Episode 11

"We’re back, and honestly, who let us have microphones?"

Welcome to Season 2, Episode 11 of Aggressively Casual. If you’re looking for polished, corporate-approved gaming "journalism," you’ve clicked on the wrong video. We’re here to talk about the stuff that actually matters—the patch notes that ruined our weekend, the remakes nobody asked for, and the soundtracks we over-analyze until 3 AM.

In this episode, we’re ditching the script and leaning into the chaos. Expect deep dives, zero sugar-coated takes, and the kind of energy you usually only find in a Discord group chat at peak toxicity.

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time.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Let's see, that's on, that's on, that's on. Lights, camera, action.

SPEAKER_02 0:07

Indeed.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Welcome everybody to Progressively Casual Season 2, Episode 11. Um, I've I've tentatively titled this uh The Industry Is on Fire and It Isn't Our Fault. Um or uh the hits keep coming. It's not our fault. Alright, as far as we know, it's not our fault. Right, exactly. Um it's been an interesting couple of weeks since we last saw you friends. Um we have a lot of things to talk about tonight. Uh but first, as always, I am Freebird with me to my nerd leftist cheeks. Say hi, Cheeks. Hi. And uh what the hell have you been playing recently, my friend?

SPEAKER_03 0:43

Oh, good lord. So we kicked around some windrose, some of the Guardians of the Wild Sky, Project Gorgon is still high on the list. Um I also pulled a demo. I haven't tried it yet for Spacecraft.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Okay, which is I haven't had a chance.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

Uh survival space survival game. Um I have not had a chance to play. I also have played a bit of uh Titan Quest II that's out in early access.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Um have they released more for that? Because the last time I looked at it, it wasn't very feature complete.

SPEAKER_03 1:18

Um it's I think most uh quite a bit of the first act is in place at this point.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:25

Um I'd have to go look, but it's more than what when I first got it. So I don't it doesn't matter. It's Titan Quest, and I was like, shut up, take my money.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

I mean, fair. Fair.

SPEAKER_03 1:36

Yeah, for me, Diablo clones out there.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:40

Titan Quest is probably still one of and actually I guess I should say Diablo 2 clones out there. Yeah. Still one of, if not the best one.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't I I would tend to agree. I would tend to agree.

SPEAKER_03 1:56

Again, survival games, I play many ARPG games.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

So fair. Fair.

SPEAKER_03 2:02

Yeah, for me, um, the prehistoric hunt.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

How is that?

SPEAKER_03 2:07

It's interesting. Um, I haven't had a chance to play a lot of it because it does take some time. It is not a fast game. It is any stretch of the imagination. Fair. Uh but I mean it's basically Call of the Wild, a hunter, yeah, but dinosaurs.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

I don't know. Every video you've sent me of somebody playing that game, they are terrible at playing that game.

SPEAKER_03 2:27

Well, yes. Like the guy the other day is like Encounter with a T-Rex. I'm like, dude, you ripped out like 12 shots, not a single one of those got anywhere near his head.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Right. I'm like, there's no headshot here. Like, what what what did I say to you? Oh, it was uh it was uh a lot of spray and prey, and you were like, and mostly prey, and I was like, yeah. Yeah, pretty much. So I I I I would like to see somebody play that game that actually knows how you know what they're doing, how to play a game like that.

SPEAKER_03 2:56

Those are just the shorts that show up.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Yeah, fair. I was just I thought it was funny. Um my end, um, I played a bit of the new Resident Evil game. Uh, that is a lot of fun. Um we will have some sort of content on that soon once I get out of the World of Warcraft hole that I'm in. Um playing uh uh now that the new expansion is out, is getting all you know sorted with fat and things like that. Um and then I also uh we got access to what is it, uh uh over-the-top World War One. Um we can talk about it, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:33

Um on a side, apparently. Very, very Battlefield 6-esque, only World War One tree, it looks like. Um so I have played one match. I got waffled pretty hard, but I expect to I'm looking forward to playing more and more of that actually.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

I also picked up or uh installed the Outbound demo.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

That I have it.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

That that is a good that is a good little cozy survival crafting game, man. It's really good. I was having a really good time. Uh highly, highly recommend uh downloading that demo and checking it out if you haven't. It is a wonderful, wonderful video.

SPEAKER_03 4:24

Yeah, I haven't installed it yet.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Yeah, it's it's it's a good time. I I was honestly shocked at how deep it is. Um, even for a demo.

SPEAKER_03 4:32

That's how grandma died. Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

God damn it, cheeks.

SPEAKER_03 4:38

Hey, thank you, count it. You know what? Let's find out what's in here.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_03 4:47

So, as a preface, this box arrived on my doorstep the day after the last aggressively casual with a note that said open on the annexed aggressively casual.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

And I was supposed to get one too. However, my neighbors are chit guns.

SPEAKER_03 5:05

Um, so let us find out what is in this box.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

What is in the box?

SPEAKER_03 5:10

I'm terribly curious. I literally just basically hid it from myself. So you wouldn't open the box.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Right. I feel that. I am the same way.

SPEAKER_03 5:23

Obviously, since it could wait for two weeks, there's nothing alive in here.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

You hope.

SPEAKER_03 5:29

True enough. Alright. Moment of truth.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Moment of truth, justice in the American- Oh, hey! Oh, hey, you needed some of that.

SPEAKER_03 5:42

Oh, it's a box. Inside of a big box.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Oh, we love those.

SPEAKER_03 5:46

Yeah. Alright. It's a smaller box inside of the bigger box. Oh, God, that hurt.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

We love those.

SPEAKER_03 5:56

Now we should open the smaller box.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

In before, it is just a series of progressively smaller boxes. Right.

SPEAKER_03 6:06

I would not put that past the person who sent this to you.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

No, no, I wouldn't be either.

