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Overwatch 2 is a disappointment & more glorious capitalism news - Add to Party 05.03.2022
7 Plays3 years ago
This week we discuss the latest studio acquisitions, Overwatch 2 being lackluster, Sony stopping you from cheating them out of money, Blizzard disappointing us with games this time, and reviews for Switch Sports & Rogue Legacy 2
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Transcript
Introduction and NPR Anecdotes
00:00:15
Speaker
Welcome to Add to Party, a friendship simulator masquerading as a new show. I'm your host, James Hartwell, and I'm joined by Charles Yemont, and I'm joined by Andy K.
00:00:28
Speaker
That's very NPR of you, Andy. Thank you. I was listening to NPR. I'm in an NPR mood. Really? You're that guy, huh? What? Virtue signaling liberal. You should think back on the interactions where Andy starts with. I heard I was listening to NPR, comma.
00:00:53
Speaker
Subject. Yeah. That's literally how I have to introduce. I don't just hear something or read something. I heard it on NPR. That's right. I have to prove that I'm better than you because I listen to national public reading. Oh, and I'm a contributing number. Okay. And not during a fun drive. So I don't have a tote bag. I'm just a good person. I do it. I do it out of the goodness of my heart.
00:01:23
Speaker
I do. I really like them. I think they do good stuff. So I wanted to give them... I haven't listened to an NPR show in a long time. There's a lot of good stuff, but it can be a bummer way to start your morning. What was the game show that's on there? Wait, wait, don't tell me. Yeah, that one. I tried to listen to that a couple of times and I found it.
00:01:43
Speaker
Just unlisten. Oh, I like that one. I also like Hidden Brain. I like Invisibilia. I like the This American Life. That's a fun one. Charles, does he Charles be honestly, does he have the NPR website up in front of him and he's just reading off of it? No, no, he doesn't. Oh, no, it's not on my most frequented. It is at work.
Travel Preparations and Personal Quirks
00:02:10
Speaker
You know what was on his front page of Twitch though. Some very interesting streams up at the time. Some people were working out, as they say.
00:02:26
Speaker
Andy says innocently, well, how did that get there? Listen, I'm just looking for fitness inspiration for my Hawaii trip. I was telling Charles, I have like not just love handles, but I have like handles under my armpits. Does that make sense?
00:02:49
Speaker
And you just remember flat, fat floats, right? Charles, he's gonna sink to the bottom of the ocean. You and I, you and I will be easily rescuable when our boat goes down. Easily. It's the flotation devices I've started at the top of my body now.
00:03:05
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. Now you'll balance easier. Charles is going to hit the water and it's just it's yours to see a bubble and then that's it. I mean, well, you guys should remember I can't float already. So I'm going to as soon as we go near a beach, I'm going to wear a life vest the entire time, mostly because I also will not be wearing a shirt the entire trip. Are you really going to wear a life vest when you go swimming?
00:03:29
Speaker
Oh, yeah, what's it really? It's the beach. There's no bottom. You just keep you get a shelf and then
Film Themes and Analysis
00:03:38
Speaker
you go. Well, there I go. There's a shelf. It's not like it's a sheer drop five feet away from the shore. So you've not been with me when I go polar bearing, but I go as deep until it's almost too far down.
00:03:54
Speaker
that's it and that's where i would go i need to go as far as i can you don't why you live your life so safe like uh do you ever see gattaca yes how did you ever swim so far it's because i never saved anything for the swim back
00:04:15
Speaker
It's a great movie. Ethan Hawke, Jude Law, Uma Thurman, um, Fagley racist. Oh, Ethan Spones about genetic engineering. It's a good movie to teach your students of, uh, the dangers of geneticists.
00:04:35
Speaker
You know, I want superiority. What did you watch, Andy? I watched a video essay about on NPR's website. No, but it was a leftist YouTuber. That's enough. What's that movie? Oh, did I already talk about this? The movie that everybody says is a documentary. Idiocracy.
00:04:57
Speaker
Oh, you mentioned this. Yeah. How it's actually bad. And it's about what is it? Not euthanasia. What's the one where you kill the people you don't want? Genocide. Not genocide.
00:05:15
Speaker
Just specific people. Right. That's genocide. No, no, no, no. I guess I should. Basically, it's about not letting stupid people live anymore. Yeah, I'm aware of it. I'm aware of the movie of the accuracy. Yes. So it's talking about eugenics and how early 2000s comedies were bad.
00:05:37
Speaker
And the movie's bad. But it was really interesting because when Trump was elected, the movie got this resurgence because everybody kept saying, Idiocracy is a dumb or a documentary, actually. And then she went and watched it and was like, guys, this is pretty bad. I wish I wish we had Terry Crews as our president. You know what? And he was well being good in the movie. He drove a monster truck and he fired M14 as he did it.
00:06:07
Speaker
with everybody's passion. And I think that's the kind of go-to attitude we need in our current political climate, where women have no rights. Oh, no. And that's as political as we're getting in this podcast.
00:06:27
Speaker
You know, oh no, James, we need to get much more political because I have a lot of feelings about Kirby.
Kirby and Capitalism
00:06:34
Speaker
Oh, all right. Yeah. Well, here, let's talk about Kirby and how it intersects with the Supreme Court trying to take away women's right to choose. Andy, go ahead. I'll get there. Let's start.
00:06:50
Speaker
So it's going to put my mic on mute and just let you run. So there is a game that has come out called Kirby and the Forgotten Land. Number one, it's excellent. And James, you've been playing it, right? I am only on the third world. You're only on the third world. OK, I don't want to give too many spoilers then. I mean, I know every Kirby game ends with look at this cute little pink blob and then like the last world is like the creator of all things.
00:07:19
Speaker
Kind of close. But for my argument to work, we have to ignore the ending. So let's just follow through. That's every great white man's argument. I have a point. I have a point to make. But at first, let's ignore all the facts and just how I feel about it. And just look at the buildup that sent me on a spiral. So recently I've been playing Forgotten Land.
