MASSIVE Steam Leak: Kingdom Hearts 4, Persona 6 - Kinda Funny Games Daily 09.09.26

0:00Nick Scarpino:Experience hits technology with the new Pro X2 Superstrike, the fastest mouse Logitech G has ever built. Head over to Logitech G.com to grab yours and start clicking faster than the competition. If you want to get our shows ad-free and our exclusive shows, go to patreon.com slash kind of funny. Today in the nerdy news you need to know about, Kingdom Hearts 4, Persona 6, and many more games have leaked, apparently. Why Bethesda made Starfield before Elder Scrolls 6 and Jeff Keighley and Mark Cerny are doing something cool. We'll have all this and more because this is Kind of Funny Games Daily.

0:43What's up, everybody? Welcome to Kind of Funny Games Daily for Wednesday, September 9th, 2026. I'm one of your hosts, Greg Miller. alongside in the flesh the queen of screams madeline stanley hello greg how you doing today i'm excellent madeline how are you i'm pretty good i just found out they put out a trailer for mike flanagan's carrie adaptation today which i am very excited about coming out in october i think october 6th okay right around the corner that's exciting that's a fun one i didn't know that that's great well then the trailer came out i know the movie obviously yeah how are you you're here in san francisco here with us that's amazing i'm doing great i love visiting the studio always excited to get some Halloween screams on with you later yes of course you did a Halloween review so far on a Greg way last week for us thank you so much and we said well you got to come up here and we got to play in person so you're we got you the next two days on shows and of course playing Halloween let's go can't wait uh what did you think yesterday when you were walking down the street and I screamed at you yeah oh so what's so funny about that Greg which actually I didn't tell you, I ran into cool Greg at the BART station before that.

1:49And he came up to me and yelled at me and he was like, Madeline. And I was like, Oh, Hey, nice to see you. We hugged. I got into my Uber, went to my thing. Then I walked to the seven 11 and then you yelled Madeline at me. I was like, am I going to run into every member of kind of funny just in between the airport and my Airbnb? You might as well. You know what I mean? You're here. We got to get you working real hard. Madeline, what have you, I guess if people don't know you, which would be ridiculous at this part in your kind of funny history. Who are you and what do you do? I'm Madeline, AKA kind of funny is queen of screams.

2:22I am a photographer. I love horror games. I play a lot of things. Resident evil, obviously. Been playing Halloween. What else have I been playing? Blood of the dawn. Blood of dawn Walker. We're going to fuck it up every time. Not me anymore. I don't do it no more. You're done. I nail it. You're on Walker. I got it. Got it. Just call it dawn. Walker. That's the shortcut. is just don't say the whole name. That's the thing. You've been on content a lot. You were on that review, obviously. You were on the Exodus preview that we sent you to Austin, Texas for. You did a Gregway about going to Austin.

2:53Awesome stuff. Thank you. Yeah, Exodus was really cool. I'm very stoked for that game. Yeah, yeah. Me too. Me too. Just next year, though. So we'll see. We'll get there. It won't be a busy time next year, I'm sure, either. Of course, everybody, you're watching live. We need you to be super chatting to be part of the show. YouTube.com slash kind of funny games with your questions, comments, concerns. remember if you're looking for all of our reactions to the nintendo direct that just happened we've already done the games cast for the day you can go watch the entire live reaction or just listen to the games cast wherever you get your podcast services uh we couldn't do this show without our patreon producers so thank you to the folks over on patreon.com slash kind of funny omega buster delaney the psalm twining and michael pesavento uh for now let's begin with what is and forever will be the roper report time for some news five items on the roper report wow that was a really good one i had to do it for you mitt thank you so much barrett number one a huge steam leak shows achievement lists for hundreds of upcoming games including kingdom hearts 4 and persona 6 this is chris scullion at vgc a huge steam leak has revealed the achievement lists of hundreds of games in development exo phase which lets players track their achievements across xbox playstation steam ea blizzard epic game store and other launchers suddenly added hundreds if not thousands of new games to its steam section the vast majority of these new games are currently still in development meaning their achievement list shouldn't be available yet something appears to have happened however which has allowed the site's tracker to scrape all the achievements from steam despite the fact that it shouldn't be able to the newly added games include numerous anticipated titles including parentheses but not limited to kingdom hearts 4 persona 6 persona 4 revival final fantasy resonance fable gears of war e-day mega man duel override silent hill townfall that's imminent we can't wait stranger than heaven tomb raider legacy of atlantis star wars galactic racer crazy taxi world tour castlevania belmont's curse clutch metro 2039 and turok origins while some of these achievement lists still appear to be work in progress and either have placeholder text or haven't been localized properly yet a lot of them contain major spoilers for these upcoming games parentheses which won't be revealed in this article or here on kind of funny games daily of course the kingdom hearts 4 list for example reveals the location of many of the Disney-themed worlds in the game, of which only Coco is currently known.

