EA Cancels Black Panther Game and Closes Cliffhanger Games

<v Speaker 2>He'll be like, go be beer.
<v Speaker 1>Hey, everybody, welcome the Game Mess Mornings with Me Jeff Grub,
<v Speaker 1>your host from giant bomb dot com. Thank you for
<v Speaker 1>tuning in. In this episode, we're gonna be talking about
<v Speaker 1>EA canceling another game, and the latest twist in the
<v Speaker 1>ongoing tariff saga. It's gonna be a good one because
<v Speaker 1>we have lex Ladie on the show. Lexi, how are
<v Speaker 1>you doing well?
<v Speaker 2>I'm not doing too bad. Last time I was here,
<v Speaker 2>I launched a website and the idea that website was
<v Speaker 2>that would be funded by a Patreon and then Patreon
<v Speaker 2>is there.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Patreon took down a Patreon five minutes before launch.
<v Speaker 1>As we were going live. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, good news is that Patreon is now live.
<v Speaker 1>The ural for that, give me the good old ural.
<v Speaker 2>It's patreon dot com slash rewinder, so you can check
<v Speaker 2>us out there. We have been writing stuff for the
<v Speaker 2>last two weeks. We've all been very busy with Switched
<v Speaker 2>to and with summer games first coming up, so we
<v Speaker 2>haven't had the output that we want eventually. Yeah, but
<v Speaker 2>just yesterday I wrote a thing trying to figure out
<v Speaker 2>what the fuck mind's eye is. I still have no
<v Speaker 2>idea what mine's I is.
<v Speaker 1>We're gonna talk about Mind's Eye. Those are like the
<v Speaker 1>last handful of stories there, and I'm gonna rely on
<v Speaker 1>your expertise on Mind's Eye. We're gonna figure it out together,
<v Speaker 1>is what we're gonna do.
<v Speaker 2>And I've earned a couple of other things. I'll be
<v Speaker 2>writing more for the side as it goes on. I'm
<v Speaker 2>running the site with Scott McCay, Jason Coles, and Henry Sockdale.
<v Speaker 2>We're recording our second podcast tonight with Jess Reyes. It
<v Speaker 2>was meant to be me, Scott and Henry, but Henry
<v Speaker 2>had emergency tooth surgery. So now we're bought in. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>and now we're bringing in an American ringer. And who
<v Speaker 2>better than the person that got you kicked out.
<v Speaker 1>Of packs exactly? That's right. I'm glad you can make
<v Speaker 1>that happen. Well, Okay, So it's patreon dot com slash rewinder,
<v Speaker 1>right rewinder, that's.
<v Speaker 2>The kay yep yep.
<v Speaker 1>People should check that out. It's spelled just like it sounds.
<v Speaker 1>And look, if they want to go like, there's a
<v Speaker 1>website too, right, like they should, they can go to
<v Speaker 1>the website check out.
<v Speaker 2>All the content that weight will be free on the website.
<v Speaker 2>The patron is access to a discord and it is
<v Speaker 2>early access to or biweekly podcast and everything we right
<v Speaker 2>will be going onto the public website, so there's like
<v Speaker 2>no content gated, and the content that is gathered is
<v Speaker 2>like less than twenty four hours because it's just like, hey,
<v Speaker 2>I'll put the podcast live as soon as I'm done
<v Speaker 2>editing ish and not you know, later that day. So yeah,
<v Speaker 2>like come support us to check it out. We've welearned
<v Speaker 2>some fun things already. Scott McClay has a review of
<v Speaker 2>to a Tee up there. I start playing that game
<v Speaker 2>last night. It is delightful.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it seems it seems like it. I'm gonna check
<v Speaker 1>it out. I don't know if anything that Keida Takahashi's
<v Speaker 1>done since Katamarius really captured the magic the way that
<v Speaker 1>original game did for me, but I always appreciate everything
<v Speaker 1>that he works on, and I expect to feel the
<v Speaker 1>same way about this one. So very cool. I when
<v Speaker 1>I'm looking at you through the camera right now, hello
<v Speaker 1>to the audience, and hello to you, LEXI, what I'm
<v Speaker 1>actually looking at is the thing I was looking at yesterday,
<v Speaker 1>which is all the shit that broke on my exclusive
<v Speaker 1>feed when I had to move things from a cast
<v Speaker 1>over the Patreon tool and all of the episodes of
<v Speaker 1>the podcast did not transfer. So I'm like trying to
<v Speaker 1>see if that worked or not. It's I need to
<v Speaker 1>get that off this screen and just look at something
<v Speaker 1>so fun. It's a good yeah, and it's like, you
<v Speaker 1>know this tool integration, it's so handy. And then like
<v Speaker 1>those companies break up two years later and it's like, oh, great, cool,
<v Speaker 1>I'm at the whims again of these corporations. Fantastic. Let's
<v Speaker 1>explain ourselves and what we do here. We're Giant Bomb.
<v Speaker 1>Go to giant bomb dot com. Slash joined to support
<v Speaker 1>us so you can become a member, gets you add
<v Speaker 1>free shows, get to you some other extra goodies. What
<v Speaker 1>it really does is enable us to do what we do,
<v Speaker 1>which is make a bunch of content, make a bunch
<v Speaker 1>of podcasts, make quick looks for new video games, do
<v Speaker 1>upf hang out, go to events like Summer Game Fest,
<v Speaker 1>which we are in the midst of putting together. It's
<v Speaker 1>gonna be a good show. We're gonna have GB at
<v Speaker 1>Night Live on Friday and Saturday, June sixth and June seventh.
<v Speaker 1>I'm getting those dates burned into my heads. Into my
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<v Speaker 1>have a lot of cool people coming to hang out
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<v Speaker 1>As far as this show goes most weekdays, I Jeff Grubb,
<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>BONEUFE expert who will make me look smart. If you
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<v Speaker 1>Game mess Mornings or find the RSS on giant rss
<v Speaker 1>feed on giant bomb dot com. You could also catch
<v Speaker 1>the show later 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.
<v Speaker 2>I did want to tell you I've clearly been on
<v Speaker 2>the show way too many times with you, because you
<v Speaker 2>forgot to send me the Lona Show today. And I
<v Speaker 2>searched in the Google doc just the word Thursday.
<v Speaker 1>Thursday. That's what I do.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, every day, That's what I do. Yeah, Thursday. GMM
<v Speaker 2>was the first thing that came up in my Google Docs.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know if to use Google, I just go
<v Speaker 1>if you go in the search bar or you know,
<v Speaker 1>the dress bar of your browser and type in Thursday,
<v Speaker 1>I bet it'll come up because that's what it does
<v Speaker 1>for me. So yep, it's been handy. And at this
<v Speaker 1>point you've been on enough that you can just do that,
<v Speaker 1>I think for any day of the week. Pretty sure.
<v Speaker 2>Probably alright.
<v Speaker 1>Ea. Cancel's Black Panther game closes developer Cliffhanger Games. This
<v Speaker 1>is from Mark Spidey Griffin. I had heard like vague
<v Speaker 1>rumblings about this the day before this was happening, could
<v Speaker 1>not like lock it down or anything like that. So
<v Speaker 1>when it got confirmed, it was like, man, it's a
<v Speaker 1>shame that this is weird. It stinks, But I also
<v Speaker 1>did not really understand like where EA was heading with
<v Speaker 1>this game because it doesn't seem like it vibes with
<v Speaker 1>their current ideas about how they're approaching games. Let's read
<v Speaker 1>the story here from Spidey Griffin. Electronic Arts has canceled
<v Speaker 1>it's Black Panther game and closed down developer Cliffhanger. Games Ign,
<v Speaker 1>which first reported the news, cites an internal email in
<v Speaker 1>which EA Entertainment President Laura Meel notified staff about the
<v Speaker 1>changes made to sharpen our focus and put our creative
<v Speaker 1>energies behind the most significant growth opportunities. There it is
<v Speaker 1>that's that sounds more like EA's vibe right there. These
<v Speaker 1>decisions are hard, Meil wrote per Ign. They affect people
<v Speaker 1>we've worked with, learned from, and shared real moments with.
<v Speaker 1>We're doing everything we can to support them, including finding
<v Speaker 1>opportunities within EA where we've had success helping people land
<v Speaker 1>in new roles. Yeah, I mean they're you know, I guess.
<v Speaker 1>The email does, continue, says, detailing that EA will now
<v Speaker 1>shift resources to historically successful games like Battlefield, The Sims,
<v Speaker 1>Skate and Apex Legends. EA goes back and forth, right,
<v Speaker 1>all these companies do, but EA, especially Lexi is one
<v Speaker 1>of these publishers. Every five years is that we are
<v Speaker 1>all in on live service games, and then five years
<v Speaker 1>later we are reinvesting in single player narrative action games
<v Speaker 1>just like you remember, and we're gonna make a bunch
<v Speaker 1>of those as well as our live service games, but
<v Speaker 1>like we're gonna have a multi tier thing, and then
<v Speaker 1>five years later it's back to just live service games.
