$55,000,000,000 Buyout , Bowser’s Nintendo Retirement, & Game Showcase Roundup | Games For Breakfast

[Applause] [Music] Good morning, Matt. A
good morning, Will.
Good morning to all of you after slightly more black screen than I intended. Sorry,
that's fine. But welcome to Games for Breakfast, the only internet talk show we talk about this week's gaming and tech news. give you extra black frames at the beginning of the show. And I do have to say I'm very disappointed that we are also the the only show in this genre that did get scooped. We were going to be acquired for $54 billion and we thought we were going to have the biggest acquisition ever, but all the sudden another thing comes along and just takes our thunder.

It's true. It does. It's really not fair. Now, to be fair, at least they had the decency to do it before the show as opposed to after the show. So, for those of you who may be new to the the channel, we have this long history, long terrible history of getting absolutely sniped immediately following breakfast. Um, it's never before breakfast that news breaks. It's always after breakfast. normally because all of the news is happening from uh the west coast, but because this acquisition news was coming from uh further right of us across an ocean rather than left of us across a con. Yeah. Um this one happened before stream rather than after. So that's
right. Got you.
Yeah.
Well, we're here now. That's what's important. and we updated our shows, our our stories to reflect said breaking news, which was the thumbnail of this

episode, though it will be our main story will be coming later on. We have a bunch of other things to discuss. Um, many many of them happier,
I think.
Yeah.
Trying to keep the the the uh you have to or or else it'll be a different phase. Yeah. What what Will's doing. I don't know what that is, but I'm here for it.
Exactly. Yeah, 100%. Um,
how is everybody doing? Hopefully your weeks are kicking off right. Hopefully you are ignoring all the work you need to do Monday morning and watching us and having a nice time.
Yeah, that seems correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that seems right. Uh, yeah. We hope you all had a good weekend. Uh, for those of you who have there was a lot going on this weekend. We're going to recap a bunch of announcements from a bunch of different places this weekend. And so I hope that whatever your particular genre of nerdity, uh, you were able to enjoy it, whether that was watching coverage from Tokyo Game Show or going to Magic Con or watching any of the other announcements that happened. Hope you hope you enjoyed

it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oo, post birthday feast weekend, Copper. Very nice.
Um,
yeah, Hades 2 is happening for a lot of people.
Yep.
That's very good. Um,
love it. Love to see it.
Yeah, indeed we do. Uh, do you know what else we love to see, Matt?
What do we love to see, Will?
September. So,
it's almost gone.
Correct. So, uh, YouTube friends, uh, this is your this is your I guess reminder pitch um to come over to Twitch because there's a lot more content over here. Twitch friends, this is your reminder that, uh, September is occurring. Please look forward to it. Uh, this is one of the I would say like best things that Twitch does for streamers, weirdly, which is that every year they partner with someone to give streamers a bonus in September uh in the form of additional

gift subs. So the way it works is if you gift subscriptions to the to a channel, a third party, and this year it's Valerant will give some number of additional gifted subscriptions that are real full price gifted subscriptions uh as far as the streamer's concerned. So that's just a cool thing that's going on. It does help streamers out quite a lot because it helps you spend the same amount of money on a streamer that you like normally would to gift some subs and they get a bunch of extra money. Uh especially because Valerant can give up to like I think it's like a hundred uh if you roll the dice enough times. Uh yeah. So like as an example, despite the fact they had an opportunity to hype earlier, they chose not to use it. Twitch chats gifted five and Valor gives two, right? And so this this goes on and on and on.
It's the Zoe hugging the present.
Yeah, that's correct. Uh so that's a that's a whole thing. Uh, if you want to

come over to Twitch and see uh gameplay this week, it's mostly Silk Song.
Is it time to wake Green Day?
No.
Wake me up when September ends.
It's not ended yet now, is it, Matt?
I'm looking at my calendar. We have one more day.
One day more.
One day more.
All right. Anyway, uh, so that's that's the the thing that you should know about. I would be remiss at my job as Streamer Overlord if I didn't mention September and the, you know, the additional revenue it brings to the channel, which does help us make all of this ridiculous breakfast content for you. Uh,
nom nom nom.
Okay, next up, I need to stress this so much. Everything you see on the screen down here, this little screen, is actual art from an actual Magic card that

actually got announced this weekend. Yes, including that one. Magiccom was this weekend and they announced the 2026 lineup and it is significant. There are going to be seven standard legal sets.
It's wacky. That is
Wait, so how many? Okay, so that's what one every month and three quarters.
Correct. Normally it's six. One every two months. In the past it was four. So they've gone from four to six. Next year is going to be seven, but they promise it's going to be the only year that's seven. And they've already said that 2027 will have no more than six. So that's a thing, right? No, secret layer is great. They also announced a wide arange array of secret layers. So, let's real quick. Let's go.
Okay, I have to listen. As we go through, I'm going to give you on a scale of 1 to 10 my hype level for these things.
Okay, so uh let's do the sets first.

They announced Lurwin Eclipsed. We're going back to Lurwin. Um this is the one that I'm most excited about because I have a Horde of Notions original Lwin commander deck with all like a bunch of original Lorin elementals.
I'm really big on it. The art looks incredibly bizarre. It really looks like if Haomiaki did horror like
Well, it looks like like even the emptiness card that they previewed looks like something out of Elden Ring. Like
correct. And that's by the way, Matt, that's the normal art for emptiness. I'll send you the weird art for emptiness later. Um, so that's great. Uh, they announced Secrets of Stricks Haven, which is Hey, what if we had a magical school um that was really gay? It was like just a really queer magical school um where people like didn't conform and it was nothing like another magical school that might be funding transphobia.
Is this the first Is this the first Stricks Haven magic set?
The second Stricks Haven magic set. They've done a Stricks Haven set before.

They're doing one again.
Good. I That's the That's the I was because that's the I'm I'm blanking because it's just too much content. Stricks Haven is also D and D, is it not? No. I'm thinking what's the school one
is a Stricks Haven. Okay, so there's a Stricks Haven and Ravnikica.
That's right. It crossed the expansion. So you could play a D and D game in those sets, but it didn't cross the other way.
It was one that I never did, but I was interested in reading.
Y um uh so Stricks Haven's uh coming out next. Then we've got Marvel Superheroes the set, which is going to be all of the superheroes that weren't in Spider-Man. I thought that because they did like a Spider-Man set that they were gonna do like an Avengers set, an X-Men set of uh that actually might be the only ones you could kind of do.
Right.
Right. Like if you know like I'm trying to think of other
Mhm. You're correct.

An inhuman set. No. Um I Yeah, I'm I'm a little confused by this, but maybe I have no idea. Um, seems like that's going to be a kind of a busting at the seam set. Although, will to your point, the thing you didn't jive with in the Spider-Man set that I did jive with in the Spider-Man set was that there were so many Spider-Man.
Correct. Yeah. The the problem with SP the Spider-Man set is it it's literally just an endless cascade of legendary spiders. I've also played the draft environment and I'm not a fan of the way it plays in draft. I I can see why someone would be. I personally am not. That is not to say it is bad. It's just not my bag. Um, I I played uh the new pick two draft of the Spider-Man set and then I played some quick draft of Bloomber and I got to tell you, I enjoyed Bloomber way more as sure
from a and I cannot stress this enough purely mechanical set design perspective.
Fair.
Like not even with like the the veneer

of spiders on the on I don't care about that.
I have so many thoughts.
Yeah. that I cannot say legally until tomorrow
for no particular reason whatsoever.
Perhaps if one were inclined, they should just keep a weathered eye on the horizon for the um I believe Magic's YouTube page. Just just just maybe there maybe there'll be something for you there.
Correct.
Um
who knows?
Uh okay, so that's June of next year. August of next year, we're getting a The Hobbit set, including potentially a reprint of the One Ring. Um, which or a a version of the One Ring.
Sure.
If it is a showcase version of the One Ring, the prices on the set will probably be okay. The One Ring is only like 60 70 bucks right now. It's not like the world's most expensive card. Um, and uh, it could use a reprint, but

