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S3 Ep274: Gamers vs. The Industry
79 Plays2 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as they dig into the state of games and how (soft g) gamers can push back against anti-consumer changes in this week's episode!
Also, I'm pretty sure Jake was talking about this meme:
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/is-your-child-texting-about
Intro:
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
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Also, I'm pretty sure Jake was talking about this meme:
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/is-your-child-texting-about
Intro:
- The Isley Brothers - Fight The Power (8bitFanatic Cover)
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann - Libera Me From Hell
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
Recommended
Transcript
Humorous Misunderstandings of Internet Acronyms
00:00:38
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake, and I'm joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? Good. It's going so fucking good. So effing good. So effing good. So effing G. S-F-G. That's effing new guy, right? Or is it... It's an acronym for something else as well. F-N-G is a fucking new guy. Yeah. Terminology for new hires who don't know how to do anything because they're new.
00:01:08
Speaker
Mm-hmm. It's like and then you just like oh, yeah, it just stands for funny nice galleons gentlemen, yeah, there you go gentlemen, that's the mom interpretation
Texting Evolution and Family Communication
00:01:20
Speaker
of a
00:01:22
Speaker
I think that father's another one like oh lol is lots of love as far as moms are concerned through text there is I saw this as a sorry grandma died lol uh-huh early internet thing that it's like what do your kids actually mean about all of these acronyms and then it was just like I think I think there's multiple variants of it one of them is acronyms that would potentially be no no the one I saw I remember now
00:01:50
Speaker
The one I saw was all interpreting them in the worst possible light. So I'm gonna have to freaking try to, I'm gonna try to find an internet. No, I might give up, I give up already. But anyways, it would just be an innocuous thing like LOL or WTF or whatever. But even like, just taken to the highest tier of just like, oh yeah, this acronym is an abbreviation for like, like, where's the ecstasy or like, where do you hide the body or something like that, right? It was all,
00:02:19
Speaker
It was all off the wall nonsense. Oh, they assumed it was some crazy shit versus the Christian mama flying. OK, it was it was the opposite direction. It was how do we escalate this? And so whatever you just sent your parent, they're calling you home immediately.
Gamers vs. Industry: Can Consumers Promote Change?
00:02:33
Speaker
Gotcha. That was fun. This is why I just never text my parents. Hmm. I never text. That's what this word's for. Yeah, occasionally during like
00:02:49
Speaker
late high school, um, or like college on break, my parents would like texts be like, Hey, like where are you at? I was like, Oh, cause you're always like going in between friends houses and whatnot. Like, Oh, my was so-and-so like, okay.
00:03:04
Speaker
This one I'm like, hey, you alive? And you're like, yeah. And you're like, cool. Oh, yeah. Just checking in. The most I texted was when I got my first phone. It was part of my family plan. And I didn't realize that text cost extra money because it was one of those plans that didn't really have. It was basically a scam. But it didn't have unlimited texting or anything like that. And so there was some girl I was doing a school project with in community college. And we texted a bunch back and forth.
00:03:32
Speaker
and basically like it was sort of MSN or AOL or whatever like not long messages
Supporting Quality Games: Experiences and Lessons
00:03:39
Speaker
just like lol haha that's funny whatever you know short nonsense and uh it came back and was like a hundred dollars or something for the texting bill and i was like oh
00:03:51
Speaker
Well, I'm horrified of that. So disable texting mom and dad. I don't want this at all. Like literally just ask them to cancel it, which is how I respond to things. But Discord has made that easier because I don't text my parents.
00:04:07
Speaker
I discord my parents now. Yeah. I never really- It's been a while since I talked to him, honestly. I legitimately tried to get my parents on discord. Not for communicating with me, but like, hey, you have a poker group that you like to play with. Why don't you interact with some of your friends?
00:04:24
Speaker
Online just as your phone get them and then people are on yeah, and if if it's one of those things like oh Johnny has a cove it maybe he can call in and so like pal around with you guys or just something but I think just so far removed from their generation of Mm-hmm. That's something where they're gonna have to have a bit of a hurdle and
00:04:48
Speaker
Yeah, my parents are very much on the we're literally going to call people. I think like they text a little bit like holidays and stuff like that. But that's from a perspective of I don't know if they have the confidence to call. But I don't know. It's a little sad. Mostly texting and then actually just calling people on the phone like they're friends. That's how they communicate. But for us, that's poker night. Poker night is jumping on discord. Right.
00:05:14
Speaker
There are some people who like, I do like hopping on a call. Um,
Community and Enjoyment in Gaming
00:05:19
Speaker
but like a call for me is typically like, Hey, we're going to be chatting for a bit. We're going to catch up. So like I typically won't text my mom unless it's like something very brief, but usually we'll call her like every one to two weeks. If I'm like driving back from something or I'm on a walk, like, Oh, catch up with mom. But it's usually like a half hour call at least.
00:05:37
Speaker
Right. Whereas friends, it's typically we'll text for plans, but if we actually need to talk about something, yeah, we probably get on a call. But even the other day, a friend messaged me. He's like, Hey, can you call me? I'm like.
00:05:50
Speaker
Why? Yeah, that seems, if I got that, that's automatically escalated to something very serious. I'm like, give me the context. I'm definitely willing to call you, but I'm currently working. What's up? But it was very, I was surprised. Because I remember back in high school days,
00:06:09
Speaker
I mean, we definitely were texting a lot of people, but sometimes I would just, I would want to call people and just like chat. And I remember calling somebody who I was kind of adjacently friends with. And then when I called them, I immediately realized they did not want to chat on the phone. Like they were, they were friendly, but they're like kind of like, they're looking for the offer. Hey, what's up? And I was like, I just immediately felt the awkward tension. I was like,
00:06:36
Speaker
a
00:06:53
Speaker
The train, trail, wagon, I don't know, whatever the modern equivalent is. The Uber. The Uber 4.