<v Speaker 1>And now game development is long enough, Lexi that that
<v Speaker 1>you can announce a game like Black Panther, open a studio,
<v Speaker 1>and honestly, before that game probably really even gets into
<v Speaker 1>the meat of development, they've already changed their attitude towards
<v Speaker 1>a game like this, And here we are, and they
<v Speaker 1>don't believe it's going to be worth their time. It's
<v Speaker 1>an opportunity cost lost to make a big budget video
<v Speaker 1>game based on one of the biggest properties for a
<v Speaker 1>successful film franchise that made over two billion dollars or
<v Speaker 1>something like that between its handful of movies. How are
<v Speaker 1>you reading this?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I think there's a few things to unpack. First
<v Speaker 2>thing is, this isn't the first wave of layoffs EA
<v Speaker 2>have had this year. They had massive layoffs earlier in
<v Speaker 2>the year as well, and they had layoffs last year
<v Speaker 2>as well. I saw somewhere that apparently the head counter
<v Speaker 2>EA is still bigger now than it was this time
<v Speaker 2>last year, so they are still rehiring in other places,
<v Speaker 2>right And I think that, like it is a damning,
<v Speaker 2>damning indictment of management. If you have one of the
<v Speaker 2>biggest ips in the world right now, which is Black Panther,
<v Speaker 2>one of the most popular Marvel franchises, and you are
<v Speaker 2>making a triple a open world game around that, and
<v Speaker 2>you look at the numbers and you go, well, we
<v Speaker 2>just can't make this work. There's no way we can
<v Speaker 2>make this work. I think that, like from the top down,
<v Speaker 2>that's heads need to roll, shish because that's like if
<v Speaker 2>they had the Star Wars license and they couldn't make
<v Speaker 2>it work an oh waish.
<v Speaker 1>You're not even a fantasist here. You don't need to
<v Speaker 1>just imagine an impossible world where EA couldn't even make
<v Speaker 1>Star Wars work. That's crazy, LEXI, Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Go ahead. This whole thing seems fucking so stupid because,
<v Speaker 2>like EA were out there, I think I was on
<v Speaker 2>a show with you where it was like, EA, double
<v Speaker 2>down on IP, where they're like, yeah, we are, we
<v Speaker 2>are licensing IP. Now we have decided that trying to
<v Speaker 2>cultivate your own IP is too and it's too expensive.
<v Speaker 2>And then a few years later they were like, licensing
<v Speaker 2>IP actually means that we have to lose a bit
<v Speaker 2>of money off the and we're not happy with that,
<v Speaker 2>so we're gonna step away from licensing IP. And from
<v Speaker 2>that moment, these two Marvel projects and the Star Wars
<v Speaker 2>projects all felt in danger. They all felt like they
<v Speaker 2>could be cut at any moment. And Star Wars feels
<v Speaker 2>like it has enough inertia around it that it won't
<v Speaker 2>get like canceled. But like, I don't have faith that
<v Speaker 2>that Iron Man game comes out. I have like motive,
<v Speaker 2>it's and it's not like they've treated Motive well as
<v Speaker 2>a studio. Motive have been kicked around from project to project.
<v Speaker 2>They worked on that incredible Dead Space remake and then
<v Speaker 2>they were rewarded by like being shifted onto a licensed
<v Speaker 2>IP that they didn't sign up for.
<v Speaker 1>Mm hm uh. Yeah. This is where trying to report
<v Speaker 1>on this stuff and follow the people that make these
<v Speaker 1>decisions makes me feel crazy, because you know, I come
<v Speaker 1>on the show, and I don't really know how all
<v Speaker 1>of the sausage is made. I don't really know how
<v Speaker 1>all these decisions get made. I just go want based
<v Speaker 1>on you know, talking to people who are are inside
<v Speaker 1>of the system and can get me some idea. And
<v Speaker 1>you're right. A few years ago, I was just told
<v Speaker 1>explicitly that EA was looking at the risk reward, and
<v Speaker 1>when they looked at it, it just makes so much
<v Speaker 1>more sense to license an IP because building a new
<v Speaker 1>IP from scratch is expensive and just as expensive and
<v Speaker 1>more risky. So clearly you just got you're going to
<v Speaker 1>license all your IP going forward, and that was you're right.
<v Speaker 1>I think you were on that episode where we really
<v Speaker 1>talked about that. That was just a few years ago,
<v Speaker 1>and now we're here and it feels like it's the
<v Speaker 1>complete opposite. It's a schizophrenic company. EA, Like they just
<v Speaker 1>cannot decide on a path forward because they are so
<v Speaker 1>reactive to the information that they're getting any one moment.
<v Speaker 1>And it's like, well, I think at this point, we know,
<v Speaker 1>especially in a creative business like making video games, that
<v Speaker 1>if you don't have a strong vision, you're going to
<v Speaker 1>end up in this situation where you're blowing with the wind,
<v Speaker 1>and the winds crazy because you're selling video games to
<v Speaker 1>gamers and we're fickle, so it's it's going to be
<v Speaker 1>an impossible thing to keep up with.
<v Speaker 2>Do you see the only kind of life logical thinking
<v Speaker 2>I've heard around this and Alex Navau posited it on
<v Speaker 2>this week's Next Land of podcast, was the idea that
<v Speaker 2>years back as well, EA were apparently in the market
<v Speaker 2>for selling themselves and they were like, we are looking
<v Speaker 2>to be acquired, and they couldn't find any way to
<v Speaker 2>be acquired because they were too big. And if you
<v Speaker 2>look at the moves that they have done recently, it
<v Speaker 2>is let's strengthen the brands that we believe are already
<v Speaker 2>the biggest and cut away all the other ones. So
<v Speaker 2>anything that isn't massive right now they are ignoring pretty
<v Speaker 2>much there. And so do you think that this is
<v Speaker 2>an attempt by whether it be Andrew Wilson or EA
<v Speaker 2>higher up as a whole, to slim down the company
<v Speaker 2>into a more manageable size to be acquired while also
<v Speaker 2>still being as valuable as possible.
<v Speaker 1>I'm yeah, I think that's a factor in terms of
<v Speaker 1>them decide, like how they're making decisions it's like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>if we slim down, we could there's multiple benefits there.
<v Speaker 1>We could be acquired, but also it just enables us
<v Speaker 1>be more limber when we have to make changes in
<v Speaker 1>the future, and it makes us more profitable in the meantime,
<v Speaker 1>and that makes us look better to investors. There's there's
<v Speaker 1>a lot of things there, you know. I think they're
<v Speaker 1>well aware of the fact that it would be difficult
<v Speaker 1>for them to get acquired anytime soon. It's not impossible,
<v Speaker 1>but the temperature around that is definitely cooled off, and
<v Speaker 1>the bidding for an EA would not look like what
<v Speaker 1>it did for Activision, So I think they would probably
<v Speaker 1>have to settle for a much lower price. And I
<v Speaker 1>don't know if they're ready to do that, but I
<v Speaker 1>mean whatever, You're right, that's definitely one of the things
<v Speaker 1>they're considering. And it's what it sounds like. You know,
<v Speaker 1>in this letter that was sent internally, we mentioned it.
<v Speaker 1>But the brands that were mentioned Battlefield, the sim Skate, Apex, Legends,
<v Speaker 1>that's a short list, you know. That's there's not a
<v Speaker 1>lot of other stuff on there. They you know, EA
<v Speaker 1>just acquired Code Masters. It feels like five minutes ago.
<v Speaker 1>There's don't mention any of their games. Now there's word
<v Speaker 1>that things are looking pretty bad over there, not making
<v Speaker 1>the World Rally Cross game anymore with them, So it's weird.
<v Speaker 2>I'd like very pointedly in not list is not mass Effect.
<v Speaker 2>But then they laser go on to say like don't
<v Speaker 2>want a mass Tex selling development, which feels like, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>we don't think of this as a big deal anymore,
<v Speaker 2>but also we're still working off and how it's fine, Joy,
<v Speaker 2>don't worry about it.
<v Speaker 1>It does feel like the one thing that will kind
<v Speaker 1>of sneak through while everything else is getting caught in
<v Speaker 1>the strainer here of like, oh, we don't want this junk.
<v Speaker 1>And then these other games are stuff that you could
<v Speaker 1>just see how they fit with what EA likes, which
<v Speaker 1>is make one game, support it, make money on it
<v Speaker 1>for a very very very long time. You know. That's
<v Speaker 1>if Battlefield can work, and that they're putting a lot
<v Speaker 1>of effort into that, like there is a huge sort
<v Speaker 1>of salvage project happening right now to make Battlefield something
<v Speaker 1>that can make sense in the modern video game shooter
<v Speaker 1>excuse me, shooter landscape. And then SIMS is that's a
<v Speaker 1>machine that'll be fine skates another question like can they
<v Speaker 1>make that make sense? And then Apex Legends. God, this
<v Speaker 1>list is actually kind of grim when you just say
<v Speaker 1>it out like that, because Apex Legend, this is another
<v Speaker 1>one where it's that's hit its peak. It like admittedly
<v Speaker 1>by EA it was kind of like on the downslope,
<v Speaker 1>and now they're trying to revitalize that as well. They
<v Speaker 1>have a lot of revitalization products projects happening at the
<v Speaker 1>same time, and they don't seem to have other replacements
<v Speaker 1>ready waiting in the wings to take the take the
<v Speaker 1>place of these big games if they don't work. So yeah, grim,
<v Speaker 1>I think they kind of have no option but to
<v Speaker 1>lay people off because that that seems to be the
<v Speaker 1>only way they could save money, which is not where
<v Speaker 1>you want to be, is EA, go ahead please?
