#376 | We Are the Same, Whatever We Do

30:39Chris Santis:jokes and comedy um no i want to be clear i want yeah i want to be clear about this too like i did i did a video a long time ago you can go check it out on the channel it's very very old where i talk about like is there such a thing as too soon in comedy or like is is there like Like, is there such a thing even? And the thesis of it is I think not necessarily, but it still needs to be you still have to consider timing. And I think I do. I do sincerely like own is like, yeah, I shouldn't. It's just like this bad timing on my part. My bad. I don't think it's like a moral like sin to make a joke about really anything like this has always been my perspective.

31:18Chris Santis:Like that was that was my perspective when we started this show. And that's like that's not any different than it is today. but i do think there's like as you grow up there's there's some tact that you can apply yeah and i you know it was in the moment like dude we were just thinking and also you know it is worth noting that we me specifically i do two very different shows here we do we do sacred symbols which is very games oriented like it's some jokes but it's it's mostly like you know it's industry focused and then i have another show that's more that's more like in a almost like a kill tony vibe where it's kind of like everything's on the table and like i think we had a and by the way like we make jokes everywhere we're like i think somebody said like i think now i think kingston said like well nowadays it's mostly you know um people don't get bullied for being nerds anymore people get bullied for being trans or whatever and i said thank god you know it's like i don't like you know i get a dude i get it i mean i i love yeah good but i just want to clarify like i i operate in a weird kind of like duality here.

32:21Chris Santis:And I do think sometimes the wires gets crossed and, you know, the audiences get like, you know, crisscrossed. And, you know, I haven't necessarily considered that as deeply as maybe I should. You know, I didn't mean to cause problems for this, for anybody here or anything. It's just like, you know, it's the environment of everything on the table comedy that just kind of lets you just free flow ideas. And I remember even after tweeting, I was like, I probably should have waited. but also like i don't want to take it down because i don't want to i don't want it to seem like yeah

32:52Dustin Furman:i mean that's it's not going to undo it like i've learned that lesson right yeah that's also the yeah it's not going to undo it so you might as well keep it up and stand stand behind it because it's not gonna matter it's really not gonna matter that's like trying to apologize on twitter it's like it doesn't it doesn't work that's also true no one's ever let you forget no right i thought about being like is this my ah peace and quiet guys right and that's a major that's i'm glad you brought that up i mean it's great segue because that's a major thing is that like and this gets into what like a big thing for me and that's what i was getting to earlier was like the business and i am let me back up there's a a danger to doing a show with someone like chris who is a comedian first i think or a comedy writer or a funny person a you know whatever unserious in some ways it's what it's actually like our I think other than games our major connection is that I think we're actually both very much like that and I'm much more dry and and all that but I like that kind of shit too and I love inappropriate humor um and I am deploy inappropriate humor and I always think of Gilbert Godfrey who I know you like as well or liked uh Chris uh absolutely his Friars Club roast.

34:15Dustin Furman:So right after 9-11, there was a roast of Hugh Hefner at the Friars Club. And he said, I have to catch a flight to California. I can't get a direct flight. They said they have to stop at the Empire State Building first. This was a few days after 9-11 in New York, and people got really fucking upset about it. I'm pretty sure it cost him like rolls. Yeah. But looking back on it, it's like that was actually a funny joke. I didn't know about it at the time I wouldn't have really been aware of that but it just goes to show that like I don't mind inappropriate comedy even around the things that are really near and dear to me or whatever like 9-11 like I'm like I don't care man like whatever right the business side of it is interesting because I have and this is another thing I said to Chris privately which is that like I have cost us plenty of business of course the major difference is that like it's my business right and i don't mean that in like an ownership sort of way it's like it's all on me like so it's gonna like i'm gonna say things it's gonna affect us i'm gonna say things that affect us positively or negatively it's harder to deal with so like it's a my responsibility in other words it's hard to deal with it when it's someone else's responsibility and you're not really entirely sure what people expect you to do about it And I know that that sounds like I'm helpless or I'm not in control of my own life or whatever, or I don't make decisions.

35:47But it is surprising to me how many people approach dead face approach me and were like blow up sacred symbols.

35:57Dustin Furman:I mean, that's essentially what they were saying, right? Like fire Chris. Chris, I can't be a fan of the show. Chris is on the show anymore. That kind of stuff. And I'm like, I don't. And I'm just I'm saying to really think about this for the audience. Like, I don't know what you want me to do. Like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Like, what do I do with what you're telling me? Like, I can't. Do like, I'm going to blow up the whole. Business for someone expressing themselves off platform in a way that you didn't like. It's like, I don't think I should be wielding this level of control over people.

36:33Dustin Furman:And.

36:36Dustin Furman:it's the thing that's been on my mind the entire time since it happened, which is like, I can't do that. And I was telling Dustin that I was, I was actually writing and rewriting a tweet last night. Like, you know, I'm getting a lot of tweets from people. I just got one now. I'm up and out four minutes ago. Wargamer eight. If Long Island Viper doesn't respond to what Chris tweeted, he was never the man who we thought he was. It's the kind of shit I've been receiving, you know, and it's like,

37:06Dustin Furman:I can't do that to Chris well also I'm just like I you know what I mean like I just can't I can't I'm too I wouldn't do that over it over a tweet I just can't throw people away like that undo my whole life my company change the show that is the flagship like that is the most vital part of our organization it just it's like i'm not i just i feel like this is all so look out of control i think i think if i was out there being like yay

37:45Chris Santis:i think there would be valid there would be a valid response right uh i think if you go on social media right now you could find i would i would wager about 10 000 more out of pocket jokes responses and earnest expressions of like joy that this has happened than anything that i tweeted or anything that certainly anything that i fucking streamed i can make the vod public if you want if you guys want i'll do it i don't normally like i don't care because twitch is like such a separate thing to me but i talked pretty at length about like how depraved this all is and how i think it's actually good to have empathy for people even if you don't like them but i don't know man i'm not trying to cause like problems like if it's really that if it's really that big of a deal well you know whatever we'll see i guess but

38:42Dustin Furman:um we we i guess we we will it's like i guess what i'm saying is is that i am loyal to you it is very difficult for me to even consider firing anyone in my orbit i've never done that obviously we released ben last year but it was it was not because we don't love and care about ben it's just because we're just not doing live shows and that kind of content anymore so it's like i can't i i do this is not that big of a company i can't just pay people you know like right right Right. So I understand people are like, what about Ben and all that? I get it. I think Ben is probably really happy that happened to him considering his new position and the opportunities he's gotten now.

39:22Dustin Furman:It was very difficult for all of us. And I'm sad about that. And maybe we can work together again in the future. So I don't want to act like we've never made a personnel decision. But what I'm saying is it would be very hard for me to reasonably hold you accountable in quotes for that when I have said things that have cost us too and when i have dealt with many years of speaking my mind like you have and dealing with the consequences of it i will say that like i don't think i've ever made light in quotes or was flipping about someone dying and i know that for a lot of people that's a a different line than like my day without a woman tweet or whatever where it's like these are two different things frankly in my opinion yeah um but i also know that i tweeted something that deeply affected my whole trajectory in life.

40:15Dustin Furman:And I don't wish that on anyone. It worked out for me in a major way. I'm not going to act like it didn't, but it wouldn't turn out that way for most people. And I don't want to contribute at the same time to like this idea that I really am in control of a person's opinions, their brain, and the things they say off of my platform. again it could get to a point where you and it's like we were saying with the sucker punch people which we'll talk about momentarily is like that would be different for me just because I'm like I don't know what you're doing you know but making like some sort of glib commentary about it

41:01Dustin Furman:I guess what I'm saying is I don't know what people expect me to do right like and that's a big thing that I resent being in this position, but also understand that I have put other people in the same position before. And it would be hard and it would be hypocritical. You know what I mean? It's like my tweet changed the entire trajectory of kind of funny. The whole thing. It's different. It was a, it was an inflection point, right? So I just, I'm very loath to do that to someone else. and um it just wouldn't it just wouldn't sit right with me even if i know and i said i i mean i'll be straight up i said to you when i we before we talked and before it's like it does feel if you say something like that or the things you've said off platform like you hate people like me or like dustin you know and i know you don't feel like that but i get why people cross these wires based on your two very disparate platforms sure where you would feel a certain way and i think so people expect me to say like open your and that's a lot of the message that i've got too i got a message where it's like open your eyes asshole he hates you or something like that you know um Right.

42:26Dustin Furman:Yeah. And brilliant. And I think you were tweeted. I think you were actually copied on that tweet. Revan? I think that particular tweet I got last night. Like where they were actually tweeting at you too or whatever. Because a lot of them are just to me. Right. I'm sure I'm getting a lot.

42:47Chris Santis:I just don't. I don't know. I don't really look at like I tweet and then I like leave it. I don't really look back at it.

42:58Dustin Furman:But the one more thing, if you don't mind. Sure. Which is and this is the thing you and I disagreed about, too. And I know a lot of people feel the way you feel and I get it, which is. Twitter is not real or X or whatever or social media. And if I learn something in 2017, it's it's quite real. And.

43:22Dustin Furman:And I said this to you, I think I used the word I was like, sadly. Right. It is arguably more real than the show. You know, like because it is a meat grinder of news aggregation and just a stream of consciousness. I mean, I made the argument to you and I think everyone would agree. It's like it's probably the reason Trump won the election is over some level of control over Twitter, right? Like a conservative takeover of it as it were. So it whether we want it to be or not like what you said there is more real than anything like no one's going to see the stream no fewer people are going to see this this podcast and so like from that perspective i get it because it's like yeah i it's not the place for long form discussion and that's why i've just learned to say much less there when i tweet now which is about video games and random sports and random things it's like i don't even bother like just no way because how many times you're gonna get punched in the face yeah um but i consider myself a decent and friendly and forgiving person and i'm not out to try to hurt other people and so i don't i guess i'm just surprised how how there's a sizable group of people that seem to want me to blow the show up and i don't know what i'm supposed to do with that i guess yeah i mean

44:49Chris Santis:I don't know. I don't know what to say to that, really. I think...

44:56Chris Santis:You know, I've just always been of the opinion that a joke is a joke. And I don't know. I understand what you're saying, that Twitter is more real, I guess, in the sense of more people see it. But I guess I've seen enough on Twitter that I know to be inaccurate. That I'm just like, well, this is like... Even if this is the front page of everything, it's like it's like this this holds no water really in any in any substantive like factual basis anyway it might like alter the way people feel or like whatever but the shit that i'm sure you can relate the shit that you see about yourself on twitter or like the shit that i see about me on twitter it's just like well what the fuck is this well like that that didn't happen or like that's not true or like i don't know it's hard for me to it's hard for me to take it seriously because i guess because i've i've been on twitter forever but on twitter since it was since it was nothing 2009 when like you know james gunn was tweeting those ridiculous those ridiculous jokes that got him fired from guardians of the galaxy and then and then by the way people realized like oh that was stupid to fire him those were just tweets yeah that's so i don't know like it's it's it's it's hard for me to really understand because i also because I just would never it's hard for me to imagine a circumstance where I would like contact like I've been a fan of a lot of people and over time I've stopped watching but not necessarily for like ideological reasons I don't know you fall off or whatever but in the event that like something did happen or like somebody there I just didn't care for I I it's hard for me to imagine being like writing in being like oh get rid of this guy Like, I don't know.

46:42Chris Santis:It's hard for me to... Whatever. You do what you want to do. I guess if you're going to write in. But it's just... It strikes me as... I don't know. How should I say this?

46:59Chris Santis:It strikes me as a little... Vaguely hypocritical. From a group of people who typically would... Not really... feel that way about jokes. I don't know. It's just strange. Let me interrupt your podcast to pitch you on another podcast. I'm Wootak, one of the hosts of Above the Influence Show, the evolution of the notorious under the influence show. And to put it simply, we are three guys at very different stages of life, navigating self-improvement and sharing it with you in real time in ways that you can laugh at. Me, Wootak, I'm 30 and a college dropout, juvenile delinquent turned CEO of Super Bonsai, an eight-figure-a-year supplement brand, as well as a social media personality with millions of followers across platforms.

47:48Dustin Furman:I am BitTrap. I am 26 years old, unemployed influencer who went viral for his mugshot back in 2020 and is adapting to regular

47:55Chris Santis:life from his traumatic hoodlum origins. And I'm Ian, a 24-year-old real-life Spongebob who has never done an ounce of trauma in my life. So we like to discuss business, dating, religion, substances, and trauma. If you want relatable content you can learn from, subscribe to Above Love the Influence show for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening. Thanks for letting me interrupt. Now back to the show.

48:19Dustin Furman:I also think everyone's allowed to miss every once in a while. Or at least that there should be a perception. Let's even put it this way. Let's say that you didn't feel like you missed, right? Everyone should be allowed to think that someone missed once in a while and take that in the course of the way a person's treated or thought about. But people's tolerance for that, I think, is different. Dustin, I know you've wanted to get in here.

48:43Colin Moriarty:Yeah.

48:44Chris Santis:Oh, yeah.

48:44Dustin Furman:Sorry for someone wrong.

48:45Colin Moriarty:Oh, no, no. It's all good. I guess just in reference to Colin, you were saying about people telling you what you should or shouldn't do in this situation. I guess the few thoughts I have about that is that from my perspective, I don't own the company, but my thoughts in general are just like. I can disagree with what Chris said. I can even think that what he said was a little gross and we can have a conversation about it right now. And I think Chris and I have a, a greater understanding of each other's viewpoints. And I think that's a, a beautiful thing. Maybe we still don't agree necessarily on some of the different aspects.

49:31Colin Moriarty:um i think that if we were to just cut off and be like nope you're done then we are just as bad as people that are just like cut them off you know what i mean instead of having a dialogue about it you know um because when you do have a conversation about it you can see it's like okay well um clearly we have a better understanding of the situation and i guess that's just there's two aspects of this and everyone's gonna have a different line about it a lot of people can say a lot of things that i don't agree with or don't find savory or whatever and i just that's fine you know what i mean like there are certain lines certainly that like as you guys were talking about earlier like if chris was one of those people doing like a tiktok dance about it that would be first of all very out of character but also yes that would be a a line that would be too far and everyone's gonna have different lines uh and i respect that um so i guess for me personally just like seeing something that i don't agree with or felt like was ill-timed or or done in a way that wasn't productive it's like i guess that's just i would encourage people to think about like okay well like instead of just shutting down the situation how can we talk about it and figure things out i do want to say though from a different perspective i'm speaking for me as to chris my co-worker calling my other co-worker and the owner of the company it's a different dynamic than what the audience has.

51:16Colin Moriarty:And I said earlier, like everyone's going to have their own lines. And so I just want to make sure that I'm not being like the people that are quitting or leaving the Patreon should just be more tolerant of the situation. I understand if you have your own line. Oh, yeah, I agree with you.

51:30Dustin Furman:And I that's 100. That's a very important point. I'm glad you brought that up. It's like I'm not mad at anyone for leaving. Like I that's not it at all. Like I get it. I put my money where my mouth or I put my money. yeah where my mouth is yeah i guess i would write or let my wallet do the talking in lots of different ways and people need feel that they need to do that i get it yeah so yeah i just want to

51:53Colin Moriarty:yeah be clear that it's like i i believe in the conversation and figuring out and and maybe even just being okay with like it's like okay well we we feel different about this but um we don't need to blow up everything about it you know right of course there's certain things chris or anybody was like in this company, like talk shit, like horrible shit about my family or something. It's like, okay, then there's of course, there's a line.

52:18Dustin Furman:There's even a line with this situation. I think that's what Chris was saying, which I do agree with, which is I am truly disgusted by like the response that I've seen in a lot of different corners to this, just because I am so inherently nonviolent that I can't imagine. I've been totally consistent with this. I don't like violence. It's why I want the wars around the world to end. It's why I want crime to drop and people to feel safer because it's the there's nothing beyond violence. I'm not a Quaker. I think there's a place for violence. You know what I mean? Like I'm not going to be Hacksaw Ridge guy running around healing the fucking enemy or whatever.

53:02Dustin Furman:Right. That's not me. But I don't believe that like force is this thing that should be respected. It should be threatened in some situations and executed in others. But the one thing that's really touched me, I think, personally in this situation are the people that have written in and I didn't use any of their write-ins, but being like, I'm afraid of for your safety. And part of me is like, that's silly. Like, who am I? Right? But it is true, and that's why I always kind of roll my eyes in some way, and maybe I shouldn't, but I do, where people are like, oh, I got death threats, and this, and it becomes a story.

53:42Dustin Furman:I'm like, dude, people have threatened to kill me so many times. Like... Yeah. You know? Like... I've been threatened to be raped. I've been threatened to... Every show that I've probably gone to, someone has said, like, I'm going to find you. would right watch you back at gamescom or you know we'll see a comic-con or something like that it's like that's um so I've always been somewhat flipping on it I tell fucking I mean this is I mean this is goes into the humor of the show though I guess and maybe where I'm one of the important grounded things is like I make John Wilkes booth jokes at our live shows pretty much every one of them that like someone's gonna kill me from the balcony right right maybe it's not so funny anymore.

54:29Dustin Furman:Maybe someone would try to kill me. But I don't think about it through that perspective. I don't know why anyone would want to do that to me. And I'm not a prominent person in any way. But it made me feel sad that people are worried about people like us now or just anyone that is a public figure, I suppose. And the normalization of violence, I think, is a, this is exactly what I didn't want to happen. And I think that if there's one thing that I think is true about this situation, it's that I feel like we've crossed the Rubicon, actually. And I am afraid of what that looks like. And it's not what I want to see.

55:21Dustin Furman:And this should have been unraveled many years ago through many, many violent acts against individuals and people and riots in the street and cops getting killed and innocent people getting killed and all these things. I mean, we've tolerated violence for so long that it's almost impossible for me to imagine how we couldn't have gotten to this place. And that's a scary thing for me. And I, so every, I, I, I like everyone else see violence around me and the world. And I don't think too much about it. Oh, the, in the Ukraine, Russia war today, 75 Ukrainians and a hundred Russians died. It's like, that's just a number to me.

56:13Dustin Furman:And maybe it shouldn't be, but it's hard not to look at everything like that. Because what are you supposed to do with all this information? It's a crazy world. And so I guess what I'm getting into is I also understand why people look at this and are like, where's this feeling and this outrage for the random child that died in a school shooting or this? And I'm like, yeah, it's so horrible that we even have to consider that we don't have enough directional energy to even know. How many people have died or who is dying into what end?

56:52Chris Santis:That's what kills. That's what really kills me, man. Is that it's just like because it's I think people react are reacting to this in a visceral way because we see it. And there's a lot of these things that we see on like a I don't know, a headline that we don't see. But like it's worth knowing, it's like, dude, like every time there's a school shoot that the same day that that happened to Charlie Kirk, you know, that happened to like, I think over a dozen kids. and each of those kids is one of those videos and that's how i think about it and it like whoo it it really i don't know man it fucks me up i'm this is i i don't know i'm sorry go ahead

57:35Dustin Furman:chris i'm sorry i didn't mean to interrupt you no no you're good i'm the one thing that i i hope people understand and i'll be i'll be very curious usually I'm less than curious about the things you have to say but I'll be very curious about what you think because I don't know I think what I hope people understand from my perspective is that this is a double bind the classic catch 22 for me I will lose either way

58:15Dustin Furman:and so in being in a no-win situation, and what I really mean by that is like, just the options that people think are on the table or that they would want to be employed, right? So it's like, Chris is no longer on Sacred Symbols. Chris and I have done Sacred Symbols since the first episode. This is episode 376. Chris has probably been on 365 of them.

58:41Dustin Furman:that's going to cost the show an enormous amount of support and and people are going to not listen to the show anymore and you i lose right i keep chris right which is what we're doing and it infuriates an entirely different group of people that are no longer going to listen the show are going to cast us off.

59:07Dustin Furman:And so either way, it's a loss. And being in that situation, you would obviously just, I just hope people understand. It's like, there's no obvious thing for me to do other than to, I guess, stand by a person that has done the show with me for all these years and who I consider a friend. And knowing that I guess one way or the other, it's going to just be a, it's going to be a loss. You know, I like, so I'm comfortable with that decision, but I also understand that it's going to infuriate a bunch of people. And I, I think the biggest thing is that I just resent being in this situation. You know, like, yeah, I mean, I apologize and I appreciate it.

59:57Dustin Furman:You know, I do. It's like,

1:00:01Dustin Furman:but, But I don't want to overstate it either in that I just think cooler heads have to prevail.

