You Can FINALLY Be Gay in this Nintendo Game! - Kinda Funny Games Daily 01.29.26

30:08Rated PG-13. There's a world where legends race across city skylines romance blossoms in glittering ballrooms and there's magic around every corner it's a world known to many as great britain you've seen the action on screen now visit the real star of the show visit great britain to discover more go to tripadvisor.com great britain a lot of your wrongs already not about the not about the screen tomagotchi I'm nailing it but I keep saying tomodachi but technically it should be tomodachi oh really I didn't know that there's o's there shout out to Steven Snake for the you're wrong that they're not disabling the screenshot feature they are just saving the sharing of the screenshot Correct.

31:09Okay. Apologies. Thank you for the correction. That's a good correction. We started talking about that. Tomo Dachi. Bander S and Super Chats. It says, low-key, I think it's Biden Island that caused this. Thanks, Joe. Remember that when there was the Biden Island and Animal Crossing? Remember that. Never forget. Never forget. Let's move on to story number two. It's a review roundup for Karen. Right now it has a Metacritic of 82. And you might say, what's it about? What is Karen? We go to GameSpot. It's Karen. Nobody at this studio has been saying it correct It's Cairn C-A-I-R-N But Mike all week during the meetings was saying Karen Yeah, that must have worn off on me So the I and the R are flipped Wait, so this is misspelled in the thing here?

31:54In your dog Oh, I see what happened here So it's like Say it again Cairn Cool cool and that's a that's a hiking or not a hiking thing a crawling thing on the wall thing i got to assume yeah i think so no well no aren't these the things that you kick over in uncharted the little rock piles like that there's a rock oh look at that yeah possibly let me look at the google cairn cairn cairn cairn yeah i kept on here you know when roger said oh we're gonna yeah we're gonna do a games cast plays we're gonna be playing karen and then mike was saying karen Yeah. I don't think it's right. This is one of those shows you show somebody new and they're like, how are these people paid to talk?

32:39How is this what they do every day? Karen is a human made pile or stone. Nice. Great job. You knew that. I knew it from uncharted. Thanks uncharted. You knew that. All right. Let's try again. Everybody. Karen. You might say, what is Karen? We go to game spots. Moises Tavares, who says in his review, Karen, a climbing, Karen, A climbing and survival game from the game Bakers, parentheses, Fury, and Haven, is an experience filled to the brim with small and big choices. Whether the player knows they're making them or not. Where will, and I'm going to say Ava, place her hands and feet when climbing a wall?

33:15Which route up a wall will you make or take? When she comes across abandoned camps along the climb, will you prioritize scavenging, climbing gear, or raw materials to be cooked into a hearty meal down the line? And Kev, if you could just loop it, you're doing it. Kev's the man, guys. He's doing it. I have two reviews to read from then briefly, okay? IGN's Will Borger gave it a 9 out of 10, saying, Cairn would mean nothing without the journey, without the climb, without the moments where I faced everything Cammie had to throw at me. That's the mountain, by the way. Oh, okay. From sheer cliffs to bad weather to climbing at night.

33:50Each time I was close to the top, I discovered the peak was farther off, and each time I would tape up Ava's hands, cook whatever I had, and keep going. I knew what she could handle what she needed how strong her grip would be where I could take my chances my reward was always something wondrous and by the end I was so attuned I'm sorry I was as attuned to Ava's body as my own but what I'll remember is the story of the mountain and the people on it I'll remember the climb I'll remember Ava Cammie asks Ava two questions who are you? why are you here? her answers are simple I'm a climber I came here to live and through her so could I Damn.

34:29What I like about this game is it's inspiring poetry. And I put this up on BS. That's a blue sky, Tim. I put it up on the quip on Patreon. I put it up on threads just to get it onto my Instagram story, right? Over at GameSpot, Moises Tavares, former kind of funny best friend. Tavares. Tavares? Tavares. Tavares. What did I say? Tavares. I put Tavares. Okay, Tavares. Tavares. Thank you very much. Yeah, there you go. I also gave it a nine out of 10, but here's what I want everybody to do. I want you to go read Moises is review on GameSpot. It is legitimately the best video game review I've ever read.

35:10And I don't mean it's the best in terms of, oh man, he nailed reviewing a game. I mean, it's the best written video game review I've ever had. Like it flows like poetry. It flows like a story. I was enraptured reading it. And so I'm going to give you two meaty graphs, and I'm sure I will just butcher because I cannot talk today. But I want everyone to go over there and read that. Thank you for that pity. That's a pity you've been crushing it. My favorite part is, like, even with Roger yesterday, when he got to read and he was fucking stuff up, and I'm like, all right, all right, cool. We're all the same.

35:43Tamagami Karen. Tamagami Karen. Tarveas. No, no, Tava. Say it again. Tavares. Tavares. Tavares. Tavares. Tavares. Yeah. Not Tavares. I apologize. E and A swan. Moises says, Karen. Like, you got to admit that sounds stupid. Karen. Karen. Karen. Karen. Just drop the N. Call it care. You know what I mean? Like, what are we doing? Karen? Why are we saying words? Why are we making words like this? Karen. Looks like a solo journey, but it really felt like a two-hander with Ava and myself. I felt every bit of her perilous flight. I felt myself catch second winds after astonishing nail-biting ascents I felt every slip and hard knock that Ava took, but also every quiet moment of reflection brought on by a waterfall or the sight of a since-past climber who also came up here for answers.

