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MONEY MONEY MONEY - Add to Party 10.12.2022
4 Plays2 years ago
This week we discuss leaked Gamepass financials, genshin impacts financials, Stadia closing its doors, and CDPR acting up again.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Add to Party' Podcast
00:00:14
Speaker
Welcome to Add to Party, a friendship simulator masquerading as a new show. I'm your host, James Hartwell, and I'm joined by. Hello. Who are we joined by?
Charles's Steam Deck Distraction
00:00:30
Speaker
Charles. Oh, sorry. I was I'm Charles. I'm not playing my steam deck. I just got distracted, you know, like dungeon on this beautiful game. Reserve that silence now and I do truncate silence later. That's it.
00:00:50
Speaker
Don't worry about me. And I was been joined by my steam deck and yeah, Andy K. Without a steam deck, without anything. Well, this isn't a story that we're going to talk about today, but you can buy the steam deck available now. There's no waitlist anymore, Andy. So what's yours? I don't want one, but I still have FOMO, but I don't want one.
00:01:17
Speaker
at it. You don't necessarily need one. So I don't blame
Debate on Phone Storage Needs
00:01:21
Speaker
you. Yeah, I've just been griping over whether I need a Pixel 7, but that's here nor there. I'll tell you about it on Thursday, Andy. Of course, I'm getting the pros. Oh, no, I don't. The one thing I one thing I did annoy me about the Pixel 7, though, is that it doesn't have an SD card slot. I'm like, oh, you son of a bitch.
00:01:42
Speaker
uses local storage anymore. I do. To do what? To download hours of Netflix when I go on plane rides. Oh, I forgot. You know, you live on planes. You need all of that. I've been on five. I've been on I've gone on five plane trips this year. OK, well, you still don't. OK, whatever. And I have another one coming up next week. Oh, my God.
00:02:07
Speaker
How many have I been on? You're all boomers if you think you need more storage on a phone. I think I've already been on one. Well, everything's a double, basically. Counted as a trend. Counted as a trend. Yeah, I'd say about seven trips so far. Eight. Maybe you traveled for work, too, right? No. Oh, I thought you did.
00:02:33
Speaker
That's from my old job. Oh, OK. Look at these jet setters over here. And I guess they need those hundred and twenty eight gigabytes that they spend three hundred dollars more for. All right. Let's be clear. I have a 500 gigabyte SD card on my phone. And I saw that and I found that out after I preordered it. So I had to go, fuck.
00:02:59
Speaker
And I canceled the preorder and then preordered the 512 one instead. I'm like, God damn it. You don't need that much space. No one does. I live in the future. How much space do I need or have right now? I'll tell you exactly why I need that much space, because I have one hundred and twenty eight gigabytes on my Galaxy S20 Ultra right now and it's full. I don't understand. I don't understand. Clear your cache, you fool. I have.
00:03:26
Speaker
I don't get it. Listen, I know this is riveting conversation for everyone else. Oh, it is. This bothers me. We don't need storage. It's all in the cloud. Let's live our best lives. Yeah, 224 out of 256 gigs on my phone.
00:03:42
Speaker
Yeah, that's pretty close. What are you doing? We go places and take pictures, Andy. Okay, fair. I don't take pictures. It's a repository of all my experiences in life. But you even put those in the cloud. I don't. What do you mean? Yeah, I don't actually keep my pictures in the cloud. Well, stop taking... Well, I don't want to stop you from taking naked photos, but... Yeah, there's a lot... Well, I know what you're going to do about your, about those previous photos on the trip.
00:04:13
Speaker
Anyways, uh, anyways, Andy again, doesn't understand that people live lives different than him. That's even our recurring segment. Um, how many happy birthday videos do I have of different events? Just really wrote it in that you have friends.
00:04:37
Speaker
You know what, as I reflect on that, I don't take photos or videos or anything. I don't keep anything. Yeah. That's one person in the friend group needed to. I mean, that's fair, but you can also put those in the cloud. And then the lost. Let me tell you, I have a camera. I have a couple of gap years in my phone right now because they were they were uploaded to the cloud and then now they're not there with the cloud deleted.
00:05:06
Speaker
I don't know. It's just sometimes it's like the sake with the classic. Oh, you deleted them off your device. That means you don't want them in the cloud either. Right. And it's like, yeah, it's not how this works, man. But but yeah, you can have your storage. I'll live my my free 64 gigabyte life.
Hawaii Trip and Model Building Adventures
00:05:28
Speaker
Disgusting. So, yeah, it finally happened. We went to Hawaii. Yeah. If you were listening. Yeah. And we are not going to bore you with Hawaii stories. It's like, here, let me load up my slideshow. We didn't record a beach episode, though, which is a reason because we were so exhausted every day.
00:05:51
Speaker
Um, yeah, that is the supreme sign of aging because before the trip, everyone said, we'll do, we'll plan only one thing and then we'll do something else in the afternoon. Never, never knowing that that one thing was enough to make everybody not want to do anything else.
00:06:10
Speaker
It's good. We only plan one thing. Imagine if there were two, um, but, but I'm already, we're already breaking our promise about not talking about that. But what I will talk about is that you have now, uh, the, our friend group, including Charles and yourself, Andy have, have now at home.
00:06:32
Speaker
have now made me dip my toe into an arena that I have longs and slept. Ooh, talk about it. No. Yes. Model building. That's right. Oh, that's right. I have now ordered some kits. Yes. I've ordered some God hand nips. Wow, you're starting off strong. Andy, I don't listen. I need to.
00:07:01
Speaker
I don't, I don't listen. I need the best. For the listeners at home, when you're building Gunplur model kits, the gold standard for nippers of cutting off the sprue is the God Hands.
00:07:15
Speaker
Yep. Um, I got, I got the, the Tamiya X panel link and accent line. Oh, good. Good. Good. I got the top coat. Oh, you got top coat. Did you go with Matt? I got, I got, uh, I got, I got, I got all three because I want to experiment. And they're handy. They're also like $9. Let's be clear. They're not expensive.
00:07:38
Speaker
Oh, pro tip to you and listeners at home, you put on clear coat before using panel liner. Yeah, that's what I heard. Yeah. Um, so I'm going to do that. And then I heard a lot of good thing about the semi gloss gives kind of a satin effect. Yeah. Yeah. It kind of depends on the model that you're building. A lot of people like Matt to make it look like super mechanical and flat. Um, but I use a semi Matt. Um, those.
