Game Scoop! 834: Primed and Ready

23:57Justin Davis:Cool. That'll be a really fun episode.

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26:15Justin Davis:That's mintmobile.com slash gamescoop. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com slash gamescoop. That's it, there's no catch. $45 upfront payment required, equivalent to$15 a month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Speed slower above 40 gigs on unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees, and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details. Okay, the Entertainment Software Association, or the ESA, has shared with me their 2025 holiday purchase study. They surveyed nearly 2 ,000 gamers aged 5 to 65, but mostly adults and parents. And so they wanted to figure out, they wanted to determine the percentage of adults and children who are playing to purchase or ask for video games this holiday season.

26:56Justin Davis:And figure out who they're buying gifts for and what specific gaming purchases they plan on gifting, etc. So I thought some of this was interesting. Let me flip forward to page 9 here. I like that the ESA is finding 5-year-olds. Hey, kid, I want to ask you some questions about video games. Do you want a video game for Christmas? uh the video game category ranks fourth in popularity among adults with more than one in three adults planning on buying a video game related gift during the holiday season one in three sounds low to me just because video games are so ubiquitous with like christmas and the holiday season and like what like what kid is like not wanting video games they've definitely moved away from being giftables easily in a lot of ways though because people want content or they want digital stuff some of that is in here too so yeah yeah i mean i don't know that doesn't surprise me like adults run the gamut like you know my parents are still around and they're not buying anybody i'm not getting video games for christmas anymore damon i i still do um yeah so video games are like fourth among uh adults gifts are they're planning to get gaming gifts that's fourth but they're um they're behind physical toys or games money or gift card and then clothes and accessories.

28:10Justin Davis:Those are like the most popular gifts that adults are planning. Does gift card include like Robux or is that video games? Well, it certainly... Which is a fall-in. It could. So physical and digital console slash PC games and accessories lead the list of video game-related purchases this holiday season. In-game currency and subscriptions are also top options among parents. Yeah, I mean, it's a little bit just from a gift-giving standpoint. You know, it's like we've talked a lot. I mean, Game Pass is 30 bucks now, so maybe not. But like for many years, you know, the best value in gaming, yada, yada.

28:43We love it so much. But it's like just opening like another three months of Game Pass just doesn't hit the same as like opening, you know, Metroid Prime 4, right? Like it's just it's not quite as fun from a Christmas standpoint, holiday gift giving standpoint.

28:58Justin Davis:It says adults are most likely to buy digital games and DLC for themselves, whereas in-game currency is much more likely to be purchased as a gift for children. yeah i get that too sure there's definitely an element of like you know these free-to-play games can be so predatory or buying robux or buying fortnite you know money or whatever it is but it's like you know kind of as a reward for like you know you got straight a's or it's your birthday or your holiday and like you know here's your money now you can go forth and and you know it's like giving a kid money and letting him go wild in the candy shop sort of they asked adults this question what are the main reasons you are planning to buy video game products for yourself and the winning result was 75%.

29:38Justin Davis:75 % said video games are fun. Yeah, what a weird question. What are the other choices? Yeah. Oh, the other choices are, wait, I moved away. I like playing games with other people. I always want video games related gifts or there is a specific product I'm interested in. Maybe there was just the only compelling choice. Yeah, those are all the same because they're fun. Yeah. Because they're fun. So this is where I think it gets really interesting. The average gaming purchaser will spend over$500 this holiday season on game-related gifts. Wow. The average planned spin on video game-related gifts is$555.

30:18Justin Davis:That just seems really high to me. I mean, yes, if you're going to buy a console, but... So only one out of three, what was it? Well, no, it was the fourth most popular category. But if you're going to spend on games at all, you're going to spend over$500 on average? Yeah, right? That's crazy. It's a Switch 2. I think that's what that means. Yeah, I mean, the average amount parent purchasing gaming gifts this holiday season expects to spend on video game related products is more than$700. What? The average planned spend among parents is$737. That's so much. I know. It's crazy. Like, I'm just about as big a gamer as you can find.

30:58Justin Davis:And I have a six-year-old son who loves video games. I'm not going to spend anywhere near$700 on his Christmas present. Right. I feel like it would be hard. I mean, granted, I have every console in my house already, but like I don't even know what I would spend $700 on. Yeah, console, right? Yeah, I guess. And they did raise the price of the console. Or maybe games for multiple kids. PlayStation announced their Black Friday deals today, and it's like taking the PS5 back down to the price it was before. It's like, how bad does that feel? Great ads. it's a whole toys r us toys r us yeah among children uh video games are the third most desirable gift behind clothes or a gift card and i'm surprised like when i was a kid the last thing i wanted was clothes clothes yeah yeah no way i mean video games were absolutely number one what i wanted now that my kids are getting a little bit older i you realize how much the clothes is a christmas gift or like such a scam it's like you know my daughter's 11 it's like oh she needs some new pants and then it's like well christmas is a month away just let her unwrap them for christmas and it's like oh like little did she know maybe i should keep my voice down she could be out there little does she know she could have probably just gotten the pants they wouldn't have even have had to be a christmas gift among children who are planning to ask for gaming related gifts the number one thing they were asking for is in-game currency yeah that's so sad to be spent on loot boxes.