36:39I felt every pang of defeat and every adrenaline high of an ordeal felled. Maybe it's because Ava felt so tangible and so human that I could map myself onto her with ease. Maybe it was just the intent trying to get entrancing i'm getting there maybe it was just the entrancing physicality of karen's karen's central climbing and it just sounds like i'm powering down daniel z daniel z and jad said i'm still hearing karen uh central climbing and survival mechanics but at some point whatever wall existed between myself and the game came down and i was there with ava as she was with me without one another we couldn't have experienced the shared terror of weathering Mount Kami's harsh climate and sealed ourselves against it.

37:26We might not have hounded our demons to the edge of the world. We couldn't have discovered the relics of the long-gone denizens of Kami and aided the other lost souls we met on our way up. Without one another, I'm sure we couldn't have reached Mount Kami's peak and, maybe, achieved the clarity we needed to persevere. We couldn't say that a wall is just a wall, and whether it's through, over, or even under it, that we would live to see the other side. You could be writing. You know what I mean? Moises, yeah. And of course, just a shout out to us. I'll let you know it's way easier to write than read.

38:04You know what I mean? People used to think I was smart when I wrote at IGN. Oh, really? Then when I tried to say these fucking words. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Getting the words out in the right order. I'll tell you. You know what I mean? It's out there. A beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful review from Moises over on GameSpot. Go read it, please, everybody. Give them the click. Send them some love on socials or whatever. And then this game, Andy, Karen, are you excited to play it? Certainly now with all the reviews. I don't think this is something that I would have necessarily wanted to play if it came out and got a bunch of sevens from a lot of people that I respect in the industry.

38:38But this is getting nines across the board. This is getting, in some cases, tens from some outlets. And that's super exciting. I think that it's not, it was one that I always thought to myself whenever seeing it in previews, okay, it's going to be the death stranding of climbing. It's going to be this experiential sort of how are we going to gamify the climbing experience. But if it can nail these mechanics and also interweave a really awesome kind of story about, you know, self-reflection and discovery, you know, then they may have a hit on their hands. And now I'm certainly way more stoked about this because this is a game that I was going to play with Roger today for Gamescast plays and then probably never look at again.

39:22But now it's like, oh, OK, shit. I want to see this through to the end after seeing everybody's glowing thoughts about it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm in the same boat. I looked at it for previews. It's like another climbing game. Yeah. I've never been the climbing game guy. All these reviews are beautiful and sound cool. I just I'll try it for sure. I wonder if I'll stick with it because it'll need to be the narrative pushing more than the climbing mechanics that just doesn't sound like something I'm super stoked about but I don't know. But I also don't see it as a you have to be here for 25 hours experience Yeah I mean I'm sure it's in some of the reviews I'm fried today on how long it is.

39:58Chat what are they saying for how long it takes to summit where are we going there I am searching right now fuck 15 to 19 hours god damn I was close I don't know about that. I was a lot closer than I thought. Yeah. Snake Eater Super Chats and says, literally playing Cairn right now as I watch you guys heart. We heart right back at you. Hello, Snake Eater. Yeah. Heart to you. I'll be used to try it. More importantly, I'll be used to check out this Gamescast play today. You guys jumping right in and seeing what's up. Yeah. Roger had mentioned that he had already hopped in for quite a bit, so he will be kind of leading it while I play alongside with him.

40:32Yeah. I'm excited to see exactly how it looks, how it feels, because we've seen it in trailers a bunch. This is one that I agree with some people in chat when I saw some chatters go by and say, I thought this game came out last year. I feel like we've seen a lot about this game in the lead up. And obviously, well, then Juissant is in the mix, too. Juissant is there. And we had, you know, obviously, Peak is a very different looking game. But there's a lot of different climbing things. And, yeah, it's easy to kind of get lost in the noise of all of it. A great way to break through is to have reviews like these scores.

41:02Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. Something to look at for sure.

41:08Yeah, okay. Gamescast Plays, if you aren't aware, is one of our new things. It's an editorial product. It's a stream, but it's a show. So you can get it in your Gamescast podcast feeds if you want that. But it's an editorial product where they don't just play the game. They talk about what's going on. So, yeah. Roger has put hours into this. It'll be interesting to see what he thinks of it. Purposely doing our best to not, you know, is it a hot dog a sandwich or whatever? You just got to keep Mike off. You'll be fine. Yeah. Crabby Patty Super Chats says, The climbing game looks cool. Looks like the devs put a lot of love in.

41:36Karen in it. Karen. Karen. Karen Tamadami life. Number three. And there's so many more stories to go. I can't fucking read today. More than a quarter of the dev surveyed by GDC were laid off in the past two years, and half of them don't have a new job. This is Chris Scullion at VGC.news. More than a quarter of game developers responding to a new survey said they were laid off in the past two years. This year's annual State of the Game Industry Survey, which is managed by the Game Developers Conference and surveys more than 2 ,300 games industry professionals around the world, asked its respondents a number of questions about layoffs.

