Guitar Hero Veterans Are Debuting a New Rhythm Game - Kinda Funny Games Daily 08.06.25

0:00This episode is brought to you by Facebook. So you were scrolling on Marketplace, and there it was, the bike you'd been searching for. You sent a message, and it turned out the seller was super chatty, kind of funny, and an avid cyclist. The next thing you know, you're in a cycling crew. Well, a community cycling group. The thing about Facebook, you might find more than what you're looking for. From a browse to a bike ride, this summer, find more on Facebook. Hey Chicago, class it up with Crocs. You know back to school is coming in fast. So why wait to find your new fave footwear? Step into a local Crocs store and step into your new look.

0:44Try it. Style it. Make it yours. Because the right pair doesn't just show up, it shows off. First day fits, handled. Walk out ready for whatever's next. Visit your nearest Crock store today.

1:25by selecting work mode available on Plus and Pro Plans. Pros trust the Home Depot for heavy-duty storage solutions for any job site or garage. Right now, get up to 15 % off select storage and organization. Impact and water-resistant totes and shelving built to hold up to 2 ,500 pounds. Storage systems have space for all your tools and protect them in the garage, on the job site, and everywhere in between. Save time and maximize efficiency with adjustable shelving customized to your business's needs. Shop and save on pro-grade storage at The Home Depot. How pros get more done. Today's stories include a new studio has been established by Guitar Hero veterans, Clear Obscure's director thinks we're too harsh on turn-based RPGs, and Baldur's Gate 3's performance director has thoughts on Hollywood castings.

2:13We'll have all this and more because this is Kind of Funny Games Daily.

2:24Yo, what's up? Welcome to kind of funny games daily for Wednesday, August 6th, 2025. I'm one of your hosts blessing at a junior. Joining me is the LaCroix poppy, Tim. Ma bug yet is what a beautiful Wednesday. It is a blast. How are you? I'm doing well, Tim. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Today's one of those big days and kind of funny history, but it's a big day for your physical health. What's the, you know, it's, it's a step towards progress with the physical health here. because I don't know if y 'all heard yesterday having issues with my heel, my right heel bothering me very, very badly the last couple of days.

2:59Sharp pain hurts like a motherfucker with no real inciting incident. And the more I think about it, the more I'm just like, no, nothing happened. You know what I mean? It wasn't the running. No, because that was like a week ago. Yeah. You know, I highly doubt that that would have affected it this much later. Maybe. I'm not a scientist. I'm not sure. But I saw a lot of people out there. There's a lot of podiatrists, doctors of the feet, Les. Podiatrists? Yes. I wouldn't have guessed. They were tweeting at me. They were letting me know, hey, Tim, this is what you should do. And I've been doing all that stuff.

3:29People are telling me, ice it. I knew that. Yeah. 15 minutes a day, three times a day. Yeah. So I'm on that already. I'm on my fourth rotation. Yeah. And rolling it. You take a tennis ball. Oh, yeah. Or a water bottle. And you just kind of roll your foot on it. Oh. And it's been helping a lot. It's not fun to do. I was going to say, that sounds uncomfortable. It does kind of hurt a little bit. but anyways i'm uh you know on the road to progress let's put it that way but it hurts i'm also limping a bit i feel i feel feeble i feel like i'm in a bad spot but shit happens yeah you'll you'll you'll get there i hope i don't i hope i don't yeah i'm trying to be i'm like right now i'm in my active era yeah i'm doing things i'm going to the gym yeah playing soccer somehow i see myself slowly gaining weight even though i'm doing all these things and i think that's just the product of like finally being in my 30s um and then that's just what happens no matter how active you are like some of my friends most active people i know yeah it doesn't help well this is what i'm slowing down on drinking not that i drink a lot a lot but like in the last probably six to 12 months i had a hangover so bad like a year ago that i was like i just do not need to do this like me now where it's like when we we don't drink a lot we don't drink often but when we drink we drink yeah oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah so i've been doing that less and i've just not been watching the food i eat i'm just eating everything oh yeah we i mean we're low we weren't close to a raisin canes so how am i not going to get two texas toasts two texas and you know what they say about bread it makes you fat that's what they say so really if i want to fix myself those are the things that i got to do yeah yeah if you want to fix kind of funny we're going to collaborate with a brand new person we are russ frushtick co-founder of polygon.com is joining the kind Kind of Funny team as our partnership business head.

5:11He is not a full-time employee. He's not the 12th member of the team, but he is fully a part of Kind of Funny through a partnership between us and him where he's going to be kind of heading up our business development side. Greg and I have been doing it for 10 years now and doing our best. And I feel like we've done an okay job, but having somebody dedicated to it that actually understands what we do and the industry at large is going to be so beneficial for our company and for us as individuals and as a group. And I'm incredibly excited about it. So, yeah, this shouldn't affect the audience in any real way, except for hopefully allowing us to do more cool stuff.

5:50There's already a lot of cool things in the works. And Russ is just the best man. You might know him from the Besties podcast, which is awesome. All of his work at Polygon the last forever, over a decade. Great dude. He came through the studio about a couple weeks ago. What was your experience? I mean, Russ is awesome. Yeah, I've known him from Polygon and from the Besties. And so to have him sitting in the office for a couple of days was one of those ones where it's so funny the role that he's collaborating with us on. Because this is not how I know him. I know him as a podcaster. I know him as a content creator.