00:07:44
Speaker
And I have been ever since I started it and beaten it and now working on 100 percenting it, I have been obsessed with Kirby. Like, I cannot stop thinking about Kirby. I look up pictures of Kirby just to look at pictures of Kirby. I've set my background at work to Kirby, but not at home for some reason. And I don't know why.
00:08:12
Speaker
I think it was going to be less embarrassing, but I don't know why I thought that. But I keep thinking about him, and I think the reason why, the conclusion I came to,
00:08:26
Speaker
is the theme of Kirby and the Forgotten Land is you are Kirby navigating. It says a forgotten world. I say it's an abandoned world, abandoned and destroyed because of capitalism.
00:08:45
Speaker
And different by an indifferent God. No, no, no, no, no, no. By people, James, because I have been I literally think I have been investing all of my fears and dread and just angst about the world and literally late stage capitalism into Kirby. I've been using Kirby as this vessel of forgetting
00:09:10
Speaker
I don't know, but I do know when I play the game, literally it like lights my brain on fire, like the serotonin flows and everything is solved. And the biggest thing, and I don't know, I haven't dug too deep into this, but I know the thing I love most in the game. And James, you have experienced this, so please validate me on this. Every time you enter a new world,
00:09:39
Speaker
To get an idea of how destroyed it is and abandoned and lonely is Kirby flies around on his star, right? Going through buildings, toppling over and cars that are destroyed. And then he looks back at you. He waves and he says hello or he says hi. And I skipped that. Oh, well, I never skip it. And I am obsessed.
00:10:08
Speaker
and saying hi. Every time you beat a world, he says hi. Did you know, James, in town, you can press left or up on the D-pad and say hello to all the other people in the town? Because I just do that.
00:10:26
Speaker
I'll spend like 10 minutes just running around town and waving at people just so they can say hi back. I am addicted, James and Charles. Charles is here, too. But Charles has heard this. So I have to yell at you, James. Charles, let's listen or no. Charles and Annie are in the same room, specifically Andy's room. Charles, if you could just take a second and just give yourself a 360 of Andy's apartment. How many of the walls are covered with pictures of Kirby and Elon Musk and Red String drawing in between?
00:11:00
Speaker
No, no, no, I say right now we sit in a what our friend would call a red flag broom
00:11:11
Speaker
In the closet are a shell full of shrine to gaming and anime. There are multiple shells of figures on display, some obscure, some not.
00:11:26
Speaker
uh for of his favorite games there are uh i would say uh boxed but not mint not minted editions of certain games and you know they could be better but there they are at their age to show complete inbox
00:11:49
Speaker
in order to be properly on display. This friend group isn't one to care for pristine additions. It is purely about how much we love certain things. And then on the other side is a little work table for gundams.
00:12:10
Speaker
I would say I don't know if if it's proper to just say models Yeah, there you go model kits more than a Gundams I prefer if one day Andy made Gundams, but I don't have really a say in it And then in front there's a Ava What's it poster from new type? Framed yeah
00:12:37
Speaker
I think all of that is reasonable and healthy. I will say on my model kit table, I am building a Kirby because I am starting a shrine. I just haven't put it up yet.
00:12:52
Speaker
I'm building a Kirby and he's on his star and he's in my favorite pose of waving hi. So he's waving hello on a star and tomorrow I'm picking up a stand so I can put him on the stand and then I'm having I'm working with someone to design like 3D printed Game Boy game stands.
00:13:14
Speaker
so I can display my Game Boy games of Kirby. And then I'm finding out you can just put pictures of things. So now I'm just looking up different pictures of Kirby to put on my Kirby stands for my Kirby games for my Kirby shrine with my Kirby model kit on the Kirby stand.
00:13:29
Speaker
And I love Kirby. And I think the game is a beautiful, not beautiful, but a stark and striking message about the effects of late stage capitalism. And I'm thinking about it a lot, James. And like, literally, it's consuming me. And I'm curious, what are your thoughts? Please validate me. I would also like to say that.
00:13:55
Speaker
This game, plus the Game Boy versions of the games are the games that Andy likes for Kirby. Oh, that's a very good point. I didn't care about Kirby all that much until this, like at all. It was forgotten lambs that destroyed me. Andy, Andy, do me a favor. Just cover your ears real quick. Just just real quick. OK, I will. One second. Charles, if you're if you're in danger, just just just tap on the mic three times. Let me know.
00:14:26
Speaker
OK, tell Andy you're safe. Don't worry. But just, you know, just let me know at any time you feel uncomfortable. Three three taps on the Michael. I'll get I'll get you out. All right. Seems good. Yep. I didn't hear any of that. Don't worry about it, Andy. We're fine. You know, I can go and listen back when it's published. Am I not supposed to listen? Was this bad?
00:14:50
Speaker
I don't know. I mean, my, my opinion of the Kirby game so far is that it's a fun game. It's like, I don't, I don't know. I haven't really dug too deep in it. I'm like, Oh, you know, I, I, I, every time I, every time I initiate mouthful mode, I show my partner, I was like, Oh, look at this.
00:15:08
Speaker
Um, just wait until you unlock the gachapon, where it's a, it's a, um, did you start, um, unlocking them? No, I got, I got to the, I got to the city and then I stopped. No, but that's fair there. I've gotten in the game, you there's little capsules.
00:15:27
Speaker
where you unlock like basically they just put 3D models of items in the game and they put little descriptions. One of them is the the logo of the main company in the game. And it talks about like this company used to manage everything, gas and water and all these different things. And then it was split up and it became hyper competitive with everything else around it. And I don't know, it went on and on about something.
00:15:57
Speaker
And then you realize that everything that like the logo of it is everywhere and everything's destroyed, James. Everything fell apart due to hyper competition. OK, forgetting everybody that matters and only chasing profit.
00:16:15
Speaker
You explore abandoned malls, abandoned cities, abandoned everything, okay? And when you eventually find the place that powers all of these places, it's land destroyed! It's on fire! It's ominous! It's scary!
00:16:33
Speaker
And that's what this all ends up being. This is what the world turns into. And you know, a couple hundred years later, when we burned ourselves out of existence, Kirby comes and explores and it's inhabited by very cute beasts. Everything's cute.
