Niantic Looking to Sell Games Unit to Scopely Inc

<v Speaker 1>Don't beer. It's the Internet. You're busy. Let's do this
<v Speaker 1>for February nineteenth, twenty twenty five. For the next hour
<v Speaker 1>or so, let me help you sort through the world
<v Speaker 1>of gaming on Game Mess Mornings Live with me Jeff
<v Speaker 1>Grub Today, Niantik has enough of your data to power
<v Speaker 1>an army of cyborg cops, so it doesn't want to
<v Speaker 1>play with Pokemon anymore. But first please join me and
<v Speaker 1>welcome you. Today's co host a Game Mess Mornings. It's
<v Speaker 1>Lucy James Games. Lucy, how are you doing.
<v Speaker 2>I'm Zia, Well, thank you. I'm just finishing off the
<v Speaker 2>final pieces, not final pieces, but like I'm making a
<v Speaker 2>cup of tea. So I really keeping up with those
<v Speaker 2>British stereotypes. But shout out to Jordan Middler. He got
<v Speaker 2>me two hundred and forty t bags and I got
<v Speaker 2>searched when I came back through TSA with them.
<v Speaker 1>Did you have to like claim them or whatever you
<v Speaker 1>have to do a deal with customs?
<v Speaker 2>No, they just what kind of They gave me the
<v Speaker 2>up and down with the thing, you know, with the
<v Speaker 2>wand like I got set not second not full secondary screening,
<v Speaker 2>but they did take them out of my bag and
<v Speaker 2>they were like, excuse me, ma'am, ma'am, what is this?
<v Speaker 2>I was like, look, and then I started speaking and
<v Speaker 2>they're like, oh, you're British.
<v Speaker 1>It all makes sense. Now They're like, okay, you know what,
<v Speaker 1>we're even for the tea party, the Boston Tea Party
<v Speaker 1>or even now you can bring these back and that
<v Speaker 1>settles it.
<v Speaker 2>I mean I did go to the Boston Tea Party
<v Speaker 2>Museum when I was funnily enough in Boston once and
<v Speaker 2>when we started speaking, it was a bunch of English
<v Speaker 2>people didn't go well, we didn't stay.
<v Speaker 1>Wow, listen, it's settled now. You you solved it. You
<v Speaker 1>brought back your tea and now we're all good. I
<v Speaker 1>think that's how that works. You need Jordan Midler to
<v Speaker 1>source your tea, Like did he send it to you?
<v Speaker 2>Do?
<v Speaker 1>Do you like give it to use a gift or what?
<v Speaker 1>Or is this just like what happened here?
<v Speaker 2>So he was at the split fiction of it that
<v Speaker 2>I went to in La which I'm not gonna lie.
<v Speaker 2>I did sort of semi bully him into going to
<v Speaker 2>because originally he was not going to because then then
<v Speaker 2>the date moved and I was like, you can go
<v Speaker 2>now you can come right now, and so it's you
<v Speaker 2>can get tea over here. American tea not good. Sure,
<v Speaker 2>I'm not going to drink I'm not going to drink that.
<v Speaker 2>But it's also it's also a man of a matter
<v Speaker 2>of the water. However, Jordan also brought me some dairy
<v Speaker 2>milk and some monster munch and very gracious, very kind of.
<v Speaker 1>Water, so favorful because of all the fluoride. That's that
<v Speaker 1>really is how it.
<v Speaker 2>Works there our water.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, we've got fluorid, but also at least so in
<v Speaker 3>the UK you get hard water or soft water because
<v Speaker 3>of where your the water kind of runs over the Pennines,
<v Speaker 3>the mountains in the middle of the country, and it
<v Speaker 3>genuinely does impact how.
<v Speaker 2>The water tastes and how good you cup of tea is.
<v Speaker 2>But it also talks about how messed up your kettler's
<v Speaker 2>going to get because if there's too many minerals, your
<v Speaker 2>kettle gets full of lime scales. And I'm from the
<v Speaker 2>North of England and our kettles were shot anyway, this
<v Speaker 2>is the most British conversations. We start talking about weather or.
<v Speaker 1>Some yeah, well listen, let's do it. Yeah, I love
<v Speaker 1>talking about the weather. Maybe I'm British at heart. Now
<v Speaker 1>let's explain what we do here most weekdays. I, Jeff Graub,
<v Speaker 1>will help piece your gaming life back together. That includes
<v Speaker 1>breaking news and maybe even some of our own original reporting.
<v Speaker 1>For all these topics, I'll get the input of a
<v Speaker 1>bona fide expert who will make me look smart. If
<v Speaker 1>you are watching live on Twitch welcome, You can always
<v Speaker 1>listen to the show later on podcast feeds by searching
<v Speaker 1>for Games Mornings, or find the RSS on giant bomb
<v Speaker 1>dot com. You can also catch the show later with
<v Speaker 1>chapters and timestamps on YouTube. Hello YouTube. All right, we
<v Speaker 1>have a lot to get into, so let's start the
<v Speaker 1>morning mess with Marvel Rivals game director and others laid
<v Speaker 1>off just months after the Hero Shooter took over the
<v Speaker 1>charts to quote optimize development efficiency. This is from Ethan
<v Speaker 1>Gootch at Kotaku. Marvel Rivals game director and others from
<v Speaker 1>the development team behind the hit shooter have been laid off.
<v Speaker 1>Dismissals have caught many by surprise as net Ease's comic
<v Speaker 1>book Blockbuster continues to dominate the chart on Steam and
<v Speaker 1>console months after its well received launch. The director Thaddy
<v Speaker 1>as Sasser wrote on LinkedIn, this is such a weird industry.
<v Speaker 1>My stellar, talented team just helped deliver an incredibly successful
<v Speaker 1>new franchise in Marvel Rivals for net E's Games and
<v Speaker 1>were just laid off. Mar level designer Jack Burrows posted
<v Speaker 1>a similar message kind of saying the same things. He
<v Speaker 1>was laid off. Marvel Rivals is from net Ease. Nette's
<v Speaker 1>did post a statement here to kind of clarify some things.
<v Speaker 1>We'll kind of read this statement. We recently made the
<v Speaker 1>difficult decision to adjust Marvel Rivals development team structure for
<v Speaker 1>organizational reasons and to optimize development efficiency everybody's favorite for
<v Speaker 1>the game. This resulted in a reduction of a designed
<v Speaker 1>team based in Seattle. This is part of a larger
<v Speaker 1>global design function in support of Marvel Rivals. I'll translate
<v Speaker 1>that it was a smaller team in Seattle that they
<v Speaker 1>completely let go. They did lay these people off. There was,
<v Speaker 1>you know, a director of that team laid off as well.
<v Speaker 1>But the main team in China, I think in guang Xhu,
<v Speaker 1>I think it's yes, Guangshu Province in China, they are
<v Speaker 1>still making the game. And this is part of a
<v Speaker 1>trend in Eddie's where they are cutting many of the
<v Speaker 1>teams in the support staff and contractors they have globally
<v Speaker 1>around the world for a lot of different projects. They
<v Speaker 1>famously as they were releasing Visions of Mana I believe,
<v Speaker 1>is the one that they made as they were releasing
<v Speaker 1>that game, they laid off that team, not even after
<v Speaker 1>it was released, like literally, I think in the week
<v Speaker 1>leading up to it they cut that team. So this
<v Speaker 1>is a trend for them. It does stink, But the
<v Speaker 1>Marvel Rivals team for the most part, seems primarily intact.
<v Speaker 1>So when people are wondering, wait, what are they going
<v Speaker 1>to keep you? Are they gonna be able to make
<v Speaker 1>content for this game going forward? Yes, and yet this
<v Speaker 1>is still a weird thing for a game that is
<v Speaker 1>so successful, right Lucy.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, God, I mean there was also the Netsis
<v Speaker 2>didn't they pull out? And so we've had the old
<v Speaker 2>Bioway team, like Matt Walter's, Casey Hudson that was Nessy's right,
<v Speaker 2>like those studios those projects shut down, Liquid Swords another
<v Speaker 2>one they've had to put their project on ice because
<v Speaker 2>net Eas I believe, like the investment just they just
<v Speaker 2>pulling away from gaming. So that to me when they
<v Speaker 2>were coming out, I was like, okay, so they're not
<v Speaker 2>making the single player investment anymore. But to pull out
<v Speaker 2>from Marvel Rivals, yeah, I just would not. I if
<v Speaker 2>I worked for Netties backed company, I would be concerned
<v Speaker 2>right now because if even Marvel Rivals can't do it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, but like nothing stuff, I mean, I mean, really,
<v Speaker 1>to put in perspective, this is a game that has
<v Speaker 1>three hundred thousand concurrent players on Steam on any given night.
