Borderlands 4 Leaks on Consoles, Stan Lee’s AI Ghost & What is Prior Art? | Games For Breakfast

[Applause] [Music] Good morning, Matt.
Good morning, Will.
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 we're also we promise that they'll there we fixed the sink. We fixed the animated sync and there are no more leaks in the sink. We did it over the weekend. We had an animated plumber come in and dealt with all of the animated pipes. And now, uh, we're good. It's fine. Everything's fine. How are you, Will?
I'm doing great. I'm not worried about the leaks in our animated sink at all.
You're sitting closer to the sink. See, I So, okay. If we just sort of turn, let's see. Uh, turn and kind of like back up a little bit. Right. Well, so your sink is right next to you. So, you you're more worried about the water, right? if something were to go wrong with the water. I'm more worried about

uh if something were to go wrong with the heating implement or the fire, right? Because I'm the stove is right behind me along with the toaster.
Um but we're fine. Everything's fine. Hey, do do y'all feel fine?
I feel fine.
Uh anyway, yeah. Uh don't remind me. I think I feel fine. Is this fine? Who knows?
We don't know. What I do know, though, is we do have a very fun show for you today. Uh there is actually a decent amount going on in our URA of of news coverage. Um some of it good, some of it bad, some of it uh you you can be the judge. I feel like um every story today has a a gradient.
Yeah,

if that makes sense.
I I you know, it does make sense. As much as I wish it didn't. [Laughter]
Uh you know, RC uh maybe maybe one day. Maybe one day we'll have a 3D kitchen. What would it take to make a 3D kitchen other than Blender?
Would we make a Blender in Blender?
Yeah. Yes, I think we would.
Yeah, we'd have to.
Also, I think it would legitimately be easier for me to set up cameras and to green screen you into my actual kitchen than it would be for us to get a 3D kitchen.
Oh, we could do Minecraft 3D kitchen. No, no, that's a good point. That's Yeah, that's that's a good point, right? We could Where where is that? Yeah. Uh,
we'll do 2.5D. We'll we'll come to a consensus.
Yeah, I think that's that's reasonable. Um,
I need my coffee before we begin. Will, how was your weekend? What happened? Did anything nice happened?
Uh, it was pretty chill. I got to go to a friend's housewarming party. That was

dope. And then I spent a bunch of time making a mistake and reading the news.
Uh, don't do that.
Yeah. Uh, but it's okay. Um, I'm here now. I'm very excited to play Silk Song. Matt, did you know you can like get hankerings to play games that you're not allowed to play off stream?
Yes.
Yeah. So, I'm sitting there like everyone's like, "Oh, yeah. I'm playing Silk Song." I'm like, "Mhm. Monday. Monday. Monday. I got I got I got stuff to do. It's going to be great." Uh, we're going to be continuing our uh right after um this stream, I'll be continuing my Silkong playthrough for a good long while. Uh
I uh I got to play Silk Song very briefly this weekend um while I was updating my computer just while you know you you kind of let it go as you install a new OS etc which seems to be okay. Uh but uh yeah, I'm not far at all. I'm

still I'm still in act one, I believe.
And I'm very deep in act two.
Yeah, but I'm liking it. And then I got to play um a decent amount of Night Rain. And then we streamed Little Borderlands. We streamed Little Borderlands with Jasmine on Saturday, which was very, very fun.
Yeah. And I have to remember that when I'm going to leave my house, I have to leave the bot running. I don't know if you caught that bit, but the mods were like, "Hey, the commands aren't working." I was like, "Oh, yeah, that's right. I'm about to walk out the door and the bot now runs locally on my computer." city.
So if I ever leave for like a week to like go to the wilderness and Matt's going to stream, I have to leave my PC on and the bot running.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
No, Doride, I did not install Linux. Alas, I am not uh elite enough to do so. Uh it was just I wanted to bite the bullet before Windows uh 10 started stopped being supported by Microsoft. I think that's October 10th, 12th, sometime in or 20th, I don't

know. Sometime in October, anyone who's using Windows 10 sadly needs to update even if they don't want to, or else you will not get um security updates for Windows 10 anymore, which will cause your computer to be vulnerable very very quickly. You can pay Microsoft for a limited amount of time for like additional support time, like you can it's almost like a weird like little subscription service, but I don't want to do that. So, I also um
you know, when you're doing and look, it it went fine and that's great. You know, when you're doing anything with your PC and you essentially like if you think it's going to be a quick operation, it's it ends up being three days. And if you think it's going to be three days, it ends up being a quick operation. That's kind of what happened in the good way. I prepped. I did all my backups. I was doing copies overnight. And I I basically put Saturday away for any and all possible problems with the update.
Yeah.
Didn't happen. Got to stream Borderlands. So, uh it was pretty cool.
Yep. Uh, I rarely get those wins when it

comes to this stuff, especially with my computer that runs on hopes and dreams. Um, but no, going so far so good.
One of these weeks I'm going to hop a train. I'm going to come up there. I'm going to change out all your computer fluids and then I'm going to go home.
Let me tell you, Will, not to get too personal, there's a there's just there's a lot of gunk. There's just a lot of junk in whatever that thing is there. I don't know if it's going to be it's going to be too much. It's going to be too much. cuz there's like half a Zoe and 3/4 of a llo worth of hair in the
No, I clean the hair out. That's something I know how to do.
Okay. All right. Yeah. The inside's fairly clean. I just more me uh metaphysically metaphysical gunk.
Oh, okay. Cool. Is that like Slimer from Ghostbusters?
That's ectoplasm. Um that would be a different problem. And we would need a what? A priest or or a or a a seminal Ghostbuster.
Yeah, that's right. Ghostbuster.
Yeah. Yeah.
With an unlicensed nuclear reactor on their back. Yeah.
Mhm. Mhm.
Yeah. Okay, that seems good. Um,

now that we're jump in. Yeah.
Now that we're completely off topic, uh, shall we speak further ill of Windows and Microsoft?
Speaking of, well, okay. Is this ill? Let's bring up the graphic and we'll we'll decide. Again, shades of gray. So, the Xbox got more expensive as did the PlayStation as will the Switch eventually, but it's peripherals and things.
One is getting has gotten more expensive. The Switch 2 will probably get more expensive.
Um, gone it seems folks are the times when consoles as they got older got cheaper.
Yeah, weird. Um, basically Microsoft citing uh changes in the macroeconomic environment. Uh, I wish I really wish that companies would grow spines and just say tariffs.
Yeah.
Like just say it like
or at least put on a funky Groucho Marks

mustache and be like, "It definitely rhymes with."
Yeah. Um, everything's going up a little bit. It's not like insane, but it's still actually some of the stuff is nuts. I didn't even know you could buy some of these Xboxes for this much money. This comes to us from Kotaku. The uh Series S512 is going up $20. The uh Series S has 1 TB also $20. The Series X digital, it's going up 50 as is the regular one. But then the Xbox Series X 2 TB Galaxy Black special edition, which I did not know was a thing, uh goes up $70. Uh which will which will put up to $799.99. Could you the what edition?
I'll read it again. Xbox Series X two TB Galaxy Black special edition.
Does it also come in blue raspberry? Like I don't
look we look I I'm not going to poo poo Xbox for doing random special editions. PlayStation does it all the time.

Nintendo doesn't really often.
No, they do. They do. They do special shells for games, right? Like there's going to be things like the DS. The DS they did a lot.
They also did it for the Switch. There's going to be And they're doing it for the Switch, too.
Oh, well then fine.
Yeah, it it happens.
What do you got?
I like this one. You can have any Xbox you want as long as it's expensive.
Wow. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good one.
Look, everything's going to be getting more expensive. That is the sad truth of it. And uh now gaming companies who again um usually it starts to get cheaper based on the way our supply chain used to work and the way that uh taxes and tariffs used to work. Uh that was uh possible and now it's not possible. The thing that um worries me a bit let's pretend that all of the sudden I mean look this isn't out of the realm of possibility. I just don't expect it. All

of the sudden the tariffs go away. Like they're gone. Poof. Uh pixie dust. Um I don't know how quickly either Xboxes or groceries or anything um how quickly the prices will actually go down again because what normally happens when things like this occur when there's inflation or or or in this case tariffs, uh companies are very reluctant to knock the price back down once they have gone up. Yep.
And I mean, this is the this is kind of the other thing, like if these consoles with the price hikes are actually selling the same that they would normally, that also informs a company of like as to what to do here, which is which stinks. Um, so there's really very little incentive for them to drop the prices down. Now, could this could this turn into a situation where there are kind of like more sales?

Do you know what I mean? Like if the Xbox if Xbox or the PlayStation store or something was like, oh, you know, 3 days the summer sale or whatever, and then the consoles drop like that. If if they're already bumping up the price past the point where they have to like make it back due to different regulations across the planet, that's a possibility. But I don't really love that either. I'd rather just have the thing cost the amount. Like consoles very rarely go on sale or at least they used to not. So
yeah. And I don't The other one that's really weird and it makes sense that Xbox is the last to go.
It's the one that has the hardest sell I think. Like again with their whole like everything's an Xbox pitch, right? Like
your PC is also an Xbox and your Steam Deck is kind of also an Xbox. So, like why would you get an Xbox, right?
Your phone's an Xbox, your smart TV is an Xbox,
right? There's a very narrow Xbox
for for Xboxes, right? So, it doesn't

make sense that it would be a thing that they could afford to increase the price on because it's already not like the the justification for having an Xbox is already the thinnest, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
Uh, also just uh full disclosure, I believe the price increase goes in effect on October 3rd. Uh, which means uh my guess is they will see a bump in sales before October 3rd as people try to get this thing uh without paying more money for the thing.
That tends to be how these things these things work.
Yep.
What What's Jamie doing? What are you They can't see you. Oh, wait. Is it floating? Is the Is the
Yeah, there it is. Just Just I just wanted to be very clear that Jamie was stealing my coffee.
Okay. Is uh is my toaster an Xbox? No, but your smart fridge might be.
We'll get there.
We'll get there.
We'll get there.