6:23And so I'm like, oh, man, that's Russ Frushtick that I know from Polygon. And he's doing business stuff with us, which is really cool. my request for russ i want russ quest i want a russ quest i want an exclusive game showdown sponsor and i want it to be the most ridiculous sponsor you can find all right for the new season what like whatever the most i want chucky cheese you know what i mean i want like the most random sponsor for game showdown for the next season that's my request for you okay okay i don't think it works exactly that way but i like where your head's at what about like john deere i think It's possible.

6:59Sponsor my desk at work. Ramirez Art Jam is asking, will he be an in-office personality or off-site? He is in New York. He will stay in New York. The plan is not to have him on content. He is very much a behind-the-scenes business development type of guy. However, he's incredibly talented and incredibly cool, and we like him a lot. So we're not saying he won't be on things, but that is not at all the vision or plan for how we are partnering and how we're working together. uh we didn't mean greg did a greg way getting into a bit more details but kind of just saying what i'm saying right now uh in more words like it is a very exciting opportunity you know a lot of ideals and hopes and dreams come from this like greg and i being able to be on more game streams and do more more on camera stuff as opposed to having to do all the phone calls i don't really think that's going to change that much i think this is just going to be a additive thing but hey this is good i see no negatives from this um and i think that uh y 'all watching and listening will hopefully start to see the benefits of this over time as well, because I do think this is going to allow us to do a lot of much bigger, cooler things than we've been doing, even if it's just doing the same things we're doing, being able to do it in ways that are more comfortable for us.

8:09And I have some stuff I'm biting my tongue on saying right now. We should be announcing. Off of Reg and Tim's shoulders. Yes, which should be fun. Even though you guys will probably take on more weight. Just because you're like, oh man, what if we did this to you? But that's what kind of funny is all about. adapting changing growing and being a little turtle in its in its uh little little cage okay yeah not what's the cage what's the aquarium what's the glass around a turtle called that you need to outgrow you know what i mean you can only grow as big as the the thing you're in somebody not talking about the shell no you put the turtle terrarium terrarium yes you put a turtle in the terrarium if the terrarium is not that big it only grows that big but yeah we're in a big terrarium okay like are people putting turtles in very small like a fish tank Like a little fish tank?

8:52And then the turtle will just grow to the size? Okay. Glass ceiling. I just figure you would put a turtle in a bigger thing. Ideally, yes. Because it seems claustrophobic to put a turtle in something that's going to hit the walls. That's the whole problem. Shout out to, I won't say which family member, but a family member of mine had a couple of turtles. And they lived in Ohio. And their terrarium was outside. And it was winter time. And they accidentally froze the turtles to death. oh no wait but like if you freeze a turtle i swear to god i just saw a video on this of like people unfreezing a turtle oh yeah but you have to like unfreeze it slowly but it was kind of like a hibernation situation oh shit but maybe the i mean your situation i don't think they realized that maybe i don't know like i think you could have i think you could have rescued that turtle me personally well not you personally but like the people in the situation my goldfish died when i was little and i was very sad and i was on my way to kindergarten and we had to flush it down the toilet and we put it in the toilet and i was like mom can i pee on it before it goes like goodbye and she's like you're fucking weird but sure came back to life no fuck no it's just like the superman tear from i got that power that's crazy i when i was a kid i had a dog named prince my mom got it without telling my dad or telling any of us so i came home and i was like oh i got a puppy and then two weeks later my dad took that puppy without telling any of us and just gave it out i gave it away took it to the shelter took it somewhere yeah took it to the place he's supposed to take it to he didn't just like fucking kick it to the street but like i came home one day and i just didn't have a dog anymore and i was like what happened and everybody was like my dad your dad fucking hated that dog like my mom got that dog without permission and my dad fucking hated it for two weeks he hit his limit he was like no more dog wow and so we all have pet stories we all have pet stories everybody remember this is kind of funny games daily each and every week we run you through the nerdy news you need to know about live on youtube twitch and on podcast services around the globe if you love what we do support us with the kind of funny membership on patreon youtube and now spotify and apple podcast to get all of our shows ad free watch us record them live and get a daily exclusive show for a chance to be a part of the show some of your thoughts and opinions as youtube super chats as we go housekeeping for you we're an 11 person business all about live talk shows so today after kftd you're gonna get gamescast which is a check-in with roger damas and our fantasy critic drama explained oh god can't wait for this bullshit yeah i want to see what roger has to say what's he have to say thank god mike is sick because he doesn't have the charisma of mike to back up whatever bs he has to bring to the table you know i was driving into work and i was thinking about that i was just like thinking okay we're about to do this gamescast i don't know what roger has planned i don't know what and i i'm hosting the show he's prepping me a doc that i'm just gonna have to go off of all right and obviously I trust Roger but Roger and Mike it's not about trust it's about question marks you just don't know what's going on I'm scared to ask and whenever I do ask I don't feel I'm getting honest answers they're like noob in smoke from Mortal Kombat they kind of share a brain I don't think that's how that works narratively but in our mind I get it it's like they're one being but they're also two nefarious individuals that you cannot trust yeah it's about not trusting them And that's why I denied their, you know, the full trade thing, because it was sold to me as a fair and legal trade.