Industry Reactions to Consumer Behavior
00:07:01
Speaker
So you never had to pull out the coil cord and wrap it around a corner to try and get away from your parents so they couldn't hear part of the conversation? I would have failed at that. And then have failed at the over or under the cable. Uh-huh.
00:07:06
Speaker
rational response
00:07:14
Speaker
To some extent that was the thing because I did have like friends in church and things like that before or local friends before Before getting a phone, but the thing was once I got a mobile phone I didn't like use that to communicate with people much because I was just spending all my time on the computer anyways and even now like
00:07:37
Speaker
If I want to call someone and I'm at my house, I'm going to just sit down in the computer, put on like my headset and then like use voiceover IP or something. Cause it's just, it's a lot cleaner. It's very easy. Like it sounds better. Yeah. But I don't know. That's what we, is that what we are here to talk about? I'll rephrase it as a question or more important things to cut to the quick.
00:08:06
Speaker
We have such important things to cut quickly. But as I'm already circumcised, we'll go to plan two. I'm going to let that linger a little bit. There's definitely jokes that could be made there. I'm Jewish. What do you want? That's racist. It's fine. I can say that I'm Jewish. Some of my close friends are Jewish. Oh, thank you.
00:08:36
Speaker
So I was looking at a topic for tonight and based on like a couple of historical events over the past couple of years, I was looking into gamers versus the industry. And that's the big
The Power and Challenge of Consumer Feedback
00:08:48
Speaker
title that makes people go, oh, what is that about? More specifically, I was kind of hoping we could talk about where do we draw the line and how do we express displeasure or promote change within the video game ecosystem?
00:09:02
Speaker
To give a specific example, we've had some games like Redfall come out and it was poorly received for good reason. That's fair. So kind of like a, hey, what happened? How do we avoid this in the future? And what can we do from a consumer end? Because I feel like sending death threats to people is not good.
00:09:25
Speaker
I would say it's even bad. Right off the gate, you introduce the hypothesis, there was the abstract right there, and then you're disregarding one of the potential solutions off the jump. We got to be more scientific about this. Okay. We should kill them without giving them any warning. Catch them, my surprise.
00:09:46
Speaker
Maybe a hot take, but I guess I agree with that. We probably shouldn't have death threats. We can probably disqualify that. Yeah. It's a reasonable solution pretty early. I think it's safe to say as a consumer in general, you're not entitled to more than you spent money on.
00:10:08
Speaker
So I think if you buy a game and it's not good, that does not entitle you to say. Now, if you bought something that is not what was advertised, I think you have more ground to like have a legitimate complaint and voice that complaint.
00:10:27
Speaker
Right. But if you just buy a game without doing any looking into it, and it wasn't what you expected, and you're upset, tough shit. Really, it's just tough shit. It's the same as going to a movie without watching any of the trailers.
00:10:44
Speaker
this is
00:11:02
Speaker
Getting your money back or something like that. It varies from place to place and then also platform, right? So like steam gives you I think two hours generally that you can refund something But a lot of games maybe you don't know whether it's good or not within two hours, especially like RPGs But at the same time
00:11:23
Speaker
I don't think I'm in the camp of someone who says you should be able to beat a game and then determine whether you should pay money for it. That's the piracy camp, I guess. It's a specific faction. There is a corollary. There is something, Bandcamp for music, where certain artists will list an album up there and be like,
00:11:44
Speaker
pay what you want to pay. And again, that is a very magnanimous strategy on the provider's part, the producer of the content. But at the same time, I've also just listened to some stuff on Bandcamp and not bought an album.
00:12:02
Speaker
But I also would, specifically for fucking Pomegranate Tiger, make more physical CDs, please. I want to play that shit in my car without going on Spotify every time. Let me slap in a disc. Because Dave is the last person that has a car that actually has a CD player. It's very impressive. The Smithsonian reaches out to him constantly.
Exploring Alternatives: Indie Games and Game Pass
00:12:21
Speaker
Oh my god. It's not like I have an A-track or a...
00:12:26
Speaker
No, you have a legitimate record player in your car. You don't mean to tone it down. You said it, they're on the dash. Subwoofers in the back. The hardest part is not having them melt in the sun.
00:12:40
Speaker
But I think the hypothesis you raise here, so you're talking about gamers versus the industry, and how do you equalize some of that power balance, right? Because that's really what you're talking about, is I'm just putting words in your mouth now. What Dave was really talking about was kind of this imbalance. I mean, the obvious answer.
00:13:02
Speaker
for how do gamers, obviously lower case gamers, because we're not trying to associate with the wrong type of gamer here. But by that I mean obnoxious people on the internet and people who send death threats. This is not gamer gate or something else like that.
00:13:19
Speaker
You know, vote with your wallet. That's the classic answer. Does that appease you? Does that seem like it's the correct decision? It was a point I was going to come to at a point for sure. I was going to throw us under the bus a little bit. Sure. I'll throw myself under the bus and I'll let you add in if you want to. I'll crawl in after you. But if anybody who's been like following the podcast more actively
00:13:41
Speaker
And they're like, oh, these are Dave's opinions and takes on things. I've definitely expressed multiple times in the past displeasure with Blizzard for numerous reasons. Some of their takes on stuff, their business practices, the CEO being a piece of shit, some harassment lawsuit, like all this stuff. And I feel like their games have not been up to par. And I really didn't want to get involved with Diablo 4. I'm like Path of Exile 2, baby.