Um
I think maybe my favorite story is
for different definitions of the word favorite. Let's let's uh let's do a quick um uh impromptu questionnaire for Brad and Janet here. Um who amongst you, let's start this very quickly. Who amongst you? Whom amongst thou owneth doth Xbox? One of the ones in the current generation.
Yeah, that's a really great question. Yep. Show of hands or hype. Um I would like to know, do you own an Xbox? because I it will be a follow-up question no matter which way this question goes. And and longtime viewers of the show will know how simple this exercise will get.
Uh one from YouTube. Nope. Nope. Nope. No.
Used to not now. Nope. Not I yet 360. Nice.
Nice.
Has it red ringed yet? Have you had to

bake it?
360. I own one. And it's riding in the corner. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Okay. Okay. Okay. Cool. I love that. Every so many people's last one was the 360.
It's cuz it was arguably the last one that needed to be a console.
Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Wait.
You know what I just like memoryholed and then like reached into my brain and pulled out?
What? I completely forgot that there was a console called the Xbox One.
Yeah.
Like in my head, I ran it a couple times. Like there's the Xbox, there's the Xbox 360, and then there's the Xbox Series S and X, right? Like, and I was like, wait, no,
there's one in the middle there.
Wow.
Yeah. The Xbone.
Wow. Yeah, the Xbone. Oh, Xbone. That was a good name for it at least.
Yeah. like it's it's

yeah it it wasn't I think for a lot of us right by the time PCs started catching up to what consoles were delivering right right about the time that Steam reached prominence the Xbox was kind of not as relevant anymore especially because they were the ones who were the most honest about the fact that their console was just running Windows.
Yeah. Um, that's so weird. I don't think I think even I don't even forget the Sega Saturn
and that feels like
long as you don't forget the Dreamcastable forget the Dream If you forget the Dreamcast, the internet gets real upset at you.
Dreamcast still might be my fa Okay. Okay. Okay. Dreamcast might be my favorite console. not like in use or inactivity, but like for the moment in time in my life when it came out and a console was released, everything about

it fit correctly together. Does that make sense?
Yeah.
Like I can never like I'll boot up my Dreamcast from time to time and I'll have fun, you know, run around on um on Sonic Adventure checking what are they? Chows. Uh CHOs.
Chows.
Uh checking out on them. They're still fine. Um, but like I'm not going to like sit down and play for hours uh any of those games. Though, uh, perhaps I'll get the itch once the Mortal Kombat collection comes out on October 30th. And the only one that is not included is, I believe, Mortal Kombat Gold, which was on the Dreamcast, which I don't need cuz I still haven't.
Uh, by the way, I love this.
Xbox was my Halo machine. You can pretty accurately chart your Xbox usage with how wellreceived Halo games have been.
That's interesting, Ryan. Yeah,
I mean that's a that's a very good way of Yes. I feel like there for a lot of people Xbox was like the single franchise console,
right? Continues. And when Infinite came out, I just played it on Steam.
Yeah, I played it on Steam, too. I I don't miss multiplayer as much as I

thought I did. Kind of nice.
Yeah.
Uh so yeah, I I don't know. I think it's it's not unexpected, but man does it suck.
This feels like the the in this in this current trip up of price hikes, this was sort of the last large domino to fall. And you know what? I'm actually curious. When does the ally Rogue come out? Um,
you mean the ROG ally?
Yeah.
I don't know.
I think they did that release date. I just
they announced that it was coming out and it has a release date, but I couldn't tell you what it is. It's It says it's scheduled. Well, hold on. This is the AI overview, so I can't really trust it. Um, Xbox Wire Rag Ally Handheld uh launch October 16th.
There's a lot coming out, Matt. By the way, uh I'm going to I'm going to spring this on you in the middle of this because you just reminded me of of October 16th. Did you know that there is

a game called Fellowship coming out on October 16th? I'm, by the way, I'm about to fish hook Matt so hard you could just watch his jaw. Okay. What if I told you that you could do Mythic Plus dungeons without the rest of WoW?
You have my You have my interests,
right? And it's in a forack with other people. There are a bunch of unique characters and classes and it's got skill trees and perks and builds and gear progression, but it's just mythic plus dungeons and it's a game that's coming out on Steam called Fellowship.
You have my attention. I'm looking at it right now.
Yeah. Uh
so it's just it's just like the part of the dungeon that you
Uhhuh.
It's funny how much this art looks like.
It's in part by a team that used to work at Blizzard. like parts of the team used to work for Blizzard and it's just
Are we playing this day one? What's happening on that date? Hold on.
Uh no, I think we're definitely playing

it. I think we're definitely gonna try and find some other content creators and for stack it. But um
Oh, that's Thursday.
Is that Thursday? Yeah. So, we can totally
We could do it.
Yeah, it'll be great.
I'm just going to I'm just going to put that in my calendar. Yeah.
Anyway, sorry. I forgot that that also came out on the 16th and I've been looking at it this weekend. Uh, also if we're talking about things that we're going to stream later, I know I just brought it up, but I will be going through probably in chronological order the all the games of the Mortal Kombat collection on a very long stream on October 30th. If anyone is interested in coming over on Twitch and seeing that, that is my absolute jam.
Anyway, sorry, we're getting off topic. Um,
I mean, no, I I feel like like we we've said most of our piece I feel like on the Xbox, like the price is going up. It it's weird and it makes sense. the last one and it stinks. But like also I don't think and I'm going to I'm going to put it this way. If you have the financial resources to build a PC, like

the beginnings of a PC, it's probably financially responsible for you to do that rather than buy an Xbox right now because the way that those are working, you can um you know, when it stops being compatible with whatever operating system you're running, you can swap to Linux. when when a specific component stops working, you can swap that out instead of getting a whole new one, right? And there are there's a much more robust lifetime for a PC than for a console with console prices going up, I would say.
But also tech, here's the interesting. So, so in in spirit and in um I feel like in 80% of application, I do agree with with Sir William here. Uh, the only thing I will say is there is still value
in my opinion to uh consoles in general of um essentially like not having to build it. Now, would I personally pick a Switch or

a PlayStation over that? Yeah, because there's more exclusives there than on this box. But if you're a person that like is doing like the four quadrant gaming, like you get a FIFA and you get a um Call of Duty and you just want something to run the you know the thing on your TV and call it a day and you don't want to think about it,
an Xbox is fine like in my opinion.
Yeah.
Um
uh it's so this story is less about the the Xbox being like too expensive to be valuable. I think that Microsoft has kind of messed with its value prop already. Um, and we'll see when the when the ROG comes out to see if like the the portability of an Xbox like how that actually functions. Um, because and we've talked about this forever. Will and I have been beating this drum forever. I believe James was even saying it forever ago. Like Xbox's new console, whatever it is. This is sort of the the holdover because it's an it's an ally. It's the ROG, right? Like it's not exactly an Xbox, but they're going to

move into handhelds. Like they're they're gonna do it. That's the only way to go and still uh
remain relevant. Well, yeah, because like again, there's a million other things that can run the thing that you want to run, whether it be through cloud gaming or otherwise. So, and by a million, I mean like 10 or 15.
Yep.
Anyway, um Oh, sorry. Four quadrant. I might have misused that word darter. Um more like um it's kind of um four quadrant. And I now people can correct me when I'm wrong, but essentially what I meant was the thing that like the most ven diagram sides will cut into like um I don't know what the four quadrants are for gaming. I use that phrase a lot in in movies like a four quadrant movie like um like Inside Out is a four quadrant movie. It hits adults. It hits kids. It hits um families and uh
dates.
I What was that?
Dates in the fourth quadrant. Like date.

Maybe it could be dates. Yeah. I don't remember exactly. It's It's one of those phrases. You ever use something so long where like you know the toe and tenor of what it's supposed to mean, but you don't remember where it started.
Most jargon in the gaming space.
Yeah.
Yeah. Uh shall we onward? Let's onward
onward to some interesting news. So, Vampire Masquerade Bloodlines 2. Oh, wait. Oh, and sorry, I just looked this up. I know we just moved on. I was way off and this makes way more sense in my head. Four quadrant is uh the a classic movie industry nonsense thing, which is basically male over 25, male under 25, female over 25, female under 25.
Oh, okay. What a what a weird
doesn't doesn't really fit with what I was saying. So, rescended.
Yeah. Okay. So, um resetting Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines 2 is coming out in the nearish future in October.

Originally, they had announced that two of the clans, no I don't remember which two because it's not
Tordor and one of the other ones I liked. Now I want to say Ventrew, but I don't think that's right.
It might be Venture. I'll look it up while you chat.
Anyway, we're going to be locked behind premium day one DLC, which went over about as well as you might expect, which is to say not well. Not well. Uh and after a large amount of continual um uh push back, chatter, commentary, social media pressure. Uh they have changed the DLC plan. Um so it's walk the the studio has confirmed that they're walking back the plans to lock two clans behind a payw wall. Uh and they will be doing something else. Uh they will be doing um some additional story content and some I

believe cosmetics instead. Uh
you know like uh DLC should be.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Going to be $30 originally. Um and not even the deluxe will secure the two missing clans. Uh
right. It was going to be additional DLC even over the deluxe. And now they've they've walked that back saying that like, oh yeah, which I feel like this all stems from not understanding what vampire clans are.
Okay. No.
So like the to the to the to the fan base, right? because like it's not it's not great, but it's also not unusual to imagine a world where a game releases and uh classes are locked behind a a pay wall, right? And there would be,