00:08:08
Speaker
That's the balance that I appreciate, but it's good that you have all three. Play around with them. I'm going to experiment. I'm going to have fun. And when I'm done, Andy, throw it right in the trash. Disgusted with it. I wasn't perfect at it, so therefore I will never do it again.
00:08:34
Speaker
And most importantly, you made a vow to not sand off the nubs of when you cut the pieces off the sprue. And that is, that just, I look for those. So yeah, they exposed me to Studio G videos, which if you
Exploring Gunpla Model Building
00:08:51
Speaker
haven't seen are like ultra high level custom ASMR Gunpla model building videos, which are just incredibly soothing.
00:09:00
Speaker
So incredibly soothing. And I'm like, all right, I'll try again. My one experience was I built a heavy arms probably in 2000.
00:09:10
Speaker
too. And I didn't know nippers were a thing. Yep. I did it all by hand, baby. Listeners, real quick, heavy arms is a is a type of mobile suit Mecca from the series Gundam wing. Oh, if you need to Google that it is a robot with guns everywhere.
00:09:31
Speaker
Well, that's the Endless Waltz version. You know, that's fair. Yeah, the the original heavy arms only has one Gatling gun on his left on his left hand.
00:09:44
Speaker
Oh, we've got a few Gundam heads here. Actually, no, wait, that's not true. I think the original one does have them in his chest, too. He has them in his chest. And then like he does have it in his chest, too. Yeah. And heavy RMT upgrades to having like four Gatling guns and everywhere else is guns. In V2, in V2, he gets two Gatling guns and left arm. And then in Endless Waltz, he gets four and missile. He gets two on each hand and then missile launchers in addition.
00:10:10
Speaker
Also, I think there might be gallon guns in his shins. I feel like that's going to work. Yep, they do. That's it. Also, listeners, if you go to YouTube and search heavy arms, you get Gundam heavy arms and then XXG01H2 Gundam heavy arms custom. Third video, MG1 over 100 heavy arms EW review. And then Creed with arms wide open official video. Oh, okay. Yeah, so there you go. I didn't know there was a link, but I see it now.
00:10:40
Speaker
And Andy, I also want to tell you that, um, I have bought, uh, two kits, one of which is extremely ill advised for your first builds. Yeah. Yeah. The, uh, the, um, I bought the axia, which is possibly very, very good. It's a good time. Um, but the easy eight, uh, Gundam is an older built and does use screws. Yeah.
00:11:06
Speaker
That's old. Yeah, baby. That's old. Yep. Well, God bless. I also bought a Barbados off eBay. That's fine. Listen, I heard it's supposed to be like fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. But these are all Gundams, by the way. I will only build Gundams. Listen, and I will never build Gundams because I don't care about Gundam, but I'm building a Metal Gear Ray right now.
00:11:34
Speaker
Um, and welcome to the hobby, James. We'll see. We'll see. I, I think I was watching some stuff about it today and, um, I'm building master grades. Uh, the, the, the kits I got are master grades normally.
00:11:49
Speaker
But yeah, you can go to hell, Andy. I was threatening Andy that I was going to get perfect grades and then do it all by hand. So there would be visible nubs just to hurt him. Yeah, but they were like two hundred dollars and a joke can only go so far. Yeah. These these master grades are like 30 to 50 dollars. Yeah. Actually, I heard good things about real grade, but I was like, I want one one hundredths. Yeah, no. Because
Model Building Approaches and Resources
00:12:15
Speaker
I have big hands handy. That's fair. That's fair.
00:12:19
Speaker
Big mile for a big boy. Big mile for a big boy. Yeah, so we'll see, we'll see how that goes. Oh, what I was saying was, I was watching a lot of videos and I got the sense that it's like, oh, you don't have to do it all in one day. And I was like, oh, never really thought about it that way. Yeah, they take a while.
00:12:42
Speaker
No, it's just in my head. I'm like, this is a one day project and I will complete it in one day. No, that's why I have a little dedicated desk, right? Just have a project and I just stop by and I work on it in bits.
00:12:57
Speaker
And then I and then I move on. I will also say I did by tweezers because, God forbid, I do not have the finger dexterity for some of these. No, those are those are nice for stickers. You have a master grade. Well, if they're Bandai, they don't do water slides, but they do have no idea what you just said to me. Don't worry about it. They're better stickers. We'll put it that way. OK. Also, I found out there's like a Gundam hobby shop that's like
00:13:25
Speaker
30 minutes from my house.
Podcast Banter and Stereotypes
00:13:27
Speaker
I'm a little jealous. So they might become my go-to place. Yeah, go there, hang out. I'm absolutely not doing that, but I will order things from them. No, bring your kit. All right, go on a Saturday, bring your God hands, and then build with people.
00:13:48
Speaker
James, you can make new friends. Welcome to Add to Party, a Gundam simulator masquerading as a youth protest. I'm sorry, do you want to talk about financial earnings for 45 minutes?
00:14:02
Speaker
I need to make that joke because our friends actually have our one friend, our good friend, Kathleen. Actually, best friend, Kathleen. My best friend. How do you end particularly? Not any. Possessive, really.
00:14:22
Speaker
She sent us something when we were not having enough banter in the last couple episodes, which was, if we do that one more time, we are a new simulator masquerading as a friendship podcast.
00:14:39
Speaker
And what a good joke she had. I, I loved it. I thought it was funny. Okay. Well, guess what, baby? We're 22 minutes into this. Actually, that's not true. We're 14 minutes into this episode and we have, and I'm still not talking about Gump.
00:14:56
Speaker
I hope Kathleen, if you're out there, anyone else, I hope you find Gumbler interesting. Well, as I'm going to tell you, Andy, I'm also I'm iron, right? I got my eye. Charles, you'll appreciate this. Mm hmm. I got my eye on the God Gundam from G Gundam. I don't know what that means. Don't worry about it, Andy. And and the talkies. Oh, also don't know what that is.
00:15:22
Speaker
Everyone loves tall geese, especially how quickly he got swept away by Epion when it showed up. But tall geese is still good. Everyone. Yeah. What what happened if we put two rocket engines on a Gundam and just and just was like, yeah, it'll work. And they keep making that show for 40 years, 50 years they've been making. Last year was the 40 year anniversary. They never run out of ideas.
