The Weekly Download
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The Weekly Download
Game Layoffs Surge 78% in 2026 & EA CEO Gets $38M Payout
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
This week's story:
- Layoffs will affect 14,259 people by the end of 2026
- Subnautica and PUBG drive Krafton Q2 revenue up 94.9%
- EA boss awarded $38.6M after a year of franchise success, studio layoffs, and GenAI adoption
- Bethesda Union accuses Fallout developer of violating Canadian labour laws
Hosted by industry experts, Tom and John, we break down the most intriguing, complex, and vital developments of the week to keep you informed.
Prefer your news in written form? Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter for a concise, easy-to-digest summary of industry developments, delivered fresh to your inbox: https://bit.ly/4yyVI75
Links to today’s talking points:
- https://www.gamesindustry.biz/new-data-suggests-layoffs-will-affect-14259-people-by-the-end-of-2026-up-78-from-first-forecast-of-the-year
- https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/subnautica-2-is-responsible-for-kraftons-record-second-quarter-performance-despite-the-messy-legal-battle-and-accusations-of-sabotage/
- https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/ea-boss-awarded-38-6m-after-year-of-franchise-success-studio-layoffs-and-genai-adoption
- https://www.eurogamer.net/generative-ai-100-percent-japanese-online-game-developers
- https://thisweekinvideogames.com/news/bethesda-union-accuses-fallout-developer-of-violating-canadian-labour-laws/
I will make a slightly snarky comment about Double Fine. I think they're an amazing studio. When I saw the promos for Kilm, I did think would you make that if you didn't have the commercial protection of being owned by Xbox? Welcome to the Weekly Download.
SPEAKER_01Hello, hello, welcome back to the Weekly Download Podcast brought to you by Big Games Machine. I'm your host, Tom, and this week I am joined once again, it's been a while, but once again by John. John, would you like to introduce yourself to any newcomers or John?
SPEAKER_00John, I'm uh I'm yeah, yeah, I'm I'm one of the big bosses, co-founder of the agency. Clearly not familiar enough with our audience to be on first name terms because you just get a sign saying Tom, but I'd have my surname like it's a formal thing.
SPEAKER_01It's your choice. I don't think uh you can very much you can have any name in there if you want. As long as you're here to bring some uh industry knowledge, know-how, and analysis, you are welcome to to call yourself anything. I will do my best, Tom.
SPEAKER_00I will do my best.
SPEAKER_01No, I know that's all we can. That's all we can do is our best. As I try and say to myself, at least once a day, to uh keep myself going. Um but no, today we are looking at four stories, just like we did last week. This new format that we're going with. We're gonna take it for the biggest stories from the week, have a little discussion about them, and then wrap things up and just give some analysis, some insights into those stories. So without further ado, we'll get into our first story of the week. This is brought to us by gamesindustry.biz. And they're looking at this tracker from ASGC. Uh, this is a layoffs tracker that at the start of 2026 predicted a layoff total for the year of just over 8,000. Their latest update as of July 26th, it has this has risen from that 8,000 to just under 14,300. So that's a 78% increase. I mean, John, I think, I think my first question is that I'd ask you is does this kind of show that at the start of the year there was a lot of optimism about potentially a slowing, not necessarily a slowing down, but that we would see a much lower volume of layoffs. And now we're halfway through the year and all of a sudden it this potentially could surpass 2024's total, which was just over 15,000.
