Biggest Gaming Turnoffs

Welcome to plug in for player 4. Where are you, the viewer or the

player? 4 I'm player 4.

I wasn't fucking done yet. Oh gosh.

Well damn, Jackie, I don't control the weather.

Anyway, I am here with Mark and the very very very tired even.

Hi. No, hi. 180 on Us is completely

energetic, dominates the episode.

The other one sounds like this and he's very tired and doesn't

know what to do. We're not these.

Are my 2 personalities. We're not a damn ASMR channel.

We are now. That's where the big bucks are,

don't you know? I'm going to hate listening to

this. You're going.

To hate me. But for today's topic, biggest

gaming turn offs. So who wants to begin?

So I want to go 1st and this is more less less about a specific

I mean, you know, this is gaming turn offs, but like this is less

about the game itself and more about how games present

themselves. But it's when you're watching a

trailer a lot of Times Now I love pixel art.

I'll I'll start off with that. I don't I really don't mind any

specific art style. Sure, there's ones that like

more, sure there's ones that like less, but it's when the

trailer is like a 2D animation, maybe a 3D animation, something

like that where it's showing you all these visuals and maybe it's

just like the introduction to the game.

That's fine, whatever, but it's kind of doing something that is

not. And then all of a sudden you

look at the screenshots or you look at another like actual

gameplay and it's pixel art. It's like I feel like I was

misleaded and it just makes me not 'cause I, I'm going based

off of your like Steam discovery queue.

That's when I noticed it the most because I'm just clicking

the games, like just seeing what's out there.

And I, I try to give a game a fair chance.

If there's a video, I'll watch it.

But as soon as I see that where it's an animation and then

everything else is pixel art, I, I just instantly clock out of, I

don't care for it at all. It's, I don't know, I just feel

like I'm being lied to. I mean, I can see where it feels

like you're being misled on that.

Good, because I mean you'll have a your initial reaction based

off of the style and feel of the trailer.

Then you get into the actual game.

It's totally different. Right.

And I I've played plenty of pixel art games, like there's

plenty of roguelakes that are pixel art.

Plenty of them. Oh yeah.

But just going from because usually the first thing, if

there's a video, it's a video on Steam.

Yeah. So you watch that first, like,

oh, OK, like this is what the game is about.

That's cool. And then this is nothing.

What the what I was just shown? Yes, yeah, and I could see where

you'd be upset about that. It I don't know why it just it,

it doesn't make me mad, it just irks you.

Makes me disappointed. No.

I'm not mad, I'm disappointed. God.

When they hit you with that quote.

God, we wouldn't. God damn.

It. I just, it's just, it's, there's

more to it than just, I feel like I was lied to that I, I

feel it's just something about it just makes me not care for

whatever they get. It could be a great game.

And that's not to say I won't revisit the game.

Like, for example, I'm like, oh, I'll just write this off.

And then I see something about it and I come back to it.

It it's just in the moment, I just click away and I just don't

think about it. I don't even want to see what

this game has to offer right now.

It just, yeah. You'll revisit, you know,

revisit later if. If it crosses my mind if it.

Crosses your mind, But yeah, I can.

I can see that. Yeah.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. What about you, Mark?

What grinds your ears? Oh, I can talk so much.

I'll take I'll take a jab. Pedophiles in your game 'cause

fuck you, Roblox. Oh, you right.

Yeah, at the time of recording, this is really starting to blow

up on Roblox with the whole schlep situation.

So there's a little jab at them, but no, in all seriousness, I'll

save discussions on that for another video topic that that

just came to mind. So the stuff that turns me off

about your about games going into just what you have your

games announced and the company just uses tons and tons and tons

of just marketing buzzwords. So in the past it was always

infinite. Replayability.

Infinite replayability, live service.

It's going to be open world, it's going to be battle Royale,

it's going to have crypto, and just all of it is just marketing

doublespeak. That just informs me that you

don't care about what the player base is going to say.

As long as your sales numbers are fine and you're being

impressive to the shareholders. For me, that just screams, OK,

you're going to have a soulless game that you're going to

shuffle out to people. OK, but like an example of this,

a big example is Borderlands 3. Oh God.

I didn't see much of the like this stuff so.

I I heard it got better after a launch this but our our first

impressions were at. Launch.

No, this is 1 specific thing that didn't even matter in the

game. They promised there was 1

billion different guns. Oh yeah.

When I remember the because in Borderlands 2 there was a part

system. This could be like barrel stock,

maybe a scope or I think that's an attachment or something as

well as grip and maybe something else.

Yeah, yeah. And this kind of all changed

whatever the gun did or maybe not did, but or even the shield

or the grenade, all these different parts actually

affected the gun. But you go into Borderlands 3

and it's kind of like a sub menu at this point.

It's not even just a gun. You have to go to a menu and

say, oh, here's the barrel, here's the stock, here's here's

the primer, here's the primer of the bullet, here's the cocking

mechanism. Like here's the ejection tray,

whatever it's called, and just it's why are these here?

Is it like this is all here just to bloat the numbers?

And I'm sure it's just all cosmetic.

It doesn't even matter because I in this game I've I've cared

less about just picking up on a gun and and using it.

Because they all felt pretty much the same.

Yeah. No, really.

I mean, like maybe there was, you know, there were, there was

some parts that actually affected.

Like there was, I know at one point early on in the game,

there was a really strong, it was a blue rarity shotgun, like

a torque shotgun that if you play this flak, you could just

melt any boss you really came across.

It was like. That's how you carried us

through the game. But yeah, as soon as I saw 1

billion different guns, I'm like, OK, they're just going

for, you know, this number and they're just trying way too

hard. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it's yeah. When they throw around these

words and shit, like it's like Mark said, they don't really

care about you, Blair. They just want to see that

fucking number tick up. Yep, and line go up.

And it's like like back to Borderlands for a second.

Borderlands 4 not even out yet at the time of this recording.

Insult your player base. That's really smart.

OK. Like if you're a true true

Borderlands fan you will buy this game regardless of the

price and the price would be $80.00 for the standard edition.

Fuck you, I'm not buying it. Like insult me and then you

expect me to then like no, fuck you, I'm not doing.

That like, I was already turned off from the game after they

released it just after the Borderlands movie came out.

