o Welcome to the gamers in. Come on in, pull up a chair next to the fire. It looks like you've had a long journey. I'm your host Jocelyn and joining me as always is my co-host Ryan. Hello Ryan. Hello Jocelyn. Hope you're ready to talk TV again. I am. First, I can't even think you were gonna do like some sort of Sonic something and I was like, no, you're only gonna get me to talk about that once tonight and it's in the news, so...
No. Yeah, no, this is a structured show. We would never bump Sonic to the top of the show. Sonic, Sonic stays. You know that's not true. Well, yeah, I know it's not true. It's happened in the past, but I did want to kick off the show in following up from last week when I talked about Halo season two and I had some choice words, some negativity to pass along because it's not the greatest video game adaptation out there. There are better ones. We're gonna talk about a better one and a little bit.
So you finished it now. You're done with season two. Yes. Yeah, I finished season two. I did the Halo show up. Okay, so as I hinted at it last week and look, I'm not gonna go into... I'm gonna go into spoilers because I think to properly discuss this, the show's been out for a while. I think you will better enjoy the show knowing where it ends. It has not been renewed for a season three yet. I have looked into it. Still not renewed as of this recording, which is a bit of a bummer
because the show ends episode eight. They get to Halo. They make some different decisions on how they get there and how they arrive there. It's very different from the game, but they do land on Halo. They get there at least. They are there. Yeah. And actually the final episode kind of has it's kind of bookended by sort of what I think to be a really interesting. I think it's always an interesting creative choice when like they foreshadow a little, not for it,
they're not literally foreshadowing. They're literally showing a scene from the next season where Master Chief is talking to another character and it is a level from Halo. So fans will know based on this conversation immediately. Their brain will be transported to a level from Halo Combat Evolved. And as a fan, it's like that's the type of stuff that you want to see. And we talked about adaptations in terms of like is this an adaptation that can be modeled in a way that everyone can
enjoy it, even those who don't know Halo or in Halo specific sense. I think the only way to adapt it is to be like this is a show that will appeal to fans. And hopefully there's enough fans out there to make it a viable product essentially, like to make it successful. Yes, so do you appeal to fans or do you appeal to everyone? Like this is giving me like shades of warcraft movie. Sure. Yes. They tried to like instead of going with like the artist's story,
which is what everybody wanted. They were like, no, we need to go all the way back to like Orcs v humans. Like we need to, you know, explain our universe. We need to show the orcs coming to Azeroth and both of us like nobody wanted that. Okay. What we wanted to see was Jaina and Arthas and Arthas is fall from grace because that is like the best warcraft story content, like war content, like everyone freaking loves Arthas. That's what we wanted to see on screen. And they were
like, herpty dare, let's do this thing like to try to appeal to everyone. It's like if you had just appealed to warcraft fans and especially like that era of warcraft fans, you could have just printed money for years. I hope I needed it so wrong. Yeah. It feels like Halo is doing the same terrible mistake. Yeah. And I mean, warcraft's an interesting example because like even as someone who played those original RTSs and enjoys the story that they were trying to adapt,
you're right. It is a, it's a less fleshed out story. It's a less interesting story in comparison to the area you're talking about with, you know, basically warcraft three. Yes. Yeah. And I think their idea was to adapt warcraft one, then two, then eventually get to three and exactly, you know, do that whole thing. And I think that's the struggle with any sort of adaptation where like, do we tell this in chronological order and possibly struggle with not being renewed? So when
you look at Halo, they got two seasons pretty quickly. They did their first season and then shortly before the first season aired, they got their second season renewed. Still no news on a season three. Season three will be or would be hopefully an adaptation of the game. Yeah. Halo one. Yeah. Giving us the events of the probably most popular Halo game out there
because it was the first one and everyone loved it. And we might not get that because similar to warcraft, they wanted to tell their story at a specific point of time and then lead up to possibly getting. I think they'll get renewed for a third season because honestly, it's like you don't set up the game and then not adapt it like to leave it here would be pretty massive. So like it, but when you look at warcraft, it did a similar thing to what Halo did
where it's like, yeah, they adapted a specific storyline. But like to me, that wasn't the biggest issue. The biggest issue was that they tried to, they tried to brought, as you said, broaden the appeal, try to make it so everybody could connect with it. But in, but by doing that path, they kind of lost everyone, especially the folks who are going to like go see it multiple times, buy it on blue right by digital, whatever. But in this case with Halo, it's like subscribing
to Paramount Plus. I'm pretty sure folks didn't tune in for season two because they figured like, well, even in these reviews, they're constantly saying we tweak like still not out Halo, still not there. But I will say that if you're a fan of Halo, you can watch episodes one, four, and eight of this season with the recaps on and get a much better experience than trying to watch the whole season. Awful. Yeah. You literally just said skip more than half of the content.
Skip five episodes of an eight episode season and you'll have a better experience. That's gross. It's, it's all in service of getting to the idea that if they do a season three and we get the adaptation of Halo, you will want to watch parts of Halo one and two, Halo season one and two, to know like where how our characters got to where they are. And I think with season one,
I do a similar approach where like there are episodes that stand above others. But I think the biggest issue with season two of Halo is that the covenant aren't necessarily the biggest threat. Humanity is a threat to itself by infighting and political maneuvering. And literally, they use, they like sacrifice reach in a way that is kind of gross and completely different from how
it's done in the games. Whereas in the games, it's like humanity's last stand. There's a big effort to like hold the covenant back and and they knew reach was going to fall, but they they wanted to hold as long as possible to get as many people evacuated off the planet to protect as much of humanity as possible. But in this show, it's like top brass. No, it's coming. Hide it from everybody who lives there and like evacuate only the top level military and leave literally
master chief to die. Like their plan is to kill master chief on the planet. And it's like what? Like why? Yeah, but why are you doing this? Uh, so you can skip the episodes that deal with that and skip right to episode eight where like it starts with like a foreshadow just to season three with master chief having an iconic conversation. And then you get the you get the land on halo, you get Cortana and master chief reuniting like they have their banter which straight out of the
video games. Great stuff. And it is halo. I feel like you just you just kind of summed it up right? Like they are adapting these video games because the video games are so good that they have like giant fan followings, right? So like if it was in the video game, it's fucking good and we like it. If you're adapting the video game, use the stuff from the fucking video game. Yeah. If you're rocking science, you can change some characters like you can you can change some
motivations. Sure. Like have a little bit of creative liberty, but like come on, use the stuff from the game. That's the stuff we like. Yeah. And that's been like even before I watched the season two of halo. A lot of the criticism I was seeing because it was a week to week show like on the gaming sites like IGN and polygon it'd be like, Hey, the halo show is is is doing better, but
still no halo. And they do some stuff out of order, which honestly doesn't bother me like if we don't get a season three, at least we got the introduction of we got to see the flood on screen in at the end of season two as well. And that's a moment. It's kind of a spoiled moment in the sense like it's it's an iconic moment from the game where it's like, Oh my god, there's a whole
other faction here and it's completely different. And they introduced it early in the show, but it's I think it's there to kind of like tease a bit more about why the rings exist and it fits within the show and but they do like the zombie tropes like they do the classic like I've been infected. I'm going to stay behind go on without me. They do the major characters been infected and
she doesn't know it. They do like the I've been bit, but I hit it from somebody. I'm trapped in here with a zombie like it's it's like really they went down the checklist is like even walking dead doesn't do it in a 20 minute space all four of those and they managed to cram them all in. And that never happens in Halo like the flood just happens and people just run and scream and try to survive as much as possible, but like there's no zombie tropes in Halo and they
because it's a TV show, I guess they had to put it in I don't know. It was kind of bananas, but anyways watch watch one four and eight you'll be fine do the do the paramount plus cut or whatever and get a free trial. It'd be a lot easier to watch here in your two week free trial. I guess I don't know. It's not great. I hope it does get a season three just for you so you can finally experience Halo in a TV show. Like no I might look it won't happen and I've never put myself through this.