SPEAKER_00I think what we've had now, we're in what year three, four of people going, Oh well, the de the worst has definitely happened. And XYZ Studios gone, or XYZ has done something, and that you know, that's it. They've trimmed all the fat and the industry can only improve from here. And then every year there's been something unforeseen in the market or something gone wrong and they're still trimming. And you know, that's an those project projection numbers, you know, if I don't know if we're able to show them on screen at some point in the edit, but you know, there's a mass there's a massive switch between actual and projected based on the Xbox announcement. So, you know, the the the for the forecast is it's been it's been a terrible end to 2025. But 2026, by the end of the year, you know, it's all going to have settled down and everything. But instead, come out, get rid of several studios, loads and loads of headcount, and then it just knocks the numbers up. And I think what's quite interesting as well in that analysis is um it's nearly 70% of the the cuts now are to the to US to North American studios.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, 95% including Europe. Yeah, so 95% for North American Europe. I think that tells a story too. You know, I we we obviously look at areas like I know LA is kind of the biggest one that people will towers. That's where you know some of the biggest studios are, but that's also where the biggest employee costs will come from. So we're not seeing these layoffs happening as much in other parts of the world in comparison to places where you know it is expensive to hire developers and and and workers of any industry of any kind. So it it that kind of feels a bit like a self-fulfilling prophecy, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00That that's what's happening. You know, you can you can step back and you can there there's a lot of there's a lot of things that probably come in into these decisions. You know, one is the US is one of the best places to raise capital. So a lot of the overinvestment that that a lot of these cuts are still a legacy from have been done in the US. The US capital markets, private capital, the companies that have gone public, uh the massive private acquisition of Activision by Microsoft, everything like that. That all depends on there being a lot of investment money around. And if you speak to anyone involved in raising money and getting funding, the US market is always the best for getting money because people are naturally gonna take more risk with it. So, first off, the US market is the is the place that you could say overinflated and therefore has seen the biggest contraction. The other thing is, and and we're gonna, you know, actually all of today's stories are connected to this story in some way. American workers have some of the lowest protections, right? Your typical contractors that you can be gone, you don't have to have more than a you know a couple of days' notice, you don't really have any any any redundancy rights or anything like that. Whereas in Europe, it's it's much, much harder to get to get rid of people. So, you know, it's easier to do it. So in US businesses, it can be quite bruthless because you can expand very quickly, but you can cut very quickly as well. So I think I think that's all part of the story. But it you know, it look it's it's tough. I think that's what we're still seeing is the triple A way of making games doesn't work. You know, and just go and ask any of the studios that Xbox has just, you know, allowed to go independent again, like double fine. Yeah, who who they've they've laid off I think I think it's 28 another 28 people.
SPEAKER_01I think it's around that amount this week. So yeah, great for them that they're independent again, but then that comes at a cost.
SPEAKER_00But I will make a slightly snarky comment about double fine. I think they're an amazing studio. Go for it. But when I s when I saw the promos for Kiln, the pottery-based multiplayer battle game, I did think, would you make that if you didn't have the commercial protection of being owned by Xbox? Right? Somebody at Xbox has signed that off. Somebody at Xbox has listened to the pitch, gone, love it, we bought you because you're quirky and you're different and you're kind of got that indie spirit to you. Absolutely love it, fantastic, go and do it. If they had been outside of Xbox at that point, would they have made that game? Or would they have made that game knowing if it went wrong they would have to get rid of a third of their team or you know, whatever proportion? I think this is where we are still having issues with the disparity between AAA and indie. Indies live and die by the performance of the game. AAA has got budgets which are so astronomical that there's I think there's a disconnection with the reality of what gamers actually are happy with. You know, I I don't need a game to be a thousand hours. Yeah. You know.
SPEAKER_01I I think I I'm I'm keen to move on because I, as you said before, all these stories are connected today, so I I feel like we can really get some good stuff on these. I all I wanted to add on Kiln is it's something that Alex and I have spoken about before on on the podcast, and to me it's a perfect example of the the whole idea of Game Pass to me was is to allow games like Kiln to exist. So I very much agree with what you're saying. It it it felt like a game that wouldn't get made outside of that ecosystem, and now they're outside of that ecosystem again. I think I don't think Double Final will ever play it safe, but I definitely think you won't see something of that ilk again. Because I I completely agree with you, it felt like a bit of a risk, but it's a risk with the protection of well, it's okay because you know we're part of Xbox, we can keep going after this. Whereas I don't think a studio that is at risk if it goes wrong would make that game, and that's not to say that I have anything against Kiln, but it it it's interesting that you say that because it's something that Alex and I have spoken about.