I guess at that point I was like, oh, I'm going to be very

concerned about the quality of the story determining how bad

the movie really is. My, my thing is, I already got

burned after three. Like, yeah, I went back and

played Wonderland's way after it came out.

Yeah, never finished it, but that's, that's something else.

But with three, I got like the Super Deluxe edition, the $100

version. And it was like, oh, look at all

these new things. And yeah, it was such a mess.

I mean, you got you got the Unicorn grenade.

Yeah, the butt selling grenade, but as soon as you redeemed it

to be minimum level 10, it went to your level.

As soon as you redeemed it, it went to your level.

For example, in Borderlands 2 there's a thing called the

Firework grenade. It's scaled with your level.

You it does not have a level, it scales with your level.

Even if you level up while you still have it equipped, it still

scales with your level. Just make it do that.

You've already done it. Before.

Yeah, why do I have to wait till the end of the game to use it?

Windows already have a better grenade at that point.

Yeah, at that point, yeah. And by level 10, it's useless

because I don't even use grenades.

Like I'm I'm still figuring out my abilities.

I don't want to see what my abilities, my skill tree.

I could worry careless about the grenades.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

It's kind of tragic with. Like at this, like that was kind

of the game that made me realize, OK, I'm not going to

pre-order a game. Yeah.

It's not. Yeah, I definitely say it was

that game that really burned Emma and I on just pre ordering

games in the future. Yeah.

Because I mean, I, I think we did it for Fall, for Fallout 76

as well. And that's really what started

to change our opinions on just being mindless about what we

were doing. What did?

I'm curious what did what did you guys pre-order from like 76?

Was it just the game? Just the game.

Oh, OK, so. Yeah, we we didn't get wrapped

up in the Hulk collectors. That that's still valid, though.

It was it was a mess on long. Oh man, there was a lot of

things that people wanted that wasn't there and.

Again, this was like the very first high profile instances of

the pre-orders really going awry because you had you had Fallout

76, which which just it didn't take it it you really suffered

at launch and then you had a cyberpunk.

Yeah. You had cyberpunk that really

just kind of had a huge TV page. I mean, that was kind of the

same thing with No Man's Sky. But to be fair, both Cyberpunk

and No Man's Sky came back, yeah.

Yes, Fallout 76, Brandon, you said it also kind of came back

too. I would say so, yeah.

I played it. I played it probably a couple

years ago, but definitely after we stopped playing and once they

added MPCS. I wasn't the biggest fan, but it

was. It definitely from launch to

let's say today, or actually, how about this from launch to

when me and Devon started playing it in 2020.

OK, massive difference. Oh yeah, and the game is

finished, you know? As much as they can.

As much as it can be. And now it's like they're it has

become a really good game. I mean, it's like that, you

know, be my opinion being a Fallout person, that's, you

know, me. But yeah, no, it's suffered at

lunch. It was really bad.

I saw what it was like at lunch from Mr. Wade Lord Minion when

they like literally day of release.

That was awful. Yeah, there there was no reason

for the game to be released in that stage and.

Yeah. You won't.

Need it another couple years in the incubator.

Yeah, but it was just bad. But like I said, now being

someone who is now picking it back up again after a little bit

of a hiatus because I was burning myself out with it

because I was playing it so much, But coming back, you know,

there's a brand new area now. So that's cool playing with

friends is great, but 76 at least now.

But I think it's it's deserved an another chance with people

and it looks like that a lot of people have really jumped on to

it when like the Fallout TV show came out I.

Mean. Influx of people, Oh my God.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I mean the interest for having a

decent multiplayer Fallout experiences there, it's just

that at launch it was handled so poorly that it really just

soured a lot of people's taste to it.

Yes, and rightfully so, yeah. But yeah, with the TV series

probably definitely helped it as well because I remember after

this the the TV series came out, I was still heavily playing it.

I would see new people everywhere.

Yeah, I've even had new people come in my and house and shit

and I'm like, oh, who are you? You know, that's why I lock my

doors now. I mean, to be fair, I had an

open, like, I personally had an open floor plan.

Granted, it was just like you go in, you go up the stairs and

you're at my vendors platform. Yeah.

Like I pretty much I had no turrets, nothing.

I invited people to come in. Yeah.

Yeah. And I mean, that's like I said,

now nowadays you don't worry about the whole griefing thing

because I think if I'm right, they put measures in the like,

fucking stop that. Yeah.

Because now it's all people just helping each other, just having

fun, you know, saying hi. You know, it's, it's honestly

nice playing with people, you know, when you're doing like an

event or whatever, especially the Fosch not event, which is

basically a parade and you get these cool masks, which I

unfortunately missed out on that because it was a week ago that

they had it. But you just hang out with

people, you know. And yeah, I mean, you're all,

you occasionally going to get that person.

That's just, but I mean, that's any game.

That's any game. But it's fun.

Yeah, it's fun. It's intriguingly like to me.

Like, I love the world to fall out.

I can talk about a fucking day. Yeah.

But that's not what this episode is about.

Just just real quick, I want to point out you mentioned how 76's

numbers kind of surged a little bit after the the Fallout TV

show kind of launched. Funny enough, another game

experienced that same sort of phenomenon.

It was Battlefront 3. So E no, it was Battlefront 2E,

as Battlefront 2 saw a resurgence in its player base

after indoor Season 2 was launched.

Oh, you're right. Yeah, it did.

Yeah. And now you see lots of people

still making calls for EA to do a third Battlefront.

I mean. Because it just reinvigorated

the player base. Yeah, I weird little coincidence

that media from other sources can reignite interest in the

gaming sphere. Honestly, that could be an

episode. Oh yeah, I think if there's

enough there if. There's enough if there's enough

to talk about. Yeah, we'll, we'll have to look

into it. But yeah, no, I, I honestly, I

like that because really quick and I will get back on topic

here again. Battlefront 2 had some issues as

well. Yeah, one of those being kind of

a pay to win bullshit. Yeah.

But that all got solved and now what you have is fun.

Yeah. You know, like, I wouldn't mind

playing that with you guys like that.

Yeah, I remember trying to play a Battlefront 2IN a first

release and just. All it was not.

It was not. It was riddled with pure

bullshit. Yeah, now it's totally

different. And like I said, it's more fun

now, yeah. That's because the sad thing is

that he doesn't put any support into it, so it doesn't receive

any updates. Well, The thing is I'm I could

be wrong, but I'm sure at the time it was that one guy that

all he wanted was greed and money.