00:14:10
Speaker
And then I bought Diablo 4. Now, my reasons were not specifically for Diablo 4. It was like, oh, I can play this game with friends. And if you know me, I'm a lonely SOB. So I will take any opportunity. Not any opportunity. It's strength only barbarian. That's what that stands for.
00:14:28
Speaker
Yeah. But I will do some stuff and make some concessions to be like, I just want to have an experience with France. And I did that. And looking back, I really need to play Diablo 4. So I kind of hopped on a bandwagon and then regretted it. I think it's fair. And again, I had a feeling that I would.
00:14:52
Speaker
But again, I need to, as you were saying, vote with my wallet and actually stick to that. Because if the numbers go and look back at that, they'll be like, oh, well, he bought the game. And at the end of the day, that's all that matters. Yeah. I mean, to pull you just slightly under the bus, it's like you made it into the middle between the wheel wells. So I got to pull you a little bit back out so the front tire will get you.
00:15:21
Speaker
You're not buying all the season passes, right? You're not continuing to invest in that ecosystem. So if they have bean
Risks of Pre-ordering and Importance of Patience
00:15:30
Speaker
counters with super thick glasses somewhere that are looking for financial results here, they're going to say our initial sales did really well.
00:15:40
Speaker
And then Dave stopped playing. And that was really impacted our bottom line. But also other people stopped playing. I mean, I stopped playing. I haven't seen any of our friends really that played Diablo 4 at launch continue to play it like a live service game. True. There's like a couple, a little bit of interaction in that first season. And that was like, that's kind of it. I mean, I still have like, I think, unless I lost it, some season passed to just redeem whatever. And I don't know what I'm going to because I
00:16:07
Speaker
I kind of don't want to play the game. And so they're going to see that precipice, right? They're going to see that drop off. And if they expected success would be a live service game and continued engagement, I don't think they're going to get it. Right. So to some extent, you are still voting with your wallet, even if you were part of that initial purchasing wave. Yeah, it's just looking back, I didn't really ever have the express interest to and then kind of
00:16:36
Speaker
willingly fell into it. I mean, that's fair. I almost think, and this is maybe, maybe this is too, too subservient of a take, but like I kind of interacted with Diablo for the way I wanted to. Like I didn't really want to, I don't really have interest in outright boycotting it. I think the game is good overall, but it's also just not a game that I want to play a bunch.
00:17:02
Speaker
And that's normally the kind of games I actually am I'm looking for. I don't
Subscription Services: A Cost-effective Solution?
00:17:08
Speaker
like we can't have that many forever games like we cannot continue to have episodes on Dota or Starcraft or like some other game that we're playing a bunch. And they can't you have to be really freaking good to replace that. And I don't think like a seasonal model game is really going to do that for me.
00:17:30
Speaker
No. You know, so. Like Destiny 2 somehow ate so much of my time. But again, I think it was more of the multiplayer aspect and the people I was playing with more so than the content itself. Because if you're like, hey, Dave, you want to spin up Destiny 2 and play alone? I'd be like, that sounds fucking awful for me.
00:17:52
Speaker
That's fair. I mean, I'm very goal driven. I need something. So like I've done some recent solo payday to heists, right? Like taking it all back to the start of the podcast when we talked about payday to don't go back. Don't listen to it. Terrible audio quality.
00:18:08
Speaker
I saw the movement like this.
00:18:26
Speaker
Yeah. But I mean, the reason I was doing that was because I just like, oh, I kind of want to just practice some of these solo heists. It just it sounded appealing to me. And there's all these other games I could play. I know I should be playing Arbor Court. I understand. But it there are times when people like say something like, oh, I know I should do X in the back of my head. I'm like, I don't bring it up because I want to be that guy. But like, fucking yeah.
00:18:54
Speaker
Hey, I know I said I would do X and I'll get around to it. I'm just like violently vibrating in my chair. Uh-huh. But to finish the thought, this is what Diablo 4 is up against is I just kind of sometimes want to do other things.
00:19:10
Speaker
And I mean, we've talked about live service games to some extent, but if like my way of pushing back against a live service game may not be not to buy it at all, but it might be I buy it and I get the enjoyment that I expect to get out of it and then I stop playing. Yeah. So like you said, we kind of show as like initial launch and then not continued play time. I think another thing as well that
00:19:41
Speaker
I know it exists and happens, but I barely participate in the world outside, I feel, is actually providing feedback, whether it be from a Steam review or something else. Oh, yeah. But in a constructive way, saying, hey, I really like these things. I did not like these things. Here's some possible suggestions for improvement and not just flaming, because flaming doesn't do anything.
00:20:06
Speaker
Yeah, like if Jake just came to me, he's like, hey, you're just such a dumb piece of shit. I'd be like, OK, well, my feelings are hurt, but like you're also probably down to sad. But yeah, like it's you're
Impact of Feedback on Game Development
00:20:19
Speaker
just trying to spread hate and not do anything with it versus saying like, hey, you're a real piece of shit because you did this. And I found this to be very upsetting. I do not condone such behavior, et cetera, et cetera. Right.
00:20:51
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, constructive feedback can be helpful or just, I would argue, even if it's not constructive feedback, your voice in the crowd of dissent can also mean something. I mean, like, case in point, recent example in gaming and also Blizzard related, we talked about Blizzard a lot, but they released Overwatch 2 on Steam.