And now 17 episodes of it and like look it's not all bad, but like in comparison to the last of us or even follow which we're going to talk about it is night and day in terms of like quality. The quality of an adaptation like the show quality is like the effects are great. The acting's fine. It just comes down to their their story choices, which is pretty key like your your ability to tell a story is like the reason to have a TV show. 100% yeah. I mean and let's just jump right into it.
I can't feel like we've talked Halo to death like. Yeah follow season one. So I've only seen the first episode Ryan's a little bit further, but we thought we would give kind of initial thoughts and it's actually really funny that we were talking so much about like appealing to people who haven't played the game versus appealing to your fans because I feel like and I don't know how much follow you've actually played. Maybe I should wait before I say this, but I haven't played
Fallout. And so watching the show like I was pretty drawn in actually like the the reason that we haven't gotten any further than one episode is is completely due to just like us in our schedule. It has nothing to do with the content whatsoever like the next time we sit down and the other problem is Matt and I share so many interesting comment that like there's so many shows on our list of like okay, I can't watch this when I'm at can't watch this but I just can't watch this when I'm
at like so the Fallout is definitely one of those. So yeah, it's just been completely up to our schedules and we haven't had time to to continue the season yet, but we're both like super invested. It was a really, really good first episode, but like I've never really played Fallout. I think I played like I'm gonna say Fallout 4 and I played like an hour of it. I've dipped my toe
into the Fallout universe. I also realized as I was looking for something to play for today for this episode for gamers in when I was going through all the offerings on Game Pass, all the Fallout stuff is like super high up on the like popular on Game Pass list and I also realized that I have been confusing Fallout and Far Cry in my head for so long. Oh for no reason other than they're both like games that start with F. That's fine though. Like I mean, they're both open worlds.
Only that's the only reason like but I just like I was like no I've definitely played a Fallout game, but what I've played is the Far Cry game that had nukes in it. Oh yeah, that's right. There was like a post-apocalyptic, no, but I've never actually played a Fallout game. I have no ties to like the lore. I don't know the story. I just know the absolute basics that like there was a crazy nuclear attacks. There were people living in vaults. That's all I know. That is
the extent of my Fallout knowledge and the trailer I should say for season one. Right and the trailers for the games are iconic too. They have the the classic war were never changes. I don't know if they bring back Ron Pearlman for the show. It'd be kind of weird. I would think there would be whole IGN articles devoted to him not coming back. So I'd be surprised if he wasn't in there somewhere. I don't know no spoilers. We're going to keep this spoiler free as best we can. But
well mainly because you've only seen the first episode. I don't want to spoil them. I'll say this like so when it comes to the games I've played three and four and New Vegas have never finished them. And I think that is more a culprit of a combination of my inability to finish video games and the fact that these games are so busy and open world. And you know so we're just going to get along. Yeah there's a lot there. And there's a great line
in the TV show which has a direct nod to playing an open world game and it fits so well. And I'm not going to spoil it because it is so good. And it just goes back to like the actors in the show like Walter Goggins or Walt and Goggins. Oh my god that is bugging me so much. I was like he's done cowboy things before. Yes. I love him. He is so good. I can raise him in this show. Walt and Goggins Ella Pranell who I best know from I called the Cannibal Soccer team or whatever.
But it's it's yellow jackets. She's from yellow. I was like it's the fly show. Yeah yeah. Don't know when that one's coming back but man such a fantastic show. It's so good. Yeah. It's it's got some stuff going on. But she's fantastic in this. And that first episode of Fallout is a really good barometer as to whether you're going to enjoy the show or not because it really captures not only the essence of the whole show or what feels like what the show the season will be.
But it also captures the video games really well like the humor, the feel of of these vaults like as someone who played the games and it's familiar with them seeing the vaults in the show. It just it feels like a natural extension of the video game like they nailed that aspect of it. And they actually expand upon what we get in the video games because what we get in the video games is it's a small snippet in the vault. You know, it's sort of the introduction and then you leave the
vault and they nailed that scene. Right. I was like that's the that's the only thing that I really remember because again, I played the very very very beginning of one of them. I'm pretty sure it was the most recent one so four. And like basically I remember like leaving a vault and then walking around like a subdivision sort of thing like a bunch of abandoned houses. Yeah. That's all I did.