5:31The above list is also scratching the surface, however, as users have been browsing through the list, which contains many very early games, which are only represented by Steam App ID numbers for now and have incomplete achievements, and finding games that haven't been announced, though some of these may also be cancelled games, unquote. This includes an unannounced port of Professor Leighton vs. Phoenix Wright, an Animal Crossing style Nickelodeon game, a new Tetris game, and a new collection of Telltale's The Walking Dead. Another game simply contains two achievements for now, one of which says this is a test achievement and the other saying, welcome to Twin Peaks, reach the double R diner.

6:09The only Twin Peaks game ever released was Twin Peaks VR, which didn't feature a double R diner. Again, this isn't necessarily confirmation of a Twin Peaks game. It may have been a canceled prototype. exo phase owner mike bendel also known online as x3 sphere explained the situation on reset era saying the leak appears to have been a mistake with valve's api which seems to have lifted the restrictions on access to achievements responding to a user who suggested that quote something has gone catastrophically catastrophic catastrophically wrong on steve's end end quote bendel replied quote i am the owner of the site and this is what appears to have happened uh he added it seems like a possible screw up on valve's end a bunch of games with achievements that should be private are accessible through the api right now and that's why they got scanned into the site i usually never see games without an actual name pop up with achievements yet over the past hour or so a bunch have parentheses when there's an unknown game you usually just get sent to the app id end quote madeline i'm already throwing the flag on this okay where yes town falls achievements a game that's imminent.

7:20Yeah. Those are real. Obviously those were loaded and that shouldn't, they didn't want that. But like when we're talking about, like, I do not believe the persona six in, I know they're saying there's test stuff in here, the cocoa, the worlds or whatever for kingdom hearts. Sure. That I don't, the problem is I understand it. Game developers in chat are welcome to explain it to me better. And if I, if sound off everybody in the chat on who I should call about this. We need somebody who puts their game on steam. Who's independent. Don't be like, Oh, call Corey Barlock. Corey's not gonna be able to fucking help me on this one.

7:53Tell me a dev. You know, that I know that, you know, that I have their phone number four. Cause I just feel like for so many game developers, achievements are the afterthought. That's not what, you know what I mean? Like they're not trying to do it. So the idea for games that are still so far out having a real, I just don't buy it on all of them. yeah i would assume me also not knowing anything on the back end what i would assume is that there are maybe a lot of placeholders where if that is something that they're having to put in like they would be like well i assume we're gonna do something like this yeah but then we know in something we do know in the way that game dev works is that things are changing constantly and they're they're morphing and everything things get dropped and moved around so So I could imagine maybe some of it could be estimated, best estimated guesses of what it's going to be.

8:46But I'm also a little skeptical of knowing so far ahead. Like for games that are so over a year out, like that's not first of mine to be like, well, I got to go put my Steam achievements on. They're trying to finish the game. They're trying to work on the actual game part. Yeah, like Crazy Taxi World Tour, which is what? do we just know it is 2027 i think right we don't have a real yeah are they so far along that they've made their steam achievement list and put it in there and also why are they putting that in there i again i don't this is i'm very blind on i know the little bit from playstation trophies of how little people thought about their trophies for a long time and even when they have them i know they're finalized i thought very late and to put into that way but maybe i'm just talking about PlayStation I don't understand how this goes in we're seeing some good names on who to reach out to a lot of people are saying of course Mike Biffle that'd be great Mike's over he's across the pond I don't even know what fucking time what time is it you know what I mean I can't do that it's evening time yeah yeah I like the Dave Lang call out Dave Lang I feel somebody said I see he keeps seeing a lot of Tim Schafer's y 'all Tim Schafer doesn't even know his game has achievements let's not let's say he's not going to be able to tell us anything important or interesting there he's tired of talking Johnny Galvatron I see go around too okay can we get somebody on this continent on this continent you know what I mean that has a normal ass phone number that I don't have to WhatsApp it and add a bunch of numbers in front of it good lord Raddick's a good one too Raddick also not on this continent how do we we but Raddick usually watches so they're awake North American video game development very PlayStation Xbox focused that we know it's when you get out of there when you get out of there One that I was going to suggest was Strange Scaffold, but they also turn games around so quickly that I don't know if they've had a project where it's a year out and they're already thinking about stuff.