12:13And when those words are used from those two, I'm like, it's crazy up to something and I don't trust it. It's crazy how good of a salesperson Mike is until he needs to sell something. You know, like that was Roger who said fair and legal. And I was like, I don't know about that. Mike was Mike was trying to butter me up. You know, like I was in Denver with family. He's like, I'm sorry to take day away. Like, I'm sorry to take time away from you and all this stuff. And then I hear Roger on the far end of this phone call and say, it's a fair and legal trade. I'm like, I don't know about that. It was the most just guilty phone call I've ever heard in my life.

12:45And it's like, you just need to get this guy to say, you just need to say, hey, Blessing started the league with trades turned off. We want to turn it on. Can we get your approval? That's all you need to do. They'll explain it. And they messed up. I'm sure it's all going to make total sense. And everyone's going to be happy. And no one's going to get heated whatsoever. And then after Gamescast is Joey playing Fields of Mysteria and Nick playing the altars. If you're a kind of funny member, today's Gregway is from Greg and Tim about how we're working with Russ Fresh Tick, and it's up for everyone.

13:10If you want all the nitty gritty details, it is an 11 to 12 minute video that is up on YouTube right now. Yeah, we wanted to make this one public because we felt like it was kind of important information for people that might have questions. But also it's very like specific to the kind of funny nerds. You don't need the people to care about the real behind the scenes shit. Thank you to our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster, and Delaney the Psalm Twining. Today we're brought to you by Kinda Funny in Review, but we'll tell you about that later. For now, let's begin with what is, and forever will be, the Roper Report.

13:43It's time for some news. We have five stories today. A Baker's Dozen! Starting with our number one. Guitar Hero Veterans, form a rhythm game development studio, Red Octane Games. This is Tom Ivan at VGC. Veterans of the rhythm game genre have established a new development studio called Red Octane Games. According to today's announcement, the small studio plays home to, quote, creators and developers who helped create and scale Guitar Hero and DJ Hero nearly two decades ago, as well as proven emerging development talent and community leaders from across today's rhythm gaming space, end quote. Red Octane is currently developing a range of rhythm-based experiences with its first title scheduled to be revealed later this year.

