Amazon Wants You to Rent Games Forever, Roblox Pyramid Scheme & Pokemon Chaos | Games For Breakfast

Good morning, Matt. A
good MORNING. WELL,
GOOD MORNING TO ALL OF YOU.
Welcome to Games FOR BREAKFAST, THE ONLY INTERNET TALK SHOW WE TALK ABOUT THIS week's gaming and tech news, but that also I need to kill a beloved bit this week. Will, I'm so sorry to announce that I cannot do this week for the next eight or nine weeks. I can't do the eat one pastry bit where I just eat one pastry. I can't do it. Uh and the reason for that is I'm on a diet for my wedding. Got to look good. You got to look good in the suit, right? You got to make sure you're, you know, doing stuff. So, you know, I'm exercising, eating healthy. So in lie of that classic bit of eating just one pastry or one I don't know giant scone thing that I usually do instead this time on the show and I'll do it right now to get it out of the way. I'm just going to eat one kick.

Just the one worst diet ever.
HOW YOU DOING, WILL?
I'm doing okay, Matt. We've had kind of a a sleepy morning here. Uh it's you know the I don't know if anyone else is experiencing this, but my part of the world here in Maryland cannot decide what season it wants to be. So I wake up every morning not knowing whether it will be warm and springy or hot and summery or cold and wintry. And it is exhausting because I go to sleep in one season and wake up in another. It's so tiring. I'm so
I have no idea. What are seasons like where you are, oh beloved Brad, Janet, and or Rocky? And you can let us know on Blue Sky if you want to do that when you're over there because you can do the no comments thing over on Nebula. Um, it's okay. Hey, listen. Uh, you don't

have to ever apologize for being late. Uh, an extra a person for Games for Breakfast arrives precisely when they mean to. Also a reminder that one of the founding tenants of this show is no matter what time it is where you are, it's breakfast time.
That's right.
Even if you're watching this later, if you're if you start this at midnight, congratulations. It's breakfast time.
You better get some You better get one kick or you can have more than that. You I don't need everyone else to be on on what I'm doing.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh 100%. Um I saw a really good a good Where was it? Hold on.
Scroll.
I'm scrolling. I'm scrolling like mad. I can't die.
While Will While Will hunts for this wonderful comment that now he has to do because we're talking about it more. Um I will say that this week's Oh,
hi Kyle. KYLE'S JOINING US FROM THE DENVER AIRPORT. CONGRATULATIONS. You made it. GOOD JOB.
HOW IS THE DENVER AIRPORT right now? I was just there uh for my bachelor party like like a month or some change ago.

Okay. Have they ever fixed security at the Denver airport?
Yeah. give us your report from the Denver airport as we're doing the show because I'd like to know how it's going over there.
Yeah, 100%.
Um, what was I going to say? Oh, so the slate of stories that we have today
Yeah,
they're a little bit, dare I say, little little little bit of some downer energy on them, right? There's a
little depressy.
Little depressy,
little spicy sads.
Little little sad sads. Um, I think so. To do that, Will, I think before we move on from every story that we talk about, we should pledge to one another right now that we say something positive that relates to the story.
Oh man, some of these that's going to be more difficult than others. Matt,
WE'RE PLAYING GAMES FOR BREAKFAST ON HARD MODE, MOTHERFATHERS. AND THAT'S HOW THIS IS GOING TO GO.
OKAY.
Cuz I need some joy.

Yeah. All right. So, so let's let's if if that's how we're going to go, we're going to need some time. So, let's get started with Amazon Luna.
That's right.
So, uh
Kyle Kyle, just in the Denver airport. Sadly, you you're now going to be limited to the uh Amazon Luna games you can play uh in the Denver airport right now,
which is like Angry Birds. Um, okay. So, who quick show of hands, who remembers Luna? Who is who who remembers Luna? Cuz Luna
in the back.
Yeah.
Anybody?
Anybody?
Does who who remembers?
Yeah.
Uer.
Who remembers?
Who me who remembers Luna? So Luna, for those who don't remember, and that's an understandable
sure
place to be.
Whoa. Twitch chat does not remember. Yeah,
some people some people member
Janet on YouTube, do you remember member?

Neo is master members. Some people member.
Oh, team members members. All right, cool. Right. Excellent. So, yeah. All right. So, Una uh is a streaming game service. And prior to the recent announcement by Amazon, you could hook it up to thirdparty games apps and use it as a storefront to purchase games and other places and tie in your tie in your um accounts and stream games through Luna to places right to places where one might stream games. Now, this is all of course subject to the usual problems of trying to stream games in the States, which is our infrastructure sucks. Like, zoinks, Scoob, it sucks big time,
right? So, um Okay, great. So, that's how it was, but now, don't worry, they've made it better. Or that's what the the um I was

watching uh some stuff of this uh the but the email that they sent out to everyone who uses Luna sort of did that like sprinkle sugar on top of the pile of dog feces underneath um trying to sort of talk your way through it. Will what are the changes that are coming to this illustrious service uh to help to help people that use it and to make uh games better and play better for people who like to play them?
Okay, cool. So, uh, as of, uh, the day of the announcement, which I believe was the 10th, okay, it's Friday, you can no longer purchase games from third party game stores such as EA, Ubisoft, or GOG through Luna. And, uh, you can't get Ubisoft Plus and Jackbox game subscriptions. And if you bought any of those things uh through Luna or had your account hooked up, um you have until June 10th to finish playing them on Luna because

after that you can't. Uh they're revoking the ability to do any of those things on Luna. Um uh also if your uh Ubisoft Plus or Jackbox game subscription uh that'll be good till it runs out and then it'll stop. Um, and uh the only option you'll have now uh is uh Luna Premium, which is a premium subscription that gives you some games that Amazon picks every month.
It's like what if Game Pass but worse,
right? In like every conceivable way. So, let's break this down a little bit because when when this was announced and when we were talking about it as a story for the show, uh, I admittedly, and I think Will too, but I won't speak for him, got very confused at actually what the story was because I was confused at what Luna did sort of in general because

I had never engaged with it. Now, we all, I feel like back in the day, uh, paid more attention to when the the OG grandfather of just streaming games across the internet was around, uh, RIP Stadia, FS and chat.
Oh, I was going to say Gamefly, but yeah. Okay.
Well, you didn't you didn't stream games. They threw them at you through the postal service.
I thought they had a I thought they did they have one. They tried, but like no one members Gamefly, so it's okay.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. On live grass. Yeah, you got that. So, so um essentially, okay, you through your Luna account, you could link all these other third-party places and you could purchase the games essentially. I think keys that would work to unlock them in the the storefronts or maybe not. Maybe there was like a direct download you could do from the Luna site. Oh, no, sorry. You would never download anything. You just get a key pass to to play it on the streaming service Luna, meaning the machine you're playing it on

would not be with you, right?
Right.
But you bought games on it to play. So, let's pretend for instance like Control, right? You you bought Control. Oh, maybe that maybe that's not the best one. I'm trying. Or you bought an Ubisoft game on Luna.
You don't have a console. You're doing it on your TV or your phone or something. Now they're saying uh even though you bought this game for full price, you can no longer access it through the Luna service, what you could do is go to Ubisoft's system itself and download the game to play. But you didn't buy that. I mean, you you bought you bought the game, but you can't play it. They're essentially taking away the from the people that would utilize this service, people who do not have dedicated hardware. They're saying, "Well, you still have the license and you can go use it somewhere else,
but you don't have the dedicated

hardware and they're not offering refunds
because you still own the thing, right? So, they don't have to offer refunds because you you still you still have it. Why are you upset? You you Luna user, small number of Luna users, you still have everything that you paid for even though you bought it with the expectation you could use it in a certain way and you can't do that anymore, but you still own it. So, you're not upset, right? Yeah. I um I don't know how I don't know how to fully process this. Like they have taken a service which again has not been I'm sure the most popular. That's why they're changing it. I'm sure the licensing deals or whatever they had with all these third party uh developers and and and publishers uh was probably costing them more money than they were making through doing the