42:17According to the survey, 17 % said they were laid off in the past 12 months, while another 11 % said they were laid off during the 12 months before that, making for a total of 28%. When limited to just U.S. respondents, the percentages increased to 33. The survey also notes that the total number of layoffs could be higher than the survey suggests, as some respondents could have been laid off more than once in the past two years. Jesus. Of those who said they had been laid off, around 48 % of them said they hadn't found a new job yet. This wasn't exclusive to those recently let go either. Of those who were laid off one to two years ago, 36 % said they were still looking for a new job.

42:58Half of respondents said their current company, parentheses, or the one they most recently worked for, conducted layoffs in the past 12 months and while 47 said they didn't anticipate future layoffs in the company in the next 12 months 23 said they did and 30 weren't sure when asked what they thought the reasons were for such widespread layoffs a number of respondents gave their own theories quote leadership failed to see that the covid era boom was not permanent and the company went on an acquisition spree before being acquired a senior programmer in india said now money is a a lot tighter because the goldfish with the money want returns yesterday so they can funnel it into the current fad.

43:37Part of the seas, Gen AI. I've never read a more accurate sentence in my life. Another one reads, executives who have never actually worked as a dev are pulling up the boards on their ships, throwing people overboard, and expecting these scuttled ghost ships to keep making them infinite money, a former designer in New York said. Meanwhile, the owner of an independent studio in Australia said, quote, we're coming up towards launch, and if sales aren't good enough, there'll be layoffs, end quote. Game developer Farhan Noor, who has been tracking industry job cuts since 2022, estimates that around 8 ,500 workers were laid off in 2022, 10 ,500 workers in 2023, 14 ,600 workers in 2024, and 5 ,300 workers in 2025.

44:27That's an improvement, Ron. We're turning it around, everybody. It's a cruel world, man. There's just, there are a few things, I would say, less depressing and less discouraging than the killing of an art form. When you are seeing it happen in real time, when you are hearing about profits still going up in some spots or maybe they you know hey we only made a million dollars more than we did last year big failure and it's like well that's not a big failure though but in their eyes and because of shareholders and things like that it's it's so it's so depressing that we are still here and yeah i think that sentence about the covid era boom was not permanent is so true when when people were stuck in home stuck at home playing a lot of video games there were tons of studios going oh shit there's tons of publishers and heads of uh you know uh you know different you know businesses saying man this is an infinite infinite money glitch yeah let's start hiring again let's start you know green light that sequel green light and it's like that just did not last and to not have the foresight well it doesn't matter if you don't have the foresight because you're not going to bear any of the consequences you know you're going to be totally fine at the end of the day so it's always the workers and the people underneath that are going to be the ones to suffer and you are going to just continue to kill and hurt this art form because those are the people that are the talent that make these dreams come to life and all you're doing is telling them all right i'll go fucking i'll go fuck off and work on something else that isn't even in the industry anymore because I'm tired of the industry now.

46:17The knowledge and the power and the brain drain we have when you lose these people and all their experience, that sucks and it sets everything back. Yeah. You hear about old animation studios and how 2D animation gets phased out and now there's a lot of studios going, we don't even know how they did those techniques back in the day. All of that, you know, you've heard the AAVE phrase, like we're losing our recipes And like we are going to lose the recipes from a lot of people in the industry that are just quitting because they're going, I can't do this anymore. I'm 50 now. I'm 45 now. I can't be moving across the country again for my next job because X and Y studio are requiring us to be all in studio again, which really just means we're hoping all y 'all quit because you can't move over here or we're looking for a reason to lay you all off.

47:09it's just it just continues to just beat down everybody and it's very very sad yeah you know we talk a lot on this show about all this we talked yesterday at length about it again right of this fad chasing and that's what we're seeing when we talk about meta having these layoffs we talk about uh you know amazon shutting stuff down yesterday and all these mass layoffs right it's uh well the the gamble here of going off and trying to chase the fat of vr or games in general not wanting to make art but wanting to make money and then we entered the space to make money not to make art not understanding what we're doing oh this isn't getting the returns we want kill it let's throw it behind ai let's go this way right there was a great write-up and story sometime near the end of last year where me and bless ron at games daily and the story it was just facts written by matt piscatella doing his awesome reporting and talking about how only 18 percent of the industry buys more than two games a year only 18 of fan bases and gamers buy more than two games a year and the constant urge that we need to it's one of those like call your senators type deal but this is one of those like we need every head of a studio and every head of a publisher and the people with the money that could not give a lesser shit about the the art that these artists are creating we need them to know that you need to target just the 18 because the other 78 or the other 72 are just working or just playing marvel rivals and fortnite and roblox and all the other free-to-play stuff and you are building your financial futures as if all 100 are constantly buying shit and that's just not how it works focus on the 18 that's where the core of the business is set your expectations yeah yeah and don't you know suddenly create a 250 person studio out of nowhere because you're just going to be you know laying those people off in two years three years well speaking of people losing their jobs number four uh meta's reality labs is still losing a lot of money this is eddie over at game spot parent facebook parent company meta has released its latest earnings report.