SPEAKER_03 6:16

I'm joking, he's very much a supporter of this channel.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

You often hear him as a disembodied voice hanging around here. Nice. And it has these.

SPEAKER_03 7:18

The thin slot in there. I'm assuming when you plug it in, we'll play the tune. Nice. That's awesome. I will plug that in and try it later. That is awesome. Thank you very much. Oh yay. Geeky swaggy stuff.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Geeky swag. We love geeky swag. So, friends, friends, umce again, as I seem to say, every goddamn show these days, um, it is an incredibly interesting time in the games industry. Like I said, I titled the show the industry's on fire and it isn't our fault. Right, exactly. Exactly. Um, but I I wanna I want to start with this one tonight because honestly, I want to just talk about it and get it out of the way. I'll be a hundred percent honest with you. Um, we played Marathon. And um if you watched that stream, you know our feelings on Marathon. If you didn't watch that stream, by the fact that um I I I I I I have a stern look on my face and I'm not jumping up and down for joy, I think you can tell where this is going.

SPEAKER_03 8:27

Yeah, so to not get too deep in it, you know, first of all, in prefaces. If you liked it, enjoy yourself. Yep. May it last longer than Highgard. We'll talk about that too. Um, for us, for me, it was fair to midlin' at best. It needs a lot of work. Yeah. Not really ready yet.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Well, um the the thing that's how it goes. Here here here's like the the the red flags for me, right, were somebody at Bungie thought it was a great idea to censor the phrase arc raiders in chat.

SPEAKER_03 9:10

Yes. That was friggin' hilarious. And then they got caught.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

And they got caught and they quietly uncensored it. I mean, that that that that's very normal behavior. Yeah. That's that's what you do when you uh you um you you you say that you you fear no competition, right? And then you immediately fear a competitor in writing. Yeah, that makes sense. Um I mean the a lot of people are making a big deal about the player chart numbers for Steam specifically. Like, and I mean I I get it, like, yeah, you you don't want to see, like, for your you know, free trial basically of what is supposed to be the game that's going to save your company, you don't want to see your numbers dip by half after a day. But at the same time. But at the same time. At the same time, I got you. Um at the same time, um, if people know this game's coming out tomorrow, right? I can see where people would jump in, you know, check it out, make sure it runs on their machine. Hi, cheeks, um, and then dip out because nothing is gonna carry over. No progress, no nothing. Oh, your camera just died.

SPEAKER_03 10:28

Um I know, I turned it off.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Okay. Um and I just I have a hard time reconciling it. My problem with the game was the time to kill is terrible. Right? The time to kill is is is just bad. And and and uh there were a couple of creators that I watched videos on, and I think you watched similar ones or the same ones, where you had said that it was like the scenario either became you either get ganked by somebody who gets to jump on you, or you do the same to somebody else.

unknown 11:02

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

There's no other real way to PvP in that game.

SPEAKER_03 11:06

Of the time that we played, the engagements we got into, we managed to turn an engagement once.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 11:16

Yep, and and a dozen or two dozen times.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Yep. And that was because I think watching that bit back, I think it's because they did not know where Buckshot was.

SPEAKER_03 11:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Because they kept focusing on me, which led him to go behind them.

SPEAKER_03 11:32

Yeah, I got planked on them, and but yeah, they lost track of where we all were.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:38

But for Latin's, you just seem to be one shot. Which, okay, whatever. If that's the way it's gonna be, that's the way it's gonna be. But that also means for the casual player, it's gonna be more difficult to engage. Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

I mean, it's like the the other thing is like player counts and player count count charts, right, are are they only tell part of the story.

SPEAKER_03 12:01

Sure, you can only tell the other story, but here's the thing, and right now it's like number three on the pre-order list, so it'll have players. It'll have like the question is Highgard had two million of them and shuts down in eight days. Right. So will it sustain them is really the question. And now let me let me again, let me say, I hope it does. I hope it does well and they have bucket loads of money and can fix everything that's wrong in Bungie. Absolutely. I I have my doubts that it's going to happen.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Well, right. I must say I I I I I I live in reality, and I'm kind of and we talked about this the last show in terms of like the hyperbolic language, right? The other thing is that a lot of outlets, right, and this is one thing that drives me baddie. A lot of outlets are starting to use Steam DB numbers as vibes-based journalism. Right? Wh which which ties in what we talked about last time because of the hyperbolic language of this game is dead, yet it has thousands of people playing the game.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

And it drives me up the fucking wall. And like, do I want Marathon to fail? No. Right.

SPEAKER_03 13:17

Right? Don't you can't really look at day-to-day numbers, I don't tell you anything.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

No.

SPEAKER_03 13:24

You need because okay, some maybe there's an outage somewhere. So you have a massive amount of people who can't get to it.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Right.

SPEAKER_03 13:32

Whatever. There's a ton of reasons why a day-to-day player count might drop. But look at the trends, right? Um and if we look at the trend for the server side, that's not gonna give you a great picture. Um what is it, 143, 148 peak. But by the end of it, there were 200 people playing it. Yeah. Now I get it. It's a server slam. A lot of people probably played it, went either, yeah, I'm gonna play this and then put it away because it's a server slam and nothing was carrying over. Right. Although there there were rewards you could earn that that you know, cosmetics that apparently carried over.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

Right.