service. And that is why it's changing. Um they're also not this off-ramp makes sense for them for the structure of this particular angle of the business, but in no way makes sense for uh consumer retention andor protection.
Yeah, that's cuz they don't care.
Well, they don't care. We we know that. But like I just think it's um what a what a tremendous misstep. And hopefully the only here's my here's my silver lining for this this particular um story. The good news here, this is a very public wakeup call to the fact that Amazon and many companies do not want you to ever own a game. And we should all be extremely careful as to what uh companies, systems, etc. we interact with when doing when when when getting access to the games we want to play based on our own personal

relationship with how we want to engage with andor possibly own that experience that we are playing.
Yeah.
Um this is it's double dastardly. I wish I could figure out I I I was having I found the the email and then uh I lost it because some of the some of the quotes were just like a demon's resume. Uh the thing on uh PC Gamer sort of paraphrases it a little bit. uh in its customer service page explaining the charges, Amazon said the removal of third-party games from Luna was informed by quote clear feedback from players who quote want easy access to great games, more social experiences, and a steady flow of new content from developers you know and love. So therefore, they're cutting access to those things on their service.
Yeah, I was going to say that does not sound like a justification to do any of the things they just said it was. Right. Like that's a nonsequator at best,

right?
They go into as our library continues to grow, more of the content is available on Prime members. Uh that's what we're going to focus on in the future. Starting April 10th, 2026, Luna will no longer offer game stores, individual game purchases, or third party subscriptions. So, they're losing all cart games. So, you don't get to choose what games are on Luna or what you own on Luna or what I guess you're licensing on Luna. Uh you cannot bring in your own library to be streamed. Ubisoft Plus and Jackbox games are gone. Uh third party game stores EA, Ubisoft, and GOG are being removed from the Luna platform. So now, if you ever engaged with this specific product, you probably did it because you didn't have hardware to play games on. And now they're taking away games that you bought. They're taking away your ability to play the game you bought

from them, right? Like the I'm trying to think of like the analogy. It'd be like if um you got a brand you got a brand new Switch 2 and then all the sudden uh someone from Nintendo comes after you bought a bunch of games and they're like, "Oh, wait. You can't use this Switch 2 anymore." You can still play the games though. You just got to find like another one somewhere.
Yep. You still you'll still have them. You just can't use the Yeah. the service.
Yeah.
I I I
Yeah. I uh someone was uh Kai was asking um how long till they figure out how to make physical media stop working. Hold that thought. Hold that thought.
Yeah. Should we just jump to that?
I mean we can too. Um, so also uh at the same time and uh and in the in the same breath um if you have an old

Kindle one from 2012 or earlier. Now some of you might be like that's ancient. Yeah, but Kindles are like stupidly simple. Kindles are like beyond simple. Kindles are like if you're familiar with an Alphasmart, they're like that simple. Alphasmarts are an LCD screen, a typewriter, uh, and that or and a keyboard and that's it and like an output to like output from memory. It's like they're indestructibly simple, right? These are like the noia bricks of devices. Okay, if you have an old one,
it's not going to work anymore. You can't you can't
Kindle the first first and second generations of Kindles Kindle DX uh DX Graphite Kindle Keyboard Kindle 4 Kindle Touch Kindle 5 and Kindle Paper White first generation as of oh boy starting May 20th 2026 and they're very care they're very careful to say between 14 to 18 years of uh after the initial uh initial launches were discontinuing

support for Kindle devices uh released in 2012 or earlier. Now, let's just pause the the message real quick here. That on its surface to me feels fine. You can't expect to be uh you you should be if you were a moral or ethical company, but you can't obviously be expected to uh keep updating a a thing that relies on the internet to function sometimes, etc. Like, like I can understand like not doing software patches or things like that, but that's not exactly what this is. You can continue to read books already downloaded on these devices, but you will not be able to purchase, borrow, or download additional books on them after that date. If you dregister or factory reset these devices, you will not be able to re-register or use these devices in any way. That sounds like they work fine to me.

That sounds like they work fine. and that people can keep using them, but you don't want them to.
To minimize any disruption, we're offering a promotional code for 20% off select new Kindle devices, as well as a 15 uh euro ebook credit that will be automatically added to your account after purchasing the new advice device valid only through June 20th, 2026. Conveniently, the day that Luna stops working. I think it was the 20th. Anyway, um yeah, so so they're they're they're essentially and look, let I I'll try Devil's Advocate for a second. Like maybe the way that they're dist distributing uh digital books is is changing or they're updating how it's done. But there's no reason why the old way for currently published books could not like you couldn't even leave that as an option for like an additional

fee for like new books to come out when a publisher decides like oh do you want it available on uh all Kindles or just Kindles after 2012? Like it'll cost this or this, right? Like the reason they're doing it is cuz I think Kindle sales have probably cratered because Kindles, especially these old ones, just keep working
and you don't need a refresh like a phone.
Yeah. I I think this is a um uh I I like I like Miss's note. This is forced obsolescence. This is not planned obsolescence. This is forced obsolescence, which is even worse. Now, I will also um be the person who uh mentions to all of you that uh if you were so inclined, you could do do a little bit of searching and maybe find out that the software on these Kindles uh is replaceable and that maybe you could with a little time and effort restore functionality to

your old Kindle devices and bring new life to them in a new and interesting form. How interesting it would be.
How interesting.
Just just just a note, just a a fun fact about your devices. Yeah. Um Yeah.
What a I like this. Hold on. This is so good. Obviously, you need to keep up with the tech advances of just playing basic tech on screen. all the new words that didn't exist.
That's right. That's right. And you have to subscribe. You have to subscribe to the Kindle new word service. How else are they going to update new Gen Z and Gen Alpha slang to to these books. You need new words. You can't just You can't just You can't just keep using the old words,
right?
You need a subscription service for words.
How can you expect a Kindle from 2012 to know the word skiibbidity, right? Like it's just

it's not going to be able to wish you a skiibbid rism. No.
Right. And like really that's what consumers of of high quality Kindle content crave.
I think Darkwolf hit the nail on the head here. Uh I need 67 in my Dune. I just I can't I can't live without it. Right. While I'm busy willfully misinterpreting all of the central themes of Dune to praise Paulrades and feel like he is a leader to be emulated instead of a warning about the problems of leaning heavily into prophecy and how he's the worst thing that's ever happened to the Fman, but that's a different story for another time. Uh I need 67.
Listen, yeah, Paul Trades is unc. Uh but the the the point is the point
I need THAT IN THE QUOTE BY HOLD ON. PAUSE. Twitch chat in the quote bot right now. Paul at Trades's Matt. I need it.
My point is
THIS IS

YEAH. NO, THAT'S CORRECT.
I I'm just like I try Hey, corporations. I try I try to be like, "Oh, well, maybe there's a reason. Maybe there's some kind of thing." And running a business is complicated. But like when you just get down to the brass tax of displaying text on a screen, this this planned obsolescence is so dastardly like there's no other way to put it.
This is like tablets should not be light bulbs. Hell, light bulbs shouldn't be light bulbs.
True.
Like I by that I mean the planned like bulbs being built in a certain way to burn out. Like the same thing with light

bulbs or tires or thing like you can make a stronger longerlasting version of those things but companies don't because they want to keep selling the things.
This push to LED bulbs by the way that
of course. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's there's alternatives etc. Right. Uh but my my point is uh this is like there's no defending like this actually to be perfectly honest either of these things like
if you want to get into the streaming games business that's fine. Also if if Amazon can't win in the streaming games business I think we might want to call it at least for now. Oh, I'm sorry. Does the infinite money glitch still make you lose your game? PERHAPS THE BUSINESS MODEL IS FLAWED. By the way, you can watch this on Twitch. Uh

uh also, BY THE WAY, UH JU JUST JUST ONE MORE ONE more like nail. As long as we're like, you know, lowering the Luna Coffin into the ground and someone in the background is piping Danny Boy. Um, uh, the the most damning thing of all is that Luna says you can download your saved games, but we don't promise they'll work anywhere else.
It says that.
Yeah, they
Oh, the saved Yeah, your saved game file.
Yeah, you could download your save game file, but it might not work on on any other version of the game on any other service, but you can download it. Bro, what? Like I'm licensing the game through you that I bought from Ubisoft Plus and you're telling me now that if I go and try and play the game that I purchased on Ubisoft Plus that I'm playing through you that my save game file might not work.

