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August's Winners and Losers
47 Plays1 year ago
Join Dave and Jake as they talk about min-maxing fast food, Black Myth Wukong first impressions, the Azeron Cyborg II keypad, Deadlock's early success, Concord's catastrophic failure, and more in this week's episode!
Intro:
- Pyre - Glorious Tradition
Outro:
- GameChops - Undertale Remix Home (Ephixa KeyGen Chiptune Flip)
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Transcript
Food and Fast Food Fun
00:00:53
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of s soapstone. My name is Jake. I'm joined by my co-hosts as always, Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? It's going good. I want to take a nap from tasty food I've had earlier and my body not knowing how to deal with it. That's the standard human condition, I think. Eat in the nap.
00:01:15
Speaker
acceptance of the food that you've kind of put into it. Um, I want to nap and then eat. I want to stretch my arms. And as my arms are outstretched, somebody gives me like a, a nuggy or a chicken tendie. And I can just start snacking. Mm-hmm.
00:01:30
Speaker
It's kind of the modern equivalent. I think that there exists this old idea of like a grapes on a platter, right? The Greek sort of thing. They're like, Oh yeah, they're just feeding me grapes or whatever. I was just imagining like a ah Renaissance-esque depiction, art piece, majesty, like man reaching out to God or whatever, but it's just like a chicken nugget who's being fed.
00:01:53
Speaker
And he's dunking the nugget in the sauce. I mean, it'd be pretty good. and There was, um, McDonald's has been doing this thing. Um, no, I realize I get no street cred for talking about McDonald's food, but, um, they have this, uh, this thing where it's like 20 nuggets for like five bucks. And that's like a lot of chicken nuggets. I i would eat all of those and probably not feel the best, but like,
00:02:24
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's a good amount of nuggets for five bucks, yeah. Yeah, it's fairly good. I mean, they also had their like $5 meal deal thing, which is like yeah a sandwich of some sort, a burger, that's what it is. Like four chicken nuggets, which is weird. Like the number four is almost inconsequentially low, it seems like, but it does contribute to it. And then like a small fry and a drink. And I think I already said, I don't remember if I said it on the podcast or not, their their website, or if you order on mobile,
00:02:53
Speaker
it defaults the drink to a small because everything else is kind of like small size in the deal, but you can just click like more drinks and then just switch it to a large and it's the same price. To do that with the fry as well. Unfortunately, no, but but that's right. I mean, there also is, I have found that just eating a bunch of French fries does not agree with me as much as when I was younger. Definitely not. It's a lot of fat. Yeah. Well, I'm curious that they've never done anything. Maybe they have because I haven't been there in a bit.
00:03:23
Speaker
But basically putting nuggets on a sandwich because I like the nuggets. I like getting sandwiches. Just slap. Give me like whatever the fucking chicken patty is. Right. With like that default single piece of lettuce and like a little bit of whatever the spread is. Yeah. Throw some a nugget layer. You know. Yeah.
00:03:45
Speaker
Yeah, I think like Taco Bell will reuse its own ingredients in different ways and be like, what if it was assembled like this? They do. Oh, my God. The takox is gone. Uh huh. Yeah, I would say there's different fast food providers have like a level of adventurousness that they're willing to like branch out into.
Fast Food Innovations and Models
00:04:04
Speaker
And a Taco Bell is very adventurous in what they'll offer. And they're like,
00:04:11
Speaker
We just made this like absolutely insane thing. We just put like hot dogs in a burrito with cheese sauce or something like that. Here you go. We made 10 of them. They'll be available for two days. I mean, honestly, what they should do is like they should have like their standard menu and then they should like once every season, month, whatever the fuck it's going to be at select stores as you get to have like a not a mystery thing, but something that's going to be outside of the normal rotation that is kind of experimental. Yeah. And then if it does well, they're like, okay, maybe we should have other stores try this out. the The hot dog burrito or whatever. Yeah. There was some sort of, oh, it was Taco Bell. They actually had a, um,
00:04:57
Speaker
a promotion because you're talking about like a sort of like mystery thing. This isn't a mystery thing, but it is sort of this enthusiast customer space where Taco Bell had a subscription. um It was like a one time buy in. I think it lasted for a month. But it's like, hey, if you give us like 15 bucks or something, I can't remember how much it was, but I think it was like that. It's like literally every time once per day that you order Taco Bell, you just get nacho fries.
00:05:24
Speaker
um And I know someone ran the math on it and was like, well, I eat Taco Bell 15 times a month. This makes, this makes sense. It's insane, but it's also like, it's a decent business idea. Um, like, um, McDonald's equivalent is like, if you have their mobile app, you can like get a free fry, I think once per day or something like that. But it's like a small fry or whatever. I can't remember. It's something very low, but, um,
00:05:55
Speaker
And then Arby's was doing, um, they had a, uh, a month where you like, you got four, it couldn't be in the same visit. You had to come back for different times, but like for free sandwiches, you get like a Reuben or whatever the crap. I mean, I would also, I would also do that.
00:06:13
Speaker
Yeah. So they're all, they're all trying something. Even though the last Arby's was not the best experience, it was kind of underwhelming from what I remembered. Um, I still have a weird hankering for just like a roast beef sandwich and curly fries.
00:06:31
Speaker
I don't think it's ever really going to go away. That's just, Hey, have you ever wanted, have you ever had the munch? You just wanted something that's just going to be tasting good. Even though you're, you don't care about the consequences afterwards. I'm like, yeah, that sounds nice. Yeah.
00:06:45
Speaker
They have um um because all of these locations are relatively close to me. I eat other places, too. Don't hate me too much for this. But like I the thing about Arby's is they have an in-store mobile pickup. Still, you don't get it through like drive through. And there are times where I legitimately I'm like, I'm not going to go with Arby's because I don't want to just walk into a store. I don't want to stay in my car. I want to go through the drive-thru or whatever. um But I'm also at a place where like I have the rewards on my phone for all of these. And unless I can order and get points and use deals on mobile, because they're like they're they're like extensive, right? Like if you compare what you can get on mobile versus just going through the drive-thru, mobile saves you a lot of money.
00:07:38
Speaker
Um, I understand like why it's done that way. Like they want to give you an incentive to be like, Hey, have this thing on your phone. It's gonna remind you that we exist. And you're like, Oh, I guess I am thinking Arby's or whatever your slogan is going to be. ah But as a consumer who doesn't like keeping track of all that stuff, like I won't get the.
