Thoughts On The Gaming Industry

0:03 Hello everybody. Welcome back to Plugin for Player 4. I'm your host, Mark here with Brandon and. Ethan now with 100% more deodorized dogs. Yeah, that was so much cleaning. It still stinks a little bit. Oh, we're talking about that. Yeah, for a minute. I'm like, what? We're going to start the episode that way. That's how we ended last episode. We got to give him an update. Yeah, true. Yeah, update everything good. That smells a little bit, but we've been able to mostly clean it. He's still got two brain cells, so I think we're right about where we were.

0:45 Less time. Yeah. Yeah. Poor guy. Right in the mouth, too. Yeah, that sucks. Yeah, right in the mouth. That's the worst. Like imagine like just constantly tasting it. Yeah. I would die. I would just pass. I would get some vinegar and just like. Should have mouthwash with the vinegar. No, just straight vinegar. Oh God, I thought that would make it worse. I don't know. Hey. Man, you must like use baking. Soda. Well, it's a deodorizer. I I have actually had a vinegar. So I'm talking like baking soda and a vinegar.

1:18 You could. I mean, your mouth might explode, but Jay, I mean, hey, dude. Anything's better than skunk spray, OK? I mean, you're, that's you goddamn right. Yeah. No, I I agree 100%. Well, luckily the weather's cooled back down now, so we can actually have windows. Open. Oh my God. Yeah, it's so it's fucking nice. It's not like we have AC anyways, so we were. I'll rephrase that. We're gonna have windows open and still not be sweltering inside. To quote Phineas and Ferb, it's gonna be hot, hot, hot.

1:54 That's the entire month. Yeah, yeah, being August now. Happy August. Happy August, boy, it's got to get even hotter for the next month. Yeah, just going to Are you quoting that thing from Fallout? Yeah. Yeah, fucking sheets. I saw Tron drone.

2:20 God, that thing was weird. But to get us back on track, what are we talking about? So today we're going to do something a little bit different. We're going to talk about our thoughts on the gaming industry as a whole. This is going to be a little bit more of an introspection. Introspection on how we all think the industry's going, certain trends and how we feel those trends are affecting the industry as a whole. It's not gonna be the same sort of structure as our previous episodes. This is gonna be much more of a a discussion that spam that can go away.

3:08 Spam calls man look. Yeah, but this is gonna be much more opinionated. None of this is like none, none. None of this is like expert opinions. We're just three guys with a podcast here, so don't take any of our word as gospel. This is just as general, general consumers in the industry. What, how? What is our sort of perspective on things and how do we think things are going? Especially me, I don't pay attention to anything so there could just be pure bullshit coming out of my mouth. Yeah, take a heap of salt from me.

3:49 I I pay attention somewhat, but I don't, like, dig deep into it. Yeah. Because it can get rather depressing if you do that. Now. It's good to know what's going on, but don't dig deep to the point of like, you're causing yourself stress and anxiety from something you can't change. Yeah. So just, yeah, just three of us talking about what our thoughts are on the state of the gaming industry as a whole. Yes. So who wants to start this big boa?

4:23 Hi. Why? Why everyone looking at me? I guess they'll open the floor. What are you guys's general thoughts with? I guess the health of the industry will start there.

4:37 The health, I feel like personally, we're on a downward slope because there is just an accelerating amount of games releasing every year, well, even every month at this point. And not only that, but like from the big games down to the small games like Let's, let's take. What is that Masamune, the pretty Derby game, for example, Like that's, that's one of the many live service games that are out there. Yes. And there's just so many out there that a lot of them fail. And the reason that there's so many of them out there is because everyone's like basically chasing a golden goose of of money.

5:34 And because there's so many people chasing him, there's only so many people that can play these games. And only the most like well put together and thought out or even kind of in a in a way pretty Derby funny ones can survive. I've never played it. I just, you know, I, I know gold ship is notorious. If you guys don't know about Gold Ship, she's she's funny. It's Umassa Munnet is like a little side tangent. Umassa Munnet is about actual horses that have done actual Derby races and one of the one of the horses is Gold Ship notorious for just not listening at all.

6:24 Like during training during actual races. And Gold Ship would would finish a lot of races in first. However I think so. I think again heap of salt. But after after retirement, Gold Ship was running faster lap times than she ever would in actual Derby racing, as well as I at one point intentionally stopping at the end of the race before the finish line and letting other finish first. Dick. Oh, wow. OK. So, so Golden Ship is based off the actual horse, like her personality, like just she doesn't listen to to the training in the game either a lot of the times, yeah.

7:19 That's funny. But I mean outside of that, like you have wooldering waves, you have Zenila Zone 0, you have pretty much any Honka impact game just about. Yeah. I think it's Honka or is that the that's the creator or is it or is Honka Impact the game series 'cause I know there's like Honka Impact the third, which is like the most popular that that I know of. But there's there's just so many live service games out there that you can only dedicate. Yeah, that you can only dedicate so much time, right.

7:58 When you when you introduced us to this thought point before the episode started, I actually wanted to point out, yeah, this seems more like it's. I'm not really sure that it's the life service part that's the problem. It's the fact that you have all the larger companies going after trends instead of taking. That's the word trends, yeah, Yeah. Yeah, all all of these larger producers are just trend chasing now instead of trying to be innovative. Cause like before, before this, before live service, there was battle Royale like around like around 10 years ago, which was you know, like 2016 or whatever, everyone was doing battle royales.

8:49 Well, even now it's. Not even my ServiceNow. A lot of a lot of companies are pushing more towards trying to make their own extraction shooters or extraction. Yeah, it's moving over to that. But even then, it's still, it's, it's all about those like daily logins and everything. Like they want to see the player count daily and monthly and whatever. But also off my own point of going back 10 years, let's go back 20 years. What was the most popular thing then? First person shooters, yeah. First person shooters with Halo and Call of Duty.