Oh. Yeah.

There's and that's why it was like that.

Yeah, this whole. Oh, we're going to have you pay

a dollar to respawn. Yeah, dumb shit like that, which

I will. The pay to win thing, we'll go

into that shortly. But it's just nice to see some

games go from being kind of a shell of what it wants to be to

coming back to life and being better.

Yeah, you know, instead of just completely flopping and

disappearing. Yeah, you know, like it.

Some games don't deserve a second chance.

There are some. Oh.

God no. But Concord?

Oh, that, that was dead out of the fucking gate, Yeah.

No. First chance.

Yeah, not even a first chance. It was brought out behind the

stables even before it launched. They Old Yeller did before that.

God. It's just nice.

That was a prom night dumpster baby.

God imagine like being like like hyping it up and you know

getting like 4 of your friends to play it but then it dies a

week later like OK cool we just we all just wasted 60 bucks I.

Don't understand the thought process of the Sony leadership

being like yeah this is gonna take off and be the new Star

Wars before anybody even got a hold of the IP.

It it brought nothing to the table other than, hey look, a

hero shooter with all these wacky weird characters that

nobody knows, huh? With weird.

For 60 fucking dollars. That people don't like.

Yep, $60.00 that these people will never get back.

Yeah. For a game with really poor

mechanics for a hero shooter too.

And also the hero shooter thing like Kinder out a little too

late like I. Mean that game was in what

development hell for eight years?

Something like that, yeah. Like that game was planned in

like 2016 after Overwatch. Yeah.

And then you just completely missed that mark.

You missed that mark. Like there's a point.

Where you're like, even on top of that you've got Marvel

Rivals, which just stole the whole market from Overwatch.

Boy, you had a solid gameplay plus free yeah yeah, with these

quags of characters that everybody knows and knows and

loves. Yeah, like you just can't beat

that recipe for success. No, unless you really flop.

But now it just sometimes timing and design and just everything

can go wrong. Yeah, and it's a dumpster fire

when it goes wrong. I still can't believe they

dumped what was a 400 million into it.

Something like that, yeah. And that's like 400 million

gone, you know? And it goes to studio, too.

It's even make any sort of daint into it.

Nope like it. It's just.

Sony said bye. Wasn't one of the developer like

plates found at a Goodwill where it was like the game case, the

disc and something else? Oh.

I think there's something like that.

Yeah. Yeah.

That sounds familiar, yeah. Like you can't, you can't even

resell the game to make any money off of it.

It's just. It's a frisbee.

It's a frisbee. It's a fucking Frisbee.

It's like the original Overwatch.

It's a fucking Frisbee, Yeah. I'm gonna talk about that later.

We need to move on to the next topic.

Yes, Sir. We're we're, we need to get

moving. All right, well, let's see.

I guess for me, we are honestly, we're we're gonna we're gonna go

to pay to win because we were already kind of talking about

it. Yeah.

All right. So stupid.

Just dumb. If you want to get better at a

game, you play it. Yeah, that's just that.

That's how it should be. You can't.

I hate it when you're able to spend money to make yourself

better than everybody else. It is a dumb concept.

I get it. These companies want to make

money. That's fine.

But it's dumb. I'm sorry.

Yeah. You cannot change my.

Mind, especially when your games are the competitive atmosphere.

I think I'm thinking back to when EA Sports invested heavily

into putting microtransaction into multiplayer games.

Yes. They gave you bonuses to like,

I, I think that one of the big offenders was like it's MMO

game. It was like it was one of its

fighting games and you got bonuses to resistance to your

health pool and your damage output.

It's like, why would why should that?

Why would that even be a damn thing for a competitive game?

Like it's quite literally just a cash grab in just in plain

sight. Like I, I don't understand why

that was even a thing. And I mean, now, correct me if

I'm wrong, I don't know if there's any games at this point

that that. Oh, Ubisoft does it in

Assassin's Creed, a single player game.

Oh, you right? Yeah, that's right.

You can buy to boost your DM experience points.

Why would you need experience? Why would you have?

Why are you buying this? To make yourself better where

you could just play the game? Yeah, I mean, you paid the $70.

No, you're not even playing with other people.

It's just yourself. Why would that even matter?

And even then you're just playing you're, you're playing

yourself, you're playing your wallet like.

Yeah. Literally no one's no one's

winning here. The.

Only the only winner at that point is Ubisoft and they're

still doing shit. It's like.

Yeah, that's sad. Yeah, it's like people who throw

money at card games just to feel like money at, you know, these

expensive cards and then build these expensive decks and, you

know, just the pubs dump people. It's like.

Why? You know, except for in video

games it's even worse because usually more often than I it's

limited items. Yes.

Like oh pay $15.00 for three of these things or something.

Like for a loot box when back when those were big, it's like.

Buy gems in order to boost the production of your buildings.

Like it's, it's just it dumbfound me.

Like why? OK, so you're going to pay for

this game 60-70 bucks a pop, then you're going to spend more

money to not really play the game.

Like you're just like, I'm just going to do this because why

not? Yeah, so you bought the game

again, 60-70 bucks and you're going to not play it?

You're just going to spend more money to make yourself more

powerful or what have you? I'm.

Going to feel good. Like why'd you buy the damn game

in the first place? OK.

But like based off this in certain contexts, play to win.

There's like a couple games like that come off the top of my

head, like Bleeding Edge, if you guys ever played that way back

when, or friends versus friends, if you guys heard of that.

Where as you play you can get card packs or some sort of

similar idea where as you play you can get these cards and if

you get enough of the cards, you could level them up and make

them better. Well, if someone's been playing

for a year or two and then you just can now get the game and

their cards are like level 510, whatever, how high they go, and

you're just starting off, you may play a card that they have

and you know, you're like 10 seconds behind how long their

ability lasts. And it's just like, it's at that

point. It's not fair.

Like there's no, that's a pet peeve of mine.

Is that just what's the point of me playing if I'm not on a level

playing ground? Yeah.

That's true. Even if like yes, even I just, I

bought the game. I just have to play the game,

but I have to play the game to catch up.

Yes, and they're still playing the.

Game. Why should I?

Why? Why?

At that point that that to me screams this poor game design at

that point. Like it, it, it's an idea that

makes sense. It makes sense.