And isn't it only for a limited time? You can download your saves only up to a certain point.
Yep. And then it's going away. And this is all of course because Amazon is cutting their games division brutally. Oh, insanely so.
They are they are done because they got their butts kicked by Valve up, right, left, down, and center like and and there have been various studies on why from inside Amazon. And the basic reason is it turns out that people like Valve and don't like Amazon and that's why it doesn't work. Like it's not rocket science here, right? And we've just witnessed a whole bunch of rocket science to be clear.
Excellent rocket science. The public zeitgeist has never been more aware of the precision of rocket science and how this is not that
from a from an organization that is drastically underfunded. I who was I talking to it? I I don't want to quote the wrong person, but so I was talking to a friend this weekend and we were wa

oh we were watching the uh the Artemis uh splashdown and landing and uh essentially I'm going to butcher this thing but they said like wait so you're telling me that NASA uh a a a incredibly f like the funds just gutted by the US government to the point where a lot of people didn't even know that this was happening. There's no marketing budget at all. They can send four human beings to the farthest reaches of space that human beings have ever gone away from mother earth. But Amazon still loses my packages.
Yeah, that's correct. That that is correct.
Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool.
Yeah.
Cool. Cool.
Yeah. So, yeah. I I think um it just Yeah. This is like not No, this is a very good point. Oh, yeah. Uh
yeah,
because it's not you're not playing it on the Well, it's funny. I feel like

most of the cross progression games that I play seem to work well. I think like Cyberpunk and Hades. Yeah, in fairness, I think that there are some games that are designed with this with the idea of cross progression in mind and there are ways that they are they have that built in and this may be a case of we didn't ever plan to make the game do this thing.
Yeah. Also, Thunder, I know my analogy was flawed. The the the the idea is Amazon is bad at a lot of things and they have infinite money.
Yes. Correct. and they keep lighting it on fire. So, the hurting workers uh for this story is that now we see more clearly than ever uh how much Amazon just sucks
and how
well we all we all knew it like and it it felt it felt time especially after and again I will still call out good

things when companies do good things. We have a whole short about how they sunset uh New World or how they're actively sunsetting New World. That is how you do a thing. Right. Um this is not this needs more choice. This is a more complicated thing and um and it is being handled frivolous frivolously. And at the end of the day too, you have to remember that companies only make decisions like this if they think that it won't affect the bottom line or publicity too much. which also kind of says to me that there probably aren't enough Luna users to make enough of a stink where this will just be rolled over.
I I'll I'll do you one better. Uh Brad Janet, by show of of hand emotes, who has ever Actually, I I'll I'll do one better. Who in the last year has played a game on Luna? Not ever. Just in the last year, cuz I know people probably tried it when it came out, but like in the last calendar year, who has played a

game on Luna, right? We've got what's Luna again? Nope.
Nope.
I do love that we just have the the the nopers and yepers,
Zoe. Tom's looking to
looking. Never even heard of it. Nope. Nope. Nope.
Let's see. Nope. Nope. Nope. Never heard of it. Crickets. Yeah, I tried. It wouldn't let me.
Whoa. Oh, wait. Chrispher
one
Christopher.
Yeah. Okay. So, one person out of the plural hundreds here
now. I want So, this is good. This is good. This is good. Uh, uh, Chriser, question. Did you engage with Luna because you were in the position that we sort of uh we were theorized before like you didn't have a specific piece of gaming hardware you wanted to play a game on or were you just trying it because you were curious? I'm just curious about a user case and uh even though you've used it actively in this year uh were are you currently sort of

using it still and what do you as a user of this service think about this pivot? I know that's a lot and if you don't want to answer them all you could. Yeah. Okay. sister found a board game you wanted to play.
So, this was in I think probably um they have a they had a thing in there called uh Luna Game Night, which essentially was like things that you could like Jackboxesque experiences that you could sit down with everybody on your phones and play games on your couch.
Yeah.
In that way. Um uh
and then no hardware situation. Precisely. Yeah. kind kind of uh what the um oh god chat there's a board game you play it's hex based it's a big deal it's kind of like digital groom haven you all play on your phones it released in the past six months what is it cute animals anthropomorphic animals
on an adventure on your phone

the king
yeah I travesty katan was what I thought too but then I realized It wasn't
Thunderfolk. Thank you. Astounding Bacon's got it. Sunderfolk. Yeah.
Well, we got to get back to For the King. I miss For the King. For the King is so fun.
I miss a lot of things, but unfortunately, we are both short on this thing called time, and that bio won't slay itself.
Um,
and Returnal won't platinum itself,
right? Yeah. I I won't top 1% uh achievements in 14 by itself. I'm close, by the way. I'm like 500 places away.
I'm like 1.2%, I think. Wait, we have to stay on topic and go back to this and finish the story.
Do we have to though? Can we do that?
Yes, we do. We do. Because here's here's the thing. Here's the thing. Here's the thing.
The it is truly my belief that companies like Amazon want you to never own a thing and always rent a thing. to the point where

this goes even beyond gaming and other companies and things, but like even like it goes from the smallest thing like being able to download a book, a new book on uh uh a Kindle to all the way to uh finding a home you can afford to buy. companies are trying to uh limit the ability to do that and make sure that you always have to come to them consistently to get the new light bulb. Um we should not reward these people. We should not engage with them whenever we can not. Uh, and Luna, I'm sure will, uh, even though I'm sure it works well for people that need it to, they're going to continue to inshitify and deprecate things and and basically make it you get to rent whatever they say you're renting. And uh, I don't like that business model.
On an unrelated note, Decker In Search of Street Samurai.
There you go. There you go. Will, what's

your positive spin on this story? What is it? I gave mine. It could be ridiculous.
I think it's going to be really good when people who have those old Kindles cuz like, okay, if you're still using an old Kindle and and I do mean this like non-poratively, there are a bunch of moms still using those old Kindles,
right? There are a bunch of like older folks who may not be as tech literate, right? this is going to piss some number of them off enough that they are going to do something about it, right? This is this is sort of pivotal thing, right? Because it's disrupting a creature comfort. Um, and I think that that move will be a good thing for people realizing that Amazon is not as good as they think it is, right? And I think that this is like I do think this is a key misstep on Amazon's part because I do think that like
those people probably are buying other things.

Yeah.
Right. It's not that they're not buying Kindles and nothing. It's that they're buying other things because they don't need a Kindle. And now you're going to force them to need a Kindle. And I can't imagine that going well. Uh, Dryatas uh uh says, "How would you make the Kindle business model more viable otherwise? Increase prices." Uh, again, I do not have a business degree, but I'll take a stab at it. I think the you Oh, actually, you know what? It doesn't even matter that I don't have a business degree because again, Amazon is playing with the infinite money glitch. they can take this division and support it indefinitely due to all of their illotten gains elsewhere. So even playing with that, I would hire a bunch of researchers like to actually go in dive into the use case of why people use Kindles in the first place. See how for instance how many people are still on every generation. I'm sure they have all of those numbers and then figure out our infrastructure of how we serve books to

those devices. Do we need to update that for different technical reasons that I don't understand right now and things before 2012 will become more difficult to update and maintain? Okay, that might be true. Maybe then we do have a cost share differential between either the publishers uh ourselves or uh customers. But you could implement a system where those things don't just shut off. And you should implement essentially you should figure out what are the things that current Kindle users from old school to new school are still annoyed about using that product. There's these things are not perfect by now. There has to be things that people do not like on the whole. And then you start modifying and making your next Kindle something that addresses those issues. And yes, here's the thing. Will you eventually, if this is true, get to a place where you have the perfect e-reader for the majority of people that is modular enough, that has enough accessibility options, that has all of the things. Yes. And then you just

essentially become another bookstore. You've won. You don't need to make this infantile amount of money on this hardware. You've perfected it. you can just stay there and then you can rake in uh your cut from selling books. You have essentially done what Amazon's modus operandi from the very beginning was and killed brickandmortar bookstores and now you control every bookstore in everyone's hand because the product is so good. Is this a nightmare scenario too? Absolutely. But that is the win case scenario where you still keep enough people involved on this specific uh uh track to make money with Kindle. C
can I can I offer you a completely different take?
Please
make So So take the Kindle Paper White from like 2012. You could probably make it for no money.
Yep. and have a program where if you buy

a New York Times bestseller list once or New York Times best-selling Kindle book once per account, they send you one for free. Free Kindle Paperwhide from 2012 with your like that era of technology, right? Nothing fancy. Just reads Kindle books. Doesn't do anything else. you free one with the first purchase of a Kindle book. Now you're in the ecosystem and they've got you. They don't need to do anything else. This is so transparently stupid. These people were spending money on things and Amazon didn't need to do anything. Zero things.
Either of these positions that will and I have taken would be interesting and would do something along the lines to to uh Jeremy's point. uh reestablish trust with this brand because all they're doing right now is breaking that trust.