49:21And while the company made many billions of dollars in profit, not every business unit at the technology giant is profitable. The company's Reality Labs division, which comprises virtual and augmented reality, consumer hardware, software, and content, continue to be a sore spot for meta. For the quarter that ended December 31st, Reality Labs recorded revenue of, drum roll please, $955 million down from$1.083 billion during the same period last year. Or it gets worse. Income for the quarter was non-existent. Reality Labs posted quarterly loss of$6.021 billion. For the full year, Reality Labs pulled in revenue of$2.207 billion, which was an increase from the previous year's$2.146 billion.

50:09However, the increased revenue did not lead to increased profit. Instead, Reality Labs booked a$19.193 billion loss for the full year compared to a loss of$17.729 billion during the previous year. That is unfathomable. I can't even picture what that looks like. Although Reality Labs continues to be an ongoing miss for Meta, the company's other divisions are putting out strong numbers, period. Altogether, Meta posted about$201 billion in revenue for the full year with a profit of about$60.5 billion. Meta ended 2025. Who the fuck cares about that part? Looking at the current fiscal year, Meta has said Reality Labs will continue to lose money, with operating losses expected to remain similar to what they were in 2025.

50:57In related news, Meta recently made drastic cuts to Reality Labs' division, shutting down the studios behind Deadpool VR, Asgard's Wrath 2, and Resident Evil 4 VR. The company also is said to have canceled the planned sequel to Batman Arkham Shadow. Meta stock price, which closed at$668 on January 28th, surged by more than 9 % in after-hours trading following the company's outperformance against its earnings projections. Andy? They're just going to close Reality Labs eventually, right? Or the VR portion of it. Augmented reality that maybe they keep on when they're trying to do the meta Ray-Bans and all that.

51:32Yeah, I mean, well, there's got to be, there will likely be a closure, and I'm sure they're going to look to hopefully move any sort of talent that they can to the AR stuff because they want to continue pushing into, you know, the glasses AR sort of thing. But, yeah, I mean, you could just kind of copy-paste what I said a little while ago and just put it here. So, editors, can we do that? Well, save it, editors, because number five on the Roper Report. Xbox gaming revenue declines as console sales continue to slump. This is Hayley Williams at GameSpot. Microsoft has posted its earnings report for the latest quarter, and while it's been a strong period for the company as a whole, the Xbox gaming division is struggling.

52:17Though Microsoft posted an overall revenue increase of 17 % year-on-year, gaming revenue is down 9%, with console sales making up a large part of that decline. Microsoft's Q2 FY, that's fiscal year, Tim, 26 results generally look great for the tech behemoth, with the company boasting a staggering$81.3 billion revenue largely driven by its cloud and business divisions. But Xbox isn't looking so healthy right now. Microsoft's gaming division revenue declined 9 % as a whole, with a 5 % decrease in revenue from content and services, which includes Game Pass. Microsoft explains that this decline can be mostly attributed to strong first-party content the year prior and predicts that Q3 will see a similar decline in the single digits for the same reason.

53:02It wasn't the price increases? Wow. Yeah, crazy. Who would have thought? Yeah, would have thought increasing the prices of the console and this very, very popular service. Yeah, yeah. That, wow, that stinks. Xbox gaming hardware revenue has declined for the last three financial years. and it isn't set to break that trend anytime soon with a 32 % decline year on year. Microsoft expects this trend to continue into 2026 too. Despite the downward trends, Microsoft expects Game Pass to continue to grow through the next quarter, though the company hasn't given a public update on subscriber numbers since it reached the milestone of 34 million subscribers in early 2024 and then of course jacked up the price.

53:46i think back to our like you know gift guide or whatever and i still can't help but remember that little fucking motion box that people were buying at target that outsold the xbox yeah yeah which is still one of the like to me when the big three aren't nintendo playstation and xbox it's as crazy of an upset as you know miracle on ice you know like that's something that you're like we could have never ever expected a random no-name thing to suddenly outsell one of the big things but when that big thing is six years old now when did the xbox one come out 2021 2020 xbox one or i mean the xbox series uh 2020 right yeah 2020 like to after five years of it being out to raise the price of something that's already like outdated and getting older yeah i like it just it of course you're going to continue to lose money on that thing i know things are getting more expensive but you're going to just you're going to see less and less units go out there yeah and like i don't it feels like self-sabotage in a way to hey we got to lay off more people look at the sales going it's like well yeah you raise the prices on your services and the consoles i don't know man it's i like i really want to be a fly on the wall just to hear what the actual discussions are because we're just going to see more and more of our friends get laid off yeah i mean i think this is all wrapped up in what we've talked about already on this show and throughout this thing, right?

55:29And it's the same beating the drum, right? Of I think Xbox as a division saw they were losing to PlayStation, made this bet on Game Pass and Xbox being everywhere, and this will be great. And I think that's right around the time when the winds changed at Microsoft and it became okay, fuck, we need you to, everybody needs to be making money. You've seen, I forget at 30%, is that what it was? Like the profit margin they want or whatever the fuck it was. I don't know. I might throw it away because I don't have it in front of me from what it was. But it's like then the AI boom is here. The AI fad is here.