00:08:00
Speaker
giant bonus card or anything else. Like, do you have our membership? No, I don't. I never will. Because it's just going to stay in my wallet or on my phone. And my phone's going to be like, hey, you've all these unused apps. I'm like, yeah, shut up. It would be nice, though it wouldn't benefit the companies, to have an app that would essentially, I guess, like Honey, essentially just aggregate. Hey, here are like these deals going on. Or you can get a free thing going here.
00:08:29
Speaker
Like the first day of spring, I want to get a text notification saying go to read his dumb ass. Uh-huh. Get the free beam. I would like something like that. So it's like, I don't want to want to, Oh, I can go get a free thing here. That's cool. Yeah. It kind of.
00:08:47
Speaker
i'm I'm there with you. I don't generally, I'm not shopping around for fast food. If that makes any sense. Like I'm not doing the full couponing thing, but I'm just like, Oh, if I talk to my wife and we're like, okay, we want Taco Bell, I'll check their deals. Or if we want McDonald's, I'll check their deals or whatever. Um, because a lot of times like it is, it is extensive, right? Like I'm looking at the McDonald's stuff here, right? I have it on my phone and it's like 40% off 10 piece chicken McNuggets.
00:09:17
Speaker
Pretty good deal if you want 10-piece chicken McNuggets. Buy a breakfast sandwich, get one free. Excellent deal if you're planning on already getting a breakfast sandwich. I don't usually order fast food around breakfast time, but I used to when I had of it had a commute and stuff like that. um And it's like $5 20-piece chicken McNuggets. And this is also the last three I mentioned, all valid once per day.
00:09:38
Speaker
Insane. If you wanted to just die from fast food consumption, very easy, very economical. Somebody should make a movie about this. Super size me, yeah. That's the one movie reference I'll ever get. ah But yeah, I do find that if I'm already planning on going to the place, then pulling up the app is not a bad idea.
00:10:05
Speaker
And they all have some sort of reward structure. So I would say 75% of the time when I go to Taco Bell, um, I can throw in a free cheesy Gordita crunch. Um, or, um, yeah, or around 25% of the time I go to
Gaming News and Releases
00:10:25
Speaker
McDonald's. So you could just throw in a free, um, what's the thing? Big Mac, Big Mac. Um, so it's like, yeah, why not?
00:10:35
Speaker
You don't leave the Big Mac on the table. You take that off of the table and you leave with it for me. This is my Big Mac. I don't want to leave this unattended at an airport. Might be less than 25% of the time. I'm giving them too much credit. But for someone who likes spreadsheets and stuff like that, this is an outlet for me. I feel like I'm managing various currencies.
00:10:56
Speaker
It's this where I start playing Evic and Dave. That's all I can say. He's just ordering fast food and playing a boring online space game. yeah I'll be honest, having this conversation before I have eaten dinner, but like close enough to about dinner eating time, I'm like, Boy, this is a conversation. Yeah. That's all right. We can, we can leave it as a subtopic. It doesn't, I, I, I, uh, I'm thinking of making this the title now. Cause we spent, you know, a good 10 minutes or whatever pre-edit, we'll it'll cut down to like a minute 30. Yeah, for sure. Um, but, uh, min maxing fast food title.
00:11:39
Speaker
Anyways, this episode is originally about the gaming news and things we've been doing in the last month as it would pertain to gaming. Do you have anything that stood out for you um as far as what's been going on in the last month?
00:11:56
Speaker
I mean, the big thing for me is pretty much playing. And I'm going to use this joke once because I can. Mm hmm. Black with Jew dong. Mm hmm. That's correct name being Black Myth Wukong. Mm hmm. That has been that has been very fun. I've been enjoying it um slowly, you know, setting aside some time each day to play some.
00:12:20
Speaker
It's just been good. Uh, it's been reviewing pretty well. I've heard some other friends play and enjoy it. Uh, looking forward to continue on with that and maybe have an episode in the future where I go into more of the nitty gritty of mechanics and different bosses and stuff.
00:12:36
Speaker
Dave, I'm sure Dave thought about it. We had a little pregame talking about the upcoming holiday and he was like, all right, I can make it to, I almost doxxed myself. I can make it to where Jake lives, force him to buy and install this game and then cover it for the next episode. But honestly, having seen you play a little bit, it does look, it does look really good. Obviously that's the thing everyone knows is it's very pretty.
00:12:59
Speaker
um But even mechanically and stuff like that, it seems like it has a lot going on. So, um, it's moved up on my list into, uh, I definitely, I definitely don't think I'll pick this up and play it. I'll be honest for anybody who's on the fence. Uh, how's your butt doing the must really hurt? But also, uh, I think it's kind of easier than other quote unquote soul selects to a degree because you're not really kneecapped by dying.
00:13:30
Speaker
Right. If you die, it's like, okay, you're going to respawn at the last place you were at, but you don't lose your soul's equivalent. So you can constantly just progress over time. Right. So if you fail, it's like, Oh, I have to try again to get past that boss, but you're not, you're not penalized in that way. Yeah. You're not penalized. It is kind of interesting to.
00:13:53
Speaker
I mean, we don't have to do a deep dive on the game, but that specific mechanic of like retaining your souls, it almost seems like. I don't know if this is like the modern evolution of the soul genre, or if we could expect other games to go this way, but my initial impression hearing that is like.
00:14:12
Speaker
This is basically going to be the regenerating health for first person shooters, right? Like this might open up the space for people that otherwise wouldn't get into it because it's a little bit more approachable now. Yeah. You don't have to farm around for your health packs or armor things. Or if you saved in a weird spot and they're not giving you health stuff, you're just trying to like kill a boss from 16 health.
00:14:36
Speaker
Yeah, i don't know I mean, obviously there's certain things that are not true souls, but I'm not disappointed in that. I'm just like, okay, nice. I don't have to grind extra on this. Yeah. I was just thinking about it. And I mean, like we obviously cover a lot of souls games and.
00:14:56
Speaker
um it's It's kind of been an assumption since Dark Souls for me that you die, you drop your souls, you have to more cautiously go back to retrieve them, right? It's the it's the corpse run of of Souls games. And obviously it's part of the reason that they' it's seen with like all of this difficulty, but like the the the standout incident or the standout like experience is you died trying to get your souls back.