SPEAKER_00It's not it's not their fault that that they made the game that was greenlit and then after they made it and published it, the Xbox decided to cut them, you know. I mean they made that on the basis that they were assured everything was going to be fine. But I did see, I saw I'm sure I saw some story about the number of concurrent users online was like less than 50. And I think that might be very generous in my memory of it. I think there was some number like there were six people online playing that game or something. So this is it this is what I mean by we we should move on, but I mean I think this is a perennial thing going on in the industry is risk and how you price risk and how you manage risk.
SPEAKER_01Well, on the subject of of risk. Segway. Segway, try and figure out a segue. When Krafton signed Unknown Worlds, it feels like all those years ago, I think it it was quite a while ago at this point. Didn't look like much of risk. Obviously, Unknown World's responsible for Subnautica, Subnautica 2 releasing earlier this year after a lot of drama last year, which we'll go into in a moment. But yeah, Subnautica 2 has been a big part of driving Krafton's Q2 revenue up 94.9%. It's not quite 95%, quite round it up, but 94.9%. So yeah, quarterly revenue of around $900 million, $286 million of operating profit. So yeah, Krafton probably pretty happy with Subnautica 2, you'd say, John. Obviously, the drama of last year, Unknown World's leadership team was was ousted. Krafton wanted to delay Subnautica 2's release to reportedly apparently dodge a $250 million earnout bonus. That went to court. The judge forced Krafton to reinstate CEO Ted Gill. The payout was maintained, and then it's come out, they've got their payout. Ted Gill has left, he's done his job. Just such a such a crazy story. I mean, we've been tracking this since it first started happening last year, and I and I I know you've got thoughts on it, but just it's not a lot of things.
SPEAKER_00I think this is a classic case. I think it's a classic case of everybody's been really lucky, right? And and they and everyone's gonna get away with pretty much what they wanted. Yeah. But just a very lot of diversions, a lot of road closures. Exactly. So if we if we summarise, Crafton signs the studio, Subnautica on the base of Subnautica, somebody somewhere gets a bit overexcited, agrees to a $20 million performance bonus for the studio heads. $250 million. $250 million, sorry, $250 million. The bosses at Crafton get cold feet, use Chat GPT to come up with a way of stacking them to get out of the bonus. This is all true, by the way. That last bit that is true. And then the game is so successful in early access that it's made them their money to cover the pretty much cover the bonus, and it looks like it's going to go on to be one of their best performing ever games.
SPEAKER_01So you'd have to imagine so five million units. I think it was two million within two days. I think its opening weekend was over two million.
SPEAKER_00So I think they've all just about got away with this one because it's been commercially successful enough that the bosses at Crafton have kind of can just get away with it. And the studio heads will get their money, and gamers are getting a game that they really like. And so I think I think that this will all be forgotten in the mists of the games industry, and it will only be people like ourselves who'll be seeing there going. Do you remember with that thing with Crafton where where they used to be a few years ago? It'll be a hell of a punch one day.
SPEAKER_01It will be a hell of a book one day when someone's willing to uh sit down and and talk about it.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, it's I mean it goes back to what I was saying about risk, right? Who on earth thought that the numbers involved in the games industry can cover a $250 million? Don't know, it was the COVID fever dreams. Come on, we remember what those times were like. Complete madness.
SPEAKER_01They were just like we really we really want to sign them. How much can we offer them? Yeah, quarter of a billion dollars. Can we afford that? We'll find out.