9:22 Halo, Call of Duty, I mean kind kind of Gears of War that's third person, but still like just yeah, these shooters in general, yes. I mean there was also like the hero shooter point but. Yeah, with 2016. Yeah, that was like a kind of a sidestep. Yeah, yes. But again, a a lot of what we're seeing in the gaming industry over the past couple of decades has been nothing short of just trend. Trend chasing. Just trend chasing and it's starting to get to a point where you know there's not a lot to really look forward to with upcoming titles.

10:02 Unfortunately. Personally, This is why I like to focus on my indie games. Same here. That's literally all. Slash indie studios. Now I know indie studios can turn AAA just depending on how, but you know, besides the point, just you know, This is why I focus on indie games because like a lot of a lot of that AAA and or popular games, whatever, however you want to phrase it or just kind of copy and paste, it's what makes the money. Yeah, Yep, indie games, yes, they can make money. They can also flop.

10:38 Yeah. But it's the innovation that there used to be in AAA games. Yeah, there used to be. That sucks that that's not really a thing. Now it's all just same shit. Yeah, every year. It's. Especially, especially after the pandemic, it's been on a much more wretched slope of just bigger and bigger companies taking less and less risk. Yes, yeah. We're getting to a point where it it feels like a lot of the trouble, like games are now just set up to be only meant for extracting wealth. Yes. Yeah, instead of giving you any sort of value.

11:24 Well, this was funny the. Other than a graphics update? Oh, graphics, Yeah. Or fuck, we can look at all the sports games. It's just a roster. UPDATE Oh my God. Yeah, it's literally all. Yeah, like FIFA or its counterpart WWEI mean you got I think hockey at this point is going kind of NFL or Madden, whichever it is. Well, what's what's funny is I don't know if this is kind of going off a little bit, but I think it was during the Xbox showcase back in June, I think we there was like this game I there's.

12:09 A lot of games. There's a lot of games. It was like this guy was walking into this room and he has like these like robot like. My God in my throat. Butlers and, like, all kinds of shit, you know? Yeah. And we, like, me and my brother were watching this and we're like, man, this actually looks pretty good. Yeah, you know, right. And then the title comes up, Black Ops 7. Aw. I got really bad. It looked great. Yeah, I can't. And then they or just Call of Duty. They hit you with that and it's like, are you fucking kidding me?

12:49 Really. Yeah, like just just to say this, you like your Call of Duty cool, go play it. Don't let us say anything about it. You know, what you like to play is what you like to play. Yeah, that's fine. We're not here to rain on your parade. No, just giving our own opinions. But it's like, that's another thing. Call of Duty, it's gone from what I used to remember it back in like MW2 time, 2009. Oh yeah, you know where it was just literally a military shooter? Yeah, to now you could play as Nicki Minaj with a huge butt.

13:23 Or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Or some or or. Something with Snoop Dogg narrating the match for you? Which was kind of cool. OK, if you want to talk about this, let's just go to Fortnite. Fortnite. If you want to talk about skins and whatever, let's just go to Fortnite where you can be whatever multiverse time travel bullshit you ever you want to be. From any, any major IP, yeah. IP. That's the word that's. The IP, yeah, Fortnite is a different story. They can do it well. Call of Duty I like, Fortnite is good.

13:55 To be well, it's just they're popular. Yes. Yeah. Popular for a good reason or a bad reason? Let's. Get that? Let's clear that air. But. That game is it's colorful, it's cartoony. That's the whole thing. Yeah, Call of Duty was right. Yeah, Call of Duty, it doesn't fit the atmosphere. No. And it's. Yeah, you're right though. Like what are we doing? And it's like every single fucking game that comes out every year is the same. It's literally the same. And like I and you're paying like $70.00 for this.

14:30 Who knows if it's going to go to 80? I mean, Nintendo's already sitting in the bar with 80. Fucking. The 90 physical, is that what it is? $90.00 physical, $80 digital. I don't actually think the $90.00 physical is. Really. Oh, OK, why did I say that? I just remember that from launch. Yeah, why I see why I say that is Mario Kart World. We got a physically it was $80. OK, that's so. And now I don't know for third parties, who knows? Yeah, but like, I used to really enjoy Call of Duty, but I just don't like the way it is now, and also with some of the shady practices of Activision has completely turned me off from it.

15:15 Yeah. Yeah, I mean just the the integration of all this AI bullshit. It's not even just that, it's the fucking thing of my privacy. Yeah, like, literally like, now I'm taking this with a grain of salt, but there was something I was watching that was talking about that if you're playing Call of Duty Black Ops 6 on PC. Now, I don't know if this is Steam and Xbox, I don't know. But apparently there's a what's called a DLADLL file, which is a Windows file that is in Call of Duty's code that apparently can take over your camera if you have one connected to your computer and it can watch you.

16:01 I don't like that. What are you doing? Yeah, Injecting this bullshit in my fucking game. Yeah, no. Again, why would you even need that? It's what's what's the purpose of it? If you're just playing a game, why do you need to collect video footage? So that's the thing that from this video, there's God got it. From this video I was watching, they speculate that probably what they were doing is watching your facial expressions and to see where. What would be the good time to try to sell you something?

16:35 Yeah. That's their theory. I really wish I could. Somebody trying something something. I wish I could remember the person that made this video because he went over a lot of stuff. Yeah. But it's I, I don't like that that that's not right. And that's what actually finally cut me off from Call of Duty because it's like, I don't want you watching me. That's freaking weird. Isn't that illegal like. I mean, you really should. You're. Basically a peep and Tom. I mean like This is why and but even before this, like This is why I don't keep my camera plugged in if I can help it.

17:15 Yeah, 'cause I mean, I'll forget occasionally, but like, yeah, I, I get on a Zoom call or I, you know, we fuck around a Discord sometimes and we all, at least US three, maybe not Jack, have our webcams on. But as soon as I, you know, get off for bed, unplug or get off a Zoom call, unplug, yeah, or whatever I use it for, which is not much outside of that. Yeah, no. I just don't want like not even Call of Duty or Activision or whoever. I just don't. I just don't want people looking at me through my camera.

