Can a Bad Name Hurt a Good Game?

I got a question for you listeners. Tell me which of these games is fake. War Thunder, War Dogs, Delta Force, World of Tanks, Hearts of Iron, Iron Nest, Atomic Heart. The answer is they're all real. And we will be talking about how absolutely bizarre that is on today's episode of Game Discover Co. Show. I am your co-host, Chris Plant, and I am joined as always by Simon Carlos. How are you doing today, Simon?
I'm good. I I passed your trick question. I was thinking about it. I was I was convinced there was going to be one that was blatantly wrong. And at some point I was like, "Oh, these are all games with very similar titles, but uh all exist and are quite popular. So, good job with the intro."
Thank you. It's it's part of the question that we'll be getting around to today, which is how much does the name of your game actually matter? And I think we're going to be pulled in a variety of directions. We'll be talking about so much more, too. If this is your first time listening to Game Discovery Co show, this is a place where we talk about game discovery in the context of

the broader video game industry. It's a great place to learn about what is going on in the world of video games from their development to their publishing and beyond. We always start with a number of news stories and I want to dig in first one that I find so interesting and it's not the name thing though don't worry we're going to get to that. What I want to dig into first actually is what is going on with PvP verse PvE video games and how we make sense of this. So, we got a little bit of new information out from the hit game Arc Raiders and they revealed some percentages about the trends of how their players play video games. And what we saw was that about 34% about a third are pure PvP are pure PvP I'm gonna try that so many times are pure PvP players nailed it that time. But what is interesting is

that group has kind of been rock solid since launch. And those other two/3s are kind of shifting. And what we see is that another third, they enjoy a little bit of both. PVP versus PVE, playing together in sort of co-op. And then entire full other third would just love for the game to be more of a co-op experience. So they don't need the stress of playing against their peers. And what they're seeing is that that that group that the audience that wants to play together, that wants a more cooperative experience seems to be growing and they're starting to think about how they adapt their game for that. So, I wanted to throw to you as sort of a check-in with the state of this genre that started out as a very hardcore, very PvP experience and seems to between this and people's reaction to marathon be changing.
Yeah, it's a super interesting space, right? And and something that I've

noticed because I was involved I did a little consulting on some on some PvP games that came out maybe like a couple of years ago. some kind of, you know, stuff that was going towards freeto play. And and something I noticed is here's the issue with PvP. Everyone knows this. People are dicks. And [laughter] it turns out that um and it turns out that people who get gravitate, I think, towards PvP do have a higher tolerance for abuse or people messing around or people exploiting the systems. And I just think it it can be quite difficult and it ends up trending a little bit hardcore sometimes. And so and so my view is definitely like there's a lot of people who would like to play games with their friends where they don't have to worry about what other people are doing to try to exploit the game play or find some way to kind of like hide around a corner. I I don't care what genre game it is. There's there's always something you can do. or obviously the classic one is, you know, you're winning a match and the other guy just quits cuz he cuz he's had it and he doesn't want to like finish it off. So,

I think I think what we're really seeing, and this shouldn't really be a surprise, is um you know, there's a lot more people who are willing to play if you're just playing against kind of, you know, dumb bad guys and the sort of ve and it's not necessarily that difficult, but when it gets really tricky and it gets very skill-based and especially when it gets team skill-based, I think the games industry has really been overestimating the amount of people in 2026 who want to play team-based, skill-based games.
Yes. And I think it's useful for this information to come from Arc Raiders specifically because I think that they are at the forefront of the mainstreaming of this sort of extraction shooter genre. I won't go surprised to say like they're the biggest extraction shooter, but they're certainly the one that seems to be attracting the widest crowd uh of people. And well, I guess the simplest question is like what are they doing to respond to this? because

they see their player base shifting in this direction.
Yeah. I mean, it's interesting that, you know, they have some tests running essentially where you can toggle between classic PVPv and PVE where there's no playerto-player damage and it's really about co-op metrics. And I think like personally, I am not personally not interested. like to play many shooters anyway, but I'm not that interested in playing any PVP PVE games because I'm like, you know, that's that's great, but there's going to be other people in there and they probably have played it for 40 hours better than me. you're obviously 40 hours longer than me and you obviously run into the issue as well with these games where um if you have people churning then the only people who are left end up being the hardcore base of players and then those players end obviously there's all kinds of skill-based matchmaking you can do with that but um I think that's I think that's the other problem in the space and this is why Arc Raiders is signaling you know we're not necessarily going to remove these modes but maybe new people coming into the game maybe the first thing we want to show them is something where you're not It's not incredibly