SPEAKER_03 14:18

Um, and then there's a lot of people like us who played it for a few hours. We played it for what, a couple hours, really. We didn't just get in and quit. Um and we're like, nah, this is not for me. And so you put it away. So the numbers in the server slam certainly do not reflect, I think, what may be the real numbers, but you have to hope that that's not a preview. Right, exactly. Um now the game itself, you know, Bungie has has responded to some of it. Some of it they've said we're not changing. Um some of it they've, you know, like and like a lot of companies these days, and I I'm of two minds on this. Uh I I will first be able to tell people do not abuse, don't just take pot shots at the company. Right. If you have critiques, critique them. Absolutely. But if you have a problem, have a reason for it. Right. If if the reason is I just don't like the game, then say you don't like the game and move on.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

But yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:25

But if if you're like, hey, this is why I don't like the game, give them that. But at least be moderately respectful when you do it. Right. Yeah. And that's part of the problem. And now though you've got companies who are feeling free to take shots back at the crowd. And I'm not sure how I feel about that overall. I I think at the end of the day it's bad for business.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

Yeah. Oh, I would agree.

SPEAKER_03 15:52

We will see. Yeah. So anyway, we'll see what happens with Marathon. You know, I'm not I'm I'm not holding out hope.

unknown 16:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:01

They'll throw out a patch and suddenly we'd be like, hey, let's try this. Let's give it a shot. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Exactly. I'm not I'm I'm not holding out hope, but I'm also not gonna be we we we will see where things fall, right?

SPEAKER_03 16:12

Yeah, we'll fly on it and see what happens. Well, and and I'm still far more interested in Destiny than I am in Marathon, and and I think that's part of the problem too. You have this large player base in Destiny who feels like they've been forgotten. Absolutely. And and I think there's some justification to that. On the other hand, Bungie is not the company that is the size that it once was. Right. So you have as many eggs to put in baskets as they used to.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

It's not even that. It's that bungee is also just not the same company anymore.

SPEAKER_03 16:46

Well, there is I'm I'm not even I'm not even getting that deep into it. Yeah, fair. Whether it is or isn't, I'm not even getting that deep into whether the company is crappy now or not. Fair. The fact of the matter is the company is much smaller. Right. You have a smaller pool of people with which to spread around to now multiple projects. Right. So something to give. And in this case, that something appears to be destiny.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Yeah. So that kind of segues into the next topic that we had on the list, which is, you know, how long does a game get to be bad? And this seems to be, right, a conversation that you and I have had multiple times offline. I think a bunch of people in both of our like friend groups and even just online has have had it, where like you boot a game and it's fine, or or other people say that it's great, or or whatever, or it's you know, whatever. But when do you pull the plug? Like, how do you trust that do you trust a million people going it gets good for 20 hours?

SPEAKER_03 17:47

What I meant by that.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:49

That's not exactly what I meant by that.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 17:51

Um, what I meant was how long, for example, let's marathon. Let's be honest. We hung into that longer than we wanted to. Yeah. By the end of it, all three of us were like, oh god, can we just be done with this?

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Can we go play literally anything else?

SPEAKER_03 18:14

Right. What I meant by that was how long and and I've seen videos and I've seen comment reddit threads and everything else, and I get it. When you start a game, they always kind of suck. Yeah. Because you don't have you don't have any gear. You don't have any gear, you don't have any skills, you don't know how any of this crap works. You know, you don't know how but how long do you give a game to present you the information that you need before it becomes good. You hear this even about like say, wow. Well, the real game is the end game. Then just skip to the end. Don't make me play a hundred hours to get to it. Right. If that's when your game gets good, I'm not gonna spend that long.

unknown 19:06

Right.

SPEAKER_03 19:06

Waiting, my my the whole point there was how long do you wait? And this is individual, right? Because one person might say, Oh, this game is is pretty good. Um, an example of there is No Man's Sky. Yeah. When No Man's Sky released, everybody was like, Oh my god, this sucks. This isn't what they said. This isn't meanwhile, I'm over here happily going, I enjoy this. Why? Because I didn't jump on the hype train. As a matter of fact, if you recall, I used to specifically tell you, don't send me crap about No Man's Sky. I don't want to see it, I don't want to hear it, I'm not interested. Yep. What comes out will be what comes out. So it goes back to what I talked about last time as Jim. I met the game where it was, and where the game was, for me, it's pretty good. But that's the point of that is how long do you give a game to get good? Well, yeah. Well, I mean enjoyable, I guess, should be a better phrase, not good, because good and bad is objective in this case, and it's not exactly what we're talking about. How long before you decide that the game is good for you?

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Right, yeah. I mean, because the the the the the the the the question I was going to ask like i i is is do you trust the you know it gets good after 20 hours crowd? Or do you know or or or is somebody saying even that, you know, oh hey, you know, this game gets really good 10 hours in, like, is that supposedly a selling feature or is that a warning label?

SPEAKER_03 20:33

Right. And this came up to me first, the first game that always comes to mind about this Borderlands. Yeah, okay. When the original Borderlands dropped, I bought it because I was excited. I was like, oh, something's another looter shooter, right? Right. That's not Destiny. Because at the time I wasn't playing Destiny because I'd tried Destiny and got a little ways into it and decided it wasn't for me, so I stepped away for a little while. Right. Borderlands came out, and I get this game, and I'm playing it. I've been playing it now for like two, three hours. Yeah. And I'm like, I'm bored out of my skull. So I refunded it. I took it back to the store because you could still actually get discs at that point. Yeah. I took it back, got something else, and then like next day at work, or a day or two later at work, I had a co-worker was like, Oh man, it gets really good once you get past the when it starts to open up and you can play with other people, then it gets really good. Right. So I fast forward and for whatever reason, I found a copy, another copy for like five bucks. So I picked it back up, and I spent the enormous amount of time it takes in the first game and the second. They didn't really fix this until about the current one, to be honest. Yeah, the current One mostly fixes this problem. Before you finally get to the town and the game actually opens up, and sure enough, it gets good. Yeah. But your average gamer is not going to spend 10 or 12 hours waiting for a game to get good. There has to be something. Something that keeps their attention.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Yeah, I mean, I I've I I I I've got like two points on this that that that I keep coming back to. Like, well, well, technically three, but I'm gonna try to make it two. Um uh and that and that it's uh you know, really what we're talking about, it seems, is the idea of like first impressions versus slow burns, right? Games that hook you immediately versus ones that actually reward patience, and the ones that lie about rewarding patience.

