Why We Need to Stop Hating Everything

35:02I think there's a really good space for it to live now because we have all these multiple versions of what this game can be. So I'm hyped to see it actually like have a space to live and be able to potentially grow in a big way. Death Stranding 2 on the beach is going to PC. Hyped for that because it's going to be really pretty. I want to see that on my big widescreen. So that's going to be cool. God of War is getting a trilogy remake. I love the fact that TC Carson was in the trailer for this. you know kratos is black i don't care what you say uh so i'm hyped for that that's gonna be real cool uh i'm excited to see what they're what they're gonna do with it i there i wasn't hyped at first because i was like oh damn it another remake we don't want another remake but after seeing some screenshots of what the original version looks like and then what the updated version looks like i'm probably back on board because there are some moments in those games that are like classic monumental moments in those games like when you fight hercules for the first time you beat his ass into oblivion like that that was a moment that changed gaming in a lot of a lot of different ways so i'm excited to see what that means moving forward and then what does that mean for the rest of what potentially we're going to see we saw uh son of sparta come out uh as a shadow drop uh which people are people are weirded out by and people are upset about but whatever people are mad about everything i'm like why why are you mad at that that's crazy um goes to yotai legends the thing that i have been really excited about has is about to come out very very soon uh they're gonna have their co-op um co-op uh multiplayer update which i've been waiting for i feel legends in the previous game actually gave that game some more life in a way that we hadn't seen before so this will reinvigorate Yotai in a lot of different ways shout out to Erika Ishii who I saw at DICE and hung out with and gave them massive props and massive love for being a badass that they are and being amazingly cool getting a chance to see them again so shout out to Erika Ishii for just being brilliant And a big surprise out of the show was John Wick getting a game from our friends over at Saber.

37:29I'm a weirdo in this respect. I think I'm happy to see that it's becoming a thing. But it also feels weirdly like there was a moment when John Wick was at its height where I was expecting there to be a John Wick game and there wasn't a John Wick game. and now it feels like i'm not gonna say that they missed their window because i feel like john wick has this moment in itself where not moment in itself but like there's a fandom that is going to be a john wick fan regardless of wherever you land um and it feels like we got a version of what that was going to be kind of in Sifu. And everybody who played Sifu was like, well, why don't these folks just make a John Wick game?

38:21Because Sifu is basically John Wick, but with a different mechanic, an age mechanic, and some other stuff. And it feels like there was this moment where they literally did kind of miss the boat on the John Wick thing. And I was like, I'm excited for it, But also I'm like, is, does this still feel like if like, does anybody care if you make a John Wick game now? Again, like there was a big pop. It feels like people were really hyped for it when they saw it. The internet was ablaze when they, when they saw it. But my first initial react was like, this feels like they missed a moment where it would have really got everybody hyped and excited for it.

39:04If they had done it like three or four years ago, but we see everybody still loves Keanu people still are hyped to see him in anything um I'm excited to check it out and play it uh because I think Saber makes really really dope stuff and I think Saber really has an understanding of how to really nail um uh movie IP so I'm really excited for that I'm really excited for the Hellraiser game which I think is going to be real dope so I'm I I'm I'm I'm holding judgment on it because I think it's going to be I think it's going to be cool and i want to see how it differentiates itself from a game like sifu um because there is a you know there's some connective tissue there that i think people are kind of missing but uh it will be really fun to be able to see uh what that means going forward for that ip and if they really nail it and does it feel weird to have kinu uh kinu kinu uh keanu um in this game with his likeness in it now where we have been waiting for that thing forever um yeah it'll it'll it'll be weird um yeah like uh zang pow in the chat says if you do a john wick game without keanu's voice that would be weird yeah i want i want like you know you can't do that game without keanu in it uh if you do that you're really just asking for for trouble in a big way uh kina The scars of Cosmora got a started off the show and was a really big surprise because one, I didn't know that they were still working on that IP and working in that world to the glow up on that game is real.

40:47I, you know, it came out pretty early in the life cycle of the PlayStation four. No, I'm bugging in the beginning of the PlayStation five era, I believe. Sorry. Um, and I just didn't think that, like, people cared enough about Kena to really want a new one. But I was actually really pleasantly surprised that a lot of folks were really excited for it. And that the Greer brothers were still, you know, behind the helm of that. If you remember, we had them on Spawn on Me early, early, early in their career. we were one of the first podcasts to have them on and talking about Kena. And I want to have them back on.

