The Weekly Download

Is Game Pass too expensive? Xbox’s new CEO Asha Sharma says YES!

• Big Games Machine • Season 1 • Episode 26

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The Weekly Download by Big Games Machine is your essential weekly speedrun through the biggest stories in the global video games industry. 

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Hosted by industry experts, Tom Heath and Alex Beech, we break down the most intriguing, complex, and vital developments of the week to keep you informed.

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SPEAKER_00

The weekly download, podcast about interesting game industry news.

SPEAKER_02

Brought to you by Big Games Machine.

SPEAKER_00

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to the weekly download by Big Games Machine. I am your host, Tom, and yet again today I am joined by Alex. Alex, do you want to give everyone a quick hello?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, hello. Hello. I'm Alex. I'm back again. Once again in the in the co-host chair rather than the host chair, which is so much more relaxed. Thank you for always taking a chance to get out of here. Yeah, I know. It's more fun over there, I feel.

SPEAKER_00

But yeah, we're we're back familiar.

SPEAKER_01

One day we should swap and I should lead, and you should at least for once enjoy the co-host chair because you were always hosting. But we'll get you on the show.

SPEAKER_00

Do you want to lead today? No. Oh, okay. Right. There we go. Got shut down very quickly. But yes, if you're new here, what we like to do here with the weekly download is do a wrap-up, a run-through of some of the week's biggest stories in gaming. And this week, as always, there are big stories. So we'll take a quick look at the the over uh the headlines for this week. So we've got the news that Xbox is reportedly shaking up Game Pass and its approach to exclusive games. We've got another story, yeah. Again, not for the first time. We've also got the news via New Zoo that over 50% of PC revenue, for the first time, I should note, is coming from games outside the the top 20. And so the the biggest players in the industry are continuing to lose out on PC to smaller games. Not all of them are small, but not the massive games that we typically see. The broadcast is everywhere.

SPEAKER_01

And that is the story I'm going to have the most to say about.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I look forward to hearing it, Alex. That's what we're here for. And our final lead story for this week is the news around a copycat of Hightail has appeared on the eShop. The original developers are set to take legal measures about this. We're also going to be looking about this as a wider point. It's a big issue on the eShop, and there definitely needs to be a conversation about that. But anyway, we'll take a moment, we'll come back to the show. Not just the eShop. Not just the eShop. No, not just the eShop. No, we're seeing it on the PlayStation store, we're seeing it on the Xbox store, and we're seeing it on Steam. And so it's a very big topic. And we are going to kick off this week's episode with the story that is coming out from Xbox this week that they're looking at shaking up Game Pass and, as we said, its approach to exclusive games. Now, this has emerged because of internal memos and a comment comments from a few in the know reporters who have some inside information about Xbox, who suggest that Xbox itself is reconsidering its two biggest pillars, that being the price and the plans associated with Game Pass, as well as the future of platform exclusivity or lack thereof, which is of course what we see at the moment. Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma recently stated in an internal memo that, and I quote, Game Pass has become too expensive for players and suggested that it should be a more flexible system and that it should be less rigid than the current tiered pricing. Also, to add to this, Jez Corden of Windows Central, who is a notorious voice of authority on Xbox, he has said that there's been, and again, I quote, some very, very, very big discussions going on internally at Xbox about which games will be exclusive, which games will come to PlayStation and Switch. Something that isn't here is there's no mention of PC. I imagine whatever happens, especially because of Project Helix, that Microsoft will be considering PC and Xbox has essentially its first party hardware. But that's that's the story. Alex, I'll I'll open up the floor. Do you have any thoughts on this one?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean the the price jump was so notable when they jumped into it that it it like it instantly made you think, okay, it's gone from being if you buy one or two games a year, you're kind of making money off of Game Pass to four AAA games a year, which when you look at what a lot of casual players look at is probably more than they would commit to. Like you you hear stories of like, it's my FIFA machine and I have GTA, or it's my GTA machine, and occasionally I get FIFA, and stories like this. And the moment you stepped outside of that and you're in this kind of weird place of do I subscribe to Game Pass and get these and then play a bit more, or do I just buy the two games I want to play and then buy the lowest tier Xbox Live, I guess is what I would have called is it still Xbox Live, just the the online past?

SPEAKER_00

I feel so old. I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you know, it because they read it. Yeah, okay, maybe game pass. Because PlayStation, it's PlayStation Essentials. I I I stepped out at the Xbox and I had Game Pass then.

