Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome to seriously irrelevant a gaming podcast still very much in development
Speaker: Not really your host, but I guess I do have that role of host Dylan Gerslie. I don't think I introduced myself last time. So sneaking in early this time, joined here, of course, uh, by my brother in arms, although he's the only one who ever held arms. Beta boy, Brendan Connelly. Brendan, how are you doing today? I'm doing very well. Thank you. Brendan Connelly. That is a mouthful. I got to shorten that down at some point. It's very Irish. Yeah, it's very Irish. It's very syllabic. We got, got a lot going on there. Six.
Speaker: Is that how you say that word? Syllabic? Syllabic sounds like a college syllabus. Syllabic sounds like when people are like, you picked action in the wrong place. And I was always like, I don't know what that means. Syllabic, okay, well let's move on from that. It's terrible, I hate it. I did have a bone to pick with you early. All right, let's pick it. So we've been putting really low effort into this podcast.
Speaker: And it shows. Yeah, it really shows and emphasized no more clearly or something than when you bought a PC device as your personal computer, literally, to help you with this sort of thing. You bought an HP, terrible decision. It's a Dell, you keep calling it an HP. It's a Dell, okay, even worse, I think. Dell, wow, yikes. Okay, so you got a Dell.
Speaker: and you're completely adamant that Apple products are not for you. Are you accurately representing my position right now? Is that what's happening? Yeah, I think I am. I think I am. Dude, I think...
Speaker: That's exactly what you said, first of all. And your reasoning you said was, because you're not really expanded on this for the listener. So I guess I got a baby step walk you through that. So you said that the reason you would never buy a Mac, even though the hardware design and specifically the screen is pretty much better than anything else available on the market.
Speaker: Like seriously, you can't hold a candle to Apple screens. I don't want to hear it Their screens are beautiful the retina display or whatever. It's called now I Don't I don't make those are incredible hear it You said you said that it's because you don't like their software. I
Speaker: Yeah, it's great if you're a college student. If you wanna have fun, you want colors and things popping out at you, it's really good. Or if you wanna do video editing or make cartoons or something, that's great. But I'm just looking for something a little more professional, a little more structured with more right angles. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, there's a lot of right angles in what you do. So basically what you're saying is,
Speaker: you prefer its file system versus Apple's. That's it. Because you do like the software because you use an iPhone every day you're like. And I don't know if you know this. Guilty as charged. But it's the same thing.
Speaker: It's the same thing. So when I sent you the link to this video call, I sent it to you on iMessage. You know how I was able to do that? Because my computer and my phone, it's all connected. It's all connected. And you were like, I have to open this on my phone? It's like, no, dude. If you had an Apple Mac, you would open it. It would be so easy, so easy.
Speaker: but you made it so difficult. So I just wanted to put that out there. You're anti -Google apparently because of data issues that you have with them, data privacy issues, but you trust Microsoft, you're switching to an Outlook email. None of this makes any sense. Trust me, you'll see the vision, you'll see the vision. I don't see it. I don't see it. Some things are coming together, some things are splitting apart, but the final product, it's gonna be a beautiful digital mosaic of my life.
Speaker: You'll see. Yeah, digital mosaic after you throw the computer at the ground, because it's so shit. Splinters in a million pieces, you've got to put it back. It has that piecemeal nature as only a mosaic does. I do want to defend myself a little bit here. So to be fair, I did once have a MacBook Pro. I bought it in, I think it was 2011, and it was fantastic. I took it to Afghanistan, it came back, went through a lot of shit.
Speaker: and it finally died in like 2021. So it lasted for like a good 10 years. I really, that was a great, that was a great computer.
Speaker: The thing is, I used it at a time when I really wasn't using much professional software. When I say professional, I mean like Excel type software. I wasn't really using the native email function. I was using Gmail through a browser and I was using like Google Chrome for everything. So it's just kind of this whole hodgepodge and I wasn't really getting the benefit of having Mac. So when it came time to look for a new computer, I was like, well,
Speaker: I don't see myself using the stuff that Macs do really well, which is like that audio video editing software, which I guess is ironic because I'm now seeing it on a podcast that'll involve some of that.
Speaker: But working at the corporate job for the last six years, I'm also just very comfortable in the Microsoft ecosystem now with those products. And so thinking about all the stuff I want to do, real estate, this, business, all that, I just feel like it's going to work a lot better for me on a Microsoft product. But you're right. I love the iPhone and the Apple ecosystem, the synchrony between all their devices. Yeah, no one holds a candle for that. I agree. I can't argue with that.
Speaker: Yeah, I do have to say also for your defense, the file system on PC has always made more sense to me.
Speaker: Like I actually can't stand the file system on Mac. I doubt it's really not any different I don't imagine, but it just seems like they're just like making it different needlessly. I don't know. I just like the PC better in that regard or Windows, whatever you want to call it. But really I don't care about this topic. I know that you're wrong and it doesn't make any sense. We don't have to hash further into it. I didn't really do a lot of prep for this and I wish I did.
Speaker: I'll be honest, I didn't either. Well, we know you didn't, you have a PC. But there are some interesting things that I wanted to pick up on in the gaming space, which is what we're supposed to talk about. So let's start with, of course, the biggest news that's come to our industry in some time. Grand Theft Auto 6, the trailer has released.
Speaker: It's here, it's here, except not really. I can't believe the internet had an absolute meltdown over the launch of a trailer that's announcing a game that is minimum 16 months away. Like, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, what? I don't know, I'm not excited. I'm not, I'm not excited. Not, not at least because I, I don't know how much I really,
Speaker: like care about it in that regard, like it's a huge game, I wanna play it, of course. I never beat Grand Theft Auto V. Played a few missions, played a little bit online. Never really stuck with me. Played shit ton of San Andreas. I'm kinda getting all over the place here. Let's get back to the trailer. Brendan, beta boy, your thoughts on the trailer specifically, that after an unfortunate leak,
Speaker: I always feel bad for Rockstar, but at the same time it's like I don't actually care if there's a leak, a company like that. But the trailer did leak and was since launched on YouTube. What were your thoughts after watching that trailer? I was actually blown away, honestly.