14:34It described itself as a company within Embracer Group's free mode, which offers support and guidance to independently operated businesses. The studio is headed up by Simon Ebeger, who was production director on several Guitar Hero titles at Neversoft and later served as studio head at Vicarious Visions and VP of operations at Blizzard. red octane was the publisher of the original guitar hero on the ps2 uh or in the ps2 version of guitar hero 2 before coming before becoming an activision subsidiary when the call of duty maker acquired the franchise for 100 million dollars activision closed red octane which was co-founded by kai wong and charles wong in 2010 the wong brothers are to join a special advisory board for the new red octane back from the ashes very interesting yeah man i remember the the red octane logo on all the guitar hero boxes and and them uh being responsible for the all the peripherals out there and the many various forms and shapes the guitars took over the years um and them talking about the the team being kind of vicarious visions and never soft people like the never soft era of guitar hero is my favorite era one and two obviously classics you know one was like proof of concept game almost two was really where it was like kicking it up a notch like everyone is in love with guitar hero and for good reason but i feel like three which was never soft on is where they really were like all right cool let's hone in on this being a video game while never soft or sorry while harmonics went off and did rock band and kind of you know turned the the guitar hero brand into a even more massively mainstream uh living room event rock band you know um so yeah this is exciting to me but i also have a lot of concerns that it's going to be one of those mimic situations that feels like okay you're bringing back guitar hero but it's not guitar hero so it has to be different enough and if it's different enough it's not the thing anymore yes you know it's in the same way that fortnight has their version of rock band slash guitar hero fortnight festival yes and i booted up into fortnight um a few weeks ago just like mess around and see what the kids are up to nowadays you know what i mean it's like what's what's hot in the streets and what's hot in the streets let me tell you lego is doing its thing oh yeah and then face fortnite and then there was like that mode that they added uh to fortnite that like caught fire um like about a month or so ago really that's why i did log in um but out of curiosity i went over to fortnite festival just to see like what the deal was what it looks like these days and like there's something that's lacking there's something that's missing and maybe it's time has passed and guitar hero and rock band are of an era maybe it is tough to make something that is the same but different right trying to capture the energy and spirit of guitar hero might just be too tough when you're not guitar hero i think there's also a very strong thing to be said about how much guitar hero and rock band are made by having the actual peripherals in oh absolutely and how much of that part of the era can you bring back yeah they have their trailer they did a studio launch trailer that bear's been um playing right and in the trailer it's like 42 seconds long um they have like references to like the peripherals and the guitar controllers and all this shit right and there's an extended part of it where they say rhythm gaming is making a comeback which feels like such a strong statement to make and i don't i don't think i believe it no i don't believe it either i mean i don't believe it because it didn't go anywhere well it did from where it was you know 15 years ago but in the last 10 years it's been steady there's been rhythm releases left and right on in the indie scene but even in like more just like not triple a games but like a games coming out there's a ton of rhythm games coming out that are getting great reviews and there's a huge audience for them but the audience is not everyone like it is a niche genre at the end of the day um that i think is well fed and the biggest thing is it's a genre that is uh if you hit a point of being interested in it as like a oh i'm hardcore into these things the mod scene is where it's at you're gonna end up getting some type of step mania instead of ddr clone hero instead of guitar hero like people have found ways to continue the thrill and excitement of that gameplay style from back in the day that are the ones that take it the most seriously so trying to bring back peripheral based rhythm games in a mainstream fashion i think is a fool's errand having said that i don't blame them for saying that that's their goal if hopefully internally their actual like metrics for success are significantly lower than how they're presenting because yeah act like you're coming back and going to be the biggest things ever because that's the only way to get people excited and to not just be a niche thing but like to really kind of remind people hey you had a lot of fun doing this back in the day you could do it again yeah um but you know they need to be realistic or else it's not gonna work i feel like that's not rocket science yeah i i think you make make a good point there as far as like rhythm game hasn't gone anywhere right it might be out of the mainstream as far as what guitar hero was in like 2006 2007 and all that shit right but when i think of when i think of rhythm games nowadays i think of like the variety of stuff that yeah we do get the indie scene whether we're talking about a hi-fi rush right which is actually not an indie thing right that's more of a double a thing but whether you have a hi-fi rush or a rift of the necrodancer that just came out earlier this year right or even you go to arcade still and you have ddr and all that stuff and that leads me to the question of where do you see you have guitar hero in arcades you have guitar hero in arcades where do you see them taking this because like if i'm thinking of the viable ways to do it i my first mind goes to arcades i think there is a space for that now if guitar heels are already in arcades it's hard to break in with a guitar hero clone because then why not just do proper guitar hero but i don't i find it tough to imagine what the business strategy is here in like a larger way i think that the a lot of it has to involve understanding that fortnite exists and fortnite festival exists and having their peripherals be compatible with that um and market that as a huge feature so have their own ip their own game and their own ecosystem of hey the reason we have these guitars or whatever instruments they make but guitar specifically this is why you're investing in this and here's a game that's going to be fun that you're going to want to play but also if you want the fortnight experience you got that too because fortnight has already an incredible library of songs their transaction process isn't the best yeah um because i similar to you i've popped into festival a couple times over the last year just to see where we're at and like it just gets so frustrating to as somebody that's not at all in the fortnite system i get so overwhelmed confused looking at all this stuff and then once i dig a little deeper to be like okay cool but how do i actually get the songs i get pissed off man i just get so upset so um that that's how i think that they find some type of like baseline of consumers um that has at least any type of viability of being a successful product but i do think this is going to be an uphill battle i'm excited for it i don't want to come off as negative on this because i do love these games but um i also didn't love guitar hero live when it came out in 2015 or whatever it was because to me that was hey it's guitar hero but we're making it different and it's like we don't want that we just want guitar hero but who's the we and how big is that for the we want guitar hero i don't know if it's big enough to you know blow everything out of the water but if they're realistic it could work i want to bring in a super chat from jake kaminsky who writes in and says it doesn't matter what form we get a guitar peripheral game there always needs to be uh b1 it's been a while since rock band 4 and we need a successor excited for the new team uh member guys oh thank you and yeah like i mean there's the person that's hungry for it you know what i mean like i'm with you that i don't know if there's a grand hunger to bring back guitar hero but i i do think that it's tough right because you don't have i assumably they don't have the ip of guitar hero and stuff right so i almost feel like if you even want to try you need that like you need that guitar hero ip because that's what people remember that a rock band right they remember that in their living rooms there is a mainstream at least to knowledge of what that is um that said like if they're trying to veer and do something different a game i really liked that came and went that i would love to see somebody give another shot at is fuser user came out in like the early pandemic might have been 2020 or maybe 2021 2021 i'm pretty sure yeah and i played quite a bit of fuser and that shit rocked but it was also kind of weird it was a dj game where you could like mix infuse songs together based off of like you know i'm going to take the lyrics of this buster rhyme song and combine it with the melody of this katie perry song and add in the drums of this weekend song and like you're trying to fulfill the requests of the audience and get people hype and all this shit and they also had freestyle modes they had ways to like save your sets and all this stuff and that shit was so fucking good but also i think it's hard it's hard to sell and it's hard to um execute i think one because of the licensing and what that does for like streaming and stuff we're now actually twitch does have a dj category which probably could help with that a little bit as far as like content creators and like having them take that stuff and go above and beyond with it but i think even for vaud that gets really tough um but on the content creator side i feel like you would have to give them something that they could take and hope help drive forward and that's just tough because the licensing and copyright claims and all that shit um but then also i don't i just don't think the the mainstream public got it or understood it i think it's just a hard thing to sell when you're talking about like the creative side of making a rhythm game versus i just want to play a guitar like i just want to play something that's rhythmic to a song that i know yeah and i mean you know it's uh important to at least note people don't want a bunch of plastic shit in their house that's why we got out of this in the the first place 100 uh samson l says now that i'm an adult with money i will pay for a full band kit for parties uh oh kanashi kareida also wrote in and says fuser also exists uh in effing best way to an effing best way to mash up tracks user also exists in fortnight is that what he's saying i don't know does it exist in fortnight see i read it as like it evident it's the effing best way but if they're saying it exists in fortnight i don't know i don't remember fuser being a fortnight thing but somebody like a dragoon saying yes saying yes well that's awesome i need to go back in fortnight and check that out somebody says dj hero is a thing too i mean i love dj hero as well i love dj yeah but like it just wasn't that good it was just a weird thing but i mean it had good ideas it had good ideas for sure like mixing what was it was it h to the iso it was jay-z and eminem right yes like they were the two god damn all the time bring that shit back uh tim we're gonna move on to story number two but before we do i want to tell you about patreon.com slash kind of funny and youtube.com slash kind of funny games where you can go and get the kind of funny membership which allows you to get shows ad free speaking of ads let us tell you about our sponsors this episode's brought to you by our own show kind of funny in review it is our movie review show and it is the best place to get all of our thoughts on all the latest in entertainment greg and how has it been this year it's been awesome because i came back alien versus predator in review superman in review fantastic four currently happening in review it's been a great time and i've been crazier than ever you really have it's been banger after banger after banger of episodes of in review doesn't mean the movies necessarily were.