00:15:26
Speaker
And that kind of contributes to this like Souls games are hard. They're punishing. They're difficult. Right. It's going to kick you while you're down kind of literally in this case, because you died here down and it kicked you on the way back. And so. It's kind of known for that, but I don't know if that makes the game better, per se. No, it.
00:15:50
Speaker
It definitely changed you to be a more cautious because if you're playing safe, like, you know, where things are going to jump out of these corners because you've already gone this way, you know, which things kind of look out for you're trying to take on enemies one by one. If you're really good at the game and really familiar with it, you can just kind of sprint back, not engage with anything, but.
00:16:12
Speaker
If you're not a master at that portion of it, it's going to punish the fuck out of you and you'll be overwhelmed and you're going to lose out on those souls, which means that could have been like three levels. You could have invested in something and now you have to kill a bunch of enemies to get it back. Cause usually after you beat you to boss, you're like, Oh, I definitely got a surplus of whatever my soul currency is.
Gaming Mechanics and Gear
00:16:34
Speaker
Let me cash that in for something, right? Right. You don't want to risk holding it.
00:16:39
Speaker
Yeah, it's like in any game, you don't want to be holding on to too much stuff you haven't cashed in testing to. um You want to cash in to get the value and then not become a target. Yeah. Yeah.
00:16:53
Speaker
It's interesting. I don't expect all games will will follow that necessarily. like I don't think this is the big necessarily the big innovation, but I would see that if games want to tap into that Souls market a little bit more, um we might see certain aspects of that become a little bit more.
00:17:10
Speaker
a little less punishing um because you can make the boss as difficult as you want. In fact, literally Dark Souls. I can't remember where they started doing this, um but they started putting like your souls outside of the boss room on approach. I can't remember which game ah that started. It might not be Dark Souls proper. It could just be a Souls game. But the first one I remember seeing it in was Liza P. Maybe that's the one. Yeah, yeah.
00:17:37
Speaker
Cause I was like, Oh, I lost that ball and I had that, uh, that's sucks. You know, but I knew, I knew the course, like that's how it goes. And then I went up to the boss to try again. I'm like, wait a second.
00:17:49
Speaker
I got my stuff back. That could be it. They all start to like blend together a little bit over time. But um I like that, right? Because especially if you're walking into an area that you don't know is going to be a boss area, you're just kind of like jumping around through like, oh, this is a big open area. I never played video games before. What is this? And then it's like, duh, duh, duh. Yeah. and also like It sometimes feels like, um I know literally for Dark Souls,
00:18:18
Speaker
the there would be times I would go to a boss fight and just have like homeward bone ready or whatever just so I could claim my souls and then leave um and spend them or whatever just because I needed the reset out of the fight and I felt like running in to grab my souls and then trying to fight the boss I'd be fighting at a disadvantage I'd be starting from kind of like a different state than I was prepared just walking in the door it's kind of obsessive or crazy behavior, maybe for some people. But there's there are times where it's like, oh, I just really don't want to lose these. I can grab them and leave. But um yeah, anyways, we'll see ah see how everything else continues with that game. But so far, it's taken off crazy on like the outside of our experiences front. I know that it's the most played single player game of all time on Steam, I think.
00:19:14
Speaker
Um, yeah which is, I won't say it did, you know, have like two or three years of hype building, where it's like, ah Hey, we're going to announce this game. Um, cool boss fights. And it shows you one. And then it waited like a year and a half. It's like, Oh, we're still working on it. Oh, here's another boss fight. And they essentially kept doing that for a bit. And people were like, I mean, this seems pretty cool. When's it going to come out? And then.
00:19:37
Speaker
It finally dropped and has been doing well. Yeah. Yeah. So congratulations to them. They're doing, uh, doing the rounds and I think they hit the release cycle like right on point. Like this was, this was the time people were also available to play a, um, in depth single player game. So, um,
00:19:57
Speaker
Always nice have too nice to give the Eldering DLC appropriate time to... Yeah, Final Fantasy did it. that Other people should too. And they they literally did. Just in case you didn't catch that episode, they literally delayed Dawn Trail um because they were like, we want people to have more time to play the Elden Ring Shadow of the Year tree first. Wasn't it like a week? It was like a week, yeah. We'll do it a week after. It's like, thank you, Yoshi-P.
00:20:25
Speaker
Um, but I mean, that's what I've been playing new recently. How about yourself? Um, I'm still playing warframe. um All right. and back yeah Next episode. for Exactly. Right. Uh, I don't know. Um, I, I could talk more about it, but the thoughts are not super, super organized. And I have like various disparate and sometimes conflicting opinions upon about like how the game works. Um.
00:20:55
Speaker
I kind of just I'm not gonna get into it here. Maybe I'll organize that in some structure. We're gonna have more back and forth, but um It's fun. I'm enjoying it. I think right now I've been fairly busy with Some other stuff. So just having like a single sort of game that I've been playing um Has simplified that a little bit for me um Last night I worked until like 1 a.m. Technically um I had a little break in the middle for for for dinner um but Under the circumstances like that, I'm not like, OK, it's one a.m. Let me start a new game, right? Something novel. You're like, I want comfort food. Right. So. um That's what I have been doing, but. I also purchased a peripheral. A peripheral? Yeah, it was a peripheral for those who don't know. um So what's the crap? I thought of making the joke.
00:21:50
Speaker
um What, what would you call it if it's like a bong or something else like that for like doing drugs? There's a word paraphernalia paraphernalia. Thank you. I was like, it's, it's not that I couldn't remember that word. Um, so I bought a Azuron cyborg two keypad, um, which basically I showed pictures of Dave. What's, what's your initial impression on how this thing looks?
00:22:16
Speaker
It looks kind of like an exoskeleton hand. um It seems like kind of like a mouse plus because it has some like joints like attached to your fingers. um I think basically it's supposed to allow you to do more with a single hand than you normally would. Yeah.
00:22:38
Speaker
The joke more in itself.
00:22:42
Speaker
Ladies. ahha um So, yeah, it it has a little thumbstick on it that makes you think it would kind of work as sort of a mouse, but its main function is actually like a keyboard. So the.
00:22:56
Speaker
um the buttons on it and it's easiest if you like look at an image for this thing it's called the cyborg too if you want to look it up but um your left hand it exists for both left and right handed people but i'm right handed so right hand on mouse left hand in this like power glove looking thing And the ah there are switches basically for each of your fingers. um Your thumb is on the control stick or your joystick basically. um And it's kind of just like an improved Xbox 360 like stick. That's that's basically what it feels like.