I'm also expecting it to not be of the one ring. I'm expecting it to be Bilbo's ring uh, and to be significantly different mechanically because it's a standard legal set. Reminder, the original Lord of the Rings was a modern legal set. The this Lord of the R, this Hobbit set will be a standard legal set. So, on that count, it will not be as powerful, and that's good. Uh, unless they put the five basic land cycles in, I don't think they will, but they could, and that would be really messed up. Anyway,
the one ring, two of one.
Yeah. Um, someone uh asked, uh, does Magic even have its own lore? Yes, it has decades of its own lore, uh, across a variety of planes, including new lore that came out as early as the last set in Edge of Eternities.
Yo, Patch, what up, buddy?
Hey, Ju. How's it going? Hi you. How's your feel?
I just caught it going going by the thing. Yeah,
we're just talking a little a little Magic the Gathering.
The the Ring. Um okay. Uh so that's

that's August of next year. Uh October of next year we're getting a set called Reality Fracture. That's literally all we know. It will be a to the best of my knowledge a Universes Within set. That is to say it will be a magic lore set. Um, which would be kind of cool because the last time that we had a major like planer crossover set that really shook everything up was War of the Spark. Yes, there have been planer crossovers since then, but they were like wacky races, not really huge lord dubs, but like War of the Spark really changed things up. So, it'll be very interesting to see if it's something like that. Uh, and then
it also has the same It's not the same font, but I get the same vibe of it from Split Fiction.
Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Correct. Uh and then um uh lastly, but by no means leastly, November of next year, we will be be bringing glory to you and to your house as we get Star Trek crossover into Magic

the Gathering, which is, by the way, the most wild crossover we've had so far. And I know you're thinking like, "What? What do you mean?" It's because Star Trek has been trying to make their own card game series work for yeah decades and it's never stuck. And that this is this feels a lot like all right to just do the magic crossover. It'll be fine. They've already previewed like Kirk and Gowron and the Enterprise and a bunch of other stuff.
I wish I wasn't here for this.
Sure.
But but like Okay, you have to understand that my relationship
Oh, yeah. Here you go.
Uh-huh.% %
uh I my relationship with magic and actually patch could vouch for this too as you can as well will the um like I don't I I don't I'm not in it like you are will I and Patch is also at least correct me if I'm wrong buddy but you you're also very very deep into it. I am um a convention casual. I love the game.

I've played it since I was 13 years old. I would play it way more if I had more people around me to do it. Uh, but I tend to go to conventions, buy a deck, a con commander. There you go. Um, and just use that for like six months.
Yeah, that's right.
Too deep. It's true. Yeah. So, like I So, so for me, like I will I was texting him the entire time I was at PAX West. I was like, I think I can find the Titus I think I can find the Titus Commander thing. And I was doing price things and trying to figure out poor Matt. the prices crashed on all the all the Final Fantasy Commander Next as soon as he got home.
I still No, I got it for 50 though,
which I think is still pretty good.
Yeah, it is.
Um and or it was then I because it was like 70 80 or 90 at other booths and I found one for 50 and I was like, "All right." Uh but no, the um so that's what I do, right? And to do a Star Trek thing, especially if they have like a NextG or Deep Space 9 kind of like I'm I'm guessing they'll be Captain Commander decks, right?

I I am here for that. Like, and I understand why people who play Magic like for Magic are not here for that. This is not me trying to convince anybody.
So, I'm going to push back. I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to wait into this. All right. So, I've seen people saying,
"Not sci-fi, but I'd love to see this other thing." Right? or um lots of people pushing back against the specifics. Right? So that's one category of people. There's another category of people who are against universes beyond in general and that's a different argument. Okay. But I do want to push back against people who are saying like not X but whatever I want.
Yeah. That doesn't please do keep in mind that whatever you feel like doesn't fit someone else is super happy about.
Yeah. Here's the point.
I've so many people have said this to me,
right? And again, again, I cannot stress

this enough.
Hasbro, not Wizards. Hasbro made almost a quarter of its quarterly profits in the day, the singular day that Final Fantasy released. and they admitted they ma left money on the table. So while it may not be for you, right? While it may not well any individuals that may not be for you, please remember that there are people who are super hyped for all of this, right? Who are excited to see their favorite IP to have a little thing that's very important to them to make the they made the Borbos kiss, right?
They made the Borbos kiss, right? Like it's
right. The interesting thing the so so but now it's funny I agree you will agreed with me and now I'm going to disagree with me.
Sure. The other side of this that I do

see is what I hope doesn't happen is that all of the wrong lessons are consistently learned time and time again and there and then if if the quality of the game starts slipping to be perfectly honest and again from an outsers's perspective I know people have their favorite sets their less favorite sets cards they don't think work busted things when when things are taken out of standard play or competitive or whatever like I I get that it's a it's a card game that's what happens But like for instance, the Spider-Man set uh reaffirmed and and the Final Fantasy set reaffirmed the ability of skinning the mechanics of this game to make it so whatever card they print something on feels like the character that you are familiar with, but using Magic's systems at to to display what they can do,
right?
That's what that's the one reason why I'm not mad at this. In fact, I'm more I'm more pumped to see how they structure the Star Trek cards than

probably to even play the Star Trek set. I want to see how they do it because they've proven, the dev team has proven that they can do these things.
Correct. And they previewed some of the mechanics in the last set, Edge of Eternities. We now have rules for spacecraft, planets, right? Both of which are like things and a mechanic called warp.
Yeah.
Right. So, all of those things feel like they might have been play tests for a Star Trek thing. A lot of people were calling the shot back then. I also want to push back and say that there is another problem with people discerning their exact feelings about UB and it's um exactly what Ramian brought up. Um the the fact is that the release schedule is too fast. So, I just
So, yeah,
I just named I just named six sets. By the way, there's a seventh as yet unnamed uh universes beyond set which will be um announced soon TM

uh which is coming in between Lwin Eclipsed and Secrets of Stricks Haven. It will be debuted on uh at New York Comic- Con on October 10th. I don't think it's a Marvel set. And I the reason I don't think it's a Marvel set is they just announced Marvel superheroes. If they hadn't announced a Marvel set for the middle of the summer, I would say that it could be a Marvel set, but I don't think it's a Marvel set, which means that it it's going to be really weird. There is an actual possibility it's a DC set, which would be beyond unhinged, just so we're all on the same page.
I don't I don't think it will be yet. I
uh yeah
I that's definitely coming down the pipe, but I I think that I listen maybe I'll be proven wrong next week or whatever when they announce it, but like I think
I think that's too close for the brands to like for those particular in Will's

vernacular blurbos to kiss. I think it's like I think you got to wait like a year for like legal.
But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Magic has literally cracked the code.
Yeah, I don't know. By the way, in and amongst everything else, I did also just want to really briefly address the rest of the cards on that thing. They also announced a bunch of secret layers. Now, if you're not familiar with magic, there are magic sets come in booster packs. You draft them. You buy singles from your local game store rather than cracking packs, chasing chase rares. Right. Right. Right. Okay, great. Excellent. Um, and you uh you know, you have a full like product set with like commander decks and everything else. They also released a bunch of secret layers, including some that have drawn some eyeire. Uh, and I think the eyeire regarding some of these secret layers is honestly a little more understandable. So, there's going to be a Jaws secret layer.
Love it.
No notes. We'll buy for Jamie day one.
Correct. The and and uh Bruce gets his own card and that's great. Um, there's going to be a PlayStation secret layer.

Whatever.
Joel, Ellie, Kraos, Atraus. Um, uh, the Ghost of Tsushima, Aloy, and Nathan Drake are all going to get their own cards.
I It's It is a It is insane. Actually, I'm going to boycott this one. You know why, Will? There's no Astrobot.
That's fair. No Ratchet. Yep. Yep. 100%. Uh, there's a pair of Iron Maiden secret layers. So, that's cool. That the Iron Maiden has some pretty good art. Uh, that's they're pretty neat. Um, and then the the two that are contentious, there are not one, not two, but three Furby crossover secret layers.
Is Furby popular enough for this?
I don't know. One of them, by the way, is Cursed Furbies. Uh,
the Odd Bodies. the Odd Bodies is like, "What if Furby was your sleep paralysis

demon more than Furby is already your sleep paralysis demon?"
So,
yeah, Alex, I'm with Ale. I'm with Alex on this one. Uh, 1993,
right?
Like, what? Yeah.
Yes.
Makes zero sense.
So, that's fun. And then the one that I've seen the most push back on is that Swords Supply shares, which is part of Secret Lair crossed over with the office. Dwight's destiny. Rain Wilson better be getting a paycheck.
Yep. So,
look again, we did just come off of a we don't want to poo poo on people.
Yeah, for sure. For sure. I just like I don't I don't understand what the meeting was. Like if if you're all in on this and you think it's great, more power to you. I'm

so confused how we got to this place. Like everything else I can like kind of see the office is like how did those people get in a meeting to do that? I think
I I I think this is a cross congruence of essentially
uh pe trying to get people back into magic in their maybe mid30s right now but like that like like grew up and like were mainlining the office or did like two or three rewatches like the office is still which I mean again office is a great show this is no shade to the office I don't understand how its popularity is continually this hardcore. And there's a new there's a new spin-off show that apparently is doing okay. I forget. It's called The Paper, I think.
Yep.
Um, but like and Dwight is obviously the most meme one of the most memeable things outside of like when it when things are ridiculous. And these are all very ridiculous looking cards.

