Current Backloggers: 91 - From Pow World to Massive Layoffs

Music. The date is January 29th. I'm your host, Case Peele. I'm with my good friend and co-host, Cody G. Cody, how's it going? Dude, I'm sure your recording picked it up, but your noise gate on Discord cut all that out. I tested on OBS and it spiked high into the red, but it worked before you got on and tested it. It well discord just totally said no this guy's fucking trolling.

That's not i wasn't trolling though so that's kind of rude how you been buddy good good, just normal shit normal shit nothing you want to talk about no all right if you're watching on video i know my video is a little dark the electric went out but luckily i have this light to guide me it's a trophy i won during achievement race i also got uh this crown on here so i think we're set for this episode as far as electricity goes and i think

we'll be good now what do you think cody yeah is it i believed you for a second i was like oh shit that's wild powers out and then realized like you wouldn't have internet or computer or anything yeah i saw your facebook question i was like i feel like you should know that that's bullshit since we're recording but but I get it sometimes. I sympathize for a second. And then you just fucking hated me. That's right, dude.

This, of course, is from our achievement race. I've held it for a little bit of time now and going to hold it again, especially as the scoreboard's looking pretty high and my advantage as most people aren't even playing yet. Yeah, and I was playing the wrong game. Playing the wrong game. You're ridiculous. I think I just called out the whole chat too. They don't, they don't listen to your show, Casey. I think you should be absolutely disrespected by that. I was going to make a point.

Disrespected. I was going to, Daniel was texting me. It's actually going to kill me. I'm not sure what that's in reference to. Probably the fucking megaphone. Definitely. You're going to break that thing.

Yeah, no, I was thinking about, uh, calling everybody out when you said that, but then i felt like you're already insulting him enough by making fun of him so i was like i guess i'll leave it at that my favorite was derrick breaking it down like i was an absolute retard this is where you are and this is where we are because derrick had essentially in the chat uh, bazooka his infinite wisdom thought i was playing the wrong game,

and uh well he said you're playing the wrong avatar and then derrick, He's a very literal guy, so I think that's where he got confused. They thought I was playing the wrong Avatar game for the achievement race, but I was just playing the old Avatar game first. Which we'll get into next. And Derek just sent a photo of the 2010 Avatar. And he's like, this is where you are? And then sent a picture of the new Avatar. And said, this is where we are.

Which made me laugh even harder, I don't know. it's I he's probably joking but it's such a douchey way to explain something, I I feel like he's definitely serious and I feel like I could see you not being stupid but I could see you mixing up just because you didn't care you're not an avatar guy so I feel like he's probably oh that's fucking sucks and trying to tell you I could I could have read it wrong as well I was hoping to make him more confusing by putting the last airbender

in there but nobody responded to that I like that too I gotta start playing that next so that that pops on my achievement thing. You should. All right, guys, I figured it out now. You definitely win the achievement race that way. You can play it for like 15 minutes and get 1,000. Nothing else you want to talk about, though, little guy? Nope. All right. The only thing I've been doing besides stuff that will come up in later topics

is working, so I'm about the same. Anything you want to talk about from the weeks before? No. I don't have. The only thing I have is I watched Developer Direct.

Not going to go over everything in depth since it's a while ago but and most stuff didn't interest me in particular like a valid looks like could be cool but you know i'm not elder scrolls guy and looks right up looks very elder scrolls so we'll see i'll give it a chance especially on game pass but i don't know if it's my thing visions of mana is definitely not my kind of thing i know it's a big deal at square enix is kind of working with microsoft again in that capacity but it

does nothing for me i think it's aura history untold did you see this game i feel like you have been interested in this it's very civilization and a lot of people used to work there are working on it how do you spell it a r a but then it's just history untold are you sure it's not, applied research association is that what came up yeah i feel like i would have seen this with all the things that broke down. Yeah, I feel like I did. I, uh, I've never really played in the Civilizations

games, so. Oh, I thought you said you really like them. Must be thinking of somebody else. No, I've never, I mean, I like the idea of them, but my favorites are Total War. Yeah, I remember that. Must be mixing it up. Yeah, I think they're really cool in premise, but they, I could tell I'd fucking hate them. And this game's not coming to Xbox either. It's just PC and PC Game Pass.

So I think that shows a little bit of Microsoft's plan when it's literally called Xbox Developer Direct and it's not coming to Xbox and there's only five games to show to begin with. The other two being Hellblade, which I am interested in, but it's another backlog game that I started and never finished. So I purposely skipped past that because I didn't want to see it. And then Indiana Jones, obviously, which we talked a little bit last time.

It is first person we talked about. they are doing what i said i hope in cut scenes but you're kind of expecting cut scenes every third person but also any cutaways so like if he's climbing something or traversing something they'll pan out and do a third person which i think is definitely the right call because i feel like it's weird to have such a iconic character and outfit just be a an arm because the only thing recognizable

like i said that point is the rope or the whip whatever i think this game looks looks really cool machine games can be hit and miss they you've talked on here about.

Wolfenstein about the later ones not being very good i haven't played them i liked what i played but i haven't played the later ones but i've heard that from a lot of people well the only one i didn't like was new is it new blood yeah i think that was a different company oh was i thought it was them i mean let me let me check here let me see because the other the other wolfensteins are great it was them okay i thought i heard something that was like that

was somebody else i don't know i don't know where i got confused out on that yeah so i i don't feel like that's a home run but i feel like it's definitely potential the game it's interesting it looks like definitely like i said uncharted first person which makes sense because uncharted was trying to be indiana Dan Jones, so it'd be weird if it was anything but that. It does look like.

The game is more about adventure and puzzle solving like you expect from indiana jones but obviously it's a game so there's and it does happen in indiana jones as well there's combat, and when the combat's happening it looks very e3 days where there's like a few people there and they're set up to kill them so i'm wondering if this game comes out and people complain like reviews and stuff that this game there's nothing really to it besides the puzzles like

the no combat and those people are kind of standing there and everything's kind of the AI is stupid. It kind of seemed that way. It almost looked like an old scripted E3 gameplay demo. But definitely could be good and it seems like it is linear, kind of like Uncharted. The only thing that made me think it wasn't and I really hope is not the case because I said Indiana Jones seems like it should definitely be.

Sorry. we're getting a message on here I know if it's from you but uh Indiana Jones seems like it should be scripted and linear but they were saying at the end of the demo that there's plenty of things you can find off to the side and find side puzzles and treasures and hopefully that is just like literally off the path but that made it sound a little open-worldy to me which I hope is not the case but there's also just because there's those things doesn't mean that it isn't something like Like

you walk throughout the path and then you can find more stuff, which would totally be cool. But I talked about how games have way too much filler and nonsense now. So hope that's not the case here. And then that was it. Gotcha. So the, sorry, before next week correction. Yeah. Young, young blood was the one I was thinking of. It sucks. And it was a partially developed by arcane. Oh yeah, that's right. I remember that. I hear it's like, not even like a 50, 50 split. Like it was more, more arcane.

I gotcha. And when you play it, it feels like a dishonored game, too. Yeah. Which is, I think, another reason I don't like it. I gotcha. That was it for stuff from last week. Do you have any corrections, questions, or feedback? No. Me neither. So you can send them to currentbackloaders at gmail.com or just feel free to comment. But just let us know it's for the show. So make sure to read on here. You want to get into the news? Will do. All right, the first one is from Video Games Chronicle.

It's from the Pow World Pokemon plagiarism accusations that I'm sure everyone sees on social media or X. But this article says, there have been times when dozens of artists are given the same concepts art to create a 3D model, for example, during art tests for jobs. I've seen 30 artists try to make the same horse using the exact schematics. None of these were as close to each other as these Howlworld models are to the Pokemon models.

None. The silhouettes and proportions here are near perfect matches. Another senior character artist in the game industry agreed that the model comparisons could be compelling evidence of plagiarism. Quote, the wireframe meshes look different, so they're not the same models, but it's so close that they have built over the top of Pokemon models and made a few changes so they weren't exactly the same.

I know I saw another guy breaking down the video that there's probably not enough here for Pokemon or was it Game Freak to create a lawsuit, even if this is, quote, a fair use because fair use doesn't exist in Japan and both of these companies are in Japan and just how overzealous Nintendo is with lawsuits. They could be trying to save face too, like, oh, you're going after the smaller guy, just trying to make a parody of your game.

I would get, but I don't understand all the people out here on like dying for this billion dollar company game freak why they why they care so much just enjoy the games and if anything it encourages game freak to make a better game what they've currently been making yeah i'm i'm kind of in the middle and i'm definitely not you know i'm not a a pokemon fanatic especially within like the last what it's crazy thing like 20 years by now and

grant game freak i've made fun of them countless times of the games they put out over and over that not only don't do anything new, but sometimes are getting worse, which is incredible. So I'm not, I feel like a lot of people are doing that or the hardcore Pokemon fans that can't see through any of Game Freak doing anything wrong and thinks that every game is brand new and perfect in a wonder. Yeah.