00:23:29
Speaker
um And then each of your fingers has several buttons that they can they can reach. And some of them function kind of like triggers. You got like a pull actuation. Other ones are pressed down, or there's some in front. You can actually like flick forward with your fingernails. But the whole point of it is just to have really quick actuation with several like options available. While, and here's where the actual nice feeling part of it comes in,
00:23:57
Speaker
while moving with the thumbstick. Um, because if you're used to keyboards, WASD as I am, many people are, you'll know that like, you can't really press ah like action keys a lot of the time while you're also moving in and a direction. That's the big, yeah it can be a little hard. I mean, I know for certain things, like they definitely will encourage you to do.
00:24:25
Speaker
things that are close by WASD. It's not perfect, but it is what it is. My concern as an outsider for something as complicated as this or like a fight stick or something else, right actually, with all these options of inputs, it's actually easier for you to do these. That might be true, but the barrier to entry is learning a new control scheme.
00:24:51
Speaker
and Because I think everybody is probably fairly comfortable on like the QWERTY keyboard set up and how to type. And then to use those buttons in a game, you're like, oh, I know who these buttons are versus. Hey, translate all of that into your right hand. Go. And you're like, yeah, I'm sure it will take a little bit, at least.
00:25:12
Speaker
Yeah, in this particular, well, it it could be a right or left hand. But um the only thing I would disagree with is that is true. People are used to the keyboard if they're OG PC gamers, which I would classify myself as, to be fair. um People coming over, like, if you played console games and you want to switch over to PC, like, a keyboard doesn't make any sense.
00:25:34
Speaker
like um And by doesn't make any sense, it's like you can learn the keys, you can learn the buttons, stuff like that. It's always going to be kind of better for like side strafing, because it's really easy to just like hit a and D keys rapidly versus um control your movement with a thumbstick. But For those people, this can be a much more intuitive approach. um And it's also nice for people who have like range of motion issues. Like if you get carpal tunnel or you're fatiguing your fingers, like reaching for all these keys based off the layout. But I will say it does take a lot of getting used to. There were certain things I picked up. I'm playing it with Warframe ah predominantly. I haven't tried it in a shooter yet.
00:26:18
Speaker
um And there are some things where it's like I, it's very adjustable, like where all of the um the towers are that your fingers kind of fit into. And then I have mine rotated. There's like a stand for it. So rather than having my hand flat on the table, like I kind of would with a traditional keyboard, it's like rotated to the left. um for For anybody who hasn't actively googled this while we're talking about it, God bless you for imagining whatever the fuck this is. That's because I've seen a picture of it. I'm still a kind of.
00:26:49
Speaker
lost in the sauce a little bit. The easiest way to think about it is like the bottom half of an old style power glove peripheral that we're trying to get people to use in the 90s. Everybody doesn't know what power glove is. Yeah, exactly. that's that's That's where it gets a little bit more difficult. But um if your hand was just resting flat, they try to put the keys and triggers and things like that just where your hand is.
00:27:14
Speaker
um And it's very cool for multiple inputs. I will say it's very, very good for multiple inputs. That's where it it stands out. But um the towers can get in the way. It's not a full review, but yeah I've been playing with it and it is fun. I've actually found that it's kind of enjoyable just for the novelty of it.
00:27:33
Speaker
um And I do switch back to keyboard, obviously, if I need to type or you know engage with UI that requires a keyboard. um But otherwise, I'm using that in a mouse. And it feels um feels kind of cool. It's kind of like the jump from using a um like a keyboard for racing games up to a racing wheel. But I'm not going to say it's that advanced. That's a pretty big jump.
00:27:55
Speaker
Um, next time I'm over, I definitely want to see you actively using it so I can get a better idea for how it works. What types of games it might be a little bit better for or more optimized for. Yeah. The other thing is like, it does have, um, if you look at, like, look at the keyboard in front of you, if you have a keyboard in front of you, if you're listening on mobile, then sorry, I guess digital keyboard. But like, if you on WASD, your accessible keys are generally like QERF.
00:28:24
Speaker
Z X C or else kind of a little bit of a stretch V's available spacebar on thumb. Um, and then like one, two, three, four, five are usually kind of like, that's, that's the stuff you can just reach easily. T T and G depending on, you know, I will say like right now, if I'm doing as W A and D.
00:28:44
Speaker
My pinky is on the left shift, and then my thumb is on spacebar. Exactly. and Because I need to go forward, possibly slide with shift, and then jump with space. Yeah. So for the pragmatic for the pragmatic ah thought towards this, the idea is, could you be doing more with your thumb? Could you be doing more with your pinky? What if each of your fingers could reach four inputs reliably instead of whatever the keyboard provides?
00:29:11
Speaker
um but really weird to get used to. So was this done as like a you're trying to fulfill a need and essentially like close the gap on something? Was this a, hey, this would be cool to try and also it would have this added benefit of potentially. Mostly the second thing, ah there's also one input in Warframe in particular that um it's called ah bullet jumping.
00:29:42
Speaker
And it's an input of you're going forward, usually with momentum. So you probably tapped shift by default to like run. And then you crouch. And while you're crouched, you start sliding. And then you hit spacebar, which causes you to like propel forward in this kind of like tornado move. And it gives you a bunch of momentum. And I was like, that's great. I like doing that. It seems optimal for traversal.
00:30:06
Speaker
it kind of sucks to just hit these buttons over and over again on a keyboard. And technically, maybe I could have rebound stuff to make it a little bit more ergonomic. um But it's just like, flawlessly easy on this.
00:30:19
Speaker
I actually got better with bullet jumping on the keyboard before the product arrived. So it was kind of funny, but I was like, I'm going to use it. All right. I'm in. I'm in. I'm going to use it. I've looked up all this stuff about it and it just it reached a point, a level of I'm interested in this to the point where I was like, I got to try it. So it also looks cool. It's um mine is ah black and green and like mutant colors and stuff. So that's nice. Classic Evangelion. Mm hmm.