00:16:50
Speaker
When we go out, literally the world is replaced by everything cute. Maybe it won't be so bad. I don't know. But it's making me think. Andy, that is a thoughtful and appreciative. What's the word?
00:17:08
Speaker
not rant, but, you know, a diatribe on capitalism and its effects and how we should be concerned about them.
Capitalism in Gaming Industry
00:17:17
Speaker
You know, I really I do think I do think that, you know what, that we fetishize capitalism and and its constants and its constant march towards, you know, more profits quarterly. What have you done for me lately? And in that vein, let's talk about the Engracer Group buying three studios for three hundred million dollars. I would like to add one thing to this.
00:17:38
Speaker
Is this go for it go for it look i'm of the opinion Much like george carlin himself Even if we die the world gets to be fine later because we're gone Yeah The earth will be okay
00:17:59
Speaker
The only way the Earth is not okay is if we snap it in half with nuclear explosions, but that's one of the... What's up? We haven't gotten to the part where I might be a communist. Embrace your group, answer into an agreement to acquire Eidos. We have to abolish class!
00:18:20
Speaker
What about the robots? Bracer Group enters into agreement to acquire Eidos, Crystal Dynamics, and Square Enix Montreal from Square Enix for the low, low price of $300 million. I know that's a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but it's also, when you think about it, in terms of Bungie sold for, I don't know, what was that, 20 mil, something like that?
00:18:41
Speaker
This is a shockingly low price. They includes 1,100 employees across the three studios in eight global locations, and includes such IP as Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Gex, and Legacy of Cain series.
00:19:01
Speaker
Uh, and these and, and I don't know. It's, it's very interesting. I mean, so here's the thing, right? Embracer group with this purchase will now have 14,000 employees, the majority of which are game devs. Um, and they will own something in the neighborhood of 28 studios. I have to double check that number.
00:19:28
Speaker
Um, but yeah, Embracer group is weird. And the thing about Embracer group is Embracer groups, another company that probably shouldn't own so many, uh, like, you know, other, other students of note is Gearbox is underneath Embracer. That's right. Gearbox is underneath it. Like, so I, you know, we do talk about, and rightfully so, um, Sony and Microsoft buying things mostly because they are, they own the hardware and now want to also own.
00:19:58
Speaker
the software, you know, the games that are, you know, that power them. But like, Embrace a Group is another company that like, just owns a bunch of stuff.
00:20:09
Speaker
And it's weird, to be honest with you. I think the big mystery and the giant question mark everyone has is why did Square sell them so low? I almost really want to be like, maybe somebody just missed a comma or a period, because other places use periods instead. And maybe this is just all an accident. And then they're going to argue this with their bank and just be like, hold on.
00:20:38
Speaker
So I still only put it in. So once this sale goes through, Embracer group will have a hundred and twenty two studios.
00:20:48
Speaker
And I had I had never heard of them before to be. Well, they've been buying up all like kind of the the double A and like single A studios and all like the kind of like IP that's been languishing like they don't teach you Nordic. Your box doesn't really put out that much shit other than Borderlands and occasionally an occasional shooter. It doesn't go anywhere. Yeah. And I thought what was interesting also
00:21:17
Speaker
Oh, one more thing. Oh, sorry. One more thing. Yep. And then Embracer Group's upcoming content pipeline includes more than 230 games, with 30 of them being, according to them, AAA games. That's a lot to manage. And listen, with every buyout, every buyout's scary, right? Because they're not going to think of the people. They're going to think of the profit. And you know what that looks like in 100 years?
00:21:46
Speaker
forgotten land, but it really was important. And what I thought was interesting was Square didn't sell Life is Strange and they didn't sell Just Cause. Yeah, they kept Just Cause, Life is Strange and hit game Outriders.
00:22:05
Speaker
Like what? Like Tomb Raider, guys, Tomb Raider. Yeah, but yeah. Well, so you have to remember, too, Andy, every every word Square Enix has ever said about Tomb Raiders. You thought of it some more.
00:22:21
Speaker
It blows my mind. They even embrace or posted something. It's either half or very close to it. Of all sales, the Tomb Raider property happened with the reboot games. It moved that many units compared to what? Four games on the PS1, four games on the PS2.
00:22:41
Speaker
You know, and so eight, let's throw in two more because I think there is, you know, probably ones that didn't matter. But anyways, you've got an enormous amount of other games and this is a legendary property. And this is the only thing I care about is what's going to happen to Tomb Raider. Right. I love these games. Even though Square Enix was constantly disappointed, they never skimped on it.
00:23:03
Speaker
They always gave it the space to have the money it needed and do what it needed. And at least I know in the last game, it was completely single player and it was a triple experience. When does that happen? It just doesn't. And it was a wonderful game for it. I hear about someone buying a property. When you buy a property, you don't take a risk. And I feel like Tomb Raider is probably going to turn into some awful
00:23:31
Speaker
Fortnite or something. I don't know. Like it's all going to be bad. It's all bad. I don't want. I mean, I don't I don't know about that, Andy, because so far, Embrace Your Group hasn't really done anything. Right. They've really I mean, they've released technically speaking, released two Borderlands games, but those were well into development before Embrace Your Bucks. They released Battle for Bikini Bottom, rehydrated and was the other game they remade?
00:24:00
Speaker
Oh, the kingdoms of Amalur are re reckoning. I mean, those are, those are really like the two games. They kind of have their, their mark on. Um, so like, we don't know what an embrace your group game is. You know, we can't say that it's going to be a live service announcement and all that thing.
00:24:19
Speaker
So it's, I hope it's not. I mean, I've heard differing opinions of that. Like Embracer Group is actually just kind of like this equity firm and they don't really give a shit. Like they are not meddling in the studios. They bought them and they're like, make this much money and we'll leave you alone. And so I don't know that could be good. That could be bad. Um, if maybe they're, maybe their expectations for profit are slightly more realistic than Square Enix's were where they sold 40 million units of Tomb Raider and went, you wanted 60.
00:24:49
Speaker
Go ahead.
