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Episode 8 - Returnal to Pokemon Snap & Apple/EPIC lawsuit secrets!
12 Plays4 years ago
Originally recorded live on 5/4 @ twitch.tv/addtoparty
The boys discuss Sony investing in Discord, Apple and Epic's lawsuit airing everyone's dirty laundry, Activision going all in on Call of Duty, & the reviews/impressions of Returnal and Pokemon Snap
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Transcript
Introduction and Casual Banter
00:00:16
Speaker
Welcome to Add to Party, a new show masquerading as a friendship simulator. I'm your host, James Hartwell, joined by... This is Charles, and I'm joined by...
00:00:30
Speaker
Andy K. I want you to hear this. OK, I'm opening my beer on my turn. Does it turn up? There we go. So I wasn't rude this time. OK. Also, uh huh. I don't know what just shook onto my desk. It was either like dandruff or pizza crumbs. I have no idea. Andy, I can't for life for me, I can't understand how you're still single.
00:00:59
Speaker
I mean, doesn't it just happen sometimes, though? Pizza crumbs just falling off you, you know. You know, and I just I feel like I just ate one too many pieces of pizza, you know, does ever happen where it's just one too many. You eat the right amount and then you eat one more.
00:01:23
Speaker
And then I'm drinking beer. So I've got a lot in me. I'm carrying a lot around with me right now So I just want you to keep that in mind as I process this information. We're about to hear If you have I I would think you have less because it's falling off your body right now
00:01:42
Speaker
I think it was pizza crumbs. It was a bit too large to be dandruff. But I've been noticing dandruff recently, too. But I'm too lazy to put in oil. Here's the important question. Did you have pizza for dinner? Yeah. Oh, OK. Oh, no. This was. I was worried. Yeah, no, I just ate. I just ate and I've been finding more and more stuff in my beard. So I was just kind of curious.
00:02:07
Speaker
How long is your beard now? No, it's not the worst. It's down. Pull it down. It's down to the nips. So I got a I got a nips beard. Andy, that is that is a mighty beard. Well, again, if I if I comb it out completely, I don't take care of this thing. So it is it is a it is a tangled mess. But if I'm if I'm feeling good, it's down to the nips.
Nostalgia and Movie Experiences
00:02:30
Speaker
Yeah. If I had to describe it, it's as if, uh, have you ever seen a bird's nest? Okay. Well, no, maybe not. A hummingbird could probably comfortably lay their eggs. And that's fine. It has a welcome home. When you're wearing a mask outside, you know, your beard, your beard doesn't matter. You're like, uh, Radagast from the hobby movies. I don't know who that is.
00:03:00
Speaker
I mean, it's the movies. Who cares? That's fair. Yeah, that's fair. Who cares about Lord of the Rings? Well, hold on. No one's saying Lord of the Rings. We're talking about the Hobbit movies. Yeah. And they're bad. I don't know what you're
PlayStation and Discord Integration
00:03:20
Speaker
talking about, James. There were six Lord of the Rings movies.
00:03:24
Speaker
I, listen, did I buy the recent release on 4k? Yes, I did. So that makes me the best fan. Yeah. Oh yeah. I'd say Lord of the Rings trilogy. It's probably worth buying the set for whatever new media comes out every time. Oh yeah. It's like a, it's a good Christmas movie. Weird enough as that sounds. Hmm.
00:03:46
Speaker
I think it was an ABC family really won their agenda, which is push certain movies or maybe not ABC family. Who was it? Um, TNT or TBS or whatever really got their agenda of just, let's just, we have the rights for these movies to broadcast. We'll just play them that whatever season we need them to fill time for. And that's all they did. Cause I agree.
00:04:11
Speaker
Lord of the Rings doesn't feel weird to watch during Christmas. The original one came out during Christmas. I remember we went to see it probably like the day after Christmas or something. And my father complaining because we sat in the very front row, our necks craned at like 90 degrees because the theater was packed. Oh, yeah, that's not a real seat.
00:04:34
Speaker
Yeah, I can confirm. Front row seats are the worst. Yeah. It's made up. It's fake. Yeah. Well, you know, it's not fake. I want to know. Tell me about it. I'm transitioning, damn it. Away from this playful banter into the news.
00:04:54
Speaker
PlayStation has said we give up discord is the best way to have chat voice chat. So if you remember a couple of weeks ago, I want to say like three or four weeks ago, there were a lot of rumors about Microsoft buying voice communication platform discord, which is primarily on PC and mobile.
00:05:16
Speaker
and and has now they now have a minority share in discord and have said they will be bringing discord functionality as in voice chat parties channels things like that into ps4 and ps5 by early next year so early 2022 oh and look who wrote this republican congressman jim ryan
00:05:42
Speaker
you know, destroyer of dreams, crushing of legacy. Well, to be fair, he didn't destroy the capitalist machine. He didn't destroy any dreams this time. He he has brought the dream. We all thought this was going to be. This is the dream, right? Discord on the console. That's true. Absolutely. I mean, this was a really nice news to hear.
00:06:06
Speaker
Go ahead, Andy. A little bit too pro consumer, wouldn't you say? I don't know. I don't know what their agenda is here. I mean, it's a this is a really good way to keep people in the PlayStation. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair to keep them inside. Lock the doors. Don't let them leave. Yeah, because like, again, right, like parties is is nice, but you know what handles things better?