PvPcentric cuz they have plenty of gameplay, right, that is not not PvPcentric.
Yeah, I think about this a lot with Marathon, which I think is one of the best games this year, but also asked so much of its players. It really did throw you into one of the most brutal environments in video games and just encourage you to swim and then mostly just watched you drown. And now they've talked about, you know, bringing more PVE into this. What I am craving is not to never play PvP and marathon again, but to have that space where if I want to go back to it now, I am super intimidated despite being pretty okay at it for a while. and to have that that kind of runway that PvE provides, a place where I can like relearn the controls without just being shamed and feeling like I'm deproggressing. That's not regressing. That's a better word for it. Uh that that's kind of what

I'm looking for. I I do wonder though, even beyond that, even beyond the PvP, is there a ceiling that we're finding here? Like does P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P PVP inherently have a ceiling that games that are more co-op or single player in some cases don't?
I think so. And I think particularly what's happening is uh there's a lot of younger people who are playing co-op games. And really the goal of playing co-op games is to hang out with their friends. I sort of talked about this a little bit in a previous episode, but like a lot of people, you know, they don't live in exactly the same physical location that that, you know, they they maybe they live five miles away, maybe they live a couple of miles away, so they want to hang out with their buddies in the evenings or multiple sets of buddies and they'll go do that in a game and in that game they don't necessarily want to have a high stress environment where uh you know there's another team who's who's smashing them down and you know that that's that's a certain type

of experience, but I actually think people just want to have an enjoyable time and I think I think really that is what Arc Raiders is is sort of admitting when it says this like yeah you know people want to have an enjoyable time and I think there's a lot of adrenaline and there is I'm not saying PvP is not really interesting but I think um I just think PvP advantages people who play the same game for for 10,000 hours and if you've only played that game for 500 hours then you're going to be less less excited against playing someone who's who's 10,000 hours. There's all there's obviously all kinds of matchmaking you can do to do that to deal with that. But it's still, I think, suboptimal, especially given the churn that people have around games nowadays. A lot of people switch out games a lot. So, you know, I think for Marathon, I I also know someone who's played Marathon a lot and loves it, but is aware that changes are coming to it because there just aren't that many people like him who are putting whatever like 10 or 12 hours a week into that game. There's just there's only a certain amount of

and and you know and he he has a family and stuff so I'm sure you know so so so it's it's it's really difficult I think to yeah it's just basically there's only a certain amount of games you can main a lot of co-op games you can jump in and out of and I think that's probably one of the main reasons why
yeah no that all makes sense I want to get to the naming stuff I've held off long enough this is a few stories in one one is that uh feel better communication director Hannah Flynn tweeted out this thread or I blue skyed out I guess whatever term you want to use this thread about naming conventions and why there are so many poorly named video games and how you can be better about naming your video game and then PC Gamer wrote a piece that features this thread and also an interview with you about how much do these names even really matter. Let's start with like the naming conventions and can you have a game with a good video game title? I'm curious for

you with that original thread if you had a favorite tip or if you have your own kind of personal policy when you're thinking about guidance for naming a video game.
Yeah, I mean I'm definitely I'm definitely a kind of make it snappy kind of person. I definitely think these very long kind of, you know, like, you know, like uh Trail of uh Trail of Random, Thing of the Tears Volume 4 something, you know, it just it I think I think making things snappy is good. Um I think giving a flavor, and I do think Hannah talked to this a little bit, but you know, giving a flavor of the kind of kind of thing you are. If you are a light fluffy game, having a light fluffy flavor. if you're like a Diablo style AORPG, it does want to feel a little bit like a Diablo style name. I think that's reasonable. Um, but you know, I think I'm I'm also in the camp and something I said, uh, they just got a quote for me for this PC gamer article about what my