Yep.
Also, Saturn brings up a good point. What what uh percentage Kindle users have a Kindle uh older than 2012? Um I don't know. The interesting thing, and this again, this is a this is a personal choice, I think, of the next thing I'll say. Uh I don't think it matters. Does your Kindle still physically work? then it should be able to do the thing that you bought it for. There are again cuz things are complicated reasons why that might change slightly in various ways but essentially like in a in a uh moral world what it would be would be like hey we're no longer offering um the newest books on on our downloadable service for anything past 2012. Um, you can like essentially uh I don't know this

doesn't work. I was trying to think of like if they would just be like, "Yeah, just like jailbreak it and do whatever you want with it." Like they don't say that outright and they don't give instruction, but they don't disallow it.
Part of the problem is that there's nothing wrong with those, right? And like there's no serious advance, right? cuz you can just hack your um Amazon uh owned your Amazon formatted media into EPUBs and read them on anything. Like you could probably read an EPUB on a clay tablet. Like it's not
There's also another thing which I don't want to get too much into this because we're talking about games and not books, but it's you know it is what it is. Um, both of these things that Will and I have just said, these silly off-the-cuff ideas for for this, uh, and again, I still stand by the fact both would work only because of the infinite money glitch and it would be it would be doing at least slightly better than what it is now. Um, that's not to say it would make all the money, even that's the point. I also don't want

that. Like I don't want access to reading to be all through Amazon.fart. Like I just I want it to I I
I concur.
I I I don't want that. So I maybe the fact that the trust is broken and people are getting screwed while I don't like the individuals getting screwed. Maybe this will again be a wakeup call to maybe not trust one company with access to books.
Quick, someone register Amazon.fart.
I'm sure I'm looking it up right now. It has to exist.
Amazon.fart. So, actually, I didn't Hold on. I Googled it. I have to amazon.fart. No. So, if you type in Amazon.fart to your to the Google search bar, it brings

you just to a Google listing for Amazon.com and then the/farting.
You know, maybe don't add that to your search history. Maybe, maybe clear that. Maybe don't.
Frank the farting flamingo interactive farting toy and book box set. I think that uh that's the that's the the transition we were looking for. Yeah, absolutely. All right, everybody. Let's uh let's move on from
pallet cleanser. Pallet cleanser.
Pallet cleanser. All right, let's talk about something ridiculous. Okay, so Matt and I had a little experiment where we played World of Warcraft Midnight. It ended up not vibing uh for different reasons. It didn't really land with me and Matt doesn't have time.
I don't have time. I didn't finish it. Uh I I don't know if I'll go back. I had fun while I was there. And I think a thing that we both dis that like I at least discovered was I have a new respect for why people like WoW. I

don't, but I can see why people do, right? Um
my death my my uh my demon hunter Sabrina Carpenter will never will probably not get to level 90. Sad.
Yeah. Um so uh World of Warcraft Midnight's Race for World First uh just wrapped up for their first raid tier. And you may recall that um one of the big changes that they were making in Midnight was to remove the use of add-ons. That combat add-ons would no longer be necessary, right? No uh weak auras, less DBM, right? Like that you should be able to do a human readable and human communicatable mechanic for every fight all of the way through. And and you know that that would be it. And as a result of that, they've closed off more data to thirdparty add-ons. And one of the cool things that happened with that is that there was a secret

boss phase to the last boss of the raid that no one knew about, which is really cool. I think that that's great, right? Like 14 doesn't do this because we know like that there's going to be two phases to every final fight. That's just how that works, right? That's that's how that's worked in pretty much every final fight since uh Heaven's Word for sure. Um so that's just how that works and that's okay. Um, interesting side note, however, the WoW community appears to be so dedicated to the idea of add-ons that the that that an add-on was coded during the race to world first to help people solve a mechanic. I it's in the show notes if you want to look it up for yourself, but I will describe the following mechanic.

players are separated from each other and some players see a series of symbols.
Runes.
Runes, right? Like uh up five symbols. Okay, great. Excellent. Awesome. And then five players need to stand in an order around a boss either clockwise or counterclockwise and get hit by a laser while they have that symbol above their head. Okay. So it's a communication puzzle.
These lasers must be only touched when that symbol is present.
Correct. So despite having the best raiders in the world and dedicated coms and dedicated shot callers,
are they all like in the same house
more or less? I think there might be some of the remote, but I think most of the top teams do like geollocate. They made an add-on to display the runes

on screen. And and I think this really exemplifies like something that I hadn't fully realized before, which is how incredibly reliant WoW culture is on this because I I cannot stress this enough. This mechanic is not new. This mechanic is at least as old as Destiny 2 because this exact mechanic where players are separated into two groups and half of them can see something and half of them can't and they have to act on the information from the other group is in the finale of the first raid of Destiny 2.
Yeah,
it's like you can't play it anymore, but you're going to have to trust me. the end of the first raid where you're fighting the emperor, the this exact mechanic shows up. Like it's not a new mechanic. The mechanic is like a decade old. And the fact that that that they leaped to this solution just really sort of like shows I think

that Blizzard has a long way to go to convince people that like no, you can actually do it. Like you really can do it. Like please try. Don't just make a tool to do the thing. Like please, please try.
Yeah. Also, AMP, I agree. I love Keep Talking and Nobody Exploses.
Oh, I would love that. You're in the headset and I'm on the book, right?
I guess. Either way,
we can do it the other way because we both have headsets. We could take turns even.
That would be that would be tough cuz the group and I have to see. Okay, we'll talk about that. Yes. Yeah, that'd be fun. Yes. Um, so yeah, I don't I don't know. Uh it oh uh someone asked what's an add-on? Great question. It's a third-party plugin that's configured to change the game. So in this case, there's an add-on that adds a uh communicative widget between all the players in the raid where the people who see the symbols punch it in and the people who need to

act on the symbols see the order on their screen. That essentially solves the mechanic without having to do player-to-player communication. Yeah. Um, so yeah.
So yeah, they there's a really fun video of Team Liquid. Um, you can see it in the show notes on one of the on I believe the IGN I think it was an IGN article. um when the the m each moment of their webcam when they realized that this was going down and apparently like one of the NPCs says this cannot be and like someone else also like said it at the exact same time by accident like an actual player.
Yeah.
Uh and then they all wiped update though they did clear it. They have offic they have officially cleared it at this point.
Yep.
So
Yep. Yep. Yep. All right. Uh, that story interesting, fun, gives me more insight into World of Warcraft. Uh, I'm glad for
The good news about this is people had fun and had a challenge and gave us a

little internet moment and that's nice.
Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Uh, all right. It is now time for ads. Both real ads for things that you can buy over on Twitch and fake ads for things you can't buy right here. Matt, sell me a thing.
Oh boy. Um, let's see. What do people want to buy? H everyone, Matt from Extra Credits, where Will and Matt talk on Extra Credits live here on Twitch, YouTube, and nebula.org. It's not necess.tv. You got it. Anyway, uh this is an advertisement specifically for you never to own anything and only to continue to rent. That's right. Why own something when you could instead keep paying an organization indefinitely? Now, some organizations have a business model where this makes sense. However, organizations that I don't know sell physical goods perhaps

maybe shouldn't be doing that. But you know what? That doesn't make infinite money. Go for it. Just make that happen. I don't know. It's fine. Not my best. Will redeem me.
Hey everybody. Will from Extra Credits where Matt from Extra Credits just told you that he was on the place where Will and Matt from Extra Credits talk except it's Zio.tv instead of.org but really it's.com here to sell you the concept of tease the means of production. That's right. Own things like the means of production. Make things unashamedly. Make art that is good and yours and no one you don't rent it. Make things have things. They are yours. Own them. Own your own life. Workers of the world, rise up. Seize the means of production. Do the thing. Hey everyone, it's me, your boy Ank

Matt, going to sell you the idea that Paul trades, he's too. You think that maybe throughout the Dune franchise, and I won't spoil where it goes, but it gets a little weird. Uh he might not be the most relatable with the youths. Well, you're right. And that's why I would like to regular I'd like to uh normalize the idea that Paulrades is in fact now. And if you don't think that Paulrades is in fact, well, guess what, fam? You might be, too. Yeah. Um, so, uh, I I just want to I just want to point this out. Um, correct, the add-on, well, there are two versions. The first version of the add-on did do it automatically, and the second one is just a communication add-on. I want to be very clear. It is just a communication add-on.

