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What's the Point of The Game Awards?
6k Plays11 months ago
On this week’s episode of Windbreaker, Yahtzee, Frost and Marty dissect this year's 'The Game Awards' winners, announcements, random Hollywood celebrity appearances and the increasing commercialization of gaming's-- oh sorry, we're being told to wrap it up.
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Transcript
Introduction and Merchandise Promotion
00:00:00
Speaker
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00:00:26
Speaker
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Podcast Host Introduction
00:00:58
Speaker
Welcome to the windbreaker broadcast, everybody. Slightly delayed, I had to like, scare together some things. But yes, I'm Yahtzee Croshaw. I'm joined by Marty Sleever. Hello, everyone. And by Sebastian Ruiz. Aka. I love it. I love even my old teachers, the ones that just put their whole ass into it.
00:01:25
Speaker
That was some good tongue rolling. Yeah. Thank you. But we're not here to talk about people's surnames.
Game Awards Predictions and Outcomes
00:01:32
Speaker
We're here to talk about the game awards that were announced last week. Normally I do a thing where I avoid the news for it and you surprise me with them. But on this occasion I felt moved to check on what the actual winners were.
00:01:47
Speaker
You checked them pretty quick, because it was by the time our stream had ended, you popped into it just to announce that you're pretty good at predicting these. Well, I was excited. Yes. I mean, you know, I'm not one to brag. Oh, wait. No, I am one to brag. And because of that, I'm now going to brag. But you'll remember several weeks ago, we did our predictions podcast with Stephanie Sterling, when we talked about what we predicted the Game Awards winners would be. And I reckon I was about 90% right.
00:02:18
Speaker
If I had the time, I was actually going to go check and see who said what on official standing and then do a big old tally. So I do not remember what I said. I just delete my memory after podcasts. So I do not remember what my predictions were. I kept mine like on paper. I don't know. That's good. Yeah. Just to talk to them. Yeah, go for it. Well, I predicted Baldur's Gate 3 would be game of the year and would also be best RPG.
00:02:43
Speaker
Sure. I predicted they would fob off Alan Wake 2 with best game direction. I'd also got best narrative, which I didn't believe you guys. Wow. Yeah. I didn't figure Alan Wake 2 would get best art direction as well. I thought that would go to Super Mario Brothers, but never mind. I got the big one. I predicted Final Fantasy 16 would get best score because it's literally the only thing he deserves the award for. And the best audio design would go to Hi-Fi Rush.
00:03:09
Speaker
because the whole game's designed around it. Well, I said Idris Elba would win best performance, and I was wrong about that. They gave another one to Bullers Gate 3 for that. He was the only nominee who didn't show up as well. He just had the still picture there, which was funny. Well, yeah, better shit to do. But Games for Impact was cheer, which is one of the only of those games I've played, but yeah, fine, whatever. I've played that one the other. They went for the Supreme Race card. It was amazing.
00:03:39
Speaker
Thanks for watching
00:03:40
Speaker
We correctly predicted, I want to say, that Sea of Stars would win best independent game. Best debut indie game was Cocoon, which I caught a little bit of bullshit on because that was an established creator, if not an established studio. Pizza Tower fanbase was very upset at that. I'll bet. Did they go looking for that? I couldn't see them. I think I said on our predictions podcast that the Game Awards doesn't really like graphically subversive titles. It doesn't like post-punk stuff.
00:04:12
Speaker
or like pixel art stuff, like what's Pizza Tower is. Yeah, Cocoon is very, very clean and capital A artistic. I love Cocoon, so I don't mean that in a pejorative way. Yeah, but it is very indie game. It has the indie game vibe. Best ongoing game, Side Open 2077, LOL. I said that was BS.
00:04:37
Speaker
No, no, no, no. I mean, that's like one of the one of the things we're gonna get into is what is this show? And a lot of people are very mad at it. And I think for some good reasons and for some silly reasons. Best community support, Baldur's Gate 3, whatever that means.
00:04:53
Speaker
A lot of people bought it. A lot of people got excited. A lot of cosplay. It's been an early access. They've been building it with the community, which is why I feel like ongoing for Cyberpunk was BS, because they were toning. They're not ongoing. That's the tone mint. That's a good category. I'm going to call 6 won best action game, which I think we predicted. It also won most robots. I said Spider-Man. I said Spider-Man 2 would win best action adventure. And I was wrong about that, because Legend of Zelda won that.
00:05:22
Speaker
Yeah, Spider-Man got almost shut out, I believe. I didn't think Legend of Zelda would win because the Game Awards doesn't usually like like a copy paste sequels. But then I remembered that if it's a vague genre category, and one of the nominees is a first party Nintendo game, they'll most of the time will go with that.
00:05:44
Speaker
And the vaguest of all genres is Action Adventure, because that is 90%
Game Awards Structure and Critiques
00:05:48
Speaker
of games. Yeah, and the other vague one, best sim strategy game, Pikmin 4, which I also predicted. Best fighting game, Street Fighter 6, but anyone with half a brain would have figured that out. Best family games, if married brothers wonder, again by the Nintendo principle.
00:06:07
Speaker
And that's about all we predicted. We also said the Last of Us will win best adaptation, but again, that wasn't really a huge leap. No, I think I guess the point I want to make overall here is that this isn't me being really smart when I predicted a lot of this. This is the Game Awards being really fucking predictable.
00:06:29
Speaker
Oh, I'm really predictable. And this year felt like the first year that everyone was seeing the most people in the industry kind of speaking out and being like, what is the show? And like, what do we expect from the show? And what should this show do other than show a bunch of trailers and award some popular games?
00:06:50
Speaker
Well, this year, more than previous years, they were really letting the advertising take over the awards give a granting part of it. I mean, they were literally like shooing people off stage, they could show more advertisements.
00:07:05
Speaker
Not only, not only shooting people off stage, but consolidating and running through five awards without having anyone go on stage. So, they had... CS Star has won best indie game. There was no...
00:07:22
Speaker
award recipient or anything. Awards were just kind of scatter shot through and then when occasionally when people did go up they started the sort of play them off music within 30 seconds and so you had folks like Aonuma from Nintendo for Zelda, you had the performers from Baldur's Gate, you had the Baldur's Gate team, you had the Alan Wake team being shoot off.
00:07:41
Speaker
seconds after they got on stage. Meanwhile, if you were a Hollywood celebrity, you seem to have carp lunch to just fucking battle. If you were McConaughey, if you were Anthony Mackie, if you were Timmy Chalamet, if you were in Kojima's orbit, you had full full rights to just commandeer the stage for as long as you want.
00:08:13
Speaker
Like, I don't know if you guys saw the 95th Oscars, but they were going to have people from RRR jump on stage and dance you off if you went too long. I remember that goof at the beginning of it. That was good. That was good. That's just sort of the thing here where it's like the Game Awards, it reeks of an award show in its infancy trying to appeal to a vast demographic of gamers. That's the big takeaway I got from the entire thing. I was curious to see if somebody would...
00:08:29
Speaker
What happens if you keep talking during the music? I would have just gotten louder.
00:08:38
Speaker
trying to appeal to a vast demographic of publishers and people who want to show their trailers. Well not just publishers because you have to think like how many people don't even consider like like all Baldur's Gate 3 and not much of a game you know like we it is incredibly fractured I think that's what gamers don't realize that is incredibly fractured and even games journalists are fractured from the gamers themselves because it's like praise the developers that's all we're here for meanwhile it's like
00:09:06
Speaker
Yeah, we don't know these people. We know Mario. Do you know Bowser? You don't know Doug Bowser. Yes, but where else but at an award ceremony for games can one celebrate game developers? I'd like to say like everything else is about advertising and about pushing the brand on top of the actual human beings behind it. Surely this would be the opportunity.
00:09:30
Speaker
to actually celebrate gaming as a place to work. So this is an interesting conundrum because the Game Awards in its current state has been around since, I believe, 2014. And then it was the Spike TV Awards beforehand. And it has gotten more and more popular every year
00:09:52
Speaker
And every year it has gotten less and less about the awards and more and more about what are they going to reveal? Like what first party games are going to be there? Oh my God, Kojima's on stage. What is he going to show? And oh my God, here's Hellblade. And look, it's the next game from the No Man's Sky team. And so every year it is turning more and more into winter E3. E3 in December, which is fine to have that thing because I, for one, love E3. I get excited to get excited about games.
00:10:20
Speaker
And it is becoming less and less an award show, and I think part of it is because people don't want to watch an award show. And I mean that in a more general way. I want to watch an award show, and there are award shows I do watch for games that are voted on by developers.
00:10:35
Speaker
There's the dice awards in February. There's the GDC and the IGAF awards in March. And those are our developer awards voted on by developers. And those are more in line with when people say, well, this should be the Oscars of the games. The Oscars are voted on by a committee of their peers, just like those are. But no one watches those. Those are streamed and no one watches them. We don't stream them.
00:10:57
Speaker
So it's not just a problem, not just finger wagging at the audience. Like, we don't stream them either. So we stream this because it's got a bunch of fucking commercials for games people are excited about. Yeah, like in the Wikipedia bit, I'm not sure what journalist was quoted as saying it was schlock like a Super Bowl ad. I was like, people love the Super Bowl ads. Like, that's the thing where, again, trying to appeal to prestige and development. But it's it isn't much about the games. They even have it on their about page where they say,
00:11:42
Speaker
Now look here.
00:11:46
Speaker
If the game awards are boring, then that's on the way they're presented. Not on the group, but it's just about giving awards to developers. I mean, sure, you could argue that maybe they throw in all those trailers and stuff to make it more interesting to watch, but, you know, this is our opportunity to sell gaming not just as a lifestyle, but as a career. This is to give the kiddies something to aspire to as they make their shitty Steam games that nobody plays.
00:12:15
Speaker
But that's like, the Oscars, if we were to compare them, a lot of people thinking, oh, it's just like, it's just popcorn, right? It's a popcorn medium and whatnot. But that lets people in who get more invested to watch, like, go, is it Cannes? The Cannes Film Festival, yeah. The Cannes Film Festival. You know that there is that sort of, the dice will be sitting behind the Game Awards. If nothing else like this thing is, it's a big misnomer. Like, come on, this is key three. This is winter E3, as you said.
00:12:43
Speaker
Like Jeff Kiely's just a dude. Like he's not, like he's just a dude who found a vacuum and found a space that people weren't, you know, there wasn't a quote unquote Oscars for games that people were gathering around like E3. And so he just stepped in there and his insistence on bringing in Hollywood talent, his friendship with Kojima, the fact that Timothy Chalamet presented Game of the Year,
00:13:10
Speaker
things like that and it makes sense because he grew up his both of his parents were were IMAX like high-level IMAX employees at the IMAX corporation so he came up in the world of film and I don't think it's not that he doesn't love games but I think he knows that the way this show grows and grows is by having
00:13:30
Speaker
those giant Hollywood celebrities there, and by letting people know, oh, you can tune in to see the new God of War DLC, and the next game by the No Man's Sky people, and what's going on in Nintendo, and that kind of thing. Well, have the Hollywood celebrities, just, you know, have equal time for the devs. Have them all staged together, being really awkward. You know, have Matthew McConaughey give an award, and then have like a really awkward conversation with Sam Lake for 10 minutes. That's what I want. Why do you want the cringe-inducing awards?