Yep. Um, by the way, uh, and and the funny part is that even if you don't like The Office, you're probably going to consider bring, uh, picking it up because there's a copy of Helio Suncrown and a Steel Shaper Gift, and those two cards together are currently seeing a spike in reprint value. So,
Doride, Hasbro does own Furby.
That's correct.
There we go.
Yeah. So, um, so there's been a lot of, uh, up, down, left, right, BA, select start on, uh, on all of the MagicCon announcements. I think a lot of people are overwhelmed by it because they did announce like the entire they announced like an entire year of both secret layers and um and uh you know stands all at once minus one and there still feels like too many. So I think a lot of people are in feelings because of that.
So what about this? I I think this might

be a calculated the these secret layer sets might be calculated specifically for age groups.
Follow me here. I just sort of like I I kind of wanted to see like when Furbies were the most popular and it was initially in 98 to like 2000 if you're if you're being generous. Right. So if you look at these sets,
the stuff like Jaws and Iron Maiden are definitely for the old heads, right? Like they're the ones that like, you know,
that I wouldn't be nowhere near in age. um that played like in in middle school and maybe fell off, but now like you love like that that sort of fits into that vernacular. Then you have what I would think is Furbies. Again, it's convenient because Hasbro owns them. But that's sort of like your 2000s, right? Like that's going to be where you're getting there. So people in their, you know, in their 30s, 30ish now. And then you have Dwight, which I think kind of might even go to a younger skew than the Furby one. like not not from like who Dwight is

for, but like the age group of Magic players lapsed or new that they're trying to go for because of the the the ubiquity of The Office on streaming platforms. Like I think everyone I know has at least rewatched The Office twice that I have asked about it. Like so maybe they're just trying to hit these demos.
Yeah.
Uh and that's probably what they're going to be doing for a long long time.
Yeah. Uh they also This is a very good one. um uh that I I also want to call out um which is uh something that Kalas and Ramy brought up. We have no idea which licenses they acquired though I am highly of the opinion that they were are only going to make this mistake with the um Marvel licenses once and that's mostly because Magic Arena is directly competing with Marvel Snap. Um, for those unfamiliar, Wizards when they made the Spider-Man set did not acquire the rights from Marvel to make digital

cards. So, Magic Online and Magic Arena have mechanically identical thematically distinct cards called Through the Omen Paths rather than the Spider-Man set um available. So you have all of the cards mechanically, but they're all thematically different. So for instance, instead of the Infinity Stone, it's I don't even remember what it is, but there's a different Infinity Stone, right? On on arena. Um,
also there's no there's no Office or Dwight set. It is just a secret layer.
It's a secret layer. It's a buy once. It's those six cards. It's that that's it. And so those are in general, I would say, more accepted by the community at large because um they're just like a fun oneoff. Like you can do the the next like thing. It's fine. Um Terminus Stone, thank you. Yeah. Uh so I think it's going to like those those

don't bother me at all. I am kind of worried about seven sets in one year with people already facing burnout. I will say this, here's my advice, and I mean this genuinely as someone who loves magic dearly. Ignore everything you don't care about.
Yeah. Because it's going to be gone so quick.
Correct. So, if you are if you're all in on the three um on the three like universes within sets, you might not have anything huge to play during the summer, but like that's okay, right? And like ju and I mean this genuinely like ignore all of the everything and then just go pick up like the single you want, right? Because
a scattershot approach like I think that's what they're banking on truly. Like because they're not I don't even think Wizards is expecting every group to buy every set. I think what they're doing is trying to seed more people to get in the habit of buying one set or

two sets and then when another regular Magic thing like Stricks Haven or something else comes out, those people who would not have bought Magic cards in that thing are already in the system and maybe will buy the next one that isn't linked to Star Trek or
Edge of Eternities was a wildly popular pre-release. that was the set after Final Fantasy because Final Fantasy happened and got more more and more people back into the game and got more people to play the game for the first time. So like I understand that a lot of people don't like Universes Beyond and don't think it should be part of the game, but it is bringing more people to the table in a way that is making the game more popular and more widely played. I was walking through Brooklyn yesterday and I saw a bunch of folks playing dominoes and I was just think like older folks like in their 60s probably or something like that and I was thinking about like when we are older like it's going to be things like Magic the Gathering like it's going to be the like

it's going to be very retirement homes if they exist uh will will be interesting spaces uh and the more people that start playing Magic
the more proliferation that we will see. Uh, yep. I'm also going to push back against a common conception. Uh, it's going to be hard for some people to ignore universes beyond sets they don't care about because they keep getting stronger to sell more. Disagree. There was one design mistake in Final Fantasy and it's Vivv. Everything else in Final Fantasy is fine. It's literally just Vivv. There's nothing outrageously broken in Spider-Man so far as far as I can tell. Um, nothing is like really overwhelming, right? Like I I I am going to push back on the notion that things are more powerful just to sell packs, right? Because one of the things that people have acknowledged is dissolving games is inability to maintain a balanced environment. Is one of the reasons that modern sucks is because they keep trying to rotate modern with

modern horizon sets which are far more egregious than anything in universes beyond. looking at you, Guide of Souls, Ocelot, Pride, Nani, Autle, Pariah, like
and and I'm and I'm going to be honest, uh I don't even know what all the formats are anymore.
Y
like I I I know how to I know the rules
and someone's like, "Oh, we're playing this, this, this." I'm like, "Great. Got it. I could do whatever." Like, but like I don't even I can't even keep track of that. And I feel like that's a lot of folks in my camp that are excited about one of these things or two of these things. And it's definitely an entry point. I love talking about magic. Will is a font of information on it as is uh Patch and a bunch of folks here. So like I I I want we talked about the story for a long time. I want to kind of end it with I like that Magic is doing things to get more people involved because I would like to see to be perfectly honest and this is my selfishness despite the fact that these are too many sets.

Yep. And I don't think anyone should buy all of these. It would be insane because they're going to rotate out so quick. It's not going to matter.
I agree.
Um I am happy that they are doing so many weird things though because that means that there will be more casual folks like me who maybe were harder core back in the day that will find the one or two things like Spider-Man or Final Fantasy or Star Trek that'll like kind of like keep them in it enough to make it so there is a larger player pool. Again, hoping that with the increased amount of releases, which is bad, they don't forget the core mechanic of making the characters and elements of these sets feel correct in the magic like ecosystem and and mechanics.
Yep.
Right.
100%.
Um
anyway, yeah. Uh we got we got way off track on this. Uh, let's keep moving to a cautionary tale writ large across

Kickstarter.
Yes.
So, uh, this is Puff Pals Island Skies and it was a cozy Kickstarter um that launched in April 2022. Right.
And uh it it it did pretty well for itself. Uh it had an initial goal of $75,000. Lots of people got on board and raised 2.6 million. And that's the end of the story because they disappeared. Now it's kind of an there's kind of an interesting thing happening here, right? Um which is one people are outraged. two, uh, this has always been part of Kickstarter. I think this is just a larger version that's like very easy to see. Um, wellunded project does not equal success,

right?
Well project increases likelihood of success, but does not equal success because a reminder that Kickstarter is not a store and you are pre you are backing the idea of a thing potentially coming into existence in exchange for potential rewards, not making a purchase.
Yeah. and that's held up time and time again. Um, but it is kind of interesting to me that it's it's like the cozy island building game that's like very like warm and cuddly. That's that's the thing that's like ha $2.6 million rugull. Um, and that's funny to me on like some dark level.
Yeah, I mean this comes to us from Kotaku. Uh essentially uh it I also I think it is funny because it is named Puff Pals and I instantly think Puff Peace which is a a piece of journalism or something that doesn't actually have any point of any come to any point of fruition. So like I feel like to have this disappear is is oddly on brand.