Speaker: I thought the big asterisk there is I was blown away if everything I was seeing was rendered in -game at the same fidelity that we can expect in 2025. Now, I think that's probably the case. For the most part, in fact, Grand Theft Auto games, from what I can remember, they tend to have a lot of parity between
Speaker: like cutscenes and actual in -game graphics. I don't know that they historically have done a lot of up -resing or a massaging of cutscenes to make them look especially better. But yeah, that game, assuming everything is being rendered in -engine and there is as much dynamic activity as we were seeing at any particular time, I think it's going to be somewhat revolutionary. In particular, the scene that jumps out to me is when
Speaker: the camera's panning over the beach and you see the the various ships and the water with all of the associated water effects from them moving around and I know there's there's cuts it doesn't directly pan down to the beach but once you get down to the beach there's just
Speaker: frankly, a realistic number of NPCs wandering around doing various activities and things. And just the quality of the models, the rendering, if that's what we see in game in 2025, I think it's going to be a world that a lot of people are just going to want to spend a lot of time in.
Speaker: And I think that's exactly what they're hoping to achieve. I also, I think back on other past GTA reveal trailers, and I think what GTA or Rockstar does a great job of with their GTA games is they tease
Speaker: a lot of different parts of the game that you can't possibly appreciate until the game actually comes out. And I think what happens a lot of times is teaser trailer drops, trailers come out leading up to the game. But when people play the game, they take a look back at the trailers and realize, holy cow, these trailers were actually showing us a lot more than we thought they were at the time. And I think if we make that, this is a big assumption, but if we make that assumption with this trailer, we can expect this game to really
Speaker: really scale pretty substantially from what we've already seen. So I'm pretty impressed and excited. Why are you excited?
Speaker: I'm excited and this is actually coming from someone who historically hasn't really played Grand Theft Auto games very robustly. I played GTA IV for a bit. I never beat it. I dabbled in GTA V on friends PS3s actually. I don't know if I've ever actually played it on anything beyond the PS3, but I can appreciate
Speaker: how impressive and how robust those worlds can be. And in particular the story, the storytelling, the gameplay, the sandbox elements of it. And just how realistic is, I feel like sometimes an overused word when we talk about video game quality and graphics and everything. But this game looked a lot closer to it. I wasn't picking up on any uncanny valleys anywhere. And actually the thing,
Speaker: I don't know if we know not yet if it's going to be actual co -op, but the first thing I thought when I was watching the trailer is, wouldn't it be cool for like my, my partner and I, my fiance and I to sit on the couch together playing like split screen co -op in GTA.
Speaker: I don't know if that's a thing that they're doing, but Baldur's Gate's doing it. This is obviously a very different beast, but I don't know. Something like that could be really, really cool. I'm also thinking about games like It Takes Two or what's the prison game that was developed by the same...
Speaker: the same developers. A way out. I'm thinking about that. Imagine if GTA 5 incorporates elements of those games in co -op scenarios in their open world with the stories they tell. That could be some cool stuff. Maybe that's behind this guy. It's funny you say that because when you started saying co -op, I was like, yeah, me and Brody playing together.
Speaker: Podcast boys and next thing out of your mouth is my partner and I Nice dude. Good for you. I didn't I didn't pick that up from the trailer. You might be right The interesting thing about the trailer to me was uh, I Actually was angry first time I watched it and then you told me oh it looks so good all these things that I realized I
Speaker: And this is gonna sound, this is gonna make me sound dumb. And you can tell me if I'm crazy. I thought, so your response to me when the trailer came out was you were stunned at how good it looked. I went the complete opposite way. I was like, this doesn't look good. Like I was like, oh, it looks like a PS4 game. Like parts of it truly to me looked like a PS4 game. And then there were parts where I was like,
Speaker: Why are they mixing in gameplay slash in engine, whatever footage with real clips of people? I was like, why are they actually putting a TikToks into this trailer? Like is that how far down the slope of insanity we've gone as a society? And then when he said that it looks stunning and I went back to it, I could be wrong, right? Am I wrong? Those were not real clips.
Speaker: No, I think everything we saw is, again, I don't know, it could be doctored cutscenes as might happen. Well, it could be like trailer stuff. Maybe we're using the term in -engine incorrectly as well. That's true, yeah. It maybe wasn't gameplay footage, maybe it was trailer footage and doctored to be that.
Speaker: Um, it was incredible. And like you said, it feels, I didn't think we'd ever say it again because we've, we said it out of the nineties and stuff. PS3 comes around. It's so lifelike and it never really meant that, but this time it was like, dude, I was like,
Speaker: Like really stunned, I was. It started a conversation on Twitter, which I know you don't interact with, but some people are like, this is gonna be 30 frames. You have, sorry, you want it to look like this? It's gonna be 30 frames. I'm sorry, that's ridiculous statement. You think it's gonna be 60 frames then? It's that release year. That was another thing. When the trailer ended and the release year said 2025, I was like,
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: I like to imagine that the game is actually decently far along and we know it hasn't hit gold yet by any means. I'm also considering Final Fantasy XVI, that game went gold and they took a year to polish it. I wouldn't be surprised if Rockstar maybe won't declare gold until all that polishing is done and it's up to snuff, but I just think
Speaker: If they have this going on and this is more than just a sample of some pretty demo scenes that they have, they still have a whole year and a half to polish and improve and get this where they want it.
Speaker: Given the quality of what I saw, I do agree. There were a couple scenes where I was like, oh, that seems like a quality dip, specifically the fan boat scene. Initially, I feel like didn't write quite yet. Everything we saw on the beach. I was like, this is incredible. And the fan boat scene, I was like, oh, that's like a weird dip. And they bring the flamingos. And I was like, OK, all right. We'll figure out about that fan boat. But I just I think also this game is going to be next generally, both in term, both because of the fidelity of what we saw, but also the release date. That's that's just.