00:14:00
Speaker
Well, Marty's arguing that we need the celebs. We don't necessarily need to have the celebs at the expense of the people who are putting all the work in. I want to make it clear. I'm not arguing that we need the celebs. I am arguing that the reason Keely leans into celebrity and reveal trailers as opposed to letting a writer or an artist up there speak is because that is what draws in
00:14:28
Speaker
more and more of an audience of normies, of casuals, because, again, these award shows do exist. If you want to hear developers go up there and talk without a timer for as long as they want about the games they made, those shows do exist and no one watches them. I watch them because I have a head injury, but no one else watches them. And so, like, I don't know if there is a happy medium there or if
00:14:54
Speaker
You know, these other awards shows need to, like, give into the dark side and pull something from what Keely's doing to attract a bigger audience, so that dice and the GDC awards are more popular. Um, but I'm just, I just, that is the reason he does it. There is a feeling amid high-level game development that gaming needs to be more like Hollywood. Something that I disagree with, and the Game Awards is doing nothing but encourage.
00:15:18
Speaker
Yep. See, I feel like, what was it? Wait, what do you mean more like Hollywood? Dig a little deeper. I mean, they want to make games based around just spectacle and third act big wall scenes, rather than innovative design. You know, the fucking production of constant ghost train rides and gear grinders, rather than encouraging stuff that actually want to explore the interactive narrative as a concept.
00:15:42
Speaker
And a perfect example of that is that new game Exodus got announced. And it was announced by Matthew McConaughey because he's one of the stars of the game. And he went on stage and he's like, it's me Matthew McConaughey in a video game. And people are like, all right, whatever. At no point did they say, hey, this is a ton of bioware. This is like ex-bioware. The people who made the bioware games you love are making this sci-fi RPG. If you loved Mass Effect, a lot of the people who are responsible for the Mass Effect games you loved are making this game Exodus.
00:16:11
Speaker
And at nowhere at the Game Awards did they say that. They said, uh, Matthew Kanneh, true detective. Uh, he's, he's, he's in this movie. He's in this game. Um, so that that's where their priorities are. I mean, the Oscars like award directors, movie directors are big names
Comparing Awards Shows: Games vs. Film
00:16:26
Speaker
in their own rights. That's what I'm getting at though. It's like the gaming icons. We're talking Todd Howard. We're talking Kojima as like baller as they can get.
00:16:36
Speaker
But that would still be considered like almost a B-lister in Hollywood. Like we're digging so deep. Our gaming icons are Master Chief, they're Lara Croft, they're Mario. There was a man named Bowser there. That's as close as it's gonna get. And it almost brings up this other thing where in the midst of all the whinging, people were also like, can we get away from this auteur theory from Kojima? And I'm like, in one hand, I understand.
00:17:02
Speaker
It takes, it takes many. It takes a village to make these games sure. But that's also what gives you some security. Having an icon, having like this person that can go, I'll do what I want to do. That's how you start becoming these icons. But like, it's a mass of too many things and they all fight each other.
00:17:18
Speaker
It's a big group effort, it's the same in films, but it's important that there's one person who's perceived to be like owning that property, and whether it's true or not, that they are like directing their vision for the property. Because that's the human connection, the alternative is committee design, and that just creates bland swill. The biggest award of the night, the final award of the Oscars, is Best Picture, and that goes to the producer.
00:17:48
Speaker
So, and a lot of times that person is not the Scorsese, the Tarantino, the Spielberg, the person you recognize. It's the producer. It's someone who put up a lot of money. And I'm not saying a producer is not an important role in a movie, but the final award of the night is a lot of times a money man that you don't...
00:18:04
Speaker
No, so that would be the equivalent of Call of Duty wins and Bobby Kotick goes up there, which no one wants that. It's like Bob Iger showing up. It's like Bob Iger showing up, exactly. Yeah, one of, I don't know, one of the funny things with me is I think there are some things, I also, I watch the Oscars, I watch the Emmys, I watch the Golden Globes. One thing that the Oscars I think could pull from
00:18:31
Speaker
The Game Awards is, I like the idea of them showing, not only celebrating this year, but showing what to be excited for next year. I would love it if the Oscars, during commercial breaks, instead of being random ass commercials, they debut trailers for big movies next year. Doesn't have to be a big thing on stage or anything, but while you're watching the broadcast, instead of, you know, commercials for Pepsi and Coke, it's commercials for...
00:18:53
Speaker
Dune Part 2, you know, it's commercials for like what we think Oscar winners next year might be. Like that would be cool. That's something that I think the Game Awards does well. I like looking forward and backwards at the same time. Well, doesn't that create a sort of bias? Because if the Game Awards pushes a game that turns out to be shite when it actually comes out next year, the Game Awards are going to look very silly, as they often do.
00:19:20
Speaker
They're not taking, like, an editorial stance on it, though. They're saying, like, here's a thing that you might- Of course they're taking a stance. They're giving awards, for fuck's sake. What's that? No, no, no. They're not taking an editorial stance when they show a reveal. Because they don't know what the game's gonna be. They're like, here's something exciting. Look at this. Again, they give an award. They literally give an award to the game with the best hype.
00:19:42
Speaker
Yeah, but that's Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, which is fucking awesome, and there you go. I don't know if you saw, they showed Sid, and they showed Vincent, and it was great looking. You kind of slipped off the point there at the end there. Oh, sorry. Sorry. That was my bad. I think it could do with a renaming, if nothing else.
00:20:01
Speaker
Yeah, because by being called the Game Awards, they've anointed themselves with an importance that I don't think they need to have. Something kind of has to do that. Something has to be the big tent called Industry Ambassador. The big thing where we all feel special. I mean, E3 kind of used to be that. Is that an advice?
00:20:27
Speaker
Well, as you say, they don't have like the Glittery Awards ceremony that everyone watches for that. Well, that's the kind of the issue there is like to be mainstream and also to be prestigious. You kind of put the effort in on your side. Yeah, I think I see what you mean. Yeah. So it's going to put a bit more money into it somehow. It's easier to get the big coke ads to foot the bill, you know.
00:20:51
Speaker
It's also easier to watch for people to sort of have a say in every award at the Oscars because there were five Best Picture nominees, now there's up to ten, and that will take you ten to twenty hours to watch.
00:21:06
Speaker
If you wanted to play all the Game of the Year nominees this year, you're in for like a 250-hour commitment between Baldur's Gate, between Spider-Man, between Zelda. That's why you saw this immediate gut reaction of a bunch of Spider-Man fans who might only have a PlayStation and only play three games a year being like, how the fuck can Baldur's Gate win? And then they showed the thing from Spider-Man where Sandman thrown Spider-Man through some windows. I'm like, well, that was cool, but what are you doing comparing these two things?
00:21:35
Speaker
I saw that, and there was an immediate reply tweet under it saying, you don't press a single button during that scene. You're literally not showing anything interactive right now. If nothing else, that shows the demographic of it all. You got Alan Wake 2, Baldur's Gate 3, Marvel's Spider-Man, Resident Evil 4, Super Mario's Wonder, and then Legend of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom. There are some people who only own a Nintendo and only play two of these games. Yeah, those are all very different games, aren't they?
00:21:59
Speaker
yeah so it's like there there is it's just a very fractured demographic even had esports and like content creator stuff how many gamers who like Baldur's Gate 3 give a damn about League of Legends
00:22:12
Speaker
Hey, I don't care about any of those awards. Like I care about most, it's almost like the equivalent of like, I don't know, when the Oscars does like the best animated short. And I'm like, well, these look neat. I've never watched any of them, but I don't know. I hope that one wins. Cause it has a cool dog in it. That kind of thing. Yeah. Like, did you guys watch, um, it was Romney's males.
00:22:34
Speaker
game dev world or something like two days after hardly anybody showed up for that and it was like eight different streams all being translated into eight different languages and it was game developers talking about their newer games and thanking everyone and yada yada yada it's just not mainstream enough so that's the problem though is like it's not I'm not saying that
00:22:53
Speaker
high-prestige gamers are trying to take the game awards for themselves, but all the other ones that are super about game developers and the awards are dying or have died off. And so it's like, let me on this boat and let me tell you how to run it, you know? It's a little awkward here.
00:23:11
Speaker
One of the funny things. Maybe change your flag, you know? Yeah, exactly. I see people keeping like, we need to make this more like the Oscars. And I
Representation in Game Awards
00:23:19
Speaker
feel like every time I hear that, it's people who do not watch the Oscars because anyone who watches movie, every year we complain about the Oscars. And we complain about the fact that the right movies aren't nominated and the right movies didn't win. And if you look back at the history of the Oscars, people like, you know, Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Kubrick, Fincher, Spike Lee, Ingmar Bergman have never won Best Director.
00:23:38
Speaker
These are people who've never, some of the greatest directors of all time, were never awarded. And then at the same time. There's plenty of years, if you look over the Academy Award winners, if you go back like 20 years or so, the best picture will be something you've never heard of in your life. Or something that's like embarrassing now, like the King's Speech or Crash or something.
00:23:56
Speaker
And at the same time, it's compared to the other movies that came out that year. I think it'd be like Zodiac or The Social Network or something. I'm like, get out of here. Also, the Oscars every year is getting fewer and fewer viewers. The Oscars in the 90s were like appointment viewing. And now it's like, maybe I'll catch some clips of it on YouTube after. So as an award, the Oscars are dying.
00:24:17
Speaker
Well, maybe in today's economically tighter times, people are sick of seeing rich twats laud all their riches over us. And maybe they bought more people would watch the Game Awards if it was a nice simpler experience about human stories.
00:24:33
Speaker
about things we can get invested in, like Rags to Riches tales of indie devs making loads of money. How about that? Even you don't like sad indie game number five of the year. You can only roll on heartstrings so much before you just give in twain. I may not enjoy your sad indie game, but I will defend to the death your right to make your sad indie game.
00:24:54
Speaker
So in the end, it's just an entertainment. I keep saying that these award shows do exist and no one watches them. Yeah. So I don't know what we want. Like I don't know. And I think everyone wants something different and that's understandable.
00:25:08
Speaker
Does anyone else think Keely might have a little too much power here? Who runs the Oscars? Who forks that money? Who sets it all? Who does that? It's not Jimmy Kimmel. He's the host. No, no. He just gets paid to show up. If something happens, who is the Academy? There is an Academy of Arts and Sciences. They have a museum in LA. It's like the Academy.
00:25:32
Speaker
And the Academy is like they bring on new members all the time. And it's generally, you know, filmmakers and they've gotten better because of it was up until a few years ago, the Academy was like 99% old white eyes. And so the Academy Awards good to Wikipedia are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences based in Beverly Hills, California.
00:25:53
Speaker
Oh, okay. So what I'm getting at is if Kimmel does something weird and then he's gone, that's fine. New host. If Keely does something odd, there's your host and your whole game awards. I feel like that's a little too much power. And to empathize with him, too much responsibility. You're trying to make everybody happy. You're going to die from either God's curses or God's blessings.
00:26:15
Speaker
Yeah, I mean that's why like being the person who puts it together and being the forward-facing host might be a bad idea and that's why he never asked. People were like, is he gonna say something about the mistreatment of devs? Is he gonna say something about you know, Palestine? And no, he's not going to.
00:26:33
Speaker
Because he wants to keep it sugar-free vanilla so that when Summer Game Fest comes around and he's shaking the can with a coin in it, that FromSoft will be like, yes, we want to put an urge tree trailer there. And Nintendo will be like, yes, we want to debut the new 3D Mario game there.