I get it. But like in a, in a, in a

multiplayer sense, it really doesn't.

Maybe as the game progresses you can get experience points or you

know, as you get killed out. Of power creep that just was not

counted for. Because like Gigantic does this

where you can upgrade your abilities but you have to play

the game. Oh well, this is not Rush.

I can't remember the other one clash.

I think it's clash. Where as you play you get

experience and you can upgrade your abilities but you start off

at 0 every game. I'd be fine with that.

Yes, because everyone's on an even playing field.

Yeah, You're not feeling like you're getting just stomped by

somebody who's been playing longer than you.

And it's like it's not fair. There has to be some kind of

fairness there because that's like, OK, new people, they're

just going to get fucked. New players are just going to

get screwed. Yep, they're going to get pissed

off and they're going to stop playing.

And that's what happened to me in both those cases and.

That's why Destiny changes power system.

Wow, really? That's why they changed it,

Yeah. Holy shit first of all power

creep was getting really bad before they changed it with I

mean the new expansion it we were up to like 2000 level

light. Oh my.

Really. Yeah.

Tell you how long I. Had the point.

It started off at 200 is the cap and now we're at 2:00.

We were at 2000. I mean, like there's a certain

point where, yeah, even if you're at 2000, like you can

kind of drop everything down 1000 levels cause you're not,

nobody's going to get 1000 level like light level.

But I I get. I get what you're saying though.

They they change things up. So then when you start an

activity, now your buddy's power levels can be boosted to the the

person who is on the who's got the highest power level on the

team. So that eliminates a lot of

grinding for people for most of the stuff.

And then they they also brought the caps back down and they're

saying, OK, now the caps actually at 200 for your soft

cap. And then you got to upgrade your

armors at every expansion to get yourself up to the 4:50.

And then it just resets itself at the next expansion so we

don't get to obscene numbers. Yeah, 'cause like I remember

back when I played with you guys, like I think the the

pinnacle cap was like 2 like 920 or something.

Yeah, yeah, I know it it. It shot up with light fall and

final fee but it just exploded. Yeah, I remember all that

grinding I had to fucking. Do, yeah, But yeah, no, a lot of

that's been eliminated. There's still some grinding

you'll need to do. Which I mean, that's that's.

Fine, that's fine. That's fair.

It it it makes it more digestible to casual players,

which is kind of what the game needs right now.

Yeah. But again, just game design

choices that in hindsight make sense but just balloon out of

proportion because yeah, you, you don't hindsight is is in

2020. Your hindsight is 2020.

You can't really tell what's going to happen later on.

Yeah, that's fair. Yeah.

But yeah, to finish that off, Yeah, it went sucks.

Yeah, I like, I don't care what anybody tells me.

It is stupid. You should.

If you're going to buy a game, play it.

It's the whole point. You bought it.

Yeah. And get yourself better, because

it makes you feel better that you actually took the time to

get yourself up to a point where you're happy.

Unfortunately, there's going to still be that niche of people

that don't care. Which I mean, it's kind of.

It's kind of the same sort of sentiment that hackers have.

They A lot of hackers say that oh, I'm not going to have fun

unless I'm breaking it. Yeah, I mean, yeah, and.

Ruining it for other people, it's just you're going to have

that demographic of people that just will never be.

Satisfied. Satisfied with just doing it.

Yeah, as long as you keep that, keep people like that at Bay so

you're not screwing everybody else over.

Yeah, you know, but that's my opinion.

Yeah, what you got, Mr. Ethan? This is something that we've all

dealt with something like no matter what game you've played,

you've seen it, even if you haven't played it, somehow

managed to dodge this battle passes.

Now there's a lot of arguments you can say just like just

ignore it. You know, like you, you don't,

you don't need to buy it. Like it's just, it's more that

it's exhausting to see it more than anything because it's been

in so many different games. Whether it's paid, whether it's

free doesn't matter. It's just it's so exhausting.

Like the at this point, the only game that I'll play that has

battle passes is Fortnite, but that's because I play with my

girlfriend. Yeah.

And we just mainly play it for fun.

Like at this point, I have so many cosmetics.

I'm just like, you know what, I don't even need to pay the $20

or doesn't matter anymore. Yeah.

Really. Like the, the more cosmetics I

get, the less it really matters. Yeah.

My. Like I'm satisfied with the

amount I have. My thing on this just funny,

going back to Fallout 76 for a minute, they have, I don't, it's

not really a battle pass, but it kind of is.

But I forgot exactly when this started.

But they were called scoreboards, OK.

And the scoreboards would always come out with every season.

Yeah, they were free. OK, Free.

You get like you can get cosmetics, you could get special

things to special items to put in your camp, probably decals

for guns, stuff like that. OK.

And you come to keep going through your scoreboard.

You would do different challenges that the game has,

like your dailies and your weeklies, and you keep going.

It was like 100 levels. Yeah.

Well now I don't hate this and it feels like it's less grindy

now but they completely overhauled this.

Now you if you have fallout first, which is a subscription.

I have it because I play the game enough it gives you this

the season so you don't have to pay for it separately.

Now, it's not a scoreboard, it's literally just fucking I don't

know how many pages of every time you complete a challenge

and you're going through your levels, you get tickets.

Every time you go through a level on this season pass, you

get 25 tickets and you just rack these up and then you spend

these tickets on stuff that the season is offering at that time.

And like I said, I think it's 100 levels still, but you're not

grinding as much. But I don't know.

But The thing is like it's the it's the same thing with Deep

Rock Galactic. Yes, it's a fun game.

Yes, I do enjoy playing it, but one I kind of played it to the

point where I'm just like, OK, I'm good with it.

But also 2 they introduced not like a battle pass per SE, but

it's more like a cosmetic pass where it's completely free no

matter what and there's even an option to turn it off.

But it's just like and and like it'll either go to the shop or

it'll go to like a random like loop pool that you might be able

to find in the mission. Just depends on how it loads in.

But, and like this is kind of me, just like old man yelling at

clouds, like, dude, just get off your high horse.

There's there's an option to turn it off, yes, but like, if

I'm going to play deep rock, I might as well turn it on and you

know, get this, get that progression.

I'm going to. Make my shotgun look a little

cool. Yeah.

I mean, I might as well go for that progression.