Speaker: I think it's been confirmed as next gen. Okay. Nope. And I could be wrong, but no PC. Oh, I didn't know that. Could be wrong about that. She'll be not, not prepping for the show. I did not. That's surprising. GTA five zone. I could be totally wrong about that. I could be wrong. Yeah. That's, that would be interesting.
Speaker: That would be interesting. No Switch either, can't believe it. I mean, I guess they would basically get it on PC though, because if you get it on Xbox, even if it's not Game Pass, you can play Xbox games on PC pretty easily, right? Am I right about that? This is me not being in the Xbox ecosystem.
Speaker: Like an Xbox game launcher? Yeah, isn't that a thing? I don't think so. You can't stream your Xbox guy. You wouldn't want to stream this necessarily, but can't you stream to PCs or something? Maybe that's only Game Pass, and that's why it's so unique. Yeah, I think maybe that's Game Pass. Okay. I'm getting it mixed up, sounds like. But I don't have a PC, so I don't know. Maybe I should get one just for that. Yeah, well, maybe you can stream to your Mac. And just to fit in with you.
Speaker: But yeah, damn, I should have been looking at sales for that one game I want on Mac. There's only one game I want on my Mac. Let's look at it right now, Tyranny. Nope, still $30. Not paying that. Is that game only available on Mac? Oh, it's not compatible with Mac, actually. Oh, okay, that doesn't surprise me. Yeah, nothing.
Speaker: Which is funny because that's always been the lie. And I did also, that's not even related to why I got a PC, but I did kind of assume that that had been like figured out by now. Um, let's see. Is, do you know, you know, I've talked to you about this, the rogue ally, the rogue ally, whatever it is. Is that, uh,
Speaker: Does that only play Game Pass Ultimate games? Like, could it not just play your Xbox library? No, I couldn't tell you. Now we're two steps away, at least from where I am. Yeah, you are a crazy guy. I'm pretty exclusively in the Sony ecosystem. I did familiarize myself with Switch when we got one, but that's pretty much just an Animal Crossing machine. Gotcha.
Speaker: in our house. But yeah. Well, I will look into that. We're gonna have to cut this dead space out. Sorry, no, my dad's texting me because I think he wants to get done. We have to cut the episode short. No, I mean, we've been going 20 minutes. You want to go like 10, 20 minutes more? Yeah, that's good.
Speaker: Is there it? Fill it with something? Yeah, yeah, pin the time stamps.
Speaker: We'll let Pat see that out. Hey Pat, why don't you hit Brendan's audio track with the denoiser? I think Rach is a little loud. You're not right, I keep playing. No, so GTA6, it was a really interesting trailer and I saw another interesting tweet and actually Colin Moriarty mentioned this on Sacred Symbols, of course. Colin Moriarty, a woman hater. What was that, a plane?
Speaker: Anyway, that's nuts that your mic picks it up, though, because I feel like mine does a good job isolating things. But anyway, Calla Moriarty, famed woman hater on the internet, said like, oh, dude, it would be so cool if they did like London or got out of the United States. And I was shocked to hear him say it on two levels. One, he's such a patriot. Two, because that doesn't make any sense. Grand Theft Auto is satire on American culture.
Speaker: It's a commentary on American culture. And it's not that these other places don't have culture, they're not notable places or things to explore would be fun to have a GTA experience in, but it's always about how it is in the States. And I feel like that's part of the fabric of what makes a Grand Theft Auto game Grand Theft Auto. What are your thoughts on that? Because some people were like, oh my God, back to Miami.
Speaker: I did think it was interesting that they went back to a city that they've already staged a game in. Now, obviously, this is gonna be a completely different version of Vice City. I was seeing some videos of locations in the trailer and what they look like in the trailer versus what they look like in the original Vice City game, and it's a completely different situation. I do think it'll be interesting to see...
Speaker: LA, right? That's Vice City is essentially LA. Or sorry, Vice City was Miami. Oh, I'm sorry, Miami, you're right. You just said that. Yeah, so it'll be interesting to see Florida culture lampooned in the modern day by Rockstar. There's a lot to work with there, I think. But it also would have been interesting. You know, I just mentioned LA. It could have been interesting to see, although I guess maybe Los Santos is at more LA.
Speaker: Yeah, New York was four. I guess LA was five. Miami is six. Yeah, I, thinking from a cultural and a gameplay standpoint, I can see why they did it. Because you could say, oh, what if you want to like do Texas? Let's do like Dallas or Austin or something, you know, Lampoon like middle America or a middle American city, but
Speaker: From a gameplay standpoint, that kind of limits you more. Like there's definitely something to be said by having like coastal cities with all sorts of different environments around them or biomes. And I think that's partially what drove that decision. Yeah. The geography thing is interesting. I hadn't thought of that, although it's fictional. So it could be true. Yeah. Right. Cause I'm thinking like Chicago, like there's still the lake and
Speaker: Right. That's true. It's still, it's still coastal, even though it's a Midwest city, technically, you know, it's not a, an ocean, but it's large body of water, um, has the river and everything too. Um, no, it very interesting. I think I, I side with the idea of like, uh, I don't need to explore London and Grand Theft Auto. Sorry. Sorry, you could do it in a watchdog's Legion. So you're good there.
Speaker: Anyway, the last thing I wanted to touch on was something that is like a hallmark of Grand Theft Auto games in my opinion, which is janky character animations. And there was sort of a mix of both. Like there was like this stilted kind of movement to them. And I was like, why is this still happening? And then people were like, yo, look at the video of this girl shaking her ass on this car and look how her ass is moving. And I was like, how did they get that animation?
Speaker: Yeah, no, I prefer Yubi trash to, uh, rock trash.
