considering mugging somebody that's a browsing Twitter to be like, hm, I wonder who tweeted that they're carrying cash. Guys, this guy, he's one of our discard mots putting it out on me. Thanks Christians say I gave you the wood tea. Yeah, thanks for the Sherman Monte the wood tea. Oh boy, I Patrick, can you stand on Jupiter? What can you stand on the planet Jupiter? Not the rent him personally? Know anyone know the royal Wait? Oh, like is it physically possible to stand on ju I mean, if you believe in yourself, you can accomplish anything. As that's what I tell my children every time I put them to bed. So if she tells me I would like to stand on Jupiter, kid, Okay, go stand on Jupiter. What would you tell it? Dan Reicher though, if he said I want to stand on Jupiter, to Jupiter is a little bit like a swamp, and so kind of depends on where you're standing, like said, not the red spot. Not the red spot, because that's a tumultuous thank you. Yes, but there is maybe a rocky core very deep inside of Jupiter that if for some reason the heat and the gravity would kill you, you could stand famously hot. I thought, like mercury and Venus for the main out ones, Jupiter's got It's very dense, so I imagine it gets gravity. It's like, really, I'm not a scientist, but it's like pretty far from the Sun. Yeah, but it's far from somebody. But Jupiter almost was a son like things went a little bit like better in Jupiter's way, we would have had one of those duels, big gasp ball hanging out in the midlin nowhere. It was stupid grab and now we have to hear about those drops of Jupiter that are in her hair. Dare you, Mike, let's come with you. It seems like you don't want to hear about the drops of j thinks that I saw him a blizz con once. There weren't many people watching. That's if you say that phrase three times and like you will something like train will just are performing times please, like I don't even say a trade sing song please, good trades sing sung those No, no, I forgot the magic words said I saw them at bliss I heard I sold them at bliss Car. I was That's how he got that. Yeah, yeah, that was part of the rider. That was the same. That was like the bliss Car where they had multiple actually had that famous lady with the violin, and then they had Lindsay Sterling maybe, and then they had the name. They had a whole door from Game of Thrones like being a djor No no, no, no, no, it's incredible. Actually he's like epically known it like he is DJ a like multiple season actually good, it's always good, just like Shack Elijah Woods. Elijah would an interest ELBA DJ Coachella this year he did Star Talent, you know, and it's always it's always DJing. Could we all get into DJing? I think I played hero on like x per game was a good game. Yeah, you're basically a professional tea. Yeah, then that game was sick. I really really would bring that back. It was a great game. I don't but they can't get car he get back in their start programming a DJ hero two or or whatever it is. We get Phil Spencer back, Yeah, I prefer I didn't not with us. I did get to ask about christ and skies. I was really concerned when he said that he like watches this. It's like, how much does he wanted Phil Spencer seeing your feet? Yeah, that's a legitimate questions. How much money do you have on you? Do you think Phil Spencer seen your feet? Yeah? Exactly, yeahs Mike's specifically or just like anybody's like your own feet, Yeah, high on the scale. Right now, I'm gonna say no, no on my own unless Blie. I'm about say that's about Philiponer unless he's like just casually browsing wicking shirt right, which you know we can't count out now. Sometimes you're in and give Needo and uh, you're just testing out the edge. I mean to end up here, but like here I am. When they invented and caught, then you're looking at me. I said the word edge browser and then you started, h oh, that's funny because I was clearing my mouth's because of edging. That's and they invent it. It caught. Neo was like that was four porn, right, yeah, yeah, that's like but they try to sell it as something else. You think like oh yeah, like it's the same thing with like VPNs, like like it's for security mind feel shady, like the hand and hinting. What do you want it to just be like a boner and staff, like a time going to mysters across? It should be a Jim guy on just do the internettional side for her sweater. I think you got you said on that you got me one for my birthday. Yes, to wait for my birthday. Yeah, I don't have a Yeah, okay, I mean I might see you before that's true. No, you don't have to wait. Although I think my wife might have adopted it, so might I'm going to be clear. Did you intentionally wear the Nintendo World Twitter and knowing you were going to be talking to Phil he was a power movie? Yes, okay. I wanted to be clear because I saw it on the monitor out there and I went he did this on purpose? Didn't This is who I really like? We do have a Nintendo. He looked at me with the camp cut away. He said, yeah, that sounds like something. I get it. I don't know. This is your guy's show now, I'm just kicking back. Yeah, yeah, of course you can. What's