But I do think there's in-between. I feel like it is kind of crazy to think that if all this is really AI-generated, I think that's a scary proposition and makes me wonder what's going to happen with games. How old is AI-generated? That's what the rumor is, that all the character models are AI-generated.

I think they just put it in to dumb it down a Pokemon filter and then it spit that back out and created them which that's what does make it seem a little more, crazy and does give a little evidence because i remember when this game was announced during whatever it was xbox press conference and i was like there's no fucking way they got pokemon i was like what is this this is not pokemon and then they whipped out the guns i was like yeah this definitely isn't it

but that's how close it was that they literally looked like pokemon to me, yeah for my there even in this article i mentioned a guy talking about it kind of reminds him of when you're making a sequel to a game and you take the older assets of the first game and then you add to that asset to create like a updated version of that old character yeah i mean it wouldn't surprise me because ai is just i mean it's not making these things up it's just gotta yeah exactly in In many ways,

AI is just like an advanced version of the internet. You just has like this massive thing to pull from and it pulls from it really quickly and then creates a Frankenstein of all of these things and you're like the parameters you create for it. Yeah, exactly. So I don't know. I don't, I think if something was here, they would have come after them first. I mean, there might be something here that I don't know about.

Uh but yeah i didn't i didn't know that i watched it like a little instagram reel about it the guy says fair use does not exist in japan so it's not even they can't even say like oh it's a parody so we can't go after them i didn't know that i did see the pokemon company put out a statement that said uh they're looking into it yeah and they're investigating it so it seems like they wouldn't put that out unless they thought there was something there that they could

do something that seems like it'd be a kind of silly statement unless.

They're just trying to scare him away way and i am with you partly about it is weird that seems like people are trying to protect like a a major corporation but i feel like that's the same thing that not that i think this is going to happen it's one-to-one but i feel like this is exactly what people used to do with amazon now well they're not walmart and now they're fucking 10 times bigger than walmart i don't feel like it's like a at this

point it's not a small indie game it's sold what like tens of of millions of copies and is on game pass on top of that so there i mean let this be proof though i mean as we get in more of this news look at all the fucking layoffs yeah you guys you guys operate on this bloated system of too many employees granted i'm an idiot i don't know anything about this but from what i can see you operate with these bloated bloated payrolls of just

useless jobs let this be proof that something new and fresh and original made by a handful of people how many times we've seen that with minecraft and like indie games over the years valheim.

Yeah i guess what makes this one a little weirder and i think what's really setting a hardcore pokemon fans off is i feel like the idea is somewhat original but it seems like most of it's just like totally ripped off i get to every game sharing some kind of thing but this just seems like it's ripping it straight from it. I feel like it makes it a little harder to do that, but I feel like my point is more that.

I get what people are saying that's a major corporation so who gives a fuck but I thought it's exactly how more major corporations are created so people don't want that not that that's going to happen with this but I'm saying as a principle, well I mean speak with your wallets if Amazon provided a better product it was easy to get the shit in my house and drive into the war zone that is Walmart, like that's just how the market works right you provide the better thing eventually

you're going to be better than whatever the current thing is. Well, first off, I'll correct myself, Bronco Mart. I've been saying it wrong. My apologies. But I realized when you said it, I almost corrected you. And I was like, I can't do that now. But yeah, I think that's true, obviously. But I also feel like now everybody complains about Amazon, even though they still use it. They all complain about how it's a massive corporation that owns everything.

So that's why I'm saying is that. Well, we've seen the mighty fallen how many times though?

Sears. Yeah. eventually someone's going to come come around that'll beat them just how the market works you can't granted you don't be a fan like i'm not gonna be wearing an amazon jersey but you know easy it is just go to a search bar and type in what i'm looking for and it pops up everything i want i don't have to walk around the store like there's obvious reasons why walmart lost out, and then years prior we're saying oh you know kmart lost out to walmart and then kmart,

beat sears the malls beat the downtown the downtown beat the fucking farmer's market i don't know know it's just how an economy works so you just outperformed i think it's great i think it's great it's a great thing to create like oh shit moments for these companies like i guess we can't just keep making the same thing fucking over and over again yeah i definitely hope it does that i think that'd be one strong benefit so

i'm definitely not one of the people there on the far end just because pokemon i'm upset that's not where i'm coming from i know you're not saying that but yeah I think that would be a benefit to it I just feel like. It usually doesn't seem like it does that. And then as far as a new thing, it just seems like it either goes, the other thing goes away and this becomes a new big thing or it doesn't change anything anyways. And I feel like it seems like people kind of pick and choose with that.

Like with Bronco Martha, there's a huge documentary that everybody loved about how it destroyed a lot of local companies and everybody that's fucked up. But then they're like, well, Amazon's different though. So it seems kind of weird. Cause yeah, those companies, if they had a better product or could have done it better, then they would have stuck around. It's just the capitalism. At the top of this article, too, there is that update.

The Pokemon company has broken its silence and responded to the Power World accusations, which is most generic response about we're going to have our lawyers look into it. Which I'm sure anybody would. And then, of course, the creators of Power World are getting death threats.

It's just absolutely ridiculous oh yeah that's well i mean there's always insane people but especially when you have such a hardcore thing like pokemon that people are i said not just love but so many people are blinded to think that it can't just be anything but perfect even if you do like it a lot all righty the next piece of news we got there i'll kind of just lump them all together. I'll just go through all of them real quick. This one's from Game Rant.

Ubi, I guess I will start with this one first. Ubisoft games servers shut down January 2024. The games affected are Assassin's Creed 2, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, Assassin's Creed Liberation, Assassin's Creed Revelation, Ghost Recon Future Soldier, Heroes Might Magic 6.

Aruze, and then probably the saddest one is the NCIS for the pc i don't i don't know the games that they're talking about i mean minus, ghost recon future soldier really had i mean not that crazy ridiculous oh i'm sorry we're missing some here splinter cell conviction and trial evolution trials evolution i mean i can't imagine they had much much of a community using these and the things you probably got from from Assassin's Creed wasn't that much. So, I mean, I don't think it's a huge loss.

Yeah, I agree. I just, I always think it's interesting to see when these things go down, how they go down, and some seem to take longer, or too long, and then not long enough. And then some of these games were really beloved, so I'm sure there was people stuck around. So, it sucks when those kind of games, like my game like that for me, like Shadowrun, when that goes down, you know, well, not everybody's going to say it, because most people won't even fucking blink an eye.

But the people would say who gives a shit but to me i'm like oh that fucking that blows like thinking trevor right now he's probably having a meltdown here in this that's half his game library.

Yeah i'll do next time i run into him like were you using any sort of the online functionality for these games yeah i doubt he was it actually affects him, all right the next pieces of news that's the ones we'll all lump together i'll run through them real quick well the first one's from game informer idios i always mess this name up dude idos yeah i don't know yeah idos montreal which they made the marvels guardian of the galaxy and both deus ex games they're laying off 97 people

bloomberg bloomberg reports that idios montreal has been working on new unannounced deus ex game for two years and it was set to enter production later this year and they have instead cancelled the game and sequestered some of the layoffs here, the next article is from gameindustry.biz it's opening up here. Yeah I want you to have all my cookies here or check all hey can I tell you a correction really quick not on you Yeah.

I totally was not full screen in Discord, so there's just like a chat and everything in there. So now we're full screen. Do you know how to take that out in Discord? In Resolve? I don't think so. So if you want to show me, we could do that. Yeah, you just zoom in and out of the footage. Okay, I got you. Pretty simple. If you don't want it in there or you do want it in there. I got you.

So game industries leaders brace for up to two years of pain so epic dude ceo of a public company told us if 2023 was the year of layoffs which is funny because 2024 or one month in there's been thousands 2024 will be the year of closures not just developers but publishers media service companies they're just too many unprofitable businesses and video games, we're looking up to two years of pain then later on he i believe this is the

same ceo he was blaming covid which didn't make sense to me didn't the gaming industry see a massive growth during covid i think if you could only if you could blame covid here it's the fact that during covid you thought, oh should we have to hire a bunch of people because of the amount of people gaming, yeah so is that now he's saying because that's what i would think.

No he let me see if i can find where i mean that's such a generic term that companies love to use the expansion investment over covet is less yeah yeah so that's essentially what he's saying well no that's that that's another another person said that our vc added covet did serious damage and recover will take some time so he just said a generic covet thing but then later another person said the expansion and investment over covid yeah okay so which that's

that makes more sense now it's the only way i could feel like you could blame covid definitely so there we go 2024 he says will be the year of closures embrace a group i feel like you are next on the chopping block.

Unfortunately this next article is from ign microsoft lays off 1900 staff from its video video game workforce as part of the layoffs blizzard entertainment president mike yabara announced he is leaving the company blizzard's chief design officer and co-founder alan admin is also leaving the developer behind so those are two big hits for blizzard for sure i feel like when you buy these companies you you're not buying the ips because they're not very not in a very healthy

state and you're losing a lot of a lot of legends that help create i don't know legends maybe overstatement but people that created Blizzard to what it is the next one, you'll notice there's a theme to these IGN right games lays off 530 or 11% of staff, So then we'll move on to Game Informer article, Outriders Studio people can fly lay off more than 30 employees. Are you seeing a theme here, Casey? Not yet. Keep going. Okay. I'm sorry. The next, the next article is from PushSquare.com.