32:28Justin Davis:Top gifts asked for among children interested in video game gifts. Children 5-9, in-game currency. Children 10-12, in-game currency. Children 13-17, video game accessories. What would that be? VR? 13-17 year olds want VR? I do know that that's a thing. Really? I know they're going to use it forever. Accessories, that's true. I guess my nephews really want an Oculus. this it's a thing and also also clash royale is really popular again it's having a moment all the kids are playing it again clash royale again wow yep and then finally uh 71 percent of parents say they always check the esrb ratings before allowing their kids to play 71 and then 66 parents had no idea what those yeah i was gonna say that respectfully that feels like esa propaganda i mean it's their survey i'm i'm half joking 20 said they never check 20 20 of parents are saying i know they just play whatever but play whatever they want i mean if you're getting going to like retail now like i don't even think there's games that there's ultra violent games but not even close to even 20 years ago with their options were like you're not gonna accidentally buy postal those things just don't exist right now it's weird that's true yeah the kind of shock m-rated game is like we were just talking about this in another meeting that like you know m ms run the game i guess it's not any different than an r-rated movie but there's like soft ms like there's halo games that are rated m and it's like how different is that than like gta it's like there's some m-rated games that i think i mean everyone can make decisions for themselves about their kids but like you know a 13 or 14 year old can play through a call of duty campaign or whatever but like then there's like there's some ms that are very different and finally 66 % of parents said they have they've used parental controls on video game consoles on all or some but 34 % said they don't use any sort of parental controls on their console what are that what 60 % do yeah 66 % do but man 34 % are just letting their kids accidentally purchase whatever well yeah I don't use I don't I don't that's not what parental controls means to me that means like to me that means the time limit or not letting like the switch has a mode of like don't launch M-rated games.

34:47Like I don't have any of that.

34:50Justin Davis:Like password protect the PlayStation store. Oh yeah. I have the store purchases locked down, but not the content purchases. They're like not the content that they can access. I mean. Anyway, some interesting data there. It always reminds me, my favorite tweet of all time, I don't know who it was, but I'll paraphrase it. What was even the point of Christmas before video games? Perfect. although you do see those serious catalogs that like they include video games but like the toy game was really strong starting in the 70s i mean star wars included right and lego became really big i remember being i think i was excited to get a great lego set as i was a video game that was just as good to me we got a we got the amazon toy catalog now it's really cool they started doing that a couple years back it is pretty cool and then my kids are like borderline too old for it but they still flip through it and circle what they want and then they end up circling like probably half the book exactly well there's a lego catalog too that's great that's like that now oh that's paper lego catalog um i wish they had asked a consumer in uh just like this group because we can always ask this but pulled people on like what the game genres or game titles or series that were most interesting to people i know we're going to hear about roblox and stuff but i'm curious how that stuff shifts over time does it doesn't shift away from roblox and minecraft because at one point it was like angry birds was a shoe in right like every kid had angry birds outfits and like not anymore it's gone but rovio i kind of dropped the ball with angry birds as a franchise we got bought by sega anyway so it's sega's fault i don't know i mean it's all it's all like the timeline of like were they already falling off and needed to get bought out versus you know justin i think you explained that on the show that that the new Angry Birds games have a lot of a lot less game and a lot more daily.

36:44Yeah, well Angry Birds 2, they did the same thing that Plants for Zombies 2 did where it was free to play, right? And then it just kind of, you know, I mean, I don't even want to describe it as bad, but like it's just got all the free to play garbage that we don't want. Yeah, and it would be, I mean, like they basically scratched that like kind of almost like a puzzle game itch, right? So it's kind of sad that we don't have

37:04Justin Davis:those still going. Kingo found some Angry Birds game on his tablet that's like, it's like puzzle bobble like angry birds yeah there's an apple arcade one yeah i mean it would be interesting is if they did a whole series of angry birds games where at the beginning of the game you lose all your powers from the previous game but it's for a different reason each time you gotta recollect the red bird

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39:27Justin Davis:Okay, Ubisoft says, many new games are struggling as players turn away from traditional releases in favor of subscriptions, live service, and free-to-play games. Now, this is Ubisoft, who is... They've been struggling for several years now. I was trying to pinpoint when Ubisoft's struggles began. I want to say it was like coming off of Assassin's Creed Valhalla in 2020. Because for two decades, the 2000s to 2010s, they could reliably release two to three big games every year and then it just sort of like dried up and like this one of the biggest publishers in the world they've got decades of experience they have very valuable ip they just seem to have forgotten how to do it how do we damon what's that are you saying that this quote from them of like gamers are struggling they're not buying single-player games is this them in the hot dog suit saying we're all looking for the guy who did this yeah exactly that's exactly right okay hey, I guess if nobody wants this car, I'll take it.

40:22Well, I mean, you all know the reasons why the last Assassin's Creed and the last Star Wars game didn't do great, but that doesn't really explain why Avatar didn't do great. I don't really know why that did great. Yeah, I was going to say, you're kind of, I mean, you're entitled. I disagree with the thesis of Ubisoft sort of screwed this up for themselves. I think it's both, right? They had some development troubles and release some live service games when people are kind of a little bit less interested in that release some mediocre games that like didn't resonate with the audience but then I do think there's an element of like consumer taste like that avatar game would have been the biggest game on the planet like eight years ago right but like video games just kind of like the floor moved out from under Ubisoft sort of without them really figuring it out or keeping up and the Star Wars and Assassin's Creed backlashes were kind of extreme they're outside of Ubisoft.