Um there there's a lot going on sort of behind the scenes of this too. uh initially uh you know it it's funny everything that this thing did
almost even down to its disappearance is very stereotypical of Kickstarter and actually I urge you to read the Kotaku article in the notes to kind of like go through it because I think they go through the timeline of like sort of what happened along with well yeah this is what happens with a lot of Kickstarters that fail like like tons of radio silence and then six months later you're like oh my god we're so busy sorry for the radio silence and then you disappear again promising an alpha is coming. But like this is actually going pretty deep. They are I believe the there's a outsourcing company named Room 8 that they were trying to get to outsource to make the game that I believe is now suing the people who make Puff Pals for lack of payment. Like there's also a side business about like stuffed animals that were tied to this thing that that site is now closed. Like it does seem like they just shuttered

and ran. Um, which is a reminder again, people have said it in the chat. Um, Kickstarter is a gamble. Um, and this comes from someone who has run a few Kickstarters. Like, that's not like which is why uh when thinking about what Kickstarters you want, it should be not only, hey, does that look really cool, but also like,
hey, is that a thing that could realistically be delivered at the price point that I'm being asked for, right? because a lot of video games can't.
Yeah, video games are I I I I would love to see some stats on like percentage-wise out of all of gaming. How many video games how much money has been lost on the gamble for video games on Kickstarter as opposed to other games?
Far more. I would say Jeff Jeff and I did a did a whole design club on why it's very difficult, borderline impossible to kickstart video games in 2025. Yeah. Um because it is not

the understanding of the in of the investor base, right? I'm not going to call them customers here because you're potential investors when you're talking about Kickstarter is incommensurate with the actual cost of making a video game. And uh the amount that you have to like promise out to so many people means that like it's just not feasible. A lot of
there's also the obuscation factor which you kind of have to do with every Kickstarter. This isn't even a malicious thing. You set the goal to make sure you hit it relatively soon and then you have stretch goals planned of like whatever like you need to do the math of like yes this is the minimal viable product that we could do this for but also what is your real number and I mean this first this thing was 75k and they made 2 whatever mill um oh yeah and sorry roommate is now suing flufffest and uh I guess someone of the owners David Pentland for 1.9 9 million.
Nice.
Out of good luck. Uh be careful with

your Kickstarter stuff. Um definitely. Oh, the last thing I was going to say is and I and I hope that like for instance, we fall into this category. Like make sure that when you back a Kickstarter, it is from a group or a person or people that you uh have some track record with.
Yeah.
If possible. Um because that will be a huge determination. Like obviously Yeah. If you see something that's cool and the the business plan seems sound and they have like a why Kickstarter section and what are the risks that you believe in and are okay taking the shot on, do it. But like oftent times, especially in the video game space, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is
correct.
Yeah.
Yep. Uh, okay. Where are we on our time? Where are we on our time? We got time.
11:54.
All right. Let's let's real quick, we're going to do uh a quick roundup. We're going to do part of it and then we'll probably end up doing the ads and then we'll do some more. Let's talk about State of Play real quick.
I
Yeah,

I'm a Sony pony. I should have been excited about this. Um,
what?
Well, I mean, there's not a lot. Like, there's two big things for me.
Mhm.
And it's not that the other games didn't look great. I'm sure Battlefield 6 is the most Battlefield 6 any Battlefield 6 has ever been. Uh, maybe it's I I it's not my game. I I don't know. I know a bunch of people are psyched for it. Um, I really liked the look of the Chronoscript, The Endless End. It seemed very neat. It's a 2D action adventure game. Uh, basically that looks like really solid with like a a somewhat illustrative design. Uh, I've never been into Code Vain. Code Veain 2 had a release trailer. Um, Crimson Desert I saw at PAX West. It looks gorgeous and the combat system looks nice, but the story I've never been able to kind of like get into. Um, the Deos X remaster. Sure. I don't know. Uh,
it doesn't look great.
It doesn't look great. Um, God of War

controller. Cool, I guess.
Um, I like this. I like the specialty controllers. That's just not my thing.
Um, Last Epoch is getting an expansion. Got an announcement, which that's cool. Um, Let It Die Inferno. Uh, seemed like f It's all like kind of like little bits of stuff. The two things. Which order did you put these in? Did you do
the order you gave them to me? Oh,
okay. Uh, then let's talk about the thing that really got me hyper pumped. Obviously, if you've spent any time on this channel is the Sorrowos uh gameplay trailer and sort of talked through there was there was this is what I really liked about this um state of play. I think Returnal returned a lot of heads. uh more so like I feel like now this like this group group at Housemark can like actually do um like this is

fighting in the same weight class as the next game we'll talk about right like this is something that I think they're going to push hard and I have a feeling that because the gameplay I don't know if you saw this and if you're interested but it looks and feels almost exactly like Returnal with like a different pallet and a couple other things. Uh the bullets seem smaller in the bullet hell. They're not as big in Glorby. Um and uh there's other mechanics like a shield and a couple other things. It's almost feels like an iteration on the exact gameplay of Returnal. And I'm fine with that. I'm so curious about the the story of it. I hope that it's not like directly tied, but I hope like I hope the stories rhyme kind of like the Dark Souls and Bloodbors and like I hope that like there's a there's a somewhat like lorebased tie, but not it doesn't have to be obviously in the same world.
And I think it just it just looks like more of what I absolutely love from Returnal. And it seems like the team has

really like taken the time to just go hard and fine-tune everything in it. So, this got me very very pumped.
Okay.
Um, and and to grasp to your point, Returnal was an iteration of the classic bullet hell games that the devs have done before, like Reszo Gun and um if there was one other one, I can't remember the name. Yeah, a thematic link as opposed to a narrative one. Uh, Mojo exactly. So, I'm pumped for this. Expect streaming this for me day one. I will go hard on this. I also will continue to stream Returnal until I uh beat the secret ending. I I need to do that. Okay.
Um, but then we really have to start talking about uh, you know, the man who's so good at what he does, but what he does isn't very nice, and that would be the Wolverine. Um, I am excited.
Could you put any more upward inflection into that question?

Maybe. No. I I was expecting to be more excited. The game looks good, but I'm wondering like from a structural perspective like cuz this is Insomniac, so they make amazing superhero games like and it's funny you can kind of see the Spider-Man DNA it some of like the the action kills that happen in it. Um, and it looks and feels like a brutal version of Wolverine should look and feel. But I am curious as to like the the structure this game will actually be like how how will we go about getting into all this carnage. Spider-Man works in my opinion because it is a traversal game like you are going around.
Is the second character.
Yeah.
Right. The first character is Spider-Man. The second character is the city and the third and subsequent characters are the characters that inhabit the city with Spider-Man.
Yeah.
Right.
Um and also like I love Wolverine. I I I

love that there's a shot of Omega Red in there. Um but like I'm curious like how many other ex people will be in. I think Mystique is in it. Um I don't know. I I when I saw that this was going to be on and they had a gameplay trailer, I was like, "Yep, sign me up. sign me the heck up. And then I watched it and I was like, that's fine. And maybe my my hype was completely just all used up for Sorrowos. Um I don't because that at least feels okay actually. Okay. Interesting thing. Returnal and Sorrowos feel very similar, but it feels like a natural evolution of like where to go next. Spider-Man to Wolverine, while the the pedigree and the skill of making like comic book action scenes come to life in a fighting in a in a beat him up sense seems there but you can't do well you can but I just don't know what they do like again like you said will the city is the second character the

traversal is kind of the point like what's the Wolverine version of that
right it's a great question
so I don't know I um I don't know I I I'm I'm I'm play it. I just uh I don't know. Other than Sarah, I wasn't like jonesing here. You, however, will. You went pretty hard on the PC gamer showcase.
Yes. Which we will get to right after these ads. It is it is time for ad break. So, we'll we'll do PC. So, when we when we return from our from our little ad break, we will get into the uh PC gaming show from Tokyo. Uh which I was I'm super hyped about. Uh, so we'll we'll talk more about that uh just a second. So, uh, we're going to run 3 minutes of ads for our friends over on Twitch so that we can keep the show pre-roll free. While that's happening, worry not. You'll not be getting real ads. You'll be getting fake ads, things that you can't actually spend your money on while some part of Twitch chat gets ads for things that

sponsors really want them to spend their money on. So, Matt, would you take it away?
Sure. I got to come up with it on the fly. Here we go. Hey everybody, Matt from Extra Credits here. Do you want more Magic cards? Me too. Don't we all want more Magic cards? Well, do I have a set of Magic cards for you? This is the Magic the Gathering Magic the Gathering set featuring characters from Magic the Gathering. Now, you'd think, Matt, don't normal Magic the Gathering sets already have characters from Magic the Gathering? And you would be right. However, this is a set that actually prints the card on the card. The art saying is just the card turned 90°, allowing you to buy your favorite Magic the Gathering card characters on another Magic the Gathering card.
I have such bad news for you.
Is that a real thing?
No, it's not a real thing.