00:20:58
Speaker
and clarify a conversation
00:21:11
Speaker
And that got absolutely obliterated by negative reviews. Alright, an article, a lot of them are from China or Chinese simplified traditional Chinese language because presumably
00:21:30
Speaker
It's because it's not actually available in that country anymore, and it was in the past. But the partner they had in China, they had a falling out, so it's not available there anymore. But the point still stands. It's the least, it's the lowest reviewed game on Steam, which I mean, if you think about this like completely critically, maybe it doesn't really deserve that amount of ire. But it deserves a fair amount, right? But
00:21:58
Speaker
Their voice is absolutely being hurt, right? How many people were like, oh I kind of heard about you know Overwatch I never really gave it a shot. I guess I'll look at it on Steam and then you see like like very negative or overwhelmingly negative reviews and Absolutely that hits your bottom line. You know that that's gonna come up on investor calls, right? so even if you don't have like a bunch of
00:22:23
Speaker
Detailed critical feedback to make it back to like development or up the company Being part of the sea of voices can also have have an impact Yes, even if you're somebody like me who? again, I
00:22:41
Speaker
I would at least put myself at pessimist category. You're critical. Yes. Moist also. I'm a moist individual. Friend of the show. Charlie. You know the phrase, oh, your vote's like one in a million, your voice won't really be heard type thing? I get that a lot. I very much get that. To the point that I think I
Fostering Positive Gaming Environments
00:23:05
Speaker
kind of believe it most times. And you're like, oh, this is never really going to reach development or the company as a whole.
00:23:11
Speaker
All right, fuck them. Who gives a shit about the company? Your voice is also going to be useful for other people to know like, hey, this is actually a good game that's worth playing if you enjoy this type of content or saying, hey, if you really like this type of content, this is not what you would expect. This did not really match up and you're providing that for somebody else.
00:23:35
Speaker
You can do the same thing with product reviews as well to say like, hey, this is actually good and I do recommend it. Because again, from the one time I sold knives 13 years ago, a key thing is for sales, the best way to market is by word of mouth through somebody you trust.
00:23:55
Speaker
Like if somebody on the street comes up to me and is like, hey, you should get this game. It's really good. I'd be like, thanks, stranger. I'll totally look into that. You don't really lay any credence to their word versus I would.
00:24:07
Speaker
Your situation is actually so out there, though. I almost would, though. I would definitely look up the game if someone just walked up and was like, hey, play this game. If a stranger is willing to do it. Yeah. Well, like for me, if I'm looking to research like a game, like, hey, check us out. Reviews is definitely a part of it, whether it's from an actual critical source or if it's just from the user base. But more specifically, I put the most weight in somebody saying, hey, Dave, I think you would like this.
00:24:37
Speaker
somebody who knows my tastes and backgrounds and depravity to be like, hey, this is a game for you. And then I'm more willing to check it out because they're providing actual feedback that I can do something with. That's all to say, even if you don't think your voice is going out to the important masses who are going to be making the change, you still could be helping the consumer as well. So I think it's beneficial for both.
00:25:11
Speaker
I also think like there's a classical example of this and we've used it repeatedly, but when you told me about Undertale, like, well, one, I didn't immediately take your feedback.
00:25:27
Speaker
But when I did, I was like, oh, crap. I mean, if like Dave is very critical when it comes to games, if he thought that this was a big thing, if he really loved this game and he's willing to, you know, put it in front of me, that means something. So like we have we have real world examples of that and also to the negative, right?
00:25:47
Speaker
Our group of friends, for the most part, plays a lot of games. People are getting kids, things like that, but we still have a healthy percentage of people who play video games. If we're talking about a game, if we start up a channel about it, it's usually because someone's kind of hyped, but that can be usurped.
00:26:07
Speaker
if someone comes in and was like, here's a controversy about that developer or here are some negative reviews. Here are some reasons I won't be playing like you can take the wind out of sales very quickly. So both personally and then also if you're a million people in China, you have the ability to see change to some extent.
00:26:31
Speaker
Yeah. Cause a lot of times, um, you don't know what's going out in front of other people and what they're seeing. Cause like, I'm sure my YouTube is wildly different from any other individuals. So a lot of my stuff is geared towards, Hey, you like these types of games, typically all from soft in that space. Um, maybe some NTG.
00:26:53
Speaker
So I see a lot of things about that. So that's probably the most versed in versus something else that might be coming out and I might not have actual good context. Maybe I saw a trailer two years ago and I'm like, that looks cool. And then somebody has actually been following up with it and says, actually, it's kind of a piece of shit. Right.
00:27:15
Speaker
but returning after a minor break for technical difficulties that no one would have known about had I not called it out. There's actually a technical break for minor difficulties. The kids have escaped again. I had to wrangle them. I've heard they yearn for the mines, but they keep trying to escape. I just don't get it. But what they actually yearn for is Minecraft. That was the miscommunication.
00:27:40
Speaker
Oh well. The other thing you could potentially do is by supporting games that are developed in the way that you appreciate, that you like, right? So in my case, this is almost a rebuke of my earlier point, but rather than playing Diablo 4, I mean, so you mentioned Path of Exile 2, but it's not an option. They pushed it back a year. We have to be playing video games. We'll literally die if we don't.
00:28:09
Speaker
but there are like other games we could play, right? Either support some indies or play a game that's already a forever game or just take a look at the backlog one more time, Cy, and then close the backlog list. Like there's all kinds of options as alternatives. I didn't need to buy Diablo IV and then play it in a way that maybe they didn't want me to. It would have been even a better message to send to not buy it at all.
00:28:38
Speaker
Yes, I agree with that wholeheartedly. But I also need to now interject to say, the way you phrase, we'll look at the backlog sign and close the backlog. It sounded very much like casually explained. That's good. I mean, that's, that's, that's pretty high, pretty high praise. Casually explained is great for end of the show, casually explained to check them out. They're growing.