<v Speaker 1>That is far and away more than just about any
<v Speaker 1>other game released recently. Yeah, by an order of magnitude,
<v Speaker 1>like you know, like you know, new game pops off
<v Speaker 1>eighty thousand concurrent players or something like that, then it
<v Speaker 1>settles in around thirty thousand. So yeah, this is like
<v Speaker 1>ten times of the size. And even then net E's
<v Speaker 1>it doesn't want to justify keeping people around now. Of course,
<v Speaker 1>in a case like this, you know, level designers, maybe they're
<v Speaker 1>not going to have that many more levels, or maybe
<v Speaker 1>they're completely changing how they're doing it. So this is
<v Speaker 1>the way video the video game industry has worked. So
<v Speaker 1>maybe this is not something that is peculiar about net Ease.
<v Speaker 1>We definitely have seen a lot of companies put out games,
<v Speaker 1>then cut staff after they put out the games because
<v Speaker 1>they don't need them for a very long time. It
<v Speaker 1>is a kind of a black mark on this industry
<v Speaker 1>the way that that always works, and that there is
<v Speaker 1>no sort of safety net or way to move people
<v Speaker 1>from one project to another in a more efficient manner.
<v Speaker 1>That said, this game is so big that you kind
<v Speaker 1>of want to go, like, ah, keep them on staff,
<v Speaker 1>figure it out, give them something to do. You're probably
<v Speaker 1>going to need to make more content for this very
<v Speaker 1>successful game in the long run. These people did a
<v Speaker 1>good job because this is a well received game. So
<v Speaker 1>it's just a weird situation, and it's we're just going
<v Speaker 1>to continue to see stuff like this happen because we
<v Speaker 1>wit this is just baked into the industry, right.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, unfortunately, line must go up.
<v Speaker 1>Yep uh okay. Over at Niantic, Niantic is in talks
<v Speaker 1>to sell games unit to scope leading. Yes, yeah, this
<v Speaker 1>is a weird one as well. This is from my
<v Speaker 1>Nintendo News. Niantic is most well known for being the
<v Speaker 1>ones behind Pokemon Go. This year marks an entire decade
<v Speaker 1>that the mobile game has been available to play on
<v Speaker 1>iOS and Android devices. However, in recent years, it has
<v Speaker 1>been a big up and down roller coaster. Multiple questionable
<v Speaker 1>business decisions have upset many of the game's veteran fans. Unfortunately,
<v Speaker 1>this latest development may not help matters. Bloomberg is reporting that,
<v Speaker 1>according to several people familiar with the discussions, Niantic is
<v Speaker 1>in talks to sell its games unit to scope Ly.
<v Speaker 1>Scopely is a Saudi controlled part of the Savvy Games Group.
<v Speaker 1>At the moment, discussions are still ongoing, however, the price
<v Speaker 1>being discussed is around three point five billion dollars. Any
<v Speaker 1>agreem which is getting close to happening, or any agreement
<v Speaker 1>which is getting close to happening but isn't sentence stone yet,
<v Speaker 1>would mean that all Niantics mobile titles, including Nintendo related
<v Speaker 1>titles like Pokemon Go and Pickman Bloom, would be involved.
<v Speaker 1>For now, a deal could be announced in the coming weeks. However,
<v Speaker 1>it is again worth emphasizing that a deal hasn't been
<v Speaker 1>reached yet and things are subject to change. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>the since I get here, Lucy, is that Niantic recognizes
<v Speaker 1>that they are never going to have another Pokemon Go again,
<v Speaker 1>and that Pokemon Go is never going to be as
<v Speaker 1>big as it was again. So get out while the
<v Speaker 1>getting is good and.
<v Speaker 2>Do what you kind of want twenty sixteen.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, and then do what you were kind of always
<v Speaker 1>meant to do, which is to take all of this data.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, you know, they it's a it's a it's
<v Speaker 1>a global map game. It is a game where you
<v Speaker 1>move around the world. They track you, They know exactly
<v Speaker 1>where you are, how you move around the world. That
<v Speaker 1>data is going to be invaluable to all kinds of
<v Speaker 1>you know, to the military, to policing organizations, to taxi
<v Speaker 1>companies to Uber, to all these different people like where
<v Speaker 1>are people congregating? Where do they go when they have
<v Speaker 1>to move through a space? How do they move? That
<v Speaker 1>data is invaluable, And so they're just gonna and they
<v Speaker 1>have it all now, they have a decade worth of
<v Speaker 1>millions of people moving around the world. They can kind
<v Speaker 1>of build models based on that for a very long time.
<v Speaker 1>It'll be very valuable. That is what they're going to
<v Speaker 1>focus is probably going to be. And in the meantime,
<v Speaker 1>the games at this point start to feel like a
<v Speaker 1>distraction if they aren't growing anymore, right, oh.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, one hundred percent. I mean, like what if it's
<v Speaker 2>not growing, if you're not getting money from it, what
<v Speaker 2>are you doing? And like, if you've pissed off your
<v Speaker 2>key player base and they're not investing in you anymore,
<v Speaker 2>of like you don't have the whales anymore, then what
<v Speaker 2>are you doing here? It's like a wasted money when
<v Speaker 2>you can just sell it for three point five bill
<v Speaker 2>and walk away laughing. It's yeah, I mean that's the thing.
<v Speaker 2>Pokemon Go. I know a lot of people who still
<v Speaker 2>actually play and who still are very into it, and like,
<v Speaker 2>you know, it had so it has so many great benefits,
<v Speaker 2>like it gets people walking. It got people to come
<v Speaker 2>together and do raids and you know, meet people and
<v Speaker 2>travel and do everything. And yeah, it's just kind of
<v Speaker 2>line must go up capitalism. Of course this was going
<v Speaker 2>to happen. I mean, if it does, it does it
<v Speaker 2>kind of does seem like the foregone conclusion when it
<v Speaker 2>comes to something like this. You know they the Wizard
<v Speaker 2>what was the Harry Potter one that they tried to
<v Speaker 2>do name.
<v Speaker 1>The Fantastic Beasts in real life?
<v Speaker 2>I r L that's what was going obsessed some ship
<v Speaker 2>Like yeah, I remember when that one came out and
<v Speaker 2>we were playing with it in the office, and you know,
<v Speaker 2>you're holding this up, and you would wizards unite, thank you,
<v Speaker 2>and you were seeing like a portal appear and just yea,
<v Speaker 2>it wasn't It wasn't the same. I know a lot
<v Speaker 2>of people who do actually really enjoy peanut.
<v Speaker 1>Are you okay?
<v Speaker 2>She just jumped out of the little box with quiet
<v Speaker 2>speed of.
<v Speaker 1>Their own feces. That's all. It's all cats.
<v Speaker 2>Oh we all man night after a taco bell anyway,
<v Speaker 2>So then I know a bunch of people who play
<v Speaker 2>PIGMN and who do really enjoy it. But it is
<v Speaker 2>certainly it has not reached critical masks like Pokemon died.
<v Speaker 2>People are pick man, They're very cute. But you know,
<v Speaker 2>if you show someone at pickman versus peakach, the immediate recognization,
<v Speaker 2>the recognization, recognization.
<v Speaker 1>Recognition, recognized ability.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you don't know what I'm trying to say.
<v Speaker 1>We all get. Yeah, you're brace. You're allowed to invent
<v Speaker 1>the new words whenever you need to.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I frequently did the right history. Actually no we didn't.
<v Speaker 2>We just stole them French, most Latin, mostly French. But anyway, Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I I don't think this means a Pokemon go would
<v Speaker 2>go away.
<v Speaker 1>It's no, I mean what makes it worth three point
<v Speaker 1>five billion dollars is Pokemon Go will make probably about
<v Speaker 1>that much money over the next ten years. That that
<v Speaker 1>in fact, I think that's a pretty low price for
<v Speaker 1>the amount of money of Pokemon Go will very likely
<v Speaker 1>make over the next ten to fifteen years. But you know,
<v Speaker 1>Savvy Games Group is definitely thinking long term, that's what
<v Speaker 1>they want. It's just, you know it, I am personally
<v Speaker 1>like pretty sick of feeling like so much of gaming
<v Speaker 1>is just pieces being moved around by billionaires so they
<v Speaker 1>can make their next billion dollars and this is this
<v Speaker 1>definitely feels like, oh okay, this was never and of course
<v Speaker 1>it wasn't. Of course it was never about the games
<v Speaker 1>just of course I get it, of course, but there
<v Speaker 1>are a lot of people that do work in video games,
<v Speaker 1>you know, in different tiers, usually people actually making the games,
<v Speaker 1>who do care about that stuff and want to make
<v Speaker 1>sure that that gaming is vibrant and has cool ideas
<v Speaker 1>popping off and the stuff that we think is valuable.