00:06:34
Speaker
Discord already handles a lot of these need to be social in voice channels or in chat channels or in their own set environment. That whole thing with PlayStation communities that they tried doing, that's a Discord server already. If it fits so neatly into what PlayStation was trying to do, that is just like, here you go, it makes sense.
00:07:03
Speaker
If I was if I have to put a guess upon it, you're going to end up. It's not going to be like where maybe this is pessimistic of me, but it's not going to be where we can just pull in any discord channel into PS5, but it's that you'll be able to generate PS5 discord channels, which can then be shared with PC.
00:07:25
Speaker
or the other way around, but there will be like piece like PS five or PlayStation in general will kind of have a walled garden where we have PS five exclusive discord channels. And you know, you won't get like PC only ones in there because as we discussed, discord does have a CD underbelly of adult entertainment, which probably would not fly.
00:07:47
Speaker
I mean, that's fair. Although, although I mean,
Epic vs. Apple Lawsuit
00:07:50
Speaker
to be fair, what is it like? The I think the Xbox and the PS4 are like right behind mobile in terms of the most used browser to look at Pornhub. So still, I haven't looked. I don't know. Was it PS4 or PS3? It was PS4. It was PS4. That's a hard to use browser. I'll tell you what.
00:08:11
Speaker
Yeah. And people use it. Um, but God bless them for getting that video to work. That's wonderful.
00:08:17
Speaker
But yeah, so I don't know. It just seems very interesting. Discord went from immediately went all the way from being bought by Microsoft to being invested by by Sony. So it's very weird. Yeah, a little bit of whiplash. But, you know, we love to see it. I think it's pretty cool. I've played a couple of games where I'm on my PS4 at the time, I guess, and then I would have to like use my phone and plug in my headphones. And it was a lot of work.
00:08:46
Speaker
And then you don't have the audio of the game. And it's just really inconvenient. So I'm surprised they're trying to bring platforms together. I think it's great. But to your point, keep them inside. You know, trick them just enough. Well, like in another way, too. Right. On the flip side, Discord probably made the smarter decision here to not sell themselves. Oh, yes. Because now they can do this for every console.
00:09:15
Speaker
How many billions was it? Was it Star Wars billions? I think it was more than Star Wars billions. Well, the reported.
00:09:28
Speaker
How does Discord make money? It doesn't. Right! And you're worth more than Star Wars? It's whatever investors think it's worth. I hate it. We have all this money. I don't like how companies in the economy work. I don't. I don't. I mean, that's fair, but also how it works. And that's how they afterward, even if you disagreed and you wanted to be in it.
00:09:58
Speaker
That is how it works. Why does Republican Congressman Jim Ryan say no to Kojima? Right. He says no to other things I forgot. But frickin says yes to Discord. I don't understand. Who's who who is he appealing to? I don't know.
00:10:17
Speaker
Andy as of the last at least the most current valuation that I can find which was December of last year Discord was valued at seven billion dollars. So you would have to assume you would have to assume
00:10:32
Speaker
Microsoft probably would have had to offer something in the neighborhood of like 10 billion if they wanted to buy this is insane. This is insane. Oh, my God. But OK, we can move on. Well, I mean, if we also, you know, there's another article about Sony's investment strategy that came out this week, which was also that, you know, I think we talked about Sony strategy of going screw Indies.
00:10:57
Speaker
And, you know, reportedly. Yeah. I, I, uh, I remember when we had that discussion and then later, Charles, you, you talked in Slack about me. It's like, wait a minute. Kaz is in charge of indie reach, reach out. Like that's his whole sector. And it's like, yeah, it doesn't mean they're really super committed to it. Just because they have it. No, listen, Shuhei Yoshida, let's say former president, if he goes and decides to do something else fun, that's something we're doing.
00:11:27
Speaker
Like, he doesn't, he's not gonna fucking fuck around. Oh, is it Shuhei I thought it was Kaz? Also, no, Kaz has gone wild. I think Kaz was the previous president right here. Oh, okay. And Shuhei was our friend who let us lend our friends our games. That's right. Okay, I was getting Shuhei and Kaz confused then. Yeah, but the other thing too in terms of that whole, old argument was just the fuck do you call PlayStation VR?
00:12:02
Speaker
I don't know if they did give us Tetris effects so much as if they, well, I mean, they bought it. I don't know if they produced it though.
00:12:11
Speaker
But anyway, so during Sony's quarterly conference call for investors and analysts, they talked about how they're continuing to double down on investment in first party studios and continue to partner with external developers. So basically.
00:12:28
Speaker
Eh, you know, we're going to work with who we work with and we're not really going to garner new talent is more or less what it amounts to. Thanks, Jim. I mean, I don't think there's anything too other interesting in there, but I mean, other news just kind of came out like PlayStation five, just breaking all sorts of records in terms of how fast it's selling.
00:12:49
Speaker
Sony is doing impressively well and this discord, you know, I think it was a few weeks ago, we're talking about when is PlayStation going to get its win? Right. That discord news is a big win for Sony. That's pretty cool. That is pretty cool.
00:13:04
Speaker
Well, can we talk, let's talk about something that might not have a big win. I can't wait,
Sony's Investment Strategies
00:13:10
Speaker
but it's a big win for us. Epic and Apple are fighting and we're just airing out the dirty laundry of everyone in the games industry. This is bad. I mean, it's fun.
00:13:22
Speaker
Let me, yes, let me rephrase that qualifier or replace it. I'm amazed at how easily information is being linked out or leaked out. I should say it's just so sloppy. And then we're getting all these. It's not necessarily being leaked. I.
