Larian Under Fire for Allegedly Shifty Hiring Process

<v Speaker 1>Hey, everybody, welcome to Game Mess Mornings with Me Jeff Grub,
<v Speaker 1>your host from giant bomb dot com.
<v Speaker 2>Thank you for tuning in.
<v Speaker 1>In this episode, we're gonna be talking about game key
<v Speaker 1>cards and just how bad is twenty twenty six is
<v Speaker 1>gonna get for gaming hardware. It's gonna be a good
<v Speaker 1>one because we have Janet Choa on the show.
<v Speaker 2>Jan how are you doing, Grub?
<v Speaker 3>I think I've leveled up my cold stat Oh no, no, no,
<v Speaker 3>it's it's good because I was dealing with much much
<v Speaker 3>colder weather than I'm ever yoused.
<v Speaker 1>To, like in your in your local environment, right, your
<v Speaker 1>local environment was much colder than it's been in a
<v Speaker 1>long time.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, uh, normally around winter time in the Bay Area,
<v Speaker 3>it the lowest will get is like fifties, rightly, it's
<v Speaker 3>even then, it's usually in the sixties, right like even then. Yeah, well,
<v Speaker 3>we'll get some cold wins and everything, but overall temperature
<v Speaker 3>we'll have around sixty. Lately it's been close to forty
<v Speaker 3>to fifty. But let me tell y'all, after hanging out
<v Speaker 3>with y'all in New Jersey and seeing snow on the
<v Speaker 3>actual gown, I've leveled up like two points two.
<v Speaker 1>Pips god side and it's like, oh, this is barely anything. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it warmed up here for the first time in quite
<v Speaker 1>some time, like a month in Ohio, and it's like
<v Speaker 1>forty degrees and it feels like spring.
<v Speaker 3>It feels like okay, yeah, truck a snowball at me,
<v Speaker 3>Hu sean politely through, Like a little bit of snow
<v Speaker 3>at me is great. Good times.
<v Speaker 2>Everyone was like, like, this is the first time you've
<v Speaker 2>ever done this. Hah.
<v Speaker 1>You're like, no, I've I'm thirty whatever years old.
<v Speaker 2>You are, Jan, and You're like, I've seen us snowball before.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, I don't think I've ever made a snow angel,
<v Speaker 3>but I don't want to because the ground is dirty.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, you got to like get the fresh snow. It's
<v Speaker 1>gotta be enough snow that you don't get down to
<v Speaker 1>the dirt. And you also have to be wearing like
<v Speaker 1>plastic clothes. You have to be wearing like stuff that's waterproof.
<v Speaker 3>Oh okay, I thought you mean I have to be
<v Speaker 3>in a plastic bag.
<v Speaker 1>But okay, no, no, not. We We never put Jan
<v Speaker 1>in a plastic bag.
<v Speaker 3>No one puts baby in a corner, No one puts
<v Speaker 3>me in a plastic bag.
<v Speaker 2>That's what they say. Yeah, hey, how was your travel
<v Speaker 2>back home?
<v Speaker 3>Grub? It was fine.
<v Speaker 1>We record a Game of the Year everybody. Yeah, those
<v Speaker 1>podcasts are gonna be going up here real soon. Sorry
<v Speaker 1>for missing the early part of the week. I guess,
<v Speaker 1>I mean more bad news on that. But this is
<v Speaker 1>something we've kind of made like pretty clear. We're gonna
<v Speaker 1>be off for the next two weeks after tomorrow's show,
<v Speaker 1>where we're off the rest of the year, but we
<v Speaker 1>will have stuff going up on the site. There will
<v Speaker 1>be the Game of the Year, deliberations, the categories. Sean's
<v Speaker 1>putting together a music episode, although he's got a lot
<v Speaker 1>to do so, I mean, but he seems pretty intent
<v Speaker 1>on getting that done. So we're gonna have plenty for
<v Speaker 1>you to listen to over the holiday break, and we'll
<v Speaker 1>be back after the new year.
<v Speaker 3>And you know, Grub, this is probably me drinking our
<v Speaker 3>own kool aid. But I had a lot of fun
<v Speaker 3>this year during deliberations. It's it's a good crowd. It's
<v Speaker 3>a good We've got like something good cooking.
<v Speaker 1>I just can't believe how obstinate Mike Manatti was on everything.
<v Speaker 2>Just the worst this guy, I tell you.
<v Speaker 3>I don't want to spoil anything, but there were multiple
<v Speaker 3>times where Dan had to get in between Mike Manatti
<v Speaker 3>and I.
<v Speaker 1>That's literally true. All right, let's explain ourselves. We're Giant Bomb.
<v Speaker 1>Go to GiantBomb dot com, slash join, become a member.
<v Speaker 1>A lot of you have done that because we're independent
<v Speaker 1>games media. We are out here on our own. We
<v Speaker 1>need you at our back. We need you supporting stuff
<v Speaker 1>like us traveling to get together for our Game of
<v Speaker 1>the Year discussions, something we're really happy to do. But
<v Speaker 1>we can only do that because so many of you
<v Speaker 1>have come through and gone to giant bomb dot com,
<v Speaker 1>slash join and become premium members. Thank you so much,
<v Speaker 1>and thank you to everyone who's considering, Like maybe early
<v Speaker 1>in the new year, you're gonna have a little bit
<v Speaker 1>more money and that's when you're gonna come through.
<v Speaker 2>We appreciate it.
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<v Speaker 1>and support us by watching, We love you. Tell a
<v Speaker 1>friend you're also helping. It's fantastic. Thank you all so much.
<v Speaker 1>All right, As far as this show goes though, most weekdays,
<v Speaker 1>I Jeff Grubb will help piece of your gaming life
<v Speaker 1>back together. That includes breaking news, and maybe even some
<v Speaker 1>of our own original reporting. For all these topics, I'll
<v Speaker 1>get the input of a bona fide expert who will
<v Speaker 1>make me look smart. If you are watching live on
<v Speaker 1>twitch welcome, You can always listen to the show later
<v Speaker 1>on podcast feeds by searching for game Mes Mornings, or
<v Speaker 1>find the RSS feed on giant bomb dot com. You
<v Speaker 1>can also catch the show later with chapters and timestamps
<v Speaker 1>on YouTube.
<v Speaker 2>Hello YouTube.
<v Speaker 1>All right, we have a lot to get into, so
<v Speaker 1>let's start the morning mess with a rumor. Nintendo is
<v Speaker 1>apparently planning smaller switch to card sizes as alternative alternative
<v Speaker 1>to game key cards. This is from Nintendo Soup. Earlier
<v Speaker 1>this year, Nintendo introduced game key cards, a new type
<v Speaker 1>of game cartridge or card as I would call it,
<v Speaker 1>that does not include act the actual game, but a
<v Speaker 1>license to download and any and play a digital version
<v Speaker 1>of the E Shock game. Basically, instead of getting a
<v Speaker 1>code in a box, you get a card that you
<v Speaker 1>can resell, but the game is an actual on the card.
<v Speaker 1>You're gonna have to download every little last bit and
<v Speaker 1>bob for that thing. The reason so many developers and
<v Speaker 1>publishers have gone with that option. Obviously is the only
<v Speaker 1>other option was a sixty four gigabyte game card that
<v Speaker 1>is probably prohibitively expensive for the vast majority of developers
<v Speaker 1>and publishers and for the vast majority of games. So
<v Speaker 1>we've seen a lot of game key cards so far.
<v Speaker 1>We probably will continue to see a lot of game
<v Speaker 1>key cards, jen because that will continue to be the
<v Speaker 1>cheapest option. But now it's gonna be a little bit
<v Speaker 1>easier for some of these studios. It could be like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>if Nintendo is going to offer us up a one
<v Speaker 1>gigabyte card or a four gigabyte card, or an a
<v Speaker 1>gigabyte card for our small indie game, now we can
<v Speaker 1>sort of justify that and print a few thousand, few
<v Speaker 1>tens of thousand for those most dedicated fans. And we
<v Speaker 1>want to do that because we know how important it
<v Speaker 1>is and it looks good for us. And now that's
<v Speaker 1>actually a viable thing as long as this is all true.
<v Speaker 1>But it all feels like this is always where we
<v Speaker 1>were heading. Nintendo limiting the options early on because you know,
<v Speaker 1>probably just logistics and a bunch of other reasons. Maybe
<v Speaker 1>they wanted to push down the price of the sixty
<v Speaker 1>four gigabyte cards whatever, they're probably nefarious reasons. It's Nintendo,
<v Speaker 1>but here we are they're beginning to maybe give some
<v Speaker 1>other options to other publishers. You think this means that,
<v Speaker 1>like physical games on the switch To are going to
<v Speaker 1>be safe and healthy.
<v Speaker 3>I would hope so, at least in regard to smaller
<v Speaker 3>titles greb. Like we've seen reports of what Final Fantasy
<v Speaker 3>VII Reintegrate, I think is what they're calling it on
<v Speaker 3>the switch To is going to look like, and that
<v Speaker 3>is definitely going to be nowhere near the proper size
<v Speaker 3>to be on a game card, let alone these smaller
<v Speaker 3>game cards. But I hope that this is positive for
<v Speaker 3>the indie dev's out there, right. I correct me if
<v Speaker 3>I'm wrong, But I am under the assumption that the
<v Speaker 3>physical switch To edition of Haites two is still a
<v Speaker 3>virtual game card.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know, actually, I think it might all be
<v Speaker 1>on there, But again, that'd be a situation where Nintendo
<v Speaker 1>likes them a lot. Maybe they figured something out and
<v Speaker 1>made it happen. In the sixty four gigabyte Car.
