Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
S2 Ep58: Devolver Digital
68 Plays6 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as they fill in the missing piece from last week's episode and cover one of the most... interesting... publishers - Devolver Digital!
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Episode Overview
00:00:31
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake. I'm joined by my co-host as always, Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? It's going good. How are you? Doing pretty good.
00:00:40
Speaker
Awesome. We literally like prepped this question. Can we get the sound of the high five as I hit? That was Unbelievably white because like we we hesitated. Yeah, I like my thing is like I'm trying to not hit the mic I'm sure you were doing the same. Yeah, I guarantee it hit the mic
00:00:56
Speaker
I'm gonna have to like reduce the audio on the actual slap so it doesn't just deafen people. I'm just gonna clap my hands instead There you go. Look, it was a high five. Yeah.
Video Game Company Focus
00:01:05
Speaker
Holy shit quality But today we are talking about A different thing than we usually talk about Because we usually talk about video games, but now instead we're talking about a particular company that makes video games and they're
00:01:24
Speaker
E3 set the turn. Yeah, E3 performances. Yes, we're going back to Devolver Digital.
Devolver Digital at E3: A Retrospective
00:01:31
Speaker
We have mentioned bits and pieces of like, I like this thing.
00:01:35
Speaker
Yeah, by the many a time and we and I completely forgot about them on the E3 episode And they're worth talking about anyway, so here we are Yeah, I was gonna say the observant listener or attentive attentive listener May have noticed that we didn't talk about devolver digital at all in the previous one Yeah, so they could have used that as foreshadowing or hint to what this one would be about and then you kind of ruined it by saying we just forgot
00:02:04
Speaker
I don't want anybody to have the illusion that I'm good and or plan things But yeah at devolver digital They've been around for a while. Yeah, I didn't realize how long they're actually around cuz my only official instance of knowing about them was
00:02:23
Speaker
Maybe seeing like they were affiliated with the game. Yeah, but it was I think the first e3 in 2017. Yeah, I couldn't find anything earlier than that and They didn't have the series before that.
History of Devolver Digital and its Indie Roots
00:02:33
Speaker
So no, I know that was the first e3 No, they were really interesting company. I don't want to get like too into the details like the notes I have up here
00:02:42
Speaker
But, uh, the, uh, the origins were basically, they had two companies before that gathering of developers or God. And then, um, there's another one. Can you read that second game game name for me, Dave? Oh, it is game cock media group. Yeah. So their thing was like, uh, uh, they had like interns with like chicken outfits and stuff like that.
00:03:06
Speaker
And they had pretty mixed success, I guess. Their first company. What did they actually do under that name? Basically nothing. But the first one, they worked with Take-Two. So creators of Max Payne, Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead, stuff like that. They own Rockstar. Take-Two owns Rockstar.
00:03:25
Speaker
Oh, okay. I was like, I'm noticing a trend here. Yeah. Um, and, uh, they, they ultimately kind of got bought out, but the people who stuck with, uh, Devolver or joined Devolver were much more indie focused.
Hype and Investor Influence in Gaming
00:03:38
Speaker
They don't like the idea of being beholden to large investors and take two was a large investor. So, um, you split out.
00:03:46
Speaker
Yeah, they they kind of pieced out out of that though. They made a lot of money They're like, what are we gonna do with this useless take two stock and then like grand theft auto came out and they're like, oh Okay Guess guess we'll just make a lot of money Whether or not you're a fan. They've definitely had Success. Yes, like if a GTA or any type of rock star title comes out from one of their franchises You're like
00:04:10
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's going to print money. It's absurd how expensive those games are to Rockstar. They to make? Yes. They drop like millions and millions of dollars. I think it was one hundred and fifty million dollars or something like that for GTA 4. It was absurd.
00:04:28
Speaker
I would have done it for less. I would take a humble even $100 million. But yeah, so they had their second company and they kind of also found themselves in a situation where a lot of investors were just like, this is awesome, throw money at you.
00:04:48
Speaker
the investors were like, hey, by the way, make something or like get your, get the hype up, get your brand out. So they were put sort of in a situation where they had to, um, go advertise themselves kind of like not necessarily sell out, but, um, generate hype.
Marketing Antics and Publicity Stunts
00:05:05
Speaker
Like in advertisements, um, that's not natural or like, I'm trying to describe how that would happen, but it's marketing in general. Exactly. Yeah. It's like, um,
00:05:18
Speaker
If I gave a shit about this podcast, the point of like, I'm bringing up in like a family conversation. Like you meet for Sunday dinner, you're like, so the podcast is going pretty okay. Uh, you guys should check it out. And it's.
00:05:32
Speaker
It's not standard marketing. It's like, hey, it's like a commercial or whatever. It's, you're reaching out there in a way that you would not normally. Yeah. And this culminated in a fact that actually I think is applicable to, to your interests and games that you like. And that, uh, there was a, uh, I think it was spike, um, music awards or something or, uh, uh, game of the year and Bioshock actually won game of the year and Ken Levine went up and was going to receive his award.
00:06:00
Speaker
And then all of the interns for this chicken-based company like ran up in their chicken outfits and just like grabbed the mic, shilled their company, and he never got to thank everybody for Bioshock. Yeah, it was bad. That's definitely going to generate some stuff. Yes. But at the same time, I really like Bioshock.
00:06:25
Speaker
But at the same time, those Vigors are being sold for like $600. So I might side with DD on this. Yeah. So that's one of the co-founders, Mike Wilson, basically.