00:30:48
Speaker
um But we also don't talk about hardware that much because I mean like we're not varying our setup. So there you go. We've expanded the scope of the podcast and now we're a hardware review. so The only change in my setup is really. um I have a razor chroma keyboard, so it's on like the slowly changing through the rainbow of colors. That's it. It's nice though. It is aesthetic. I was enjoying kind of fucking around some of the other options previously of like the ripple of effect, ripples yeah but then I was like,
00:31:21
Speaker
This is going to drive my brain crazy. Yeah, it's distracting. But it's also really cool because you can have specific things for different games. So in something like Dota, your big buttons are typically QWER for your spells. So to have those lit up specifically, maybe certain other things for like bound to shop or lock on to your character or something else. And to be able to do that for like different games, like oh I'm switching over to CSGO or Counter-Strike 2,
00:31:50
Speaker
And then to have those specific buttons, you would need to press lit up. Again, it's very cool. Like ah this is a customizable thing. Oh yeah. I'm going to be a hard G gamer and be all cool versus just, you know, soft G and. Yeah.
00:32:06
Speaker
At the end of the day, it's just a cool, fun thing. Yeah, it's just I don't need my keyboard to light up. I don't need a special. Sakura branch key pad, which I have instead of my F1 mainly because having more than one. They're expensive. Custom key caps. It is kind of fun, though, to just have like the one, though, you're like.
00:32:32
Speaker
this it's it's like a it's like a garnish or like a gilding yes the keyboard yeah it's anybody who's like that's stupid have you ever put pins on a jacket or like a computer case or put magnets on your fridge or decorated anything or worn jewelry shut the fuck up i mean everybody has their own thing where they want to make it more aesthetically pleasing for themselves right exactly and which is why i have a
00:33:01
Speaker
I was going to insert some inappropriate joke there, but like gilded cockering or something. Right. I don't know. really that It's very much for you, but it is nice to go to a space where you're like, Oh, this is my comfort zone. Oh yeah. Yeah. Nothing wrong with that at all.
Game Launches and Market Analysis
00:33:22
Speaker
um Other stuff happened um and in in the last month. We had a couple of games that I don't think have had the best launches and then one that's had a far better launch. I'm going to start with one that didn't have the best. We'll start with the egregious one. The one people probably may already know about because literally the coverage of its failure is more widespread than the players of the game. ah Concord had its official launch.
00:33:50
Speaker
um into what may have been the worst live service launch of all time. That is wild. Cause they had a trailer at Jeff Keeley's event and Those are expensive in and of themselves, let alone how much it went into game development. Yeah. For anybody who doesn't know what Concord is, though, it's basically a guardians of the galaxy vibe ah team shooters and they do something like Overwatch, where you have a character who can shoot, but they also have abilities specific to them. Yeah. Yeah, it's got elements of that. And then some of the CSGO Valorant kind of like objective sort of gameplay.
00:34:34
Speaker
um And typically I'd say that's pretty hot right now. Yeah. As far as it being in the, the zeitgeist, I think, I think you touched on something here, which is I have ideas for why this failed. Um, and I don't know which one is absolutely correct, but you say it's hot. And I think that like, there are a lot of people playing this type of game.
00:35:03
Speaker
But what Concord perhaps missed was that those people that are playing this type of game already are playing that version of the game that they want. Yes. It's also hard to start up like a new IP and be like, you should like these characters ah because if somebody is playing that type of game like Overwatch and they're like, oh, I love playing May and Winston. And they're looking at this other game.
00:35:28
Speaker
and be like, oh, this character kind of has elements of a character I'm already kind of familiar with. yeah um You just kind of see some of those similarities and there's not enough differences that stand out where you're like, oh, I want to play this one over this one. Exactly. Yeah. And Concord experimented with some things that are like a little bit harder to stomach if you're used to playing these types of games in a certain way already. By that, I mean like characters had a lot of health. So like time to kill was pretty high.
00:35:58
Speaker
um Like even the assassin type character, they go in stealth, sneak around and kill people. Like yeah um it was nothing like the spy in TF2 where it's an instant kill. Like you have to be channeling some damage into them. Their team has time to peel and respond. It's closer to like MOBA time to kill um before the enemy team has gotten so far ahead of you. that You're just getting absolutely destroyed, right? um And so that was one factor. So people who were like more familiar with like CSGO or Valorant um where they're used to like the shooting aspect being emphasized are likely to not engage with that as much. um Then they had other things like you had to pick multiple characters that you were um to basically like lock into play, essentially. And then like the characters that you picked games like team buffs and stuff, but it didn't have the ability to switch freely, like an overwatch. um Nor did it have the commitment to a single character like in um
00:36:58
Speaker
Like in Dota, for instance, right? In Dota, you start a game as a character. You're locked in for the entirety of that game. The idea of switching characters mid-game is insane. And in Concord, they force it between rounds. You cannot play the same character um exactly as they were. Maybe um variant, but not with the same loadout. That's interesting.
00:37:21
Speaker
So it was like kind of set like a round format where let's say you had a payload thing. You would do three rounds of that and you couldn't play the same character each time. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That seems with no other context. Stupid. Mm hmm. Because like if I'm enjoying playing a character, why would I want that taken away from me? Exactly. Right. And like with the Overwatch thing, it's hey, this isn't really doing well.
00:37:48
Speaker
Um, for like whatever build they have for their team comp, I shouldn't be playing a sniper while they have a Reinhardt shield. I should do something else that can maybe pure shield or disrupt. So you switch something for the moment and you, maybe you give out on your old charge, right? Yeah. That's the a cost you pay. There's no ults in this either. I should mention there's no. oh ah Why not? That's usually like the the hypest thing. We're like, hey, you're rewarded for doing well for dealing damage to an enemy or some type of progression. Oh, here's your big thing you can spend. Yeah, I don't know. It's. Again, anytime you're forcing players to do something in a game, it needs to be something that they're going to fucking love instead of. Because, yeah, just losing that agency, it it costs a lot. Yeah.
00:38:39
Speaker
It's almost the, I would argue it's almost the worst of both situations where like, if a player is enjoying a character and, or they're learning the character, both states where they want to stay on them, like in their current state. Cause I think that you could play the same quote unquote character, but like force loadout changes or force changes in some other ways for it. Um, but regardless, if they're still getting a grip, coming to grips with it, or they feel like what they're doing is working, um, forcing people off of that.
00:39:07
Speaker
can make them feel like you're forcing them away from a winning position right um if it's working well. And conversely, compared to like Overwatch, if you care if you're just getting stomped into the ground, you're like, I have no idea why I picked Widowmaker. I have only fed. I haven't gotten any kills.
00:39:25
Speaker
Um, it's absolutely not working to be like locked into it. Makes you feel like you don't have any agency to improve the situation. Right. Yeah. You just recognize something for the round to be done and I'll pick some other character. I guess. You've recognized there's a problem, but the fact that you have the adaptiveness to change, which would usually be like a good trait can, can't reward you in the game because you're locked in. So. Like.