<v Speaker 1>You know, when we're excited to talk about something on
<v Speaker 1>a show like this, and it's just like, well, so
<v Speaker 1>much of show like this turns into talking about billionaire
<v Speaker 1>corporations and and you know, in some cases, you know,
<v Speaker 1>it's the Savvy Games Group, a subsidiary of the richest
<v Speaker 1>corporation that has ever existed in the history of mankind.
<v Speaker 1>Uh okay, why do we have to be at the
<v Speaker 1>whims of them always constantly? It just is very frustrating.
<v Speaker 1>And of course Niantic wanting to eventually sell to a
<v Speaker 1>company like that, that was always the goal, and it's
<v Speaker 1>just very frustrating that that's not the like throw away
<v Speaker 1>the work that the people who did make games like
<v Speaker 1>Wizards Unite and Pickman Bloom and Pokemon Go did because
<v Speaker 1>they probably did care about their games. But at the
<v Speaker 1>end of the day, that stuff goes away and what's
<v Speaker 1>left over is the pieces being moved around by billionaires.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah all right, let's let's keep moving. Here. A skater
<v Speaker 1>claims he's in a new Tony Hawk remaster about to
<v Speaker 1>come out. This is from Jordn Medler at VGC. That's
<v Speaker 1>a weird name a skater is claim Yeah, I don't know.
<v Speaker 1>Skaters claimed he will appear in an upcoming unannounced Tony
<v Speaker 1>Hawk game remaster. We talked about this on the BombCast
<v Speaker 1>a little bit yesterday.
<v Speaker 2>Uh.
<v Speaker 1>Kind of like speculated this is this is probably happening. Uh.
<v Speaker 1>I definitely got a text message right after uh the
<v Speaker 1>kind of did this podcast before from Yeah, from I
<v Speaker 1>don't know. It's hard to recognize him when you get
<v Speaker 1>when you see him or when you get a text
<v Speaker 1>message from him, so who knows what was Sam?
<v Speaker 2>Well, no, he just signs it. He just signs it
<v Speaker 2>off with a bird emoji and then a skateboarder emoji.
<v Speaker 1>That's pretty fucking cool. I gotta say. A source was like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>I told you about this last year. Did you forget?
<v Speaker 1>I'm like, yes, I did, Yes, I did, Yes, I did.
<v Speaker 1>Uh Tony Hawk's first skater three plus four is what
<v Speaker 1>they told me about last year, So I bet that
<v Speaker 1>is what we are going to get that. It was like, oh, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I vaguely remember. I think I was conflatant with like
<v Speaker 1>we had Tony Hawk like teasing it, and I think
<v Speaker 1>I got told around that time, and I'm like, okay,
<v Speaker 1>well that seems pretty obvious now, so not a big deal.
<v Speaker 1>But a lot of people kind of forgotten about that.
<v Speaker 1>So I think this is happening, and it's maybe not
<v Speaker 1>too surprising other than the fact that Vicarious visions that
<v Speaker 1>worked on the worked on the game Tony Express Skater
<v Speaker 1>one plus two don't exist anymore.
<v Speaker 2>That's going to say they don't exist anymore.
<v Speaker 1>Right, They are a Blizzard Albany. They worked on Diablo
<v Speaker 1>and and probably are still working on Diablo. So who's
<v Speaker 1>making this game still a wide open question. But if you,
<v Speaker 1>like Lucy, if you were at Microsoft and you had
<v Speaker 1>just acquired Activision and you saw Tony expres Skater one
<v Speaker 1>plus two is the best selling Tonyak game of all time,
<v Speaker 1>series that has always sold very well, You're probably gonna
<v Speaker 1>be like, that seems like an easy win. We got
<v Speaker 1>to figure this one out, so I'm not too surprised
<v Speaker 1>that we ended up here other than what who was
<v Speaker 1>making it? Right?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah? I mean they didn't close Toys for Bob? Did they?
<v Speaker 1>I'm sorry? What was that?
<v Speaker 2>They didn't close Toys for Bob?
<v Speaker 1>No? They they they let the elect by themselves out.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yes, that was it?
<v Speaker 1>Maybe not but not a bad call. Could be Toys
<v Speaker 1>for Bob because Toys Rob like.
<v Speaker 2>If Toys for Bob goes independent but still contracts for.
<v Speaker 1>And that was the story. The story was they went
<v Speaker 1>independent and immediately made a contract with Microsoft to make
<v Speaker 1>a game. Now that wasn't too long ago. It was
<v Speaker 1>like was that last year or the year before that?
<v Speaker 1>Maybe so, but hey, the technology is already there for
<v Speaker 1>Tony Oks pro Skater. Really, all they do is just
<v Speaker 1>build the content.
<v Speaker 2>They don't need to say that, which I think Toys
<v Speaker 2>for Bob assisted on.
<v Speaker 1>Visions Activision probably certainly they would have a bunch of
<v Speaker 1>teams coming there and work on stuff like that. Toys
<v Speaker 1>for Bob probably did help. I think Toys and Bob
<v Speaker 1>was also helping on Call of Duty. So how much
<v Speaker 1>could they have really worked on it? But yeah, that's
<v Speaker 1>not a bad call. Uh so, and Toys for Bob
<v Speaker 1>really solid team. I think you know the thing there
<v Speaker 1>is Toyster Bob, very well known now for doing those
<v Speaker 1>three D platform remasters. Yeah Bob. I just assume Bob
<v Speaker 1>is like Tom Tom from MySpace. Yeah, just kind of
<v Speaker 1>the similar thing.
<v Speaker 2>Who's the Bob? But no, I mean, yeah, choice for
<v Speaker 2>Bobby Cottick is that?
<v Speaker 1>Is that?
<v Speaker 2>Stop it? No? Hang on, I'm googling.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it has deeper, darker implications. Okay, well everyone in
<v Speaker 1>check no one like that.
<v Speaker 2>It's founded by a guy called Fred and another guy
<v Speaker 2>called Paul.
<v Speaker 1>They have children. Maybe they both have children named Bob Robert.
<v Speaker 2>Uh don't know so, Fredford.
<v Speaker 1>It's the opposite of a phoenix down moment, a deep,
<v Speaker 1>a deep, darker realization.
<v Speaker 2>Peanut, do you know Bob is Uh? Peu Penis comes
<v Speaker 2>to the phone right now, jelly Bean.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, Michael R. O'Leary has saved our lives. Your toys
<v Speaker 1>for Bob existed two years before Bobby took over. Mu okay, man,
<v Speaker 1>that would have been you know what, I'm just.
<v Speaker 2>Gonna I'm just gonna post on Blue Sky and see
<v Speaker 2>if someone gets by to me.
<v Speaker 1>There you go. That's the way to do it.
<v Speaker 2>I posted. You can post the most obscure stuff. If
<v Speaker 2>people will like, you'll find your audience.
<v Speaker 1>My strategy is, yeah, sure blue Sky exists. You can
<v Speaker 1>go out there and ask people what I do and
<v Speaker 1>and people tell me if you notice this. In the future,
<v Speaker 1>I'll just say something that I know is wrong, and
<v Speaker 1>then I'll wait for people who cannot help but correct
<v Speaker 1>people on podcasts without fail one of the time someone
<v Speaker 1>will correct it. So I'll just say something wrong on
<v Speaker 1>purpose and then someone will come and correct me and
<v Speaker 1>we'll get the right answer. It's uh, it's a good time.
<v Speaker 2>I posted it, all right?
<v Speaker 1>Uh, all right, cool, we'll get the answer for that.
<v Speaker 1>You know what, there might not be an answer. Could
<v Speaker 1>just be a fun sounding name.
<v Speaker 2>Bob Bobby fake yep, fake Bob's Bob's a lie.
<v Speaker 1>Uh, Bob's your uncle? All right, let's see here. What
<v Speaker 1>else gonna say about this? I hope this comes out soon,
<v Speaker 1>you know.
<v Speaker 2>You know what. For Jake Baldino, I hope this comes out.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, Jake, Jake gets it. Jake understands a ton I
<v Speaker 1>was first greed of One plus two is kind of
<v Speaker 1>like a perfect game. It just is fantastic. It feels great,
<v Speaker 1>looks great, sounds great. And if they just want to
<v Speaker 1>do three plus four, that's fantastic. I think a lot
<v Speaker 1>of people are like, hey, maybe they should get around
<v Speaker 1>to doing the thug games Tony Hawks underground one plus two,
<v Speaker 1>that'd be great. Would you prefer those over three plus four?
<v Speaker 2>H Yeah, I was a big thug fan. I mean
<v Speaker 2>not that I would prefer to you three plus four.
