Bernie Sanders Calls for Unionization and EA's Surprise Mechanics | Games ReCAP Episode 007

Oh what's up everybody welcome to another episode of games recap morning everybody enjoy that coffee but take a minute to sit with us and listen to us talk about everything that happened in the game industry yesterday is very important Brandon take over for a moment I want to turn on this light okay so uh as Larry is exiting the screen this is Brandon fan and of course my co-host Larry Charles is joining us as always every day at 10 a.m. Pacific time so you are catching us either on live twitch obviously if you are missing us you can go to our YouTube account obviously and let me actually throw those graphics up so that we can give our chance myself a chance so as we are going through today's news the great thing is that

let's go over the first topic right sure I was browsing in my comfort zone the restrooms on the toilet scrolling scrolling and I saw Bernie Sanders I guess collecting votes right best way to put it where he's calling for unionization within the game industry we don't like going political I really am the worst at it because I'm not very educated on that yeah this this topic specifically is less about politics and more so about like game politics sure well well it game right well I mean it's it's not like we're saying these are candidates we endorse or this is one person's political stance versus another yeah we're just actually unpacking an issue that is a hot-button in politics right now right but it's extremely relevant to what we're doing here on the platform yes so whatever the Millennial person is on the Bernie Sanders team very smart right they clued them in like what is games like these are interactive things that

you play on these lists of notes for computers yeah flappy birds and all this stuff but uh what's a great benefit to it all whether you are for it nationalizes the game industry and its problems sure way bigger than before because this topic was like homebrew kind of starting with GDC game were these nice very grassroots and this if anything puts it on the front page on what is going on with the game industry and everybody is familiar with games enough to understand like for tonight my kids everybody is playing it's it's a formidable industry it's a with streaming with it actually being like Avenue for game developers out there to actually do it's a perfect time to like give an inside look up hey people in the industry aren't exactly really happy about what's going on yeah we've we've kind of been able to

say to ourselves for decades of game development but now I mean we've become cultural phenomenon through some of the products that people are playing that come from the game industry then also EA loot box fiasco and now spawns like governments around the world are stepping in to try to regulate or moderate what's happening in in games game development and game sales obviously we have another topic kind of rising to the top as well which is you know just labor unions in general but now focus on the game industry Bernie Sanders is like taking a public stand to say like oh I support the game industry if they plan on unionizing because I think that they should mm-hmm now let me switch to some articles here that we actually browsing through here so pull some graphics or yeah so I read that tweet yeah so what was he saying so the video game industry you know Holly over here made forty-three billion dollars in revenue last year yes yeah we did I didn't know you're a billionaire

workers responsible for that profit deserves to collectively bargain as part of a union I'm glad to see unions like IATSE and the broader game Workers movement organizing such workers he's not even he didn't tweet at them correctly I think yeah I think that was a shot at game workers you nice yeah yeah so of course if you were part of G Ducks game dev Unchained we've had condemned it on and they've grown right they are the front-runners and it's great to kind of have like this friendly partnership with them to kind of blow this up but this is this huge like this is on gamasutra if you don't like game news this on in the front for the verge which is I believe another tech tech kind of company yeah like the wired with a new paintjob right the wired I think it's just wired with a new paintjob yeah so i t:c the international alliance of

theatrical stage employees i guess we belong to that part six actors in general sure is this the voice acting guild or something well uh repeat the name without the international alliance of theatrical stage employees i don't know for sure because i thought that our voice actors were sag yeah i think that they're saying well i don't know for sure i don't know for sure but i think they're they're sag union yeah well too often workers union entertainment industry are underpaid overworked because they are so passionate about the crafts by joining together any go she has accrued we can make our workplaces better yeah i mean i'm behind it yeah one percent I mean there's it's really hard to argue against that right obviously for developers to make great games they have to be in a comfortable place if you're a long time for you know listener long time watcher games can't recap you know game developers are struggling right now and it's they're

very distracted and they're constantly moving around and teams are at the tail end of these development cycles breaking up and then making new friends and we're in Wisconsin cycle where there's only a few companies that actually have a stable core that allows them to just create and not have to worry about their jobs being lost or and on vacation and all that stuff it just feels irresponsibly silly of us as game developers to be in a position where our industry is making more than movies and music combined and as as an outsider to both of the music industry the movies industry I know that everyone there is like sagged up or like you know ASCAP or BMI like they have they're not just they're like companies that represent them and collecting their royalties but they collectively bargain as a union even in television lost was ruined after so many years because all the writers strike and they tried to just you can just have anybody right you know just pulling they tried to do