00:15:52
Speaker
of how we make a robot look cool. The new series is about queer high school girls fighting in war. Oh, that's right. They turn it into a high school. Well, do the other people in high school want to know? I haven't watched the first episodes yet. I have to say it's a battle academy, which is all you really need the backdrop of. Oh, it's a battle academy. OK. Oh, Andy. I remember you watched that very inebriated, so I guess you wouldn't remember all of it.
00:16:22
Speaker
Yeah. Is it a battle academy? Because wow, that's actually new for Gundam. They haven't done that one yet. They've done worldwide battle royale. Okay. That was G Gundam, Andy. Where the earth was a battlefield and every country send a stereotypical slightly racist Gundam to fight. Was it made in the 90s?
00:16:49
Speaker
Yeah, I think it was the 90s. Okay, that sounds like a 90s kind of thing. Mexico Gundam G Gunvers. Someone at work today made an uncomfortable impersonation, and I didn't know what to do, you guys. Handy. I just went, ooh, and hopefully you heard me. I thought about the tequila Gundam there with his little mustache and some sort of... Oh my god, tequila Gundam? Oh no! I don't see anything wrong with it.
00:17:24
Speaker
That's why G Gundam's the best series. I'm sorry. Hold on. What's up? So Zeus Gundam, Greek Gundam. I don't fully recognize the other flags.
00:17:42
Speaker
uh ashera gundams see this probably in trouble i think that's india um because i don't think pakistan would be the ashera gundam but uh skull gundam is i don't know what that flag is i don't know what that flag is either obviously an arachno gundam is i think
00:18:04
Speaker
Portugal, or I don't know. Is that? Well, let's look, hold on. Well, let's just look this up here. Gee. We're looking at an array of just pretend everyone is. Oh, by the way, every country is Neo, by the way, Andy. Oh, Hong Kong, you know, Sweden, you know, Denmark, you know, Mexico. Did the world flutter something?
00:18:32
Speaker
Why? I was just excited Earth sucked. Oh, okay. They don't have the flags on this wiki page making it that much harder for me.
00:18:41
Speaker
Man, when is the world going to agree to just reinvent itself and every city is neo? Well, unfortunately, Andy, every enemy and almost any other story really has new countries spring up only after apocalypse. So we're just going to go. We're just going to have to wait till that happens.
00:19:07
Speaker
Here's the list of all of them. I'm trying to see if there's any more racist ones. I mean, you have Lumber Gundam from Canada. That's a stereotype. Actually, Cobra Gundam, I think, might have been indie. Or that's... Yeah, yeah, I believe that's India.
00:19:24
Speaker
You got Matador Gundam from Spain. Wow. Zebra Gundam from Neo Kenya. Oh, my God. Not going to lie though, that does look good. That's right. They're good designs. Also, the Neo Netherlands Gundam is a windmill. This guy, Greenwood. Yeah. And Andy, it's considered one of the...
00:19:53
Speaker
at least top 10 Gundams arguments for top five to be heard in, you know, let's just talk about that phenomenon where, uh, Japan gets to still be racist and everyone's kind of like, yeah. And then they fucking walk away. It's an interesting phenomenon. I just don't get it. We're the only country that was nuked. So I guess we'll give it to
00:20:20
Speaker
They gotta get some pass. I just I don't get it. It's it's incredible. I just you know that worldwide agreement. Yeah, this is what I was thinking of Andy. Here's the space colony for Neo Mexico. It's a sombrero with a cactus.
00:20:39
Speaker
I highly recommend you look up G Gundam Neo Mexico and you will find a picture of the space colony. Oh my God, Japan. Just who he did. What did you know? Now I got it. What is he going to come out? Now I got to double check that.
00:20:56
Speaker
Uh, he then came out 94. Oh, wow. Just, just on the cusp of, uh, of stereotypical racism being not okay. Um, anyway, is that enough banter for you? I mean, it was about something highly specific. Yeah.
00:21:21
Speaker
That's what you get. Anything about Gundam. I don't know anything about Gundam. Doesn't this make you want to know more? Don't you want to know about the sombrero space colony of Neo-Mexico? I mean, I mean, that kind of does. But otherwise, just Gundam just doesn't capture my heart. And that hurts. It's OK. Andy, it's not you know, you can't be fans of everything. I can't. You know, you're just you're just not a real fan of much. So I just plus Ava's look cooler, guys.
00:21:51
Speaker
I'll say it. I'm sorry, Andy. The problem with Ava's and I I would say it was have great designs. The problem is there's a very visible plug that's fucking right over there. It's just right stuck on them like a goddamn like, I'm sorry, guys, I can't I can't fight you unless I'm in this radius. So I can work for five minutes unplugged. Yeah, I also have a giant. We also all have a giant penis.
00:22:29
Speaker
I mean, on giant robot. Are you telling me gundams don't have penises? Pull one up right now. We're going to do a quick, a quick check. All right. See, they have the closest one would be this, but that's not even really like. Yeah. Yeah. The problem is like that's kind of a penis. Like the major, what's it? Cockpit thing isn't really.
00:22:41
Speaker
I mean don't well I was gonna say don't we all but
00:22:56
Speaker
there in the lower half of the body. No, they tend to like the reason for those designs where they make like the penis or chest or whatever like bigger is because they put where the cockpit is normally. But I don't think it's normally there in the Gundam.
00:23:13
Speaker
Well, they usually don't go into those. They usually wear kind of like that that tunic like skirt kind of deal. Usually they have something like that. Oh, so they're modest. They cover it up with a skirt. That's true. Yeah. Not like your godless Ava's.
00:23:27
Speaker
Literally. I mean, why can't they? Why can't they bear all? God bless them. I think in Zone of the Enders, they actually go into the penis. Yeah, there it is. That's what I was thinking of. You're right. Ava's Ava's are in the back and then Zone of Enders is literally the penis. Yeah, it's literally there. But they do have a protrusion. The Ava's do. But I don't understand why you're shaming them. Hmm.