<v Speaker 3>Eighty two is a real card, folks are saying, So
<v Speaker 3>that's that's fantastic, But you know, there are other smaller
<v Speaker 3>indie devs that aren't in a position like super Giant,
<v Speaker 3>that are maybe just getting their feet wet that I
<v Speaker 3>would love to see be able to find a life
<v Speaker 3>on the switch to specifically with physical game cards. And
<v Speaker 3>this means a lot for game preservation grub and I
<v Speaker 3>can't help but think about folks with very limited internet
<v Speaker 3>connections where you were super excited to line up at
<v Speaker 3>your big box retailer wherever, or even folks are maybe
<v Speaker 3>opening up gifts during the holidays and they boot up
<v Speaker 3>the game only to see, oh, I gotta go download
<v Speaker 3>this stuff. And again, depending on where you're at in
<v Speaker 3>the country or in the world, your internet connection may
<v Speaker 3>be very very limited, so it's going to take quite
<v Speaker 3>a while to boot up your game. And you know,
<v Speaker 3>one of the big parts with the virtual game cards
<v Speaker 3>is preservation, like what if those servers go away? What
<v Speaker 3>if those downloads disappear and you won't be able to
<v Speaker 3>play those games. It's less of a tightrope and more
<v Speaker 3>of like, why do we got to do this right?
<v Speaker 1>Like, let's at least just make it more viable, that's all,
<v Speaker 1>And this might do that. So there's a couple other things.
<v Speaker 1>So Haites two that's a good example of kind of
<v Speaker 1>what happens here. People pointed out, yeah, it's a real
<v Speaker 1>game card, the game is really on there, but it's
<v Speaker 1>twenty dollars more expensive than the digital version. To offset
<v Speaker 1>that cost, that's the kind of thing that the developers
<v Speaker 1>are going to have to consider, is raising the price
<v Speaker 1>on the physical version. You can look at it as
<v Speaker 1>getting a discount on the digital version, it's obviously not that.
<v Speaker 1>It's obviously raising the price on the physical version. And
<v Speaker 1>then you know the reason I mentioned one for an
<v Speaker 1>eight gigabyte cards, those were pretty popular on the Switch one.
<v Speaker 1>I still hope we do get to a place where
<v Speaker 1>those are an option, but it sounds like early on
<v Speaker 1>the option is going to be sixteen and thirty two gigabytes. Now,
<v Speaker 1>that's still going to be an improvement, but I bet
<v Speaker 1>those aren't that much less expensive than the sixty four
<v Speaker 1>gigab one. So I think most studios, most publishers are
<v Speaker 1>going to be in a situation where they're still not
<v Speaker 1>like going to be making a ton of money if
<v Speaker 1>they do a physical version, a real physical version, so
<v Speaker 1>they're still going to turn to the game key card.
<v Speaker 1>I just I hope we get to a point where
<v Speaker 1>Nintendo's like, here's the full Smorgus board, pick what you
<v Speaker 1>need and we're going to help you figure that out.
<v Speaker 1>But you know, digital is less and less and I'm sorry.
<v Speaker 1>Digital is more and more important. Physical is less and
<v Speaker 1>less important every day, you know. I feel like a
<v Speaker 1>part of that, though, is just the positioning of these companies.
<v Speaker 1>Nintendo Switch one had a ton of physical sales, still
<v Speaker 1>more than any other platform as far as I'm aware,
<v Speaker 1>Like when I I've seen those numbers spliced up before,
<v Speaker 1>it's always Switched one physical sales outperforming and everything else.
<v Speaker 1>People liked buying physical Switch one games, and now with
<v Speaker 1>the game key card, Nintendo's sort of poisoned that well
<v Speaker 1>a little bit, and so switch to is looking like, well,
<v Speaker 1>maybe people are going more digital this time, and really
<v Speaker 1>it's just like, no, I want to buy physical, but
<v Speaker 1>you're only giving me the game key card and that's
<v Speaker 1>very frustrating. So I think Nintendo, you know, kind of
<v Speaker 1>offering this up relatively early. I hope it's an indicator
<v Speaker 1>that they have seen sort of the response to game
<v Speaker 1>key cards. They have internalized it, and this is a
<v Speaker 1>this is part of a rebuttal to sort of correct
<v Speaker 1>their position and kind of reach out to the audience
<v Speaker 1>that wants to buy physical and give them exactly what
<v Speaker 1>they want. Are you all digital on the switch or
<v Speaker 1>switch to We're.
<v Speaker 3>All digital across everything at this point, grub. But I
<v Speaker 3>do you understand that for some people it is it's
<v Speaker 3>not just a preference, but it's just like it is
<v Speaker 3>so much easier for them just because of reasons we've listed,
<v Speaker 3>and who knows what else. I understand that there is
<v Speaker 3>the whole aspect of reselling games, and I don't bock
<v Speaker 3>at that because money's tight, dog, so do what you
<v Speaker 3>gotta do. But for myself, I am completely digital at
<v Speaker 3>this point because you know, because of our job, I
<v Speaker 3>have access to very fast internet, so it isn't that
<v Speaker 3>much of an issue for me personally.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, all right, let's keep going here. In Vidia plans
<v Speaker 1>heavy cuts to GPU supply in early twenty twenty six.
<v Speaker 1>This is from Mark Campbell at OC three d dot net.
<v Speaker 1>Nvidia reportedly plans thirty to forty percent cut in g
<v Speaker 1>Force GPU production in early twenty twenty six. Recent reports
<v Speaker 1>have claimed that Nvidia intends to reduce its production capacity
<v Speaker 1>for the fifty series GPUs in the first half of
<v Speaker 1>the year. These cuts are reportedly due to shortages of memory,
<v Speaker 1>not just gd g D d R seven but all
<v Speaker 1>memory types. Thirty to forty percent of Video's Nvidia g
<v Speaker 1>Force GPU production could be asked. This implies that Nvidia
<v Speaker 1>cannot get enough gt d R seven memory to produce
<v Speaker 1>GPUs at its current rate. Alternatively, and implies that Nvidia
<v Speaker 1>expects significantly reduced GPU sales in twenty twenty six, possibly
<v Speaker 1>due to rising nand and d RAM costs and their
<v Speaker 1>impact on PC prices.
<v Speaker 2>You know, there's a whole there's a bunch of market
<v Speaker 2>forces here.
<v Speaker 1>Jan these things are going to go up in price
<v Speaker 1>because the components are going up in price. Supply and
<v Speaker 1>demand still going to be the biggest factor here though,
<v Speaker 1>And people who need a GPU are going to need
<v Speaker 1>a GPU. There's always going to be a baseline number
<v Speaker 1>of people who need it for it's their number one
<v Speaker 1>hobby playing games. They need it for their work, they
<v Speaker 1>need it for a production, they need it for their job,
<v Speaker 1>they need it for their office like.
<v Speaker 2>An enterprise, all these things.
<v Speaker 1>And you know that demand is going to be there,
<v Speaker 1>and it might not be as high as it would
<v Speaker 1>have been if prices were lower, but now supply is
<v Speaker 1>much lower, so that's also going to push up prices.
<v Speaker 1>And I think the maybe the understated thing here is
<v Speaker 1>that it's going to hurt the lower end of the
<v Speaker 1>market much more, just like always where just like we've
<v Speaker 1>seen a GPUs for a very long time now where
<v Speaker 1>it's been neglected. You know, they come out later, sure,
<v Speaker 1>but now they just feel like like deeply like afterthoughts
<v Speaker 1>the your fifties, sixties, your fifty to fifties, those that
<v Speaker 1>lower end an that would be entry level, although the
<v Speaker 1>price has gone up so much you could hardly consider
<v Speaker 1>that anymore. Those ones are gonna be stuck at eight
<v Speaker 1>gigabytes of RAM for sure, probably.
<v Speaker 2>In some cases maybe not even that. Uh.
<v Speaker 1>And that's so we've all kind of all agreed that's
<v Speaker 1>not enough anymore. But they're gonna prioritize whatever RAM they
<v Speaker 1>can get their hands on on the cards that they're
<v Speaker 1>selling at a much higher price, at a much more
<v Speaker 1>more marked.
<v Speaker 2>Up price, because they could sort of absorb.
<v Speaker 1>More of the cost of the RAM in that for
<v Speaker 1>like a fifty eighty or a fifty ninety.
<v Speaker 2>It's gonna get bad to build a PC.
<v Speaker 1>It's gonna be bad for gaming across the board for
<v Speaker 1>video game hardware in twenty twenty six jan And we
<v Speaker 1>just came off of a November report from Matt Piscatella,
<v Speaker 1>which happened kind of, you know, yesterday, So we don't
<v Speaker 1>have all those numbers, but we'll kind of sprinkle in
<v Speaker 1>some of that data throughout this show. Everyone, everyone, you know,
<v Speaker 1>it was the worst November for hardware sales in thirty years.
<v Speaker 2>Now.
<v Speaker 1>Obviously there's a bunch of factors there, but I mean,
<v Speaker 1>I think the biggest factor is price, and people didn't
<v Speaker 1>see any discounts and they just saw high prices and
<v Speaker 1>people didn't show up.
<v Speaker 2>Twenty twenty six could be worse.
<v Speaker 1>It's like this is an inflection point for traditional style
<v Speaker 1>video games right.
<v Speaker 3>Right and for and I know in our with our community,
<v Speaker 3>video games is the primary focus. But gang this is
<v Speaker 3>seeing its effects through various parts of creative industries, whether
<v Speaker 3>it's like three D modeling, game development of course, but
<v Speaker 3>also like the video production side as well. Like I
<v Speaker 3>see folks pulling their hair out, wondering, like what the
<v Speaker 3>heck are we going to do? We meant to upgrade
<v Speaker 3>all of our systems, but we are not in a
<v Speaker 3>financial place where we can actually do that. It's very
<v Speaker 3>unfortunate grub and I don't see any improvement down the line.
<v Speaker 3>I know in the past we've recommended folks maybe look
<v Speaker 3>at secondhand markets for like older video cards, maybe older
<v Speaker 3>rigs altogether. But as someone that will occasionally browse through
<v Speaker 3>places like Craigslist or Facebook marketplace for miscellaneous things, I've
<v Speaker 3>even seen those used older cards skyrocketing and price because
<v Speaker 3>folks know that they're going to be in demand soon.
<v Speaker 2>Yep. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I just gave my forty ninety to Sean because he's
<v Speaker 1>going to use it for production and stuff, and I'm like,
<v Speaker 1>as I gave it to him, it's like, oh, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>that's that ram in there. Because there's a lot of
<v Speaker 1>ram in of forty ninety twenty four gigabytes. It's like, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>that's We're not going to see a card like that
<v Speaker 1>for a long time. So happy he could have that
<v Speaker 1>and use that and actually get some real work done.