00:13:40
Speaker
Isn't it posted to a thing that I thought it was posted to a like share folder that so have been able to comb and pull information. So let me let me summarize this. Right. So Epic and Apple are currently in a lawsuit. Basically, epics like screw you. We don't want to have to go through the app store to sell like the books and stuff on Fortnite and Apple 20 percent cut.
00:14:06
Speaker
30, I think 30. Yeah, it's pretty aggressive. Yeah. And so basically there's this kind of lawsuit about that. Apple is monetizing the platform and it's anti-trust, all sorts of fun things. But anyway, so just a really catty thing that Epic did in the iPhone app. I believe it said if you buy V bucks through iPhone, you get 100 for 10 bucks. If you use your browser to buy it from Epic, you get like 20 percent more.
00:14:34
Speaker
Oh, yeah. So they literally directed you to get them a different way on the same platform. It was why. I mean, they also I like actively release its own trailer of propaganda saying it's bad.
00:14:49
Speaker
But Apple is doing bad. It's they are actively just completely trying to get this. Oh, yeah. So, yeah. And I mean, it's it's two companies with a lot of money, neither of whom might give a shit whether they win or not. But.
00:15:09
Speaker
I think what's interesting is basically, you know, as a part of court proceedings, you know, you can subpoena people for information and Epic has subpoenaed a lot of information, at least from other partners to build up this case on, you know, revenue sharing and things like that. And generally speaking, that is not secretive.
00:15:31
Speaker
like in other industries like movie industries that's just like yeah you know marvel just came out you know whatever like six or marvel the other day marvel just came out with like this is our next movie slate for the next three years basically saying these are all the movies we're gonna be making but you have game studios that have been working on something for four years we have no idea what they've been working on
00:15:54
Speaker
So it's it's very apples to oranges. And I think this is probably one of the biggest games lawsuits that's happened, at least in the recent memory that I can remember. And so basically their court proceedings are public record.
00:16:12
Speaker
subpoenaed documents are being stored in a public folder where people are able to submit requests to review them. And the problem is that someone has to sift through that information to decide what is classified and what's sealed, I believe, is the legal term or not.
00:16:29
Speaker
And a lot of them are just setting up in the public folder and we're finding out a lot of neat things. Like the fact that Epic has spent 11 million dollars on all those free games, which I thought was kind of cheap.
00:16:46
Speaker
Yeah, actually. I was surprised they spent so little to acquire all these users. James, blow up that image. Yeah, I'm blowing it up for all of you kind enough to join us on our livestream. We have a chart that shows by game how much epic handed out money. One of the top and not exhaustive, by the way. Yes, not exhaustive. But one of the top receivers was Subnautica.
00:17:13
Speaker
Yeah, that was the crazy one. I didn't know it was that big of a game. Yeah. It's an underwater game. And it's making it in like a lot of games in a lot of places. Yeah. Subnautica was one of the biggest earners. What were some of the others? And when I say that was like one point something million dollars they got to hand out that game for free for a week. Was it one point four million? And then GTA was at one point five.
00:17:41
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, here's the other thing you have to look at, though, Andy. Eight hundred thousand new Epic accounts were created while Subnautica was free. Isn't that incredible? Yeah. So that means almost what, just a little over two thirds of a million people created an Epic account.
00:17:58
Speaker
to get Subnautica for free. And I mean, that's frankly speaking, what is it? They said that's one point seven dollars per new user, which is cheap. All things considered. Yeah. I mean, imagine they buy a ten dollar game. Well, I forgot how much their cut is. I think it's like 18 percent. But yeah,
Focus on Game Development
00:18:20
Speaker
you're you're making your money back if people can buy.
00:18:23
Speaker
Oh, we have representation in the chat for Subnautica. I am trying to use every fiber in my being to want to play this game.
00:18:32
Speaker
i still don't want to and it hurts it sounds so good but i just i can never get past like the opening three hours i need just like ever so slightly more guidance to figure out what to do sure i wanted it to be outer wilds which as i understand it is not outer wilds it is not because i just want i just want another outer wilds yeah that's a game i need to play
00:18:57
Speaker
We're not talking about it today, but I mean, we can. And this is an aside, but the talk of the sequel. Yeah, there's not a sequel, but a DLC got leaked on Steam. So there may be a DLC coming this summer for Outer Wilds. I love that. Also leaked in the court documents. Walmart is developing a cloud gaming service.
00:19:19
Speaker
Yeah, I sure I thought that was a that was a rumor and then got confirmed. Right. And then he's never heard anything for a while. Project Storm, which is, you know, that's a better name than Stadia, the plural of stadium. Yeah, it's going to be a little awkward for them, because well, OK, the reason why I get it that this whole one, it's nice that they were saying, like, look, it was working really well.
00:19:49
Speaker
But I feel like they stopped working on this project. Stadia is pretty much dead. Why is this going to be any better? Again, I don't care that it's Walmart doing this because anybody with enough money can hire good people. But they never solve the problem of
00:20:08
Speaker
you know, can we guarantee good enough Internet and everything? Well, there's that, too. But I think this the Walmart one is going for the the GeForce Now kind of way where it's basically you log into your own accounts on a virtual network server, which then you can play games on there.
00:20:28
Speaker
So, you know, that that kind of solves the a little bit of the city issue, which was I'm not paying 60 dollars for a game on Stadia. But if I'm I'm it's it's kind of changing the marketplace of going, well, I'm not paying for a game and paying for computer time as if I was going to like, you know, a gaming cafe or something like that. I think Chief Force now is done pretty well.