I think, less push back for a lot of that. Um, so there I think they're kind of treating my guess is in other previous vampire games clans have been treated as classes.
Yeah.
Um, this feels like and again, who the hell knows the internal studio logic or or the publisher stuff that's going on in the background. This feels like something that the people who were involved in making this game and were involved in like actually understanding the game of Vampire the Masquerade would be like absolutely not. And people that aren't that maybe are more in the business side of things, which I think this story actually proves they might not be as tapped in as they might think, were like, "No, no, no. We can just add because it's like extra stuff. You don't need six. Just take four." Even though there's like, aren't there 12 or 13 clans? I I feel like more have been added.
Uh I it's been a minute, but the my point is this feels like a tonedeaf

uh publisher move as opposed to uh sort of like something that was like everyone's like, "Ooh, yes, we really do need to like Sorry." And the reason I say that is day one DLC as we talked about uh was that last week?
Yes. um
last week, the week before.
Yeah.
Uh
last week
never feels good when it locks something like this behind it.
Yeah.
Like you could have skins, you could have extra stupid in-game currency. You could have, you know, experience points boosters if you're if you're feeling incredibly nasty. Um you know, pay more to play less of the game. But the to lock like actual playable characters behind it feels there's no way that feels good cuz that says hey like we've all bought into the myth I think I said this last time too of like the DLC like

this is stuff that just isn't done yet in time for release.
Yeah.
And then they pay for it like four months down the line, three months down the line to just have it there and be like no. Like if you're like, "Well, the whole game,
right,
it's this."
Yeah.
Um, so I I'm just saying I think I social media pressure uh especially I mean this is just I can't imagine a group that would like that would see that like this plan and be like, "Yeah, this will work out fine." Like I'm I'm curious where communication broke down to allow this to break containment and be the thing that is pitched. Yeah, because it's the only thing I've heard about Blood Lines 2 was this this mess, right?
I saw a panel a year, not this PAX West, but the year before from um uh from the Chinese room uh and Paradox and it looked great. Like it was very very cool. Um,

but that yeah, like this stories like this suck up the air in the room and you only have so much for your product, especially today. This is not the press you want. Now,
hopefully this is a turnaround for it. Whether, you know, I I have high hopes for this game. Um, but this only took I think like a week to be adjusted. Just a week of bad press. Kind of a sends does does send a bit of a message to um individuals that you know if you make enough noise for a week sometimes stuff changes.
Appropo of nothing. Anyway, uh that was I think all I had on Bloodlines 2. Uh
I Let me ask this question because I feel like this this is the the fun thing for me with especially stories like this

that are like this happened then this happened, right? Is more asking everybody who's watching their thoughts on a specific thing? Has there ever been, and maybe I'm blacking out on this, has there ever been a day one DLC where you're like, "Absolutely, yes." and you're excited to do it. Like maybe there is one. Like I'm trying to see like what's the example that a studio would be using being like it worked great for Fixel Sticks, right? Like where are they getting this idea or are they trying to sneak more cookies out of the cookie jar before their parents get home? Like is that
Yeah. You know what I mean? I I think I think the I'm also gonna encourage people because I think this is this is my uh spot with this excluding games that you're already so bought in that you can't see daylight,
right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Or Magic for me, right? like you you have a game, right, that you're like, "Yep, I'm super bought into everything this game is

doing and I have lost rational like evaluation." And that is that is a different animal, right, than being happy to participate in day one DLC.
A couple people have said Javic from ME3. Was that day one? I'm trying to remember. I'm so sorry.
Pre-order Pet and Wow. Okay, that's a good one. Mhm. Pre-order pre-order bonuses, even though I don't believe in pre-ordering. Um, I'm fine with that. Seems like a thing. You're getting a value for this the stuff. Javic was day one. Sorry. This is why this is literally why I wanted to ask this question because I Yeah, I'm I'm not I'm I am not a Mass Effect person. So, I am and that is okay. I didn't play till later.
Yeah, I think that's another one, right?

Like you also This also presupposes that you're playing games that have day one DLC, right? Or that could have day one DLC. And a lot of the games that I play like don't, right?
I've been on a two week, this will be week three of Silkong, right? I'm just like all the way in on Silkong and that's okay, right? But like it's also $20 and also didn't have day one DLC and is going to have free content later. So yeah.
Yeah, it was 10 bucks.
Huh?
Yeah. Now, so I guess the question then is Yeah. Actually, yogurt's saying the same thing. So, I was gonna say like, is it fine? Like, was it fine? I imagine it wasn't fine.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yogurt, it's been a minute. It's been a minute since I've looked at the Mass Effect stuff.

Yeah.
Because it was mega lore.
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. So, so again, I guess it's sort of more So, the answer to my question is no. There's never been a day one DLC that people have been fine with
or even happy about, right? Like
Yeah,
it it
it's funny. You could consider free like free-to-play games always have day one DLC. Sure. When they launch, but that's part of the business model and you're not dropping 50, 60, 70 bucks on the thing already.
Yeah.
Anyway, I'm glad Bloodlines backed up. Uh hopefully this gets the game more to be, you know, the focus to be more on the game and less about what they are or are not offering for their price point. Yeah.
And uh we can get uh I mean this game has been so long in the no pun intended tooth coming. Uh I feel like I just want it to be uh I want it to be released. I

want it to be good and I want fans of vampire to be happy. I want the vamp I want the the family to be uh to be eaten good basically. That's what I want. Okay, there's so many thoughts, but that's okay. All right. Uh, next up, let's talk about a weird occurrence in the land of Steam. So, when one of the most important pre-launch metrics for most games on Steam is how many people have wish listed. It's one of the reasons that Silkong was projected to be such a success was not only its sort of media hype around it, but it was at the time the most wishlisted game on Steam. It might still be. I don't know if there's like an invisible flag where a game stays on your wish list after you've purchased it or not. But like now that a bunch of people have purchased it, if it has removed itself from their wish list because they own it, it probably isn't anymore. Um uh but one of

the reasons that that is such a strong indicator of success is that when your game launches and uh when your game goes on a sale that is 20% or greater, Steam will email everyone who has your game on their wish list and say, "Hey, you put this game on your wish list. There's a thing you should know about this game that you put on your wish list because you want it. here's, you know, you can either buy it or it's on sale or what
or it's been released. Yeah.
Except when they don't,
right?
See, it it has apparently happened a very small number of times, like less than a hundred times in the entire history of Steam, according uh to this article by PC Gamer. um that uh it just doesn't sometimes it it it doesn't sell uh or it doesn't uh email which means

that the game doesn't sell. So this game which Matt has uh lovingly I don't feel so good Mr. Stark um is Planet Centuri which is a 2D sandbox uh creature collection survival automation game. So, basically, it looks like if Terraria and Jurassic Park had a baby with Factorio. And I know a bunch of you are going to want me to say it again, so I'll say it again. This game is called Planet Centauri. Ce N T A U R I. Um, and uh it did the emails didn't go out for them, not to any of the 130,000 people that they that they wishlisted. Um, and they sold 581 total copies in five days because no one knew that they'd come out of early access
there. This game also had been in early access for what, like 10 years or something, something crazy.
Yeah.
But that does mean that it's had a long time of people wishlisting it and saying, "Oh, like the early access

progress looks good. I'll come back to it when it's out." Right. Those are still um like an important part of it. Um, and so yeah. Um, it ju it's an interesting reminder, right, that that not even that none of the systems that the industry is like really hinging on are foolproof. Valve admits that it's happened to less than 100 games since 2015 when wish lists when this system was implemented. So, less than a 100 games in the past decade. But when it does happen, man, does it suck.
Yeah. It's also a reminder not to put all of your eggs into one basket. Like if
where possible. Yeah.
Yeah. Like because I mean making anything and trying to advertise it and get it out in front of people is an insane task that uh only mad folks do and we all try to do it and we fail miserably sometimes and we succeed, you know, whatever. But like my point is I

don't know what other especially for something that's been in like what okay I don't know this whole story and I feel bad for these devs but like if if something's in early access for 10 years that probably means the team is very small and that they don't have a ton of money and and they're you know trying to get it out as as quickly as they can but they're running into some problems be they financial or personnel or whatever right um I think it's still important to note that even in those times like we you should never simply rely on one system for the bulk for the entirety of your like promotion or like ability to do it. Like I don't know if they ran other advertising or if they had it that in their budget, but I think I think you you do kind of need to like move the knowledge base around of your game coming out away from just Steam wish lists. Maybe they did. I have no idea. Um, but like that's to be perfectly honest, that's another that's a reason why we're also on Nebula. That's another

reason why we uh, you know, try to do things in different places as well. Because if you if you just focus on one thing, if that one thing on the 01% time messes up, it can mess up your entire livelihood. Yeah.
Um I I I guess Steam is offering to put them um on a featured page for one of the sales or something to hopefully get it moving.
Yes. As the Daily Deal.
Not the same, but
yeah, it it's definitely not the same. The Daily Deal is a big deal. It is on the front page of Steam. It is a thing that is often highly trafficked, but the devs have already said that the damage is done, right? they have already moved on to their next project because they don't think that it can um uh that it can like it's not financially viable for them to continue supporting it because of the number of sales that it received. So, they're just moving on.
They have already declared like cool great can't do it. Moving on,

right? And and to their credit like that is that is a strong I would say point of the dev's credit. Great. The launch sucked. Okay, next game. New new idea, new thing. What can we do? Right. They're making a rogike in the same engine.
Awesome. Different idea, right? Um and uh
I think it really like it definitely stinks, but I my my my salutes to the devs for taking this approach. Uh, and it is interesting to see that Valve is aware that they screwed up and they're trying to make it right to some extent, but also I don't know that they can, right? Like it's not even it's not even a question like the the closest thing I can think of that would be like a complete like apology and we've made good is like Valve buying copies to send to everyone on the wish list, right? Like that that's that that I think is what the only like fullblown

um
yeah,
like apology that would actually like completely land and solve all of the problems. Uh but they're not going to do that because that's, you know, probably a million dollars, maybe more than
we all know they couldn't handle that. Um the the Yeah, it's just it's it's a it's a it's a stark and sad reminder to not rely on a single system from a single company I think is kind of the thing. Uh it sucks and it feel very very bad for them. Hopefully uh they what they learned using this building this engine for Planet Centauri and then they can use it in their Rogue light uh hopefully that does much better for them.
Yep. Agreed. If you want to check it out, it is called Planet Centauri. We have not played it. I do not know uh its status. Um
but it's got a T-Rex.
Yep. And that T-Rex,
you know, that's that's enough for some