00:23:55
Speaker
Yeah, all these Gundams are very modest They come from a modest nation Andy very Also, you know what I'm not gonna We're gonna gatekeep Gundams. All right, we're gonna gatekeep Ava's their biomechanical They are biomechanical you are right. They did you have the blood of Lilith flowing through them? Oh
00:24:21
Speaker
I mean, they're robots still. They look like robots. They're cooler. They're cooler. No one needs gundams. We have a lot of listeners. I'd like to understand that two years ago, we had an argument about how it was not as good as Andy believes it to be. Oh, it's the best. And it took three to four hours. And he still hasn't seen the latest movie. I know because the number one fan.
00:24:47
Speaker
I am the number one fan. It's such a great series, but the movie's not great. Not going to watch. Well, then, Andy, I'll watch everything Gundam. I'll watch a series where there's semi-racist characters fighting each other on Earth. Will you do that for Ava? I don't think so.
Xbox Game Pass Financial Insights
00:25:06
Speaker
Oh, because the rebuilds are bad, but maybe the new ones go. I don't know because I haven't seen it because I'm a fake fan.
00:25:16
Speaker
But I know what's not fake, Andy. Oh, tell me that game pass is the best gaming. Yeah. So we found out how much money game stuff makes Microsoft and it's a lot. So as part of all the Activision merger shenanigans going on, they had to open their books to Brazil.
00:25:42
Speaker
And one of the things we found out about that was that where is the number again? Here it is. According to data, Xbox Game Pass generated two point nine billion dollars from consoles. So this doesn't include PC Game Pass based on data publicly available. Microsoft Xbox gaming generated a total of sixteen point two eight billion in a calendar in the calendar year.
00:26:07
Speaker
meaning that Game Pass represents something about a quarter, a fifth, if you will, of their total revenue. Microsoft revenue, not Xbox revenue. No, no, Xbox revenue. Okay. Yeah.
00:26:24
Speaker
No, no, it's a, it's not a fifth of X bot. Look at the chart right there. It's like, it's like more than a fifth of X box revenue. That's true. I know it's 2.9. What's, what's six. What's 2.9 divided by 16.2. That'll, that'll reveal the percentage to us. I'm not good at math.
00:26:48
Speaker
Oh, I'm not. You're going to have to bring up your calculator. I'm doing it. That would be 20 percent. Yeah. Point one eight, really. But yeah, so yeah. Point one eight. Yeah. So I was right. Ha ha.
00:27:05
Speaker
But yeah, so this is the first time, I mean, this is the first time we've got it like completely nailed down about how much money it's making, like Xbox. And that's really fucking good. Oh, God damn it. It's right down here. This means it's not like an inch. This means Xbox the impasse made roughly 18 percent of Microsoft's total yearly revenues and nearly 30 percent of its games and service revenues for the period.
00:27:30
Speaker
and then the article continues onward. We can take that even further and line those values with subscribers as of that period. Microsoft has sporadically revealed a Xbox Game Pass subscriber number so we can't 100% be accurate. However, between August 2021 and March 2022, Xbox Game Pass went from 15 million to 18 million subscribers.
00:27:53
Speaker
So we can pinpoint a range of 2.9 billion revenues generated from 15 to 18 million subscribers across both PC and consoles. Let's see. We don't know if that's profit though. Well, yeah. So the interesting part I always wanted to know was the actual profit of. Yeah.
00:28:14
Speaker
Because other random news thing came up recently, which was for PlayStation Plus, Sony apparently paid $34 or $24 million for PlayStation Plus.
00:28:33
Speaker
Yeah. And apparently, on average, for games to go on to PlayStation Plus, Sony pays around 20 million for a game to get in there.
00:28:45
Speaker
Which I was like, now that's interesting to know. Yeah, that's a good change. Yeah. Like revenue is good because you go, yeah, it makes the money. Of course it makes the money. Like what the fuck? They're doubling down on it. Yes, they're making money. I really want to see the what they pay per thing, especially since Game Pass doesn't like once it leaves Game Pass, the users don't have it anymore. So I want to know what that like cost is.
00:29:14
Speaker
for that process. So that's an interesting point. And since I have my calculator up, let's take that 20 million number, just for fun's sake, right? And divide that by 2.9 billion.
00:29:29
Speaker
or divide 2.9 billion by the 20 million number. That means if they were paying every developer 20 million dollars for the game, which they're not. Yeah, I'm sure some are much, much, much less. That means if they put more than 145 games on Game Pass in the period, they would have not broken even. I don't think they put that many games on Game Pass. So I think it's safe to assume they probably made a profit off this.
00:29:56
Speaker
And many are just indie titles. Well, just is not a very fair qualifier, but many are indie titles. Yeah. I mean, there's probably ones that are more expensive, too. And you also have to figure out what's the weird opportunity cost for putting all of their great first party games. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I'm sure Halo cost a tad more than 20 million.
00:30:24
Speaker
Yeah. So there's a weird opportunity cost thing in there. You have to figure out too. But I mean, just based on that kind of weird napkin math, I feel like maybe they're at least breaking even on it, if not making maybe a touch of profit. So I don't know. Corporate financing is always very weird, but it just kind of goes to show like, you know,
00:30:50
Speaker
And we still have a perception of Xbox being in second place, which is true to be perfectly fair. Still true. Um, but like to bring these kind of numbers up kind of says a really interesting thing about their momentum and where the gaming space is going. Right. And, and also kind of how my PlayStation did that whole rebound to make PlayStation extra, which they really need to do a better job of marketing because I still don't know what games are coming to it. Yeah.
00:31:18
Speaker
I think they've even kind of given up. Like, how was fast if they did? Because, yeah, hopefully it's someone, someone who remembers someone. So I don't know. It's it's we're getting to we're getting to an almost Netflix like singularity point where it's just like, yes, everything's on game pass. Yeah. Why wouldn't I get why wouldn't I get a game pass? Everything's on game pass.
00:31:46
Speaker
And it works on PC as well. And your Steam deck, Charles. It still hurts a little bit when people tell me they're just playing something, and it's on Game Pass. That's it. I mean, it shouldn't hurt. Because the thing is, like I said before, this should only provide incentive for Sony to try harder to give us better stuff, too. Otherwise, they lose, which is also fine, because then they'll have to come back, try harder next time.
00:32:14
Speaker
But Sony has God of War and God of War blows away probably most of what's on game path. God of War, Last of Us Part Two and Part One, Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon.
00:32:30
Speaker
Yeah, they go. They got a deep roster. They got some honors. Xbox does not. Although soon they will have Call of Duty more than likely. So, yeah, so. But to be honest with you, though, I know the interesting part for me with this is because they had to reveal this due to the acquisition. Mm hmm.