Speaker: but not Tyreek Hills dappin' somebody up in the nation. So that's Tyreek Hill. Do you know who Tyreek Hill is? He's wide receiver on the Miami Dolphins. He has a famous clip on TikTok or whatever where he impersonates the janky movements.
Speaker: Like in real life and it's pretty accurate and hilarious. That's interesting. I wonder if he's playing in the game. I wonder if he's playing a football player or what the, or if they just have him doing a totally different character. Sorry, let me answer my dad. He needs, he's had a long day. He's been working 16 hours for having dinner together. My mom's not here.
Speaker: Yeah, I guess to fill the space, the other thing I wanted to comment on was you noting that the history of Grand Theft Auto is about satirizing America and American culture. And I hadn't considered that either as a reason why not to take it international. But I do also think it could be really interesting to see how, because I'm from America, I've traveled internationally a little bit, but I don't even know what it would look like to satirize London culture.
Speaker: Our right. Like, would we really get it? I understand. It's interesting. And I'm like, when you say it, it's like, that would be so cool. But this game took 10 plus years to make. Uh, maybe not. I mean, maybe not that long, right? They didn't just start making it right after GTA five, but, uh,
Speaker: Do you get what I'm saying? Where it's like, what's the cost of that? I don't think it can be Rockstar to do it, but if it's not Rockstar, then it's not Grand Theft Auto. Well, something to consider too is we don't yet know what they want this product to be.
Speaker: Um, the like, it could just be GTA five, but bigger and better and newer, or it could be something more akin to a platform. And we've already, I think we've already seen them in GTA online.
Speaker: do DLCs and heists and things where you leave the Los Santos area. Like I think there was there's actually a San Andreas scenario where you go and do stuff in San Andreas, which is a totally different city to my understanding and then the universe. So I don't think there's any reason why that couldn't happen in this game. Like they could have an expansion that is could be international and they could make that whatever they want. I was going to say the same thing. So I didn't mean to cut you off.
Speaker: Yeah, I was gonna say the same thing. It'd be cool maybe to explore it in an expansion, an expansion that travels, but I don't wanna say pushback, but you said, is it gonna be GTA 5 a bigger better or is it gonna be a platform? I think they're the same thing. GTA 5 is a platform, no? I mean, it was PS3 and they've built it up into this thing.
Speaker: It does not look like it wants to and it certainly does not function. I'm speaking specifically, of course to GTA online. They are sort of intertwined. Again, GTA online, not my thing. My roommate in college was into it. So I played a little bit.
Speaker: It was pretty like wild. I don't know. Not my style of game. Um, really like someone trying to kill me while I'm just running missions. That was annoying. Um, but yeah, anyway, that's GTA. Are we looking forward to it? It is sort of a cultural moment. So yeah, I look forward to it in that regard as me personally, as a gamer.
Speaker: You can't say I'm like jumping for joy right now. It's a big moment. Yeah. It's fun. Nothing really more. When it comes out, when it comes out, this show will actually sound good about that. It'd be much more structured, yeah. Yeah, maybe, yeah. Oh, we don't know about that. We don't know about that. We'll write angle maybe. Speaking of structure.
Speaker: Famed, uh, I don't even know what they are. Famed conglomerate. Embracer group lays off more employees over 900 cow. That's like, well, that's the size of a lot of companies.
Speaker: Uh, yeah, maybe I'm wrong about that. I mean, I, they're massive. According to VGC, our friends over at VGC and bracers made over 900 layoffs since the restructuring plan was put into motion with the cuts impacting studios, including crystal dynamics, beam dogs and studios and fish labs, crystal dynamics, of course, of Tomb Raider fame. Um, yeah, I guess, I mean, there's nothing really else to say there other than.
Speaker: Yeah. I mean, this company ate the gaming industry and has literally like shit out just people's lives and livelihoods. And that is, I know like you as you know, more, uh, less capable of empathy individual. I know that that doesn't bother you, but I do think it's interesting considering like,
Speaker: And maybe I'm wrong, but the large, certainly the name brand studios of these, I don't think we're close to closure. And the fact that this company can just assume all of them onto its structure and then just like get rid of them, close them. They're gone to the wind forever.
Speaker: I don't think that's great. I think that's bad. I think that's bad. These cupcakes taste bad. Andy Bernard as a food critic. What do you think though? Your thoughts on it? Yeah, what you said about the studios that it acquired not being close to closure at acquisition time necessarily. I actually don't know, but that would be a very interesting case study to understand because I think for the most part
Speaker: Entities get acquired, especially if they're independent. It happens because they want to.
Speaker: And typically they want to either because they need to survive or the leadership wants to cash out. And there's probably some combination of those scenarios for the independent entities that Embracer acquired. Then you also probably have the studios that were under another holding company umbrella that sold them to Embracer group. And that's a totally different scenario.
Speaker: Those studios could have been fine. They could have been struggling. Maybe there was IP associated with the acquisition, what have you. But certainly under Embracer Group stewardship, it doesn't seem like a lot of studios flourished necessarily. And obviously Embracer just got, their eyes were bigger than their stomach and they didn't get that juicy Saudi money that they wanted. So now they're, like you said, it's like a whale bleeding out right now, unfortunately.
Speaker: But I have to wonder, yeah, how many of these studios that Embracer gobbled up, if Embracer hadn't been there to gobble them up, what would have happened to them? As a counterfactual, we'll never know the answer to, but were there other suitors for some of these studios? It's also interesting with Microsoft just closing on AVK and Embracer hemorrhaging backstage,
Speaker: I would kind of assume that Microsoft and Sony would be scooping these things up like hungry, hungry hippos, but that doesn't seem to be happening. So I don't know, there's a lot of unknowns here with Embracer Group. And I'm most curious, yeah, how are these studios doing on their own, independent of Embracer's involvement?