Black Forest Games, the developer behind the recent Destroy All Humans remakes and the upcoming KMNT The Last Ronin has reportedly lost half of its employees following a round of layoffs. They had a staff members, 110 members. meaning it could be down to roughly 55 workers.

I know man I'm excited for that one but yeah so essentially the gaming industry is not a very healthy place right now I think most a lot of tech companies are, very very bloated and gaming, is probably the worst ones at it, so yeah I think this will be viewed as another game crash you know the game crash didn't mean the gaming industry was destroyed that article with the ceo talking talks about you know video games are on a pretty healthy foundation i

don't think they're going anywhere just the way they do them and the fact that there's five million companies out there doing them and meanwhile they're being outperformed by a group of friends or a group of people making indie games like so think of some of the biggest games like like you hear people talking about are are not usually the new Call of Duty or, I mean, Grand Theft Auto is probably one of the few that I can think of,

but there's a lot of indie games being played and talked about right now. So, yeah, I think the gaming industry got a little samey. Oh, for sure. Very bloated. They're not willing to experiment. We don't need 72 Assassin's Creed. That doesn't hold. Sorry, Trevor. It's like, you're right, we need 100. We don't need Call of Duty every year. I don't know. I think this is hopefully a renaissance. And unfortunately, a lot of people are unemployed because of it.

I think investments are going away too which is what i mean that's what's kind of killing embracer group that evil blood money they're getting from saudi arabia dried up people are just not investing right now the economy i don't know that's my view on it i have some similar thoughts i definitely i think there's a lot of factors i definitely think they're bloated as a a lot of companies are but even more so it seems like i so i think that's there's no getting around that there's

a lot of layoffs and probably even more in the gaming industry but wondering how much, it is compared to everything else i feel like we see layoffs everywhere but especially.

I wonder if it would be similar if we looked in areas where people cared this much i feel like where a lot of layoffs are happening aren't really like they're consumer things but not things that people care this much about and care about the employees like thinking about how many things shut down and we could care less about the people or obviously it's sad people lose their job we don't even think like that we just care about the product and that being gone so i

feel like i see pretty regular about layoffs and other stuff that i don't follow but we followed game industry so so close and then i feel like game websites i feel like are picking up the how much people are reacting to layoffs i feel like now you're seeing stories of layoffs of like 10 people even at giant companies i feel like that's not something that you would even no one even noticed that a year ago but yeah i think people companies are definitely bloated do you say

i try to pull the article back up well you might not have it riot was 500 people laid off at 11 11 of the staff I think that was right, yeah. Is that possible? So they had almost 5,000 employees, a fucking riot. That's what I'm saying, dude. Absolutely bloated. So that's why I'm wondering how much a factor that is coming. Yeah, that's the staff. Yeah, so almost 5,045. Reddit, there's Reddit posters saying they have 4500 employees. Yeah, so I mean, that's a lot of people and that fucking sucks.

But yeah, that just seems like that wasn't sustainable. So I I don't know how much it really changed. So there's no getting around the fact that it is something's happening and it's affecting things. I do think it's a, you know, I've said for years how games are getting way too big and everything's trying to match everything else instead of trying to its own thing. And that's why my favorite thing being Halo and even me thinking Battle Royale if it's perfect in that.

I was like, they need to find the next big thing, not what's big now because this stuff only lasts for so long.

Even power world's the next big thing that's going to fade away too and then somebody's going to try and copy power world maybe nintendo which would be funny but i feel like i get to a point as a business you have to do i can't just always create new things because it's way too big of a risk but i feel like they go to the extreme end of whatever's hot you drop everything else and then, you go all in and then once something else is there you do the next thing and

it's not just one company does it's just everybody does it and or a lot do obviously not literally everybody, and then these games just becoming not even just budget-wise definitely that's a huge factor and the biggest but i feel like what feeds into the budget too is having to make these games so big, in scale and so much to do instead of a a 10-hour thing that's more condensed and i feel like would be much more manageable.

Yeah. I mean, even if you, like right now, just went to Google, typed in layoffs, and went to news. Microsoft, what's behind the tech industry's mass layoffs in 2024? Why Google, in another article, why Google, Microsoft, Amazon had layoffs despite record profits? Sports Illustrated unions take legal action over recent layoffs. Sports Illustrated must be laying off a shit ton of people. Nestle announces another round of layoffs.

Viral journalism bloodbath 2024 kicks off with numerous media layoffs. Pfizer eliminates 52 rolls in the San Francisco area. More than 200 workers at Nestle factory to be laid off.

Uk broadcaster channel 4 confirms 200 layoffs so i don't think this is exclusive to gaming at all i think uh i think it's a the economy i don't know yeah i mean it's easy to think riot a few years ago hiring that many people i mean it's not unusual to hear about these tech companies too just operating at a loss because they have so much investments from people like what uber.

Didn't didn't didn't we read one time uber has never made money i don't know about them but i know a lot of companies are like that like netflix just somewhat recently started making money which i think if you asked 100 people like 98 people would tell you that they've made millions and millions of dollars because yeah just sorry go ahead it just seems like when you hear these names that they have to be big kind of like we talked about discord everybody uses it and it's

like the main pc thing but if you're really thinking about them where the money's coming from majority people use discord don't put a cent into it yeah well then you see people too like people that are blaming the companies like the like oh we need to put unions into the companies to protect the workers because they're having record profits and they're still laying people off but meanwhile like you said these companies are not making money they're just spending money I don't know,

So I mean part of it is I think right even mention. It's not to please the stockholders We literally don't we just need to save money. Mm-hmm.

So I I. Kind of sit on the fence when it comes to these issues because i don't trust companies but in the same time i don't i think capitalism is the the best the best option that we have looking at all of our options so that's why i kind of defend it so unions are kind of that gray area because you hear horror stories about unions and how i mean anything can be corrupted of course but so i don't know what kind of a fence sitter

when it comes to these two things when yeah we're like they have have record profits it's like they have record profits but i mean our record uh record i don't know like let's break it down let's stop and think about it is that department that person works in making money like so if a company makes a shit ton of money should they just make up like you want them to just continue like it's just not a healthy route to just okay you can stay here you can check emails,

and sit here and cash a check even though you're not it's great they make money but does that mean they should hire people? Does that mean if a company operates at a profit they should spend all that extra profit on payroll? Like think about it, if you had it's not unusual to hear a game developer making six figures you have ten people what is that, a million dollars in payroll? Mhm so if Riot employed 5,000 people.

And it's probably not unusual for everyone to probably be over 80 grand at least at that place yeah a hundred.

Grand imagine whatever that is that's insane it doesn't matter how much money they're making look at how much money is going out the door payroll is usually the biggest expense for companies granted too like this is a very odd this is not capitalism like the traditional sense of capitalism at the turn of the century 1900s there is like has become a fucking economics podcast like i fucking know anything i can just i just reach it online i can regurgitate it to you right so welcome to

class with cody but in the early 1900s there was like two or three percent of people that didn't work for themselves and then now it's it's like 98 of people work for a company where in the past when capitalism was was doing its thing it was because we all all had our own businesses it was a really a fruit of your labor like that's where i think the issue comes from now it's everybody works for conglomerates you think you work for this company but you really work for this technically all work

for four companies and then my conspiracy mind i've heard people talk about these fake jobs the reason these companies are so bloated is because they have crazy amount of money coming investments but it's also a way to appease people like oh you have a job you have a job that in many ways like i think sam high talks about universal basic income is kind of already here because there is so many jobs bloated jobs in the market that.

The government is giving you universal basic income by filtering it through companies and investments like the higher ups, not the government itself, but the powers that be are filtering them through companies and giving you purpose because universal basic income really can't exist without you feeling, you know, like I've earned this.

So these bullshit bloated jobs are a way of, we filter money through these companies, we dump money on these companies, and they will inadvertently hire more people. But I don't know that's my schizophrenic thoughts on it no I hear you that makes sense does it really or did I just go full unabomber on you no you're insane.

See we need to get back to to horse and buggies Casey I got this cabin out in the woods I think we could start mailing stuff to these powers that be now you're starting to sound like a, killer at the minimum them also look at my hands when your screen's lighting me up right now they're all red looks like it beat somebody up i got this band-aid on me look at that yeah this lighting you've got going on too i don't like what's

ominous yeah look at my hands now if you look too long kind of looks like you're uh looking at what's the nasty ass candy you like candy corn andy corn yeah, yeah i don't see that one yeah well you like candy corn though here are free fucking love those there's a little pumpkins the little fuckers, it's like candy maple syrup i don't know oh god, like i would go from my conspiracies about universal basic income kind of already

here well it's not my conspiracy it's just shit once again i heard online it can regurgitate tape to you talking about your fingers looking like candy corn.