people. All right.
Are we ready, Matt?
I think so. What are we doing? What's the next one? Let me look at the show notes.
Oh, yeah.
So,
Borderlands. So, Borderlands had maybe not the greatest PC launch. Some PCs can play it fine. Some PCs can't play it at all. There's a bunch of chatter about it. They I I will in in defense of Borderlands. That is in part why Steam refunds exist. If you if you want to try it and see if your PC is one of the PCs that can play the game without, you know, crashing horribly and blue screening on launch and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, you can do that. You can purchase the game and then give it a shot and if it doesn't run, you can refund it. And that is that is an option that you possess. Um, I make no claims of knowing anything about any part of the game other than the technical stuff because I haven't

played any of it because the more I've thought about it, the more I realize it's just not in my wheelhouse right now and that's okay.
Yeah. Uh, we streamed it uh Jasmine and I streamed it uh this weekend. Uh, I've played it twice now. I'm very much enjoying it. It happens to run on my PC. Um, both I turned it down will just for the tech specs. I turned it down to 2K while we streamed just to do fine. There was one moment where it hiccuped and framed, but it didn't crash. But still, out of four or five hours of both recording, streaming, and playing on one PC, I felt like that was a decent trade-off. And it runs fine in 4K when I'm not streaming.
Um, it's fun. the I I want I want to say some nice things about the game because I think the devs uh really did do a lot um did a lot right in like quality of life improvements etc. You don't have to go to a certain place to change your character customization. You can upgrade your um the amount of ammo and backpack slots uh in in just your menu, not at a

place at a specific machine. Yeah, that's big improve.
The side quests in the open world reward those points to do that.
Oh, that's nice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Um the traversal is just fun. Like it's funny because you get both like a glide ability and a grappling hook and you get your vehicle, right? Oh, you don't have to go to catch a ride either. You can just summon your vehicle.
Oh, that's very nice. Um, so, um, but like the world seems very wellcraftrafted and legitimately traversal is one of my favorite parts. It it not I please don't let me go I'm not going this hard on it but the closest allegory or analogy one of those two a words that I can put it to
is like a fourth of how amazing it felt in Spider-Man 2 on the PS2 to swing through New York
like
it it just like at first I was like open world Borderlands

okay like it other than the load screens it was always kind of a slog to get anywhere every anyway and I was like is this going to be the thing? It feels fun and you run into a bunch of weird stuff and if you're playing with friends it's great. Uh the writing is more serious in a weird way to say like the main plot the villain feels like there actually there's some weight behind it which is nice. Um but we were talking about a bit of um experiential dissonance with what the game is doing and how the game script is presented to the players.
Yeah. So, there's a I'm going to I'm going to do some minor spoilers about a Borderlands 4 side mission if anyone is objecting to this does not affect any story other than this tiny tiny story. Okay, so I'm not spoiling like the timekeeper stuff or anything like that. So, this will take a minute probably. Um, essentially there's a side mission where you have to go help someone named Gigi. And you find out that Gigi is in fact uh

a a core, a computer core in a missile that has landed in a town that never exploded. and she wants her and the and the the meta joke in this entire quest line of like finding the pieces to rebuild the rocket uh is she's never been able to find her true purpose like and her true purpose is to explode and she needs to explode and she's talking about it like it's making a great piece of art or whatever but she also like doesn't want to hurt the people that have been like in the town around her so she wants to be rebuilt moved somewhere else set into the sky and to explode right a silly premise a missile's one thing at once like and and on the surface it's kind of delightful even a little poignant right the writing for this quest also fine like it's a bit saccharine and she talks like this and oh if only my one true thing I could really you like it's that it's that vibe okay
but the problem comes in

when it's the same joke that is soft it's a soft joke like that that's beating a dead horse through like five mini missions of finding pieces while you and your friends are like running around joking in real chat like blocking some of the stuff. Like the vibe of what you playing that game in multiplayer versus what that mission is supposed to be turned something that could be silly, funny, and a bit meaningful into a thing where we were all like we kept thinking the mission was complete and Gigi kept talking and we're just like shut the hell up. like it it the the implementation of the script in the way the game is played made you dislike it.
Yeah.
And I think there's a balancing act there that they haven't quite landed on. Like I feel like in Borderlands 3 for all of its issues, you could actively ignore the plot because the writing wasn't great and you'd still just roll through it. Here, the writing's just

good enough where you kind of want to pay attention, but the game and the actual actions you take in the game are actively pushing you away from paying attention.
Yeah.
So, again, Borderlands 4 seems very, very fun. It is not a perfect game. I am looking forward to playing it more, but there are there are great quality of life improvements and also moments where there's just dissonance of I feel like what experience they want you to have versus they expect you to have versus what you will have. Does that make enough sense?
Yep.
Okay, great. That is that's my mini Borderlands 4 review in general for a system that it is working on.
Correct. And unfortunately, the list of systems that it is working on is dwindling because it turns out that Borderlands 4 has a memory leak on console. So, if you've been playing Borderlands 4 on a console for a bit and you're like, "Wow, this plays this feels like it's playing way worse than it was when I started." That's correct. It is.

Yeah.
Now, I don't know how a game with memory leak gets through cert. So, I'm not even gonna really lay all of the blame at Gearbox, but like y'all, how does a game how does a a a modern $70 title get out on a modern console with modern console with a memory leak? I don't even think I want to blame Borderlands. I'm just looking at the system and going, y'all, how though? Like, how did this make it through? How how did like
Yeah, this is rough.
It's not So, so if you're unaware, right, games don't just get to say we're ready to release on console. Generally

speaking, games have to get sent to the console uh to a team representing the console that the game is going to launch on and it goes through a certification process to show that it is going to run correctly on that console. So, did it just not like I'm I'm very confused. I was debating when I was buying this because it does have crossplay right through the Shift accounts. Uh I was debating getting it on the PS5. I was like I I normally play these games. I'd love to have the ability to play it split screen which I've heard does not run terribly great uh right now as well. But I'm very thankful that I didn't because this came up this this story about the memory leak came up after the fact. came up a couple days because I think it was just you and the solution that um Randy Pitchford has been has been putting out there uh has been to just restart every half hour at least for the time being or get your money back which both are not wonderful uh

options. You should never have some sort of like
so
so that's the other half of this is that Pitchford is out on social media trying to help people And I want to give him full credit for trying to be a person with a social media presence to help people fix the game. But that's not his job. And the way that he's doing it is not is being magnified in a way I don't think he intends.
Yeah. Yeah, I would I would even I want to attack this from the best possible place of of the CEO of this company wanting the most amount of people to have this game work for them,
right?
And and to keep them as happy as they can. Uh whether or not that's true, like whatever that that's but that's that's the that's the vector that I want to hit the bit of this story with.

Look, they're in a much larger space than, you know, we are and that means the pressure is obviously way higher. Um, but even even even in our little corner of the internet, uh, Will, myself, the team, like we can kind of see the eb and the flow of what the current zeitgeist is doing. And we don't always get it right. By god, we don't. Um, but there are ways that you talk about things that are either not optimal for you or something that went wrong or you know um you know this that and the other thing that like that take the temperature down as opposed to as opposed to knowing even if you totally mean the best that the that the zeitgeist piranhas will just ratchet up to a thousand%. %
right
and then any doubling down or tripling

down or quadrupling down on that.
I'll even back it up. Something we've learned on YouTube. This is not even a a a social media thing or an interacting with with a community thing. This is this is a general reach thing.
Mhm. We have learned um that essentially cute titles for our standard animated YouTube videos do not work. You can have the most clever or cute title that's like so silly and funny and like a little bit highbrow but also a little bit lowbrow and like you're super like a a joke that in a a tight five on a standup thing would kill because it would have a setup you people would be going along for the ride etc. the way that people watch YouTube and the YouTube algorithm and how it sort of functions, those never work. It is not the space for it. It is not the place

for it. It is not designed for that to be successful. We learned that the hard way for probably like four or five months. Um, but then you read the the room of where you are posting a thing, be it a title or a post or anything, and you kind of go from there. And it never works out well when you double or triple or quadruple down on the thing that isn't working.
Yeah.
Um so like it's just I I I wish I I I wish the I wish the space was a different place. But like saying like a I think the quote that like actually got me where I was like no please don't talk like this. No was the you don't put what was it? You don't put a a monster truck engine in a Ferrari or something. I don't remember what was the it was it was some quote about car engines and like putting it into a thing

and expect it to run. And I'm like that's too cute. Like that's not like I get where you're going, but that's not showing enough empathy for the people that spent the $70 or whatever and it's not working. Like there's Yeah, it's it's hard. Uh and I'm not trying to to defend it. I'm just trying to put on a uh what I hope is that all of this stuff is coming from a place of of them really wanting this game to run for people both both for a because and I think I truly think it's more than just for a financial reason.
Yeah.
Like don't get me wrong, it's a company. The financials are tied in. Absolutely. But if it was just financials, I don't think that Randy would even be saying anything because there's Look at all the games that launch like garbage and the CEO doesn't go on and granted put their foot in their mouth, but like try in a backwards way to help people through it. Does that make sense?