17:49 Yeah, no, I, I completely understand that. I, like I said after learning that, quickly uninstalled the game. They've been using people well. I even told you it was a bad idea before this happened. I even told you I don't get and you're like, I got it. It's fun. I'm like, Oh my God. And the thing that sucks is it was fun. It was honestly a pretty solid game. Yeah, but all these shitty practices like I like really. And I think they also allegedly are using player data to train the AIS in the games.

18:20 Yeah. Or some shit like I I don't know if that's true or not. Like any of this, take with a grain of salt. I see that being true. I mean, if if you're going to train code for your AI models, for how the AI responds and acts to you as a player in the game, yeah. I just don't see it as disruptive as, oh, we're going to take your own video and audio recording without your consent. Yeah, man, I mean. That's that's that's where I draw the line. I'm going to make a joke on this because it's not just not thought of something funny.

18:55 Yeah. It's like these people are like, you know, looking through me in my camera, man, Who knows? I could be doing something in my room that you probably don't want to see. Like, you know, I could be doing a helicopter. I don't know. Like if you know, you know. Oh my God, my Roth. My ruffle copter goes wash, wash, wash, wash, wash, wash. The helicopter. OK, All right. Anyway, yeah, moving on from AI, here's here's 1. So basically the way that the big console companies are going is like Sony, Nintendo, Xbox, especially Xbox, how they're buying up all these studios.

19:40 Same thing with Sony, they have all these IPS. Same thing with Nintendo, they have all these IPS and they don't do anything with it. Or like just close them down. Well, they. Close them down. And then they just put all the workers into the existing IPS that they already are using. Yeah. And then at that point it was like, why did you even bother buying the companies to let the staff go or merge them into? In into your existing properties and then you're just sitting on IP that you're paying money for that you're not even fucking using.

20:12 Yeah, it's like a waste of money. Yeah, you know, like Xbox, some Activision going back kind of back to that. They have Spyro. How When was the last main Spyro game besides Skylanders? Yeah, Skylanders doesn't. Count, Yeah. Shoot, you can, you can even throw the the the remasters in there and it's still been a while. Right. I got yeah, they're because I mean those, yeah, those are. They're just remasters. Right. It's not even a new game, it's just an updated game. Even even considering those, it's been quite a quite some time.

20:45 I mean, to be fair, you can actually see that they didn't just update the graphics, they actually kind of changed some models. But still though, like just besides that trilogy, when was the last time that you Aspiro going to Sony? Jack and Daxter? I think that's Sony. When was the last Jack and Daxter game going to Nintendo? Mega Man of the the F0. I'm not counting F-099. Crap with CMS Metroid. I mean, well, they they did Metroid Red true which not too long ago. Now there's a Metroid Prime 4 that's.

21:19 OK, right. Then let me shift it up to being. Starfox. Star Fox Yeah, that's been dead for a. While Star Fox. Bayonetta. The only IP I can think of that actually did come back was crash. Crash Bandicoot, but that's Toys for Bob. That's different. That's like, I don't think anybody really, I could be wrong on this, but because they give a kind of their own thing, does it because I think they bought Crash or something. I think, yeah, maybe it is. Could be wrong again. Heap of salt. I say a lot of shit from my mouth but I believe I give give Spyro to Toys for Bob.

21:57 Really. Please, if they can do that with Crash. And it was pretty good. Do it with Spyro. Yeah, Spyro was fun like I have I excuse me, I have those those games on on Steam. I. Only have two figures on my desk right there. And you really like Spyro? I do and it's all I mean I have. I love it. I have a skateboard. Holy shit, I know, it's great he's not. Fucking notice. Yeah, dude, it's the skateboard from I know at least the third game. I'm not sure if the skateboard's in two or three. I'm sorry, one or two.

22:30 I know she knows. I still need to play Ripto's Rage and the first one I played the the main Spyro games I played was You're the Dragon, which is the third one, and then the Enter the Dragonfly, which I guess that was notoriously broken. You can just go through the gate and get to the final block. It's wow. I think that's what Jack said. It's frame rate, because I had to test that, yeah, for somebody. And yeah, the frame rate's fucking bad. I was thinking on GameCube. Oh well, I have the PS2 so I. Think PS2 is really bad.

23:05 I think like, either way, it was not good, it was bad. But like, fundamentally the game is fine, right? You know? But it's just performance. Yeah, that was the biggest problem with it. I mean, to be fair, as a kid I don't think I really noticed anything but one. I was a kid in two. Modern games today are completely different. Yes, Sir, as of this recording, today are completely different from 20 years ago. Yeah, yeah, I never noticed frame rate or any of that shit until I think PS3 is when I started noticing like man, this runs like crap.

23:43 Like I'm, I'm sure when you first played Resident Evil 4, you're like, Oh my God, this is like insurmountable graphics. Nothing will ever beat this. Yeah. And then now it's really weird that with the original release of Resident Evil 4 on the game Cube was locked at 30 frames. That's the way it really should be. But the newer versions they're like at 60. Yeah. And it's the first time playing A60FPS of Resident Evil 4 was fucking weird. Like Oh my God I didn't know he could be so smooth. Holy. Shit, that's some smooth jazz.

24:27 How that's so smooth? It is. That was nuts. But yeah, like, just, I just, I want these gaming companies to bring back at least like attempt and give some of these IPS a chance, yeah. Yeah, because they're people that do want. So, ADHD moment, but you can even see like there's a spiral figurine way in the back of that second guppy. Mark can see it at least. Yeah, yeah, I can see it. He's. Behind the he's. Looking. Away it's a switch holder, slash controller holder. One of those things, yeah, My, my sister says like a banjo.

24:57 One holds a controller, yeah. I want the Sonic. One, is there a Sonic? One. Yeah, he holds it, Yeah. I like me Spyro. I'm sure people would love like Jack and Dexter or I think Ratchet and Clank. Not that's not really dead, but like I think they've slowed down on games. Or even if not old IPS that still trying out new IPS and giving them time to live. Yeah. Like like there was that that IP that did really well for Expo, for Microsoft, they got shut. Down. Oh, are you talking hi-fi rush? Yeah, Hi-fi Rush.