<v Speaker 2>I would love three and four, but I love Tony
<v Speaker 2>Hawks under going wanted two. I was even you know what,
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, don't quote me on it because it
<v Speaker 2>was twenty years ago, but I do remember really enjoying
<v Speaker 2>American Wasteland because was American Wasteland the one where they
<v Speaker 2>didn't want to have any loading screens, and so to
<v Speaker 2>go from one area into the next, you just basically
<v Speaker 2>went a really really long, very boring playing hors.
<v Speaker 1>Like the hallway. Yeah, that sounds right. God. I think
<v Speaker 1>they tried to replicate that because I never played Way Eastland.
<v Speaker 1>I played American skate Land on the DS, which I
<v Speaker 1>think try to replicate that. And I'm like, oh man,
<v Speaker 1>these long, boring, empty hallways, then this must be a
<v Speaker 1>d what's going on here? Yeah? And it's like, oh no,
<v Speaker 1>that's just how they wanted to do it.
<v Speaker 2>It's like their version of a Gears of War squeeze through.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, the squeeze. This is the small squeeze room. Yep. Absolutely.
<v Speaker 1>I say this a lot every time Tony comes up,
<v Speaker 1>but I mean it this time. I'm gonna I'm gonna
<v Speaker 1>get the Thug online, the fan patch. I'm gonna get
<v Speaker 1>that working and maybe maybe we could do a Thursday
<v Speaker 1>night throwdown or something like that if everyone wants to
<v Speaker 1>like go and download that. So I'm gonna I'm gonna
<v Speaker 1>work on that tonight. Yes, it's pretty easy, right, everyone
<v Speaker 1>like so so easy. I think everyone on staff could
<v Speaker 1>do it. So if everyone wants to play some Tony
<v Speaker 1>Hawk underground, we can get that going. All right, let's
<v Speaker 1>take a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk
<v Speaker 1>about how from Software feels about Sony right after this.
<v Speaker 1>All right, let's get right back into it. From Software
<v Speaker 1>didn't want Sony to publish Dark Souls as it was
<v Speaker 1>disappointed by how Demon Souls was treated. This is from
<v Speaker 1>Jordan Miller at VGC.
<v Speaker 2>From two thousand and nine games Game of the Demon Souls.
<v Speaker 2>That's right, yeah, on the right side of history.
<v Speaker 1>That that was the game. Like at that time, like
<v Speaker 1>I was kind of barely working in the industry. I
<v Speaker 1>was volunteering a bitmob with Dan Shue, and there was
<v Speaker 1>some editors on that staff there that were like, would
<v Speaker 1>not stop talking about this Demon Souls game, and I'm like,
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna have to learn what this is and uh,
<v Speaker 1>and then it got Game of the Year. I'm like, well,
<v Speaker 1>all right, I apparently I'm just on the out here.
<v Speaker 1>Demon Souls. I hope that PS five version comes to PC.
<v Speaker 1>That would be fantastic. I would love to just play
<v Speaker 1>that on the Steam deck. Uh. Anyway, From Software didn't
<v Speaker 1>want to work on a Demon Soul sequel with Sony
<v Speaker 1>because it was disappointed with the way the game was handled.
<v Speaker 1>Former PlayStation executive shoe Hey Yoshita it claims Demon Souls
<v Speaker 1>was developed to Buy From Software in collaboration with Sony
<v Speaker 1>Band Studio. During the game's development, it was planned that
<v Speaker 1>the game would be published globally by Sony, but this
<v Speaker 1>didn't come to be. Although these days, Demon Souls is
<v Speaker 1>considered the first entry in the Yes I'm Sorry I
<v Speaker 1>Lost My Spot and FROMP Software's popular Souls Like series
<v Speaker 1>of games. It said that at the time, Sony couldn't
<v Speaker 1>see the game's global appeal. Due to the game's high
<v Speaker 1>difficulty and negative early playtest, Sony decided not to localize
<v Speaker 1>Demon Souls for an English language release. Instead, in the US,
<v Speaker 1>the game was published by Atlas and in Europe, publishing
<v Speaker 1>was handled by ban Dynamco. Speaking to the Sacred Symbols podcast,
<v Speaker 1>former SIE president yoshould Have explained that Sony wanted to
<v Speaker 1>work on the sequel to Demon Souls with From Software,
<v Speaker 1>but the developer turned it down. And instead decided to
<v Speaker 1>work with Bandy Namco on what would become Dark Souls.
<v Speaker 1>I think everything that Shuehyo Yoshida has kind of talked
<v Speaker 1>about since he's left Sony, I think he's doing this
<v Speaker 1>target in a targeted way. I think he's trying to
<v Speaker 1>get people answers as best he can for the questions
<v Speaker 1>that he's yes now getting sued, but answers the question
<v Speaker 1>he's probably been asked five thousand times when he did
<v Speaker 1>work a Sony and he couldn't say anything. I think
<v Speaker 1>this is like this like links over to Bloodborne a
<v Speaker 1>little bit, where it's like, you know, Bloodborne, Okay, from
<v Speaker 1>Software did go back and work with Sony. They did
<v Speaker 1>go hand in hand. They basically did the exact same
<v Speaker 1>kind of deal they did with Demon Souls, and I
<v Speaker 1>think from Software it's probably feeling a little bit like, Okay, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>maybe it went a little bit better, but it's not.
<v Speaker 1>The situation is not that much different. We don't feel
<v Speaker 1>like Sony was like really in love with this game
<v Speaker 1>the way we are, and we are having a much
<v Speaker 1>better time working with Bandy Namco still, and so we're
<v Speaker 1>gonna just keep working with them. And now I think
<v Speaker 1>that Miyazaki at From Software is at a point where
<v Speaker 1>it's like it would take him a lot to go
<v Speaker 1>back and work with Sony again in that way. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>you know, there's always rumors that there is some Sony
<v Speaker 1>thing happening with from Software, but you know a lot
<v Speaker 1>of that is feeling like, oh, they're doing that out
<v Speaker 1>of any contractual obligations, and there is no obligation to
<v Speaker 1>go back and do anything with blood Born. Uh So
<v Speaker 1>Miyazaki's trying to avoid that or working on other stuff instead.
<v Speaker 1>That's that's my read on the situation. And and you know, again,
<v Speaker 1>I'll go back to the one thing I do know,
<v Speaker 1>which is Bloodborne. Nothing will happen with blood Born without
<v Speaker 1>Miyazaki and without from Software being involved, even though Sony
<v Speaker 1>could do that if they wanted to. From Software is
<v Speaker 1>kind of standing in the way of that, uh and so,
<v Speaker 1>and they are too busy, so they haven't been able
<v Speaker 1>to get around to it for whatever reason. Obviously they're
<v Speaker 1>making a lot of games, so you know, that's why
<v Speaker 1>we don't get blood Born stuff, you know. And then
<v Speaker 1>on top of that, I think Miyazaki seems like I've
<v Speaker 1>been burned by Sony enough times and Bloodborn is just
<v Speaker 1>the most recent example of that.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I think also as well, if your love shoe,
<v Speaker 2>it does not help that the kind of the big
<v Speaker 2>infamous story about him playing Demon Souls back in the
<v Speaker 2>day was him calling it crap.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, yep. I think that was got a war as well.
<v Speaker 2>So yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, uh and so yeah,
<v Speaker 2>someone party when you're exclusive with them, cause your game
<v Speaker 2>potentially grap then I can understand that you're maybe not
<v Speaker 2>itching to jump back into it. But also you're looking
<v Speaker 2>at the success of from software at this point, even
<v Speaker 2>Armored Cores doing as well as it did do on
<v Speaker 2>a you know, a more niche title. I mean certainly,
<v Speaker 2>like I think I was surprised at how much I
<v Speaker 2>would call Uvias ruberconn and sold. But then you know,
<v Speaker 2>the enormous, enormous successive Elder Ring, Dark Souls three Secoro,
<v Speaker 2>Like they're kind of being able to get there, have
<v Speaker 2>their cake and eat it too by going multi platform.
<v Speaker 2>And you know, I think we've all learned recently that
<v Speaker 2>maybe single platform is an the way to go with
<v Speaker 2>game releases. And so yeah, if you want to get
<v Speaker 2>Microsoft to pay for your marketing spend, sure do it,
<v Speaker 2>but I don't know, not be free. Let let Bloodborn
<v Speaker 2>come to PC, and I think you'll leave Lance McDonald alone, Okay.