00:32:53
Speaker
I am still hoping for more insider gaming business how to's and how everything is calculated to make money.
00:33:05
Speaker
That lawsuit with Epic and Apple, lovely, still love it, want to know more. I need to know more about how these companies are making money and how they make their deals because it's just not public. Everyone fucking realized that they should be quiet and not tell anybody else so that
00:33:25
Speaker
Consumers don't really know how it works. It would be great to know. It is public in a certain sense because they're publicly traded companies. And if you dig enough through their financials, you can figure it out. But they never make it easy on you. But your point is correct, Charles. It's like, yeah, getting into this weird kind of like meat grindery shit is super interesting.
00:33:49
Speaker
It's a lot of work. Just everybody's making a lot of money in the end. It's up to you, Andy. Ha ha! They took it all from me. But they can't pay their workers a fair amount. It's just there's no money in it, guys. The people at the top deserve it because they worked super hard. They worked 200 times harder than all their other employees. You wish it was only 200. I was going to say, that seems way too low.
00:34:20
Speaker
Well, speaking of companies making way too much money. Oh, Genshin Impact. Oh, my. Their numbers that in the first two years, they have generated three point seven
Genshin Impact's Financial Success
00:34:33
Speaker
billion dollars with a B on. Holy shit.
00:34:38
Speaker
A mobile game, to be fair, I think it's on PlayStation also, right? It is also on PlayStation and PC and Xbox and Switch, too. I think. Yeah. A long time ago, they're like, yeah, we're working on Switch. Fucking just now. I think they gave up because they were just like, you know what? It looks ugly on Switch. We can't do this. Did you load Genshin on your Steam Deck yet?
00:35:00
Speaker
No, because it's not officially supported yet on Steam. Of course. So the workaround is to install Windows 10 on Steam Deck and the engine on it. Oh, there should be other ways. Is that really the only way? There's usually a lot of ways to. OK, that's it. Like an Android emulator. I'm sure I could find an emulator for it and that'll make it easier. Yeah.
00:35:22
Speaker
Anyway, yeah, so or article dollars, three point seven, Andy, please four will round up the article from Sensor Tower goes on. Let's see. Against an impact for me, Hojo has generated three point seven billion dollars from player spending worldwide across the app store. I like the terminology player spending, by the way, not from sales from gacha mechanics.
00:35:51
Speaker
Uh, since it was first launched September 28th, 2020, uh, the title, which is celebrating second anniversary this week ranks as the number three revenue generating mobile game globally since its relief. This is the interesting part. It sits behind pub G mobile, which holy shit, which generated $4.9 billion over the last two years and honor of Kings, which, uh, which, uh, pub G mobile and honor of Kings, both from 10 cent.
00:36:20
Speaker
which is at number one, generated $5.5 billion outside of China against ranks number two for mobile game spending, ranking up $2.5 billion internationally across the App Store and Google Play. It ranks above Candy Crush Saga and just behind Roblox. Also, Z billions and billions just being thrown around.
00:36:47
Speaker
Can we get some regulation and have them release? I want to know out of that 4 billion, the percentage of players contributing to each portion, right? Like 90,000, 4 billion, is that coming from 1% of the players?
00:37:05
Speaker
I got to think so. Yeah, I mean, it's not going to be everybody. You have whales that do this. That will be here and pay money into their game. The interesting part too, because
00:37:20
Speaker
Sensor tower is, tends to be mostly just about mobile and mobile gaming profits. Not count the other platforms. So it doesn't not count PC or console sales either.
00:37:35
Speaker
Yeah. So, uh, sensor tower also tends to be used to see if a mobile game is doing well and whether or not they will get X. It's something as the gacha players tend to use to make sure we're spending money on long-term games. I didn't realize this either. Charles, you were so familiar with sensor.
00:37:58
Speaker
It's a very important resource in the whale community. Well, just in the communities concerned with if their game is going to last a year or not.
00:38:15
Speaker
There was actually an interesting interview with people who wail. I forget who it was from. It was a couple years ago about the psychology of, hey, why do you spend this much money? How much money do you spend? And this one person reported
00:38:33
Speaker
Like spending about $1,000. I thought you were going to say higher. Well, I didn't give you the opening yet. About $1,000 per banner. And that's for the initial thing. If they think they're good, they spend more than that because there's a benefit to having multiple copies of characters.
00:38:59
Speaker
Um, but like, and everyone's like, but are you putting yourself into debt? What is going on? And, uh, the person was just like, no, um, I have a good job and you know, I get bored and like, honestly, I don't spend my money on much other things. I might as well just spend it here and go.
00:39:18
Speaker
Huh. And I'm not going to say that there's not other, there's not other stories from the other end where people like with gambling addiction overspend beyond their means and then put themselves out. No, that's also true. But there's also a seemingly sustainable amount, like self-sustaining whales that are around that are willing to spend more money.
00:39:40
Speaker
like thousands of dollars, which I think is really where mobile games try to target these like people that are actually can keep going. Because what happens if you spend, if there are other users that overspend is they eventually stop spending. So they need to target users that can actually keep spending money without fully burning themselves out. I don't know how they do it. Um, it's fucking crazy. Um, they're just bored.
00:40:08
Speaker
And what do you do when you're bored? You spend thousands of dollars. Whatever, to feel something. I guess. And how often are banners? So for Genshin, the schedule is like every three weeks. Whoa. And then it's like, and it's not like it's a new character every time. Sometimes they bring out old characters. But the thing is, for Genshin Impact,
00:40:32
Speaker
There is only one set of evergreen heroes that are out in what is considered the standard banner, which is banner never changes.
00:40:41
Speaker
But every three weeks, a limited time banner comes up, which has a hero that is never appearing on the standard banner. So you have to spend at this point of time. And, you know, what happens to is like they're what they end up doing is there are some sought after heroes around that are really good for a particular meta or team composition. And they're just like, hey,
00:41:11
Speaker
person only comes around once every six to eight months. Oh, that's it. Also, their best form is when they're and to be fair, these heroes are pretty strong without having to summon multiple copies. But they're strongest at their seventh copy. Whoa, seven copies. Yeah. And
00:41:35
Speaker
You know, I got back into Genshin since the last time we talked because I learned about the pity system is now understood, which is the maximum pity rate you get is after 180 pulls for a character. And then not counting the weapon banner, which is to get there a character signature weapon, which is its own separate thing that you have to pull from.