25:34 Yeah, we did. We did great. Shut down. Yeah. You put it on Game Pass. Of course there's not going to be same. Or even for looking at Bungie with the with how successful a Final shape was this? God. Yeah, and even even like a third of the workforce still getting cut even though it was so successful. They had to cut those people's salary so the bigwigs can get their yachts. I mean it. It just even it's so hard to feel optimistic when even success is a failure. Yeah, 'cause. 'Cause we have seen the largest amount of consecutive layoffs in the past couple years alone.

26:19 Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if some of these bigger companies start to shut down or even like even some of the bigger. I mean, I'm not talking the big three, I'm talking like this. I'm talking like the subsets like Activision and. Microsoft makes much more of its money outside of the Xbox division. I mean the Xbox. Division is just a drop in the bucket for the company. It's like 25% down, Yeah, with their revenue, they had their like revenue sheets all put out. Yeah, Yeah, it was. But I think that was more console sales.

26:56 Yeah, that's the console. Sales, that's the thing, Console sales they don't care about. Yeah, they're deliberate. Of course they're selling them, but they've also kind of put Game Pass at this point on other stuff as well. I mean, at least at least Sony Computer. Now you can get Game Pass on the fucking TV. Yeah, but they also put they also put Xbox games on PlayStation. Yeah. Yeah. So it's. So at some point, I don't know, who knows, maybe next generation they're not even going to do consoles. But I wonder if they're just going to kill the console outright.

27:29 I mean. And like, that's kind of shitty. I I won't lie. But they're not looking for consoles because they lose money on it. Jokes aside, for all the PC mastery stuff for the console wars, losing consoles is going to be a really major impact in the industry. Because you know, if you, if you want to talk about just getting somebody in a console is a very cheap, very effective way of getting somebody set up to actually just play a video game. Yep. And just try it. Try it out. Now what you're going to be forcing people to do is they have to figure out how to get their computer working into a state where they can actually experience video games.

28:16 Yep. And it's also just not feasible for most household computers, especially with games getting larger, much more complicated, and much more intensive to actually run. Yep, yeah. Like the hardware requirements for a lot of modern games is astronomical. I mean GTA 6 is going to be. God. So heavy on your system because of the damn realism that we've been GC for so long. And you know how many people are going, at least some PC are gonna be upgrading their computer, Yeah, So they can play that shit, Yeah.

28:59 So like NVIDIA or Acer or yeah, whatever graphics card is gonna be making bank. Well, what's the month leading up to that? What's funny about that? It's not releasing on PC on release date, Yeah. It's not. No, it's gonna be on consoles first. It's gonna probably be like GTA5 where it took what, a couple years or something? I. Don't even know that. Yeah, it's gonna take them a couple years to actually get up. Jesus. It's got help. For PC because you have to optimize it so. True. I swear to God, if I look at this, the system requirements and they're recommended and it says it's a 5090, I'm going to fucking lose my shit.

29:36 Yeah, no, this is not because I want to play it. I really don't care. I've never played a GGA game. I couldn't. Care less, I don't really care. I could not care less. But I know I'm probably going to get it at some point. Emma and her brother love it. Like I'm probably going to get it. Like I'll probably get it at some point, but it's going to be like it's completely discounted. Again, This is why I like indie games. There's so much more there's. So many small games out there that even my computer can run.

30:04 Yeah, sure it can't handle Wilds the best. You are still able to play it I'm. Still able to play it but it doesn't handle it the best. No, it's also not the worst, but a lot of Rogue Lakes I play, it'll handle it or just mainly Rogue Lakes. But yeah, a lot of games I play are, yeah. They're light and like, and some of these indie games have so much more content than a $70 game. Well, I wouldn't say content, I would say replayability. Replayability if not content. If not, OK I. Mean just look at all the content, you get a rotator and then look at all the replayability you get from it.

30:43 There's no content, but it's highly, well, highly replayable, no. I would say there is a lot of content. Look at all the characters. Oh. You Fair. Fair. But that that's also more so replayability. But like, there, I don't think I've ever seen a rogue lake with that many different playable characters. Yeah, true. Yeah. I mean, I guess besides Axolotl because Axolotl has a. Lot. Well Axolotl has a good amount, but when you beat the game with specific with most of the characters, there's specific ones where it doesn't with most of the characters.

31:16 It'll unlock a secondary character with the same stat line and the same effects, just different. It's a palace swap. Yeah, OK. OK. So now you and your buddy can play the same character, yeah.

31:32 But it's just, it's the fact of that indie games just are a lot better in a lot of regard. Oh yeah, an update. Yeah, we played a you, you played, you tried X level again. Yep, and it was fun. And I broke it. And he fucking broke it. Literally. Mark, I used to tell you this and I was here for this. And Player 4, I'll tell you this too. Apparently he was so fucking powerful. OK, Mister Man over there. Yeah, he the OK, So what the explosions he was creating, there were so many all. Right, let me explain so around I think this was after the so I was playing as the imp and the imp specifically.

32:18 If you deal enough damage, you charge up your meter and then you can summon a random item. But this takes a lot of damage to do. A lot of characters have a meter where you can fill for health and then you can heal 11 heart. For reference you can have up to 10 hearts. Most start with two to three. So because I can summon items depending on the damage. Ideal around I would say like six, 6/10 or 7/10 out of the first area. You can finally get your first item for free. You don't have to go through a room or like get any rewards.

33:02 You just get an item and after the second boss, I got the explosive bullets, but I also had the helmet, which gives me immunity to explosions yes. So because I'm shooting these bullets that not really deal damage, but I'm also making explosions that deal damage, I'm filling up this bar really fast. And at this point I, there's a, there's a weapon called the pea banger. It shoots bullets in burst of four. Yep. And pretty much in that burst of four, I basically got my meter back. So I was summoning items constantly.