<v Speaker 1>But it's like, oh boy, I'm glad we got this
<v Speaker 1>all sort of sorted in terms of our computer stuff
<v Speaker 1>right now, and I just dread anyone who has to
<v Speaker 1>figure it out going forward. It is going to be
<v Speaker 1>completely unfair. It is you know, I say, well, it's unacceptable,
<v Speaker 1>but I don't know what we do about this, Like,
<v Speaker 1>like we're at a point now where it's so uncertain
<v Speaker 1>to invest in anything other than the very biggest bet
<v Speaker 1>for these companies, which is still AI, and they're going
<v Speaker 1>to sort of dam any other opportunity to kind of
<v Speaker 1>turn back away from AI because they have to commit
<v Speaker 1>one hundred percent of that because they don't want to
<v Speaker 1>be left behind in case it does work, and it's
<v Speaker 1>not like anything else can make them as much money
<v Speaker 1>if that does work. So when it doesn't work at
<v Speaker 1>least the way that they want it to and they
<v Speaker 1>have to turn back, it's going to take years to
<v Speaker 1>sort of repair the damage done by all this. And
<v Speaker 1>in the meantime, it's like, what does gaming look like
<v Speaker 1>for people who, you know, there's still a lot of
<v Speaker 1>ways to play this stuff. It's just going to be
<v Speaker 1>kind of it'll be rough. But I won't blame anyone
<v Speaker 1>who's like I am getting out of this. I'm going
<v Speaker 1>back one hundred percent just retro games. I got a
<v Speaker 1>million games already in my collection and devices that can
<v Speaker 1>already play them. They just back out of this madhouse,
<v Speaker 1>because that's the way it feels right now. It doesn't
<v Speaker 1>feel great to try to keep up with this stuff.
<v Speaker 3>And the flip side of that grub is I with
<v Speaker 3>the way that let's just say Sony and Microsoft have
<v Speaker 3>been heading and let's throw an activision Ubisoft into that.
<v Speaker 3>They've been looking to create these triple a ubisofts instance,
<v Speaker 3>quadruple experiences for games. At some point, people won't be
<v Speaker 3>able to play them, right, people won't be able to
<v Speaker 3>play them even on their current consoles. We haven't even
<v Speaker 3>talked about how this is going to affect the future
<v Speaker 3>generation of consoles and how that is going to make
<v Speaker 3>those prices go up to unattainable levels for your average consumer.
<v Speaker 3>I like, right now, I wouldn't suggest folks go get
<v Speaker 3>APS five pro they were on sale during Black Friday,
<v Speaker 3>But what you're going to do on them?
<v Speaker 2>Right?
<v Speaker 3>What are you gonna do on an Xbox? Again? It
<v Speaker 3>sucks that the people at the very bottom, which is you,
<v Speaker 3>myself or audience that just wants to play more games,
<v Speaker 3>are going to be the people most affected by the
<v Speaker 3>greed up top.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, uh all right, let's uh.
<v Speaker 3>I just hope maybe a way more crashes into someone you.
<v Speaker 2>Know, yeah, yeah, I mean a specific person.
<v Speaker 1>And you know, I see the comment chat about like,
<v Speaker 1>oh this when this whole I thing blows over, now,
<v Speaker 1>I'm I'm I think Ethan Hawk said it last week
<v Speaker 1>or whatever, where it's like, I'm not in denial about
<v Speaker 1>what is happening with AI. It's going to be here,
<v Speaker 1>but I like people should still be really loud about
<v Speaker 1>it and be yelling about it, because this is the
<v Speaker 1>one moment we have where where they're like, we can't
<v Speaker 1>vote with our wallets with AI. That is the people
<v Speaker 1>the trillionaires and the billionaires are doing that. There will
<v Speaker 1>being like we're betting on this. You cannot make a
<v Speaker 1>dentt in that by not using AI or or or
<v Speaker 1>just yeah, voting with your wallet.
<v Speaker 2>You have to get loud and annoying.
<v Speaker 1>And this is the one moment where we have sort
<v Speaker 1>of momentum there and we could maybe have some claim
<v Speaker 1>at the table if we're just fucking annoying about it.
<v Speaker 1>And if that, if that, if people sort of have
<v Speaker 1>to like a lie to themselves and be like we
<v Speaker 1>can defeat this thing by yelling about it, I think
<v Speaker 1>it's still a thing because even if it nudges the
<v Speaker 1>pylons a few feet in the direction, in the direction
<v Speaker 1>back towards sanity.
<v Speaker 2>That's that's what I mean. Maybe we have to settle
<v Speaker 2>for that. I don't know.
<v Speaker 1>Again, I'm a very cynical and pessimistic person when it
<v Speaker 1>comes to this kind of thing, but even I recognize
<v Speaker 1>that if we just can ye yell about it, at
<v Speaker 1>least some of these companies will have a second thought
<v Speaker 1>here or there. Well, we'll talk about Larry In here
<v Speaker 1>before we're done today. We'll probably repeat a lot of this.
<v Speaker 2>Okay.
<v Speaker 1>Sony settles lawsuit with Tencent over that Horizon Zero Dawn knockoff. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>this is from John Walker at Kotaku. Back in November
<v Speaker 1>last year, Tencent reealed a game called Light of Motorim
<v Speaker 1>that was almost comically obviously they were lifting its entire
<v Speaker 1>esthetic from Sony's Horizon game series. At the time, we
<v Speaker 1>suggested the game was obviously a lawsuit waiting to happen,
<v Speaker 1>and sure enough, in July this year, Sony announced it
<v Speaker 1>was suing Tencent over the Slavish Clone that's their words. Now,
<v Speaker 1>it appears that the case has been quietly settled behind
<v Speaker 1>the scenes, as reported reported by the verge. A court
<v Speaker 1>document reveals that the case is over all parties are
<v Speaker 1>paying their own cost, and, as so often seems to
<v Speaker 1>be the case, the settlement is confidential, which is to
<v Speaker 1>say we'll never find out what was agreed to, but
<v Speaker 1>can draw inferences from the fact that the game's Steam
<v Speaker 1>page remains deleted.
<v Speaker 2>At the time of the reveal.
<v Speaker 1>Light of Motorum was hilariously obviously knocking off Horizon Zero down.
<v Speaker 1>Every detail of the promo shots could be mistaken for
<v Speaker 1>a new entry in Gorilla Games's series, from setting two
<v Speaker 1>player character to robo animal creature design. Yeah, I mean
<v Speaker 1>this is I think we could have predicted this that
<v Speaker 1>they'll just settle it and ten Cent will be like, hey, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>either we'll completely cancel this thing, we'll rework it moderately
<v Speaker 1>and sort of like get pay you a lump sum
<v Speaker 1>to be like, hey, we apologize, but we'll change enough
<v Speaker 1>so people don't like at first glance immediately just assume
<v Speaker 1>this is one of your games or I don't know,
<v Speaker 1>maybe some other thing. But if this game reappears, then
<v Speaker 1>we'll be able to infer even more from like what
<v Speaker 1>exactly happened. And then if it never reappears, it's like, well,
<v Speaker 1>obviously that was what they agreed to, just.
<v Speaker 2>To you know.
<v Speaker 1>I I'm someone who's kind of not quick to defend,
<v Speaker 1>but like wants to create space for obvious clones and
<v Speaker 1>ripoffs because that's gaming in a lot of ways.
<v Speaker 2>This one was just so.
<v Speaker 1>Egregious that even I was like, I mean, don't do this,
<v Speaker 1>just don't do this. It's it's stupid, it looks bad,
<v Speaker 1>and I'm kind of glad that they got slapped on
<v Speaker 1>the wrist here.
<v Speaker 3>I really don't understand at any point where they thought
<v Speaker 3>they could get away with it, especially if they were
<v Speaker 3>trying to make this like a global game. Greb. Just
<v Speaker 3>quick thought exercise, if you'll indulge me, can you name
<v Speaker 3>another character I Horizon zero don besides Aloy.
<v Speaker 2>No.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, I've played several hours of those games, but
<v Speaker 1>I'm trying to remember the guy like Razor back. What
<v Speaker 1>was the guy's name that was in the opening show
<v Speaker 1>cut scene that like raised you daddy O. I think
<v Speaker 1>I think his name is daddy O.
<v Speaker 2>Right? Was it Varral? Was that his name?
<v Speaker 3>Varral Rost? Yeah?
<v Speaker 1>Roast to Ross. Yeah, that's right, Big Papa Pump. I
<v Speaker 1>could not do it. Jan I had to have chat.
<v Speaker 3>Help me, I asked, because I asked Dan this because
<v Speaker 3>I think we both saw Warrior sixty four post a
<v Speaker 3>Horizon Action figure come out, and then I just looked
<v Speaker 3>at the name and thought, I don't I don't recognize
<v Speaker 3>you at all. And hey, hey, it's not me trying
<v Speaker 3>to dunk on Horizon. I am just not familiar with
<v Speaker 3>this series because I recognize it is not for me.
<v Speaker 2>Yep. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>And even then, it's like, uh, remember, remembering characters' names
<v Speaker 1>hardly matters in terms of whether it's good or not.
<v Speaker 1>I like Avatar, and I agree, I don't remember a
<v Speaker 1>lot of those characters names other than Spider.
<v Speaker 2>John Sulley is that his name? No, that's not right.
<v Speaker 2>Jake Suley. Jake Suley is what she says? Uh?
<v Speaker 1>Natiri, Yeah, there you go. All right, let's uh, let's
<v Speaker 1>take a break. Let's go ahead and take our break.
<v Speaker 1>We got plenty of more headlines to get a too
<v Speaker 1>after this. If you want to skip out on these,
<v Speaker 1>we do have ad free versions of the video and
<v Speaker 1>audio shows that you can get by going to giant
<v Speaker 1>bomb dot com slash Join become a premium member.
<v Speaker 2>We will be right back.