00:42:00
Speaker
Um, but, and listeners, I, that's it for about 700 gems and needing 1600 gems to pull 10 times is a hundred dollars. What? So 1632 times two for let's say 64. Um, so just about 40 pulls is a hundred dollars. And then you have to do about 180 for maximum pity where you're guaranteed to get it.
00:42:30
Speaker
or eight, twelve, so about three hundred dollars. Oh, my God. To get one copy at worst. If you're really lucky, you get it less. Good for you. And you can save those gems for the next time. Or you start trying to get their weapon. And you know, the weapon definitely makes them look better when they go together. You can't have it not match. No, this is why I want to get into Genshin.
00:42:59
Speaker
Ah, I mean, I played like, what's it, 16 hours of it yesterday to catch up on story. Story's really good.
00:43:08
Speaker
You don't have to spend money. No, I'm not. It's spending money is not the problem, as you know, because I'll I'll drop twenty dollars on a gotcha game to feel something. Just just in general, I'll just do it. But I don't know that opening story. Not good. The other one. Yeah, it really is the opening story. OK. Yeah, the opening. Maybe one of these days I have to just power through it. Yeah. Yeah.
00:43:36
Speaker
That story is pretty good nowadays. We're doing it. I feel like this is you telling me about fucking Final Fantasy 14 all over again. We're all reborn sucks, but once you get through that.
00:43:49
Speaker
You know, that's the thing. It takes a while for Asian RPGs sometimes. And one piece takes. Listen, Final Fantasy 13 is good if you get past the 30 hour tutorial. No, no, no, no, no. Final Fantasy 13 was never good. 13 was good from the start. No, it was not. It definitely was not good from the start. And that is I've said this before many times. That is one of the few games I've ever fallen asleep while I was actively playing.
00:44:21
Speaker
I liked it. But that but that that second half after the first 30 hours, pretty good. You're good. Wouldn't call it a half. Yeah, it's the last act. So really last third of the game. Yeah. You still got great battle system. Love it. Love to see it. Well.
00:44:42
Speaker
I mean, so we've been talking about a lot of news that everyone saw coming. Xbox game pass. Great. Genshin Impact makes lots of money off waifus. It does. So let's talk about news. No one saw those. And hosbandos. That's right. Look at those two flanking the edges. Right there. I can't see them. They're so tiny. I only see waifus. Oh, OK.
00:45:08
Speaker
Let's let's talk about some news. Nobody saw coming.
Shutdown of Google Stadia
00:45:11
Speaker
Oh, Stadia is dead. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, in seemingly what was the slowest motion train wreck that everybody saw coming from word go, maybe has said that they will be closing down. And
00:45:39
Speaker
There's a couple interesting points here. And I mean, we're not going to belabor the death of Stevia. But one thing that Google did was actually very good is that if you bought anything Stadia related off the Google store, they will refund you. That is a good move on Google. I think that means that there were so little users that it was an acceptable thing to do.
00:46:05
Speaker
Like the amount of people who actually, they're like, how much would it cost if we did this? Like $10 million? God, that's depressing. So they did that.
00:46:19
Speaker
It came very suddenly because I know there are a couple of developers who were working on say the exclusive games who were told just last month. Oh, yeah, we're not going anywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now they're trying to figure out how to port their game to other consoles. Another interesting piece of new to other interesting pieces of news about this, and then we'll kind of just jabber about it. But one is the stadium controller
00:46:44
Speaker
does not have Bluetooth enabled. So it only works with Stadia. However, they could release a firmware patch to just make it a Bluetooth controller. And everyone's basically like, hey, Google, could you adjust? Yeah. You supported the Stadia controller.
00:47:03
Speaker
Uh, it might plug it in, but you have to plug it in. Okay. Yeah. It doesn't, it doesn't have like Bluetooth, like pairing support, but it has a Bluetooth controller. So they just need to push out a patch to allow that. Um, and then also Google launched the brand new slate of Chromebooks today, talking about how they're built for cloud gaming with G force go.
00:47:28
Speaker
which is like, God damn it, Google, just fucking left and right hand every goddamn moment. But yeah, here we are. The experiment is over. Like you said, from the start, everyone knew it was going to die and then Google kept promising they wouldn't abandon it. Oh, and then they did. It lasted just about two years.
00:47:54
Speaker
All right. Let's go. It says a few years ago. They don't give a launch date in this one. I feel like it launched actually may have launched right before the pandemic before. OK. Yeah. But and I think other interesting, too, is X cloud has not released. It's in beta still, but people are using it and love it. So again, Microsoft figured it out where Google did not. Yeah, I.
00:48:23
Speaker
I don't know. Like, what do you even say? I would love to know the numbers, though. Never once have I ever anywhere in any corner of the Internet heard, oh, I'll pick that up on Stadia. Like, no one. From what I heard, a lot of dev studios used it as a way to like remote test games securely. Oh, OK. Which was like, look at you, Google, developing business to business software, marketing it for consumers. Yeah.
00:48:53
Speaker
Yeah, their specialty. Wait, this was written by Phil Harrison? Yeah, he's the vice president and general manager. Wasn't he an Xbox guy? Yeah, he left Xbox to go work for Sadia. What's he doing now?
00:49:11
Speaker
I don't know. I believe also they said that they would be trying to find spots on other Google teams for everyone on the stadium team as well. I would hope. Nice. Yeah. Wait, who runs Microsoft? I don't remember his. Well, I mean, who runs Microsoft is still censored. Well, well, yeah, he needs Xbox. Yeah, he means that's what I meant. OK. Yeah. Yes.
00:49:36
Speaker
It is Spencer. And I know who you're the head, the CEO of Microsoft is a gentleman's name. I can't remember. Satya Nadella. There you go. Thank you, Charles. OK. Well, see you, Stadia. I listen, I have my city controller.
00:49:54
Speaker
I'll put it right there next to my Steam controller. Google wanted to send me one for free, and I said no. And you were a fool because they included a Chromecast Ultra with it, Andy. They did. And I just didn't want more stuff for free. I guess I could have given the Chromecast to someone. So that was a failure on my part. Yeah, what the hell? Could have gave it to me. Yeah, that's true. But I don't want more stuff.