Why? I I am conf I am genuinely confused about the why, right? Because the challenge there is the the interpersonal communication, right? It is to facilitate better communication among the raid group between shot callers like to have someone whose job is to carry the mental load. And by creating an add-on, they have offloaded the entire mechanic, the difficult part of the mechanic to a computer rather than embracing the idea that it is a skill challenge to manage interpersonal communication because like that's a huge part of it, right? Like in 14, no add-ons are allowed. Zero add-ons of any kind, right? And so in 14, when we have to do that, we communicate, right? We find ways to communicate with in-game chat. There's a mechanic in um uh the fourth raid of this series where two different groups need to memorize a thing. And we found a way to use text chat to do it in game without using a

third party add-on, right? But some groups did it with voicecoms, right? And like it's a simple fourdigit thing or some people just memorized it, right?
It's like in Dune they outlawed computers thinking computers
shall not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.
You see? And so all of the stories you thought it was nonsense, but it all ties together,
right? Yeah. Also, yes. If you think Pollet Trades is a cool guy, I fear you may have missed the point of Dune, and I beg you to try again.
Spicy take, Will. Spicy take.
Yep. Uh, okay.
What's next? He said, not pretending he wasn't looking at the format. I hate this so much. All right. Who remembers Jazz Jackrabbit? Who Who

members the foul-mouthed gun toading alternative to Sonic the Hedgehog? Who members Jazz Jackrabbit? Jazz isn't back. No. No. I'm sorry. Sorry to disappoint with my poorly created Photoshop.
So that is however Mickey with a Glock. So Epic is making we we talked a bunch about the Epic the possibility that Disney wants to buy Epic and that Disney has a 1.5 billion dollar stake in Epic and we talked about it all last week on Design Club and like there's a whole there's a whole bunch of stuff. Yeah, it's a golden glock. Excuse me.
Pardon? And uh there is a report from Bloomberg says that Epic is working on a Disney themed extraction shooter.
Get to the evac point. Um

Uhhuh. If you touch my little I'll
boy
I beg you. What a Disney themed extraction shooter like Tarov or Ark Raiders.
So, so, okay. Okay, let's let's back up. Let's let me let me be devil's advocate person for a second. If it I know the the the the genre is called extraction shooter, but like you could skin this in a way that is not like shooter coded, right? Like you could do an extraction based game with with shooter mechanics that aren't like guns, right? Or killing or you know stuff like like there's a world where you could do that. Now do I think Epic is the company to do that? I mean probably not considering almost

every mode of Minecraft is based around rifles. or or some sort of firearm in general. Um, but it's possible. I mean, they might and I know that they there's, you know, they had what is it? It's a how big was Disney's investment uh a couple years back? Uh, $1.5 billion.
It's 1.5.
So, this is essentially uh the what they're hoping will be the first like game built off of that investment. Uh, that was in 2024. Bloomberg had reported so um and and trying to get a quote long-term collaboration with Epic that's planned to build transformative games and entertainment and entertainment universe. Um however, Epic last month laid off a thousand people.
Yeah. So I don't Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Also, I want to be clear, my concern with the idea of an extraction shooter isn't that it couldn't be skinned to be something

that isn't guns. It could be paint. It could be whatever. My problem is that a fundamental part of the extraction shooter is the PVPVE experience. And that's notoriously toxic. That player experience is notoriously toxic. That's not what we want from Disney
or at least not what I think Disney wants.
That's a great point. That's a great point.
Right. That like my I don't care how it's skinned. A PVPVE game with Disney characters is going to have a bunch of 12-year-olds screaming obscenities at each other like you poopy farthead, right? like I I don't know how it's going to go. Um it Yeah, Thunder's right. It could go full PvE. Yes, it is also correct. We did suggest this last week that Epic may have done those layoffs in order to go more revenue positive to make themselves more attractive to be bought because Epic really wants to be bought. Jeeoff and I did a whole hour and 45 minute discussion on that last week. You can find it here on the uh on the YouTube.

If you go back in the uh design club channel, we did a whole deep dive on why we think Epic wants to get bought and why Disney really wants to buy Epic. Um and this is part of it, right? So
yeah. Um
um
yeah I um look this is sort of uh we're poking fun with the graphic and we're you know t like there's a world where a game like this could be good and Epic does make good games when they put their mind to it but like this whole I think it's the it's the entirety of the situation surrounding this particular thing like in a vacuum I'd be like oh well we'll wait and see. All right. Here, I just feel like, not that I'm thinking about this too much, but I don't have a good feeling when I think about it. I get kind of a dreadful feeling when I think about it. Like, you know, like it's just not it's not good vibes.

Uh, and so I'm curious what this might be. Now, look, like a Disney property as well. I I can see why they want to do this. uh around Marvel Rivals is a huge success. And granted, is the violence intrinsic in a hero shooter? Does that make a lot more sense with Marvel characters than like Disney themed characters? I would argue yes. Um but like what if it's like different Disney movie themed things where Mickey and team are trying to escape the brooms with the with the hat, right? Like or some like that. So there's ways to do it. Will, I think your point about PV PVE uh being intrinsically toxic is entirely true, and I hope that they're taking that into consideration considering most folks playing a game like this will probably be children. Um
yeah,

and I well I think the monetary practices are predatory in certain ways um in the Fortnite ecosystem I I how are how are actual like moderation like how how like
it's better than Roblox and we'll talk about Roblox here in
but that's also not saying a ton. So, like look, in a in a world where you have to pick where this comes from,
a lesser of evils, maybe. I don't know. That's uh my my positive thing here is I got to make a photoshop of Jazz Jackrabbit and that made me happy.
Yeah, I'm about that. I got to remember Jazz Jackrabbit fondly.
Mhm.
Okay, let's do a positive story. A little one, but a positive story. Xbox is updating achievements. They're updating the graphics, animations, sounds, and the way that you organize achievements finally. It's been a dog's age, but they're finally getting a revamp and a facelift. So, that's nice. Uh, importantly, among this, you will

now be able to highlight games you have 100%ed in the list rather than them being buried uh deeper down. So, if you're an achievement hunter on Xbox, you'll be able to to do stuff. Sorry, I was stifling the giant yawn that happened. I am the EPS. Achievement unlocked. Eie on a Monday.
Another great thing about um this update is you can hide um uh trophies or achievements for certain games because in a world and I think they finally understood how people are utilizing their their systems. in a world of Game Pass where you try out a bunch of games that you might not be interested in ever achievement hunting in regardless that can really just fill up your wall your your sort of achievements menus. You can now hide games. So like you you're free to try out all these games and maybe you unlock one or two achievements but you really don't care because you're not going to finish it. You don't want to have that just right in front of you. So that's something that's been a long time

coming. Very good on Xbox. We've been poo pooing a lot of decisions Xbox has been making. This is a wonderful, smart, nice, small update that I think will make the Xbox ecosystem uh much, much better for people who like achievement hunting.
Yep. As someone who is achievement hunting right now, God, do I hate the fact that I need to use a third party tool to help me plan out my achievement hunting in 14. Uh, so, all right, chat, everybody, grab a brush, grab a shovel.
Wow. We're going to go and do some archaeology that's roughly pyramid shaped.
Okay, this was my favorite graphic I did today. Can someone in chat before we take get I just need to I need to feel not ancient, can someone tell me that they know what Cutco is? Please, SOMEBODY MAKE ME