SPEAKER_00

I was gonna say, I think we're well we're well past the I have core memories growing up. Not I was PlayStation um all the way through, always have been. Um I have these core memories of of growing up and and having friends that were like, oh I I need like another week of of Xbox Live. And it was like Xbox Gold, and I I think it's all one thing now. Uh but it it is tiered, like you can just access. Yeah. Yeah, well that that's that's part of I I think the issue. And I think this is one of the things that Asher Sharmer has come in and is very keen to fix, perhaps. It it asks a question to me of are we are we at the point now where there's the universal take that the the the classic Netflix for games model, this idea that subscriptions were the future and there wasn't going to be a place for non-subscription monetization. These kind of comments from Xbox do make me think: is that over now? Have we seen the the crest of that and and we're gonna see things step back?

SPEAKER_01

I haven't read this specific reporting. I mean, I saw bits of it, but I I haven't gone through everything that was on Windows Central to because I know there was also talk about like having some form of ad support. I can't remember what that was part of it. But you know, you you do look at where I think gaming falls apart on the Netflix subscription model is how much it costs, how long it takes to produce those games, and and how many people play them. Like I say, the the biggest issue here is more the way people consume games than it is the idea that this is a good value. So, you know, obviously the one thing that hit Xbox or or hit Microsoft this year was in part that it's been the worst call year for Call of Duty pretty much since Modern Warfare 300. Yeah. Or sorry, Modern Warfare 1. So, you know, absolute decades of dominance, and suddenly maybe there are that many people playing it, but you can't see it through the sales data, and it kind of is folded into this weird place. It it no doubt is a hit for people involved.

SPEAKER_00

It it's it's a marketing beat that they couldn't lean on, and it's notable by its absence, which is you know, well, yeah, we we've seen forgive me if it wasn't this week, but I I believe it was this week that we've seen things again emerging from Xbox about regardless of the wider game pass conversation, they're not entirely convinced that Call of Duty on Game Pass is the right idea. And that's something where it seems that they're quite keen to say, hang on, we're losing a lot of money here by doing this. Do we and this is why I I come back to these things that Asher Sharmer is saying internally by all accounts, which is that we do need to look at Game Pass. Do we have a system where yeah, you get these games day one, and that's how much this costs, but we cannot we cannot justify taking such a massive IP like Call of Duty. I know you said that it had a bad year last year. A bad year for Call of Duty is still a good year for 99, obviously, and I know you know that, but just to frame it to be clear, yes. Yeah, just just to to frame it like that, it does, you know, it it really does make me think, okay, well then Call of Duty could go if you take that off Game Pass, what else goes? And then we look at the question of this exclusivity talk, which is you'd imagine that if Xbox are looking to bring exclusives back, I wonder, and it's something I've made a note of in in the show notes for today, will we see something like Sony have done where the big multiplayer live service games still arrive on all platforms, but the prestige single player games and I noted Starfield down, obviously the irony being Starfield has launched on PS5 and yesterday got rated for Nintendo Switch 2, so Starfield wouldn't be one. But will we see a Sony-esque swing back to protecting IP and and making Project Helix appeal to people because of its exclusive?

SPEAKER_02

Maybe. Yes, no. It's a big question.

SPEAKER_01

I think I think there's something in there where where this is part of the reason to move back to exclusives would ha would also require them to rethink what the PC element looks like. Because obviously, you know, there's this kind of idea that it's a natural fit, you know, you put them on the Windows Store, and that's where you also have access to Game Pass, or you or you're buying Game Pass there. But a large reason, you know, PlayStation obviously has essentially the same offering. Yes, the the day one exclusives aren't there, but pretty much if you're wanting to wait six months to a year, pretty much all Sony first-party games are on their top level. Yeah, they've I think in their mid-level piss.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, in in in this month's the one of the monthly games, which is the lowest tier, is the remaster of Horizon Zero Dawn. So as you said, they don't come that quickly, but there's been quite a few that have like Spider-Man, they've been on there and so a lot of bigger games have.

SPEAKER_01

Includes like the bigger games as well. Yeah, yeah. Like it like first party. If you've got to wait a little longer, it's that day one element that may be, you know, maybe Xbox has to remove that. And you know, day one, you're not gonna get extra everything. We're gonna drop that pricing down there, and then people who need that day one access will either buy for it. Day one, obviously, but also you bring but then you do have to bring down the price of Xbox Live because the game pass because that's hard to just I think it's 30 now, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00

I think last year it was 50% the increase, yeah, which I I do think was them looking at Call of Duty and being like, oh god. And then like all the Bethesda games arriving, and then they're like it's like you said to start this conversation, Alex, the with Game Pass, Game Pass is good value if you're going to get through the games. But if you're not, and if you're a casual player, there's no point buying it. And also, unless you're even if you're a very I I never like to say the hardcore casual, but if you are a hardcore player who loves Bethesda games, loves all these big first party games that come to Game Pass, even with that in mind, because of how much it does cost now, unless you know you're going to play all those games, and unless you want to play them straight away, you are better off waiting for them to get cheaper outside of Game Pass. So I think there is a real problem here for Xbox because Phil Spencer's Xbox very much tied itself to Game Pass. Game Pass kind of became Xbox in a roundabout way, where it feels like now they're they're very keen to distance themselves from I think that kind of all-encompassing if you play Xbox, you play it anywhere, and you play it with Game Pass, I think they're trying to disconnect each other.