26:31Sometimes we're talking about some all-time greats. Sometimes we're talking about some of the worst movies ever made. But no matter what, Greg is drinking his cokes and having a good time and saying some of the craziest things you've said on Kind of Funny content ever. That's right. If you're unfamiliar, of course, in review is us picking a movie series, watching them all, then ranking and reviewing them all while meticulously recapping the plot and not screwing anything up. But here's the thing. I know a lot of you are watching live probably on Kind of Funny Games Daily or Kind of Funny Gamescast.

26:59We cover video games but we also cover movies and we have a great time doing it. Just best friends hanging out. So don't worry. We're getting back to alien versus predator. Everybody right after we get through some of the big summer movies, but fantastic for Superman, alien versus predator. It's been a great time. The good times are just starting. That's right. So right now, like subscribe, share on your favorite podcast feed or youtube.com slash kind of funny games. And we'll see you at the movies. That was good. Thank you. I mean, we stole it. It's, you know, I think Cisco and Eva's line. This episode is brought to you by Facebook.

27:32So you were scrolling on Marketplace, and there it was, the bike you'd been searching for. You sent a message, and it turned out the seller was super chatty, kind of funny, and an avid cyclist. The next thing you know, you're in a cycling crew. Well, a community cycling group. The thing about Facebook, you might find more than what you're looking for. From a browse to a bike ride, this summer, find more on Facebook. Hey Chicago, class it up with Crocs. You know back to school is coming in fast. So why wait to find your new fave footwear? Step into a local Crocs store and step into your new look.

28:13Try it, style it, make it yours. Because the right pair doesn't just show up, it shows off. First day fits, handled. Walk out ready for whatever's next. Visit your nearest Crocs store today. This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons Podcast. Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi-step projects. And when you need more than just answers, give ChatGPT work access to your apps and files, and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting work mode available on Plus and Pro Plans.

28:59Pros trust the Home Depot for heavy-duty storage solutions for any job site or garage. Right now, get up to 15 % off select storage and organization. Impact and water-resistant totes and shelving built to hold up to 2 ,500 pounds. Storage systems have space for all your tools and protect them in the garage, on the job site, and everywhere in between. Save time and maximize efficiency with adjustable shelving customized to your business's needs. Shop and save on pro-grade storage at the Home Depot. How pros get more done.

29:31i need you to know in the way that when you were that guitar hero kid that could play songs in the highest difficulties what was that one song that everybody always is like that this is the one this is the hardest song in the game through the fire and the flames yeah like that i feel like brought you to a certain level of like popularity and coolness back in the day no no not really i did it though oh damn well what i want well what i got respect from your friends though you got You're respecting like your immediate circle. Real quick, I do want to say it did not. All right. Obviously it did. I mean, yes and no, but more so no.

30:07But what I will say is I just finished the bear season four last night. Yeah. Incredible season of the show. Love the show overall, but God damn, what a season. Great season. There's a shot of them in the Chicago theater. Iconic venue in Chicago. Yeah. Right. And as I'm looking at it, I was like, they were like backstage somewhere. And I was like, I've been there. I've been backstage there. And like seeing that room, like, this is crazy. that like that's a place i've been and i was thinking when was i there i was like it was let's play live 2018 i want to say sold out which means 4 000 people i think yeah and i was on stage playing rock band playing on a guitar okay fucking crushing it on expert see that's coolness and i'm just like that's cool what is life that that is a real thing that happened a sold out chicago theater my dumb ass playing fucking guitar hero so we've looped around to the point i was making that shit was fucking exactly right that that gave tim getty's aura it did say it fucking he had so much aura now if we lived in the parallel timeline where dj hero was the game that could get you that aura yeah oh i'd be a different person right now yeah because i was playing those dj hero songs and i'm sure i was not doing that shit on guitar hero yeah but so were the the kids at the arcades back in the day playing all the different bimani games like the the there's all the beat mania stuff and then there's that one with the the pink and blue lights you what i'm talking about no you're just kind of you're going like it's looking like a fucking idiot i look so stupid i remember going to when i went to u of i um in the basement of the union they had like an arcade bowling arcade games and pool and me and my friends would go all the time to play pool and i remember it so vividly every single time we were playing pool just the just like the sound of people playing ddr and they're holding the bar oh they have to hold the bar like they're holding the bar and they're leaning back and the legs are just like fucking going thing of beauty that shit is crazy thing of beauty amazing stuff let's move on to story number two claire obscure expedition 33 director says turn-based rpgs are selling better lately but the prejudice is still there i'm pulling from automaton west during this year's cd c e d e c i'm gonna say cedic aesthetic in japan automaton had the opportunity to chat with claire obscure Expedition 33 creative director Guillaume Broche and lead programming lead programmer Tom Guillerman.