<v Speaker 3>Hi, Dog, it's time to start the show. Are you
<v Speaker 3>ready to go?
<v Speaker 2>Uh? Yeah, dude, I'm ready.
<v Speaker 3>No, Grum, you look like you are in a den
<v Speaker 3>of iniquity right now.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know what that means, and I don't know
<v Speaker 1>what you want. It's not like I have a home studio, Jan,
<v Speaker 1>Yes you do.
<v Speaker 3>The computers that main Gear built for us have Nvidia
<v Speaker 3>g Force RTX chipoos in them, and with the Nvidia
<v Speaker 3>Studio drivers and in Video Broadcast, you can turn even
<v Speaker 3>your man cave into a professional studio. Using Broadcasts, you
<v Speaker 3>can upgrade your webcams, microphones, and speakers, using the power
<v Speaker 3>of machine learning to take our shows, voice chats, and
<v Speaker 3>video conferences to the next level. Can use audio effects
<v Speaker 3>like noise removal.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, I guess have a fan on. Well, it's hot,
<v Speaker 1>I'm not going to turn that off. Let me just
<v Speaker 1>hit this right here. Is that any better?
<v Speaker 2>Jan?
<v Speaker 3>Much better? We can clean up your shot with auto
<v Speaker 3>frame and video noise removal and grub. You can even
<v Speaker 3>make it look like you were paying attention using the
<v Speaker 3>eye contact.
<v Speaker 2>Tool so I can still watch my stories.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, yes you can. Nvidia Broadcasts is a universal plugin
<v Speaker 3>that works with most live streaming voice chat and video
<v Speaker 3>conferencing apps. It's supported on any n Video, g Force
<v Speaker 3>ArtX GPU, and since I'm using the Nvidia Studio drivers,
<v Speaker 3>I'll get stable, optimized performance in Adobe Photoshop, Da Vinci
<v Speaker 3>Resolve in all the other apps that I need to
<v Speaker 3>use to fix our mistakes in post you know what.
<v Speaker 1>Thank you to ban Gear and in Nvidia for supplying
<v Speaker 1>are invidious studio PCs in video broadcast, your AI powered
<v Speaker 1>home studio and video studio the software advantage for all creators.
<v Speaker 2>Jan, I'm not even looking at the camera at all right.
<v Speaker 3>Now, Grub stop stop looking at me.
<v Speaker 2>I haven't looked at you forever.
<v Speaker 1>We're back. It's Game Bess Mornings. I'm Jeff Grubb. That's
<v Speaker 1>Jan Achoa. Let's get to the next news story.
<v Speaker 2>Here.
<v Speaker 1>After being called out for AI usage, Larryan is now
<v Speaker 1>under fire for allegedly shifty hiring practices and processes. This
<v Speaker 1>is from Alex Hopley, a game reactor. It seems the
<v Speaker 1>floodgates have opened for criticism toward Boulder's Gate three developer
<v Speaker 1>Larian Studios. We just didn't like the trailer. Everyone, at
<v Speaker 1>least I didn't. It was spooky to me. Now, everyone's like, well,
<v Speaker 1>let's get them while they're down. Grub said he didn't
<v Speaker 1>like that one trailer, so they're vulnerable. Following some comments
<v Speaker 1>about AI from CEO spennvinc Venk that seemed to have
<v Speaker 1>blown out have been blown out of proportion. Now, the
<v Speaker 1>former Gaming Darling is being criticized for other alleged bad practices,
<v Speaker 1>including shifty hiring practices for bringing writers into the studio,
<v Speaker 1>As reported and compiled by The Gamer, narrative designer and
<v Speaker 1>game writers have shared their experiences applying for Larran. A
<v Speaker 1>thread on Blue Sky contains most of the information, with
<v Speaker 1>writer Bruno Dias saying Larian's horrible hiring process is an
<v Speaker 1>open secret in the industry. Other people like gwyn Sekatz
<v Speaker 1>said they made do twelve interviews, then they rejected me
<v Speaker 1>based on my resume.
<v Speaker 2>That's crazy. I'm not sure if they'll ever find anyone.
<v Speaker 1>At this point, they must have interviewed basically every single
<v Speaker 1>writer who isn't already aware of their process. Narrative designer
<v Speaker 1>Stella Saco said that she had to provide a writing
<v Speaker 1>example that was in a playable state, and she was
<v Speaker 1>also not told where she'd be working if she got
<v Speaker 1>the job. They said I'd work at one of their
<v Speaker 1>studios worldwide, but that they decided that they decide which
<v Speaker 1>one later sounds a little bit messy and you know,
<v Speaker 1>not friendly towards I mean, it sounds extremely not friendly
<v Speaker 1>to any new hires. And it's always difficult for me
<v Speaker 1>to be like, is this like you know they don't
<v Speaker 1>have some soft skills or are they assholes? It's the
<v Speaker 1>same thing in a lot of cases, I know, but
<v Speaker 1>sometimes it's as simple as like they just don't think
<v Speaker 1>about how what effect this is going to have on
<v Speaker 1>the person that they're hiring, and they want to get
<v Speaker 1>it right because it's a big, big thing for everybody.
<v Speaker 1>This sounds like it's a little bit more than that obviously, though,
<v Speaker 1>Larrying going through a lot right now. What are you
<v Speaker 1>thinking about this? We could talk about the AI stuff
<v Speaker 1>wherever you want to.
<v Speaker 3>Go, grub I guess I don't know where to start,
<v Speaker 3>is where I'm at because I didn't play Balller's Gate three.
<v Speaker 3>I didn't play a lot of it. Not my cup
<v Speaker 3>of tea. So I don't want folks to think that
<v Speaker 3>we are like jumping on Larry the Larry and Hate
<v Speaker 3>train or anything. Or that. And I also didn't like
<v Speaker 3>that trailer at all, and I was there to see
<v Speaker 3>it in person and see, like several people get carried away.
<v Speaker 3>Those people are gone now, grub those they're just gone.
<v Speaker 3>Those were real people. Yep, they didn't get disconnected by
<v Speaker 3>the little wire doo dads. But you're okay, brother, Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>Cody Road saved me, don't worry. And seeing that someone
<v Speaker 3>went through twelve interviews and that that person had done
<v Speaker 3>significant work in the industry already. Twelve interviews is an
<v Speaker 3>insane amount of hoops to make someone jump through, especially if.
<v Speaker 1>You're gonna especially if you're not gonna hirem for something
<v Speaker 1>you could have write on the resume before the first interview.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and greup like job interviews are incredibly exhausting, anxiety inducing,
<v Speaker 3>especially within this industry where there's only so many jobs anymore.
<v Speaker 3>The whole thing is a bummer. I don't understand how
<v Speaker 3>yeah cyclists in twitch chat. I don't understand how Larin
<v Speaker 3>has five hundred employees and still makes people do that. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>it's weird. The whole process. The AI stuff already made
<v Speaker 3>me feel icky, and the kind of doubling down on
<v Speaker 3>it made me feel gross and now hearing this, it's
<v Speaker 3>especially unfortunate. And hey, I see that there are other
<v Speaker 3>developers that a like, well, we do this too. Just
<v Speaker 3>because you do it doesn't make it good or does
<v Speaker 3>it excuse the process?
<v Speaker 2>Right, So maybe this is not a Larian issue. It's
<v Speaker 2>a video game industry issue.
<v Speaker 1>It's certainly a tech industry issue. You know, this was
<v Speaker 1>always going to happen, the turnaround, you know how the
<v Speaker 1>tables have turned for Larian.
<v Speaker 2>They're at the top of the industry.
<v Speaker 1>They're going to get scrutinized and every word's going to
<v Speaker 1>get dissected, and all their stuff's going to get dissected.
<v Speaker 1>That doesn't mean there's not nothing there. They probably should
<v Speaker 1>address these things. I will be interested to see how
<v Speaker 1>the darling of the industry responds to these very highly
<v Speaker 1>critical moments of people throwing out insults and saying that like,
<v Speaker 1>you are a weird place when we tried to work there.
<v Speaker 1>You know, anything more than three interviews, in my opinion,
<v Speaker 1>is unpaid labor. So that's crazy. And then there's literal
<v Speaker 1>unpaid labor here of asking someone to write a module
<v Speaker 1>for your game that is in a playable state, like
<v Speaker 1>that's an extremely a huge amount. But I get jobs
<v Speaker 1>are tight, especially right now. You can demand a lot
<v Speaker 1>of these people and you want to hire the best.
<v Speaker 1>But I still feel like there's got to be some
<v Speaker 1>middle ground here where it's not completely insane.
<v Speaker 2>And again, I want to see how they respond.
<v Speaker 1>This will be the moment of we've heard criticism, we
<v Speaker 1>can take it. We have sold a lot of games,
<v Speaker 1>a lot of people still love us. Our next game
<v Speaker 1>is going to be one of the most anticipated game
<v Speaker 1>releases of whenever it comes out. So let's just have
<v Speaker 1>some confidence here and be like, Okay, yeah, you know what,
<v Speaker 1>maybe weren't we weren't thinking about it that way. Can
<v Speaker 1>we respond like mature adults, or are we going to
<v Speaker 1>become one of these shitty, insular video game companies that like,
<v Speaker 1>at any time anyone says anything, we will respond by
<v Speaker 1>being like nuh uh or gamers just don't get it
<v Speaker 1>and all this stuff. They have a chance to do
<v Speaker 1>the right thing here and kind of keep some of
<v Speaker 1>the positive momentum that they've built up over the last
<v Speaker 1>few years.
<v Speaker 2>I'll be interested to see if they could do that.