that game industry [ __ ] that happens to us and there's a clear point where like that that series itself falls off as far as content delivery went people weren't engaged the writing was bad and they didn't know where to go with that franchise I'm not using loss to try to explain how I feel about games but I'm just using it as a reference to say that like everyone else who's making entertainment media has their [ __ ] together but we're making the most right we have probably the biggest audience both on the consumer end but also on the people involved in making it I think there's more game developers around the world than people who create movies and we're trending right now everybody wants a piece of the pirate now or tonight being a phenomenon but seeing them in football games it's like a part of the culture and Elyse in like the conversations and this is a better time finally to kind of educate people and what we're about but also to give it inside of what's going on with this industry that everybody seems to know a

little bit about yeah there's I mean there's no excuse at this point I would say for us to not take a serious look industry-wide about unionization and not just piece by piece by piece like even though that that's the approach that we have to do right now because there's still a lot of resistance internally yeah like we really do need to if we actually care if we're not just gonna do the thoughts and prayers to the people who lost their jobs right if we actually care about our brothers and sisters who are out there developing games and the safety and the security and the insurances that you as an employee should have at least in a mutually beneficial work relationship if we like our worth our salt and we actually give a [ __ ] it's time to have that serious talk as an industry take the companies out of it and just be the employees and say look get your gripes out let's talk about pros and cons and let's unionize let's I all before it or all be against it or whatever but if you're all against it mm-hmm it's just like saying look we're just gonna continue to allow the risk of making games be the reasons why neckties

can rape and pillage when it comes down to royalty reciprocity mm-hmm and we're not asking everybody get a million dollars or something like that but if you're making such a huge 90 percent profit margin I feel like a good part of it should go back to employees but even before bonus and in all this stuff we just want to cut the cutting yeah and a lot of that is just before a game chips for any of that or a little drop in their quarterly statements that they're instant answer to that is to to just lay off a bunch of people to kind of equalize their to profit margins smoke and mirrors on earnings calls is more important than integrity yes is what it seems like it's happening oh look we saved X many millions of dollars this year how did they do it let's look into it oh they laid off four entire teams after those teams finished their games yes and then next year they'll worry

about how they're gonna restock and then make a new game yeah but for this earnings call I'm gonna shine my breasts yes there needs to be a cost when they're looking at that margin and looking at a bunch of developers and like have some accountability yeah we have we're gonna lay off foreigner people is anti save us money oh no okay let's look at other solutions and if you don't have that in place right now which we don't it's gonna continue being that way where they're like oh we need four hundred million dollars or like a hundred million dollars let's cut up all these people so until that happens and it's gonna be a while before we stabilize it sure and even get to the part where the voice actors are to ask for a bonus maybe part of that is the conversation that we two have but I feel like the we need to stop the cutting first before we even ask for like a part of the profits and what I see with these Studios trying to come up with solutions

where people are like so so disengage Shirley's arguing amongst ourselves as colleagues like is unionization the way the girl what other solutions are there to kind of have employers kind of take a second look and not see that as an option when nothing else has been proposed right well here's the funny thing I this is very idealistic pie-in-the-sky yeah if you ran an ethical business I think that unionization wouldn't necessarily be a problem like if you are honest about your employment situation if you are paying people well if you're giving the people the things that they would have been asking for in a union but demanding with force right because a union to me like there's a lot of leveraged involved in the negotiations right it's like look we need this to be in a mutually beneficial employment situation and if we don't get it then we leave and that thread of we leaving or we will take action keeps employers in line which is it's unfortunate that that's the way that business is done so again pie-in-the-sky scenario if you were just

like hey look we value you as an employee what do you feel like you're worth well here's what we can afford can we meet in the middle okay we agreed that this salary for you is going to be mutually beneficial yes okay cool here's your vacation here's your this here's your that everything's set up where both companies and the employers employees and a company are mutually it where the employee and the employer are in a mutually beneficial work relationship the need for a union in my eyes is like much less and that's the thing is that like I feel like we are run like our corporate corporate level especially publicly traded companies they're not looking for mutual benefit they're looking for as much profit as possible no matter how no matter when no matter why like I cut employees cool profit goes up games finished okay so these people like aren't working on a product right away all right well we got to cut them for those three months hey loot boxes are getting in trouble now oh no we're not gonna call it loot boxes now we're gonna call it surprise mechanics it's if the goal was mutual benefit and you had the balls to