my view was and I I just pointed out I do think, um, you know, your name just needs to be, uh, functionally discernable from other games uh, and and not be, you know, you know, like not be something people constantly get confused. And beyond that, uh, I do think that most people don't go with it. Oh, this is a great name. I've got to I've got to pick up this game. I think there were bad names, a small amount of bad names, uh, and probably a very small amount of bad names, but in general, it's just kind of like just call yourself something distinct and then people will find you and be able to identify you by typing in those those those keywords. And I think that for me that I'm I'm not saying that's it. And I do think there's good ways to think about naming games, but I I think it's not the main thing that makes your game successful. Maybe I'm being unfair to the communities who enjoy these genres, but do you think certain genres are more forgiving of generic names? And I I look at like strategy games and military sims, a lot of the stuff that I named

earlier. It I don't know from an outsider, it feels like that is where a lot of this seaminess comes from.
Yeah. You mean like it's kind of like Nexus of Command or you blah blah blah.
Yeah. There's always some sort of like hard metal um or just the word war in it or a machine of war is named in it. They all more W's could be used in a game of Scrabble if you allowed all of these to be, you know, part of of the system.
Like like yeah, I think going back to my previous comment that things need to be vibe correct. I think that's what people are going for there. I I do think if you lay them all next to each other, they look kind of silly. And um but but you know, I also think you sort of you have to be a little bit careful because I I I I do think if you go for something that's incredibly original or different, then people may struggle to pronounce it or even understand what the word is. So

I think that's why you end up getting common word combinations. Uh, there's actually one uh I'm g I'm gonna make sure I get this right by by looking up now, but uh there's one that always makes me laugh uh ironically. There's a there's an MMO called Minions of Murf. M I R T H. [laughter] And obviously I think that's that's funny because Mirthth means something is hilarious. Minions of Mirthth. [laughter] But I think that they're just using Mirth here as a generic fantasy word. And I don't think they knew what what mirth actually means. So that's an example I think of one that's slightly unfortunately named because they were going for the generic fantasy word and weren't really aware that some people use it for an actual word. But
also there are mirthful minions in our lives. The the yellow minions are are [laughter] are these the mirth minions. They already have that unlock. I for me the the the tip that um Hannah Flynn had that really stuck out was absolutely no

need for a colon which I am a strong supporter of uh because what I found would happen on the press side of things is you're it's going to get shortened. So then you have this question of is it going to get shortened to the first part or the back part or is it going to get shortened to an acronym when you have that? Is there going to be a colon in the acronym? It is not as searchable because fans are going to split on which of the part of the title that they prefer. Um I think like from actual discovery point of view I think that sort of stuff can cause you trouble unless of course you are Call of Duty where colon Modern Warfare is oh well this is our subseries the Modern Warfare games.
I I I 95% agree with that. The only thing I'd say is that there is a subset of this. I might have mentioned this in the PC gamer article, but there's a subset where you want to cram extra words in for SEO purposes if you're really so search engine optimization.

So, so I I do know some people who do the colon like like I know the people who do ranch simulator and the official name of ranch simulator on steam right now is ranch simulator colon built build hunt farm. Now that is basically an SEO based uh like like thing and actually Steam is not necessarily a fan of that. Steam will sometimes
change your name back I believe if you try and SEOify your uh your name but I will point out having there is there are some cases where you're searching for names of games where certain names in there are useful and certainly on the app store people definitely do this. they will elongate their app store name
for search engine reasons, but I I don't think the majority of people do that.
It is a clever cheat. And also, yeah, you can count on people not guessing that your title is live, work, farm, or whatever is going on. So, you're you're relatively safe. Um, I want to I want to move on to some absolutely bonkers stuff

happening over at Roblox. Uh over at Aftermath, the wonderful reporter Nicole Carpenter reported on what is happening with these massive paydays that are coming in for games that are being developed sometimes by kids in high school or college. and they're making contracts, as far as you can call them that verbally, maybe in Discord, and suddenly they have tens of millions of dollars that need to be split and in trouble starts. Can you explain basically like what happened in this particular case?
Yeah, this is this is Tower Defense Simulator and someone actually told me I can't find it on the record, but someone told me that Tower Defense Simulator might have changed hands recently, its ownership. Uh, so I don't know if that was one of the things that precipitated this, but um, yeah, [clears throat] but basically this this started in it's quite an old Roblox game. It started in 2017 and so it was it was some some high