SPEAKER_03 22:47

That's that's well, right, that's just it. How patient should you be? Well, my thing, sorry.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

My thing is that if a game needs 20 hours of tutorial, we'll call it, right? That's it. Before it's fun, that is the game. You're describing the game, right? Yeah, you just play the game, right? My um my my the the the rule that I tend to follow, right? And and and I don't know if you're similar, but the the rule that I tend to follow is one session. If I'm not at least curious after one session, I'm out. I'm out. I don't have the time.

SPEAKER_03 23:24

I might occasionally, depending on the game, yeah, give it more than one fair. Depending on the genre, also depends on the how long the session is. Fair, I guess. Um, but yeah, it's not gonna be that long. If you don't have anything that's like gripping me and going, okay, I see some something here in the in the in on the horizon that that might make suddenly turn this game from what the hell am I doing to oh crap, this is fun.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

So well very true, Val. Well well the the other the other water is exactly. But like so the the it good the it gets good eventually pitch, right? That really only works like once per studio per person. Once you've burned that bridge, it's gone. Like people people talked about that with like um uh uh Mass Effect One, right? And how Mass Effect One was kind of a mess, right? Good story buried under some weird mechanics and some issues that people couldn't get past, so much that they did not play Mass Effect 2, which is one of the best games I've ever played in my entire life. Um uh that you they burned a lot of people that went with Mass Effect 1, and it cost them potential players to make Mass Effect 2 even more successful than it already was. Um But like I guess the question that I have for you as we're talking about this subject is has a game ever genuinely won you back after a bad start? After Horrorland. We literally just talked about it. Well, I fair, fair. But I I I I I I I I wasn't sure if that was more of that like that was like winning you back if that was or or if that was just you were No, I consider that winning me back because I was done with it.

SPEAKER_03 25:17

Um Yeah, there's been a couple over time well Elder Scrolls Online got close. Fair recently. I spent more time in Elder Soul uh in ESO this last time than I have probably in all of our previous attempts. Yeah. Certainly, you know. God, that game is so. So and then we'd still be playing it if we hadn't got distracted with other things.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

Well, I I I I want to see the new content hit so we could experience that too. You know, well, right. That's part of it, right? Yeah, that's part of it. Because right now we're just kind of we were just kind of catching up on stuff that was released previously and whatever. Oh uh But at the end of the day, I'd rather play Gorgon.

SPEAKER_03 25:59

So I mean Yeah, fair. That's fair. That's fair. Um a game can win you back. Um what else? There was something else too. There's been a few things that we've stopped playing and gone back to. Um now, is there something that I had just said other than those two where I had just said, no, I'm done with this. This sucks.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

Uh for me, uh probably. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 26:31

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

Yeah, yeah. For me, uh I was saying probably, but I can't really think of one right off the hand. I I didn't like it at the start, and I was pretty frustrated with what they put out. Not not just because I was I was in the oh, they lied to us, crap. No, I didn't give a shit about that. It was just, it wasn't fun for me. I'm like, I I didn't I didn't have any because I I wasn't playing with you, I wasn't playing with Jeff. I was I I I was playing with one of my other friends who was only on half the time than I was. So I'm like, what's the point? Because I feel like I can't do anything without playing the get I can't and then and I can't progress anything because you're not here. It was it was frustrating. And it and and the solo experience at the beginning of Fall at 76 was pretty bad.

SPEAKER_03 27:19

It was pretty bad. Oh, for for Jeff and I, we that came out, we were already playing together. Yeah so you know it it does make a difference. Now I liked 76, I found it lacking in I I I thought from the very beginning that the lack of actual NPCs was a terrible choice. Um because it just made the entire well, and I guess it makes a certain sort of sense because this is like not that long after the fall, but it made the entire world just dead.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:55

Um yeah, but it would have made more sense if there wasn't already things out there when you got out there. There was obviously civilization out there. So you know, if if you'd have been the one starting all that, in other words, finding that occasional person that's still alive and going, oh hey, come back to this town and we can we can try to rebuild civilization, that would have been different.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

Well, I'm like and and and and and like I just I the the the there are a couple other games on my list, but nothing that really comes to mind is like, oh yeah, the the this one, this one. It just follows 76 is probably the most recent example.

SPEAKER_03 28:34

But I think in general, once a game loses you, it loses you.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

Oh, absolutely, yeah, absolutely. Like um, uh what was the what was the one that that a bunch of people were high on? Um uh Delta Force. Uh that like uh last year, uh people were so high on Delta Force, and Stu and I played the shit out of that game and the beta. And we were like, wow, this is amazing. And then it came out and we were like, wait, how did they fuck this so big? Because whatever they did, I don't know what decisions they made between the beta and the game that was. It was no longer amazing, and it was no longer amazing. Part of it was because we discovered that the technology for shooting was actually controlled by where it it saw where your eyeballs in the game were. So, like you would go to like shoot somebody with a sniper rifle and just completely fucking miss because you the game thought your eyes weren't looking in the right spot. Nice. Oh, yeah, it was great. Up here, buddy, up here. Right. Yeah, my eyes are up here. Do you even know what color they are? Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 29:29

Right. Yeah, I just don't know. So yeah, but I think in general, once a game loses you, it it loses you. Um, I would agree. Especially this day and age. I think that would be incredibly hard this day and age. Um, which which in a way it kind of sucks. There's some good games out there that didn't get their time.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

Outriders was so good. Oh, I loved that game. Yeah. I loved that game. I was so mad. Outriders was good. I was so mad that we're never gonna get a sequel to that game. And I'm and I'm mad about it. And I'm so mad about it. But the thing because people wanted Outriders to be something it wasn't, right? The devs said from the outset that Outriders was not a live service title. But people wanted it to be a live service title.