<v Speaker 1>Let him just go play games. Yeah, I think your
<v Speaker 1>explanation is the correct one and the one that like
<v Speaker 1>actually does kind of get to the like what is
<v Speaker 1>happening here? And when I say, like maybe from soft
<v Speaker 1>fields a little bit burned by the way Sony has
<v Speaker 1>treated blood Born, I don't mean like anything negative nefarious
<v Speaker 1>happened there, just that you know, the game did pretty okay,
<v Speaker 1>and yet Sony doesn't feel like it did okay enough
<v Speaker 1>to really Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>This is the second time in a week I've mentioned this,
<v Speaker 2>and at the San Mateo office they have a Bloodborne elevator.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean they like there's definitely like people who
<v Speaker 1>within the Sony organization that recognize blood Born and when
<v Speaker 1>I have owner ownership over it, for sure, yes, And
<v Speaker 1>it's not like there's like bad blood. I just think
<v Speaker 1>beas Zaki is like, if I have the choice of
<v Speaker 1>where I'm going to work in the future, it is
<v Speaker 1>not going to be or it'll be limited with Sony,
<v Speaker 1>and instead we will do the go the path that
<v Speaker 1>has worked for us really well over an over then
<v Speaker 1>and enables us to put games out everywhere, which is
<v Speaker 1>probably the biggest factor of course. All right, Tetris Forever
<v Speaker 1>is getting its own collectible handheld console. This is from
<v Speaker 1>Ali Reynolds at Nintendo Life. Digital Clips has announced that
<v Speaker 1>its Gold Master series will be going physical via publisher
<v Speaker 1>Clear River Games, with box editions available for the making
<v Speaker 1>of Karatka, Lamasoft, The Jeff Mentor Story, and Tetris Forever.
<v Speaker 1>The crown jewel of the collection is undoubtedly the Collector's
<v Speaker 1>edition for Tetris Forever. Priced at one hundred and forty dollars.
<v Speaker 1>This will come with its own bespoke handheld unit that
<v Speaker 1>will play Tetris the famic conversion and Tetris two plus Bombluss.
<v Speaker 1>Also included is an exclusive soundtrack, CD, Tetramino, magnets, woven patches,
<v Speaker 1>and a poster. This will all come housed in a
<v Speaker 1>fancy modular Tetramino box and it honestly looks wonderful. You know.
<v Speaker 1>There's the other ones are going to be seventy dollars.
<v Speaker 1>That includes the making of Karatica and Lama Soft The
<v Speaker 1>jeff Mentor Story. This is this is pretty cool. I
<v Speaker 1>like that games can come out digitally first find an audience,
<v Speaker 1>and then these companies can find ways to still bring
<v Speaker 1>out the physical version later. Also, these little handhelds, the
<v Speaker 1>Chinese handholds that I love, they can manufacture those things
<v Speaker 1>like ten dollars, so I expect more and more we
<v Speaker 1>get like bonuses in collector's edition, a collector's editions that
<v Speaker 1>include stuff like this a little handheld gizmo, because it's
<v Speaker 1>such a cheap thing to produce.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and also, I mean yeah, someone said in chat
<v Speaker 2>earlier that the thing Night Dives, the thing is coming again,
<v Speaker 2>found its audience digitally enough to come out physical. I
<v Speaker 2>think it's pretty awesome.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean yeah, Night Dive is very good at that,
<v Speaker 1>I think. I'm I don't know Clear River Games, but
<v Speaker 1>there are I'm sure they're just one of these outfits
<v Speaker 1>that do things like this where they work with other
<v Speaker 1>studios to figure out the logistics of releasing a physical game.
<v Speaker 1>You know, I think people everyone thinks of limited run games,
<v Speaker 1>but there are several of these companies that do this,
<v Speaker 1>and I think it's probably they're probably all at the
<v Speaker 1>right size and scale to make it make sense for them,
<v Speaker 1>Whereas like you know, Microsoft I think is deprecating and
<v Speaker 1>like limiting their physical production capabilities because it's like they
<v Speaker 1>don't see the value of it in terms of like
<v Speaker 1>how much they're selling digitally, so they're like that, we're
<v Speaker 1>less interested in that in the long run, to the
<v Speaker 1>point where I think in the future and like next Gym,
<v Speaker 1>by the end of the next generation, a lot of
<v Speaker 1>the first party games from a company like Microsoft, I
<v Speaker 1>bet they get physical versions after the digital version from
<v Speaker 1>one of these outfits. Yeah, like that seems to be
<v Speaker 1>the margan we're heading, right.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I think so. I mean, I don't remember the
<v Speaker 2>last time I bought a physical game. As sad as
<v Speaker 2>that is, I have become what I feared most, and
<v Speaker 2>that is a digital media or a joya.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. I think it was Nintendo's last earnings report where
<v Speaker 1>they said that they are now more than fifty percent digital,
<v Speaker 1>and it's like, okay, even even the Switch, which has
<v Speaker 1>a ton of people who love buying the physical games,
<v Speaker 1>like there's a huge collector audience on the Switch, even
<v Speaker 1>in that case, digital is slowly eroding that. And you
<v Speaker 1>know it's actually not that slow really, So Hollow Night
<v Speaker 1>Silk song page removed from Nintendo store, but it has returned.
<v Speaker 1>This is from Lampits at game Spot. I think this
<v Speaker 1>is mostly the original story. The update is yeah, returned Silksong.
<v Speaker 2>The some somehow Hollow Night Silksong has retouched.
<v Speaker 1>Even though it's not real and we all know that
<v Speaker 1>we can all admit that to fake game. Silksong, the
<v Speaker 1>highly anticipated sequel to Hollow Night that has the player
<v Speaker 1>take control of the mysterious Hornet, has the Hornet from Daytona,
<v Speaker 1>has been removed from Nintendo's E Shop, While the game
<v Speaker 1>is still listed on the PlayStation store, Xbox Steam and
<v Speaker 1>the Nintendo E Shop in the EU. The circumstances of
<v Speaker 1>why it was removed from a Nintendo's North American shop
<v Speaker 1>is a mystery. A strong theory is that it's being
<v Speaker 1>moved to a switch to launch and not outright canceled.
<v Speaker 1>Just last month, developer Team Cherry assured fans that development
<v Speaker 1>was going smoothly and that the game would be would
<v Speaker 1>indeed be released at some point. I think the assumption
<v Speaker 1>that this has to do is switch to I get.
<v Speaker 1>I think the more likely scenario here is that someone
<v Speaker 1>just forgot to check a box and so it automatically
<v Speaker 1>got delisted and and then it's about.
<v Speaker 2>Oh, look good, what are you doing?
<v Speaker 1>Is that not normal? It's the cat not supposed to
<v Speaker 1>be Yelly Ridge, No jelly is that jelly? Jelly Bean?
<v Speaker 2>Jelly's the jelly'sy orange. She's, you know, the one brain
<v Speaker 2>cell she I found her on top of my shower
<v Speaker 2>door the other day.
<v Speaker 1>Rules.
<v Speaker 2>I'm just gonna I'm just gonna get it down.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, go get that cat. Oh, kitty cat, what
<v Speaker 1>are you thinking? There's nothing up there for you. Cats
<v Speaker 1>just love being up high so they can like look
<v Speaker 1>down on their subjects, and so that's their thing. All right.
<v Speaker 1>We we've rescued jelly Bean. Everybody, we did it. Silk
<v Speaker 1>Songs not real, It's never coming out.
<v Speaker 2>Nope, it's sorry everyone. It's been everyone who's been playing it.
<v Speaker 2>I've been hoping for it.
<v Speaker 1>I think we're at like two thousand and seventy six
<v Speaker 1>days since Mike Minaughty played that at E three, all
<v Speaker 1>those yes played it. He played Silk Song two thousand,
<v Speaker 1>more than two thousand days ago. For shoot, like that
<v Speaker 1>is not even I'm not exaggerating at all. It's almost
<v Speaker 1>twenty one hundred days since he played it.
<v Speaker 2>That is ridiculous.
<v Speaker 1>That's like the wordest thing about this This is incredible.
<v Speaker 2>Hang on kanehi end just for funzies. Ever since Silk
<v Speaker 2>Song was announced, we got judgment, Yeah, because seven lost
<v Speaker 2>judgment like a dragon Eshin like a dragon Guiden, Infinite Wealth,
<v Speaker 2>Pirates in Hawaii, Virtual Fire five, and the announcement of
<v Speaker 2>Virtual Fire six.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>The Devil works hard, Yes, but RGG works hard.
<v Speaker 1>There are different studios work at different paces apparently. I mean, like,
<v Speaker 1>let's let's just talk about what the reaction to this
<v Speaker 1>story was. Lucy freaked out. It got delisted from Nintendo
<v Speaker 1>e Shop like something that's happened with Silk Song. We're
<v Speaker 1>gonna there. I think it was trending on social media.
<v Speaker 2>And who notices that stuff.