school people certainly some people in their late teens and they were offered a kind of a 30% share in revenue. So it was just an informal revshare thing happened. uh and and then but but then they started forming corporations a little bit later and then at some point uh then there was an office space but then at some point the partnership was in quotes unwound but it I think it was very unclear as will happen is you know if you don't have contracts when you make this game was this work for hire and I think really what happened is someone who thinks he was one of the main reasons this game was popular and it has I think made tens of millions of dollars other than getting a revenue share that just stopped at some point for Nebula reasons. He I think he's basically like, "Well, I was one of the people who who co-created this game. I need uh tens of millions of dollars, please." And you know, this kind of stuff is popping up all the time because there's plenty of games on Roblox made by teens or even people who are under 18 who are grossing millions of dollars a month. So, it's kind of it's kind of crazy out there.
Yeah. I How is this different from say

fights over ownership or money due for a game made with Unreal? Is it is it just that the average starting age of of a developer in Roblox is so young?
Yeah, I think it's the average age is long and um the average age is young and also anyone can just make a game and publish it without having anything set up. I think if you're I mean it's true. I agree. Fortnite Fortnite has some of this as well. Uh, but obviously if you're making a game and you're publishing it on Steam, then you do need to have a conversation with someone about who's paying the $100 to set up on Steam and and and Steam will I think ask you what what your business entity is or what your individual kind of tax ideas and stuff. So, I I feel like there is a process for publishing on Steam in Unity and Unreal Engine where
I'm not saying it completely gets sorted out, but I just think it's a it's a little bit more likely to get sorted out. And also, quite frankly, less games made by teens end up being big hits on Steam. Like almost all the games on

Roblox that were hit are made by teens like like like a large like a majority of them because a lot of them are kind of I'm actually hoping to do an interview for the newsletter coming up. can't remember if I mentioned this already with someone who's made made good money I think on on on Roblox as I think they're 19 right now and so I think this is just the norm and I'm not sure what Roblox can or should do about it. It's not like they're necessarily doing anything wrong here. It just ends up being pretty messy or there's been this is one of a number of lawsuits in the past few months that I've seen.
Yeah. I mean that was going to be my last question here which is the liability of it all because at the end of the day this is miners making video games and working like making money on top of the question of who gets paid. Is there I any liability that falls on Roblox here? Or or what I guess is probably more likely, is there an incentive for them to create a system that in some way figures this out from

the drop to avoid these problems down the line?
Yeah. I mean, first thing, and I did just double check this. I thought this was true, like miners can only uh can only cash out often through using parent and legal guardians financial information. So there's some kind of basic we're not sending
millions of dollars to a 14y old. Uh but um
that didn't cause any trouble for child actors. I'll
Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's true. That's a whole other that's a whole other issue. Yeah, I I think yeah, I I think I think there is some kind of I mean, you know, Roblox has had Roblox has had issues and is really continuing to try and clean things up here because they just have had a situation where a ton of pre-teen and teens are spending, you know, tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in their product in their products often for levels that are made by pre-teen or teens. So, it's just yeah, I think it's it's t it's tough to get that right. Um I think, you know, they they have been trying to clean it up significantly. I'm

sure they will continue. But honestly, I think this problem is much lower down their list because because this problem is really we gave a bunch of money to somebody. Is it the right person? I think I think I think their comment is generally like well uh the the agreements between those people and or the courts can sort out whether we gave the money to the right person. I would I would guess I mean I'm sure they wouldn't be quite as flippant as that. But I think they have they I think they have many other problems with with under 18s that are not this one.
Yeah. I have a feeling we'll get to some of those on a future episode. Uh, speaking of people who show up on our episodes regularly with problems, the final big news story of the week, big, maybe overstatement here, but an interesting one is coming to us once again from Xbox. Uh, this story is about the platform split on GTA 6, and things got a little bit spicy. Xbox's chief strategy officer, Matthew Ball, pushed back on the verge of Tom Warren over alleged poor pre-orders. Uh, I believe