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Like, okay, so I want I wanna I wanna I want to take this out of the context of Randy Pitchford, right? Imagine for a moment that Randy Pitchford hadn't said this. Okay. That it was someone else for a different game that launched poorly, right?
Uh
what do you got? What do you get?
Uh sorry, I I lost I lost where I was. That's for people who want uh so big piece of technical advice about trade-offs between FPS, resolution, graphics, features. Then that's for people who want to play now. People who want to play later can play later. People can even get a refund after buying and trying if they're not satisfied. Those are the options. My advice to users is to accept reality in tune or to not play. So up until the end there, it's like okay,
yeah, it's a tone thing,
right? Yeah.
Accept reality or not play,
right? It it's like it's so close to being genuine like in the trenches using

a social media platform to like help spread a message about like, hey, here are the ways that we recommend tuning the game to like for performance on different rigs and like we we hear your frustration. we're working on a passion. Like, it's so close,
right? But the last bit poisons it. And then the fact that it's Pitchford leans everyone further against it because he's notorious for doing this in the past, right? Like it's if you remove the fact that it's Pitchford, it's almost close enough to give the benefit of the doubt, but because of the source and because it's just off tone, it's like not it, right? It's so close, but like just Randy, Randy, stop. Stop.
I mean, he's getting a lot of that, too. Like, everyone everyone under the sun is just is saying that and seeing this and and and um yeah, it's just tone. It's tone. When whenever a public-f facing person comes off as flippant or dismissive, even if they

don't mean to be,
in the zeitgeist that we are living in, it will not go well. Um, and it's funny like I was trying to think back to it because like for instance, Ry's been in the game for a hot minute like did this did this ever work? Like was this seen like back in the day would this have been seen as just like a silly and transparency kind of thing? But because we've ratcheted it up,
right? It's difficult to say like is it a is it like a oh Randy, right? Like I don't
there's also and it's funny because again when when there was another thing I saw about like the percentage of people actually having problems and I think that even came from a good place because he was using internal data to try to figure out how many people were actually having the problem because he saw things spiraling etc whatever but like

it's almost when that might have also started as the most goodwill version of this. But even in this space, the goodwill version of this once the snowball is already rolling down the hill isn't going to stop rolling down. Like no amount of data or logic is going to help this situation.
Yeah.
Which sucks.
Yeah. Um the and many people smarter than us have even pointed out like you know just saying like we're sorry we're working on it you know we hope that it's going to be taken care of soon we'll give updates when we can
and then helping like in in the meantime
uh myself and the tech support team have ideas on how we might be able to make it work or if you're still unhappy we'd regret regret to see you go but get a refund until possibly we get it but like there's different like you could write this slightly differently and it would be fine.
Yeah. Right. It's it's Yeah. It's literally just

it feels like it's someone who's too many too many steps removed from the help desk answering the help desk line. Like, okay, I'm I'm visibly reminded of when I used to work tier one help desk support, right? And my boss I would hear my boss answer the the the help desk line when I was on a call, right? Because it it was a small shop. It was only like 150 users maybe, right? So, like I was usually the only one that we needed for the help desk, but sometimes the phone would ring when I was on a call and I would hear him answer the phone and it never went well because it that wasn't the like he wasn't in the right mindset to be doing help desk work. It reads exactly like that to me of like someone who thinks that because they're in charge they know how to help people with all of their problems but like is not the person who should be helping people with their problems. It even goes beyond whether or not they can or they are the per like it goes it goes to a point of like a person who is a CEO or tier two, tier

three or whatever has different has different internal possibly subconscious priorities than a person who is there to work the ground and try to get something moving on a on a on a starter level.
Yeah. And I think that can turn especially the vitriol that these first level people get that they should not get mind you but I'm sure they get hit with on the daily on the minutely. uh turning that vitriol back because you because if you are a tier two or tier three or if you're a CEO or whatever, you're in a position of power where if someone hits you with something really like harsh, you internally already feel like you have the power to be like, "No, [ __ ] that." Like, you know, like kind of like, do you know what I mean? Like it's it's a disconnect.
Yeah.
Um anyway, I don't want to harp on it. Everyone's already harping on it. Um, I hope that there's some sort of learning here because again, I want to be very clear. I think Borderlands 4 is my

favorite one since 2. I have not completed it, so I cannot say entirely. I'm very much enjoying it. I want more people to enjoy it. I don't want messages um from from people, you know, at Gearbot, Randy or whomever like again trying I do believe to do well. I don't want those messages to push people away from an what I do consider a good game. What I want is for them to take the time figure out the memory leak. Oh my god. Uh get that moving so the consoles can actually work. Make it run more stably on PC, which I know they've already done a patch. Um I I I want more people to be able to play this game because I think it has value.
Yeah. Uh, and I don't want people to be soured by it from people from from the calls that's coming from inside the house.
Yeah, you picked that.
Um, I don't know. I I just hope I hope that there's a lesson here that that is that is learned. I What I didn't want

this segment to be was a dog pile.
No. Does that make sense?
Yeah. Yeah. I I I think we've accomplished not dog pile.
Yeah.
Okay. But that does mean that we are at the halfway point of our show, Little Pass. Um, which means it is time for us to do ads. So, we're going to do ads for fake things you can't buy while Twitch chat gets ads for real things that you can buy. And we'll be back in like three minutes with more stories. Uh, some Oh, boy. More stories. Uh, Matt, you get to go first.
Oh god, I have to. Okay. Um, let me see. Let me see. Let me see. Let me see. Let me see. Where are you? Oh, there it is. Hey, everyone. Matt from Extra Credits here. I really want to tell you something that you truly need in your life that you probably didn't know. And actually, it's going to be two of our great stories that actually taste great together. I am of course talking about the increasing price of home consoles and how much the games will memory leak on them. Now, you might think that perhaps the higher the

price goes due to tariffs or other things, the less leaks you'd have. No, no, no. What we're pitching here today is you spend more money to get more leaks. You want to move both of these categories in the positive. And listen, don't worry about that sounding logically sound. When has that ever worked on the internet? More leaks, more money. Back to you, Will. Okay. I don't
I think I had a stroke.
It's like I don't Man, I smell burnt toast and I just had to listen to that. Um Okay. Yeah.
I like this. Bigger number better. More is always better. Number must go up.
Yeah. Right. Exactly. Yeah.
And then and then simply I hurt.
Yeah. No, that seems correct.
I am ready.
Are you ready? Here we go.
I am. Hey there from Extra Credits here. Can you not play the newest game because you don't have 70 bucks to throw at a

AAA title? Do you not want to play a game before it's all patched and ready to go? Can I interest you in purchasing old games? That's right. Or playing old games in your backlog. That's right. Every time we do one of these, I'm reminded that my backlog is entirely too big. That's right. There's all kinds of games that you don't have to spend any money on cuz you've already spent the money thanks to you in the past. So, you're borrowing money from you in the past to play games now. So, just just play the games that you already have, right? And then by the time you're done with those, then the game will be cheaper and probably fixed. So, just go play games that you've already got. That was good. That was more succinct than than mine. Um I'm I'm debating if I want to try another swing. I don't think it's going to work. But sometimes you just hit the button and you pray. Hey everybody, Matt from Extra Credits here. Do you have a bunch of old games in your Steam catalog that

you want to play because the newest games have memory leaks and you don't want to spend the $70 much like Will said? and you don't want to do Matt's other patented thing of buying a console for more money that has more leaks. Well, then you better watch out because what if your Steam account has leaks? What if all those games are dripping out of your Steam account and you can't catch them? You got to get a bucket. You got to get your hat. You got to do all these things to catch all the games. So, you better play them quick or at least for the low low price of however much Steam charges you to actually tell you that something wishlisted actually is released, you can actually patch that hole today. I think I liked your first swing better.
Yeah, me too. Listen, they can't all be winners.
No, I can't. It's okay.
There's a reason you can't buy any of the things in this section.
That's true. That's That's That's real. Yeah.
My goal My goal for that was to see if I could keep talking
like this one. It's good.
There we go. Yeah, it's good. Uh my goal

was just to see if I could complete it.
Oh, that's fair. Not not Well,
that's fair. No, that's valid. Yeah, it's 100% valid. Uh,
are video games are fluid? We should ask Jeff.
That's right. Uh, yes, there is a new Tron movie coming out, RC Fox. Although, uh, it will probably be terribly uh, terribly grossing.
Fun fact, with the new Tron Aries film, there's not one but two reasons to boycott it. You can figure out which those are. Uh, I'll tell you what, they're not. the Nine Nail soundtrack, which I'm sure slaps.
Yeah, but you can get that separately.
Yeah.
Uh, okay. Cool. Great. We're back for that.
I like Artemis. I like Artemis here just with the popcorn. I have no idea what's happening anymore.
No, that's fair. This is definitely one of our more um what episodes. And that's okay.
That's okay.
Yeah. All right. Uh let's move on to our to our next uh our next discussion.
Hey, it's our thumbnail from last week.
Yeah. So, we've got a we've got a small update. So, the Nintendo patent has made

it into um has made it into court. And as we talked about with the patent, one of the things that Nintendo uh was in jeopardy of was um the idea that anyone would have done a thing that the patent covered before. Now, often times patents are, and I talked a bit about Jeff with this, who's got some experience in the field, um, patents are incredibly unspeakably narrow, that it makes it very difficult to cover exactly what the patent is going over unless you're doing exactly that thing. But the team at Poworld have found some examples of what they believe is prior art, forcing Nintendo to make the following claim in court. That mods for games don't count as prior art.
That's so stupid I can't see straight

anymore. Um, so their claim is that mods aren't real games and aren't art and can't be aren't legally admissible as prior art, even though all that's required for a patent to have prior art is that someone did that thing before you did. Like the bar for prior art is not particularly high, I would I would say, right? You literally just need an example of someone doing the thing before you filed the patent. It's not It's not particularly high. Um
I believe the I believe the thing that everyone's quoting here too is a Dark Souls 3 mod for
Yep.
Pal world.
No, the So the PAW World team is referencing a Dark Souls 3I mod.
Oh, it's referencing a Dark Souls 3I mod. That's why I was getting confused in these stories. We have all the stories in the um in the show notes from both IGN, from Games Radar, and from PC Gamer. Yeah.
Um

it's it's a lot to sort of like digest as as this story goes on. I will say this, uh, we were so interested in, um, the discussion, uh, last week that I asked Jeff if, uh, he knew of any, uh, lawyerly folk uh, that specifically focus in patent law. And he do. And there is a chance, I don't want to promise this uh yet, but there is a chance that we're going to be doing a full animated extra credits episode on this with someone who uh is deep in the weeds of actual patent law. Um, which I would be so excited to do. The problem with something like this is obviously how long it takes, but this is a big enough thing. I feel like this is a story that's going to continue on for months going back and forth and whether or not something happens with court cases, etc. Yes,
that um hopefully the core the core information of how the system works, why this got through when