It's pretty close to a real thing.
What happened? What's the thing? Uh, so they did they did this thing at um at conventions. It's a play test set of like weird experimental things and some of it is kind of like just it's the weird experimental Magic the Gathering Magic the Gathering set. Um, it's a lot of self-referential humor. Uh, also the whole
No, that's fine. I was saying like the dumb idea that I had was taking the card and then just turning it and printing the card and it would keep going. It would be It would be a um
That's actually an uncard, I think. Uh but yeah,
a a fractal.
Yeah, fractal cards. I love those. Uh
all right. You ready?
Yes.
Hi there. Welcome from Credits here. Here to sell you anti-hype, also known as patience. That's right. Are you inundated with constant calls for your attention, your money, your time, your effort on so many things that are happening right now? Right now. Right

now. You need to pay attention right now. Corporation says they need your money right now. Give them your money right now. Right now. Right now. Simply don't. Wait. Cultivate patience. It'll be cheaper later. You don't need to give them your hype right now. You don't need to embrace all of the breaking news and the everything else. Wait. Hey everyone, Matt from Extra Credits here and I just want to echo what Will said and really want to sell you the concept of patience. In fact, I want you to get so flipping pumped for patience that you can't actually stand it. I want you screaming from the rooftops, "We want patience. We want patience. We want patience." So, so much that everyone in your street is just going mad with it. You can't think about anything else. You don't do anything else with your entire day. And everything you do, dream, eat,

sleep, breathe, is patience for the next thing that you are waiting to be hyped for. Do not wait to be patient. Get more patient right this very minute or else you won't have any time to be patient. I think some of my favorite bits are when I finish mine, Matt stops, looks at camera for a beat, and I hear the music start again. Like those are just the best, right? Where like it's the immediate rebuttal, right? In in the form of another advertisement.
Um Yeah,
the horse is in the hospital. All right.
Right. Right. Correct. Ads over. We want patience.
Yeah, exactly. Ads are in fact over. That was perfect.
I blacked out a bit. It's like three ads is like almost exactly three minutes with that music.
Um, okay. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. Uh,
I like this

rap. Is Matt okay? No,
it's 2025. None of us are okay.
That's so funny.
Uh, all right. So, let's talk let's talk PC gaming show. So, this is more up my alley. Uh, State of Play kind of misses me because I don't I don't have a PlayStation. no interest in getting a PlayStation. I would rather put
That's okay. I'm enough Sony pony for the both of us,
right? I would rather put that time and money into Magic cards and computer upgrades, but you know, that's just me. Um, so, uh, first up, we've got Gravebound. Gravebound asks the question, "Hey, hey, what if Destiny had a baby with hell divers?"
That's cool.
It's a very interesting concept. It is very much a Will and Matt game. Uh, it is a horde survival PVE shooter with like incremental leveling and number go up and gear collection and a lot of like those semiMMO elements. Um, combined with like the huge openw world like Hell

Divers 2esque kind of experience it looks like. Um, I'm super interested in it. Uh, I'll be interested to see more when it comes out. Uh, I believe the play test may be happening soon. Play test for one of these is happening soon, I believe.
It's very Yeah, I don't remember if it's this way.
It's either now or very soon. So, that that looks cool. Very excited for that. Next up, Matt,
would you like to
You've been trying to get me to to check out Doomspire for a minute, right?
No, this is the first time I've heard of it.
Oh, I thought I thought there was another card game that you were you were down with.
This is uh this is a rogike, but what if that rogike was Hearthstone,
right?
It's Hearthstone. It's a Hearthstone battle engine, but a rogike. It's currently mixed reviews. Uh it is out out um it's not doing the best, but it is an interesting concept. Uh and even though it has mixed reviews, remember mixed reviews does not mean the game is bad. It just may mean that it's got a narrow audience. And even if it's not for everyone, it may be for you.
Um so that's kind of interesting. Uh

next up, Threads of Time. Uh, I'm going to say some words and I think some people are going to be very upset and then I'm going to justify why I'm about to say what I'm about to say.
Go on.
Hey, you like uh Octopath? You like the way that Octopath like displays characters and like does that 2D 3D blend? You like Chrono Trigger? What if Chrono Trigger and Octopath kissed? I'm chrono triggered about that.
And then they made Threads of Time. Uh that is kind of the pitch. It is a very blatantly chrono trigger inspired time traveling RPG that has a lot of stylistic elements from some of the more recent entries in the JRPG genre like Chrono uh like Octopath Traveler, excuse me. Um and I'm uh very excited about this. I think it looks really good and like a lot of fun. I'm kind of down to I've been looking for another like not

Final Fantasy JRPG to just like sink teeth into. Um
I'm still pumped. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that I think that seems cool.
Yeah. Uh I uh I am trying very hard not to overload the Twitch channel with JRPGs, even though I definitely could. It takes an active force of will to not do that. So,
you are an active force of will.
That's correct. Um, uh, if you exile a blue card from your hand and pay one life, I can counter any spell. Um, so very excited for that. Looking forward to hearing more about it when it comes out. Uh, yeah.
Do it.
Do I still have that?
Do it.
Yeah, there it is.
All right. Excellent. Uh, in VR news, uh, a new game called Reach looks pretty interesting. Looks like a very I it is very rare that we get highly polished um advertisements for highly polished VR games.
Yeah,

that doesn't happen a lot. VR is a very niche industry. It has failed to grow out of its nicheness multiple times. Reach looks very interesting. Um if you are a VR connoisseur or enthusiast, uh Reach feels like it's something that will be on most people's radar. I really want to play my VR more and I don't even though like it used to be the setup, right? It used to be like, oh, set up to keep the trackers if you can't do it. Now it's simply even just plugging it in and getting the controllers and I and I
and I don't I think it's because my PC, even though I I love I'm still getting through um HalfLife Alex, my area to play is like
small for PC VR in the living room. It's fine. Um, I did notice that uh I think one of the updates to the PlayStation controllers for the the the um the VR controllers that it knocks me back to my um like it acts as if I hit the PlayStation button mid game. I was

playing Resident Evil 4 in VR and it kept doing it every like 10 minutes and I was like, "Well, this breaks the immersion." So, I I've had technical problems with my VR at least right now. If anyone else has had that happen and they found a fix, please let me know. I know that there is a website where you can go to diagnose all of the inputs from all parts of your um VR controller. I know this because I had to get electrical contact cleaner and clean out behind one of the triggers to get the trigger to fully release.
Interesting.
It's a known manufacturing defect with PlayStation VR2 controllers.
Great.
Yeah. Uh
but yeah, I I think this game will be fun. Hopefully. Did they say if it's just PC or is it is it going to be
it's it's in the Oculus ecosystem, but that mean doesn't mean anything for now. It just means that that's where it is for the moment, but it'll probably come to Steam because the Oculus ecosystem isn't big enough to support itself.
I don't think we could ask Jeff, but I don't think it is.
Yeah.
Um Okay. Uh, People of Note

is a turnbased RPG that is also a musical.
It's pretty fun.
Please enjoy like that. It's just a cool idea. I love when I love when we see like new innovative genre mashups. Uh, and this one looks pretty cool. I've seen a I've seen in the past um interesting takes on the idea of like musical groups as um mechanics for a turn-based RPG where like you can play cards or do other actions to like take your part in the musical group. I think this is really cool. I think it's interesting. Uh I'm looking forward to seeing more about it. This was just a reveal. I think the demo was on display, but I did not uh get to see Teraba much more. Yeah, Stray Gods did a year or two ago. Um, a little different than that. Uh, a little different than that. Uh, all right. And then last one. Not mine.
This was mine. Mom and Troll. I didn't even know this was a thing, but it looked familiar. Mom and Troll. I'm not

or mom uh is is a thing. A Finnish character, I believe, or no.
Uh, not Finnish. Is it Japanese? I don't know where Mammon comes from, but I've seen it a bunch. And this game looks adorable. It The art style looks amazing. Uh, and I am very excited for it because it gave me, at least from a gameplay vibes perspective, it gave me a bit of a night in the woods vibe. Um, is it Min or Mumen?
Uh, Grass. I I grass.
Min.
Muin. Muin.
Oh, everyone.
Grass apparently grew up with these stories.
Great. Okay, Grass. Can you real quick? Yeah,
give me the two sentence version of of these story because I this is I've seen this character. I know nothing about this character, but this game when I saw the trailer, I was like, "Yeah, this is for me."
Yeah,
it's finished, right?