SPEAKER_01

There was a moment where you know somebody coming into gaming, if somebody came like I bought a PlayStation at the beginning of this generation and the last one, not through any other reason, that's the platform I was on, but and and that's what a lot of my friends are buying, and if you're playing multiplayer, yada yada yada. But I, you know, some people ask me, like, what should I get? And for a while there, I was like, you should get an Xbox. Like for 15, 10, 15 quid a month, you have access to this massive library of games. Especially if they have kids, you can dip in, dip out, like whatever's up that they're probably gonna have access to. And you don't have to worry about games then. Yes, it's but when you put the price up to where it is, it becomes a tax on having an Xbox as opposed to an amazing value add on having an Xbox. And that's a real big shift, especially for and I guess that's the other side of it. The kids aren't gonna play all those games for massive amounts, neither are they really gonna get the most out of those games. But having access to dozens of games allows people to jump around when you get the I'm bored. It's like play a different game then.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. But then yeah, I'm keen to move on to our next story, but I I think my not my retort to that, but I think it's yeah, we I think I'm not gonna speak for everyone who plays games or watches films, or I think there was such an appeal to the the net the Netflix-ifying of everything about a decade ago. And now I think and it's the same with something like Game Pass, it's okay as you've made the point of oh, you can play so much stuff, but I go on Netflix and I look at 95% of the stuff in the Netflix library, and it's not a question of quality, but it's like I'm not interested in most of this stuff, so it doesn't really matter what there is, and I don't think that's the same issue for Game Pass, but I think there is and it's the same with Sony. Obviously, Nintendo have an approach where they don't give you new games, they give you all the retro stuff, which is an appeal of itself. But it is the same with Sony where yeah, there's all these games I can access, but I've got like an hour a day, anyway. And you know, even if even if you're a kid, it's like, well, where are you what are you gonna commit the time to when you've got a thousand games? So but anyway, anyway.

SPEAKER_01

Don't know what happened there. Xbox put themselves in a weird place with their pricing model, and uh like I say, it changed what they offered, and you're absolutely right. For a while there, the idea of a Netflix of games was incredibly appealing. But even Netflix has shown that once you start having more competition and more people taking it off and trying to mimic that, it just gets broken down into so many parts of the amazing value it once offered evaporates. Um I I think there is a a path through here. There's probably levels that Xbox can offer that make more sense than the way it is, but I think at whatever level you're looking at, the price they're currently charging isn't gonna be a great fit for many people at all.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And this this this this could be a great move by Ashishana. True.

SPEAKER_00

And I I think we'll leave it there because I think that's a great place to end it. Yeah, we've seen Sharma come in, it's not been long now, but whether you like it or you don't, it's very clear that Xbox is going to change. And her vision for it is very different to well, her vision and her team's vision is very different to what Phil Spencer's was. So it'll be yeah, I know I've said it before on this podcast, I want a strong Xbox. Doesn't matter if I'm not interested in the platform, strong Xbox is good for the industry. So fingers crossed that we'll we'll see some of these changes potentially come in and they can have a good impact. And welcome back. Our next story sees us explore the news that again, courtesy of Newzu, over 50% of PC revenue for the first time is coming from games outside the traditional top 20. So the the kind of headlines we're working with here games ranked 21st and below in in this system that New Zoo have got now account for 56% of PC total revenue. This is up from 48% in 2022. We're not just looking at the money either. If we look at playtime in four years, 8% in four years, when we look at playtime, playtime is even more staggering. So playtime for games outside that traditional top 20 has risen from 33% to 45% in just three years. Now, this is all PC. Consoles are still dominated by that traditional top 20. But what we're seeing is that that PC players are really starting to look into their libraries, try different games out. Again, really quickly, because I I'm aware you've got some thoughts on this, Alex. Just for a few, again, a few a bit of information about who's winning, who's losing on PC. We're seeing that shooters are losing their absolute stranglehold, as I've written in my notes, on the market. Action RPGs and survival games are kind of becoming the new, the new in thing, the new trend. And again, that's interesting is success isn't just for new games, for these new hits that are doing well. We're still seeing that forever games, so Rust, Daisy, Dead by Daylight, are doing really well. And something else that it is the fact that games like Cyberpunk, Elden Ring, and even Skyrim, even Skyrim are still generating more revenue than a lot of newcomers who want to challenge this top 20. So and and they're they're kind of making up part of that 56% uh for some context. And I think that's one of the things you're going to discuss, Alex, but I'm I'll open the floor. What are your thoughts on this?