SPEAKER_00That sounds a lot. No, no, it'll be it'll be fine because you know, games make loads of money. Well, somebody told me that they did. You should see our forecasts for 2026. Yeah. Have you seen what GTA 5 sells? It's it's j well, it's uh is our game like that? Yeah, it's GTA 5 but underwater.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. That's the pitch. That's the pitch for people. Uh but yeah, not as not as much to say about this one really, but yeah, good. I we we always share the links to the stories where we pull our stories from. This was PC Gamer's Fraser Brown, and I just loved the way that he ended this article, which is just one sentence. So Crafton might have made a lot of cash, but it spent even more, which feels just like a really good Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because that's it. The the the the financials that the PC Game have reported is that even after all this, actually for the year Crafton have lost 20 million.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, then their net profit deficit because of that payout is around twenty-one million dollars. So I'm all I'm sure that it'll go on to make a lot more, and and I think they'll be really happy with these figures because despite all these issues they've had, it shows that that initial gamble and bet on the acquisition in the first place has paid off. And I'm sure we'll see, you know, the early access, there'll be loads of new content, there'll be expansions. I know Subnautica, there was like a spin-off from that as well. So I think this is a franchise which has a lot to look forward to in the future as well. And I'm sure Crafton will be very happy about that because at the moment they're uh yeah, revenue up 95% nearly, but they're still not profiting because of that bonus. Anyway, should we should we look at our third story of the day? We'll we'll keep rolling. Um this time we're going uh we're we're moving away from Krafton and and and the waters of Subnautica, and we're we're looking at the I was gonna say deserts, but the the Fallout Wastelands, Bethesda Union 1 BGS, has filed legal complaints that accuse Bethesda and Xbox of violating Canadian labor laws. Now, obviously everyone will be aware that Bethesda are part of Xbox, they're part of these layoffs that have been happening at Xbox in the past few weeks and will continue to happen through to next year with another 1,600 cuts. Where they'll come from and when they'll happen, we don't know. Um, but staff in the US and Canada had been promised that they'd be employed through to pretty much the end of September to allow severance to be negotiated with the union, and that's one BGS again. But a few weeks ago, July 17th, staff at Bez at Bethesda, Montreal were essentially terminated with bare minimum legal severance, which is about two months of pay, and they immediately lost health insurance, which just entirely skipped the bargaining process with the unions entirely. Also, another lovely layer of irony for you on this one, John, is that these emails of termination were sent out on the same day that Xbox announced a new Fallout game by Obsidian and then the Fallout 3 and New Vegas remasters. So again, we're both PR people. You've got a lot more experience than me, but I think I can quite uh clearly say that not a great look. And this move by OneBGS just to wrap this story follows coordinated protests across the US and Canada against Xbox's cuts.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, are you suggesting that they might have cynically put bad news out at the same time as good news?
SPEAKER_01Again, not to not to sound like uh someone harking on about their ex-girlfriend, but this is something Alex and I spoke about a few weeks ago. And and and my example was for anyone not in the UK, what our government likes to do on the last day before like the summer break is try and push through a load of stuff that people don't really want to know about because it's not great, and they'll just shove all these things out at once and then like a child tidy in a room, just shut the door and then go oh don't don't worry about that. So and that and that feels don't open it. Don't open it, don't open it, it's tidy. Yeah, it it it does feel very cynical, doesn't it? To to give the fans good news while this is still going on in the background. You know, these are the people who allow these games to to happen, so we need to look after it.