41:19They're like racist cultural backlashes and sexist cultural. They got tied up. They got all banged up in that, but so did a lot of other people. The Star Wars timing was really unfortunate.

41:33Justin Davis:It came at a time when people were just like... Really mad at Star Wars. There wasn't a lot of enthusiasm for Star Wars in general. Yeah, exactly. I like that game. It's so good. I don't think they misstepped there. I really don't. They made the best Star Wars game. I mean, come on. Hold on. Hold on. I don't know about better than the Jedi games. Fallen Order and Survivor. The Jedi games are so good. Those are good. I think Alonso is probably better than Jedi, though. I don't know about that. This is also coming out of time. I finished it. Ubisoft postponed its financials last week like 15 minutes before they were going to go live, and I think they still haven't released them.

42:13Justin Davis:And so there's talk about Tencent or... The Saudis are going to be purchasing them, so we don't really know what's going on with that. I just got octed, everybody. Well, Tencent already owns a decent amount of Ubisoft, right? Tencent owns a company that is now developing their Assassin's Creed and Far Cry and maybe Splinter Cell. Its most valuable IPs are actually being managed by this Tencent company. Weird. So explain that the traditional full game model of selling a single$65 to$80 game to a consumer as a one-time purchase was continuing to become less ubiquitous. Which is a hilarious quote, considering the portmanteau of Ubisoft.

42:56Justin Davis:Ubisoft sub-players were now opting to spend their time and money in other ways, such as subscription services, long-running games as a service titles, free-to-play games, and cloud streaming. In a nutshell, Ubisoft continued, consumers are playing fewer games. and while some one-off full-price titles were continuing to be successful, these have become a few notable exceptions to the wider trend. So, I mean, like... They provide those other types of games. There's some pretty huge successes. They've got Rainbow Six. And The Division. The Division, the sword one. You know, I think, I don't know if it's still active, but For Honor was...

43:28I was just going to say that it was around for like a good decade. Yeah, it's still going. Yeah. But... They also released one of the best Metroidvanias of the last decade and like nobody bought it which is a shame like that's what i think of when i think of a single player game that didn't sell yeah prince of persia the lost crown is incredible

43:44Justin Davis:yeah very good game but like when you think of the games this year the single player games like silksong hades 2 claire obscure donkey kong bonanza ghost of yote like i don't it doesn't feel like these are a few notable exceptions ubisoft could have published any one of those games yeah those are not i mean besides donkey kong they don't really do like 3d platforms like but like they've totally done a silk song in the past few years right they've totally done those other games like it's that's interesting i don't i i don't i don't i guess i don't disagree with that ubisoft quote at all it's like i do think you know sentiment and taste and spending habits and all that stuff are shifting yes and and i do think like the days of like you can make like a pretty good like i don't know what we scored avatar like but i know we liked it like whether it got a seven yeah so it's like that used to be like relative like nothing's ever a sure thing but like close ish to a sure thing and it just kind of isn't anymore yeah so i think yes uh sentiment changes but i think it's i think there's still an appetite for single player experiences and it's actually the games as a service that are struggling to break through because there's only a handful of those that people have time and an appetite for like unfortunately if ubisoft first of all could have easily published Claire, right?

45:03Because like... It's a French RPG. Like, that would have been unsurprising in an alternate reality if they published that, whatever. Right? Like, they could have totally gone for that. But if they had done that, would people have liked it as much? Because people are down on Ubisoft

45:19Justin Davis:as a brand. Yeah, and they like... It's a good story. It's an indie game. Yeah, it becomes kind of self-reinforcing after a while. But I don't want... I mean, their takeaway way, it would be just really bad if their takeaway was we can't make single player games anymore because like, come on, look at all the great single player games that came out this year. I think they still got some fight in them. Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting quote, you know, there's sort of like, woe is us because people aren't as interested in single player games, but it's like Ubisoft is one of the biggest and most successful purveyors of games as a service, like and help ushered in the era that we're in today.

45:57And it's still like, you know, I don't know how I would imagine the division, like all these games have a life cycle right and so maybe the division and rainbow six and some of these games are kind of past their peak um but but even so it's like they had such a such an unbelievably successful run at it and was so good at it for so long yep they're arguably like what's what's been a bigger live service game if you exclude like you know league of legends like you know what maybe destiny and besides that it's like they're they're some of the best to ever have done

46:27Justin Davis:it i don't know something has been wrong with ubisoft for a long time now i think they should still make that next uh assassin's creed game that's supposedly set in europe with oh not hex not the no that's hex that's hex yeah that's in salem though yeah that would be in oh i don't know i just know like i associate old-timey england with that it's in salem i thought so That's what the Salem Witch Trials. Oh, okay. Cool. That's good, too. Yeah, I like this. We've already jumped around that type of building.