00:20:55
Speaker
You're right, though, that Internet access is limited and still kind of the biggest barrier. But, hey, you know, infrastructure is coming, according to some people in government. So we'll find out. Maybe we'll get maybe we'll have Korean level Internet soon. Oh, I know. Well, with 5G, it can be anywhere. That's true. Yeah, I will say that the
00:21:20
Speaker
The best thing about getting access to all the emails and everything else going on is you get to understand the tone between everybody across companies. So I think there's something in here too where the person who's one of the executives was talking about how they played it and it's like, you know what? It was vastly superior to playing on my daughter's service program.
00:21:50
Speaker
Yeah, it's just all that stuff. Like, you know, another thing, it's not listed here that came out during this whole debacle was, you know, finding out about how Microsoft reviews competitions games. Yep. And there's this incredibly well-written review of The Last of Us Part II to be, you know, to be given to all the Microsoft execs to read. And it is one of the best well-written reviews and completely neutral.
00:22:19
Speaker
honest position, you know, written to be very neutral. And it is great. You almost want to go, who wrote that? We should hire them to write game reviews. You couldn't pay them enough because what they're doing is competitive analysis and you get paid a lot of money for that. Yeah. And, you know, and that's why games journalism is a fucking joke.
00:22:43
Speaker
But I love those hot takes and silly opinions. All right. Yeah. Yeah. One one other kind of interesting thing was revealed a lot of how Sony and Epic's discussion on cross play went.
00:23:00
Speaker
and just how hard it was. And basically, you know, there's an email in here from Sony kind of talking about, well, this doesn't really benefit Sony to put our games in cross play.
00:23:18
Speaker
I think I heard I heard discussion about this is you do have to separate Sony as a company and Sony as a PR place because right. And you're thinking about Crossplay does not benefit Sony in that it does not generate more sales as far as they are concerned, at least at the time of this rating. And then, you know, but does it benefit gamers? Hell, yeah. But then Sony, Sony basically went to Epic and I guess everyone else is
00:23:48
Speaker
who's doing cross play with them. I have to assume Outriders is doing this or any other games as a service game doing cross play, which is basically they pay Sony some protection fees. You know, it's you know, that you've got to give them if you want to enable cross play, you've got to give them a little cut of money so that they're protecting their revenue, which is brilliant from a corporate standpoint, but really kind of shitty for everyone else. Yeah, I coming out of that system, I was definitely like,
00:24:17
Speaker
pretty good. Like, you know, if that if you're in that board and you come up with that solution, you probably got a good book. Yeah, that's that's that's the having your cake and eating it to solution, basically. Mm hmm. Go ahead, Andy. Oh, I only meant to say that I thought I was really smart because it was a it was a use case I hadn't considered when I always thought about Sony keeping on their platform. I always kind of thought I was like, well, because you would then move to a different platform and just play there.
00:24:45
Speaker
But this is considering that, hey, I have this, you know, 12 year old playing on their PS4 every day, Fortnite, but then they've got, you know, mom's credit card on their iPhone. So they go over there and buy all their gear, but they're, you know, playing on the PlayStation. So Sony's foot in the bill.
00:25:04
Speaker
in whatever way it is to have them play, but the money is being collected by someone else. I never considered that, like playing on multiple platforms, but one platform taking the money. So I'm not going to lie. I don't blame them. I thought that was smart. Yeah. I was going to say, the problem is, right? You know why it's a use case we didn't think of. We grew up in the not before microtransactions. Exactly. Now that microtransactions are very much a thing,
00:25:33
Speaker
That's exactly what, that is exactly the use case in series, right? I never thought of that. And honestly, I don't blame Sony, one bit, for this collection model. They're outright refusal of cross-platform, I don't support. But them reaching a compromise, sure, why not? Yeah, I mean, like,
00:25:54
Speaker
I said this before too about like, you're like, you mean their attitude about this was they don't want to do it because it doesn't benefit them, their business? Color me, surprise. I was like, and we said it before too, which is, whoever is leading in the market, cross platform doesn't benefit. So like, you know, they have to do something else to make it worth it. And you're like, okay, well, there you go.
00:26:24
Speaker
No, it's it's just kind of. So this is day two of Epic versus Apple, and people have already found this much out as well. And I think we've named about four or five different stories. There's also a bunch on here. I didn't put like Stalker two is only going to be a three month timed exclusive to Xbox. Oh, that's not my.
00:26:48
Speaker
There's a bunch of other just kind of little things like that. Also, just some kind of like confirmations on who's working on what, but nothing like gigantic. So it's interesting how much more we'll find out by next week comes around, if we do find out anything more, but just all this dirty laundry across the industry is getting shared because Epic is trying to build this case of, yeah, here's all the reasons they should allow us to do it.
00:27:12
Speaker
And so, and then Apple is on the same plane like, well, here's all the reasons you shouldn't. So you're just getting all this, all this pieces of hidden information to do these conversations that were done in the shadows of corporate boardrooms, right? Getting exposed.
00:27:27
Speaker
And I think one of the big things leaked during
Pokemon Snap Impressions
00:27:30
Speaker
this is that Epic in Discovery had to share their user base per platform. And they're starting this war with Apple, but iOS was one of the least played platform. Yeah.
00:27:43
Speaker
So they're chasing money for I think a single single digit percentage of their user base. It's wild. I don't know what they're trying to do here. I don't know if this is eco driven. I don't know if they're thinking they're, you know, working on behalf of the developer. Right. Well, you should take 30 percent. They should take 18.