00:06:40
Speaker
talked about it after the fact and he's like we told the interns to go up and at one point to pick a point in the awards where it's like appropriate to run up and pull the stunt basically and they just picked like the worst time imaginable
00:06:58
Speaker
Because there was like apparently like an ad or something for a game where it's like powered by Mountain Dew or whatever some Ridiculous like cringy video game shilling and that what he's like that would have been the perfect time to run up instead They went in and interrupted the game of the year thing with Ken Levine. He's like soft-spoken guy, you know just really rough, but So that's that's the other popular thing
00:07:22
Speaker
They also did, um, the creator, uh, worked with John Romero, who's very popular for. Hmm. Why does that name sound so familiar? Yeah. Games that, uh, aren't really made anymore, but, uh, the, the infamous Daikatana, I don't know if you ever heard about this. I did hear about it. The Daikatana ad, uh, like John Romero was going to make you his
Devolver's Indie Commitment and Success Stories
00:07:43
Speaker
female dog in heat. Like.
00:07:46
Speaker
Um, and then below that, the subtext suck it down was made by the founder of this company, uh, Mike Wilson. And then John Romero signed off on it, but yeah, there's interesting things that have like gone into the founders for a devolver.
00:08:03
Speaker
I like the end product. Yeah, so that company didn't really get anywhere, fell apart when the tech bubble burst, and then they went into Devolver Digital, which is the company we're actually talking about now.
00:08:19
Speaker
And yeah, we've made it and They basically like paid out their investors really early. So they're their own Their own times exactly. There's nobody telling them like hey Those games that you know, you're helping fund get those out the door. They kind of run themselves Which is exactly what they wanted pretty much the whole time. So I
00:08:43
Speaker
Yeah. That's ideal. I think. Cause as we'll definitely hit on more, one thing I really like about them is they're like, Hey, uh, we like video games. Yeah. And then consumers are like, we like video games. Like, what if we made you video games? And it sounds like dumb and very simple, but like a lot of companies and publishers are like, we have to continue this franchise and make a dark side or three. Yeah. And like.
00:09:14
Speaker
What at a point what's the point? Yeah, it's not like you're making it to be fun, but I feel like all of Devolver's Their own titles at least are very do you know we fucking fun really cool right this idea Yeah, and then they roll with it. Yeah, I got the most recent e3 they have Art forget the name carrying the jelly buddies Jelly buddies. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I can't remember the name of it either
00:09:39
Speaker
Yeah, it's I wasn't gonna play it but it looked interesting. I I probably would But it's kind of like a MXC. Mm-hmm. Do you remember that or Takeshi's castle? I Don't personally remember Takeshi's castle. I've heard of it. Yeah, but just like you have Shits on people at this case. I think it's like a hundred characters assume some of which will be a I controlled unless you're doing
00:10:04
Speaker
people doesn't seem likely just try and get to like The end and you'll be met with these challenges like running through doors running up a hill things trying to knock you off, right? There's like this giant obstacle course. It's like lemmings. I think probably be a decent comparison, right? I Will say yes, cuz I've never played that game when it sounds like
00:10:30
Speaker
The idea is pretty similar. Like you start with a thousand lemmings or whatever, and then you have to get a certain number of them to the end and you have to like manipulate the world to get them through there. And they're dying all over the place. Oh, so as far as my current understanding, I assumed that it was, you were controlling one of the 100 characters versus kind of like macro controlling, like go here, please. Yes.
00:11:02
Speaker
They do branch out into really interesting directions. There's actually an interview for Gamescom, and they're talking about how people were trying to nail down what a developer digital game was, and the creators were just like, we have no idea. We don't know. We just pick whatever games are interesting and could use our help to get across the finish line.
00:11:28
Speaker
And they made some good just good decisions like Hotline Miami Obviously, I like it But it also was tremendously successful for
Diverse Game Portfolio and Growth Strategies
00:11:39
Speaker
them. They made like a the crazy amount of money. Yeah, that was a very breakout hit wasn't it?
00:11:44
Speaker
Yeah. Oh yeah. Like, um, the spawn off, the spawn off, like, uh, deals on Miami too. Yeah. Yeah. Hotline Miami too, obviously, but also like, uh, like the deal with payday and all of that payday too, in particular. Um, and they made a Dennaton games, which are the creators of Hotline Miami, um, had no need whatsoever basically to publish through Devolver for Hotline Miami too.
00:12:10
Speaker
Like they could have funded it themselves. They could have just taken more money essentially. And usually if you are going through a publisher, they'll try to like grab some of your rights for the IP being developed. So that if your game developer studio dissolves or is bought or whatever, the publisher retains the right to the product.
00:12:34
Speaker
So if they had like a new dev shop, they'd be like, we technically own this. Exactly. Intellectual property. Let's, let's make a sequel here. Exactly. And they'll take like heavy. They only pay like the.
00:12:49
Speaker
the actual developer's royalty fees. So if the game does poorly, developers get almost nothing. And if the game does really, really well, developers make some money. But then it tends like, or Devolver Digital's been, from what I've heard, significantly better with that.
00:13:06
Speaker
Um, so when, uh, Holly Miami two was coming out, uh, Devolver digital was like, they didn't need to go with us. They could have just like self published or did anything, but, uh, they just picked, you know, same publisher, like we'll, we'll stay on. You guys can like reap the success from all of the help you put into like the first game. And yeah, I mean, that's, that's a lot of loyalty that you don't hear about so much ever in the games industry. Exactly.
00:13:35
Speaker
Because usually, devs kind of get fucked over or crunched, at least from what I've heard a lot of times. And then after a project's complete, you get fired. And you kind of have to find the next company or project that will take you on, type of thing.
00:13:54
Speaker
It's telling how impactful the Hotline Miami sales were on the actual core developer digital team because they increased their employee count dramatically from five to six. After the success of that game, they hired one more person. They love small teams.
00:14:16
Speaker
It's not just all you need. I was surprised at how fucking tiny super giant was. Yeah. I was watching those documentaries. I'm like, but where is everybody? Five people and a dog dogs only there for morale. Just kidding. It codes. Exactly. Um, so they obviously have a good relationship with.