47:07Justin Davis:Okay, let's check in with the listeners. Hey, listeners. Listeners, remember, you can always reach us at the email address, gamescoop at IGN.com, just like Matt Jones, longtime overlord of the Superfans did. He says, hey, Scoop Crew, I realized something over the weekend. end, I feel like I'm fairly intelligent, but I'm really bad at games that require you to be smart. I tried Bellatio on Game Pass, and I struggled to get past the first hand. I realized at that point, the game was not for me. I want to try Final Fantasy Tactics, now that it has been re-released, but I've been awful at nearly all strategy RPGs I've ever tried, and I'm afraid I will suck at that too.

47:38Justin Davis:I played The Messenger to a point, but my brain was hurting trying to figure everything out, so I bailed. The thought of a deck-building game gives me the shivers because I know I will be terrible at it. So when I look at the games I'm good at, it's always rhythm games, Metroidvania-style games that have puzzles, but they aren't brain benders or open world games like Red Dead Redemption 2. I love playing other sorts of games, but I'm always putting it on easy mode because I'm more interested in the story than getting good at them. Although I did beat Silksong, so I feel like I can get good at some games.

48:04Justin Davis:My other favorite kind of games these days is visual novels, which really take little to no skill whatsoever. Maybe it's not that I'm... Maybe it's not that I'm... Maybe it's not that I'm not bad at games that require to be smart. Maybe I'm just bad at games in general. Is it crazy to enjoy something as your favorite hobby, but not really be good at it. Love the show as always. Keep up the great work and happy holidays. Well, Matt, if you can beat Silksong, I don't think you're bad at games. Sam, did you ever beat Silksong? No, I'm not going to beat that game. I got to the last judge and I beat that, which was an incredibly frustrating three-day boss battle.

48:43I get it. I get why people like Silksong.

48:45Justin Davis:Yeah. I don't think Matt's bad at games, but I also think also So like, you know, games are a combination of so many different disciplines and there's so many reasons to play and different things you can get out of them. Like you could bump a difficulty down to a game. And so maybe you're not getting much of a challenge, but you might be enjoying the art or the story or the music or the performances or the world building or any of that. There's like a lot that you can get out of a game. It doesn't always have to be like, OK, I want to I want I want to challenge right now. here's the thing in different parts of your life you might want a game to be the most engaging most challenging part of your day right and then there's other walks of life where you're like the last thing i want is to be challenged by a damn video game at the end of the day yeah right because you're like i want to unwind or i want to you know be mentally challenged in a puzzle way that distracts me from my life and everybody's just going to have different different ones and needs from from video games and how they spend their their leisure time and games offer luckily all kinds of that stuff like a lot of people don't want to watch a horror tv show because they're like what i'm gonna like have i you know i'm wound up from work and i'm gonna come home and like be panicked by a stupid jump scare like screw that like i get that totally get it yeah that's what i thought on the show last week i told you guys i was all excited because i was gonna go play arc raiders and download it and try it and it took i have really fast internet but for whatever reason it took forever to download it was just going really slow and so anyway it took forever and i only had a chance to do two rounds before i had to go to bed then i got shot in the back and killed both times right when i was extracting and then i'm just like i don't like i'm more of a having a good time kind of guy that's why i want to play video games and so like you know and then i went back to vampire survivors after that i'm like i don't need this like I'm I it's a very stressful time at work right now like I'm like you both hit the nail on the head perfectly I think we're like games are a unique discipline in that you know people are in them for extremely different motivations um you know and so my motivation for playing games right now is to like chill out and relax and de-stress um but that's different you know I'm in a different mindset when I'm playing different kinds of games yeah I do like the idea of a dumb game and how much enjoyment you can get out of stupid games.

51:09But there's also different... He mentioned, I think, strategy or tactics is something that's too smart and too brain-involving. But I also consider maybe a kind of simplistic, non-strategic game like Animal Crossing uses a completely different set of strategic thinking. It's like, what am I going to do three days ago? What do I dream about when I'm not playing this game? What am I going to accomplish? What are my long-term plans? And I just think that's really interesting. It's like, it doesn't make, you know, it's just. It also, I'm sure it's working and maybe there's science behind this, but like, you know, we all intuit, like it's working a different part of our brain, right?

51:49Like, you know, the creative, like playing a Sudoku game versus a game where you get to be creative and decorate. And like, I'm playing Disney Dreamlight Valley right now and I get to sort of customize my village and put things where I want, still interactive, still a video game, but couldn't possibly be more different in kind of like the types of neurons that it's firing off yeah that's a good point i think like you know the idea of like all video games are doing this one thing they're they're they're accessing our reward centers which we have for you know eating and sex and hunting and stuff like that that's why we evolutionarily add these things right and they're it's it's it's hitting those and like it does it by you know does that gambling impulse like loot box type of like you know hit with like a little bit of adrenaline serotonin or it has like a more of like a do you get that same sensation from solving a crossword puzzle then there's games that are more like that do you get that same sensation by like literally going hunting you know there's a lot of games like that do you get that from sports there's a lot of games like that you know there's just like everybody has access to that kind of you know the reward centers in their brains from from different things or maybe just different preferences