Yeah. And they they capture that's that really well in the show and they expand upon it. And and then in the games you kind of get a little more feel for the vaults as you as you do find vaults throughout the game and some of them are inhabited, some of them are abandoned or have fallen. Okay. And like this it's as you continue to watch the show, you do get to experience more of of the game like you know and you see this in the trailers like visiting towns, the different
monsters, the different factions. And in terms of an adaptation like they really did a lot of work to bring the video game into the show and adapt it. Create their own story but it feels like it's within the universe. So I think they really yeah, they really nailed that feeling and I think that's a it's a critical thing to both attract fans of the franchise and keep them happy but also bring in people who have never played it like I watched the first episode with Ashley who does not play video
games. No idea what followed is and I like I knew the hang up that that she would have is that it would be it's a bit gruesome and that first episode only scratches the surface. So take that I was gonna say yeah like so there's kind of a one scene in particular and that I don't necessarily want to give too much information about or too much setup for because like if you are like me and you have no idea what's going on. I mean it's foreshadowed you can see it coming if you're paying
even the littlest bit of attention. Yeah there's some heavy hinting. Yeah it's very heavily hinted but I will say that there is a a fight scene that's like they pull out all the stops. There's some stuff that happens in that fight scene that I think is a really good indicate like if you can watch and stomach the fight scene then I think you're probably good. Yes yeah that is and I've only seen the first episode so maybe it gets much worse but I feel like there was
a lot of stuff in that episode that kind of maybe go yeah it's it's a good prep. Oh the boot oh the boot the boot. Oh trying to remember the boot my way to block it out if it was that bad. There is a scene with a boot later on that is probably worse than maybe what you're oh okay I think it was it was the army people. Yeah oh yeah there's a worse scene there's oh okay there's another boot there's another boot there's a you'll get there and you'll see it
and you'll be like oh yeah I mean they never want to put boots on again. I mean you might not need to put a boot on with this type of boot but you'll get there and and but it feels it's so it's such a video game moment you know when it happens in the show and it's and I was like where are we going
to go with this and I was like oh right okay this this feels very very follow in terms of the video games and there's a lot of those moments where it's like this feels very follow but it's there's a lot of stuff that they've made their own to me like it's talking about making it their own like
it's almost like tongue and chic like it's like it's funny gory yes like it doesn't take itself too seriously it's not like walking dead where it's like gory and awful and I'm thinking of the glen scene and gruesome just the sake of being gruesome it's like followed is gruesome with a comedic twist
yeah yeah and there are moments where there is like some of the violence feels a little over to it is but it but it fits within if fits within the show if fits within the video game in the sense that like there is a perk in the video games where it's I think it's I don't know what it's called
and you know fans are gonna be like scream me to their headphones or whatever but there is a perk you can equip that basically makes it so every shot you shoot makes people's like limbs and heads explode so depending on where you hit them I can't remember what it's called but but fans will
know exactly what the perk is called but it is it is something you can equip it's familiar yeah and look there are going to be moments in the show where you're like wow well gorgons has a very specific build for his character and and they're like it's like those moments where like as a fan I could appreciate what they're doing and then someone who probably has no idea about the video game is just like it is can enjoy it and not have those moments of like man this feels like a video game
it's Easter eggs done well yeah like Halo though often like cut to you know in helmet shots and it's like uh you know this is very video game me this feels very like original doom movie with the rock the in the warcraft movie to to bring that one up again in the warcraft movie there was that moment
where like I think it was like CAD guard like basically leveled up and it was just like if you had never played warcraft it was like what is this sound like what is it what is happening right now like it looks dominant of place right but if you were a warcraft person you're like I can't
just leveled up lol you're kind of embarrassed a little bit like oh god they put a ding in the movie what are we doing yeah it was weird for people who like it was an Easter egg that fans understood but it was weird for people who were like outside of that like knowledge base that fan base right
so like something like you know exploding limbs is a nice nod to a perker build in a game without like like people who aren't familiar with the video game can just be like oh that's a fun kind of ammunition like you know but they don't lose out by not being a fan yeah it's a balance and I
think follow at least in the first four episodes they they they strike that balance there are moments as a video game player where especially the pit boys and all of the UI within within the show is directly pulled and feels like it it could be in the video game like the green sort of on black
computer screens all of the tech that you're they're engaging with the pit boys themselves as you're like seeing maps and trackers and icons and they do a very good job of like as a video game player you're like oh man that's really cool that they nailed that and as just a viewer of content
of television show you're like this feels very in-universe like this feels like it fits for what else is going on here well yeah especially since we had that one that one scene at the birthday party when the bombs fell oh yeah very much set up what the tech was like at the time when
everything went to shit so then it makes everything else you know even though it's these what I think it's is it 200 years after yeah 219 something like that yeah so like it kind of makes makes sense like where society is and what the tech is that they have given where they started
mm-hmm which is like like the 50s-ish yeah they kind of uh it's like a near future but set in the 50s like you've got that like Jetsons classic sci-fi tech you know floating robots with a British accent that sort of thing yeah it's basically like the the cold war ended up not being
so cold no they want some nukes yeah it's and and this is something that you get a hint at in the first episode and and continues to build like this is Jonathan Nolan and his team the folks behind Westworld and as someone who watched the first season of Westworld and didn't watch anything after
that that was smart yeah okay good I made hey look I made a smart decision and didn't watch a season two of something I did it um like they you do get this feeling in episode one that there's a larger story it's not just our main character set off with a specific objective there's more
going on just due to the the state of the world um and they set up some mysteries they show some they they explore the history of of followed as well because you do have the ghoul Walton Goggins character who is technically sort of a connection between right the past and the present
the past and the present yes and they are telling a story that has layers to it there's mystery there's like questions being thrown out there and um answers maybe that we won't get in this first season but we are you are starting to get that unraveling of that sort of uh that story
to to learn more about these characters and their motivations and I think that's also critical because they've really decided to tell like an engaging story it's not just character leaves the vault and shenanigans go there's more to it um I don't know if you get it in the first episode so
I won't go further but you know Ben Linus the guy from lost I don't know the actual actor's name but Linus from lost is in this I know who he is yeah okay he's not in the first episode okay so he he pops up and uh there's some other actors as well uh honestly as soon as I see him I'm like oh
so you're a bad guy uh he's a little type cast yeah he's um yeah I like I'm trying to find the guy's name and I can't find it but there's some other actors to pop up if you watch Superstore uh he's in the first episode uh he plays a character called Thaddeus and he's one of the the
knights uh the in training um you'll know you'll know the guy is the guy from from lost Michael Emerson oh okay yeah that's that is not uh we'll just call him Linus from lost that's fine yeah he's also in some other shows but that's what I know him from he's in like um I don't know
what the other shows are I I if I name another show I'll probably mixing up him up with another actor but uh there's a lot of there's a lot of characters there's a lot of actors in the show that like might be new I don't recognize like most of the cast is like fresh I've never seen them in
anything else before but there are like character actors that pop up um like specifically uh I guess the guy's name is Johnny Pemberton and it's the if you've ever seen Superstore he's the boyfriend that is like into wrapping and stuff and he's like super awkward he is in this first episode and I
said to Ashley like oh we loved Superstore it was like I can't believe they put him in the show and I was I was worried like he'd only be in the first episode he pops back up at its fantastic okay so it's it's a great start uh I do worry you had touched on this in our pre show of the you know