SPEAKER_01

Well, I don't know if we should be doing a victory lap for these games outside the top 20 or still commiserating, is kind of where I sit on it, because we know how many games were released on PC in that same five-year period, and we are talking many. I think we'd be in the hundreds of thousands in that period, is that right? Or is it twenty It's a lot, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I think we'd say probably like 70,000 on Steam, it's probably like conservative for Steam. Yeah, conservative for Steam, I'd say 70,000, let's say, pulling a number out of the air, but I don't think that's To me, to me, what I think is interesting is this is less about and I we've seen a few times where it would be like, oh you know, indie games are all of a sudden making all the money in the world and no one cares about AAA anymore. That's obviously not the case. I do think though it's interesting that so if we're looking at games outside that top 20, the the biggest ones in that 20 will be the big live service games, won't they? It'll be the you know, if we're looking at Steam, it'll be Counter-Strike, it'll be, you know, the as we've said, some of these games like Rust, Daisy, these games that kind of soak up players and have done so for years. So I think there's a positive there in the fact that the revenue isn't just staying with those games. People are playing stuff. I'd question, and I'm sure this is what you'd question as well, which games are they playing then? Because we've got here that the games that something like Cyberpunk, it's old, which is why it's outside that top 20. It's not as if CD Project Red are all of a sudden this flourishing new studio, this big underdog. And I'm sure that when the new Witcher comes out, it will very easily be in that top 20. But yeah, I think there's still a win there.

SPEAKER_01

I should say to redress this, we we might have over egged it. It's probably close to 40 to 50,000, just pulled up some numbers quickly because I don't want to completely misrepresent that. My my dyslexia moving some commas within the the numbers that I was thinking about. We'll allow it. We'll allow it. Yeah. But even then, if you're thinking of like top 20 games in that, the the number of games then buying for what is now what 56% of the market that are also within that, competing with, as you say, Cyberpunk, Rust, Silksong. I think it doesn't and i i I'm sure for the games in that top 20 that the reduction that they are therefore seeing is perhaps a little more worrying because what you're looking at is a shrinking amount of profit. How much can we invest in making our game hit that hit that top 20? But you know, that does come with the market. 80% is a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. The gaming market. Actually, again, because this is since 2022, I don't know how much the market's grown in that time. Like I I don't if it was year on year, I'd have more in kind of my my mind as to what that growth looked like. But that is a I suspect that's more worrying for the people in the top 20 than it. It's more worrying for the people in the top 20 than it is good news for the people below that. Yeah, because the the the level of growth in terms of number of games releasing is increasing up more than 8%, whereas the amount of money coming in isn't going up by that 8%.

SPEAKER_00

I think that's why to me the playtime is almost the more interesting data here. Because I I I think we've we've seen that the the meta, the way to get that success, the way the meta approach to doing well has changed a lot. And I think that I look at the this playtime jump being so significant, and I think probably a lot of that. Will be not in the those bigger games that sit in people's backlogs, but some of these newer, something like the friend slop, the explosion in in the kind of co-op, really simple, really easy to engage with games that do really well on streaming platforms. I think that's probably something that comes into the playtime. But I think if we if we then all of this has been about PC, if we go and compare this to consoles, e station revenue in 2025, 38% of that was from those lower-ranked games outside of the top 20 on PlayStation. That's a 5% rise from 2022. So still, it's not grown as much as the PC has. So that's it's it's lagging behind with revenue, but we're really seeing an explosion in players moving out of those big games on consoles to a much greater degree in terms of where they're playing and the time they're putting in. Xbox in comparison, 12%. Uh that's the revenue for their non-top 20, which on the surface doesn't look great. But we've spoken about Game Pass today. I think that Game Pass is making games visible, these smaller games visible, but it's not necessarily converting into sales. But we won't speak about Game Pass again, um, because I think we've already spent too much time discussing Game Pass.

SPEAKER_01

But I be I'm sure there's going to be more data that is kind of pulled from this. I I it might be something we revisit as that comes out, because I haven't read through the New Zoo report yet, even though you gave me a full hour's warning of what today's talking points were. I had other things on.

SPEAKER_00

I've not I've not read the whole report.