actually stand behind that and say I'm gonna run my business ethically no matter what you'd have a much different scenario about people talking about unions yeah I think unions is the workers way of trying to fix the problem but we want to see what the employers way of fixing the problem is and that's what we're not seeing we're not seeing them this is generalizing but we're not seeing them as a whole come down and say like hey you know we don't have [ __ ] if we don't have workers let's actually respect that and try to start fixing these problems some companies I say are doing like by leaps and bounds making sure that their employees are taking care of Netflix shining example I believe of like how you should like value the people that work for you oh yeah but not everyone can afford the Netflix model especially when you want to pay like that new c-level exact twenty six million dollars just join you yes there's definitely a Mis miscommunication disconnect between the employer employee yeah right and every time we sign on the contract at any new

studio there's always that at will clauses right and I think it stems from that where everything becomes an issue because the idea is that I can quit whenever I want to as employee which I had the rights to but their counterparts of that it's like I can fire you at any point that we want to which is that equal though really I mean it is at a certain point but there is a bigger responsibility on the employers side to kind of make sure that you know because I'm only responsible for myself versus them they're responsible for hundreds of people sure I'll say if you look at it on paper they both have the option of terminating the relationship whenever they want yeah so that dynamic makes it fair yeah but the risks involved completely different right like individual quitting their job is like they've cut themselves off from their income stream or at least their primary income stream and a company cutting off an employee has not done the same yeah

like oh we let go of an employee we've reduced our risk by 0.5% because we have X many employees right so we only like it's the ratio of what the effect is is not the same but you know being able to quit both or fire whenever you want actually just on paper that I would say is fair mmm-hmm and so I think a lot of us just I think employers at this point are finally not ignoring and as much as you know like it's it's bringing it's being brought up more and more with right being the headlines every two weeks or so and Bernie Sanders calling out labor unions ation and if anything this will start the trend with politics politicians giants you guys jump on that yeah because now they're trying to get the young votes and all that fortnight how do you fit a lot of politicians wearing their haloform yeah my kid looks for now I play with a lot of time look at this dance right so I can only see

that as a benefit getting some outside voices out there and it's hard to kind of argue against that as like in a politician or someone looking to get some votes right how can you argue for the corporation's in that type of situation and instantly you have this huge demographic finally paying attention to what you're saying because now yours games what about games oh you feel this way yeah that sounds about fair so I think this is the beginning of something that could only amplify that message of and we're not asking as developers to be like how much money do you make on this game can I have 10% of that and equally spread it among all employees that worked on the game which i think is really fair but the first part of the conversation goes with like if you have a hiring salary cap for me you have to have a firing severance package for me as well which is a very very fair and

you got to have it on paper and you got to have it ready to go because just by having that kind of tangent savings account for firing will give them a clear number indication of like if we fire five people that's about point something million dollars or something we have to top level five top levels you know they love statutes they love Excel she'd make it easier on themselves but I think that's very fair it's like hey you want to fire me fine then I at least can expect three to six months worth of severance --is yeah I think when I look at our situation overall and I don't know where to put blame I dunno where problems are yeah and one of the problems that i keeps continuously being vocal on it's like a lot of publicly traded companies go through these types of things where the focus is profit at all costs growth at all costs and the risk though is is like each year you have a company that's taking a chance on doing what they can

to make profits grow and as a shareholder you're gonna be disappointed if they don't show up and say like hey our dividends have gone up this year right so I'm the kind of person where like I'm now at the age and like living through all this I have no problem investing in something that's like look we're gonna try to be stable but we're going to try to achieve growth and here's our like five-year plan I I don't listen to anybody who has a ten-year plan but like a five-year three to five-year plan is about the most I'll allow somebody to try to project their business strategies before I just I don't I turn them out altogether because you don't you don't know ten years from now especially in tech and game development but what I'm saying here is like instead of trying to make a mad dash to profit every single year doing whatever it takes that's adding to the volatility of the game industry that's adding to the turmoil that you're going to suffer through trying to achieve that goal of chasing black every single year if you go for sustainability and tell me like hey Larry I'll make sure that if you invest in us we will be here ten years from now we'll