33:39 We got to the final boss. I should have been killing this boss way faster than I was because I've killed this boss pretty fast, No? And it wasn't happening. No, at this time. For some reason I had at the final boss 65 items. Yep, unique items. The highest count I had before this was 33. It was with the imp, but I didn't have the explosive rounds. I didn't have that damage bonus, but I just like I did a burst, spun, an item burst spun, an item burst spun an item, burst spun and it crashed. No, it actually didn't crash specifically, it said.

34:18 Connected. Disconnected or a player disconnected or multiplayer session disconnect something along that line and it booted me to the main menu. And I was still on my, my screen still had like the boss and whatnot. But you were dead, so you can do anything. Yeah, I couldn't do anything. And so from my perspective, with all the shit he was doing, his fucking explosions, bombs and all this shit just continued to happen. They wouldn't stop. And on top of that, fucking enemies he would kill. He'd kill them so fast that they were still on my screen, hurting me after they died.

34:55 But on my screen the enemies were dead and he wasn't taking damage. No, there was even no bullets to hit him. And the thing was, even though they were like hitting me and they were already dead, I wasn't actually losing health. But there was one in particular, the one guy bigger enemy that spins like this with like that javelin thing or whatever the fuck that is. You're checking the ball. And Jane, yeah, I fucking hate that. Elite. He was dead, but on my screen he was still there and he kept switching me.

35:26 He kept hitting me, dude, as I'm trying to get this item or box or whatever I'm getting, you know, like, Oh my God. OK, so yeah, the game was already fucked. That's where I'm like, OK, the cracks are starting to show. And then they, yeah, I'm dead and he's taking out the boss and shit and the game just finally had enough of both of us and kicked us both out. I'm like, yeah, I wouldn't be surprised too. God that was fucking hilarious. That was so I I'm not even mad. No that was funny as shit. The boss just met a game.

36:00 To me it was it, literally. I don't feel so good, Mr. Brandon. I'm watching him and I see the fucking thing that says the host disconnected. What do I? Do what? And this boss's eyes are fine all over the place still I'm like man what the fuck's going on? I'm like, was this game really meant to have Co-op? Like what's funny is I think I had an item that destroyed enemy bullets. Yeah. I don't remember picking that up, but I would like I could shoot at those eyes and the eyes would just disappear. I don't know.

36:38 Yeah, it's. Probably 1 of the goddamn items that you got. Your 65 fucking items. I I didn't get splitter or D pad, a splinter or D pad. I'm really surprised you didn't. I just kept getting bags. There's something in it. Yeah. OK, Yeah. So there's a there's an item called bag and it says, oh, there might be something inside. And if you pick it up, you can get ammo, a shield, a heart, a money. And I guess with the imp, if you have enough items you get there's a bigger, bigger chance of getting the bag.

37:14 Oh yeah, just a just a side tangent. I'm like, that was funny as shit. That was the most. That was the second time I've played Axolotl Co-op and the game fucking. Broke hardcore. It couldn't handle you, no. Yeah, I got that. I got that explosive bullet upgrade. I'm like, Oh yeah, that would do some shit. I'm kind of surprised the game didn't just lock up cuz I mean the explosions. The thing is the thing about Axolotl. But damn, we're so off topic right now. But last thing I. Like how we started off the episode saying, Oh yeah, this is going to be like our usual.

37:51 He talked about Axolotl. He knows how much I like this game. It just, Oh yeah, we're not going to talk so much about specific games and then we're in a tangent. About Axel last things, axolotl has some blemishes that need to be fixed. I mean, to be fair, the Co-op mode's still very new, isn't it? It is, but even then, like even in single player, there's some things that. Need to be. Need to be fixed that just kind of open wider like the cracks grow in Co-op. The only other thing I will say about this game with your bombs, my audio was cutting out.

38:31 Nothing else was happening. That happens if you have enough sound effects. If you have enough sound effects then the audio just stops. It was that's all I was hearing and I'm like Oh my God, stop the fucking box Jesus fuck. But anyway. Yeah, that side. Where were we? Somewhere we were talking about we were talking about IP is not getting the justice. Yeah, at least that's what I remember. I remember we were talking about hi-fi rush. Oh yeah, even how success is still failure.

39:12 Like I was saying it, it's just so hard to get excited for new titles being announced when I even. Oh, if you know, if it meets your expectation, the gaming gods are just going to shut yeah, shut it all down. And that's going to be it, whether whether or not it's going to be your games no longer going to be accessible to you because the corporates have shut down the servers for it and never made a way for you to host your own server on it. Or if you're like Sony removing the actual game from your library, it's.

39:55 I didn't know that actually was the thing. That was like a year or two ago. I think that was like a really big thing. Sony's always doing some stupid shit. It's so we're all doing some sort of really dumb shit. About to say all the the three giants have done some dumb shit, yeah. No, that's fair enough. Like. So nobody is safe. OK, I, I want to point out the fact that at at the time of recording the Nintendo Direct event just happened. And the one of the things that I saw that they're bringing to the switch to was that was the out the Star Wars Outlaws game.

40:33 That didn't do very well. What do you think it's gonna do on the switch? I mean it'll probably be fine, like I know they have fixed up the game at this point but. It's still, it's still wasn't really that popular. It was just kind of a bad game. Yeah, it was not great. I mean, that's what happens when you just make Assassin's Creed into Star Wars. I I hate to say it, but. That's a that's a good way of putting it, yeah. It's like you're trying to make Assassin's Creed mix with GTA and Star Wars universe.

41:10 I mean, Speaking of Nintendo, I really wish that they would go back to their old formula of games cuz their thing now is that you have everything available that you need to finish the game with you at the beginning of the game. Look at Mario Odyssey, look at probably Metroid Dread. Yeah, look at the paper Paper Mario Origami King. Are you talking about trying to have a Nintendo go back to kind of like Metroidvania style? Yes, where you need to like go and find the item track, yeah, maybe not backtracking, but as you go along you can find things you.

41:46 Open up the world to open up the world. Because I maybe not even open the door. Just something to help you along. Like, you know, kind of how they had the badge system and Paper Mario necessarily didn't need to backtrack. You could if you wanted to, but. Or with the. Find some badges that would help you be like oh now you can do a jump or you can if you press. If you do a timing thing then you can do an extra damage or something. Or like with the Super Mario Sunshine for the different nozzles, you can unlock it to help you do different things.