00:29:04
Speaker
They'll finally hit a million subscribers. I mean, I hope another thing that they check is
00:29:16
Speaker
like things as they go. So I got Remnant 1, got Remnant 2. Again, I had enough enjoyment from the first. It was a social game. Same exact thing with the second one. I had to see about stuff with the third. But I don't know if I would necessarily jump into it at this point. Whereas FromSoft stuff and anything that comes out, feed it to me directly, please. I love it.
00:29:39
Speaker
There was another one, Baldur's Gate three, also Larian is just in my, my good spot. Um, and I'm going to keep checking out stuff that they make unless something looks super awful. Um, right. Whereas a lot of other stuff that's come out, I think lies of P just came out and that for me.
00:29:58
Speaker
doesn't have my interest right now. I watch some of the trailers, I'm kind of curious where it's going, but now that it's had more stuff, I'm like, I don't know, I just don't have the same drive for it.
00:30:12
Speaker
Again, maybe it is a good game. You'll pick it up later at some point, but currently for me, if I'm, you know, a stat dot on a metric of time and games purchased, like I don't want to buy this game now at $60. If it was 30. I didn't even realize that was 60 bucks. Well, it's a new game, right?
00:30:32
Speaker
So I have to imagine 60 or 50. I'll be honest. I haven't looked a bunch into lies of P, but I didn't realize it was like triple A. If you're charging 60, I assume it's triple A. Yes, it is 60 and it is triple A, I believe. Gotcha. Gotcha. A thrilling souls like that takes the story of Pinocchio.
00:30:53
Speaker
Hmm. Okay. Interesting. Maybe I should have paid more attention to it, but that is, uh, yeah, I think so. 100%. This is going to be a game where it sits for a bit. Ian plays it and then provides his feedback. And then I won't play it anyway, because.
00:31:13
Speaker
If Ian likes a game, it's possible for me to also like that game, but he will get deep into some stuff where it's just a little bit outside my wheelhouse. He had a lot more fun with Remnant 2 than I did. True. Again, I'm also a pessimist.
00:31:31
Speaker
Well, well, critical, critical. I am critical. Yeah, I didn't look at this. It looks vaguely blood-borne-y. I probably should have paid more attention to it. But I'll be honest, this year is so packed, like some games that I would be paying attention to, I'm not paying as much attention to right now. And that will basically be true for the rest of the year.
00:31:54
Speaker
You're gonna, are you gonna play Red Dead 3? Red Dead 3? That's not coming out this year. That's made up. I also didn't finish Red Dead 2. I started it and didn't complete it. And then later I bought it on PC, I think, and it just went to the backlog. Not tremendously helpful. But Red Dead is an excellent game. I don't have anything to like, outside of Rockstar's online monetization scheme, which I don't engage with at all.
00:32:19
Speaker
I don't really have any gripes with Red Dead. It's a masterpiece. But yeah, I think like we have some examples of games that are like, it's very easily to be critical of them. Like, right. We've, we've talked about cyberpunk. We've talked about no man's sky. I buy every game apparently. So there's not going to be a one that doesn't show up on this list. But I mean, the response to that in some ways was,
00:32:49
Speaker
the whole industry kind of rose up and was like, this is not okay. I don't know how successful those games were. Apparently No Man's Sky made enough money to fund free updates for like the next decade. But like, yeah, I don't know what you do in situations such as that. If you can't really just return it, which is the most direct,
00:33:17
Speaker
I'm not sure what the answer really is. You know, you just play other games. Yeah. But I guess like, because your question was more, how do you, how do we actually inspire change?
00:33:33
Speaker
And that's kind of, you almost need to pick a specific behavior that you want to work against, right? Like you want to work against the season pass model or you want to work against always online or you want to work against DRM or some other against Nintendo's online being shit. Yes. Maybe, maybe individual, maybe quality should be better for certain systems. Right. Um, and that can be tough.
00:33:59
Speaker
And I don't know exactly how to answer that one, because that's all going to be, unfortunately, bundled up with a bunch of metrics otherwise for the game. It was either successful or not, right? Redfall was so bad. It got like a 56 on Metacritic, I think. And nobody played it or bought it. And the people that did probably returned it. And the only people who didn't, it was because it was on Game Pass, right? Or they were game reviewers, yeah. Yes, yeah.
00:34:29
Speaker
I'm excited about an example of that crazy. I don't know. Speaking with your wallet and then also providing some feedback. Obviously, if you've purchased, I'm going to throw a Pokemon RC under the bus. Sure. It's fun too because it had so many issues. Again, I did not play it myself. I just saw so many things about it in articles.
00:34:51
Speaker
were like the graphics were like so subpar compared to what they could have been at frame rate issues and it's like modern day and it's on Nintendo like they have the capability to do these things but they're not doing it and
00:35:07
Speaker
at least the vibe I got at the time when it happened is that they were not really held to the fire for that, of like, hey, we demand that this is better in the future. People were just like, that's how they are. But basically taking the Bethesda strat of like, oh, that's good enough. That's just what they do. And again, if that's what you are fine paying for and what you're fine experiencing with, then that's where you're going to keep getting.
00:35:37
Speaker
Because for any type of change, you need communication.
00:35:41
Speaker
because I can't, if I wanted Jake to do something differently on the podcast, I can't just like will my thoughts into him. We have to talk about his behavior on the podcast. Right. And we back early on, we actually did talk a lot, not about him specifically, but about how we wanted to change us things, how we wanted to communicate, have more of a dialogue or have more dynamic content. And it's not like it was a quick,
00:36:08
Speaker
Oh, we have one conversation done. There's lots of back and forth and figuring stuff out. And I think it took probably two years for us to get to a pretty comfortable back and forth, would you say? Yeah. Eventually, I broke you of expectations to change my behavior. He's never going to change. I just have to talk over him loud.