00:28:05
Speaker
And you got to realize, though, you're thinking about this in terms of percentages, but then you also have to remember what volume those percentages are representing. Right. I can't I don't have the numbers and I'm not going to look them up, but I think there was something like it's either 200. This is a range and it's very unjournalistic of me, but it was either Fortnite last year made it was either 200 billion or 40 billion. I can't remember.
00:28:36
Speaker
Those are the two numbers that are sticking out in my head and I understand that is a larger But still though for even if it was 40 billion when you're talking about 1% Over 40 billion revenue if to raise that that's like there was a commercial a long time ago Where there's a guy running around he's running around the office goes
00:28:58
Speaker
I saved the nickel. I saved nickel. And they go and they go, I'm like, what's what's so special about it? I saved the nickel on every transaction. The guy who looks over and goes, we do 10 million transactions a day. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So it's kind of that it's that idea, right? Of just like one percent may not seem like much in the grand scheme of things, but when you talk about these ridiculous numbers that they're working with, it probably does. That's a that's a very good call out. Yeah. I mean, it's real money.
00:29:27
Speaker
Yeah, and the other important thing, right, is I don't think people in this case, but if they do in this case, it's going to be really, it would be very beneficial to suddenly have to say, look, Apple lost their case on how they manipulate their store on their device. That means any other place that does that can also suddenly lose and have to lower their price. So, you know,
00:29:56
Speaker
any other game or any other future project can potentially be easier if they knock this out right now. Yep. Yeah. What's all this news and attention about private dollars?
00:30:08
Speaker
Well, we've only talked about huge, soulless corporations today. And let's continue that trend by talking about Activision. Oh, yeah. And sad news, basically, more or less every studio at Activision currently working on Call of Duty.
00:30:27
Speaker
I literally feel like this is a strategy of a toddler, right? It's one thing works, so let's do it all, right? Everything. Devote all resources, even toys for Bob.
00:30:41
Speaker
Toys for Bob, Crash 4, Spyro Remake. Yeah, you should read the rest of those show notes. Yeah. Yeah,
Giant Bomb Departures and Brand Impact
00:30:50
Speaker
so we can bring that in. Basically, so a rumor was given to some people that more or less every studio at Activision outside of Blizzard, right, is working on Warzone support and
00:31:05
Speaker
Uh, you know, Activision kind of came out and went, no, no, no. Toys for Bob remains the lead developer on crash for the already released game. Hey, we're adding the noid. That's right. They are adding the noid. If you're unaware, Domino's is bringing back the noid, a red, a red bug creature who ruins pizzas.
00:31:34
Speaker
Yeah, they forgot they needed that adorable mascot. Congrats, Torres for Bob. Yeah, so it's kind of I mean, Andy, you're saying this is like a toddler strategy. I don't necessarily disagree. But this is also what Activision does. You know, remember, it was like Tony Hawk's big release a million Tony Hawks. Yeah.
00:31:55
Speaker
Guitar heroes, guitar heroes, big release a lot of guitar heroes. So it's kind of. Yeah, they always just like, hey, what's the popular thing? All right, let's hammer this real hard. Yeah. Well, really, let's let's destroy it. I mean, you know, rock band and guitar hero, it's just all of them became tired. We all stopped caring. Granted, it seems like Call of Duty has some legs, even with them releasing something every year. I don't know who plays them anymore.
00:32:23
Speaker
I play him occasionally. Yeah, everyone. I think generally speaking it's kind of everyone's...
00:32:30
Speaker
It's like it's just it's a relaxing FPS if you want to be called racial epitaphs by 12 year olds. But that's what I mean. It's war zone feels like kind of I think a lot of pub G people and people who don't enjoy Fortnite but enjoy Battle Royale's kind of all gravitated to war zone because war zones a bit more arcadey than pub G was. But it's not as arcadey as say Fortnite is.
00:32:58
Speaker
So it's it strides that balance that I think the industry or at least the battle royale genre was missing. So I don't know. It's just it's sad to see. Granted, what are these other properties I was looking forward to that Activision holds? Spyro. Spyro. I mean, Toys for Bob has been kind of like a darling recently, which is some really excellent remakes and then this this sequel. So it's a little bit sad to we don't who the heck knows what's really going to happen, right?
00:33:27
Speaker
Maybe they'll be given a creative project in the future instead of supporting. I think it's even just adding bodies to helping with a project. But you know, this is all the brainchild of Bobby Kotick or whatever his name is. Right. Mr. $200 million bonus. This is what he deserves it for. Yeah. I mean, it again.
00:33:52
Speaker
It's hard to say sarcastically when they keep getting record profits every year. Yeah. There was something in here where it talked about basically kind of the 20 year growth of Activision under Bobby Kodak. And they went again somewhere in the low double, you know, the tens of millions to a billion dollar company. So yeah, he did what he was doing.
00:34:18
Speaker
Oh yeah, here it is. Market capitalization has increased from less than $10 million to over $70 billion under its leadership.
00:34:31
Speaker
So it's kind of hard to argue with the results. He is not a great person. Right. But those bonuses were also on the backs of layoffs. Yeah. I mean, the news story that did come out this week is basically Bobby Kotick very generously decided he was going to cut his salary and bonus by 50 percent this year.