be here twenty years from now because we are bringing in key talent we're keeping key talent happy we're making great products we're nurturing our community we're investing in our growth in a smart way and we're not going to just cut whatever basically there's a certain point of time where you run out of fat to trim so then you start trimming muscle you start trimming muscle you are deteriorating your company yeah and I think that's a great point right there like we we worked Activision before Activision out of all the layoffs this past year was the biggest one aside from maybe telltale because there was the most essential but Activision laid off a hundred people but soon after doing that in their quarterly earnings call they recognized the fact that this can have a long-term effect and we'll deal with it later type of attitudes like let's get through this three months let's get the profits and then we'll deal the long-term effect and what what has happened the last you like blizzard you're gonna hear that same thing on the next earnings call sure hey look this is stupid let's analyze what's happening

you know between us a lot of Blizzard employees right leaving leaving unsatisfied scared of what the activision apocalypse hammer down type of approach is Blizzard themselves as a culture is I feel slowly diminishing where they will they ship until they're ready that's completely gone they acts all their lower-performing franchises well here was a storm it was one was one wow they're like downsizing that a bit while and even smaller sure the over arch team is yes more inflated but now they're concentrating more of or watch two or what's the next step of overwatch the eSports League uh you know the they hired this guy from ESPN or something like that actually handles sports and and a lot of people are unsatisfied with that really high departures over at Blizzard who were like the heads and been there for like

ten plus years spearheading the eSports initiative they're gone so and and aside from that the Call of Duty franchises you know are kind of crumbling underneath them defaulting back to two Studios from three studios where every three year cycle there's a new Call of Duty from a different studio now it's just cycling between infinity war and Treyarch which is extra pressure right on those two Studios to kind of deliver a game a triple-a game every two years now like that's ridiculous well here's what's worse about and people are gonna leave we can jump on that specifically we're also going into a console transition yes new tech is coming out all her fidelity bigger expectations gonna take more time thirty percent less time available to make the game now so insane man imagine what kind of offering you can see and we've been on those three year cycle yeah and you need every second all those years yeah and to expect these two Studios to finally get their [ __ ] together like

only consumer can pull this off all right it's it's crazy what they're expecting and we're seeing Activision as a whole suffering already mere months after their 800 people layoff because the sentiment within the studio isn't like oh [ __ ] Papa Bear is really taking care of business I'm safe it's like oh man yeah like no matter what we do with record profits this is not a place that I can stay and like hang up my coat and be comfortable with because that's the message they sent to everybody that is laid off and isn't laid off which is a what are you that's like completely disrespect to what we think and how we feel as game developers how much can you rally the troops and and good enough it well good enough isn't is their model right it obviously means way differently the minute now like I as we talked about these things like my you know you have two halves of your brain half of my brain goes into thinking where the hell

did we get off track like there was a point in time where everything was about sustainability and growth at the same time right like when I don't know like when my dad was a kid he was part of that generation of work 35 years at the plant get your gold watch your turkey and this great severance package when you leave yeah that's right that's gone and I'm trying to figure out not to be fair it's all industries that's happening but at a fast rate game industry is like three years at a company maximum right but you're trying to figure out like where exactly we know it's like clearly there was just a mindset switch yet just not just companies individual everyone has gone into some sort of like a get-rich-quick mentality we don't buy stocks to hold on to for 20-30 years because we're happy them yeah it is every month that's probably like the lowest popular strategy you know what the big strategies are day trading short-term why because I know it's gonna go up then dump yeah I have no care or concern or

relation to these companies other than I want to see them you know so I'm gonna listen to the earnings call and I'm gonna use my votes to vote for the thing that I think is going to lead to profit sooner faster yeah and get my student my vacation home yeah and so that trickles down into you know we know that our shareholders are here just for profits so in order to have our stock back yeah I'm always looking where our personal like my 401k is a lot of it is tied to like my 3% Activision stock in my bank or in my trading account right yeah like hesitant because I'm a Topsy level executive stock in this company okay so I'm gonna lose hundreds of millions of dollars if people start dumping our stock so you know what I'm gonna do I'm gonna focus on getting our company more profit more profit more girls more girls more growth at any cost yeah I just don't understand well it can't hurt at the beginning of my career I always looked at like oh I'm looking to stay here looking around eating East the area around me and and really pitching my tent and and looking for