00:14:37
Speaker
the other dev shops that they're publishing. Yeah, they actually have a lot of the people who have come in have been recommended from other developers that publish games for them. So Dennaton published Hotline, and then they were like, oh, here's some other devs that are working on things, brought them on, and then Devolver publishes another three games. And that's how the early games started. As of the interview in 2017,
00:15:06
Speaker
Now they're reviewing a lot of indie games people like send them demos and they said they were getting 25 plus a week To just check out and be like this is a great idea. We're gonna put money on this We're gonna like help you guys push it across the finish line But yeah, it's crazy like the space they've kind of opened up in the indie area Industry the indie industry the industry industry
00:15:35
Speaker
So is there a specific game that you really liked that they have helped publish outside of Hotline Miami? Right. So before we get into like their, these are their properties. Yeah. Um, so probably, probably close, close second. Not that close. Ruiner. Oh yeah. Absolutely love Ruiner. Should do an episode on that. I know. Right. Is that joke too old? Um, people, whoever's listening now is not listened four months ago whenever we covered Ruiner.
00:16:05
Speaker
That's a super solid game. I was gonna do the soundtrack a little bit today Yeah, and it's so weird to listen. There was like a standalone thing when you're not murdering people, right? Yeah, you're like missing just a little bit
00:16:17
Speaker
Yeah, it's, but no, that game, like it has, I'm not gonna repeat everything from before, but the feel, how it plays, it's a very concise and well put together idea and executed flawlessly in my opinion. And I really like games like that. And typically that's what Devolver seems to be focused on.
00:16:40
Speaker
Yeah, they have like I have like a list of their their games below we can go over some of them, but um a very diverse range of games, um ranging from like Mechanically really interesting to just absolutely absurd. Yeah minute um, wonderful boyfriend
00:16:58
Speaker
Yeah, they're all something that's going to catch your attention. That's like the unifying theme. Probably their most popular studio was Crow Team, who have come out with Serious Sam. Oh, yeah. And then they actually asked Crow Team, like, hey, can we use your IP with some other people? Let them make 2D games, things like that. Let other people build games in the Serious Sam universe. And they're like, oh, yeah, sure.
00:17:28
Speaker
Um, that's not usually how those exchanges go between publisher and developer again. Right. Um, and that like, you know, help them publish more games and doing all this cool stuff, but they, they went on to, um, make some really cool things. Uh, the towels principle actually, believe it or not, also made by them. This is, this is what happens. Like Jake and I will talk about a game.
00:17:51
Speaker
You'd be like, oh yeah, that was a devolver digital. I'm like, really? By the way, I'm devolver digital property. But yeah, they've, they've made some like crazy things, like a lot of the games we've covered here.
00:18:08
Speaker
Maybe not a lot of the games we've covered are Devolver digital games, but there's significant overlap. They've also made a lot of games that like I would never play or are super weird. Like how to have a full boyfriend, like you described. I'm not a dating sim fan per se. And by that, I mean, not at all. I don't care, but like the idea is good. Yeah. And I know like around that time is like how to have a boyfriend and then like dream daddy and like all these other things started being, I guess more prominent.
00:18:38
Speaker
Yeah. I feel like I heard about a hat off a boyfriend and then I'll let you know. Yeah. I was just looking at my phone real quick to fact check it. Cause I was like, I actually said tile sprints, the poll was published by Devolver digital and I didn't believe it. I was like, I need to make sure that I'm actually correct here.
00:18:53
Speaker
in the off chance. Yeah. They did make it. Yes. Yeah. Like pigeon dating simulator. Yeah. That's like, that's crazy. It's also like, apparently a play on like Japanese. Um, cause like Hado is I guess pigeon, but it's also hot a full. So it's like, is it hateful or hurtful? And there's like all this not, it's Japanese. Who knows? Like, um, everything has like 15 meanings in Japanese. It's crazy, but.
00:19:21
Speaker
Also, I think downwell was them mm-hmm and that was awful like a trip I took it as traditional there's like a a jumper game on a Smartphones now right where you just jump up and try and catch the next platform It's pretty basic. Yeah, so like what if we did that in reverse, and you were just falling down again But also you could shoot out of your feet
00:19:47
Speaker
And it's always like $3 on Steam. Yeah. Before it goes on sale. And I like the idea of it. I don't think I could like invest time into it, but the idea I'm like, Ooh, yeah. Yeah. It's like buying, um.
00:20:01
Speaker
Flappy bird or something like that, right? You're just like what are you doing? But this is more compelling to me than flapping bird obviously Because I mean again not don't have a thing for birds Yeah, they've made some really interesting games I know I tried to get you to play the new shadow warrior. I say they made they published Other people made them
00:20:27
Speaker
But we did do shut a warrior for I think 30 minutes. Yes one one co-op session with three people and then never again, but I've Considered trying to get people to play it more, but I don't I don't know maybe maybe I'd really have to be in the mood for it Absolver did catch my eye. Yeah
00:20:48
Speaker
Cause a lot of YouTubers I follow who do Dark Souls content were like, Oh, let me do like, this is vaguely souls reminiscence. Um, but I had a lot of cool, interesting, like, uh, fighting mechanics. Everything is fighting and strikes and techniques and trying to counter your enemy. Yeah. And a friend of mine was super into it on PlayStation for a while.
00:21:12
Speaker
Yeah, I never played it either. It looked it looked interesting but Not to the extent that I was going to pick it up Like i'm not trying to say that all of devolver's games are games that I would play that you would have to be like I'm curious. What that is a lot of genres. It's not like you're gonna love each Each thing i'm curious what the individual would look like that plays every devolver digital game unless they're like, you know ceo amorphous, right?