41:34I think those brothers are brilliant. I'm getting a chance to see them and talk to them in person in real life and talk about all the cool stuff that they're working on and how they see game development and all of those pieces there. I can't remember if it was on PS4 or PS5. I can't remember. My brain's shot. But seeing that they are continuing to grow, continuing to be developers in this space who are building something very special and to see just how far technologically that world has come is a really cool thing to see. I'm excited more to be able to talk to them and see like what was the experience now kind of being, you know, you know, in the state of play and having people be so excited for it and being really, really ready for it to kind of come to market and be hype for it.

42:28That's cool. Like, I love the fact that that's a thing where we're seeing developers grow in this space and continue to get better at their craft. So I'm excited for Kena. I think that's going to be really, really fun. Legacy of Kain, this falls into the why category for me. I understand that people love Legacy of Kain. I understand that people were hyped for Legacy of Kain. Shout out to Tam Tamor over at GameSpot who was hyped for Legacy of Kain. I think Legacy of Kain is a fun game. I don't know if I would have put it in a state of play. I don't know if I would say that I'm excited for it because again, it's an old IP that is like in the mix.

43:07I'm like, all right, I get that you're here and that's cool, but I'm not hyped for it in that way. It'll be fun for the people who like it and it'll be in that space. Marathon got an extended look at during the show. You have no idea how excited I am for Marathon. I am a Marathon stan. I've been a Marathon stan from the beginning, from the first beta. understanding what that art will the art uh is going to wind up being the the new art because they got some trouble with the old art the world that they're building the world building that they're doing the the way they're telling story through the game and the way they're doing all of those pieces i am so hyped for this game i'm dying to play this game i'm already recruiting people to play this game with me i already had i had a couple of people who i played with over you know the beta when they dropped it i'm already bugging them to be like yo we about to do this drink in a couple of weeks the server slam is happening very very soon and the game will be out in early march so i i am i am done i'm ready i want all of marathon i want all of the little centibite non-weird worms in my in my face i want all the bleeding out bodies i want all the stuff There was a good stream that happened, a live stream with some prominent streamers kind of showcasing the game, which I think they did a fairly good job of.

44:39I am ready for that game. I'm ready for that game. There are some evil people in the chat, if you're listening on, if you're watching the video version of this. There are some terrible people who can't cook, who just jumped into the room. people who don't play video games and don't play with their friends but that's a whole other conversation for another time um we're gonna go and talk about uh marvel token fighting souls getting uh the x-men a full roster the x-men i'm already sold on this game if you've not watched it the tag fighter looks gorgeous my homie wolverine is in that bad boy now it looks really really dope it looks extremely good i'm really hyped for what that thing is after getting a chance to play the demo of that.

45:28So I'm super excited for that. Metal Gear Solid Collection Volume 2. We'll get Metal Gear Solid 4 and Peace Walker in it. Another remake in that mix. I'm excited to play 4 again a little bit, kind of, sort of, maybe. You know, I think that game was cool. I want to get my camouflage on in that way. Mina the Hollower, I kind of don't care. it looks cool it looks cute never the prologue i love never that game looks cool uh and and what that's going to want to being pragmata we've talked about that game on the show before after getting a demo at summer games fest uh so excited for that uh project winless which i think is weird because it has a big ass fighting chicken in it it looks like a dynasty warriors game that is like where winds meet west meets dynasty warriors i think it looks okay it feels like a big hack and slash but it's an open world rp open world action rpg i think it looks okay i'll have to spend some time with it i think they it's cute that they went into that into that form or fashion with it and they're building something there i don't know if it's going to meat and cut the mustard for me as a game that i'm going to be like oh my god i want to spend 50 hours in this thing but i like the fact that people are making making stuff in this space that feels different again uh and and could be really interesting i don't know where it's going to land in the grand scheme of titles for the year but happy that they're doing it and happy that they're making it uh rayman 30 30th innovation i don't care uh resident evil requiem looks fantastic i can't say more than that because uh reasons that i can't say on a podcast currently because of timing and space and stuff but resident evil requiem looks amazing and awesome so excited for that in those ways um so hi for that um rev noir i again new grpg grpgs aren't my jam but it looks cool saros looked actually a lot better um i was sold on saros before and i was ready for it to be a thing uh that i'm excited to play i think they really showed even more of it and showed more of the dynamics in that game which i think is going to be the thing that separates it from uh previous games kind of in that genre i do think that this game is going to be a banger and a half i think rahul cooley again as the main protagonist shout to Rahul, who's amazing, both in-game and in real life.