long-term value right near in my end of the career I'm still working on getting his obviously but like officially working for companies I was looking at day one how long can I be here until I had to look and I'm always constantly looking at what's out there any new job opportunities so that's my time my mind frame completely switched because I know how these bigger corporation companies work they work the same way which trains me I have to think the same way you know how can I be okay yeah in the media future like everything here is nothing is past this game at best and lately it's like are we gonna even finished the game and I'm gonna be here by the end of the game it's not like oh I'll work on this game and then leave it's like is it gonna survive its whole cycle without any delays if I start seeing signs of trouble is that eight months in nine months in so I'm constantly stressed at work thinking about these issues because

these are the problems that papa bear is telling us like this is the reality get used to it because you have no power right and it should be different so yeah I let's get unionized guys and let's at least try to make things mutually beneficial again yeah that's yeah if you have that you'd be surprised how happy how long and how interested your employees will be a continuing to make things happen yeah I'm just going to throw that out yeah and Thank You indie game business for joining in he made like a pretty good commentary saying that yes most people are gonna leave right the veterans but a new way about young developers waiting get in line but we have to encourage the next-gen of developers to kind of stand up and not accept toxic workplaces because if everyone thinks the solution and I think this is what at the corporate head level the hope is like oh we have an influx of applications from students and better eager to work overtime less it's gonna solve our issues like no you idiots

that's why your games are not being shipped because they need experience to know what to avoid and if you're constantly relying on young developers kind of keeping your gravy train going you're gonna crash real soon which is happening I think a lot of these studios there's this already a weird mix of senior developers working each other for the first time but there's a heavy reliance on young developers to kind of step up and like know these things from the get-go and yes I do admit developers nowadays coming out of school are a lot better than our generation when we came out of school they have a lot more resources to reach out to and a lot more knowledge you guys are welcome about the industry right but there are just certain things that you cannot teach unless you experience through it you don't know what failure feels like and how to accommodate failure unless you go through it yourself yeah and we're talking about missing deadlines and still being able to cut

corners and still get that ship of a product that only comes from senior developers in their experience yeah and just like experience is valuable yeah if you look at a martial arts instructor let's say you have that like 80 year old I've been studying this since I was six getting down from my father's father's money with him so he's been studying for 74 years martial arts let's say he dies his best student he's been teaching that student for only 30 years right so you're looking at 34 years of experience lost but now this point 30 years is great right that guy let's say he does yeah he passes down maybe ten years of experience to his best students so they know that best student is the teacher yeah who only has ten years of experience you've lost fifty-four years of knowledge experience you're looking at the delusion of value of that martial art yeah because as you keep losing these top-level experience as that information isn't passed down or shared now as you're not letting people actually groom yeah and become seniors leads yeah creative directors etc if you just keep thinking you're gonna find that person in college it's gonna be worth that 70

years of martial arts experience that the original master had it ain't gonna happen oh you're gonna get to a point where you realize we can't make what we used to make we can't do what we used to do and we are the cause yeah we've chart we just continue to churn we burn through everybody and now all we get is eager younglings who only have youngling ability and experience yes like we're I think we mentioned this during one of our podcast interviews game dev Unchained check that out we're one of our guests we were sharing like what the term Triple A equality is changing already under our feet we're triple a quality used to mean the highest production value the best but now I'm encountering younger developers but also younger gamers are chipping it to loot boxes delays and just overpaying for the product and can over promises yes like this is where we are right now and that

is fastly becoming the truth and becoming the real truth with jublia quality and that's actually hilarious it's hilarious but it makes yeah because five-year development over promises kick-starting all this stuff this is we're grooming the generation of new gamers to get used to this and the quality is of course you know gonna be suffering so yeah again our main topic for anything is no these are the issues that are being being called upon and I'm glad that a bigger light is being shine on this and and I still think wait to see what happens you can be profitable as a business and be ethical eventually in 2019 you don't have to outsource everything you don't have to cut dump and kill everything just to show people who don't actually give a [ __ ] or actually help you make the that you're making money and they can be happy yeah I think we got a we got to start making some fixes and people need