Speaker: I don't know if they've released a single game yet. Right? To be honest with you. Saints row, I guess. But I wouldn't necessarily call that an Embracer game. It sounds like there's a lot of meddling from the top in that game. I don't know if you heard
Speaker: Oh no, it's complete opposite. Or am I wrong about that? I'm pretty sure Volition said, and I'm cutting you off, but I'm pretty sure my understanding is that Volition said this, that's the game they wanted to make. So there was a lot of pink hair in the writer's room and they came out with that game. Nobody liked it. It kind of had sort of an interesting revival where people are like, yeah, it's not that bad slash it's been changed patch, whatever.
Speaker: Um, I could be wrong about that. You're looking at I swear. Yeah. So the, uh, there, there's an article that just the first article I found about this is on the gamer. Um, but it sounds like the original plan for the saints row reboot was for it to star the original saints. And to have like a very clear, even if it was a reboot, have a clear through line.
Speaker: between the reboot and the original Saints Row. And I, it sounds like that was Volition's original vision, but then the suits came in and mucked with it and said, no, we want, we want, you don't, don't use, don't use the freaking, you know, 30 plus year old characters from the other games, you know, make them younger, make them Gen Z, we want them to pop. And, you know, it popped, but,
Speaker: Not in the way they wanted, I think. Not quite the desired way. Maybe Volition's getting a little bit more heat than they deserved over the whole Saints' Road thing. I don't know. You never really know what's going on behind closed doors. I think a lot will probably come out.
Speaker: In the next year or so, given the volition, you know, people are getting fired. When people get let go, they tend to talk, I think, um, or leak if there's NDAs involved. So it'll be interesting. Yeah, that is interesting. Uh, something to watch. Ultimately, I think a net negative. That's my take. Um, like even places like gearbox, like, I don't know.
Speaker: If you ask me as a consumer, like I've watched Borderlands 3 dip down in price and every time I'm like, just not gonna play it. I have engaged with the Borderlands at various, you much more than I, but like it's sort of a been there, done that. And I have all those games if I want to replay them or experience that again, or that style of game. I haven't played the pre -sequel, but I have that.
Speaker: So things like that. I don't necessarily need to go out and get tiny Tina's or Borderlands three. I don't know the long tail of that. Like that, I don't know that style of game. I think it's still appealing. I just don't know. Like what the market response would be to that. Um, at this point, cause it's sort of been saturated, but
Speaker: A space to watch, like we both said. Something interesting that is, again, from our friends over at VGC, is that Bungie continues to disappoint. A $3 .7 billion acquisition of Sony's to bring the famed Halo developer into Sony's portfolio, but not, as you might think, as a first party Sony studio in the purest sense, but rather,
Speaker: a studio under PlayStation's umbrella that does not actually sit in the family of PlayStation Studios. They are independent of Sony's leadership, although PlayStation Studios head Hermann Holst and Sony senior VP Eric Lempel both sit on Bungie's board
Speaker: Um, so it's not independent without oversight. Um, but if the current financials continue to fail as they are with Bungie, um, Sony may assume control of the studio. Uh, I imagine that's part of the term sheet, the acquisition deal. Um, how was that for a business succession use term sheet? Ooh. Um,
Speaker: But anyway, we know they're running like about 50 % less than their projections indicated. Player retention for Destiny 2 is bad. They laid off 100 employees when they only have about 1200, not only, but 100 out of 1200, that's not insignificant. Your deskmate is gone. So what do you think? Should Sony, and I don't mean should in the sense of like, should they?
Speaker: Hope they crash and burn so they take control, but it's like should they take control? What do you think happens next? Well, they should apps I mean if bunchies underperforming to a Catastrophic degree then absolutely they should take control Because I I think that Sony historically
Speaker: has demonstrated that they are pretty good stewards of first party studios for the most part. I mean right now, Bungie has had the leeway to run
Speaker: One of the biggest experiments in gaming with Destiny as a live service title and I think they've had successes and they've had Failures and overall they've had a lot of learnings there But that can be the price of running an experiment like that as you you know, you might not come out in in the black at the end of it are not where you need to be at least so
Speaker: I think that Sony taking control of Bungie, I wouldn't want them to do it just out of spite or anything, nor do I think they would. They would make corporate decisions the way a corporation does. But yeah, there's a lot of valuable IP there, so I don't think you'd want to sell off Bungie. But I also don't think you'd want to strip it for parts either. I think if things start going poorly, I could see, as you said,
Speaker: Bungie's relationship to Sony, more so Sony's relationship to Bungie changing in you know, Bungie could wind up looking more like Insomniac or Sucker Punch or Naughty Dog in relation to Sony where there's a lot more direct oversight. And yeah, maybe they don't have quite as much quite as much rope, which may be a good thing.
Speaker: I'm just, I'm also thinking of Media Molecule and their experiment, their own experiment with Dreams and how that turned out. And so I think Sony maybe is a little bit, there's probably some scar tissue from that. I think Sony is maybe particularly attuned to these storied developers that are trying something big with long tails on them. And they're paying attention to that.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely. I think, I think you brought up some good points there. I don't think to go back to what you said earlier, I wouldn't be a decision so much as like, I think it would be a trigger. Yeah. Like should they go past the threshold? Then it's almost like Sony acts. Like there's no, there's no decision involved. The decision is already. That makes sense. Correct. Um, look at us in the board room. Um, yeah. Um,
Speaker: So yeah, I think that that would obviously happen. I think you bring up good points about, they certainly are good stewards, not without, you know, not with a perfect track record. I believe Sony and Liverpool was closed. I could be wrong about this, was closed prematurely or was it zipper? Zipper interactive, I think it was called. They may have both been closed, but I don't know in hindsight if that was,
Speaker: you know, really what should have been done. However, you can't really close Bungie, can you? I mean, can you? I think the brand recognition alone is worth hanging on to. Yeah, I agree. And even if you retool entirely the people who made Bungie, Bungie,
Speaker: Yeah, you probably wanna keep that, but then you might end up with something like 343, where it's like taking on a group of people under the name of Bungie, taking on something.