00:24:53
Speaker
Go ahead, Joe. And that's the strange thing, right? Andy brought up the whole Tomb Raider sales under the new trilogy made a lot of money. Almost $300 million, if I recall, by itself, right? So it's still strange that Square would sell a bunch of stuff for less than their worth. As a business, you would try to evaluate this better and be like, OK, they did all this. But it's so strange. It's so weird.
00:25:21
Speaker
Cause even financial sense, if, if, even if you're disappointed with your company that you own, you want to sell them for what it, you know, for as much as you can. It's easily more than 300 million for all, for all, for those properties. And like, let's say they're, they're sleeping on legacy, a cane for one, uh, Hey, Hey, Hey Gex. All right. And Gex. Oh yeah. Yeah.
00:25:49
Speaker
Um, I don't know. Isn't Hitman underneath the two? Well, Hitman is right, but they license Hitman. Like, I, uh, Eidos, what's, what's the studio? Uh, where is this? I thought it was Eidos. Yeah, Eidos Montreal license out, licenses out the Hitman license to IO, who is an independent studio. Which makes me wonder if Embracer might just buy IO at some point, but we'll see.
00:26:17
Speaker
For 300 million, this is insane how much they got
00:26:23
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Who did that fucking embrace? Well, here's. Yeah, blackmail. Well, here's here's the thing. So why did they sell them? Right. Other than the fact that Square Enix just hates their western students. Yeah, they do. I don't know. It seems like they always it feels like they always invested, but then they always meddled. And that's what messed it up. But I I feel like Square wasn't doing the worst job. The tumor. Oh, great.
00:26:52
Speaker
No, no, no. The Deus Ex games I hear are great. The second one wasn't. The second one was the second of the reboot series wasn't as good as the first one. But was it bad? It's OK. That's pretty decent. Yeah, it was very pretty. But
00:27:14
Speaker
So Square Enix also released a statement saying that, you know, doing this will allow them to pursue their dreams and make themselves the company of the future, focusing on NFTs, blockchain technology and cloud game. That's right. Are they really? I thought they were like saying that they weren't really. No, that's what they said. Well, they didn't say NFTs expressly. Oh.
00:27:40
Speaker
They said blockchain technology, something, something. What does that even mean? Yeah. What? It means nothing. Of course it means nothing. So you don't have to keep the promise. Well, Andy, you have to also remember the CEO Square Enix was the one who was like, you know, people who play games for fun may not like this decision, but don't worry, Final Fantasy 14 fans. Yoshi P said he is not going to allow NFTs into 14.
00:28:07
Speaker
That's it. And as I'm led to believe, as Tetsuya Damora sneaks versus 13 into Kingdom Hearts, it seems like those directors get to do whatever they want with whatever their project. Well, here another thought, too, of why they did this other than just, you know, pure xenophobic aid of their Western studios is what it is, is did they shed these people so that they could be bought, right?
00:28:36
Speaker
You know, they're in talks with someone to buy them and they're like, price tag's a little high. And they're like, well, what if we cut out these three studios and we sold them to someone else and then the price tag's this. Oh, interesting. So it wasn't that they were more profitable, but that they made something more attractive for Embracer. Because who wants just cause? Who wants that?
00:29:01
Speaker
Sony, probably. I'm going to be honest with you, it's probably Sony. Sony would make more sense. But who? Like, like, oh, yeah, I'm going to hold on to just cause, but I'm going to get rid of Tomb Raider. You know what would be the weirdest fucking thing in the world? If Nintendo bought Square Enix. Oh.
00:29:26
Speaker
It's honestly just as plausible as Sony is to me. It's not nearly as weird, but as a recent interview with Reggie Fiese and me mentioned, Nintendo is in a good spot to make a Netflix of video games, but that they don't is really the only thing stopping them.
00:29:48
Speaker
But, you know, I trust over anybody else. I mean, the thing, too, is I don't think we talked about this, but Nintendo just licensed a huge swath of land next to their offices in Japan, specifically, yeah, specifically for a new like a new area for game studios. Right. So they're looking they're eyeing towards expansion.
00:30:16
Speaker
You know, Hey, Square Enix could fit that bill. I don't know. It'd be weird, but honestly, yeah, I, I've heard a lot of rumblings amongst the gaming elite media that this might've been done as a way to make their price tag more palatable to a third party to buy Square Enix. Yeah. And I mean, even if you think about that kind of thing, where it's like, Oh, we're going to focus on black blockchain and cloud technology. That's someone talking of like, we're the company of the future. Think of all the things you could get if you buy our brand, you know? Yeah.
00:30:44
Speaker
I mean, like, I agree in the sense of it's a it is a move that you can do. It's probably the only one that makes the most sense. But it's also a weird one, because it's such it's such a I'm going to sell this part at a loss in the hopes that you're paying for me.
00:31:04
Speaker
Like it better, like all of this would have to be like, it's, I don't know if you can even write a contract that would say, if I reduce my value to this, you are obligated to buy me type of situation. No, I don't, I mean, you know, they all, they all know each other. It's still like a, it's a level of trust that you have to give to each other. And it's just like, I don't know if that really exists.
00:31:28
Speaker
I mean, it also could be a thing too, where it's like they were just looking for a reason to get rid of these studios. And it's like, Embracer was like, hey, we'll buy them. And they're like, how much? 300 mil? Fine. Take them. I believe in the greed of companies that they would never sell something that's not.
00:31:46
Speaker
at a lot, like at a big loss if it wasn't for an actual game later. So it's going to be interesting to figure out what the gain is. Yeah. We'll see. They kept life is strange. That's a good decision. That's a good, that's a solid franchise of people that will buy it.
00:32:01
Speaker
True color game of the year. That's not the only rumor mill going on to about sales. One Imran Khan, not the former leader of Pakistan, but the games journalist. Yeah, there's a guy Imran Khan was also the name of the president of Pakistan.
00:32:23
Speaker
But I believe he just got the post. Um, anyway, that was your Middle Eastern geography lesson for the next year. I don't remember that. I know there's a lot of stuff going on there. Um, he, he put out a tweet this week, basically saying that he couldn't get enough confirmation, actually write a story about this.