32:33Apart from discussing their future plans for the studio and views on other AA developers, we asked the two developers how they felt about creating a turn-based RPG in a market dominated by action games. While many titles in the genre have performed well commercially, Broche feels like that, Broch feels that there is still prejudice revolving around turn-based JRPGs. Quote, I could talk about the prejudice forever, he laughs. Personally speaking, I think Japanese turn-based RPGs were super popular up until the 360 era, but around the time open world games started getting more popular through gaming media, JRPGs started being considered uncool.

33:12Broch goes on to mention the Persona series as one of the more successful examples of the genre, but suggests that JRPGs still have a long way to go in order to return to their original popularity. Quote,

33:33Despite his concerns, Broch emphasizes that the deviations from the genre's mechanics, like real-time dodging and peering and clear-obscure, weren't attempts at presenting the game as the cool turn-based RPG. Quote, it's not like we added the parry system and built such a narrative experience because we wanted to avoid our game facing prejudice we just did it because we wanted to do it end quote tim what are your thoughts about the prejudice against turn-based rpgs i mean i think that the the laugh in your voice kind of uh leads me to where i think of this of like i don't know that the word prejudice should be used here like yeah it's just a bit much and i understand i think it's like a come off uh it's probably not meant uh the way that it comes off to me yeah to be fair again like in the even in the quote right there's the part where they say laughs like there's one other part where they added like he's saying all this laughing like he's saying there's all this all this with a humorous oh yeah for sure for sure so yeah also bear i need you to bring up some more pictures of greg miller both greg miller and andy cortez are on the on the track well greg miller plays pokemon now oh yeah that solves everything he also wanted he had the whole episode talking about like i know i'm aware it happened while i was not here but i'm aware i'm aware i am aware and i'm not happy but i am aware fair enough um look i i words aside of the prejudice thing i i feel like it's not so much the intent of the prejudice there it's more like the genres just aren't as popular as they used to be relatively to how popular video games are yes i feel like video games are just so much bigger than they were in the pre-xbox 360 era and i think a lot of what made them big is the accessibility of like mobile slash wii type games also call of duty type multiplayer shooter type games the explosion of online sports games right like video games are just so much so much bigger than they used to be with so many more players that i don't think that that JRPGs are and turn-based games are less popular they're just less important like they're they're in terms of the the pie chart of what video games as a whole are whereas back in the 90s it was platformers and RPGs yes right and it's just like I don't think that it's less than it was it's just there are there's a lot more yeah more genres have come through like there's a variety now and yeah I think action games definitely came through and had now dominated what we consider as far as like mainstream when we think about game of the year usually you're thinking of an action thing or like something that's more real time um and yeah i agree with you as far as that right like the jrpgs and even platformers were a bigger piece of the pie back then um yeah i i don't know i'm fascinated with this just from the idea of when i think of turn-based right and i think i had to take a jrpg out of it a little bit because the first game that comes to mind is balder's gate for me which is a similar kind of turn-based thing um and that was one of the most popular games that came out that year persona and metaphor when those comes out come out those are the biggest games that come out that year um and i think it's what it is you know i'll take it to final fantasy when a turn-based final fantasy comes out it's also the biggest thing i think it is how you how you wrap a turn-based rpg right what are the mechanics around it i think there's a lot of turn-based things that like lean heavily on the turn-based part of it as being like the core gameplay mechanic and then like you just have dialogue and you have other things right but i think i think turn-based games and i think this is what clear up scare does really well right like the systems surrounding the turn-based part of it have to engage people as well and i think that's where a lot of games fall short um and i think that's why we see games like persona really rise up because you have that dungeon crawling you have that turn-based combat but then also you have a whole other side of persona that is your daily social sim and talking to characters and leveling up your social links and doing all these things same thing with metaphor baldur's gate has an a an open world, an open-ish world, right, that you're exploring and talking to characters and building these things like a Western RPG, right?

37:39Like, I don't know. I think there's more to be said about the ways in which turn-based RPGs can kind of, like, fill in those elements outside of the turn-based combat that allow you to kind of exceed or, I guess, exist out of just, like, the turn-based RPG thing. I just think there's not a problem. People can not like turn-based games. People can like turn-based games and everyone is being well fed. There's a ton of amazing turn-based games, ton of amazing games that do not have anything close to turn-based gameplay. Fine, cool. I don't know that I really even feel like that there's a large enough amount of people with the bias against turn-based games for it to be a negative for anybody.

38:24It's like, all right, cool. You're not going to win them over. That's fine. Yeah. It's in the same way that it's really hard to sell Souls-likes to a certain amount of people. right and like you know yeah i don't know it's a it's a it's a it's a interesting thing uh barrett's bringing up many pictures of andy cortez and like i'll look at andy and i'll look at i mean greg plays pokemon right greg's the biggest pokemon fan here so he's exempt from this conversation but i bet you i could sit down with indy and find a turn-based game he likes oh yeah oh yeah yeah i feel like clear obscure no oh yeah there you go but i mean but he also played like i'm just giving him shit just because he he does the bit of talking so much shit about turn i feel like But I'm saying this to say that I think even the people that say they don't like turn-based games.