Speaker: that honestly they can't take on in spirit as 343 did with Halo. And we're still kind of seeing the fallout of that. So I think it's like, it's sort of a catch 22. It's like, there might be some people at Sony that are like, oh, imagine if we had control. Like we would do things differently and reap success and maybe grow it in our way. But it's almost like, but then why did you acquire them in the way that you did?
Speaker: Like you, you made them independent for a reason and it, it has to almost sting to them a little bit that this
Speaker: like claws or whatever might come into play. I think this deal closed like less than two years ago, didn't it? Yeah. Yeah. When you were, the thing that actually comes to mind is I know with Sony, there's a lot of talk of like first party relationships, second party relationships, second party relationships that become first party relationships, be a bunch. He's kind of in this like 1 .5 party relationship with Sony. And I think, I think Sony would be happy for them to be successful, but
Speaker: Yeah, they're covering their asses. They're like, hey, you got the 1 .5 situation, but you could wind up being first party, which is something that we would probably be happy with and you might not, but we're going to make sure that, no, we're not going bankrupt over this.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't think Sony is in danger of going bankrupt over it. Maybe I'm incorrect. I want to highlight something I'm reading in the VGC article now, which is, quote, if it fails to do so, meaning if Bungie fails to hit its financial goals, if it fails to do so, Sony can choose to dissolve the existing board and assume full control of the company.
Speaker: I don't, I don't know. I still maintain what I said, which is I don't necessarily think it's a choice. Like if that clause is in there, I think it's active. That is some succession shit actually. That's yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, dude, that's corporate machinations, right? Like this is what it is. Um, it is funny reading it like,
Speaker: employee morale is at an all time low after introduced money saving measures, including a hiring freeze, reduced travel budgets, no holiday bonus, the pausing of cost of living pay adjustments and other benefit cuts per VGC again to cover my freaking basis. But yeah, it's like, what did you guys think?
Speaker: That actually makes me mad as an employee myself, not of boundary, but of another place. But it's like, I don't know. You'd almost rather they cut more people than cut the experience of the people that stay. Right? What do you think? That is very interesting. Cut more people versus cut the experience of the people that stay. I don't know the right answer there because
Speaker: Yeah, like what's better, less people that are happier or more people that are less happy. I tend to lean actually towards less people that are more happy. It's tough to quantify like how much effort or how much work product or quality of work you could get out of like one person versus three people moderated by morale.
Speaker: But definitely, if retention is a concern, I know that retention bonuses or investment in retention was a huge part of the acquisition deal. Sony wanted Bungie, and they wanted Bungie as Bungie. They didn't launch us the brand name. They wanted the people that were there. But that was also under the assumption that they could deliver or their experiment with Destiny would be fruitful.
Speaker: Yeah, I kind of come back to our conversation last week about the difference between games as a service versus MMO games. And this is like Destiny versus Grand Theft Auto Online is, I wouldn't say either one's an MMO. I would say both are live service, but there's something about GTA 5
Speaker: that, and maybe this is just me being ignorant, it just seems like GTA 5 is far less subject to the ongoing content that gets released for it than Destiny is. Destiny seems to live and die by the content drip, whereas GTA 5 Online
Speaker: I know they put out expansions and stuff for it, but they probably don't even have to. It just seems to sustain on its own. It's just a money machine. Having that money machine running in the background is what allows Rockstar to step back and say, okay, we're going to take 10 years and $1 billion and develop GTA 6.
Speaker: And that's also what doesn't allow Bungie to really step back so much from Destiny, because they have to keep putting out content for it. They don't have... I wasn't really close to Destiny 1, but Destiny 1 isn't generating money for them the way Destiny 2 is. It was like this, then that closes, and now this is going on.
Speaker: Whereas like I think when GTA 6 comes out, GTA 5 and GTA Online interaction engagement is going to drop off a cliff. But I think there's still going to be a lot of engagement over there because you're going to have a lot of people that are so invested in GTA 5 and it is more of a persistent world. Whereas like if Destiny 3 came out, I think Destiny 2 pretty much closed the shop.
Speaker: especially given some of the decisions they've made on how to access story content in Destiny 2. It's a very non -accessible game. So I don't know, they've kind of shot themselves in the feet.
Speaker: Yeah. Uh, shot themselves in the foot. I don't think he would make it plural just because it refers to a group of people, but a bungee is a single entity, right? But, uh, anyway, um, yeah, never to walk again. Um, no, a lot of good thoughts there. I think, I don't remember if we brought this up last week in regards to destiny, but, uh, quite literally torture themselves on both sides of the iron, um, with,
Speaker: Like it's inaccessible, like you said, and like existing players aren't really sticking around cause it's no longer compelling. To me, I don't understand, like you always say in regards to sports games, you're like, why don't they just make it a platform where roster updates and things of that nature are DLC. And maybe it's $40. Like maybe it's not. And you buy, you buy expansions each year. Maybe it's not. Like you're buying the new roster expansion. Yeah. You buy an expansion each year, but,
Speaker: And I understand that that is a new product with enough regularity that satisfies the consumer itch. Destiny is not that way. I don't know. Like destiny. What's so wrong with destiny three? What's so wrong? Like it's no longer like GTA six is coming out. I think at some point you have to, you have to realize that you have to move on, not because of anything else other than consumer psychology of saying like, I want something new.
Speaker: Right? Like a platform is nice, but we need a retooled platform that we're billing as new, even if it might not be. Does that make sense? I don't understand Destiny enough to know really what the hell I'm talking about, but like what would keep someone playing that forever? I don't know. Like aren't the stories in that particular one like tapped out with these expansions? I mean, they're best to finish it. Yeah. The final shape. Yeah.
Speaker: No, it's the final shape. So that's what I'm saying is then, then what's next? Is it a marathon? What it sounds like. Maybe they don't, maybe they just don't want to say anything about destiny three until destiny two is concluded. But I, the thing that baffles me the most, and this was like four weeks ago, maybe a little bit longer when I was like, Hey, I have destiny because I have PS plus. And I was like included with that at some point.