52:58Justin Davis:and speaking of bellachro sam you're gonna you're gonna give it a shot i am yeah so i have this 12 hour flight i got three games for that and one will make it so i completely avoid bellachro so i got uh bellachro and i was like this is gonna be my game and i'm dead set i'm playing it so i just making a little joke there i'll play i also got ball pit which i haven't tried yet so i'm boned if i try that first right because it doesn't sound like i'll play anything else and i got dispatch which i really really want to play now yeah have you seen this have you heard about this yeah i've heard yeah i'm aware of dispatch kind of a telltale style here's why that might work for me on a plane really well though i'm going to try these other games is that it the flight that i'm taking doesn't have a rear seat entertainment experience but it has like the streaming phone but it's also a japanese airline so it's like who knows what it's going to have and my preferred flight thing now is absolutely passive watching of like terrible movies yep that that's what gets me through a 12-hour flight more than video i play video games for a little bit but like i can't do it for a long time but i think the mixture of these three games including dispatch which is like watching something yeah you know might might be the perfect mix and it's all waking time for this flight you know it's like there's not a single minute where i'd be like sleeping normally that that's a long time to entertain yourself with a i think it's probably be a perfect airplane game because it's like a television show as you said yeah yeah i think are all the episodes out now is there still eight were loaded i don't know if they all came out at once or what well they came out very quickly so you know i think they're all out i think it's the last one it was described as telltale like and it is in the sense that it's episodic but they had it like you know they came out like it came out weekly or bi-weekly like a television show so it's not like a month later like telltale's games were i played a little bit already too and like i I was really impressed with just the look of the game.

54:47Man, it looks so good. And then, yeah, I guess like the gameplay portion has a little bit of like strategy to it. Smart game stuff. We'll see. Yeah, I'm excited. I want to play it too. Cool.

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56:03Justin Davis:This is John in Bristol, UK. Hi, Omega Cops. My first console was the Master System. I'm 41. And I don't think I ever completed a game for it, partially because I was a young gamer. but I also, I think a lot of the titles were arcade ports, and so they're generally quite difficult. The recent dialogue about the difficulty of Silksong, 40 hours in and not sure I can take any more punishment, got me thinking about the history of difficulty, especially in retro games. Does Sam or anyone on the panel know if there was a moment or a year or even a particular arcade cabinet that signaled the advent of credit such money-guzzling game design and brutal difficulty spikes in arcades?

56:38Justin Davis:Were earlier cabinets easier, and could you finish them in a couple of quarters or have arcade cabinets always been artificially difficult? That's a good question. Who wants to say the joke about you played Master System first and, you know, they don't have NES in England. It's just so we can get that one comment earlier than that. Yeah. Okay, so from the very, very start, you know, if you really go back to a game like Pong that has no end state, right? And it's a co-op game. Right after that, you have Space Invaders. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's not like it's not taking quarters from you because it's challenging.

57:11Justin Davis:you. It's taking quarters for you because you're challenging each other. You want to be your friend. Yeah, the next big wave was Space Invaders, which is arguably one of the hardest games ever. And then Pac-Man, which is also really, really hard. Those were huge hits. So immediately, the calculation became pinball-like. It was all based on pinball. How long should your ball last in pinball before you put it in another quarter? They want it to be about two and a half minutes for the average person, which means little kids are a lot shorter than that. Adults can go to seven or eight minutes. And that's really how good people got it as Pac-Man seven or eight minutes.

57:45And so that's that's what I say, as I think. I mean, Sam, you know more about this than me, but I remember seeing some old advertisements for coin op machines. We're like, they're trying to sell it to businesses. And one of the selling points would be like, you know, the average game lasts, you know, 80 seconds or whatever. Right. Like, but if it's BS, then people aren't going to put another quarter anyway. So it has to be. Yeah, it has to grip you and be challenging enough to think that you can keep going. Right. And the tricks that got to that were really smart. And the way that difficulty ramped up was really smart.

58:17Like Donkey Kong would lay out a new level every once in a while. People are like, oh my gosh, it's completely different. I have to learn this whole level now. Super smart. I mean, arcades are so funny. Because look, all of us have this fondness for the arcade era and playing arcade games. And we love them and we love beat-em-ups. But it's insane that you die and have to put in more money to keep playing. That's such an absolutely insane concept. like any game now that's like you know put in money to start like imagine a game that you just have in your house imagine a steam game that you have to pay 25 cents when you die what if silksong did that yeah it'd be it'd be a glorious so i uh i and what justin's talking about is is the next iteration of those right where it's like it's not a game trying to defeat the player and by the way a lot of the coverage of games back then were like player versus computer like that was people's conceptualization because of computer chess right they just didn't have another conceptualization it was like you know human versus computer is like and all these old magazines and stuff but then uh continued continues happened and that was an innovation right because at that point you could uh really early games like that were gauntlet for example um you know you play with friends co-op and you keep on putting quarters in and that led to the brawler which is like you know you want to see the end of the game you want to see this amazing graphics and like keep on going with it and then then of course the fighting game brought that all back to pong which is that you just want to like so the matches are quick you want to put another quarter challenge your friends

59:43Justin Davis:again you brought in the exact examples i was going to bring up double dragon no no i'm we're exactly on the same uh wavelength double dragon if you just if you just keep putting money in you will eventually see the whole game and you'll get the ending well and like technically like in simpsons arcade like technically those bosses are a skill check like they can be beaten but they're not really meant to be they're meant to just you know they interrupt you and like you know get cheap hits in and you're totally dollar gates they're like somebody's gonna put in a quarter for each character and that's one more dollar and then I think Street Fighter 2 perfected you know that was if you're good you stay and you play for free and then the other player the loser you know has to pay the quarter tax like that was the perfect the perfect mix you know what's crazy is that the recent Mario Kart arcade machines don't do that and it's so it would be I just wish they had that mode in there where you could just like come up and try to challenge the person playing Mario Kart, but they just don't have it.