SPEAKER_01

I've not read the whole report. It's like how many games does being in the top 20 account for? It can't be I I doubt it's the top 20 for the last like it must be rotating a bit, games that have entered that top 20 in that time. But by the same metric, we know that the top 10 nearly always reports. Pretty much the same. Eight or nine games. Yeah. So it's this weird place. I I remain thinking like it's great, like any inroad you can make to add diversity to the market i is better for everybody at the low end, but I still think that's massive dominance when you're looking if you're looking at the top 20, let's say in total accounting for let's be generous, 50 games over that period of time, that's still a fraction of the percent of the number of games released. And yes, it's we're talking about a lot of money.

SPEAKER_00

I think that it's an impossible thing to solve, though, isn't it? I th I think the reality is, and I don't need to tell you this, Alex, I don't need to tell anyone. The reality is that the most play games, the games which make the most money, are going to continue to be, in most cases, legacy titles that are live service or have enough of a pull to keep people engaged with them. You look at not that World of Warcraft is part of this conversation, but as something as an example, you look at something like World of Warcraft. It's 20 years old at this point, and it's still punching more than. I'll go with 20 because then it sounds oh I'm not gonna look when that came out. It holds that position and nothing's really going to compete with it. But I think you know, to wrap all this up, I think it's great that we are seeing that you know that those games that are concentrated at the top doesn't matter to me as much where that revenue's going. I think it's at least good that it's heading in different directions. Although the the cynic in me says, well, how many of these outside the top 20 are run by the same publishers in the top 20 anyway? So is anything really being achieved? But no, it is interesting. I think anything really being achieved. Last week's episode was so positive. We have to be negative again this time. But yeah, I I think I think the comparisons with the consoles are really interesting. I think we know that traditionally I think the Switch did a good job of fighting this to some degree, but I think we know that traditionally leading into the next story. Yeah, exactly. That Steam has been a place where the the unfashionable games or anything that's not mainstream, first party does well. We know that Steam is where that can happen. Yes. So I you know that it makes total sense. But I think we'll have you got any closing thoughts, Alex, or shall we wrap it up?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, another bit of good news in that is that um you were close to right than I was. Uh World of Warcraft is 21 years old, and I now feel younger than I did at the start of this uh podcast. So that that that's good.

SPEAKER_00

Was it 2005 then? I thought it was 2004. 2004. Okay. Yeah, it's this year. There we go. I'm happy with that. Of course it's birthdays this year, the 22nd on the first days this year. That I remembered when World of Warcraft came out, having never played it and I didn't play. I think I must have been confusing it with EverQuest, which put a few more years on it. Yeah, EverQuest is like early 2000s, isn't it?

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, maybe even. Anyway, anyway, we're not we won't get into this. We will not get into this. We're gonna step away and then we're gonna come back and look at this eShop copycat situation. Okay, our final story this week is the news that a copycat of Hightail, which launched earlier this year, of course, the uh the former Riot Games Published now independent project, a copycat of that has been released on the eShop, and the original developers of uh at Hypixel Studios have confirmed they are set to take legal measures. So, some background on what we're dealing with here. A game called Hightail Sandbox RPG appeared on the North American eShop. I confirmed it's on the European eShop as well on the 10th of April. Has absolutely no affiliation with Hypixel Studios, the real creators of Hightail, which is only available on PC, which is I think a point we need to consider. The developer of this copycat is listed as Roe v. Nienen. The store page uses Kia and a title that's clearly designed to trick fans. If you go and look at the Kiart, it is framed in the exact same way as the free uh as the Kia for Hightail. So very deliberate what's going on here. But the studio founder, Hypixel Studios founder, Simon Collins LaFlam, confirmed on X that their legal team is already moving to have it pulled. Now, Roey has a history of asset flipping and cloning trending indies on the eShop. They've done it before with Mage Battle Arena, which is a clear clone of Mage Arena, as well as CoinPit, which is a direct clone of Clover Pit. Um, again, both of these yet to come to switch. But all of this to me raises questions about Nintendo. Of course, it's not just Nintendo. We know that PlayStation have this issue, Microsoft do. But the certification process is mobile, like we always talk about very prevalent on mobile. It's everywhere. We we're seeing a lot more stories now about it, but for years there's been this constant stream of clones, copycats, whatever you want to call them, and other similarly styled shovelware filling up the digital shops.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, it it goes right the way back to physical media. Like you you the the swarm, and and this has kind of shifted, and we always talk about like when games are released and things, and not to do my old man bit, but like when I worked in game and game station, you'd see at this you know, Christmas window, you'd see all these games come out that all had not similar names, but like Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, they they kind of fit into a mould. Uh it the joke was always the grandparent comes in, you know, that point when grandparents might not have had an Xbox, whereas now that can be a thing, would come in and be like, Oh, I would need the war game, and Medal of Honor is close enough to Call of Duty that maybe you get bought the wrong one gets purchased, right? And it it's that kind of and it sits in that. Let's not disparage Medal of Honor, though. Well the later Medal of Honor games were a problem. The early ones actually surpassed the first one. Yeah, I do Spielberg did the direction for the I don't condone any Medal of Honor game released after the PlayStation 2 generation. Yeah, I had to do a review of one of those when the day one patch was necessary. Anyway, we're completely off topic there. But the the change in that is that how quickly the games can iterate. You know, with a lot of the engine, with a lot of game engines now, it's quite easy to quickly get out something that looks similar enough. Because Medal of Honor was of a quality. Even with my joke about day one patches being necessary, it was still the quality to get to get out there. To get onto a digital storefront with something similar enough to trick somebody into grabbing you and to have that money grab is now a far lower barrier with the quality of what you're selling being equally that much lower, and that's where some of the problem lies.