00:36:29
Speaker
You can try. Unfortunately, I think that's that's part of I don't there. I've improved, I think in some ways to that regard, but the problem I still have and you can just go back like three minutes to hear this problem is if I'm amped up, I'm fine dominating the conversation and not realizing it. Long time listeners of the podcast already know this because how couldn't you? Right, but it's
00:36:55
Speaker
It's not a bad thing. It's not like you go on for four minutes. Like I've seen some content where it's one person is doing 95% and they just also have like an Andy Richter on the side who says five words, right? Oh yeah, that's a good example. This isn't that. It's not like a one man thing where there's just a secondary, like it is a back and forth. Is it always exactly 50-50? No, it doesn't need to be.
00:37:23
Speaker
I thought of another way gamers can fight back against the industry here though and this isn't new but it's something everyone I think can practice to a certain extent but not pre-ordering games is big.
00:37:38
Speaker
because that allows you to get your perfect example, recent example as of today. Payday 3 came out, right? But at the start of the day, I think there was one published review on Open Critic. It was IGN 70.
00:37:57
Speaker
I think I checked a little bit later in the day and there's already several other reviews that were posted here. If you weren't looking at online preview footage and you weren't listening to people who maybe did the open beta and you didn't do the open beta yourself, you don't have the full picture.
00:38:14
Speaker
of what this game was going to be like at launch. And pre-ordering it is pretty much just faith at that point, right? And I think everyone should get at least one developer where they're comfortable pre-ordering their games, maybe two, right? So for Dave, it's Larian. I would also say Larian's pretty safe right now.
00:38:37
Speaker
But I've also thought other games were pretty safe and developers are pretty safe and they undercut me. But I don't want to wish that upon anyone. But it's a good skill to build because it's just as easy to buy a game the day after it comes out, or even the day it comes out, then to preorder it, right? Yeah, it's just kind of being, again, I would argue, smart with your money. Like,
00:39:08
Speaker
At any point, you can buy something later. You can even wait for it to be on sale if you really wanted to. It's just, there's so much first day hype of I have to get in there. I have to be a part of the Zeitgeist experience everyone else is having. I want to be aware of some stuff, which there's definitely some value to not disagreeing with all of that, but you really just don't need to pre-order. Yeah.
00:39:37
Speaker
Oh, you're gonna let me play five days early? Oh, thank you, mister. Oh, thank you so much for racing me with five extra days of gameplay. That is fucking insane to me that they think that that is worth money. I'm gonna have this game for the rest of my life. I own the game. Don't want me to play it five days early? Cool, thanks. You're gonna give me cosmetic? Wowie zowie, that's so neat. That's so rad.
00:40:21
Speaker
I remember what the game was. I was making a face because my brain went to like M17. That's a gun. No, that's an M16. I was like, why are you getting an assault rifle at GameStop? Maybe it was blood rate. I don't know. I would go and just buy a thing and then leave.
00:40:27
Speaker
, fucking kidding me know what paying you money for that give me a fucking game
00:40:39
Speaker
Right. Very respectable transactional relationship. Yes. You could pre-order stuff back then too, but again, there's not a need to. They're not going to run out of supply of like, oh, we only made 60,000 copies of God of War. Sorry. Yes. It's not a PS5. They're not going to have production issues with the game itself. Right. Especially in the age of digital distribution.
00:41:08
Speaker
As with everything, maybe there are exceptions. If your internet's poor and you need to preload or something like that, and it's going to take you a week, then maybe that's a different scenario. But you specifically called out the five day waiting time. And I would also like to join the mutual aggression pact against that. Starfield did it most recently. And the version that had the, because it basically was, I think five days or close to it, Head Start was
00:41:35
Speaker
It cost $100. It was $100 to get access to that game the weekend. It came out before it came out on like a Wednesday, I think. So, I mean, Wednesday is a very uninteresting day to begin playing a game and like Thursday at midnight or something like that or Thursday evening, maybe it was Friday.
00:41:57
Speaker
with the whole weekend ahead of you that look that sounds so much sweeter right take me to the land of milk and honey where i can play the video game that just came out over the weekend and part of me was kind of tempted it was a stupid part
00:42:11
Speaker
It was a really, really dumb part. Kind of tempted to just like buy that game so I could play it over the weekend because I knew it was leading into PTO, right? Because I took time off for Starfield. Judge me for it. No game will ever be good that I take time off for. You're welcome that I didn't do it from the Baldur's Gate. But I didn't buy that game at all. In fact, I went on the opposite range, right? I actually played it on Game Pass.
00:42:38
Speaker
Um, so my financial contribution specifically towards that game is pretty much as low as it gets without going to piracy, right? And also playing the game. Um, and then once I was done, I was like, this is kind of, I told Dave, it's like a seven five in my opinion. In some ways it's kind of like a seven, especially coming off a ball to use gate.
00:43:01
Speaker
And that's like a pretty low score for a game you take time off for. And it feels kind of good to not spend $100 on a game that you ultimately give like a seven, right? Yeah. And that's sad. Again, I'm very biased because I'm not surprised at all because Bethesda and I do not like them. I do not like the games that they make. I do not like them same I am.
00:43:29
Speaker
But yeah, it's disappointing because I know so many people were very excited for this to come out. And then it seems to me as an outsider, just like another it's fallout in space. Cool. Like they didn't really change anything. They didn't really improve anything. They didn't make a good game. They just made another game and I don't know.