the what's thet here? What is that not just one way way way way old on old delicious? Michael? No, no, no, no, Michael. There's a Sure's one by my laptop. Is that not just am the Donald's like apple pie? Should it looks like onions? Mike? Okay, Michael's don't be racist. They're gonna get You're gonna get canceled on this. Filipinos in this room. You are going to get well, teach me. I want to learn this is the better? How is it definitely better? What is it is the better? One? In my group? All over? You and I think Dan's about to go into incognito mode. It does have the same exact sleeve though, right, Yeah, that's gonna be the photoshop. Yeah, oh I told you so. Don't don't look quack all this is he went for a second bite the christy miss of this is incredible. Yeah, this stuff in between the group is really good. It's good goop, incredible and very good. Getting the fuck away from you. That's gonna go one time. Look at his hair. I don't know, it's not much better. No, I got, I got, I got. This is really good. I have it. I haven't gotten COVID from my kids. Hey, yeah, you're still COVID. Yeah that's that's that's clear in my book. Yeah, that was weird. Covide. That was weird. I don't like the Dutch, but I couldn't feature was fixed race relations right now and fumbling the bag. It's solving like race relations depends on me eating fruit. We are all fun. You would say no, damn the opportunity to literally and I wouldn't say though, it just wouldn't happen. I never got one, is there anymore? Probably one gets one. He's been slacking all way. Look Mike. I can't believe all these white people fucked up race relations a thinker. Okay, you said wanted to be on the couch. Do you regret that decision of okay, fair enough? Jeez, I mean Dan and I's lips kind of touched like he ate that very Yeah. Yeah, Hey Barley, good mare Barley dogs back? You want jelly me dog? Barley? Fine? Hey, Jeff, who's your favorite chef? Bob? Oh, that's fair. It's what is this? Yees chef? That is whiskey and coke? Some water? Thank you, chef, Yes, chef. Go to the grass skirt in San Diego. Oh yeah, go to the grass skirt for sure. I don't know, Dan, what are we doing here? We're wrapping it up. We're just hanging out. We're hanging have good time. Did we do okay? No, I think we did great. Thing you did too, just like hanging out and talking to be Did you have a particularly good segment like I okay, all right, well that you love to have a good quality bar Yeah. Yeah, when we don't know, it was good. I had a lot of fun talking to a lot of different people. It was like you think about it now, mass, what is what is your highlight? What do you what do you go back to? What did your mind go? It was it was probably earlier today talking with with Imron and all them. H they were just so on the ball on in terms of like getting into what people actually care about beyond the video games and like the people behind it. They were really good at talking about that. And it was a lot of I'm gonna get acrostic characteristically characteristically here. I know Jeff longer than anyone here, and like, you know, we both started like you know, you know, the very bombny industry and stuff, and we were kind of doing this thing for a while and you'd never know if if it's ever gonna break through, and you like seeing him on this couch and stuff talking to all these incredible people, all these important people, like, you know, I'm proud of you, Jeff Great, It's proud of you two. Yeah, okay. I I was also thinking about the first time I met Jeff. Yeah, and it was out of past East or West. And then like I'm in costume for some packs wrestling thing or whatever, and then like Jeff Grubb in a flannel, his hair tied back, He's sitting alone by himself in the front row. He quietly approaches me. It's like jet a bit, I'm a big fan of joy Bomb. And then it was like Jeff Jeff Grab, Like what the fuck? And then like I remember who Jeff Grab actually is and then look at us now, dog, look at us now. Yeah, that would have thought I did the first thing. I did have a little out of body experience where it's like, how the fun did I get here? And that's really weird. Yeah, were the pub G Chicken dinners in twenty seventeen. That was a lot of fun. It was like a big like industry party thing, like you were streaming it right, streaming to guy pretty early, so I shout cast too, Yeah, you're man video. Yeah, it was funny during the like hide of PUBG and he would just get like who's who of the gaming industry and these pub G games. I remember being like, god damn, how was he getting all h people? Yeah, it was like they had the custom games. You had to ask them to give you the access to the customer games, and it was like people just wanted to kind of play in a way that was like not just going into the gauntlet, and it was a lot of fun. It was a good time, But speak about being bad at video games. I was playing Print, I was playing the video game today. I'm not sure. No. I look, we're all we are all looking forward forward. Yeah. Yeah, we're playing a tactics game. Yeah, another one. There's a hard and you played a game of Man you got it? And I'm like, I'm sitting