the IGN article of like explaining the ending I do worry that uh this show looks very expensive and and look like a lot a lot of work went into this I do struggle like if we might not get a season two for the opposite reasons of Halo not getting a season three where it was just so good and so
difficult to make like how do they even like the Westworld problem like you said season two for for Westworld was not great like I wonder if they'll fall into that trap uh I hope they don't because honestly I'd love to see this continue not forever but like at least give us like one more season
um because man I just couldn't stop watching it today I I watched like three episodes in a row and it is really good it's a good show um so anyways yeah uh we should I think like when we do finish it it might not be for a couple more weeks but like when we do finish it we should we
should offer because like there's some there's some um there's some stuff we're spoiling I think and in discussion is that you think we should do a full on spoiler shot when we're dead I think so I think there's some because again like when they said and I thought maybe this was like marketing
speak when they said like this is basically a follow five this does feel like a like a follow five you know um from a story perspective and the way characters are interacting and stuff and uh there's some good moments I can't wait for you to keep watching because like there's
uh while and gogans is all over this and he is superb uh he's amazing yeah I really like him I think he's fantastic so I'm looking forward to to watching more and we'll do a full follow spoilers uh once we're actually done and honestly I was one of the people who uh kind of contributed to this
new story because I definitely like downloaded and installed uh Fallout 4 because it's on Game Pass so um all of the Fallout games are kind of experiencing this like Renaissance because of the TV show um so Fallout 76 in particular which came out in 2020 and it's Fallout 76 is the weird one it's the
like multiplayer game one honestly I know like basically nothing about it other than like I remember you had to like build a base and then you could go and like attack other people's bases and then at one point I think they knew the world again like I don't know much about it just like little bits and pieces I have one friend who plays it um but basically um the Fallout 76 on Steam had almost 40,000 concurrent players which is a record for them and it came out four years ago um so all of the so
Fallout 4 uh Fallout New Vegas and Fallout 76 have all been like hitting record numbers of concurrent players over on Steam which is kind of awesome yeah because the Fallout games like I didn't realize how old they were like I was looking like I say on Game Pass and like there's like the Xbox 360 like thing on the side and it's like oh man New Vegas came out in 2010 like Fallout 4 was 2015 that's nine years ago well I guess like eight eight and a bit years ago because it was late in
2015 but still like these are like old games Fallout 4 was 25 I was trying to like do this math in my head so Fallout 4 was 2015 November 2015 yeah whoa it's 2024 Ryan I don't know if you know well I mean when you put it like that yeah um so the interesting part about Fallout 4 is uh
I when the show first had its trailer I was like I kind of want to play go back to Fallout 4 because I never finished it but I am gonna try and go back soon because here's the thing there is a next gen patch that is arriving on April 25th so if you want to wait just a couple more weeks you'll be
able to play Fallout 4 with uh I think they're aiming 60 frames per second increased resolution across Xbox series XS and PS5 so yeah they'll have a performance mode and quality mode and I mean that's that's pretty good marketing synergy if I've ever seen it I mean there are a few
weeks behind I think but or a week behind the 25th is uh only 10 nine days from now speaking of yeah number nine whoa uh so yeah I will probably do that because I'm kind of like I'm in that Fallout game it's a good enough show I was gonna say it's a good enough show to be a marketing
tool for the games it's like yes you watch Fallout and you want to play Fallout um and it sounds like Halo is not that but it was the same for last of us like I watched last of us and I was like oh I actually think I really want to go play last of us so yeah I think you know to your point about
the you know uh effects and the and the actors and the cost of making the show I think if you are redirecting gamers to your game as it's clear that the series has had that effect then it's a marketing tool that's working right because like your main source of income is gonna be through
selling Fallout right like just selling Fallout 4 you know a nine year old game of selling getting people into Fallout 76 which is you know the the newest version and the and the multiplayer online I'm sure has a bazillion micro transactions in it like if you're actually funneling people
into your games then this TV show is gonna make you money regardless of how many people are watching it or subscribing to Amazon Prime to get access to it or whatever like as a marketing vehicle you want to push people to the games and Fallout is obviously doing that so I think if like it's
almost a foregone conclusion that season two is gonna be happening if they haven't announced to get which I'm not 100% sure either way but uh yeah I think it's probably really safe to say that Fallout is gonna get a season two regardless of its no budget yeah and especially if they're
making a follow five which I think has already been announced yeah I think Bethesda so this is the other thing is Bethesda had I think is still like a one game or a 1.5 game studio where they have portions of their studio working on the next thing but it's always a wait and the next one is Elder
Scrolls 6 so yeah the idea if you do the math Fallout 5 is it might very well be next 29 but it's yeah 20 30 might even be like it might be that might be too soon you know like Elder Scrolls 6 is likely 20 20 6 maybe 20 27 I think they're even floating 20 28 out there like it's a big title
you know and I think this is why Bethesda had like spun off these you know online multiplayer like Elder Scrolls online and Fallout 76 to be like you know it takes time to build these mainline story games so let's have something for the fans that they can check in with
let's keep those active and they do go back like they're doing the follow four next gen update you know and they have the follow show so like they still they still are keeping the brand and the franchise sort of active in in players and viewers minds so I like they're they're treating
their their franchise better than some folks do and I mean you look specifically at Warcraft and it's like Blizzard for a long time is like being told make a movie make a movie and they're like fine we'll do it we'll partner with another company to make it and we'll try to do it and
you know I think that Warcraft movie whether you liked it or didn't the one thing we can all agree on is like Blizzard will probably never do it again because yeah they they do they do they do not like returning to things when it blows up there in their faces yeah the only thing the only thing I
could maybe see them doing now that we've seen so much success with things like follow and last of us is potentially doing a TV show maybe maybe I think it fits better as a show every honest and I've said this like so many times over the years it's so much easier to adapt something that is
in a longer form in the original like context so like a a book or a video game it's so much easier to adapt something into a TV show because you have eight to ten hours worth to tell your story as opposed to even on the long side of things a three hour movie right like you just are going to
do it more justice with the length of time you're given in a TV show period like you have more you have more time to play with also more time to hang yourself with if you're halo like but you know really and truly to when you have a big universe and like kind of long form content to get across TV is just the better way to do it and especially now with all these streaming services it have more flexibility than traditional network TV like I think TV shows are the way to go so I would I would watch
a warcraft TV show for sure but yeah we'll have to see anyway so follow full spoilers thoughts we'll have in a few weeks when we're able to get through it all maybe next week maybe we'll see but yeah we will definitely do a a follow-up spoiler show because I think we're both enjoying it to that
level so you guys can look forward to that I wanted to very very quickly before we get into the news touch on what I've been playing this week which is just came out today first-own battlegrounds has added a duo mode which was announced at Blizzcon and like I said released today there was a preview
yesterday where they kind of like invited like their theory crafting streams they invited like around a couple hundred creators to kind of preview it to stream on Twitch whatever so I watched a whole bunch of yesterday played it today if you've ever played battlegrounds this is that on steroids
it's like I don't know if it has the longevity of like solo single player battlegrounds but it's definitely fun and interesting and I was a little bit worried at first because it's so my first battle that I queued into basically the concept is you play battlegrounds like you normally play
battlegrounds but you have a partner and so you have your board of seven minions they have their board of seven minions and together you fight another pair of boards so you can like pass cards back and forth you there are a whole bunch of different minions like the minion pool is unique to
duo's so there are some minions that are shared but there's also a whole bunch of new minions that are duo specific because they have to do with like passing cards back and forth to get buffs and things like that so it does have some very specific duo minions that you have to kind of learn