SPEAKER_00

And it's I remember three It does just make me think though, where are the platform holders? Like, how are these not getting stopped? Because I think there's I think people are are too quick to label everything that's not a Nintendo game or a big game as like shovelware or any of these kind of accusations. Obviously, that there's a difference between someone making a game that isn't great versus doing this, which is incredibly deliberate and and obvious to me that I I cannot understand how they're clearly not getting checked manually because they're managing to at an alarming rate, they're managing to get onto storefronts and until developers themselves are stepping in, and there might be developers who don't have the capabilities to take legal action, and if they don't, then you've got a situation here where people who aren't informed are buying a game thinking, oh, it's hightail on the Switch now, and they're not getting that. And that's why I think these publishers are very clever as well, because they're they're putting games onto storefronts when the the the real game to say isn't available yet. So it if anyone is interested in it and they make a small mistake or they don't check, they think they're getting this game because it's not available on their platform and they're ended up with something that's I can't imagine that hightail sandbox RPG is a very good game.

SPEAKER_01

Well, again, we don't know. I think I I think that the ac y you've hit kind of hit the nail on the head in that essentially these guys flew too close to the sun. But they could have likely changed a few bits in there, and it could be like, okay, you we can see you're ripping it off, but you're not damaging in fact that's the issue, I suppose. You're not damaging the actual brand by having the same name. We I I know when this story came up we discussed that um the old story of the Switch game that looked like The Last of Us. Yeah, the The Last Hope, I think. Yeah, The Last Hope, which j which ripped off the kind of visual style of the the pack art and was an absolutely awful game by all accounts. But you know, at the very least it sat in a grey area where we should take it down because it's useless and Sony have enough money to go after it, but that it wasn't damaging a brand in the same way that this could be if it's really, really poor. Clones are common, some of it's shovelware. I think most people in the industry know that at some point you're taking ideas from somebody else and iterating and improving or polishing or combining, so you can't start saying like clones are inherently bad, but yeah, that there comes something when it's this kind of fast turnaround.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, when it is so egregious, yeah, it feels like to me it's quite an easy win for the platform holders. I think Sony have given themselves a lot of good PR recently because they've pulled, and I don't want to overestimate or underestimate, but I I'm fairly sure Sony have pulled a few thousand games from the PlayStation store for the same reasons that these kind of games are being called out because they've got no place being on the store because they don't resemble whatever they're claiming to be. And I think it's the point you made, Alex. One of the issues that collectively we face with stuff like this is it's so easy now to an idea, you know, a game comes out, it does really well, and the studios out there like Roe v Ninen, Nine N clearly are doing is taking those great ideas, slapping something together really quickly, similar name, similar key art, the screenshots don't matter because the key art's what people see, and they're making they must be making money off of it, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it.

SPEAKER_01

But it's the responsibility of the platform holders to step in and it is, but it it kind of like what what does that what does that look like as you scale up? It's kind of one of the one of the reasons that and one of the reasons I don't use the storefront on the play date generally, is because I want the just very quickly, if you don't know what the play date is, it's basically like a little Game Boy that has a crank handle, and when it released it had a season of games on it. I know you know, Tom, you sat there nodding for me. You had a season of games, and then they released a second season recently. I don't know if it was a year or two years later, like it was a while, but those were a curated list of games from you know developers and things that they kind of said these are the ones you should have. Yes, there's the storefront where you can buy individual games, but that curated list that play date bundled together is what I want. Because that was the experience I kind of bought into as the concept. Platform, and that used to be kind of what the platform holders were to an extent. Like at least, you know, you because you had to go through the physical media element, which meant you know there was at a certain level they needed to get a license to be able to use all of the bits to do that. The moment we went digital, that all kind of initially was low, and then see like XBLA came along, lowered the barrier and seasonal arcade, and then and now there's no barrier to open it. Yeah, the floodgates are open. Like, how how do you stop that? You're there with your play date crank trying to shut it. Get that gate shut. Yeah, on top of every on top of everything, like where do you draw a line? Like, is it too visually similar? Is it that the game's bad? Is it that it's a complete copycat? Like it's such a hard thing now for any platform holder to have any kind of real control of when you see so many things coming in.