<v Speaker 1>I mean apparently hollow Night fans because they're so thirsty
<v Speaker 1>for it that any little movement was like they're just
<v Speaker 1>like a bubble ready to burst, and they burst, bursted,
<v Speaker 1>they bursted, and it was I think evidence of Hey,
<v Speaker 1>this game has deep, deep, deep expectations, Like people are
<v Speaker 1>in their feelings about this thing and they are going
<v Speaker 1>to uh have to try and I think Team Cherry
<v Speaker 1>is aware of that. And one of the reasons this
<v Speaker 1>game has taken so long, is they feel an obligation
<v Speaker 1>to live up to those expectations, and that at a
<v Speaker 1>certain point has got to be oppressive. The amount of
<v Speaker 1>pressure that they are putting on themselves.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, I mean at some point, are you just
<v Speaker 2>pushing yourself too far in the pursuit perfection and it's
<v Speaker 2>not going to happen.
<v Speaker 1>But you know, right, I mean the game came out
<v Speaker 1>five years, Yeah, it would be like, okay, you know,
<v Speaker 1>by now they could have a third one. That's like, okay,
<v Speaker 1>we took the feedback and we built on top of that,
<v Speaker 1>but like, no, they're going to get it right with
<v Speaker 1>this one. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Also, to be clear, we we we were joking about
<v Speaker 2>like the the Yakaza team being more prolific because there's
<v Speaker 2>you know, hundreds of devs versus of course, I don't
<v Speaker 2>know how big Team Cherry is, but yes.
<v Speaker 1>And it's like, you know, it's like the things that
<v Speaker 1>the Yakiza team do, like to make games fast, reuse
<v Speaker 1>assets and stuff like that. It's so helpful.
<v Speaker 2>But a single reused asset for location.
<v Speaker 1>And they do it, and I love it. I wish
<v Speaker 1>more developers did it.
<v Speaker 2>I am playing Pirate Yakiza in Hawaii right now, and
<v Speaker 2>it is phenomenal.
<v Speaker 1>It's a really good time, isn't it. I've been I
<v Speaker 1>started it just be like, Okay, I'm a kind of
<v Speaker 1>get this in between a bunch of other stuff that
<v Speaker 1>young games are still coming out, uh and Avowed, which
<v Speaker 1>I'm also I really love about. I'm like a little
<v Speaker 1>bit the more I play it, and but I'm like,
<v Speaker 1>I started playing that on steam deck and it works
<v Speaker 1>so good on the steam Deck that I just kept
<v Speaker 1>playing that for a while. It's it's really excellent soak song. God,
<v Speaker 1>it probably does come out this year, and if it doesn't,
<v Speaker 1>who knows what's going on over there. And then at
<v Speaker 1>at a certain point, it's like what if it never
<v Speaker 1>what if it never actually comes down? I and we
<v Speaker 1>joke about it, but what if it never comes out?
<v Speaker 1>I mean, I don't know.
<v Speaker 2>I think I mean, I think it will come out, sure.
<v Speaker 1>I just.
<v Speaker 2>It's one of those games. It's turning into like a
<v Speaker 2>GTA situation where I don't want to hear about it
<v Speaker 2>unless there's actual news. I can't see all the posts
<v Speaker 2>and news stories about like, oh, fans think GTA trailers
<v Speaker 2>coming out because they put a screenshot into the Wayback
<v Speaker 2>Machine and found parallels between this and nineteen sixteen. I
<v Speaker 2>don't I don't know. I just I find that so exhausting.
<v Speaker 2>It is no way I think that. I think that
<v Speaker 2>comes from the fact that I used to have to
<v Speaker 2>like search for Easter eggs and stuff as a job,
<v Speaker 2>right in Game of Thrones, in Marvel in everything. I
<v Speaker 2>just can't live like that anymore. Man, No, I'll enjoy
<v Speaker 2>it when it comes out. I'll enjoy it when it
<v Speaker 2>comes out.
<v Speaker 1>You are, if it ever does your fortitude your constitution
<v Speaker 1>much greater than mine. I never could have done that job.
<v Speaker 1>All right, Let's keep going here. PS five. This is
<v Speaker 1>related to PS five colon Japan studio closed because the
<v Speaker 1>double A market has disappeared, says shoe Hey Yoshida. This
<v Speaker 1>is from Jordan Midler at VGC. Former PlayStation executive shoe
<v Speaker 1>Hay Yoshida says the market became really difficult for Sony
<v Speaker 1>Japan's studio style games, which contributed to the studio's closure. Yoshouda,
<v Speaker 1>who left PlayStation earlier this year after a thirty year career,
<v Speaker 1>has given several interviews about the play this time at
<v Speaker 1>PlayStation when asked about the closer closure of PlayStation's japan
<v Speaker 1>studio and fan perception about PlayStation losing its Japanese influence.
<v Speaker 1>Yo should have claimed that it was the market that
<v Speaker 1>dictated Sony shift and focus away from Japan's studio IP
<v Speaker 1>during my time, people give me credit, but one of
<v Speaker 1>the things I was not successful at was having a
<v Speaker 1>successful service game. And the other things is I was
<v Speaker 1>not able to have amazingly successful games made in Japan.
<v Speaker 1>You should explained, other than Grand Tarrisma, we had many
<v Speaker 1>great products, but didn't really have many triple A level
<v Speaker 1>successful products that became more and more important. As the
<v Speaker 1>games became bigger and bigger, the indies filled that gap,
<v Speaker 1>and the double A market seems to have disappeared. He
<v Speaker 1>said in the interview. I thin guess this is what
<v Speaker 1>we all assumed happened here, right, is that you know,
<v Speaker 1>and at the time, they said they want to make
<v Speaker 1>games to have more global appeal. That's how they framed it,
<v Speaker 1>and so we were trying to read between the lines,
<v Speaker 1>and it was okay, you think that Japan's studio makes
<v Speaker 1>a certain caliber of a game that is aimed at
<v Speaker 1>a more niche audience, and you don't want to be
<v Speaker 1>in that business anymore. And that seems to be exactly
<v Speaker 1>what happened there. I think, you know, in a moment
<v Speaker 1>like now where they are talking about, hey, after Astrobot,
<v Speaker 1>we want to have more games that appeal to families
<v Speaker 1>in wider audiences or or different audiences that you know,
<v Speaker 1>don't necessarily just come to stuff for like the Last
<v Speaker 1>of Us. I think Japan Studio would be a great
<v Speaker 1>fit right now. So I do think maybe that was
<v Speaker 1>a bit short sighted. Do you think that they're feeling
<v Speaker 1>that at all or they're happy that they don't have
<v Speaker 1>to deal with these middle of the road games in
<v Speaker 1>terms of appeal.
<v Speaker 2>So hang on, So we are using double A to
<v Speaker 2>mean not mass market instead of double A budget.
<v Speaker 1>It's seeing double A and I think that is like
<v Speaker 1>anything for him. I think that means anything above indy
<v Speaker 1>and anything below the biggest blockbuster.
<v Speaker 2>Games, right, I mean, it's certainly not it's certainly a
<v Speaker 2>short sighted approach because now look at the position that
<v Speaker 2>PlayStation is in with regard to it's games being too big,
<v Speaker 2>too expensive and take too long to make indies. Yes,
<v Speaker 2>they I mean back you know, ten years ago or so,
<v Speaker 2>and that's not to say that they haven't been investing
<v Speaker 2>in indies, but they but like there was certainly a
<v Speaker 2>time like twenty around twenty twelve where they had that
<v Speaker 2>really big push into indies. They had the really big
<v Speaker 2>push into the PlayStation beta and games for that, and
<v Speaker 2>then Double A. Over the years, it just feels like
<v Speaker 2>they've got less and less involved in like Japan Studio closing,
<v Speaker 2>and it's like it's just sad because at the end
<v Speaker 2>of the day, the people who are missing out are
<v Speaker 2>gamers who are not going to get those experiences because
<v Speaker 2>a studio like Japan Studio is gone because executives think
<v Speaker 2>that Double A doesn't exist, and like maybe your project
<v Speaker 2>is too big in scope for an indie but too
<v Speaker 2>small in scope, or you can make it cheaper than
<v Speaker 2>a Triple A, And it's sad, like they could be
<v Speaker 2>the next blockbuster, but yeah, no one wants to give
<v Speaker 2>them money.
<v Speaker 1>Yep.