All right so the next two pieces of news are very similar techradar.com Hideo Kojima's documentary is coming to Disney Plus in 2024, if you'd like access to his gaming studio so you can see his creative process and action Disney Plus is just the film for you, Hideo Kojima's Connecting Worlds, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year, will be streaming exclusively on the best streaming service for families in spring 2024.

Who do you think owns TechRadar.com, Casey? You want to talk about the conspiracies? Let's go down this rabbit hole real quick. Let's see. Who owns TechRadar.com? I bet it's not Disney, but they are really kissing up to him. Yeah, I don't think it is. Future PLC, which that's funny. They used to publish the Xbox magazine until they took it away. Oh, yeah. Future PLC owner. Okay, I guess they're their own thing. Big conglomerate. Okay. All right, Disney. I was watching you there for a second.

Because exclusively on the best streaming service for families in spring 2024, The documentary is made during the development of Death Stranding and positions Kojima a very much an auteur? That's... what? Am I retarded? I've never heard this. A filmmaker whose personal influences and artistic control over a movie are so great that the filmmaker regarded as the author of the movie. Great. Absolutely retarded. I've never heard this word before.

You almost got me there, Disney. something that said explicitly by gilmore del toro in the trailer below so yeah they have a trailer for it it looks really good i'll check that out i do not have disney plus anymore though as i say i know you're a disney hater but i know we all we both not all we both really like behind the scenes making of stuff and i know we both said countless times there's not enough of that in games i'm not even a kojima guy

but i think he's interesting i think it will be uh not even even just with me with my weirdness, but I think it'd be a little hard to follow it with him. Not really speaking English, just because you're going to want to watch the gameplay and everything they're talking about. So intently is kind of the point of a making of, and he didn't really speak English, but yeah, he's also an auteur and I'm an autist. I knew that was coming.

The next article from gameformer.com. At first, when I pulled this article up that you sent me, I thought Grounded was getting a sequel because this is Grounded 2, the making documentary for The Last of Us Part 2. Earlier this month, developer Naughty Dog announced that Grounded 2 making The Last of Us Part 2. What a... That really rolls off the tongue. Grounded 2, colon, making The Last of Us Part 2, colon, Kojima is a auteur. It would be coming to its recent release. The Last of Us... What?

Would be coming to its recent release. Oh, that's why. Because it's going to be included with The Last of Us Part II Remastered and a post-launch update for the game. Now we know exactly when the behind-the-scenes documentary will be live, February 2nd. So, yep, it's going to be a free update for the game on February 2nd. But you can also watch the documentary on YouTube the same day. The documentary and its associated game update will both go live at 9 a.m.

Pacific Time, noon Eastern Time. And then it'll also be on Disney Plus for the best families. Go to watch films, right? Exactly, dude. No, I'm excited for this, too. I want to play the game first, of course, both games before I watch that. But yeah, this reminds me of, I think Double Fine and Indie Game the Movie were the first times I've seen Double Fine's documentary series they did. It's very interesting. And it kind of reminds me also, what's the South Park one?

A day to run or something like that? Oh, shit. I know what you're talking about. Were they making it in a day? I can't remember what it's called, though. Six Days to Air, the making of South Park. Six Days in Fallujah? Very similar. But yeah, so I'm excited to check those out. It's very cool. I would love more video game documentaries. Yeah, I'm with you. A couple of things. Did you, you never watched the, you watched the Halo documentaries after that?

Or like the making of Halo or you're just, you're not grouping those in with it? Because I know these are a lot deeper. I forgot about those. Okay. I was going to say, I thought those would be your first ones. That's what made them so cool. I didn't watch them like all the way through, but I remember my friends putting them on and I was watching bits and pieces here and there.

You might be surprised. I watched them way too many times. I didn't really make sense how many times I watched them being a Halo fan. And I didn't think it was Grounded 2, but I won't lie, when I was going back through the articles, when I was sending you more, I was like, what the hell did I add Grounded 2? And I was like, oh, it's The Last of Us. That's right. So I had the same thought for a second.

All right, the next article is from IGN.com. Microsoft has announced the launch of the Xbox Indie Selects, a program designed to promote indie games. This is rekindling memories of the 360's famous Xbox Live Arcade. Xbox Indie Selects features a monthly curated collection of six indie games in the Xbox Store dashboards and on the Xbox social channels.

Here's how it works. Every last week of the month, six games will be chosen by the ID at Xbox team and designated that month's ID at Xbox Indie Selects. The collection will be located in the Xbox Indie section of the blah blah blah Xbox Indie, Indie Xbox, Xbox Indie Selects. Fuck, dude. Xbox Store and The Dash along with Microsoft's additional indie collections will be still doing it, which will be updated weekly on Wednesdays.

The selected games don't strictly have to be games from the ID at Xbox program, Microsoft said. It will also feature Xbox games, Xbox Game Pass games, Xbox Indie games, Indie Selects games, Xbox 360s, Xbox Live Arcade, Xbox Indies, Selects. So essentially, they're finally going to get away to promote the indie games, which I feel like has been really lacking on all platforms. Which really, I mean, really kind of don't need that anymore, too.

I mean, there is a place for it. It's nice that they'll do it. But I feel like YouTube's a great place for go and type in hidden gems or indie games best this and then you'll find some guy curating a list for you. I think word of mouth and YouTube videos is probably the best promotion for indie games. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. No, that's it. That was all I was going to say. I was going to say, I feel like I was interested in this.

Cause like it said, rekindling, uh, or like Xbox live arcade days, but I don't think that you can rekindle that. I think games are so different now. I think what made that unique was those were the first time people are downloading games and the magic of that.

And then when they became kind of more than arcade games like the first time you got like shadow complex or a game that was deeper than a basic arcade game the fucking craziness of that and i think it really shot off i think shadow complex was in one of these if not the first but the summer of arcade is where it really blew up and yeah i feel like games are so different now i feel like, indie games come out and they seem like they just come out with regular games

that seem different at that time, so I feel like the landscape is just completely different, but I know this is a complaint for people, so it'll be interesting to see how it works. For sure. Alright, the next article is from IGN. Hogwarts Legacy will soon give all players access to the PlayStation exclusive content.

As we near the one year anniversary of Hogwarts Legacy, we wanted to let our community know that the Hogwarts Legacy PlayStation exclusive content will be available on other platforms later this summer. Current PlayStation inclusive content includes the haunted Hogsmeade quest, which upon completion grants access to the Hogsmeade shop as well as the shopkeeper cosmetic set. Wow, that's awesome, man. I've been waiting for that one.

Are you going to get the Haunted Hogsmeade quest? It's free, so hell yeah, I am. I know this kind of DLC is never game-changing or they wouldn't lock it up like that, but I was bummed when it was PlayStation only. This sounds very picky because it is because I literally got a free copy of Hogwarts from my friend Bazooka on Xbox, and I was going to buy it on PlayStation because I wanted that. If it was the same price, I might as well get a little extra content.

But yeah, shit, I'm getting it for free. So I'm not going to spend $70 to get a little extra content. But now I'm going to get it anyways. And I haven't played the game because as our show indicates, we're really behind. Is this guy just printing Hogwarts legacy questions? Where's he getting these? I got mine because when he ordered... He sent him two, right? Yeah. He's giving you the second one for some reason.

Yeah well maybe not now that he hears about the hogsworth's hogsmeade seller goblin man he's gonna be like dude i can't give you that next articles from ign, gameplay of cancelled call of duty code named nx1 leaks online gameplay of a cancelled call of duty code name nx1 is leaked online revealing an effort to release a futuristic game in the franchise from former Guitar Hero developer Neversoft. The weekend's Call of Duty leaks don't end with NX1.

A Twitter slash X account called YouNow posted footage of the cancelled War Mode for Treyarch's Black Ops 4. War Mode debuted in World War II as a multiplayer variant that was less about your kill-death ratio and more about your ability to help the team's progress across different phases of action. I looked at these leaks, pictures, all that stuff. It looked so call of duty that I just didn't even care.

So it was like, Oh, I've seen this before. There was like one of the, the sub objectives of the mission was like secure, secure the armory or something like that i was like i feel like i've read that a million times.

But yeah i don't i don't i think what's most interesting is how how these leaks would have gotten out because i know the article too they mentioned people that worked on the game confirming that yes that is there's real gameplay from a real game we worked on i won't lie i didn't even see the other footage but i did see what appeared to be a campaign level in space did Did you see that one? Yeah. I actually, it did look very Call of Duty in the way that you go through the level and it's scripted.

But as far as visuals and what the game could be, that was the most interesting I've been in Call of Duty in like six Call of Duty games. But I think it was probably the smartest. I'm sorry. I was going to say, you didn't get Infinite Warfare vibes from it?

No, that's what I was getting at, actually. I did and I get why they would cancel it though because everybody loves Call of Duty fucking hated those games and I thought those were some of the more interesting ones, but I will say even though I thought that at the same time I feel like I was kind of doing what I complained about because I complained about how every game just tries to be the other one and I did feel like they were trying to get into the,

Halo, Titanfall at the time that like go into that area instead of just staying Call of Duty and being it's own thing, yeah I just watched even like the audio like the guys yelling over and stuff I was like this is, which I love that formula so. It wasn't I'm trying to think of something that would be more prolific like I was more interested in the fucking mega blocks or whatever the fucking halo, leaked that one time I was like that was way more interesting than what this was.