00:43:52
Speaker
I'm glad that things like Game Pass do exist, so you can have your subscription model of, hey, I'm gonna get axed all games, other some things I wanna try out, do like a once playthrough of, not necessarily go back to, cool.
00:44:08
Speaker
Yeah, $10 value for a month, as we've said before. It makes sense for doing just a one-off playthrough of something that you were curious to try. Maybe you want to try a couple of things. Hey, I tried five different games for 10 bucks. Maybe only two of them stuck. Cool.
00:44:25
Speaker
It's so much nicer of a buy-in for a consumer instead of getting all this marketing hype, spending $60 or $70 on a new game, and even after it's marketed to look so well and reviews are decent and then it's not what you wanted and you've spent X amount of time and you can't refund it. It sucks because I'm in a position where it's not going to kneecap me to make a couple of those financial decisions.
00:44:52
Speaker
There are other people who, that is still a hefty chunk. I don't want people to be deprived of good entertainment, but prices are considerably higher than they used to be. Inflation's a thing in general.
00:45:14
Speaker
I don't know. I would like products to be as advertised. And there have definitely been some games, Cyberpunk, where they did not come out as advertised. It was specifically sneaky beaky about how things performs on PC. Yeah. And consoles, honestly. I mean, it got pulled from the PlayStation store and wasn't reinstated until like months later, I think. So.
00:45:41
Speaker
It's a well-documented case of a game coming short. I think we probably covered most of the ways outside of just not buying new games at all. I think we've covered most of the ways that you could kind of mitigate it while still being an enthusiast in the gaming space.
00:46:08
Speaker
No, absolutely. Absolutely. I actually I hope that more things this is kind of there's a monkey's paw curling somewhere. But I hope that more things get added to a game pass like system caveat before the monkey curls his finger. I want that to be the same subscription and not just infinite subscription. I don't want like a star field subscription, for instance, where like every single player game is an MMO. Please no, don't want.
00:46:39
Speaker
But I wouldn't hate if more of these, like you're saying, $70 games with inflation and the cost of everything else taking more money, if a couple more of those I could try out for a bit during Game Pass.
00:46:56
Speaker
Like right now I think I've got game pass for like three months probably at this point the first month was like free so Starfield $70 game I paid $10 that month Payday three $40 game and pay $10 this month right already. I'm kind of saving money a long ways out
00:47:15
Speaker
if i would have bought those games anyways yes and this is why the rise of like something like netflix was so fucking huge because let's say back to the older model of blockbuster video let's say rentals were a couple bucks right
00:47:30
Speaker
And that was fine if you're going to watch a movie once. But again, the idea of a rental existed and we don't really have that with games so much. Right. There might have been like a small window where like it was a thing, but it was not to the same degree that we had with movies. So if you want to buy a movie, let's say it's 20 bucks.
00:47:50
Speaker
Okay, now Netflix comes in and they're like, hey, for $8 a month at the time when it started, you have access to all of these movies. Now, again, it might not be every single thing that you want and it's a rotating catalog, unfortunately, but you can watch something for relatively cheap. A large number of things for that same blanket price.
00:48:13
Speaker
And something like that is really nice for people who want to try things out and don't have deep whale pockets for all these very expensive video games. Right.
00:48:27
Speaker
It's impossible not to make a comparison, right? I think good games can always compete. Baldur's Gate 3, worth the money. Armored Core 6, worth the money. But if there's another game that's coming down the pipe and I'm like, I'm kind of, I'm not excited for it, but I would like to play it.
00:48:45
Speaker
It's gonna be competing against a $10 service that gives me access to this entire catalog now, right? And I think for people who like to be owners of things, I'm sorry, history has not gone your way as far as digital rights are concerned.
00:49:01
Speaker
But you still do have the option to like use a game pass model and then later purchase a game. Microsoft Game Pass in particular gives you a discount when games rotate out. It's like I think it's 20%. It's just like whatever the game is retail at that point, 20% off the top. But you could probably also find like a 75% deal on Steam or something that long after the game's been out. So there's ways to still finagle it if you want to have that around forever.
00:49:31
Speaker
But for your average person who just wants to play some video games and usually they're the ones that have come out recently, it's kind of exactly what you want. And $70 video games are going to look worse and worse. Like, I don't want to buy three or four $70 games over the course of two months.
00:49:51
Speaker
No, that is a hefty chunk, hefty, hefty chunk. Because it used to be like you might buy like two big games a year. So maybe you spent $100 total at $50 a piece. Would you rather play two $50 games or $52 games? Actually pretty solidly in the first game.
00:50:22
Speaker
Overall, I would still like to see a shift where more games will just come out that can justify a higher price point and you will get good value out of that. And again, it's as marketed.
00:50:41
Speaker
Personally, I was never invested in Redfall, but it looked like a decently playable game for people who wanted to play it. Right. And then it just had so many issues because they didn't do things to address making the game interesting and not buggy and other things like we can't, we can't allow people to keep cutting corners and
00:51:07
Speaker
have that happen and be like, oh well, I guess that's just how it is. No, do something about it. They can't keep getting away with this. They can't keep getting away with this.
00:51:19
Speaker
I guess all of our strategies really feed into future behaviors, right? Because if you played a game and you got burned, maybe you bought Diablo 4 and you're like, ah man, this was too much money for the game that I got. Using that to inform your future behavior, I know that it's very difficult as a soft G gamer, but you kind of have to. It is the way that the industry gets better. I didn't buy Redfall. I was very excited for it.