Speaker: And I was like, oh, it might be cool to get into Destiny. And I know there's raids. That's a big component of it. But I was like, I'm sure like most other online games or MMO games or even live service games,
Speaker: there's a version of the experience that you can have on your own, or even have with a friend, like if you and me wanted to play Destiny. And as soon as I started looking into it, I realized, yeah, you can play Destiny right now, but there's like 40 or 60 % of the story that you just can't experience because it's not available to you anymore. And that floored me. Immediately I was like, oh, okay, so I'll just never play this game.
Speaker: because you because they opted for I guess this like live literally live service storytelling model where
Speaker: for some reason even though like once the story was done they didn't just block it off and say okay you can go experience it again new player so you can catch up they are basically like no if you want to know the story you got to go on youtube and watch videos and like that's how you'll get it and then and then you'll want to play the new stuff right which is just so baffling to me i i like i don't really understand and this is maybe me being ignorant why didn't
Speaker: And maybe this is the case with Destiny 1. Like if I went back to Destiny 1, can I play through the entire story beginning to end and get a comprehensive narrative experience there? Or did they do the same thing and like truncate it and chop pieces off? Because that's how Destiny 2 is. Unless the final shape is literally the comprehensive package and somehow they make the entire thing available and they're like, okay, we're closing the book on this story and you actually now can play the entire thing.
Speaker: That would be interesting. That actually might reinvigorate Destiny 2 for a bit and allow them to make some additional money on it as they move to the next thing. Because I feel like it's got to look like that. Otherwise, once it's over, it's over. The only people who will ever play Destiny 2 are the ones who've been playing it and for some reason just want to stick around and do the raids and stuff.
Speaker: Yeah. Well, that's enough of Destiny 2 for me. I don't need to talk about that anymore. I did wanna, speaking of money and things of this nature, something crazy happened yesterday. I don't know if I texted you this, but I have that like,
Speaker: I have a couple of different things. I price track games a lot. Um, I like to buy games when the rock bottom prices fill out my library. I'm currently in that mood where I'm like, Oh, I want to fill out like stuff that I have physically. I'm like, I would like the digital version of that. I've done that with all of the fallout series, considering doing it for cyberpunk and the Witcher. Um,
Speaker: Probably won't. Cyberpunk's still a little expensive. The Witcher's, the Witcher used to go, and this is dumb, it's three, $3, $4 I'm complaining about. The Witcher used to go down to eight bucks. Now it goes down to 12 because it has a next gen patch. But regardless, I get a notification yesterday.
Speaker: Actually, I don't get a notification because this version of the game is not on my wish list I see a tweet from IGN deals the dead space deluxe edition With the extra cosmetic DLC, which is I believe $80 Was on sale for eight dollars. It's a Digital order magnitude store cheaper
Speaker: That's it. That's 90 % off. Um, that's an auto buy for me. I think I spent maybe more than that on the original dead space, probably like six or seven bucks, maybe five. Um, so I scooped that instantly. Except not after a little bit of trials and tribulations, the Microsoft store shut down. I imagine people running and other deals that,
Speaker: No, EA had like four really strange deals. Wild Hearts, the same thing, $9 for its Deluxe Edition. Battlefield, something or other, Deluxe Edition was $15. These were like insane deals. They're gone. And now this price tracking website that I follow says that those games are at their lowest price ever. Um,
Speaker: But it's wrong. It's saying that the Dead Space Deluxe Edition lowest price level is $32. False. I think it was only available to Ultimate subscribers. I caught that little smile that you had. Like you're special and exclusive for having that? No. I was smiling because I'm like, I've spent more money on Ultimate than the difference between me and 80's. You're like quibbling over like $4.
Speaker: Well, dropping like, like 15 a month or whatever. Oh my goodness. 17 now. Um, yeah, it's not worth it. I told my brother once we're done are like free thing. I'm back to game pass core, which is just Xbox live gold. Um,
Speaker: No free games though. But anyway, that is that. There's one more thing I wanted to talk about before we finish on what we're playing. Remember when we said we had to fill the space? Let's not talk about this. Let's just get into what we're playing. Have you even been gaming? Because since we last spoke, I'll be honest. I'll just steal a show real quick.
Speaker: I haven't really been playing. I've been taking a little bit of a break. I feel like starfield fucked you up a little bit. Almost broke me. It like sucked a little bit out of me. Ooh. Um, I went over my brother's place this past weekend. I went to a little NFL tailgate, um, was really banged up, watched my brother play starfield.
Speaker: Oh, tell me about that. Painful watching this guy. Dude, he was trying to kill guys 100 meters away with a pistol. It's like, dude, your range isn't good enough. In fairness to him, I did tell him that the correct way to play the game,
Speaker: different from other Bethesda games is that you sort of have to do quests. You can't really just go off the beaten path and do whatever you want. You kind of have to engage with the game on a quest by quest basis. Um, and he took that advice to heart, but he was so far along in the story at such a low level that I told him to take a little break from that. And it may be engaged with some of the faction stuff.
Speaker: But he hadn't been completing, I went back, because it'll show in chronological order of your completion, the quests you've done. I actually, in the beginning, I really did go all over the place just doing random little things. That really helped me level off, which was important.
Speaker: uh... to being powerful enough to do some of the faction quests uh... so he did a quest that i recommended him that uh... would reward him a nice suit and a ship and he was like could barely beat that and i don't know it was like it just made me think like oh did i tell him to do that too early but at the same time it's like i'm happy he did it now he's got the suit and the ship and that should help him so in starfield does
Speaker: I guess the enemies don't scale, right? Like you were saying, if you're underleveled going through the story, you might bump into stuff that you're just not going to be able to handle unless you go off and do some side things.
Speaker: I don't know if it's quite in that way. It's not that he couldn't handle it. It's just the stuff was more powerful than I think it should have been in relation to his level. Like he was level 10 and he was coming across like level four. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So it's thanks. There's just straight more powerful stuff somewhere.