48:15That game is going to be really cool. I think that Housemarque continues to make games that I want. I do also want Housemarque to make something different. I think they continuously made stuff that is in that vein, and I feel like I don't want to see another game like this coming out of that studio after this. I'm excited for it, but I'm in that space where I'm like, please, make new stuff. I want new things. But Cyrus is going to be really, really good. I think that game is going to be fantastic. like silent hill town fall silent hill is black silent hill got black people in it i don't know how you put black people in horror and horror games and say and well here's the thing the beauty of silent hill town fall is that we will get a game where a black person gets into a horror game and a horror genre, a horror scenario, and more than likely they will meet the end of that game.

49:09They will get to the end of it. Thank you. Yay. Congratulations, black people living in horror movies and horror games and not dying in the first 15 seconds like the stereotype and like the trope always happens. So I'm very excited to see Townfall become a thing. Having a black person as a main protagonist in the Silent Hills IP is a big step. Internet is already freaking out about it, but we don't care about them. We are excited to see it. And just like Assassin's Creed is black, Silent Hill is now black. So I just hope that they really do the brother justice. I hope they have some consultants.

49:51I hope they have some folks on there in that space who are like, all right, we can't have him doing weird stuff in the time frame that he's supposed to be in. Star Wars Galactic Racer.

50:11I'm going to say this because Paris Lily is in the chat. Star Wars sucks. I'm going to just say it out loud. I don't like Star Wars. I think Star Wars is butt. Unless it's like, you know, an action slasher game. But that's me. i'm not i'm lying i think it looks cool i think it's fun i think it looks really cool i think it looks like it's going to be actually kind of dope but i also think star wars is kind of boring as an ip anyway not gonna get into not gonna get into a fight for that uh yakuwa yaku uh shinobi ops is a uh isometric uh kind of stealth game uh shinobi action game i don't think that game showed well during the show.

50:54I think it looked okay, but I don't think it actually showed well. I do want to play more of it, though. I do think it might be potentially interesting in a lot of different ways, but I didn't think it showed well enough. They need to have some preview stuff for that game in a real way and talk about what the kind of overarching vibe is going to be. They showed it in the state of play, but I don't really feel like it was that good. I don't really think it was that great.

51:24wheels in the chat shout out to wheels says am i wrong about my take on star wars no he says but do i like the opinion also no super reasonable super reasonable mad reasonable i take that everywhere i go i want a new racer i've been playing carmageddon and carmageddon is okay it's not great um it is very it feels like a very low budget uh game but i do want more conk more car combat games i do want more stuff in that space i think those are really interesting and i want i want to see all that in in that mix for sure um word so that was the the state of play i think again if you were to give it a a number rating i think it was a good seven or eight out of ten i think they did a really good job of balancing out new stuff and old stuff um it made me excited for some of the pieces that are already in the mix and kind of coming to the space while also being like man i want to see what the future of playstation is going to be i want i'm i know we're not going to get stuff until you know the discussions around you know playstation 6 and i guess i can jump into that part of the conversation real fast because bloomberg announced that uh we probably will see some delays on the playstation side of things due to hikes in RAM pricing and things like that that may wind up affecting Nintendo as well, with them potentially raising the prices on the Switch 2.

52:50And seeing across the board, does this mean that the next generation of consoles will probably get a delay? I think, you know, we have been talking about when the new generation is going to happen. I think a lot of people were expecting it to kind of move up as opposed to back. I don't think we're ready for a new generation anyway. I know a lot of folks were kind of targeting 2027 as this time that we would see new consoles kind of drop. Now we're seeing that potentially even move out to 2028, which I think would also be fine. I think, you know, if you ask most folks right now, are they playing games to the fullest capacity of what these pieces of hardware can do?

53:35I think the answer is still no. I think you wind up still seeing, you know, as we've seen and have been true to form before that the end of the generations where you see everything, get the extra level of polish and extra levels of goodies that we wind up seeing, um, in those places. Um, but it won't be something until, you know, it was actually kind of weird because we already jumped a couple of different versions of this, right? You had the pandemic, which stifled a lot of game developer creativity and, and, and game developer or games being made and kind of shared, you had a big issue in the silicon space a couple of years ago where silicon was really hard to kind of come by and you were seeing a lot of issues with hardware being made in those spaces.

54:26Now we're seeing with AI's takeover of many parts of the technological space, those you know all of that those resources kind of being moved into there has really now kind of put a hamstring on video game console development and hardware in other spaces so i think everybody's going to get delayed i think everybody's hardware is going to wind up having to move out of the current window into a different one um and then we'll see what that winds up being SSD prices right now are crazy. RAM prices are nuts. So I think, you know, how far out does that mean? Does that mean that we then even move it out to 2029?