Yeah. Okay.
Thank you everybody. Craig, I don't I don't know. It just looked familiar and nice.
It's called winter warmth. It looks very cozy and we need more. I like I like when we have like cute fun light cozy games,
but like it just it also like the the art in the in the thing really looked cool. There just there was some part in the trailer where he was like moving through a path that was snowed in and he had to shovel it and uh I don't know. It just it it it got me.
Okay. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent.
Grass says uh hippo looking troll lives far out in the forest. Do silly fun stuff. Good. I'm
need it. Yeah. Uh, okay. So, that's it for our our little game show roundup. Um, we we're going to try and spread these out when when we can. Uh, just so we don't end up in like big blocks where like we're not talking about upcoming games. Um, but sometimes it's hard to like do more than a couple from some of these just because it's hard to absorb all of this. Like I watched both of these and I was like, I can't remember

half of this. Um, but that's okay.
Yeah. Uh, all right. Next up, Bowser is retiring from Nintendo. No, not that one on the right.
Yeah, not not that one. Doug Bowser has announced that he's leaving Nintendo of America uh soon. TM. Uh, as in the end of the year. Uh, and he will be replaced by I'm trying to find her name. I'm trying to find her name. uh Devin
Pritchard
who is a longtime Nintendo executive and I believe currently serving as a vice president in the company.
Yeah.
Um can uh she's just listed as a Nintendo executive in the Kotaku article. I believe her official title is floating around. She's been a longtime part of the company. Um, and uh I I think it

will be an interesting move to see Bowser's influence leave. He did come from outside the company and to see it replaced with someone who's been with the company for as long as Devon has. Um, and see if that is sort of like a course correction for Nintendo or not.
Yeah, we'll see. I I I it's funny because when you get sort of into the not CEO but like the right under CEO or vice president sort of places,
it's really hard if you're not in the company to tell who has what drive to do what where in said company like we won't hopefully we'll be able to sort of glean this and you know in a couple years be like ah yes we can certainly see the what Bowser did versus people before him versus what uh Devon will do etc. So, um I don't know. I I hope it's a good thing. I imagine since she's been there so long it will be, but
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Um I like Sean's question like this. Uh

will she need to No, not that. I mean, that's true, but like this is the question I want to address. Will she need to legally change her name to a Nintendo character like Doug Bowser did? Uh no. They're just going to invent a new character named Devon. It's just easier that way.
Yeah.
So, rather than doing all the legal paperwork, we're just gonna put a new character in a game called Devon. I'm sure. Exactly.
That That's how it'll work.
So, we're gonna see. We're gonna see how it goes. Um,
you know, Nintendo not uh not the not the the loveliest media darling these days. So,
uh, and lots of people are asking about the role of Nintendo of America versus Nintendo Worldwide. Nintendo of America does have a fair amount of um influence over the way that Nintendo is marketed, sold, pitched in the states. And I think that that influence is bigger than people think, right? Like while which products get made and how the consoles get manufactured is Nintendo first party, there is a fair amount of um influence that can be exerted by, hey, I'm in charge of marketing and

distribution for one of your largest markets that does carry weight. Yeah.
Right. Even if even if Nintendo of America is just the marketing firm that handles the states, that is still a lot of influence to have over the global brand.
Yeah.
So, um,
wish your luck.
Yeah. Okay. Uh, next up,
what a weird story.
Yeah. Fascinating. So, last week we talked about how Costco was raising the price on a bunch of their stuff. And then in true Breakfast fashion, like 12 hours or something after the show ended, this piece of news broke. Matt, what tell tell us about this. Could you
Literally, it comes to us from Kotaku and a couple other places, but essentially ex Costco is no longer going to be selling Xboxes. Um, essentially, I'm trying to find the quote. There was a quote somewhere.

Um, but basically I think it just comes down to uh if if I was guessing uh from a retail perspective, they don't move enough and they're just taking up a decent amount of space. Like uh Costco is an interesting place because I think people forget that they do have electronics and things like this if you're not a regular Costco person to the point where that's how I got my Switch 2. the release day of the Switch 2. I I was trying to get pre-orders everywhere. I couldn't do it. I just went to cost.com and ordered one easy peasy. And I was like, "Huh?"
But I know, for instance, most of my friends in the city who have bought PlayStations, if they haven't bought it direct from PlayStation, have bought it from Costco. Um, I feel like they actually do move consoles from my anecdotal evidence, but apparently not

Xboxes. Um, basically they stopped it in their online shop with no warning and I believe they're phasing it out um from their physical stores as well.
Fascinating.
I guess I don't know what that me like because also didn't the didn't the the ROG Ally get announced pricing and it's like a grand?
Yeah, it's like a grand. Um, and my my initial hot take is Bro by Steam Deck. So right now, yes, there's Microsoft and Xbox are in a really interesting position because they could pivot in the right ways and kind of become a powerhouse in that space due to Game Pass, but I don't know if the ship is nimble enough to do so.
I don't think it is.
Like I still think there is going to be an official Xbox

handheld. I think they tried to get this ally thing out to in a very way that will not damage the Microsoft bottom line in any way, shape, or form. Get an Xbox portable out there.
Yeah.
But I don't think this isn't going to be the the flag they fly. Like this is just going to be a thing they do to to get by until if they want to do another hardware cycle, making what I think the next Xbox, official Xbox will be a handheld like the Switch. We've said this for years. Um, wow. Because the free samples of Xbox were too crunchy for most customers. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and look, I, you know, it is fun to dunk on Xbox. Um, but at the same time, I loved Xbox. I loved the Xbox 360. I I really liked that. Well, well, they came in and obviously Sega kind of bowed out of the hardware space. I do think it is good to have at least three console manufacturers that are actually viable.

I don't want Xbox to go away. I want them to be smarter with what they do, leverage what they do, and also be careful not to leverage their one major strength, which is Game Pass, and and completely derail the idea of people owning games that they buy.
Yeah,
I all the companies are doing that, too. But like I feel like Microsoft is is the most of that. And we've said many times on the show, uh, the bull, I've loved the seven Xbox 360s I had to buy. You're right. You're right.
Wait, you didn't bake one of them?
The what?
You didn't bake one of them.
No,
the red ring is caused uh, for those not in the know. The red ring is caused by solder cracks, breaking connections. So, one of the ways that you could fix red rings in some cases was by baking you by taking the board out of your Xbox and baking it to refflow the solder.
Whoa.
Yeah, it was it was wild. Um uh that that's why that worked. Um

that's like it's not quite the same. I'm sure like hopefully that makes it so your console like still runs the the old hard drive trick on the old regular hard drives with the spinning plate and the and the
Oh, yeah. where you put it in the freezer and you get like maybe an hour of time to copy stuff off it before the condensation
breaks. We had a freezer in the IT office at my last game for that reason. Yep.
Yep.
Uh
crazy.
Yeah. So, uh
yeah, but I I just I like the idea that there's three there's three console manufacturers that are viable and Xbox right now is feeling like it's the least strong. Uh being taken out of physical retailers, even one that is like a membership club is not a good look. This feels like the first domino to fall in this.
Yeah, I agree.
Um, but we'll see.
Yep. Uh, okay. Are you ready for the weirdest sentence you're probably going to hear this week?
Challenge accepted. Hideo Kojima is partnering with Pokemon

Go creator Niantic to create an AR game.
It beeped it. A sorry everybody. No, it booped right in time with the thing. It was great. It was perfect. Um
so annoying.
Yeah. No,
thanks Windows 11. I fixed it.
So it's a fascinating concept. Uh I'm I'm wondering what to see. Uh what yeah, Death Standing Go maybe. Who knows? Um I I I'm interested to see how this turns out. I'm mostly interested to see what happens with Hideio Kojima as an aur developer with something as weird and out there as AR games tend to be because the what is possible in terms of like audience uh participation and maintenance with an AR game is very different than a lot of other mediums.

I'm very interested to see what his thoughts are. I probably won't engage with this, but I'm interested to see from a design perspective what this ends up being or if it just ends up being one of those Hideokima flash in the pan things where he's like, "I made a thing." And everyone's like, "Oh my gosh, it's a Hideoka thing. I got to get on this for like 10 minutes."
Yeah. I um It feels very Death Stranding AR. Um maybe that's cool. Like I like the idea of like setting up caches for other people to take and help them out. Like there there's there's there's there's many things in Death Stranding that could work great in AR.
Yep.
Also, I don't know. I again it might just not be for me.
Yeah. I I I I think that that's correct. I think it's just very weird.
Uh you know what I am here for? We don't have a slide for it. Is OD. Isn't that what it is? OD knock the other Kajjima thing. Oh, I I don't pay

attention to Kajjima things most of the time. They don't generally cross into my sphere.
Uh, which is supposed to be, I believe, an Xbox exclusive from what I remember, which is an odd one. Uh, but they had a they had a um gameplay trailer for that and it looks terrifying. Um,
yeah, it looks so good. Um, and I think it's going to be episodic,
so we'll see how it goes.
But yeah, I don't know. This uh neat. Let's see. Let's It's a bold move, Cotton. Let's see if it works out for him.
All right. And now it's time to talk about a 55 billion dollar deal.
What could go wrong?
Yeah,
this just happened.
This happened this morning. I'm still I'm still sitting with this like I don't
Is this one that because because this is going private

basically?
Yes. So
So that the board voted to do this and now it's happening. There's no like there's nothing else to do, right? This isn't like a merger or something. I just want to because I this happens so ill not frequently. I don't know like the mechanics of it. It is a group decided to sell it and now it is selling. It doesn't have to be approved. Uh, correct. Essentially, what they're doing is a forced stock buyback of all currently publicly traded shares at a price of $210 per share. Let me pull up the uh you're at you're if you're if you're in the show notes later, there's actually going to be a BusinessWire article because it's one of the places I found that has the most complete actual information on this because it broke this morning and I haven't seen any other breakdowns. Um so uh the consortium which is PIF Silver Lake Silver Lake and Infinity Partners will be acquiring 100% of EA. Uh that's all of its um shares.