SPEAKER_00So I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna play devil's advocate here because I can do it. Can not that I've held that many positions of responsibility in my adult life, but I can understand the pressures on those studios to execute a strategy that they've been told to do, and there's no nice ways to do it. Now I will say I think the games industry has got a problem with unionization in that I don't really see what the problem is, but a lot of studios really don't like it and they're really fighting hard, and so we have this going on now. We have the other studio that Xbox is trying to divest, the French one is begins with an A. I keep thinking of Arcane, which obviously is a game that is currently being held up because under European law you can't just make people redundant overnight, which is what we talked about earlier. You also have the ongoing situation with Rockstar, who are appearing to have sacked people exclusively who were unionized, but are saying that they didn't, and that's going to court. So I think this is this is an ongoing thing. Look, you can't at the same time have an industry where you know we're getting on for 10,000 people who've lost their jobs, right? And you know, and livelihoods and everything like that, and then at the same time say, oh, but we don't want anyone to seek any kind of workplace protection for the next job they have. You can't, you know, and it's a it it goes back to what I said before, right? If we look at where the concentration of where these head count cuts are coming from in the US, unionization is very different to the way it is in Europe, you know, collective bargaining and stuff like that. There's always a tension with with unionized workforce because at the end of the day, if you're if you're trying to run a business and you're trying to keep margins slim, you know, if if a workforce is unionized, you you you end up negotiating and giving people things and you know, we're both English, right? We know about train strikes, you know, mind like that but we've there's a history of it, isn't there?
SPEAKER_01No, no, I I agree though, I think.
SPEAKER_00But on the other side of it. Go on, go on. I'll let you finish. No, I'm gonna say on the other side of it, you know, if you've got the ability of somebody to fight your corner when you feel you're being unfairly dismissed or your livelihood is at threat, or in the case of the games industry, you are being forced to work to terms and conditions or crunch that that is not fair, why why not have unionization? It will make everybody behave better.
SPEAKER_01So Well I I and I'd argue that's what we're that's what we're seeing here is the Absolutely a a group of people have come together under one BGS and said we're not having this. I understand what you're saying in terms of especially when I I can't say I understand the corporate realities of day-to-day life under Microsoft and Xbox, but obviously for Bethesda Studios involved in this, they're not necessarily acting of their own will. I don't know how much say they've had in these processes in terms of deciding what parts of which teams they can cut. But if Xbox have come to them and said you need to lose X amount of people and it needs to happen by this day, I guess they're stuck in between a rock and a hard place because they've got to listen to what Xbox are telling them. Yeah. But now they need to deal with this, but then that's why these protections exist for people.
SPEAKER_00And purely cynically, if you you as a business don't have to be generous to people and can get away with peop giving people the bare minimum severance and notice and everything like that, why wouldn't you? You know? Again, you know, unfortunately, moral judgments don't come into running businesses sometimes.
SPEAKER_01And I think this is a case where there's no there's no morality in in these decisions, is there?
SPEAKER_00But I think But this is the thing about the games industry is actually I think coming from gamers, from the majority of gamers, There is a belief that because it's a creative industry, that morality is part of it. Right. But then this again, we come back to, you know, my theme of the day of the difference between smaller studios and bigger studios. And directly the next story I know we're going to cover, you know, it's no the at the top end, it's it's a business that makes games. It's not a game studio anymore. You know, and that and that's what we see in these things.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's a mentality difference, isn't it? Uh well, Will, you you've so brilliantly started fishing for this next story. So I will be the uh the fish, the the magikarp who bites the bait. Good reference. Yeah, yeah. Well I was trying to think of I was gonna I was looking at something like the fishing mini-game in Ocarina of Time, but I thought I can't even or something for that. So And now I've said it and you know how creatively bankrupt I am, because I can't come up with one for that.
SPEAKER_00But Sega Bass Fishing could have had that one. Yeah. True. Never played it. But No, you're too young. And it was rubbish even when it came out, but yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well the problem now is every game has a fishing mini game, doesn't it? It used to be quite uh, you know, back in the back in the good old days, it used to be quite rare, but now Animal Crossing. Yeah. Starge Valley, both have very good fishing games. Anyway, EA didn't develop any of those games, but their CEO, Andrew Wilson, has been this says a w awarded is what the headline's gone for here, so I'll I'll go with it. I think it's an interesting way to phrase it. But $38.6 million after a year of successful franchise releases, studio layoffs, and adoption of Generative AI. Perhaps the most interesting figure here is that that $38.6 million for financial year 2026 is up from $30.5 million in 2025's financial year, and then $25.6 million in the financial year of 2024. So that's it's a big, big increase in the last two years.