lots of people say it shouldn't have and these slow editions of these sort of stories like uh mods not being prior art. Uh hopefully they all kind of play into what that script can be and we eventually make a 15minute actual succinct thing that can explain a lot of this complex convoluted stuff to people in the game space. like it's the stuff that EC is really great at. It's the reason why even before I was here, Will was here, anybody that we were excited about Extra Credits. So, I was I was glad that we found at least a resource to start that conversation and I'm hoping that that episode we can get that episode out by the end of the year.
Yeah.
Um
so, um the uh so, so there there is a bit of confusion and I do want to iron that out. So, there are two different patents at play here. One of them is a Japanese patent and that one is something I know nothing about. Okay, I'll be totally honest.
Pretend that we know what the hell.
Yeah, we we we are not patent lawyers and we're definitely not Japanese patent

lawyers.
Definitely not. Um
I checked,
right? Yeah, we looked in our big bin of fake scientist glasses and none of them said Japanese patent lawyer scientist. Yeah,
none of them. So, um the the big thing is that this is um also relates to a simultaneous patent that the Nintendo filed in the United States. And that one is much more precarious and may
we're going to see how this multiaceted international patent lawsuit thing shakes out. But at a minimum, if their legal argument is at all the same when they go to try the uh American patent because it will be tested immediately. Um my hope is that this doesn't hold up, right? Because it does create sort of a weird precedent that I'm not a huge fan of. mods are already on shaky ground in terms of copyright law, which is to say they don't really have copyright because they're all derivative works of things

that are usually copywritten unless the copyright holder for the original game gives modders specific rights and permissions in some kind of ULA. Um,
but I'm not keen on the idea that a modder can make a thing and then a company can say, "Hey, we patent that and your thing doesn't count as prior art because it's a mod." That would be like the worstc case scenario.
It just doesn't make any sense because like then we're getting like then like okay what is art then grandpa like it it it gets weird. Um
yeah.
Yep.
I don't know if we have much more to say on that for this thing. Uh while we're transitioning uh Hans don't you worry that story is coming. Also oopsie this is a sake bottle. I am not drinking sake uh because it's almost just it's just noon. Uh and I'm not partying. Uh but the um this is what I keep my milk in for my coffee because I want to, you know, just keep adding milk to my coffee.

Yep. Uh okay. Uh oh, that's right. I missed one.
Yeah, it's okay.
Oh, which graphic did you miss?
I missed the fridge.
Oh, yeah. You missed the other one.
I missed the fridge. It's okay. We'll we'll talk about this one while I get the fridge one.
Okay. Um, so, uh, the devs of Tarov have said that it's coming to Steam for 1.0.
Yay. Right. Hey, let's It's Rejoice, Will. It's such a good story. Cuz it's coming to Steam. That means you're going to get achievements. You're going to be doing all this stuff.
That's cuz I don't have a fridge picture.
What?
I'll get you it right now.
It didn't make it in. Um,
how dare I?
Yeah. Uh, so with it coming to Steam, they they've essentially said, "Yeah, if you want to keep playing on Steam at the 1.0, you're going to have to buy it again." Which there are probably reasons for that, but this also goes handinhand with the pitchfor thing of like, "Y'all read the room. Read, please, please read the

room." Why? Like I you have to buy the game and then you can log in to get all the stuff that you previously had on your account, but you have to buy the game on Steam to
it. Also, doesn't it already connect in a certain way? Like there's something like
you could have just talked to the Path of Exile team. They had this figured out and and you did did
look best case scenario, it's something that just slipped through the cracks and that they will fix. Worst case scenario, they're just trying to milk another sale. I don't know. I'm not part of this community enough to like know exactly what that is, but people are not thrilled.
Yeah, I would say that that is that is accurate. Um, Tarov also hasn't been doing, in my opinion, the best with public relations. Most of the stuff that's been coming out about it has been mid um to negative. Uh, I I don't know enough about Tarov as a game to have any

real opinion of it other than like the the analysis that what I'm hearing in the news cycle about it isn't great. I'm not hearing a lot of people who are super excited about it. Um, yeah, more like double tap correct. Uh, and so yeah, that's that's that's my only uh my only thought on that. Please hold.
I just Yeah, it's it's not a great move. Hopefully they take uh Bloodlines 2's approach and when their stuff comes on then they uh you know change change their tune. Uh because all you're all you're doing is not making the money you think you're going to make and buying a bunch of ill will
and trust me is fine. Will is not sick.
I don't like being sick. I'm I'm sick more frequently than I'd like to be. Uh and I would like to not be sick right now.
Um
Damon is Tarov about getting stabbed in the back.
I mean in part. Uh
yeah.
Okay. So, uh, in in other dystopia news,

so Samsung has announced that if you paid like $1,800 for a smart fridge, that one of the things that Samsung is going to start doing
limitedly, of course, just to start, just to see, just to find out,
just a little bit is showing ads on your fridge in your kitchen. That's the story. That's it. That's that's that I don't in what world like this also is the theme of today's episode trying to sneak things by in the most hamfisted way possible. Like I know that there are articles, we have them linked in the show notes about uh about literally this about um Samsung

sort of announcing uh that this is coming a software update. This comes to us from Mashable. A software update from Samsung's Family Hub smart refrigerator will bring ads to some customer screens in the US. And this is just their writing. But don't worry, that's a good thing. At least according to Samsung, the company says as part of it new pilot program would strengthen the value. quote of owning a Samsung smart fridge. This is their quote that they have here. I'm just going to I'm just going to go down it. Samsung is committed to innovation and enhancing everyday value for our home appliance customers. As part of our ongoing efforts to strengthen that value, we are conducting a pilot program to offer promotions and c curated advertisements on certain Samsung family hub refrigerator models in the US market. Um, so they're adding value, Will. It's what they're doing. Do you see? Do you see the value? I can now see the Where's the beef lady on my

fridge whenever I'm out of beef in the fridge?
I think we're using the word value differently.
No. Do you remember the ads, Will? Do you remember the fake ads that we did?
I remember.
Number go up. More things fridge do, better fridge. Yes. Yes. I shouldn't put a question mark on the yes. It's yes, right?
No.
Fridge used to not do thing. Now fridge do thing. Yes.
No. But that's No. That's like saying if fridge became part of Skynet that one more thing that fridge do that. Good. No. Wrong.
Skynet do thing too. Skynet fridge missile want to just explode. want to blow up.
Indiana Jones, get in fridge.
Protected from nuke.
Protect from nuke. Aliens real. Yes.
Yeah.
Yes. I keep I keep putting the question

mark on. Yes. Is it because that this ads on refrigerators is pure [ __ ] Is that why I'm doing it?
Yeah. So that the reason, by the way, this is only in the US is that
Oh, yeah. anywhere else with any kind of decent consumer protection laws, there's an immediate lawsuit, right? There's an immediate consumer protection lawsuit because they have ch fundamentally changed the functionality of the device after the point of purchase. It was not purchased with advertisements and you have added advertisements to it, thus fundamentally changing the It's a very easy lawsuit anywhere that has decent consumer protection laws, but we don't have those here in the US.
Aal the fancy coffee machine at my work randomly runs Lowe's ads on its touchcreen.
Yeah. Yuck.
Like it's it feels like the gas station, right? Where like you pump you're you're you're trying to pump your gas and they're like, "Here's an advertisement."
And you're like, "I just wanted to enjoy the fresh air while I pump my gas."
The fresh the fresh gasoline air.

Uh my my the station near me.
I'm not judging, Will. I'm not judging. Um,
listen listen. I don't know what I don't know what places you go to, but where I go to, I can like
You have the freshest gasoline smell.
Yeah, that's right. I actually never smelled the gas. Okay, you all can have terrible gas stations.
Um,
yeah, the smell of cigarettes. Why are they Wait, hold. more worried. I'm more worried about why
there is cigarette smell near a gas station. That No, no. Now I'm worried. Now I'm worried, right? No. Um, no. No. Absolutely not. Um, okay. Uh, no. Like I'm not I I literally don't smell the gasoline. It's just nice to be outside.
It's nice to smell gasoline.
That's totally it. It's not. Um,
we're kidding. It's a joke.

I know. It's a joke. And part of in order to keep a joke going, I'm obligated to engage with the joke. Otherwise, the joke just dies. Matt, you have to water the joke. Writing. Um, okay. So, back to the smart fridge, though. I really Okay. Okay. So, let's go back to Averell's uh example of the of the the fancy coffee machine at work doing advertisements. So, that is in a secondary location than your home. I know you could buy that coffee machine for your home as well, but like I'm just saying like we are I feel like correct me when I am wrong. Will Brad Janet uh Rocky uh message us on Blue Sky? Let us know. I feel like we are more in the United States we are more forgiving of advertisements everywhere except our home. And in our home, we've kind of, even though it is a bad move, rolled back to the idea of being more and more

comfortable with either YouTube or streaming to also have advertisements because it is in a a medium in which original television was like we we we got used to the idea that we will be served ads while we watch content. There's a reason why in-game video content has sputtered out and died a lot of times, no matter how much they try to do it, and they'll keep trying to do it. Um, I don't I'm hoping that people will see this and just be like, "No, I'm just not going to buy your fridge." Like, we will and I when when Will found this story, I forget what we were playing. What were we playing? Um,
Hearthstone on Thursday.
Thursday. We were playing Hearthstone. Um, and it's like we just started looking up what refrigerator prices are. So, this is the starting price of this Samsung fridge that will serve you advertisements is $1,800. Um, you also don't need a fridge with a screen. Like, you just you you just don't
really don't.
How many screens are in all of our

homes? You just don't.
I can't like like I know that there are slight quality of life things. And you know what? I'll even go on the line and say maybe there's an energy efficiency thing, too. You can know if you're running low on something without opening the door to the refrigerator, which cards more energy. That's a stretch. Um, but you really you don't you don't need a screen on your fridge. I don't care how much it can run Doom. Uh, and this just furthers like I'm hoping that that visceral hatred everyone has for advertisements in their homes outside of regular places is enough to tell Samsung to knock it off because this is it. What this is what I would argue is probably the primary place you look at not a screen in your home like on the daily basis. You will look at this at least a few times a day, no matter what. There are days I don't

watch TV, right? It's atrocious. It's It's a cyberpunk dystopia.
Yep. Also, for no particular reason, I will now mention an idea, a thought, a thing that you can set up for yourself called a pie hole. P I H O L E. Pie Hole. Raspberry Pie.
It's a Raspberry Pi.
Um, it's a Raspberry Pi that runs ad blocking for your whole network, including your smart fridge.
There you go.
There are ways that you can stop this. Even if you even if you have the smart fridge, there are plenty of ways that you can turn this off.
Yeah. Oh, Will, we forgot a important story and Sue just reminded me. How about Ray-B bands with screens?
I don't think that's an I don't No, I don't think that's an important story.