55:16I don't know. I think that maybe be a little bit too far away, but I do think if you move it into 2028, you might have a better space. Hopefully then we'll see some stabilization across not only the tariffs that we've seen imposed from the United States, from Trump and his cronies. But now we've seen this other layer of what happens when everyone kind of goes all in on one thing. It winds up having this ripple effect where everybody else winds up getting kind of hurt in the process. And with job loss at a at a monumental high with prices of things that you usually would buy going up at least you know 10 supposedly there's conversations about tariffs in the united states adding at least another thousand dollars to your monthly budget in a way that is unnecessary and untenable we're going to be in a really weird space for a while now until all these things kind of stabilize and kind of kind of level out but video games are going to be a very hard hit space with not only developers losing their jobs but also now the games you make being more expensive all the things that kind of take you out of the the vibe of you know trying to kind of remove you from the world in those ways trying to give you that outlet to distract you about the world even those are going to be uh kind of hit hard in the ways that we have seen the potential ways that things are coming down in the pipe in that way.

56:50So it feels like you kind of have to go buy your stuff now if you're going to get it, because who knows what it looks like even six months down the line or beginning of the net of the next year or the end of this year, when we see the kind of holiday space grow. I think that we're in a good spot, you know, from a technological perspective, I think games still have a good way to go in terms of optimization. We still haven't really hit 60 frames in a good, consistent way, especially even on hardware that's supposed to be able to do that, like the PlayStation 5 Pro and the Xbox Series X. We see it in some spaces, but not fully actually coming into a space where we're just getting exactly what the generation promised us from that standpoint, which is still a kind of disappointing revelation is that we're still trying to play catch up to the beginning of the generation in a lot of different ways which is weird to say out loud um thinking about it in those ways so that's that's a very weird space um next story uh on the show is about wild light um having some layoffs this happened late last week um where a high guard released to not necessarily great numbers or at least the staying power wasn't there in that first initial you know week of work and we wound up seeing sadly uh folks already be laid off from a pretty new studio um due to all of the madness that we wound up seeing in the video game space in lots of different ways so it winds up being this like you know we're in the upside down kind of space in a real way it is it winds up being something where we have to really think about what is the future of the double and triple a space the conversation around um live service games continues to be one that is fraught with a lot of um overreaction uh a lot of bad actors kind of moving into the space and it will continuing to do what they do in the space um and i feel like you know as a person who is still very high on the game again if you've seen the coverage that we had put out uh from the preview event i still believe that this game is one of the better games in the space.

59:24I still believe that this game was trying and did something very special in the way that it came across. I think, yes, there were some missteps that I think were in that space. I don't think the game awards having this as the last trailer in it was, you know, a thing that would cause issues in a big major way. I am of that ilk of thinking that that is an overblown statement because people don't really care. Like your expectations are set. Absolutely. I think people have a version of expectations being set that I think is also a little bit unreasonable because we then lay everything and make the metrics based on those specific moments and don't expect there to be some dips within that.

1:00:13And even with a trailer that people said didn't necessarily hit the mark, we're still in a space where people don't even try new stuff. We're still in a space where people don't even try things that they can try for free after complaining for decades about everything costing too much. We're in a space where we've come to a place where all the things that they should have done, all the things that people were complaining about that people don't do right in terms of live service games, they actually did a lot of it right. You got a full year of a roadmap that you can see exactly what's coming from in the space you got a free-to-play game that wasn't trying to steal your money uh you got a new mode that felt very fresh and new based on a new genre that they were trying to make happen and it still wind up getting 14 000 negative reviews on the first day from people who didn't play more than an hour of the game.

1:01:17So it winds up being, you know, something where I am in this space as a person who straddles a couple of lines within it, both on the content creative space that we do here. I work in the industry at a different place. I'm trying to work in more studios and do more stuff in those ways. You know, I want to be on a team that ships another game at some point. and I don't know where we go from here because if your game doesn't automatically hook you in the first hour and you and you get 14 ,000 plus negative reviews on that thing now mind you there was some there was some issues with this game in terms of connectivity that's happened done multiple games throughout the generation of making games people are like all the time and i agree with you saying we want new stuff you get new stuff and then when you get the new stuff everyone tries to shit on it so i don't know where we are anymore and i don't know what to expect even as a person who works a lot of my work in the video game space is one in which i'm doing either the job of a community manager or running socials or all that stuff.