00:34:58
Speaker
I think this is just him
Reflections and Humorous Farewell
00:35:00
Speaker
trying to Activision, I think, had a kind of a light quarter in terms of, you know, they're they're getting their legs up on war zone. But I think in terms of Blizzard and other properties, they're a little they're they're they're they're a little behind where they want it to be. So I think he cut his I think he cut his salary and bonus just to appease shareholders. Yeah. Yeah. I think the the pitchforks were already raised even with the shareholders. So it's very funny to
00:35:29
Speaker
For when you read those stats and they say, like, you know, their official reason is to put him more in line with other CEOs, similar CEOs, and then he's at like technically the bottom 25%. Yeah. Yeah. And then, and then his bonuses will kick him out to a median.
00:35:47
Speaker
But you're like, huh? Yeah, they they grounded him by making him low to mediocre or median in terms of compensation. Yeah. OK. I mean, part of that also, right. He's been there for so long. He's I think one of the longest serving CEOs in terms of, you know, current Fortune 500 companies. So.
00:36:12
Speaker
Growing up as a kid, I always wondered why people didn't like him. And then as an adult, I understood. That's how long Bobby Kotick has been around. He's been a villain the whole time. He has been. But even some of the early internet sketches of video games, you could see old Bobby Kotick hate videos. But Blizzard people hated him.
00:36:42
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, God. Yeah. Yeah. Everything wrong with like, wow, was Bobby Codex. Really? Yeah. Well, at the very least, that is all. That's who we'll blame every time. Because remember, like we talked about before, right, when you start hating on Blizzard, everyone will always say, you know, Activision is doing it. Right. But then, you know, also been many years since that merge. So they're basically the same company. It's the same. Yeah.
00:37:13
Speaker
Well, you know, it's not the same. I want to know. Housemarks new game Returnal, which came out last week. That's true. I played it. Andy, did you play it? Yeah.
00:37:25
Speaker
It is. It sent me into like an existential crisis. Well, so I want to be clear. There is. It has a very cool story. Let's not spoil that. I haven't beaten the game yet. Andy, have you? Not even close. OK, I've made it to the second biome. I'm I'm still a failure stuck on the first one. You'll get there, buddy. I will I will I, James?
00:37:50
Speaker
Maybe. But anyway, so I think we talked about this a little bit, but Returnal is a third person roguelite game where you traverse through kind of this randomized, but not too randomized. Basically, there are rooms, but the order of those rooms is random.
00:38:08
Speaker
through each map and you kind of have to figure out this mystery of why you keep dying and coming back while gaining new upgrades in terms of your experience with weapons, which unlocks new skills with those weapons, but also permanent upgrades, which are like swords and a grappling hook and all sorts of stuff like that.
00:38:26
Speaker
So it's, it's, it's kind of this fun and it's got a weird like sci-fi horror feeling to it, right? The game feels kind of scary, but at the same time, the gameplay is just really fun. It's, it encourages dashing, dodging, and a lot of bullet hell jumping around.
00:38:41
Speaker
It encourages you to kind of push forward and not get hit because there's an adrenaline mechanic where the longer you go without getting hit, the more damage you do, the more currency you get. It's just well executed in every way, especially the dual sense, which I was shocked by. What did you think of the dual sense parts of it?
00:39:03
Speaker
I thought it was wonderful, or at least in the ways I've experienced it incorporated. It's it's really been a great way to show off the PS5. Right. And and really a you might be able to call it a creative statement or at least trying to, I don't know, enforce what I mean to say is that it takes like it takes the spirit of the rogue like and takes it seriously. Right.
00:39:29
Speaker
And I think to its detriment, but there truly is. If you die, you restart. You're done. You're at the beginning of the game and there's no save option. And that's kind of dumb, which I have a big problem with. Actually, Andy, if have you put your game into rest mode while you're in the middle of a run?
00:39:52
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. My PS5 crashes sometimes. And that's weird, but I don't know about that, but I've actually had it where I could put the game into rest mode, come back and pick up exactly where I left off in the middle of a run, which I'm like, that's fantastic.
00:40:09
Speaker
Yeah, no, I have that weird bug. It has I think has something to do with HDMI link or something where the PS5 will crash in rest mode. But also because I play the disc version, I can't put in a new disc. I can't play another game. Wait, this this locks you into it. Did you buy the disc version of this game? Yeah, I wanted on disc. I want to see it on my shelf. You're so weird.
00:40:34
Speaker
I have not bought physical media. I buy everything physical if I can. And I wanted to own this physical, but literally I cannot I cannot switch games. I cannot put in a movie. I can't alter what's in the physical drive or it will kick me out of this game. It's it's I don't know. It's.
00:40:55
Speaker
I don't know. I I have a lot of feelings about this game. I don't know where I am yet with it, but it's it's it's it's like this giant reminder that I'm bad at games. It's that's all that goes through my head as I'm playing it.
00:41:12
Speaker
And what's what's interesting is that it's fun. It's kept me motivated. But when you invest an hour and then you lose it all. Right. And then I hear everyone else has made it to the second biome or whatever. Like I'm on hour eight and I still can't get there. It's like, what am I doing? What am I doing with my time? What am I doing with my life? Maybe Andy will have to do like a little stream where we we can do kind of a returnal workshop where we
00:41:44
Speaker
where we where we try to help you figure out what you're doing wrong. Charles, have you had a chance to play? Uh, no. So I downloaded it, you know, last week over the weekend and then finished out right. OK. But I think one of the I agree, by the way, James, you know, you know, we used to do that thing like remember when we were in Bloodborne and we we'd watch each other's play through when we needed tips on the boss. Yeah. See, like as a group,
00:42:14
Speaker
That was like three or four of us all watching each other. But, um, let's say something like that would be funny, especially now that we could capture each other's, uh, gameplay footage. Yeah. Say with the power of the PS five, it's easier than ever. Oh yeah. Um, so yeah, so I'm excited to try it out. Uh, I did hear the game is supposed to be hard and there's a lot of people, you know, you're not alone, Andy. A lot of people apparently are trying, are finding the barrier to get into the second biome too hard.