00:21:37
Speaker
But they've had some interesting things in here genital jousting. I have definitely played that they made a game. Yeah, it's like
00:21:48
Speaker
It, it's, it's kind of funny to think like if the demo for this game was published, like which publisher would pick it up. Yeah. Right. And it's like, Oh yeah. Devolver immediately would pick up genital jousting. If you like know anything about the games that made immediately, they might've suggested it. They might've actually come up. It's such a simple dumb game, but I've spent more time than I'm willing to admit, like playing that at some parties and I had a grand time. Yeah.
00:22:16
Speaker
man no it's it's pretty crazy um and they're they're uh their actual production value for a lot of their games has has gone up kind of significantly i think um i'm only gonna have one figure for this the uh hotline miami cost him around 500 000 for the full development which is a lot more than i actually thought it was yeah but like they invested pretty heavily in it um and then later i mean like you can look at how graphically impressive like ruiner is
Gameplay Dynamics: Carrion and Player Experience
00:22:45
Speaker
with the animations and the sound design and everything like that you know that's gonna take a fair amount of money my friend Pedro or Pedro Pedro Pedro is coming out the Pedro his friends do not call him Pedro
00:23:02
Speaker
But that had some really good marketing as far as like the teaser. Yeah, cuz like they had this Banana of the Spanish accent and I'm talking you're like What and then like you see like a guy like running through doing like over-the-top somersaults jumps all like action sequence stuff Yeah, all wall like doing like doozies
00:23:25
Speaker
It's it's really silly. Uh, I remember in the first trailer. There's a part where he's firing up like at a frying pan. Yes. Deflecting the bullets. Like he's on a skateboard at a point too. Yeah. He like jumps off a skateboard. It goes flying forward, takes somebody out. Yeah. I think you all can, like, you can also kick somebody's head like in the air and like knock him out, like take out somebody else. It's like a projectile. Yeah. I like hotline Miami, so I'm probably going to enjoy that.
00:23:55
Speaker
It's it's a Wide range of games that developer publishes. I gotta say though from the most recent e3 Carrying really caught my eye. Yeah, I I as I was watching it I was getting some like inside vibes a little bit minor spoilers for inside I guess But
00:24:19
Speaker
It really has this I don't know. I feel like I just enjoy it and i'm not sure if that's a good thing or not Right, like you feel that you would enjoy it and you're wondering if that's bad, right? Yeah, exactly. How catholic are you? Yeah, not that catholic still a little bit of that catholic guilt just a little bit. Yeah, I just I think it'll be fun though How would you just curious about the control scheme? Uh, so basically you are this uh
00:24:46
Speaker
amorphous you have a lot of limbs that kind of jut out but that can also retract imagine like you're a meatball that can kind of like expand you like a symbiote from uh spider-man spider-man universe yeah
00:25:02
Speaker
So like you're literally carnage. Yeah, and you like sweep through and you like kill off scientists as you escape from the lab And do other stuff. I guess you're trying to escape from the lab Yeah, as you're trying to like be like, oh lockdown protocol. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Yeah, and you can like seep into stuff There was something in the demo where you reached out a limb and you kind of like quick snapped back the analog stick to like yank off a door I'm like, ooh
00:25:26
Speaker
Yeah. I like the tactfulness of that. If they, if they know the controls, it's going to feel pretty good. I don't know like what the long term kind of longevity of the game is going to be like, where's the challenge? The mechanics, we don't really know anything about that. Like, is it progression? Are you building biomass? You know, what's going on? But.
00:25:45
Speaker
Yeah, the initial idea is enough to, you know, we'll see. But I'm really looking forward to seeing where that goes. But also at the same time, I could see if it was just, this is a mechanic and like each level is kind of not expanding on it. But I can't imagine that they would do that. They've got to mix it up a little bit, right? Yeah. And they've, on the Devolver side, they published so many games at this point.
00:26:12
Speaker
I don't think they're going to let a team just be like, hey, here's 50 levels of the exact same thing and you'll just clear it out. And there's no, no, no point. Like that's, that's not going to be what it is. I'll be ready to eat my words if it's literally 50 levels of the exact same thing, but that would be very disappointing though. Cause it's so far from what they've been affiliated with.
00:26:32
Speaker
yeah i don't i don't think that that's likely to become reality yeah um it looks interesting though i'm actually i'm a fan of playing uh the bad guy in games because so many games force you to be a good guy that's that's basically it like um or a monster in this case it's like
00:26:51
Speaker
i don't know if we ever talked about like vampire like the masquerade or anything like that i think we did a little bit but not on podcast yeah it's like one of the appeals to that like series of game is you can be the bad guy like you can there's no expectation of being a hero or anything like that
00:27:11
Speaker
That doesn't make me a bad person for wanting to play the bad guy in a video game It's just I've played so many games where it's like assumed you're gonna always do the right thing the quest to save the people Yeah, sometimes you just don't want to save the people Yeah, like
00:27:28
Speaker
My big thing in games is always like, if you're going to do something, I like having a reason. Yeah. So nobody likes escort missions. You're like, who the fuck is this person? It's just for the sake of it. And a lot of times that's because you're, you're not the asshole. Here's the mission. Go. Yeah. So you have to do the thing. Make sure everyone stays alive. You're like, do I know these people? Do I care? Does my character care?
00:27:50
Speaker
It's kind of like Something like prototype to counter the obligations of spider-man in a way It's like spider-man fun game PlayStation 4 version last one came out great game and enjoy it recommend it if you like those games awesome I enjoyed it but sometimes you're just like I'm gonna jump in a crowd and Start ripping and tearing like and that's what prototype was not even as great a game. I
00:28:18
Speaker
Anywhere near as good a game as spider-man. It's fun, but it's fun. Yeah, that's what games should be Like I feel like you can still tell games or have games that tell a story Yeah, I've always said that like games are a very good medium for that But if it's not fun, why the fuck would I listen to your story? Right? Yeah
00:28:39
Speaker
And it's kind of like, I don't know if we've ever had a discussion on, maybe we should someday have a discussion on alignment and in games or just good guys versus bad guys and protagonists. I feel like I could talk about that for a while and it's not really the point of this podcast. Um, but looking forward to, uh, carrying, um,
Devolver's E3 Presentations: Theatre of the Absurd
00:29:00
Speaker
It's unique, if nothing else. Very few other games that you play and amorphous blob against spoilers for inside. So that was actually a really fun level. I would call it. Yeah. Sequence. Right. Yeah. Sequence is the nice.