10:41I couldn't help myself. I looked at the Persona 6 achievements, looked at them. How detailed are they? They're descriptive. They're descriptive. And it's to the point where I'm like, I'm not going to say anything out loud just for the people who might cry about it. There is stuff in there where I'm like, oh, are things about to change with Persona? In ways that I'm like, ooh. Coming in first place in your car race. If they add racing to Persona, I quit. No, there's stuff in there where I'm like, ooh, I'm intrigued now about what the structure of this game is going to be, all of this stuff. Like, it's detailed for Persona 6, which leads me to believe.

11:22Yeah, I'm reading them right now. Yeah, this is detailed. Yeah, which leads me to believe that Persona 6 is maybe a little over a year out. I believe that game's coming fall 2027. Still a little bit weird that, yeah, Steam achievements are already being kind of worked on for that, but who knows what Atlus process is. The one that I saw— What's the one thing we can actually get done? We can do the Steam achievements. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The one that I found confounding and for a second made me believe, is any of this real, was Judas. What was the last time we fucking heard about Judas It's been a long time Now I'm looking at the Kingdom Hearts 4 thing Since that doesn't I do I have An issue obviously You can go seek out the spoilers If you want them yourself The leaks and stuff But it's one of those things where I feel like the leaks have gotten so bad For everything now Where it's like I feel like we're coming off the Nintendo Direct, and it's so hard to have these really fun, surprising moments when things are constantly being leaked, and I don't understand the methodology or the thought behind it.

12:35It's like, I want to have whimsy and be surprised. I don't want to be doing all these leaks all the time. I mean, this is an interesting one, right? Because this isn't a nefarious leak. It's clearly, yeah, Steam checks some box or did something, And now the way it worked before it doesn't work the same way. The ones where, yeah, you're digging into files and codes and like, you know, last of us to wing it, right. Where it's like, we go in and out every cut scene for the game. That's still months away is out. That shit sucks. But it's also the fact that like, this is an ongoing problem in movies and video games of just ruining the thing officially.

13:11Yeah. Like there's like the, you know, there's no shock here. We're reviewing Wolverine on Thursday of this week. We've been allowed to say that for a long time. And in that last day to play trailer, when we were watching it at the end, I was like, they showed a lot of stuff in that trailer. I haven't gotten to, I'm playing this game for a review and I haven't gotten there. And I wish I hadn't seen that. Why are you showing that? Well, and like when we were doing Don Walker coverage, we showed that one, there was like a clip that was in their official trailer. That was like a big storyline, which it didn't have that much context with it.

13:41But I, I am like, it is something where I understand just like not watching anything. Like if you are, if you do care, like just be on blackout. Like if you can, because whether intentionally or unintentionally, there's so much out there. I think, you know, they've, they've said, I know at least for movies that psychologically, you're more likely to see a movie if you know the general vibe of it, like the whole thing. So that's why movie trailers spoil it. And I'm like, are we going that way with video games? They're like, well, no one's going to play it. If we don't show you the whole thing, but I don't want to see the whole thing.

14:18Yeah. It's a tough one, right? I'm trying to figure out how do you market something and not ruin something again, not doing any real spoilers for what we just did in the Nintendo direct. Right. Oh, but I guess that was a, it was a conversation in the Nintendo direct about star Wars, your company. Okay. And the guy said something that Andy was like, Hey, don't ruin that. And then I think it was Barrett and Mike were like, it was in the trailer. And then he's like, I didn't see the trailer. You know what I mean? Like it's such a weird barometer for it. this is obviously a interesting way but it's like to barrett's point i let me open back up exa face how detailed are the judas trophies those i didn't look at i just saw that it was a title and i was like hmm that's weird hmm that's weird oh yeah this is one of the ones that yeah this has sample achievement on there gotcha that one i believe i'm like whatever whatever you had to put in the get this game that list was really detailed i think we would have to put that no one's making this guess isn't it yeah this sucks but it's also at least so far i mean i you know your version of being online is different but like everyone's is i've i've seen the headline i haven't seen the dives now granted i guess many of these games aren't my cup of tea necessarily yeah i think it's it's only a problem when i was i was just talking with my husband last night about when last of us 2 is coming out and people were actively going into chats and spoiling things Yeah, it's like the little Harry Potter thing.

15:40I'm not seeing that with this, thankfully. And so if that's the way it is and people are being chill and chat's being cool about it, then I'm like, okay, you can go look at it if you want to. I don't necessarily think leaks and spoilers for achievements necessarily ruin a game anyway. A game is an experience, so just knowing that X character is doing something doesn't necessarily ruin it for me all of the time. but I like everyone to be able to have their own comfortability with that and not be against their will. And so many times, right? Like they're cheeky achievements, right? It is defeat this person.