00:32:42
Speaker
But he's hearing that WB Discovery, which, you know, if you hadn't heard, Warner Brothers sold most of its media companies to Discovery, made this weird hybrid brand. It's disgusting. And the gaming studios are part of that. Rocksteady. It's the other one. Oh, God, I'm losing it. Rocksteady. I don't remember what else they had. Another realm. And there's one more.
00:33:12
Speaker
God damn it. Warner Brothers. It's the one who's making Harry Potter. Warner Brothers. That's the newer one, right? The one that's making Harry Potter. It's a newer studio. It is. So capitalism, huh?
00:33:30
Speaker
Yeah, I know. Right. Exactly. It all comes back to capitalism. Okay. Look at politics right now. Capitalism. Okay. These people need to stay in power. All right. To prop up the machine. And they do that by playing towards these issues. Okay. They put people in the Supreme Court.
00:33:53
Speaker
that really shouldn't be there, but they exploit emotions for these uneducated, oh my, hmm, hmm. Charles Pullenback. Yeah, the other studio is Avalanche. He's making a very bad. So yeah.
00:34:10
Speaker
So here's the, but the interesting thing about this rumor is that they're looking to sell the studios, but not the IP. Um, which is weird because rocksteady is entirely tied to the DC between Batman and suicide squad avalanche at this point, tied to Harry Potter. And I mean, Netherrealm right is synonymous with mortal combat.
00:34:33
Speaker
Yeah. Hence their name. So yeah, right. I mean, I don't, I can see a world where someone might buy avalanche and rock study to either make their own IP or a different license. They're pretty good studios, right? I think they can, they can work on whatever. Um, but.
00:34:56
Speaker
Netherrealm without Mortal Kombat is it. That's I don't know. Why would you do that wrong? Yeah, it's not right.
00:35:06
Speaker
Yeah, Warner Brothers really wants to move into basically being like, we just license out IP and collect money. And don't worry about making games. You pay us no matter how the game does. So we always come out ahead. But yeah, I don't know. We may see that coming in the near future. Imran also said that interested parties in the studios include EA, Take Two, Microsoft, Sony, TenSet, NetEase, and PubG Corp. So basically everyone. Basically every company. Of course they would. Why would they not?
00:35:34
Speaker
Well, Rocksteady is a very good studio. Like I, I would think most like Microsoft and Sony, I would feel like would be desperate to get Rocksteady under their umbrella. I don't know. This is all bad for the industry. Everything's bad for the industry. What else did Avalanche make? Yeah, all lives matter, James, you're right. Oh, no.
00:36:04
Speaker
I'm moving past that. Avalanche. Avalanche really didn't make that much. They made a lot of Disney games. They made Disney Infinity. They made a Hannah Montana game. So yeah, Hogwarts Legacy is kind of like their big game. So we'll see how that goes. Oh, OK. They're the ones making that.
00:36:24
Speaker
Yeah, so yeah, I think I think rocksteady is kind of like the that's really the gem. It's kind of like we'll take all nether realms to that's true, but You know, but here's the thing too like
00:36:38
Speaker
Microsoft already has killer instinct and they're doing jack shit with it. And so they like to be in fighters. And as I understand, Mortal Kombat like has its own. Everybody has a community right in the fighting game community, I guess, but more comments and kind of a renaissance right now. Yeah, it is. And.
00:37:00
Speaker
Um, I don't know, I shouldn't speak too much to it, but as I understand it is competitive. It has become competitive. The great B movies, if you ever just work. Yeah, yeah. They put work into it. They put work into it.
00:37:17
Speaker
This is so gross. It's like every other week, some bigger companies buying a smaller company. Like, you know what? My first thought was my first thought when they got what it was that Andy, is it that Overwatch 2 is also ruined by capitalism?
00:37:35
Speaker
That's right. I'm moving these stories forward. You can't stop me. So Overwatch 2's beta has been out and I haven't played it. I assume neither of you have as well. Oh, of course not. Nope. Yeah. Yeah. But I have watched a lot of people stream it. And I don't get it.
00:37:58
Speaker
And that's kind of been the, uh, that's been the refrain from, I want to say a majority of people, which is basically, this is not a two. This is a 1.5 at best. Now they've owned, this is a multiplayer beta. So they only released the multiplayer point. There's apparently supposed to be a single player version of overwatch too. And maybe that's really what the two is, the single player experience.
00:38:23
Speaker
Yeah, and the multiplayer will be given out for free to anyone who owns Overwatch 1. So Overwatch 1 players will get the multiplayer experience for free.
00:38:38
Speaker
What came in the beta is a lot of balance changes, some character reworks, noticeably like Doomfist is a tank now instead of a DPS and a change from 6v6 to 5v5, which people have kind of been opining on as like, I don't hate it, but I don't know enough if it's good or not. So everyone's just kind of like, this is what you've been working on for five years.
00:39:08
Speaker
Yeah, and the obvious answer is no. But the problem is when you're having a very public event, you don't have the new stuff to show while you even have a public event. Because the unwashed masses will cling on to, is this all you have to show? Which is fair because you're only showing the stuff that feels the same.
00:39:29
Speaker
Yeah, there's also I think was there one hero or two new heroes? Uh, I think they've only ever talked about the one new hero, but there should be sojourn. There's sojourn and was it like Baptiste or? No, Baptiste has been out. Okay, Baptiste. I when Doomfist came out, that's when I lost track of it. So, um, yeah, I don't know.
00:39:55
Speaker
They've also, we talked about this recently when we talked, we talked about the beta coming and also what is Overwatch doing. And I think we also talked about the only reason Overwatch 2 is Overwatch 2 is because Activision wanted to have a quote unquote new game on their slate and then it still hasn't released. So I think that push is also probably what pushed Jeff Kaplan out of the Overwatch team too.
00:40:19
Speaker
And man, do I want a memoir about that. Um, hopefully he was not a, one of the many serial abusers of Blizzard, but who, who, who wasn't at this point? Um, just waiting every day with baited Beth for that Ben Brode expose to come out. Aren't we Charles? Oh boy. That's the last one. Um, now we don't know anything about him.