Uh and each stockholder will receive $210 per share in cap. um that is 25% more than the uh its last market closing price of $168.32. It also exceeds its all-time market high of $1791. So, they're getting they're forcing shareholders essentially to sell their shares significantly above market value. And that's just how this works.
Yep. Um, very interesting things moving forward. Um, okay. So, EA in general, like it's funny, people are talking about like the political ramifications like Battlefield 6. I think Battlefield 6 is so far gone that like it's not going to be affected by this. Um, however, there will be some

real interesting stuff on how uh modern military shooters are for from EA are uh what those look like. I think we will see um we will see the the worm tongue of it all kind of echo through I think all of the franchises. And again, it's not like EA is worth a bunch of money, of course, but we're going to talk about how that's also a bit of a problem. But like I don't know, maybe this is old man Matt on the porch talking, but since I'm not a Madden or Battlefield person.
Yep.
There's not a lot of EA's catalog that excites me.
Um I know that they make a lot of their stuff from the sport from sports games. Uh and Mass Effect obviously is a delight, but that game is old as hell and you know I I'm not I don't know if I'm Is there even a new one coming? I have no idea. No clue.
Um, of course there's The Sims, but The Sims is so far out of my purview because

it costs like $16,000 to get every pack for The Sims and it's all peacemeal already. I'm curious how it could get uh from a from a consumer standpoint worse. I'm sure from a human rights and representation standpoint it could get much worse. Um, but like Dragon Age, Apex, Apex is a a good game, but like that also came out of kind of nowhere, much like Hearthstone Battlegrounds, and they just tried to make it into a thing like and Bejeweled. Bejeweled is obviously huge for them. I just
Pants versus Zombies is technically in there. They bought the whole PopCap collection
like and so they've had PvZ but PvZ has kind of been a shambling zombified shell of itself which is on brand but not in a good way um for a while now. Something that though we Okay, I am This sucks because it's another group of people I don't really want

controlling a large video game wing controlling a large video game wing and company, right? But like I also don't know like is this just another inshitification in the gaming space? Like
let let's put aside the various political ramifications and and the ability to propagandize around things. Right.
Right. Because there are Yeah. There's a lot of that that's going on in people's concerns. Right.
But
and that's all valid. But here's something that's interesting. has any company that has really done that outside of like now I I I like outside of cable news. Has any company really pivoted so hard into like uh the the the methodologies I believe

these groups will bring to EA that the creativity that allows EA games to be popular will will grow or even stay the same. Like and it's not like the catalog at this point is terribly creative. It's it's it's a lot of franchise games and one or two offs that you're like that are or older games from a time misbgotten time or lifestyle games like Bejeweled in the Sims like
like I don't think this is going to become like a I don't think they're going to become this is weird more culturally relevant.
I agree with that. They might maintain, but if I was a betting man, and I am, I imagine that this is actually not going to go well.
Yeah.
Like $55 billion is a ton.
But also, if I was on the outside, and again, this is so anecdotal. It's I I I rented a house in an anecdotal USA where

I live year round. um selling like this not being publicly traded anymore kind of just says to me that the the brass kind of saw the writing on the wall want a payday and want to get out.
Yep. Especially because let's talk about the other uh thing that means that it's very unlikely that EA is going to improve its offerings uh for the consumer dramatically in the near future. Uh, I'm gonna quote because I want to quote. Uh,
I love quotes. [Music] I'm gonna get this right because I want to make sure that I have all of the numbers right because we were talking about financial news.
Keep rolling over my court.
Yeah. Uh, again quoting for the business. Uh this transaction will be funded by a combination of cash from each of PIF,

Silver Lake, and affinity partners as well as rollover of PIF's existing SE and EA constituting an equity investment of approximately 36 billion comma and $20 billion of debt financing fully and solely committed by JP Morgan Chase Bank NA. 18 billion of which is expected to be funded at close. They're putting 20 billion dollars of debt on EA for this. How does EA make20 billion dollar worth of game in 2026? Well, they don't like this is a longterm uh plan, but like I'm there has to be some sort of plan andor endgame here where they think it can possibly be profitable or uh you know what what's the the Saudi

company? I believe that's P I L
like or they
Affinity is Kushner, right?
Yeah, Affinity is Kushner. Um I forget which company is the princes, but like it they they've been doing a lot of buy into the gaming space as well to try to like, you know, at at a at a
Yeah. The Pif is the Saudi public investment fund,
right? So, at a at the at the most charitable read, it's to get um the the Saudi government and everything to sort of be like taken more seriously on the uh entertainment stage and on the worst case read. uh it is uh how do I put it to that due to their blatant human rights violations it's another way to sort of control what is talked about or whatnot. Um and it's interesting too because like if you look

at actually I wish I had the numbers in front of me. Um, Madden football and Battlefield military shooter are probably and like uh are probably the biggest games on here if not FIFA is probably on there. But like I feel like Madden and Battlefield are like the most like and I I'll say it with its proper name apostrophe America like games that there are.
Yes. Uh, and I think like I keep being like, why would they spend all this money? And it's either to kind of slowly try to feel like they can change whatever the messages are behind that or just to kind of make it a little worse.
Lots of people are talking about the Jo-Ann's private equity. Um,
which one's that? Sorry. Uh Jo-Ann's Fabrics here in the United States is a um is one of the most recent casualties of the private equity sort of strip for

parts and then bankrupt them play and a lot of them are saying that is very similar to this as well that there may be
it's really a no- lose situation for them.
Correct. Because if so, because the debt is on EA, if EA declares bankruptcy and dissolves, well, there's no one really left holding that bag except JP Morgan Chase, right?
Yeah.
Um, and so the the the other one uh I think is people are talking about their um is uh spinning off other companies and having them inherit the debt. That's been done a couple of times.
Yeah.
Where like uh Embracer Group did that and
didn't Asthma Day do that? There was another company that did that recently. I don't think it was Asthma Day. It was another It was a European company that did it, but Embracer Group did it where they Oh, no. It was Embracer put it all on Asthma Day. That's right. And then and then um

uh shuffled them off. Right. Like
I I think this regardless, it's funny because like EA is such a mainstay powerhouse in my mind from video games specifically. Literally, I think every time I read it or see it, I hear EA Sports. It's in the game. Like I just hear it in my brain. The marketing behind the EA brand for people in my demographic is strong. And I haven't played an EA game in years. They And I'm sure they're doing fine, but they weren't probably making all the money as illustrated by how much debt this whole thing is going to cost them. It's it's either status quo, try to change culture a little bit as as incrementally as you can, or bankrupt and sell for parts and make money off of destroying something that uh was an empire, I guess. I don't know.

Like, it's I'm having a hard time working through all of the the the possibilities here. Again, it was announced this morning,
right? There's another thing that a lot of people are worried about and that is the political ramifications of um of um the sort of the different groups that are involved in this um getting control over boware and the sims and stripping out a lot of queer representation in games. And I think that is a concern that is taken pretty seriously by the communities um involved. Uh yeah, Saudi Arabia not exactly high on the list of places that
I mean we've talked about it on this show repeatedly, right? that Saudi Arabia's history of human rights um violations and abuses towards queer people have meant that like they have tried to host esports events in Saudi Arabia and very influential very big top

tier players have said I will not participate in this international big esport event because I would have to travel to Saudi Arabia and that's not safe
right and so that whole angle combined with the fact that the other portion of this buyout is um Jared Kushner, right? Not really lending a lot of support to the little inclusivity that queer people have been able to carve out in boware games in um Sims games in these spaces, right? Because this art is about to get sportw wash sanitized in favor of a more conservative ideology most likely. Uh, and I think that's a real concern that a lot of people have, particular with this. And a lot of people won't buy EA games because it's being bought by the PIF, right?
Yeah. Like it's