<v Speaker 1>Now for the AI stuff, again, this is the time
<v Speaker 1>the last sort of couple of months we're gonna have
<v Speaker 1>before this thing really kind of does get sorted out
<v Speaker 1>one where there is going to be a little bit
<v Speaker 1>of a crash to a major crash here in the
<v Speaker 1>next year or so for this stuff, because there's just
<v Speaker 1>been too much money put on it, and just to
<v Speaker 1>like let people know how this works, you know, all
<v Speaker 1>the reporting I've been reading recently is the way that
<v Speaker 1>all this money's been getting spent is CEO goes into
<v Speaker 1>a call with their investors or maybe on a meeting
<v Speaker 1>with the board of directors, and those people are like,
<v Speaker 1>why aren't you invested in AI? You're fucking up? And
<v Speaker 1>the CEO goes, uh oh, and they go and they
<v Speaker 1>take a vice president and say you're in charge of
<v Speaker 1>getting us on AI. And that person goes, okay, here,
<v Speaker 1>I have five hundred million dollars. I'm gonna buy a
<v Speaker 1>ton of licenses for Microsoft Copilot, and I'm gonna give
<v Speaker 1>it to everyone in the company. And then a handful
<v Speaker 1>of people actually sign up.
<v Speaker 2>And those are the people who have like already.
<v Speaker 1>Those are the people who are in charge of the departments,
<v Speaker 1>and they got called by their bosses and said you
<v Speaker 1>have to get everyone on AI. So they start using it,
<v Speaker 1>and then those people at the top are like, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>our job is done. Let's go tell the investors we've
<v Speaker 1>invested in AI, and let's go run commercials like for
<v Speaker 1>Salesforce or whatever it is. And with Matthew McConaughey saying, hey,
<v Speaker 1>we're invested in AI. We don't know exactly what that means.
<v Speaker 1>We think it means Matthew McConaughey won't have to eat
<v Speaker 1>dinner outside in the rain anymore.
<v Speaker 2>That's good.
<v Speaker 1>So our stock price goes up, and then everything that
<v Speaker 1>the cycle starts over because the stock price went up
<v Speaker 1>because you did these AI things. Now you go back
<v Speaker 1>and like, okay, let's get serious about getting everyone to
<v Speaker 1>use AI.
<v Speaker 2>Does this begin to sound like something fake? Now? Like
<v Speaker 2>we know there has to be a correction here. It
<v Speaker 2>is circular.
<v Speaker 1>It's going like you start forcing everyone the next go
<v Speaker 1>around to actually use AI, and everyone goes still goes.
<v Speaker 1>I don't like to what end, but it's been beneficial
<v Speaker 1>when they talk to investors, so they're going to keep
<v Speaker 1>doing it. So there's going to be a correction in
<v Speaker 1>the next year or so. After that it will settle.
<v Speaker 1>It will be like any other technology. That it will
<v Speaker 1>find its place and it's going to be here again.
<v Speaker 1>I'm not deluding myself about that. But that does not
<v Speaker 1>mean that we have to just accept it. We have
<v Speaker 1>to just sit here and be like even if it
<v Speaker 1>got good, even if it like is for all of
<v Speaker 1>the criticisms of its quality go away, that the fundamental
<v Speaker 1>problems are. I want to engage with other things made
<v Speaker 1>by actual people, and I want them to figure out
<v Speaker 1>what that looks like. And if some people want to
<v Speaker 1>use this stuff down the line for whatever reason, I
<v Speaker 1>don't know, I guess I will have to accept that
<v Speaker 1>at some point. But right now, if I can convince
<v Speaker 1>you to go a little bit longer and keep the
<v Speaker 1>human element as the major element of whatever you're making,
<v Speaker 1>I'm going to yell at you to keep doing that instead.
<v Speaker 3>One hundred percent. Grub Ai will never know what It's
<v Speaker 3>one of the most effective games for me this year,
<v Speaker 3>and Roger, I've talked about it a bunch. Ai will
<v Speaker 3>never know what it's like to experience someone's mental facilities
<v Speaker 3>decline because of that, because they will never be able
<v Speaker 3>to speak to it, no matter how many thoughts and
<v Speaker 3>more words that they steal from other people and I
<v Speaker 3>want that interaction. I want that connection through actual people.
<v Speaker 3>I don't care how many dollars it saves some fucking CEO,
<v Speaker 3>go pay actual people to make actual games that people
<v Speaker 3>connect with. The wildless part is that I felt like
<v Speaker 3>Balder's Gate three, specifically a lot of marginalized communities online
<v Speaker 3>like flock to because of how they felt and how
<v Speaker 3>they saw themselves in various characters. And to see this,
<v Speaker 3>it's just like a slap in the face, no matter
<v Speaker 3>how whatever level of AI usage they're doing, because this
<v Speaker 3>is also still damning to the actual humans working on
<v Speaker 3>the game.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, right, that's the bottom line here.
<v Speaker 1>We know how this is really marketed is as it's
<v Speaker 1>a machine to fire people. It is a machine that
<v Speaker 1>you can employ so you can fire people and have
<v Speaker 1>less fewer labor costs.
<v Speaker 2>That is what it's.
<v Speaker 1>That's the real message to the people who actually have
<v Speaker 1>the money and really make the decisions, and so everything
<v Speaker 1>else is sort of secondary to that, because they're like,
<v Speaker 1>my first choice would be to make sure everyone has
<v Speaker 1>money and can eat, Like, that's the thing I care about.
<v Speaker 1>I don't care about you being able to like more
<v Speaker 1>efficiently create slop.
<v Speaker 2>That means nothing to me.
<v Speaker 1>So, yeah, I think people right now, when they're faced
<v Speaker 1>with these CEOs and people coming out being like it's
<v Speaker 1>going to be here, get used to it.
<v Speaker 2>You should just shut up and accept it. Get louder.
<v Speaker 1>Now it's the time to continue like yelling these people down.
<v Speaker 1>And even if it like you look back, like man,
<v Speaker 1>I was a little harsh on those people. Everyone was
<v Speaker 1>doing it. No, now is the time to get as
<v Speaker 1>much ground as you possibly can.
<v Speaker 3>The other aspect of this grub that a lot I
<v Speaker 3>don't see as many folks talking about is the ecological impact.
<v Speaker 3>And sure there are people that will say like, oh, yeah, no,
<v Speaker 3>it's fine if I just put in a prompt into
<v Speaker 3>sow and so it's only a bottle of water. It's
<v Speaker 3>not just that that I'm talking about the data centers
<v Speaker 3>and data farms that are absolutely devastating small towns in
<v Speaker 3>America is insane. Where people cannot get reliable running water
<v Speaker 3>throughout the day, and whenever, like that point gets brought up,
<v Speaker 3>the other sentiment I see from chuds online is.
<v Speaker 2>Like, well they should just move.
<v Speaker 3>No, you can't just fucking move.
<v Speaker 2>It's crazy, that's crazy.
<v Speaker 1>This is where it's like the cynicism really hurts me
<v Speaker 1>because it's just like to me, it's the the recycling
<v Speaker 1>thing all over again, Like the individual can't make a difference.
<v Speaker 1>No one can stop like you do it, you don't
<v Speaker 1>do it, It makes zero difference.
<v Speaker 2>It has to be done on.
<v Speaker 1>Like even it it's not that far up like if
<v Speaker 1>you go if you instead of like, y okay, I'm
<v Speaker 1>gonna start recycling and I'm gonna make a difference. It's like, actually,
<v Speaker 1>you know, if you went to your children's school and
<v Speaker 1>help them set up a recycling thing, that would make
<v Speaker 1>a huge difference.
<v Speaker 2>Actually, that would make a noticeable difference.
<v Speaker 1>Because it's like once you get up that one level
<v Speaker 1>of it's a bunch of people, it's an an institution
<v Speaker 1>that changes things. And I think that's like I want
<v Speaker 1>to keep focusing on these companies and go into your
<v Speaker 1>work and doing what you can and there to stop
<v Speaker 1>them from adopting it at every turn, because you know,
<v Speaker 1>I'm not I don't think. I don't think my grandma,
<v Speaker 1>you know, sending me ai generated artwork of kittens or whatever,
<v Speaker 1>yelling her down is only going to get me so far.
<v Speaker 1>In fact, it's not gonna get us anywhere. It will
<v Speaker 1>make no difference, literally zero difference. So it's like it's
<v Speaker 1>got to be done at it's going to be continued
<v Speaker 1>to be yelling at the people who have the money,
<v Speaker 1>because when it's trillionaires making choices in terms of these
<v Speaker 1>businesses that control, that wags the whole dog and it
<v Speaker 1>has to be our focus.
<v Speaker 3>I forgot which specific CEO it was, but I saw
<v Speaker 3>a video of them trying to dap someone up and
<v Speaker 3>it was the worst thing in the world because they
<v Speaker 3>don't know what it's like to interact with an actual
<v Speaker 3>human being. And this is going to be the most
<v Speaker 3>out of left field thing, Crub. But I think we
<v Speaker 3>could learn something from Planet of the Apes, because hey,
<v Speaker 3>like you said, grub apes together strong, you know that's right? Yes,
<v Speaker 3>so collectively, all of us together, we should let the
<v Speaker 3>apes win because they will solve all of this.
<v Speaker 1>I think that's that's so you're saying we should actually
<v Speaker 1>get an army of apes, Jan, Is that what we're like?
<v Speaker 2>Literal apes? Shoot apes?
<v Speaker 3>Yes?
<v Speaker 1>All right, I didn't I'm sorry. I wasn't familiar with
<v Speaker 1>your game, Jan. I didn't know we were going all
<v Speaker 1>the way there.
<v Speaker 3>It started where in San Francisco grubs so I guess
<v Speaker 3>I'll have to do it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I've been reading a book off and on for
<v Speaker 1>the last couple of weeks about what actually causes equilibrium
<v Speaker 1>in terms of like the wage gap and earnings gap
<v Speaker 1>and wealth gaps, and throughout history it's only been a
<v Speaker 1>handful of things, and it's it's never been anything other
<v Speaker 1>than one of these like handful of things.
<v Speaker 2>It's a mass like.
<v Speaker 1>Disease, something like that will cause it because it's killed
<v Speaker 1>so many people.
<v Speaker 2>It resets everything.
<v Speaker 1>Mass war and violent resurrection most insurrection, excuse me, violent
<v Speaker 1>like a revolution.
<v Speaker 2>That's it.
<v Speaker 1>These are the only things that have done it. So
<v Speaker 1>if I were in the shoes of anyone that had
<v Speaker 1>all of the wealth and was like just looking at history,
<v Speaker 1>but like what do I do to keep my head?