1:02:34I don't even know what to tell higher ups anymore about like, what are the success metrics look like anymore? Cause if you can dump on a game like this in this way, that checks off so many boxes of what the community has asked for over the time of the community has asked for stuff is. Where do we what's what's what do you want at this point? um i i don't know what that means in that way um captain logan asks a really good question in the chat over on twitch he says my question is why did they not plan for the first six months of the game not being popular or receptive i don't think that that's the case i would push back on that a little bit i think here's my here's my interpretation of that i think and we saw we saw a switch get flipped almost immediately and one of the things that kind of came about from my time talking to the team was there was a discussion about like are you ready for the potential for changing things up if it doesn't vibe right and one it's hard because you kind of can't plan for that if people don't vibe with it but if you take a look and you think about it this way the game was a 3v3 mode which was the main mode for the game it's the game and didn't have multiple modes which i think was potentially a a misstep but also i am a person who believes that you let teams build what they want to build and you and you and you try to give them time to work through that so that they can adjust so that you can refine so that you can make those minute detail changes so that things that aren't working well you can flip and you can kind of work your way through it and kind of get to those new steps but if we're not killing games within the first two weeks it's not dead they've they've laid off a ton of folks and now they're kind of keeping a core group of folks in the in in the industry or in the studio to continue to work on the game but if you don't have two weeks to be able to make a thing good then there's no game ever that's gonna that's never gonna be killed off early fortnite is a huge and a really good example of that um no man's sky is a really good example of that different genres and stuff but like save the world was not doing well until they cribbed pub g and got butter battle royale into it that's like multiple months to get there that was almost a three month uh um early access movement that they had right and that took a long time to get good now that game is the biggest game on the planet now mind you yes we are talking about the the conversation about capturing time and attention it takes a long time to pull people away from other games but if you look at again all the pieces of stuff that they did and they implemented they even switched on 5v5 mode which then kind of gave it a bump which was a direct change that happened because of the feedback that they got from the community and to still see it not doing well in those respects it kind of changes the metric of what you think is success how much runway do you have to continue to make a thing i also think that the idea around live service gets scapegoated a lot.

1:06:16I think the idea around live service, I know a lot of people like live services, don't make another live service game because it's bad. Don't make another live service game because it's not going to, it's going to fail all this kind of stuff. I think live service gets scapegoated a lot to put all these other ills on a potential game for things that people are trying to rectify in lots of different ways. When people really say they don't want live service, what they really are usually saying is we don't want microtransactions to be the main driver for your game. That's what most people are usually saying when they want that to be in that space.

1:06:50Paris says in the chat, says the game budgets for AAA and free-to-play have ballooned to the point that experimentation is now make or break for a studio. It is, but that's not necessarily on, like, because here's the thing, and I said this on X the other day was, every month there are hundreds of games that fail and you never even hear about them. There are hundreds of games that just die every year, right? This one had a much bigger profile because it was in the Game Awards. And even if you put this game in the middle of the Game Awards, I don't think that would have changed anything because you would have still had the same people who were mad about the wokeness of it and it looks generic and it doesn't have anything interesting going for it.

1:07:35Even after having the ability to go play it and try it out, still crapped on it after having that small amount of time right even if it's triple a even if it's like triple a the the the idea that triple a budgets are super super big is understood and reasonable we all understand that we know that people are trying to shrink that down into a much smaller space so that the risk factor is less for the people who are making it in the studio I think that's one part of that discussion that I think is very salient. I think it's important. And I think it makes a lot of sense. That also doesn't equate for 14 ,000 people who decided from jump that they were going to dogpile this game.

1:08:25That does not remove that from the conversation. There was a really good article that was put up on X. I had to take a drink. a really good article put up by an artist on the team josh sobel um uh who spoke to his experiences while working on this game and he shared a lot of really really interesting thoughts about it he talked about the dog piling he talked about the the the pieces of you know being in the game awards and where that landed it and kind of how that kind of change the perception of it and all those pieces of it now mind you again the conversation then came up again about like oh well they got this trailer in for free no one cares no one actually cares who pays for trailers and who doesn't pay for trails in the game awards unless it's a really gross one that someone paid a bunch of money for and still got in through you know into Jeff's show I think Keely has a really good eye for talent I think he has a really good eye for things that he thinks is interesting i don't begrudge him for putting it where he put it and i also don't begrudge high guard and wildlife for taking a free slot in a in a war show we get millions of eyes on it that's a goal for being in a in a in a show like this you want millions of people to watch your thing right that doesn't exclude all the people who decided that this game was going to be bad just from looking at it and then still not even engaging with it which means that we are now in a space where it doesn't matter triple a double a whatever it might be you can have a big budget small budget doesn't matter if people are going to come for you for the sake of wanting to come for you they're going to come for you and that's shitty that's bad that's a bad practice that we are now allowing to be a thing.