The No, the absolute bodying that Zuck took in his in his uh in his presentation of uh Meta AI.
Oh,
I urge you as we transition to our next story, we don't have a thing prepped for this. go and find the two epic fails of Zuckerberg trying to push this the Meta AI's ability to like use the Ray-B band glasses and like look at ingredients and tell you how to cook something in a totally impromptu thing and then also its ability to make AR calls like they both fail so spectacularly that the audience the the audience that is like if you're going to a Meta event chances are you like Facebook, they just openly laugh. Like it is it is insanely cathartic in a world gone mad.
I urge you to find these clips and watch them.
Okay.
Sorry. We I wish I put that in the show.

It's okay. All right.
Yeah. Yeah. Miss Ingitch, must be a problem with the Wi-Fi is what they say, which is a intrinsically insane thing to say in the most controlled presentation you would do in your entire life.
Yep. Um, now let's talk about a use of AI that I hate way more than Zuck getting bodied about AI.
Yeah. Which if you can imagine. Anyone know what this is? Anyone know what this is? Does anyone know what this is? We'll wait. Yes. And I hate it.
Yep. Uh, no. I'm I'm with I'm with I'm with Jimmy. Yeah. Oh, no. These are all good. These are these are all really good. I like this one. Uh, The End of the World as we know it. And uh I also like A Crime Against Humanity. It's good.
I like Grandpa Stuck in the Future fridge.

Very true. Very reasonable.
That's too damn bad.
Okay.
Yeah. So, LA Comic Con Yeah. No, Digital Grave robbing is correct. Yeah. LA Comic Con announced that fans would be able to spend uh somewhere between 15 and 20 US to have a threeminut chat, the hologram of Stanley powered by AI at LA ComicCon this year. I have so many complicated feelings about this. Most of them negative. Let's start with the following.

What you he? No,
but don't worry.
Stop it.
Don't worry. Legacy Programs uh the production company Hyperreal
um the Stanley Legacy Programs head Bob uh Samuni and this comes to us from Gizmodo. uh assured uh that the hologram wouldn't say anything that isn't quote in line with the things Lee spoke about in his lifetime, letting us build a voice that stays true, not always word for word, but always faithful in spirit, context, and intent.
No.
Do do you remember how long it took Fortnite kitties to break Darth Vader in Fortnite? Do you remember?
Cuz I remember it was like under an hour. It was like sub 60 minutes.
It's even beyond that. Like

because here's the thing. Tricking Darth Vader into saying slurs is awful.
Right.
But Darth Vader's not a real person.
Also true. Correct.
This is like and and look, I want to make it very clear. Uh Stanley did a and the end of his uh life around then sell his um likeness to um I want to say I'm trying to remember the company say is it Kamicazi Entertainment or um
no no no uh [Music] there is there is another um
he sold his likeness rights to do whatever they wanted with it to a company. Uh, but there's a couple different things with that, right?
Cartoon Studios.
Cartoon Studios.
Um, everyone should be able to with their own personal likeness do whatever they want to do with it. And that does include sell it to companies. The problem is, especially someone later in

life, there were, and again, we we don't have time or the research to go into this, there were um accusations of elder abuse with Stan Lee as he got up there in age. people sort of still using him like a mascot and maybe he didn't fully understand exactly what was going on when things were signed or things like that. Like there's a whole litany of stuff in that range. But also even beyond that, let's say for the sake of argument that Stanley was a sound-minded body and he sold his likeness rights to a company, you know, whatever that he firmly believed in. He had a personal relationship. I'm making this up. This is not a true thing. I'm saying what if as a hypothetical he knew the people that ran this company and believed in their mission of like keeping his um his spirit alive in a in a weird in my opinion ghoulish way but like that was the goal. The problem is literally what we're seeing all around us is essentially consolidation because eventually no matter what some other that company's either going to go out of business and then those rights are going to be sold to the highest bidder or

another company's just going to buy that company and those new places might not have the things that Stan or anyone entering into one of these agreements uh would actually still believe in like the second you sign that kind of thing away. Yeah. Even if it's for the best intentions and even if the company running it has the best intentions, they're not going to be around for as long as that license will be.
Also,
it's going to turn dark.
Yeah. Also, uh I think Grass has a really great point that I want to highlight. When he passed, this wasn't a thing. So, the thing that he would have been agreeing to, even though the words could be applied to something like generative AI,
Yeah.
would not have looked anything like this. It probably would have been like Stanley on a on like a big a non-interactive display doing like a selection of Stanley quotes, right? Would have been the understanding that he would likely have been given in 2018, but now it's this thing which is totally different seven years later, right?

Yeah.
And and I just
and also Yeah. Oh, sorry. I like the raw commercialism of it just like okay so like when you go to a convention and you pay to spend time like getting an actor or a writer or a a personality's autograph getting a selfie with them in part you are supporting that person. That is one of the ways that those people make a living when they're not actively working in whatever industry you know them from. That
once upon a time I went to New York Comic-Con when I was a youth and I met um James Marsters who played Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and I paid $40 for an autographed picture autograph thing with him and I just ended up chatting with him for about three to four minutes. Um I don't love the concept of that. However, I'm going to say that like in that instance, I did feel like my money was valuable because

he and I were chatting for quite a while. He seemed interested in what we were talking about. Felt like I actually made a connection, not a real connection, but a casual connection with an actual human being to the point where uh like it just it was just a nice interaction where I was like, "Okay." And I was happy to support that actual living human breathing person and their endeavors and what they are doing.
Right.
This is not that.
No.
Right. Like this is just like give us money to stand next to our big tablet, right? like it's not it is attempting to co-op a thing that is is a real part of the convention experience whether and like there's a separate conversation about whether or not that's a good thing to have as part of convention experiences but it is part of the convention experiences and now we're co-oping it and removing the actual human connection from it and saying oh this is just like that human connection only synthetic you should pay us money right which is like additionally gross and weird I this is

not something that I would ever want to do. Um or like I go back to Darth Vader in Fortnite. What if at Disney D23 or whatever the the convention is that Disney runs, they had a booth like this, but it's Darth Vader and you go up and you talk to Darth Vader, I wouldn't be interested in it. But since it's a since it is a character that is not a real human being or was not a real human being, like I would be like, ah, it's not for me, but like whatever. It's a it's a theme park ride, right? Al
also for those I guarantee you it's cheaper to do it like with the mechanical turk like it's way easier to do that to do like the exact
thousand%. Oh, I'm sorry. Well, are you are you suggesting that nearly everything outside of research and medical things that AI is being used for and possibly graphic design and some video stuff that uh any of this sort of like trying to integrate AI into your

day-to-day life actually is more expensive and more non-energy efficient and doesn't give you the same amount of actual help andor benefit that hiring a human being would be. Is that what you're saying?
Yeah.
Okay, cool. Uh yeah, they haven't figured out how to make it make money yet overall. Like this is and this is not only that, but also like I keep using the word ghoulish cuz like you're literally making a ghost dance and it's like it's funny. We've seen on stage on stages ghosts dancing,
right? This is worse.
This is worse. Also, also I have a horrible idea. I have an awful, absolutely wretched, terrible idea. Are you ready for this, Matt?
Let's go.
Three words Disney related. Hall of Presidents.

Okay.
Done this way.
Right. I mean I mean then you're getting into another level of [Music]
you're getting that scream. I love it.
Another level of importance like cuz right like Stanley is a public figure
right? Um but Stanley was not in charge of a government.
But the same problems exist, right? That like people will take this faximile as being an accurate representation. Like do you remember Okay, this is not nearly the same level of actually this is weirdly less awful than something. Okay. Do you remember when Jim Aosta interviewed the AI ghost of a kid who had died in a mass shooting event in the United States and was like trying to make a a point about it? Like it's less

bad than that, but it's still very bad, right? Like it's still very bad in that in that sort of like people trying to use this as a standin for the actual Stan Lee, right? and try to be like, "Yeah, well, Stanley's AI endorsed me, so like we're good to I don't like what?"
Yeah. Also, Kio brings up a good point. The holograms aren't AI. We're I just I said make a ghost dance. That's where I connected. But that's important to do the differentiation, especially when we're talking about technology that's sort of like branching.
Um,
yeah. I when Will brought this this story up, I I I'm trying to think because there Okay. Okay. Let's back up. Best faith argument. He's is who's the audience for this? Who who who wants to talk to the ghost? The fake

ghost. Like who who's excited? Like cuz it's not Okay, this is why I go back to Vader or a fake character. Okay, cuz kids would be excited to talk to Vader or be excited to talk to The Mandalorian or Grou or that trailer dropped. I haven't watched it yet today. Um
um but like kids aren't excited to go talk to Stan Lee. So, okay, it's for adults, but are there enough adults that are excited to do this? I hope not. This seems like an incredibly expensive, giant waste of both booth space and morality, or lack thereof.
Yeah.