SPEAKER_00Very, very underpaid, very underpaid.
SPEAKER_01But but and this is where we get excited because he's not getting paid that much, John. He's only getting paid only. He's only getting paid $1.3 million as this as a salary. Right. And see, this is where you're going wrong. So only $1.3 million on the salary, $28 million in stock awards, $6.5 million in performance bonuses, wait till you hear what they're for. And then $2.3 million for private air travel, because that's something that there was a security assessment apparently, which said that he had to get private travel to and from places. I'm not going to judge that last bit. You know, I understand that running these companies is a risky endeavour. You might not necessarily need to be exposed to any potential public threats, I guess.
SPEAKER_00It's actually, yeah, it's also though, it's it's uh team redundancy. Because actually, when I when I was at Glue Mobile, couldn't have the executives all on the same flight. You had to stagger the flight. So if something happened, you didn't leave use your entire C-suite. Oh, there we go. So it is actually a a duty of of companies.
SPEAKER_01See, this is why we bring it up.
SPEAKER_00That's why I won't get on a train with you, Tom.
SPEAKER_01It's just our version is just like different carriages. Same train spirits have to be. I'll go in, I'll go in first class. You're in standard. It's just it's we've got to prepare just in case something happens. If we look at the the the 6.5 in million in performance bonuses, that's tied apparently to meeting performance targets for Battlefield VI, record-breaking launch for that franchise. EA Sports FC, although that's particularly the mobile side of that, but EA Sports FC continues to be a huge, particularly the microtransactions in that, a huge driver of revenue for EA. They're at the early access release of Skate, which by all accounts was less than ideal, so that's interesting. But more interesting is one of those targets was tied to the implementation of generative AI. And I know this is something just before we started, you were you were speaking about, so I'd love you to share a bit more of that the business insight you were talking about and and how companies are how this is that example of video game companies starting to be a bit more businessy with these payouts.
SPEAKER_00I was just I was just basically drawing the analogy between what what you're seeing, what you're seeing in the wider tech world, and not even tech really, kind of a lot of service and enterprise businesses where they've really leapt on the generative AI bandwagon and they have been aggressively cutting staff and replacing them with AI because for some reason they they believe that's a better outcome. But it is, you know, if if you if you are a business in a capitalist system, you have a responsibility to make money, and one way to make money is to spend less money running your business. And so an awful lot of companies have invested in AI for for that reason. And that was that's what I was saying, Tom, really, is like don't once again don't look at this necessarily as a creative decision because I I bet if you look into it, the generative AI is going to be used for productivity. So it could be, you know, so for example, like, do we do we as an agency use generative AI? Not really, but we do because we do note-taking, we do transcriptions, we do things that are not like at the forefront of the creative work we do, but we use it as a tool for productivity. So he may well have been given a target to bring in productivity gains, back-end tool, you know, tools and stuff like that that are going to have AI built into them. It doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, the success of Battlefield is because they've AI generated the character art or anything, but it's gonna be part of their pipeline. He would get an incentive for making the business more efficient. You know, whether that's tied to the acquisition getting over the line, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01You said he their his job is to make EA money. He's clearly doing that. I think you raise a really good point about how we don't on the outside, we don't really know how studios are using generative AI unless they come out and speak about it. I know Epic have been very upfront around the role there, the role that AI is playing in asset creation for them. But it's something that we covered in the newsletter a few weeks ago. I'll include it in the links for today's episode because it relates to this. But there was a poll a few weeks ago that the Japan Online Game Association published, and you can tell I'm reading from a previous script here, because my eyes are locked on. But this poll spoke to Japanese developers who worked on online games, and a hundred percent of those surveyed said they did use generative AI, but the most popular software was Gemini, 94%, Claude, 84%, and then Copilot, 76%. So nothing else to that story this week, but it I think it backs up what you're saying uh in that we do see those two words or two letters now, and it instantly draws up certain notions, but we don't really know how we A are using this, and I I wouldn't I wouldn't read too much into it being tied to a performance bonus, other than as you've said, and I think I've learned that from you today, from you talking about it, is that you know the shareholders are saying everyone else is doing it, we need to look at how we can use it to be more productive, to streamline things. He's you know, Andrew Wilson has gone into the the organization and done that to a level that they're happy with, and he's been given 6.5 million dollars for other reasons, but including that, which I'm sure he's delighted with.