00:26:52
Speaker
Okay, this is interesting. I'm still looking up the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and it was apparently set up by MGM in like 1927. And apparently the Academy, like the Association of Motion Picture Producers, it was basically a union at the start.
00:27:13
Speaker
And it's now become this sort of big knobs of the film industry with my members from all those major studios But you know, that's an interesting place to start a union a collective of game professionals Yeah in your academy I mean should it be developers or should it be critics or should it be both?
00:27:35
Speaker
I don't know because the thing about unions is also like it does deal with populism to a sense. That's why I think there's so many developers and journalists with their pennies in a bunch. I think this is mostly a like really big insider problem because my other friends who are not that deep in it were like, whoa, did you see? Did you see? I know I don't watch them in general, but they're like, oh, that was awesome. More more ads, you know, if you're kind of pissed off, it's because like you want to have more prestige and it really has.
00:28:02
Speaker
So I think I think there's like there's a lot of aspiration to be a game developer. There's millions of people trying to make games. There's a really low barrier to entry to doing it. There should be like a collective game developers that anyone can enter if they've released a game.
00:28:17
Speaker
If you've put out a game on Steam, and it's been like assessed by a small committee to make sure it's not, I don't know, like a gacha porn game or whatever, or something you farted out to steal money from people, then you can join our illustrious Academy of Game Developers, and then we all vote on the winners. We should make our own ads, or game awards. Yeah.
00:28:42
Speaker
You should make our own ads. We do make our own ads. Yeah, we do, don't we? Homebrewed. Yeah. I mean, another thing is we were talking about the Oscars. It's been around 100 years. Yeah, we're at the 80, 90-something Oscars. And the Game Awards has been around for fewer than 10.
00:29:01
Speaker
in its current incarnations. So it is funny that it does feel like the games industry is constantly chasing film in that it is almost trying to look back at what film did over the course of 130 years and compact that and go through decades and years and be like, okay, we're in the 30s now, we're in the 40s now, we're in the 50s. And so it's slowly trying to get there. Whereas
00:29:25
Speaker
I honestly think the film industry has so many problems with it that it is silly to me that games, which now make more money than movies on a yearly basis, are looking at movies to try to be legitimized. As someone who does this for work and who loves this medium, I don't
00:29:43
Speaker
give a shit about being legitimized. Like, it has such like this imposter syndrome or this like need for validation to be legitimized. And I'm like, if it's art, it's art, it speaks for itself. It doesn't need the pageantry and the sort of the festival at all. Well, if art could speak for itself, you wouldn't need media or criticism, would you? We'd have to get real jobs then, careful.
00:30:10
Speaker
Well, that's true, but at the same time, I think criticism, Darren just over the weekend put up an amazing piece, a written piece on our Patreon for those who, for $5 or more on our Patreon, you can read Darren's incredible piece on what is the point of criticism. And the point of criticism is to sort of offer, for me to offer an external perspective on something and make me think about something in a way I wasn't before. Yeah, what you're saying is we need criticism to create the culture around that.
00:30:38
Speaker
Correct. Which is what we are. We are the culture that surrounds gaming. Yeah, but like criticism doesn't isn't there to validate in my mind. Like I don't need criticism for to validate. It's not its intention, but that's kind of what it does. I mean, just the mere acts of picking what to review week on week is an act of validation.
00:30:57
Speaker
Sure, sure. Not bad, yeah. I feel like it's more so... It's an elegant spot. This almost goes back to a talk of, like, what is a critic? What are you looking for? And I said that, like, I wanted somebody with a strong sense of self, but also, like, good writing. It's a side occupation. I don't think one validates the other. It's almost like who has the power. I think they work together, but not necessarily, like, we make the
Industry Perception and Game Awards
00:31:20
Speaker
culture in any way. I always say the people make the culture. Just by...
00:31:24
Speaker
by its very nature. The culture is just the people and you'll see what tries to reflect that part of the culture. That's why I think the Game Awards are where they've ended up now. And anyone who tries to have like a super high prestigious, we are art, we are amazing shout outs to everybody else. Good luck getting eyes into that. Like go watch the GDC, the Games Developers Conference YouTube. Go buy most popular and it's kind of like
00:31:48
Speaker
I wouldn't call it click bait, but it's less about the prestige and more about just like, oh, how I survived in this industry for 11 years without a hit.
00:31:58
Speaker
Okay, you know, we need, this is how this starts. We need to make a social network for just game developers. Ew. How many do you like to have LinkedIn? And we could all just talk about game development all the time. Game developers and game critics. All right, everyone together. Just Twitter. I don't Yeah, like,
00:32:18
Speaker
I know you don't use it. Mine's very heavily curated. It's so sad. No one is sadder about games than game developers and game critics. The happiest people are not here. Well, maybe if there was a place for them to dump their trauma, more people would be aware of the problems that Blythe needs. It's Twitter! It's called therapy. Well, more people need to hear about the bloody crunch problem, the things they don't talk about at the Game Awards. Sure.
00:32:48
Speaker
I say- Just do it like Goodreads. If you go on Goodreads, like, if you're an author, you can make an account on Goodreads, but you have to get like a testimony from your agent before they'll let you pass as the person you're claiming to pass as. So you just do something like that. Sure. So you have Goodreads but for games, and then all the developers have like, you know, verified accounts. Hmm. I don't know. I don't know. Those people scare me.
00:33:15
Speaker
It's actually an interesting thing. There's an old video by Alana Pierce who used to work at IGN talking about the problem with games criticism at IGN. The thing is that the inherent bias is because you're a games journalist and writing for games is that you start writing for your peers and what they might be interested in instead of the populace. So I feel like
00:33:37
Speaker
There were some worthy complaints. Absolutely. They got issues. But a lot of it, I think, is just more an in-crowd, so to speak, not gatekeep-y. Well, all hobbies will have an in-crowd. That's why we stay at the door. You don't want to go beyond the gate. Keep that gate all you want. I'm staying right out here. Enthusiast Press will always, by its very nature, cater to the in-crowd.
00:34:06
Speaker
Of course, yeah. Let's let's offer solutions. We're not just old men who shake our fists at clouds. We make clouds at our asses. What would you do to? Well, I may either make your own or fix this one. Well, I just said I'll start my social media thing that's like game of eccentric and build up a community there and then start setting up an awards that that community votes on. Actually, like very introverted. I honestly didn't think that you were going to go with the blackjack and hookers.
00:34:36
Speaker
Uh, sure. Blue ski or what's it called? Blue sky. Blue sky. Blue ski. Blue ski. Our nice Russian social network. A lot of people are saying right now that they didn't know GDC and DICE existed. So one, one literal action item we could take is we can stream one of them. We'll co-stream one of them in the same way that we did the game. Yeah. Be the change you want to see in the world.
00:35:01
Speaker
Hideo Kojima. Who was it that's a bad game always suck or suck is forever? Suck is forever. That was Todd the Rod God. I was thinking like you kind of a little bit of that prestigious little ooh and wonder can kind of go into it because Hollywood has this issue of like why do we care about Nolan films and all this kind of stuff? Why would we show up to Oppenheimer because it's just like a period piece drama and whatnot. But to hear Darren just go IMAX.
00:35:28
Speaker
and talk about the camera and how it's a different experience and everything else and leaning into that. Scorsese was already in trouble for this, which is like, cinema is like a theme park. I'm starting to think he didn't mean that as a slur, but just like, yeah, it's an event. It's a whole thing that we got to go for. If we're not getting excited for it, why should anyone else get excited for it?
00:35:49
Speaker
I think we need a few more posters and stuff. I'm like, oh, what are you looking forward to? That's your frost frickin dice awards, bro. I got my tie ironed and ready to the streets in major cities and collected box box pops. What game are you excited will win the dice awards this year? Just ask a passing tramp. With a bend all over his shoulder. Yes. Well, I favor Baldur's Gate three, they will say.
00:36:17
Speaker
Here's your five, I promised you. I mean, it's also, again, the silly nature of having this thing at the beginning of December and having the cutoff be the middle of November and having some really great games every year. Undoubtedly, every year, something comes out after the award cutoff that is really great, that should be talked about and that won't be talked about and definitely won't be remembered by next year. Yeah, then again, it's helpful to see what the big studios do fart out at this time of year because they know it's not going to win any awards.
00:36:45
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Relatedly, I've been playing Avatar Frontiers of Pandora lately. You know what? It has a nice looking jungle in it. I watched Nick play for two hours. Great jungle. Blue people look nice, yeah. Oh, sure. It's nice to look at until you realize you have to pour over it looking for whatever exotic bits of the fucking environment is supposed to be harvesting. I don't stay for breakfast, no.
00:37:09
Speaker
This is a topic for another day. The whole time Nick was playing, I kept being like, you know what this could use? Some yellow paint. This game is a testament to why yellow paint is good. I said that to him during days before stream. He's like, what am I supposed to lose? We could use a little yellow paint, some highlighting tours. Watch out for my upcoming fully ramblimatic, which probably will be the last one of the year. Before we will take a break.
00:37:37
Speaker
Why did you say avatar with the same tongue roll that you said? As an English person living in America I'm conscious of the way that I that English the English accent doesn't usually pronounce the R on the ends of words Avatar I'm gonna get my car and I'm gonna get my car. I'll go watch avatar You sound like that's just sounds like Ben Affleck talking about it
00:38:00
Speaker
Yeah, he's like a Bostonian. Well, I live in California, so everyone says Avatar. I'm going to look in the mirror and then go and watch Avatar. It's like a pirate. For wrapping up though, I do think...
Expectations from Game Awards
00:38:16
Speaker
Game Awards needs to figure out what it wants to be, but I think gamers themselves also need to figure out what they want to be. You can't say, I want it to be like the Oscars. Don't be mean to Call of Duty, when if you listen, it was like the first 10 minutes, Jimmy Kimmel's just roasting everybody. Who was it? Seth Rogen and Steven Spielberg, the Hunter and Joe Biden.
00:38:36
Speaker
of Hollywood. I'm like, come on, take a roast. In these things and in personal relationships as well, being comfortable enough to roast something shows that everyone's close together and everyone's happy to work with each other. It's where everything's tense and trying not to offend anyone, like the Game Awards does, where you know there's a lot of behind the scenes tension.
00:38:56
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. That's what I want, I want. If you're afraid of your developers that they're gonna talk the entire time, make it like the Oscars that they all come up there with prep speeches, you know? I go with you. Yeah, I mean, so that was the 32nd timer was, I think, a direct response to last year when Christopher Judge, who plays Kratos in the new God of War games, won for best performance and went up there and talked for eight minutes.
00:39:22
Speaker
And I believe it was an award given by Al Pacino. And Al Pacino went up there very confused for a few minutes and then brought up Christopher Judge for eight minutes. And so that was like almost a 15 minute segment. And it was funny. But the response last year, a lot of people were like, this went on too long. He talked too long. He went on too long. And so I feel like Keely heard that and was like, point taken and just went to the other extreme. Yeah, I think he needs to, if anything, be an auteur himself and really like, this is what I want the damn thing to be because I've come from a community that appeals to the masses and the game
00:39:51
Speaker
to end up almost dying from that. You die by blessings. You know, it takes me laugh as I'm looking at the Wikipedia page with Game Awards 2023 and apparently the award for Best Narrative was presented by Ed Boon. Yeah. The Mortal Kombat guy? Known for his narrative chops. That's like Telly Savalas presenting the award for Best Haircut.