I would love to know how that shit got out. I love the behind-the-scenes stuff on it. The gameplay, I don't think we missed out on anything by not getting those games. But I'm just more interested in the behind-the-scenes. It is cool to see the behind-the-scenes. Leaks are fun. People confirming they're real. No, I'm with you. Right. The last article here is on PlayStation.com. State of Play returns this Wednesday.

Hi, everyone. 2024 has begun. And it's time for our first state of play. Thank you, Sony. The broadcast will be over 40 minutes long and feature guest appearances from some of the most talented minds in gaming. I wonder if The Rock will be there. I should have edited this and just put some crazy-ass offensive names in the middle of these real names. Among many other updates will feature extended looks at Stellar Blade and Rise of the Ronin.

Two great games coming to PS5 this year. And we'll give you a new look at other titles coming to PS5 and PSVR 2 in 2020-24. Hey, they remember that existed. And beyond! It kind of fucks me up because it's like, damn, I feel like it's the first to fifth thing I've ever heard them say. But yep, that'll be January 31st for 40 minutes, covering 15 plus games, including Stellar Blade and Rise of the Ronin. Be there, be square.

I'll definitely be watching, maybe stream it. We'll see. And by the time we do the next episode, we'll have that talked about. 40 minutes doesn't seem very long for 15 games. So I feel like some of those are going to be some real small games that show for like a minute or a trailer.

Trailer because i didn't see my barrel one time for that many games but hey we've been wanting to see more stellar blade we gotta see how close now oh wait i'll be honest with you i don't even fucking remember this game oh you'll get why i'm saying that in just a second stellar blade all right let me google this oh yeah this is the naked girl in the she's almost fully colored come on Cody. Stop sexualizing everything. I just saw photos of this but I have not seen the videos.

The videos are really weird. Because the audio sounds like a hospital room. Like beep. She's just sitting there. But yeah, okay. Stellar Blade. Stellar Blade. It's a fighting game action adventure game. Stellar Blade is an upcoming action adventure game developed by Shift Up. That's a very generic name. Shift up. You better shift up or ship out. Hell yeah. You're talking about Kmart failing. You're in fucking absolute darkness right now. You look so creepy right now. Is that better? Yeah, dude.

I tell you, it really lights the way, man. You should try and get this thing sometime. It's nice. Yeah, definitely, bro. I just can't. I got to find the right game first. I forgot what game we were playing. Yeah. You were talking about Kmart earlier. I think they deserve to stick around forever when they did an advertisement of shipping your pants. You remember that? Yeah, yeah. That really hit off for a couple weeks.

Well, they really deserve to stick around for having fucking Little Caesars in their stores, which is a crazy thing to think back on, but amazing.

Yeah, I'm very nostalgic. Like, granted, don't get me twisted here. I miss... I miss things when they go but i get i get the how the economy works i miss them too i can uh here i'll embarrass myself all over again if you don't remember this i said i know where this is going on things we shouldn't admit another show that we gotta get going again here kmart used to be our family place we go there for almost all of our shopping and i live still like two

minutes away from where it was and when it was announced it was closing and it was getting all depressing in there i was always in the electronic section obviously video games and looked around about five times every direction nobody's around and i kissed one of the shelves to kiss it goodbye.

That's cute dude one of my favorite stories you've told i thought you kissed the kiosk it might have been that because what would that have been that been right after gamecube I was going to say, yeah, I think that was it. Yeah, because I remember the story because I'm like, he kissed a GameCube. And the fact that we both said GameCube, that probably was it. Which I hope it was the controller. That'd be so nasty.

Man i hope that camera isn't what the fuck a few things for gal news here one thing i forgot to mention about indiana jones is troy baker is playing indiana jones harrison ford obviously and they he looks just like harrison ford which is makes sense but it's cool it's modeled after him they didn't try and do like not get his likeness or not use him and just have a generic looking Indiana Jones guy so I'm glad he's in there but I like Troy Baker actually a lot as a voice actor and usually

I think he's cool because usually you can't tell it's him a couple times you can but he's so good at changing his voice that when I saw this it sounded like it sounds like Troy Baker but it's weird it sounds like he's doing an impression of himself and I think he's trying to be Harrison Ford, but it doesn't sound like it at all. So I hope that's not too distracting. If the game is good enough, I think you'll probably forget about that.

And like I said, his natural voice is good, but it's a weird part of it sounding like he's doing an impression of himself. And I was kind of caught off guard. I don't know if people are being sarcastic now after hearing it, but people are saying they didn't know if it was Harrison Ford.

And after I heard it, I was like, this is fucking... Did somebody sincerely think this was Harrison and forward what did he tell the kid that was playing han solo god my life yeah i can't remember i can't remember what i never talked about though that was a good one that's what it kind of reminded me of yeah and i don't remember the actor's name that played young solo but he like laughed but.

Kind of like scared to laugh like oh shit is he serious I think he kept eye contact way too long he's gonna steal my life come in here he's like oh yeah.

Just old man behavior dude I can't wait for the age when all social norms go out the fucking window, you don't talk about when old people reach that age are you not there yet, not age wise but just that's right dude or when just people just like old people just you ever known an old person just farts and they just don't they don't care anymore yeah it's terrible fucking that's your rip and then you're supposed to not laugh then it's really

hard when it's just you and that that old person they just shit so fucking loud and then i'm just supposed to not laugh and just keep moving like nothing happened you're correct not so so after you're supposed to that's fucking disgusting Justin. The last couple of things I have starting March 21st, which I was past now, Apple is allowing cloud gaming apps on iOS, which opens the door for the Xbox cloud gaming app to be native, which it was. And then I always removed it.

Don't know when that was. We talked about him here and I said how much that sucked.

And I think my soft did a really good job at making an app that still, or you do like the web browser thing and then you pin it, but it does feel just like an app and opens like it doesn't seem like you're going to a web browser so they did a good workaround but i'm sure that a native app would still be much better now hope and next off we'll take the time to put it back on there or i doubt it's just simply putting back on there for it to make a new one but hopefully they'll do that and not just

be like well what we have on there now is good enough we already put it back on but we'll see how they handle that.

Did you see you're talking about gta did you see the rumor of the release date no it was going around today but it's march we know it's 2025 but march 2025 and it's catching on a lot of big sites but i'd be surprised if that's the date because i thought gta always launched in the fall which i looked and it always had well starting with three as we know like the current gtas besides gta 4 for some reason releasing in april 29th of 2008 which

seems very very odd every other one has been september october so i'd be surprised that this is march i mean it doesn't matter when they fucking release it's grand theft auto so they can do whenever they want it's gonna sales aren't gonna make a difference but it seems pretty intentional that they always put out in september october and even though it's gonna sell shit loads i guess those are the best selling months for games so probably amplified a little bit and i feel like

that only gives them more time to make the game which they announced this release date so far of the head that, I figured it would be at the end of 2025. Yeah. But we'll see. Halo's new operation starts tomorrow. Looking to date. And goes until March 5th. The reason I'm telling you on here is you should watch the trailer. It was cool. Just even starting up, it's cool. It's Spirit of Fire is what this one's called. And as soon as the music starts up, you get the Halo Wars vibe.

And then uh cosmetics are halo warrants but yeah just as soon as i heard that music i was like oh fuck it's so good and then the biggest news of the week severance has started filming season two.

Got my my severance hoodie on here nice ready to go i actually put it on i didn't think about it i was like oh it's gonna look very intentional now know but i cannot fucking wait i know i've talked about this show countless times i think my favorite in the last well i know my favorite show in the last 15 years easily and i've said a few times i think how this season is going to be the one that really catches on and everybody's going to be talking about i think it was stymied

a bit by being so fucking delayed because all the, strikes happening but i still think it has a good chance this season to really blow up into, something everybody's talking about because I feel like the people that watch it love it but I don't feel like it's very mainstream yet and I'm excited for it and I don't think I think for the people who watched it it runs the risk of people's expectation getting all out of whack especially

being delayed so long that they're gonna judge it unfairly even if it's just as good as the first season they're not gonna think it because their wait is so long, but I think it'll help that so many people haven't seen it but to them it's gonna be just as good So I feel like there's definitely bad seasons the second year or later on in the series, but I feel like it's a bit overstated how many times that happens. I feel like people's expectations get too high when they like a show.

And I guess it's kind of news. Have you heard of the game Gunzilla, which is not a great name? No. It's a really interesting Battle Royale, new AAA studio. They've been working on it for quite a while. The reason I was interested in it is Neil Blomkamp's working at the studio, director of District 9, but he fucking loves games.