SPEAKER_03 30:21

The weird thing is people bitch about live service titles, and then you give them one that's not, and then they bitch about that.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Well, it's it's like I told it's like I said last week. You know, gamers said they want something until they get it.

SPEAKER_03 30:31

We are fickle bitches, folks. That's the thing. It's it's like we can't. Speaking can't have your cake and eat it too, basically.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

Speaking of fickle bitches, I I swear to God, you're you're you're on the Segway train tonight. Um uh Highgard shuts down in eight days.

SPEAKER_03 30:51

Highgard shuts down in eight days, which is a shame, Richard.

SPEAKER_00 30:55

Which is a shame. It really is. But the thing of it is, once it was revealed that ten cent was the was the money behind it, and then it was revealed that they had pulled their funding, you knew it was only a matter of time.

SPEAKER_03 31:07

It was dead. It was dead, it was dead at that point.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

Dead in the water at that point. Highgard is the latest live service game to shut down, right? It joins what I've called an increasingly crowded cemetery, right? Right. Because the conversation, the conversation around these titles always goes the same way, right? And we'll we'll talk about we'll talk about the thing you you put in the list about, you know, uh the 2.0 thing and whatnot in a minute. But like, I want to dig into a second to what that actually means because my thing is like the live service model uh uh uh and the games as a service model, right, has become a lottery.

unknown 31:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

And and what I mean by that one could argue that it always was. Well, right, but what I mean by that is most tickets lose in the lottery, right? You get one or two that win every uh for the most part, right? Sure. And and this isn't new, right? Like you said, it's kind of always been this way. But why do publishers keep buying lottery tickets?

SPEAKER_03 32:13

Right. Why you keep why you keep going all in on this sort of game. Um Well, the problem is too they're doing the same thing, they're doing the same thing that a lot of content creators do. They're chasing the trend. Well, right. The problem is by the time you can chase that trend, it's passed you by. Well, yeah, that's well, and and and that's the thing that's part of Highgard's problem.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

Yeah. That's part of Marathon's problem. Yeah, it's very true. It's very true. I mean, a lot of people a lot of people are comparing this, and and and in some ways they are right to do so. In some ways they take it too far to Concorde and Anthem, right? Now, they're not the same story, right? It's not the same story.

SPEAKER_03 32:59

And in fact, it's certainly not Concorde 2.0. Is it Concorde 2.0 or is it Anthem 3.0? No. Or or is it um oh crap, I had the name of the game right in front of me, and that's slipped through my head. Each of these are their own story, right? And like I think it's important that we leave it that way because it doesn't inadvertently hide a pattern. Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:24

Or like like like I forgive me for standing on a soapbox for a second here, but you said it earlier, and I'm I I um and and I honestly can't remember if that was offline or if it was earlier in the show. Um, but Concord is Concord, right? Yeah. And Anthem is Anthem, Anthem is Anthem. And High Guard is Highguard. Can we please stop flattening every failed game into some cautionary tale of oh my god, this game is gonna be the next blh. Like the thing of it is, yeah, people saying that hides things. Right, it hides things, but it also discounts things like people saying that Highgard is Concorde 2.0 is a massive insult to the legendary status of Concorde's failure. Right? Here's the deal, right? Concorde was a whole branded PlayStation game with a branded dual sense controller, a TV show that didn't even launch, and it the the failure of Concorde should be studied and probably has been studied by now, right?

SPEAKER_03 34:28

Which so then so are we at Anthem 2.0 or are we at Defiance 5.0? Right. The whole TV show thing. Right. But yeah, the whole thing it points at the differences between what is happening and it hides, I think, the greater trend of why are these games failing. And of course, I think the answer is because they're chasing a trend, and by the time they can chase it, they they don't really care. They're just trying to grab some of that money.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

Well, that's the thing.

SPEAKER_03 34:55

Yeah, just make the best game we can make, and is this really it?

SPEAKER_00 34:58

Well, right, because once again, we talked about this before, but it it always boils down to that these publishers are beholding to the shareholders of nobody else, right? And if if the shareholders aren't happy, ain't no one gonna be happy. It's just like being married, apparently. But but yeah, I just like the real legacy of Concord, right? People want to talk about this. Nobody wants to have this conversation, but the real legacy of Concord is that every failed live service game will now be measured against it. Forever. Sure. Like, uh, and and the thing of it is is that like publishers for some reason, again, again, because they're beholding the shareholders and shareholders, see that Call of Duty makes money, World of Warcraft makes money, um uh fucking uh uh Battlefield makes money, uh the the the division made money, right? Publishers will see all of these companies, right, and they'll green light the next live service game before the announcement trailer for this shutdown even finishes fucking rendering, right? That's how this works. But my question for you, I um because we we we we talk a lot about you know uh uh the the live service games on this on this show, and we talk a lot about how it really only seems to be, you know, the the arc raiders, the the this, that, the other thing, um, that that seem to really make any headway, right? Uh uh Call of Duty, Battlefield, uh, you know, uh uh Is there a version of the live service model that's actually sustainable long term for we'll call them mid-tier studios? Or is it basically again only a lottery that the biggest publishers can afford to play?