1:00:13Dustin Furman:You know, it's a lot to ask someone to blow up their business. You know, like over now. It's as we said, like, it's not that nothing can be said or done that would that would cross the line for me. It's just that I don't think this is it. and it's like you said like if you celebrated it or did something of that nature maybe that would be different but i i don't think it feels that's what it was it was a flippant and glib thing but yeah i think i've also been and this is the thing because i i just say this because i know people are gonna be what about this this this this this it's like i've also been flipping

1:00:56Chris Santis:and glib yeah i am uh primarily flipping and glib so like it's and look i um again i i do this feels like sort of deja vu for me because it sort of feels like whenever i would make videos or whatever and people would see the thumbnail and then they would be like oh this is some like right wing fucking bullshit because he's talking about like i don't know some he's criticizing some left-leaning thing or whatever and i'd have to be like you're just assuming that based on everything else that you've seen that looks kind of like this about this when that's not what that's not what's happening like there's guys you don't have to go far to find people celebrating authentically it's some of the most popular shit on the site like 200 something k likes on some of these things where people are like yeah i don't care good fuck his wife and kid who gives a shit that's not an that's not an unpopular sentiment and so like well i do feel like i could have been more better with my timing i still really feel like i'm just like this is not a celebratory tweet that you think it is and so that's what's really kind of confusing me about it because i've said far more offensive things in my opinion that nobody gave a shit about and so that's what that's where the disconnect to me is where like i just i don't really i don't know if i get it fully yeah but you know well we'll see i

1:02:25Dustin Furman:I mean, that's that's the whole thing is like knowing knowing that we're in a lose lose situation. We'll just see what everyone thinks. I mean, maybe I'm missing something. Maybe you're missing something. I mean, like, I think we just have to put this in the wild and then see what happens. You know, because I just what I what I suspect. Is that a vast majority of the audience. would never want to see you go and that you would have to cross a line so much more egregious than that that that's my assumption about how the audience would feel

1:03:10Chris Santis:we're gonna find out see i'll tell you i'll tell you this right now though i'm i didn't play through metal gear solid 3 twice to not do the spoiler cast yeah we have to do

1:03:21Dustin Furman:that tomorrow that's right so you can you deal with it yeah yeah no yeah no i'm no i'm not saying by the way that like decisions are on the table i hope people are interpreting it like that it's like what i'm saying is that i am just curious what you have to say because i just don't know i've seen a lot of what you've said to me i don't um there are many considerations that go into things like this you know like it's it's like personal and there's it's it's friendship and it's like the splash damage of other people being affected by things and what it can mean for things and it's not a flippant thing to just ask someone to do something like that i don't know i'm just trying to be real with people that it's like yeah no i think it's i think

1:04:10Chris Santis:it's fair i think um i don't even just trying to address it early on i was just like how do i because there's a lot of this is gonna sound like i should say it's gonna sound glib but like there's there's a lot of turns of phrase i feel like i was trying to address this with and i'm just like i can't as i was talking i was like i can't say like oh guys the joke i was i was aiming for was just like i shouldn't say you know like i missed the mark i don't know it's an awkward position to be in i guess but we'll see i don't know we'll see there's a lot to talk about i guess so i don't know if we should leave it to the audience yes we'll see what we'll see what they have to say and what they think i mean i've tried to wear i always do try to wear my heart on my sleeve and i've tried to do that here i am even a day later still somewhat ill prepared to to talk about it because i just don't know what to it's a very it's a very you know unfortunate thing and

1:05:09Dustin Furman:just beyond us, it's like we'll live. I'll be fine. But it's like sure. It's a dark. It's a dark day. It's a dark time. And this is oh, this is I should have taken notes because this is something I almost forgot to say. And this is something very important. It's actually perfect to put at the end of it. And then we can get into the show. Is

1:05:33Dustin Furman:I want this. I don't want to alienate people. I've said this many times. I don't want my show to be a thing that alienates people.

1:05:44Dustin Furman:And that's good business, obviously, but it's actually a reflection of how I feel. I like people. I like all sorts of different kinds of people. I don't want to have an ideological barrier around the things we do because I don't think it's really truly relevant. I believe games are political. Art is political. The creation of games is political. labor is political um all these things are political and people that stick their heads heads in the sand about it or head in the sand about it are doing themselves a disservice because it's it just becomes a consumer product um but behind every product there's a story and um and all the rest and i think that those things can be interpreted from many different perspectives and that having those different sorts of perspectives not only on the show but that listening to the show make it more valuable because the listener input we get is a major driver of the show and those come from all sorts of different perspectives.

1:06:42Dustin Furman:So I just think it makes for a better product. And it's, again, a reflection of how I really feel. I want this to be as the world is clearly getting darker. I don't know what's going to happen. I'm not trying to be ominous. It just feels like I said earlier that like the Rubicon has been crossed and it just feels like, and it's not because of a specific person perhaps, or it's just about the timing of so many different things. And I do want to, this to be a place that people can find a level of refuge from the outside world with a little bit of humor and a little bit of insight and the things you love very similar to how I listen to the podcasts that are not political and not historical or any of those things.

1:07:31Dustin Furman:Many of them like shows I love like Heed the Call, The Rich Eisen Show and things like that, that don't get into these things at all and allow you to kind of move on and duck out for a little while.

1:07:46Dustin Furman:And I think that we've managed to do that pretty well. and I hope that this place can continue to be that for those that are looking for that refuge in the times to come regardless of what happens and maybe it's like you know there's the old historical or it's really a political philosophy in some way of nothing ever happens and maybe that's true it's all around the edge and nothing ever really happens and I think that that's great at this point, that would be great.

1:08:18Dustin Furman:But if things begin to break down and people become more ideologically guarded and they really flock towards more like-minded people, I hope this show remains what it is for everyone.

1:08:36Dustin Furman:Because I can see, I see it already. Like there's a... there's a fleeing from moderation.

1:08:50Dustin Furman:And I just want people to know that you're very welcome here. And that I do apologize on behalf of all of us. If any of us have ever said something that isolated or alienated you, not as a customer, but just as a person. And Dustin hitting on it earlier, I understand why some a lot of you are leaving. It's the loudest way to speak. And we've lost dude, we've lost so many people just over all these like it's amazing that we're basically flat financially because we're actually we're actually doing fairly well. But it's amazing because we've like, oh, we lost all the Canadians over the tariffs. We lost right like, you know, the Europeans over this.

1:09:37Dustin Furman:And now, you know, over constellation ending, we lost these people. And now it's like. I get but I get it. It is what it is. And it's as I promised you a few weeks ago, it's like if we're ever in danger, I'll let you know we're nowhere near that that point. But if you like what we do, of course, support us. But I just want to say like and I'm glad Dustin said earlier, it's like I also understand that you got to do what you got to do. But.

1:10:05Dustin Furman:I'm not going to throw away a friend and co-worker and co-founder of the show and all of that over a tweet. It's just not, I can't accede to that. It's not, I just can't, I just can't do it. So we'll see what, we'll see what people think, you know? And what I think we'll find out again, Chris, Dustin, And what I think we'll find out again is that most people are like, okay, or they understood or whatever, but I'll be very curious, unusually curious. Cause again, I'm not very curious, you know? Right. But this time I'm going to be clued in and we'll see what happens. And yeah, we have to do that sacred symbols.

1:10:59Dustin Furman:All right. So are we good? Do we think we said everything we needed to say? I think so. Okay. Dustin, you're, you're satisfied. Yep. Okay. Should we keep that there where it is in the show or do we put it at the end of the show?

1:11:14Colin Moriarty:I would just leave it. Timestamp it. Yeah. Let people know in the description. It's going to be flow weird. Yeah.

1:11:23Dustin Furman:Yeah. Right.

1:11:24Colin Moriarty:Let's just be transparent. The way it happened. Sounds like the way, the way the show. We'll just leave it. Timestamp coming up.

1:11:33Dustin Furman:We very rarely make edits. Okay. All right. We're through that situation for now. Yeah. We'll see where everyone lands

1:11:50Dustin Furman:later on. We'll see. Prince Borutski wrote in and said, Hey, guys, I am writing in to point out What a new appreciation I have developed for the LSM shows. I've started traveling for work and have been listening to NHL and other sports podcasts. The consistent, high-quality audio and great conversation is a real breath of fresh air when compared to the varied audio levels, terrible mic setups, and awkward interviews that I hear on networks with thousands of employees. Best$7 Canadian I spend each month. Thank you so much. That's going all towards our fleet of shows. Prince Borutski. Over on Patreon.com slash Last Name Media, you can support us.

1:12:25Dustin Furman:$5 a month is the sweet spot. you get early ad free access to every episode of this show and all the shows we do in our network we have an xbox podcast called defining duke um done by some great folks we have a podcast for nintendo called punching up uh and so on and so forth so you get a new piece of content six days a week and you get rss access and you can put them on spotify and you get access to our discord which is cool and you can submit inquiries you'll hear those throughout the show but of course no ads as well and a major thing we include as chris said earlier is sacred symbols plus we'll be recording our metal gear solid delta spoiler cast that will go live on saturday i think that's me chris and gene i think right that sounds about right um so please look forward to that recent inclusions are uh we did death stranding stuff uh we had our friends over with click r3 um and did a crossover with them which was really fun we did a deep dive into the fourth mafia game the old country which i really loved had jaffe on recently did a crossover with our nintendo show punching up so lots of things over there uh for sacred symbols plus if you're looking for more sacred symbols we really appreciate you get your full experience over there as well um and then sacred streaming is going strong every monday afternoon over on our youtube channel um and sometimes

1:13:42Colin Moriarty:fridays as well oh what was that i'm just holding up sorry that was something just just keep going

1:13:47Dustin Furman:oh you have oh you have something saved i have so i have something prepared for this next right in brandon stark wrote in from winterfell he said hey cdc and fellow listeners can we please issue a firm stand down to everyone harping on the sacred bet situation as hoke would explain colin didn't follow the exact letter of the obligation but he absolutely followed the spirit of it should both sides have dragged this out for as long as they did whining and teasing maybe not Conversely, how much does it really matter if Colin played specifically two or four or eight hours? He agreed and indeed did spend an afternoon playing a game he had zero interest in for our entertainment.

1:14:25Dustin Furman:The whole ordeal was fun to observe and gave me many laughs, but it's time to put this new piece of lore behind us. Thanks and have a great weekend all. I'm happy to put it behind us as well. Now that of course you are. Yeah. Now that it's all would be. Yeah. Now that it's all over. Well, what do you have to say, Dustin, about this?

1:14:38Colin Moriarty:Okay. Well, I just think it's funny that he brings up Hogue here as Hogue would explain. I'm going to dub this in for the audience but I'm just going to play it through the speaker this is Hoag on the last episode of Sacred Symbols and you're going to hear Brad's voice too

1:14:52Chris Santis:first of all we got to get this out there Hoag the man is a coward and not a man of his word what do you think about that Hoag?

1:14:58Colin Moriarty:not being able to play Kingdom Hearts for four hours in about a month and a half

1:15:02Chris Santis:well I'm not prepared to call Colin a coward but it does seem like if you're going to enter into a bet you have to meet the conditions that that bet puts forth that's how contract law works That's my bailiwick. That's my line of business. So it's very important if you're going to enter into a contractual relationship of some kind that you meet your obligations under that contract or else who is going to want to contract with you in the future.

1:15:27Colin Moriarty:Who is going to want to contract with Colin Moriarty in the future after this? And well, I mean, I can bring up another clip, too, if you want. You want to.

1:15:38Dustin Furman:You obviously want to. You might as well just. What are you talking about? Stop being a showman and just fucking and put it up. I am a showman. He came with, you know,

1:15:47Colin Moriarty:I'm best in the biz. Because a big part of this, and I think is the bet is, or as Brandon's writing in here, is about how, like, does it really matter? Now, on our stream, Colin, you were bringing up numerous times, like, I thought that I did what I needed to do, is what you said many times. You're like, I streamed all afternoon. here's a clip from the sacred symbols done after the first sacred streaming phoenix right a man of my word so we have to get back to it at some point but uh but i've at least whittled some of the hours down to me that sounds like you deeply understood that you had not fully completed your

1:16:29Dustin Furman:obligation you're like you're like the FBI agents in outside of fucking tony soprano's house in the

1:16:33Colin Moriarty:van yeah yeah the very the publicly recorded with tens of thousands of listeners podcast you said that i was really wiring in there um what do you have to say for yourself

1:16:49Dustin Furman:bitch yeah i mean it's true i did say that i i think first of all magnanimous colin is dead right i mean that's like what we've it's the death it's that he's dead and buried and he's now and he'll be forgotten um well you have something go ahead you're leaning in i'm letting you finish dog you can go ahead dig your grave

1:17:11bolshevik um i all right so this was going to be the big thing that i thought we were going to have to talk about which is funny i wish i think it is technically the most the most egregious thing that anyway yeah it's right it is so i all right so there's multiple parts this actually

1:17:33Dustin Furman:there's parts of it that you guys aren't even aware that i because i was ready to even escalate it even further and mike is like you really shouldn't but like um when i did the stream i realized that i played for i think just two hours and two minutes right i was thinking we should do 202 merch or something like that i wonder if anyone would care um and because that was a funny that was a funny moment in the in that stream um and so but i did it all afternoon and honestly i thought i was going to kind of get away with it right but i thought that i wasn't really getting away with it i thought it kind of was in this it's what hoax said or like the spirit of the agreement where it's like i did what i was supposed to like i did it you know i was here and that's really and so i'm going to be dead ass honest and i know people think it's like because I understand people disagree with it and I appreciate that, which is why I did the second stream.

1:18:22Dustin Furman:But I kind of feel like I did this obligation. I look forward to sacred streaming. I want to do things that I want to do. I don't want to play this fucking game again. I feel like everyone's going to be like, okay, agreement met. Even though I understood from that clip that I didn't do all of it, I kind of just thought it would go away. Not that I didn't do it straight up, but that people are like, yeah, he did it. now when it became so that's that's true okay when it became obvious that that was not going to be an option because people were really upset about it right and it was becoming a bit and i was like okay so at this point it's like all right since i'm gonna have to do it again to fulfill this i'm gonna make this into like a heel turn thing and be like really annoying about it and And I'm a little disappointed.

1:19:16Dustin Furman:Like some people don't seem to have gotten that and think that I'm like dead ass serious. And I find that a little weird. I went back and watched like some of the stream and the things I was saying. It's like, you really thought that like, am I the autistic one or are you? You're a very good actor. Apparently. It's like, this is so obviously magnanimous Colin. first of all it's supposed to be a i kept saying you've killed magnanimous column because it's supposed to be a play what is it supposed to be a play on chris you've killed independent george that's exactly right thank you of course yeah um and so it's like you've killed magnanimous colin and it was just supposed to be like it was i just thought people would read it more than that but some people didn't it's fine whatever comedy hits it doesn't i can't relate yeah exactly because like some people were so upset about it i'm like what like really like i thought it was we made it entertaining and it was fun i realized that people thought that i didn't fulfill the obligation so i made it a whole thing now dustin i was this is the part that you don't know the weekend leading up to it so that sunday i was on my portal and it wasn't working right And this is when I realized as we went into the, on the stream that like everybody's golf was all fucked up and my PS five was all fucked up.

1:20:38Dustin Furman:And actually my TV wasn't reading the PS five. Like I, I thought for a while until I started moving plugs around and switching plugs and I got it to work again, that my Elgato was broken and I went downstairs so excited because this happened like after we announced the stream, but before we were going to go where I'm like, I was like, I'm like, dude, my Elgato doesn't work. We can't capture the footage. it's going to give me a reason to like not do the kingdom hearts thing tomorrow and make this so much more funny and she's like oh no i think people are going to like start to get upset and i thought she was crazy because i was like no it's it'd be funny it's like and i'm like i'm so glad that that didn't end up happening i got the el gato gato working and we were able to capture the footage but it's just so funny to me that i actually wanted to make it even worse oh yeah and kick it down the road even more because of what I thought was going to be this technical thing, especially because I thought people were going to think it was a lie and it would make this whole conspiracy and be this whole new bit.

1:21:36Dustin Furman:And I'm like, oh my God, I'm so glad that didn't happen. Because even as far as it went. So again, I want to be totally clear. I thought I fulfilled the spirit of the deal and was going to just not do it. People said I was wrong. I concurred. I I was like, okay, fair enough. I'm going to make it really annoying. And have fun with it. And so I'm sorry if that missed for some people, but I'm a little, I don't know. I'm not that good of an actor. I don't think. And I'm a little surprised that I'm just a little surprised by it, but it is what it is. Yeah.

1:22:11Colin Moriarty:That's what I had fun with it. I'm sorry. We want to make the most entertaining content, especially when it comes to bets. Bets is like, I mean, easy allies really lean to this when they did bets with Brad, but It was like, it was like wrestling, you know? Right. Everyone's a character talking shit, doing their thing. So yeah, it's all, it's all fun. So now to be clear, also, you never had to stream those final two hours.

1:22:39Dustin Furman:Oh no, I know, but I'm going to, it's, it's exactly what happened when, so I lost the bet right before we announced sacred streaming, but I was saying behind the scenes that I I was like, dude, I'm so excited that I lost because we can do Kingdom Hearts first. I don't know if you especially Dustin, I don't know if you remember that. And so I'm going to make my own pain into content, I guess is what I'm saying. And that was the only option. I could have straight up lied about it. I could have let that game running and did not like so. I wouldn't do that. but so I under I guess what I'm saying is I understand why people thought I was welshing on the bet I didn't that was not my intention I thought people would interpret it as the spirit of the bet being met afterwards gotta gotta make it funny a lot of people didn't find it funny gamers gamers it's the gamers and they're gamest yeah so just a lot of misses this week for a lot of different people and been a really productive and great week.

1:23:55Chris Santis:Historic one would say.

1:23:58Dustin Furman:So yeah, dude, I'm so happy with Sacred Streaming though. It's so funny and I've had such a good time with it and really looking forward to it. I think for this Monday, I wanted to do the Sacred League, but that will probably get kicked in the next week because I just don't have time to deal with it right now. I want to do the hosting so I again I feel like it's unfair for Brad to have to prepare so much for the show and never get to play I think that's kind of sucks or just getting other people involved to you know is good so so that will be coming soon but I think Micah and I will we've wanted to play overcooked together we're both fans of the game it could cause a divorce frankly the game is so intense so I think it will make for good content So I think we'll do that coming up.

1:24:48Dustin Furman:I downloaded, I bought, and it was only 10 bucks because I have Overcooked one. I've never bought and played Overcooked two, but then they had the all you can eat edition, which is both of them on PS5. So with all the DLC and shit. So I bought that and I think that that's what we'll do. But we'll announce it officially on Sunday. And like I said, for Sacred Symbols plus Metal Gear Solid Delta will be coming up. And of course, merch, laststandmedia.store. Get your copy of Habroxia if you haven't already. t-shirts sweatshirts we just had a meeting we have some new things coming very exciting everything's happening um everything's happening right now what is that a microfiber cloth you've

1:25:26Colin Moriarty:been it is it's a very i was actually i was folding it up and i was thinking about you on colin and greg live like 10 years ago folding your cloth and then press it putting it nicely on the desk do you remember doing that yeah like every episode yeah oh yeah yeah definitely

1:25:43Dustin Furman:definitely i'm a incredibly um finicky like i'm actually looking at my desk now like everything straight on it yeah like at like a 90 degree angle all right just a few things to talk about here and then we'll get into the news there's not too much news this week either so most of it was spent no most of the show will probably be spent navel gazing it is sacred symbols after all two celebratory things let's get into some nice things here jacob allen wrote in said hey guys monday the 15th is my 32nd birthday this one will be different though the next day the 16th is my daughter's first birthday please do me the honor of wishing lily a happy first birthday i will clip this and play it on repeat so i can watch my wife roll her eyes i think it would be cool to show my daughter as she grows up as well back to you all i'd like to thank you for being my companion piece as I have worked two jobs seven days a week to provide for my girls.

1:26:41Dustin Furman:Thanks for keeping me preoccupied as I work to get back to them. Take care. Oh, you're a good man, Jacob. Happy birthday to Lily. Little girl. Little girl, it's your birthday.

1:26:55Dustin Furman:Little girl. Oh, man. Little girl, crawl into the living room. Look for that DualSense controller. Get your daddy's credit card. Get your daddy.

1:27:08Colin Moriarty:Go look for your daddy's wallet. Read it. The poor wife, she's going to hear this on repeat. Yeah. Just add to it, you know. All the sacred widows that have to hear this shit. If you get divorced from Overcooked, that's going to be like, you know, what goes around comes around for you.

1:27:29Chris Santis:Yeah. That's going to be Overcooked. I can't remember. Is Overcooked even a real game? is that even a real thing because i feel like it's real what do you mean by this i feel like i keep hearing about it and then like but i've not i've not personally seen any evidence that

1:27:49Dustin Furman:this is a real game oh it's a real game i played it i played the first one it's real it's real i'm surprised that you i wonder what you would think of it it's pretty fucking funny it sounds like a good idea i would love it i would love for somebody to make it dude people it is interesting because I've gotten uniquely angry at people when I've played it. Like a unique level of like real anger. Right. Where I'm like, you are fucking this all up. Like, what is wrong with you? You know, it brought out something in me that I've never had. I don't know. I just can't, especially because I don't play a lot of competitive games.