Speaker: But like I'm level 50 and I've run 80 plus things. So it's like, it's not really any different. Um, but once you're level 50, you're not in imminent danger for level anything. When you are level 10, you are in imminent danger.
Speaker: Right. Like you're just more, you know, cause I also got into crafting everything. So like my gear is pretty solid and his gear sucks. So there's that to take into account as well. Like he, he didn't, he had one legendary weapon, but it was a shotgun and he was like refusing to use it. Yeah. In starfield there's because there's infinite levels effectively. It sounds like there's no downside.
Speaker: I think there's 332 or 382. So there's no downside to leveling. I'm thinking of Fallout 4, although I might... Fallout 4, I'm trying to remember. I feel like the enemies might have scaled a bit in that game.
Speaker: So I just, I have this memory of Fallout 4, you're wanting to like thread a needle of leveling, not really leveling up at a consistent rate, but not outleveling your gear actually.
Speaker: because if you leveled up too fast, this could be all bullshit. It's just false memories over here. But I feel like I remember in Fallout 4 wanting to level up, but not so fast that I was running around with shitty gear because I might be the right level for a zone, but my gear is dog shit. And so if I walk in there, the deathclaw is going to rip my head off.
Speaker: And in the same way, you don't want to be underleveled, because then you're not going to be able to use quality gear. And you're just not going to be able to handle an area at all. So you had to really engage out with some of that side stuff to really keep everything around you that you're using. And I guess in Sarfi, it'll be like your ship and your gear sort of in line with where you are. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that's what's interesting is I never ran into this like wall problem when I was playing, but he was, but it could have been a skill issue. But the particular area that, there was just one puzzle that we both struggled with in our inebriated state, but that puzzle aside, I guess he did fine, but it was painful to watch.
Speaker: painful to watch, like dude, he, I don't even wanna get started. And he also was like putting points into things that I didn't think were worth it. But you can't take away someone's agency. Yeah, yeah, you probably should know. And that, so I didn't comment on that. But if you ever listened to this, why did you put a point into surveying before you were level 10? That doesn't make any sense. I had to explain to him that, and he was like, no dude, I jumped really high.
Speaker: and I'm like, that's when you land on a moon and there's no gravity. You don't have a boost pack, which is stupid that you need to have a point and boost pack training to use. Well, you have any idea what would happen if you didn't have a point, you'd probably just run right into the ground, it'd be terrible.
Speaker: Yeah, you need to know how to use it. That was what was frustrating about Starfield, honestly. There was like various things where it was like, you had to do things a certain way. And it's just like, I don't like that. But anyway, enough about Starfield. I have downloaded
Speaker: a smorgasbord of games to potentially play, including The Last of Us Part One, including Dead Space Remake, including Dishonored, including Assassin's Creed Black Flag, including Wolfenstein The New Order, including Max Payne 2. So many games you could potentially play. Maybe that's what we'll play, Max Payne 2.
Speaker: I mean, I have hundreds I could potentially play. I'm only going to play one though. What is it going to be? I really, cause it dawned on me today. I'm like, it's December 6th, December 7th, whatever. December 7th is a game awards and I am psyched. Oh.
Speaker: Are you? Good, we can talk about that later. What are you playing? Yeah, so I have not played, I've not done much gaming between last week and now. I did play Dream Drop Distance a little bit. I'm at the point, I'm at that point that you get to in every Kingdom Hearts game, if you're a completionist, where you can either beat the game, like I'm there, I could do the last world right now. I could just go beat the game,
Speaker: or you could mop up all the side stuff and then go beat the game. You can also beat the game first and then do the side stuff after, but I know there's like a special ending and I think I already meet the qualifications for that, but I'm kind of just like, you know what? Let me just do all the side stuff now and then I'll enjoy the ending instead of like doing that and then being like, ah, I don't know if I want to mess around with this Dream Eater stuff. Because to get the Platinum's, especially in the Kingdom Hearts games, the re -releases, you really do have to do
Speaker: Everything I I'm pretty sure like I don't know if you have to get level 99 in this game But I feel like I might wind up getting there just in doing all the other stuff You know leveling up these Pokemon like animals and doing all these special Battle challenges they have around the world's it's it's just a lot of stuff and I get it like it was a DS game It was it's a game that
Speaker: was designed to have a lot of content to just give you something to do, especially on the go. And what's nice is the way it's structured is a lot of these challenges and things to do actually can get done pretty quick. It's just there's a lot of them. So it's a lot of quick things to do and just kind of check off a list. So anyway, I played that for a couple hours over the weekend and knocked out some stuff and have a pretty good, I guess, plan of how to get through all this stuff, all the side content.
Speaker: but that's really all I did. We did, my fiance and I, we did binge watch over the weekend. This is not video game related, but we watched Gen V, which is the boys spinoff show. It is fucked up. Very good. Big fan. Yeah.
Speaker: Good, good for you. Hey, I'm glad for you. I won't be partaking in that for multiple reasons, but I'm glad that you enjoy it. Glad that you enjoy your Weeb games, not my style. You can keep them. I bought my friend's sister. I got her Persona 5 Royal on the Switch. I can never. Just looking at the cover, I'm just like,
Speaker: This is for this girl. But I did try. I did try Persona 5. Didn't really give it enough of a chance, but I was like, oof. I really wanted to like this. I did. Same with Shin Megami Tensei. I bought the entire series. Probably spent $100 on the entire series. Probably won't play it not once.
Speaker: So, mistakes were made. Yeah. Mistakes were made. But anyway, that is that. Thank you for listening to our seriously irrelevant conversation. This is a gaming podcast, still very much in development. Thank you for listening. I would give you closing remarks to say, Beta Boy, anything? I'm hungry.
Speaker: I was really hoping, yeah, good. I was just hoping for a goodbye. But anyway, I am hungry to text my dad to him, bring home some pizzas. So we'll see how it goes. But anyway. See ya. See ya later.