1:00:40They found that the calculation is kids will play for two minutes and the next kid will come in over and over again. Like this is all back there. Like everybody's figuring out the quarter economy, right? But that's what made home games actually also appealing to people is that they were like, I'm saving so much money by playing this game and not having to put in quarters and getting really good at it. like that was actually an appeal to play space invaders at home it was like why don't go somewhere i could play this at home and it didn't cost a quarter each time like people absolutely were making that calculation i i think that's really cute and then games that last for a long time super mario brothers the legend of zelda all computer games those blew people's minds there was just nothing like that that would work in the arcade they tried there were there were games like

1:01:23Justin Davis:that yeah when i look at ghosts and goblins when i look at the uh like the the arcades today new arcade machines that people can go and play today I think they're terrible a local arcade this barbecue joint has this racing game I forget the name but Kingo loves to play it to me it's absolute garbage but it's made by Roth Rills which is like Eugene Jarvis and guys from Midway who were doing it back then they know something today even though it doesn't appeal to me my kid loves it so they're on to something a lot of those are absolutely quick score based compete with your friend thing which is just Pong right doodle jump that's the one I thought of too the doodle jump game or like the piano ones like the mobile app where you hit as many keys in like 30 seconds as you can world's largest Galaga and world's largest Pac-Man and there's now a bus to move on or kind of like that too I just saw and then on the fighting games tip I finished the Mortal Kombat Legacy Collection documentary and i was an admirer of mortal combat in the arcades but i never played much of it so i didn't know about a lot of the easter eggs like the toasty i didn't know about that stuff so like that's like nice you trigger that with what every 25th uppercut or something like that and they got more and more complicated yeah yeah exactly so like just that's the one way they would get people to keep putting any quarters in because people wanted to figure out all these puzzles can you believe just the moves were a secret like just the move just the moves like how do you even play sub-zero without the freeze attack ball.

1:02:57A lot of people did. They just sit there and leg sweep over and over again until they figured out the secret moves. They knew just that because I don't think Toasty's Immortal Kombat 2, I think, or maybe 3, but it wasn't in the first one. Anyway, the point is they knew it was a phenomenon. They knew every single kid on Earth, like we're going to put this thing in the game that no one's going to know what it is or what it means or who it is. It's all an inside joke. Just the balls to like just to put some crazy inside joke in your game and then just like, well, let them figure it out. And then they iterated by sending arcades, a steady stream of ROM updates to kind of like change the rules and trick people or hint at other things.

1:03:38I love the thing about, um, smoke, um, or I think it was smoke where you, it's still, it has to do with the silhouette passing the moon at one point, but that only triggers something that's so cool. it's so cool i gotta watch this documentary because i remember all this stuff from being a kid and like you know but i haven't watched it yet it's great just like all digital clips this stuff

1:04:00Justin Davis:is great uh that original commercial for the home version of mortal combat with all the kids being like mortal combat that's one of the most genius advertisements i've ever seen it's so good uh yeah and then sam i think you also mentioned this when we first talked about this the actress who played Sony Blade like forever. Hero. Yeah, she's so good. She's great. Yeah, yeah. Oh, man. She's wonderful. Is there, outside of the documentary and like outside of playing games, is there other stuff to see and do in the Legacy Collection? I mean, only that there's like flyers. Is there just a fatality reel?

1:04:34Justin Davis:There should be a fatality reel. No, that's really smart. That is a good idea. I mean, or like a little like dummy mode where you can just press A to do any fatality. We did that on, i think destin did this project there's a there's a video on youtube of every single mortal combat fatality ever that's right and i remember coming up with that feature idea and then like halfway through the project dustin's like i regret this so much it's like for nintendo's 100th anniversary right well the and the mortal combat 4 how you remember you remember how in the docket they were recycling the animations for that well yeah and so they're the endings are so good they're just like you know somebody's hands just hang in there in space and they're like why is that well it's because in a different scene they had a hold an axe you know it's like so stupid um and then one more note on the uh quarter munching arcades i i always think of dragon slayer which is like that's one it's expensive that's one um option if you just create something like new that people have never seen before you know you start playing dragons there you die immediately but you want to see every every trap every death yeah and so you know you just keep pumping in 50 cents a play for that one yeah i mean making failure as interesting as success is like you know an element of that right yeah this every mortal combat fatality ever video is two hours long wow that's quite a project file especially for when that was cut those were really hard to get a premiere so the most recent one is mortal combat one does include no no this video is from 2019 okay all right well justin time to update oh okay yep well we'll see if we have the project file because we're not doing it all from scratch.

1:06:11This is sadly, this is 326 ,000 views too, which is boy, not enough. But another zero after that and then maybe. Exactly.

1:06:26Okay.