42:17 Or you can unlock Yoshi and open up the map a little bit more Yoshi, just you'll have more tools at your disposal. I'm like, because, I mean, as much as I I hate backtracking, at least I like I used to. I'm starting to come back around to being more opened up backtracking. It's cool to be able to go around and find those secrets and be like, Oh my God, this is a really good upgrade. Where was this, you know, like 2 chapters ago or whatever, however they make the game. But yeah, they just now they're just here you go.

42:58 You're like the Paper Mario Origami King. Here's the hammer, here's the shoot. Go and stop Goombas. Basically giving you everything at the start and not rewarding you with actually progressing within. The but another thing about Origami King specifically is that like you, you will get followers for the time being. Like in the desert, I think you get either a koopa or you get a toad, I can't remember which. But as if you go outside of the desert, like and they'll occasionally deal damage, but if you go outside of the desert, they're like, I'm going to stay behind.

43:37 What like, you know, super paper Mario, paper Mario thousand your door and just paper Mario you had update followers. Yep, that you could swap between and. Now they're temporary. Follow what? They're just changing like too much shit. Like I I mean be. Like their games are too easy now if I had to say something. Yeah, yeah, I could see where where that's at. Yeah. Some of their games are like there. There has to be some kind of like challenge for you to overcome. They actually feel like you did something.

44:14 Yeah. Like and if it's going to be just a complete baby ride.

44:21 I mean, just look at the what Kirby and Forgotten Land. That one's really easy to go through the levels. Yeah, and I mean, I would argue that Kirby itself as a series is easy. It's. Just no. You're right. You're very right. Like Kirby is kind of meant to be easy, but I swear there's a Kirby game in particular I can't. Remember, this is Squeak Squad because I remember at least as a kid, I had trouble with Squeak Squad. Like I, I, it might have been that where it was actually not easy, it was kind of tough.

44:51 Like not tough to the point of it being aggravating, but just like, oh, OK, this is a little harder than it usually is. That does sound like squeaks bud. See, I like Kirby. Or maybe that could be a Kirby 64 The Crystal Shards. That game can be hard. I still need to play that, I've just heard good recently that it's more difficult than most. Yes, yeah, cuz that was Kirby's first jump to 3D and the gameplay was different. Like it was the same but different mechanics. There are different mechanics which I gotcha.

45:23 I like oh right cuz can you combine? You can literally combined your weapons and it's like that's that's cool. Like you have a fire sword or some shit. Like it's there's so many combinations. You'll have fun with it. But yeah, again, it is a little difficult. So just keep that in mind. That's kind of what I'm missing from like just more recent Nintendo games. Breath of the Wilds last year, Breath of the Wilds last years of the Kingdom. Like the reason there's, there's only one reason I can think of that they have weapons that break in five hits, and that's because we don't want to have a weapon that's too strong for too long.

46:12 I don't really understand the hype. Zelda, Breath of the Wild and Tears. I I mean I like breath of the wild, I liked exploring and just going for the shrines, but other than that I didn't really like the combat because I I use a hammer for two hits. Oh, got to pick up a rusty sword. Yeah, I like they're not bad games far. From no. God no. They're great. Games just not my. Yeah, they're not my type of. I'd rather if if the whole game was shrine puzzles perfect. Yeah, the shrines were fun to actually solve.

46:49 Some of them were a pain in the ass. Combat shrines I wasn't a big fan of, and neither were the shrines were like, oh, you did this great test of strength. Here you go. It's like, yeah, sure, I climbed a really tall Spire to get here, but can I at least do a puzzle? That's kind of what I come to a shrine to do, is do a puzzle. That's usually what the shrines. Were for right? Puzzle, but yeah, I mean the combat ones were fine, but I I don't. Like the combat? But the puzzles ones were a lot more fun.

47:19 But like, you know, back in

47:24 pretty much any Zelda game, you puzzles were kind of the dungeon. Yeah, the dungeons, that's that's the one I was. That was what the puzzle was. Room to room, sure. And or maybe spanning across a room or two, maybe 3, depending on if you have to like go into a branch, hit a target, you know, goes to the second room, hit another target, goes to the third room, hit another target. Now you can continue. Yeah. Whereas some along those lines, it's instead of 1 big dungeon, it's like 1 tiny shrine. There's like 707 hundred of them.

48:05 Yeah, yeah.

48:09 I just miss the way and Nintendo used to do things. Yeah, they definitely did things differently. I'm not saying it's bad, it's just different. It's. Different. It's a different. What's the word generation? Yeah, it's different to the point of it's not really for you. Right. Like I can see. That I can honestly careless about switch. At this point like the only game I really want to play is new career ride, that's about it. And it's kind of sad to just buy a Switch too, just solely for that. You know what I mean?

48:48 I get you. So I just don't see the reason my brother has the switch too. I could just go get the game and just play it on his like I'm not. I barely play my switch to begin with and I love it, but I have more gravitated towards my steam deck so I to each their own. If you ever switch to I hope you're enjoying games. Yeah, I mean like for sure, enjoy whatever games you play or enjoy and the systems that you play on. Yeah, anything we talk about. Every gaming opinion is valid. Yeah, like what we think you could have a totally different opinion on, and that's perfectly.

49:32 Fine, right? I mean. You do what makes you you. You can say that I'm wrong. The new generation of Nintendo is the best it's ever been. That's fine. I'll say you're wrong. Yeah, but it's OK to have differences of opinions. All right. I guess to rope us back in one more time. I guess let's start to wrap up this topic with how do you guys think the future is going to go? What would what would you like to see happen? What do you think is more likely to happen? How do you think the next coming years ago for the for the industry?

50:14 I just hope that there's more new stuff. Yeah, new IP is not the same stuff that we've been seeing, you know. Maybe not even new IPS. Well, this will probably come with IPS, but innovation. That's what, yeah. I want to see. I want to. I want to see companies actually start to take risks. Yes. Because from from how we've been seeing it, it's just been people in business suits who have not known how to actually do art take the helm. And here's the thing, it doesn't have to be big games. Yeah, maybe with Game Pass you can add a section of test demos.