<v Speaker 2>And especially when you play Astrobot and like, you know,
<v Speaker 2>I know you feel as Samas like so much joy
<v Speaker 2>in seeing those games and seeing those kind of more
<v Speaker 2>niche references, like yeah, it's great to see Ellie and Joel,
<v Speaker 2>but you know, you can't swing a bat in a PlayStation.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know office that was a bad example, but
<v Speaker 2>you know, you see Ellie and Joel Bluddy ever, oh giraffe,
<v Speaker 2>is it or seeing them before? Well, no, show me
<v Speaker 2>like a weird show me. I guess maybe was like
<v Speaker 2>medium Molecule kind of tear Away for example, says to me,
<v Speaker 2>is kind of a Double A esque.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. I mean it's not a blockbuster, that's for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I think it's very easy for us to sit here
<v Speaker 1>and look back and be like boy. In the time
<v Speaker 1>since Japan Studio has closed, it feels like games from
<v Speaker 1>Japan have only taken more of the spotlight. The weird
<v Speaker 1>ones also have done that. The ones that have focused
<v Speaker 1>mostly on gameplay and just being fun have also they
<v Speaker 1>found their footing. Just overall, the Japanese market has also
<v Speaker 1>like really established stuff in a much stronger position than
<v Speaker 1>it did a few years ago, where where you know,
<v Speaker 1>the PS four wasn't selling very well or whatever. It's like,
<v Speaker 1>you know, the PS five still not anywhere near selling
<v Speaker 1>as well as the Switch or whatever, but it's doing
<v Speaker 1>pretty good and people seem to be interested in like
<v Speaker 1>weird little games over there in Japan. And then globally,
<v Speaker 1>Japanese stuff is more popular than it's ever been, and
<v Speaker 1>you would think having a studio that could capitalize on
<v Speaker 1>that would be very valuable. And again it's very easy
<v Speaker 1>for us to sit here and say that, but I
<v Speaker 1>just would have been like, no, we can, We'll see
<v Speaker 1>this through. Of course, maybe we could try different things.
<v Speaker 1>Maybe the marching orders for a japan studio should be
<v Speaker 1>a little bit different. That's fine, I think kind of
<v Speaker 1>getting creative. But I think they they just thought Double
<v Speaker 1>A will never return and our future is live service
<v Speaker 1>and big blockbuster mega games that are you know, you
<v Speaker 1>know that costs two hundred and fifteen to three hundred
<v Speaker 1>million dollars and make a billion dollars. And it's like, well, okay,
<v Speaker 1>well we see that. We have now seen the flaws
<v Speaker 1>in that strategy. That's not full fool proof clearly, mhm.
<v Speaker 2>Is there in I know there's like the game dev simulator,
<v Speaker 2>is the game publisher simulator?
<v Speaker 1>Is there a game publisher tycoon?
<v Speaker 2>Is there a football manager?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah?
<v Speaker 2>Is there a spreadsheet?
<v Speaker 1>Game game dev story was really good, but it's not.
<v Speaker 1>That's pretty close to what you're talking about.
<v Speaker 2>But then you were you were the devs though, And
<v Speaker 2>I don't think that. I mean I played it years ago.
<v Speaker 2>I don't think there was h I don't think there
<v Speaker 2>was option to make a live service or anything. I
<v Speaker 2>think it was.
<v Speaker 1>That's an older, older game for sure.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. We still have it on my phone.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah we still call them GAS games back then, games
<v Speaker 1>as a service gas, I mean the gas Uh. Either way,
<v Speaker 1>I wish they would have kept your brand studio open.
<v Speaker 1>I bet right now today I wish they. I bet
<v Speaker 1>they wish they had kept it open, all right. The
<v Speaker 1>last couple of stories here in videos, fifty series cards
<v Speaker 1>drop support for phizz X, impacting older games. This is
<v Speaker 1>from Kevin Purdy at ars Technica. Most PC games that
<v Speaker 1>you could play on a Monern PC would run faster
<v Speaker 1>on an RTX fifty eighty or fifty ninety then say
<v Speaker 1>a GTX ten seventy. But some games from a particular
<v Speaker 1>particular phase of enthusiasm for particles, destructible environments, and smooth
<v Speaker 1>moving hair will take a notable hit if their owners
<v Speaker 1>upgrade to the latest Nvidia cards. That's because a phizz
<v Speaker 1>X that's phys x, once a dedicated physics simulation simulation
<v Speaker 1>tool that became a selling point for Nvidious Gear has
<v Speaker 1>been largely deprecated on Nvidia fifty series cards. The transition
<v Speaker 1>was announced in January, but it seems to have taken
<v Speaker 1>some time for someone to notice the impact on thirty
<v Speaker 1>two bit physics enabled games. The most recent of those
<v Speaker 1>effective games to ever be released was Assassin's Creed for
<v Speaker 1>Black Flag, which came out in twenty thirteen. There was
<v Speaker 1>never a ton of support for physics. That's why they
<v Speaker 1>dropped it.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, who used physics? The one? Because I thought, per second,
<v Speaker 2>you're talking about like trust effects.
<v Speaker 1>Right, trust effects is like it's like related to this,
<v Speaker 1>It's like in the same family. And honestly, trust effects
<v Speaker 1>might be powered by physics. I don't know, but there
<v Speaker 1>was Yeah, Batman, there's a Batman game that used physics
<v Speaker 1>and stuff.
<v Speaker 2>Knight, Yeah, Arkham Knight, which had three apparently is a
<v Speaker 2>killing floor two Football Lands two.
<v Speaker 1>And this was like, don't I mean the short version
<v Speaker 1>here is running physics simulation on the GPU as opposed
<v Speaker 1>to the CPU, which is what most games do. Why
<v Speaker 1>developers didn't adopt it, I have no idea. I've never
<v Speaker 1>looked into that, but they didn't. I think mostly, I
<v Speaker 1>guess would be most middleware that like powers Physics just
<v Speaker 1>runs on the CPU. Easier to use that, easier to
<v Speaker 1>plug in open source solutions that already ran on the CPU.
<v Speaker 1>And the Nvidia tools probably weren't as good as that stuff.
<v Speaker 1>That would be my guess. And Trust effects was a
<v Speaker 1>m D. Okay, that that makes sense.
<v Speaker 2>That makes sense, all right. I mean it's speed Tree, Okay,
<v Speaker 2>genuinely speed Tree is in the yeah. An I had
<v Speaker 2>a little Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I mean speed Tree does what it says on the
<v Speaker 1>ten you know, you can just quickly make a bunch
<v Speaker 1>of ground.
<v Speaker 2>Imagine just years I made a video about them, like
<v Speaker 2>ten years ago. But imagine just like one day just going, hey,
<v Speaker 2>I've got a you got a problem. You need some trees,
<v Speaker 2>you need some vegetation.
<v Speaker 1>What is U tress? Truss? Is that like.
<v Speaker 2>Tresses is a way of saying, like your your hair,
<v Speaker 2>your tresses?
<v Speaker 1>Okay? Yeah?
<v Speaker 2>And then like trust is a shampoo that I use
<v Speaker 2>actually not sponsored. It was just cheap.
<v Speaker 1>Hey.
<v Speaker 2>No, if I'm gonna get sponsored by any shampoo, shit,
<v Speaker 2>it should be like like some really good stuff.
<v Speaker 1>I'll do it for fruit teas. I've said it, get
<v Speaker 1>at me fruit teats. Is that still a brand. I
<v Speaker 1>don't know if it is, so.
<v Speaker 2>I remember that I know someone who uses that that
<v Speaker 2>horse shampoo.
<v Speaker 1>I've remact him.
<v Speaker 2>You know, the the not Horse and Hound. That was
<v Speaker 2>the fake magazine from notting Hill, you know, like the
<v Speaker 2>Maine Entail, Maine.
<v Speaker 1>Entail okay, oh yeah yeah, Maine in Tail. Right.
<v Speaker 2>Did you in America? Did you have the shampoo that
<v Speaker 2>looked like little pirates?
<v Speaker 1>I don't know, like Maties? Was that it.
<v Speaker 2>Betty shampoo again?
<v Speaker 1>Really?
<v Speaker 2>Oh my god? Oh no, that's Matrix Okay, thank god?
<v Speaker 2>Really yeah, British Food Club. You can get Matie shampoo
<v Speaker 2>and it just had and it had the no no
<v Speaker 2>more tears thing that was you were you know like
<v Speaker 2>if you had that, that was that was prima. Oh okay,
<v Speaker 2>your parents loved you if you had so.
<v Speaker 1>There's tresses, there's pirates, there's all these are kinds of hair. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>of course, Main entail.
<v Speaker 2>Right, yes, I would like to be sponsored by oliplex.
<v Speaker 2>That shit is good.