1:10:25That's a thing where we're now, again, equating SteamDB charts to actual player engagement. That's a problem. The fact that we're using that metric as a determining factor of if your game is good before you even play it is a problem. That's not good. We're not saying that out loud. I am happy that Josh said what he said in his article that he put up on Twitter. It was a very vulnerable, really dope moment to see that catharsis, that sharing of one's personal feelings, that hurt that comes from when you're on a project that seems to be failing. I have had that same exact feeling and wasn't brave enough to share those feelings online in the way that he did.

1:11:22I give him nothing but props and kudos, even though most folks in development spaces will say it is taboo and you should not do that online, in public. You should not share those feelings because you're letting the internet win and all of those things. I think that was a really good moment. I think that was a moment that we should applaud. I think that was a moment that we should give and say, these are humans behind each one of these projects. And you're fucking right that you get hurt when these things go away. When you lose your job, when people dog pile you for having the want to make something that is supposed to bring joy.

1:12:06And you have terrible human beings who decide that they want to stomp on that joy for the sake of getting some internet rah-rahs in for nothing. I give Josh mad props for saying that thing out loud. I give him a lot of kudos for saying that thing. I think it's important to be able to say those things out loud and to say, you know, it is still a taboo thing to say that thing out loud and to say like, hey, the consumer is also a part of the problem sometimes. I don't think that's a bad thing to say. Even if you feel like it's a taboo to say it, I think it's a good thing to say. Because it's honest.

1:12:52And it's reasonable. And it's kind of true in some forms of fashion. We can't always say that the customer is always right. I just don't believe that. I don't believe that in a big way. Mr. Butts says, it was nice and rare to see a developer speak their mind like that. especially about something that must be raw for them at that time but at the same i thought it was it was ill-advised yeah of course like again in the gaming industry there are taboos that you're not really supposed to cross you're not supposed to talk ill of the consumer because they are the people who who buy your stuff you're not supposed to kind of really dig deeply and share your actual feelings about the dev experience because it winds up potentially especially in public spaces because it potentially can keep you from getting your next job.

1:13:38Saying the thing out loud is a problem only if it's talking about employability. If you're a human being, then you should be like, yo, I feel that way too. Especially if you're in the fraternity and sorority of game dev. These are conversations that happen behind the scenes all the time. They hardly ever happen in public spaces. And that's the reason why they don't happen in public spaces, because people are like, the industry is small. I want to be able to work again. And I want to feel like I can go to places and go feel like I am not looked at as a pariah because I said a thing that is not supposed to be said out loud.

1:14:20But that was a real good moment. And he had pieces in that article that were totally on point. So I just want to say wherever you are, Josh, massive love to you for what that is. I don't think that that was a bad thing. Sure. You could be like, the timing was bad. Sure. You could be like, you're not supposed to put that on, on front street. Sure. You can say all those things are in that space. And there was a raw moment of emotion that some people are like, you keep that for private spaces. But I applaud that man. Like it's not because, you know, because I think that you have to kind of kowtow to that stuff.

1:15:00but like we also saw the grossness that came out of that and we continue to duck our heads and put our heads in the sand while also being like you know your developer you're supposed to just take this and eat it and then disappear once people come for you in these ways now mind you can never beat the internet the internet always wins but to have that catharsis outside of yourself and be like yo this is the way i feel about this thing i think that's reasonable and i think that we should applaud that in some forms or fashion i don't think we should shit on him for doing that and i don't think we should continue to have these feelings we pent up because that shit will drive you crazy that will drive you mad and the fact that we as folks in the game dev uh community continue to have to be told to kind of sit there and eat it i think that's bad too i don't think that's great i think it's a bad thing for the industry i think it's a bad thing for the humans who are in this industry, and I think it's bad for all the people who are taking these jobs and doing this work and expect it to be abused by the people who are the people who buy your stuff.

1:16:07I think that's not great. Really quick, I want to read something that someone in the chat says, Spartan Solidus says, I get what you're saying, Kyle, but regardless of what people were saying, if the game is solid, that speaks for itself. I played the game for 30 minutes and was not feeling it. Not because of pre-release sentiment, but because the game is simply boring. Great idea, but not well executed. I would disagree with that. I think, again, I have no beef with wherever you stand in terms of whatever your particular opinion was on the game if you played it. I do think if you played it for 30 minutes and you just had one game, because basically those games take between 9 and 30 minutes, you basically had one match in the game.