SPEAKER_00I'm sure he's done a lot of good things. Whether anyone is worth that kind of bonus in this climate when your studio has got rid of a load of the Battlefield VI development team is an entirely different question. But yeah, look, you know, I earlier in the year I went to a really good panel discussion that that that our friend Pat Garrett at The Knowledge put on. And I can't remember the the gentleman's name, but very nice guy, and I think he's co-head or head of the cyberpunk studio, X Activision, and there was a discussion about generative AI use, and you know, this the the much smaller studio that was on the panel were like, we won't touch it, we don't believe in it, we're all about human creativity, blah, blah, blah. And he just said, if my team don't have to make the texture for some boulders and rocks, then they can work on something else. Why, why, why just why why would we not use it if we can take off me menial tasks? And I think, you know, I think you're just gonna get a lot more people, just have the the pure time economics of getting developers to do good things. I'd so I just think it will just get it'll creep in, you know. That's the way it'll go.
SPEAKER_01I'll let you have the the closing thought on that. I think it's a very succinct thought. For that that covers our big serious conversations for the week. I thought the the last thing we'd look at this week, uh very quickly, of course, on events. This is our new little thing we run through now. The only event this week, and we spoke about it last week, is China Joy. And and Alex is there right now, hence why John has has so delightfully stepped in.
SPEAKER_00I'm a TMU version of Alex. Or is Alex in there?
SPEAKER_01Ah, good, good, I like that. Uh so we'll be Alex will be back next week potentially. We'll be running through a few of the things that have happened at China Joy. But yeah, China Joy happening technically starts tomorrow. There's already things happening today. So if you're somehow in China and you might be going, let us know. If you're not, stay tuned next week because there'll be other events, I'm sure. Hello to all our Chinese fans out there. Yes, hello. Hello to you all, or anyone Chinese adjacent who can get over to Shanghai in time for tomorrow's events time. Uh but anyway, the last thing I wanted to run through today. John, I know you're a you're a would you say you're a Lego fan, I guess? I don't are we really Lego fans or do we just like the thing? I'm a Lego fan. I just yeah. Go on.
SPEAKER_00No, we're some Lego Tom.
SPEAKER_01Well well, no, it's just I I always like I like now with this final thing to just give people something to recommend looking at. And I found this really interesting interview on Nintendo Life where a few of the designers behind the Pokemon sets have just gone in and spoken about the the process behind building the models, especially with the the Smart Brick integration, which is I which Lego have come out in the past and said this is their attempt to be more video gamey. And a lot of the Pokemon sets that are targeted at kids all feature that compatibility. Um but it's just an interesting interview on that. John, where do you where do you sit on I don't think you're a huge Pokemon person, are you? So I can't imagine you're particularly interested in in the Pokemon Lego sets, but do you have any thoughts on the the collaboration itself?
SPEAKER_00I like I like them. They're not my favourite sets. I think I think with me there's so much choice with Lego, and these sets are like more like model kits, right? You build them and then you display them, as we can see from your lovely background.
SPEAKER_01With my uh the Daily Bugle, which I didn't realize isn't crazy.
SPEAKER_00I what I th what I would love to see from them is to just honestly, they should just do a series of really good big scale Pokemons, like the Bowser you've got, like you've got your Bowser figure. Like though, if you've got a really good Pikachu and Charmander and you know Charizard and like the favourite Pikachu. They've they've done a few of the adult ones. But it's not it's not quite yeah, I just I didn't feel that it looks quite like the quality is quite there, but I I you know, because for Pokemon it's the characters, isn't it? It's you've everyone's got a favourite, and if you could have that, I the they've sort of been doing dioramoury things. But I like them. I like them. There's just not shelf space and money in the world for all the Lego.