39:04There's one out there. I bet you there's some out there. That's true, but I think that he's actually a really good example of the point that I think we're both making, which is that he doesn't like turn-based games. He might like some of them, but he does not. That is not something that makes him like it more. That is not something that draws him to it. But it doesn't mean that he is unwilling and unable to enjoy some of them if other factors are good enough to kind of make it worth it. But then there's some cases where it's like, even if the other things are good enough, you still don't like it because you're like, well, the core gameplay of this is not something I want to engage with.

39:39And that's fair, too. Like, that's the beauty of where we're at with games where there's so many of every varying quality level. and I feel like specifically in the RPG space, nobody's being left out. Everybody's getting a lot of content. Let's move on to story number three. Baldur's Gate 3 performance director says Hollywood is missing a trick not casting more game actors. This is Tom Ivan at Video Games Chronicle. Baldur's Gate 3 performance director and star Aliona Baranova thinks film and TV executives are missing a trick by not casting more video game actors. Speaking to Collider, Baranova claimed the screen industry continues to treat game actors as niche performers, despite many of them having professional training and dedicated fan bases.

40:26Quote, we are also theater trained, said the London-based actor. A lot of us are formally trained in the UK, and I think that's something that maybe execs are a bit short-sighted about. They think they just know how to do a video game. studios are neglecting the video game audience who are so willing to support and and so dedicated and passionate about their favorite video game actors baronova added and i think it's a shame that that's being overlooked it's being slept on end quote baronova's credits also include cyberpunk 2077 claire of scare and liza p as well as the tv series maternal and moonflower murders she said casting executives should take note of successful examples of game actors appearing in adaptations on the rare occasions they're given the chance to do so well how well did it go when actors from the last of us from the game were also in the tv show baronova asked ashley johnson was the number one most looked up person on imdb when the tv project came out why is more of that not happening why was doug cockle not in the tv series the witcher why are we not being considered when there's video game adaptations and whoa and what do you think about that i mean i think it's going to happen more and more we see waves of this in the way adaptations happen right why is it taking so long to see wolverine in a goddamn yellow and blue suit there's just this unwillingness to do the thing the first time um i think that trend is going to change over time though i think that the we i imagine we're not going to have to wait 20 years to get to a point that the actors from games are going to be the actors in the adaptations and i think a lot of that has to do with the fact that actors in games are getting more actual press and screen time and uh just facetime honestly in terms of people understanding who they are hollywood reporter reporting on games being cast right like i imagine ben star is going to be in some major adaptation at some point in the next five years of something yeah um and i think that that is going to start to happen a lot more but i also just think that we are still all things considered in the infancy of game adaptations um and for all intents and purposes there aren't that many games with actors in them overall sure there's what 150 of them or something like that that's still nothing in the grand scheme of things of like comparing to like books of how many books are out there right um how many things they can even like pull from um so i do think that we'll start seeing this more and i think that uh with the rise of the dnd scene right of just all of critical role and how you know the majority of them are video game actors um and at this point they are so much more than any one thing you can't call them one thing because they're just celebrities you know and all the dropout stuff dimension 20 like i do think that we're They're going to be seen as a very lucrative, lucrative names to attach to projects in the same way that Scarlett Johansson is a movie star and you want to attach her name to Asian characters.

43:49Jesus Christ. Here's my thing, right? I got to play Dead Take on stream last week. Actually, check out that stream. It was a really good stream. It was me and Bear. we played the full game we were locked in man we were locked in the fuck in also what tim just said is the funniest thing i was super serious about everything i said up until the very last bit um but we streamed dead take and i would have had this opinion before dead take anyway but like dead take is a game is from uh abu from surgeon studios they put out tales tales of kinzira zau we're having on gamescast on thursday yes that's tomorrow oh damn it's tomorrow that's exciting yeah i'm gonna talk to abu about the game it's gonna be a fun time uh which is another the reason you should go watch the stream or play dead take and come hang out with us or don't or don't play dead take and hang out with us we're not i don't think we're gonna spoil it go play it though go play the whole point but like it is a game that is filled with um actors that we know around the industry both from critical role video games a lot of pierce's in it right sam lake is in it yeah yeah like it's filled with people right and it's um a lot of fmv like majority of their performances are either in like voice voiceover or an fmv form and to see these actors perform like they're fucking killing it on the fmv side right it's one of those things where it's like well yes video games have reached a point where your performances the type of performances you're putting into video games are matching the amount of devotion and the amount of performance you need to put it into live action stuff as well and i think there are a few things that go along with this i think one the growth of video games and cinematic video games have accelerated so much in a way where a lot of people just need to catch up um a lot of people might not know this goes back to the thing andy has talked about right now that i've seen as well where i'm scrolling through tiktok or whatever and there's there'll be a tiktok that pops up and this is like during last season two where they're like so how does this game work like how do you put like are you making decisions like how does i know i don't play video games like how does this work watch that journey there's specifically this one woman that was just like i don't know what do you mean it's the game I watched people play games.