16:15Like I knew I was going to defeat one of the bosses in the game. And I mean, I'm like looking at the tomb Raider legacy of Atlanta, Atlanta, Atlanta. It's been an early morning for me too. And it's like just a lot of stuff about do this in blank. We already knew we're going to Peru, do this in Peru, get all the collectibles in Peru. And it's like, okay, yeah. Granted, that's a remake so maybe I'm not apples and originate a bit but in general it just sucks as always you hear this stuff see this stuff and my first thought is oh man I hope it doesn't ruin a game I care about but then when you get a second reflect you're like man this sucks for me working on this video game who just wanted to surprise and delight you and now here it is especially Kingdom Hearts of like we probably have a rollout for all of these different worlds we wanted to take you to and now you can just see them all that's a bummer it is it is because like I was saying like I I think a lot of us want to be surprised and delighted by things.

17:06And so to have that sort of moment taken away from the people who worked really hard on it is a bummer. Resolute in super chat says, wish we weren't talking about these leaks. Don't talk about kingdom hearts for spoils everything. We're not going to talk about it. Don't worry about it. I looked at it. I've already forgotten most of it. I also won't play this game. We're talking around the leaks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it's another interesting one of like, you know, we leaks are such an interesting thing to navigate for us. And we've obviously talked about it throughout it many times, of like when you're hacked, that's a different thing.

17:33When Steam API puts it out or whatever, that's like, that's newsworthy. And the leaks in general and hacks are newsworthy too. But like what the information coming out of it, is that the story of like what this old insomniac document was going to tell you? Mr. Person 2328 says, not spoiling anything, but Persona leak looks insane. And even looking at what there is, I think it'll be a very fun time. I put my money on a 2027 release date. Right there with you, Barrett. and whoa whoa whoa whoa nerdy papa g says from greg shitting on eric's eric eric's homes this is from the direct we just did the story seems like it would be a greg game and the graphics are some of the best i've ever seen try the demo no no i know that it was just when we blessing wanted to stop the show for tim to no we didn't need to do that that's what i'm saying now i've heard about this stealth game before and i've seen it and i've thought about it will i play it probably not but maybe we'll see you know what i will uh talk about and play for the rest of my life what starfield you love starfield and i would like to talk to you a bit about that because of course in your greg way yeah about expanse you swung on starfield for no reason no reason you're like i like space games i didn't like starfield sorry there was no reason to do that there was no reason to do that i mean for the comedy you know well you're not the only person swinging on starfield number two skyrim veteran claims todd howard pushed starfield instead of the elder scrolls 6 this is ethan kataku uh skyrim was released in 2011 fallout 4 arrived four years later so it's not absurd to imagine we might have gotten the elder scrolls 6 by 2019 but why didn't that happen skyrim's co-lead designer kurt coleman claims other projects kept getting foisted on the team at bethesda game studio first came the online multiplayer spinoff fallout 76 than the ambitious sci-fi RPG Starfield, which Coleman positions as more of a create, which Coleman positions as more of creator, director, Todd Howard's personal dream project than something the studio as a whole had been passionate about pursuing quote.

19:38Fallout 76. Wasn't originally supposed to involve our whole studio. Coleman recently told FR VR via PC gamer. But then I mean, what were we supposed to be working on next? It wasn't ever that we were about to suddenly work on the other scrolls 6 even though that's what i think most people wanted he says howard then pushed to make starfield the studio's next big game it was able to get the xenomax board to sign off at the time coleman added that he quote would have much rather been making the elder scrolls 6 instead of fall at 76 and starfield personally and i think that would probably be true for the majority of the studio that's what most people wanted to do you know end quote the veteran continued quote it It wasn't like Starfield was this big internal, like, hey, we all want to make this space game, Todd.

20:23It was very much, guess what team? We're making this space game, end quote. Coleman's perspective carries a lot of weight. He was at Bethesda for over 20 years before leaving in 2023 in an acrimonious split that arose from him being denied the lead designer position on The Elder Scrolls VI. He also pointed to issues during Starfield's development and a growing bureaucracy at Bethesda contributing to what he saw as problems at the studio. god bless todd howard for pushing this nobody needed more the elder scrolls all right this is what we needed to reinvent space travel rpgs is it no here's the thing i think starfield is fine it just wasn't what i wanted out of out of the game it it didn't my my main thing with starfield was that for every other bethesda game i have some companions that i love and i just never connected with any of them in the way that you did very fair with your wife andrasia andrasia yeah our journey across the stars never forget and like when you don't have that core person you can connect to i'm just like yeah if you have no anchors to the universe that's always a problem in rpg that's always a big problem in rpgs luckily don walker we didn't have that problem no we did not some people a plethora of people i really cared about love to connect with in that game you know what i mean no and i understand that and it's interesting because i even though you know know, this is kind of being positioned as like Coleman's got an ax to grind.