SPEAKER_03 36:40

I tend towards it's a lottery. Um because and part of that is and this kind of sucks, right? The gaming community, all of us, all of us, every single one of us, the hunger for content will always far outstrip your ability to provide it. So there's no amount of content that you can really pump out to keep up with that demand, so you're always gonna end up in this chasing that particular rabbit of trying to get people to keep spending money on your game so you can keep developing it and provide the content, but there's not enough content to keep me interested long enough or not enough interesting things to buy. You know, I I am totally all whatever. You want to sell cosmetics? Sell cosmetics till the cows come home. Don't care. Um you know but I think at the end of the day, it's always been a very fragile paradigm. Yeah. Look at me, use a big big words. Um it it's always been fragile. It's we've seen it. The problem is too, we've watched this collapse now time and time and time and time again. But you would think, you know, you have you you made that you made the question, is it only things that triple A companies can can play explain anthem. Right. That's you can't say that they're not a triple A company. Right. But they bought the wrong lottery ticket. So exactly. Uh I think I think it's just I think at the end of the day, it's just kind of a lottery, and what you're looking for is that lightning in a bottle that hits you have to the the weird thing with the change in things that come along, you know, you can argue that destiny came along at the right time. Right? Yeah. Because it really wasn't you know, Halo, Gears of War.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

Right, but there wasn't there wasn't anything like it i in that in that space. There really wasn't.

SPEAKER_03 38:54

Right. But now when you're you bring a high guard, yeah, a marathon, you're bringing that into a busy space.

SPEAKER_00 39:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:05

You better bring the goods. And and you can't when you're bringing something okay, so if you're bringing a destiny into an empty space, you can afford to be pretty good, but not great. Because let's face it, Destiny Year 1 was a lot of things. Great was not on that list. Right. I'm looking at you, Forever 29. Um, yeah, yeah. I'm not saying it was bad. It wasn't bad, it was good, it was really good. But I I I would hard press to say that it was great out of the gate. Um, it doesn't start becoming great until we get to the taken game. Um so, the point being, when you have an empty environment, you have a better chance of hitting the right lottery number.

SPEAKER_00 39:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:00

When you have a busy environment, if you're not bringing the goods, you don't have to be innovative. We've talked about this before. But you better bring your A game to the table. And it better be good, and it better provide something that makes me want to go, I want to play this instead of that. Right? Agreed. Agreed. And what was it? Was it was it? I think it was the High Guard CEO. I was watching I was reading an interview. It was either them, or no, maybe it was Marathon. I don't know. It's one of them that actually admitted that. They're like, we have to give them a reason to want to stop playing what they're playing now and come play our game. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

Exactly. Um, and and and I just I don't think that there were enough reasons for a lot of these games for for people to sit again. We talked a little bit about a little bit about that last uh last show as well. Is that you know that you have to have a reason for people to want to come and play your game and stop whatever game it is they're playing, and for most people, yeah, that's really hard because of uh of the nostalgia investment or what whatever the reasoning is, right? Absolutely, whatever the reasoning is. Um, and then uh we we got wind this afternoon. Well, uh last week there were rumors flying around that I kind of ignored because I'm like, okay, we hear rumors all the time in the industry. But then uh Jason Schreier over at Bloomberg Bloomberg today uh reported that uh Sony is backing away from single-player PC ports. And I saw that, and my first reaction was, well, Sony hates money. Right.

SPEAKER_03 41:46

I I had that I agree. I had that first reaction, and then I had an immediate second reaction. Right. That that basically goes, do they, or is this sinking out of a cost because they don't feel like it's worth it? Right.

SPEAKER_00 42:00

So so Sony's from what I've read, a couple articles that I've that I've read, um, Sony's reasoning seems to be that PC ports of single-player games cannibalize PS5 sales and reduce their console exclusivity value. Right? However, the counter argument to that, that that people have been making all day, is that these ports have been very profitable. Right? Right. Horizon Zero Done on PC was a huge success. Spider-Man 2, like we talked about this in the in the pre-show, Spider-Man 2 sold 700,000 copies on Steam. I'm sorry. Almost two years later. Right. You released a game and yeah, you had to do some work to get it on PC, but you got an extra almost you know fucking almost a million copies on the deal.

SPEAKER_03 42:54

But what we don't know is what it took, what it cost them to get that.

SPEAKER_00 42:58

Right. Well, so here's here's the other here's the argument that I'm kind of coming around to agreeing with is the console I exclusivity as identity argument. And what I mean by that, and I wrote this down because I wanted to make sure I got it right, is that like Sony has built their brand for each, I mean, since the PlayStation 2, and really the PS1, if you want to go back that far, on prestige single-player games. If you can play them on a PC, why should you buy a PS5? Because Microsoft has gone all in on day and date PC releases, and it's been complicated at best.

SPEAKER_03 43:38

Well, right, well, and we talked about that because in your console, you know what you're getting, right? Right, you know what you know what all of the components are, you know what the specifications are, you can code to that. Once you move to the PC, now I've got a code for this video, that video card, this this CPU, that CPU. Becomes exponentially more thing. And and this is like it kind of always reminds me back in the day when you and by back in the day I mean DOS. Oh, when you're installing games and you had to install a specific sound driver. A specific video driver. Yep. And that's per game. That's not just for your card. That's the game says the game would ask you which sound card do you have? Which video card do you have?

unknown 44:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:28

And so now all of that is kind of done in the background now, but they're still doing it. Oh yeah. You still have to do it.

SPEAKER_00 44:34

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the thing uh and and I I I I mentioned this to you uh during the pre-show, but like the numbers may tell the story because Spider-Man 2, like I said, only finger quotes, sold 700,000 copies on Steam. However, putting your game out, you know, 12 to 24 months after its PlayStation 5 launch really actually tells the story. But you because they cannot have their cake and eat it too in this situation. The interest in that game has likely passed. People it it's not 1999 anymore. People are going to watch someone play the game on Twitch or YouTube versus playing it themselves if they have to wait that long. Because I'm sorry, a PlayStation the PlayStation 5 is a great console. I have one, it's in my living room. I I've had one for years, I love it. I I I love playing God of War on it. It is an incredible exclusives machine, but I also knew what I was buying it for. The thing of it is, like I said, it's a great console, but it also retails for over $500. Those facts are related.