51:03 Yeah. And people can like, vote on them or like them and they can receive the feedback of what people are interested in. Or same thing with Sony and their what is it called? What is? It's like their PlayStation catalog. I think it's. Called. Oh yeah, well, PlayStation Plus, yeah, that's what it is. Maybe they can do the same thing with Sony on the PlayStation Plus as they can do a test demo or something like where it's pretty much a concept instead of a game. Yeah, kind of like let's say split gate.

51:31 Or or or even a better example, Hell Divers. Hell Divers is a top down game versus Hell Divers 2 which is a mainstream hit. It started off as just a really small IP on PlayStation that just blew up out of nowhere. Yeah, that's true. I mean, it just give giving IPS a chance to survive and actually taking risks. Yeah. And and I'm not going to say like taking every single risk possible. I'm, I'm talking about taking measured risks because look at what happened with Sony and Concord. That was an abysmal.

52:12 That was an abysmal. Failure. I'm sorry, in this day of age you can't make a hero shooter. That's I. That's not free. I think hero shooters have kind of passed. Yeah. Feels like. That, well, I'm not gonna wait, was, was Marvel Rivals free or was that? Yes, it was free. That was free. I mean, they're still doing pretty well. Here's the thing though, the problem. Is that Overwatch did not innovate anymore. They got stagnant because these sat on top of the their ivory towers and they got comfortable with their success.

52:45 They did not innovate and they did things that pissed off their community and ended up setting the environment so that rivals can come in and dethrone them. Well, OK, here's the thing though. You had you had Overwatch. One fucking success, $60.00 success. Money Mounds, piles, mountains, and then you had that shut down because Overwatch 2 blah blah blah blah, 5V5 instead of 6V6 reintroduced 6V6, but still you your reputation is done. So yes. And that's where Marvel was like, oh hey, what's up? Like I said, what have we joined?

53:22 And they took and. They took, like I said, Blizzard set up the conditions for Marvel Rivals success and they took it and they ran with it. But not only is it a hero shooter, it also has the added attachment of Marvel. Yeah. Yeah, you there's like look at Marvel snap, for example, that like that's a card game and you you make a deck of 12 yeah and that's a big success because it's marvel. It's such a big IP. It started way back when with just comics. I'm random as character. Sorry I keep talking over you, but like I just need to make this point.

54:00 I know that like it's, it's a game where people want to play as these characters that they love that set characters that are already made. I mean, I mean, this is another off tangent, but like, look at OK, Magic the gathering. They're doing a spider man. Set. Yeah, they're doing. Yeah, yeah. Now, that's not to say that the IP itself is the thing that's carrying it. I mean, there's, there's plenty of really bad Marvel games. I mean, look at that. Avengers. Game. I forgot about that. Or, or if you want to go to DC, the what was that?

54:37 It was a oh God Suicide Squad game. Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah, it does. And. That that was made by the same people that made the Arkham games and it still flopped. Like it's not the IP alone that's going to make or break your game. No, but it it's going to be the IP. Helper to market it, but you still have to have the base fundamentals of your game actually being fun for it to actually take off, which is what happened in the case with Marvel Rivals or with Marvel Snap. Right. Like that's that's why I want to see again, even if it's just some way to show off a tech demo or a concept of a game like.

55:23 Give it a chance, giving it out to the public. Let the public actually kind of approve or disapprove it in the court of approval. And then Gabe companies be like, hey, maybe we should start kind of leaning into this more again. Look at hell divers too. That blew up into an unexpected success success for Sony and it's it's started off as just a PlayStation top down shooter. Was it the same concept where it was just democracy simulator in the first one? Pretty. Much. Yeah. Pretty much. OK. So it's probably.

56:00 It was. It evolved on it, but yes. It was probably the the improved graphics and mechanics and all that, plus the timing. Well, if I had to guess, the. Original Hall Divers is not a third person shooter. No. It was a top. Down, but also and. If you remember that arcade mode in Zombies from Black Ops 2. Oh, yeah, true. Oh, that's a. That's a Yeah. Yeah.

56:25 Yeah, I don't know how well hell Divers did. It was. It had very niche success in the PlayStation Store. But again, it's just the feel of the game, the marketing behind it, it blew up. Yeah, it's fucking. It just exploded out of nowhere for most people. Yeah, that was a, that was a pretty fast success, yeah. OK, well you also gonna think that I think timing was also great because in this day and age, reach can reach really far today. Let's see, when did when did Hell Divers One come out? I'm just gonna take the time to check this real quick.

57:10 I don't know. I've not played Hell Divers one, but I do know kind of at least the layman's understanding of kind of the bad Hell Divers 1. Release date was 2015, so I was going to say 10 years and that's actually a pretty, pretty good guess. Wow is let's just say, 'cause you know, 1010 years later reach online Twitch is way different. Yeah yes, than what it was I mean. Back in 2015, I mean you still had social media, but the actual breath in infestation of social media and entertainment sources just hadn't reached its its height that we have seen in the in the 20 twenties.

57:49 So. Far, I mean, especially if you release a serious game with goofy voice lines and yeah, goofy mechanics and ha ha, funny simulator it, it's going to hit today. It it actually it. It's not just that, but it actually has some thought behind it too. Or. It's. It actually has some things or Oh yeah, it's, it's, it's not taking itself seriously, but it could still make some commentary on things. Like honestly that's another thing about gaming industry is right now as of this current episode is like a game that has really good mechanics but also has ha ha funny moments.

58:26 Lethal company peak. Don't want to try out people? Yeah. Especially since they just edited the cannibalism. That's so fucked up. Again, like I said to the group chat, you're looking down upon Etherism about to eat his flesh. I'm sorry, little one. That is, we weren't. Going to make it to the peak anyways. I really I do wanna I do wanna try yeah, it, it looks fun, Yeah. And I don't think it's actually too much either, like money wise, like it's 15 bucks or something I have to. But. Again, these are also small IPS that just kind of blew up out of nowhere too.