00:39:53
Speaker
I think that all of these aspects basically came together to form a game that people just didn't want to play versus the game that was in front of them already. And so there was ah a skill up video that came out like ah that this week as a recording. And like the title was there are 74 people playing Concorde on Steam right now. And it's like, that's that's not good. That's astronomically low. It's very, very low. If you made a game.
00:40:23
Speaker
solo and you published it and it was it's sold like Concord did, you'd be like, I'm concerned about the sustainability of my indie game. And this is a game that Sony published that was created by ex-developers from Destiny and Halo. And but those could be the same group of people technically. um And they really, really wanted this to be their entrance into the live service sphere.
00:40:52
Speaker
and Instead, it might be the, uh, here's a giant warning sign stabbed into the ground. Be careful about live service right now. Yeah. I mean, it's always a ah dream, an idealistic dream where you have.
00:41:09
Speaker
these good components. If I just mix them together, surely something good will come out of it. But like fruitcake exists. So clearly that's not always the case. Yeah. Um, you definitely need some other things with it. I mean, maybe the gameplay, as far as how the characters feel and the movement, maybe that is really good. Maybe they did succeed in some other parts of the game, but. That's what reviewers have said is that like the moment to moment gameplay feels fine. It's just that there's all of these other factors surrounding that. Yeah.
00:41:39
Speaker
But if, if you have one thing that's fine, but then you have some like baggage attached with it, you're going to be comparing that to something you already like or something that is good. And you're like, but why not the one without the problems? Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. You need to meet and exceed in order to succeed in how, um, competitive, especially the live service shooter market is right now. Right. Like.
00:42:02
Speaker
If you wanted to play a shooter, you could play Destiny. You could play Halo. You could play Call of Duty. You could play Overwatch. You could play Valorant. These are all out there. um And there's another game we should mention as well that actively is kind of kind of be competing, even though it's not the same type of game. And Concord just didn't do it. They didn't pass the waterline. And so there's not going to be that group of people you know telling their friends, hey, I'm playing this game and it's awesome. You need to jump in too.
00:42:33
Speaker
So ah hopefully it works out for the studio and the developers and everybody like that. um But yeah, there could be a patch type thing where like they see this is like a major grievance or major issue and they might try and tweak some things to maybe have like a second kickoff of like, hey, ah patch one point two, we got rid of some of the dumb stuff.
00:42:59
Speaker
They give it the realm reborn experience like final fantasy. They literally take the game down and drop Bahama on the, on the universe and then rec recreate it. Um, yeah, we'll see. Um, I don't know if there's my personal personal view is that this was so far of a mess that this might not see the light of day again. Um,
00:43:23
Speaker
It's just going to join things like suicide squad and, and other games but that came out. Yeah. Right. Like some people played that, but I think the live service model, they're like, we're committed to this many season passes or whatever. And then they're like, we have to wind down after like two months. So, um, yeah, live service is tough right now. A lot of competition, big stuff out there. Big fish. So what was the other release that happened recently that also did not do so hot?
00:43:52
Speaker
Oh, for the one that didn't do so hot. That's what I'll be briefer about. um It released into early access. um But I don't think that gets the game as many points as it it otherwise would. We have Stormgate, um which is an RTS created by Frost Giant Games, ex-developers for StarCraft II and Warcraft, in particular, Warcraft III, I believe. um So they had they had the resume, right?
00:44:19
Speaker
bye This came into early access. It's got three races. um And the. it It has some of those Warcraft elements like creep camp sort of, and then it has some of the Starcraft elements for, um you know, base building unit development and stuff like that. But it's just really, really struggled to find its feet. um And I believe it's mixed on steam. The last time I checked. um And it doesn't.
00:44:49
Speaker
it doesn't look like it's going to take off. And this is the hurtful thing. This is what it's all building to is the sentiment generally funnels into playing this game makes me want to play Starcraft two. Yeah, that's that's a rough thing. I remember when we talked about Payday three. The overall consensus is like in Payday two is kind of all right and not having these issues. I kind of want go back and play that as like, that's where my nostalgia was. That's where I enjoy that type of game.
00:45:19
Speaker
Um, yeah, RTS is a rough one to also try and get into when like, I mean, Starcraft's obviously a huge pioneer along with Warcraft. Blizzard kind of has like the, the foothold of, this is very popular RTS that people know. Right. Um, I know some things tried like great goo. You don't really hear about that. Um, it was a good game. I enjoyed it. I didn't play it too much beyond like the single player campaign.
00:45:50
Speaker
Yeah, it was one of those things where like it was good enough to be like passable, but it wasn't winning over hearts and minds. And then. Like, you're not telling your friends about it. Yeah, I'm not playing a game recently, like kind of. Because I played some great goo for a little bit. Yeah, it's your it's a I beat the game type of game, not like I go back and I play this as sort of the recurring. ah Recurring type of games that we play like Dota or Starcraft or whatever.
00:46:20
Speaker
Um, and that's, that's fair. If that's what you're going for, it kind of like single player um RTS campaign. And this is one of the gripes people have had for storm gate is like, it has some single player stuff that still needs to be worked through, but it's not engaging enough to get people into the universe. And you can contrast that to you. You mentioned like the OG Starcraft. That was what OG Starcraft was is they were like.
00:46:47
Speaker
Here's a campaign. Oh, it it seems like people really like the campaign. We're going to continue to build on that. We'll expound on the multiplayer. We're going to, you know, battle dot net and all that jazz. Um, and eventually the multiplayer thing completely eclipsed the single player. But if the single player sucked or if people weren't engaged by the single player Starcraft would have never been successful in a multiplayer context. No, but they have great fucking music.
00:47:15
Speaker
They had great atmosphere building for stuff in game and even like between the levels with whichever different quote unquote narrator um letting you know what's going on and which players are involved. And the campaigns also intertwined. They were connected. Yeah. So it wasn't like three completely standalone things that were unrelated.
00:47:38
Speaker
which I'm sure other types of RTS campaigns probably do have, I would hope, ah some overlap and feed into each other, where it's a cohesive story. Grey Goo kind of lifted it exactly. That same kind of structure is switched from this faction to that faction to that faction. But oh but like, Starcraft 1 definitely pioneered it. yeah And that's kind of the issue from what I've heard. And and to be clear, I haven't played Stormgate, but I really wanted to, based off of popular sentiment.