56:02We're going to chase that with all this money. And that's what the power is. And so now we're mad at Xbox for losing money on top of that. So now we're going to crank the prices on that where it's going to piss people off and drive them away. And then I also think there is a very – it'll be interesting when Jason Schreier writes a book in 10 years about all this. And it is, all right, cool. well we're going to commit to making what people want a console that's also a it runs xbox games but it's also a pc that'll be really cool great we're going to do that at the worst time to try to make that hardware switch as tariffs jack up all the prices and as on top get rid of the tariffs from the equation then it's just this fucking run on ram that is happening right now where you can't get ram where like the rumor right i saw we didn't get into games daily uh this week but one analyst was predicting like PlayStation's not putting out the PS6 when they thought they were putting it out they're going to push that down the line because of this and all that and so now you have Xbox who was I think scuttling firing off all the series X's and S's right because cool we're not worrying about that we're going to pivot to this next thing and they've already they called it premium before everything went to shit right Sarah Bond was like that's gonna be a premium so it's gonna be outrageously expensive now for what they're trying to do they're just rock hard place and they also made a call when you can't predict anything in this world when everything went to shit and so it's like yeah i've never been the type to say like no get an xbox or no get a playstation and we still get questions from you know people who are who love gaming but aren't you know either you know financially ready to even buy one of the newer consoles and whenever they ask it's it's always been a go where your friends are or go with whatever ecosystem you're comfortable with and now it's not even a question to where i'm like no i don't think it's a smart decision to buy an xbox it's oh yeah it's just there there's it there is it makes zero sense to do that now yeah you know yeah well especially because you're in this what's the next one what's the thing i think play anywhere is awesome but i love playing and i already had an xbox but again it's just yeah the the old thing is now more expensive yeah 100 and you are going to be able to play a lot of those games on the playstation now or on pc which is obviously a different discussion because that's way more expensive.

58:16But it's like, yeah, it's just there's no logical reasoning that I would recommend anybody to buy an Xbox right now. Yeah. Number six on the Roper Report. Let's give you some good news. Hey, Nick, come here. Okay, Greg. Thank you, Nick. Everybody, welcome to the stage. Nick Scarpino. Yay. Nick. Yes, Greg. Dune Awakening is getting big changes with Chapter 3. This is Blair Marnell at GameSpot, so I brought in our Dune Awakening expert. Last year, Dune Awakening developer Funcom promised fans that it's free chapter three update would arrive between January and March, 2026. Now the official date for Dune Awakening chapter three has been set for February 3rd, and it's bringing a lot of requested changes to the game on fun.

58:56Com's developer blog. The team noted that chapter three was designed to address fan demands for more end game options. Additional content for the world of Archer, Ar, Ar, Arcus, Arcus, Arcus, uh, legendary episode, And the ability to... It's Annie. It's just personified. He mispronounced it so badly. I was like, I don't know what this word is. Oh, Arrakis. I've seen the movies. I'm playing games. Don't worry about it. The ability to experience everything in the end game without ditching the player's preferred play style. With the arrival of this update, players will be able to progress after reaching the sixth tier, Planstanium.

59:34With enhanced plan... Are you Planstanium? I mean, I usually pronounce it like... Plastonium. I'm not sure why that's spelled that way, but that's okay. With enhanced specialization and augmentation systems, as well as, quote, deeper choices, shared goals, and more ways for players to continue growing. In late game play, there will also be 10 new locations on the Overland map that have repeatable testing stations and boss encounters. Players can choose to make those boss battles easier or harder, although the latter will earn them more rewards than the former. Additionally, players will be able to accept lands rad missions good one regardless of their preferred play style these missions provide a new way to complete assignments and collect rewards chapter 3 is also allowing players to pick up where they left off by utilizing a base reconstruction tool and transferring their characters to another active world or siech nice I'm coming online just in time there are more incentives for lapsed players to come back to the game, including including, that's what they wrote, returning packages with valuable resources for anyone who hasn't been logged out of the game.

1:00:45Anyone who has been logged out of the game for 28 days, available after Chapter 3. Taxes have also been dropped for all players, and they can now expand their bases without getting gouged by the Emperor's tax collectors. Due to Awakenings, next paid DLC, Raiders of the Broken Lands will debut in the first quarter of this year. You don't have to pay the taxes anymore for us, Nick. I'm paying everyone's taxes. Oh, man. You still paying my taxes? Yeah, lording it over you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Are you still playing Doom Awakening? I dropped back in last week just to power my base back up with the intention of packing it up, basically, indefinitely until this next chapter came out.

1:01:18So I think at this point I'll probably just wait if it's really going to drop on February 3rd. That's right around the corner. And I just paid my taxes and fueled up my generators. The big question is, like, what – I will jump back in for this. How long will I play? Because Chapter 2, I was like, great, there's more stuff in Chapter 2. and I played for about another two or three days. Yeah. And then it just felt kind of hollow and empty. Yeah. I think the big problem for me is that when we first jumped in, all of our friends were playing, right? As were, there was maybe 10 to 15 other players in our specific server.

1:01:48And so the game felt alive. It felt like you were competing for resources. It felt like you would see someone struggling and maybe help them out or whatever. And you were all sort of in it together, but it felt like a real world. Now I jump in and I just look over and Gary's base has like one wall left and there's no one else on my server. And I think for a long time they had talked about combining servers, which they absolutely need to do if they haven't done it already. You need to get this game thrives when you feel like it's their other players are really, really enjoying it. And I guess every game feels like that if it's like an MMO.