to start investing because they're investing not investing just so they can get rich alright so let's move on to our next topic surprise mechanics so obviously this is more in your head this is more arena so uh we are gonna have for other podcast or show Tuesday's I Olivia Pacific time we will have Zack rich which is from press start legal he's a lawyer and we're dedicating a whole podcast to to what's going on on the legal side all the boxes but this is something worth mentioning kisses hilarious and so I'm gonna let Larry take it so obviously a kind of was the straw that broke the camel's back in regards to Star Wars Battlefront twos loop box policies the numbers behind it and just the grinds to get the free version equivalent of what you are basically paying to win through the loop bop strategies underneath he added on random chance from the gambling mechanics and so they're under fire right now international governments striking down and making legislature to

prevent loot boxes from even existing in content in their countries and I don't want to say all thanks to EA but they most notably were the last ones to kind of like they were the ones where people put their foot down and said all right that's it yeah it's always in the headlines with this [ __ ] like it's always the one like kind of everybody's like pointing as it's perfect that they have the Star Wars license because now they can actually put darter a date or the city and Sith Lords over there because uh let me kind of cold it over this headline right now and let's comment on this real quick because what Larry is talking about is very fresh because they had to talk in front of the UK parliamentary panel EA loot boxes actually are surprise mechanics and are ethical and fun so what happened is that representatives from EA and Epic Games and I'm reading this straight off from the article from ARS technica I don't think the car are straight I know I think it's ARS technica not arse arse

like like ours yours mine anyways so they said that they're defending the game industry against charges of addictive game mechanics and encouraging of gambling of your via loot boxes but at least one of these representatives took issues with the basic premise that randomized item purchases should be labeled as loot boxes in the first place so I'm guessing gonna read this quote I'm gonna read the heart article this misdirection yeah that is what we look at as surprise mechanics legal and government affairs VP Hopkins told the panel when asked about the ethics of loot boxes it is important to look at this if you go to I don't what your version of target is this guy is just calling it in a store that sells a lot of toys and you do a search for surprise toys you will find that that's just something people enjoy they enjoy surprises it is something that has been part of toys for years whether it is kinder eggs or hatching moles or Lowell surprise and look a rose

by any other name will still smell a sweet right you can't just be like no this is oh we're here to talk about loot boxes oh that doesn't apply to us these are surprising mechanics like your your significant other catches you in bed is a surprise shouting I'm not cheating this is just sampling this is a different name you're totally wrong oh yeah you don't think you're gonna catch hell because do they think this this is their best move do they really think that the media and everybody will support them on this so here the government is already against them you have to get the people behind your back to protect you this is a [ __ ] on every single person who has any amount of intelligence and understanding of what loo boxes is and has played it and has become a victim to it yeah it prize in a predatory nature on people who for sure would like have quick access to funds ya don't have a grasp of like the spent yeah so that I can put on them but there

are people like that now who have these addictive gambling nature's of like man I really want that pulse rifle 308 and oh lord please this is the fastest way to get if I can just get it I can just get it spending 3 bucks at a time thinking like oh I probably spent 60 70 yeah not knowing that they've spent ninety a hundred two hundred because they keep just seeing the three bucks like I'm already this far and I may as well another three bucks I may as well spend another ten bucks and ei is profiting off of that here's the thing if they were ethical about it this would be a whole different conversation if they said look yes loop boxes is a strategy that game developers in the industry are utilizing to supplement the income of how much it cost to make these games and continue to run these games online so that everyone can play it yeah yeah if you buy your xbox live subscription sure you're online you're playing but EA is still a big part of making sure that that game works online so they keep paying it you can keep playing it so that they have service to their new console yes and that costs them money yes I completely understand why they would want some sort of monthly revenue stream yes both for

profit but also to make sure that they have sustainability right all they have to do is say ok we get it right now we went a little overboard so let's talk let's get through this and then because we still want to make loot boxes it's still something that's profitable for us but what we don't have to do is like be the bully and like shake the people over the toy right it'll most worried and take their change right there's a mutual benefit obviously there are people buying loot boxes there because they do want extra stuff they have some control but the problem is right now there's no regulations on and there's no ethical way that is really laid out for all company yes like what's not making like gambling but the issue comes to like are you [ __ ] me half the game and then you're you're making me pay the other half yeah that's the tricky situation right now for the idea of what a loop box is because it's some of the games in the EA camp is like that pay to win model and paying my for $60 but then you're holding back Maps it feels like but it from the developer side we know