00:48:08
Speaker
And the popular sentiment is the art style feels kind of like anime sort of bland-ish and the engagements don't really feel impactful between the units because it's kind of a mix between Warcraft time to kill and Starcraft, which tends to be like a lot faster paced. Like units can die very quickly, especially versus other certain compositions.
00:48:32
Speaker
Um, so battles feel more intense. And this one, it's kind of like, they're just revolutionary war ask, like line up. All right. Let's shoot at each other. Okay. You had more guys. GG. I'll just quit. So would you say it's kind of like some of the war hammer games, uh, like war craft, more crafting, or, or were you saying, I was saying war hammer. Cause like, there are some versions of war hammer where essentially you do have armies that you're managing.
00:48:58
Speaker
Which is a little bit slower as far as the the combat. It's a little more tactics based. It's true. But like that type of game, I think, plays more into the very high level battlefield commander, dealing with terrain types, dealing with range attacks versus calvary. Here's your mortars. Like here are all these different types of unit compositions and then magic and stuff on top of it. Do you think it feels like just more of a slower work graph?
00:49:28
Speaker
Yeah, it kind of feels like ah it looks like a slow, slow kind of Warcraft. The thing is, it doesn't necessarily even seem slower than Warcraft. It's just Warcraft was a slow game because you had these heroes, they had all of these like abilities, they had health pools. And if you went back and played Warcraft, you'd be like, this is really slow compared to like Starcraft, right? But as an industry, we've kind of gotten more used to the faster games. Yeah.
00:49:58
Speaker
Uh, part of it is just how much time people have to like, Oh, I need to sit down and and do a game. Now they have like a free hour. who Yeah. I think the other part is when games started out, the technology wasn't there and the players were not there either. As far as how fast you could have information process in your brain and then respond to it. Yeah. Um, then South Korea existed and.
00:50:28
Speaker
we We haven't looked back. We haven't been able to because if you if you start to move your neck a little bit to the left or right hand side, instant whiplash.
00:50:38
Speaker
um His APM went down by three. He's dead. He's dead. He's dead. No, it's it's it's crazy. But yeah, having seen I watched like a couple of games and the difference in hype and intensity between like what's capable at high level Starcraft versus admittedly pros like I saw you thermal um playing on in Stormgate. It's like the game's just slower. um Hopefully it can still find its footing like I said it's early access but there is the big issue we've talked about this before where first impressions matter.
00:51:11
Speaker
And if you're trying to launch into a competitive scene instead of just slowly kind of grassroots build community for your game, um first impressions are absolutely essential. It was the death of Concord. I would not like it to be the death of Stormgate. I hope they can find the time to pivot into what they need to be.
00:51:31
Speaker
But. Tough. It is. And I don't want to be like the armchair video games expert. I want to come off that way because I'm literally just a guy as is well. Jake's actually a demi-guy, but we don't go into that too much. But I'm a demi-guy. Demi-guy. Half Half demi-guy.
00:51:56
Speaker
um And yeah, it's not like we want to be shitting on stuff, be like, ha, they failed. Fuck you. Because we don't want that. um We would like to see games succeed and do well. um But we also want them to be made well. Exactly. and Again, we're we only critique because we love. Yeah. And we've we've seen good things in the video game industry that like do really well. And we're very excited to talk about them, whether it be Blacksmith Wukong and Armor Course 6.
00:52:31
Speaker
Um, Baldur's Gate three, like things that have come out within like the last bit that have done really well. And it, you can see some of those elements of why. Right. And it's always unfortunate to not see those same elements as far as design or focus, or however, they're treating their game as far as microtransactions in other spaces where maybe they could have made a different decision somewhere and it could have been successful or it could have had a better launch at start. Yeah.
00:53:00
Speaker
Do you know what I saw today on my phone as far as like here's random news things you might be interested in? What'd you get? I saw a live action trailer for vampire survivors going to PS4 or PS5 and Xbox one or something like that. Yeah, it's been popping off. Do you remember when it was like, hey, this game came out. Oh, my God. Only the cost three bucks. And it just hits my endorphins and serotonin. Yeah. And now it's we have so many cross platforms, so many patches.
00:53:30
Speaker
We found that game very early. I think you you were playing it. um I think maybe a friend had introduced it to us. I can't remember exactly if it was if you if you were the first hipster um to buy and play this game or if there was another person. But I think that their success largely was due to the amount of coverage we gave them. so Yeah. And if you want to get coverage by us, you should reach out to our business email. Uh-huh.
00:53:56
Speaker
But no, again, it's a that's a good example of a smaller scope thing. And it was polished. Yeah. It knew what it was. It didn't try and go beyond its scope and say it's all those of make promises about multiplayer or online or anything else. It was a simple fun game. And they just kept adding to it because they had fun doing it. And then you get these new characters, um you get these new weapon abilities, you get these new maps, you get there's fucking quests now, there's.
00:54:26
Speaker
It grew, but it grew from a passion project and people liked it for what it was. It also very importantly, even though it launched into early access, it launched into a very compelling, enjoyable game, right? Like your first impression for that wasn't maybe someday this will be good. And then you just like shove it into the early access death closet of games that you never come back to.
00:54:48
Speaker
um Like it was compelling off the jump and you wanted to see, you wanted to follow along. You wanted to see those updates. Um, you have to do that as early access. Um, but vampire survivors, I agree a hundred percent. Like it it didn't launch with a whole bunch of unfinished features and things that.
00:55:10
Speaker
were very obviously missing or that would cause you to not enjoy the game. And it built on top of it, right? like they They had like a partnership with Castlevania at some point, didn't they, I believe? I think they did. I'm going to look it up, but. I believe so, because I know Castlevania took the rounds as far as other things getting tied into. we We talked about DBD, but yeah.
00:55:34
Speaker
um Yeah, vampire. It was maybe it was dead cells. I can't. I mean, dead cells is also one. Detzels was definitely one. I'm trying to remember if the vampire survivors was or not. They did have a Konami collab, but they did it with Contra instead of Castlevania, apparently. Okay. According to what i what I looked up, which is very funny. That's actually hilarious. um Because it switches to specifically guns. Kind of a vampire related game. Okay. Contra. I could kind of see it. It's got it's got a lot of bullets on screen, but.