1:02:18Yeah. But this game specifically was so special when you were like going across the desert and you look over and you see someone else like going across the desert and you knew they felt the same anxiety you felt. Yeah. Because you didn't want to get eaten by the worm. Right. Or like Andy and I would jump in and grab resources. Yeah. They're going for the spice. so you got to get there first. They really did have a big problem with the end game in that by the time you got to the deep desert, it just felt kind of like there's nothing left to do, and I don't think they're going to solve that problem with this chapter.

1:02:45But candidly, again, I'm going to be one of those guys that says, hey, man. There's never been a better time to play Dunaway. Well, I honestly, I'm going to tell you because the first 200 hours of the game, if you're on an active server, are really, really fun. How much more game do you really want out of a game? that's the big question right like i put 300 hours in i don't i don't regret one single hour of that except for maybe the last kind of 20 because they're a little depressing of like i need to let this go yeah is that fun comms problem or is that my problem like what are they on the hook for do they really need to give you thousands of hours of entertainment for this one-time purchase sure i don't know i don't know the answer to that i do know i love the game i do know i love sharing the game with other players and i would love a compelling reason to go back to it because i have kept the base maybe your dlc maybe the dlc raiders will do that for you well i'm gonna jump back in and we'll uh i'll play it i want to just shoot a big monster i want to like me and the squad to feel like a division boss or like destiny boss and that was the thing the game was always missing for me which is why when people are like man you put so many hours into it i think it may i think it was second to maybe eldenering night rain for my most played game last year They're like, you didn't put it in your top 10.

1:03:57It's like 90 % of those hours are just building the house. Which was fun, though. I built a lot of houses, and I had a lot of fun with it. That game could be a base-building game, and I would pay$20 to just do it. It's just the rest of the game was just so lacking. I wanted raid-type stuff. I wanted a big boss that you had to figure out what the mechanics were. They just didn't really do that. It would always just be another humanoid, because that's the world of Dune. You're not going to—I feel like they're also really attached to the lore, and they're not going to have you shooting down a big alien that they introduced.

1:04:27It's just dudes with jetpacks that might have a different moveset, but it's never what I wanted, which I'm also asking for something that just isn't Dune. Well, they need to figure it out, though. They need to figure that out. They need to figure out a compelling way to get me stoked to get you, Mike, Gary, and all the jabroni boys back in the game to do something, and I just don't see them doing that. Chapter 2, going on another mission, you go to this other space that you've already seen a billion times and they just built out like a wrecked ship and you're like this is just more of the same unfortunately so we'll see what chapter three brings for us thank you nick thank you nick get ready for your screencast up next talking about every movie coming out i'm excited i'm gonna watch some trailers uh he has no time to watch those but if he did watch all those trailers and do his homework that'd be big news andy if i wanted to say the smallest news i need to know about where would i go you'd go to our last story the we news channel where we cover all the small news items you need to know about number seven igian reports a neo 3 demo is now available on ps5 and pc any progress you make in the demo will carry over to the full game but even better is the fact that you'll get a reward for completing the demo the twin snake helmet game spot reports a split fiction movie is in development with sydney sweeney which we knew obviously uh but how is the movie coming along and will it actually get made that remains to be seen but game director joseph ferris gave an update recently saying in an interview uh that he recently got the first draft of the movie script uh he told movie zine uh that even getting a script in the first place was notable because quote there's so much talk in hollywood for projects uh that have a lot of buzz but never materialize but the split fiction movie is indeed moving forward with a new script uh also in the interview ferris said he met with Sweeney and remarked that she seemed quote unquote super chill.

1:06:14Ferris added that it's his belief that Sweeney is quote unquote hyped to make the film. We'll see if that movie ever happens. It's going to be in the Gundam movie. How far are we into that? Is that the same thing here? Oh no, it's going to be filmed for Netflix, I believe. Her and Noah Centineo. Oh, cool. I like him. There's a lot of scuttleball on the internet that she's, after all the real bad press she was doing, trying to turn around public sentiment by just showing the girls. I saw a clip on Instagram the other day. Like, what the fuck? They're out there, yeah. She was doing or whatever. God bless.

1:06:53Another Wii News. This is a press release. Get ready to travel back to the 90s with your favorite Disney tunes. Atari and Digital Clips today announced the Disney Afternoon Collection will launch on Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 on February 26th. The updated collection, exclusive to Switch and Switch 2, as two new titles bringing a total of eight Disney-themed classic games to Nintendo consoles for the first time since their original NES and SNES releases. IGN reports Rainbow Six Siege is getting a Metal Gear Solid crossover as Ubisoft is teasing that Solid Snake will appear as a new operator in year 11.

1:07:27Kevin, can we see the teaser trailer here? That's cool. I want to see it. Yeah. We got to get, okay. This is exciting. This could get me, Mike, and Bluss back into it. Really? not listening. That's what it'll do for you? I mean, I love Snake. We really enjoyed Siege last year. When we played it, we streamed it for that one week and it was awesome. I was like, wow, this game is still really, really great. Alright, while Kevin preps that, IGN also turns 30 this year and they've begun celebrating. You should go over there and show them some love. Can we get sound for this too? Because we got Kodak.