00:40:17
Speaker
That was a great Telly Savalas joke. Oh my god. I don't like anyone remembers who Telly Savalas is. I do. I will say, I will say...
00:40:29
Speaker
Usually, the game that wins Game of the Year is of a higher quality, in my opinion, than the movie that wins Best Picture of the Oscars. Because we have, going backwards, Baldur's Gate 3, Elden Ring, It Takes Two, The Last of Us Part II, Sekiro, God of War, Breath of the Wild, Overwatch, Witcher 3, and Dragon Age. Yeah, those would seem to be better representations of good games.
00:40:53
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, even if I don't play multiplayer games, Overwatch at the time, huge deal. Like that kind of thing. Dragon Age was the only kind of weak-ish one in my opinion, but that 2014 was a notoriously weak year. So. Shrug.
00:41:06
Speaker
Are we ready to go to Superchats? I'm bringing up the Earn page. Yeah, that sounds great. Remember everyone, our second wind is funded by your incredible support both on Patreon as well as through your wonderful Superchats on shows like this and all of our shows. We really appreciate it. Yes, on your Superchats here and on LoudHailer, up to face, on Patreon as well.
00:41:31
Speaker
which we particularly need to push because I think this week's free trials are ending. So we're expecting a bit of a dip there. Yeah, but we have exciting things to announce new show debut in tomorrow that I can tell you guys about and some exciting news in the in the wins. Oh, the second wins. The second wins. So go to patreon.com slash second window group if you want to support but until then here's some lovely people who supported us with super chats.
00:42:00
Speaker
Can you gift Patreons? Uh, I don't know, would we get money for that? Yeah, hell of a Christmas present, eh? Yeah, could you give your loved one a Patreon a second quim? You gift Patreons? Not us gifting Patreons, can people gift Patreons? Yeah, people to each other. Look at that. Yeah, nice thought for a last-minute Christmas present. Yeah, it might get loud. It said you cannot. We can probably stop talking about it, because we can't. Give them a dollar, then. Yeah. There you go.
00:42:27
Speaker
Alright, here we go. I've only got the superchats, so interrupt me if I miss any, like, member chats or anything relevant in that area. Dale Mallows gave $5 and said, here are your silly $5 words, waddle, codswallop, and ragamuffin. I bet you thought I'd say willy-fiddler. And you're right, I did.
00:42:48
Speaker
You know, Dale Mallows, I bit my tongue rather badly on Saturday while I was recording my audiobook, and reading out that whole superchat filled me with agony from beginning to end. And I hope you're satisfied.
Cultural Commentary and Humor
00:43:01
Speaker
Codswallop. I've heard that before. Codswallop? That's a bunch of horseshit, right? That's a bunch of Codswallop. Yeah, but I've watched something recently. It's a British colloquialism just for nonsense. Ragamuffin, meanwhile, is a word for like a street child. Poundrel? Yeah. Cat. Hjorth87 gives a 20 Danish krona and says, well, spank me and call me Grandpa. I can pay again.
00:43:27
Speaker
Good job, you're 87. I'm sure we'll be seeing more of you. Bear with music. Darwin's Dummy gives $2 and says, Mario got screwed. Usually that's Luigi's job. Well, I got- Wait a minute. You know, what? Wait, what? They're brothers, you monster. Step brothers, step-
00:43:50
Speaker
No, he's talking about, like, Mario Wonder didn't win anything, but that just shows how fractured it is. What a family game. Yeah, a family game. Just Nintendo. That's one prize. Yeah.
00:44:01
Speaker
It was also, this was, I've said, this was a very good year for games. In my opinion, all six of the games nominated for Game of the Year deserve to be nominated. Also like 10 other games deserve to be nominated. Alan Wake actually like that crazy? I've heard of anybody talk about, except for you guys, like me peers, or like Alan Wake is nuts. The people who finished it seem to love it except for Yahtzee and stuff. Well, that's just me. Yeah. Um, I found it rather pretentious. Okay. So if the writers are saying it's pretentious, then okay, we're good.
00:44:30
Speaker
Yeah, but I like a thing that puts its whole fist up my ass. Hunter Roge gifted five memberships. Thank you, Hunter. Oh, thank you, Hunter. Well, as I was saying in my review of Alan Wake 2, a work of fiction about a work of fiction being powerful enough to change reality is sort of inherently up itself.
00:44:50
Speaker
There's like fiction jerking itself off. Yeah, and on top of that, Sam Lake casts himself in the game, which is up itself in an entirely different, but still quite up itself way. But at the same time, we have movies like adaptation, and we have books like House of Leaves that do that same thing and are lauded in their specific mediums. Aunty's Inferno? That man loves speaking with all sorts of weird critters down there.
00:45:19
Speaker
Christian's not Critters. Oh, sorry. Yes, we're moving on. Nicholas J.M. gives $5 and says, all in all, every award show needs to be go when it becomes so far up its own rear end. I just hope the Oscars aren't long for this world soon. Yeah, dream in Nicholas J.M. It should be concerts. Absolutely. Like if Lady Gaga is not going to show up and flank in Sirloin, I don't care. Are you just tying Sirloin?
00:45:47
Speaker
They just release all the awards as a musical. They sing a song to announce the award and the recipient has to come up and sing a song about how thankful they are for the award. And then everything keeps moving along.
00:46:01
Speaker
Yeah, shooting out t-shirts and awards in the same time. The only thing people remember about, you know, the Oscars last year was Will Smith and Chris Rock. Was that this year? Was that last year? Yeah, I feel like it was ages ago. And like last year, what do you guys remember? Come on, be honest. It's Bill Clinton.
00:46:20
Speaker
It was the literally last thing. Yeah, the weirdo and Al Pacino. Because I like seeing that sort of judge talking too much. Yeah. Yeah. That's what you want. You don't want it to be clean. Go on. Well, it's the rough edges. People remember I keep saying that. Beneath 1111 gives 20 Swedish Corona and says for toffee wolf wolf Marty's bank account wolf. Have you noticed toffee's in his little coat?
00:46:47
Speaker
Oh, finally gotten finally gotten cold enough in Northern California for him to wear his little jumper. Oh, you guys match your match. That's adorable. Pepper blood gives 599 euros says here's another her message you wonderful folks can pass right on by loved last week's cold take the long form was so good. Much love from oil and
00:47:16
Speaker
Scared. That's if they like the long ones. You have to keep going longer. Like two minutes. You need to specifically cater towards the Irish by making it very long and very, very depressing and full of black comedy. And sounding more and more like Terry Wogan. Yeah. Yeah. Although, yeah.
00:47:43
Speaker
Where was I? Yes, Hjorth87 gives 20 Danish krone again and says, Frost, deep dive in the Newgrounds era, when? Oh now, that was a time. That was a time when you could get away with a lot of shit. Oh yeah, we used to like, bound off after school and come back as soon as it got dark. Ooh, I feel like a lot of my love for games comes from Newgrounds, flash games and all that kind of stuff. That's why I'm very much like, gameplay, where's the goddamn gameplay? This is pretty, but I want the game.
00:48:12
Speaker
don't forget the flash animations. I have fond memories of my very early days of the internet. First watching a short flash animation called Britney Spears get to Dirty Sanchez. What was it about? Well, it's incorporated a rather inexpertly cropped picture of Britney Spears and someone employing
00:48:35
Speaker
The usual method by which one administers a Dirty Sanchez, Marty. Yeah, look at that. Shakespeare. They should've sent a poet. Oh, luck it up, kids. I don't want to. Good boy, I know. I'm using Ask Jeeves to be period-specific. Pepper Blood comes back with 249 euros and says, damn autocorrect, put her in that super hat.
00:49:03
Speaker
And then comes back with another $2.49 and says, super chat, damn it! Pepperblatt getting a little flustered this morning. Wonderful. Dauer Dodger Esquire gives $99.99 US and says, say what you want about Christopher Judge's speech, but at least he got to speak his piece. And while not all speeches should be that long, the award recipients should be afforded their time to shine.
00:49:27
Speaker
I agree. I should like prep speeches beforehand and have them vetted. You know, if you're going to be so strict on timing, I think we can we can meet both ways here because some of them were like in the moment just like and maybe the English isn't their first language for some of them. So I could see why they were worried. There's also a difference. But some people are just natural public speakers and maybe have been the figurehead of a company for a long time or going through a translator, whereas other people are like really emotional artists who might not have a ton of
00:49:56
Speaker
Yeah, like, who was that developer? She... short hair, Japanese. She came out for the... Yeah, yeah, for her new studio on the scene. Yeah, when she first came out, people were like, finally, some charisma, you know? Because you guys say what you will, but you're always saying, so damn it, why do they always bring out, like, developers who have no talking skills whatsoever, no social skills at all? They're so awkward. So you can't have it both ways.
00:50:25
Speaker
Yeah, I went to the Webby Awards once and the Webby Awards has got like 200 awards to announce. So at the ceremony, they have this rule. We're not allowed to say more than five words when you. What did you say? Oh, I didn't go up on stage. I was too frightened. But you won, didn't you?
00:50:43
Speaker
Yeah, we won the consumers vote people's vote award for best gaming website. And we just had I think it was Alex McCree actually he went out, you know, at the time and just said escapist magazine, we have issues lol. I wanted to I wanted to go out and say thanks a lot to you cunts. But I was much younger then.
00:51:09
Speaker
time as time wants to do. I think Stephen Colbert won an award and his words were me me me me me. Very clever. Anyway, Zach Lawton gives 20 Australian dollars and says why discount Baldur's Gate 3? The game of the year was a joke, but honestly, Baldur's Gate 3 is madness. To try and paint Baldur's Gate 3 as a weak game is a joke. It won five awards.
00:51:36
Speaker
Well, the main chat was all right. Yeah, like game of the year was a joke, but it won five awards. So there's no merit to this. But under this spectrum of no merit whatsoever, it won five of them five units of no merit. Yeah. And we're not saying that the winners are a joke. We are saying that we're saying that the entire presentation has issues. So I don't think none of the games that one I have any issues with winning.
00:52:03
Speaker
Well, except for Cocoon winning best debut indie game whose issues I previously stated. Alex Shubin gives $5 and says only awards that matter are the CAC Awards. Whatever they are, I assume from context it's something to do with Doom. Yeah, Doomworld. Yeah, sure does.
00:52:25
Speaker
Oh yeah, the trophy's a little cacodemon. So what does Doom win every year? I think it's probably for two mods. I think John Romero's probably going to win one for Sigil too. That's cool. What the hell about my house? Was that this year? Um, I don't actually know. I remember that. That was this year. Yeah, that's what I'd probably win something if they have a category for that sort of thing. Minecraft one.
00:52:52
Speaker
Savage Gray Wolf gives five US dollars, says, I think gamers want there to be awards. They don't want to watch an award show. Well, what do they want, Savage Gray Wolf? If you do go by the populace, the gamers want games. Even as Marty was saying, this is the biggest industry. A lot of that is mobile. There should be an interactive game that is the Game Awards.
00:53:15
Speaker
Oh, there you go. That's what they should do. Release a game. Oh, but who gets to make the game? Keely. The previous winner's winner. The previous year's winner. So yeah. I was thinking of Keely just so he knows what it's like to make a game, chain them to the desk, crunch away. Yeah. I like that idea. Yeah.
00:53:36
Speaker
Send them to Guantanamo Game Studios. Most developers will probably just make something like the Stanley Parable or some kind of like walking sim thing, but maybe some developers would be creative with it. Make a new match three, yeah.