1:28:22Dustin Furman:So maybe this, you have this feeling in fucking team-based Call of Duty or something. I have no idea, but.

1:28:27Chris Santis:Yeah.

1:28:28Dustin Furman:Where I want to like kill someone. Yeah.

1:28:31Colin Moriarty:overcook brings out an attitude in everyone who plays it that's like everyone's a fucking moron but me who plays this game when literally everyone's equally struggling the same amount

1:28:41Dustin Furman:oh you should look into it chris i think you would like it yeah i bet i would um jacob lily happy birthday little girl go and go and get your father's wallet put it in an envelope last damn media PO box 1523 Melothian Virginia 23113 thank you for writing him thank you Brian McIntosh wrote in and said hello gents as you listen to this week's episode we will be driving on our first family holiday in Wales he put UK we don't we're not that stupid I was hoping you would give a quick shout out to Jessica and our twin toddler sons, Mason and Elliot. We're on a long journey as I listen to your podcast or relax.

1:29:34Dustin Furman:So Jess will have no choice. Have a wonderful day. Little boys. Grab that steam.

1:29:45Chris Santis:Dude, it's we got some like MK ultra shit going on where we're like

1:29:50Dustin Furman:activating it.

1:29:52Chris Santis:Right.

1:29:52Dustin Furman:These children. It's absolutely flooring me that this is the episode you're going to

1:29:57Chris Santis:listen to on a long. I'm like a long of all it's probably the worst time for you to do this and listen to the show oh my god shout out to you

1:30:12Dustin Furman:though little boys use this credit card skimmer and send and send and send all data to last their media PO back

1:30:30Chris Santis:jerk uh yank the yank the wheel it'll be funny grab that wheel little boy grab that wheel he

1:30:37Colin Moriarty:doesn't know what he's doing up there pull your daddy's hair out

1:30:46that's so crazy

1:30:49Dustin Furman:finally gay bitches wrote in and said hey i love that hey boys

1:30:54Colin Moriarty:i didn't catch it

1:30:59Chris Santis:that's awesome i i i read these ahead of time and i genuinely didn't catch that at all that fucking rules i've never seen that one

1:31:12Colin Moriarty:oh i'm crying for the for the people listening it is gabe g-a-b-e itches

1:31:20Chris Santis:i t ch es game itches i'm crying that's a great one i can't believe i've never seen that yeah i can't believe i've never seen that one oh my god

1:31:35Dustin Furman:this is hey boys though i'm sure though i'm sure chris and dustin aren't clamoring to be given additional tasks i do wonder if they've ever felt any type of way about the fact that they have no say in which write-ins get to selected dustin how can you be sure that colin never threw out write-ins that were favorable to you but detrimental to him what if you suppressed ultra weeby messages chris what if he threw out furry apology apology write-ins which agreed with you about how impressive furry costumes are just to make you look unhinged sure it's his company and he can do as he pleases but you'll ever feel underrepresented for lack of a better word love you love you all i'll hang up flex my sphincter insert a grenade three-fourths of the way in put my finger through the pin loop and then relax my ass to swallow it up as my stationary finger

1:32:16Chris Santis:causes the pin to be pulled all right that's descriptive creative that's literature

1:32:25Dustin Furman:that's pros my friend it is pros um dustin are you do you feel like i'm hiding anything do you i mean you guys can look at the threads i don't know if you do yeah but uh well listen i would love if you you guys want to put the show together that'd be awesome i would love that

1:32:43Colin Moriarty:right it is funny uh just last week uh one of our writings from john russell uh was actually an old friend of mine jt russell i never called him john so i didn't connect the dots that it was him and he texted me he's like hey dude thanks for thanks for that for reading my writing on the show and i was like well uh you're welcome but also i mean i had i had nothing to do with it i've had multiple times where people are like oh they tag me or whatever thanks for reading my writing i'm like uh i'm not picking any of the right ends and i think i think gabe i think gabe here uh bitches the the i trust colin with putting together the show um and if i had something that you know maybe if he was leaning something a certain way i just got to be sharper i got to be ready to go with like uh you know he brought up the thing about hoag and the spirit of the bets i was ready i read the notes in advance usually read them the night before and i'll review them again the morning of gotta be sharp for these situations yeah you are sharp colin has his job i have my job chris has his job that sounded so insulting um no totally i i uh i try

1:33:57Dustin Furman:to be well chris you what how do you feel about about the selection i mean you again the thread

1:34:02Chris Santis:is there for anyone to read yeah yeah i've looked into it from time to time like i think i can't remember the last time i looked at the thread though to be honest it's been like a while like i was really excited to look at the thread this week

1:34:16Chris Santis:yeah i bet no i i uh i don't know i putting together honestly finding and maybe maybe colin can relate to this but like i know for our show finding like i put the questions together for our show and it's it's a grueling it's a grueling task for for us because we have like i don't know how many i don't remember how many write-ins like a sacred thread usually gets but like ours is like hundreds at this point it's it's ridiculous why we do two shows a week it's

1:34:43Dustin Furman:yeah it'll be between 150 and 200 and this week we had i mean sometimes i'll go over if there's like a state of play this week we had almost 300 and that's like really high for us yeah like we

1:34:53Chris Santis:normally like it's usually like 250 like low end and so it's just like finding a question that i think is fun as like an improv jump off point that also is written in a way that doesn't make me want

1:35:05Colin Moriarty:to die i was gonna say nearly impossible task the writing part the a lot of people just don't know

1:35:11Chris Santis:how to write fine i it hurts me but like fine and sometimes i have no choice sometimes i just have I just have to settle because it's a good premise. It's written terribly, but like we can work with this. So I am in no way envious of the of the process of picking write ins for another show. In addition, I'm good.

1:35:37Dustin Furman:It's a lot of reading and because people are like, do you really read the quote? I'm like, yeah, I really do read them. Yeah, if I get halfway through one and I'm like, this isn't or like it's not well written, I'll move on. if i see like a whole like paragraph i literally just scroll right past it i don't even read it because i'm like this is like what do you want me to do here with this um yeah it's i'm not comfortable rewriting people's shit like where i'm like i'm just going to use this portion it's

1:35:58Chris Santis:like i'm not going to use it at all oh i've i've absolutely i've done that for sure i mean like i always be like listen you wrote this terribly but i fixed it for you um i think i got to what the real what the real spirit of your question was right i know better than you clearly um

1:36:16Dustin Furman:than what you wrote oh i guess i'll give people a little bit of insight in that like so i read them in the order that they received so i scroll all the way to the bottom of the post and i start scrolling up i hit like load replies load replies load replies like over and over again until it stops and then and then i start scrolling up or whatever and i copy them there's like the document has all these different sections because we go in an order and i copy them where i think they would make sense and then i so it's like oh we someone's playing this game this might make sense and I pull that in or whatever.

1:36:46Dustin Furman:And then things slowly get replaced. And I kind of have a bias towards people's names that I don't recognize. And then if there's nothing that's appropriate for those, then I kind of have a bias towards just great questions, obviously. And you hear more people more often than others because they're the better writers, I guess, or at least the more timely people. There are definitely names I recognize where I'm like, you know exactly how to write into the show. You know exactly what you're doing. You have opportunity every week of getting on the show and then ultimately like so i might have like 12 things in the questions comments concerns thoughts and ideas at the end of the show and then i go through and i like delete the ones that i think make the most sense to delete um and if we have like too many things for a specific game i'll go in and delete some of those and sometimes i delete them on the fly when we're doing the show if i don't feel like they make sense or we got to what we already talked about or whatever.

1:37:34Dustin Furman:So, so yeah, there's that as well. So yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's not like the most grueling and ridiculous task for me. It's just a major part of the, of the gig for preparing sacred symbols. And I would love to not write the show, but I get the person who steers the show has to know the content better than anyone. And so it really has to be the same person. I find I would be I think it would be weird to be just given the die wouldn't be I wouldn't know what was on the document I would have to like do my own research it's basically like just doing the show anyway and not but so like I might as well just do it all right gay bitches thank you for writing and thanks for making me cry all right uh let's get into the news it's time I wanted to start here we don't have to talk about this too much because it's not very interesting probably to most of our audience but I think it's relevant and important for people listening no doubt some people or on the playstation blog they write announcing playstation family app for parental controls and family management so this is available on the app store right now and you can go check it out just search for it you know on google play or your app store on apple and they write here in part quote at sony interactive entertainment we're committed to providing safe play for gamers of all ages including enhancing ways for parents to manage their children's gaming experience this includes the current parental control features available on the ps5 and ps4 console such as playtime settings and age restriction settings for games Today, we're pleased to announce our next step in this commitment with PlayStation Family, a new dedicated parental control mobile app available on iOS and Android devices.

1:39:10Dustin Furman:PlayStation Family app will be launching around the world starting today. So as I said, it's already out because this was written yesterday. PlayStation Family app is a new experience to help parents set up and manage their children's gaming experience on PlayStation straight from their supported mobile device. The app includes a number of new customizable features for parents to manage their children's playtime, including an activity report, more visibility into what their children are playing, and approving extra playtime requests all at the tap of a finger. And they have some look at it with some GIFs and all the rest if you want to go check it out over on the site.

1:39:38Dustin Furman:So there are content filters and ability to kind of limit social interactions, obviously manage monetary spending, manage time spending as well. There are activity reports so you can see what your kids are playing and all the rest. I know this is important to some of you. We have lots of parents out there listening. So obviously not a relevant thing for me. I think the one thing that this falls into the trap of unfortunately is that this is made for parents that aren't really game savvy, I would assume, and don't know how to just do all of this on the console itself, or don't know how to look into those things and limit things.

1:40:12Dustin Furman:And they just don't know what their kids are doing on there, which is totally reasonable. That's, that's a lot of people, but it falls into the trap of like the people who would know this app existed or the people that probably don't need it. So I'll be wondering what happens there. I don't know if you guys have anything you want to say about it, but I just wanted to throw that out there as a PSA because it's something that Sony is pretty heavily promoting

1:40:28Colin Moriarty:right now in their official channels i think it's awesome this is something nintendo has had for well in terms of like in having a specific app for it um and i think it's smart for playstation because if you want to have a like a if you want to sow the seeds of a future audience if you want to as we were mk mk altering children earlier right to be sacred symbols fans and to steal from their parents playstation and you know if if the option before a parent is like ah well i know about all these advanced parental controls in nintendo switch it's really easy let's have them play there just because i know how to do that uh maybe playstation is just more difficult or whatever i don't know having the easiest option is good my only thing is i want more detailed reporting i want to know like if it's an older kid what their kd is in Call of Duty, you know, or, you know, just because if they're not playing so well, it's like it's kind of we want to know if the kids are disappointment, you know, in terms of how much of a gamer they are.

1:41:31Dustin Furman:Is he a gamer? Isn't he a gamer?

1:41:34Colin Moriarty:It's like, oh, son, well, I see you played 45 minutes of Life is Strange. Yeah, I think we're gonna have to have a little conversation about that.

1:41:41Dustin Furman:Are you gay, son? Are you gay for me? Oh, good. Oh, man. All right. So PlayStation family app out there for all of you parents. Why are you listening to this? If you're a parent. Yeah. Your life. All right. This was pretty big news being circulated, but I question whether it's really big news or that it wasn't already really kind of known or inferred. But our friends over at Insider Gaming, nonetheless wrote exclusive PlayStation six is plan to have a detachable disk drive on launch. They write quote Insider Gaming has learned that the PlayStation six is plan to have a detachable disk drive when the console launches.

1:42:21Dustin Furman:first introduced mid-generation for the playstation 5 the detachable disk drive was a means for playstation to reduce its production and shipping costs for the next generation of the playstation several sources who wish to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to talk about company plans have said that the detachable disk drive is here to stay for the next generation identical to the playstation 5 and its detachable disk drive customers will be able to buy the console individually as a digital console bundled with the ps6 as a traditional console or upgrade later by purchasing the detachable disk drive separately um i'm pretty sure this was known but if if it because i i feel like moore's law reported that um but i i could be wrong but if it wasn't certainly was inferred there's simply no i'm sorry there's just no reason to sell a console with a disk drive and force that as as the as like a major option you should not do that just make a console that is digital and then give people the option to plug something into it that should be all your consoles one skew that's it and so i think that that i don't i don't know that this news hits as hard for me as it did for other people because i'm like i i don't i don't think i expected that they were going to sell the ps6 with a disk drive um again we said last week dustin that i think sometimes people overestimate how many copies of big triple a game sell on disc obviously those are the options and so you see those sales numbers sometimes from really transparent companies like cd project we brought up remedy where it's like lots of people most people are playing the witcher 3 off of disc for instance and all the rest so you don't want to discount that but really a majority of people on these consoles are playing digital games and i don't mean like lilymo games i mean like fortnite and they don't give a fuck about disc drives so this seems obvious to me the other big piece of news though before i send it around to you guys here comes from this and i think this is way more interesting um they write quote these uncertain times and they're referencing uh the physical reality as talked about by one of their sources have seemingly influenced playstation's decision on the look of the next playstation 2 as rumbling suggests that this time around the playstation 6 will have a much simpler design than its predecessor again to maximize efficiency shipping space weight and so on uh this is something i'm happy to hear because i think that like we have to get back to a basic industrial design for these machines and stop making them look like they look it's ridiculous i don't give a fuck how they look make them as cheap as you can make them.

1:44:38Dustin Furman:So Chris, let's hear from you first. What do you think of this? No disk drive built in for PS6, not a huge surprise, and maybe a straightforward industrial design that issues style for cost. Yeah.

1:44:51Chris Santis:I mean, like you said, I'm not really that surprised. No disk drive. I mean, it seems like we were going in that way. There's obviously a lot too that plays into, I think, PS Plus now with a lot more people having built their digital libraries over time. It's just kind of more of a... I would imagine that it's just kind of the new baseline um and so that doesn't surprise me necessarily it also cuts costs down so that's good i think um as far as like having a more or a less um ridiculous design i mean good that was my main kind of sad point about the ps5 pro was that i was kind of hoping that like the ps5 pro would be like a a massive change in the form factor or not a massive change the four factor necessarily but enough that it would feel like a like a transformative kind of thing like okay this isn't this loud obnoxious thing and to be fair it was smaller i guess um but we've been saying on the show i at least i have been saying on the show since since we first got our hands on the ps5 or since we first got a look at it that it's just it's a little ugly it's a little it's it's cool looking in some it's cool in a way that's like that would be cool to see somewhere else but not necessarily in my house you know like if i saw it on like a starship in some fantasy or some sci-fi show like yeah that's a cool little doohickey but next to all on my wood panel tv stand next to my like all black machines like this this thing it's very garish and you know loud and obnoxious so like I'm all for it.

1:46:30Chris Santis:Good. Get to a simple simplified. Design that isn't so. In my opinion, obnoxious.

1:46:39Dustin Furman:Yeah, the even numbered Playstations hopefully will continue to have great design and the odd number ones will be the weird ones, you know, one, three and five are the weird ones, two and four are the ones that are like so clean where it's like PlayStation two is iconic. It's even a little much by our standard today, but I remember that thing like sitting in my bedroom and me looking at it and be like, this is incredible. like this this thing is awesome so turn of the century so and then ps4 was and the pro especially i love the ps4 pro and where they just put a stack on top of the old ps4 and just kept the same design factor you don't think it's too cute by it dustin one of the things that i'm i'm really aware of though based on these leaks not only from insider gaming but from more's law and just other things we've been reading is that sony seems to be comprehensively focused on cost and that as if this is a majorly urgent thing i think this is probably because they've had a hard time getting a lot of ps4 owners over to ps5 and that the economy is what it is that electronics are becoming more expensive by virtue of inflation and the various tariff pressures um i wonder what you think of this should playstation 6 just use the dual sense anyway talk to me however you'd

1:47:54Colin Moriarty:like yeah should playstation 6 use the dual sense i think that that would make sense um because i think one of the things that annoyed me about playstation 5 is that you can use dual shock 4 on it but you can't um you can't uh use on ps5 games right it only works for ps4 so a little bit annoying but yeah as far as this whole article like i'm not surprised that discs are going to continue for the next generation. A lot of people probably invested. Even if they are digital now, they still maybe have PS5 discs. Maybe they weren't early on. They want to be able to keep that backwards compatibility.

1:48:36Colin Moriarty:So yeah, it's not surprising that discs... The other thing to consider is that from a US standpoint, yeah, it makes sense. It's like, why aren't they doing it all digital? That's how everybody buys games. It's much, much smaller. That's physical. But when you're thinking from a global market perspective, there are probably certain areas and regions countries that are much more dependent on having physical games due to the internet infrastructure and things like that so uh or just or just company or countries that are just more focused on buying physical countries like japan things like that so it makes sense and i totally support i totally support the idea of uh selling the console cheaper without it and then just giving people the upgrade option like they did with playstation 5 pro and uh as far as the industrial design i on this show for i mean since the ps5 came out have been the only person that said that i like the way the ps5 looks i don't think it's amazing um i'm not i'm not going to bat for it but i i just i don't know i think it's cool whatever yeah but i'm all in favor of something that's more simple to keep cost down and i think that if my preference is something kind of weird and cool versus something industrial and cool i would lean that direction as well because dude like my favorite of the playstation designs probably is the launch playstation 4 uh is i think absolutely spectacular the two-tone between the matte and the gloss very very nice i love that uh look i love the look of their original ps1 as well so i'm all in favor of that um so yeah i i'm curious about this whole the pricing i think it's smart um thinking about ps5 i wonder if when they were designing it thinking about it is that their intention was like well this is going to be like every other console that we're designing it and these prices will be able to reduce the price as things goes, goes on.

1:50:44Colin Moriarty:Clearly times have changed. And so that mindset may have shifted that it's like, no, we kind of have to set the price realistically from the beginning. Cause there's no certainty that we're going to be able to reduce it later on. So I'm curious what that will mean in terms of potential compromises. Obviously we talked about the leak for Moore's laws dead. Maybe that won't be the case. I prefer that, but there's just too many unknowns right now.

1:51:11Dustin Furman:Yeah, fair enough. I will be curious. I mean, this is going to get more intense because we're probably a year and a half away from it being announced, I would assume, something like that. And so it's going to materialize. Like there are, it's obvious if things go the way console launches used to go and the importance of obviously games going on, there are games well into development that are being specced towards this machine. and be excited to see what those are when the time comes. But I expect the PlayStation six leaks to continue. It seems like we know a great deal about the machine. It would be cool to know more about the games now and what might be planned from that perspective.

1:51:51Dustin Furman:But everyone's pretty tight lipped. And I think that that's fairly reasonable if you're getting extremely early access to the stuff. All right. I thought this was interesting. I just wanted to share this push square. Our friends over there wrote about this. This is via the podcast and YouTube channel min max who interviewed nate fox the creative director over at sucker punch who has been there forever nate i haven't talked to nate in years but i will say he is one of the sweetest people i've ever met in the industry he's a really really nice person um he i i did the history of sucker punch when i was at uh ign and so i talked to him extensively for that but i've talked i i first met him for infamous and infamous too and uh he he really makes people feel comfortable and puts people at ease and stuff.

1:52:39Dustin Furman:I think he's a really, really nice person. So it's cool to see him kind of doing the rounds. And he's obviously the creative director of Ghost. And he talked about it on MinMax. I don't really care about that. But the thing that this story is about, which is what Push Square has relayed, is about Sly Cooper. And Push Square sums it up like this. They say, quote, those aching for a return to the PS2 era of PlayStation platformers may want to close this page immediately. in a quick fire interview with ben hansen from min max sucker punch creative director nate fox has said his team wouldn't be all that impressed if it was if it was tasked with working on a new sly cooper project he said um that the team would be quote-unquote hypothetically or i'm sorry the team would be uh i'm sorry asked hypothetically in quotes what percentage of the studio would be jazzed in quotes to continue the stealth platforming series he estimated around 10 he says quote it's been a long time since sly cooper came out end quote so just a little thing why would anyone want sucker punch to work on sly cooper you didn't care about sly cooper for when sansaro made it and it was an indistinguishable sly cooper game in fact i thought it was pretty great i gave it an eight actually i think i died i don't quite understand i don't understand this this constant need to like go back to these these old wells of series that are not even these middling like kill zone style things that did well for a while and people care about but these things that like were last seen and no one really gave a shit about it makes me feel bad for the people that put the game out to begin with and and sly cooper four blatantly teases sly five so they had every intention of doing it you didn't buy it now you want to use sucker punches their own time on a sly cooper game i just like i don't know man i just feel like there's so much inconsistency with the way people behave as consumers and then like things they say they want.

1:54:33Dustin Furman:So it's no surprise. I mean, that would be stupid for them to work on Sly Cooper. They need to make something new after Ghost, though. I will say that. Chris, what are your thoughts here? No one wants to make Sly Cooper at Sucker Punch.