21:46And Todd is like, I think it felt very much like in the promotional material for Starfield where Todd was like, I've always dreamed of making this game. And like, yeah, when you have a studio leader, I think they're going to go and chart the course, whether you want to be on that boat and where it's going is a different conversation in hindsight. Should they have jumped onto the Elder Scrolls six? Yeah. Let's not say no. Yeah, probably. I mean, I love Starfield. Clearly it's been a divisive RPG from them, but I loved it. and I know a lot of people did and yada yada but like clearly people are waiting with bated breath for it but I also think if we're gonna take the long game on this one Elder Scrolls 6 I wanna know what you think about it what your hype level is et cetera et cetera et cetera I don't think there's any way the Elder Scrolls 6 could live up to expectation if it took Starfield's slot I think Starfield and the foibles and the oh my god wait a second people don't accept the same old Bethesda game anymore.

22:45That had to happen to make whatever. I still don't know if Elder Scrolls six can live up the hype. My answer and guess would be no, because I do think people want something very specific out of RPGs. And if you're not attuned to Bethesda makes Bethesda games, I'm not expecting this to be a groundbreaking, completely different open world RPG. It's going to be what we've been doing in Bethesda RPGs for a long time. So if it was the camera angles and the way people talk and the way quests are given and not being able to kill everyone in the game that you hated about Starfield. You're not going to like that in the elder scrolls, but I think there was a lot of lessons learned in Starfield and the failure of it, or at least the disappointment of it from so many fans that they apply to elder scroll six, which I think gives elder scroll six, a better chance at living up to the hype.

23:29Whereas I think if it would have gone early, it couldn't have, it would have made those mistakes. I feel mixed about it because I agree with you in one sense, which is also that like Starfield, starfield not hitting in the way it should have does lower people's expectations i think a little bit but i also feel like the further you get away from skyrim like we've we've built up this impossible idea of what elder scroll 6 could be and we've now seen a lot of advancements in different games like for me i feel like balder's gate 3 specifically really changed my idea of like what that type of game could look like so if all of this time is passing and there isn't a significant change which I'm not saying that they should but I think that puts them at a disadvantage similar to Starfield where it's like if this is just Starfield but Elder but with the Elder Skulls paint like I think people are going to have a similar issue with it 100 % I mean that's this even remember the narrative of that actually remember where it was going to be Starfield and And then Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate said, we'll move up to get out of the way of Starfield.

24:39Also probably knowing they had a game of the generation and unleash that to where you got to Starfield. And that was my first thing after seeing you can kill all these people and anybody can die in Baldur's Gate at any time. And the story, you, I walked into Constellation. I just started shooting people in the head. Like, Oh, stop. Why would you do that? I was like, Oh Jesus. You know what I mean? Like that was what you were in the shadow of. And so I think to release an elder scroll six in that shadow, Imagine everything happens the exact same way. I think Elder Scrolls 6 is looked at as a disappointment.