But also at the same time, it's just like, I've I've seen this

before. Yeah.

And it's just it's so exhausting.

Like I said, there's the option to turn off.

That is a valid, that is a completely valid argument to

tell me. And I will just tell you, shut

up. Let me be angry.

We stick at Cloud. Yeah.

Now we are getting older, huh? Yeah, I mean, I do this show

time. Starting to push 30.

Yeah, I'm old. Ethan just turned 26, so.

Old man over there, who's the green?

Guy, no wonder I'm so tired all the time.

I have to go to at 7:00 PM. Bro man, that's how I fucking

feel Oh my God, falling asleep in my chair at like 7:00.

You know, like a God damn old man.

And then you wake up to your dad changing the TV show.

I was watching that. Why is that?

My dad love you pops. But yeah, I don't.

I know a lot of people were kind of against Fallout 76 changing

to having to pay for quote UN quote a season pass, but I

didn't hate it and I have gotten some pretty cool stuff out of

it. Honestly more than what the the

like old scoreboards were. Doing and isn't it?

Isn't it like just cosmetic stuff?

Like you can maybe change the way a sign looks or how maybe

how your gun looks or something. Your guns, maybe some like

furniture items that you can put in your Cam.

Yeah, like it's a lot of it is just cosmetics stuff.

It's not anything that's going to help you be better.

I guess there are some. Right.

So it's just like deeper at Galactic in the sense.

Yeah, like there are some like mods that you can put on your

guns that you can get. OK, But it's with this game not

being a competitive shooter, it's more of Co-op helping each

other. Yeah, Co-op PV.

Yeah, yeah. So like I said, I don't hate it

and I've gotten some pretty cool stuff.

I really love that they added weather machines to the game so

you could change the weather in your camp.

You can change it. Like right now I think I have

Rad Storm. Will that actually affect you or

just like just? It's it's just cosmetic, it

doesn't actually affect. You that's still cool though.

That you can do snow, which I it it literally the item like that

you put down and you connect to your like power is a fucking

snowman. OK.

Can you have multiple of these out at the same time?

No they don't. Oh damn.

I I know it that kind of sounds like shit, but it would be

really fucking weird if you have like rad storm and then all of a

sudden fucking rain and Thunder. And I guess, I don't know, it'd

just be kind of weird. Hey man, the thundering rad

storm might not. I mean, I guess it would be.

Far off. Yeah, which it already kind of

does that anyway. Yeah, but this is in the radius

of your camp. Oh, of course.

So once you leave your camp it goes away but comes back when

you go back in. Those are fucking cool.

The snow one that came out around Christmas.

These guys know I love my holidays.

Yes, you do. You can hate me for it, I don't

care. How you express yourself.

Yeah, I fucking love Halloween, Christmas lunch, but yeah, I was

just smiling from ear to ear when I saw this snowman weather

machine and I'm like, Oh my God, that motherfucker.

Down fucking money. I threw that motherfucker down,

started snowing. I was sitting in my fucking

house by the fire. I live, I have a fireplace in my

house and I sat down and just, yeah, this not playing the game

as I should be, just sitting here.

Just vibing. You know I got fucking

challenges I got to go do and shit, you know fuck that.

No or vibing. But besides that, the

thunderstorm one pretty fucking nice too.

Yeah, only thing is I and I, I know this is stupid to probably

say, but the Thunder could be a little quieter.

I know that sounds odd as hell to say, but it's really fucking

loud. No, I get it too loud.

I mean, there's the there's the one chase music and security

breach with the DJ. Oh that's loud as shit.

Yes it is, and it could be quieter.

It. Definitely could.

It's I like it. Me too.

Like I don't mind it being loud. Like it, it really intensifies,

but it's at a point where it's just, it's annoying and it takes

you out of the game. You want to be in the game.

Yes, that I can understand. Yeah, But no, I, I, I, I guess I

kind of like the way that Fallout 76 is going.

And they said Bethesda has announced that they're actively

working on Fallout 5. Yeah.

Oh, really? Yeah.

OK, so. Finally have confirmation that

it's happening. But how long this it's going to

be before this game comes out? Who down?

At least five years. Because at this point they even

have, you know, said elders. Elder Scrolls 6 is in

development. It's.

Been a while and it probably still is in development.

And I mean, you take all the time you need, I mean.

I mean, you know, I think developers at this point in age

are realizing that. Yes.

Finally. That you need more fucking time

because if you release a bad game, it's bad forever.

Yeah, this is something that's quoted by somebody.

I can't remember if it's. I'm pretty sure that's Kojima no

Hideo Kojima. I don't think it's Kajima, it's

someone. I know who you're talking about

though. It so this is not my quote.

But Nintendo? Someone from Nintendo?

Something like that, yeah. It's it's someone from Nintendo.

When you release a bad game, it's bad forever.

But if you release a late game, it's good.

Like you can wait. Oh yeah, you know, And I know

waiting can sometimes be a pain in the ass, sure, but I'd rather

the game be finished and not as buggy then have someone, a

developer, release a game that literally could have used

another year or two. I mean.

The quote is from Miyamoto. Thank you.

That's who it is. The late game is eventually

good. A bad game is bad forever.

Honestly, I don't. I personally don't.

I agree with the quote, but I don't think it's gospel.

No it. Doesn't have to be gospel.

For example, we talked about it Cyberpunk and No Man's Sky.

They have. They have bounced back.

They have and like, you know, a lot of people came back when,

but maybe not everyone, but a lot of people came back,

especially the cyberpunk once things, you know, settled down,

they're all settled. Like holy shit it's great.

Yeah, like it's some games. Obviously not all.

Not all that's. Imagine there's also been

delayed games that have turned out to be really bad.

Oh yeah. Yeah, like this quote from

Miyamoto, It's, it's not meant to be like even, say, gospel,

but it's, it's just something to think about.

Yeah, 'cause you want your product to be as good as it can

be, you know? I mean, first impressions is

everything. Oh, of course.

It is a thing, yes. And if it's.

That's that's kind of my first point that I made.

It's first impressions, like Mark said, yeah, it's

everything. And sometimes, even when a game

can bounce back, it might be too late.

Yeah. You're you're always going to

have that demographic of people that you'll never win back.

Yeah. But it was nice to see, well,

like in Cyberpunk's case, because they were refunding

people, well more the storefront.