00:29:19
Speaker
Yeah, I'm going to use that for more things, right? Hey, later, would you want to sequence our DNA? Yeah. But, um, back to, back to Devolver, another interesting thing. You mentioned that they started their E3, uh, for foray into E3 back in 2017, 2017. And I'll be honest, anytime I've seen one of their presentations, it's hecka weird is the way I would put it.
00:29:50
Speaker
That's not wrong. I think the main reason is that it is so jarring is because it's not how any other company does there.
00:30:01
Speaker
E3 demonstrations. Yeah. I'm eyebrows up nodding. That's serious. But what I like is they, they, they hit it very sometimes tongue in cheek. Yeah. Um, sometimes a very less though. Yes. So like, I remember 2017 started out with her. I think it was Nina Struthers for that one.
00:30:23
Speaker
Yeah, she's she's a she's a core facet of all of them, I think. Oh, yeah. Yeah, she's great. But like the first quote I remember was like tomorrow's unethical business practices today. Yeah, it's a tagline. Yeah. And they do all these things of.
00:30:40
Speaker
Having like these loud Emotive things that don't really say anything like they're using business jargon. Mm-hmm And just trying to like hey, we want your money type thing literally literally in this case. Yeah, I think the so I rewatch it for this and like the audience won't stop clapping and the audience is just stock footage of people But they just absolutely won't stop so she like takes out a pistol and starts firing into the area to get the audience to see
00:31:09
Speaker
stop. She's like, you're all journalists. Be professional. It's just, it's absurd. That's how it starts. Yeah. Um, trying to think what else happened to that one. There was, um,
00:31:25
Speaker
Basically this this like monologue they talk a bit They went into Ruiner at some point. That's the first time I think they really showed it off and then they they have this recurring kind of segment, which is they have Fake services or products that are pretty much all based around getting money from people so the first one was a devolver digital screen pay and
00:31:50
Speaker
where you could just literally throw your money at the screen, which is just playing off of the internet. But again, that goes back to they have their finger on the pulse of gaming as a community. And they like games for the sake of games. They want games to be fun. So they're very
00:32:11
Speaker
They also are entirely irreverent. They just absolutely have no issues mocking anything about the games industry. And that comes up a lot. So this guy's throwing money at the screen and the crowd's losing it because it's all stock footage and whatever.
00:32:30
Speaker
And then the guy gets too close like it's his hand in the screen. Yeah, I just like tears his hand off or something He starts spraying blood all over the place. It's like it's clearly fake, but it's also like uncomfortable It's like a B-movie violence. Yes exactly that
00:32:47
Speaker
and i think their whole thing there is kind of with the stock footage of people just like laughing and clapping uh-huh well like the guys like this horrible thing that just happened right it's to say like most people do not care what's happening right in the game industry and it's kind of like oh yeah that's some other thing that doesn't
00:33:08
Speaker
Effect me yeah in the same way like a lot of people are including myself like with politics You're kind of like oh, man I hope that sorts itself out right yeah, I've thing and then they have like after this guy has like essentially bled out He's lost his hand. They have a guy in a
00:33:25
Speaker
green suit with like the little balls attached for like Just like walk across there's no green screen. He just walks across and like grabs the body and leaves. Yeah. Yeah, it's the the crap motion capture
00:33:39
Speaker
Yeah. The motion capture suit. Yep. Yep. One of those. Um, and then they're like, all right, here's another trailer. And that's where they had like the spinoff for serious Sam. And they just keep it going. They're like, uh, they announced devolver digital earliest access, uh, which is kind of hilarious, uh, which is the moment that an idea is incepted in someone's mind. Then you can now purchase. Yeah. You can purchase the game and just start playing immediately.
00:34:06
Speaker
The best part about this though, and I didn't realize this the first time I saw it, I only caught it on the rewatch, was the first demonstration of this. They were like, oh, here's someone who you can buy their game now. They just came up with the idea and they cut to Suda 51.
00:34:22
Speaker
It's suit of 51. It actually is. I looked it up. It's a hundred percent legit and he's wearing a jackets jacket from Holland, Miami. Yeah. And I was like, what is this? What is this at all? Like we covered, um.
00:34:41
Speaker
Crap, my brain keeps going. Did you try to think of a shooter game? Yeah, the one we covered recently. It's not the Phantom Pain, but it's all I think of. Killer is dead. I don't know why I was thinking of the Phantom Pain. The word Phantom was in my head for some reason. Definitely not a GSV. But Killer is dead. Which, I don't know, I could almost see is like a devolver game too. So I understand that their communities kind of collabed on that.
00:35:05
Speaker
Um, also, how did you feel about the, the earliest access tongue in cheek? It was like a good time for it. And they kind of, it's a recurring thing for their, um, for their E3, uh, presentations. Cause like, this was the 2017 is like peak of green light coming out, like early access, all the games. People really liked the idea cause they could jump in and support their developers really early.
00:35:32
Speaker
But the thing is, it was also a metric fuck ton of garbage. I feel that I came through a lot of those things where like just go on Jim Sterling's channel if you have no idea what I'm referring to. Here's a lot of it. And like games never got completed. And I mean, it's a whole point now. Like how early should you buy a game? Should you even preorder games? Refer to a previous episode. Right. Yeah.