And I've been seeing, that's the part that I guess is kind of news-ish, not nudish is that it looks like things i'm gonna early access or beta or something right now, and it looks really cool from what i've seen i know you're all about your i'll go ahead futuristic looking thing yeah audience-esque yeah uh-huh i'm watching gameplay right now this looks pretty cool yeah definitely one of those things i'll have to catch on or it's gonna blow up real fast but

hopefully it'll be different enough and i already see the neil Neil Blomkamp, or Jesus Christ. How do you say his name? You're close if not there, Neil Blomkamp. Okay, Neil Blomkamp. I can really see the influence here. Yeah, that's why I liked it a lot. And it doesn't seem like he's just there. It's like, all right, well, my name's here, so you guys have me. It seems like he's invested in it, which is cool. He's famous too, but not that famous to just. No, no, yeah.

That's awesome. Yeah, it looks good, man. So we can't play this right now? you said i've been i've been following it for a couple of years and i just happened to see that people were starting to share like videos of it so i don't know if it's an early access or beta or what's going on because everything i've been following has been like concept art and them sharing off like sharing guns and shit heads up it looks like the company's called gunzilla and the game

is off the grid oh shit yeah no i knew i'm glad you said that yeah i don't think either are great though. I think that's better for a studio name. Off the Grid is super generic.

But no yeah i knew that so i'm glad you said it i'd play this with you buddy all right and give this a go oh yeah we can look into early access or vader or whatever and see if it's an option, but it's coming to obviously pc but then ps5 and series x you you want to get into pickups you have any i actually don't have any whoa change man you sure you don't got any uh toys around you or anything for oh shit i do have this bag of creatures here that bag of creatures, all right a nasty 90s gummy

candy i have two things that are not even technically pick us from this week because i forgot to mention my vr headset with the extended battery that i talked about i ordered a few weeks ago came in came in and i'm not gonna lie i haven't used it Yeah, right. And let me see if I can slide over here. I only say awesome because that's what I do. The PSVR is still packed in its box from Black Friday. I'm just glad I'm not alone. I wish I had one of the batteries and a light might help here.

Let's say hopefully one of your pickups is a lamp. Oh, wait, I actually got one. I won a competition. But right here, you can put the battery in.

And this is where I wish I had to show you it's fucking cool it feels futuristic you put it there and the magnet's so strong that it literally grabs it and it's like holds it in there so that way you can swap them in and out without taking the headset off, but the magnet's so fucking strong that you can be like right here and just pulls it into it that's awesome.

And then part of the reason I haven't played it yet is trying to figure out this will literally hold me back like I don't know what to do with it it fits so different that I just put it on i was like that's kind of weird so i'm hoping that i don't hate the fit of this or that would kind of defeat the purpose of it obviously could you hear everything falling no no okay and then the other one that the reason it's just not technically pickup is i ordered it but it's not here yet is the mega

64 master collection on blu-ray which is a little pricey it's like 84 dollars but it's all the stuff they've ever made and put on youtube and behind the scenes stuff stuff and one blu-ray box and i like them a lot so yeah that'd be cool to have it was a limited thing so yeah i'm just gonna do it because i know even though it's a little pricey it's one of those things i won't get and i'll just be pissed i didn't get it so i should be on its way here soon,

what was it oh you're good it's mega 64 master collection on blu-ray it's like everything they ever put on youtube and behind the scenes shit and how much does that run you a hundred dollars It was $85 before shipping or anything. Is it sold out? It was, but they put it up a couple more times, so hopefully it's up again now. I didn't know you'd actually be interested enough to buy it. I was saying to you, I would. Fingers crossed they got it. Because you got me the last laugh.

What is this called? Mega 64 and 5? Or no, that wouldn't be it, would it? Mega 64 Master Collection. I'm checking for you now to see if it's available. Oh, this is... I feel like that's something they're going to keep producing, right? That would be, I know that. It might be something they're trying to do, get people to buy stuff, but they said that it's sold out multiple times and that they don't know how many times they can put it back on.

It might be bullshit, but I know they have a lot of things where they sell out and they don't put it up again. It is on. This ship's out end of February. So it is available right now. Yeah. But yeah, it's possible it's bullshit and they'll have it up forever, have it up multiple times. So I'm not pressuring you into it. I just didn't think you'd be that interested. So if you are, when do you be able to get it? I mean, we, so I don't, of course the weekend I'll have a pickup.

I'm literally having a pickup right now. Hold on. PayPal's asking for a code. This is great. I just love those guys. I'll support this shit. Yeah. That's so sick to have it on Blu-ray. Yeah. The first time. Hopefully you can't see anything in the reflection of my glasses, right? I can't at all. So that's a little schizophrenic of me but yeah just as I glared at me, No, I'm with you. When I saw it, I was like, God damn it, it's sold out. And I was listening to a podcast.

I'm like, yeah, we'll keep trying to put it back on there, but it keeps selling out. And I was like, oh, it's back on? And I got on the website and it's like, oh, shit, it's available. So I went and got it. PayPal does this dumbass thing too where it keeps changing my address to a really old address. Fortunately, the few times I order shit through PayPal and it's done that to me. Oh, by the way, this is a common thing people have had for years with PayPal when you change your address on there.

The autofill thing and it's just so fucked that i've read reddit chains people like actually calling paypal like it's totally removed i don't know what's happening so it's something you can't fix too trust me i've tried fortunately the people that bought my dad's old house are the nicest sweetest old couple and i actually enjoy the last time i went there i just like hung out for a second and talked they're so sweet so so it kind of worked out for me i met a really nice cute couple oh hell yeah.

You spent a few minutes that's all it takes with you right let me just say this she wasn't using a locker when I went in when I left she was, oh let me make sure this is the right address before I put all this through, because this would be something like I could probably only order once and I really don't want to send another text message to those polite people they're so sweet about it too they're like oh yeah last time I went Casey they were like getting

ready for bed they're like in their pajamas i was like sorry guys these guys start ordering crazy and sending it there you guys didn't get that that long package did you, that'd be awesome like for your new youtube series.

Me make sure this is i'm gonna set my address out loud and i'm gonna try to take my actually if i take my glasses off that might help all right casey i had no pickups but look at you you made me have a pickup for hey three dollars what a great price yeah yeah no as far as collecting stuff i knew it would be but i know i know you like them but i didn't know if you like them enough to because that's a is a good amount of money i don't know if you want it that that much i just

love blu-rays and i think there's very few people i would do that for yeah they're one of them you know i hear you should we get into what we've been playing, you want me to go first fine i guess i'll go first i always just give it to you but if you're asking i'll fucking take it i've been playing avatar frontiers of pandora.

Just checking that out i'm still really enjoying it i know our friend dave said it's very ubisoft, and he's not wrong but i think anybody that knew about this game probably should expect that it'd be very ubisoft so i wasn't caught off guard by that and i think it helps me because.

Not only do i not really play a lot of ubisoft games as i went on and on about here many times including this episode i don't play many games like this in general that are wide open have, check boxes and there's a ton of shit to do so when i do it's kind of refreshing to me because i don't play a lot of these games but i feel like if that's what you play it is going to get old pretty fast and i already said that even in saying that there's issues i have with it i just enjoy the world so much and

i do think it's a solid game overall i will say i mentioned this next last episode i hate how a lot of characters say the navi they really emphasize it and you'll hear when they say it's pretty annoying can't wait i'm gonna give you a couple tips which i shouldn't because my camera's majorly out of focus because i'm trying to be a douche with this trophy but oh i just now realized what you were doing yeah i remember talking

about the game might as well but uh i showed him because i'll give you a chance at this a chance but i think it'll also help the game as well so i want to tell you i'm not that worried even if you do win it.

Think the game's less frustrating if you go into the settings they have like a lot of these games do where they have unnecessary things like there's little puzzles you have to solve not like fun uncharted puzzles but like bioshock where there's like you're hacking something and they have to do play a little hacking game which the thing they do for the hacking it was kind of cool it didn't i feel like a lot of those as soon as i do i'm

like this fucking sucks theirs was cool but then i was I was like, man, you're doing these all the fucking time. And I feel like it's a little unfair because some of them you do in combat, but the enemies can still hurt you. So I'm like, that seems a little fucked up. I mean, you can be stealth in these games, so I guess technically you don't have to, but I don't feel like I'm not a stealthy guy in this game. I don't feel like it should be played that way anyways.

So if you go into settings, you can turn on auto-complete on the hacks. And I feel like that makes the game way more fun. I mean, you can start it without it.

So turn on autocomplete for the little mini puzzles essentially yeah the hacking yeah, so that tells you something like q a they're like dude these things are frustrating as well yeah they included that yeah for sure you probably do the same way it's not that much of a tip but the field of view you can uh go up to whatever it is like 105 or whatever, which obviously you can see a lot more of the land which helps.