Refund people. The fact that it bounced back

because of how long it was in fucking development, I think it

was over 10 years like it was. I mean, to be fair, just looking

at the game. Yes, yeah, but it just makes you

question what the fuck went wrong if it was that long in

development, you know? Well, I mean that.

There's a lot that we don't know.

From what I understand, it was a lot of reworks, a lot of design.

Usually when it takes more than I would say four years, there's

stuff being redone and a lot of. It decision making going wrong

or ideas changing. I mean, look at Skull and Bones.

I am. Look at what happened to that

game. Like you, you could you could

have just made a simple we're going to take the ship mechanics

of Black Flag and some of the off board mechanics of Black

Flag and we're going to make it into a pirate game.

So it's not going to be. Used the ship mechanics from

Black Flag. That's the problem.

You could have just copied, pasted and you could have the

game right there. You had the game already there

and then you just kept Eddie War and new things somehow got the

Singaporean government involved. I don't know what the fuck.

Is 75% of your game is being on that ship, you need to make the

the ship. Work.

Yeah, yeah, like then if you don't, what the Hell's the

point? Yeah, like fucking Sea of

Thieves, man. They, you know, I, I know how

people feel about Sea of Thieves.

There are people that like and people that are like whatever,

what the fuck is this? Yeah, yeah, I'm kind of in that

whatever. But it's it's more so because

like the amount of time it takes to do something in that game, I

could be doing something else. Yeah, it takes it.

It's definitely a. Pirate game he's.

Going to have a. Pirate game's going to have a

hit or miss nature. Yes, see that's.

Never a surefire thing. That's why like when me and the

Bond would play it like we both kind of feel the same way about

the game and we don't mind, you know, having to take a little

bit of time in the ship because it takes a little while.

For you to play, yeah, that's perfectly fine.

But it can be annoying at times because you just want to get

moving. Yeah, but that's why, like me

and Devon, we always fuck with each other.

Like, he'll be up at the God damn fucking wheel and shit and

I'll be behind him with an instrument, fucking with him.

Done it, done it, you know, just not play the full song.

I'll just keep you know, that's how we pass the time and I was

also the one that was navigating because I'd be down.

Yeah, and like, OK, well, southwest.

Wait, that's not southwest. No, I'm sorry.

Wait, weast, go weast, like and then fucking define hits a God

damn rock. Dude, I I know this is off

topic. When you hit a fucking.

Rock. Oh, it's hard to get off those

rocks. It's hard, like what?

It is hard but it's fucking Bunny as shit.

Just because you hear the vine like wait this water starts

pulling in. Like God there were so many

memories. I got to show you guys that

compilation I made. Oh yeah, yeah.

It got as funny as fucking. Back on topic, I think I'm good

on on my thing. So who was the gold?

I think I went last because I was talking about battle passes.

OK, so shit is back to. Me.

I mean, this is going to be a rapid fire.

Pretty much, yeah. But pretty much like I'll close

off my talk about battle passes with it.

Like yes, even if it's free, completely free and 100%

cosmetic, it's to me. It's just I've seen it so much

to where it's just at the point where it's annoying and

exhausting. Yeah.

Oh yeah. Yeah, and it's like just try

something else. Yeah, 'cause they're beating a

dead horse. Oh yeah.

Yeah, this. There needs to be some change.

Like I don't, I don't, I don't mind the level up mechanic where

if you have a specific character you have to level up 'cause I

think Exoprimal did that, where if you levelled up a specific

character then you got traits for that character.

Yes, you definitely got new weapons, different traits.

Yes, I remember and like. Yeah, that's kind of in a

similar vein to the card system. But no matter what that card

system is across the board characters, that's just the

character. And usually if it's a character

they level up pretty damn. 'Cause I I remember the I

remember the gamma and the beta character sets that they were

doing. Yeah.

Oh yeah, that's right. They did the they had the

normals and then the alphas and the betas.

That's right. I forgot about that 'cause I

remember. I played as the shield guy a

lot. I remember I was pretty good

with that flying healer. Oh my God, you were amazing.

Even though I guess she's dog shit, yeah, healing wise, yeah,

I still, I still played a mean fucking healer with her.

Yeah, I just remember with the the the alpha, the beta

characters, it was like I was playing as a shield guy.

All of a sudden he's like, he's only doing shotguns and oh,

you're right. I'm like what is this?

The thing with I think I was getting her name was like

Skywave or something. Maybe that's a transformer, but

her either her alpha or beta, one of the two pretty much went

from healing to just straight damage.

Yeah. Why is she still in the healing

class? Yeah.

At that point, yeah. Why?

Yeah, it's. Oh.

Yeah, there there are some choices that they made with that

game that just didn't make sense.

And they only had like a, they only added content for a year

and then they were like, OK, something else.

I mean, yeah, it was more of an experimental title.

Yeah, and it, and I mean, I think it, it didn't do it.

Could have worked though. But if they I I loved the aspect

of oh it's primarily APVP game, but all of a sudden you and the

entire lobby's thrown into a PVE environment and all hell is

breaking loose. Well, that's 'cause you're

fighting against a boss and now instead of the entire lobby,

yeah, racing against each other and they got all these

checkpoints, now you're fighting with each other.

You're like, wait a minute, hold on, record, scratch, pause,

freeze frame, hold on. I.

Was getting ready for PvP game, holy shit.

Man, now I'm gonna you you saying record scratch now I now

I need to go find. A Yeah, now you get sound.

Put a sound effect in it. I gotta start.

I gotta. I've got some things boiling up.

Here, by all means, please do. Yeah.

Where's my phone doing I need my phone for?

My list, I guess we can start wrapping up tonight with one of

my final topics, I guess. Or or what were you doing?

I was just grabbing from my phone from my list in case we

needed more OK filler content. Filler content.

Filler, just kind of throw one in there is the unnecessary

pursuit of technology that a lot of these games have been, a lot

of these gaming companies have been really throwing themselves

into. Speaking of buzzwords.

That is another. Pretty much.

I mean, one of the bigger ones is just the relentless pursuit

for graphical fidelity, just trying to make your game look

like real life. Well, here's the thing.

A game can look really pretty, but if there's nothing to do,

what? What's a game?

Yeah, what the fuck's the point? Like this?

I'm kind of worried about that with GTA6.