1:54:44Chris Santis:Yeah, I mean, it has been a long time. The thing to me is that, like, it's been so long for them that I would have to imagine that. Look, when you're when you're building a franchise, I would imagine you build a certain skill set. You kind of get to know it a little bit. You kind of get better at working within it. And then you're kind of in that mode for a while, at least. And I would imagine, like, if the team who made Ghost of Tsushima and Ghost of Yote just was like, hey, next up, we're going to do a Sly Cooper game. I feel like... I feel like that's not the same people. I feel like it's not going to be the same energy.

1:55:24Chris Santis:It's ostensibly kind of a completely different studio doing it anyway. So, like... I just I guess I just don't get I don't get generally the the desire for studios to return to to old IP. I get the idea of wanting old IP to continue in some way because I do think people grow up on them or whatever and they like them and then they never worked at that company. They work somewhere else. They want to have an idea they want to do with it. And if they can license it, great. um you know uh obviously the people who made i guess i guess it flies in the face of it a little bit though because it is probably the only example of a studio that has done it successfully that i can think of right off the top of my head with uh obviously doom and from the original dooms into doom 2016 but that was after a long time and they had something that they clearly wanted to do that was interesting i don't know what you do to sly cooper if you're sucker punch to make it fresh new and exciting i like i i think a lot of this is because astrobot was such a huge success there's there's a hunger for more platformers now which i get um but i i don't i think astrobot's an exception because it was so good there's so many there's so many other ones that like what was it ukulele i think was like the big one right it was like kind of like didn't really didn't really catch this set the world on fire um i don't know i i would want studios to move on and make new things as opposed to going back to old stuff not to say the old stuff can't live again i just think it's better in it's better in the hands of other people who don't who probably have a completely different lens on it to make it interesting in the first place and worth bringing

1:57:10Dustin Furman:back in the first place yeah i guess the exception of it it is the it is like i guess the exception and not the rule i guess is what i'm saying i i generally agree with you just in that it's been so long since not only sly three which is the last sucker punch sly cooper which is 20 years old um but sly four which came out what in 2013 from sansaro and again i thought was really great but it's and it's funny to think that that there was really only eight years between those games there's an even bigger difference in time now between the games but that sending it to a different studio is the same thing as having sucker punch do it because there's almost no one there like you said that worked on it and certainly they've moved they've long moved on i mean they started making infamous in 2006 they haven't they haven't fucked around with sucker punch in or i'm sorry with sly cooper in a in a long time so i just i will also say that i think people are overestimating how well a game like this would do um yeah astrobot for all of its plaudits is probably what a two million seller or something like that it's not amazing it's good especially for a team of 60 or 50 people but sly cooper i don't i just don't know how you make that relevant and really shine and and it's it's just a bad use of resource internal resources and i also just think the good news here is that i think games are taking so long if you could look at one of the silver linings of games taking forever to develop.

1:58:31Dustin Furman:It's that there's so much space that it doesn't like Uncharted, for instance. Uncharted could come back and be huge again. It feels it's been 10 years basically since an Uncharted game almost. So it's like, OK, bring it back, like let things percolate. But remember that Sony's advantage all of this time and frankly is what I think makes it made its first party for a while anyway, superior to what was going on elsewhere was that they really would move on. and the only way you get uncharted is to stop making jack and daxter the only way you get the last of us is to stop making uncharted the only way you get intergalactic is to stop making the last of us and so there's a creative kind of destruction that happens but it generally works well and no offense because i know how much people love i mean the sales and the and the fan base for nintendo speaks for itself but like what were the big games in the nes era mario and zelda what were the big games in the snes era mario and zelda n64 mario and zelda game cube mario and zelda we mario and zelda i'm not saying these games don't change i'm not saying that they're not radically different i was there i played them but what i'm saying is that like there at least there's a creative emphasis to do truly different things the ironic thing is that sometimes the games that you do are truly different end up being facsimiles of each other with different coats of paint and so i understand that too yeah but so just don't underestimate this idea that you would have gotten none of like sony could have gone all in on crash bandicoot bought it and just been like yeah crash bandicoot forever yeah there's some in there's some wisdom in just look at microsoft no offense with to them with halo and gears and forza it's like cool we have gran turismo i guess um anyway dustin what are your thoughts here and take it out

2:00:13Colin Moriarty:however you'd like yeah i think i agree with a lot of the points you guys made as far as like it'd be weird to go back i i think the most important thing for me is that if someone at sucker punch was had a passion and an idea for a new slide cooper game that they felt that was a worthy endeavor for them to do then cool show us um but if that's not what they're passionate about or or want to do um then they shouldn't do that and i'm i'm more into the idea of them doing something new that there's i've not really dived super deep into sly cooper i know they are good games but i don't think there's anything particularly exceptional about them that only sucker punch could do and that was shown uh with the most the the last sly cooper game is that other teams could do it so and i think too that sly cooper is is cool uh but he really only matters at this point to people in a very niche bubble.

2:01:17Colin Moriarty:And so from a, aside from the creative stuff, from the business aspect of it really doesn't make any sense.

2:01:25Dustin Furman:Um, I will also, I've, we, I kind of forgot to return to this in our more somber and serious conversation at the beginning of the show, but there is this other angle with sucker punch that I'd be loath to not bring up because a lot of people wrote in about it. I didn't include your inquiries because I just didn't. I thought we would talk about it earlier. Otherwise, I might have done that. But what do you guys think about this kind of push to boycott the game in some circles because of the reaction to the assassination of Charlie Kirk from people that worked on the game? I don't know if you guys have seen any of this going on, but this stuff is, I will say, because I'm a very political person, and so I see a lot of these different things is that this is breaking through.

2:02:04Dustin Furman:So I'm not saying it's going to be on fucking nightly news. I'm just saying that this is getting circulated by people well outside of video games and i wonder what what you guys think of that it seems like a lot of people are upset about it i must admit that though i'm i'm put off and disgusted by the celebration of violence um especially so explicit as these people are comfortable doing um i'm not going to boycott the game i have bad news for you about sucker punch um they're based in seattle or the seattle suburbs and um a lot of them are exactly what you think i mean i know people that i know i know i know people that work there it's the video game industry is a very it's very uh it's it's uh politically homogenous and you would expect to be what it is so like you kind of have to go in with the eyes open and know that you're supporting products of people that don't like you very much and if you're comfortable doing that i think it's too complicated to keep track of all that shit so i generally don't but i understand people's impression i'm not going to boycott Ghost of Yote.

2:03:07Dustin Furman:I'm not excited about it, but I'm going to buy it. Any thoughts you guys want to share about that? I feel like it would be disingenuous for us to not break up that that is happening, but I don't know if you have anything you want to say.

2:03:17Colin Moriarty:Yeah, I saw some of that going around. And of course, it's people on Blue Sky that think they're in their safe haven where it's, of course, it's going to, as you were saying, Colin, going to break through. Yeah, it's gross. Sucks. But I think i'm in the same spot as you colin where it's like i have a hard time saying like okay well this one individual said something and so now it's like the entire company that that doesn't represent the entire company um maybe it represents more than just that one person but there there are so many things that i don't like or find disgusting or whatever and it's just like as you were saying it's it's it's so much to keep track of last thing i'll say though totally get it as we were talking about earlier if it's a line too far for you you gotta you have to go with your your gut you gotta go with what you stand for and so that makes sense i am very curious to

2:04:16Dustin Furman:see what happens um yeah i don't know what the right answer is this this is why there's like a certain

2:04:28Dustin Furman:Carelessness and callousness to making your opinions everyone's problem and like putting sucker punch in a position now. It's like, come on, man, like the game's gold. Like we're supposed to be in like polish mode for patches and figuring out what's next and all the rest. It's supposed to be a celebratory time. Like you're fucking this up for us. The buzz for the game doesn't seem like as high as I would expect. I don't know if that's going to actually affect anything for them or not. I'm sure it's still going to sell millions of copies, but anything you want to share, Chris, before we move on?

2:05:00Chris Santis:No, I mean, obviously, I don't condone anybody celebrating things, but I also just I generally feel like the Internet for a long time now, for like many, many years, has been operating on the fuel of rage bait. like even just like i don't know today my dms were like my message requests were full of like people chastising me but they're like their profile picture is like george floyd memes you know like i don't i don't i don't know what to take seriously anymore like i think it's it's in bad taste i think it's callous but like i don't i don't give a shit what like an art director thinks if i think the game looks cool i'm gonna buy the game that's really that's really kind of how i feel about it like you could you could say pretty heinous shit probably even directly to me and if i thought the game was like like if the director of doom eternal was like chris you're gay i'm sending p i'm gonna i will make it my life's mission to send a swap team to your house and kill you i'd be like damn that really sucks i guess i'll play through doom eternal only five times yeah right right right right you know like i just my my bar for that is is very you're just like low in general um obviously not in good taste you shouldn't be doing that if you're working in like a triple a space especially because it's just like what do you what do you expect to happen like obviously that's going to be controversial and i think even to most normal people that's a controversial thing to do to celebrate the death of a person who is you know not responsible for it's one thing for people who are like responsible for violence like i don't care if osama bin laden dies you know what i mean you know like whatever but like just a guy who's kind of a dickhead who just has like really uncomfortable opinions like i don't know i think it's you know operate with some tact i guess if you're in that space especially yeah i i think

2:06:53Dustin Furman:again i think these products are complex and so like filtering through everyone's feelings and all the right it's just it's just a lot to handle but i think people yeah it's as dustin said and i I think we all agree you got to make the decisions that you have to make. And we'll see what happens. Again, I'll be very curious to see if they do anything or what they will do. It is kind of a lose-lose situation, like we were saying earlier, where you kind of have taken a huge hit. Then if you react to that, then you're going to take another hit. It's kind of unfair to everyone involved. And so they should be chastised internally for sure.

2:07:31Dustin Furman:I mean, that I do believe. but whether they should lose their job, I don't really know. And then, or these people and whether or not people buy the game or not, it's up to you. Of course, I wanted to share this news that was going around. This is over from the, the PlayStation hiring boards, job boards. Greenhouse.io. Sony posted a job listing that's been circulating for a creative director at bend studio in Oregon. and what's interesting about this is what they're hiring for specifically it seems like i thought this was funny it says quote sony ben studio renowned creator of days gone uncharted golden abyss resistance retribution in the siphon filter series is seeking outstanding talent to join our passionate and creative family and crafting our next title we're seeking an experienced and visionary creative director to help lead a project currently in development this role is responsible for driving the decisions that set the creative vision quality bar and emotional tone of the game in this capacity will serve to keep the team informed, aligned, motivated, inspired, and engaged.

2:08:35Dustin Furman:And there are a bunch of responsibilities. That's fine. The requirements are what I'm more interested in for this story. Quote, demonstrated experience in a senior creative leadership role on at least one shipped AAA or high profile game. And this is the big one. Experience with multiplayer game development and design. Dustin.

2:08:56Colin Moriarty:Thoughts? well obviously everyone's jumping to conclusions that they are making a live service game and that's not unreasonable conclusion to jump to uh it's certainly possible it's also possible that they are designing a game that has multiplayer elements multiplayer mode um so it's not surprising uh especially with sony's lean towards trying to get multiplayer into games. I mean, even Ghost of Yotei has a multiplayer mode. So I think it is a little weird that they have a project in development and they're looking for a creative director, then they're looking outside of their studio. They don't have someone that normally in that type of situation.

2:09:41Colin Moriarty:I think someone from within starting working on the project would step up to be the creative director so um i'm yeah it seems like the studio has just kind of been in um chaos since uh the fallout of day is gone so hopefully they're able to pull it together chris what are

2:10:01Dustin Furman:your thoughts it seems like i mean i explicitly making a multiplayer game i don't know why else that would be in the job listing so yeah what do you make of it um i mean i wouldn't

2:10:13Chris Santis:necessarily sound the alarms i i think again dustin brought up the you know ghost of yote and ghost of jima also having like kind of like multiplayer elements to them that were that were not necessarily the sole focus of the game i think it's i think it's wise to especially now that it seems like the live service push is if not dead at the very least like de-emphasized i think it's probably actually pretty wise to maybe we might actually i mean i don't know man we might be seeing the return of like an old kind of like well hey look here's a you know here's our big tentpole you know single player thing that you expect from us but also as per ghosts of tsushima and ghosts of yote we might dabble in you know a way to make this make these games in and of themselves in a separate capacity in the same way that like you know legends is technically separate from ghost shima maybe we'll try to use do it that way and get people coming back in in almost like a live service light capacity um i think that would be great i would love that personally like i i much prefer that to uh you know whatever it is that whatever whatever it is that they were doing with concord and whatever it is that they're doing a fair game so far and you know so i think that's probably i can't imagine bend really committing to a multiplayer game i just i just don't know what skill set of theirs would lead them to believe that that's something that that they would excel at like i feel like bend is a very particular studio and multiplayer is not what i would not what i would consider for them um but if it is a live service game then like all right i mean it better be good you know like i don't know what to tell you it's it seems like that's a pretty big risk to do now after everything um and we'll see how it shakes except I guess with fair games, but yeah,

2:12:01Dustin Furman:I'm, I wonder if what happened is they were making this other multiplayer game for years and they kind of hired for it. And that's kind of what they're built and equipped to do. And it would kind of be silly to change course again and have to shed people and rehire and all of that. So you're kind of leaning into what you're good at now. Cause I think days gone is old now and they've kind of, They kind of have squandered the ability to do a sequel that was squandered a long time ago with the people that have long since been gone. But I guess I don't mean to be so flippant with it, but it's like I don't really give a shit anymore.

2:12:43Dustin Furman:You know, it's like the studios have been so mismanaged that it's like you got to just show I have no expectations. And so you have to just show me what you're going to do. There's literally zero. I have zero excitement for what you're doing. And I'm not entirely sure we're ever going to see it. so I wish them the best, but I just, um, it's not even the multiplayer stuff that bothers me. Cause again, I feel like you can interpret that as them saying like, we kind of, we're starting to construct a multiplayer studio or at least studio that can do these kinds of games. And this is what it is now.

2:13:12Dustin Furman:And this is what we need. And we, we need that from you a lot more than a single player game and all the rest. I mean, there's a million reasons to ways to justify it. I just, uh, I just don't care anymore. I just don't, they should have just made a days gone sequel. It's like, it's so clear now that that's exactly what they should have done and they didn't and i don't necessarily think the game demanded one and i don't really care personally from a creative level but certainly from they would have gotten it out already and it probably would have been a pretty big hit if because days gone did find its footing late so i don't know it's it's unfortunate and i feel bad for people that work there just because it's it's not a it bend oregon it's like the middle of nowhere it's it's not a place where if you lose your job in games you can just get another one very difficult yeah all right this just happened today so i don't think you guys had a chance to look at this yet but i'll walk you through it um variety published an article again sony loves talking to these prestige outlets i don't blame them i just don't know why they don't talk to anyone else excuse me i have something in my throat variety writes neil druckman on leaving the last of us his new game intergalactic and how involved he'll be on season three.

2:14:23Dustin Furman:So there's a bunch of stuff here about the show and his decision-making processes or whatever, and people can go read it. I do recommend the article. There's a lot of interesting stuff there about his decision-making in terms of the show and what they were trying to do with it. And I'm kind of tired of talking about the show, but what I'm not tired of talking about and I'm nowhere near tired of talking about is Intergalactic, the heretic project. So the interviewer asks Neil, quote, so turning to Intergalactic, the heretic project, a prophet, I'm sorry. That was a huge announcement for all of you out of the Game Awards last December.

2:14:52Dustin Furman:You've said Naughty Dog has been working on it since 2020. Where you are in the process right now, and that's actually a typo, where are you in the process right now, and will we see or hear more about it at one of PlayStation's upcoming state-of-play presentations? This is what Neil says. Quote, what can I say and not say? I can tell you we're in the thick of it. We're making it, we're playing it, we're firing on all cylinders. I've said this before, but I really mean it. I'm really feeling it right now. It's the most ambitious game we've ever made. It's the most expansive game we've ever made.

2:15:21Dustin Furman:Maybe the most expensive by the time we finish it. It's important. Troy Baker is in the game. This is news, I think. And it's been five years since I've worked with Troy and I've got to do it again. And it was a lot of fun to be on stage with him again. As far as when, as far as when we're going to show stuff, I'm so antsy to show it and talk about it because the trailer that we showed doesn't even scratch the surface of what this game actually is. But announcing a game like this, especially when it's a new IP, especially when it's coming out of Naughty Dog, you've got to coordinate with marketing, with PR, with a bunch of people.

2:15:47Dustin Furman:So it'd be foolish for me to say when we're going to show something right now. They then ask, quote, you've described Intergalactic multiple times now as having the deepest gameplay in Naughty Dog's history. Can you tease that out a little bit more? And he says, quote, I'm not sure that I can. You could look at our previous titles and see the evolution of going from Uncharted, where we were really cutting our teeth on realistic character action games, third person shooters combined with emotional storytelling. With The last of us, we added some RPG elements. We started playing with wide linear layouts, continue that trajectory forward, add sci-fi, and you start to get a sense of what we're doing.

2:16:20Dustin Furman:And then we've gotten more ambitious than that. So really looking forward to see how it all comes together. I think you're all going to be pleasantly surprised by it. Dustin, some precious morsels in there. Anything you take out that is interesting?

2:16:35Colin Moriarty:Yeah. I mean, it's not surprising that it's the most expansive, potentially the most expensive game that they've ever done. You can see even early in Uncharted 4 mentioning, what does he say here exactly? The wide linear layouts. I mean, specifically you think of the Jeep section in Uncharted 4. And then of course with Last of Us Part 2, the Seattle parts, which are a little more, I mean, very wide and open, non-linear. i'm starting to wonder if just that this is an open world game or at least very big multiple open world levels and i think with it being a naughty dog game with it being as he was saying about emotional storytelling and how they're kind of layering on those things i think it's it's not going to be like a open narrative type experience but i do wonder if it's going to have much more open in terms of your objectives side quests and just across the board uh much more expensive more expansive than the more linear games that they've done in the past sounds pretty interesting um makes me more excited for it in a lot of ways because obviously i love a good linear story focused game.

2:17:58Colin Moriarty:But I think there are lots of ways you can experiment with that. And if anyone's equipped to do it, it's not a dog.

2:18:05Dustin Furman:Chris thoughts on what they had, what Neil had to say here. He's they're being very buttoned up. I do appreciate their, their ability to kind of keep a secret. I wonder how long that's going to last.

2:18:17Chris Santis:Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, this is, it's not a lot to go on. and to be fair like it doesn't shed that much light on what we didn't know before i thought it was funny that like i get it like it's it's i get it it's a big deal like you do want to point out that troy baker's in the game but i'm like i i would be more surprised if he was you know thanks for that that tidbit that tidbit i guess but um i don't know i would say this didn't move the needle for me really like i'm just like i'm still curious what they're going to do this doesn't really shine shine any any bit i guess we know where they are in development i guess they're in the thick of it but that doesn't really even that doesn't really shed much light on like when we can expect it i guess so like i i this this seems like a very kind of on the surface it seems like just getting people used to them talking about this as opposed to you know the last of us or the last of us tv show it seems like them setting up or beginning the cadence of being like okay listen we're in we're transitioning over to this mode now the last of us is done um this is our next thing and that's what that's what it seems like this is more than anything it's kind of like setting the groundwork for future future interviews and maybe just like setting the ball up for for the fact that like this will be the main focus from now on if we ever do interviews that's that's what it comes across as to me but very curious to see when they're going to really reveal this thing um the only other thing that i thought was interesting

2:19:46Dustin Furman:in the interview that people might appreciate is that he kind of confirms they kind of go by it but they confirm that there's already like discussions on what to do with intergalactic as far as like a multimedia ip and that's not a huge surprise i would assume that they would want to get that spooled up as quickly as possible if you really want like a cross media sort of feel pursue that. But I agree with you, Dustin. I do wonder. I think it's clear that it's some sort of open game. I think now the question is like, what kind of game is it? Are we talking about Fallout or The Witcher or Borderlands or whatever?

2:20:26Dustin Furman:Star Wars, the respawn games. I'll be very curious. But I think it's exciting to think that they have kept the secret so far. And again, I wonder if we'll be playing this next year. Maybe a little ambitious. I don't know. All right. So go check out that interview if you want over on Variety. Again, it's called Neil Druckmann on Leaving the Last of Us, his new game, Intergalactic, and how involved he'll be on season three of the HBO show, of course. So please look forward to it. All right. Just a couple more pieces of news I wanted to get through. I thought this was interesting. video games chronicle writes a recent interview that was done with people over at machine games and machine games of course recently did the indiana jones game to some fanfare i liked it i didn't love it i liked it though platinum did and the dlc just came out i don't know if anyone's played it but out there i'm sure some people have checked it out i'm not really that compelled to go buy go through it what i thought was interesting i just wanted to point out here was in this interview and I won't read it all to you guys you can go read it or watch it yourself but they note that the their age revival of Wolfenstein that began on the ps3 and during the ps3 era with what was that the new order I guess was the original game and then the old blood was the expansion and that which was also awesome and then they did the new Colossus or whatever the hell it was called which came out in 2017 I want to say that it was planned as a trilogy it's made me very excited Chris would you like to see id finally return I'm sorry machine games rather finally return to Wolfenstein

2:22:02Chris Santis:yeah I mean we just we did just kind of talk about studios returning to old IP but I mean it is it is their bread and butter it is it is kind of thing they know best I was never that big on the original Wolfenstein to be fair like I always kind of was more of a doom guy even in the even even with the more the new Colossus and those newer games. But I'm not going to say no to more Wolfenstein. I think Wolfenstein is cool. Outside of that weird... We don't talk about Youngblood down here. Youngblood. We don't talk about Wolfenstein Youngblood down here. Yeah, that was rough.