59:00 Again, it's good in my. Camp as well. It's just solid. Gameplay and like foundation with with ha ha funny moments, yeah. Just something that's entertaining that can keep your attention, right? Like that's kind of the whole point of a video game is to keep your intention. Yeah, but it it's just the degree that the industry has shifted into video games as a business as opposed to view games as an art form or a commentary piece. It's, it's drastically changed. It's. Drastically changed that's why we're seeing companies like Ubisoft or Activision or Blizzard struggling, whereas a lot of smaller studios are actually kind of thriving right now.

59:46 Yeah, there's it's just this push you have to find the right balance between making your game as a product and making your game as something of its own as an art. Form, yes. That a lot of these studios have kind of forgotten. Yeah, no. And it has to be like, it can't be the same thing every fucking year. Yeah. That's like things get stale. The the only thing that seems to break that model is the sports games. But honestly, that that that's kind of it's own genre in effect. That's that's yeah, it's it's own thing.

1:00:25 Yeah, that's more appealing towards like sports video game fans and that's they're, they're a whole different. Breed. Yes, they are. You can keep the sports. I don't understand it, but you you guys keep you. Fucking do it. Yeah, you guys are genuinely happy with what you've got and I applaud you for. That honestly, that's a beautiful thing. Yeah, right. Be happy, damn it. Knowing just the final thoughts, I find it hard to be optimistic for the future. I think a lot of these companies are going to have to learn some really hard lessons before anything changes, I think, and I can see some of the bigger developers going under.

1:01:09 Yeah, I think we're, I think we're setting up the stage for not another crash like in the 80s, but something that has to change to shake up the power dynamic. It's gonna be a reset. It's it's gonna be a reset. It's gonna be bloody, it's gonna be, it's gonna be rough. But personally, that's where. That's where it's heading. That's where I see this headache, and it's gonna be an interesting couple of years. I mean, I've been saying, I've been saying this for quite literally a couple of years now and some of the bigger companies are gonna start to crumble.

1:01:47 And that's you can kind of see that with just look at Xbox. Look at Ubisoft. But they're their own breed. But then out of the dust is gonna rise some indie games, yeah. There's going to be other studios that will fill in those power effects. It's like, let's say Fallout, for example, like all of these big companies, nuclear fallout, and then like when the dust settles, there's just like a bunch of different settlements popping up and that's all the indie games. And honestly? And they're more clear to see now because there's not these big giants in the way.

1:02:19 Yeah. I'm going to analogize it as more of a forest fire. Yes, it's going to be very destructive to start off with. What in that In that destruction, we're going to see new life and new ecosystems begin to emerge from this. It I think this needs to happen. It needs to happen. It's unfortunate. It's unfortunate because it's going to cost lots of jobs. Lots of what? Always sucks when people lose jobs we're. Probably going to lose fan favorite IPS in the mix of this. It's, it's not going to be pleasant, folks, I'm going to tell you that.

1:02:57 But it's it feels like this is where we're heading and we're just gonna have to buckle down and prepare for it. Yeah, you just. I think that all of this started with all of these gaming companies overestimating their growth when the pandemic hit, and now we're finally living through the the fallout, the fallout of the the repercussions of the idea of unending growth. It just it it would suck if it did become a crash. It would. Because what would like it's, I mean, Nintendo was kind was one of the ones that helped get in the 80s yeah, get everybody past the crash.

1:03:42 Yeah. Who the hell is gonna be the one that does this? Cuz it ain't gonna be them again. I can tell you that they're gonna be part of the crash. Gonna have to be somebody new. And it's it is the natural cycle of how companies come and go. I mean, look at Sears if if we want to veer off the video games and look at actual companies. Right. Sears was one of the first ones that invented the the the box store model, and then they eventually crumpled out and died. And they're just a website. And and what you said, Brandon, I feel like if we were to pick out of the big three, it would either be Nintendo again because they're so isolated from the other two, like they found their own niche again, or Sony just because they're kind of a gaming pillar in this day and age.

1:04:31 They're they have gotten bigger over the years. Oh yeah. And I mean well, I mean look at the PS2. Yeah. Like I think it's now finally not the most sold console. Yeah, I think it's the Switch now. I think I know, right. But yes. In my mind, the PS2 is still the most I. Love the PS2. It's so great. Fuck the switch. PS2 is better. Yeah, I would say. I it's also nostalgia, so I'd. Rather, again, it's gonna come to a point where nostalgia's not gonna take it anymore. No, it can only. Look, so far you can, you can live off of your your laurels for however long, but we're starting to see the ecosystem shift and I'm not sure if a lot of these bigger companies are ready for it to happen.

1:05:22 Nobody's going to be ready. Nobody's going to be ready, but it's. It is what it is it. Is what it is. The industry has crashed before. Industries crash and then they come back. I have one more thing to add before we end. Oh, go ahead. Did you know that this year the Xbox 360 is gonna be 20 years old? It is now considered a retro console. Yeah. Do you know how old I felt today learning that? I thought, I think I saw Gray hair. Yeah, that's actually another discussion for another day. But I think retro is 15 years.

1:05:53 That's what I think. Yeah, IA. Lot of people think, I will say a lot of people. Think retro is 15. It's it's there's a lot of different inputs that go into it. I remember searching this up when you brought it up the first time and it it had quite a lot of interesting thoughts. We could talk about this. Oh God, yeah, There's gonna be a whole different topic. Yeah, that's what that's what I'm saying. It could be a new topic. We're gonna go ahead and put that on the docket. That's gonna be interesting.

1:06:19 I'm about to say like that. Your phone, put it on. I don't, I don't have it on my phone. I I've been meaning to. Yes, yes I am. Well, we have it up. Let's just end that. Let's just end it that I'm a bitch. Take it away. All right, Mark, go ahead. All right. I guess that wraps up today's episode. I'm Mark with Brandon in the bitch. Go ahead and disconnect Player 4 and we'll talk to you guys later. Have a good one, everybody.