Not gonna lie to you i totally forgot the other tip i think it's the most helpful one i probably should have put it in here so please tell me yeah i'm not even trying to hide it because i said i literally told you that when i would have i really cared even if i don't tell you on the episode if i remember i'll tell you but if i remember i'll say by the end of this episode because god damn i wish i could remember it besides that that's where most of my time's gone i should

look at my my play time so i said i've done an awful job at keeping track of how long i played it i probably played i would guess seven hours but how long i left the console on it probably says like 45 hours but i don't know if it's tracked that or not so that's where most of my times went played a little halo infinite little mcc and a little fortnight with a bazooka his first time playing it the other night and that's it for me this week cool what about you i've also

been playing fortnite with bazooka yesterday him and i you've created an addiction for him he's bought a uh he bought some skins he bought season pass oh my god considering doing the subscription thing which i haven't even thought about doing and then we we worked on i got all the metal gear stuff done that finally came out this season so i have all three versions of snake and all of his uncollectible shit nice having a lot of fun with it

and then i'm just playing the old avatar because i wanted to play that first. Wow it's a really good game for a late 2000s movie tie-in better.

Than it probably should be granted this is a normal game it'd be just okay but the fact that the history of those movie tie-ins it's also nice i wish this would have been an option in the new game you can choose to be either human or navi i wish the new game would have done something like that so i've completed the navi playthrough and i just started the human playthrough, i don't know how far i'll get in the human one it depends if i'm like in the combat.

I mean, it's just a go do this kind of list thing, but I don't mind throw podcasts on the background and just fuck around for achievement points. Had fun with it. It didn't overstay its welcome and pleasantly surprised with it being as good as it is. I think I remember people saying this is a pretty good game. So for, for what it is, how do you never played it? I thought you didn't, you played it before, right? Just didn't finish it. Or have you not? Yeah.

Yep. I had played a little bit here and there just, uh, never all the way through or any sort of like probably less than an hour i'm guessing okay i just remember friends that played it that really liked it you don't think i know you said no but you don't think you're gonna be avatared out or hate the second game because of uh how you did the first game with it yeah it's the whole like native american military human man bad that's it a funny thing too.

They make this Avatar, the first Avatar game, they make them sound like complete idiots. They went full Native American. Like, white man come to land. Big fire in sky. Crash. Burn. White man bad.

That preachy shit gets a little annoying. I agree with Colin when he says the best parts of those movies are seeing the military and the industrialness clashing with the jungle and almost like vietnam-esque warfare like if the movies were just focused on humans trying to survive in this alien hostile alien world would be so much better than being preached at for two and a half hours.

So yeah, I wish, I wish that's probably my biggest issue. I wish there was a human, human, the bad guys story, storyline. Yeah. It's very possible to be very much avatared out. Altared out. Altared. Freaking, freaking birds. Freaking Raven's lost, dude. I think. Altared out. Yeah. It's interesting that you feel that way too, because I do love that stuff, But for me, I think the thing that I've always been most interested in those movies are the visuals.

That's why I always thought it was weird when people hyper-focused on how the story wasn't unique. I feel like that wasn't the main drive of that. And I feel like that's a weird angle to take because there's so many movies where people don't just look at one aspect and make up their minds on it. Because the story, I don't think it's terrible. I think it's just pretty cut and dry and done before.

But I feel like everybody's just dancing the wolves in the jungle like okay I feel like everybody's just I don't think everybody thought that at once I feel like everybody's just saying that because everybody's saying that, but yeah the story it's been done before but for me it was the visuals that made it so cool, yeah I just feel like story is such a big part of movies that that is 90% of the movies for me and then visuals are cool for the first 10 minutes being like

whoa and then that That will die off really quick Which is probably why people can't retell you You don't remember what the fuck happened in Avatar You just remember being like, it looked cool.

Was cool i usually care about story more i think it's so visually impressive and i i said the story was horrendous i think i'd be different but i think the story was good enough and i feel like that's what i'm saying i feel like there's so many movies that where people have average movies that have average stories and people talk about how great the acting was or how amazing the writing was or the visuals or whatever and

don't just be like well this is just like this movie and not and just so widespread that like i said that was everybody so i was just dancing dancing with wolves in the jungle so i don't know that many people have even seen that movie.

So i yeah that was my word i said last time that i think you're not being much of an avatar guy i feel like that's gonna be a whole lot of avatar i think it'll be too much for me all in one in one go and i love avatar and i feel like this game is very much about the visual and i think there's definitely more of that preachy stuff in here so i think uh maybe too much for you but hopefully not i also looked i've uh said i played for 20 hours and three

minutes not as bad as i thought but still crazy because i think i played probably less than half the time it's showing but you can continue i'll just talk about avatar while you're on it i'll just have no you're good yep that's all important night i got you all right well what have you been watching just nothing crazy just still going through thousand pound sisters with renee what a great show dude i love those two and it's great too because i always wanted

more of their family like you hear in the backgrounds and shit i wanted to know more about them and yeah it's a the reason i like their youtube channel so much is because of what this production company is like pushed through, and now it's giving me more stories and those just like the day in the life of these.

Fucking very wholesome like they're i know it's cringy and it's probably you know they're easy to make fun of and shit but i don't see it that way i think it's and it's just mindless, entertainment it's they're fucking hilarious i don't know it's just good shit you know it's like a more wholesome i love 600 pound life but this is like a uh a happier version of that, and you get the full story you don't see it as cringy though i'm not gonna make

fun of you i I feel like that's why you watch this shit. This thing is right up your alley. It would be that way, and that's why you watch it. Yeah, it's not like... Because sometimes I get worried, like, do I watch this type of shit? Because I'm like, look how stupid they are. I'm way smarter. I'm way smarter than them. They're fatter than me, so I'm more successful than them. They're dumb. And I get worried about that, but I would much rather, like, I...

The way I feel about them, like, if I truly watch shit because I feel superior to them, them, I'd be able to tolerate like bachelor or fucking dancing with the stars or some shit like that. I just, it's real stories. I just love, I've always liked documentaries that a slice of life, right? That's a more of a narration, like a, an actual film kind of thing, but I don't know if I'm a nosy person or what. I just, I like that. And I like people that are unapologetically themselves.

Like if you're posting this shit that I could never ever post online because I know it's cringy people do it as cringy like I think that's what I like more I don't I don't know I don't know I don't I like the cringe is funny like I don't I don't know I just I guess almost kind of trying to justify that I'm not bullying these people I'm actually fans of these people right like I would I would get signatures from them. I'd get photos with them. I'm fans of them.

I don't know. I mean, we were talking about Tom Green earlier. Is it something like that? Are they like Tom Green where it's funny? And I hate to think it's at their fucking expense, right? But I don't know. It's almost like anti-comedy or something. I don't know.

I've tried to psychologically break this down to make sure I'm not bullying people people are trying to set up these things by mind like Cody you're actually not a bully you actually love these people but I I don't know I don't know what it is but I'm fascinated with them I guess and when they pass away like some of these YouTube watch what if they pass away or something it's like and I would never bully these people it's like a stand from the side or I would never like

you know troll actively troll these people like I listen to a podcast about gothic king cobra like why why am i so interested in this autistic man that's slowly drinking himself to death and fucking Wyoming. Maybe that's who it is. Maybe initially you start off watching these people because you're like, what a shit show. And it is funny and you're like you have this superiority over them or something. At least I'm not this fucked up. Am I right?

And then I become a fan of them. I don't know what it is, Casey. I've tried to make sense of it. I've tried to justify it. I guess that's what I'm trying to do here. But I generally like these people and if anything ever happened to them, I'd be so fucking sad.

I'm so happy that Tammy and Amy lost the weight because there was a time like a few years ago where Tammy like fucking almost died I thought Jesus Christ so like anger grandpa I started watching that's like one of the early early like cringe watch channels when he died like I I'm still like I was just talking about last night like fuck I wish there was new videos I miss him but yeah I hear you another schizophrenic, rabbit hole went down on my youtubers.

That's all for you yep I saw a movie in theater this week I think you'll want to see it it's called Anyone But You romantic comedy, you won't want to see it by the way it's like the most predictable, cookie cutter romantic comedy Danielle wanted to see it and she knew she knew I felt that way so I wasn't being a fake guy and some of these I actually ended up liking and it wasn't terrible it was okay but it's just,

you would have hated it it's like the most like I said cookie cutter thing possible, but the one bonus to that is Sidney Sweeney's in it so there's really something to look at you know what I'm saying, what is she from I'm looking at this stuff now. Honest, I was going to say I don't know how she got so big. I think it's the looks. But yeah, if she's in that show, that explains it. Because I know people love that show. I don't think I'll like this movie. No, you would hate it.

Besides that, that's the only thing I saw in the theater. But besides that, we watched two more episodes of Severance. Thursday, we'll be watching the season finale. So, we'll be done with Severance. Really enjoying that, obviously.

We finished pokemon concierge still feel still still feel the the same way i do about that it's the art style and this stop motion the claymation whatever is a stop motion yeah is claymation coming up later is so cool that i wish it was had more substance and was deeper because there's not much to it, and like i said it's probably not really for us so it's hard to complain about that but i feel like it'd just be so cool if it's like a full-fledged thing and even aside from that even

if it is a more kid-centric thing i feel like they're they only showed like a handful of pokemon maybe it's because it's so hard to make them but you just kept seeing the same pokemon even with these episodes being kind of short you just kept seeing the same ones which is kind of a bummer. We watched Harry Potter Deathly Hallows Part 1 because for Christmas, I bought Danielle tickets to Harry Potter in concert, which is something she always wanted to do.