00:53:53
Speaker
Anyway, Zaratha gives five Brazilian rial and says, being in the audience, in chat, viewers are keen on first the trailers, second the award winners so they can flex their favorite games won. Sad but true. Salute. Thank you for speaking for yourself there. Zaratha. I don't think so. As someone who was in that live stream, I think people were far more vocal during the trailers than they were during
00:54:19
Speaker
The awards. It was in Good Omens, where it's saying, if you can't see the Big Apple in New York City, it's because you're standing too close. Yeah, that's how it feels. I feel like most gamers just wanted to see the games and whatnot. Humaine Shield gives 4.99 and says, Solution, Kojima needs to slap Boppy Kotick. Live drama. Yeah, he's great. Kojima. He's always great. Kojima.
00:54:48
Speaker
Oh my god, I've been watching that OD trailer over and over again. There's little secrets inside of Udo Kir's mouth. Our letters, and I believe it spells out Atami, which is either silent or hill in Japanese. And people are like, he's fucking doing it again. He's not making Silent Hill, but he's fucking doing it again. Oh, he finally did it too, remember? I was saying, because Kojima is the film guy that makes games. I was like, who's the game guy that makes films? Jordan Peele? Yeah. I was like, uh.
00:55:16
Speaker
And even the door that they came out during their ward, that was the door you wake up in front of in PT, and everyone's like, what are you doing? Oh, that's funny. I love how they make Jeff sweat. It's like, you're not going to bring more people out of that thing, are you? I'm on a timer, bud. Resonance SD gives five Australian dollars. It says it's 4am. I'm binging rogue trader and relying on your robust discussion to get me through to sunrise. Oh, Warhammer.
00:55:43
Speaker
Rogue trader, I don't know. Warhammer, top down, something, something. Okay. Sleep Twitch gives 100 Danish kroner. It says, I think somewhere along the way, the games industry and Hollywood have become fully optimized at being an industry. It's tricky, I think. I mean, we also eat food. Should we watch the Yogurt Awards?
00:56:04
Speaker
See, this is a good example because there are food awards, but it's only people who are too into it that are there like me. Michelin Stars, that's a food award. Is there like a yearly presentation, like the Mishis? I don't know. So it's really high class, isn't it, with the Michelin Stars?
00:56:23
Speaker
But I don't think it's like, it's not like we have five restaurants and only one of you will receive a star. That's the thing though, is like you say high class, but it's kind of like, two is seen as arrogant and pompous because one star is good and two stars is great, but that's as far as food's gonna get you. Three is how well can you run and manage a restaurant? And that's when people are like, oh, only two stars, what's wrong with you, you know? Isn't there any like five restaurants in the world with three Michelin stars?
00:56:49
Speaker
Yeah, because a lot of them are like, can you please take away the third star? The expectations are fucking astronomical. Here's a fun fact I happen to know. What city in the world would you say has the most Michelin stars? City in the world? France? No. That's not a city, that's a country. No, it is. Paris. No, actually, it might very well be London. Copenhagen.
00:57:16
Speaker
You're all wrong with all these guesses. It's Tokyo. Tokyo is the city of the world that has the most Michelin stars of any city.
00:57:28
Speaker
Well done. Well, that might just be because the, because of density of restaurants. Sure. It is a very large city. Does it go by like three stars as well? Cause I know they have a lot of one star and that's like on food carts. Well, it's just cause there's a million restaurants. You like turn a corner and there's like nine down the next alleyway. Really quick. AXP bubbles and Zach Lawton. Welcome to the tip jar. Thank you both.
00:57:54
Speaker
All righty. Taint Smack gave us five US dollars and says two games that I feel are conspicuously absent from the game of the year conversation. System Shock and Amnesia The Bunker all hail the immersive shithole. System Shock's been now for like 20 years. I think he means the remake.
00:58:14
Speaker
Oh, you're not allowed. Well, Resident Evil 4 got nominated, so. I don't think the remake of System Shock was going to win anything. I mean, I guess Amnesie the Bunker might have deserved a nod somewhere. Yeah, I think those are both relatively niche. That's why we don't see, we don't generally see racing games or strategy games nominated for game of the year. You know, some of the world back then. We generally see things that are very playable to a large audience. Some of the world back asked actually what was like the scariest game this year. And I completely forgot about Amnesie the Bunker. Yeah, that game scared the shit out of me.
00:58:43
Speaker
That was a good one. It was a decent year for Spookies. Even on his second playthrough on stream with a pilot. He's a co-pilot. He was still a bit tense. I still think Scarce Game of the Year was siloed for. Well, I thought he played. For all of us who played it this year. Okay, yeah.
00:59:05
Speaker
Volga display of gaming gives 10 Los Angeles, says best moment of the awards, Sam Lake's massive smile, dancing with all gods of Asgard. Worst moment of the awards, the way too slow and dramatic Kratos reveal that led to not match. Oh, the roguelike thing. Yeah, kind of free DLC. That's like a roguelike. Sure. I did like the live dance performance. That was great. I thought the live dance performance was always wonderful.
00:59:32
Speaker
uh, Magnum Waite gives five dollars, says, it's actually important to remember that the Oscars were created by Hollywood to try and get good PR for Hollywood after the Fatty Arbuckle scandal. How would you guys feel if, uh, you just thought it was fatty? Well, maybe we should create the gaming awards in the aftermath of the game awards being shit scandal. Sure. Wow. His name was Roscoe and he, I see why they call him fatty. Yeah. He's also a rapist and a murderer, so it's probably fine that, um,
01:00:02
Speaker
Why didn't they call him that then? So just funny. You know what needs to come back? Men with the nickname babe. Yeah. I mean, that got retired with Ruth. Yeah, I mean, is it? Well, you would have thought Michael Jordan got retired and now some of you just got Michael B. Jordan. So it could just be baby Ruth. Yeah. Fun fact, Oliver Hardy was known as babe to most of his friends because he looked like a giant baby.
01:00:31
Speaker
Yeah, he was, that's how I remember, he's the large one. Yeah, it's just not in the, it's just not style anymore, is it to be well baby-faced? Now it's all about being puzzled, like how old's Chalamet, 14, and he's like super cut like a diamond. 14. It is funny how much he looked like the Game Awards kid, and he was presenting the last award. Like he looked like him, he was dressed like him, it was just very impressive. And Pinocchio in Lies of P. It's a pokey-volution. Yeah.
01:01:00
Speaker
That's not EU Charizard. Zach Lawton gives five Australian and says, Yahtzee, any chance you can just drop an unfortunately no? I also say this truthfully, I won't use it or clip it. Well, there you go. I just did it. AI training. Didn't you say a lot? This is why I thought about setting up a Cameo account.
01:01:23
Speaker
You should. You can make a lot of money. There's an XCOM mod with your soundbites on them. Yeah, I've seen that one. Yeah, it's cool. Roponobthesnob gives 59.99 euros. Deep red, super chat there. Thank you, Robobnob. To say the awards are followed either as an E3 substitute or by players who want validation seeing their favorite game win.
Gaming Industry Trends and Concerns
01:01:49
Speaker
Speaking of validation, here's 60 euros I could have used to try Alan Wake 2, but I won't, because I'm grumpy and want a physical edition. A good thing to be grumpy about. The fact that they're not making a physical edition of that game yet is absurd. Yeah, it'd be nice if there were non-ephemeral ways to store games. You know, in case the internet goes down and we lose our entire history and all that.
01:02:15
Speaker
Frankers. A million internet goes down. That's like the beginning of the end. There's other worries that we've got here on my games. Like whether I could plays Alan Wake 2 at that point is probably like taking a backseat.
01:02:32
Speaker
A GPU gives 10 US dollars and says I like my hobby growing as much as the next guy, but the more they try to boost popularity to make more money, the more money men get involved and more money men usually means worse game stroke events. Well, the problem is, as we discovered earlier, is that you need money to put on a glitzy enough show to be able to get people to see it.
01:02:55
Speaker
I think it's self-correcting. Because if it gets too money-ish, then people leave. So then you have to go back to like, oh, what did people want? And yeah, it'll... It gets better before it gets better. Showery down, just gifted 20 second win memberships. Oh my gosh. Wow. You went out of order. Yeah, it's madness. You went off script. Thought I'd better acknowledge it while it was happening, I suppose.
01:03:20
Speaker
Holy shit, I don't know what to do. That being said, I think that worry, I understand the worry that when money gets involved, there's more, there's more meddlers and there's more, there's more people who don't understand the art trying to impact the art. But at the same time, I think the indie space is as thriving as it's ever been. And it's only growing every year. This year, like low barrier to entry. Yeah, we've had so many good games this year on the indie front. So many good games.
01:03:45
Speaker
You just never know what these people want. Look at me, I have no beard because every time I grow it out and I forget to shave, people are like, hey, look at that, three glasses, three beards. I'm like, damn it. There's no satisfying that. Should we have a rotating beard schedule? Who gets a beard every month? You guys can keep it. We can give each other James Beard awards? This is like a medically mandated beard. Oh. Do you have a weak jaw like me? Yeah, if I shave it off, I look like my mom and that's not psychologically viable.
01:04:16
Speaker
Frost, you're the only one of us with a strong jaw. You gotta represent. I chewed a lot of big League Chew as a kid. I had like a very round head and a peculiar jaw. I have a big baby face. Well, I have a weak jaw because I have such a vast and powerful voice box to make my voice so nice to listen to. And it sort of makes my neck jut out and sort of kill my jawline.
01:04:41
Speaker
I have a weak jaw because I unhinge it to swallow mongoose every weekend. Have you guys ever seen a mongoose?
01:04:49
Speaker
Well, you can go to the next Super Chat if you want. They kind of look like ferrets, don't they? Yeah, they're weird little guys. They are mean. They kill snakes. Asg gives $5 and says, rushing winners off stage but giving Sean Murray time to say their next game is more ambitious and has mountains bigger than Everest is shocking. Well, it won't, will it? The mountains will be very small inside a computer.
01:05:15
Speaker
I thought Sean Murray coming out and saying we learned our lesson. So instead of making an entire solar system or entire galaxy, we've made one planet that is the size of a planet. I'm like, you've learned nothing. It's great. No, I mean, I think that's good. Yeah, it's cool. Overdue and then go back in. I saw the trailer. If it's anything like that, I'm like, that's pretty. I don't know what you're doing. It's a Colorado game. I'm going to wander around that world. Looks great. Also memo. Well, thank you for joining tip jar memo.
01:05:44
Speaker
Thank you, Memo. PhysicsNerd gives $10 US. It says, I think the Game Awards was mostly just was ad space. I would love to see each nomination have a buildup as to why they were nominated. Allow people to bask in their good work and let them celebrate. Well, is there enough time? I think it could use better. I like when the Oscars, it'll show a clip from a thing as to why it's nominated or it'll put together kind of a sizzle reel about each of its best pictures. I think those are cool.
01:06:13
Speaker
I should do more of those. I like in crowd voting, even if it is a gimmick. Text GTA555 and put in your nomination. There you go. Yeah, but we'll see. Like I said, I'm very serious when I said we'll do a live watch along to either DICE or the GDC Awards this spring. That's a promise. There's a promise. As a promise, I will actually keep it. And we'll glitz it up in some way like interesting to watch. Like we'll all dress up in showgirl outfits or something.