but it's like the whole thing is very very difficult I played I played two matches myself and I was a little bit worried because the first match I I I solo queued into them because I play a lot of multiplayer games as solo player is like Ryan can attest it's very very hard to schedule things with
your friends once you start having kids so I do play a lot of I solo queue into a lot of multiplayer games so I solo queued into this and my partner immediately quit so I was playing all by myself against teams of two and I lost there's no way to make up for a partner who's just not there
because you can't play any minions onto their board so I was like oh man like if you can't solo queue this mode it's gonna die really really fast however in my second game I had somebody who actually stuck around and then it was really really fun very very difficult because you can't
communicate to them at all but it was it was still a really fun and interesting experience to the point that I could see if I could schedule some time to play with a friend and have voice comms I think it could be really fun but your turn lengths are about the same as they are in regular
battlegrounds battlegrounds turns are hard enough to navigate without also having to look at a whole other board and a whole other shop and make a whole other strategy so it's interesting it's fun it was it was crazy to watch on streams I think it's definitely a novelty and and worth checking
out if you have somebody to play with but yeah that's the newest mode to come into and I guess like this is a mode it's the newest way to play battlegrounds I think they're they're trying to expand what is offered under that battlegrounds umbrella to kind of try to monetize it in any way
shape or form the monetization is basically they have the battleground season pass so your quests are going to be completeable on on both sides in either normal battlegrounds or over on the duo side and then obviously like the cosmetics right like your cosmetics from main battlegrounds also
go over into duos so more places that you can use your cosmetics means probably more cosmetic sold so they're just trying to monetize a mode that they didn't think was going to catch on and now has it's like has as many if not more players than standards so I think they're just trying to add
like flush it out as much as they can but I I think it was it was fun it's interesting I just I don't know if it has the staying power of solo battlegrounds but still fun it's cool and it's different they've obviously put a lot of thought into it yeah and I think as you said like
something that depends on like a solid partner when you're playing this game because if you lose it is a duo if you lose your partner then it's you know it's kind of game over man yeah you you have you have a shared health pool so like basically what happens is they because there there is one
character stitches that has a higher base health than anyone else so it doesn't add your health together it like checks to see who has the higher health so most characters have 30 stitches has 60 I'm 99% sure so if you are partnered up with a stitches player you have a base health of 60
everyone else has a base health of 30 and then they add your armor values together so armor is additive health is higher of the two which is good because yeah if health is additive then stitches would just be crazy well I guess stitches already is just 30 above everybody else
anyways it doesn't matter point is you have a shared health total and once that shared health is gone then your duo is eliminated so and basically what happens is it randomly assigns who's gonna go first you can tell that from the character portraits over on the side so the first first board
is the character with the top portrait and then the second is below that and basically like first player fights first player and then whoever has no more minions left their second player board loads in defeats the remaining minions on the first player on the other team then their second player
comes in and then you resolve the combat fully and then whoever has minions left is the winning side and you deal damage accordingly if your first player defeats both players on the other side but they only have a couple minions left the board will like backfill with minions from your partner
in order to figure out how many minions are left and deal damage so it is a little chaotic it's it's a lot but it was it was it was it was fun and it is doable if you can't talk to your put a can't talk to your teammate I think it would be much better if you could but also I'm kind
of okay with not having voice comms in heartstone yeah I don't I don't know I probably don't want that either like random voice chat with another heartstone player I mean it's it's good that they have like you know communication tools in there but it sounds like it might be a mode that would be
more fun playing with with someone you know it's definitely meant to play with a friend on a on a separate voice chat for sure I think that is the best way to play and that's how all the streamers are playing yesterday and there's definitely there's a ton of odds you can see from
the preview event preview event from yesterday I prefer Beaufort he is my favorite battleground streamer so if you're looking for somebody go check out go check out Beaufort over on Twitch we're gonna give a quick shout out to our patrons smooky drew and firebird thank you guys so
much for supporting us for so long over on patreon.com slash the gamers in if you guys do like the content that we make here and you like to support Ryan and I again head on over to patreon.com slash the gamers in that brings us to the news this week Ryan I'm just gonna throw it over to you
for this all right let's do this okay so everybody stay calm it sounds like we've got the voice of shadow the hedgehog for sonic the hedgehog 3 and it looks like counter rives is joining the franchise so just like Idris Elba I'll be able to say the voice of shadow known as the voice of shadow no
other you know matrix uh John yeah no he's never done anything else he will forever now be shadow period yeah that's the joke the joke has now evolved and has taken canaries with it um this is uh I was trying to remember uh pre-show like I feel like joss and I did like a who would be a good
um voice actor for a specific role and I don't think we would have like we kind of came to the conclusion that I don't think it was shadow I don't know if that conversation would have stuck I don't I don't even know if joss and manage to get it past the credits of sonic 2 to see that shadow
was involved and I do not blame you that is you saw credits you jump out that is the rule like uh you could do that yeah there was no post credits seen in my contract so yeah that was definitely not negotiated ahead of time but shadow is coming Jim carries back there's talk of a trailer for for sonic the hajaxe reason we're not probably done with it yet it's it's out this year in December but um if anyone remembers I think it might have been the mario movie conversation about like who would
voice suario and uh there was a conversation where you and I were like trying to think about voice actors for sure yeah I just cannot remember what care because like I don't really know who shadow is so like I I feel like I wouldn't have made very educated guesses well you can find out later this year in theaters everywhere I mean piano is is an amazing home I'm gonna have to watch this you don't have to watch it I mean but if you like piano reels look I think that um when you watch the trailers
for sonic 2 and the knuckles tv show because I know you watched those right away because I put the links in in our in our producer chat and you like sonic news let's click on this um you kind of get the idea of the voice like I think the knuckles voice that we got in the trailers was was uh
was a good representation of what we'll get in the in the movie so if you're looking for it out and you want to watch like a three minute trailer as opposed to an hour and a half movie I think you'll get an idea of canneries as shadow from the many marketing materials that are going to come
out eventually uh but you could also watch the movie I'm not going to go see it in theaters like you know my kids want to see it but I mean maybe we'll go to the movies I don't know like we don't we we went to the mario movie in theaters uh and we had a great time uh I can't remember if we saw
I think we did see sonic 2 in theaters uh now that I think about it so you know um but the kids aren't quite there yet where they're like no things are coming out like they don't see commercials so in their mind like sonic the hedgehog 3 will be out when it hits digital store shelves or whatever
like right they're not necessarily like you know jones and to go to the theaters or it yeah yeah like we're not like I don't even know as a kid like when I got to that moment of like knowing when things come out uh but well it was probably you nailed it it was different for us because we
watched traditional tv so we had all kinds of commercials so we knew what toys were coming out we knew what movies were coming out like anything that was geared towards kids was shoved in our faces with ads in between power Rangers like yes 100% and I mean the way things
move these days like when we were kids like if you didn't see something in theaters you weren't seeing it at home until it hit blockbuster or you got it for a gift right which was like eight months later yeah and that's what it felt like maybe that's what maybe that isn't what
it was but I know I know I know that feeling you were years behind yeah yeah it felt like if you didn't see it in theaters you know I remember my cousins uh my uncle owned a bowling alley which was next to a movie theater and my cousins would always see the new movie because of course they're running the bowling alley yeah you know go watch a movie you know get out of my face for two hours yeah like I'm trying to run a bowling alley here you know and uh I would go to the movies a lot with