you're not holding back maps right we're actually we are in most of those DLC if we do it correctly downloadable content we are making extra mass because that's one of the biggest arguments when we were working call duty so y'all you only ship six multiplayer maps and now you're making me buy like four more it's like no we actually spent the full amount of time to like because of high production costs how much it takes to actually make those using the resources that we have it takes that long right where it gets iffy and muddy is that they're not very clear on the rules it's like these this is the game you can play it front to back and you can enjoy it fully without having to buy extra yeah right but if you're gating if you're starting to segment your community that bought into the game and it's like oh this is all the fun stuff on the other side of the fence that you have to buy in then yeah what is the game exactly I think gets tricky a strong argument that helps relate to that it's like EA specifically is saying like hey here's this character that you

want because you have to unlock yes like extra 8 characters whatever we're used to unlockable characters but I'm used to like the Tekken Street Fighter model beat the game with one character and we will give you another character that you haven't played with it yet yeah invest four hours yeah beat the game cool oh that was fun and I get this extra character all the same disc yeah awesome to then say like hey spend 600 hours playing with just this one character to then unlock this other character and you know what's gonna happen over that 600 hours you know what helps you make that 600 hours let's say 400 hours because you don't want to pay is having the gear having the stats that lets your character perform better to earn more experience or rewards or whatever in-game thing you need to help you do better at the game right so that's the second gate and then you're like or I mean just give us three bucks you're gonna get a good blaster you're gonna get a good this yeah a one in thirty chance of winning that character that you were trying to unlock anyway and so one in thirty chance doesn't mean by thirty yeah it means each time you buy

one there's a one in thirty chance of getting it so you might end up buying 400 yeah you might end up buying one you might end up buying 33 it's not a guarantee it's just saying the odds of each time you opening that pack there's a one in 30 chance of you getting XY or z yeah that's the gambling aspect especially if people have a specific goal you've designed it in a way where they say the way to get it that doesn't require money requires such an irresponsible amount of time that no sane individual yeah wouldn't take that path yeah you're forcing me to go this way it's like the illusion of choice yeah Larry you can spend 90 years right [ __ ] getting this degree yeah or you can pay 800 bucks we're gonna give you the book that has everything you actually and then we'll give you the degree tomorrow I'm not gonna be a 900 years is free Larry just so you know we're not crooks and spend the nine hundred years and get it that way I name a human that's been alive nine hundred years it's like that's an illusion of choice part yes forcing the people to spend forcing the people into that gambling

and that's the predatory part of it that they're getting in trouble for yeah every game designer forced to kind of design for loot boxes and angel loses its wings like I'm I assure you no game designer likes that aspect but it's forced on them by publishers or the marketing team nobody goes into a game wanted to make that and we're in that period where everyone's trying to figure that out like how do i remain ethical and design something that makes sense on the business side and on the game place I write because I have to say loot boxes aren't complete trash right I see the benefit of buying extra I mean downloadable content it started the trend right people are obviously buying into it either because they want that extra stuff to make them a little better or at least stand apart that's why I think Cosmetics the best type of boxes there's no power gate there's no power game yes but where it gets tricky is there is no gate like you said there

like anybody like Yale is just going completely bonkers with every game that they released and really just piecemealing their game to their customer and it's hurting the business and it's getting all the way the legislation at this point why can't and it I feel like it's a bit lazy to be honest to go in front of Congress or whatever they call it over there right and UK that's like friends log I can't believe he quoted themselves like what's your equivalent of target over here wherever you buy toys like dude you're [ __ ] research dude anyways I was standing in front of that Senate and and kind of like trying to bait and switch what the idea of loot boxes are by Conant surprise mechanics do it the old-fashioned way spend some money on lobbyists and get what you want big for me to see that happening is like you guys are just so cheap and so unprepared to actually argue a point this is just coming off as

lazy being a big corporation and me it's disrespectful it's disrespectful I see the disrespect first because they're going to Parliament yeah who are what like these people are responsible for the power yeah right this is what corporation is like feeling exactly ego yeah and they're going in there the sake shirts yeah whatever you this is totally like cocaine Cowboys drug yeah yeah yeah they don't want to back down on selling their drugs yeah like to me when I start thinking about loot box and the gaming experience between extorting the people this way it's just like all the drug dealers I used to know when I grew up like inner city streets yeah back in the day when I was a kid yeah and seeing how they treated people yeah where I was like sure this first thing is free right everyone knows that the first thing is green yeah and then it's like oh now you're addicted to my product and now I can leverage you now you can extort you yeah oh you're trying to get off here take another free one look I promise you it's okay just make sure you want to stop yeah oh you don't