Or or or even even another counterpoint, if your game looks

like real life and all other games are trying to do that too,

what what separates you out from the rest of the other games at

that point? Then you just point.

In you have nothing thing that makes you stand out.

You're all becoming the same thing.

Yeah, and that gets exhausting. And then it just adds bloat to

the game cuz now you have to increase your storage space size

just to handle for the amount of graphics it becomes.

It becomes an ecosystem where all your games are now competing

for the limited space on your devices.

Well, it's not only that, but it's also like map size.

Usually with, you know, more games in the series comes a

bigger map. Yeah.

So not only are you improving the graphics and are you making

the map bigger, but what's going to be in the map?

Because now if you have the same density or if you have like

let's say you take a map and just increase it in size,

doesn't matter the size, but yeah, you have the same same

map, same points on the map. Now you're just increasing the

distance. Yeah, sure, it looks prettier,

but you're increasing the distance between these item or

these quests, these items, whatever you're doing.

And. It's just like.

Travel time. Again, going back to GTA6, yeah,

you have like what, a four times bigger map than?

Something like that. It's five.

It's like. And five was already fucking.

What's What's the substance? Yeah, Am I just going to be

driving, slash, flying, or God forbid teleporting everywhere?

Like you're making this pretty game.

I want to see this pretty game. I don't want to trash travel.

Everywhere or like a lot of the Assassin's Creed games since

they went over open world. Yeah.

Like like I know Valhalla, it was a huge offender of this

where it was just tons and tons of open space and not much

really substance or whatever's. There is really just a ton of

busy work that doesn't make it that doesn't really satisfy you.

Yeah, You need substance that's worth doing.

Yeah, right. And that, you know, it's fun.

Yeah. Is that the whole point of

playing a video game is having fun?

But making a larger and larger space when there's not enough

content to just throw into it, it's just it's a waste of money,

it's a waste of resources and a waste of time.

I'm just scared to see what the fucking size of GTA 6 is gonna

be. Yeah, this game, you're gonna

have to delete every game. If I swear to God, if I.

You get this one full terror plate right for the game.

Oh, you. Might.

I it's gonna I don't think it, I don't think that's gonna go

that. Far, I think.

They said it's at least 500 gigs.

Fuck. Oh hell no.

I. That's that's most storages.

That's most storage on a fucking console right now.

I mean, yeah, you have like some have a TB.

Now, yeah, but literally half of your storage goes to.

One game and let's say let's say you have that plus Call of Duty,

plus whatever else is relevant at the time.

You won't be able to support them all.

You'd have to pick and choose. OK.

Yeah. So, so Call of Duty, sorry.

Yeah, the newest Call of Duty. Yep.

GTA6, Red Dead Redemption 2 and maybe some other game.

That that would already be two terabytes.

Yep, you wouldn't even be able to probably at this point.

You wouldn't even be able to install Red Dead.

No, seriously. I the game better not be that

big yeah, because that like will I get GTA6 at some point?

I don't know yeah, I played a lot of 55 has kind of some

meaning to me. Yeah, cuz it when it was my

first Grand Theft Auto game. Yeah.

And it was the Grand Theft Auto game that I played a lot with

Devon. Yeah.

So that game holds a special place to me.

Yeah. And I didn't hate it like I

don't play it nowadays because I've kind of done everything I

want. Yeah, you know, but six, I I

just. I don't know.

I don't know. I know I'm gonna be end up

getting it, but that's because Emma and her brother have a huge

soft spot for that game. That is a game that they played

with their dad all the time. It is something that they grew

up with. It's something that I know that

they're not going to live without and I'm going to respect

it, but it's just it's hard to justify.

If a game is that fucking big like.

What is the base price of that too?

I know it's going pretty high, but that's also because they're

putting. People.

They will pay for it. I know people were holding their

breath, waiting to see if they were going to be the ones to

crossover and to, OK, we're going to make games to do $100.

Yeah. Because a lot of game, a lot of

game companies are waiting for that decision to base the price

of their future projects. And it's like if you're going to

make me buy or I shouldn't say make me, if you're going to make

your game $100 base. That better be perfect.

I ain't buying it. Yeah, 'cause that's $100.

You you really have to justify it to me like it's it would

already be a hard sell at $100. I mean, like it's, it's all,

it's all. I'm fine and dandy if the game

is especially. Since you don't even own the

game, yeah. Yeah, that too.

That's that's the way we're going too.

And that kind of that's another. That's another topic.

Yeah, Honestly, that's that's a. It is a gaming bit.

P or turn off. That could be its own episode.

Yeah, it can. Be its own series of real yeah,

I guess let's move on from just the the graphical fidelity

another part of just unnecessary technology.

They want to remember back to when Ubisoft was pushing crypto

and NFTS and they're you. Crypto bruise.

Yeah, you're going to have to bring me up to speed because I

don't, I don't really. I don't know this either.

I don't play anything from Ubisoft.

I just don't. That's just, and it's not even

anything against them. It's just not your interest.

No, I don't really like the I. Mean there's the one game I'm

interested in, Morbid Metal, but I I also thought about it

because it looks it's a rogue like.

It looks interesting. Yeah, but then that means I

would have to sign in using Ubisoft.

Yeah, you'll be forced. And their own ecosystem games.

That's kind of a turn off for me.

It's more of a pet peeve, but. It's a true that failed, so they

came crawling back to steam, but in.

EA as well I think. Like I was even thinking about

this with Trials. Any of them.

The trial series is made by Ubisoft.

Great series, especially Fusion and I read the reviews and if I

want to play it I just sign in every single time and it doesn't

remember your sign in information.

I'll screw that. Yeah, so I'd have to do the same

thing with Morbid Metal. The demo doesn't do that, but

it's a demo. So it's a demo.

But yeah, anyway, go on. NFTS What the hell is this

about? So I think they finally kind of

realized that that's a dead ship for them and they kind of

dropped it. I think it was like a year or

two ago, they got really big into pushing players to try to

start up their own cryptocurrency for Ubisoft that

would be useful used on all of their games as well as an NFT

project. Or you can bring assets from one

of their games into another one of their games.

And it it it was just, oh, yeah, we're getting into the Krypton

NFT stage because you have all these, yeah, you have all these

grifters promoting it. And look at all the money

they're making. And it's going to be so good for

stockholders going back to marketing buzzwords.