OTHERWISE, I'LL EXPLAIN IT. I'll still explain it even if Even if no one can. Who in chat? Okay, Tux. Tux gets it. Yeah, we're getting Okay. Okay. Whoa, that it flooded in. Okay, so yes. Yeah, Tux actually got it. He goes where they go the knives. Yes, the knives. And specifically Lurker, a knives pyramid scheme. The new update uh that Roblox is announcing its new subscription plan and exclusive platform benefits is nothing short but a Cutco knives wet dream. It is terrible. It who Okay, let's back up. Who is familiar? Also, there's nothing wrong with the product of Cutco knives. It is the it is the business model of being a pyramid scheme that is that is rough. Um,

who understands what a period scheme is? Well, what is a period a pyramid scheme? So, pyramid scheme works like this. I am going to sell a product, but I'm not going to sell the product to people who want to buy the product. I'm going to sell the product to other people who want to sell the product. So, Matt and I are down on our luck. Matt's got a wedding to buy and I need a bunch of Magic cards. So, I'm gonna fund my bunch of Magic cards. I go to my friend Matt who needs to spend a bunch of money on a wedding and I go, "Matt, I have a way that you could spend a bunch of money on a wedding. You're gonna buy these knives from me and then you're going to sell them at a markup and you're going to make a bunch of money. And you could sell them to other people or you could sell them to other people so the other people could sell them." And it gets bigger and bigger and it's a big pyramid scheme. Eventually, if I'm successful, I am the the head of a distribution operation of a whole pyramid of people all selling Cutco knives to try and make ends meet. But no one's actually selling them to someone

who wants to use the knives. They're just selling them to other people to sell them.
So, Roblox's um dominance of the gaming space is uh insane. Since 2021, this from PC, I believe it's from PC Gamer. Um, essentially Roblox has been responsible for over 60% of the games industry's net growth uh outside of China. So, a lot um they basically announced, however, that this is not enough. And uh they want to quote uh to deliver more value to their users. And what they're doing is they're replacing the existing Roblox Roblox premium uh subscription uh or with a new one that offers a couple different things. Subscribers get 10% price discounts on purchases using Roblox uh increasing to a 20% discount after a subscriber's third consecutive month. It also says that they will cover the discount so creators will continue to

earn the same amount of money as they did before. That's a good thing. Um, they'll also have free and unlimited access to private servers, even for games that would normally charge a Robux fee for the privilege. And subscribers can send Robux to other players without transaction fees. Now, that's a little dangerous in this thing that is um uh under a lot of scrutiny with how they handle their very young audience uh base. Uh but they don't worry Roblox says uh users must be age checked and 18 plus before they can send or receive without parental approval whatever that means. But the weird thing here um to offset the cost of things like private servers and other stuff like oh and they're taking away you used to get I guess with their premium package and I'm not fully familiar with this. You used to get a a stipend of Robux every month that you could spend. You no longer get

that. But here's what you get. The ability to sell. So, uh, they say you can earn up to a 100red Robux for every Robux plus or every Roblox plus subscriber who spends 60 or more cumulative minutes in a game uh, paid private server over the course of 30 days. So, if you can convince people to come and play your game, you can earn up to a hundred Robux. They were giving that away before or something along those lines, but whatever. So, you got to really you got to grind, son. You got to pay us so you can grind. Then, Roblox says it will only pay out for the five private servers with each Roblox Plus user spent the most time in. So, you can't do it infinitely. It would be up to five, I believe. And then the last thing, Roblox will allow creators to implement a prompt in their game encouraging players to subscribe to Roblox Plus. And

as a reward for that successfully convincing someone, uh they will uh the creator will receive a bonus of 250 Robux per month for each of the subscribers first three months. So on the service that you're paying for, if you then work as an advertiser for the service that you're paying for to convince more people to sign up for the service that you're paying for, you too can just hustle your grind set into whatever dystopian nightmare you'd like. And uh but don't worry. Hey, don't worry. Roblox gave people uh copy that they that they say you should use when you're doing this. Roblox Plus provides a new path for users who want to get more out of the platform and for creators looking for more ways to earn.

Wait, that wasn't it. It doesn't matter. It's about right. This is it. This is a pyramid scheme. They're implementing a pyramid scheme for children that you pay for.
You remember, okay, there was there was a a there was something that was so like this um where when there were like NFT games going around and like we all just dumpstered that like completely. We like looked at it and went like, "Okay, so they're trying to get children to get on the grind set and recruit other children to farm currency to make NFTts. Like like bro, what in the fresh dystopian hell is this?"
It's it's it's nuts.

Yeah. No, I and I mean, you know, Demon Works, you're right. They already profit on illegal child labor. Why not double down and make it an illegal child multi-level marketing pyramid scheme? Yeah, correct. So, and again, they're taking away the thing that they were giving you so you can earn it for being a mouthpiece for the service that you're paying for.
It's not a pyramid scheme. The brochure specifically says so.
Oh, okay. We didn't we didn't check to be fair and balanced. We did not check the brochure before starting this show. I have the the uh the the the subscription plan announcement in the in the show notes. You can you can read it for yourself. It's it's not great. Um to the ground, I think to the ground.

The whole thing just to the ground. Nothing left outside. Touch grass instead of Roblox to the ground. Any good it might have been doing. And that's a very limited amount at some point to to the ground. Anything else? Legos connects grass, the frisbees, anything else to the ground. The whole thing to the ground. Just straight down to the ground. Maybe I'm trying to think of the positive take. Maybe there's a way you don't have to engage with this and you could still as a as a younger person uh have an easier place to learn the fundamentals of sort of game design through this in some way because you can make games on it.
I'm going to be so much more cynical with my good news.

I don't know. This is a hard one. What's yours?
This will help parents convince their kids to not play Roblox.
You think it'll help parents convince their kids? I don't think kids are gonna I
I I think parents are going to need to have a conversation with their kids about this. Now, to be fair, most of the parents who are responsible have already pulled their kids out of Roblox, but like maybe this will for every kid who gets pulled out of Roblox because of this, that's a good thing.
Yeah. I But I think Okay, so I'm not a parent. Neither of us are parents. uh nor so I I I will not pretend to to know how uh difficult and complex and and and time draining and energy uh usage of your own mental faculties parenting can be. I know we have some parents in chat right right now. Uh you can all speak to that far better than I can. Um, I think what Roblox is counting on is the intrinsic and incredibly

subversive and difficult methodology and mental uh uh hoops one would have to jump through to convince their child to not do the thing that all their friends are doing that they go and have fun with their friends in.
Yeah. Um, I I would like and of a certain age, I'm sure you you could talk to a kid to sort of get them to sort of understand a little bit, but I don't envy that position and I don't think it's an easy one and I don't think it would be a terribly successful one for a lot of people. not based on any skill issue, just like you, from what I understand from my friends that are parents, especially of kids the age that uh would engage with Roblox, you're fighting against like the hive mind of children and you're just one person or two people or however many are helping you with your family, right?

like and and I will fully admit that I was an incredibly neurodeiverse bullied kid. So I did not participate in the childhive mind. So this was never an issue for me. Like I didn't have a lot of the things that my peers did, but I also had stuff that they didn't have that I enjoyed more. Right. Think about this.
I don't have a personal experience that's a stake in this. Right. At all. I think I think about if I ever uh were to have children like how to navigate this and I I there I don't think there is a clean answer like you want to cuz like logically you can get through it but I think every parent will let you know that logic for a lot especially for many years of raising a child does not come into the equation or or the type of logic that would be needed for this kind of discussion to take hold.
Yeah. Um, so yeah, uh, way to go Roblox. You're essentially making a pyramid scheme that is also going to make it more difficult for parents to discuss why not to engage

in your pyramid scheme. What great capitalism you've done.
Yep. Great.
Great. Great capitalism. All right. Deep breath. Let's talk Pokemon champions. This was a fun photoshop, too.
So, Pokemon Champions released last week to the sound of a wet fart.
Would you say that Pokemon Champions is in trish?
No.
Got him. Um, Pokemon Champions had a had a to say that it had a rough launch was would be an understatement. Even uh videos from former Pokemon world champions uh like Wolf Glicks were not free of of problems and errors that made it into the final

cut. Um, there there's there's some issues. Let's talk about what Pokemon Champions is and what it was slated to be.
Yeah. Oh, we should also disclaim neither of us have played it, but we're we're reporting on a a wide array of information that is well reported.
There are four articles
uh that we have in the show notes that you can peruse about all of this.
Yeah. So, um Okay. Pokemon Champions was supposed to be Pokemon's new competitive platform essentially that would be generation agnostic so that as generations move forward you have a centralized place to engage with competitive Pokemon. It was designed to integrate with home and also allow you a new way to do the customization of Pokemon that previously has been a touch on the painful side and has led to things like um generating