2:22:40Colin Moriarty:That was pretty bad. I haven't thought about that game in years. I know. To the point where I'm almost like is it time for a reevaluation of wolfenstein young blood oh yeah it's like a two-hour video essay wolfenstein

2:22:54Chris Santis:young blood and on an uh an unappreciated masterpiece yeah no it's a good idea for my

2:23:02Dustin Furman:channel maybe um yeah i'll do it i wanted to like it i played i remember getting to the end what i remember about it is i got to the end and like i couldn't beat it it's like i was trapped i felt like i'm they probably patched it at some point but i was like trapped where like i couldn't get out to like fix things level up or whatever i don't remember exactly what it was so it was like yeah this is but that was also i think arcane mostly made that game i think um yeah it feels

2:23:27Chris Santis:like a game made under duress like it feels that way like it's nothing none of the systems feel connected a lot of things feel out of place i remember there was that mechanic where you could you could uh what was it you could throw positive affirmations at your at your teammate like literally there was a button and your character with thumbs up it's like good job jess right that's right way to go jess great job and i was just like yo this is uh this is not this feels so wrong in a wolfenstein game that was at the all that was when bethesda was like

2:24:01Dustin Furman:crumbling basically at that point they it's that was like one of the projects that they were doing where it's like this isn't working for us anymore i that's it that didn't work for it that's no good for anybody. I agree that we talked about moving on. I think the interesting thing about machine games though is, well, we got the Indiana Jones game. My suspicion is that they'll probably do a sequel to Indiana Jones. So that might be what the entire studio ends up doing. Wolfenstein has been in the hands of many different teams. And I remember telling you guys, because I remember talking about it, I don't remember the exact context that it wasn't until I was like in my 30s that I even realized that there was a Wolfenstein game before Wolfenstein 3D, like the shooter, where it's like the original game Castle Wolfenstein was like an early 80s, like shitty PC game.

2:24:49Dustin Furman:And then there was a game beyond Castle Wolfenstein in the mid 80s. Then we get the Wolfenstein games that I'm familiar with that I thought it was always began there for some reason. And then and obviously Wolfenstein 3D is an id game. And then Wolfenstein was revived under the Activision banner. And I think Raven made that Wolfenstein game in 2009, which was pretty good. And then Wolfenstein was rebooted again under Machine Games. That was Machine Games' first game. And then they made a bunch of Wolfenstein stuff. And then they moved on to Indiana Jones. So I guess that's a long-winded way of saying like, Wolfenstein can go to someone else.

2:25:25Dustin Furman:But I think it's been long enough now where it would be cool to see more of it. And if they have a third game in mind, the one thing that I think is really impressive with the Wolfenstein reboot that wasn't impressive in the other games, because I played, you know, I love Wolfenstein 3D, arguably the first first person shooter, of course. But again, that Raven Wolfenstein is good. And there's Return to Castle Wolfenstein, the PS2 shooter. I forgot about that, too, because I wrote the guide for that. And it came to Xbox. That's where I wrote the guide for it. They're just there's a really impressive story in it.

2:25:56Dustin Furman:it's fun and adventurous and interesting. I don't know if you guys remember like Wolfenstein, the Wolfenstein to the new Colossus, the Nazis have like a space program. A lot of it takes place in like an aerostat around Venus. It's fucking cool. Like it's, it's super cool and they're getting, and I think what was cool about, I don't remember if it was in the new, the new classes took place in like the seventies, right something like that i think so 60s or 60s and then i think the the young bloods took place in the 80s so it's cool that they're like getting more modern and more interesting but i would be curious to see in other words how they how do they plan on wrapping up so i don't hate on i hate on them returning to it especially because by the time a wolfenstein game came out it would have been well over a decade and probably closer to two decades and that's plenty of time for anything to go away and come back in my opinion so yeah star wars would be awesome if it went away every three years and just came back.

2:26:54Dustin Furman:But anything can be overexposed. I think Wolfenstein is the last thing that has been that has been overexposed. But of course, anything I like doesn't get supported. So throw that in the pile. All right. Curious what you guys think about this over on Blue Sky. Matt Piscitella over at Circona. Tweeted this out because September 9th was the 30th anniversary of the PS1's release in the United States. of course it came out in december of 94 in japan it was during a time when there was much greater separation in hardware and software releases around geographies as we all know so a big event that kind of came and went and happy birthday to the original ps1 um formidable machine and really really amazing library of games as we all know but he writes here are the top 20 all-time best-selling games on playstation platforms in the u.s so this is going all the way back to 95 and he has them ranked by dollars and by units i think this list is very very interesting so here are the dollar ranks ready from 1 to 20 grand theft auto 5 call of duty modern warfare 2019 red dead redemption 2 call of duty modern warfare 2 2022 call of duty black ops 6 call of duty black ops cold war minecraft call of duty black ops 3 grand theft auto san andreas guitar Star Hero 3 Legends of Rock, Marvel Spider-Man, Call of Duty Black Ops 2, Call of Duty Black Ops, Call of Duty World War 2, Call of Duty Black Ops 4, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 2023, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 the original, Marvel Spider-Man 2, Marvel Spider -Man Miles Morales, and Grand Theft Auto Vice City.

2:28:36Dustin Furman:In terms of units sold, Grand Theft Auto 5, Minecraft, Red Dead Redemption 2, Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2019, Marvel's Spider-Man, Call of Duty Black Ops 3, Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War, Grand Theft Auto Vice City, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 2022, Call of Duty Black Ops 6, Marvel's Spider-Man Miles Morales, The Last of Us, God of War 2018, The Elder Scrolls 5 Skyrim, Call of Duty Black Ops, Rainbow Six Siege, Call of Duty Black Ops 2, Call of Duty World War II, Call of Duty Black Ops 4. Dustin.

2:29:09Colin Moriarty:Yeah. What do you think? There is one major interesting title on this list that stuck out to me. That's number$10 ,000. Guitar Hero 3 Legends of Rock. Yeah, it's interesting. I'm guessing that has to do with many people. This is, I mean, right at the, maybe not the peak, but as the Guitar Hero craze was taking over and people wanted that wireless les paul and so the dollar sales is so high because it's that bundle i remember i think it was when i was in eighth grade that is what everyone wanted for christmas was the guitar hero 3 legends of rock bundle with the les paul uh i did it i did get it that christmas too though my dad got a used one he got the he got the used one which maybe was a little hair disappointing but i was happy nonetheless so kind of interesting to see that's up on the list after all these years the other thing of course i mean the obvious is just that call of duty is all over this list um i think that's the big thing i wanted to note i think

2:30:16Dustin Furman:it's fairly obvious like um sony was really fucking worried about that for a reason i mean yeah clearly i mean it it i'm not saying it's making or breaking things things would bump up but like that's a fairly substantial portion of your sales base that was in danger of going to your direct competitor no wonder they fought it you know um i i chris you have anything you

2:30:47Chris Santis:yeah i mean uh i don't know guys i don't want to be telling tales out of school and this might this might this might have slipped under your radar but i can't help but notice call of duty is on this list quite a bit thought i'd point that out no i i really i don't know what to make it the fact that the fact well first of all props to insomnia spider-man's obviously huge um hanging in there elder scrolls there i guess what surprised me rainbow six siege being there kind of surprises me yeah because i understand intrinsically that that's like a popular game but i it doesn't register to me as a game that would be that close to like skyrim you know or like even in this i i would have i would have assumed that it was big but it wouldn't show up on a list like this so it shows why they really really invested in that game i think they relaunched it right they did like a whole like re revamp of that game somewhat recently like in the last last either month a couple months or a year um so that's kind of interesting guitar hero is wild but outside of that grads with auto five man absolute juggernaut insane

2:31:58Dustin Furman:it's really really crazy um and just in terms of dollar sales seeing the best the two two of the three best-selling PlayStation games of all time, one in three are Rockstar games. Above and beyond all the Call of Duty games being on there, which is huge and obviously will overwhelm the numbers that they have at number one and three, plus they have some other stuff on here with San Andreas and Vice City. That's crazy. The Spider-Man sales, I mean, obviously this puts into focus why the Marvel connection is so important and why they continue to make these games. I've been very critical of that. I continue to be critical of it even after seeing these numbers simply because obviously these are huge sales.

2:32:32Dustin Furman:Obviously it's great for PlayStation, but these are licenses. and um you're just you're splitting a lot of this money so it's like yeah dollar sales of spider-man and spider-man you know spider-man 2 being the 18th highest grossing game in playstation history is pretty crazy spider-man 2 is not that old it's just it's just uh that's gotten time to kind of churn like that really goes to show you how low-key that game has sold like crazy numbers and i don't know i have a little something i should share with you guys I didn't put it in here, but they did. He did put up the top 20 bestselling PS1 games.

2:33:07Dustin Furman:Oh, I will. Here, I'll put it in the chat for you so you can follow along if you'd like. All right. So in dollar sales and units, again, these are separated. Here is the top 20 by dollar sales. And again, this is in the United States. Gran Turismo, Final Fantasy 7, Gran Turismo 2, Crash Bandicoot 3 Warped, Tekken 3, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, Metal Gear Solid, Crash Bandicoot 2 Cortex Strikes Back, Driver, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Resident Evil 2, Spyro the Dragon, Final Fantasy 8, Crash Bandicoot, Frogger 1997, Tomb Raider 2, WWE Warzone, Driver 2, Resident Evil, and Crash Team Racing is number 20.

2:33:45Dustin Furman:on units sold. This is where it's kind of interesting. Gran Turismo 2, Crash Bandicoot 2, Gran Turismo 1, Crash Bandicoot 3, Jam Pack Series PlayStation, Frogger is the sixth best-selling game, Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot, Tekken 3, Driver, Final Fantasy 7, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Metal Gear Solid, Namco Museum Volume 3, Crash Team Racing, WWE Warzone, driver to final fantasy eight and spyro too so i find this interesting with the wwe war zone showing up at 17 in both charts ps1 just wasn't the wrestling platform and it's interesting to see like what was the most popular game on the platform because everyone cared about the n64 wrestling games no one no one gave it in my in my experience my friends group anyway like no one gave a shit about the things that were coming on playstation was all about the the n64 game so it's interesting to see that i wonder what the deal is with that frogger game i can see the case in my mind's eye i didn't realize that that must be a pretty cheap game because i mean there's obviously a lot of copies of it um yeah this it is the sixth the best-selling ps1 game in the united states the sixth this is at a time when everything was physical so dustin you're gonna

2:35:03Colin Moriarty:chime in here my my theory about the frogger is that first of all i'm guessing it has a greatest hits copy and that is such an easy game for grandma grandma knows frogger or some mom and dad know frogger that's only 20 bucks for christmas pick that up you know maybe maybe he'll play a little bit too or something so that makes sense i think i think i had this game ironically i had it think i had it on pc of all places um i don't remember being very good but I find it interesting. I'm of course, for me, I'm thinking about the collector aspect of like how many units of these games are out there and how much like units doesn't, or like what the scarcity of it is, doesn't necessarily relate to the price.

2:35:56Colin Moriarty:Cause like, dude, the resident evil games, they're not obscenely expensive PS one games, but they are definitely up there.

2:36:03Dustin Furman:Cause there's demand for just the resident evil stuff. Yeah.

2:36:06Colin Moriarty:Just cause the, the people want that. even if there's a lot of copies out there, Pokemon's a great example, not PlayStation, but there are millions and millions of copies of Pokemon games out in the wild because they sold so crazy. And they are some of the most sought after and expensive Game Boy games, just because when people get into collecting, one of the first thing they think of is, oh, I want to recollect the Pokemon games I had. So the demand is definitely there. So thinking about some of these other like Gran Turismo you see all the time it's cheap Final Fantasy 7 um maybe like 40 or 50 bucks I think but there's you know millions of copies of those out there too so kind of an interesting thought experiment yeah I wonder it's like I only act it's funny like all right so

2:36:57Dustin Furman:I had Final Fantasy 7 uh Metal Gear Solid Tony Hawk's Per Skater 1 and 2 Final Fantasy 8 Tomb Raider 2 and Resident Evil so I haven't I didn't even have very much it just goes to show you that I've always been kind of the offbeat consumer I guess of a lot of this stuff because I didn't even give a fuck about half these games at all like whatsoever dude this is hysteric because this is like this is basically my collection like looking at it like with the exception of I think

2:37:27Chris Santis:driver and like the WWE game but even like there were some sports games that I had I think I'm sure i had like i had a boxing game that i don't recall the name of but i definitely had spyro 2 i definitely had uh obviously ctr namco museum volume 3 is interesting because i did have that like i saw that and i was like that's such a specific thing i i did have a jam-packed series ironically enough i think metal gear solid is the only game i didn't know i only owned metal gear solid recently like in the last like the last like couple years but everything here like tekken crash all the crash games crash running good to being that high is is awesome too and ctr squeaking in there crash team racing my beloved nice a

2:38:11Dustin Furman:little more information on frogger by the way frogger was a first party game made by cambridge studio it was one of their first games and i remember it i had that they made medieval right after that oh that's crazy yeah that's

2:38:26Chris Santis:awesome so that's pretty yeah i had frog i remember the case of it very distinctly where

2:38:32Colin Moriarty:it says he's back that's yeah he's back and he's just looking like uh like a pixar demo yeah he's

2:38:39Dustin Furman:looking scared a little scared yeah yeah he's not that confident about his return it was published through hasbro which is the ip owner of frogger and it says here on wikipedia the game was a commercial success by so it came out fall 97 by early 1998 it sold nearly 1 million units in north america worldwide the game sold 4 million units by may 2000 the playstation version sold 3.37 million units in north america resulting in the game being one of the best-selling playstation titles of all time and subsequently seeing a re-release on the sony's greatest hit lineup the pc version was also successful selling almost 1 million copies with less than four months on the market following the game's launch an episode of the mbc sitcom seinfeld was produced titled the Frogger based on the original arcade game.

2:39:22Dustin Furman:Hasbro greatly increased production of the 1997 Frogger game to coincide with the Seinfeld episode's original air date, supplying large amounts of Frogger copies to all major American retailers. As of 2001, Frogger had sold 6 million copies. So pretty wild. The fact that there's a Seinfeld connection, this is hysterical.

2:39:40Colin Moriarty:Yeah, it makes sense. I can't believe it. Colin, do you know someone at IGN? I mean, this would have been way before your time. Adam

2:39:46Dustin Furman:Douglas yeah that's that must have been a freelancer I don't that's not a name of an editor that was

2:39:50Colin Moriarty:yeah he gave it a two out of ten quoting impossibly high level of difficulty claiming that they result it results in an unplayable game one of the worst PlayStation games yet seen didn't matter scathing reviews like that from you know well IG in particular for giving something a two is unheard of look for a game that clearly is playable based on how many millions of people bought it

2:40:16Chris Santis:i i played it i had it it it's it's frogger dude like it's not like i don't i don't remember having like a particularly difficult time with frogger ps1 i gotta be honest i i was uh i was a damn near a fee that's basically playing this thing and i had no issue so like it's i'm sure it ran like shit like everything else in the world at that time i guess but i don't know unplayable is kind of a that's a bit much stand out related to the sales information there i just

2:40:47Dustin Furman:thought i'd throw this in because it's kind of linear playstation store released their august 2025 top downloads for the u.s um europe as well but we just read the u.s numbers just to keep things kind of even madden nfl 26 was the most downloaded game on ps5 for the month of august not a huge surprise ready or not number two game is selling extremely well and seems to be finding a huge audience. Mafia, the old country slotted in at three. Awesome game. Gears of War reloaded at four. Not a huge surprise, I guess. Good performance. It is only the first game. College Football 26 at number five. Snake Eater at number seven.

2:41:21Dustin Furman:Forza Horizon at nine. Hell Divers at 11. Anything else interesting? Oh, yeah. 2019, 18, 17, 16. Midnight Murder Club, number 15. So maybe a more, I'm not saying a huge player base, but the PC numbers are, I think are probably a little deceptive of how this game is doing and maybe puts a little more light into why they're choosing to support it because there seems to be a more PlayStation centric audience there. So there is that as well. It's also cheap. So I don't think this is on dollar sales, but on cumulative downloads grounded by the way, number 19, the first one. So obviously a lot of interest in that game as the second game is in early access on game pass and on PC right now.

2:42:03Dustin Furman:So people can go check that out but nothing else too interesting here on the list what is car x street i don't know let's i looked it up i'm looking at the steam page conquer mountains roads highways and city streets build

2:42:18Colin Moriarty:your dream car it is a pay for game yeah 20 bucks looks all right i've never heard of it in my life

2:42:26Dustin Furman:yeah me neither street racing high speeds and adrenaline public action all this is waiting for you in sunset city so these are it's all like it's all fake cars i guess things will get cheaper if you don't pay all these licenses like for fucking brake pads and shit yeah okay finally before we move into what we're playing and then we'll end with an increase from the audience playstation plus game catalog games are going to be added as of september 16th my mom's birthday my mom's 75th birthday the game catalog will be updated with the following and of course the game catalog is available on PlayStation Plus for the extra and premium tiers.

2:43:04Dustin Furman:So the silver and gold level tiers, not for those normies like me that are on the regular base model where we only get our free games every month. This is for the actual game catalog. So big ones here. WWE 2K25 is coming to PS5 and PS4. So there's that. Persona 5 Tactica. I forgot that game existed. Did you play that, Dustin? Nope. That's surprising. I'm not interested.

2:43:23Chris Santis:I actually played it a little bit. It was good from what I remember. I just, you know, it's Persona.

2:43:29Colin Moriarty:I didn't know what the fuck was going on. I'm surprised you're not interested i'm dude i'm i'm kind of tired of the persona 5 crew like gotcha i played some of strikers i mean in between playing persona 5 regular persona 5 royal uh i watched some of the anime i'm just uh i mean i love it i absolutely love it but i don't i don't need a spinoff and

2:43:53Dustin Furman:i don't need any more spinoffs green hell comes to ps5 and ps4 open world survival simulator set in a unique and uncharted setting of the Amazonian rainforest. I know something you're looking forward to, Chris. Fate Samurai Remnant. Oh, you know it. PS5 and PS4. The fourth year of the Kyan era Edo period. Sign me up. Crow Country is... I platinum with Crow Country last year. I think it's a really charming and interesting game if you're into PS1 era horror games. Pretty interesting title. The Invincible comes to PS5. and Conscript's survival horror game. And then big, only one edition for a PlayStation premium for classics, but a fairly big one.

2:44:37Dustin Furman:Legacy of Cain Defiance, the PS2 game, will be available via PS5 and PS4. I assume that will be available a la carte as well. Anything here for you guys? Nothing here for me. I don't think this month because I did play Crow Country. That would have been the only game I would really give a shit about.

2:44:54Colin Moriarty:Conscript seems kind of interesting. They have a long description there, but the quick steam one says during the first world war alone french soldier must navigate twisted trenches scavenge for limited supplies and solve complex puzzles all while fighting for survival in the midst of mankind's most brutal and horrifying conflict uh so that sounds kind of interesting subject matter and the graphics are kind of cool it's like uh almost like ps1 ask hmm interesting okay maybe i i might give that a download so other than that nothing else please do um yeah anything for you chris before we move on maybe crow maybe crow country i did play the demo and i liked it i just never got around to playing it yeah it's a cool game just

2:45:40Chris Santis:yeah i remember liking it i just i don't know i think there was other stuff happening at that time it just pulled me away from it i was like eh but if it's gonna be there i i would i would like to say that i would i'm probably gonna check out legacy kane defiance but i i i don't know i only really have a history with legacy of kane soul reaver i tried blood omen and it's a very different video game it's a very different video game uh and so i don't even know what the fuck legacy kane defiance is at its core like what genre it is or whatever maybe i'll maybe i'll check it out i do like soul reaver a lot but core country's looking like the main one for me everything else i just i either played a little bit of already or just straight up have no interest in definitely not gonna play w uh wwe 2k 25 i'll tell you that much right on brother all right let's get into what we're playing i'll go quickly and um and then we can get into what

2:46:37Dustin Furman:you guys have to say um first of all john wrote in said colin how fucking awesome is chronos i'm playing through it now and find it to be incredibly high quality and have a top tier survival atmosphere. Please give us 10 to 15 minutes on this. Thank you. I haven't played it yet. The trophies have been broken in it. The trophies were fine and then got broke by a patch. I will probably start playing it this weekend because I think it might be fixed now. I just thought this was a funny anecdote is that I was up so late a couple of nights ago watching the Gilded Age with Micah. It was literally 445 in the morning and we were on the HBO app on playstation and in the corner of it it pops up it's like chronos updated version 1.05 and i'm like oh so that's nice so i was i was watching the gilded age and i saw that chronos was fixed i just serendipitously saw that so i think i'm gonna be ready to get into that soon i think it looks awesome so i'll have more to say about that next week um i platinumed robocop rogue city unfinished business fairly straightforward if you liked the original robocop game from taon and nakon then And I do recommend you maybe check this out.