25:08And again, I don't know if it's possible. In the build-up to Starfield, for Mike to sit at this table and go, this has to be a game of the generation. That was the height for Starfield, a brand new Bethesda IP. Now you're talking about Bethesda returning to an IP that is so adored, and people are going to have similar expectations for it. I don't know if you can do it, but you can't get in the ballpark without stumbling. yeah i don't think starfield was a full-blown failure but that's what that i think like the expectations are are too high at this point and i don't i don't know how you match those i don't think it's possible to match you hope that you subvert i think yeah yeah that there's some sort of something that people aren't expecting that you are able to kind of change the way that people look at the game so that you're not like oh it's not just skyrim how many years later with it's not just skyrim later like a little shinier um it's not like they're cyberpunk it's yeah it's something a little bit different that they're they've able to sort of bring something new to it i feel like that's the only way that people will approach it in a more positive light for sure uh onimus prime Super Chats and says I maintain if Starfield was more fantastical with aliens and less NASA punk it would have been praised Elder Scrolls 6 is going to be huge though Elder Scrolls 6 will be huge remember Starfield was huge as well is huge as well depending on when you look at and talk to people about the numbers and hours played and yada yada but again aliens and fantastical now it's like we're no longer improving the game we have we're changing the game and that is totally a valid conversation to have but like yeah there's a lot of things if the starfield would have done this instead of that then it would have been possibly be more if my mother had wheels she'd be a bicycle you know what i'm saying so uh i don't think that's really bethesda's thing like they are a more i mean obviously they've always had creatures and stuff but i i consider their games fairly grounded yeah so it's like i don't really want that from them in the chat it's already long gone but over on the free side of the chat uh christopher christopher was saying um what i want from elder shirl 6 is a single map that's densely populated yeah and i do think that is probably in terms of why people beat starfield with the stick its biggest problem is that that when i think of a bethesda rpg i think of fallout 3 and i think of the and the the skyrim demo that todd gave everybody back in the day of like see that you can go there like that was the oh man i've walked out of the vault in fallout 3 and now i can go anywhere right we're talking about ocarina of time and walking into hyrule field and whoa this is amazing jumping off the plateau and breath of the wild whoa like the bethesda games that's what i think of just that open world go anywhere and so for starfield to be infinite planets but it is you're getting on your ship and you are loading to it you are fast traveling here and there they've done a whole bunch of different stuff over the years it still wasn't that vibe of what and i can tell you the exact moment i stopped playing starfield which was i went to a planet it was cool there was like a base full of bad guys yeah um it was like a mining planet or something we did the whole thing i i found a cool little you know piece of paper that said something and i went to another something i don't remember anymore i went to the planet next like i went to another planet and it was the exact same building with the exact same enemies and i was like oh here we go this is the game okay well i don't if if i can go to the same exact thing right next to each other it just doesn't feel magical it doesn't feel like space exploration it feels like a video game and i'm acutely aware now that i am playing something like that i'm not having my own adventure and like in if you think about skyrim like there's probably 50 caves in skyrim that are basically the same but because you are finding your own path to it and you're not doing them back to back to back because you're not just going cave to cave to cave yeah you're a hundred i've landed here there's the cave i go over you don't feel that way because you've done five things in between there you killed the chicken you you learned a new uh word of power like you did all these things and then you went to another cave and you don't you aren't realizing it but i feel like starfield really put into stark light that the game the gameness of it and not my own personal exploration and excitement yeah making your own story yeah right and i also think that yeah the way the narrative was of collecting these pieces it was very much like this isn't even that exciting like getting to the thing in the temple and getting the piece this isn't that cool so there's a bunch of problems like that uh to which joshy frog super chats and says swing on starfield madeline you're fine you're fine madeline i'm excited to see you swing on more stuff oh but you have to wait till after our break remember everybody we couldn't do this without you picking up a kind of funny membership patreon.com slash kind of funny youtube.com slash kind of funny games apple spotify you go there 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33:40And we're back with actual good news. Number three, two of gaming's biggest names are making a big investment in gaming's future. This is Steven Totillo over at GameFile. The first thing to know about the Nova Games Foundation is that it isn't about the Game Awards, and it's not about PlayStation. The ambitious new grant program is the brainchild of Jeff Keighley and Mark Cerny. Keeley's the host of the Game Awards, Summer Game Fest, and Opening Night Live. Cerny is a game designer of some 45 years and the lead architect of the PlayStation 4 and 5. But this new thing, which they're revealing through GameFile, isn't about their day jobs.

34:16It's an unaffiliated, standalone, philanthropic project. It's a bet on the artistic future of video games and a way they tell me to give back. Quote, I'm nearing the end of my career, Cerny recently told me over email. I'm not done yet, but paying it forward in the best way possible is very much on my mind these days. End quote. The Nova Games Foundation is a universally affiliated fellowship program intended to offer six-figure grants to 20 young game designers each year, potentially for decades to come. It will offer no-strings-attached funding along with mentorship from games industry leaders, a combination intended to aid the development of groundbreaking new games, Cerny and Keeley told me.

34:58nova will begin accepting applications in december from class of 2026 and 2027 students from 13 affiliated game programs at universities in eight countries the schools working with nova include the new york university and the university of southern california in the u.s along with abertay university in scotland sorry i'm sorry jordan midler if i said it wrong and a host of others including royal melbourne institute of technology in australia the plan 100 000 per recipient with about a quarter of nova fellows eligible for up to five hundred thousand dollars more for projects they are shaped that are shaping up particularly well payments will be delivered based on development milestones and recipients will own their games nova will help promote the work and developers will be free to pursue the publishers and platforms of their choice nova can help introduce fellows to publishers but won't take a cut quote i've always wanted to give back but given my role in the industry i've never felt it appropriately to commercially investing games, Keeley told GameFile.