1:06:27Justin Davis:That brings us to Video Game 20 Questions. Our suggestion this week comes from Sideshow Bob who says, my pick for 20 Questions is Redacted. One of my favorite games on the Redacted. As the guys like to know where people are from you won't you won't you won't know my town pool but it's on the south coast of the uk awesome i have several uh editors in the south coast of the uk so maybe near brighton let the questioning begin did this come out on a cartridge it sure did oh sounds like virtual boy did it come out on a 16-bit cartridge? Yes. Virtual Voice 32, though. Maybe Damon doesn't know that. It can still be Virtual Voice.

1:07:1732 bits.

1:07:18Justin Davis:Can you imagine? Is it a Super Nintendo game? It was on the Super Nintendo, yes. Was this an exclusive? No. was this game made in in the united states yes that's five do you play as a human yes whoa that's unusual i think it's zombies ate my neighbors ate my is that what it's called what if it's judge dread could be judged dread is this game licensed no based off a license no back to zombies yep

1:07:57um is this would you call this a sci-fi game no

1:08:04interesting uh does this game have multiplayer huh i was just gonna ask let me let me check i actually don't know it's not street fighter

1:08:19no no multiplayer i think it still could be zombies that we weren't sure if it had co-op or not i actually don't know if it if it had co-op or not do you do you do any what do you what do you why do you kill stuff in zombies i've never played it i don't know why it popped into my head i can picture it i've seen screenshots i assume you're fighting zombies i don't know I think you're a group of teens or whatever running around an isometric town running away from zombies fighting them. 100 % sounds right. Yeah.

1:08:51So, and it wasn't just not Japan. It's US developed. Yeah. Yeah. Was this game made by a company that's still around?

1:09:02Justin Davis:No. That's 10. I don't know who made zombies. Not made by them. Just gotta ask if it has zombies. We just gotta know. that's 10 genre would be helpful maybe it's booger man could be booger man could be earthworm Jim that's good that's good was that on the genesis oh no no but you play it you play as a human oh yeah he's an earthworm booger man's mainly boogers yeah but still man what's David trying to we almost got a hint there

1:09:39uh i feel like the hint is that it's zombies ate my neighbors and we're just not going for it i mean i don't even know like i said i've never i can't tell you what genre exact genre that game is also games in the 16-bit era sometimes you were just like you know a weird guy running around and the game kind of doesn't have a genre like fester's quest yeah lightly adventure games yeah i guess are there are there horror elements to this game no ah rip no the dream is dead so it's not licensed you play as a human nor no horror elements maybe it's a fantasy game maybe it's a sports game is this a well but it's no multiplayer so it'd have to be a single player sports the saddest kind of sport is this a nothing Is this a platformer or role-playing game?

1:10:32Justin Davis:No.

1:10:37Is this a sports game?

1:10:38Justin Davis:No. I like the idea of playing as a human in a puzzle game too.

1:10:46You are. Are you playing as Dr. Mario in Dr. Mario? Are you him? Yeah, we've got Dick Logan. It's funny you bring that up because that's a debate from this exact show probably literally a decade ago. at this point who are you in dr mario is pictured in dr mario yep that was the argument at the time he's holding the next pill i think you will yeah i think what triggered that argument was uh if it's first person or not if i recall correctly well anyways it's not that so nope uh who's making genesis and super nintendo games in the u.s and that's the developer is out of business although Damon implied the publisher is still and it's not a platformer which is surprising and what was the other genre you limited sports and rpg jeez all right is this a is this like a 2d shooter yeah great but made in a made in the united states so it's obviously you know it's not our type or you know it doesn't have any sci-fi or horror elements so it's going to be no yeah not one of the ones where you're actually shooting like you know an anus and stuff like that like what life force like or contra even right so army army army a bunch of weird alien dicks what about um maybe more on the cartoony side of like running around shooting games although it is unusual it doesn't have co-op well i guess but are we picturing i was not picturing her i was Oh, you're a spaceship.

1:12:16I mean, that's really weird for the United States. Yeah. Are you piloting a vehicle in this game? Yes. That's.

1:12:25Okay. 2D vehicle-based scrolling shooter made in the United States. Oh, maybe it's a desert strike. I don't. What's that one? That's the helicopter one. There is desert strike, jungle strike, and urban strike where you're, I mean, that's kind of what they are there. you're in a helicopter they were published by ea i don't know who developed we just like totally screwing this up and this could be like you know space invaders or defender or something and it could just be on the super nintendo it could be a midway game if it's defender that was midway i'm just saying like can it be could it this be something that we never asked about arcade or when it came out well but we know it's 16 bit just that it was on super nintendo and we know it was developed by the we know it came to both and we know it was developed but when we asked the 16 bit question is it saying like is this game a 16-bit game could you say that about pac-man when it came out on the super nintendo i don't i don't i mean maybe but i mean i'd look it's possible i think midway midway and williams is definitely like a blind spot of like they made defender right or am i wrong yeah they did but it's like it could be something like that maybe but i don't know do you do you is this is this game hold on there's no sci-fi elements are we sure did we ask that yes oh oh yeah maybe it is one of the strike games then i don't know how to narrow it down um i mean okay i mean we could just ask you if you fly a jet do you fly do you well it's a helicopter do you pilot a helicopter in this game yes okay okay okay there's three of them that i'm aware of there's desert strike jungle strike and urban strike i don't remember which one was first i think desert strike was first does this game take place I'm gonna guess through context clues that Desert Strike takes place mostly in a desert environment does this game take place in a desert environment no does it take how many questions we got left two questions and a guess what if I if it's one of these we got it then does it take place in a jungle environment yes is it Jungle Strike yes I wouldn't have got there I'm really happy that you got there yeah i i remember these games because it is a scrolling shooter but you control it's like open maps you move around in and choose what to shoot so it's not like scrolling and forcing yeah i never played this game it's like a nice electric chop lifter is operation wolf uh also a helicopter operation wolf is a shooter we have a light gun game yeah okay okay okay what am i thinking of I mean, I remember Choplifter.