00:42:43
Speaker
There's and there's nothing wrong with a hard game, right? It's just the time commitment to get good enough and then to lose it. It's just it's just depressing.
00:42:59
Speaker
Eddie, you don't have you played a lot of bullet hell games or is that not really your jam? Well, no, not really. Yeah, I feel like that's maybe part of it because I I'm I'm by no means like a bullet hell guy. But you know, I.
00:43:15
Speaker
our type was always like, you know, is a fun game for me and was it enter to the Gungeon, right? Has a lot of game. Yeah, that is a lot of bullet hell in it, too. So, you know, I think this. Yeah. Oh, good. No, I have no problem with the bullet hell. I'm just I'm so stuck on this. It almost feels like a disrespect of like the time I put in and the loss of progress I just
00:43:43
Speaker
And get over it. That's rogue lights, though, Andy. It's but is it? Yes. Should I put in an hour and lose it? Yes. Yeah. But Andy, what you're gaining is ephemeral, right? You're gaining skill. Am I? We'll find out.
00:44:02
Speaker
That might be the problem. It's not for me. It's just I'm so bad at games. That's it. I've seen the you know, I've seen that discussion. I think kind of funny brought this up, too. But like they're talking about how, you know, Returnal needs some sort of save function. My personal opinion is I understand there's very real reasons why you can't just complete a run in one. Yeah.
00:44:30
Speaker
You know, and to that, I'd say you should be able to save but have the same automatically delete when you. Yes. Yeah. I mean, I think that's reasonable. Well, like I was saying, for me, I could kind of do that because I just put it in rest mode and walk away. But Andy doesn't seem to have that much. Also, the PS5 could update and restart. That's true. That's true.
00:45:01
Speaker
And it's it's I don't understand I don't I feel like it's it's beautiful on paper, right? So bold, right? I don't think power outages affect quick resume. Oh, really? I thought it keeps it in RAM.
00:45:15
Speaker
Uh, no, I think it saves an actual state to the SSD. Sure. Well, hey, I'm wrong there, but I I don't know. I'm it's it's been on my mind so much. Just how far behind I am and how bad I am, but how I'm still having fun. Right. And it's like, what do I what do I do? What am I doing? Well, oh, go ahead. Go ahead.
00:45:43
Speaker
All right. I was going to say to pivot away from Andy's rant about how he's bad at video games, the things I think that are specifically interesting, a returnal, especially when you look for Charles is they play with the haptics in the game. Like there's if you see in the trailers and I'm playing like a gameplay video right now, there's a lot of rain in this game. I don't understand how they're using the motors to simulate this, but it feels like individual drops of rain going on different parts of the controller.
00:46:12
Speaker
Um, it uses half squeezes on the trigger. So like you squeeze in a little bit to get aimed down sites. And then if you squeeze all the way, you get the alt fire on your weapon. Like it's, it's basically adding a second button through using the haptics. And it's, it's, it's the most PS five PS five game I've played. I did hear a lot of this question about that. Like, yeah, but the rain, uh, the rain feel on the dual senses is incredible.
00:46:42
Speaker
And I was like, so I'm very excited to try this out and see what's going on. Cause honestly, I wasn't originally going to buy it. Yeah, me either. And then, and people were saying that, um, this game makes use of the dual sense, uh, the best for out of anything right now. And I was like, okay, that's good. You know, that's good enough for me. Cause I do want to see what the, you know, some of these more possibilities of dual sense. Yep. It's good.
00:47:08
Speaker
And then in classic counter-programming style, Pokemon Snap also came out this week. And I'm assuming none of us have played it, right? But has anybody watched streams of it? Because I have. I've watched a pretty good amount of streams on it.
00:47:24
Speaker
Yeah, I know, too. OK, it looks fun. And Andy, I'm going to be very clear with you. If you find Pokemon cute at all, this is the game for you because holy fuck, every moment of this game is Pokemon just being the most adorable I've ever seen them. Sounds like a good game.
00:47:44
Speaker
Yeah, it is. I think people said it takes 15 hours, give or take a decent amount of game. Yeah. At 30, if you want to go to the completionist route and do absolutely everything, but 15 just to kind of get through the gameplay. There's maps have different each map kind of has like a day and a night, I think. And then.
00:48:06
Speaker
You just, and different things happen as you level up, like you'll experience like different Pokemon, different Pokemon will do different things, depending if you have different levels and you throw, throw things, you get different camera abilities. It's all, it's all very, it's relaxing. I mean, I, I've actually enjoyed watching streams of it and I've enjoyed seeing people's reaction to what Pokemon are doing during it.
00:48:29
Speaker
Oh, that's great. They didn't need to make this game. No. And you'll get this pick. Look, look, are you in the stream? Look, you. Yeah. Look at those. They're best friends, Andy. Pete, you and your best friends. They're best friends. You captured that forever. Yeah. Charles, what did you think when you were watching streams? Oh, I know. I thought it was great. Overall, I was just like, yeah, it's exactly what I wanted. Like in a new Pokemon snap. Right. Yeah. Like.