1:16:51And I think if you had one match, you've missed a ton of what makes that game good and i feel like you missed a ton of angles to what that game potentially can do from a strategy perspective from an understanding of the mechanics it took me a person who reviews games and plays games kind of semi for a living a couple of matches to understand the nuance of what was happening within those matches so when if you're going to say you're not feeling it after 30 minutes i get it but also i can say i don't feel like you gave it enough of a chance i think that's i think that's reasonable i think it's a reasonable i think it's a reasonable balance in that discussion to be like we should be giving spaces chances especially when this game is tactically smarter than most of the shooters that we've seen out in the space right now rainbow six is a totally different space there are a couple other games that are more competent in those ways.

1:17:51But I think, yeah, some of those pieces aren't you're vibing with. There's a difference between vibing with it and being like, I played it for 30 minutes and I wasn't feeling it. And I get it, but that's basically one match. I get it.

1:18:09One, I want to switch gears a bit for the last part of the conversation because I feel like this also kind of speaks to a discussion point. the dovetails out of that. So I was at DICE last week, this past weekend, and hanging out with a lot of developers, talking to them about some of these things. And again, DICE is a really interesting space because we don't really talk about, as a person from the press, we're not sharing information that comes out of that conference because it is a well-known kind of unsaid rule is this is for developers, this is for folks who would kind of come to talk about business, talk about the state of the space and do that in a way where we're not looking for the soundbite.

1:18:56We're not looking to share every conversation that went, went there. So I was there for multiple reasons. One, I'm trying to, to pitch Spawnies to people. Cause I want to bring the award show back to, I'm always looking for opportunities to do more work in the space. I'd freelance to do a bunch of other stuff in the space. three i wanted to find the temperature of the room for the industry right now because it speaks to what just happened in those conversations like mind you the layoffs happened while folks were at dice during this during this moment when we had already seen developers at riot get laid off for 2x ko then you had high guard developers get laid off across all the other layers we've seen in the industry over the past couple of years, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

1:19:50So I was there trying to poke people to figure out like, one, what's funding look like these days? Because the big conversation point was AAA is too expensive. And this is the reason why we see all these dev studios go down and the risks are too high. And to a man, the conversation that I heard and was discussed around that was we're in a really hard time for funding. and I was like, well, what does that mean, right? So I talked to developers who were at various levels of their developer career, folks who were fairly new, folks who were kind of mid-level, had shipped a game or two, folks who had been veterans of the game for a while, shipped many games, and to a man, each one of those groups were like, they're only funding the kind of really beginning parts of it, at least where we're talking about the folks who usually have big buckets of money, or buckets of money to be able to do this stuff, or the kind of end part.

1:20:44Your game is basically done and we want to get you over the finish line. So what does that mean in the grand scheme? And mind you, again, I am not an economist. I have only worked in the gaming industry in a very, very small capacity in what I get a chance to do. I am not seeing these contracts. I am not making these deals. I am not working in biz dev. Those are different layers of the conversation that actually see how budgets work in this space. but what was telling was everyone is having a trouble everyone is having trouble getting the games made that they want to get made so that dovetails back into that conversation about like what are we going to see in the next couple of years when we are now having these moments happen have a huge developer like riot fold on 2x ko to a certain extent high guard which is a I mean, at Wildlight, which is a studio that was trying to get out of the grips of working at the AAA space, being independent, doing that kind of work so that they can have a sustainable potential space to make games in the ways that they want.

1:21:56Both very different. Both had big layoffs in the past week. And what does that mean for the games that we get a chance to play? Because the big conversation is then all about risk. It's all about, well, we can't spend that money because that's going to be risky. That means we're going to get iterative games that are going to wind up being the same kinds of games. And we're going to get remakes. We're going to get the same kinds of experiences over and over and over and over again. And what does that mean when you have people review bombing everything without playing it? What does that mean? You have budgets that won't get made or games that won't get made because of budget.

1:22:31We're going to get the same things over and over and over again. you can't because one of the questions i asked was all right cool so we look at the video game space and if players are saying what they have been wanting for the same for for over the past couple of years you can't price things at a premium price you can't uh you can't price things at uh 40 bucks because people don't want that you can't go free to play because people don't want that because they don't they think micro transactions are going to be in there shout to Mr. Butts. Thank you for the subscription. As I talk about money.