00:51:49
Speaker
I saw not just the warning signs but like the active crime scene when the game came out and I was like
00:51:58
Speaker
Eh, I don't need to, right? And the more games that can come out where you're like, I'm going to temper my expectations a little bit and not just be a kid in a candy store knocking over everything. That's how you get banned from the candy store, by the way. Like, and if you can be patient and, you know, reinforce the games that deserve it or the ones that use the model that you like, then I think that's really how you change the industry.
00:52:28
Speaker
Yeah, I think one of the biggest things always is not just even specifically for gaming, but when somebody is creating content that you like, whether it's a traditional artist who's like doing
00:52:45
Speaker
art stuff or somebody who makes music or somebody who makes a video game or a restaurant you like to go to, giving them your good positive feedback of like, hey, I really enjoyed these things, really helps to strengthen and encourage, hey, what I'm doing is working for my customer base. They're appreciating my product and the time and effort that's put into it currently.
00:53:08
Speaker
Or if you're like, hey, um, really love the food services. Great. Uh, wasn't crazy, but this one appetizer. Okay. A bunch of people were saying like your fried mushrooms suck. Maybe it's the mushrooms. Maybe it's the way you're frying them, right? Like you can look to change from that to provide a better experience. But again, feedback's really key.
00:53:28
Speaker
But also just if you see somebody doing something that you like, throw them a nice shout out in general. It's just one, a way to provide constructive feedback and two, positivity. Yeah.
00:53:43
Speaker
Because you can be like, oh, I've always liked such and such as thing, but I've like never engaged with them or said anything at all. Go to a fucking YouTube creator you like and be like, Hey, really like this video. Keep up the good work. Even that it's just, it's a nice thing you can do. And it goes a long way, much further than you think.
00:53:59
Speaker
If you like this podcast, be sure to like it. Just go straight into the outro. This is just me doing for another seven minutes and then I lead into that. I definitely second that.
00:54:15
Speaker
When somebody says like, hey, that's a really cool shirt, or I like your shirt, or I had one guy, I was going to a local convenience store and we were eating some of the food from the convenience store slash gas station and the parking lot. And someone like waved like in front of the car and we're just sitting here in the parking spot, like they're on the walkway going into the store, right? I was just like, oh, do I freaking know this person? And they like,
00:54:41
Speaker
Seemed to understand I had no idea like what they're waving about or whatever and he like he rolled up his shirt And he showed like a Majora's mask Tattoo, I was like oh right. I've got a decal on my car Majora's mask. It's freaking awesome I gave him thumbs like the devil thumbs up, and it was just like it was a cool interaction Right one this guy's kind of stepping out I don't know if he's not naturally outgoing or whatever But there are many situations where I was like that person's doing a cool thing and
00:55:08
Speaker
and they will never know about it, right? Because I'm not going to interact. In this case, the guy did. I thought it was awesome. I felt validated in my Majora's Mask sticker. The closest thing I've done is tell someone they had a cool Final Fantasy XIV shirt. Like, that can really lift up somebody's day, honestly. Yeah. I remember there was a time I was at
00:55:33
Speaker
OK suspicious. I don't fucking remember.
00:55:46
Speaker
Sans from Undertale. I was like, I don't even know what that means. And later I looked down my shirt. I'm like, oh, I'm wearing my Sans Undertale shirt. Cool. So the person appreciated that and they conveyed it as like a, hey, that's cool. I connect with you on that. And that was a cool thing. And I do it so rarely and I need to do it more. Just even like a small thing. It goes so far. So, so far.
00:56:12
Speaker
And that's the that's the real life lesson at the end of the video game discussion about how we're trying to change the industry and things. But I mean, it's the same video games are real life for the people who make them and for the people who rely on them for content creation.
00:56:34
Speaker
That's us. Any closing thoughts? Any cap or no cap you would like to provide to our listeners? We're in our 30s, please. That's true. I still don't know what it means, but I heard it once. No cap means I'm not lying about that. Oh, okay. I thought it was anti-capitalist, but I guess that works too.
00:56:59
Speaker
no capitalism please um advice i kind of just reiterating what i've said a moment ago and i've definitely said before a challenge to you listener find a content creator that you like whatever that medium be even if you already have interacted with them especially if you haven't just be like hey i like what you're making it brings me joy and i appreciate that you do it
00:57:29
Speaker
Or if you see a friend who has like a cool shirt or a stranger has a cool shirt, just be like, Hey, sure. It looks cool. Or tell somebody that they look nice today. Specifically look nice because it has no special connotation. Don't throw today at the end of it. You look nice today. Today. I mean, today. Yeah. But yeah, just find somebody doing something that you like and let them know. Yeah.
00:58:00
Speaker
I think that's pretty good advice. But if you guys have good advice or you have other ways that we could fight the industry, you know, really just stick it to the patriarchy, the oligarchy, some sort of archy, whatever the industry represents as far as video games are concerned. Or you have trends that are kind of kicking along that you wish were kicking along a little bit less.
00:58:28
Speaker
You can send that feedback into us and then I guess we can see what we can do. We can like send in a letter, mail a senator or something. Soapstone Podcast at gml.com or you could join the discussion on Facebook at facebook.com slash soapstone podcast. And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Get shrekt nerds.
00:58:50
Speaker
Do the impossible, see the invisible Row, row Fight the power, touch the untouchable Break the unbreakable Row, row Fight the power, power to the peace Power for the team, still missing peace Scattering, so incomplete with me now Lost and threatened with soldiers from underground See how easy they all fall down Dig into the court to see the light Let's get out of here babe, that's the way to survive Y'all top off the hat, I'm on the set
00:59:31
Speaker
You're ready to rumble. Now is the time. Uh-huh.