SPEAKER_01Now I'm just thinking a Lego gonna somehow work through every single Pokemon. I think there's nearly 1100 now. I'm just imagining like the poor design team at Lego and they're just like, no one wants the garbage bag one. Come on, guys.
SPEAKER_00What about and when then would you would you Yeah, but do you know, just think. You could you know you get those Lego three and one kits where you can use the same bricks to build three different models. Imagine if you did the Pokemons and you did the evolved versions. Come on now.
SPEAKER_01That's a good idea. That is a good idea. But that but then people will complain that they can't display them all. Like that was a got a decutary here, not here on purpose, but it works for this situation. People complain about the decutree because you could build the Ocarina of Time one or the Breath of the Wild one, and people are like, well, make it cheaper and let me buy both. So you I think that's a good idea. But I imagine people would Or make it the same price and buy both. Yeah. That'll that'll be the sort of buy both then, but like they're both going to be twice as expensive now. Okay, well done. But no, that's uh Yeah, that's uh it well worth giving this interview a read. Uh it is primarily about the uh the the more the the the sets that are for kids at the end of the day, which I've I've seen a lot of people complaining online being like, oh the models look rubbish. These ones are for kids. They're like £15, they're definitely for children. So if they you know I think I say this with my all my Pokemon things, but it's a franchise for kids, and I think and so is Lego. Allegedly. Yeah, allegedly. Not sure not as sure on the Lego.
SPEAKER_00It's I tell you what, when I go to the local um Pokemon card shop that that's all old mentioned, it's not it's not the kids that are dropping 150 quid on whole boxes of cards and then sitting there opening them all. Or there are two kids doing that.
SPEAKER_01And the local Smiths waiting to uh buy them. But anyway, yeah, and game games are for adults, Legos for adults, Pokemon is for adults. That's the message of the episode. If we have to deal with all these like boring conversations around revenue and bonuses, then we get to enjoy the fun side fun side as well, I'd say. Uh but speaking of fun, that is where we're gonna wrap up today. So I hope you've had fun. John, thank you for joining us. Thank you, Tom. It's been a a pleasure as always to uh to to chat, to share. You've always got good insights. Uh I hope everyone has enjoyed listening. If you have, whether you are watching on YouTube, listening on Spotify, Apple Music, wherever you get your podcasts, be sure to subscribe to the weekly download to get new episodes every Friday running through the biggest stories of the week in the games industry. We also, if you're more of a preferer of text, if you like to read. Or if you're just looking for more insights into the same stories, we also have the weekly download newsletter, which hey, also comes out on a Friday, and it's weekly. There's a bit of a theme here, all these weekly things on Fridays. Um, we get more insight into these stories. We also cover upcoming events, recommendations for new games, new books, and and other such things around the industry. And yeah, you can find that on LinkedIn or on Substack. All the links for that will be in the description. And I think now that I've done all the self-promo, John, do you have any I always ask Alexis, do you have any closing thoughts you want to share today?
SPEAKER_00Oh my god, you've put me on the spot there. Like, general or specific is specific.
SPEAKER_01Well, Alex normally says no. So anything you offer that's well about today's stories or anything you've seen that's interesting?
SPEAKER_00I I I tell you what, I there was a nice I can't remember the publication, I can't remember the person from Nintendo. I have a feeling it was Shigeru Miyamoto, who, when asked about the studio closures at Xbox and things like that, he said we wouldn't do things like that because we concentrate on games that are just about having fun. And I think that's a lovely place to leave it because that's what games should be about.
SPEAKER_01I agree. There we go. I'm not going to say another word. Thank you everyone for tuning in. I'll see you next week. Bye bye.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. See you later.