next to Patrick, and I could tell that, oh yeah, he's pretty good at these kinds of games too. But I'm gonna question. I mean, just just fucking I was fucking up really good. I'm gonna get there, and I'm like, oh, he got to the boss before me. I got a hurry, and then we're right there, and of course he beats the boss first, and the guy's like, good job. What do you say, the first first person to do it after only two tries? Yep, But here's the thing here, No, no, no, but here's the thing. You've done this long enough you cannot tell if that is bullshit or because they will tell you constantly like, hey, you did a really good job, and I felt like I did. But also like the kinds of people showing up to appointment, It's like you play video games right, like there's a certain comp I was like, sure, I felt I did well, But the only reason I felt good about it was because then I immediately watched you suck shit. I had to bust down to one little sliver, and because you beat beat it before me, I was like, well, I gotta get it right now. And I just went in and I gotta stand up. I'm watching and I was like, good luck and tried three Jeff yes, and then you're just like I'm walked away and oh my god. But the funniest part about that story is then not not on interpret this, Like all the developers were maybe like natally speak, you know, English, And it was like they came up afterwards, like while I was like giving Jeff shit about it, and they were like, what you know what publication you know do you work for? And I was like, oh, you know REMAP And I was like, I say, Jeff, I think they're bragging them. Impressed them so much they want to know where they need to know. Yeah. Absolutely, And then we went to another thing and on the way out there like stop me and the like, and I'm like, why they stopping? They did someone want to say to me? I was like, I was getting biged by riches. You want to know what they thought I was taking pictures that they demot They're like, you better delete those. I could just sitting there like I was bored and look at through Twitter like that they thought I was taking pictures. I was. I was Dean Takash's actually gonna open. He was off forward tomorrow talking about how good Patrick was. I appreciate that. No, I'm hoping they're gonna put me, you know, I mean hypothetically if we were at a ub saft thing like they would, they would, you know, remember, well, do you think you're pretty hot? Shit? Huh yeah, actually on your side agreeing. I was just saying, you think it's pretty much. You can't put the sarcasm on it when you start next year. The main decor actually like in the hall where you got to play the game. The statue, that's absolutely right. They had like an effort statue at the basically I heard that party was sick. I was busy. They had final there, they had fantasy they have me, did you kiss them? I have a very awkward, like nervous fan interactions like you beat the street area. It was like the guys who made the effort. Statue were like, oh, you can take it, if you if you can, you can take it, you can have it. It's five thousand pounds and bolted to the floor. And Emma and I like, we can figure it out. Yeah, if any, if any, two people can write. And they gave us a little pin the little dogs. It's not a dog. We were told it was a wolf, but yeahs are wolves dogs and descended from them. I think a dog could could have it out a dog. You have a dog. You also have eggs at your house and maybe you don't know about it. I don't know if I do. If you have eggs at your White baggs. She likes eggs a lot. I don't. I've never I don't know if I've ever seen an egg in my house. No, all right, we don't much. We don't watch Time Left, but I do need Patrick destermine who's weirder, Mike or Dance? I need help? Well, hang on, this is weird because he's no need for like ten, that's your fresh, You're fresh. Like every time they hear the story, it's like, yeah, it's like me, my dad's foot, that's the story I told him to day. Yeah, it's yeah. But then but then later I spared him. It was like, oh I heard something about the foot, and he was like, oh yeah, no, no, no, no, like it wasn't a thing I was. I knew, and I knew I already knew the answer. No, leave my line again. What would you say it is weird about Mike that you would want to present the Patrick She's I don't even know. I've known this guy for like in a year, and I feel like it's a mountain of things. She's helped me out here. Oh yeah, I can't even think of what. There's so many. I'm so normal. Watch my name's weird. But that's not even top like thirty. The fruit thing is the one that everyone goes. Fruit thing. I don't want to give. I don't want to give too much, but there's enough to him. Oh can I interrupt you real quickly? Someone asked if the apple thing is related, because yeah, yeah, everyone comes like it makes sense, Like I don't know. Maybe, like again, I don't remember, like an impetus. Maybe I saw like snow way as a kid, but I don't know. I guess I was pretty impressionable. It might have happened. Here's a tiny one is the one from last night where you know he's got his things with fruit and he won't eat him and