00:35:59
Speaker
But it was an attack directly on that, the earliest access. Then from that, they jumped into their comment created content, which is the idea that your game would be adjusted based off what people are saying in the comments.
00:36:19
Speaker
So it's like, Oh no, there should be gun. Like it should be able to dual wield or like the enemy should be God or something like that. And you're just changing it all. The best part about this though, is they asked, uh, they were like, Oh, they picked a participant from the audience, um, to show this off. And, uh, they're just like scanning the crowd, whatever. And they point out in the audience. Then you see also every time they point out on the audience, it cuts the stock footage of these like business executives in suits, kind of like laughing to themselves, slightly embarrassed. Like they were the ones that were picked.
00:36:49
Speaker
than somebody else walks up. But the person who walks on the stage is the same guy. His arm cut off. Well, he's missing it now. He goes and sits down at the keyboard. He's like covered in like orangish blood and stuff. He looks out of it. Also, it's just it's a weird presentation. Yeah, but I like how they will
00:37:20
Speaker
I guess address just anything. This being just a small and the first example. I like how people will complain about video games for like, well, I wanted it to be this and it should have been this. And there are times where it's definitely justified to have a critique on something. Yeah. It's like, let's say it's game of thrones and you're like, what the fuck? Or if it like loses sight of the initial idea.
00:37:47
Speaker
It's fine to have constructive criticism as well. Like, hey, if there's a sequel, I'd love to see something like this. But a lot of the internet gaming community can be, at least as far as comment and discussion boards go, very vitriolic on how they receive something. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And also, they'll attack developers all the time, too. And a developer is not necessarily
00:38:11
Speaker
Oh, this is my idea. It's not a one-man shop. It's a whole team of people, and they're just making that happen. Yeah, exactly. It's like if you're going for the community manager of a given community. You're like, yeah, that guy. He's the one who did this. He's the one who programmed this, came up with the idea, made the art. In some games, that's the case. You usually know.
00:38:34
Speaker
Um, but yeah, it's uh, it kind of culminates with The bunch of flashing between like, um The presenter starts like bleeding from the nose and like people are freaking out She's going on like this full rant. Uh-huh so much that like the brains It's the future of the future the future of the future of the future of the future is like what she says on ad nauseam Because this is the future of the future the like products are coming out with. Oh, yeah
00:39:01
Speaker
Let's use again criticism of you know always pushing like this is the next best thing right in my mind at least yeah and yeah it just devolves into no pun intended until like i was about to say to like just uh the guy like throwing up at the keyboard and like the audience is like losing it and she's like bleeding all over the place then everybody dies
00:39:29
Speaker
And they get dragged away and that's the end of the presentation. And that was just 2017. Yeah. It's pretty weird. It kind of is an intermission here. One thing they did for E3 one year, I don't know exactly which year, is they set up in a tailgating party at a nearby Hooters and then like invited people out to just like party in the parking lot, essentially. It was the parking lot of the Hooters. It wasn't the actual establishment because they couldn't do that.
00:39:57
Speaker
And then they postmarked all of their like notes or correspondence or anything they sent back to eat three as from that Hootings It's just the weirdest nonsense that these people do Let's jump into 2018. It's a good year good year
00:40:14
Speaker
Good event. So after watching 2017 in 2017, yeah, that's a good, good time to watch. I was like, yeah, I'll probably follow like the next three. Cause that's usually where I'm getting a lot of my, Oh, here might be a cool game coming up this year. Some of the future. Yeah. Um, but I remember Devolver digital had that crazy presentation and I was like, all right, but what now? Right. Yeah. And I feel that was literally everybody who was like,
00:40:43
Speaker
See that crazy shit? What are they gonna do this year? As it turns out, more crazy stuff. What I love is they have this continued storyline throughout their stuff. So the fact that Nina had a brain hemorrhage type thing and that guy lost his hand still comes back.
00:41:03
Speaker
Um, so you had no they're using the same stock footage Yeah, because I went from one year straight to the next one and it opened up and it was the same people clapping and like passing popcorn and stuff They did this literally a year later and her her head literally exploded the previous year that was
Satire and Critique of Gaming Norms
00:41:21
Speaker
the culmination It's just they had that fake um
00:41:24
Speaker
You know that fake gif on the internet of the guy's head just like is like a B rated horror type. Yeah. Yeah. Like that. Uh, basically the exact same effect. So I digress 28.
00:41:42
Speaker
But yet again, they are calling out companies for throwing in these microtransactions, which has that died down yet? And their whole thing for like the fake service this time around was the loot box coin. Yeah.
00:41:57
Speaker
This was actually slightly prophetically. I feel like people were talking about it, but unless my timeline is off and there's like an 80% chance it is The whole battlefront 2 loot box debacle right this would have been q4 that was definitely after yes was
00:42:14
Speaker
very early start to Their loot boxes and overwatch and like one or two other things. Yeah, but it just kind of has ramped up from there as far as You can buy this shit in game and you can do whatever and like oh, we'll do other things behind these paywalls. Yeah
00:42:30
Speaker
They actually, they actually at this point for loot box coin, they're like, um, is it gambling? We don't care. You know, whatever. As it turns out, that was the exact talking point that like in current day, that's how loot boxes are mostly being kind of addressed legally is from like, is it gambling? Should we allow gambling? Australia votes. Yes. Yeah.