1:07:56I gotta hear the beep.

1:08:00Our window is closing. We only get one shot at this.

1:08:08suit that's fucking sick that's the tease baby watch the full reveal february 15th that's fucking far away what the fuck cool is this video game still live uh of course you think man i don't know much about siege operators do they all have voices is it going to be david hater is that going to happen they all have voices yeah cool oh yeah they all got their you know enemy over here when you ping stuff or whatever they got their own little cut scenes their lore okay what was the game that got canceled the multiplayer that's like asking that's a very open-ended question which ubisoft game got canceled is quite the open-ended question but the one that was like call of duty x ballistic x bet no of us something x x defiant x defiant there we go and that's it for we news we jump to the one the only's the super chats to see what's going on over there.

1:09:03Start from the bottom and we can go up. Kebab Super Chat says Dune, Karen of Arrakis. You're not going to get me. Toss a Tomodachi life in there too. I'm ready now to do the show from the top. Oh, okay. All these words. That'd be great. Run it back. I Dion is I oh says nice meeting you in. There's no Ian in there. You really pronounce the first name that is spelled I-A-N as I-N. What are you talking about? I-D. I-D-On. What are you reading? Oh, that's so funny because the second super chatter, you're like I-N-D. Oh, but no. So, see, on whatever page you're on, you're getting their username. You're getting the name of their channel and I'm getting their username.

1:09:53Gotcha. Okay. Okay. You know, give me a handshake. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? So that's Ian, which does not show on my screen is Ian whatsoever. Ian says, nice meeting you last night and FaceTiming. Nice meeting you all last night and for FaceTiming my mom, Greg. I forgot about that. I thought I heard the poster lady. She was going to post it up above her bed. She did say that, the poster lady who was one of the weirdos. But I completely forgot that I FaceTimed your mom last night. Yeah. Ian last night's chat was like, Greg, every time my mom sees you on the TV. She's like, his voice is so annoying.

1:10:32He was like, can I record a video of you saying something to her? He goes, no, FaceTime her. Call her right now. And you did. He's like, I don't know if she'll answer. She answered. And he cut a promo. That's what I do. It's why I'm so tired. I gave everything I had last night. Think about every time you wronged me, man. Psycho. This isn't a super chat, but BG in the chat says, Huh interesting no mention of the brutal dispatch Censorship on Switch We mentioned it this show when I mentioned it to Andy And we also reported on it yesterday So fuck you and go away Interesting Unless you're a fan I'm doing this Okay wait last geek says what's the best Mountain Dew Also chug the Dew Andy What about Livewire I love Livewire Livewire is good but I mean Code Red is just Code Red voltage One and two

1:11:25Christopher 21 Andy please do the snake voice again

1:11:31Princess Dorkness says another important piece of the puzzle on layoffs I believe is that the cost of living has continued to rise while wages haven't that's a very big thing about why the economy is all fucked up right now Cooper says my job at Bob's now has 10 to 18 week forced hiatus parentheses unpaid per year so you either quit and take the unemployment with onboarding paperwork afterward or just eat that loss. The new norm. That fucking sucks. Sick. Sam Godfrey says, I've lost all idea of what the game is called now. I think he's talking about Karen. Karen. Karen. Sky says, Thanks for an amazing show last night.

1:12:11You guys were incredibly kind. I can't wait to be at the next one. Thank you, Sky, for flying all the way out from Minnesota. Thank you. Hang out with us and review Howard the Duck. Zeke the Feek says, I was the dude with the long hair Bluey Roosevelt shirt Team Blue Champion shirt underneath And a hot wife by my side Just to put a face with a name for y 'all Here's the next live event That was a great thing you did in the meet and greet Where everybody would introduce themselves But what's your handle, what's your Twitch name I'm Blanket Fort Oh shit, we know you Blanket I'm Fung Time, no fucking way you're Fung Time I'm Eric Myers 93 No shit, that was awesome dude Fung Time 94 in the super chat there says love hanging out with y 'all last night.

1:12:49Thanks for the bear hug. Also Andy when you're going to watch heated rivalry. This is a hot topic discussion last night. I got to I got to watch Andor first. I'll get there. The only special feature says the game Baker's other game Haven was one of my favorite of all time. A beautiful romantic love story. So I'm so excited for Karen. It's also interesting because Haven was such a different game than Karen. I like people going out and expanding what they're doing. Do stuff. What's a Russian gunship doing Vav Super Chats says on the pot tax. Thank you very much for that. Eric Myers 93. Thank you all for a great show last night.

1:13:24My wife and I had a blast. Y 'all should have talked about Howard's wallet condom though. That was why. Oh my God. We forgot about Howard's wallet condom. He had a condom loose. It's a fucking loose. It was a loose condom that you got to assume gets repurposed. You just roll that sucker back up. I don't want to. And also it was the shape of an egg. Like their planet was a shape of an egg as well. I missed the egg shape condom. Holy fuck, what a movie. Memento in the notebook super chats again. It says, Barrett, did you get the gift I left with Greg? No, Barrett came in. He's running the later shifts.