SPEAKER_00

It is. I I think this is a good example though, where it's it's so clear what's happening. Because they have history, I think that it's almost like if you were smarter about this and you were doing this under different names and such, it it wouldn't be that obvious. But when when you go on this publisher's eShop profile and every single game that they've got, you can chuck it in Google and be like, okay, what's the actual game? And then the real one pops up.

SPEAKER_01

But but maybe that's it. Maybe like what PlayStation did recently or Sony did recently, it has to be retroactive. Like it's like, okay, these games have really low reviews, the storefront is an absolute state. We saw this retroactively, it comes down. I don't know whether that means it remains in people's libraries and it's always there to download if you want it there, or if you can't, you unlikely you can refund it because obviously you've got to be taking money that's already been spent and taken by the developer. But like maybe there's something there because the storefronts are becoming more and more unwieldy and yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I I mean you you made the point with the play date, but I don't I don't think many people use I think the PlayStation store is quite good. Obviously, Steam's great, but in terms of like the eShop, there's you've got the stuff that's on sale, and then there's no real attempt to to filter it. And I think it's they clearly with the launch of the Switch 2 wanted to try and do it better. But the problem is you're still seeing but you're still seeing all the Switch games anyway, which is where all these are coming from. So you it it it it doesn't feel like a a great solution really. Um but we'll we'll see how we'll see how this develops. It'll be I think if Hypixel can come out of this as with a victory, I think it will give a lot of other developers the the the confidence, I guess, to try something similar. Yeah, which which would be good. Um like we said it the platform holders have a role here, but that's in the ideal world. I think the reality is that a lot of this is going to have to be studios complaining when they see it. Yeah and seeing how people respond. And welcome to this week's rapid rundown. We've got a few stories to touch on. The first of these is around Graveyard Keeper, which, if you're not familiar, was a kind of Stardew Valley-esque um graveyard keeping game, if you can imagine, that launched a long time ago, like 2017-2018. Tiny Build, who is the publisher, they recently announced the sequel. At the same time, they also made Graveyard Keeper 100% off, so free, on Steam. And one of the really interesting takeaways from this is that the head of Tiny Build has come out and said, Oh yeah, we generated a quarter of a million in this period because of the DLC. Which I don't know about you, Alex, but this feels to bring up Game Pass again. This kind of feels a bit like the Game Pass promise of get it free on Game Pass, we've got expansions, though, and you'll want to buy into that. And I think it's it's very clever business because it is essentially saying rentry's free. Try that, and if you like it, look at all this other stuff that we can monetize.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, Destiny did it a number of times on PlayStation Plus, like that the monthly free game, right? You put out the base game, then if you want to, you can dabble in it, do the shooting, do the story, and then if you really want to play with your friends, you've got to be in the new season. So it's a little less, it it feels a little more virtuous than that. I I don't want to attach a negative term to what that really did. They gave you a free game, fine. But like this feels a bit more virtuous in the sense that they gave you a full free game, and if you enjoyed it, there's more to play. You can buy that, which is fantastic.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I don't I don't I think everyone's winning here. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01

I will say the the the problem, sorry, the the problem with putting it for free is that, and I don't know if you've experienced this, Tom, but my kind of Google Discover thing that is the you know, if you go onto Google, it tells you stories you might be interested in. That is constantly filled with you can get this game entirely for free, and then you click through and it's always a demo. To always the demo is like play for free. Yeah, there's a few So somebody saying to me you can play this game for free now on Steam. I'm I've stopped clicking through on those. So I missed this because of the state of the feed.

SPEAKER_00

Unfortunately, I think I might have this in I think I have it on Steam. I probably have it somewhere as well, to be fair. Yeah, I was gonna say you'll definitely have this from like a humble bundle in June 2019 or something that you just never looked at. But yeah, that's our that's I I thought just a nice story. Uh yeah, it's lovely. Something that's less nice. I think this is quite funny, uh, aside from the fact that there's allegations of fraud, which isn't a sentence I thought I'd be saying.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I I must admit, I I I was just I I hadn't got to the quick hit, and all I saw was faces allegations. I was like, where's this gonna go that it could possibly be funny?

SPEAKER_00

It's all good. So Stephen Shariff, founder of the now defunct Intrepid Studios, is facing allegations from investors that he has misappropriated over twelve million dollars that came from the ashes of creation Kickstarter funds. So on the surface, not not a great story, but what I do think is really interesting here is if you dive into some of the specifics about where some of the the money went, we've got so$700 was apparently spent on Fortnite that was claimed to be for RD purposes, tens of thousands spent at historical auctions. There's also an allegation that$80,000 was paid to uh an oil company because it was the deed owner of a mansion that he bought. There's also things about private chefs. It's I mean it's it's quite a claim. We've also, yeah, private chefs, cigars, trading cards.