<v Speaker 2>The only thing that really seems to be performing well
<v Speaker 2>for them from the last couple of years was that
<v Speaker 2>college football game. And when you think about it, like
<v Speaker 2>that game can only grow so much because outside of America,
<v Speaker 2>nobody cares about college football, like it is an American
<v Speaker 2>game for an American marksh maybe a Canadian one, but
<v Speaker 2>like you are not going to have British people or
<v Speaker 2>Europeans or a Usian tawa tries buying college football each year,
<v Speaker 2>and that thing is going to cop OUs in a
<v Speaker 2>very serious way. And like that's why they stopped making
<v Speaker 2>those games, was they cocked out?
<v Speaker 1>Why that's why a lot of sports games like the
<v Speaker 1>similar kind of like college basketball and stuff, they stopped
<v Speaker 1>making those long before they stopped making around the time
<v Speaker 1>they stopped making the Collegeoball game. The college football game
<v Speaker 1>was like a myriad of factors including there was definitely
<v Speaker 1>some lawsuits coming down the pike about using the likenesses
<v Speaker 1>or the perceived likenesses of college football players when when
<v Speaker 1>you weren't paying them. So it was like that stacked
<v Speaker 1>on top of the fact that they had already kind
<v Speaker 1>of grown the market as much as they could now.
<v Speaker 1>College Football twenty five was a massive success for them.
<v Speaker 1>It was huge, made just about more money than just
<v Speaker 1>about anything else that released last year, even though it
<v Speaker 1>just sold to Americans. But you're right, twenty six, twenty seven,
<v Speaker 1>twenty eight versions of that are not going to do
<v Speaker 1>better than twenty five did. And in fact, it might
<v Speaker 1>take years and years and years for them to like
<v Speaker 1>find a way to kind of get back to the
<v Speaker 1>point of having the excitement they had around college it
<v Speaker 1>was really it and whatever. You know, they're still gonna
<v Speaker 1>make a lot of money from this college football game,
<v Speaker 1>but that's a card they've played now and and we
<v Speaker 1>know that, you know, making a lot of money from
<v Speaker 1>something isn't necessarily the game here. The game is growth,
<v Speaker 1>and we're not talking about college football growing, and really
<v Speaker 1>we're not talking about a lot of these things growing.
<v Speaker 1>Apex Legends, I think it's going to be very hard
<v Speaker 1>for them to make that grow again in like a
<v Speaker 1>long term, sustainable way where it happened, like you know,
<v Speaker 1>Apex Legends launched and it was like three years of
<v Speaker 1>really solid just making a ton of money, maybe longer
<v Speaker 1>than that even and now it's like on the other side,
<v Speaker 1>it's just not going to be able to replicate that.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, EA Publishing, as opposed to EA Sports, is
<v Speaker 1>going to keep doing its thing. It'll probably'll probably find
<v Speaker 1>other sports to to exploit there at some point. But
<v Speaker 1>for EA Publishing, I don't know, it looks bad and
<v Speaker 1>I don't know what the future holds over there. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>up next, Trump's tariffs blocked by Core with refunds possible.
<v Speaker 1>This is from mediem Kou at GameSpot. A federal court
<v Speaker 1>has blocked US President Donald Trump's plans to institute major
<v Speaker 1>global tariffs, a plan announced in April that sent global
<v Speaker 1>markets into a frenzy. Trump attempted to use the International
<v Speaker 1>Emergency Economic Powers Act to implement the tariffs, but a
<v Speaker 1>three judge panel rejected this. What all this means is
<v Speaker 1>What all this means were switched to and other gaming products, however,
<v Speaker 1>is unknown at the moment. The ruling said Trump may
<v Speaker 1>be able to still implement import taxes of fifteen percent
<v Speaker 1>for one hundred and fifty days on certain countries where
<v Speaker 1>the US is in a major trade deficit. However, so essentially,
<v Speaker 1>he tried to use a rule to be like, we're
<v Speaker 1>in an emergency, so I can do this, because otherwise Congress,
<v Speaker 1>you know, it's a bunch of wonky stuff, but Congress
<v Speaker 1>usually gets to make these decisions. He did it unilaterally,
<v Speaker 1>and he found a way to justify it with a
<v Speaker 1>law that said you can do this if there's like
<v Speaker 1>a war or something happening. And the court's like, well,
<v Speaker 1>there's no obvious war that makes sense for any of
<v Speaker 1>these tariffs. We're gonna pull it back if you want
<v Speaker 1>to have tariffs, you could do it for one hundred
<v Speaker 1>and fifty days and then after that that would automatically
<v Speaker 1>trigger a congressional vote. There are some other tariffs, just
<v Speaker 1>like get this out of the way. Maybe people will
<v Speaker 1>be aware of this. I don't know. There are some
<v Speaker 1>other tariffs on stuff like steel that like these like
<v Speaker 1>segments of the economy that are considered differently that he
<v Speaker 1>can still tariff, but like that's different than like putting
<v Speaker 1>tariffs on consoles and computer chips and stuff like that.
<v Speaker 1>He's gonna appeal. The White House is definitely going to
<v Speaker 1>appeal this Alexi. But it does feel like the whole
<v Speaker 1>like wade out Trump's insanity strategy is likely the best,
<v Speaker 1>the best thing that most people can make a decision
<v Speaker 1>about right now. It's like, hey that there's the saying
<v Speaker 1>of taco Trump. Trump always chickens out. This is going
<v Speaker 1>around Wall Street right now, and it's like a financial
<v Speaker 1>strategy of he always backs off everything he does, So
<v Speaker 1>make your financial bets with that in mind. Now, this
<v Speaker 1>is not necessarily that, but it's him losing out. And
<v Speaker 1>I think when you know, the White House gets into
<v Speaker 1>these deliberations with other countries, about hey, let's make deals.
<v Speaker 1>You know, this is a major chip that he just
<v Speaker 1>lost where it's like he cannot he can no longer
<v Speaker 1>actually threaten them with these tariffs as long as this
<v Speaker 1>is happening. And it sounds like there's a strong chance
<v Speaker 1>that even if this were to go to the Supreme Court,
<v Speaker 1>and he's got a lot of judges in his favor there,
<v Speaker 1>even there this this might struggle. So he Yeah, it
<v Speaker 1>feels like tariffs might not be long for this world
<v Speaker 1>and a lot of the segments we're talking about, But
<v Speaker 1>I don't think that's going to stop him from trying
<v Speaker 1>to find other ways to do it because he just
<v Speaker 1>loves them so much. It's so weird how much he's
<v Speaker 1>into tariffs. I don't know, how are you feeling about this,
<v Speaker 1>this story, Like when you're over in the in your
<v Speaker 1>country looking over at us, kind of kicking ourselves in
<v Speaker 1>the balls, how do you feel about all this?
<v Speaker 2>I think like it's it's been weird. I know some
<v Speaker 2>people who study on the doctorate in politics, and the
<v Speaker 2>thing that they studied was like Trump coming to power
<v Speaker 2>in twenty sixteen, and so the it's been really interesting
<v Speaker 2>talking to them about it because they get like a
<v Speaker 2>weird shadow foid from watching things go wrong for him
<v Speaker 2>every time they do go wrong for him. But then
<v Speaker 2>there's also the reckoning that you have to have of like, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>but that focks us all over to it really does.
<v Speaker 2>Like think when things get more expensive in America, that
<v Speaker 2>has a knock on effect on Ireland or Europe or
<v Speaker 2>Canada or wherever, because these economies are so interconnected now.
<v Speaker 2>And I think that like the we we've talked about
<v Speaker 2>it on this show before, but like when Sony raised
<v Speaker 2>prices are on PlayStation, they raise them in Europe and
<v Speaker 2>Australia and New Zealand because they were like, these are
<v Speaker 2>more stable economies and we know that if we raise
<v Speaker 2>prices here, they can stay at that that level for
<v Speaker 2>a while and we won't have to move them around
<v Speaker 2>again America And they're like, it's so unstable, we don't
<v Speaker 2>even know where we'd move them to if we were to.
<v Speaker 2>So yeah, it's like it's fucking it's it's hard for
<v Speaker 2>any international company to figure out what it's doing. I
<v Speaker 2>have talked to like people who are straight up leaving
<v Speaker 2>America and setting up companies in places like Ireland because
<v Speaker 2>they are like I don't fancy doing business there, especially
<v Speaker 2>if I employ like indie game studios where they're like
<v Speaker 2>I employ several trans people and it's no longer viable
<v Speaker 2>and safe for me to work with them there. So
<v Speaker 2>we are incorporating in Ireland and we're going to see
<v Speaker 2>if we can set up a studio in Ireland, and
<v Speaker 2>said because it's an English speaking country and it's connected
<v Speaker 2>to Europe, and it's this and that and that. But yeah,
<v Speaker 2>there's a lot of things like that going on at
<v Speaker 2>the moment.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's it's definitely kind of a bummer cause it's like, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>in this moment, it does look a little bit better
<v Speaker 1>because it does feel like he's going to sort of
<v Speaker 1>run out of energy on the tariff thing, and you know,
<v Speaker 1>we're gonna blink and we're gonna look up and it's
<v Speaker 1>gonna be mid term election season, and that's gonna be
<v Speaker 1>really bad for him, you know, you know, if they
<v Speaker 1>let fair elections happen, which is a fun thing to
<v Speaker 1>say as an American, but yeah, that's going to be
<v Speaker 1>a really rough voting period for him, and so he's
<v Speaker 1>going to be focused on other stuff. And yet the
<v Speaker 1>damage has been done, like it's the you know, this
<v Speaker 1>is a place of extreme privilege. But I did grow
<v Speaker 1>up in America. I did get accustomed to this idea
<v Speaker 1>of you know, the US dollars the world's currency in
<v Speaker 1>a lot of ways. And I think he broke that.