SPEAKER_03 45:48

Like Yes. Still cheap PC, but also more limited than a PC. Exactly. So um, but yeah, and you're not, I don't know, these days, I just I don't you're not gonna buy, oh, I want to play Spider-Man, so I'm gonna drop 600 on a PS5 and hope that there are other games that I want to play. Right. That yeah, that's that's kind of sounds a little hyperbolic, right? But it could be that that's the only game you want to play in like, so I'm just not gonna drop unless you have more money than you know what to do with, at which case, call me. Um which case Hank, you're not gonna drop it. 600 bucks on a on a console for one game. Um I I don't know. I I tend to agree that look, you're waiting almost two years anyway. You're literally getting it all. Um so why? But I don't know. It just it it it makes you start to wonder. These things make me start to wonder what's going on that we don't know. If they're trying to cut cost, yeah, why? Why they're doing so well, why are you trying to trim the cost?

SPEAKER_00 47:00

Are you just trying to drive your property up higher? Let's let's let's let's look at this from Sony's specific point of view, right? Sony took a big swing on live service titles. They said we want to compete too, right? Right. So they bought up the dev for Concord. They bought Bungie. They they asked Naughty Dog to make a multiplayer Last of Us title. And so far, all three of those have failed or been shut down.

unknown 47:33

Right.

SPEAKER_00 47:34

So there they have billions of dollars. Right. They have billions of dollars in investment that has gone pretty much nowhere. So at some point, they've got to find a way to recoup that money, and this the the the they've kicked the can down the proverbial road long enough.

SPEAKER_03 47:53

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. That's that's really what's going on. Don't get me wrong, it sucks because I looked forward to Horizon Zero Dawn coming to PC because that was great. I didn't I I've never had a five. I did have a four. Yeah. And um played the but Jesus out of Horizon.

SPEAKER_00 48:09

Horizon's so good. So good. So good. Uh and that new that new Horizon game looks so good. So good. Yeah. But like because people people talk about like the the other thing is that like the the the the the the the the interesting bit about that entire argument is that like a game like Days Gone, which sold terribly on the PS5 by comparison, did gangbusters on the PC because the PC could actually run it properly. Also, the game was pretty good. Days Gone was pretty fun. I really enjoyed that game. Um, but so I I I just I I think we're in this weird. Like I I mean I'm in this weird position on this one because I understand exactly where Sony's coming from from from from a business perspective. That being said, it sucks because my main gaming platform is my PC. And that means when Wolverine comes out in the fall, I'm gonna have to fire up, I'm gonna have to drag my PS5 in here to create content on it. I'm not jazzed about that. I'm just not. I can't get jazzed.

SPEAKER_02 49:10

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 49:10

It just like that like that adds a whole nother layer of bullshit to my already annoying need to or my already annoying way I do this game streaming and stuff like that. Alright? It's just it's just it it it it it makes me not want to create content on a game I'm very excited about. And that's stupid.

SPEAKER_02 49:28

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 49:29

Right? That's a barrier.

SPEAKER_02 49:31

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03 49:32

I agree. Totally. And and we'll see. I mean, we'll see how long it lasts for one reason. Right. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 49:38

Now I do have a lot of things. Yeah, right. I do have um three like rapid fire questions for you to close out the show tonight. You ready for these? I didn't tell you about these.

SPEAKER_03 49:49

Alright, alright. Um hang on, we still got three things to talk about real quick.

SPEAKER_00 49:53

Oh, that's right, we do. You're right. You're correct.

SPEAKER_03 49:57

So uh we can hit a couple of these really fast. Yeah. Black Flag remake. Uh find myself I I uh I find myself moderately interested, or I will at least check it out because Black Flag is awesome. Um and it is supposed to include nude content. Not nude, new. Nude content, not nude content. Right? Different game entirely. Um so that intrigues me, which is supposed to go more into, I guess, Ken Edward Kenway's story. So that's cool. Um, and that would be what brings me in because I played so much black flag that you know, without anything new, it could be prettier, but I I'm not that interested in playing it again. I'll give you that. Um, but it's supposed to have new content. The Minecraft legacy console code leaked out this week. The original old school Minecraft legacy console code that is playable on your PC. Yep. Um I I don't know where it's at. I was just seeing a bunch of stuff about it, and I whatever. It just I find that um amusing more than anything else. And then the Discord age verification thing, they've they've put out some more information on that. Well, of course, they have delayed the rollout to the half second half. They're they're also looking at it's not necessarily um all about your ID. They're also going to look at your account data and they're gonna look at things like what are your payment methods, how old is your account? Yep. To kind of determine if you are an art or not an adult. They are promising transparency with this. We'll see how that goes. They already have no choice in some countries, they're gonna have to do this. And the reason they're saying they are doing this now and starting to look at worldwide is simply because they're the rest of the world is all looking at doing this. Yep, you know, they're all doing it, and so if we get ahead of this, we can then say, look, our system works. Yep. And so I I I kind of get where they're coming from. I don't like it, don't misunderstand me. Yeah, whatever. Um, but the laws are coming, they're coming everywhere. There's already places now, even in this country. California just put in a a law about uh operating systems requiring age verification.

SPEAKER_00 52:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:17

But anyway, well the my favorite part about that whole thing is when they announced they were delaying it, they you they said they said the phrase. They're like, we want to make sure we get this right.

SPEAKER_03 52:32

Shouldn't that have been your goal in the first place? That should have been the goal. Well, I think what what they got wrong here, like most companies, is more the communication than anything else. Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much.

SPEAKER_00 52:44

They so we'll see what happens. They didn't have a PR guy like me going, hey, say this, not that.

SPEAKER_03 52:50

But but it's coming, whether we want it to or not, some form of this is coming. It's okay. All right. Rapid fire questions hit me.