45:50How are they going to make, what story, what are you talking about? And then she streamed her entire playthrough of Last House. That's fucking awesome. I missed that part. But yes. She got there, man. She's a gamer now. And I saw that from quite a few people. And like, if I were to go and ask people in my family, if I asked people like, just on the street, right? Like people who might not know video games, what's up with the street? I just, the idea of you walking out on the street asking people whatever you're about to say. What a video game is. Yeah. you know a lot of people might just not understand what video games are bringing to the table nowadays which you know i think there might be a disconnect there as far as oh man yeah no fucking home who plays kratos is putting putting together one of the best performances you might ask for across movies tv video games but there is a lot of the world that just doesn't uh realize that i think that's one aspect of it i think another aspect of it of it too and this is again to the acceleration of video games one of the things that uh baronova added here was talking about doug cockle who plays gerald in the witcher 3 like why wasn't he in the show well i think video games have gotten so popular that when you adapt them now you have to go we want henry cavill we want um who's homie that's replacing henry cavill in in the witcher 3 hemsworth we want hemsworth in it right like when you're looking at video game adaptations when you for last of us for example it's like okay well i'm not gonna cast troy baker i'm gonna cast fucking pedro pascal like these roles are now being taken not being taken right because i don't think it's a super negative thing but people are looking for a top hollywood talent to portray the popular video game characters that have actors associated with them already because they're looking for people that people are already familiar with from hollywood to like portray these actors whatever it's another way to like sell it to a more general audience.

47:33Cause even though like the popularity of the Witcher, not just the video game, but the, you know, the, the IP, right. Or, uh, the last of us that there, there's still probably a good section of people who have never interacted with that. But then when to attach someone who is a name, right. That that's another entry point to, to get, draw new people in. Right. Uh, and so, yeah, I also think chat was also bringing up the point of like, you know, sometimes it's literally just like, if you're going to adapt the last of us you can't cast ashley johnson as ellie yes she's not a 14 year old shot and i love troy bicker also but i also wouldn't cast troy bicker as a live action um joel necessarily although i'd have to see the makeup i understand says keanu reeves is shadow i don't know what he's referring to like but i mean but i mean that's yeah that's the point as well you know like we got to get top fucking talent but what i love about that is they did They got Colleen O'Shaughnessy to be Tails, who is the Tails voice actor.

48:31Like, that's cool, you know? And this is maybe just, like, the theater kid in me of, like, growing up and seeing different adaptations of different plays and all that stuff. But it's also just, like, if you're going to, you know, adapt something from one medium to the other, why not have fun, you know, having a different cast, having, like, a different interpretation of things, right? And so that's kind of my take there as well of just like it's fun to see different actors interpret the same characters in different ways and see what they pull from that. For sure. And I'm also the mind of like, yeah, I don't need my I don't need the same video game actors always portraying the same characters.

49:14I don't need Nolan North to be Nathan Drake. I just want Nolan North to just be standing on a random beach. You know what I mean? Or I want Nolan North to be in other movies. You know what I mean? Like I'm down to see all of these people that we're talking about from the video game space who are incredible at their job. Just be in movie and TV in general. Right. Like, I don't think there has to be a boxing in unless that's where your passion lies or that's where your talent lies. Like, I think there are also probably people that are like, yo, I do video games. I will say this personally, and I do think that all of this is case by case, but my personal take and opinion on it is you should start with the original actor.

49:46You should start with them as the. Can we make this work? Should we make this work? And then move on from there. If the answer is no, don't do it. But if the answer is yes, you probably should. Because that's part of what made the thing good to begin with. But if you go through and like, well, they don't have the acting chops. They only have the voice acting chops. Then don't do it. If you're like, okay, cool. They got all of it, but they do not look the part. And they cannot look the part. And that's going to be detrimental overall to how important the look of this character is. Then don't do it.

50:19I just feel like it's pretty simple. but i agree with that you know looking at it from a purely creative standpoint and not thinking about scheduling and cost and marketing marketing and all of that i think honestly i think the biggest thing of it is marketing right like i think it's just way easier to sell top hollywood talent as opposed to like taking the same person that portrayed the thing but i agree with you is like i think that would be the dream scenario especially for somebody who we already associate with that role like i think for us as video game fans it just feels cool to be able to go oh man they played this person in the game and now they're getting to play this person in real life yeah but yeah i don't know i'm fascinated to see how that goes as we go into the future because what somebody also mentions i think people multiple has mentioned right that like sometimes you just don't look the part but as video games continue to like have this photorealistic thing going on and uh facial capture and performance capture and all this stuff a lot of the roles are looking like a lot of the people that are playing the roles nowadays um so i imagine like a decade from now multiple decades from now that's probably gonna become more and more the norm yep uh tim who's the mandalora redhead mandalorian lady katie stock off but like the character bo-ka-tan bo-ka-tan like you could do that right or she was cast amazing right years ago as the as the the voice and then they made uh made the character look like her so then when they adapted it to live action she looked the part yeah i like this question from the lewin chat will norman read us be in the death stranding movie a hundred percent yes but as a cameo i think he has to play the main character you don't think it's just a different story in the universe haven't they said that oh did they i'm pretty sure but well they've announced like three different death stranding adaptations did they really yeah there's a death stranding movie and then i believe there's an anime yeah and then another anime oh okay um but i don't think at least one of those is going to start over and read us but i digress story number four rockstar founder lands publisher for his post grand theft auto sci-fi epic this is michael mcwerter at polygon rockstar games co-founder dan hauser's new studio has landed a publisher for its first game which is still untitled but is described by its creators as a triple a open world sci-fi action adventure game set in an original universe.