1:23:08So what does that mean for you as a consumer and as a player? You're going to get the same things over and over again. You get the same things over and over again. What do I get? You get the same things over and over again. There's going to be less innovation in this back half of the generation than we've probably seen in the past few generations. So that means you better get ready for seeing the same stuff over and again. Over and over again. That means we're probably going to see a lot of derivative stuff and there's going to be very few groups that's going to be able to have the money that we see uh be able to make things that are going to be interesting and new or the games that we're going to wind up seeing are going to be so small that you're going to have to have a magical flash in the pan like mugenics is that is happening right now but people are using that as the kind of canary in the coal mine without consistently saying like those people made binding of Isaac and they already had a hit in their pocket.

1:24:06So if you're new or smaller or trying something different, you're going to have an infinitely harder time to make something that stands out with all of those factors in the mix. So it winds up giving me some trepidation about the future of the space. And there were definitely some folks that I spoke to that really did talk about that if a small group of people decide to want to tank your game they kind of can now so what does that mean that's bad that's an unprecedented thing it used to be something where you know you had a little bit of runway you kind of figure it out you can kind of you know work your way to that 1.5 version 2.2.0 version of your game we have too many games and we have too many opinions in those games without trying stuff.

1:25:01Again, I want people to be able to make what they want, and I want consumers to be able to voice what they want because you're spending your hard-earned money. But we have to look at the way that those metrics are being used against developers also. That's not a good move for anybody involved. That winds up hurting players more than anybody else. Because again, if a game that's trying something new can't live past two weeks, what do you want where you're gonna go what are you gonna make you're just gonna fold yourself and try to go work at a big studio again some people don't want to do that anymore and remind you those are like very disparate spaces that are only in certain geographic regions around the world and around the country you got to pick up your whole family if you want to stay in games and be able to go move to the west of the east coast in mostly the west coast midwest is kind of starting to kind of you know get some some some ground there but like that means you have to take your whole family again and go like move somewhere else if you still want to stay in the video game industry because anybody can just tank your thing by putting up negative reviews and being like oh this is woke or oh i played a match and a half and i hate it so it's a lot it's a lot of a lot of space right here captain logan says 30 of people hate this thing 30 will love it and 30 won't care yeah again like i i worry about the the space in that way where we've equated people who won't engage with the thing with people who actually will spend time to to pull the nuance out and to share good feedback with the team so that they can potentially grow and fix it it feels like we're out of that space right now.

1:26:53We're never going back. I feel like that genie is no longer has the ability to be put back in that bottle. So, that being said, I hope, I hope, and my charge to you as Spawn of Me fans and as fans of video games is give really constructive feedback to teams. Really try to take a minute and dig a little bit and you know don't go straight reptilian brain on everything right and i know that there's a space where people are like well i don't give a shit who makes what i make make it good and that's all i care about understand that that's dope but when those things no longer exist and you don't have more people who are willing to stay in those spaces to make cool stuff what are you going to do about that you're going to wind up losing out in the long run for because of that obstinance in that way so i say you know be a little thoughtful be a little bit kinder uh there are good ways to be able to to to vent out that frustration about things not being in the ways that you want but also if we're talking about free to play games like again it's free you don't have to crap on it you don't have to play it and it'll do what it does it'll it'll it'll either grow or won't but i feel like that happens across the board with everything now we are so fast to dump on things in the worst possible ways that we're just going to dump on everything in and dump it into oblivion and then be in a really bad spot for us as consumers because those things won't get made anymore no one is going to take risk anymore if we continue to go down this route and that's going to be a problematic thing for everyone involved anyway thank you all for hanging out for this episode of spawn on me i want to say thank you to each and every one of you who came through today dealt with the initial technical difficulties which now have fixed uh and who have come through to to spread love uh and to share good words here on the show and in our community.

1:29:09We want to continue to do that in this space. We want to continue to talk about dope things. I have a really interesting and fun conversation that we're going to put up this week alongside this episode with someone from the IGDA Foundation to talk about some of the work that they did. Had a really great interview with them on the show. So we're going to be putting that up as a separate episode alongside this one a little bit later in the weeks. This will probably go up tomorrow. No, probably go up late Tuesday as we record this on Monday. But as always, massive love to you all for being here tonight.

1:29:45Please go subscribe to the show. You can check us out on all podcast platforms, Apple, Spotify, all of those good places, YouTube. And you can check out our stuff on TikTok and Instagram as well. We're going to bid you adieu. If you are in the chat watching us live on Twitch as you record this hang out for five minutes because i want to talk to you all and give you some love and everybody else who is here in the video game spaces that we reside in in brocago wash your hands wash your butt we all see you next week with a new episode of spawn on me because i'm doing it again i'm actually staying on tack this time we're gonna actually do more shows and not just make it like i fell into the abyss because i did for like four months because i was tired and my brain hurt anyway much love to you all we'll see you all soon much love and peace