them too and but I do remember a moment where I don't know how they even got to see Mortal Kombat like they were not we were not at an age where you could go see it in the theaters like you I'm pretty sure it was rated R but anyways they went and saw it they must have got in somehow maybe they bought a ticket to some other movie that came out honestly as someone who's been a ticket taker at the movie theaters like there are certain times a day that you really just do not care yeah no 100% like
you know you're you're you're you're there to make sure like you know no funny business you're a teenager you don't care yeah you don't care like you want to go see Mortal Kombat just don't go have fun running out of the theater kicking screaming you know like yeah no parents excellent
that means there's no one to yell at me at 100% yeah nailed it so I just remember I I didn't see that one in theaters I probably wasn't allowed to see it in theaters but I remember my cousin coming into school and basically like describing the scene where Johnny Cage like does the splits and then
punches gore in the balls and then gore like and then he breaks uh Johnny Cage's glasses like you broke my shades you asshole and anyways all that to be said like shadow in son of the hedgehog three is likely to be pretty cool so I was like how did we get here all right yeah so that's done you
know wrap it up you know that's it's it's not necessarily our quarterly update but we might you know that knuckle show is just around the corner joss and it was good I thought you weren't allowed to talk about it until we talked about the knuckle show and that you promised me would be
June so well no April it's it's out it's actually if we're looking at doing like a trend here of like watching a new video game adaptation every week knuckles is out next week josslyn might have to put followed on we're not putting follow it on I I think of knuckles uh no you have to find a new
co-host for a month I look I don't even think I don't even think I'm gonna watch knuckles I think the kids want to watch it and I will watch it with the kids but I am not sitting down to watch knuckles twice I will watch it with the kids uh followed I have I'm happy to watch it twice I'm watching it
with Ashley and then I wanted to watch a little bit ahead so we could talk about the show and I will probably watch it twice because it is that good but I am not watching knuckles twice as much as I like the idea of knuckles training you know the dumb cop from the movies I think that'll be a
fun back and forth you know but uh I'll talk about it on the show but I'm not like we're not gonna do like a weekly check-in of the knuckles show no we are not I would never do that to you or myself or our listeners good you know what else I will never do oh is tip the devs through a
video game even though that is what Mike Abara who has now left Blizzard but who was the head of uh Blizzard has suggested is that he would be a good idea to be able to tip devs through the game and like it's one of those things that is just like this dude is so out of touch and I'm not a
huge fan of him anyway but then he says things like this and I'm like with all of that we're gonna talk about it literally the next story we have in the news is about layoffs and like you're trying to tell me you want a way to give corporations more money because what it's
gonna boil down to is if there's a button in my favorite game that says send a tip to the devs the devs aren't seeing any of that money like we all know that right and like I'm sure that if implemented correctly like if I could say um I really liked the uh tech tree and the art
style of a game that I would like to send ten dollars to the art team and ten dollars to the team that built the the tech tree and that actually somehow went into a fund that then at the end of the year was like split equally amongst the devs as a bonus okay sure but you cannot tell me
because he gives all kinds of examples and the reason that I remember he's because one of the ones on the list is Horizon Zero Dawn which I absolutely would have thrown more money at but like those triple A games like those big companies are never going to just funnel my money
to the devs ever they are going to funnel my money to the shareholders so like just I have so many things I want to say right now that just feel inappropriate for the podcast so I will I will reign it in but honestly like just just go away just stop yeah it's like and put it
it is it is so like for example like the his ability to tweet this in one tweet um means that he is a blue subscriber of some kind or maybe it's a legacy thing I don't know but he seems like the kind of guy that would subscribe to to it is even called Twitter blue anyways whatever it is
whatever it's called but I you know that's fine whatever you want to tweet a bunch of stuff but I like I agree with you in the sense that if if I was playing even Horizon you know and I like Sony I think they do great work but Horizon I don't see that tip going to like the and they
laid off a bunch of stuff at gorilla to yeah part of those layoffs I don't think that tip goes to you know saving saving layoffs but like there are companies like specifically mentions boulders gate three that's a different story like if they had a tip at the they would never do this but if
they had a tip at the end of the game a tip option um I you would know that that is going to a company that is going to use it properly because of the way they're set up and and the way they've been you know championing their own devs and the way that they build games and there are examples
out there especially in the indie realm on steam where you can buy a game and then there is like DLC available that's like mega supporter pack and it maybe gives you like a art book or some music or whatever but it is literally there to allow you to spend more for the game you have
which it's a tipping option and as an indie game like you know it's going to a small team it's not going to shareholders so like this is already happening yeah I feel totally different about the idea when we talk about the indie scene but like you say there's already ways to do this
and you know it's a small team sometimes a team of one or two like you know exactly where your money is going it's it's the it's the really big like public companies with the shareholders and everything else that I'm like no like no I don't trust you with my money I don't I already know
the money that I give you for games in a lot of cases you're not paying all of your devs a living wage so why the hell would I give you more like yeah yeah it's only going to go to to their bottom lines so like I said their profits their shareholders like all that and like the devs would never see
a penny of that in most of the cases that he like most of the examples that he gave like yeah it's it's just it's it's it's made worse coming from his situation specifically and him himself like yeah he took a moment from his tour of the world after taking his golden parachute out
of blizzard like oh god this guy bug just bothered me so much yeah constantly tone deaf like a tip at the end of a world of warcraft moment or Overwatch 2 if they had kept the story campaign like that wasn't going to fix the issues that that studio has because like throwing more money at the
problem isn't going to fix like a D well the thing is like if you start using those kind of games as an example you already have a tipping system air courts in that like you can buy more harsh stone cards you can buy cardbacks and character portraits in Overwatch you can buy like
cosmetics and outfits and all kinds of car like you can and warcraft even now you can throw so much money at them or so many things so it's like we're already tipping you and you're still firing your devs so you know what again okay but not to not to throw you further down this
not to trick you further at mic okay but I'll give him a little bit of credit here in that he did not mention any blizzard titles and the ones he did mention were all single player experiences that did not have additional ways to give money to that right yeah that's so his examples
Overwatch example with with us for sure oh yeah yeah but his examples are I think fair in in a sense that these are games that don't have that additional because we're we have a you know we we have a lot of examples or it's like well no no you already have you know the ability to take
money from us through you know micro transactions and cosmetics but no cosmetics or micro transactions for horizon got a war red dead redemption to might have had some with the on-limo but I'm not 100 percent but definitely not in Baldur's Gate but I will say like so to to say they're all single
player experiences or whatever we have another story tonight about Star Wars which is a single player experience that has cosmetics that had like that people are pissed off about because they have all these like a more extension more expensive additions that have all of these extras like that are
a way to tip the devs like if that's what we're gonna call this shit a way to quote unquote tip the devs by giving extra money on top of the base game but you cannot tell me with the state of the industry right now with all the layoffs that we have to cover weekend and week out that any
of the money is going to actually go to developers you you just can't I do not believe you I don't care what AAA company you are do not believe you so I would never ever ever participate in the system and it's a terrible fucking idea will stop yeah no I and I mean with the the Star Wars
example like I think that Ubisoft we never covered it on the show but Capcom had an issue with Dragon's Dogma 2 in a bunch DLC and I think as as folks who know how when Capcom releases a game they usually do have like this it wasn't as bad as Dragon's Dogma 2 but Resident Evil 4 even had