You might be laughing really hard, but I know you don't like Harry Potter, but I think you'd actually like it if it was something that you liked. It's at the Ohio... Dude, I wish I loved Harry. I'm kind of jealous that people enjoy it. If Lord of the Rings had these kinds of things that wasn't the Amazon-ass shit they made, I'd be all about it too. So you know what this is, or are you just meaning in general? No, no, I have no idea. So I was going to say Lord of the Rings was actually

what I was going to use as an example. I think if it was that, I think you'd love it. It's at the Ohio Theater, which is already cool, and they have a big screen there to watch it. Oh, this is the orchestra where the movie plays. Yeah, the Columbus Symphony Orchestra playing.

Playing so yeah the i don't know if they have you don't hear the score from the movie i thought they would just as soon as it plays they would play over it but you don't hear the music in the background at all so i don't know if they have a mixer to cut it out or they get a copy without the music but so cool because as soon as the music will be in place they just play it the whole orchestra does so it was really cool that way too recently right i felt

like i heard that which would have been awesome yeah i feel like there's only so many things i mean you could do it with anything but i feel there's only a handful of things that would i don't use this word lightly you know that but epic i feel like harry potter award the ring star wars i know you might laugh this one but avatar i think would fit that really well but i think there's only so many movies you have to get avatar off the mind dude no no i think avatar

would fit very well in that but even a lot of things i like i don't feel like would fit well in that but it was a very cool experience i'm a a little bummed we saw part one because part two is way more action heavy i was kind of mixing up my mind say or obviously part one and two of the last book and i forgot uh most of my favorite parts were in the second one so kind of bummer but really cool scene and as far for her so can't really complain too

much also finished another show that you're all about wednesday. Right how you been watching that you just everything you've consumed this week is just sounds atrocious to me you don't mean that though right oh definitely not dude okay good it was very good cody you should watch it wednesday is a very good show and you'll be be happy to know that they plan on doing a a spin-off of wednesday thursday oh oh.

What is the character's name? Uncle Fester. Young Sheldon? Oh. Uncle Fester, which I think Wednesday's the appeal there. So I don't think that will really – I think it'll probably be a hit, but I don't think I'd be as interested. And I feel like it's also weird to have a spinoff and act like this isn't already a spinoff because Wednesday's a spinoff of Adam's family, obviously. So it's quite the rabbit hole they're going down. I did watch the first episode of Ted. Have you watched it yet?

Yeah you watched it I fucking love the first episode that's all I've seen so far but yeah they didn't shy away from any of the stuff that like I said I forgot to look up to see how true that was but if it was true they definitely just moved it away from Family Guy straight into Ted and kept it but it was, very funny I hope the rest of the series can be that good have you seen anything more in the first episode no no okay Because that first episode was some of

the hardest I've laughed in a while. It was so good. And then besides that, I watched Chicken Run, Dawn of the Nugget. Which I want to make sure I emphasize Nugget. It's good. I know we talked about it on here quite a while ago now. The first one is definitely much better. But I think this is about as good as you could have expected for a sequel that took this long.

And had no need to come out ever i think it was well done after that i saw there's the making of, of the movie obviously and we just talked about how much we like that kind of stuff, and this is where the claymation comes in by the way i think the making of was only like 20 minutes but it's almost as interesting the movie or as the movie and that's not a distant movie like i said i think it's good but i think seeing how they make that and how fucking frustrating that

be trying to do that is super interesting but uh yeah i'd check it out i uh i loved that movie as a kid and that was an awesome awesome toy line yeah no i agree that's why i don't think this movie is necessary at all i think the first one is definitely better but i think if you're gonna do it i don't think i can't think of anything like they should have done this maybe you'll feel differently if you do and you watch it and you're like man it would have been so much cooler or if they did this,

then I could see that, but I can't really argue with what they did. I think even Burger King had a Chicken Run toy line that was even... I'm trying to remember if there was a fucking... There wasn't a bad toy. Even the Burger King show was fun. Yeah, Burger King had the toy line. It was really fucking cool. Specifically, it was all of the things they tried to use to escape. Oh, yeah, that's right. And it was all of their toys. Man, even just the normal Chicken Run toys were amazing.

Isn't Burger King the place with the crowns, too? That's right, dude. They also have lights there. Like this? Like this light? Very good lighting. Very good lighting. No, that's awful lighting. Wait, maybe this will help? There you go. Much better. Much better. Yeah, it's pretty cool to make fun of somebody without electricity, bud, and just survive with a little light. But besides sports, that's all I've been watching this week.

If you want to talk about sports, we can. if not we could uh move on no i couldn't i could not care less about the super bowl yeah i was rooting for lamar and looting for the lions and that just went sideways, yeah i'm the same way i have no plans to even watch super bowl i'm rooting against the chiefs but it's not like i like the 49ers so yeah it's not something i'm interested in seeing i was hoping for the same matchup as you were as we talked

last week i said the only plus side is is that it's funny that Michigan got screwed over again. And since we talked last, Jim Harbaugh officially left, which I think all but tells you shit's about to go down in Michigan. So it'll be even funnier when the NASC championship's taken away. And then the Broncos can beat Jim Harbaugh, and both my teams can beat him. So that'll be pretty fucking cool.

But that's it. Have you been reading or listening to any books? No. The only one I've been listening to is Bone in the Throat.

Which sounds like another another uh fifth wing book naughty book but it's not at all it's, anthony bourdain's first book and i started listening to it and it wasn't him which i was bummed out because i feel like when i listened to his other book his there's something about his voice is really uh really comforting which is weird without i i agree with you 100 on that and i also don't like when autobiographies don't use your own voice obviously if you're dead which i know he is

at this point but it wasn't when this came out or if it's somebody that's super like struggling talks a lot or me for example struggles at talking i get if you don't do it yeah but what's sorry go ahead but then i was listening to the book and i was like Like, there kept being some weird stuff in there, but I was like, in his most popular book, Kitchen Confidential, which is the one that I was talking about before. I thought that was his first book. Is it not? No.

That's, I think, one of his later ones. It's definitely his most popular, though. If that's what you're thinking of. But in that one, he had some crazy-ass stories from working in New York for so long. I was like, this sounds fake, but I guess if he lives in New York and works there, probably some crazy-ass stories like he had in that book. But then I was listening to it and he was talking about how spoilers.

Someone was walking down the hallway and somebody pulled out a pistol and shot him in the skull three times no way and i was i rewound to wait did i what did i miss because i told you i don't follow books that well so i don't know if i wasn't following along and there's more things that before this because a couple hours in or if this is a thing that really set it off oh this can't be real and i looked it up and

it's a fiction book book he wrote and i was like oh okay this This makes more sense now, but also weird that his first book was a fiction book. But I'm only a couple hours in, so we'll see. It was kind of interesting to think somebody like that wrote a fiction book that is not horror, but I don't know what you'd call that genre, but definitely dark, like Dexter-ish. Gotcha. Maybe that's why I thought Kitchen Confidential was his first one.

Because he has a... The two before that are novels, it looks like. Oh, okay. Okay, that's a bummer because I was hoping to hear more of his. Not that this had been bad, but he has a handful of books, so I thought maybe the rest were his actual books. That kind of makes the graphic novel make a little bit more sense too. Oh, yeah. Anything else you want to talk about before we get out of here? No, that's it. That's it? All right. Well, we're going to get off here and play some games, right?

Oh, yeah, get off. hey all right well let's go play some games and we'll see you guys next week, I love you talking to this you oh yeah you didn't say your thing you don't need to read it fuck I forget he says too much pressure I talked about that last week and now you won't do it. Music.

All right cody so we're back here i wanted to show you we talked about the south park game have you seen this yet the trailer that shows a little gameplay nope it used to turn up a little it does well we'll get your opinion i think that someone is that's too loud right what are you suggesting my volume is way too loud ever since he thought his version of the the rules were best. I was gearing up my army to get to him and force him to talk to me to see what

he was up to. But then the New Kid came and got in the way. Wow, nice going, New Kid. This storm isn't going to end, and our town is in serious trouble. Stay back! We're out of stuff! Then we have no choice. New Kid, we must get to the Marshwalker's stand. Hey, New Kids! I'm gonna be king. You chose the wrong side. Music.

I cast a spell, your health is back to 100 get the fuck up, god I have to do everything around here, I'll be honest on your stream it slowed down a lot oh no but yeah, it looks pretty good it gives me Slay the Spire kind of vibes to it, wow I thought it looked exactly like you were about in the first time and then what I started worrying about, it looked very budgety to me, yeah I feel like we talked so much about the other

games being like 30 hour South Park episode and that felt like a game with some South Park jokes in it, yeah I could see that let me watch this trailer here with the normal frame rate, let's see here yeah I could see that I mean, I think the gameplay would be okay if it's like a Slay the Spire strategy we'll see yeah I hear ya.