00:50:23
Speaker
I just don't want more stuff, you know, only bring things into your home in your life, you know, that you truly want. I don't want more stuff. So I'm sorry, Andy. What do I want? More things from CD project. Oh, I don't. But I'm sure you guys might know.
00:50:48
Speaker
They got to earn their trust again.
CD Projekt Red's New Game Announcements
00:50:50
Speaker
CD Project Red posted out kind of a roadmap for the next couple of years for them. Basically outlining what they'll be doing with Witcher and Cyberpunk and a new IP code named Hadar. So there will be, hold on, let's see here.
00:51:14
Speaker
So the first thing would be Project Serious, which is an innovative new take on the Witcher universe, telling an unforgettable story for existing Witcher fans and new audiences. The current project stage pre-production, developed by the Molasses Flood, supported by CD Projekt Red.
00:51:31
Speaker
Currently 60 plus developers involved. Um, after that you have project Polaris, a story driven open world RPG built on the legacy of the Witcher three wild hunt current stage of current project stage, pre-production to develop a CD project, read 150 plus T 150 plus developers or team members currently evolved beginning of a new Witcher trilogy.
00:51:56
Speaker
All three games came to be delivered within a six year period following the Polaris release. So basically, right, Polaris is Witcher four. And then they're saying within six years, they will release Witcher five and six. Surely that will be a promise ever. Wait, is this a shareholder?
00:52:18
Speaker
Yes, of course. This is all they do now. And then you have another Witcher game called Project Canis Majoris, which is a story driven single player open world RPG set within the Witcher universe contracted to be developed by a third party studio led by X Witcher veterans.
00:52:37
Speaker
Uh, really, uh, tripling down on one thing CD project. Oh, don't worry. We still have news about cyberpunk, which is, uh, cyberfunks X back, which is coming next year. It's in this final production release phase. There are currently 350 people involved with it. We talked about the, uh, X back trailer recently.
00:53:01
Speaker
Where is the slide? Oh, and also about project Orion, there it is, uh, project Orion, which is cyberpunks 2077 sequel that will prove the full power potential of the cyberpunk universe. This time guys, we got it this time. That's embarrassing. And it just says to be developed by CD project red team, which means it's not even in pre-production yet.
00:53:26
Speaker
It will prove. Oh, because you didn't last time. Yeah, they failed last time. And then also Project Hadar, which will be a new standalone IP distinct from Witcher and Cyberpunk developed 100% internally IP incubation since late 2021. So basically they've been working on the story or world since 2021 currently in the conceptual phase by a small strike team.
00:53:54
Speaker
What does that even mean? It means absolutely nothing, Andy. Yeah.
00:54:01
Speaker
What is a strike team? A specialized team, of course. A real conceptual artist. Listen, scream, scrum team screaming banshees on this one. Don't worry. What does strike team mean? It's a group of personnel sent to assist one party. I always think of like a military implementation, but according to lawinsider.com, I guess it's more agnostic than that.
00:54:31
Speaker
Yeah, probably more likely here in the military sense. Yeah. But yeah, so they didn't learn their lesson. We're going to spread our resources across at least four projects and then have a third thing and five, five projects. Yeah. And all of the Witcher games are coming out in six years. I mean,
00:55:02
Speaker
Does anyone care? I mean, I do. Witcher 3 is a fantastic game and I would like to see them do justice to the universe further. Cyberpunk, despite all its foibles, is still a good
00:55:19
Speaker
game sort of. It's not the game they promised, but it's still a good game, despite some narrative issues. So we'll see if Phantom Liberty can help with some of that. I would like to, I don't know, it's hard to trust CD Projekt Red to do anything good right now. A, we've heard a lot of stories about them.
00:55:43
Speaker
having a shitty, shitty work culture. Yes. Just awful. Um, and then, you know, the very public failure of cyberpunk. So I know it's, it's, they certainly don't have the gold standard. They once did. You know what I mean? It's like if Sony Santa Monica really Scott of war Ragnarok and it was just awful. Can you imagine? Like it's going to be nice.
00:56:08
Speaker
No. Got to where I can. I did go gold this week or last week, by the way. So it's coming. November. Yes. I believe. When does Bayonetta come out? October 28th. Bayonetta is coming out. That's good.
00:56:32
Speaker
Yeah. Holy crap. Jennifer Hale is the new voice of Bayonetta, Andy. Yeah, I heard. 9th November 9th. I hope I'm sure Jennifer Hale will be good, but it's, you know, the other voice actress. She was great. Too bad she's gone. Yeah, they said scheduling conflicts, which is always curious to me because it's like you really can't make room in your schedule to be Bayonetta. What could be more important than Bayonetta?
00:57:02
Speaker
I mean, I paid more money by another company. Also fair. Who's the company that's not taking union workers? I was reading that somewhere. I think it was crunchy. It's not working with union workers right now. That's not good. Yeah. Oh, Nintendo has the money. Charles, any thoughts about CD Project Red not learning their lesson?
00:57:28
Speaker
The problem about, and more reason why everyone's concerned, right, was
00:57:33
Speaker
people that cared about Cyberpunk was just like, oh, what happened? How could this have messed up? And then you heard all this accounts from developers and some insider people that were like, hey, a lot of the management people were very blind to all the issues that were being raised by the workers. They kept relying on CD project Red Magic to fix it and do all this other things. And then in this post, they announced
00:58:02
Speaker
a lot of projects with a lot of different teams and people working on a bunch of stuff and then have aggressive schedules for everything. One of the biggest complaints that people found about Cyberpunk was that a lot of people were overworked, that there was not enough time given and none of this seems like they learned their lesson, which is very concerning and disappointing to be honest with you.
00:58:29
Speaker
I mean, if you if you believe the rumors, the thing about Cyberpunk was like that game, like they remade that game from scratch in like 2019, like in 2019. Oh, right. Like, yeah, like they that's why they announced it like 2015 or some shit like that. But really, like they dropped everything they did and remade that game from scratch in 2019. Wow. So yeah, if you think about it that way, if they don't do that again,
00:58:58
Speaker
Maybe it'll turn out okay, but who knows? It's still crunch. It's still just unrealistic timelines to appeal, you know.