01:06:42
Speaker
Yeah, we'll all show our strong jaws. Bajango gives $2 and says, pizza tower was robbed. What are your fav toppings? Ham and pineapple, of course. Oh, nice. If not that, I'll take Italian sausage and jalapenos on mushrooms too. That's a good one. Yeah, I like Italian sausage or pepperoni for meat, and then I'm a big onion and jalapeno for you.
01:07:08
Speaker
Oh, there's a, there's a place near where I live that does a really good, like, idiosyncratic pizza. That's like four different kinds of fancy cheese, prosciutto ham and fig jam. And it's one of my favorites. Yeah. Yeah. A little sweetness on there.
01:07:26
Speaker
Look at my celebratory glands go off. ResidenceSD gives two Australian dollars and says, I only watch our the best, worst, blandest awards. Well, we'll have some of those for you in the new year, I'm sure.
01:07:46
Speaker
Very exciting. And then we had a string of gift memberships. Five from Zack Lawton, five from Loki's Wager, another five from Zack and five from Hunter Roesch. Thank you guys so much. 20 gift memberships in a row. Yeah, absolutely. Look at all those memberships.
01:08:10
Speaker
Dimitri gives five Canadian dollars and says, my issues with TGA is that it's just a popularity contest filled with fluff. As Yahtz and Mati said last year, we need a cans for video games. Would you watch it, Dimitri? We're gonna see. We're gonna put everyone's money where their mouth is.
01:08:28
Speaker
This spring. Yeah, it'd have to be something like Terry Wogan's Eurovision or whatever it was. Yeah, you know exactly what I'm talking about. He's just taking the piss out of it the entire time. Yeah, that was the that was the joy of Eurovision for British people. It was always they always had Terry Wogan do the like narration and he'd just take the piss out of it the whole time. It was very British.
01:08:56
Speaker
Ironically. Gildon Yatich gives $2 and says, did the final award winner look like Clinton Kidd? The final award presenter looked like Clinton Kidd.
01:09:08
Speaker
It was strange. Yeah, Jimmy Chalamet giving away the final award was pretty silly. Although he did, the story came out, I think a few years ago, that when he was younger, before he was like a Hollywood star, he had a YouTube channel that reviewed Xbox 360 controllers.
01:09:28
Speaker
He made his own. He spray painted them. And he did three of them because his parents were like, you're getting paint everywhere. Enough of that. So he's only had only three videos and he sold them each for 10 pound. And I'm going to act another populist levity. The video game, uh, niche audience can claim as one of their own alongside Henry Cavill. There you go. Yeah. People were saying like it was weird seeing Vin Diesel with the arc to promotion, but he was big on D and D.
01:09:58
Speaker
And he had hands-on with the creative role of the Reddit games and stuff.
01:10:05
Speaker
That's why it's really hard to go, oh, this is what I'd like to see out of a Games Award without essentially being very gatekeeping. That's why. Robin Williams was a big game apparently. That's literally why he called his daughter Zelda, yeah. Anyway, I think he liked anime as well. If you see one hour photo, there's a bit where he gifts some kid and Neon Genesis Evangelion action figure.
01:10:33
Speaker
I was about to say, not based on that. So Robin Williams definitely strikes me. I was like a yaoi lover. But which character in Evangelion was his waifu? We may never know. Is Hook an isekai? Think about it. It is actually an isekai. Well, he didn't die and get reincarnated. This is actually true because he was from Neverland.
01:11:00
Speaker
Yes. Oh, he was, uh, he was a rich dreams may come. He was from the world. Neverland came back. Yeah. Yeah. He was a baby, but he was like, got taken to Neverland somehow by some fairies. Double reverse. He's a guy. Yeah. Anyway. Uh, yeah.
Miscellaneous Discussions and Anecdotes
01:11:20
Speaker
Golden. Yes. It gives another $2 says, sorry. I meant to the guy who awarded the final award. Yes. Thank you. We figured
01:11:29
Speaker
CJYGul gives $5 and says, I'm several episodes late, but I like Papa Murphy's business model. You get the customizability of a pizza joint, but the convenience of a frozen. There was a lot of, one thing I learned, which we don't do a lot of revisits of topics from the previous week, because I delete everything from my mind, a lot of Papa Murphy's defenders out there. So maybe we are the ones who are ignorant. I'm glad you're all happy. That's all I can ask for when it comes to pizza. Also, please sponsor us.
01:11:57
Speaker
CURE87 gives 20 days Cronar to say regarding the many Europeans at 750pm over here. Yeah, we know. Well, not. I mean, not all of Europe, right? Europe's got several time zones. Do you know how tiny Europe is? Yeah, it's still got multiple time zones. Yeah, it's got like two. Yeah, like two at most.
01:12:21
Speaker
No! Well, it depends on how far east you go before you stop calling Europe, I suppose. From Spain to... The Brexit line. From Spain to Ukraine. That's gotta be like three different times, don't it? From Spain to Ukraine. Coming to you.
01:12:36
Speaker
The Windbreakers podcast. Awards. Also, Jeremy Morton gifted five subs over in the chat. This is a gift of Palooza. You know what this is? Christmas. This is the holiday spirit. People are just drunk on nog at one in the afternoon going hog wild or 750 in the evening in Europe. Ukraine's not in the European Union, is it? That's why Russia was able to invade it.
01:13:03
Speaker
I have no idea. That will be next week's topic. That one might be next week's topic. So if you keep it to the EU, yeah, you would probably stop a bit before then. Yeah, it's not in NATO either, again, which is why Russia was able to invade it. See, two time zones. That's one state in America.
01:13:27
Speaker
Skillerboy333911 gives $10 and says, currently performing hard labour for my previous hot take. Would love to see you guys stream GDC stroke dice to further my penance and respect to the devs. Shoeing off actual legends so Mackie can spaz out. Geez.
01:13:40
Speaker
He was not happy with Anthony Mackie. I didn't watch it in the moment, but then I saw the Twitter and I was like, good God, Jeff Keighley must have shot someone or something with the amount of outrage. And then I watched it and I go, Mackie was very cringe inducing, if nothing else. Very like we have Will Smith at home kind of vibes. Oh, you shut up. Now y'all shut up. They can't hear you, bro.
01:14:03
Speaker
There's also just some people who like when when Keanu Reeves went on stage a few years ago and did the whole your breathtaking thing to someone in the crowd. That was wonderful. Yeah, that wasn't GDC. That was that was Game Awards. That was when they were revealing the matrix
01:14:23
Speaker
No, that wasn't the Game Awards. I was literally there. Oh, was it E3 then? Oh, it was E3, I think, when they announced that he was going to be in Cyberpunk. Yeah. You were breathtaking? Nice. Yeah, yeah. Because I think that was when they were like, and one of the stars of Cyberpunk, and he came out and everyone's like, what the fuck were they doing? That was the last E3 that there ever was that I attended. And I was literally in the audience when it happened. Rest in peace. You're officially breathtaking and you both killed it. Good on you.
01:14:47
Speaker
Yeah. You're a breathtaking murderer. John Connor gives five Canadian dollars and says, so I wasn't alone in not knowing anyone in the Creators Award category then.
01:14:59
Speaker
What was that? That was like the literal creators. So that was, I knew people make games. That was the only channel I was familiar with. And then it was several content creators I'd never heard of. Oh, that was, yeah, no. I have no idea who those people were. Are we still like number two in Apple podcasts for gaming podcasts? Probably not. Cause maybe we could be eligible for a content creator reward in the future. We could have nominated ourselves for, what is it? First-class?
01:15:27
Speaker
I think you gotta be like under a certain age, so I don't know if- Y'all could have nominated me for first class. You're a spry. You can nominate yourself. First spry. Also, Jeremy Morton and Smekisk Auto, audio. Welcome to TipTart. A superb owner, our old friend, comes along with $5 and says, I keep not being able to find the way forward in Jedi Survivor. Does that game need more yellow paint or just clearer level design?
01:15:53
Speaker
I think you might have been stuck as for Google answers or whatever it's called these days, a superb owner. That was a problem in the first Jedi game, in my opinion, but Jedi survivors seem to clean it up. The map is much more legible. I don't remember it being hard to navigate, not like in the way, say, Avatar Frontiers of Pandora is. Oh, is that why you mean more yellow paint? Okay. Yeah, it's very confusing. We're not used to running around like dense jungles in games.
01:16:20
Speaker
I am. I play too many of those. But even then, there's still like a line, I would say, depending on the experience. Uh, witticism gives $5 and says, if you had to break action adventure into actually distinct categories, what would they be? Action adventure. Um, act, ion, ad, and venture. Those are my four. I would break it really early. With an ad break. Yeah. For a syllable. Um,
01:16:50
Speaker
Well, it's tough because we've never been entirely clear on what action adventure actually is. I mean, Souls-like is action adventure. Most Germany-Cockpit open worlds are action adventure.
01:17:01
Speaker
Yeah, I would say most first parties, Sony games are action adventure. I would say all those action adventures. What would be just adventure then? Because it's like ARPGs. Well, if you're saying, if you were going adventure on the literal definition, it would be a game with an exploration focus, like a Souls like Stroke Metroidvania style design.
01:17:29
Speaker
Would you say a Highland song? It's like Journey now. It's Journey and Adventure game. I still don't really get what you see in a Highland song. You should tune in to the inaugural episode of Bite Size tomorrow morning, 10 a.m. central to find out. Spoilers, I talk about Lord of the Rings. What's up, lad? Gollum. Gollum, I talk about Gollum. I do not talk about Gollum. Is it just because Scotland is kind of an exotic place to you?
01:17:56
Speaker
No, Japan is exotic to him. Not anymore, because I played Ghostfire Tokyo. My grandfather was Scottish, so Scotland stood in my head a real place that's just full of Glaswegians glassing each other. Is glassing just like hitting someone with a bottle? It starts with hitting someone with a bottle and then doing another thing with the broken bottle you have subsequently created.
01:18:23
Speaker
Oh, that's not good. Don't do that. They have the Edinburgh Festival and they deep fry Mars bars and they put out TV shows that you can barely understand what anyone's saying. That's something to me. I really appreciate a game that is a pronounced sense of place.
01:18:46
Speaker
And so that is something I think everyone has kind of weird, unique things that they weigh heavily when they're playing a game that like, if you do this thing, it's like an easy way to win my heart. And I think a pronounced sense of place is something that does that for me, both in movies and in games.
01:19:03
Speaker
Even if it's a real place, even if it's a real place. Yeah. If you capture the feeling of a real place, I think that, um, is still very, uh, very impressive. And I think part of it might be because, uh, in, especially in, in movies, uh, everything seems so fake. Every MCU movie just feels like it takes place. I don't fucking backlot in Atlanta because every one of them is shot in the backlot in Atlanta. Yeah.
01:19:25
Speaker
Also, there should be a category puzzle game. It's insane to me that there's no category. I like the way Steam hands out their awards where it's super itemized and super like, you know, best game that made you sad. Best game with a dog that made you cry. That's what you need. Granular. Separate them by emotional response. Best game with like really satisfying traversal. Best game that made you cry. Best game that scared the shit out of you.
01:19:52
Speaker
Best game with impressive-looking fruit. This week again. Yeah, that's what we're gonna do for our rewards. It's gonna be entirely emotion-based. Perfect. Best game that made you attracted to the waifus.