<v Speaker 2>I don't know.
<v Speaker 1>Maybe you've you better figure some shit out fast, because
<v Speaker 1>it's not going to get any better. It's going to
<v Speaker 1>keep getting worse and people will eventually figure out that
<v Speaker 1>we have a lot of power if we just band
<v Speaker 1>together and I snap any second.
<v Speaker 3>Oh yeah, baby, I forgot which specific book it was,
<v Speaker 3>either your Minati. We're talking about like just computer development
<v Speaker 3>and like the early eighties or early eighties and I
<v Speaker 3>just read a couple chapters, just rented it real quick
<v Speaker 3>from my library, and seeing the wonder that those initial
<v Speaker 3>folks were talking about, like with computer development and what
<v Speaker 3>could be possible, and just like the detail caring about
<v Speaker 3>things and how they would hope that it would help
<v Speaker 3>people do X y Z easy complete one eighty in
<v Speaker 3>How any of these fucking chuds talk about AI And
<v Speaker 3>once again, I'm not advocating for violence, but I just
<v Speaker 3>hope way Mo's just run into certain specific people.
<v Speaker 2>I mean if it did, like whose fault would it be? Obviously? Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>all right, let's see here.
<v Speaker 1>The big mystery surrounding Netflix this new FIFA game is
<v Speaker 1>who's actually making it.
<v Speaker 2>This is from Ethan Gotchak Kotaku.
<v Speaker 1>FIFA is coming back as a Netflix exclusive, I mean,
<v Speaker 1>not really FIFA per se. That franchise is now called
<v Speaker 1>EA SPORTSFC after soccer's international governing body failed to get
<v Speaker 1>EA to keep paying for the licensing rights because they
<v Speaker 1>want excuse me, they wanted like a billion dollars. This
<v Speaker 1>new FIFA, which will only be playable on the Netflix app,
<v Speaker 1>will likely be something very different. FIFA and Netflix promise
<v Speaker 1>it's coming next year. In time for the twenty twenty
<v Speaker 1>six World Cup, but as of right now, it's not
<v Speaker 1>even really clear who's actually going to develop this new
<v Speaker 1>soccer game. Yesterday's press release points to Delphi Interactive as
<v Speaker 1>the publisher and developer. It's only real credit up to
<v Speaker 1>this point is getting the licensing rights to James Bond
<v Speaker 1>for Io Interactive's upcoming Double seven First Light game. The
<v Speaker 1>Beverly Hills based outfit bills itself as building Triple A
<v Speaker 1>games based on the most desirable IP franchises in the world,
<v Speaker 1>but only has fourteen people associated with the company on LinkedIn.
<v Speaker 1>One of those is CEO Casper Alexander Duca. He doesn't
<v Speaker 1>have a background in gaming, but apparently got the idea
<v Speaker 1>for licensing a new FIFA game after reading the original
<v Speaker 1>one billion dollar deal with EA had fallen through. So, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>we're it's a we're at a weird point with this one.
<v Speaker 1>I think this is something we kind of we're all
<v Speaker 1>thinking that when that FIFA game does rear its head
<v Speaker 1>again from FIFA proper, it was going to not be
<v Speaker 1>a direct competitor to EA Sports Football Club. It would
<v Speaker 1>probably be some weird mobile, smaller thing off to the side.
<v Speaker 1>That can just be a gotchapon machine, and I bet
<v Speaker 1>that's what we're going to get here.
<v Speaker 3>That I do. Do the FIFA fans out there hate this.
<v Speaker 3>I don't know where they're at because based off of
<v Speaker 3>like various articles and stories that we've even talked about here,
<v Speaker 3>I don't know if they welcome that or they're enticed
<v Speaker 3>by that at all.
<v Speaker 2>I think you know.
<v Speaker 1>The idea here is if you are this dude Casper
<v Speaker 1>over here, the friendly ghost who is the CEO of
<v Speaker 1>this company, and you're thinking, here is FIFA, the World
<v Speaker 1>Cup soccer, These have an audience so broad that you
<v Speaker 1>don't have to worry about the discerning fans. You don't
<v Speaker 1>have to worry about the ones that are like I
<v Speaker 1>know better and I'm gonna go play the real thing,
<v Speaker 1>or I'll even go play e football from Konami.
<v Speaker 2>I know all about all about this stuff. I have
<v Speaker 2>a console, I have a PC. I'll play stuff over there.
<v Speaker 1>You can find the other audience that is just like
<v Speaker 1>I like this thing. I have a phone, I have
<v Speaker 1>a Netflix subscription, and I want like, I just love
<v Speaker 1>soccer so much.
<v Speaker 2>I want to go engage with it more.
<v Speaker 1>And you hope you capture enough of them that it
<v Speaker 1>sort of like works at works it stuff.
<v Speaker 2>And that does mobile especially that does occasionally work.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know if it works long term, but I'm
<v Speaker 1>not expecting this to actually be like, Okay, it's gonna
<v Speaker 1>unlock a ton of money or something like that, but
<v Speaker 1>it could be a small thing. We hear about it
<v Speaker 1>is like though it's the twenty nine ninth most highest
<v Speaker 1>grossing revenue game on the iPhone or something like that.
<v Speaker 2>In the next couple of years, it'll probably land there
<v Speaker 2>or something. All right, let's keep going.
<v Speaker 1>Dispatch coming to Switch To and Switch on January twenty eighth,
<v Speaker 1>twenty twenty six. This is from Sal Ramano at Gamatsu
<v Speaker 1>at Hawk Studio will will release switch to and Switch
<v Speaker 1>versions of Superhero Workplace comedy adventure game Dispatch on January.
<v Speaker 2>It says now this is twenty ninth.
<v Speaker 1>I'm January twenty eighth or twenty ninth, the developer and
<v Speaker 1>the developer announced pre orders are available now via Nintendo
<v Speaker 1>e Shop at a ten percent off discount price of
<v Speaker 1>twenty seven dollars.
<v Speaker 2>The switch to version will be a free upgrade from
<v Speaker 2>the switch version.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, just once skew there or one skew that
<v Speaker 1>you have to buy anyhow.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, this is great. I'm glad that they're making this
<v Speaker 2>happen so fast.
<v Speaker 1>It is on PlayStation and Steam, and they haven't announced
<v Speaker 1>an Xbox version, although it sounds like if you were
<v Speaker 1>to prioritize one, you would prioritize switch. I hope it
<v Speaker 1>runs well on Switch one, because this is kind of
<v Speaker 1>game where it's, like I think it should.
<v Speaker 2>They should be able to like make because it's so.
<v Speaker 1>Deterministic, right, you don't have to like account for too
<v Speaker 1>many I don't know how games are made. Maybe there's
<v Speaker 1>a ton of variables that I'm not thinking of, but
<v Speaker 1>it feels like you should be able to understand what
<v Speaker 1>the performance profile needs to be in any given moment
<v Speaker 1>and build the game in such a way that the
<v Speaker 1>switch can easily handle that. But at the very least
<v Speaker 1>it'll have a free upgrade for switch to, which is
<v Speaker 1>what I have. So if I were to play this
<v Speaker 1>game again, that's how I would do it. Any Like,
<v Speaker 1>any interests be like, oh, I can play it again
<v Speaker 1>on my switch to, and that'll give me a reason
<v Speaker 1>to go back and make different choices.
<v Speaker 2>Have you gone back and made different choices?
<v Speaker 3>Actually? Last night I had I was jones in to
<v Speaker 3>play something and didn't quite know what to check out.
<v Speaker 3>So I did boot up Dispatch again and decided I'm
<v Speaker 3>just going to make the opposite decisions of everything I made.
<v Speaker 3>Oh fun and yeah, just super Even then, even though
<v Speaker 3>I knew what I'd be into, it was just very
<v Speaker 3>exciting to see what else they also had in store
<v Speaker 3>for me.
<v Speaker 1>People in chatter saying that it's a pre rendered video,
<v Speaker 1>which is what I was assuming, but I did not know.
<v Speaker 1>So okay, that means it should run just fine on switch,
<v Speaker 1>you know, given no weird caveats there or something like that. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I Dispatch is definitely one of those games where I'm like, man,
<v Speaker 1>I am surprised as many people like it. It's like
<v Speaker 1>it you know, Sean, we've talked on the BombCast Mike
<v Speaker 1>both liked it, and neither of them liked any Telltale
<v Speaker 1>games really yeah at all, And I've Sean pointed out, like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>I have. The big difference is there's none of the
<v Speaker 1>like stiff walking around pretending that this is still a
<v Speaker 1>point and click adventure game. It's the choices, it's the
<v Speaker 1>hacking mini game, it's some QTEs and it's the dispatching game,
<v Speaker 1>and the biggest part of the game by far is
<v Speaker 1>the the are the choices, but all those things integrate
<v Speaker 1>really well and make you feel like you're either learning
<v Speaker 1>the characters. I guess the hacking mini game doesn't have
<v Speaker 1>a ton of that, but there's some dialogue.
<v Speaker 2>I guess.
<v Speaker 1>I just to me, it feels like a really strong
<v Speaker 1>evolution of that genre and one that can support it
<v Speaker 1>like going forward. I hope that it's Dispatch season two
<v Speaker 1>and not Dispatch Season two and the Fast and Furious
<v Speaker 1>license game and a bunch of Marble license superhero games
<v Speaker 1>and a bunch of TV shows.
<v Speaker 2>I hope they don't do the Telltale thing immediately.
<v Speaker 1>Again, of in order for us to grow, let's go
<v Speaker 1>get a bunch of licenses and force ourselves into a
<v Speaker 1>situation where we can't continue upgrading our tech because we
<v Speaker 1>have to get the next thing out right now.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, greb. Also, this would make a fantastic game to
<v Speaker 3>play with people for the holidays. Maybe not your family
<v Speaker 3>because of all the genitalium, but sure censor it. I guess.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>I am more and more excited for more folks to
<v Speaker 3>check out Dispatch. I am still noodling on the overall
<v Speaker 3>order of my top ten, and I'm kind of hot.