<v Speaker 1>He's broken that, and the comfort that we've been able to,
<v Speaker 1>you know, enjoy is gonna be permanently undone here and
<v Speaker 1>it's gonna look very different in ten to fifteen, twenty years.
<v Speaker 1>Like I think the rest of the world just realized,
<v Speaker 1>you know, even if this passes, even if things go
<v Speaker 1>back to normal for the United States, we're going to
<v Speaker 1>get to a point where at any moment, a bunch
<v Speaker 1>of assholes could vote in a dumbass and they could
<v Speaker 1>do this all over again. So you cannot rely on
<v Speaker 1>the United States. And so, uh, we're gonna you know,
<v Speaker 1>and that's on top of everything you mentioned, like people
<v Speaker 1>not wanting to travel your people not wanting to start
<v Speaker 1>business here, people not wanting to invest here because it
<v Speaker 1>could be dangerous for their employees. It's excuse me, and
<v Speaker 1>it's it's just going to be bad for us long term.
<v Speaker 1>And it was it's been five six months. It's been
<v Speaker 1>six months of this, that's it, and that's all it
<v Speaker 1>took to really kind of ruin everything.
<v Speaker 2>You've been booking the couch and book in some again
<v Speaker 2>his fast appointments. Have you felt a different vibe from
<v Speaker 2>the point of view of less international visitors around this
<v Speaker 2>year compared to last year, A.
<v Speaker 1>Lot of Canadians. The Canadians are seeming like they're like
<v Speaker 1>they're like still ready to risk it. Other than that,
<v Speaker 1>no one really. Yeah, it's not a lot of people
<v Speaker 1>from other countries, unless unless it's like very specifically they
<v Speaker 1>already planned to reveal their game at Summer Game Fest,
<v Speaker 1>and so they were gonna be there and they're like
<v Speaker 1>they're biting the bullet and they're just gonna take their chances.
<v Speaker 1>That's it. It's not a lot of people outside of that.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, it's it's definitely noticeable. And again I don't
<v Speaker 1>blame anyone. I get it a.
<v Speaker 2>Quick question, what should I do with this now? Because
<v Speaker 2>I haven't left over and it's pretty much worthless now.
<v Speaker 2>It's worth about as much as monopoly money, So that's right.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I would just I would just you know, go out,
<v Speaker 1>you know, use it as a napkin or something like that.
<v Speaker 1>It's a fifty dollars bill for audio listeners.
<v Speaker 2>I do think there is actually a food staying on this.
<v Speaker 2>Oh hell yeah, well there, yeah, well it definitely came
<v Speaker 2>from definitely came from America.
<v Speaker 1>All right, we got plenty of more headlines to get into,
<v Speaker 1>but we're gonna take a quick break. This is where
<v Speaker 1>you could get to take advantage of the ad free
<v Speaker 1>versions of the shows if you go to giant Bombdom
<v Speaker 1>giant bomb dot Com slash joint. I did giant bomb
<v Speaker 1>dot Dom again. That all right, let's go to the
<v Speaker 1>ad break. I need to break myself. This episode of
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<v Speaker 1>That's giant bomb dot Com slash Join. Become a member
<v Speaker 1>now All right, we're back for Game Mess Mornings. I'm
<v Speaker 1>Jeff Grub, that's Lex Luddy. We're going to talk about
<v Speaker 1>some more video game news, starting here with Cyberpunk two
<v Speaker 1>is probably further away than you hope. This is from
<v Speaker 1>Blair Marnell at GameSpot. Earlier this week's CD Project Read
<v Speaker 1>confirmed that Cyberpunk twenty seventy seven sequel is now in
<v Speaker 1>pre production. For the moment, the project is also being
<v Speaker 1>internally called Cyberpunk two. However, the newfound forward momentum excuse me,
<v Speaker 1>forward momentum doesn't mean that Cyberpunk two will be arriving
<v Speaker 1>anytime soon. CDPR co CEO Michael Nowakowski has indicated that
<v Speaker 1>the sequel may be years from release. Our journey from
<v Speaker 1>the pre production to the final release date takes four
<v Speaker 1>to five years on average, Noatowski said, or Nowakowski, excuse
<v Speaker 1>me said during a CD Project Red's investor presentation. Having
<v Speaker 1>said that, and keeping in mind that each project is
<v Speaker 1>unique and there are many variables that influence the final outcome,
<v Speaker 1>I will not lead you into specific years. Yeah, I
<v Speaker 1>mean I think we get it where. I mean, we
<v Speaker 1>knew how long the original Cyberpunk took. Right that was
<v Speaker 1>fifty years or something like that. It was crazy. It's
<v Speaker 1>a really long time, so games are only taking longer.
<v Speaker 1>They've also spent a lot of time kind of sprucing
<v Speaker 1>up Cyberpunk and making it as good as it possibly
<v Speaker 1>can be so they could set the stage for a sequel.
<v Speaker 1>They're also working on Witcher projects, and they had some
<v Speaker 1>a bunch of other stuff. I know they've also cut
<v Speaker 1>some projects. I think they had a multiplayer Cyberpunk thing
<v Speaker 1>they were going to work on. They cut that. So yeah,
<v Speaker 1>they still have a lot of projects on their hands though,
<v Speaker 1>So no matter what, it feels like, it was going
<v Speaker 1>to take a long time to get a Cyberpunk two
<v Speaker 1>sequel done. You know, if this pops up in six
<v Speaker 1>to seven years, like see, people are going to be
<v Speaker 1>really craving a Cyberpunk. So I don't think this is
<v Speaker 1>a problem. What do you think?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I think, like, I don't think anyone who realistically
<v Speaker 2>follows that studio would think that they're a two game studio. Like, realistically,
<v Speaker 2>they're not going to have two games of those sizes
<v Speaker 2>in full scale development at the same time. And I
<v Speaker 2>think if you look at their financials, they disclose how
<v Speaker 2>many people are on each project at any saven time,
<v Speaker 2>and they have pretty much said like, yeah, it's all
<v Speaker 2>hands on deck for which are four now? Like everyone's
<v Speaker 2>just moved over people. Yeah, And I suspect that when
<v Speaker 2>they say like, oh, we have like fifteen people on
<v Speaker 2>Cyberpunk two, like that's R and D. That's community management
<v Speaker 2>for Cyberpunk one, that's it's a concept.
<v Speaker 1>It's like one concept artist. Right.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, So I like not surprise that this is super
<v Speaker 2>far away.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, same, I I'm like wondering, am I am I
<v Speaker 1>at a point where I would be looking forward to
<v Speaker 1>a Cyberpunk two. I thought Cyberpunk one was just fine,
<v Speaker 1>three out of five for me. When I reviewed it,
<v Speaker 1>I thought that what was the Phantom Liberty? That was
<v Speaker 1>the DLC. I thought Phantom Liberty was definitely better. It's
<v Speaker 1>still not a game that ever really like clicked with
<v Speaker 1>me the way it did some people, which I was
<v Speaker 1>happy to see. I have nothing against cyberpunk. So I
<v Speaker 1>think I'm at a point where I like, I bet
<v Speaker 1>with like the things that they learned, they can make
<v Speaker 1>a really awesome Cyberpunk two, and I think I am
<v Speaker 1>looking forward to it. So, yeah, this is great. I'm
<v Speaker 1>ready to see what the student is going to do.
<v Speaker 1>As they have now had many years since the last
<v Speaker 1>Witcher game. This next Witcher, I bet is going to
<v Speaker 1>blow people away and then they'll have a chance to
<v Speaker 1>follow that up with Cyberpunk. This studio, like the you know,
<v Speaker 1>it's not necessarily a model that other studios can follow, right, Like,
<v Speaker 1>it's pretty hard to be the company that makes the
<v Speaker 1>Witcher and Cyberpunk. But this is does it feel sustainable
<v Speaker 1>to you? For at least CD Project Red.
<v Speaker 2>It's for CD Project Read. It seems insane because yeah,
<v Speaker 2>because like a Larryan or something, they now have die
<v Speaker 2>hard fans of their own. They are fans who are
<v Speaker 2>fans of the studio, not fans of the game. They
<v Speaker 2>are fans of the studio and so they will go
<v Speaker 2>wherever the studio goes. And like, that's the biggest hurdle
<v Speaker 2>for a lot of games these days, is getting that
<v Speaker 2>initial install base of people who will spredge the word
<v Speaker 2>and be like no, this is good, or bumping it
<v Speaker 2>up the Steam charts at the beginning. Stuff like that
<v Speaker 2>is the big hurdle for a lot of games these days,
<v Speaker 2>and they have that built in so that will definitely
<v Speaker 2>sustain them for a while.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I think you're right, And I think that that's
<v Speaker 1>the thing that does make any kind of developer or
<v Speaker 1>publisher really work these days is if you have a
<v Speaker 1>large enough audience that is really just into you as
<v Speaker 1>a as a company, which is hard to achieve. I
<v Speaker 1>think even the biggest companies. Actually, for the biggest companies,
<v Speaker 1>it seems like the most difficult, right Beau, they're the
<v Speaker 1>most fakes, the most corporate. So this is maybe the
<v Speaker 1>right size where it's like that's a big team, big studio,
<v Speaker 1>doing a lot, and yet they can still have that
<v Speaker 1>scrappy feeling that you can get behind as a fan.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, I think you're right, all right. Up next,
<v Speaker 1>second Persona four actor snub could signal full new voice
<v Speaker 1>cast for remake. This is from Scott Baird at Dual Shockers.