00:48:58
Speaker
Yeah, I find nothing wrong with what the game is. I, you know, again, it's what I wanted if I was going to play another. I like it as a kid. I want a chance to be able to play it now. The only thing that's keeping me from playing it is I want to play Returnal. Yeah, I know. Too many games. Yeah, there's too many games to play next week. Village. Yeah. And then and also very soon after that,
00:49:25
Speaker
Mass Effect legends, which is going to be my favorite thing to do. I don't know where I'm going to fall on that. I think I'll let that one stew. I think maybe come back to that later just because I haven't, I don't know. I don't, I've played Mass Effect. I have new games I need to play kind of thing. Yeah. Well, that's the reason why I'm excited for that is that, you know, again, I'm not a horror game player. So like I'm excited for Resident Evil eight to watch other people.
00:49:55
Speaker
Yeah, we may end up doing a stream for that. Well, we'll plan that this week. Watch your watch your Twitter notifications and you may see it pop up. Not Twitter, Twitch notifications, because I am not. I am not using Twitter yet. We'll wait till episode 10, which is fast approaching, actually, before I start caring about Twitch or Twitter. And you look at them, they're best friends, takes on everything. Look at them all their plan.
00:50:24
Speaker
Also, this is like the best looking Pokemon game I've ever seen. It looks like the graphics are excellent. Yeah. Why is every game Pokemon game game free makes looks like shit, but every Pokemon game someone else makes looks fantastic.
00:50:41
Speaker
Yeah, those cute fucking doofs. Look at him. This is this is really cute. Yeah. This just seems like a nice way to relax. It really I mean, even just watching streams is if it is relaxing. I think, too, just that there's a lot of like you take the pictures and, you know, Professor Mirror, which is the dumbest fucking name. He like grades you like and you know, it's like a tree. Is it?
00:51:10
Speaker
There's magic. There's magic arc struggle, struggling to live. No, I, I, it, if fraternal is a tense game that challenges you in every moment, Pokemon staff is a relaxing blanket wrapped around you and you just like, and I mean, you're, it's like an amusement park ride. You're on tracks. You're just kind of going around. Yeah. It's like if Disney built a Pokemon land, which man, yeah, literally. Yeah.
00:51:39
Speaker
And your job is to just enjoy. Yep. Would I be bad at this game? Probably. Yeah, you're right. And one last piece of late breaking news this week. So if I had if I still set up the stream deck that I bought like a month ago, I could probably pay taps right now. But yeah, three of the four founding five founding members of Giant Bomb.
00:52:08
Speaker
are leaving. So I got to bring up the doc, because I don't know the names, because I don't look at Giant Mom. I'm bad. I don't know. Giant Mom never really clicked at me. But no, I couldn't get into it.
00:52:23
Speaker
Yeah, giant. Oh, my God. We do. And yeah, I love giant bomb. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, three out of here, though. Yeah. Three, three of them are leaving effective Friday. Jeff Gershman is the only one that's staying, basically, if you would want to have that kind of narrowed down for you. The other three are leaving.
00:52:45
Speaker
It does seem interesting. I saw some hot takes where they were acquired by What is it venture media or something like that just about six months ago? Which key personnel retainer contracts when you get acquired by a large company Generally speaking six months to a year. So it does very much sound like They got acquired and they did their six months and now they're the hell out of here Wow
00:53:11
Speaker
Yep. Isn't that interesting, right? You you buy something out because it's successful and then the buyout ruins it.
00:53:21
Speaker
My money is on James being the one that sees, you know, five, 10 years down the line, you know, again, again, I am a corporate apologist, um, capitalist shill. Um, there is nothing I won't do for money. Dance monkey dance. So I mean, money is nice. Yeah. Bills do need to be paid. Listen, I know, I know what it's like to not have money and I don't want to feel that way ever again.
00:53:50
Speaker
We don't need to go back. Yeah. Agreed. Hot dogs and race hot dog and race dinners get real old after a while. I feel it. So let's sell out. Exactly. Oh, but that'll be another episode of Add to Party, a friendship simulator masquerading as a new show where we sell out. Yeah, that'll be a different episode.
00:54:14
Speaker
Yeah, we'll point to this one once we get there. Yeah, we're not above it. Hello, future self. Boy, that product or service looks good on you.
00:54:31
Speaker
Well, I've been very clear that this whole podcast is a scam for me to get free Brooklyn and cheats. Have you seen how expensive I was really just going to say that I've been wanting new pillow cases and I was looking there for new pillow cases, pillow cases. They're so expensive, but not if you but not if you use our code at two. That's true. As a party.
00:54:59
Speaker
Click the click the mic button to get your Omaha steak package, please Anybody I'll do anything What's the berries what's the berries one
00:55:15
Speaker
There's a berries, the strawberry place. Was it? I haven't heard that. Oh, I can't remember because they always do it around Mother's Day where you send like strawberry chocolate, chocolate, just strawberries to your mother. Yeah, why not? Oh, yeah. By the way, this is your warning. It's Mother's Day this weekend. If you had forgotten.
00:55:34
Speaker
Oh, I had. Yeah. Oh, good. Let's let's get those negotiations going now. I just need pillowcases and I'll do a shout out. That's all I need. Well, I have been your host, James Hartwell, and I have been joined by Charles Colley commentary, and I was joined by.
00:55:55
Speaker
Andy K. And sponsored by Totino's. There we go. Totino's. Well, I need some pillowcases, so. Have a good night, everyone. Good night. Good night.