<v Speaker 3>I'm just torn between two places right now. And it
<v Speaker 3>doesn't help that both of them are about, like, are
<v Speaker 3>extremely my type of jazz grub. So I'll leave, folks,
<v Speaker 3>So wonder what the other one is. But the other
<v Speaker 3>one is for me dispatch or blah blah blah.
<v Speaker 2>All right, let's see here.
<v Speaker 1>Nintendo has won a fifteen year legal battle with Nacon
<v Speaker 1>over we Remote patent infringement. This is from Chris Scullion
<v Speaker 1>at VGC. Nintendo has won a legal battle with Nacon
<v Speaker 1>over we Remote patent patent infringement, fifteen years after the
<v Speaker 1>lawsuit was originally filed. Back in twenty ten, Nintendo filed
<v Speaker 1>a lawsuit in Germany against Big Ben Interactive, which became
<v Speaker 1>Nacon in twenty twenty, claiming it's third party WE Remote
<v Speaker 1>Controllers infringed on Nintendo's patents. Patent covered a game controller
<v Speaker 1>with the ergonomic features characteristic of Nintendo's WE Remote Oh yeah,
<v Speaker 1>WE Remote, and as well as sensor technology including a
<v Speaker 1>camera to track the censor bar and an acceleration sensor.
<v Speaker 1>A year later, the Mannheim Regional Court found that Big
<v Speaker 1>Ben had indeed infringed on the patent, and this was
<v Speaker 1>fully confirmed again by the carls Rusche Higher Regional Court
<v Speaker 1>in twenty seventeen. During this time, the patent's validity was challenged,
<v Speaker 1>but both the European Patent Office and Federal Patent said
<v Speaker 1>it was fully protected. Meanwhile, the Court of Justice of
<v Speaker 1>the European Union and the German Federal Supreme Court both
<v Speaker 1>sided with the Nintendo in twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen, respectively,
<v Speaker 1>as Nikon continued to appeal the decision. Now it's confirmed
<v Speaker 1>by Nintendo's German Council and spotted by games Frey, Mannheim
<v Speaker 1>Regional Court has finally awarded Nintendo damages of more than
<v Speaker 1>four million euro or a four million euro plus interest,
<v Speaker 1>so a total of around seven million euros. Nintendo will
<v Speaker 1>stick with it, honestly though, I wonder if, like the
<v Speaker 1>court costs, like the lawyer fees, seven million euros might
<v Speaker 1>not be a lot in the end, but either way,
<v Speaker 1>it's like, no, this is Nintendo. The we as a
<v Speaker 1>generation ago, a human generation ago, like, it's not a
<v Speaker 1>console generation a human like generation ago, and they are
<v Speaker 1>still just going to drive this into the dirt never
<v Speaker 1>get in their way, and they got their money in
<v Speaker 1>the end. And Nakon didn't do themselves any favor by
<v Speaker 1>favors by continuing to delay it, because that interest really
<v Speaker 1>added up. They almost don't owe as much an interest
<v Speaker 1>as they own in the damages awarded.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, what do you think.
<v Speaker 3>Grub Nintendo be that petty x especially with their legal battles.
<v Speaker 3>They're like, oh, you don't you didn't give me that
<v Speaker 3>pepper grinder. I'm gonna sneak into your place repeatedly throughout
<v Speaker 3>the next couple of years and just leave whole pepper
<v Speaker 3>corns in your house until you give me back that
<v Speaker 3>pepper grinder.
<v Speaker 1>This yeah, and it's like, what you're doing this just
<v Speaker 1>so someone can't make a third party alternative controller? Like
<v Speaker 1>I really want that as an option on the market.
<v Speaker 2>And I guess they.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, they probably had like fully licensed ones, but
<v Speaker 1>I don't remember lot of licensed WI modes, so maybe
<v Speaker 1>Nintendo didn't let other people make it. I am legitimately
<v Speaker 1>struggling to remember. So usually I would get a third
<v Speaker 1>party controller here or there. I like to save money,
<v Speaker 1>and I don't I'm not too precious about controllers.
<v Speaker 2>But yeah, it was like I we remote is with the.
<v Speaker 1>First generation where I really remember thinking these controllers are
<v Speaker 1>kind of expensive. Let me look for an alternative, and
<v Speaker 1>I don't remember being able to find one all that often.
<v Speaker 1>I'm glad that like that seems to have changed. Or
<v Speaker 1>maybe like these companies can't patent enough stuff to like
<v Speaker 1>prevent people from making like a switch, a generic switch
<v Speaker 1>controller or whatever. Maybe that was like the HD rumble
<v Speaker 1>and the switch. There wasn't a lot of third party
<v Speaker 1>controllers that had HD rumble unless they were officially licensed.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, I much prefer an environment where we get
<v Speaker 1>a lot of third party controllers because it feels like
<v Speaker 1>it does a little bit to keep costs down. Although
<v Speaker 1>now we're at like ninety dollars controllers from these companies,
<v Speaker 1>so maybe not.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, grub, is there like any like specific technology that
<v Speaker 3>has been in the we mote that I don't know
<v Speaker 3>Nintendo's been super precious about.
<v Speaker 1>I mean I don't think so, because I mean at
<v Speaker 1>this point, we are coming up on the twenty years
<v Speaker 1>since the patents would have been filed, so they're going
<v Speaker 1>to be expired here like in a couple of months
<v Speaker 1>to years, like within one to two years at maximum.
<v Speaker 1>So it's like at this point, no, they just wouldn't
<v Speaker 1>be precious about it in general, because there's not a
<v Speaker 1>lot of time left.
<v Speaker 2>On that clock.
<v Speaker 1>But even beyond that, it's they were probably I don't
<v Speaker 1>think they were precious in the moment about protecting the
<v Speaker 1>technology as much as they were protecting the revenue from
<v Speaker 1>selling accessories, right. I think that's all this at least
<v Speaker 1>that's what it seems like to me.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I can't think of any third party like we motes,
<v Speaker 3>but there were an obscene amount of like those peripherals
<v Speaker 3>that you would stick a remote into.
<v Speaker 1>Yes for sure, Yes that was numerous. You had, you know,
<v Speaker 1>a myriad of those as options. Nikon Niko made some
<v Speaker 1>third party controllers, okay, but there wasn't a lot apparently,
<v Speaker 1>and that that's my memory as well. Okay, last story here.
<v Speaker 1>The Game Awards claims record breaking viewership for the eleventh
<v Speaker 1>year from Andy Robinson at VGC, who points out that
<v Speaker 1>the according to the Game Awards, it had one hundred
<v Speaker 1>and seventy one million global live streams. That's up eleven
<v Speaker 1>percent over last year's one hundred and fifty four million.
<v Speaker 1>Those are massive numbers kind of tells you, I think
<v Speaker 1>why the oscars starting in twenty twenty nine are going
<v Speaker 1>to be on YouTube instead of on traditional broadcast networks.
<v Speaker 1>But yeah, that's that's massive. And we talk about like
<v Speaker 1>all the costs to get your game into the Game Awards, Well,
<v Speaker 1>at one hundred and seventy one million global live streams,
<v Speaker 1>it's at a point where kind.
<v Speaker 2>Of any cost is justified.
<v Speaker 1>And I mean from all sides, Keeley charging as much
<v Speaker 1>as he does justified. The people going in there and
<v Speaker 1>spending that money going to their publishers and being like,
<v Speaker 1>this is our marketing campaign. Let's go in there and
<v Speaker 1>get in front of all these people. Pretty you know,
<v Speaker 1>it doesn't always work, and being on that show is
<v Speaker 1>not a guaranteed. I think we're clearly seeing not a
<v Speaker 1>guaranteed a key to success in the case of High Guard.
<v Speaker 1>Although I'll point out again, as I've asked around, I
<v Speaker 1>don't think High Guard paid for that spot. Sounds like
<v Speaker 1>he Lee just offered it to them. But regardless, I
<v Speaker 1>think in the future people will be able to be like, hey, Keeley, yes,
<v Speaker 1>you're you're growing at an astronomical rate eleven percent growth
<v Speaker 1>in viewership from one year to the next, you should
<v Speaker 1>be able to charge more. Sure, but let's be clear here,
<v Speaker 1>being in your show can backfire as well, So we
<v Speaker 1>want a little bit of let's be considerate here, Let's
<v Speaker 1>maybe like get a little bit of a discount just
<v Speaker 1>in case, some insurance, maybe guarantee that we're also in
<v Speaker 1>Summer Game Fest or something like that. He's going to
<v Speaker 1>have to navigate that a little bit, because again, as
<v Speaker 1>far as I could tell, it was his decision to
<v Speaker 1>put High Guard there, and it did that game, not
<v Speaker 1>no favors.
<v Speaker 2>I think it's actively hurt that game, but yeah.
<v Speaker 1>It's it really does feel massive at least these these
<v Speaker 1>numbers say the game awards are massive, right.
<v Speaker 3>And I'll reiterate I think I talked about on this
<v Speaker 3>the pre record bomb cast we did that we put
<v Speaker 3>out this week. It is a spectacle to go to.
<v Speaker 3>It is like glitz and glamour parentheses positive. It's a
<v Speaker 3>well well run show at this point. And then just
<v Speaker 3>seeing like that everyone on, like the camera teams, the
<v Speaker 3>producing teams, hit all those cues. It is like a
<v Speaker 3>as a production person myself, I love seeing it. Yes,
<v Speaker 3>but the the gamer in me and like games media
<v Speaker 3>person in me really does wish there was a little
<v Speaker 3>bit more emphasis towards the actual awards. Yeah, and I
<v Speaker 3>know there are people excusing, well, if we had speeches
<v Speaker 3>for everyone or just let all the people go up,
<v Speaker 3>the Clear Expedition would have just been on stage the
<v Speaker 3>whole time. And you know what, that's fine. There are
<v Speaker 3>more people on that team.
<v Speaker 1>I think that's like the next step of the criticis right.
<v Speaker 1>The awards themselves are still they feel ancient in so
<v Speaker 1>many ways of the genre awards and all the like
<v Speaker 1>best RPG and Best Indie Game, all that stuff is
<v Speaker 1>pretty meaningless. That's such a I don't even know how
<v Speaker 1>to describe that kind of thinking.