<v Speaker 1>A second member of Persona four's voice cast has confirmed
<v Speaker 1>that they won't be returning for the remake, even though
<v Speaker 1>it hasn't officially been announced yet. There have been numerous
<v Speaker 1>rumors regarding a Persona four remake, one in the same
<v Speaker 1>vein as Persona three reload, which people are big fans of.
<v Speaker 1>This would fit with Atlas's new approach of porting and
<v Speaker 1>remaking some of its classic games, as they were only
<v Speaker 1>available on a handful of platforms at the time. On
<v Speaker 1>May twenty eighth, voice actor Uri Lowenthal commented in a
<v Speaker 1>now deleted Blue Sky post that he wouldn't be returning
<v Speaker 1>in the Persona four remake, despite asking to reprise the
<v Speaker 1>role of Yoske. This is despite the Persona four remake
<v Speaker 1>not officially being announced, and now a second voice actors
<v Speaker 1>confirmed that they won't be involved in the Phantom game either.
<v Speaker 1>Aaron Fitzgerald, the voice actor who provided the voice of Chia.
<v Speaker 1>I think it's Chia right, That's gotta be it Chia
<v Speaker 1>sardanaka in Persona Flour, has confirmed in a Blue Sky
<v Speaker 1>post that they haven't been asked to reprise their role
<v Speaker 1>in the remake, expressing sadness at not being able to
<v Speaker 1>play her again. It bears mentioning that, unlike Lowenthal, Fitzgerald
<v Speaker 1>has never actually stated that they contacted Atlas about the
<v Speaker 1>Persona fort remake. Although that's the vibe I get from
<v Speaker 1>the way she was talking. Okay, so what do you
<v Speaker 1>think is happening here? Are they doing a ton of
<v Speaker 1>voice reworks? So they which sounds that the game could
<v Speaker 1>actually use in some cases to deal with some problematic issues.
<v Speaker 1>And maybe they don't want to pay these actors again.
<v Speaker 1>Your Loanthal sounds like he might be expensive these days.
<v Speaker 1>He's Spider Man.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. I mean the Persona three week casting made a
<v Speaker 2>lot of sense to fans because of who some of
<v Speaker 2>those people wound up being saga, maybe not wanting to
<v Speaker 2>work with them again for those kind of reasons. And
<v Speaker 2>it really like the performances in Persona three were great,
<v Speaker 2>and I'm sure that they looked at the positive reception
<v Speaker 2>to the new performances in Persona three reload and we're like, well,
<v Speaker 2>the reason is different, but people will still be okay
<v Speaker 2>if we change the casting, you know, if it's good performances.
<v Speaker 2>So the reasoning this time very well may just be
<v Speaker 2>either we want new young voice actors because we don't
<v Speaker 2>want actors like Troy Baker your alone Thal are both
<v Speaker 2>in their forties going on fifties. Like, there's a lot
<v Speaker 2>of actors who are much older now playing teenage characters,
<v Speaker 2>and like I can imagine Atlas being like, maybe we
<v Speaker 2>want younger actors to do these voices. And on top
<v Speaker 2>of that, they're probably just like, yeah, this is way
<v Speaker 2>more expensive. And the whole point of remake projects is
<v Speaker 2>that they're meant to be a little bit cheaper and
<v Speaker 2>they're meant to be a little bit more economical to me.
<v Speaker 2>So I can totally see them being like, why not
<v Speaker 2>just get a whole new cast again? And that way,
<v Speaker 2>that also gives us freedom to if we want to
<v Speaker 2>go and make more spin offs, we want to go
<v Speaker 2>do more things like that, we have access to cheaper
<v Speaker 2>people to work with. If we want to do another
<v Speaker 2>Persona Q, which is their crossover game, they then don't
<v Speaker 2>have to And like the idea of making a persona
<v Speaker 2>Q now would be really fucking expensive to do the
<v Speaker 2>voice acting because you have all these different voice actors
<v Speaker 2>who like, are quite well known from the Persona franchise,
<v Speaker 2>quite well liked, and the Persona franchise is way bigger,
<v Speaker 2>they would be able to demand a much higher cust
<v Speaker 2>of the paycheck. So yeah, there's numerous reasons why this happens.
<v Speaker 2>I can understand why they would be bummed out. I
<v Speaker 2>would be bummed out too, sure, especially if I wasn't contacted,
<v Speaker 2>Like especially if I wasn't given a heads up or anything.
<v Speaker 2>But I think that's probably part of the bus business
<v Speaker 2>that these people are in, and like it's the shitty
<v Speaker 2>part of the business, but it is part of the
<v Speaker 2>voice acting business.
<v Speaker 1>Yep. Yeah, it's it does feel like it's mostly a
<v Speaker 1>cost cutting thing. It feels like, you know, and I
<v Speaker 1>think you're right about they probably want to do more
<v Speaker 1>with these characters in the future if they can and
<v Speaker 1>or at least have that on the table and want
<v Speaker 1>to you know, set the price for themselves lower, then yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I think that's what it is. The game probably will get,
<v Speaker 1>as some people in chatter saying, significant rewrites because it
<v Speaker 1>needs it.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, even compared to Persona three, which super needed it
<v Speaker 2>in select spaces, Sono Floor needs it in a lot
<v Speaker 2>of places, and with like just general characterization. So I
<v Speaker 2>can see them being like, if we're gonna rewrite these characters,
<v Speaker 2>we may as well make them feel like different characters.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, exactly. It's and you know, take this opportunity to
<v Speaker 1>like just rip off the band aid and make it
<v Speaker 1>feel completely fresh and different. And you know, if it
<v Speaker 1>is different voices, I think it's cost cunning, but there's
<v Speaker 1>probably some consideration of like, if it's different voices, you know,
<v Speaker 1>the one to one comparison will just feel inherently different
<v Speaker 1>than if you have the same voice actor saying something
<v Speaker 1>different and now people are like, why'd you change it?
<v Speaker 1>Because there will be some people that will be that way,
<v Speaker 1>So this helps avoid that.
<v Speaker 2>And Matt rare Monkey in twitch chat makes a really
<v Speaker 2>good point, which is Persona five X is coming out
<v Speaker 2>on the twenty sixth, and that's a gotcha game, and
<v Speaker 2>they are totally going to want to include those characters
<v Speaker 2>from other Persona games atself point, they're going to have
<v Speaker 2>those characters as gotcha characters in that game.
<v Speaker 1>So without a doubt, all right, next headline here, let's
<v Speaker 1>see here from Yeah, A death Stranding anime is in development,
<v Speaker 1>according to Hideo Kojima. This is from Ben Lyons at
<v Speaker 1>Game Reactor. If you thought that June's Death Stranding two
<v Speaker 1>on the Beach and the planned a live action adaptation
<v Speaker 1>of the game coming out from A twenty four was
<v Speaker 1>all the death Stranding that was in developed at the moment,
<v Speaker 1>it would seem that you'd be wrong. In an interview
<v Speaker 1>with Vogue Japan, as noticed by VGC, death Stranding creator
<v Speaker 1>and Kojuma Productions founder Ideo Kojima, has mentioned that in
<v Speaker 1>anime based on the Unusual franchise is also in development.
<v Speaker 1>The specifics and additional details were not elaborated on, but
<v Speaker 1>as this is coming directly from the mouth behind the idea,
<v Speaker 1>we have to assume it's pretty accurate. Death Stranding as
<v Speaker 1>a like a cross media trans media empire feels a
<v Speaker 1>little strange. I don't know if it has that kind
<v Speaker 1>of gas. I think it's really wild as a game.
<v Speaker 1>I think it's got plenty of juice there, but I
<v Speaker 1>don't know, maybe I'm wrong. How do you feel about this?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's kind of wild that, like Metal Gear couldn't
<v Speaker 2>get a lot of these gears turning after years of
<v Speaker 2>saying that it was going to get these gears standing
<v Speaker 2>or right. You know, Oh, we're doing a movie. We swear,
<v Speaker 2>we're doing a movie. We have a director this time,
<v Speaker 2>we swear. And like suddenly, when you talk to people
<v Speaker 2>about the Death Stranding Expanded Universe stuff, this year SEMs
<v Speaker 2>to be a much more of a vibeer like no, no,
<v Speaker 2>this is happening. We are going to go into production
<v Speaker 2>on this stuff, and like there is going to be
<v Speaker 2>sides stuff, and there is going to be an anime
<v Speaker 2>and a movie, and it's like this game is maybe
<v Speaker 2>more impenetrable than Metal Year is to a like widespread
<v Speaker 2>audience because at least Metal Gear you can ground yourself
<v Speaker 2>the same way Dan does, which is like this could
<v Speaker 2>really happen. This could really happen, The b Man could
<v Speaker 2>really happen, and you can't really be like the bets
<v Speaker 2>could really happen. The Bets could really really happen. Yeah, Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>it's weird.
<v Speaker 1>It's weird, and it's a I think it obviously can
<v Speaker 1>work in all these other mediums. I just I don't know.
<v Speaker 1>It's hard to imagine people dragging themselves out to a
<v Speaker 1>theater for the live action one. I suppose an anime
<v Speaker 1>pops up on Netflix. I don't know. There's a million
<v Speaker 1>of things that have done that, and I've mostly just
<v Speaker 1>ignored them, but they find an audience. You know, there's
<v Speaker 1>a bunch of Castlevania spinoffs that seem to do just
<v Speaker 1>for maybe they're thinking it could be like that. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I could see that. I don't necessarily know if I
<v Speaker 1>need that. Well, no, I know I don't need that.