I guess has a that's why I kept saying outside of cable news, like has something ever worked financially when And again, they haven't done any of this yet. It's just you're going off precedent of like what sort of could happen. It's a very likely possibility. Like I I go back to and again I know these are it's apples and oranges and stakes or whatever but like you go back to Target,
right?
Target ending its its uh DEI and and inclusive stuff and then it just tanking.
Y
um the Elon Musk of it all of Tesla. Granted, he I I don't I don't even pretend to understand how much money he just made off of selling things from it, but like especially in the EU, not doing great.
Uh, by the way, in case anyone's wondering, Target is still down. They did not receive a back to school bump this year.
Their foot traffic insane,
right? No back to school bump for a major uh US retailer means that the writing is like not only on the wall but

on the wall in blood when you like flicker the lights for Target. Like it's not good. Um and it's been down consecutively for seven months.
Okay,
Target is very in bad shape.
And then you even look at the the Jimmy Kimmel of it all. You look at how quickly uh when people started cancing their Disney Plus and Hulu accounts. Uh, and again the number you have to be careful about this sort of stuff because the second you're like billions of pe like it makes it seem like the problem is fixed and you don't have to do it like no enough people did it quickly enough that shook shareholders that got Disney to basically ring Sinclair and the other one enough to now Jimmy Kimmel's back on all this stuff and it's like we're not even remembering that this happened. But like I'm just trying to think of an example in modern history outside of cable news that something like this that tries and again they haven't done it yet cuz they haven't officially signed the check or whatever but like I imagine they will change what the styles of things that

they put out are like how will that work out financially for the company? Like again, if you strip it for parts and do all that other thing and destroy it, that is a viable solution. I think that's that's the scariest crappiest part is no matter what, people who play video games lose,
right? Yes. There's no way in which if you're a fan of a EA game, this is a win.
Yeah.
Right. Like, and and if if you're watching this later and you're like, "Hey, I I disagree. I actually think I'm a huge fan of EA games and I can see how this is going to tell us genuinely and comments be nice and like engage with this in good faith cuz I genuinely cannot see a way in which this is good for anyone other than the people profiting in dollars for the destruction of a company that makes things that people enjoy.
Yeah.
Right. I I can't see it. It's so funny

because like I I can we just read real quick and I know we're kind of coming up on the close of the show, but I want to read the statements that um that uh I just want to find exactly who said it. An C EA chairman and CEO Andrew Wilson says, this comes to us from Eurogamer. Our creative and passionate teams at EA have delivered extraordinary experiences for hundreds of millions of fans, built some of the world's most iconic IP, and created significant value for our business. This moment is a powerful recognition of their remarkable work. Okay, cool. Looking ahead, we will continue to push the boundaries of entertainment, sports, and technology, unlocking new opportunities. Together with our partners, we will create transformative experiences to inspire generations to come. I am more energized than ever about the future we are building. Generic generic like nothing here is is of anything of any substance yet. Electronic Arts is an extraordinary

company with a worldclass management team and a bold vision of the future. I will paraphrase here and say I disagree. Uh, I've admitted that there are ability to create iconic lasting experiences and as someone who grew up playing their games and now enjoys them with his kids, I couldn't be more excited about what's ahead, said Jared Kushner, CEO Affinity Partners. Kushner is also Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So like the fact that Jared Kushner is like commenting on this um kind of is interesting too because I'm wondering what quote iconic lasting experiences that Jared Kushner grew up playing from EA. I wish he had said which games he liked. Maybe he did somewhere. If anyone could find that, I'd love to see it. Um

I just I don't know. It's a It's a real feel bad story and I'm sorry to kind of be a bummer about the whole thing. Um
I think we have to acknowledge it, right? Like it's not it's not something that we can just be like, "Oh, well, one of the biggest names in video games got bought out by people who have a history of wanting to skew the narrative drastically in their direction. Guess we'll go on about our Monday." Like,
yeah, I I I think I I want to sort of echo Will's call for anybody who like I I I because I'm feeling fairly doomy and gloomy about all this. I would really like someone again, good faith arguments, etc. like if someone does think this is a good thing and this is a positive thing and we're reading it skewed or or there's something else, I would love to hear that in the comments.
Um that's not like a I just legitimately would like some sort of like ah but what about this angle where even if it's not like doesn't assuage my entire thing, I'm like oh no, okay, I just I can't find it
and so if you have it

I'll take it. the uh the one of the things I believe that RC Fox uh mentioned here in chat and and you know I think this is the beginnings of a of a like longer train thought is there is something to be said for not being beholden to a stock price and that I agree with right
but the interesting thing about private is you are still it's just not public
right you're beholden to the people who own you right
yeah like and and there's no record to show like no public record to show how good or bad you are and I use those very lightly you are doing
y agree yeah it's uh it's not great it's not great um
anything else
if have hooks anywhere else in the games industry uh other examples see see from them uh I don't remember except there was a thing at PAX East like two years ago where they were trying to sell like the first gaming city and it was a weird big footprint booth that I couldn't understand what they were trying to sell And no one there kind of knew either. So

I don't know.
Um.
Yep. Oh, and that's that's another good point. Um, Mary's completely correct. Think about how many new stories come out of shareholder meetings. How many things we get out of shareholder notes in public shareholder meetings that we won't get out of EA.
We won't. Yeah. like there there'll be after this is closed the the the minations of how this company is run will be far more obuscated which again it's f that's their prerogative like sure
right that in of itself is not bad but it is unfortunate
yeah oh that's right Niantic
Niantic is owned by the PIF correct
so
woo
there's that
yeah anyway all right let's do something better Matt Matt, are you ready to rumble?
No.
Uh,
yes, I am ready. I am so ready.
Yeah. Uh, for for a little dessert

story, for a little a little piece of sweet to to to brighten things out, uh, 2x officially has an early access release date. It is coming out on October 7th um, into early access. There will not be an early access wipe. There will be no invite code. Um there is no mention of uh consoles yet. Um there will be uh it's there it's going to have a season zero. There will be um rewards that you can unlock and it will be announced. Uh it will be launching with Ahri, Blitzk, Braum, Darius, Ekko, Illaoi, Jinx, uh V, and Yasuo. Um and people will actually be able to like get it out in early access and play it. And I'm sure Matt's super
I am uh did it say I'm trying to uh uh what's it called? Did they say is it is it just on PC right now?
It will just be on PC. There is no mention of consoles in the open beta,

but that makes sense because they're going to want to use PC because um one of the big things about PC is you don't have to have your updates go through.
Uh which is very nice for early access. Sure. um you you get a certain number of oopsie poopsy need to puh push this fast hot fixes. Um and uh yeah, it's it's much easier to iterate quickly on PC.
I'm pumped to check it out. Uh I know it's been kind of up and down in the community for a bit. I just I I need another fighting game and I'm ready.
Yeah, I I think this will for this will be um very interesting. Uh it'll they've also announced first impact a sponsorship of 22 community-led tournaments across the Americas, Europe, and Asia through the end of 2025. Each event will remain community one while receiving a Riot sponsored pot bonus. Do wins first place in a first impact tournament. They also claim the duo bounty and extra $2,500 prize on top of the existing pot, also sponsored by Riot. Um winners will also earn an exclusive local legend player title on

their 2XO account. And the first uh Riot supporter tournament will be Evo France. Uh, two nice KO organized by Mixup taking place in Oh, sorry, in Nice. Not nice. Um, it's in Nice, uh, from October 10th to 12th. Uh, so that's kind of cool. Um,
yeah, I'm ready.
Yeah,
my body is ready.
Yeah, it'll be great. Uh, I think a lot of people are going to be super hyped for it and I'm looking forward to hearing uh what comes out of it. And I think, dear friends, with that little uh piece of sweetness to to break up the bitter of the EA acquisition, uh that is going to do it for our episode today.
Thank you so much for watching Games for Breakfast. We always appreciate you here. If you'd like to contact us in any way, shape, or form, you can leave a comment in the episode or you can connect with us on Ablooki. Uh Will has that thing which will pop up right there. That's where we live if you'd like to talk to us. Um the next week

there will not be a games for breakfast, dear friends. Life has gotten in the way. Uh so we will be back uh whatever the date is after that one on the Mondayoop
13th.
Yeah, that one. Uh so we will miss you terribly in the meantime. Um but here's what you should do in my opinion. Just watch this one again.
That's right.
Nothing's going to change in two weeks. I mean, everything's going to be completely accurate and it'll be fine. Or watch this one again at the same time and then comment on the things that have changed at the time code in the comments.
You can do that, too. E either way. Um, and of course, we'll still be live here on Twitch doing other stuff. Uh, I'm still working on Silk Song, so please join us for that. Uh yeah, assuming I don't finish it this weekend, then I'll be playing Final Fantasy Tactics if I do finish it. But
Thursday on Twitch, we'll be doing

Returnal again. Uh this time not doing the tower to start so we can actually get a decent run in. Um
yeah, I guess that's everything, Will.
Yeah, that's absolutely everything. All right, everybody. I think that that means that all that remains for us is for Matt to do our patented signoff, the same one that we always do.
That's right. Uh this is of course a uh way that we can as a community essentially be together in trying times of of all of these video game news that might not be the most happy. But if we we all can do the exact same outro that we do every single time together that does actually really mean something in the in the in the formulation of of just uh the the group that we are in now. So, uh, with that in mind, Will, this is the this is the the patented thing we do every time.
Yep.
I have $6. I have Hold on. I have $12 here.
I think I've got some change in

If everyone could just put in the money to get EA back.
This is the start.
Good luck. [Applause] [Music]