like a bunch of micro transactions that were added post launch or at launch miss the reviews sort of things who was never mentioned there was kind of kind of timing was like gross but Ubisoft does this with all of their properties and I think that as you and I were discussing pre show is like
yeah I guess we should probably say the news for so Star Wars basically is getting a lot of heat because they have two additions on top of the base game and there is a seasons pass that's included which includes a day one mission and some cosmetics and stuff and basically people are
just saying it's a single player game you're nickel and diming us this is really stupid there's a three day early access thing which is a practice that many people including myself just shirt up don't like it's really starting to feel like their release date should be date x and
instead they're calling their release date x plus three or four however long their early access period is but when it comes down to it it's not like old school early access which was often usually like a beta testing and happened well kind of like the frostpunk to early access which
is happening in April in the game releases a few months later it's like an early look but also a chance to catch bugs and make fixes and stuff these early access from these triple a games that are a couple of days before release like it's just having a premium release date and then a regular
release date and that feels gross and icky versus like hey if you want to play the game early and help us do some beta testing and find some bugs then here have it you know months ahead of time so people are just generally pissed off at the price tag that goes along with Star Wars outlaws
with taking some of the like main characters like Jabba the Hut and putting extra content related to those kind of like big sellers behind these extra editions or like at the extra money for the for the better editions and not putting that stuff in the base game like it just overall is a kind of
the pinnacle of all of these gross practices is all rolled together in the Star Wars outlaws controversy yeah yeah none of its particularly new it's just Ubisoft is doing all of it again you know it's yeah and they do it with every release it doesn't and I think it goes back
to it doesn't excuse the behavior and I think when you do it with a large property like Star Wars that has many fans outside of the realm of video games it does amplify the discussion as opposed to when Ubisoft did it with you know a Assassin's Creed or Prince of Persia or whatever you know I
think here it's like it is an opportunity for folks to you know share their thoughts and I agree like I never I try not to buy I don't want to say never because I'm sure I've done it but I try not to buy like the most expensive version at launch unless it makes sense and very rarely does it
make sense because you're basically pre-purchasing content that will be released later on you have no idea if it'll be as good as the base game really and this was said in a lot of the Reddit forums or Reddit posts you know and that when it comes to Ubisoft games it's like okay you're better off
waiting for the gold edition to go on sale because the way Ubisoft does sales is like they will discount their base title you know to the floor they will discount their their gold edition like crazy and but their season pass does not go on a heavy discount for years down the road like it
it never makes sense if you want that season pass and you want to get a good deal on it you're better off to wait until they have a discount on that gold edition because you'll save more sometimes it's it's less expensive to buy the gold edition even if you already have the base edition
than it is to buy the season pass yeah yeah it is it's it is bananas and uh Ubisoft does this to themselves and the only way to like sort of so obviously they're the way you can tell Ubisoft is by you know having a podcast or posting online and sharing your thoughts but the only way they're
gonna listen is if it stops making money and I think the idea of waiting for a sale uh because Ubisoft games do go on sale rather quickly that's that's a great way to vote with your wallet like you know if you want to play this game and you want to wait for a sale like I think that sends a
message to Ubisoft to be like hey maybe at launch we don't have these weird practices where we lock small pieces of content behind uh behind a paywall of like an extra 50 bucks you are getting other content for that like the season pass is gonna have two pieces of DLC alongside this
or the access stuff but it's down the road like you're you're taking a chance of whether that's good or not that's the case with every season pass but you know it's um it's an incentive there to try to get you to give them more money up front so I understand what they're doing but like it just
creates negative press like like I don't know if it's worth it like sell the gold edition at launch let people buy the season pass in advance but don't lock additional content you know that is exclusive it just it brings me right back to Mass Effect 3 at launch and that whole mess
with that DLC uh where I think you had to like buy there wasn't even deluxe editions back then I think you had to buy the physical collectors edition or something I don't remember yeah the prosy and DLC I don't remember exactly what the what the whole deal was but yeah I mean like I said
this isn't new like none of the stuff that Star Wars Outlaws is doing is new it's just they're doing all of it yeah oh it's all here yeah every every gross practice is here yeah all the cards are on the table and like Ubisoft is not afraid to do this kind of stuff and I think it also kind of reminds
me of like you know Disney is very protective of their properties Star Wars being one of them and EA did this with Battlefront 2 with all the there was a big controversy of the DLC and there was like rumblings that Disney like called up EA and like hey your your shit is getting on our shoes
stop it you know like we're stepping in your crap uh this seems this isn't this isn't as bad as Battlefront 2 but this seems like another situation where like I think Disney probably needs to look at their contracts if they are worried about this kind of stuff like because this is bad press
like this is not good stuff this game could turn out to be really really good and it does look like the trailers look really cool yeah we talked about the trailer last week yeah but you see stuff like this and it just it immediately makes me want to put it on like a wait for a sale or
maybe subscribe to Ubisoft Plus and just check out the game but I think really it is like a wait for a sale mode you know like um I did that with Valhalla where I waited for a sale and I bought the gold edition and it was a it was a situation where I bought more content for a game that already had way too much and never touching the DLC but in my mind it was the smart but all of that together was cheaper than the base game I bet oh yeah yeah it was way cheaper than buying it all separately so
I think that with Ubisoft titles like that's just the way to go because that's just how they structure the way they sell their games post launch like in how sales works so like you see the trend like I mean I remember when I was talking about what games I was gonna buy in February and and I was
having this conversation I think whirlwind in our discord was like he was able to like break it down of like well atless titles it'll be about a month atless and Sega titles go on sale about a month you'll get a you get a discount there and sure enough unicorn overlord which is an atless
title like was down from 80 to 50 bucks in a month you know these companies really have like trends of how they they price this so you can wait the month they're basically trying to gouge their most loyal loyal lands loyal fans yeah so yeah it's very much it feels predatory and gross and
it's really unfortunate especially when they they get their hands on some of these bigger licenses like Star Wars it's just taking advantage yeah and that doesn't help the devs it out like the people who worked yeah to bring it back around yeah who are working on you know this this title by massive
studios like there are desks behind this they're probably looking at this like man we just we just want to sell the game in a way that doesn't get us IGN headlines in this case two headlines is that so much to ask yeah I don't think it is all right well we're talking about devs I guess we can
just wrap this show up with our with our last story here about some layoffs so take two has announced some layoffs I think five percent of the workforce which was just under 600 people and they've canceled multiple in development projects I don't think that they actually said what
they have canceled but we're still expected it's not GTA GTA 6 is still expected to come next year yeah no no look at the story again I was reminded that you'd point it out the words that the take two such a CEO Mike Ibarra thing to say even though it's not him but you could see him saying it
but yeah it's right sizing its business yeah you're downsizing just but they're just trying to like we're sugarcoated and spin it in a way that just stop just stop like I'm not I'm not sure I haven't seen like total numbers but I know that like by the end of February we had already surpassed
the amount of layoffs in 2023 in the gaming industry and it was obviously only two months into 2024 and I just feel like you know we made the joke like a month ago about you know the layoffs and lawsuits section instead of news and I just feel like when we made that joke I thought it
might be over like I thought it was a one off like joke about the news section but it just seems like every single week we're covering more and more and more layoffs in the industry and it feels so awful and so bad when we're paying so much like we just talked about Star Wars when we're paying
so much for our games and so many people are in such a hard spot right now um it just yeah it's feeling worse and worse and worse so we feel for everyone I take two who's been let go again it was almost 600 workers and just right sizing makes me want to take someone in the nuts