2:47:39Dustin Furman:$30 is a little steep. It is fairly long for being an expansion, but it's not great. But it's just more RoboCop. It's fun. I think it would be much more appropriate at 20 or even less than that. And then I've been spending a lot of time with everybody's golf hotshots. I've been very interested in this game because a lot of people really don't like it. Dante B wrote in and said, good day, my sweets. Hotshots, everybody's golf has been an all-time favorite PlayStation franchise for me and has been since 1999 with the second game on PS1. clap hands has developed basically every entry in the franchise for over 20 years clap hands is hot shots and hot shots is clap hands so when i saw there was a change in developer i tried to be cautiously optimistic but what an unmitigated disaster this is even if the game weren't a completely bug riddled mess the courses are bland the characters are boring the robust online community features are built out and everybody's golf on ps4 and world invitational on vita have been completely gutted hell they even changed the control scheme which has been consistent for decades with no way to change it back or remap the controls beyond some presets i have no idea how the scores for this game while not amazing or as high as they are.

2:48:38Dustin Furman:I don't remember the last time I was disappointed in the game. What say you? Did something go insanely wrong here or are my fanboy expectations just too sky high? The answer is, is that I don't really know because I'm not familiar enough with Hot Shots Golf over time to really know too much about it. The one I got most into was the Vita launch game, which I specifically played in Japanese because we had it early or whatever and it wasn't translated yet. So I, you know, I think I would rent Hot Shots Golf. And as I've said, I was just so much more into Nintendo sports, like light sports games at that era.

2:49:15Dustin Furman:So Mario Golf on N64 and Mario Golf on GameCube. These were formidable games for me as a kid and a young adult. And so I just don't have the insight into Hot Shots about what people are, what people have a problem with comparable to the previous games, because I just don't know them like that. What I will say is that I like it. maybe it's just very straightforward and different in a lot of for a lot of I know Dustin you said something about the character creator to being removed or something of this nature and people have written about that obviously I find the emphasis on story a little strange you can skip it but I like like just unlocking the characters upgrading my characters getting to different courses doing the different circuits I'm just kind of dicking around with it and I like it just fine.

2:50:01Dustin Furman:I don't think it's like amazing or anything like that, but I have no problem with it. Now, that's a little bit incomplete because there are major technical issues with it. And what I find weird about this is that I only experienced the technical issues really on one console. On my PS5 Pro downstairs, the game works pretty much fine. On the PS5 here in my office, it doesn't function. And we showed this actually on the stream. If you guys checked out the stream, you can check it out now and VOD on Patreon. but when we streamed kingdom hearts for the second time i in the beginning of that stream showed the bugs i were i was experiencing in everybody's golf because i thought they were so weird and basically the the bugs i was experiencing were twofold one is that the game wouldn't count strokes whoa properly so that i got credit for an albatross on a on a um so there's like birdies and eagles and holes in one or whatever albatross is i think shooting is it shooting two under or something like that no that's an eagle it's like shooting three under maybe like you need to be on a six par hole i think like some things i've never even done like i'm not that good at the game and i got and and this is one of the rarest trophies in the game and they just gave it to me and or like you would hit a ball and it would just go out of bounds and say out of bounds but it's on the grass and then you would like get a stroke penalty or whatever but the biggest the biggest thing i had was that the game the the cpu players will not go

2:51:28Dustin Furman:that's awesome they'll just stand real it's real to the point and so this is where it gets interesting in my opinion i formatted this ps5 i was like there's got to be something wrong with just the way like i've deleted the pack like first i deleted it redownloaded it all all the obvious things and i'm like there's got to be just something wrong and i've read in some places they're like people are like it's the save and i'm like that can't be right because because the save works downstairs fine it works fine but when i transfer it to the cloud and then try to play it on portal through this ps5 the game's all wonked out so i fucking uh rebooted like just factory reset the ps5 did you know went through the whole rigmarole of getting myself back on the console and then downloaded the game to the same problem i find this peculiar but it's but it It is a it is an accurate reflection of my experience personally.

2:52:29Dustin Furman:So, yeah, that's kind of where I'm at on the game is I'm enjoying it, but it doesn't seem like Hot Shots Golf, golf like real OG fans like it. And it is true that it's not Clap Hands anymore. Clap Hands was not the original developer of Hot Shots Golf. I think you alluded to that in your letter, Dante. They came on with the second game. But of course, they've been doing the game forever since then. And some falling out, I guess, with Sony. I honestly think it has something to do with the kind of the the destruction of Japan studio. And they were kind of one of the liaison studios that worked through them.

2:52:58Dustin Furman:So I think that that probably has more to do with it than anything else. They make their own golf game, though, don't they?

2:53:03Colin Moriarty:Clap hands. It's called like easy come easy golf. Yeah, that's right. That's it. It was on Switch and mobile.

2:53:09Dustin Furman:That's an awesome name. Yeah, they should bring it over. I mean, this is the time now. I mean, if people are this upset. yeah the game i saw is outselling on switch there's a switchboard of this game which is interesting because this is a licensed game the sony owns hotshots golf and they licenses the bandai so not unlike pat upon not unlike freedom wars it'll come to it had come it has come to pc and switch as well and it seems like the switch version is doing fairly well in japan comparable to the playstation version perhaps not a huge surprise but that's my thought on it now i don't have anything else to add on it because i just don't know the series like that and i was looking forward to it as a portal game to kind of play as an accompaniment to football and it's worked out fairly well like that but i i have been surprised by how much i've been sucked into just playing it straight up on a tv i've probably played it for 20 something hours at this point to the point where i said to micah i'm like i don't even know why i'm playing this really like it's just like it's like i'm just i'm just fucking golfing with like these different anime characters that I'm unlocking.

2:54:11Dustin Furman:So, but I enjoy it. It's a little expensive, I guess it's 40 bucks.

2:54:15Colin Moriarty:Yeah.

2:54:16Dustin Furman:So that, those are my thoughts there. All right. So let's move on to you, Dustin. And actually, yeah. So it says you're playing the finals and hell is a start with the finals and then go into hell is us actually. And we'll start here with Doug a bears inquiry. He says, Hey fellas, just wanted to give a big shout out to our boy, Dustin. I've been playing the finals since day one and always wondered why more content creators didn't bring more attention to this game a game that's simple on the surface but it has a deep layer of strategy insane destructibility and physics there's absolutely nothing like stealing a cat a cash out with only 10 seconds left while a building is crumbling down around you and bullets are flying everywhere thanks again for doing your part to raise awareness for this truly excellent game and i'll see you out there in the finals yeah i am fully in on the

2:55:02Colin Moriarty:finals boys it is my new obsession game right now uh and i don't know if i mentioned this last week when i talked about it briefly i randomly decided to play this game because and i don't even watch this youtuber that much it's moist critical i think i did mention this had a video about how it was like super slept on i was like okay that's kind of interesting and because i clicked that video youtube recommended me another video about the finals and i watched i was like oh you know what i didn't really give that this game very much of a chance i remember that when i played it when it came out. I remember feeling overwhelmed by it just because there's a lot of abilities, a lot of the rule.

2:55:39Colin Moriarty:The rule set, like the main game mode, Cashout, is unlike any other first person game mode, shooter game mode that I've ever played. So it's a lot to take in. When we played for the first time, we were playing and I mentioned this last week, the King of the Hill mode. And that was much easier for me to like to get my feet wet with this game where it's like, okay, well stand on the platform. And so that let me kind of figure out the different abilities of the game. Well, since last week, I have actually gone in and played the cash out mode, the mode that this game is known for. In particular, I think it's called World Tour is the mode right now.

2:56:22Colin Moriarty:So World Tour, I believe there are eight teams that start and it's a tournament bracket. So there are two rounds going on simultaneously initially where there's four and four. And your goal is to be first or second. And then if you're in first or second in one of those games going on, then you go to the next bracket where it's just four teams in total. And then you go one V one versus another team. And last night. So the new season just dropped. So all the normies are back in. When I tried playing a few days ago, we were getting absolutely wrecked. because it's just the people that are there all the time.

2:56:59Colin Moriarty:We're trying to get into it. When we played last night, we won three full tournaments in a row. And that's where I was like, man, this game is absolutely awesome. And I tweeted about it last night and someone asked me, I can't remember who, like, what about this game draws you to it? I was trying to think about like, why, like, what is it about the finals that is different? I think, first of all, it appeals to a lot of the things I like in first person multiplayer games where there's a lot of verticality. But more importantly, there is such a wide array of how you can choose to play this game.

2:57:38Colin Moriarty:So my main way of playing is that I am a medium build. So there's lights, mediums, heavies. I think I explained that last week where I'm kind of focused on supporting my team. So I have like a healing beam, which is kind of like Overwatch Mercy, where when we go in, we steal a cash out, we're protecting it, I can kind of heal everybody up. I have jump pads, which is very important for the heavy on my team because they're the least mobile. So I can kind of help them out with that. And when you really start to figure out and learn these classes and learn what each person is supposed to do or what works for you, that's when the magic of the game really happens.

2:58:20Colin Moriarty:And it's just been so cool because I'm like learning so many strategies. A lot of multiplayer games, like obviously the most basic is team deathmatch. Get more kills than the other team. It's like, okay, easy enough. There's not necessarily even a lot of strategy in that. It's just be good at the game. Then you get more advanced with like either territories or capture the flag, which has a lot more strategy. This cash out mode has so much depth to it and so many layers of strategy, where you could be a middling player in terms of your fps skill but if you know how to prioritize correctly in this game you can win and doug i mean doug mentions here there's nothing like stealing a cash out with only 10 seconds left it dude this game is like the peak dopamine hit where you're like you steal the cash out you get the money and you're like man this other team must fucking feel like shit right now and it feels so good it's griefing basically it's crazy oh yeah and there's times too where you're like man this other team this other team can outplay us if it was a 3v3 team death match we would probably lose but we have a better strategy and a better prioritization of what we need to do in the match whether it's like okay do we we need to throw this in?

2:59:50Colin Moriarty:Where do we have people stand? If someone dies, do I revive them or do I go try to steal? It's all of these different decisions at once that really add to the strategy of the game. So my recommendation, if any of this is interesting to you, is if you play the game first and you have no idea about this cash out mode, try the King of the Hill or even the Team Deathmatch mode. start with that because when i first played i went in and there's so much to take in like which class should i play there's all these different equipment that you can load in all these different weapons it's overwhelming in addition to all the different strategy elements that i was mentioning so just go in play the basic modes and start to learn about the game and you're good and then as you start to play you're like whoa this game has so many different ways to play it this is pretty sweet then you want to get into cash out and you definitely want to play with people you know solo queuing i've done it once and it wasn't pretty it might be a little better now uh with so many more people playing because the new season just dropped but yeah it feels like this game is like totally slept on they apparently it's been highly improved um and balanced since launch so maybe if you played it launched and you weren't into it now's the time to jump back in but i really can't recommend it enough uh i absolutely love it and uh who knows maybe maybe i'll stream it at some point though i'm always skeptical about streaming like high scale fps games i'm not that good even though we won those three games um as soon as i start streaming it's going to be it's jover it's not happening so uh so yeah the other game that i've been playing is hell is us and i think i mean there's three acts and i'm almost to the end of act two i'm assuming act three is kind of like the wrap-up of the game and i'm excited to talk to chris about it because this game is not perfect in fact there are many things about the game that annoy me but as we talked about on the show many many months ago at this point i think it was when it was revealed in state of play we talked about the playstation blog post where the game director was talking about player plattering uh we were making fun of that term the player plattering where it's like other games hand everything to a player on a silver platter we're player plattering by uh uh leaving it up to the player to figure things out and And...

3:02:22Colin Moriarty:It's a really bold design decision where this game doesn't necessarily give you clear objectives, doesn't necessarily tell you where to go. You have to use a compass at certain points or you need to use context clues. And I could definitely see that being a turnoff for a lot of people. but as i'm playing like man i have never played anything quite like this before and they don't always get it quite right there's definitely points in the game where i'm like dude not having a map right now fucking sucks i'm in a fucking dungeon and i'm just running around in circles and i don't know where to go um and so even when i do figure it out it's not necessarily satisfying it's just frustrating but their unwavering dedication to this idea to the point where the game war there's a warning at the beginning of this game it's like this game does not have a map this game is not going to tell you what to do find the satisfaction in figuring it out is pretty neat um the combat could be better it's really really repetitive now that i'm much later into the game uh but it's serviceable and i'm willing to forgive it for its creative bold direction so chris uh i think you're playing it as well i'm really curious what you think about it and the other thing just real quick sorry i wanted to touch on this is just that this game is dark as fuck oh yeah this is a deeply dark game dealing with uh groups of people that hate each other to the point of like mass murdering genocide shit going on um and seeing all the people in between it's very interesting so chris yeah yeah it's um yeah it feels like like presciently

3:04:15Chris Santis:depressing which is unfortunate but i think um yeah man like i i love a game like this where you know this is this is like one of the best it's almost like this is like this is one of the best um this is one of the best sevens i've ever played you know what i mean where like i just feel like the the combat is entirely fine it's not particularly deep it's not particularly complicated it actually feels fairly old um not necessarily in like a negative way like it's not um not not not a bad way but it's just like it definitely feels like an older style of combat uh there's no jump button which feels kind of weird um there's invisible walls you know in the open zones anyway but this this commitment to this like yeah no map we're not going to tell you what to do figure out remember conversations that you've had and and just really pay attention it's really engaging and it's engaging in a way that i don't feel many games are because a lot of games just kind of resort to you know obviously and for good reason um the standard kind of player um you know carrot on a stick kind of like oh here's a here's a ladder with white paint over it you know um there's none of that in this and the compass you have to use and a lot of the puzzles aren't even really clearly defined you just have to kind of figure there's an early there's an early puzzle in the main narrative with with uh a couple of paintings basically that when you figure it out it feels like oh like you feel really smart for figuring it out and it's like it's weirdly rewarding because it asks you to pay attention to things deeper than you normally would and i love it i think it's really cool i'm still pretty early on i I don't think I'm nearly as far as Dustin is because I've been splitting my time with Silksong, but I'm a little bit solid.

3:06:16Chris Santis:But it's I'm like, I think about it a lot and I it's sticking around in my in my memory. And I'm really engrossed with it. I'm impressed by it in a lot of ways. I still find the main character's hair like really awkward. I have that hat on constantly because it's just like, what is this? What is this 12 year old hair doing on this clearly 40 year old man? it's really strange but it's just there's something special here i think this is like a really good proof of concept or like the very it's a very good first attempt at whatever this thing could be in the future and like if the if this does well and and they get enough support to make another one that that's going to be the one i'm going to be like yo i gotta i gotta see what the fuck they're doing because i'm expecting this to be somewhat compromised as i'm playing it because I could I could tell like yeah okay the combat's kind of it's kind of um it's it's somewhat shallow um you know I I've heard things about the story that I won't get into now but I guess it's that's that has a bit of a dropped ball kind of quality to it for some people but the game design here is really good the puzzle design here is is definitely could be improved but is is very engaging and i appreciate it i don't know i i just i really dig it um something not the best game i've ever played but it's probably one of the more unique games i've played in probably the last several years as far as it's just commitment to what you have to do and the things you have to remember i i got into the habit of like taking notes and like sketching out like oh i gotta remember that rune and so i'll sketch out the rune on like a notepad and i love when a game like lets me do that or like makes me do that it feels more engaging and cool but it's definitely not going to be for everybody there's definitely going to be people who are going to play this and they're going to be lost within the first minute or the first like couple the first hour or two and then they're just gonna be like ah i don't know i want to actually wonder how lost you can get like at certain points because i'm just like man i don't know how i figured this out like sometimes it feels like just by the by sheer coincidence i'm like oh okay so this is where i'm supposed to be good but it's engaging and and very cool um but yeah i'm still i'm still fairly early i think i'm like eight nine hours in or something so i'm sure i've got there's there's more to go um and i guess the rest of it i've been playing middle gear solid delta i've i've i already beat it but i'm trying to go through i'm trying to do the extreme difficulty i'm trying to get um i'm trying to do it no kills because i really was i felt like frank reynolds my first playthrough i was just blasting i was blasting if i got caught i was blasting if the alert went off everyone was dying and it really made that like what is it the the i can't remember what was the guy the boss battle with all the the consequences i should say oh the sorry um yeah yeah i that was uh rough that was really brutal for me until i realized like oh i didn't even have to do this but so i'm i'm going through it again i haven't killed anybody which is good although i don't see games like this are interesting because like they're really i love how in-depth they are i think metal gear solid 3 is like surprisingly there's a lot to it that i didn't really engage with the first time around like in my first my first playthrough i almost never um like walked up behind an enemy and did the freeze mechanic i don't think i ever did that what to shake them loose for supplies or whatever i i didn't do that once um and like other things like that but it there are these moments where i'm like oh this game's really impressive and it's really in depth and there's so many of these interlocking systems and i remember i tranquilized a guy on a pier and he fell in the water asleep and i was like oh fuck he drowned and so i checked the it's the little sat and then i was like oh no he's fine i was like what and then i looked this up and he was like yeah it doesn't count i'm like well yep why i did the same thing happened to me

3:10:23Dustin Furman:too where i was like ah fuck because i would constantly check that as well yeah explosions and drowning do not kill them for some reason so like yeah it does if you blow up like a barrel

3:10:32Chris Santis:you could you could actually kill them right no consequence like it it seems like it's like um i guess like what i read was that oh it counts as like an incidental casualty of war or whatever and i'm just like that's i mean i definitely killed that guy

3:10:47Dustin Furman:like he's definitely waterboarding himself punch someone and they landed face down in a puddle

3:10:51Chris Santis:and he dies it's like well you killed him you know yeah so that that's kind of like confusing me a little bit because i was like all right well i don't know how intricate these systems are i'm I'm thankful for it because I've definitely abused the shit out of that. I've definitely been walking people up to peers and tranquilizing the shit out of them. Like, why would you not? I guess it also doesn't count if they fall off a cliff as well. It's hysterical. But I'm deep into it now, into my second playthrough. I'm fighting the end right now. And I gotta be honest, this is where I'm kind of like, fuck, I don't.

3:11:24Chris Santis:I'm thinking about just waiting. I'm thinking about just waiting out the clock. Because I'm just like, I don't want to waste ammo on this. I know I can just be patient, but, uh, and I already beat him the first time. So whatever, but I really, I have a new appreciation for middle gear solid three that I didn't have before. I think, um, cause I think I, I, I liked the overall simplicity of middle gear solid two. And I think I probably still maybe like middle gear solid two more, although the new controls for Delta really help, um, unquestionably, um, there's a lot here that I just appreciate more like the camouflage system.