1:15:02It's great.

1:15:03Justin Davis:Yeah. Yeah, these games are cool. Published by EA, but developed by Highscore Productions. Wow. Yeah. This looks great. It came to Genesis in 93, but then it took two years to come to Super Nintendo in 95. Yeah, it was associated with the Genesis. Did it really have these cut scenes? Yeah, it has these cut scenes. Jesus. The opening cut scene is pretty funny, too. and the bad guy the villain is the son of the guy you killed in the first game so that's great cool yeah that's the plot for metroid that we're pitching jungle strike nicely job thank you for the suggestion sideshow bob viewers listeners if you have your own suggestions for video game 20 questions email them to me at the email address gamescoop at igin.com and let's see what message what was what did he say it was Sorry, it was his favorite of the helicopter genre?

1:15:56Favorite games on the Mega Drive. Okay. Mega Drive, okay. Yeah, because he's in England.

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1:17:09Justin Davis:There it is. And that is all the scoops that we have for you this week. Everybody have a good holiday week and weekend. Next week, we will have two special kind of bonus episodes for you. so I'll be talking to you more about those next week. Thank you to Sam, Justin, and Logan. Thank you to Jobert working behind the scenes to make this episode possible. My name is Damon. This is IGN GameScoop, and we're out.

1:17:34Justin Davis:This episode of GameScoop was produced by myself, Damon Hatfield, and Jobert Adienza. Technical direction is handled by Jobert Adienza. Technical production is by Marian Franzen and Amir Aqib. Audio engineering is by Amir Aqib, and post-production editing is by yours truly, Damon Hatfield. Graphic design is by Nicole Cagampin. GameScoop is an IGN production and part of the Geek Media Network. You can't reason with the sun. Trust us. We've tried. This summer, it's time to put that angry ball of fire on mute. Columbia's OmniShade technology is engineered to protect you from the sun's harsh rays that can burn and damage your skin.

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1:18:45Real design professionals. Free samples. Zero pressure. Right now, get up to 50 % off with minimum purchase. Plus, get a free professional measure at blinds.com. Rules and restrictions apply. Yeah, I think directly compared to Prime 1, it's nowhere near as good. But if you went and revisited it now, I think you would love it. Prime 2 is awesome. Yeah, well, I mean, I wish there was an easy way to do it. do so but it's presumably still coming at some point I hope so and I hope they don't just drop it on the GameCube Switch Online because the tank controls are not fun anymore in those first two games I hear that I'm leaving for Japan in one day wow that's big how long is that trip we're there from Thursday through next Sunday so 10 days that's why you can't review Prime 4

1:19:39Justin Davis:that's why that's exactly why so you're you're there for thanksgiving yeah isn't that crazy we've spent thanksgiving there before it was totally fun oh you did yeah was there any acknowledgement of it anywhere i don't think so no no no it's a very holidays they love yeah black black friday's gone worldwide has it but not that not the thanksgiving that it's attached to here in america i'm excited i've never been to tokyo so i've only been everywhere else wow that's wild i know cool and we're mainly we're playing four shows mainly in the tokyo area and then one in osaka so i don't have a lot of uh a lot of things to do during the day which is great well tokyo does not lack for things to do yeah i'm so excited we'll get like a full exploration in and then have to be in a smoky club all night nice that's rad man it's going to be great.

1:20:33Yeah, I'm really excited. Very, very, very, this is a long time coming. It was an invite from like, you know, like a year and a half ago that we've had to make work for many, many, many months now. So yeah, can't do Prime and I really wanted to. So it's just because I was hoping Nintendo would not release it anywhere near Thanksgiving. I wasn't expecting that actually. It's kind of surprising. December 4th is the most surprising thing. I don't think they were expecting it either. I think it got delayed like two months at the last second. Yeah, I suspect so. Although this There's plenty of time for them to make Metroid Prime 2 and 3 available to play, but nope, that didn't happen.

1:21:05Nope. Yeah. I'm almost done with Metroid Prime 2. I can talk about it on the show. Nice. I don't like it anymore. I used to love it. Oh, no. Really? Yeah, it's just too tight. It's too many little passages that are all alike. That's fair. It's the most suffocating Metroid for sure. But I do like the vibe of it, and I think it's a nice second half to Metroid Prime. definitely didn't like three so we'll see i like three at the time but i haven't played this in i don't remember a single thing about two like i don't like i'm playing and i'm like i didn't think that there was an underwater part to two i'm like boy it's like 10 hours long and i want to get out of it in the bog part the torvis bog torvis bog yeah the sky temples and stuff those are all cool like all the high tech stuff is cool yeah and i like the desert i mean i like a lot of the game.

1:21:57Like, it just... It ain't Metroid Prime. Nothing really is. No.