<v Speaker 2>My favorite thing about this franchise being so big is
<v Speaker 2>that Norman Das still seems to have no fucking idea
<v Speaker 2>what the game is about.
<v Speaker 1>Never change, Norman, it's so good.
<v Speaker 2>Well, every time she's on a puddle on that like,
<v Speaker 2>so tell us a bit about the story. He's like, Kojima,
<v Speaker 2>you take this one money.
<v Speaker 1>And I don't want him to figure it out. That
<v Speaker 1>guy looks like he just wants to chill. He just
<v Speaker 1>as a chill dude who just wants to chill and
<v Speaker 1>then go ride his motorcycle and have AMC follow him
<v Speaker 1>around with cameras while he does that, which, hey, you know, shot.
<v Speaker 1>My favorite thing about this stranding not the Monster Energy
<v Speaker 1>drinks or whatever it was, or any of the other
<v Speaker 1>product placement. The best product placement. The best thing in
<v Speaker 1>Death Stranding was the ads for his AMC motorcycle show,
<v Speaker 1>Norman Ritas's show, Like in the bathroom in that game.
<v Speaker 1>It was just such a weird, weird crossing up the
<v Speaker 1>you know, looking at the fourth wall and just shattering it.
<v Speaker 1>And I love that. It was good stuff. All right.
<v Speaker 1>Let's see here a record setting sixty plus partners confirmed
<v Speaker 1>for Summer game Fest. This is from Jonas Mackia Game Reactor.
<v Speaker 1>This Friday, It's finally time for one of the gaming's
<v Speaker 1>biggest events of the year. That's not right, that's next Friday.
<v Speaker 1>Be what the fuck min should be on a fucking
<v Speaker 1>plane right now? What's going on now? The event's official
<v Speaker 1>threads account has announced who will be attending this year,
<v Speaker 1>and it's a very very impressive lineup. Microsoft and Sony
<v Speaker 1>are always there, but this year Nintendo have confirmed their
<v Speaker 1>participation using a switch to logo. Okay, let's just stop here.
<v Speaker 1>Uh okay, So twenty twenty five Partners Round one. He's
<v Speaker 1>calling them partners. Do you think that means much more
<v Speaker 1>than like maybe what do you think the Switch two
<v Speaker 1>presents is going to be at Summer Game Fest.
<v Speaker 2>I think it's going to be a sizzle wheel during
<v Speaker 2>the during the actual like I've showed that he does.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, They've done that frequently, And.
<v Speaker 2>I think it's going to be like, hey, we provided
<v Speaker 2>and square Enix some switch to units so that they
<v Speaker 2>can demo Dragon Requests one plus two, yeah, Brave whatever, Yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>And it's like, I don't think it's going to be
<v Speaker 2>They're they're showing a game. I do like, especially if
<v Speaker 2>that rumor of them having their own direct in a
<v Speaker 2>couple of weeks is true, Like, why would they show
<v Speaker 2>anything at Summer Games First? A direct always gets more
<v Speaker 2>eyes than Summer Games First itself does, especially if Nintendo
<v Speaker 2>opposite as a big thing.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, yeah, I think given the fact that it's
<v Speaker 1>a switch to logo in here, and I'm actually like
<v Speaker 1>looking forward to see it for myself, but I think
<v Speaker 1>it is a switch Yeah, there it is.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, we're not a Nintendo logo, not a Nintendo logo.
<v Speaker 1>That to me, that sounds like a commercial. That sounds
<v Speaker 1>like a commercial for the switch to inside of the
<v Speaker 1>Summer Game First show, which sure, why not? They probably
<v Speaker 1>will do something like that. Uh, And we also know,
<v Speaker 1>you know, Keiley can play fast and loose with Who's
<v Speaker 1>a partner or whatever, like, oh, there's gonna be an
<v Speaker 1>Xbox showcase happening. That's part of Summer Game Fest. And
<v Speaker 1>it's like, well, they were going to do that no
<v Speaker 1>matter what. But sure, if you want to call it
<v Speaker 1>part of Summer Game Fest, you can do that. So
<v Speaker 1>my question to you is, how what do you think
<v Speaker 1>about this Summer Game Fest? Do you think it's shaping
<v Speaker 1>up to be something? Because I don't know, I'm getting
<v Speaker 1>weird vibes. I last year I was talking people on
<v Speaker 1>the couch. I'm like, hey, I think a summer game
<v Speaker 1>fest is working, and now, like you know, we haven't
<v Speaker 1>been there, we haven't seen anything. I'm ready to be
<v Speaker 1>proven wrong in this moment, though, it feels just a
<v Speaker 1>little bit like maybe this isn't quite the replacement for
<v Speaker 1>E three that it was building up to be.
<v Speaker 2>I think it feels quiet in a way that even
<v Speaker 2>as someone not going, Like usually if you're not going
<v Speaker 2>to an event, you still get a bunch of emails
<v Speaker 2>being like, hey, you want to come see a thing.
<v Speaker 2>I have not been getting that many of those, even
<v Speaker 2>for smaller things, and like that's usually my blamasha as
<v Speaker 2>a journalist, my size, which is like if there's bigger things,
<v Speaker 2>I have to seek them out and I have to
<v Speaker 2>go to the publisher or the PR and be like, hey,
<v Speaker 2>I'm guessing you're showing something here. Can I come seeish
<v Speaker 2>smaller things tend to email you and be like, come
<v Speaker 2>see your thing. And I've gotten very few of those
<v Speaker 2>smaller things emails being like come see your thing. At
<v Speaker 2>Summer games I know day of the devs are literally
<v Speaker 2>doing there. They're like showing self to press early over
<v Speaker 2>the next few days, so there will be Day of
<v Speaker 2>the Devs, and Day of the Devs is always awesome,
<v Speaker 2>But I definitely don't get the vibe that like there's
<v Speaker 2>a lot of other stuff there this year and in
<v Speaker 2>the way that there was last year, which might just
<v Speaker 2>be down to like maybe twenty twenty five kind of
<v Speaker 2>shot its load early this year, Like it was a
<v Speaker 2>really fucking busy year early on this year, and now
<v Speaker 2>we have a console launch, and now everyone's just gonna
<v Speaker 2>be like, well, I guess we should just poor whole
<v Speaker 2>games to the console, to the new console, like that
<v Speaker 2>might just be the strategy for the end of this year.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it does feel like, you know, is this indicative
<v Speaker 1>of some wider problem. I think you're right that a
<v Speaker 1>lot of people did push their games into the first
<v Speaker 1>half of this year, and I think we know why
<v Speaker 1>they did, because they were worried about Grand Theft Auto
<v Speaker 1>six and they were unsure about like what was what
<v Speaker 1>the switch to launch was going to look like, so
<v Speaker 1>it's like, let's just get out of the way now.
<v Speaker 1>And I think that has also disrupted game announcements and
<v Speaker 1>the plans for marketing a lot of these games. Games
<v Speaker 1>that it might might even just be like a year away.
<v Speaker 1>They're like, well, do we want to like go into
<v Speaker 1>Summer Game Fest, plant our flag and then get immediately
<v Speaker 1>trampled by Grand Theft Auto six. Now, obviously Grand Theft
<v Speaker 1>Ato six has been delayed into twenty twenty six pretty
<v Speaker 1>deeply into twenty like May of twenty twenty six, but
<v Speaker 1>a lot of people making the plans for Summer Game
<v Speaker 1>Fest didn't know that, and so they probably like, let's
<v Speaker 1>just play it safe and see what happens. Does that mean,
<v Speaker 1>like we get a month away from now and everyone's
<v Speaker 1>kind of changed their mind and they're ready to announce stuff.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know if like you can turn the ship
<v Speaker 1>like that necessarily. So yeah, the second half this year
<v Speaker 1>might just be quiet in a lot of ways. But again,
<v Speaker 1>I'm ready to be surprised. I think we're gonna get
<v Speaker 1>updates on a lot of stuff that we already know
<v Speaker 1>about from so Summer game Fest, and then a couple
<v Speaker 1>of big announcements here or there. But I'm not expecting
<v Speaker 1>anything earth shattering, which, you know whatever. That's why there's
<v Speaker 1>plenty of good games to play. Switch To is gonna
<v Speaker 1>be out that week. I'm gonna be fine over here,
<v Speaker 1>But I just think Summer Game Fest is feeling weird. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>The switch to being out the same week is like
<v Speaker 2>so fucking weird. Like the last time a console launched
<v Speaker 2>during a showcase was like the fucking Sega Dreamcast.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, god it was.
<v Speaker 2>It was the dream Cost right.
<v Speaker 1>The Saturn is the one where they're like, yeah, they
<v Speaker 1>launch out now, Yeah, and that was that was a
<v Speaker 1>shock to everybody. It was only in toys r us.
<v Speaker 1>It was a really bad move. I kind of doomed
<v Speaker 1>the Saturn from the start in the United States. Did
<v Speaker 1>all right in Japan though, because Ocehin uh Sgata Senchiro
<v Speaker 1>is that his name? Yeah? All right, let let's finish
<v Speaker 1>up with Mind's Eye. Uh, what is going on with
<v Speaker 1>this game? Mine's I Studios. Let's start here. Actually Mine's
<v Speaker 1>I Studios to be a poor place.