00:40:46
Speaker
yet. Um, but no, it's just, I just feel so torn about this because here's the thing, right? With the multiplayer, I'm not paying anything for it. So I don't know why would I be mad about it not being a big change. It's really kind of just being mad at marketing. I think everyone's like, come play our new game. And everyone's like, this is the same fucking game. What are you talking about? You should just change the number of players.
00:41:13
Speaker
The one thing I saw that was a good criticism was it's a beta that allows you to play the multiplayer, but you can't select manually select maps. So you have to randomly get the new maps. Oh, that's disgusting. So you are you are all just as likely to play one of the old maps.
00:41:32
Speaker
as a new map. And so you're just playing the same game you were playing years ago with some new characters and, and, uh, remade heroes. Cause they did, um, do a bunch of, they did balancing around them, but that's not, that's the same experience.
00:41:50
Speaker
Yeah, like I seen a lot of people play it and they go, oh yeah, Overwatch was fun. And but then they go, but it's like they don't necessarily feel a reason to keep playing it. I don't know, man. And this is Overwatch.
00:42:06
Speaker
Overwatch made so much money. Overwatch was at the front of defining what esports looks like at a large scale. Like they were building arenas, right? Creating regional teams, adding structure and organization to esports, which is which is growing.
00:42:34
Speaker
I think DOTA and League of Legends paved that road for them, but they definitely did it. I think they were trying to outpace CSGO in terms of the shooter genre and failed to suck tack early. Although I don't know how the competitive CSGO scene is these days, I haven't really been paying any attention to it.
00:42:53
Speaker
I have no idea. I'm sure just kids are gambling for guns or whatever it is. And I just wonder, though, like you you create a overwatch to to want to such an influential franchise. And I can't believe you guys just said that you it's it's overwatch to put you play the same maps. Yep.
00:43:15
Speaker
You play the same maps. Why wouldn't you just make it with the new maps? Yeah, it should be. Yeah, it's just two maps, right? Yeah, there's only two maps. Why can't you could have even you could have even waited till you had more than two new maps if you wanted and different at least.
00:43:33
Speaker
What were they doing? Not that I should care about an evil corporation's money, but... Well, you care about the developers, Andy. I do care about the developers. I hope they were treated well. But Jesus Christ, what were you doing for five years when you could only pump out two maps and a hero? I think it's the single player, but we haven't seen jack shit about the single
Gaming Industry Updates and Reactions
00:43:54
Speaker
player. Sure, sure. Fair, fair, fair, fair.
00:43:57
Speaker
And except like except a cinematic trailer that came out in 2019, 2018. When was that? It was a while ago. It has to be bad. It was it was it was pre-trailer. It was good. Yeah. Well, yeah, every every overwatch. I mean, that's why we liked overwatch. Yeah. The art department is the single carrying team. It's every the company is on the art department's back right now. Oh, yeah. You release a trailer. You go, that looks pretty good.
00:44:28
Speaker
And then, oh, and you can't say anything about the rest of the company. Oh, everything else just feels like a disappointment. But that our team. Really disappointing. Yeah. So I don't know. I mean, we're going to obviously keep our eye on this, but to the, and like you said, once, once Activision is no longer under Bobby Cuddick's greasy grip, um, you know, we may, we may make our way back to experience their games again, although we still.
00:44:54
Speaker
Unless, unless, uh, unless Phil revives hots, I don't know. I don't, I don't know if I'll quite be able already to forgive them. All that money I soaked into that damn MOBA. Oh, that's what a good time hots was. I know. That's okay. But we'll see. But in the meantime, I have something for you to spend your money on except Sony said no.
00:45:18
Speaker
So remember the other week when we talked about Sony's complicated new, uh, PlayStation plus structure and are you familiar with how generally speaking when PlayStation plus goes on sale, you buy like three years of it and stack it.
00:45:35
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Because I think mine ends at like 20, mine ends at like 2026, I think currently. Well, what people figured out was based on the chart that they had put out was that if you stacked your PS now subscription, like you bought a bunch of like year long PS now subscriptions at a cheap rate, because frankly, no one wanted them to begin with. Those would those would convert the highest tier of the new PlayStation.
00:46:03
Speaker
system and it would have a significant savings over just buying it outright so people were buying like eight to ten years worth of playstation now and then getting those and then anticipating those that convert to the top tier of the new playstation plus structure and then suddenly friday i think
00:46:29
Speaker
Everyone was like, wait a minute, I can't put in more time for anything. I can't stack prescriptions anymore. And Sony confirmed that it has now stopped that. They saw what you were doing and they're very disappointed in you.
00:46:44
Speaker
How dare you take advantage of their systems? I guess that sucks, though. That sucks. I stacked PS plus. I mean, we're fine. Like the normal PlayStation Plus will still be a one to one transfer to the bottom tier of the new PlayStation structure, which is fine. I don't I haven't said.
00:47:10
Speaker
I haven't been able to get a clear reading on this now. It sounds like PlayStation now will three weeks of PlayStation now will hold on. For example, a one month PlayStation Plus voucher will provide access to approximately three weeks of PlayStation Plus extra or approximately two point five weeks of PlayStation Plus premium. A one month PlayStation Now voucher will provide access to approximately three weeks of PlayStation Plus premium.
00:47:39
Speaker
Extras the middle tier, premiums the top tier, and then I don't remember what the bottom tier was called. But let's see, quote unquote, as you prepare to launch the new PlayStation Plus memberships, we are doing some work line scenes to make transition as soon as possible for all our existing members. As a part of this work, we've temporarily disabled stacking memberships for existing customers until after the launch. Rest assured that your voucher code is still valid and you will be able to redeem your code either when existing membership expires or deactivates. Okay.
00:48:09
Speaker
It also adds, if you currently have a PlayStation Plus or PlayStation Down membership due to changes we were making in the service prior to launch, you won't be able to redeem a voucher for the service until your existing membership expires or deactivates or after the service launches in your area. So it sounds like if you got it in there beforehand, you're good. But if you haven't done it yet, any existing vouchers
00:48:33
Speaker
will then trigger based on that weird 2.5 or one week, three week conversion rate that I just said. Yeah, that was pretty complicated. Oh my god, Sony, why did you make this so complicated? It's not that bad, but it's more complicated than it needs to be. Yes, it is more complicated.