00:59:09
Speaker
to the shareholders, but they have a PowerPoint with a lot of promises. Yeah. Yeah. And the other problem too, right? Is that cyberpunk right now is getting, um, a lot of good interest in it because the anime came out on Netflix, which is also, which is actually really good, uh, done by studio trigger, which is, uh, a very good animation studio for anime. Um,
00:59:34
Speaker
and its driving interest into Cyberpunk when Cyberpunk is now not as bad as it was on launch.
00:59:41
Speaker
It just just recently hit its new all time concurrent on Steam of like over a million players or something like that. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Which is nice. But, you know, for people like me who remember what was promised, it won't fix anything because, you know, the game fixed more bugs and did some stuff, but it's not what was promised, which is what I was interested in. Yeah. So it's like, OK.
01:00:11
Speaker
That's good. Just if they didn't fuck it, they they've doubled down on this, by the way, because I've heard in interviews where it's like that montage at the beginning was always planned where, you know, they cut from that opening story to like the heist. It's like if they fucking let you live as V in the city for like, you know, a real act of the game.
01:00:38
Speaker
Um, I think it would have been much better because it really was just like, again, narrative, all the bugs aside, right? Narratively, that game was just all over the place and that's where it was. Yeah. Yeah.
01:00:53
Speaker
And, you know, so I don't know, there's, there's a lot of issues. It's not fully fixed. They're there. They were in a spot where they go, Oh, I guess we can keep going with this. And, uh, you know, I have no confidence in this. You better, I think that next Witcher trilogy better be incredible because
01:01:13
Speaker
And we'll see what Phantom Liberty does to cyberpunk. Yeah. Well, I'm certainly not thinking it's going to be the like a no man's sky or redemption, which people keep trying to like, like news wise go look at cyberpunk. It's like the new no man's sky. It's like you keep their name out of your mouth. Yeah.
01:01:31
Speaker
That's it. No man's sky was bad for years, multiple years, like at least four plus before everyone said, you know what? That's pretty good. Now we forgive you. Yeah. You are now redeemed. So gets like a year and a half. And they were like, guys, it's like no man's sky is like, shut the fuck up. You guys don't understand how to, you guys don't understand comparisons.
01:01:55
Speaker
Sean Murphy and Hello Games toiled to bring themselves up from the pit. They they dug and they shut the fuck up to the entire time. They just said, hey, guys, we have a new update here if you want it. And then that's it. And they would never say anything else. Mm hmm. And, you know, CD project is like, guys, here's seven projects. To be fair, Hello, Hello Games is working on their next project, so.
01:02:23
Speaker
Yeah, but only after everyone went, okay, you're good now.
01:02:28
Speaker
Oh, that's fair. And all of those updates were free, which I'm not sure if they've said Phantom Liberty is going to be free or not for CD or cyberpunk. I do recall. I vaguely recall something in meetings like all expand like much like Witcher. All expansions would be free. I don't know if that's changing now. We'll have all the Witcher ones were free. All the Witcher ones were free. Interesting. And they were great, Andy. Every single one of them were great. Wow.
01:02:57
Speaker
Mm hmm. Yeah. Burned that good. Well, that's not what I'm saying. That's everyone's like, man, you came off fucking all time goodwill. Yeah. And like it's it's so incredible to go from like the highest of heights to the lowest of lows in one game. Mm hmm. It is incredible. Yeah. Uh, you know what else is incredible? Oh, no. Chris Pat's Italian accent. Oh, my God.
01:03:28
Speaker
Uh, just as a quick aside, um, we, uh, the trailer for the Mario Brothers movie came out last week featuring, uh, wastelands from Jack Black, who sounds fantastic as Bowser, which I never really kind of doubted. I think we all looked at that casting and went probably be okay. Um, Chris Pratt, however, it sounds like Chris Pratt.
01:03:55
Speaker
Yeah, that was a shame. He's affecting like a slight Italian accent or like a Brooklyn accent where he's like is a let's go to the Mario kingdom.
01:04:06
Speaker
It is like, Oh, Chris Pratt, you could have done a little better. Uh, absolutely. And, and honestly, maybe that would have, the problem was Chris Pratt also said, I think previously like, Hey, I, you know, I, I worked on this. It's going to be good. And then it sounds the same. Like if he would have even sound, if he sounded different than his normal voice, I probably would be a much more forgiving if it didn't match up, but it just sounds like Chris Pratt.
01:04:35
Speaker
I mean, and the fact that they knew people were like waiting for this and they only gave one line where you can just barely hear his accent. They know it's not great. They know they're like, we're just going to, we're going to let this slide as long as we can.
01:04:51
Speaker
Mm hmm. And it's a shame because all the animation look great. It looks fucking fantastic. It also I've heard a lot of people say something ineffective, like every scene in that trailer, you see nods to the game like everywhere. Like it's it's not like Sonic where Sonic is just standing in James Marsden's house.
01:05:16
Speaker
You know, and it's like every scene in the background, there is something that is referential to the game. Like you could tell people who worked on this and they love it and all that. So I don't know. I mean, I'm sure I'll see it and just be annoyed by Chris Pratt. But, you know, looking to be good. Well, I'll go see it. I guess they already have our money, but Chris Pratt. OK. Yeah, I don't know.
01:05:43
Speaker
What a situation. I love biting commentary from all of us. Well, let's be clear. At least two of us, Andy and I, are suffering the worst jet lag we've ever had in our life.
01:06:01
Speaker
Um, but hopefully next week on another episode of at two party, we'll be a little better. Uh, this has been at two party, a friendship simulator masquerading as a new show. I've been your host James gun plum master. And I've been joined by Charles trying to install emulators on the steam deck. And I've been really legally, legally, legally. He owns all because I owned all the games I'm putting on.
01:06:28
Speaker
He's dumping all the ROMs. I own these games. I'm just putting them as a copy onto my Steam Deck, because I legally own them. All of them. And maybe not. Oh, Wink. Wink. Wink.
01:06:51
Speaker
That that one that one game that was only released in Japan for a week. I definitely know that when I was a kid, I definitely remember playing it in my own home system. So I say it's somewhere. I just lost it somewhere. It's fine. But I've been joined by Andy. I don't need a steam deck. I'm happy with what I have. OK.
01:07:18
Speaker
Bullshit. Have a good night, everyone. Good night. Get some sleep, everyone. Good night. Oh, God, I can't wait. Good night.