SPEAKER_00 52:57

All right. What game do you think this uh what game this year do you think is going to surprise everyone, either good or bad?

SPEAKER_03 53:05

Jesus. I I I don't know. Um because right now I think everything we've been looking at is mostly out. Um yeah, I don't I don't know. I can I can't answer that.

SPEAKER_00 53:16

My answer is Wolverine. Um I I I I think. I know it's coming, and that's it. That's the extent of my knowledge. My other answer that was what my answer was going to be Crimson Desert.

SPEAKER_03 53:27

But then literally today I don't think that's gonna surprise anybody.

SPEAKER_00 53:31

The only thing it's gonna surprise people is if it sucks. Well, the thing the thing of it is that all the content videos came out today, right? And I was like, well, fuck. Because now all the all the little like first impressions and the oh, it actually runs this well on PC. That's all out. So whatever, fine. All right, fine. Fuck it. I can't use that one anymore. Um, if you had to rescue one dead live service game from the cemetery that I talked about earlier and fund it yourself, which one would it be? Live service? Yes, live service. Yep. Ooh, all right, all right, cool. Yep, all right, yep. That was my answer too, to be honest.

SPEAKER_03 54:04

Um Outriders, but but probably your anthem. Fair. Um fair. Now, if I could rescue any game and bring it back.

SPEAKER_00 54:16

And then uh what Kingdoms of Amalur. Oh, yes. See, I was I was gonna say Dayok, but technically Dayok is still running. But it's it's not, you know what I mean? Like it's not the same. Um yeah. Um uh and then what is the one thing that the gaming industry could do right now that would actually restore your faith in the industry?

SPEAKER_03 54:43

Nothing. Not right now. I don't I don't think there's one thing. There is no one thing. Um I you're gonna have to I and I don't even give a damn about transparency. You're gonna have to stop chasing the trends. You're gonna have to start making an effort to put out quality product. You're gonna have to make bring the damn budgets out off the moon, please. Bring them back home to where you can actually make a profit because right now you're not gonna ever make one.

SPEAKER_00 55:12

My my thing, uh what what what I wrote down was um uh to to stop worrying about making money. And starting to absolutely, but that's that's unfortunate not gonna happen. But hold hold on, hold on. And and to start focusing on making and selling a good video game again. So I don't know why this trick is the money naturally shows up.

SPEAKER_03 55:44

Right. Make a good game, money comes. Right that's been proven time and time and time and time. And we've talked about wanting this before, and now I'm starting to wonder, the conspiracy theorists in me, if Bungie's keeping this one in their back pocket for when marathon goes belly up. Let's assume. And this is a huge assumption, so don't at me. I'm not saying this is gonna happen. This is a hypothetical at him, Chad. Stay with me. Don't don't at me. Um let's say we get three months down the road, yeah, and Marathon's player base is gone. You know where Bungie goes? Except for Sony just said we're not gonna do it anymore. Except they are. This is a multiplayer game, it's not a single player game. You port Destiny 1 to PC. You're fair. Okay. That's their that's their uh their get out of jail.

SPEAKER_00 56:36

That's your escape clause.

SPEAKER_03 56:38

Yeah, that's your escape clause. Um well MATTIX today just put out a or yesterday put out a thing, starting a new brand new Destiny 1 account. Damn. You know, you'd have to upgrade a little bit, like bring me mantling for Christ's sake, but other than that, I don't care. Actually, that's it. That's literally the only thing I want out of Destiny 2 into Destiny 1. Just give me the mantle. Fair.

SPEAKER_00 57:00

Other than that, yeah, I wouldn't have. I would agree. Well, and so like I just I'm I'm you have to update the graphics. I'm gonna it looks fine. I'm in this weird thing because because I I I constantly say, you know, we're trying our best, we're doing our best. You know, and and and I'm like, the industry is doing its best. Its best is a lot right now. Right. And it just I just I I I I I I I love gaming. And and and and obviously I sit here every every two weeks and talk about it with you. I stream, we we we stream games on the internet to people like we we we we we we we we love the industry. I mean, I've you know you you you've been a part of the games industry in some form. I've been a part of the games industry in some form, whether it whether it's you know talking about it or whether it's it's it's producing you know uh uh uh um uh uh you know DD content that you've produced. This, that, the other thing, right? Like we we love the industry, we want to see it succeed, and and to see them, to see it constantly shoot itself in the foot over and over and over again is really dumb. Games are still good. In fact, this that there is no better time to enjoy video games than right now. Games are still good. The business of games is extremely unwell, and that's a problem. Correct. It is a problem, right? But uh, cheeks, do you have anything else for the evening?

SPEAKER_03 58:22

No, I think that's it. Once again, thank you to Belavere for the fallout player. I have to figure out how this thing works. I think I figured I kind of read the directions, which is kind of weird for me.

SPEAKER_00 58:32

But um my god, he's a man, and he wrote he read the directions. The world's coming to an end.

SPEAKER_03 58:36

Next, I'm gonna ask for directions when I'm on a trip.

SPEAKER_00 58:41

But as always, friends, thank you so much for hanging out. Thank you so much for hanging out with us. Uh, we appreciate you. We'll we'll we'll we'll we'll we'll be back with this show in two weeks. Um, I'm Freebird. That's Cheeks. This is aggressively casual. You're still here. That means something, maybe. Uh let's let's find someone to send you all to. Uh let's see. Who the hell is that?

SPEAKER_03 59:02

You're right, Bal. We have become very jaded.

SPEAKER_00 59:05

Oh, absolutely. We have absolutely become very, very jaded.

SPEAKER_03 59:08

Yeah, absolutely. Um and some of that some of that I think is not our fault, some of it I think it is our fault.

SPEAKER_00 59:16

Oh, absolutely. Um absolutely. I I concur on both uh.