and like I also saw today and I didn't even put it in the news because you know like it was just even more but uh it was basically there was a company who posted on Twitter with with basically job ads and them saying that their layoffs have allowed them to open up and hire for 20 new
positions and like literally everyone in the comments is like so you laid off your more experienced people so you could hire entry-level people to do the same jobs for less pay like you're saying the quiet part out loud oh my god I can't it was 20 new positions and I can't remember uh I
can't remember what the who the company was and I just remember like oh my god like they're not even hiding it anymore this is just the way things work now it's like as somebody who was approaching 40 I'm like what the fuck is my career gonna look like because this is just the trend is the
firing the experienced people I'm like I'm the experienced people now like how are we supposed to make careers and like you know all of the older generations are berating us for not playing and for having no loyalty and not staying in the same place for you know our entire careers and
everything else and I'm just like oh my god I am I am now the people who are getting fired because we cost the company too much money our experience is too expensive like yeah oh my god it's uh like you nailed it in the sense that um it's funny like my mom and dad worked I know my dad
he worked at the same company from radiot high school to retirement yeah so did my dad that's not happening right now it's like once you hit like five or ten years experience they're like oh no we're gonna fire you and get the new guy like yeah and and uh Phil Spencer actually has been saying the choir parts are loud a lot and and I don't know if it's like him man it's two it's almost too smart like I don't know if he's doing it in a way that's like he's saying them out loud so that you know
people can understand how all the companies think and not just his but like he's saying he was saying something recently we were saying like um the problem with the video game industry is growth growth is how people measure success that's not going to change so obviously at Xbox we need to we need
to see that growth and it's almost like him and maybe I'm giving him too much credit but it kind of does feel like he's saying that because he's like hey we're acknowledging that that's how a majority of this video game industry seems to work it's based on growth so we're trying to set us
up so that we can see growth but like that's such a gross hack you know yeah we had this conversation when we had that huge week where there were like 10,000 layoffs between a couple different companies yeah uh like way back in January and yeah yeah way back feels like more than four months ago yeah
um but yeah basically like we had this conversation at the time and because I know I went on this in gigantic like anti capitalist rant and like basically if you only measure your success by growth like eventually you're gonna run out of employees to fire and you're gonna run out of price hikes
that you can do on your games that aren't even gonna come out because you have no employees like growth has an endpoint like you can't grow you know six and seven percent every single year you just can't so if once you run out of assets of employees then like you're just gonna stop growing so maybe
before we get to that point we start to measure success differently like it's a it's a shift that I think has to happen not even just in the video game industry but like economy wide we have to stop looking at growth as the only measure of success and I I mean it's a huge culture shift that I
don't think will ever happen by I think the world's gonna explode before that but you know like it just this whole thing is so frustrating because they they don't seem to look beyond like the next quarters reporting you know what I mean like it seems so short-sighted to me yeah and there was
like there are companies in the industry that are not doing the whole growth model like even in this it take two article where they list like you know Xbox PlayStation EA like Nintendo as and again they're not perfect but they don't do layoffs for growth you know they they focus on what
they have in the in they are like I think a special case because they do have like this you know basket of franchises that they can rely on but I that whole thing about like doing all the firing and then immediately hiring to like sort of like that seems like a really gross way of trying to
to to show growth where it's like well technically if we get rid of high paying staff and bring in newbies and have less experienced have I don't know quality is gonna suffer eventually right like you know if you're trying to make the same level of product what you have zero experience like
your quality is gonna suffer and you know in a lot of cases I think we've put up with it but maybe as consumers we just have to stop putting up with shitty stuff so we need to not pay $140 for a Star Wars game like load out your ass like go away Disney like go away Ubisoft we don't want to pay
I think that's just what we have to start doing and I think in a lot of cases when we're gonna have to start doing because like I mean obviously you and I are both in Canada but like cost of living is way too high for me to be paying $140 $150 for a game like forget it so yeah yeah I mean we're
hitting a tipping point $90 here you know like you're already spending yeah like over a hundred and depending on where you buy it is it's maybe even a little more expensive so it is getting tougher and tougher to buy day one all the time you know and I mean you know buying buying new games
all the time it's it's it's not a it's not a thing everyone can do but like these days it's getting it is tough you know even when you do have like a busier like last year where it's like there was something new out at least once a month like that that is still that's pricey
but as as we said at the top of the news after the sonic stuff like if if you like say let's say take two says hey GTA 6 is gonna cost you know and it's gonna be extra premium it's gonna be a hundred dollars for the base game
I still don't have faith that that extra money is going to go to protect your staff because you know yeah two months before this news from take two you have the CEO saying yeah we are doing some right sizing but it's not gonna you know it's not gonna involve layoffs at this time it does not
involve layoffs like well so it took you two months there's no way you know you knew it was coming you were just trying to hide it you were spinning it you know you were on a call you didn't lie but you were spinning it and it's like it's just as of today we have laid off zero people yeah
yeah it's no longer gonna be laid off tomorrow but as of today yeah where they say during this you know as of this and there's like while we were talking about the fiscal it's April one now so we can talk about the news now it's different you know it's just and like I know that take two is
a large company with studios all over and you can't just say like well they're struggling to get GTA 6 out in 2025 couldn't they have moved those 600 folks over to the GTA team and I and I get in and I'm sure take two has this culture but it's like you've got to work in the office or it doesn't
work I highly doubt they prioritize hybrid you know models where they have people working out of the office because they seem like that kind of company it's just based on the right sizing term yeah but you know have those 600 folks work on your next money printing because GTA is good
it prints money so like you're firing 600 people like what why yeah makes no sense like Nintendo would never do this they would always say like why would we fire 600 folks when we like constantly have to produce content for our systems like it just doesn't make sense yeah didn't they say
yeah there was I feel like there was a quote from somebody the president or somebody that was basically saying like people don't do their best work when they fear for their jobs was what it boiled down to yeah so yeah we don't we don't do that we don't lay off to show growth
because it's not growth you know it might even be like the quiet criticism part out loud but as a company with shareholders saying like hey like what everybody else is doing we're not going to do that like they have shareholders at ass like well why don't you lay off a bunch of people so we get
more money it's like why would we do that like it will affect the quality of our software which is the main reason you're one of our shareholders because we have quality software yeah I just man I don't know but they see results from this stuff so I guess you know they just keep doing it short
term right short term yes so we'll see how how all this plays out and hopefully next week we'll have a little bit more upbeat news section who knows fingers crossed we didn't get one story that was like pretty pretty happened so you know yeah but I'm just getting so sick and tired of
covering layoffs like I don't want to do it anymore so just stop laying people off industry please I thought you were going to say you're just so sick of covering sonic news but then no like literally sonic news was the best part of this section which makes me want to throw up in my mouth
but anyways that's the first show I'm gonna cap all of that and just cut off the through up in my mouth part and then just have that clip that I play over and over again but yes you you did oh man you did have to add that caveat which which is right yeah if you guys want to continue the
discussion you can head on over to bitly slash tgi discord or you can visit us on the web at gamers and podcast.com you can also follow us over on twitter you can find me jostling at jost please find us our Murphy and don't forget to all the show at the gamers in thanks for saying at the gamers and remember tune in next week bye everybody bye everyone