00:48:59
Speaker
Yeah. The funny part is, um, because they're, they're like, yeah, we're honoring all the ones previously. It is, it is definitely a message of, look, we let you get away. You had your fun. You guys had a week to fucking do it. And now we're stopping, you know, but now it's got to drop the hammer boys. Don't let me see you out here again.
00:49:22
Speaker
Well, someone, someone like to be any of the weeks, someone said, well, how many people are going to do it? We'll take it. It's fine. We'll, we'll take it on the chin. And then by Friday, they're like, um, we're losing billions of dollars and off. Um, Jesus. So yeah.
00:49:39
Speaker
It's just funny. We can't have nice things. We can't cheat corporations out of their giant piles of money. Who will protect the big man? That's right. They're releasing a Warcraft mobile game. Yes, they are. It looks like a mobile game.
00:50:09
Speaker
We're just piling on Activision Blizzard today. I haven't seen literally anything about this. I don't know. This is announced today, May 3rd. Warcraft Arklight Rumble, miniature heroes, colossal fun.
00:50:26
Speaker
Kind of looks, I don't know. Let's see. Is a mobile action strategy game set within the game, the Warcraft universe or collect minions? Minis come to life in battle and frantic melee skirmishes play in multiple modes, including single player campaign, going head to head and epic PvP battles. But I can go up and more experience the true meaning of joyful chaos. There's a gameplay trailer if you want to look. Yeah, I'm playing the trailer. I don't know. Let's let's see what this is. Like, I don't think it's a clash of clans, but it could be a cloud tower defense style.
00:50:56
Speaker
Also, they're designing everything so they look like like minis, like really like like little figurines. Oh, it's kind of cute. It is. Well, again, the art department is is on their back. And I'm sure. Yeah, it does. It kind of looks like a tower defense. So I guess they're kind of playing into the mobile theme a little bit, but not quite. I don't know, man. What Blizzard and mobile games are just they still haven't released Diablo Immortals.
00:51:22
Speaker
Wait, really? Oh yeah. It's a PC game now too. That's right. You can play it on PC. It's going to be available on PC, a game that you spend years designing for mobile and then you're just going to put it on PC. Call it a day. Every Android game is a PC game now with Windows left.
00:51:40
Speaker
Yeah, it's true But I don't know I just it's like You know what people saying our company's out of touch and we don't really deliver things that people want anymore mobile games though
00:51:59
Speaker
Yeah, this isn't the way to do it. I don't know. Or it could be really good. I don't know. I mean, it could be, but also it's they just continue to alienate their core audience, as we just talked about with Overwatch 2. But is this a way that you get the children into Warcraft? Who gives what child gives a shit about? Warcraft is for old people.
00:52:28
Speaker
It is like. Are are old people going to play this? I mean, maybe. Need something while you're pulling your young child in your other arm, you know. Well, I mean, though, like so take this sit as a sit against, you know, Clash of Clans or all those other whatever games that became immensely popular. They all look the same to a kid.
00:52:58
Speaker
That's true. So I will. I will say this. It's vertically aligned. And God, God bless him. God. I hate it. Yeah. I hate every game that is horizontally. Agreed. Agreed. I every time I think that I'm going to get into a free to play game, I immediately don't download the second. The second I have to turn my phone, I go, this game's not going to last. You and me, James, we're on the same page.
00:53:23
Speaker
Charles, the true gacha gamer here to tell you, that's it. Either alignment is fine for me as long as it has a good and reasonable gacha system, which I can't wait to hear about the microtransactions for this game. Yeah. Oh, they're going to be heavy. I guarantee you that. Exactly. And so when it is, and it's awfully heavy for a fucking tower defense game.
00:53:48
Speaker
Whatever, they could just be awful. Don't you want to get your collectible Torrin Guardian 5 or whatever? If you buy a hundred gems, you might be able to get Tyrion Forge Ring, Silver Hand, Ashbringer version. Ashbringer version.
00:54:09
Speaker
tier and four during post Legion version is just a charred corpse. No, that's wait. That's bull bar. That's bull bar.
00:54:20
Speaker
No, he dies in Legion. Tyrion does remember he gets Tyrion does that. Yes. Cause he's in. Yeah, but he wasn't shard was he? No, he had the light and then he gets bathed in fire and then you find them down the river just fine, but dying. Oh yeah. That's right. Yeah. Anyways, my disappointment is immeasurable.
00:54:46
Speaker
I just we want Blizzard to do well. I think that's the thing we talk about. We talk about them all the time because we have such an attachment to this brand in these in these properties only. Just just stop. Just stop tripping on your face, guys. Just let us like you. But instead, you do shit like this constantly. Oh, maybe one day they'll be good again. Maybe one day. But you know what's good now? What? Rogue legacy to.
00:55:16
Speaker
Oh, I heard really good things about that. That's right. Maybe I've been playing all week. I liked the first one. As did I. It's different. It's not.
00:55:29
Speaker
That's prettier. Um, and they added a bunch of things where it's, oh, hold on. Let me start back up. Rogue legacy two, uh, came out of early access this week and, or last week and is now a came out as point, you know, it's 1.0 version. So it's officially released and everyone likes it has on open critic has a critic average of 89 and a hundred percent of critics recommend you play it. Um,
00:55:56
Speaker
And I haven't played the original Rogue Legacy in a long, long, long, long time. Rogue Legacy is, I feel like, I mean, along with Dead Cells, right? It was one of those like leaders of the Rogue Lake genre.
00:56:09
Speaker
I would say so. It made world like fun for me. Yeah. Because it's not like, you know, a top down dungeon crawler. It was a 2D side scrolling game. And that's all. So is that cells? Yes, sorry. But Rogue Legacy was way before Dead Cells. Oh, no, I look this up. Rogue Legacy is old. I would say like 2017, 2016.