And I understand people saying like, "Do you know how many adults that are kids?" Yeah, I get that. But like I just like Okay, then you okay then you have to look at why do we pay for especially in a social media age, why do we pay for experiences of meeting a celebrity or doing whatever like the selfie culture, right? like if you run into a famous person taking a selfie with them
that I want to make it very clear there's nothing wrong with this in general but it is a way to make your social presence look a little shinier at this point or or make you feel good about like oh I ran into you know Chris Hemsworth or whatever right like like that's what it is and so there's value I took a picture with Spike I like that. It's neat. Um, but then what are you doing here? You're

taking pictures or having a video of you talking to a computer that is wearing Stanley's face. Like, I don't see that a a person who is very publicly dead.
Yeah.
That's not going to carry the same level of clout. Clout might be the wrong word, but like internet points or whatever, like there's not even the social media value to this.
Yeah.
Like even if you get a dopamine hit from it,
right?
It's not going to be the continual drip that is an actual human being.
I'm also going to pitch a terrible idea that I hope we don't slide into. Okay. What if the end goal of this is not to have people interact with Stanley?
Okay.
But rather to use this as a proof of concept for a service that you can use to

immortalize your loved ones.
Oh, it's it's Oh, are you kidding me? That's coming that's coming down the pipe. Th This is I do not think that this is a insidious thing to get us to normalize this concept. I think this company thinks this is a good idea,
right? They're wrong, but I agree that they think that.
But I don't think they're thinking that. I think that some other group will see this. And yes, and in the same way that will bid, pitching to the company that's running it or whatever. Um, and yes, grass, there's already been a grass mirror about that.
Oh god, that's so dark.
A black mirror. Yeah. Uh, like never miss a Christmas or baseball game again ever. Yeah. I I don't think Okay, I'm going to back up. Can Let's back up for a second. Let's talk about

because there's also like an a an endemic problem of of people using AI chat bots as therapists andor companions. Yeah, it's a huge problem. Um I think that the amount of processing power I imagine well actually I don't even know like one of the reasons why I think it is so prolific to have like those things are so easy to grip people like in a chatbot capacity or one that's like that's really interesting of you like the ones that talk back to you in like an almost human voice but it's still either an avatar or or or just a AI voice is because there is no fa like there is no human face doing it.
Yeah.
Like there I'm curious if the uncanny

valley that we witness in visual effects uh and and in special effects will have the same thing as as we get to like because again we're talking about this technology. Let's I mean I guarantee you there's not a moment where it doesn't hiccup like for a millisecond at the least and knock you out of the illusion, right?
Like is that going to be the same thing like when AI chat bots get human faces that like look like you're talking to someone on a on a Zoom call?
Yeah.
The closer we get to that ubiquity, the more I think our our fight orflight bits of our brain are going to see a glitch and be like, "Ah, monster." Like have that feeling. You know what I mean? where when it's when it's simply a voice or something, you kind of let it wash away. But when it gets closer and closer to real life, but it's just not there, I'm hoping that we have the same reaction that we do with with CGI and the uncanny valley.
Yeah.
Um that's the only cuz regulation ain't going to protect us. Like uh that's the

only like I'm hoping our internal psychology actually does that. Yeah. Oh yeah, there you go. Yeah, we combine that with Meta Ray-B bands. Grandma, I glitched out. Must be the wifi.
I'm just dying over that. Like it
Yeah.
Like there's no upside to this, right? Like except the like raw commerce angle maybe for some. But I Oh god, it's so bad. And and and by the way, LA Comic Con not doing well as a result of this. Lots of people upset. Lots of people very upset. Lots of people not going to LA Comic Con. Lots of presenters and other people pulling out of going to LA ComicCon because of this.
Isn't it infuriating that we

that companies do not have the forethought? I think it's because companies get away with so much that they just don't have to. That when something large like this or um pulling a late night show or some other thing happens that the only recourse is immediate backlash at people's purses purse strings. Yeah. like is the only way like I just don't understand how there's no for like actually I I we won't get into it about the Jimmy Kimmel stuff but uh there are multiple reasons behind that with mergers and things like that sort of makes sense but like let's even stick to I might have I I was swinging too high there going back to Bloodlines going back to Tarov going back to this how as a company do you not see

how this will hurt you.
Yeah.
Is it because you get away with 90% of the other things that you just roll this into the other ideas or and you can weather a storm like this? Maybe.
Anyway, this is ghoullish. I hope uh the company do the doing this fails miserably. I hope if LA Comic- Con keeps it that their attendance goes down. I really I feel bad for everyone who works at LA Comic- Con and other vendors that use this as part of their actual uh you know business model of their companies themselves and their products and services that they offer and they should be furious and writing letters and saying how much this idea is killing the attendance and therefore the value of their their possibility of being there like um
Yep.
Yeah.
Yep. Yep. Okay. Are we ready for a good different weird interesting story?
Yes. All right, let's talk about Zero Caliber 2. Now, you you've probably never heard of ZeroCalibur 2, and that's okay because

it's a VR game. It's a VR game, which means it's already got a teeny tiny audience because only people with VR headsets can play it, and there are not very many of those. Um,
yeah, like statistics
relative to the total install base of people who play who who play games on Steam. Um, Zero Caliber is a VR game that's it's coming out on uh Steam and they have hatched upon an ingenious idea, assuming of course that Steam fires off the wish list email when it goes live,
of course,
which is that they have pledged to drop the release price per number of wish lists. This is a fascinating idea. There may be other games that have done this, but they're the first ones that I've heard that have done this publicly. They're saying that the game the their initial pitch is that the game is going to cost $30 at launch, but if they reach $100,000 wish lists, the game will cost $15 at launch. This is a very interesting way to game the

system in an era where people are tired of paying a lot for games. It's transparently allowing you to trade a little bit of your social media time essentially to make the game cost less dollars. Right?
The the interesting question is
yeah,
what is the internal math of a wish list uh put to a sale? Like what's the percentage on average of the game in this
uh in this space? Like here's the interesting thing about it actually will
Yeah.
Oddly, it being a VR game might help it here.
Yes.
Because there's less competition here in their small pond.
Yeah.
And people who have VR headsets are hungry for new games in in VR.
Mhm.
So maybe that works here, but maybe not somewhere else. Mhm. Yeah, it it is an interesting idea and I

am very eager to see what the impact of it is because I would really like to see a world where companies were a little more transparent about things like this, right? Especially with again things cost a lot. Banks tariffs, right? Um cost of groceries, cost of gaming uh stuff, cost of everything go up, right? Cost go up bad, right? So if we uh my my thought was purely it will be great if this works successfully and if we can expand this to other places where instead of a game costing $50 at launch, maybe it costs $40 at launch or $35 at launch. Right? I'm not suggesting that every game is going to be able to do a 50% drop, but to be able to say, "Hey, we're trying to put the word out and by according to the math, we can make the right amount of money to keep our company going by selling X number of copies and we think that Y number of wish lists translates to that. So, if we get to 2Y number of wish lists, we'll be able to drop the price accordingly."

Sure.
I think is a great model for smaller studios. I'm just excited by it. I hope that it I I hope that it works out in a good way. I I think it is an interesting swing. It'd be cool to see Oh, the prej for Portal 2 where people could grind stuff or were rewarded sooner. Yeah. Yeah.
By the way, it was sooner. It knocked like fractions of a second off every time you got a potato.
I know. But it was funny. Like that's the that's what you want. You want the thing that actually doesn't affect you as much as possible. And this is one that you Oh, actually, sorry. I just got I got distracted by Imbalante's uh thing. What if none known VR players pre-order it cost but not buy it? Yeah.
Yeah.
Out of the fear.
Yeah. But it's still getting the word out, right? Because companies because other companies still care about wish list metrics, right? The wish list

metric is a weirdly gameable thing.
Yeah. They're they're banking on I think the value of a wish list metric being almost higher than the value of sales.
Yeah.
Which is an interesting swing. I don't I don't know. I don't know how that works.
I don't either, but we're going to find out.
Well, we'll keep on this. I I'm curious. When does this game launch? When does Zero Caliber launch?
Uh I don't
I'm going to look it up and uh correct talk about it. So, I think it worked. Agreed. Uh
oh.
What?
Oh, Steam. Here we go. Q3 2025. Because I was like, Zero Caliber 2 launched on the MetaQuest platform August 1st, 2024.
Yeah. No,
but it's it's it's getting it it's Steam release.
Yeah. Yeah.
I guess it's a remaster, too. Yeah, technically.
I mean, yeah. Going off the Quest and on to PC is a pretty big jump in processing power.
Yeah.
Okay. I think that does it for our

episode today. I know it was a little all over the place. I know we had a lot of stories about digital ghosts. I'm sorry for all the digital ghosts. Get a digital exorcist. Splash some digital holy water on all of your devices. Keep the digital ghosts away.
Something that I I want to make it very clear is when we go into the tech side of this of gaming and tech news on Games for Breakfast.
It is always coming from a place that we believe will affect the gaming industry at a certain point down the line. I know we don't always say it.
Yeah.
But uh every one of these stories, even down to the smart fridge, due to how they're going to do it due to how they're going to implement ads across different things, it all it all trickles into gaming.
Yeah, it does. Um,
it might not be obvious like at the rip, but I'm always looking at these from a gaming angle and because I think it it

broadly like when I'm prepping these, it's always because I can see how this is going to be like advertisements on your PlayStation that play when you let your PlayStation go to sleep with your TV on.
Yeah,
right. It's not that far off. So anyway, I guess the last thing, the only thing left to do, Will, after this lovely conversation we've had with Brad and Janet and Rocky, please everybody, uh, message us on Blue Sky. If you've gotten this far, tell talk to us about the things we've talked about on the show. Did we get stuff right? Did we get stuff wrong? Did you type our names incorrectly? And then, uh, we love continuing the conversation. You on YouTube, you can leave it in the comments as well. Um, yeah, because uh, there's a lot going on, Will. There's a lot.
There is. There's a lot. But do you know what's going on right after this? Matt,
what?
Sure. [Music]
Silk song. Will's playing Silk Song over

on Twitch. So, if that interests you, head over there right after we sign off here. Yeah.
Um, and uh, you're in act two. You're late act two, mid act two.
Late act two. Uh, we're going to be we're going to be um heading towards the completion of the quest that we've been told is the main body of act two.
Cool. All right. Well, there you go. Uh, and before we do that, we will leave you with our same sign off we do every week. Of course, we do this to maintain community and make sure that we that you all feel like you're a part of the show because you know exactly how every show is going to end because it never ever ever ever changes. So, with that, we're going to do our traditional play the ad for the original Where's the Beef commercial uh just for you on my phone. That's what we're doing. We're just going to do Can you see it?
Thank Thank you for watching. Where's the beef?
Where's the Where's the beef? [Music]