00:42:55
Speaker
but yeah they had this the quote for a loot box coin uh one of the line she said was loot box coin aims to become the global standard in meaningless wealth acquisition and questionable financial stability you pay us with your real currency and we will give you loot box coin which has no value
00:43:15
Speaker
And then she she had a physical one a physical loot box coin various like someone like a Bitcoin or something But large looked like a coffee coaster basically And she's like you can get one of these if you give us your money and buy into loot box coin now And then she licked it and threw it to me It's weird Yeah
00:43:38
Speaker
But also correct me if I'm wrong, but they don't have any form of microtransactions in their games I haven't seen any so that means it's not there I Guess it's cuz they're not triple a They don't have the money to make a microtransactions processing system. That's what it is That's why if you want to make money you need money. Yeah, that is the key
00:44:05
Speaker
But yeah, they have these. So the standard format is like these kind of odd segments of parody kind of like satire, sometimes extreme moments or descriptions of products that are entirely nonsensical and then followed by like weird in between segments and things like that.
00:44:25
Speaker
and then game trailers, which is the only traditional E3 thing they do. So one of their in-between segments for 2008 that I thought was hilarious. 18. 18, yeah, sorry. The company was founded in 2009, so their 2008 E3 experience would have been something.
00:44:42
Speaker
Was someone in the audience like he yells out after she says gift. He's like Jeff She's like what it's like it said Jeff It's an acronym and the creator creator says it should be said said it should be pronounced Jeff. She just kind of like glares at him and then it cuts to her burning him alive with a
00:45:07
Speaker
it's uh it's and then it segues off like that never happened yeah uh-huh she's just like it's said gif continues on with the presentation and then it that was there was their cut into uh my friend Pedro or Pedro I apologize apologize apologies to Pedro sorry Pedro I will vote for you
00:45:28
Speaker
Oh Hi teenager tots you to Yeah, it's uh So actually Pedro recently was released correct Yeah, that was came up the 20th of this month if I'm not incorrect and again 80% chance I am So it's actually
00:45:50
Speaker
Did they also have a driller for that at e3 this year? I think they had like an announcement sort of I mean they probably almost definitely had some clips of it or like a release day Yeah, cuz they're like this is coming out. You should buy it because it's gonna come out. It would have been absolutely dumb
00:46:06
Speaker
They're still a business. It would have been absolutely dumb not to mention the game coming out later that month. I'm doing this press tour, but nobody's coming to see my movie. I should have mentioned the movie. We're making a movie? No, it's it's it's really silly though.
00:46:22
Speaker
Also a 2018 ended with Nina dying again because the guy who got his arm cut off, um, came back and he was very, uh, escape from New York out where he has like a Mecca arm. He has like a heavy gun. Have you ever seen escape from New York? I've seen clips of it. I've never seen the entire thing.
00:46:43
Speaker
That's probably enough. Like it's a lot of, uh, good B rated jokes. Steve Buscemi Buscemi's in one of them briefly. Yeah. And it's very, it's snake Pliskin. So everything was inspired off of Metal Gear Solid and how like over the top and the opposite, right? Like Metal Gear Solid was inspired by Escape from New York. Wasn't it?
00:47:06
Speaker
thinks about timeline. You might be right. I think that's the way it went. I think you're right. Yeah. But there is a connection. There is a link. Yeah, you cracked. I totally got that reverse. That's all right.
00:47:18
Speaker
My fun fact was actually a fun, not fact. It's okay. Cause we resolved it in the end. Probably again, I'm 80% wrong. We may have just confused the truth again, but yeah, escape from New York guy comes back. Presumably takes her out. Well, he actually like guns her down like a full 60 seconds. It's like the traditional parody riddled by bullets, death sequence.
00:47:46
Speaker
Yes, it's very over the top blood splattering out that she falls on like a pile of styrofoam that was there for some reason. Yeah. Um, so she's dead again until 2019, 2019, which is current year. If you're listening to this in 2019. Well, if you're not, I'm so sorry. Yeah. There are better podcasts in the future. What are you doing? Check out our third podcast. They're a better podcast now. What are you doing?
00:48:18
Speaker
But yeah, 2019 did not stand out for me as much in the way of like over the top craziness. The production value went up. It definitely did. They kind of had that blue filter, uh, which made it look sort of Matrixy to me. I think Matrixy is green, but you know what I'm talking about. The light filter on everything made it look more like a TV show. Um, to me at least.
00:48:40
Speaker
No, I think you're right. And the whole thing was scripted out like with other people and not just like the one presenter. Yeah. Um, so like they revived Nina Struthers, motherfucking Nina Struthers. Um, and they're going to try and like get her out for the presentation, but.
00:49:00
Speaker
they fucked up or something. So they have the presentation in her mind. Right. So in her mind, she's like perfectly formed. She's like, where am I? What's going on? And then these other people are like talking about either over the top doing, um,
00:49:15
Speaker
It's kind of like business lingo. Like the one guy who looked like a 17-year-old intern was talking like, video games with games and something, something, games, games, games. She rips his throat out and starts talking about something. The whole thing is very devolver.
00:49:35
Speaker
Yeah, no, it was, uh, it was pretty ridiculous. Um, I think at one point she also lost the ability to swear because usually she swears a lot. I don't know if we said that, but there are some very creative swear words thrown about in the E3 presentation. She gets like a fucking combo breaker where she insults the audience with like five swears, like, but they're all adjectives, which ends in motherfucker. Yeah. Yeah.
00:50:02
Speaker
And she loses the ability to swear. So she starts saying like country, churchy words instead. Oh, I thought you were saying country was one of the censored things because you couldn't say the C word. Oh, no. And that upsets her greatly. But it's basically episodic at this point. Like it's tune in next E3 to see what the next episode of Devolver Digital is. Yeah.
00:50:27
Speaker
No, it's. But as a game service, they have a, do you remember this year? They had the, was it Devolver? It wasn't budget. Bootleg. Bootleg Devolver. Yeah. Yeah. Which is like a head, like fake kind of rip off, kind of reduced versions of their existing games, right?
00:50:49
Speaker
But as far as I know, it is actually on Steam. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And it's like five bucks to have. I think it's even cheaper. It's ridiculous. Around eight. By the time of their existing games. But so like Downwell was called shooty boots. Eight. That was called like three
Devolver's Unique Position in the Gaming Industry
00:51:07
Speaker
to escape or something else.