SPEAKER_01

Tw 12 million is a lot of money.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, it's a lot to spend on trading cards amongst uh uh among other things. But yeah, this this is kind of going up to the top level, and it doesn't seem like there's much chance that Stephen is going to come out of this well if these allegations are true. But yeah, it's uh normally kick I mean Kickstarters sometimes people love Kickstarter, sometimes people don't like it. Stories like this don't help. No, no, this does feel like a bit Of a rogue situation with what we normally see. From Kickstarter.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it is not just Kickstarter, I think. I think some of that must have been from investors as well, because the Kickstarter's funds did not total 12 million, which is probably where the investors have a lot more to say about it. But no, uh, Kickstarter had you know, obviously the issue with Kickstarter is that you're you're backing it before there's much to to prove what's there when it comes to often when it comes to games, you know, people are looking to fund development. We've seen that blow up on both ends, people getting too much, people getting too little, not knowing how to do everything. But I think in this case, I mean the game's out, clearly the game is out. I feel like Kickstarter's the small incredible, like they got so many backers, they obviously drove it through, and I suspect had the game been better, because looking on Steam, it's overwhelmingly negative and mostly negative in terms of its reviews, I think had it been better and made that money back, the investors would have had a bit less to say about the fact that the 12 million.

SPEAKER_00

For the for the record, because I think we need to say it. This is Stephen Sharif denies all these allegations. I think when I look through the PC Gamer article, what I found most fascinating was that the the original source for this news has compiled all of this data into a Google sheet. So that we will share the PC Gamer article. If you want to go into the PC Gamer article, you can open a Google Sheet, which has every single one of these charges in. And when you were talking to Alex, I did look to see if I could find the Fortnite ones, and they are in there. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I wonder if that's like one of those situations where you're like you buy something for yourself and then you're like, oh no, the Amazon account was still on my company card. Oh no.

SPEAKER_00

Not more V-Bucks, but yeah, it's it is what it is, isn't this?

SPEAKER_01

Keep in mind those V-Bucks are now worth more since Epic changed it to a.

SPEAKER_00

So maybe it was an investment in V-Bucks, potentially. Anyway, anyway, we'll we'll wrap there. Um yeah, two two very nice stories this week. I think overall, maybe not quite as positive as we were last week, but I think last week was very positive. And I think we've still been largely quite a nice week. Yeah. A few a few interesting stories.

SPEAKER_01

Things moving in the right direction mostly. Yes. Still questions, but the right direction.

SPEAKER_00

There are, but on the whole, some nice news. I think for me, I'm very excited by the Xbox stuff. I know I I I I said that when we did our big episode on Xbox. I'm really excited to see the direction Xbox goes in. I'll still never buy one, but I'm excited.

SPEAKER_01

I bought an Xbox I bought the original Xbox over a PlayStation 2 and was very happy. And then never made that mistake again. No, I bought I bought the 360 before I bought PS3 as well. And not just because they were both out when I did that, because I know the PS3 came up. Although I ended up having to have four Xbox 360s, and I still happen to have my PS3, but no Xbox 360. So maybe that says something. I pointed up here because my my PS3's sat on a shelf.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I was gonna say that's out of shot, so we can't see that. But we're just if you just picture right there where Alex is pointing, there's just like a shiny god you can grab, but that will oh he's grabbing.

SPEAKER_02

I'm grabbing.

SPEAKER_00

Let's have a look. Well, there we go. Look at that. That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it is beautiful.

SPEAKER_00

There we go, frame that. And and that and that's where we'll wrap things up today with Alex showing off his PlayStation 3, like at auctioneer. Thank you. Thank you, Alex, of course, for for joining me today. Thank you, everyone, for listening. As always, if you want to read more on these stories, you'll find the links to everything that we've mentioned and spoken about today in the description. If you've enjoyed the episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share wherever you are, whether you're listening, whether you're reading, whether not reading, whether you're listening, whether you're watching. If you are somehow reading, thanks for reading. But on the topic of reading, if you are interested in seeing this in uh in a more readable form, we have our weekly download newsletter, which is available via LinkedIn. We also have the daily download that you can get Monday to Friday. All the links for that will be in the description below. Alex, before I uh before I say goodbye, is there any have you got any final comments you'd like to share?

SPEAKER_01

Nope.

unknown

No.

SPEAKER_00

Fair enough. Well, there we go then. Thank you for tuning in, and we'll see you next week. Goodbye.