<v Speaker 2>Oh no, yeah please, here's my question for you. Yeah, now,
<v Speaker 2>looking at your notes, okay, wash is Mind's Eye?
<v Speaker 1>I mean, you know, my hunch from watching the trailers
<v Speaker 1>is it looks like a Grand Theft Auto clone where
<v Speaker 1>it takes place in the near future. Like it looks
<v Speaker 1>like it mixes and some call of duty stuff. Maybe
<v Speaker 1>because the guy's haircut.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know what is it, so you'd you're actually
<v Speaker 2>totally collect But if you had been paying attention to
<v Speaker 2>any of their marketing over the last three years, you
<v Speaker 2>would think that it is part of a metaverse platform.
<v Speaker 1>Right, that's Everywhere, right, yeah, everywhere And apparently okay, so
<v Speaker 1>I don't know, I didn't include that stuff. That was
<v Speaker 1>another story. So Everywhere was this platform that built a
<v Speaker 1>Rocket Boy founded by Leslie Benzi's and some other people.
<v Speaker 1>Leslie Benzy's worked on Grand Theft Auto Online. They had
<v Speaker 1>a bad breakup because Leslie Benzy's like, I'm fucking made
<v Speaker 1>this thing a grand theft thoughto online when you guys
<v Speaker 1>didn't want to the Housers, and I got it ready
<v Speaker 1>for launch and now it's the biggest fucking money maker ever.
<v Speaker 1>Had pay me and then they didn't, so he sued
<v Speaker 1>them and he left and he started Build a Rocket
<v Speaker 1>Boy and got a bunch of investment. And in the
<v Speaker 1>years while he was doing that, he was promoting this
<v Speaker 1>idea of Everywhere that was the name of this big
<v Speaker 1>metaverse thing that was going to have creation tools and
<v Speaker 1>all this other stuff. And they've gotten really quiet on
<v Speaker 1>Everywhere recently as Mind's Eye has sort of like replaced it,
<v Speaker 1>and now VGC reached out and said, hey, what about everywhere,
<v Speaker 1>And apparently build a Rocket Boy has told them that
<v Speaker 1>a lot of the everywhere functionality has been built into
<v Speaker 1>Mind's Eye, Which what does that even mean?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so it basically means that Mind's Eye, only on PC,
<v Speaker 2>has level creators, a really in depth level creation like
<v Speaker 2>Tony Hawk. Okay, yes, and that level creation will be
<v Speaker 2>used for online missions kind of like GJ Online. The
<v Speaker 2>catch is if you look at their twenty twenty five roadmap,
<v Speaker 2>which lists everything that will be in the at launch.
<v Speaker 2>In the game at launch is the story campaign, which
<v Speaker 2>apparently is about fifteen hours. It is these Play Mind's
<v Speaker 2>Eye missions. Play Mind's Eye is what they call their
<v Speaker 2>multiplayer side of things. It is three roam around the city,
<v Speaker 2>one bullet point two combat missions, six races, six more
<v Speaker 2>checkpoint racers, three drone racers, a Hord Mode map, and
<v Speaker 2>another Hord Mode map. If you get the Premium pass.
<v Speaker 2>What isn't in there? What isn't in there is multiplayer
<v Speaker 2>at launch, so you have the multiplayer missions, but it
<v Speaker 2>won't be until fall twenty twenty five that multiplayer capability
<v Speaker 2>is added to these missions. So when this game launches
<v Speaker 2>in two weeks time, it will have multiplayer missions that
<v Speaker 2>people can create and you can play.
<v Speaker 1>And that's like reiterate that when is this game out again?
<v Speaker 2>This game is out in two weeks. This game is
<v Speaker 2>down thirteen days. When this game launches, its future the
<v Speaker 2>future section of its roadmap is in Summer Special Collaboration,
<v Speaker 2>community updates, new missions, extra missions, new pack for the
<v Speaker 2>Premium Pass. Then in Fall it's new single player modes,
<v Speaker 2>which again, I still don't know how much of the
<v Speaker 2>story for this game is going to be in the
<v Speaker 2>story at launch, because if you look at old store
<v Speaker 2>pages for this game before they updated it and kind
<v Speaker 2>of disconnected it from Mind's Eye, they were saying that
<v Speaker 2>the story mode was going to be episodic. They're now
<v Speaker 2>saying it's a fifteen hour campaign. So I'm not sure
<v Speaker 2>what the ending to this game is going to fucking be,
<v Speaker 2>if it's going to actually be a full campaign, or
<v Speaker 2>if it's going to be like stay tuned for more
<v Speaker 2>rest of Fall multiplayer new missions, and then if you
<v Speaker 2>have the Premium Pass, extra missions and a new pack,
<v Speaker 2>whatever that means. Winter Special Collaboration pre rom updates, new missions,
<v Speaker 2>Major Adventure, Dartstream Universe.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, so they're just now. Eventually they just evolve and
<v Speaker 1>to generate into random words, is what it sounds like. Yeah, okay, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>go ahead.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know what this game is. I've spent hours
<v Speaker 2>over the last week trying to figure out what is
<v Speaker 2>in this game, what this game actually is, and what
<v Speaker 2>they are selling it is fifty dollars worth, noting it's
<v Speaker 2>not free to play. Originally, I think it was meant
<v Speaker 2>to be free to play, and it was meant to
<v Speaker 2>be within everywhere as a free to play experience. That
<v Speaker 2>no longer seems to be the case after Io Interactive
<v Speaker 2>picked up the publishing rights. And it's also what knowing
<v Speaker 2>this game has had some trailers. You might have seen
<v Speaker 2>the trailers. They are bizarre.
<v Speaker 1>They're bizarre, like they're not outright bad, but they there's
<v Speaker 1>a vibe about them that feels off, that feels like
<v Speaker 1>slap together, like it's hiding something. You know, who knows.
<v Speaker 1>You know, I'm not Leslie b Bensay's I'm not the closer.
<v Speaker 1>I'm not the one that gets the shit done. So
<v Speaker 1>maybe there's maybe we're missing something. Maybe we're not seeing
<v Speaker 1>the vision here of this game where apparently you play
<v Speaker 1>as Jay Usso with a machine gun and a GTA game.
<v Speaker 1>So let's check in with some people who work there,
<v Speaker 1>and you know, we can't confirm with some of these things,
<v Speaker 1>but let's just you know, read what's here. Mindzi Studio
<v Speaker 1>is reported to be a poor place to work. This
<v Speaker 1>is from Marcus Person at Game Reactor. Build a Rocket Boy.
<v Speaker 1>The studio behind the upcoming Mind's Eye and former Grand
<v Speaker 1>Theft Auto creator Leslie Binsay's new team has been in
<v Speaker 1>the news this after former employees raised the alarm that
<v Speaker 1>the studios in nightmarish workplace. On Glassdoor, a place where
<v Speaker 1>employees passed and president can anonymously review their workplace. The
<v Speaker 1>rating is a two point one out of five, with
<v Speaker 1>former developers highlighting a work culture characterized by excessive overtime,
<v Speaker 1>incompetent leadership, and internal conflict. In short, it doesn't sound good.
<v Speaker 1>Here are some of the reviews, the most toxic unethical
<v Speaker 1>senior leaders I've ever encountered. Another one said a sad
<v Speaker 1>but hyproduct of capitalism, and a third said lack of
<v Speaker 1>clear identity and structure. Now again, we can't corroborate these.
<v Speaker 1>They are anonymous. It is on glass door, although I
<v Speaker 1>do I would wonder what is the motivation of someone
<v Speaker 1>doing this. Well, people making the game have some ideas
<v Speaker 1>of motivation about who might be out behind it. Oh,
<v Speaker 1>go ahead please.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. It is worth noting as well that in twenty
<v Speaker 2>nineteen there was a second legal disparagement between Take two
<v Speaker 2>and Build a Rocket Boy. Basically Take to Scent a
<v Speaker 2>preemptive legal warning which I'm only kind of familiar with
<v Speaker 2>what that means, to Build a Rocket Boy warning them
<v Speaker 2>against the fact that they accuse them of attempting to
<v Speaker 2>solicit Rockstar Games employees, so basically claiming that they were
<v Speaker 2>poaching employees. I think it is really interesting that we
<v Speaker 2>have recently heard that the studio culture ash Rockstar has
<v Speaker 2>gotten much better, and then you look at the place
<v Speaker 2>where the people who exited Rockstar around twenty seventeen twenty
<v Speaker 2>nineteen ish went, and people are saying that the culture
<v Speaker 2>there is somewhat similar to how the Rockstar culture had
<v Speaker 2>been described in the past.
<v Speaker 1>Yep. Anyway, I you know, I find it hard to
<v Speaker 1>believe that that is true when they're doing things like this.
<v Speaker 1>Let's read this next story Mindsy Boss accuses competitors of
<v Speaker 1>pain for smear campaign. This is from Alex Coat Duel Shockers.