<v Speaker 1>All right, let's wrap this show up. Netflix is reported
<v Speaker 1>laid off multiple workers at oxen Free developer Nights School
<v Speaker 1>Game because our night School studio excuse me. From Chris
<v Speaker 1>Sculling at VGC h the headline is pretty much the
<v Speaker 1>story though. You know Netflix, you know they they've tried
<v Speaker 1>to make gaming happen. I think we were all kind
<v Speaker 1>of sitting on the sideline and be like, Okay, this
<v Speaker 1>is better than what Google was trying to do with stadium,
<v Speaker 1>for sure. But you know, making games is hard. Being
<v Speaker 1>in the gaming business very difficult, very different from like
<v Speaker 1>just putting movies on a server. It just is, and
<v Speaker 1>uh so not too surprising that Netflix is losing their
<v Speaker 1>taste for this a little bit. It just sucks always
<v Speaker 1>that that leads to people losing their job, especially at
<v Speaker 1>a studio that you know probably would have found a
<v Speaker 1>different home or or would have been fine on their
<v Speaker 1>own just continuing to make Oxen free game. Yeah, this stinks.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I really think Netflix does struggle to promote its games.
<v Speaker 2>Like I had no idea Oxford two had even come out,
<v Speaker 2>which is such a shame. Like I really enjoyed the
<v Speaker 2>first game. I've met people from that studio, I mean lovely,
<v Speaker 2>just like really enthusiastic. And that's the thing all devs
<v Speaker 2>you want to do is just tell good stories, make
<v Speaker 2>great experiences and yeah, and then line must go, Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I don't I really don't understand what Netflix are hoping
<v Speaker 2>to get out of gaming.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, they're just looking for any sort of new
<v Speaker 1>route to growth, right. They've saturated people that want to
<v Speaker 1>get movies.
<v Speaker 2>And I going to say, it's like the yeah, it's
<v Speaker 2>the Silicon Valley mindset of let's just throw a bunch
<v Speaker 2>of money at it and see what happens, and then
<v Speaker 2>when it doesn't, immediately make a return on investment.
<v Speaker 1>And yeah, and honestly, you know, I wish the oxy
<v Speaker 1>free devs were free of this. But Netflix, stay away
<v Speaker 1>from games. I don't need your algorithms coming in here
<v Speaker 1>and telling you what needs to last for two seasons
<v Speaker 1>the equivalent of whatever that would be for video games.
<v Speaker 1>You get to get to get the hell out of here.
<v Speaker 1>We don't need you, and you, honestly would just be
<v Speaker 1>a negative force in an industry that already has nothing
<v Speaker 1>but negative forces. So yeah, good riddance. I don't think
<v Speaker 1>they're getting out of games completely, but they shouldn't. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>I got a pull question ready for everybody. Let me
<v Speaker 1>get that over here.
<v Speaker 2>I also have an answer.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, yeah, okay, who is Bob?
<v Speaker 2>Okay? I tweeted out. I posted even who is the
<v Speaker 2>Bob and toys Bob? Does anyone know? Christopher Baggett from
<v Speaker 2>a Google book? Which book is this? It is honoring
<v Speaker 2>the code conversations with great game designers, and this is
<v Speaker 2>an interview with the founders of toyso Bob. Question, toyso Bob,
<v Speaker 2>then how did you get the name? Paul, I'm glad
<v Speaker 2>you asked that. I'm looking at you. Laurie, my wife,
<v Speaker 2>we were looking for names, and Laurie recommended Toys for
<v Speaker 2>Bob because it's playful and people could project something of
<v Speaker 2>themselves into it. She's a poet, so she thinks about
<v Speaker 2>words very carefully. It works marvelously well. I can't tell
<v Speaker 2>you how many people desperately want to know the real
<v Speaker 2>truth behind Toys for Bob. The company rule is that
<v Speaker 2>each of us has to come up with our own
<v Speaker 2>Bob and then act like that is the only Bob,
<v Speaker 2>further confusing people. It's a discordant approach. Somehow, though, Toys
<v Speaker 2>of Bob has survived being a partnership, a division of
<v Speaker 2>Crystal Dynamics or Corporation, and now the studio within Activision.
<v Speaker 2>We've just pulled it along with us. My personal Bob
<v Speaker 2>is the SubGenius. Okay, so I don't know. I don't
<v Speaker 2>know about that last.
<v Speaker 1>Line, sure me either, But I like that a lot.
<v Speaker 1>That's that's that's very cool. That's the way to do it. Yea,
<v Speaker 1>And toys Bob, that does sound like it's a nice
<v Speaker 1>thing to say. It does sound pleasant.
<v Speaker 2>Enjoy it then, and then Christopher followed up with the
<v Speaker 2>real Bob is the bobble we made along the way?
<v Speaker 1>Perfect? No notes? All right. Poll question from last Friday,
<v Speaker 1>I believe because we were off Monday for this day.
<v Speaker 1>Which March game are you most looking forward to? Let's
<v Speaker 1>work our way up here? By a number of votes,
<v Speaker 1>eleven percent are looking for look forward to Ben Stars
<v Speaker 1>the First Berserker Kazan, twenty three percent are looking forward
<v Speaker 1>to Sweak It in one and two remaster, twenty nine
<v Speaker 1>percent looking for Adspliction Split Fiction, which is out May May.
<v Speaker 2>It's good game. It's good game.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, I loved it. You you played it at a
<v Speaker 1>preview event and enjoyed it. Okay, well I can't wait.
<v Speaker 1>And then thirty seven percent Assassin's Creed Shadows. So you
<v Speaker 1>know that game? Yeah, the game seems like it might
<v Speaker 1>have some interest, might have some juice. We'll see. I
<v Speaker 1>got a new poll question before we get to that, though,
<v Speaker 1>Lucy James Games, why don't you tell people where they
<v Speaker 1>can find you on the internet if that's something you
<v Speaker 1>even want, what you have going on and all that
<v Speaker 1>good stuff.
<v Speaker 2>Uh, it's like someone at my front door doing something,
<v Speaker 2>so that's interesting.
<v Speaker 1>To feel free to handle that if you need to.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know what they're doing.
<v Speaker 1>Anyway.
<v Speaker 2>I am just about to record a new episode of
<v Speaker 2>Jeff Just per Adventure for Berserk, and then I'm going
<v Speaker 2>to Japan on Friday, so I'll not be here next week,
<v Speaker 2>but I'll be back the week after. I can'll tell
<v Speaker 2>you I'm going to Japan.
<v Speaker 1>Definitely enjoy that. We'll catch up with you when you
<v Speaker 1>get back. You can tell us, you know, Gallous with
<v Speaker 1>all your stories looking forward to Oh yes, all right,
<v Speaker 1>let's that's I want to scroll up here instead. Which
<v Speaker 1>remake would you want more, Tony Hawk's pro Skater three
<v Speaker 1>plus four or Tony Hawk's Underground one plus two. You
<v Speaker 1>can vote on that poll question now by going to
<v Speaker 1>YouTube dot com slash at giant bomb the community tab there.
<v Speaker 1>I vote there, we'll get the results talk about it
<v Speaker 1>on game Mess mornings here on Giant Bomb tomorrow. Speaking
<v Speaker 1>of Giant Bomb later today, in about an hour from now,
<v Speaker 1>it is a Giant Bomb's Hole off. We're having a
<v Speaker 1>hole off everybody. We're gonna play a game about digging
<v Speaker 1>a hole, so it'll there'll be a stream about a
<v Speaker 1>game about a game about digging a hole, because we
<v Speaker 1>are making a game out of it. We are going
<v Speaker 1>to race to see who can dig the hole the fastest,
<v Speaker 1>and really we might style points. Maybe I think we
<v Speaker 1>should have the chatburd on who has the best hole. Well,
<v Speaker 1>so Giant Bomb dot Tom everybody, and then after that,
<v Speaker 1>right after that, you know it, depending on I guess
<v Speaker 1>how long the hole goes. We are going to have
<v Speaker 1>Blight Club, the return of Blues Brothers two thousand.
<v Speaker 2>I'm not featuring my favorite level.
<v Speaker 1>Maybe yes, Lucy's favorite level, the opening of Blues Brothers
<v Speaker 1>two thousand. So look out for all that. We have
<v Speaker 1>more stuff happening later this week, but that stuff's in
<v Speaker 1>motion in the works. Will give you give you an
<v Speaker 1>update as we know more. But yeah, but games are
<v Speaker 1>coming out. We're going to be playing some of them,
<v Speaker 1>Yakuza stuff like that. We'll get it all on this
<v Speaker 1>website or somewhere else for you here pretty soon. Lucy
<v Speaker 1>James Games, thank you so much for hanging out with
<v Speaker 1>me today and talking about video games. I really appreciate it.
<v Speaker 2>Thank you for having it. And Jellybean says thank you
<v Speaker 2>for having me.
<v Speaker 1>Thank you, jelly Bean, thank you for entertaining us and
<v Speaker 1>getting on the fridge. I'll slip you the twenty later
<v Speaker 1>for doing that. Until next time, everyone, have a good one,
<v Speaker 1>take care of yourself. You're the best audience in gaming. Goodbye, Hey,