01:20:07
Speaker
It's hard to recommend to your friends. Yeah. Best game that you keep the controller nearby in case mom walks. Pundabaya gives five British pounds says it sucks that the best fighting game award was a sidebar award in a marquee year for fighting games. Well, you say that was just that Street Fighter six was really good.
01:20:31
Speaker
So you just give the reward to fighter six and move on. But no one got to speak. It was just rattled off in rapid fire on the side stage. This is why like even the fighting game community doesn't like itself or like the smash people like their own things. Everyone else who doesn't like the triple A's like blaze blue and you know, um, it's fractured. It's still pretty neat. Fighting game. What is yeah, I think so. Like it amazes me that people play that just for the campaigns. That's wild.
01:21:02
Speaker
Well, I played the Mortal Kombat campaigns because they suck so much and I want to have a good laugh. So that's why Ed Boone gave the award. Yeah. Valyrian Dare, who has interrupted their busy schedule of space adventuring, to give us $5 and say, we need a less Eurocentric, more globally aligned award show. This award show felt like it was aimed at North American and European audiences exclusively.
01:21:34
Speaker
I gave an award to Chia. How dare you? Chia. Chia. Out of curiosity, like what games weren't nominated that should have been. That would be mostly like mobile and gacha games. That's a Japanese games given prizes or nominated. Gacha games were there. Genshin won. Yeah, Genshin won stuff last year. Elden Ring won. Two of the games nominated, three of the games nominated for game of the year were Japanese developed.
01:22:03
Speaker
Maybe this is your inherent bias talking Valyrian dare. There's also there's always going to be a the timing of this is American centric. And it's like, well, they have analytics. First off, it's it's filmed in America, it's shot in America. And second off, they have analytics for when the best time to
01:22:23
Speaker
air these are, and the fact is they can't air it at a time where everyone's awake. So having it be a time that makes sense for the US and for Europe is the only thing we can do, even though it wasn't really like for Europe as well. Make it 24-7, that's what we do. We never stop awarding games, help, someone help me. What was it? But the other thing too, there are award shows that aren't American and Eurocentric, and nobody watches those. Like, name a German award-winning game? I can, because I'm too into it.
01:22:52
Speaker
Lula the Sexy Empire was the only German game I could think of. I hope I was German. I hope I was German. Oh yeah, so it was. I wouldn't miss an award because it was gross. It got the German award. There you go. The grossest award. It got the Jock award. The gross gross. There's a lot of surprising amount of Polish games. It's like games funded by the Polish government or something. The games industry in Poland funded by the government.
01:23:18
Speaker
They do that thing as well that England does, like for extremely English games, you get a tax write off or something. I don't see many English developers making the most of that. Where's, where's my game coming out? Assassin's Creed Syndicate. Yeah.
01:23:44
Speaker
Well, I once, like, hypothesized an idea for a game called Constable Blimey Chips. Which would be the sort of British equivalent of the Yakuza games, where you'd play as a British bobby who fights people with rugby tackles. That's more British than we happy few. And that wasn't to begin with. No, it was weird that. If you want to see like a British game that feels like it was made by a very embittered British person, play something like Not Tonight.
01:24:14
Speaker
Was that like with a K? No, it's that game that was a lot like Papers, Please, but it was set in like a grim near future post-Brexit Britain and it feels very authentically cynical because it's actually British.
01:24:33
Speaker
Yeah, you guys like to make your whole empire sucks thing, don't you? Leaf of vendetta. Was it Sunday gold? Yeah, there's a surprising amount of media where the premise is the whole world has exploded except for Britain, which has descended into a fascist state. There's like five different things with that premise. Children of men, beef vendetta. Did the world explode?
01:25:00
Speaker
in Viva Vendetta. Yeah, yeah, I think the opening premise of that was that most of the rest of the world is like a nuclear hellhole. Hellhole. There you go. I mean, that's a good way to avoid the like, what about us questions? You know, thinking about it, this is very characteristic of Japanese media as well.
01:25:17
Speaker
I once made a joke that the standard sci-fi action anime is a small community, small high-tech community that is isolated from a post-apocalyptic world that's constantly fighting off foreign monsters. Evangelion. That's like every action sci-fi anime.
01:25:42
Speaker
Do you think Persona 6 is going to be set in Birmingham? Yeah, island mentality, as Kebab says in the chat. Persona 6 is going to be set in Birmingham. Yeah. That's amazing. There's a lot of similarities between the British and Japanese mindsets just because they're both island nations, I suppose. Used to rule the world, yeah.
01:26:08
Speaker
Anyway, where were we? Cedar George gives 4.99 US and says, love your work, guys. I'm a big fan of your books. Yeah, it's can't wait for the next one. Any book or author recommendations while I got you here? I'll list off the standard ones. Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, P.G. Woodhouse, Jerome K. Jerome, G.K. Chesterton, Robert Rankin. Dr. Seuss, any Americans?
01:26:39
Speaker
What about Stephen King? That guy's got... He didn't influence me much at all. They don't make short stories. He writes long stories as well. Yeah, and they're boring as hell. Yahtzee, for shame. I've never been much of a fan. Yeah. Yeah, GK Chesterton. The man who was Thursday. Really fun read. I like me some old house.
01:27:03
Speaker
I'm embarrassed by how little I've read over the last few years because there are too many. I'm a fan of too many things. Like being a fan of movies and TV and games and fucking football, which I don't know why I am. I find if you get stuck in that sort of mindset, the thing to do is just grab a random book you would never have thought to read and sit and read it. You might be surprised.
01:27:29
Speaker
What'd you get? Christmas break. Christmas break. There you go. Summer, the Christmas of George. I'm gonna read all of them.
01:27:35
Speaker
like Curious George or No, I meant I was gonna say the summer of George, which is a Seinfeld reference. And then I said the Christmas of George, which doesn't make any sense. I don't know. I don't know where I went there. It's not small. I grabbed the Witcher books. They're like quick short stories. I don't even like the Witcher games. Books are nice though. I don't like Yeah, go on. Hectic FGC gives five Australian dollars and says if someone were to make a parody video of the video game awards, it would just look like the game awards.
01:28:04
Speaker
Well, you know who you'd get to make that parody video? Devolver Digital. It's a funny thing. That's the whole thing now.
01:28:11
Speaker
There was a game award show done by gamers, streamers, Aspen, Golden, and Mizkif. I forgot what it was on the OTK network. And Dunkey made fun of that because the whole time, Mizkif's like, yeah, I played platformers like I was just struggling the whole time. And it's just this sense of anyone who chooses to represent gaming to that degree, you're going to miss out. You're going to get clowned on. You're going to get flamed. There's just nothing you can do about it.
01:28:37
Speaker
Quincy Martin gives $50! Oh my god, Quincy! This whole actual American ones. And says, came in late, but finally caught one of those live. Here's a bit of pre-Christmas cheer for all the years of great content. What are you talking about, Quincy Martin? Second Wind has only existed for a few weeks. Oh my gosh. What, you're a self-published author of games. You've got years of content. Oh, sure. Them.
01:29:05
Speaker
Also, that's a good time to let everyone know. So next week, the 18th will be our final episode of the year. We are not gonna do episodes on obviously the 25th or the 1st. We're taking a holiday break, but we will be back on the 8th. There you go. Just unfortunate that the two big holiday days happen to fall on Mondays this year. Holiday days. And it's illegal for us to do the show on a day that's not a Monday. The cops will come and arrest us.
01:29:34
Speaker
Yes. Welcome B. Welcome B. Just a B. Oh, we should get such a speed up with kind of overrunning. Zach Lawton gives 10 Australian dollars. Did you all see that a European High Court has ruled that even digital games game be sold? No idea how this affects the industry but seems monumental in gamer rights. They're mainly been physical.
01:30:02
Speaker
Oh, like you could sell, you could resell digital games. Wait. Is that what that means? Uh, I don't know. Even digital games can be sold. I mean, I imagine resold. Yeah, I think his sentence got a bit. You rules publishers cannot stop you reselling your downloaded games. Cool. Well, how would you? How is that literally going to work? Yeah, can't stop you, but you're going to need your help in the technology, right? It's all certificates, right? You just pass certificates around. Yeah.
01:30:35
Speaker
Well anyway, C gives $4.99 US and says the true star of the Game Awards is Flute Guy. More Flute Guy. Flute Guy was great. Very large flute this year. He's a member of the orchestra, the year of the annual orchestra, and he gets really into playing the flute and so everyone gets excited to see Flute Guy. This year he played some sort of a very large rare flute. Did he get a flute solo?
01:30:58
Speaker
He did. Yeah, the camera's always on him. They're looking for that flute guy. Give the fans what they want. Yeah. SQ2,000 gives five euros and says, fun facts. If you order pepperoni in Europe, you don't get spicy sausage, but pickled chili peppers.
01:31:14
Speaker
Yeah, that confused me the first time I got a pepperoni pizza at a proper and then I came back with pepper Chinese. That's bonus. I like pickled chilies. So why but that's your meat. I'd like them a lot more than pepperoni. Yeah.
01:31:30
Speaker
As Marty said, if you were expecting meat, that's a little disappointing. I suppose. That's why you get the meat lovers, I suppose. So you can have the best of both worlds. Oh, he's afraid of mixing meats. That's a whole different thing. I don't like mixing meats. On we go. Gotta keep them separated. This is like a biblical thing. Got it. Yeah, are you? Are you a Mennonite, Marty? No, I just think, I think one meat's enough. I had a sitcom, it'd be called One Meat's Enough.
01:31:59
Speaker
Well anyway, Kloss M gives $5 and says the game awards is basically my Super Bowl. I view for all the trailers to make sure that my confirmation bias for my favorite games is confirmed. Love I have and my bias confirmed. If you like. And then Urbanum gifted 20 memberships. You're trying to beat each other now? Gifting Bonanza.
01:32:23
Speaker
Tom Schrider D gives 25 PLNs Polish Lotties, I believe, and says, I'm putting my money where my mouth is and I'll be watching the GDC stream. Good for you. Good. Try to do it. We promised. Well, I'll try to liven it up.
01:32:36
Speaker
I wear a suit and bring champagne. There we go. Yes. One of us will have a gun and we won't say which one it is. Just fire as well. Hell yeah. We have to lighten it up. Tsunami Dusha gives 10 US dollars says when the great Gonzo came on stage, did anyone else say finally a real celebrity?
01:32:55
Speaker
It's so weird that Keely is obsessed with the Muppets and he loves getting Gonzo on stage and he had a Gonzo bit that went on for like seven minutes and then they ushered off all the game developers. It's just very strange. I think the Muppets is kind of a boomer thing to like these days. He's about that age. I think they're kind of lost on the younger generations at this point who don't have the nostalgia for like Muppet Christmas.
01:33:21
Speaker
Question Muppet Christmas Carol. Best version of the Christmas Carol. We're a Muppet treasure island. Ooh, it's in curry. That's a good one. Yeah.
01:33:29
Speaker
Andrew Shug gives five Australian dollars says don't step on the landmine. Sorry, this is delayed. I'm in Western Australia. Yes, Marty. What a great goof. We had it was a learning experience for all of us. Yeah, tune into this Friday's Yahtzee tries edited video to enjoy that. I'm sure amid several other fun moments from our company stream.
01:33:52
Speaker
Absolutely. And whatever I'm streaming on Wednesday, I brought it up as a joke, but I kind of really want to do Disney Dream Live Alley now. Do it. Oh, I have a go, yeah. There's always Suica game as well, I don't want to say it. I played that on the Switch, and it's just fruit Tetris, and I didn't really get that attached. But it has such a good sense of place, Yahtzee. This feels like the produce aisle. Yeah.