<v Speaker 1>When you have an action game directed by the former
<v Speaker 1>lead developer of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, chances our
<v Speaker 1>expectations will be sky high for it. Unfortunately, in the
<v Speaker 1>case of the upcoming game, Mind's Eye, it seems to
<v Speaker 1>have worked the other way around. Mind Size's development is
<v Speaker 1>being directed by Leslie Benziz, the former president of Rockstar North,
<v Speaker 1>and he acted as the lead developer on Grand Theft
<v Speaker 1>Auto three up through five. Unfortunately, bent for Benzy's and
<v Speaker 1>the studio, the reception for Mind's Eye so far has
<v Speaker 1>been less than stellar. Mark Gearhard, the co CEO of
<v Speaker 1>the studio developing Mind's Eye, suggests that the negative reaction,
<v Speaker 1>and these are from previews who are like this game,
<v Speaker 1>seems like it might might be a problem. He says
<v Speaker 1>that those negative reactions were due to a paid smear
<v Speaker 1>campaign against his studio. Previews for the game went up recently,
<v Speaker 1>and so far impressions haven't exactly been glowing. Over on Twitter,
<v Speaker 1>one user summarized some of the negative feedback, which mentioned
<v Speaker 1>reportedly a broken mess filled with bugs, A fifteen hour
<v Speaker 1>long story. Driving feels stiff, cut scenes look great and
<v Speaker 1>were well animated. Here there you go, paid smear campaign
<v Speaker 1>that likes the cut scenes, Enemy encounters lacked depth, and
<v Speaker 1>enemies just run at the player. Combat generally feels fine,
<v Speaker 1>very GTA like Arcadia is the content creation mode that
<v Speaker 1>you can get into by stepping into a portal only
<v Speaker 1>available for PC at launch. I mean it sounds like, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it sounds like an unfinished game, and a lot of
<v Speaker 1>previews called that out. I know some of the people
<v Speaker 1>that did some previews, and they sounded like they do
<v Speaker 1>about all their other other games. They're skeptical of where
<v Speaker 1>it's like, this seems like it's not going to come
<v Speaker 1>together in time for the launch, which is two weeks away. Again.
<v Speaker 1>But I'll tell you what. When I hear someone say
<v Speaker 1>this is a paid conspiracy smear campaign against me, and
<v Speaker 1>then I read other people on like there's a toxic
<v Speaker 1>work culture with unethical leadership, things start to fit together
<v Speaker 1>for me a little bit.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. And do you want to hear the actual messages
<v Speaker 2>because they're they're pretty wild.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>So on Discord, this is from a random Discord user
<v Speaker 2>who just has a bunch of letters as their name,
<v Speaker 2>and they kind of seem to start this out of nowhere.
<v Speaker 2>They just said, do you think that all the people
<v Speaker 2>who reacted negatively were financed by someone? Then Markhard, who
<v Speaker 2>is a moderation in the discord, replies to that comment. Yeah. One.
<v Speaker 2>Someone else then messages puts in a message that just
<v Speaker 2>says low. Mark then puts in another message that says,
<v Speaker 2>doesn't take much to guess who laugh and crying emoji.
<v Speaker 2>Someone tries to address this and says, a co ceo
<v Speaker 2>for a studio implying another studio is paying previewers to
<v Speaker 2>talk negatively about your game is an absolutely wild comment
<v Speaker 2>to make in a public environment in any situation. Mark
<v Speaker 2>replies to that as well, not wild when it's true
<v Speaker 2>dot Dash, and then a GGA YouTuber called game Role
<v Speaker 2>replies to that and says, so replies to this. Conversation
<v Speaker 2>goes on for a while, and then he says, so,
<v Speaker 2>just to clarify, you believe that individuals, be it content
<v Speaker 2>creators or otherwise, have been paid off to criticize Mind's Eye,
<v Speaker 2>and Gearhard responds, no, I never said that, Yes he did, Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I do not know that there are I do know
<v Speaker 2>that there are bot farms posting negative comments and dislikes,
<v Speaker 2>and then he left the child.
<v Speaker 1>All right, Uh yeah, to me, that sounds like the
<v Speaker 1>kind of grasp that you would expect a co CEO
<v Speaker 1>to have in a toxic work environment. So I mean, look,
<v Speaker 1>I don't know. I'm not there. I can't say for sure.
<v Speaker 1>It sounds like a goddamn mess, though, U Lexi, and
<v Speaker 1>I you know, I think I got that sense just
<v Speaker 1>looking at the initial Mind's Eye trailer, where it's like, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>it looks like a video game, but why it just
<v Speaker 1>felt cut, weird. It felt like it was hiding something,
<v Speaker 1>and I think what's hiding is there's not much to it.
<v Speaker 1>And then and then there's a lot of stuff missing
<v Speaker 1>from it that they promised to have, which you know,
<v Speaker 1>game development is hard. I get that, that's how that
<v Speaker 1>happens sometimes. All right, we're gonna well, we'll follow Mind's Eye. Well,
<v Speaker 1>you know, when this comes out, LEXI will have you
<v Speaker 1>back on the show. We'll catch up on it, and
<v Speaker 1>we'll see it. We'll see what happens. Then. I bet
<v Speaker 1>it's going to be interesting, unless it gets delayed, which
<v Speaker 1>feels like maybe could happen. I don't know, although I
<v Speaker 1>think the reason it's coming out and they have made
<v Speaker 1>all these changes and you know, got rid of everywhere
<v Speaker 1>or implemented everywhere into this is because they need to
<v Speaker 1>release a game, probably because they need to make some money.
<v Speaker 1>All right, let's get to the poll question. This is
<v Speaker 1>from yesterday. I have it right over here. Let me
<v Speaker 1>get it up so we can get the results for
<v Speaker 1>you all. Yep, what are you more excited for Switch
<v Speaker 1>to Launch or the SGF game announcements Summer Game Fest?
<v Speaker 1>Fifty two percent of people are more excited for game announcements.
<v Speaker 1>Forty eight percent of people are more excited for the
<v Speaker 1>Switch to Launch. I don't know. I kind of look
<v Speaker 1>at this it's like, are you more excited to play
<v Speaker 1>games than or to have games announced? Which for me,
<v Speaker 1>it's always going to be play games. But not everyone
<v Speaker 1>is looking at it that way. I'm sure a lot
<v Speaker 1>of people are like, I don't really care about anything
<v Speaker 1>at the Switch to lunch, So of course I'm not
<v Speaker 1>excited about that, and I can appreciate that, but I'm
<v Speaker 1>still kind of surprised that more than half of people
<v Speaker 1>are more excited about commercials.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, this makes sense because you know Giant Bomb
<v Speaker 2>hates Nintendo's content and hate Nintendo games. They never talk
<v Speaker 2>about across the board. Yeah, it's a real problem, and
<v Speaker 2>I think you've cultivated this kind of community that really
<v Speaker 2>doesn't respect Nintendo in the way that they should.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, I think you're right. You nailed it, and it's
<v Speaker 1>a failing of this website for sure. All right, new
<v Speaker 1>pot question in a second before we get there, Lex Slodi,
<v Speaker 1>why you tell people where they can find you on
<v Speaker 1>the internet, what you have going on and all of
<v Speaker 1>that good stuff.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you can find me at lex loody dash x
<v Speaker 2>y Z. I changed my hand along Blue Sky, so
<v Speaker 2>that's where you can find me now. I run sat menu,
<v Speaker 2>which is a website for helping people break into games
<v Speaker 2>media and games writing and things like that. I am
<v Speaker 2>also part of rewinder dot co dot uk, which is
<v Speaker 2>patreon dot com slash rewinder with an independent media outlet.
<v Speaker 2>We're going to be covering a bunch of switched to stuff.
<v Speaker 2>We're going to be covering Summer Games Fest. We're hoping
<v Speaker 2>to do some live streaming at some point. Me and
<v Speaker 2>Scott kind of want to do some of that, so
<v Speaker 2>that'll be fun. But it's very much, so a place
<v Speaker 2>that we can have like weird in depth discussions like
<v Speaker 2>me trying to figure out what the fuck minds I is.
<v Speaker 2>So you can read my ride up on mash and yeah,
<v Speaker 2>come check us out and see your work.
<v Speaker 1>All right. New poll question. Do you think PERSONA four
<v Speaker 1>will get announced at Summer Game Fest? I am. I
<v Speaker 1>think that's a possibility. It feels like it's a possibility.
<v Speaker 1>We'll see. We'll get the results of that. We'll talk
<v Speaker 1>about it here on Game mess Mornings tomorrow on Giant Bomb.
<v Speaker 1>Speaking of Giant Bomb, here's what we're doing later today
<v Speaker 1>voicemail dumb truck. I think we're also going to get
<v Speaker 1>some other stuff recorded in the hopper, take care of
<v Speaker 1>a few things for some embargos. So look out for
<v Speaker 1>more stuff on the site tomorrow, and then you know,
<v Speaker 1>games Mornings will back and then we'll have UPF. I
<v Speaker 1>think the plan for UPF is to play Roadcraft, although
<v Speaker 1>there's a chance I'm trying to work things out. Maybe
<v Speaker 1>we'll do Meldering Night Rain as well. Live Uh, We're
<v Speaker 1>going to see. It'll depend, but definitely some Roadcraft starting
<v Speaker 1>at three pm Eastern tomorrow, that'll be noon Pacific, all right,
<v Speaker 1>I think with all that out of the way, Lexi,
<v Speaker 1>thank you so much for hanging out with me today
<v Speaker 1>and talk about video games.
<v Speaker 2>I really appreciate it anytime. Oh hey, did you know
<v Speaker 2>wind Wake is good? Has anyone talked about this before?
<v Speaker 1>You're just playing wind Waker?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, first time, it's real good.
<v Speaker 1>It's very good. Yeah I've heard. I've heard that before
<v Speaker 1>once once or twice in my life. Thank you all
<v Speaker 1>for listening and watching. You're the best audience in gaming.
<v Speaker 1>Until next time, have a good one, take care of
<v Speaker 1>yourself and goodbye. He'll be like a gon't be beer