00:56:13
Speaker
Yeah, there's, there's a path to success. We're industry insiders, but we are also soft G gamers ourselves. So we want to see games succeed to echo what you said. But speaking of game succeeding, this is my desperately, um, deadlock out officially announced. There's not enough time in the podcast to talk about all the deadlock stuff. And we did, we did cover it a little bit earlier, but.
00:56:40
Speaker
having literally just listed a store page, um this is the launch for other than black myth, obviously, but multiplayer game. This is a multiplayer launch. A lot of people playing it. I've seen coverage on YouTube from channels that just are suggested to me or people who played other games like Datto from Destiny, SK from Overwatch. They're all like covering this game, starting to put out guides and stuff like that. It has momentum.
00:57:08
Speaker
How do you feel about a deadlock, Dave? Would you play this? I would. I'm not yet sure what exact space it falls into. I mean, obviously, people who've been playing Dota are going to follow it because it's a Valve thing and it has mobile elements. um Somebody said that, I think, correctly in the Discord the other day, where we're not expecting this to be a replacement for Dota. Yeah, that'd be dumb. But if like people were like,
00:57:36
Speaker
I'm kind of good on like doted for the night. Oh, who wants to like play some deadlock, right? You still get some of those familiar elements, but you get the mix up of it being a third person shooter, but still having some of those familiar abilities and lanes. Um, I think as far as theming, it's really good. As far as some other stuff, I think I mentioned before, it's a little busy for my brain right now, as far as how much verticality there is and how you can move between lanes.
00:58:03
Speaker
But I think that will come with time and experience just playing the game. Right. um But yeah, you for Overwatch launched to like people had a harder time looking up in a shooter for a while. Crane's neck. Yeah, I would like to see it do well because it's been a while since Valve has had like a new thing and like artifact did not really do so hot. and we Pretend that didn't happen. It was there and then it kind of fizzled out after a couple of months.
00:58:35
Speaker
um Yeah, I definitely do think it is engaging enough right now. ah but I do see them making some balance patches and other changes as maybe more people are a part of it. Yeah. And there's gonna be more player feedback. um I don't know how much is going to take off.
00:58:55
Speaker
Um, until maybe like a met is established with some of these pro players where it's like, Oh, this is really good at this. I like to play his character to push and what have you. Yeah. Um, but I'm expecting it to at least do better than artifact. I will say that. It already has. It's like 90,000 players at launch, right? Yeah, it was, I don't know the exact count. I'll take a word for it. That sounds about right. It was very successful. Um,
00:59:22
Speaker
No contest versus Concord. Just hit the button combination immediately. um is Straight back to character select. ah Yeah, it's it's very funny because I actually think that if Concord was the only... It's not a MOBA, but hero shooter-esque game to come out in that space, people be like life services struggling that would be That would be the message for the month, basically, with the success of Black Myth, the the struggling Stormgate Concord, stuff like that.
00:59:52
Speaker
but deadlocks popping off. So people actually do wanna play a new interesting dynamic thing. um Enough time is clearly passed and it's like, smite, Paragon's not an option anymore. So, although there there are always resurgence type games coming out for Paragon, but they don't usually get them ah the community to stay alive too long, unfortunately.
01:00:15
Speaker
Um, I think I need invite of the reasons before we in the episode, someone sent me an invite to deadlock. I don't know how. Okay. We'll look it up. Sent a code. You don't have to send codes anymore. We can, we can walk through it on the side off of the episode. If you want an invite, a this is how we expand our audience. I will say this very briefly. Um, as far as deadlock versus something like Paragon. Yeah. Um,
01:00:45
Speaker
deadlock, everybody has the same basic movement by default. You have a dash, you can't have like a double jump. So there's not like, Oh, this person's only melee, right? yeah Everybody has guns. Everybody has abilities, but the way their guns and abilities work are going to be a little bit different per, um, but having that even playing ground is huge compared to Perry on where it's like, you're a melee guy with a scythe. Good luck. Yeah.
01:01:13
Speaker
Yeah. And it was fun to have like different unique play styles, but obviously if you're in lane with somebody who's range, you're like, you kind of make the same argument for, for MOBAs in general though. Like you can walk up as tiny versus like a sniper and be like, this is a situation I need to play a specific way. yeah And it's a MOBAs responsibility to give you options for it's like, okay, if you are in a situation where you can't just trade with the opponent, what do you do?
01:01:42
Speaker
That's where the depth comes from, I think. But I see what you're saying. I agree. It is good to have some sort of equal footing for how the characters can engage with each other off the jump for new players in particular. Yes. Cause a big thing with Dota is you hop in and it's like, Oh, is this like that? No, they're not like anybody else. Forget everything you know, start from grounds. zero ahha Yeah. Yeah. I can't recall exactly who I was seeing play, but they were playing as a guy who like turning to a briefcase, going vulnerable and being a briefcase for a bit. And then the briefcase would like explode. Um.
01:02:17
Speaker
And it was like it was just like a a panic button sort of thing where I need to avoid whatever's about to happen sort of thing. um But yeah, it's they they they have they were have really cool characters. like Look them up. it's not You don't have to question the ethics of talking about this game anymore now that it's been efficiently announced. um Thanks to The Verge for taking that bullet and motivating Valve to officially launch this, or at least open the Steam page.
01:02:47
Speaker
the last thing I wanted to mention and then I'm good for, uh, for deadlock. Cause I know we're going to come back to it, especially once I get that in invite. But, um, apparently there was one guy on Twitter that was just lighting up valve.
01:03:01
Speaker
about the release of this because on the Steam page um they had just like a single ah video I think for like a trailer for the game and they didn't have the correct either they didn't have screen shots at all um or they didn't have enough screenshots to technically meet the minimum criteria to be listed on the store page according to their own Steam guidelines. So if another game would have launched with like those options for the preview, ah it would have been declined, but Deadlock got forced through, so he's just all caps letting them Twitter about this.
01:03:38
Speaker
I thought that was funny. That's that's a cute thing to be upset about, I guess. Uh huh. Yeah. But the media is out there. ah You already know about deadlock if you follow anything for gaming and you'll probably know more about it if you continue to follow us. But if you would like to continue to follow us, um
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
01:03:58
Speaker
that's not the format. If you have things that we would like to follow, if you have things that we should follow up on, you have the scoops in the the gaming news. Maybe you have some deadlock information. You want to just leak that to us. Soapstone podcast at gmail dot.com or join the discussion on Facebook at facebook dot.com slash soapstone podcast. And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Bye bye.