1:13:53So, no, that's in my bag because I couldn't give it to Kevin because Kevin's not Barrett. But I'll get it to Barrett. Don't worry about it. Trimbley Wimbley says, in memos, defend super chats in the app. Do this weird autocomplete that makes it impossible to type. Also, Karen looks awesome. Excited to play it. Everybody's laughing. I'm just fucking, that's how you pronounce it. Just pronounce it. Yeah. you nailed it when you said it sounds like you're shutting down

1:14:20professor white t so awesome to see and meet you guys last night in person i had the fattest smile on my face driving home and when roger smiled at me and said quote unquote how's it going before the show fangirl wave we're happy you were able to come out and hang with us professor white t thank you so much uh kebabs uh super chats from this way in the beginning nintendo really be like quote we'll let you be gay in our game just don't think any screenshots of you doing and then uh mac and awesome says nationwide strike tomorrow that's right there is a general strike being called for for tomorrow if you are able to participate participate yeah we gotta they gotta plan these things like ahead like you gotta i never want to critique anything yeah this is the movement do it yeah for sure but as i was ranting and raving last week about a general strike if you i was like let's do it in february so we can like the end of the month so we can organize the nation.

1:15:10I don't think you can organize the nation in two days, but I'm not saying don't do it. I'm not saying don't do it. You can do it. Dominator Dom. There's a general strike tomorrow. I had no idea. I saw it surface yesterday morning, so it's they're trying to get it going. I would have planned for more time. Let's do ours. You know when couples are like, if you go out on Valentine's Day, it's so packed. Let's do it on the 21st or something. You know what I mean? Let's get these last super chats out. The people are still trying to get him in here. Nick says, Greg, this might not be appropriate for time or place.

1:15:44How did you get over your breakup? I'm going through it. It feels like everything's falling apart. I don't know how to cope. I don't know what to do with myself. Well, Nick, when breakups happen, that's normal. That happens to a lot of different people. I'm sure there's Greg ways about this. I'm not trying to push you off, but I also know that we shouldn't go on for 20 minutes. The thing is, if you're going through hell, keep on going. You got to push through this. You got to power through this. the good news maybe you could take solace in is like you're not the only person ever to do this this is everybody who goes through a traumatic breakup and misses their partner and is heartbroken about it that doesn't make it easier i know uh but it is the truth so lean on your friends lean on the kind of funny best play games play games listen to us get angry about video games you know what i mean yeah yeah that's right that's great i'll invite you uh to deadlock yeah mike will make you angry for sure yeah uh mike like music says greg sang karen reminds me of the twin bugs and silk song like oh yeah and the final question from now overly jammy question for andy have you played fury uh that game is right up here i played fury way back in the day when i was a developer when i was working on the ruby game this was like way way early before the idea of like indie action RPGs wasn't even really a thing to me, you know?

1:17:03Yeah. But it was like a way early back in the day thing that had kind of like those telegraph boss fights. And I just didn't really understand what I was playing at the time. Cause I had no concept or, you know, I just wasn't really aware that that sort of thing was existing at the time. Uh, then, and you are wrong. Two different people are popping in with a link from a, uh, VGC article we'll cover tomorrow. Dispatch is censored on Nintendo switch too. And this might be the reason why they're getting, getting to the bottom of this. Is this Midler? No, it's Scully. And Midler doesn't do work anymore.

1:17:32He just goes to Pokemon openings. And then the right Hidalgo writes in and says, since we're all about pronunciations today, Andy, can you teach Greg how to say my username slash last name Hidalgo? How do you say that? Well, I mean, I don't think it's wrong for you to say Hidalgo. Yeah. Like, but it's a county where I'm from back home. I know a lot of, I mean, it's Hidalgo. Hidalgo. But that's like, you know, when you go like, I love it when you say, you know, frijoles. Instead of beans? Yeah, it's like, you know, I wouldn't expect you to, you know, order something at a Chinese restaurant and use the accent.

1:18:11I think Hidalgo is fine. Hidalgo. How do you want me to say it, the right Hidalgo? The right Hidalgo. Don't get me wrong, I will forget. Yeah. The H is silence. You want me to say Hidalgo. Hidalgo. You're an ill dog, though. I've said enough today. Everybody, this has been another episode of Kind of Funny Games Daily, your nerdy news you need to know about. We're here each and every weekday. Of course, we are Kind of Funny, a live talk show network, which means the fun isn't stopping. From here, you are going straight in to the Kind of Funny screencast. That's right. Today, they are doing the rundown of every movie coming out in February 2026.

1:18:52After that is Back to the Future, our first time watching for Kind of Funny's in-review series run by Nick. And after that, it is going to be another episode of Gamescast Plays for Karen. It's our editorial product. You can get it on podcast service. You can watch it live. You gotta, you gotta. Most importantly, though, if you are over on Patreon.com slash kind of funny, you have a happy hour coming up today. That's if you go and support the$25 or above level, you can be in a call-in show. It's basically like a two-hour long kind of funny podcast we do here. You call in. We talk to you. We have a good time.

1:19:24Everybody. Everybody. Now people are talking about the fucking G's And not people The right ill dog though I can't even do it Everybody this has been another episode of kind of funny games daily Until next time it's been our pleasure to serve you