3:11:59Chris Santis:I used to think it was tedious to eat food and, you know, tend to your wounds and, you know, change the camouflage. And it is, but it's tedious in the same way that, you know, like banging your head against a puzzle in Hell is Us is tedious. Like it is, but it's satisfying to engage with, to get like the proper camouflage and to trick people in an effective way and lure people with like magazines and using the porn magazines is very fun. I like I didn't do that at all the first time

3:12:29Dustin Furman:there's that's the I agree with what you were saying that I appreciate it more now that I played it non-violently and did like a Foxhound run then then then I did I went back and even listened to a little bit of the knockback episode I did five years ago whatever with Dagan on it where I was like it's good I like the enemies but I have this problem this problem this problem I think it's such a clean experience now on PS5 and the controls are much improved making the game much more playable and yeah the non-violent stuff and all the different options there are just little things everywhere where it's like this game is really somewhat brilliant actually and just the idea like just the sorrow boss fight like you said like that entire idea is just really smart that idea alone is right and there's like a lot of those and it's you know like killing yourself and using like the the fake pill and and and that there's like

3:13:23Chris Santis:many ways to get out of that and uh i remember i put the i remember there's a building where you have to disguise yourself as a scientist and i just put the clothes on and i walked up to a guard he was like who the fuck are you and i was like oh and i turned and i still had face paint because i didn't notice i was like oh well that of course that looks that was really bad the

3:13:41Dustin Furman:costumes like the disguises are really really fun different weapons selection is really fun the bosses are really fun and and i just wish we got to know the cobra unit better i mean that's a major complaint of mine in the game but just the idea that like you like i don't want to ruin it it is 20 years old but like what you can do to one of the bosses before you ever fight him yeah like there's a moment where it's like there's so much it's amazing yeah it's incredible

3:14:04Chris Santis:it's very impressive we'll talk more about it when we when we do a our cast on it but uh it's very good i really appreciate it i'm gonna i'm trying to get all the trophies at this point because i'm just like so why not like i'm kind of there anyway although i did i do realize that i missed one of the collectibles in the um there's like a the first fight with ocelot there's one that i missed and i'm just like ah and i looked at the save that i had and it was just too early i was like i'll just i'll just do it again sometime in the future and i was really careful

3:14:34Dustin Furman:about the collectibles they're like shootable collectibles in each basically each map has one of each but i was less careful in like food and animals and stuff and you have to get all that as well but i i serendipitously had say i would make a new save like a new save slot like every hour and i serendipitously had like a new a save of save files that appropriately got me to where i needed to go the one trophy that actually was most annoying and i did have a save to get it but it took a while was you have to like hold up an enemy and get him to give you the radio codes for a fire yeah fire support or whatever and it's only certain guards that will do that so yeah that's a little annoying, but it is different than having to like, I was telling Mike, I'm like, dude, if they remake Metal Gear Solid or Metal Gear Solid 2, there will certainly be trophies attached as there were in the remasters of getting all of the dog tags in Metal Gear Solid 2 or Metal Gear Solid 1.

3:15:26Dustin Furman:It's not about avoiding or knocking out enemies in that game. It's like you have to shake every one of them down. Yeah, it's crazy. That's hard as fuck. And that's the thing is I just never, because Metal Gear didn't didn't control well i think i said this last week because metal gear was always kind of a struggle to control i never played it at a high level because it was like oh i'm just glad to get through it on normal and experience the story and have fun with the combat but now you can really finally play it like you can really play it like a third person shooter yeah it's yeah it's great and not killing anyone is really challenging and it brings the full game out yeah it makes it a

3:16:02Chris Santis:real stealth game because like every playthrough i was usually pretty good but then like there was always that mountaintop area where i just i would always get found i'm just like i'm blasting i'm blessed it's fine but uh the one thing i'm struggling with is like i can't seem to throw a fucking poisonous there's like a trophy for throwing a poisonous creature at like a i i don't know how that works it has to be alive yeah okay i wanted to make sure it was like one of the one of the caged ones yeah yeah i wasn't throwing meat yeah i just didn't know that was maybe your confusion yeah no i no i got it but like every it doesn't i don't know i'll look up a guide or something because like i seem to i feel like i'm doing it correctly but like it just doesn't

3:16:40Dustin Furman:there's a great they don't care there's a great place to do it in the very beginning you know how you do the virtuous mission so you just blast through the virtuous mission then you're back in like where you were and there's like a cobra or something right in that area and you could do it like right away so it's easy to do like right off yeah i'll just yeah i'll do it when i when i go

3:16:56Chris Santis:through it again but the but yeah that's that and then uh silk song i bit the bullet i was like why not you know it's it's cheap i'll try it out i didn't get too far in the original hollow night it kind of filtered me i just felt like it was getting too it was too i'm very movement oriented when it comes to these games and i'm just like i felt like i just didn't i just was not making progress progress fast enough to getting like dashes and movement mechanics in the first game so i was just i just kind of put it down so song is way better paced in my opinion in that sense like it kind of gets you to the to the cool shit a little bit faster uh it's a little bit more punishing these these runbacks are the the runbacks to the bosses are like it's something else like it's it's easily the hardest part of losing to a boss is just having to walk all the way back and it's like it is kind of a miserable experience i'm surprised that it's i guess i'm not surprised that it's here i guess i'm surprised that it's here given even from soft has kind of evolved away from that at least with elden ring where like they usually have like oh there's a side of grace like right outside and it doesn't even cost any money like in so it costs money like it costs like a currency that you can lose to open these some of these save points and like i don't know man it gets it gets pretty gratuitous at certain points but it plays like exceptionally well it's very good it is more hollow knight but like a little bit better in my opinion so it's not earth shattering or like surprising but it's it's some good it's some good 2d combat it's it's really well paced the movements are really really good like it's really like flowy and really sticky um certain fights uh have had me tilted which is fine i accept that i have uh i've died definitely like 20 plus times to this bird boss kind of somewhat early on where i was just like i i earnestly hate this creature like earnestly like i feel hatred uh and there's some times where like i feel like hitboxes are a little like well i wasn't really touching him and i did hit i did hit his wing and you're not letting me have it that's okay yeah that's neither here nor there but i notice yeah i hate that i hate bad hitboxes and it's not it's it's not as bad as i'm making it's it's very very good it's it's very satisfying to control there's a lot of satisfying platforming in there that involves like kind of i love that i saw people struggling with this where it's like there's like a kind of like a downward diagonal kind of um swipe that you're using you use the platform and it is kind of jarring but like i love it i think it makes it so much more precarious and so much more interesting um but i'm still pretty early on in that too i'm only like maybe eight or nine maybe seven hours seven eight hours into it um progressing at my pace which for metroidvanias is probably slow so i'm probably not nearly that game time probably means nothing because there's probably somebody who played it for like five hours and is way further than me because they're just better but it's really good i it's a steal for 20 bucks it's exceptional the music is fantastic um the characterization is great like i like these characters that i'm meeting i love the the art design and just the world design is very it's like somber but uh but elegant i think the first game was a little bit first game was a little bit more dire for me like it was a little bit more like monotone and this feels like it's still kind of grimdark but like there's there's still a lot of color and accents and really creative enemy designs and really creative ways to interact and i love that there's a parry mechanic but it's not really a dedicated like oh parry it's just kind of attack at the right moment and it counts as a parry i think that's like engaging and cool and it feels it feels a little bit more um immersive that way than it does to feel like i have to press the parry button now it actually feels like you're actually like you know hitting hitting an attack away with with your attack button there's little things like that that make the game really good but yeah i mean so song pretty good i'm impressed i'm happy with it i don't think it's i personally don't think it's game of the year quite yet um but it's it's very good and like i said it's just for 20 like i i really can't recommend it highly enough it's very good

3:21:13Dustin Furman:i'll get to it eventually there's too many games on the i mean i definitely want to play it i I liked Hollow Knight a lot, but it's been it's been a while since I have played that. So, yeah, stained. Funny enough, I I named last week's episode after a stained song. Oh, really? Yeah. The song fade, which I'm a big fan of. Yeah. All right. Well, let's get into six questions, comments, concerns, thoughts and ideas and wrap this show up over on Patreon dot com slash last day media. You support us, get a bunch of different perks. Part of that is getting access to the weekly news, the weekly thread in the news feed.

3:21:50Dustin Furman:Sorry, I'm like totally shot today. And you put your inquiries in there. I combed through them. And we talked about this very extensively earlier in the show, if you're unfamiliar. And I put six more at the end of the show here that we can finish up with. And we'll move fairly quickly here. John Arola wrote in and said, hey, Colin, with portal season in full effect, have you ever checked out the officially licensed Power A charging dock for the portal? i gotta say it really makes the portal pop sitting on top of my entertainment center and fits right next to the real ps or to my ps5 reminds me a lot of the old official vita doc too plus it lets my house guests know who the real pro gamer is um i don't have this i wanted to bring this up because do you guys ever buy these kinds of like display accessories charging accessories docks things of this nature i've never really i've never bought one sometimes i would get them for free when i was media a good example is i got a really great like a holder for my original psvr that was like a little head kind of the forehead thing you put it over it it was kind of cool the vita doc i got obviously the um but i never like have bought any of those things so it's just not something that i'm attracted to though i think it's probably very cool i just i honestly i just have my vita just sitting on a table like my coffee table or not my vita my uh portal do you do you guys buy Do you guys ever invest in these kind of these charging accessories or these display accessories that heighten the visual?

3:23:14Colin Moriarty:I do have the DualSense charging dock. Actually, I have two of them because one of them came with the pro anniversary one, which is good because I have four controllers. And that's extremely convenient, especially because the DualSense dies all the time. So to just be able to plop it, I have it right next to where I sit, plop it down, charge it up. You're good to go for next time. uh i have the steam deck dock that's just a horrible thing to say steam deck dock um it kind of sucks um but i don't know if it's the dock's fault or if it's the steam deck just not really being well designed to be plugged into a tv i've had a bunch of issues with it uh over the year or so that i've had it so i don't necessarily recommend that um now i have my downstairs pc set up so i don't even need to plug my steam deck into a tv really at all um i don't need a portal dock because i just don't really use the portal that much i have the psvr tool the controller dock as well which i haven't used my psvr in months so i guess i i've owned a dock or two i've docked in my time docked an accessory and a controller thing in you know what i mean i like docking myself

3:24:37Dustin Furman:um chris do you have anything you want to say about this because i was going to go to you with

3:24:40Chris Santis:the next one well i yeah no i mean i i used to i used to really like the idea of them but like when push came whenever push came to shove and i was at like a best buy or like a you know a retailer and i had the opportunity to buy one i just couldn't i couldn't get myself to do it in the same way that I feel I feel the same way about wallets where like I remember explicitly going out one day like a long time ago like I think when I was in like high school or like maybe early college and I was like I need a new wallet and then I went out to like some stores and then I found a wallet that I liked and then I realized that like alright I'm going to pull money out of my existing wallet to pay for this thing but if I can do that I don't really need this do I you know and that's kind of thing with like the like the charging docks for like controllers like i like the way they look and i i've always like thought about like oh it'd be nice to have one of those but every time i'm about to buy one i'm like i i could just plug this in like it doesn't bother me at the moment that i'm plugging it in so what am i doing really and i i for that's always been a mental a mental block for me when it comes to these things that i have the steam deck dock because that was like a god that is a tainest thing to say uh i have the steam deck dock purely because i was like oh this is like a useful this actually transforms the capability of this machine a little bit but it it does frankly it sucks it's it's not a very good piece of machinery like i i don't think it's worked it's it's a good charging station i guess for me but like it straight up does not connect to my tv anymore and i'm just like well cool great um so that was like not a great purchase not a great uh not a great first foray i guess into that world you know the closest thing i would do is like get like the rechargeable battery packs for like xbox 360 but that was like that was obvious because why the fuck wouldn't you but not really not really that much of a peripheral guy i'm fine just putting things on a table or plugging things in and just kind of leaving them next to the machine it's that's fine yeah even the little like ps2 stands back in the

3:26:55Dustin Furman:day and i'm like yeah it's the same thing i'm like i'm not buying this yeah the ps2 stand to

3:26:59Chris Santis:me was weird because like the ps2 stand of all the machines that i've owned the ps2 is probably like the least like i was so i was the least worried about that thing tipping over than i was about anything like that it's it was so flat and so like perfectly weighted where i was like why would i this is gonna be fine as it is my ps5 pro i have like i have standing up and i have no um i don't have a stand on it and it's been perfectly fine i do worry about it though because it is thin and i just feel like a breeze is gonna topple it but it hasn't happened yet so i'm fine also i don't live outside so there's no breezes but ah the stands

3:27:45Dustin Furman:me sorry i'm like delusion of delirious delusional i am delusional as well but i'm delirious jeff willingham wrote in willingham willingham hey cdc my question is mostly geared towards chris this week is marathon worth being excited for i know it's getting a lot of hate online but i thought it looked cool and it looks really unique visually stolen assets aside i'm still planning on checking this game out day one but i wasn't able to access the closed beta like chris it's a bungee game so i assume the gameplay is solid but i'd be curious to get chris's updated thoughts as we move closer to the it being revealed again is it worth being excited for uh for marathon is it worth giving your precious time and attention to it i don't know i think it's

3:28:23Chris Santis:i think it's kind of a weird question because like is anything worth i i mean i i think if you're excited about it i think that's cool i think if you're hyped for it i think that's a different thing there's a lot of there's there's a kind of a cross section of of definitions there where i just i feel like people over hide themselves on things and they end up disappointed um i try to avoid that i try to you know just say oh that game's coming out i'm excited to play it um and just you know see what happens as a result of that but i mean i i really i really maintain this like i really really liked what i played i'm like i i put i think about 40 something i think maybe like 37 to 45 hours into into the alpha when when we had it which is like no no small amount of time considering the window but i thought what was there was like really solid and really cool i thought the art direction was sick i thought the sound design was cool i thought the weapons played well i i met people uh that i'm excited to play with again when the game comes out.

3:29:27Chris Santis:I think what they're doing with narrative stuff is kind of interesting, if a little bit unpolished. But I mean, it's an alpha, so I'm not surprised by that. I just think... I think Marathon's going to be a very good game. If I had to bet money, I would say it's going to be a really good game. But I also don't know if it'll be this big thing that many people will care about. That's kind of the main distinction. I think it'll be successful. I think enough people will play. You're not going to have Marathon be in a Concord situation where like only 12 people are playing it or something you know what i mean like that's that's not really going to happen uh if for no other reason than purely just because there's a lot of influencers who like pay attention to this stuff and also think it's cool and will be putting out content and and doing a lore breakdown people are people really get drawn in by that but i mean i don't know it really depends on what you're into like it is an extraction shooter you're definitely going to get a better time out of it if you play with people that you know or like uh you're definitely not going to want to play you know solo with with it's just not that kind of experience um although i think they're working to accommodate that i think marathon's cool i like the original lore of marathon i like that it's kind of playing into it uh some of the leaks that i've heard people have broken some of the ndas for these uh closed tests and what i've heard sounds more promising than what i played and i already liked what i played so i don't know like i get the negativity and i totally like i i sympathize with some of it because i do wish that we lived in like an era or like an industry where you know you could get something like this in addition to like a really robust single player campaign um like i do wish that um you know i wish that there wasn't like a weird plagiarism issue like there's all sorts of things that i wish that weren't true for the game but whether it's worth being excited or not that's that's kind of up to you and what your personal preferences are if you like extraction shooters i would say yeah i'd say you probably have something cool to look forward to if you're not really into that i don't i don't think it's going to convince you although it did convince me to be fair but like i i'm not most i'm not most people dustin let's throw this one at you the national debt wrote in

3:31:45Dustin Furman:said i know the situation is likely dire at media molecule but i'm wondering what type of game you gentlemen would have them working on to try and turn things around is a cozy game the right direction i see a british studio whose signature style is charm and a massive sub genre with games like animal crossing and stardew valley racking up tens of millions of sales if sony was also keen to pursue games as a service with media molecule the genre is also ripe for events and endless updates these games also sing on handheld devices something to keep in mind with the ps6 handheld in the pipeline. In my mind's eye, I can see a game set in a cozy English countryside village or something where you run around tending the crops and go to the pub.

3:32:18Dustin Furman:They could call it Worcestershire Tales or something. I'm not British. What do you guys think?

3:32:24Colin Moriarty:I don't think that's a bad idea. I think with Media Molecule, their ambition got the best of them with Dreams. And we've talked about that endlessly. So what do you do when you're a company known for making games that you can create games within? And your last one failed because you went too big with it and weren't really able to truly execute. I think that their best course of action is you have to think smaller for the next game, which is kind of normally what you wouldn't expect for a studio. I wonder if there is something where you make a game where maybe it is through and through. It sounds so weird if you were like reading a transcript, but you know what I mean?

3:33:09Colin Moriarty:you make a video game like an actual video game that you play um and maybe you focus on the creation elements to be something within the game um national debt here brings up the idea of a cozy farming game and maybe that's a good idea maybe it's not but imagine a game like that where it's like you can create all the elements of your house and then you can um create all the things you put in it things like that my main point overall is just that i think that trying to make something crazy like little big planet or dream something like that again is going to be the wrong course of action and they need to get back they need to get back to a base level before they can move outward again i'm just going to reiterate what i think about media molecule which is i just don't

3:34:00Dustin Furman:care.

3:34:03I don't.

3:34:04Dustin Furman:I don't care. I don't care. They talk about of all the studios that PlayStation ruined and squandered. This is. The one they ruined and squandered the most, and I'd be hard pressed to give a shit at this point what they do, but we'll see one way or the other. And yeah, the cozy game revolution has been interesting to watch. Although I look at cozy, I love cozy. I always bring up Resident Evil save rooms, but just like the coziness of finding coziness in frightening or off-putting games I think is actually more fun. But that's not what people are looking for. They want to plant crops. They want to have romance.

3:34:42Dustin Furman:They want to run their shop. They want to have dialogue options I guess and seasons. Weather. You put seeds in the soil. You understand how farming works, Chris? You put seeds in the soil. yeah then it then it photosynthesizes i'm growing basil right now actually oh and you're like in

3:35:03Chris Santis:your kitchen window or something no i've got like a i've got like a balcony that i've kind of like worked it to kind of retrofit into like a little bit of a because i get a lot of sun out there and i'm just like i'm never really out there anyway so i just might as well just use it for something

3:35:16Dustin Furman:cool it's fun to grow crops i like growing things as well all right soups wrote in said Greetings, Sacred Crew. Last week, there was a discussion around Silksong's$20 price point, with the consensus being that the price was a favorable one for consumers, which is true. While I'm glad to see more people with access to a great game, I wondered if I might play Devil's Advocate here. Team Cherry is in a unique position. The team is extremely small, and the success of Hollow Knight means that they're presumably set for life in terms of their finances. As a result, the pricing of Silksong is likely less impactful on their own livelihoods as it would be for a different dev.

3:35:47Dustin Furman:Hell, they could have released the game for free and they'd still be all fabulously wealthy. Releasing Silksong at$20 feels like something they're in a position of privilege to do and I wonder if this might create a negative ripple effect wherein other developers are forced to lower their prices in turn just because gamers expect great quality at an exceptionally low price. I'm not a game developer and I'm not an expert on the financial considerations around game budgets and pricing, but my concern is that gamers, particularly loudmouth online gamers who only care about things being cheap and nothing else, will use this$20 price as a talking point in the future when less established devs need to sell their games at a higher price point just to break even.

3:36:19Dustin Furman:I think Silksong is worth $30 at minimum based on the length and quality, but the conversation on what price should a game really be seems to go out the window when a game of this magnitude is sold so cheaply. As Colin often says, gaming is a luxury hobby, so I tend to think we should be prepared to pay a premium for a product as high quality as Silksong, even if it's just$10 more. What do you think? Am I off base on this? Apologies for the long write-in, but I think it's worth considering. Thanks for all the great content. I'll do a David Carradine in my bedroom closet, and listen, that's wrong.

3:36:46Dustin Furman:Who's David Carradine again? he um let me look it up real quick because i think he did kill the name is that name is familiar

3:36:52Chris Santis:yeah i have no let me see here copy it's probably some heinous story yeah i'm sure it is it's seen

3:36:59Dustin Furman:oh yeah right he's the guy from kung fu um here i'll put it in the chat that's where i know that guy from yeah i used to watch this with my dad kung fu yeah the um oh right right right right the i watched the legend continues or whatever with my dad but there was an original kung fu that was uh let me see david carradine filmography let me see if i can find the actual name yeah he was in kill bill right like i yeah yeah yeah kung fu the legend continues 93 to 97 that's the one i watched with my dad but it was based on a 1972 to 1975 show also called kung fu which i think my dad watched but i have no basis for that um and let's see uh death

3:37:48Colin Moriarty:um carried like a sex accident oh no oh no no bill the police suggested the death might have

3:37:59Dustin Furman:been from accidental suffocation since there was no suicide note and he was found with a rope tied

3:38:02Chris Santis:to both his neck and his genitals oh wow okay well all right don't do that all right back

3:38:10Dustin Furman:back to the topic at hand um thank you for reminding me of david carotty and i knew i knew that name a good memory of my childhood um before he had a rope tied around his penis apparently allegedly allegedly so i was a little disappointed with some people's response to my conversation last week about silk song's price because of course everyone has to make it personal and insult me um and like well you're just upset because your games are suck and you're gonna have to and they're charging this but i'm like that's nothing to do with me or my games like why why can't people just like make an observation about extracting money out of a product that's there for you that's like there for the taking i think it's weird i've made my argument personally that i think the money they they made by convincing people to buy the 20 dollars is in no way overwhelmed the people that would have paid 30 dollars to it they left money on the table that's their choice it is what it is it's i'm absolutely positive that that's true um but i did want to bring this up because there is this whole parallel conversation to the end of what i was just saying which i don't know if you guys have seen the compilation of like linkedin stuff or whatever where there are different people saying like this is kind of in their own way in their own in their own you know serious way or somber way or funny way or mean way everyone's saying you know this game kind of has disrupted things to a degree that people don't quite appreciate and that it kind of sucks for us in quotes that this game is so cheap and it undercuts us but to me i think that that is kind of the market like in other words i don't really give a shit about how it affects other products it's not what i ever said it's not what i ever implied and i certainly don't care that it affects my products because i'm gonna let you in on a little secret um team cherry and lilymo don't make the same kinds of games and we in no way shape or form make a game to the level, nor are we trying to, of Silksong.