Pokemon uh using code rather than farming them in-game organically um for teams. Uh and that's been an issue of some discussion for a very long time. Um this was slated to be the the release of it. It is uh currently on Switch 2. It will eventually also be on mobile, but this is supposed to be their new flagship competitive platform. This is where people who play competitive Pokemon get to go to play competitive Pokemon. This is it. This is sort of their response to Pokemon Showdown, um, which is a third party website that does a similar thing, albeit for free, as opposed to the the way that Pokemon Champions monetizes, which isn't as extreme as I was fearing. But
so, and I just sort of looked this up. So, this is made by the Pokemon Works. That's the development company. The developers are doing it. It was formed in 2024 as a joint venture between the Pokemon Company and ILCA. Um,

so I don't think I was just trying to see if game how game freak was involved. Trying to figure it out. Uh, this is not great for your ubiquitous battle place.
Correct. So, a couple of a small smattering of issues which uh just are like bad on their face. Number one, things were shown in trailers that didn't make it into the game. From mega evolutions to Pokemon to held items shown in promotional materials for the game. The game only has 200 Pokemon and not all of the held items shown in promotional videos and not all the mega mega evolution shown in promotional videos are available in the game at launch. That's not a good look to start with.
Yep. Second, the game has what I can only

describe as huh level technical bugs. Some of which include it won't behave as it should when docked unless you manually while the game is running undock and redock the Switch.
That's the only way to get it to go into 4K.
Correct. Otherwise, you're seeing 1080 regardless of what you're doing
on your Switch 2.
Uh still running at 30 frames a second.
Yes, correct. Okay, that's that's a problem. Um next up, uh on launch day, this has since been patched mercifully. Uh there was an issue with one of the flagship features, the ability to transfer Pokemon from home. And the way that worked is you set your Pokemon from Pokemon Home to Pokemon Champions. And they never got there. So, Pokemon Home says, "This Pokemon's in Champions. You can't use it for anything." And Pokemon Champion says, "I didn't see anything for Pokemon Home." So, your Pokemon, maybe your favorite

Pokemon, the ones that you've been training and trading forward through generations and finally got it into home, were lost in limbo indefinitely until they patched it.
What?
Yep. You had like one job, broid, lord of the brochion, and it was to move things from A to B, not A to Right. Okay. So, that was that was that was a problem. Um, uh, there are also problems with moves not working properly, uh, problems with animations not working properly, problems with Pokemon having impossible combinations of, um, stats, gender, whatever. Um like male only forms had female like which is fine.
Sure.
Because trans icon but also like the bare minimum level of quality control was clearly skipped here.

Yes,
this is not indicative of a high quality release. This is worse than some of the other recent Pokemon releases that have sucked. This is real bad. especially because again this is supposed to be the flagship location of VGC going forward and they screwed it up.
I think um I think the the interesting thing here is it shows uh the naked truth of what companies that aren't used to doing free-to-play games think of free-to-play games. Throw it out there. It's free to play game. Doesn't matter if it works or not. We'll fix it later. Throw it out there. Now you you you you think about various levers when you do something like this, right? And the whoever is in charge believes that the Pokemon brand name and franchise can withstand this being a glitchy pile of nonsense for the first 3 months or whatever it is. Uh because people will still come to it and maybe even I mean I hope this isn't the case

but like negative press then gets it its name out there then it turns into positive press and whatever when they start patching things. Um, it's just an overall feel bad. It's It's um,
yeah,
I'm not deep enough in here to be infuriated by this, but I could see games that I am deep enough in where if something like this was uh, pitched to me as the end- all beall point of where all this was sort of leading to and where like competitive would be, etc., I would be very, very angry.
So, let's let's let's do an example. Let's do let's do an example. If Magic Arena, a platform which hosts cash prize events, all of which have the appropriate restrictions and rules to make sure that people who are of age and in the appropriate jurisdiction are competing, there are cash prize events on Arena. had anywhere near the level of problems

that this did on launch, no one would use it for that like at all. Like the basics of this is a turnbased game and some of the moves don't work correctly.
Like it's not even what's missing. It's that some stuff just doesn't do what it's supposed to do. You cast lightning bolt and it does two instead of three. You cast it on a creature, it does it to your opponent's dome. And now you just lost out on a significant amount of money in a tournament you paid to enter and has a cash prize. Now we have like a serious loss of trust, right? Because this isn't this isn't Unite. This isn't like an offbranch. This isn't another freetoplay like cafe, sleep, unite, whatever. This is supposed to be their first party cash platform, cash prize platform.

This is so much worse than goofing any of their other launches. They need trust here if they're going to continue to foster a competitive scene here. And this is it.
I think also this this might also be a calling card to them like not giving a crap about the actual competitive scene, which again is their prerogative. Nintendo and and the Pokemon Company, etc. have always kind of like They're there because they know that's what some people in the the loudest people in the community want. Um, but I don't I I think they also see the writing on the wall of essentially of like that's not where the money is made for them, so they're not going to focus on it. Even though this is supposed to be that thing, I think the fact that the focus was not put on this and the fact that they released in such a manner also speaks to their not making this a full-blown priority for the brand. I also think that it's a bit circular. Like I feel like they're like,
okay, Magic has many ways to play.

And I'm using Magic here specifically because it is another ubiquitous turnbased game with many different buyins.
Sure.
Okay. Um, they have done a great job of fostering a competitive environment by creating an easy on-ramp to a competitive environment, right? by by allowing people to play it easily, right? I feel like they could they have decided that like that's fine that no one plays competitively, but they could have done a better job with this, especially because there's already a competitive platform with I a significant user base that plays competitive Pokemon in a similar format to this that they just kind of like ignored. I think the difference though, I think the reason why Magic says, "Okay, I want to put money into this process and make this the pipeline is competitive play makes them more money."
Like it it makes through players and through people enjoying it and playing the thing makes magic money. Where originally, and I know there's things in

Pokemon Champions you can buy, like I don't know if it's cosmetics or things like that, but there are things you can you can purchase in this free-to-play game that's not just a a bin for your Pokemon from other places. Um, there isn't like the lore of Pokemon and being able to move them between games is you have the same Pokemon that you found in a game that you bought for $50 or whatever and now you're moving it through these things and you're leveling it up and you're getting it stats just right and whatever. You've sort of built a thing out of a a little piece of a purchase you purchased years ago. It's not the same as you need to buy the newest cards in order to maintain uh competitive edge. And therefore, a competitive scene in Pokemon with its current way that it makes its money won't ever make it a ton of money.
Yeah.
You know what I mean? And that
it stinks because if that's what people like uh uh people want, you know, but like it makes sense to me on a business level. It just it super stinks that like I feel like Pokemon Championships uh

champions um as launched is a real like peak behind the curtain of what they actually think about this part of their scene.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, let's look. Now, in total fairness, they have patched some of these problems already and are working on patching more. They have been responsive and are working on fixing it. I worry that the damage may have already in some ways been done. So, we will we will see how this goes. Um, but this is this is an ongoing story. So, we'll see if they manage to patch this up and make it into something that people are happy to use or if people are going to begrudgingly be like, "Well, I guess this tournament's in champions. Going to have to deal with that." So,
we'll see.
All right. Next, but not
the good thing is I got to say the word trish.
This is a good word.
Okay. Doki,
what happened? Do Yeah. Right. Okay. So, Dokyoki Literature Club is a phenomenally unique,

weird experience with a content warning list about half as long as my arm. It is weird. I will not spoil any of it because it is indie enough that some of you may not have played it.
It is weird. No spoilers.
It is dark. It is subversive in its nature and it's been pulled from the Android store after like nine years being listed there for all of a sudden uh no longer uh complying with Android's requirements for displaying sensitive themes. Um, and I'm kind of worried cuz I feel like this is when platforms start to get uncomfortable with art. I I will absolutely say that Dokyoki Literature