35:58Quote, I've never owned stock in a game company or taken a financial stake in a game. Nova is philanthropy. We aren't taking equity or looking to recoup the grants. The return we're hoping for is creative, helping new voices make games and find their footing. Mark and I have each made multi-million dollar donations to establish the foundation, and we intend to keep contributing. We hope others will join us, end quote. Cerny and Keeley have already hired an executive director and the head of grants recent game developed conference director ashley corrigan to help launch the effort their work they're working to recruit game industry leaders to join the effort keely says quote dozens of leading game directors have already expressed interest in contributing their time and quote to name one they've already gotten joseph ferris lead designer on it takes two and split fiction from hayes light on board with a donation and a pledge to help out quote i'm proud to support nova because it gives the next generation of creators the freedom to explore their creativity and hopefully bring their unique visions to life ferris told game file then there's a whole bunch more you should go read and subscribe to steven totello's newsletter i love it and then we go down to this quote here from jeff our ambition is to build a lasting endowment supported by people and companies across the industry and an equally broad community of creators willing to give their time and experience to the next generation end quote the industry has a lot of knowledge that it can pass the next generation keely said quote nova can hopefully become a way to connect that generosity with talented young creators at the moment when it can make the biggest difference end quote excellent stuff there excellent stuff jeff and cerny now madeline you've always been against charity tell me why you know actually greg i have i have something i do want to say along those lines which one i think this is really cool and i think that um especially at this moment in the games industry it is very much needed i feel like people are feeling very hopeless and this can feel can help some people get into the game dev and get in the game industry in a time where it's really difficult to do the charity part i i still think it's awesome i do think sometimes it's a bit strange that we have two people who are donating a bunch of money to help people when a lot of these companies could be just paying their employees and hiring more people and uh that we wouldn't need endowments like sure sure sure sure wealth was shared in the way that it should be let me tell you about how canada pays for video games yeah and he also gives out free health care and like let's point to all the ways our country is incredibly broken i granted this is an international uh event but you know what i mean yes we can go down that road and talk about how fucked everything is but again to your point this is what's exciting is to see jeff and mark be like all right cool like we want to be supporting game devs of all shapes and spot sizes and this is often something a criticism lobbed at jeff when he's talking about the game awards or summer game fest of not having enough indies not having enough representation how do you give back to this future class was a whole quagmire that happened right the idea of here hey we're doing this thing we're setting aside this money we're going to try to give this money no strings attached I think that's awesome because it is there are a lot of different things but then you enter arrangements but then you start entering into a publishing arrangement where it is cool yeah we get 25 10 whatever it's going to be of whatever your game is after you you know make back your money yada yada like there's so many different complicated ways to go for them just to be here and be like no let's actually do this and just give the money to developers who are coming out and in that early part of their career where they could use that help and that need and of course you know i think of this and he's already come up once in the show but mike biffle right and talking about when he made thomas was alone and when he finally made enough money off thomas was alone to quit his day job to then just focus on doing his own games like that's a dream for so many game developers that you need that lightning in a bottle you need that once in a lifetime game to actually hit to happen and then you can go do that and so to give people a jump start to be like all right cool you can you know we're gonna give you 250 000 and they can say okay cool i'm gonna but hunker down for a year and just work on this game.

40:12That's incredible and a great way to do it. And I hope it takes off. I hope more people are there. I hope it's around a long time. I hope it does what they want it to do. Because again, to your point, even triple egg game development is broken. It is. If we are, this is something I, you know, I would encourage you to go watch my panel from PAX. I hosted the keynote with Mark Merrill from riot games. And it was a ride. It's been around 20 years. It's had lots of successes. it's had lots of stumbles it's had a lot are we going to call a 2x ko a failure which we talked about on stage and that and it was the idea of riot still being riot and not having a corporate we are we've gone public and now i have to answer to all these shareholders and we have a fiduciary responsibility to go make as much money as possible because that's what's wrong with playstation that's wrong with the xbox that's what's wrong with the ub you look at all these bonehead decisions and anti-consumer sure anti your fucking workforce yeah that's what it comes back to right is like hey we're trying to do right by the shareholders not by the people making the stuff and so if we can continue to inspire and give people an avenue to go out and make a name for themselves and make their game and find their own footing i stand by that the future of games is very bright because of what's happening on that indie scene but it requires us to buy indie games and support indie developers yeah i know um i think it was last week's week before alana pierce put out a really interesting video about what indie game game dev actually looks like she was talking about uh an indie game that she's working on about an onion and i can't remember what the name is uh but it was very interesting about the funding of that and she spoke in her video about how they were offered a certain amount of money but yeah it came with these strings and everything and they ultimately decided that they did not want to go that path and so they kind of have to do it on nights and weekends and that's the thing and i do hope that this type of program allow some people like that other smaller things um like mike bithel like to focus full time bring people into that i i just i want to see them put their money where their mouth is and see that it actually goes the way that it's supposed to go yeah i know you brought the future class up like that was a little bit disappointing of an experience for a lot of people sure um so i want to see them say do it like say you get you're gonna get your flowers for saying it but actually follow through with this exactly right i mean that's the thing you're talking about where it's like okay cool like they hope this is around for years to come and that requires dedication to it yeah and that's what it seems like fell apart with future class where future class was a great idea of like hey we're gonna take and spotlight these up-and-coming people in the video game industry and then it was we're gonna give them connections and yada yada yada to all these different people and they did it for the first year a little bit less and then it was a starbucks meetup and then you know before it was there was no future what's going on and it which clearly wasn't a priority for the game awards as a brand is this a priority for jeff and marcus people we'll find out it seems a little bit easier to manage if it's just going to be 13 or whatever it's 13 schools or whatever and how many are giving out a year we'll see but hats off i'm always happy to see new money come into the industry and help new game developers but to your point yeah it is now you got to walk kevin's here hey kev sorry about that kevin's with me speaking hey kevin hi kevin speaking of good news and continuing to stick it to the man number four 1900 blizzard developers just won a union contract full of protections for ai layoffs and more this is the one the only kind of funny games daily award winner rebecca valentine over at kotaku nearly 1900 blizzard entertainment workers have just voted to ratify their first union contract with parent company microsoft after over two years of bargaining gaining new protections on issues such as generative AI, crediting, remote work, and layoffs, while simultaneously consolidating Blizzard's many smaller unions into three larger bargaining units.