3:39:57Dustin Furman:I don't really consider them competition. I don't consider us competition to anybody. We're just a little outfit. It's not through that perspective. It does feel like a lot of people do feel that way. I wonder what you guys think of that argument, that there's something unsavory, I guess, about charging so little for something and then kind of unbalancing the economy for games around it. I just feel like ultimately this is not really their problem. And their responsibility. And I also think that a lot of people that bought silksong probably understand that it is underpriced. By at least 50%, probably 100%.

3:40:34Colin Moriarty:That's what I was going to say is that I think that the right in here assumes too little of the consumer. Like that they're going to, because of this one example, that they then have a different standard for every game they play afterwards. and I just don't think that's the case. And here's the thing about Silksong too. While we understand that$20 is probably too cheap, it's not outside of the realm of the possibility for a game like this to be$20. And I'm trying to figure out how to say this correctly because I think that Silksong, what I played of it is excellent and clearly a cut above. And I think that all game types of genres of games are equal to different people.

3:41:26Colin Moriarty:But the way that people are acting about this being$20 is like a giant AAA Baldur's Gate 3 level game being$20. Like this is still a simpler game. I'm not saying it isn't full of content. I'm not saying there isn't all this work that it wouldn't do it. I guess I just am not like it's totally insane that it's$20. Like, yeah, they could have charged a little more, but it's not like insane, right? So I don't think that consumers are going to, this is going to like change consumer habits. Are there going to be some fucking annoying people on Twitter that's like, oh, well, so long as$20. It's like, yes.

3:42:07Colin Moriarty:People on Twitter have been annoying in the past. They are currently and they will continue to be annoying as long as the internet exists people will bring up stupid arguments or bad faith arguments and so yeah those complainers will continue to exist do they represent any larger level of the market as a whole not really 99 of the time no so um i don't think it's going to change anything i think it's cool that they were able to do for 20 and as you were saying colin it's kind of up to them um and i I think most people understand that they will play other games for$20 that maybe aren't as good, but that's the way it's always been.

3:42:50Dustin Furman:You can kind of even make the argument that this frees up money to be spent on other games. I mean, that's why I just don't like the again, like my my personal complaint. I don't want to speak for everyone else, but my personal complaint is literally that they just left money on the table in which no one would have looked at them sideways for taking it. It's up to them not to take it because people are like, oh, you always you always brag about how you leave money on the table with ads and do all these kinds of things. And I'm like, yeah, but that's not a zero sum game. If I took ads after promising not to take ads, wouldn't that make me look like a liar and a fool?

3:43:22Dustin Furman:Like I'm kind of in this corner, whether I want to be or not. And by the way, I'm totally fine being in that corner. But it's like a different story entirely to say, like, we have good value or we live by a set of principles. And another to just say, like, you left tens of millions of dollars on the table and no one would have looked at you twice for taking it. So there's just no downside to it from an economic and business point of view. That is my problem. It's not my problem, though. It's money. It's counting someone else's money. Ultimately, as far as the the economic situation in terms of its competition with other games, I never even thought of.

3:43:53Dustin Furman:I don't give a fuck about that because Silksong is undercut by a series of triple A zero dollar games. Yeah, what's higher production value? fortnight or silksong like what has more money pumped into it what has more dynamism you can do it you do it for free right now spend zero dollars forever yeah and so to me i just i'm like that whole argument is is capricious and dumb and i think people make i think people look stupid and desperate making those kinds of arguments however i also understand where the industry has been and that economic pressure has upended and fucked things up. But that's by a confluence of events, not by one offs.

3:44:38Dustin Furman:And people can say like, well, this could lead to a whole cascading event of games like that. I'm like, no, there are not a million silk songs. There's one. So in other words, there's also not many studios that are in the same position that Team Cherry is in. Right. Where they it's not altruism, but they just don't need it. And I get that. That's cool. I'm not making the argument that they do. And I think people understand that. but I will say to be fair to the devil's advocate to play the devil's advocate and to kind of see where they're coming from is that like people's decisions in the past have really fucked things up for everyone.

3:45:11Dustin Furman:I just don't think this is one of those situations. In other words, you don't hear it anymore but 15 years ago, right? 10 years ago, 15 years ago, the race to the bottom. This was a mobile thing about everyone charging less. People forget when the iPhone came out and the iOS store launched, the app store, it's like nothing was free. That's the important thing you have to understand. It's like we take that for granted, but nothing was free. It was people starting to realize over time in 08, 09, 10, it's like, oh, cheaper, cheaper, cheaper, cheaper, and then free. And then so it's like you charge$5,$10,$20, no chance.

3:45:52Dustin Furman:And I understand people are afraid of those kinds of things happening but i just don't see that like that because there's that wasn't about quality that was about volume and figuring out the market economics or something while this is a one-off situation so yes and game pass is another example of that yeah where it's like this is totally fucked up things for a lot of developers but these are confluence events not individual games in which you'll probably not see another team jerry game maybe ever and if you do because if they're so unconcerned about money it's like why even bother at this point like at that point i'd all right i'm done but maybe you see another game in five or ten years from them so i don't know i just don't think it's that big of a deal i understand people's are again my argument is so myopic towards like their own financial stability than it is from like anything else like i just don't give a shit about any other part of the argument because i think the market competition is good um yeah and i can speak from our perspective like silkstone doesn't affect anything about the way we're pricing our games it's just we're gonna have to price our games what we're gonna have to price them regardless of what silksong does yeah the other thing i would

3:46:54Chris Santis:say is that like it's it's not even it's not even the most recent indie game that's really like peak was like nine bucks or something and that's like a massive like i don't think people are going to play silksong and then they're going to be like i spent 20 on this why can't i spend 20 on gta gta 6 you know what i mean like i i just don't foresee that being like a a real reality

3:47:17Dustin Furman:do you have anything you want to calm down do you want to have anything you want to add dustin oh nothing else okay graham waldrop wrote in said boys apparently dan hauser will be making his first camera interview during la comic-con on september 27th with ryan mcafree perfect person to interview him to discuss his upcoming projects including two open world games a comic book series and a novel and also to talk about his work with rockstar i'm delighted to actually see and hear from the man himself whose stories i've thoroughly enjoyed over the years despite the fact that he has lived in the shadows compared to the other story-oriented heavyweights in the industry like Druckmann and Kojima.

3:47:48Dustin Furman:What do you think Hauser can create in the gaming space outside of writing a Rockstar game? Will he try to make something tonally different from Red Dead Redemption and Grand Death Auto or will he make something new that shares the same kind of DNA he loves to play with? I'm especially interested in how Colin thinks Ryan will conduct the interview since they are former colleagues. Thanks for all the great content. I'll ride from Perdido to Blackwater and listen. It's funny because you're asking, I mean, to answer your last question first, Ryan is one of the great minds that's left in games journalism as it currently is constructed and there are a few people I would rather have access to Dan Hauser than him.

3:48:27Dustin Furman:He's a veteran and he'll ask all the right questions. I'm sure he'll be, how will he conduct it? I'm sure, knowing Ryan as I do, I'm sure he'll be incredibly prepared.

3:48:38Dustin Furman:charitable uh you know i i just think it's going to be a good interview so i'm looking forward to seeing that and i didn't realize dan hauser like has just doesn't give any sort of interview i know he hasn't spoken in a while um so hauser dan hauser has been gone from rockstar since 2020 he does his he's at his new company called absurd ventures or whatever um laszlo i think is there Michael Unsworth is there as well. So like old rock star peeps. And of course, for people that don't know, Dan Hauser was basically well known as being the writer or one of the lead writers of all the Grand Theft Auto games going back to, I think, London 1969.

3:49:16Dustin Furman:And he acted in some production capacity as well, but he's known primarily as the writer of like GTA 3, Vice City, San Andreas, the stories games, Grand Theft Auto 4, and all the DLC, and then GTA 5, and then Red Dead 1, Red Dead 2, and he wrote Bully and a few other things too. So what is he going to do? What is he going to have to say? I really don't know. If I were him, I would want to get away from those big bloated games just because I think we already have a Grand Theft Auto 5. I don't know. Dan Houser will, or a Grand Theft Auto 6. It's sad because Dan Houser was so instrumental to the feel of those games, but I also wouldn't, I don't want to say overstate.

3:50:03Dustin Furman:He's obviously a great creator, but it's like no one was playing her in the photo three for the story. There's more to it than that. So he needs to have the proper collaborators as well. One of the cool things he's doing is that I think absurd ventures is doing that, that it's like a better paradise or whatever it's called. And it's, it's a bunch of different, it's supposed to be a bunch of different formats in the same story. So, or in the same world. So there's like a novel, I think there's a podcast series. and ultimately there will be a game. So what he'll end up doing, I don't know. We'll have to find out.

3:50:35Dustin Furman:And I'm sure we're going to learn a lot more about it. What I'm more interested is not the future, but then the past. Like what happened here? And because he left Rockstar right before COVID started, like right before. And yeah, I don't really know. I don't really know. Do you guys have anything you want to add to this?

3:50:53Colin Moriarty:I think that. Yeah, I kind of have the same feeling as used like well i don't know the only thing i can say is just that in particularly with red dead redemption and red dead redemption 2 i mean these are like modern in my opinion like modern western classics in terms of story like you could look at red dead red dead redemption 2 as if it's like a great novel but in presented in video games um and for that reason pretty much anything he does or writes, I'm going to be interested in checking out. Even if it's something that I might not traditionally be interested in. I'm not particularly into westerns at all, but then I played Red Dead Redemption and now I want to say Howdy and wear a cowboy hat.

3:51:40Colin Moriarty:Maybe once in my life. Yeah, at least once. Howdy. So, he has the ability to just take the human element of different settings and situations and make it really good. I guess to put it as simply as possible. So whatever he does, and I'll be really curious to see this interview that he does with Ryan. All right. Anything you want to add, Chris, before we move on to the final inquiry?

3:52:06Chris Santis:No, not really. I'm just, I'm just super interested to see like the fact that he is known as somebody who just, I guess, doesn't do this often implies to me that there will be something worth hearing in here. And so I'm all ears, especially just, yeah, for the, for the guy who wrote red dead. I mean, that, that is like a, that's like a, it's like a Moby Dick level kind of you know like that's like an all-american classic video game now you know and in my eyes yeah I mean Red Dead 2 especially is a very impressive

3:52:32Dustin Furman:feat yeah that was the last thing that was the kind of his uh his ultimate work before he left because he was on like he was on leave from Rockstar and then yeah he just decided to leave his brother was a longtime producer Sam at Rockstar as well I don't know what his status is the Hausers are low-key very very rich and I don't mean that just from like they're like hundreds of millions of dollars rich and um so it'll be interesting to track what goes on with all of that but yeah we'll we'll tune into that on september 27th and i'm sure we'll talk more about it at that time final inquiry comes from luna mora who says hey sexy symbols it's clear playstation has a timed exclusivity strategy in place when it comes to porting their single player games to pc however would it really be that big of a deal or a different or different if they had the same time exclusivity approach when it comes to making xbox and nintendo ports It feels like the bandaid is already partially ripped off.

3:53:19Dustin Furman:You can already play the last of us with an Xbox or Nintendo controller via PC, for example. If people are already locked into their, I mean, that's, I don't know what that means.

3:53:27Colin Moriarty:That, yeah, that point makes no sense to me, but if people are already locked into their

3:53:32Dustin Furman:digital ecosystems, wouldn't it make sense to embrace the timed exclusivity strategy across all platforms and not just PC? It just seems like the timed exclusivity strategy is kind of win-win for everybody. PlayStation users can be happy about having their exclusives at launch. Xbox, Nintendo and PC players will be happy what they get to play PlayStation games and And PlayStation will be happy with the increased sales and player counts. Would the market really shift that much if PlayStation had a timed exclusivity strategy across all platforms? I'd love to hear your thoughts. And thanks for the great content as always.

3:53:55Dustin Furman:I bring this inquiry up because I'm kind of and I'm not trying to cast, you know, yell cast aspersions at Luna Mura. But it's like I'm just kind of tired of talking about this topic at this point. We have to just wait and see now what happens because you can make steel manned arguments for both sides very easily. At least I can. It simply all revolves around protecting the platform or selling more copies of your games. And even with the Spider-Man sales being so clearly so high with Spider-Man 1 and 2 and Miles Morales, all top 20 selling PlayStation games of all time, you could use that data and then make the argument one way or the other very compellingly.

3:54:34Dustin Furman:And so at some point, it just becomes like, what are we even doing? I see those sales and I can say, well, look at how popular Spider-Man is. Imagine how many copies we can sell on Xbox. I see those copies sold and I say like, oh, this is so vital for PlayStation. Why would you ever give anyone these games? They're both equally equivalent arguments. So I just think we're kind of talking about nothing at this point. The next move is going to see what Sony does. And I think that if we go through the rest of the year without any more PlayStation games migrating to Xbox specifically, and we don't get any more announcements, that might not happen at all.

3:55:10Dustin Furman:because I just think you're getting closer and closer to the Xbox release specifically of the next console wherein you just wait it out and you get your games on Steam you win without capitulating everyone wins it doesn't matter anymore but this argument this conversation I think we have to just kind of put a pin in it and so that's why I wanted to end with it there's just nothing else there's literally nothing else to say and I don't know if that guy that resonates with you guys it's like I believe in my heart and in my my analytical mind that it would be bad for PlayStation long term to bring their games to Xbox.

3:55:40Dustin Furman:I believe that the battle is over. Yes, but now there's such a capitulation that it's like it just doesn't matter anymore. And yeah, Helldivers did materially well, but we're still talking about 30 million, 25 million dollars gross revenue. I mean, that's really nothing. Now, would they sell a lot more copies of Spider-Man or Last of Us or something? Sure. But at what cost? Why would you even risk it? So that's my argument. And that's how I personally feel. But if you wash my brain and then I just made the entire opposite argument, I could also make it quite compelling. That you want to spread the field and that there isn't anything to lose that PlayStation has already won, that no one's going to buy an Xbox at this point, or a few people are buying them anyway.

3:56:23Dustin Furman:It doesn't really matter. Sure. I don't know what's right. I don't know what's wrong. None of us really do. I have my suspicions, but we'll find out what happens. Does that make sense to you guys? yeah all right then let's get the hell out of here it's time to go appreciate everyone out there for dealing with us today i am so tired and groggy and annoyed and upset about things i appreciate the distraction as i said i will be very curious what people's reactions are to what we've said I think ultimately the course of the show is dictated by the audience but my theory of the case is that the mainline audience is fine with the status quo that I think we're going to be okay and we'll reconvene next week for another episode of Sacred Symbols.

3:57:23Dustin Furman:Let's go around the horn and say goodbye to everyone. Chris, goodbye to you. Be well. Anything to say before we head out?

3:57:29Chris Santis:No, I mean I don't know I don't even know what today's what time is it even 2 p.m. I think today's just a laundry day for me at this point I've been putting it off like a fool like a darn fool so I'll probably spend the rest of the day just doing chores and shit but uh no I appreciate uh being able to talk about shit it's I think it's important and uh you know communication is necessary and so yeah i don't know thanks for giving me the opportunity to do it yeah no

3:58:03Dustin Furman:problem and we'll see what yeah we'll see what everyone says i really don't know i'll be very very again unusually curious dustin what do you have to say as we go goodbye to you be well any

3:58:12Colin Moriarty:plans anything to say i have nothing serious left to say ever uh at this point um let's see tonight maybe finish up hell is us i probably have i probably can't finish it tonight i think i do have a decent chunk of it left brandon texted me while we were recording asked me if i wanted to go to dinner so maybe i'll do that though i don't know if holly has plans so yeah just uh you know uh another episode in the books a lot of serious talk a lot of laughs so it has a little something for everybody a lot of laughs please a lot of laughs please please well i don't i guess it's not please enjoy you you've made it this point maybe you didn't enjoy it maybe you did i

3:58:59Dustin Furman:hope you did um yeah maybe you hated the entire thing it's impossible for me to know some people do listen that way yes i've realized that over time yes i couldn't imagine doing that but i do realize that i authentically don't watch or listen to anything i don't like so i can't can't relate but yeah teach them um all right yeah so for me i'm so i'm so tired like i just didn't sleep well i'm i've been you know doing a lot of thinking and just doing a lot of different worrying and all that kind of stuff so i think ultimately like no matter what my plans are i'm probably gonna i'm gonna try to watch thursday night football i'll probably fall asleep on the couch um hell yeah and uh yeah just eat dinner i gotta bring the dogs out and do some work but yeah otherwise is nothing nothing too crazy tonight well i appreciate you guys um we'll reconvene next week chris i'll see tomorrow from when we're recording for uh sacred symbols plus right and um dustin i'll see you soon as well we'll be together for a month on monday for sacred streaming um i guess that's it we appreciate you guys thank you for your support we love your kindness patreon.com slash last day media for early ad free access last day media store for merch we'll see you next time until then goodbye see ya take care guys sacred symbols a playstation podcast is a product and trademark of Last Stand Media and Colin's Last Stand LLC and is proudly recorded in the USA.

4:00:14Dustin Furman:The show was conceived by, is written by, and is directed by me, Colin Moriarty. My co-hosts are Chris Raygun Maldonado and Dustin Furman. The show is produced by executive producer Dustin Furman. All of Last Stand's theme music is by my best friend, Ramon Narvaez. As you know, all of Last Stand shows, including Sacred Symbols, are fan-funded on Patreon at patreon.com slash laststandmedia. The following names are at the producer level on Patreon, our highest tier, and we're grateful for your thoughtful and kind contributions to our independent endeavor. Thank you. Aaron Betke, Aaron Temple, Adam Bader, Adam Nix, Adam Refriended, Ah Peace and Quiet, Albert Pujols, Albion, Alex Cabrera, Alex Gates, Alex LaPierre, Alex Monez, Alan Tiniak, Alan Tremblay, Alan Niner, Anthony Vasquez, Anton K., Antonio C., Asak Paredes, Austin Riley, Azan, Betty Ann Moriarty, Bjorn Campbell, Blackjack, Boots, Brad Cooley, Brad Lohman, Brian Williamson, Cannonball Jones, Captain Verde, Carlos Algarit, Chad Lewis, Chris Galvin, Chris Morton, Christopher Devayo, Christopher Moore, Christopher Morgan, Colin Love, Corey Bicom, Corey Dustin, Dan Root, Daniel D 'Amour, Daryl E.

4:01:28Dustin Furman:Naaman, Dave Alvarez, David Castanez, Dennis Usel, Dio or Die, Don Lee, Donald John Vaders, WTF, Dustin Klingman, Eddie Medina, Eddie Smith, Electric Soup, Ellis, Enrique Perez, Fozzie Bear, Gary Cavallo, Gavin, Geek Aloud, Gio Corsi, Grayson Maxwell, Gregory Slavinsky, Gus, Hugo Delegia, Jad Rita, Jake C, Jason Arzon, Jay Getter, Jean-Francois Forzi, Jeff Mercado, Geria, Jerome Ferreira, Jimmy Rodriguez, Joe McPartland, Joey Gondoliker, John Schultz, John Zyle, Johnny Waffles, John Cordero, Jonathan Coates, Jonathan Cortez, Joosh, Jorge Padilla, Jorge Pal, Joseph Baker, Josh Godfrey, Josh Gravelick, Josh McKinney, Josh Schullinger, Joshua Smallwood, JP Lynch, Justin Payne, Justin Wagaman, Kendrick Hayes, Kyle Hagel, Kyle J, Kyle Martin, Logan Little George, Mad Mock Media, Miranda Grubba, Mark Liberto, Martin Beck, Mason Bouchard, Matt Flowers, Matt At MGS24, Michael Buffel, Michael Gates, Michael Mash Potato, Michael Vecchio, Mr.

4:02:32Dustin Furman:Tom, Morgan Ashley, Mr. Mulf, My Name is Mayo, Nate Izod, Nathan R, Neil Amon, Norse Nuts, Ali Fritz, Organic Produce, Patrick Leslie, Paul Joyce, Peyton Stone, Phil Crone, Pork and Beans, Randall Hulsey, Rallo, Relentless Rex, Remington James, Roto24, Ross Marenka, Ryan T. Mandel, Saqib Alam, Saul Balcazar, Sean Mason, Shane Brekke, Shane Miller, Shane Rayoom, SaulNZ, Stewie108, Stove, Sultab, SweatyMagic, Sweet Jones, Terry Tip, The Shady Mailman, Throw7, Toby Ryland, Tom Quinn, Trelon, Trey Woodward, Uncharted Shinobi, Vance Cody, WP Monty, Wesley Mullins, WhoIsStevenDay, Will Williams, William Holbert, WhiskeySyn, Zach Cohen, Zachary Wood, ZenRed, and Zainal Yuichi.