<v Speaker 2>At this point.
<v Speaker 1>It is, let's let's award the people making the games
<v Speaker 1>and doing like, let's the best level design clearly should
<v Speaker 1>just be I want to get a level designer up
<v Speaker 1>on stage.
<v Speaker 2>And then then when Clear Obscure.
<v Speaker 1>Wins five different awards, well at least it's like they're
<v Speaker 1>winning for this specific thing, so that specific team can
<v Speaker 1>go up and accept it from that game, and that
<v Speaker 1>would I think that would fix a lot of it.
<v Speaker 1>But whatever, let's go to the DICE Awards. Jane, I'm
<v Speaker 1>gonna be a GDC. So because I'm gonna be on
<v Speaker 1>a panel, I think, so I'm gonna be there.
<v Speaker 2>Let's there's I think that is that the DICE Awards.
<v Speaker 2>Is that No, that's different.
<v Speaker 1>This is like the GDC Awards the ai AS Academy
<v Speaker 1>of Interactive Arts and Sciences. But that's another like legitimate
<v Speaker 1>award thing, and like I'll just go there and that'll
<v Speaker 1>be the one where I'm like, you know what, I'm
<v Speaker 1>glad these people are able to award their peers and
<v Speaker 1>call them out that that means a lot to me.
<v Speaker 1>And of course there's the real Game Awards, which is
<v Speaker 1>Giant bum.
<v Speaker 3>Of course, yeah, that's coming soon, folks. I also just
<v Speaker 3>wish with this many people watching grub and I'm sure
<v Speaker 3>the folks are the award winners do get like a
<v Speaker 3>little bit of a sales bump, right, A lot of
<v Speaker 3>people will check it out whoever wins the overall game
<v Speaker 3>of the Year, But I don't know. I want these
<v Speaker 3>smaller people or people involved in making games to get
<v Speaker 3>their time to shine if this is being called the
<v Speaker 3>Game Awards, right. I love what Ben Sar was saying
<v Speaker 3>that they think they that we should also introduce Best
<v Speaker 3>Motion Capture Award, because clearly I want to see someone
<v Speaker 3>like the Japanese dude that is not only a hunter
<v Speaker 3>win an award, but also he doubles up as all
<v Speaker 3>of the monsters and a palako.
<v Speaker 2>Yep, you know what they mean.
<v Speaker 1>They need they need a best running around, They need
<v Speaker 1>a best on interround category, and that would make that
<v Speaker 1>would solve a lot of their places style.
<v Speaker 3>You know, let's award a please stop.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, for sure. Get Keeley up there and just
<v Speaker 2>say please stop to someone.
<v Speaker 1>He would love that. Ai as is is Dice. Actually, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>that does it for the headlines. Let's start wrapping things up.
<v Speaker 1>The last time we talked was the bomb twelve, so
<v Speaker 1>we don't have a pull from last time.
<v Speaker 2>But we do have a poll, a new poll. Let's
<v Speaker 2>do that right now.
<v Speaker 1>Are you all digital generally speaking for your console games?
<v Speaker 1>Yes or no? I think it's safe to assume for
<v Speaker 1>PC gaming most people are all digital. But for your consoles,
<v Speaker 1>whether your switch, your your piece, or switch, your PlayStation,
<v Speaker 1>your Xbox, whatever, you're all digital.
<v Speaker 2>Kind of see what people are going to say to this.
<v Speaker 2>I'm gonna be curious.
<v Speaker 1>I think that number is going to be pretty high,
<v Speaker 1>but maybe still not quite as high as you would think,
<v Speaker 1>at least with this audience. But we'll get the results
<v Speaker 1>about that or for that, and then talk about it
<v Speaker 1>on Game This Morning. Is here on Giant Bomb tomorrow
<v Speaker 1>to finish out the week and really to kind of
<v Speaker 1>finish out the year, because again everybody, as a reminder,
<v Speaker 1>we're going to be off for the next two weeks
<v Speaker 1>for the holidays.
<v Speaker 2>You'll get plenty of stuff from us.
<v Speaker 1>You'll get our Game of the Year podcast and a
<v Speaker 1>couple other goodies as well.
<v Speaker 2>Am I missing anything?
<v Speaker 1>Jan?
<v Speaker 2>I know there's some stuff happening for the rest of
<v Speaker 2>the week.
<v Speaker 3>There. We were trying to jumpstart the engine of the
<v Speaker 3>voicemail dumb truck, but that remains to be called out.
<v Speaker 3>It's called out, y'all. I learned about that. The rest
<v Speaker 3>assured gang. We will have four days worth of Game
<v Speaker 3>of the Year podcast to noodle over. Those will be
<v Speaker 3>dropping Tuesday and Thursday next week, and then Tuesday and
<v Speaker 3>Thursday the following week. We have some other stuff that planned,
<v Speaker 3>but hey, timing is tight, and also we're only human.
<v Speaker 3>The travel was a lot at our Sunday travel day
<v Speaker 3>was kind of a mouse so we hope that you
<v Speaker 3>will bear with us. I'd also like for the rest
<v Speaker 3>of these guys to get a proper holiday.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, for the you know, we'll try to do
<v Speaker 1>right by you all over the next couple of days
<v Speaker 1>and make sure that there's stuff over the holidays. But
<v Speaker 1>then we're gonna take a real break.
<v Speaker 2>We're gonna do it.
<v Speaker 1>We've been kind of working NonStop since we got this
<v Speaker 1>place and took over ownership, and it's been I wouldn't
<v Speaker 1>change a damn thing. It's been wonderful. It's the good
<v Speaker 1>kind of busy. It's the good kind of stressed. I
<v Speaker 1>love because I can, you know, we turn to each
<v Speaker 1>other and it's like, let's come up. We come up
<v Speaker 1>with ideas, we execute and it's been fun to like
<v Speaker 1>get better at that over these months of being in
<v Speaker 1>charge of everything and figuring out the division of labor.
<v Speaker 1>It's truly been a joy. Yes, But if we're going
<v Speaker 1>to own this place and do it, let's do it
<v Speaker 1>right and treat ourselves well. So we're gonna take the
<v Speaker 1>next two weeks off.
<v Speaker 3>That being said, I kind of am jones in to
<v Speaker 3>just talk in front of a microphone and just make stuff.
<v Speaker 3>So maybe on my own personal time, I'll like pull
<v Speaker 3>a stream out just because we're all broke out people
<v Speaker 3>and I can feel all of us like itchin to
<v Speaker 3>do that as well. Yeah, definitely if there's any specific
<v Speaker 3>game y'all want me to check out, because you know,
<v Speaker 3>you boys kind of curiou us about checking out Diablo.
<v Speaker 3>So we'll see, we'll see, Sean, I don't know how
<v Speaker 3>to lay down.
<v Speaker 2>I stay up, yep, yep, sleep up right? All right,
<v Speaker 2>we did the poll question.
<v Speaker 1>Let's remind everybody about a couple of things here, Marino,
<v Speaker 1>are you in the chat. Remind me of the link
<v Speaker 1>for the Game of the Year voting for the community.
<v Speaker 1>We'll get that. We'll let everybody know about that, and
<v Speaker 1>then in the meantime Bomb twelve, we're gonna do a
<v Speaker 1>Bomb twelve tomorrow.
<v Speaker 2>The link is on the site.
<v Speaker 1>If you go to giant bomb dot com and you
<v Speaker 1>scroll just below the fold, you're gonna see last week's
<v Speaker 1>Bomb twelve, and then you're gonna see a vote here
<v Speaker 1>on the left hand side. Click there, it'll take you
<v Speaker 1>to the form. You fill that out and we'll get
<v Speaker 1>the results of the Bomb twelve and talk about.
<v Speaker 2>It on the site. Tomorrow. Let's see here.
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna go find that link right now on Blue
<v Speaker 1>Sky for the there we go for the community voting. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>if you go to TinyURL dot com slash and this
<v Speaker 1>is all capital GB see g O T y twenty five,
<v Speaker 1>So Giant Bomb Community Game of the Year twenty five.
<v Speaker 1>So GBC g O T y two five go to
<v Speaker 1>that link vote on the community Game of the Year.
<v Speaker 1>There's been a lot of responses so far. This could
<v Speaker 1>be one of the biggest years for votes we've had
<v Speaker 1>in a very long time. So I want to see
<v Speaker 1>what everyone's going to go for. Obviously, obviously it's baby steps, obviously, all.
<v Speaker 2>Right, jan anything else we should mention.
<v Speaker 3>I don't know. I'm very happy during Game of the
<v Speaker 3>Year to record with y'all, and I really hope that
<v Speaker 3>you guys at home will enjoy it. I think you will.
<v Speaker 3>I hope you do. Also, it's been a fan it's
<v Speaker 3>been a very tumultuous year for all of us here
<v Speaker 3>at TV, So thankful for all of y'all for constantly
<v Speaker 3>tuning in. And again, if you were not in a
<v Speaker 3>place to support us financially, that's completely fine. We totally
<v Speaker 3>understand the world's on fire. So as long as you're
<v Speaker 3>sitting with us, whether listening to the pods the streams,
<v Speaker 3>we deeply, deeply, deeply appreciate it.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, we fuk with you all. Thanks everybody for hanging
<v Speaker 1>out with us. Sean also has music if you want
<v Speaker 1>to a music thread. If you want to submit music
<v Speaker 1>to his form, find him on Blue Sky for our
<v Speaker 1>music round up episode. He's going to do that in
<v Speaker 1>a big way this year, So only submit the good stuff.
<v Speaker 1>No more than junk, everybody, just the good stuff. Jeeves,
<v Speaker 1>thank you so much for hanging out with me today
<v Speaker 1>and talk about video games. Man, I really appreciate it.
<v Speaker 3>It's the best way to start a Thursday.
<v Speaker 1>Greb, thank you all for hanging out with us, watching
<v Speaker 1>and listening. You are the best audience in gaming. Until
<v Speaker 1>next time, have a good one, take care of yourself
<v Speaker 1>and goodbye.
<v Speaker 2>Smooch