somebody told him, like, oh, well, Disney dole with Disney fruit. Fruit. Here, it's Disney. Here's what I really mean. Disney fruit is fine. It's a big thing with fruit, and I haven't anywhere to go, but I'm just gonna move around time to express my discompany a big thing with fruits. Texture, right, like so like that makes sense. Like if you told me I had to drink some apple juice, like I would like not like that, but I wouldn't let I would do it. It's fine. Something about that weird. It's the bite. I don't like that. It's somehow wet and yet crunchy. That's mess. Stop. That's not how food should be, well, define should be no bad, Okay, I don't think that's freshness. That's gross, Mike, You would have freshness is gross. You and I ate poutine together, and that is also wet and quick. To be clear, that wasn't a stake. I should not have been that. It was not crunchy. The putin the fries are definitely so yeah, all right, So then Mike what's weird about Dan? Well, he thinks he could stand on Jupiter. He uh tried. I was, we can't prove it. At one time, I can't prove anything. And that was. That was twenty years ago. It was twenty I don't think currently there's anything a lot. I'm gonna go with the egg white thing as exhibit A. I think, oh, come on, when he tried to like use a taser as an alarm to twenty years ago, twenty years ago, I have not done anything removed. I'm gonna try to myself. Good morning, I'm bringing up current things about you. You're talking twenty years ago. Give me what's weird currently? The Jupiter thing was yesterday. I'm a new friend. I'm not. I'm not on the up and up with Dan Lore. All I know is what I sit here on this couch and learn in real time. He's like, it's like it's you know, like some people like, oh, it's a I get up. I'm so sweety. I all a coffee, maybe cold shower. Dan's like, well, what if I got a taser and like just taste myself a little bit to really just little juice. There was like a month where I would taste myself to wake up a month twenty years ago. Yeah, all right, how many times did you do this daily for a month? Question? Because it was not pleasant? Yeah, okay, I figure that. Yeah. I was like, well, I gave it a shot. I gave it a college try. I am going to give you some grace for that, because like, because it's not pleasant. Yeah yeah, well in college, you know, yeah, okay, recently you had to like get rid of old computer parts on old phone instead of like this supposed normally, he got a axe and axed it like like a madman, like a Mickey Mouse cartoon. You know, it doesn't know who that is until recently. And then you've got glass in his eyes could play day about how itchy his eyes were very concerned where glasses those are? Like, that's the world. Why were yours? I know we're near as weird as this man. I just have a phobia for fruit, and I know it's weird. I would admit it's weird. Do you think he admits anything he does as weird? Will will? Yeah, okay, hold on, I have a question. Yeah, look inside yourself. Yeah, what do you think is your weirdest quality? The joke? Damn everybody, who, oh my god, what or what is? Okay? Maybe if you can't, if you can't be back, so you got to move off that you gave me that everybody? Oh manything like Facebook workers get traumatized by the things they have to watch. Sorry you shot Luke. Seriously, you got some things off? Is there something that people other people respond to? My shoulders are pretty hairy? Is that weird face? Okay, I have questions. I don't know, I don't, I still questions. I'm also really sweaty. I don't right there. If you thought, shit, I'm by my kids. One thing that he is going to scare me? No, no, no, I'm just I'm examining the whole object. Okay, So have you ever shaved it? My shoulders daily? I had to get my one friend, like, I feel so bad for hurting. I grew up wanting to be on this couch and this is what I got for me. We're very close. Yeah, but it's awful, like you do those are like when it came back, it's just like a bunch of tiny little c No. No, like you know, like it's like raisor sharpening. No, it's the worst. It was so itchy I'll never doing it again. It's like it sucks, like looking like you know, the fucking Missing Link, but it's like you shave that, And one it feels really weird. You're used to hair back there, so everything's like sticking to my back because it's just pure skin. I don't know how you people live like that. And then like but then its weird ones, right, you are weird. It's so itchy. It's like a million little needles poking through your skin, Like, can you take him to get waxed? I kind of wanted to do that, but like in fucking pulland Ohio, I can't, Like, Like what am I like? Its gonna walk into my wax? Straight? Los Angeles? Yeah, we're in LA. Not doing it on here this week. I'm tired, if you know. The last thing I wanted to Well the way, did you just reference the movie Missing Link from like a that I'm pretty sure no? I was actual missing yes, And maybe I didn't see that one like that those good ship though, manh I like that. What's the one with the more of a samurai think straight rules? You're see Kubo Patrick? I saw a trailer. Yeah, the whole movie's like that. Yeah, much longer. I bet it's good. I like Caroline, right Caroline, Yeah, craz sweetline from Sweet Caroline. Shop up you y'aut there it gets prints in here, say, can tell Nicky start bringing some Prinson? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, Nikki is the one with a dog who need to show on my shoulder hair? Mike, Mike, do you think conclusion boy didn't get to you the well? No, no, what's the thing that people respond to the most, fucking like old leg Waites thing. It's all stoping twenty years ago, the tazing, You're you're the old You're the old boring ship ex I'm sorry. Chat is with me, and I know this is right now. We already ran because they're so a top of it. You're so beautiful. Chat looks like Shrek. You are an onion and I am ready to peal you. There was a sacred cord Shrek would play, and it also please Shrek. All right, did you look at myself? Were comfortable with my whole situation? Yes, I'm more comfortable than you are, but my situation really it's a competition. I'm witting. What's what's your verdict? Now? The problem is Dan is right that like I'm just knowing him for too long. It's all kind of settled in. It's normal. I'm just settling. I'm just so excited. The future is bright, right, you know what? Pretty well? Who do you think it's weirder? You're right, give me a second. It even like the Hogan rock and like I'm passing the torch. I don't want to be Hogan. Yeah that's rock. Go bankruptcy me. Oh there, we can do that right there for a second. Again, Yeah, you're saying, here's the thing, Mike is weirder. But no, but he is a better about recognizing that the dan is. I think that's right. So I think what is uh, what is actually like more appealing about your pitch? I'm being a weird though? Is that like you say it and you go like like there's a shame with it if you like where his dan is Like no, like this totally know I'm gonna take your clothes off and like climb up on a wall, like I mean, who wouldn't do that? And like he'd be like I can't believe it to my clothes. I'm so sorry. I really I'm sorry, you know me, And he's think about like you could be Uh, you could be weird. Who gets a ship? He always tries to be better and not like about this ship. He's gonna be weird forever. Yeah, but about stuff that's like hard to be better about. He's always trying to be better, so like he's deserved. I'm really playing those racist years behind me. Yes, Yeah, the nineties were a little weird. Said something. And if you'd only Jolie be fruit pie, we could have ended racism right here. I'm not gonna happen all right. We are starting to wrap up. There is one thing though that I wanted to bring attention to. Uh, it's been a fun week. We've done a lot of work here. It's been really good. But there is we want to make announced b here from a giant bomb before we're done so well, sounding announced that I'm quitting Giant Boden, I'm starting Rena. Is there never any tax attorney? Jerry started shut up to watching everybody. I want to give a bunch of thanks thanks to Jan and Dan, Emma and Bailey seriously and not have done any of so much to have a find of scene. He did not see dam and Lucy so much. He be scared. He's so scared something. We worked dam worked him into a buddy to buddy. We got all these people hanging out as well all week. It's been so much fun. Come on, guys, come on, come on in, Hold on, Mike on, it's been a party here out there. You guys, I might have seen it. Huh it was your Jeff. This is just not happening. I'm splaying. I'm letting it all hang out, Jake, Jake, Uh John, John, Look, come on, come on, Jeff, Jeff. Can I say one thing watching all these people? Yeah? Sure, I was a part of a free all right, Patrick, what's up? I was part of a previous incarnation of all this. And I just want to say how proud I am to see all this live on the chair that you're in. That is a lot to live up to. That's Jeff Gersman, That's Ryan Davis. Those are the greatest people to ever do it. And it makes me so incredibly proud to watch all of this live on in a different way. And I just want to say congratulations. I couldn't be happier, I couldn't be prouder, and thanks for letting me to come through. But I just wanted to recognize for like all this is. It is amazing that you've continued it and it just just could not make me make me happy? Is here for grum? I want to say thank you to Ryan and Jeff for starting this. Thank you everybody who's here. They're saying in my in my house, grubs run hot. That means I sweat. I mean so I'm quick to cry. Sometimes I just want to say thank you for being here. I love you all. We're gonna do this again. Oh yeah, let's run it back and ever and again. Thanks thanks again, one more, one more time. Everybody, all right, let's let's wrap it up. Let's wait goodbyes. Is that a song we should be singing? Where you right? I know? I'm very Where didn't you come from? Where did you go? Where you go? I've got my job, there's very Let's shot time I signed my racer come I weren't you Harley? I'm saying tomorrow Harley Harley, by Harley, Harley, Harley, Harley Harley, love you, John Luke? All right, everybody, all right