want to stop I'm gonna get profit off a [ __ ] your life yeah it's that same kind of thinking that I see behind the loop box it's it's a digital item yeah right it doesn't cost them much to produce it and they're just copy pasting it into people's accounts you know there's no stock there's no warehouse now there's no shipping cost and none of that that's right make it bits and it's selling like crazy because there is a psychological emotional and addictive attachment to it yeah that people are just like buying it like Greg much like a drug yeah so these people don't want to stop selling drugs because they see how lucrative it is they're doing everything they possibly can to not have to change or regulate how they're selling drugs yeah I literally and I will stand on a box and say that I'm starting to equate that kind of sales to like yeah you're selling people drugs yeah it is you're treating them just like their junkie and you're the it's like yeah it's exactly a gambling and I'm glad the government is most people are against that but who

else is fighting on the consumer side really right the game industry is kind of like the Wild West right now like there's really no one paying attention to it any fronts it's always been looked at as a child's toy yeah but where we have less regulations the toy industry right but that's the funny part so we're finally getting noticed and I think a lot of it is because a fortnight on a global scale on the international scale of like this is an industry that everybody needs to pay attention to yeah Facebook already got into it Google every major tech companies getting into it everybody wants a piece of it this is an industry that everybody needs to pay attention to and the loot boxes is actually a great arena for a lot of these people to look at because it really helps formulate the the game players but also the game developers like we're sick of actually have to

design around now the mandate that goes into game design and making a fun game is vastly changing and shifting towards that it's like how do we make money every day make it fun enough that they don't quit before the yeah and this a lot of it is a mix of the mobile industry doing this for a long time but but no longer mobile industry the reason why a lot of these aren't attacking those guys is because yeah there's a detachment and there's like a low cost and it's not like super addictive well I mean I have to say like some of those games go really deep and people do spend huge money off the horse there's a reason why but I feel like no one's picking on those guys for some reason I don't know what it is exactly i they go straight to EA but you know the mobile industry does this way crazier well I think the barrier of acceptance for me personally has always been I'm getting this mobile game for free or for $0.99 I'm pretty sure it cost these people

considerable amount of money to make the game so I don't feel bad that they're asking me to spend another $0.99 here and there or whatever and I usually have self control so I don't have problems but there's a lot of backlash from people like hey I just gave you $60 for this game and I'm not even getting $60 of value because in order for me to do things for free yeah I'm getting my ass whooped like hands down because other people who were also in my spot just put ten bucks up and got a power jump and they're in the same games as me it's an unequal playing field there for me just spending $60 means that I'm actually not playing the same game as everyone else I've wasted my money or I have to spend more money so for me like the acceptance has always been like I paid a dollar for this mobile game it's worth maybe another five so that sure I'll spend five bucks I don't feel bad I spent sixty bucks and then now you're hitting me with that mobile game freemium strategy of like keep buying these things keep buying these things keep buying me these things it's a harder sell for me personally that's where I

start to get upset well we are almost an hour already we had another topical we'll see you tomorrow but this is a perfect opportunity if you like what you're seeing be sure to visit us on our website go to our YouTube account if you missed past episodes if you want to subscribe to twitch you can do that now we're at which affiliate those five dollars that you get if you're a twitch or a prime Amazon Prime member it's just sitting there right everybody gets five dollars they can support their favorite twitchers what's up and that helps us a long way and you know what shout out to anybody if we're already your favorite Twitter what's up are we anybody's favorite yet if so thank you for being a part of this and helping let's get it going mm-hmm aside from that if you want to directly help us and if you want games recap in audio form so you can take with you on your daily commute you know we would love to turn this into a podcast it's just very

costly as you can imagine 20 episodes per month every day yes we are actually twelve patrons away learn about hitting that goal so if you want to support us go to our patreon com forward slash blue champs drop a dollar or more to then make this officially a podcast now you of course you can just check us on YouTube to continue watching in twitch every little bit helps and any bit is appreciated and I guess that's pun intended because we're on yeah but I didn't mean it well there we go what do you no pun intended no pun intended so anyways Larry's gonna see us out and you know like when you go to the barbershop you take your hat off and get a cut yeah when you put your hat back on consider yourselves recap yeah and stay right on we're gonna have another show coming up games go on line with our awesome friend Colin Fogle [Music]

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