44:05The contract designates three bargaining groups for future negotiations between Blizzard unions and Microsoft, and will cover all three. One unit covers all of the World of Warcraft, as well as Blizzard QA and Hearthstone. The second group consists of the platform slash technology team, customer support and localization, and story and franchise development team. And the third group includes both Diablo and Overwatch workers, all of which were previously separate units. For now, the signed contract will cover all of these groups until its expiration in four to five years, parentheses depending on the bargaining group.

44:39The contract includes language on a number of hot button industry issues. Its artificial intelligence article acknowledges that AI tools, quote, may be useful in the game development process to support human judgment and creativity and that AI-assisted workflows remain subject to appropriate human control and review for accuracy and quality, end quote. But it also stipulates that any implementation of AI technology that would materially impact work performed by union employees must have its impact bargained over before it can be implemented. Other sections cover issues such as crediting, parentheses, guaranteeing that current and former employees are credited by name in all games they work on, in parentheses, and remote work, parentheses, designating certain roles as hybrid in office and providing procedures for individuals to apply for their roles to be fully remote, in parentheses.

45:29It also contains a lengthy section on how layoffs may be conducted, including a required 60-day notice period, parentheses, or pay in lieu of notice, a guarantee of one week of severance for every six months of employment, and 14 months of recall rights. The contract also guarantees successorship, meaning if Blizzard is ever acquired by another company, the contract would remain intact. this marks the fourth contract signed between microsoft and one of its own game studios following xenomax qa testers in raven software last year and blizzard qa workers earlier in the year blizzard qa workers who already had a signed contract will be rolled into the new consolidated contract since rebecca posted this this morning there's already an update it reads xbox provided the following statement from blizzard presidents uh president uh johanna ferries quote we appreciate the dedication and engagement of our represented employees and the bargaining committees throughout this process as well as every blizzard employee whose work continued alongside it the ratification of these agreements marks a significant milestone and reflects our shared commitment to continuing to work together in support of our teams and our players end quote now madeline you're you know famously anti-union tell me how you feel about reg stop having lies about me i love unions no i think this is awesome for them um very exciting i think union protection is super important especially for video game employees i mean for all employees but we've seen that there's a lot of exploits that can happen to game workers crunch all of those things um people moving their whole lives to work remote and then being told they have to come in the office people getting laid off and then not getting their credits in the game when it ships even though they worked on it up until the very end so i think having all of these protections in place is awesome and unions are a great way to do that um i think also great timing right before blizzcon yeah yeah of course yeah exactly blizzcon of course this weekend mike and i will be there come to our panel saturday night at the gamescast takes over a kind of funny live i think is what they're calling it but it's a gamescast uh 5 30 saturday legends auditorium stadium stage you'll find out the schedule lots of devs it'll be great uh no yes 100 going into this i want everybody who's working at blizzard to be able to go to blizzcon and be excited yes not be like oh well we're getting jerked around by our bosses we're here representing this brand that we love but also is fucking us over at least not playing ball it's nice to see this happen and again i want to see more studios do this me too as we continue to just fucking hurdle into the unknown i feel like you see a lot of devs who are like i love this property that i work on you know like i love diablo i love overwatch i love do i love the company i work for yeah i don't know because they don't maybe treat us right and i i would love to see everyone feel every game dev feel excited to be at work and protected and feel um appreciated for all the hard work that they do and also love the game that they're working on that'd be nice that'd be helpful you could do that madeline i'm excited for the day when everyone is proud of their work and no one is getting laid off and everything is just super groovy.