But. And it just turned out to be

just a huge, expensive waste of time that nobody in the gaming

sphere wanted. Oh yeah, everyone wants to play

games. Not.

I, I, I don't see the appeal to, oh, I'm going to play a game to

earn money. That's just work.

And it's not even. That's literally what it.

Is no. As soon as you make a dollar off

something, that's work. Yeah, yeah, that literally.

Yeah, yeah. It's like, it's like, why would

I be wasting my time on a game when I can be doing something

productive and actually making a lot more money at a reasonable

expense to? Myself and actually doing

something that's meaningful, I guess.

Yeah. Way you know, like.

But it's like, it's like I'm not going to sit through just this

rain, just this rain of application that you made that

supposedly is going to make me rich by just devoting my time to

watching advertisements or having my data being sold or

just. Turning my device into a

calculator for whatever the fuck you're doing.

Crypto mining. Yeah, I love games that turn my

computer into a crypto. It's there's just so much wrong

with just with the gaming industry.

We've gone this over or we've gone over this.

Hey, hey, I'll put it on the docket.

Sins of the industry. Yeah, sins of the industry.

That's a good one. Yeah, so the darker aspects of

the gaming industry that people don't talk enough about.

Gaming's industry let's. Go gaming's industry.

I like the game industry. Ethan, go write that down.

Write that down like right now, because we're we're gonna

forget. Yeah, we will.

But you know, that's, it's funny, I did not know about this

with Ubisoft. Yeah, I did not.

And. Oh, yeah, they, you know, they

pushed it hard for a couple of years.

Granted, it's like, I don't play their games, so how am I gonna

know? Yeah.

You're not gonna know, but they tried really desperately to be

like, hey guys, we we have this cool new idea and it's gonna

games are gonna be running off of crypto in the future, so you

might as well just get onto the bandwagon and it's.

It's so. Dumb.

Dude, they were so fucking disconnected on just how much

people actually hate this stuff. Yeah, Is they got lost in their

own sort of delusions with it. Yes, it was so bad.

And partly I want to say it's part, it's a huge portion of the

blame for the position, the financial positions that they

find themselves in as a fleet because of because of poor

choices with their games, poor choices with their technology

and poor choices with just forcing their games onto single

ecosystems. Yes.

Is really tarnished their reputation in their in their

bottom line. Yeah, no, I totally agree.

It's like I I miss the days of like you buy a game.

You get the whole. Game.

You get the whole game and you put it in your fucking console

physically, you play it. There's no bullshit.

I I just know downloading from some third party server.

Updating the fucking game. I have to update my game all of

a sudden or oh, I can't play the game anymore because the DM

server was turned off. We'll talk about that more in

this industry. I I miss, I miss the days of

plugging in a console, turning on the TV and playing the

fucking game. Or or even even better, you

know, updating your game, you know, buying the game physically

and not even half the game is on the disc.

Yeah, now you have to go download this update that has

like the other 50 gigs that you need, you know, and it's, it's

just dumbfounding to me. I don't understand.

OK, but would you rather have this or would you rather have to

put your game back through the mail because there was a recall

or whatever it was called back then?

Oh, what are you talk about? Fuck GameFly.

It's a GameFly. No, I'm just talking like

because there was some games wouldn't like some cartridges or

discs, whatever would be released or sent out with maybe

a game breaking bug where your game wouldn't save even though

you have a saved cartridge and you have something like that

where you have to send it back to get a working copy.

That's sort of the devil's advocate, isn't it?

You had a devil's advocate, honestly.

I don't think it happened too often, but it still happened.

You have to. Warrant it.

Be a problem. I mean.

But to be fair, there's also way more games coming out, way more

bugs because they can, they can't afford to do that.

Yeah. Cuz back then they put it out,

update it later. Yeah, expect then they couldn't.

Yeah, back then when you had to have a fully polished product.

Yeah, or it's or God help you. Yeah, like that.

I I hate the mentality of just put it out now.

We'll update it later. Why don't you just finish it?

I, I, I want to redirect on that and be like, it's not a problem

of, oh, the game's not polisher, the game isn't up to snuff for

me. The more of the problem is I

don't even own the game. Yeah.

You're telling me I'm buying a license for $60.00 that you can

just take away and Yep. Yep.

It'd be like, OK, have fun with your experience that we sold you

that you can never play again. But like when you when you buy,

when you bought games in the past, it was oh, I'm buying my

own copy of the game that I own. Yes, then I can just have my own

children play now. I now you just can't do that.

It's oh, you're just buying a license and you're groveling at

the feet of large game corporations to keep your

experience around so you can get your money's worth.

Yeah. And I mean that's.

Industry. Yeah.

And I mean, there's a lot of things that need to change, and

unfortunately, those things will not change unless something

catastrophic happens when they're forced to change.

To after die. Yeah.

Yeah, that means another crash. So be it.

So be it, because then it wakes everybody up.

Yep. I mean, that's how, that's how

innovation and. Yep.

Modernization kind of takes place since what's there has to

burn at some point. So you can then innovate more.

But yeah, no, I think I'm good. You guys got anything else

before we end this? They're thinking, they're

thinking. They're thinking.

They're thinking. More games need to have sex.

Attitude sex. No, I'm kidding.

I just go on like eagle yeast. Games be censored by Visa and

MasterCard. Well, this took a turn.

Yes. Why don't we have a podcast

again? We're three guys in the podcast

and serve our motto. OK, sure.

Yeah. All right.

It's like that one company, 2 guys in the truck.

That is so far from what we're doing.

Dude what? You know, two guys in the truck,

three guys in the podcast. Barbecue and foot massage.

OK, we should. OK.

That's going too far. That's gone too far.

Honestly, I think we've gone further.

So that ain't no, that ain't no goddamn way that that's.

Far, you know, dude, man, I got guys in the truck, three guys in

the server podcast. I got nothing else and I don't.

Think Mark got anything else? Mark's just saying.

Stuff out of this surprise. God damn it, that was good shit.

Then Mr. Funny Mark over here. All right.

Well, if that's it, then that's it.

Yeah, yeah. That's it.

That's that's it, That's it. That's it.

Yep. No more.

That's it. All right, Player 4, you may

unplug now and run. Run far away.

And I mean far away. I'll find you.

Bye everybody. I'll see you soon.

Run.

The Story