Club, despite not being my cup of tea, is capital A art.
I think video games are. Yeah.
Yeah. I think it is one of the most interesting ways to use the ma medium of video games to tell a dark and subversive story, right? Phenomenally interesting. when platforms start to get cold feet about art and start taking a whack at subversive games or games that um uh don't comply with the status quo. I start to get bad feelings.
Yeah,
because this feels like a really easy like, oh, who cares? It's a nine-year-old game. Google, what are you doing, buddy? Hey buddy, what are you what are you doing? Why why you do this? Need a reason?
This feels like it's just like an error from somewhere, right? But this was on April 9th when this was published. Uh we

got this over again from PC Gamer. Um and Serenity Forge uh did a post about this uh and saying that they, you know, it's still available in other places, iOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and more. We're continuing to do everything to find a path forward to getting it back. Reinstate it on Google Play Store. um other also looking for alternate methods to distribute on Android, right? Um but they don't like they don't really know why this hit um hopefully it just gets put back.
Yeah. But I and I think Grass has a really great take on this which is how many small unknown games has this happened to? We hear about this one because it's important in being a cult classic, but like how many other good important subversive stories are being
Yeah. And I don't think I truly don't believe that the Google store like sought this out and was like, "Ah, this

theme this can't be seen by anybody." I don't think that's what it is. Again, I will say my catchphrase until the day I die. Never assume malice when incompetence will do. There's probably some overarching edict. Protect the children. Uh do something else like something that's so borderline not helpful, but you need to show you're trying to help so that you can have the shareholders say, "See, we're trying to help." Like without doing any actual work.
Yep.
Um I guarantee you this got swept up in something like that.
Yeah. I don't think this is a nefarious thing to make sure that none of us can see Doky Doi Literature Club um after 9 years. I think this is a rounding error in in performative um performative what's the word I'm looking for? Uh
helpfulness, moderation. I don't know.
Yeah.
Um
yeah. Uh and yes, I think yeah, I I'm

with Fen. DDLC is one of the game history artistic heights of the medium examples you would literally teach in classes. Yes. Now,
here's my positive here. Oh, sorry.
And again, and I need to do this because it is a it's a bit of a bait and switch. If you're going to play Dokyoki Literature Club, because we talked about it, you need to read the whole content warning list or look at the game genres as displayed on Steam and believe them because the game takes like a 270 degree turn into a dark place very quickly.
Mhm.
That being said, worth
and also don't D's uh thing here. Don't assume incompetence when evidence is present. Google pays the anti-woke press. Sure. But this is such a m like we've seen how they work in the macro and it's still just keywordbased like it's not like this I I what I'm trying to say is I don't think that this particular game was targeted. I think it got swept up in a larger dumb targeting.

U you know.
Yeah.
Um and here's my positive. Here's my positive of it. Now I'm going to go play Dokyoki Literature Club because I've never played it. So now I'll go do it.
Is it working? Is
maybe maybe All right.
Is Is getting it off a platform working so less people see it?
Yeah. I don't know. We just spent I don't know five 10 minutes talking about it. Uh okay. Last up. I'm so excited. I'm so excited. All right. So,
yeah. Thanks, by the way, for putting an AK-47 in a temp game. Appreciate that. It's from it's from pal world. That's a pal.
I know.
Who's hunting that cute temptem duck?
Yeah, but the problem is that no one knows that because no one knows what pals or temptems look like.
Okay.
Oops.
Uh KMA the group that made temptem what

I consider to be a superior innovation in the turnbased creature collector genre. I think Temptem did a lot of things that Pokemon should have learned from. I'm real bummed that it didn't last longer because the weight of the Pokemon franchise is so significant. But like some of the battle innovations that they made in Temptem were dope. They just finished Tempem Swarm, which is their um uh bullet heaven game, right? In which you level up temps through playing a survivoresque game. now are doing a uh survival co-op building game in the same
there aren't guns in it. There aren't guns in it.
There are no guns in it. It is
the closest analogy is a PAL world.
Correct. However, unlike PAL World, Tempem has proven that they are already capable of releasing a game that is perilously close to the Nintendo please don't sue us line without running a foul

of it. And they may
get it. Yeah, because it's
um they are they also make a quality product. I am genuinely excited to see what the next thing from this team is. Uh even if it's getting buoyed by the hype cycle of the Power World lawsuit, I genuinely think Crayo makes a good product. I like the Tempteam franchise. I think this will be good. I'm I'm excited for it. This is this is my this is my one little nugget of like, hey, a team I like that does a thing that I like is doing more things that I like.
That's good. and I'm excited.
Yeah, I'll check it out. I'll check it out when it drops. I like I like seeing these things when they first come to fruition. Um
I believe we were we were at PAX, I think, when when PAL World dropped.
Um so we didn't get we weren't there for the first week or so.
Yeah.
But yeah.
Yeah.
My apologies, chat. The EPS have finally

caught up with me. I have held them at bay.
Well, it's a good thing, Will, that this episode of Games for Breakfast is now coming to its inevitable conclusion. What have we learned?
Paul Trades is
Yep. Uh-huh.
Corporations are not your friends.
You got it.
And Mass Felp quacks me up. Is there anything else we learned, Chad? I want to I want to end I I want to start a new tradition before our regular tradition chat in both Brad and Janet on on Twitch or YouTube or if you're watching over on Nebula, please blue sky us. Uh Will will put that up on the screen momentarily where you can do that. What did you learn in today's games for breakfast? Wrong and right answers only.
What? Yeah.
Diz says internet is dumb. Agreed. I see. MLMs are bad. Also true.

Seize the means of production. Great.
True.
MLMs are bad.
I think I learned I could buy knives with Robux now.
Uh, it's nice to find a positive spin on these times.
Yep.
Apolog Janet. I'm not going to play it today. I'll I'll buy it today. Uh, pyramids are bad. I schemes. Pyramid schemes are bad. Pyramids in general, they're pretty neat.
Yeah.
Uh Crimson 2012 Kindles have good batteries. I think that's a great lesson.
True.
Uh I learned how old I am that I don't get half of the problems listed at the end of the show. Uh, also, and we'll end it with this, also seize the memes of production. These are all great lessons. Please, uh, message us on Blue Sky if you weren't

here, or if you're watching the VOD, uh, and you or you leave a comment over on the YouTube machine as well. Um, let us know what you think you learned because I'd like to know. Uh, if you already haven't, by the way, uh, I don't know, just check out all the other stuff on on our channels, wherever you're watching this on. If you're watching Twitch, stick around. Will's gonna be playing something right after this. If you're on YouTube, we just launched our um Magic the Gathering is Fortnite now video, which actually I am so proud of the um between Eddie Webb uh uh Nick Dit and myself trying to get uh a lot of magic pun jokes in around uh in various uh cardbacks. Uh please go check that out. If you're watching on Nebula, you can check out all the other games for breakfast and design clubs adree over there or any of our other stuff ad free over there. So, please go check out all that stuff.
Yeah.
Oh, and uh uh learned that a single kicks is a kick.

True.
And I only had one.
I'll fight you. I'll fight you, Mom. I'll do it.
Wow.
You can't catch me. I'm too fast. I'm too on this grind. I will sleep while I grind. It'll be great.
Uh, anything else, Will, before we do our patented sign off?
No, I think that's it. There will be a very cool design club this Thursday on designing digital third spaces. Please join us for that. We've got a special guest. We're going to be talking about that with them. So, please join us for that on Thursday.
There you go. Well, now the only thing left to do is to send all of y'all off into the week uh with a with a moment of unity, with a moment of growth, with a moment of of come togetherness where we all can do the exact same thing that everyone knows every time to ensure that we are just one lovely Games for Breakfast uh family and that uh we can just engage with together as sort of a lastm minute, you know, something positive, right? We had a lot of negativity and when we're together, we're the most positive we can

be. So, thank you so much for watching Games for Breakfast this week. And remember, we all should only have one kick.