00:51:09
Speaker
Is oh enter the gun dungeon was another one. Yeah, instead of the dungeon. Yeah another solid title and other things like that Yeah, so I don't want you to misrepresent the price It's four dollars and 94 cents because it's always on a 1% sale Because I Don't even know that's exactly that's so devolver basically
00:51:38
Speaker
But that's the thing, if they do anything random now, it's kind of like, it's got that Rick and Morty effect in a way where it's like, oh, that's probably like a Rick and Morty thing, you know?
00:51:48
Speaker
Yeah, I was gonna say that they're their presence in e3. They are the adult swim of e3 essentially Like i'm excited for other people's announcements there's a lot of other games that are that come around that uh I'm glad to hear about it's rare that the presentation itself Has any sort of ridiculous nonsense that devolver has?
00:52:12
Speaker
No. And a lot of the other presentations can typically get very trite and awkward. Yeah. Like, I don't know if you've watched any of like the awkward compilations. It's really hard. Oh, holy fuck. It hurts. I'd rather watch Minecraft server than that. That's saying a lot because like these people go out there to talk about a product or game that the company is releasing and they want people to like get excited for and buy into.
00:52:40
Speaker
And like when there's like a completely dead silent reaction, you're like, oh, I feel I feel so bad for that person. I know. It's really hard. You get there's a pretty sure there's a German word for it, but sympathetic embarrassment.
00:52:56
Speaker
I don't remember what the word is. You can google it. It's gonna bug me now. It exists. We'll look it up at some point. It's not on the way. Yeah. But like the standard E3 format, there's almost like a sacrifice to the masses in a way. And that the person who usually goes up and talks isn't like the PR head of Microsoft or the PR head of whatever studio or Bethesda. A lot of times it's like a developer or a producer or somebody who's not in front of a camera.
00:53:21
Speaker
all that much. And they just do some prep and they show up and they try to do their best. And it's kind of like, it's almost got this gladiatorial feel to me, because you've got this mass of people who are all set to judge whether the person survives or not. And it can lead, like you said, to some painful situations. There's super cuts of the awkward moments of the ether. And it hurts. It hurts me physically to watch them.
00:53:52
Speaker
Yeah, but I think it's just indicative of
00:53:57
Speaker
I feel that Devolver is in a way filling a space because everybody's doing the AAA thing as far as major publishers like Microsoft. I'm not sure if I want a super lumped Nintendo in there. They're doing their own stuff though as well. And they have a decent understanding of what their target audience wants. So like for like portability and switch and like family fun friendly games,
00:54:25
Speaker
They've really got that on lock and they're going in a good direction Whereas stuff like Bethesda
00:54:31
Speaker
I would argue they've they've had some like serious missteps and Microsoft nobody talks about because what the fuck are they doing now? Yeah, another Halo Halo as it turns out like I hate that. That's like a running joke, right? To be fair Bethesda as a developer Slipping pretty hard Bethesda pub as a publisher. There's there's some for the most part fine. They publish like Arkane's things and
00:54:56
Speaker
Again, still looking forward to that death loop, but we'll see. That's my harken back to the previous episode. That's closing the loop, the death loop.
00:55:11
Speaker
They've just staring at me now. I thought I had like a good segue or a place to bounce off over this. Yeah, but that's, that's devolver. I mean, if people really just eat this episode up, maybe we'll talk about some other, uh, publishers, probably not regardless of the public perception of this one. Um,
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:55:30
Speaker
we don't care. So.
00:55:31
Speaker
Yeah. But, so if you're listening and you have no idea about any of these games or developer digital outside of this episode, I would recommend, uh, check out some of their stuff that they're affiliated with or something they're releasing on their own. Yeah. They got quite the series fun stuff. Yeah. Or just unique stuff. Again, genital jousting, very inexpensive, loads of fun. Yeah. And they see what I did there.
00:56:00
Speaker
Said fun, right No, no, I know I did But yeah, they their games oftentimes go on sale as well So I think the seam steam summer sales going on right now might be done by the time this goes live I don't know but
00:56:15
Speaker
I totally missed that. I might need to check it out. I would suspect that some of these are for sale. I honestly don't check out the seasonal sales that much anymore because I already own all the games and the ones I don't own, I already have a list to go through to get to. I don't collect as much as I used to.
00:56:35
Speaker
And again, I will repeat my standing offer. If somebody reaches out to me on the side, which if you don't know me personally, probably has to be a pain. I guess you have to use the email. Right. Or Facebook. Just be public about it. But if there's a game that you're really excited about that you want to check out and it's not super expensive,
00:56:57
Speaker
It's high probability that I would be willing to buy that for you so you could share that experience that we've had. Because gaming is a community and if we can share that together, that's awesome to me, honestly. You might have heard a little blip in the audio where it sounded like Dave said he would buy the game for you. He actually said, link you to the Steam page. Just as a heads up, don't expect free games from the podcast.
00:57:24
Speaker
Just kidding. He actually did say that. I would do both. I would definitely make it to you. And then send them the copy. And you're like, yes, buy this from me. I'm like, OK. I agree with the gift copy. This is how Dave is accumulating Steam friends, because he knows you can only send gifts to friends. I'd probably get one robot a day.
00:57:42
Speaker
Uh, man, but yeah, I'd like to thank everybody for listening to this episode of the soapstone, especially the friends of our podcast at Devolver digital. Um, as always, you can reach out to us at soapstone podcast at gmail.com or find us on Facebook at soapstone podcast. No, it's not at facebook.com slash soapstone podcast. Yeah, that's how domains work. But, uh, until next time, we'll see you in the next one. Have a good night.
00:58:16
Speaker
Yeah!