01:34:23
Speaker
Rascalee Scramp gives $5. It says, first time catching it live. Woo hoo. Now some silly words for you. Bingle, squam, flimmy, flam, slippy, dippy, squimmy, doo. Those real words? Oh, the song there. Not bad. I think you needed better cadence. Rascalee Scramp. That was some good scatting. Good.
01:34:44
Speaker
Blue McD's nuts gives $2 and says drunk on nog. Give me your weirdest game mechanic. He is drunk on it. See, I knew someone was drunk on nog weirdest game mechanic.
01:34:55
Speaker
I got one. It was like a sim manager type thing, but it was based on relationships. So really, even though it was trying to be very wholesome and matchmakery, it's just eugenics. Eugenics. So it's like, uh, this is awkward. It makes me uncomfortable to play it. Very wholesome looking. I was like, yeah. Yeah.
01:35:17
Speaker
The DS and the 3DS had a lot of interesting, some games had interesting gimmicks blowing on the screen. I'll always remember there was a Looney Tunes game where you had to close the clam shell. I think a couple games had things where you had to literally close the systems and either it was like to turn off the lights in a room or one was to like notarize a document that was almost like stamping it down and then you'd reopen it. That was interesting, I think outside the box kinds of stuff.
01:35:44
Speaker
I guess I will nominate the missing JJ Macfield in the island of memories and where you had to basically completely mutilate yourself in order to reverse gravity.
01:35:58
Speaker
What? Like, in-game? Yes. This is the mechanic. You had to solve platforming puzzles by sort of breaking every bone in your body and then sort of hobbling along on hideous misshapen limbs. That's like handshakes. And doing that made gravity reverse. Handshakes. That's like a sautrap. Ooh. No, that was... I forgot what movie it was. It was a cult hit hostel, I think, so you can't leave unless you hurt yourself enough. Oh, look at this.
01:36:24
Speaker
Yeah, I don't like that at all. And then Andrew Willems gifted 10 memberships. What is happening? Something's in the water. Stop. People have gone hog wild. Oh, stop. Keep it going. Joampan gives five euros, says, hello, windbreakers. Happy to get to see you live for once. Developers were treated like a nuisance. They had to get rid of fast to show more ads and celebs. They loved them. You should say hi. You guys, I mean, it's pretty accurate to how gamers treat developers. Nothing else. You guys should see community manager threads.
01:36:55
Speaker
Zach Lawton gives five Australian dollars, says, was you breathtaking? Yahtzee, you were there. Speaking to Keanu Reeves performance at the Xbox Showcase. Yes, I was there, but my breath was not taken. Because I was at the back of the crowd in the space where they put journalists who obviously aren't going to look very impressed. And you might notice they very conspicuously do not point the camera at that part of the audience. Did they at least feed you guys in this corral or? No. Like no trough of burritos.
01:37:25
Speaker
No, it wasn't that sort of thing. They just, you know, it was just a big auditorium that all the front rows were full of like big Xbox fanboys who'd all been loaded in by bus, I assume. And then like the rear two thirds of the room was just a bunch of gaming journalists looking unimpressed. Right. Yeah, if there's no food at these awards, I don't want to go.
01:37:48
Speaker
Tower gives $5 and says, love the new podcast. Really hope nobody does something stupid like defraud a charity anytime soon. I'll go back to your drama YouTube channels and talk about that some more. Tower. Put out a statement yesterday, or over the weekend. There's a lot of back and forth. I don't care to get in touch in that shit. Jeremy Morton gives $5 and says that reminded me love your books as well. Yahtzee.
01:38:16
Speaker
Thank you. I just finished recording the latest audio book actually, finished on Saturday. Barring pickups, which probably won't take very long. What was the best chapter? That should be out next year sometime. CC gives 199 US says, Jeeves and Worcester is so fun. Favorite music right now? I'll tell you what I keep, I've been listening to over and over again. It's like the end of the music from American Arcadia. I just like it. It's a banger.
01:38:45
Speaker
Have you get around to finishing that frost? I did, yeah. Very good ending, actually. I quite like it, wrapped it all up nicely. I said it was. Yeah, you did. I also feel the way you did, where it's like, good ending and the rest of the game.
01:39:03
Speaker
I think, you know, a really good ending can, you know, it's what sticks with you. So, you know, that can like make a game. So if you're not sure, so if you're not sure if you like the game, but it's got a really good ending, you go away thinking, yes, that was a good game. I don't know. Because I was like, in the amount of time it took me to finish this, I could have watched the Truman Show and the Matrix and the end of Iron Man. Spoilers. No, because you don't know which one it is. Okay. Where's it on its sleeve? Off we go.
01:39:31
Speaker
And which Matrix ending was it? We don't know. There's a lot of Matrix movies. Oh, I wasn't even talking about the endings. I meant like the beginning, but I don't know why it presents itself. A superb owner gives $10 and says, what do you think about including more categories like best puzzles, best horror, best goofs, et cetera? There could be more opportunities for more diverse slate of games to be displayed this way. Well, apparently we don't need more rewards cutting the speech time down even further. A superb owner. You were Avengers.
01:39:59
Speaker
Problem is, being inclusive or to be insulting, it's like, you know, with the Esports Awards, but they ended up putting a coach that didn't even participate this year, you know? So, I would love to see Best Puzzle, Best Horror, but then you just end up with like, then it is just a popularity contest where you go, I struggled to name four, so I just picked the one on you. Yeah. You know? So, what can you do?
01:40:23
Speaker
Raskily Scramp comes back for $10 and says, on the topic of games for non-American countries, Finland has a pretty huge catalogue. Alan Wake, Baba Is You, Cities Skylines, Fear and Hunger, Cruelty Squad, Noiter, etc. Finland's been working hard. Wow. Same for like Australia and New Zealand. Yeah, they're popping off. Yeah. Yeah, isn't Dredge from down there? New Zealand. Yeah, you can... Ooh. Oh, Alan Wake 2 was made by a Finnish developer. You can't tell.
01:40:52
Speaker
That was a joke. That was good. That was a good that was a little sassafras. And also bucket list. Welcome to the tip jar bucket list. Hey, Zach Lawton gives five Australian dollars and says also why wear a tie loosely and have a voice and mic like that? Reach your fingers into all of the studios and ask your voice is epic too.
01:41:15
Speaker
I'm not sure what he's on about. There's a lot going on there. I have a loose tie. We all have mics and fingers. What? I don't know. I'm very confused. And Bucket List gives $2 and says, are the awards a net positive?
01:41:37
Speaker
Well, it's good that there's some high profile outlet that gains certain headlines.
01:41:45
Speaker
Yeah, I said that during the thing like there was a little behind the scenes kind of like doc about Venba And I was like it is nice that whatever how many dozens of millions of people are watching this Are learning a little bit about them but in the making of it It was funny that I believe it was sponsored by Old Spice So that was kind of like a funny thing like here's Venba the Venba segment sponsored by Old Spice But I think ultimately that's a net positive if like
01:42:12
Speaker
Cocoon won an award and more people are like, I should check out what this game is because I don't know what it is. I think that's that's good. Right. So if being the last man alive makes you feel like your your chances of getting dates has gone up, then sure, I guess that's how it goes, because the other game awards have just kind of died out. So, you know, yeah. And I'm sorry, please. No, that was it. I was like, yeah, it's not positive, but in a weird way. Sure.
01:42:42
Speaker
Okay, we'll make they will say this is the last super chat. So if there's anything more, we won't read them out. Sorry, but we got to get moving. I got to walk the dog. So now me do should give us $10. It says weird cof and Todd Howard getting roasted by the game awards itself. Do you think this may be a new trend of media to roast known devs publicly and loudly?
01:43:00
Speaker
Well, as I said, you know, roasting shows that we're all mates. Yeah. It's good so that people can have a sense of humor about these things. The Oscars almost always have a comedian as a host and they do their opening bit and they have goofs along the way. That's why you see folks like Chris Rock and Jimmy Kimmel and he had Ricky Gervais in the past.
01:43:18
Speaker
yeah and i saw and they tell Will Smith it feels weird that they had Ricky Gervais on i mean does the academy really like him he doesn't he's not really a film guy it was when he uh like was at his house i don't know was it to ask if maybe it was the Golden Globes or the Emmys i was thinking of but
01:43:40
Speaker
That was during the invention of lying, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that film everyone remembers. I asked for shit. Oh, just a little.
01:43:51
Speaker
Anyway, thanks for listening to the Windbreaker podcast. I hope we hope you didn't scald yourself on any hot takes in the last couple of hours. I was Yahtzee Croshaw, I was joined by Mati and Sebastian. And so we can Windbreaker is of course part of the second wind group that puts out great content pretty much every day of the week.
01:44:15
Speaker
For example, you could enjoy my fully ramblimatic review this week, which will be on the subject. It'll be a double bill, actually. It's gonna cover American Arcadia and Persona 5 Tactica because they both end with A.
01:44:29
Speaker
There you go. That's the link. Beautiful. I've also I'm going to be streaming a couple of new games in Yahtzee tries on the same day and Wednesday afternoon and will be a compiled edit of that on Friday for you all to enjoy. I think that's all I got this week. What else we got?
01:44:50
Speaker
What we got Marty? So these are yeah today You can check out Darren's latest backdrop video essay on blue-eye samurai, which is Not only one of the best animated shows of the year But just one of the best TV shows period of the year Everyone should check it out if you liked kind of arcane the animation and arcane is similar to that but an incredible revenge story So check that out
01:45:14
Speaker
On tomorrow, like I mentioned, tomorrow morning, we're going to be debuting Bite Size, which is kind of our expanded and evolved take on the three-minute reviews that you might be familiar with. But in a more video essay format, the first one going up tomorrow is mine, and it is on A Highland Song, the game I talked about earlier that I only like because of a sense of place.
01:45:34
Speaker
Wednesday after Yahtzee tries in the evening, we'll have another episode of Firelink podcast at 6 p.m. Central with Nick, Casey, and myself. And then speaking of me and Casey, at 7 p.m. Central on Thursday evening, we are rejoining our Devil May Cry journey. So we're starting up Devil May Cry 2, which everyone says, quote, this game sucks, so.
01:45:55
Speaker
We'll see. We'll see if we agree with everyone. Where it is. Where it is. Not very good. Well, perhaps we'll find out. Perhaps we'll see if it looks better from a retrospective viewpoint. There you go. What about you for us? What are you dabbling on? So yeah, for right now you've got yourself two cold takes so you can go watch the two older ones as I'm working on the newer one that will pop up on the Monday coming.
01:46:18
Speaker
And we're also working on a lot of stuff in the back end. I believe we've already mentioned that we're working on a stuff of Legends replacement. And then a few other things in the works. Keep your eyes out. Yeah, we're gonna keep adding new ingredients to this stew. Don't you worry. All right. And remember, supporters on Patreon, that's what makes the sausage. You can be involved in the making of that sausage.
01:46:42
Speaker
Everyone loves working at a sausage factory. You can be part of that sausage. You can be the discarded pig colon that is part of the sausage. These are the worst pies in London. Well, I would normally do some toffee time at this point, but toffee has buggered off to stand next to the door and give me a very affronted look. So I'd better go and take him for his walk. Goodbye, everyone. Hi, everyone.
01:47:26
Speaker
you