00:56:36
Speaker
Roke Legacy came out in 2013. Jesus, even older than I thought. Wasn't it on PETA? I think I played on PS4, so yeah, it wouldn't make sense. Yeah, and then when did Dead Cells come out? Dead Cells came out in Jesus Christ.
00:56:57
Speaker
That's like two, two, 2018. Yeah. So we're all legacy actually way back there. Yeah. One of the forebears, um, dead souls is older than I thought flies in a pandemic. You know what, Andy, I guess the other thing too is 2018 might be when it came out of early access. Oh, okay. Oh, really? I don't know. When did it go into early access?
00:57:23
Speaker
development. I just know when I played Rogue Legacy, I was like, Oh, maybe I could like and then I played Crypt of the Necrodancer and I don't need another Rogue like again. That is that is the perfect game.
00:57:37
Speaker
Oh, Early Access launched in 2017 for Dead Cells. So even so, it's still not that far ago. But either or. Yeah, I've been playing it since it released because I was like, oh, I liked Rogue Legacy. I would say it's a lot prettier. Not that the original game was ugly or anything like that, but the graphics are incredibly crisp and look beautiful and smooth to play.
00:58:00
Speaker
I think they've added a lot of quality of life improvements where it's like, hey, here's things you can do to make the runs easier, to make them faster. They actually added this system called home rules where you can actually just change the game outright to make it easier if you want.
00:58:16
Speaker
Um, but yeah, I mean, it's, it's been a fun little game to play. I am still get it's weird. I get into the, the actual lore of the game. And it's like around the time I've died, like my fiftieth time, like this family is not learning its lesson.
00:58:34
Speaker
Cause if you don't know Rogue legacy, every character is supposed to be the air of the character that you died as in your previous run. So it starts to get a little astronomical when you can scroll back and see every character that you've ever had. Some of which I'll just die instantly. Cause I'm like, this is a bad role. Why is he here? Um, but no, it's, it's a really fun game and I highly recommend playing it.
00:59:01
Speaker
I'm glad to hear it's good. I liked the first And then also coming out last week Oh Switch sports What was it switch switch sports including soccer tennis or badminton volleyball Bowling and
00:59:27
Speaker
swordfighter oh the swordfighter yeah chombo or whatever it was yeah um and volleyball right yeah i said volleyball um so here's the thing the switch sports reviews have been kind of mixed and that's because online wasn't it is this is an online first game which is a weird concept for nintendo to begin with let's all acknowledge that
00:59:53
Speaker
Nintendo really built this game and went, you know what, this is we're really going to make it so that this is not couch co-op. This is online co-op flying in the face of everything they've ever done in every game ever. But that online was not turned on until Friday. So reviewers really couldn't review the game.
01:00:13
Speaker
Because if you played in offline mode, you couldn't unlock things and you couldn't like, you know, get stuff for your character and other stuff. So I don't know if this game and I think it's gotten dinged for that. It's also missing, obviously, boxing and golf, right? Which are big things that people want.
01:00:29
Speaker
But I don't know. I've been watching people playing on streams and they've had a good time. They say it's fun with the Joy-Con. But I think, you know, I don't know if it has the lasting legacy of Wii Sports does rate where people are still playing Wii Sports to this day. I don't know if Switch Sports has quite the same kind of grasp. Only time will tell and that kind of thing.
01:00:49
Speaker
Honestly, golf is where I am, but... Yeah. I think the other big problem, too, for this game in particular is that it's not bundled with the... Oh, I'm sure you don't get it for free. Yeah. It is only $40, though. Yeah, but that's a little bit of an ask.
01:01:09
Speaker
And $40 is definitely more affordable. But for something like this type of game where you want it to be social and playful, it would have been nice to be able to do local and have eight of your friends in Hawaii play together.
01:01:26
Speaker
I think you can still do local. Can you? I hope so. I'm pretty sure you can, because again, we live in a pandemic era, so I've only seen people play online and I haven't launched it yet to look at it. I haven't downloaded it. I haven't launched it yet, mostly because I don't have a good place in my house where I can play, switch sports at the moment.
01:01:49
Speaker
But I don't know. I think I think you can still do it, but I think it's not that's not Nintendo's intended experience, which again, very weird for Nintendo. Yeah.
01:02:01
Speaker
No, I agree. And that's the thing. I I think it's going to be something I do end up getting visions of playing this with other people. And I'll probably play for just for funds sometimes around just because, you know, sometimes you just want to live a simpler life. And maybe you live in a giant stadium where you just play sports with other people. It's actually kind of like a mall if you've watched it. Yeah.
01:02:28
Speaker
Yeah. There's a lot of people walking around in the background. It's all the state, all the stadiums are in a mall. It is. It's very weird. I think they envision it as some kind of like, you know, colossal sports arena where every sports is available. But you know, the way it looks at it plays off is like, no, this is a mall. There's, those are people, those people are going to journeys.
01:03:01
Speaker
But yeah, I don't know play it see how you feel about it I might try to play it before the week's over I know I know my partner is actually looking forward to playing it. So we might play it together Oh Crusher and some fucking bowling Just fucking destroy her But anyway
01:03:22
Speaker
We'll talk about how I exert dominance in my relationship on another episode of Answer Party. She's going to come over here and punch me. I've been your host, James, the Lanesman, Hartwell, and I've been joined by... Charles, supporter of women's right, you might. And I've been joined by... Well,
01:03:51
Speaker
So I'm Mr. NPR, let's hear it. I was gonna say Andy. I don't know. Now I feel bad that I wasn't gonna support women's rights in it.
01:04:09
Speaker
I was going to say, you know, Kirby is the solution to capitalism, guys. Well, yes, your name, Andy. OK, Andy Kirby, capitalism, comrade Kirby. OK, let's go. That works. Thank you. Listen, women are losing the rights because of capitalism. It's all capitalism.
01:04:32
Speaker
We're falling apart. What is capitalism but patriarchy, Andy? Hashtag pro-choice. Pro-choice. It was just a draft, though. We don't know yet. I hope to God it wasn't real. I hope to God they realize how stupid they are. They won't fight back. Good night, everyone.