Ball's exact words were, "The title is breaking records for Xbox. Our internal analysis shows our share of pre-orders to be matching our share of the console market." I do not know why you would tweet this [laughter] because it so immediately raises the question, what is your share of the console market? A thing that we don't fully know. So why like why why is Xbox on the defensive around this game? Why are they kind of not picking fights but pushing back against the press to control this narrative?
Well, I do think there were some people out there. I don't think it was just a verge. I think someone else as well was sort of saying or anecdotally we hear like what one in eight of all pre-orders are on the Xbox. And I think um I think that made Xbox mad because their their global market share is not is not as bad

as one day. Like I I I I said in the newsletter like I think probably you know 25% this is worldwide like 25% may maybe towards 30% is their share of current console gen. So that would be Xbox series S and X uh compared to PS5 and and and PS5 5 Pro. So you know it's it it's okay. But but you're right. This is a I I do feel like this is sort of like I mean obviously I'm guessing Matthew B didn't do this on his own. I'm guessing he checked with the CEO, etc. to make sure this was a good thing to do. I think it's I think it's like an okay thing to do, but you're right. I don't know what what problem that solves for them. I don't know if it kind of makes everyone go, "Oh, well, that's fine. Xbox still has whatever percentage of the console market that is that they didn't just tell us."
Yeah. I I guess for me, it's this question of you haven't been sharing numbers for a while now. So everything around GTA 6 is kind of a net neutral. Like Xbox isn't going to be entitled to

the PR bump of look, this game sold this many copies on our thing, but they also won't have to necessarily worry about the embarrassment because just like everything else, the numbers aren't there. And that's why I was a little surprised to see them even bother getting in the muck of it because
it's this the decision's kind of already made. Xbox doesn't share this information. So, like why even respond to it?
I I think there was a little bit of I I do think PlayStation has been spending a lot more time than Xbox talking about the fact that it's on PlayStation. So, I do think that's maybe I guess maybe part of it. I think there's often some PlayStation kind of first kind of promotions and stuff. And I would say I do think, you know, if you look at Xbox's main areas that they do well, which is which is particularly the US and the UK, you know, their their console shares are good there. Those are prime GTA 6 buying countries. So um I fully expect I mean probably every country is a pro DC6 buying country but but but my point is this isn't the case

that this is something like uh you know like black myth where it it doesn't matter because everyone a lot of people buying that in Asia like Xbox is nowhere in Asia. So, um, yeah. So, so yeah. So, I was sort of expecting them to do I mean, personally, I, you know, I I think I may have mentioned this before. I the Series X is still my main, uh, TV console for whatever reason, and so I probably will pick up GTA 6 on uh, on Series X. So, yeah, I mean, I I think I think people will, but yeah, to your point, I I think I don't know, part of this is this was on Twitterx, and there has been an argument that um, you know, all of Xbox senior management spend too much time on Twitterx right now. Yes. And and and Asha in particular seems to be quite responsive to people that I'm not convinced fully fully reflect the Xbox fan base right now.
Yeah. Yeah. I I normally at the end of the episode I asked my kind of question of the week that's a bigger picture one. I'm actually going to place it here because it's related to this, which is,

is it possible that we see a big boost in Xbox hardware sales around GTA 6 simply because the PS5 is sold out and people want to play the game now and they will make a short-term decision to play it wherever they can get it right then while they're at Walmart or Target or wherever else.
I think that is quite po possible. I know that like like a family member of mine was was texting me just recently about the best way to get PlayStation fives on Facebook Marketplace and so I was trying to educate them on I guess I don't know if you know this I guess one thing you have to really watch is uh has that Xbox been like like vac banned or whatever. So has that PlayStation been vacuums where you buy PS5s and they don't work online? So, I think there's which would obviously really suck. I I doubt I doubt the full uh version of uh of GTA is going to be on Well, I think they I think they're doing discs in the same way, actually. So,
Oh, yeah. Yeah. It'll just be the

digital anyway.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so and anyhow, so I know people are looking around right now for to to find ways to play. And to your point, I could see some people saying, well, like PS5 is hopelessly sold out. I'm going to go I'm going to go to Xbox. Yeah, that could definitely happen. I mean, some of this is dependent though on uh the PC timing for GTA 6, which which Rockstar has been pretty vague about right now. And I am wondering if they're going to like stealth like stealth drop it in January or February or something. I just have this sort of impression that they might do that.
Interesting.
But I I have no inside information on that. I But you know, I I feel like it might be towards ready to go and they might want to do something about that. But it also depends on what they're doing about the online modes, obviously. So, so I I
I am much more cynical than you are. I I think that they found something whether on accident or on purpose, something brilliant with the uh the model that they end up creating with GTA 5 of release on current consoles, wait a year

or two, release on PC, then the new consoles are out, use all that PC stuff to release on new consoles, and suddenly you have this three- release longtail for your game where people are buying it maybe multiple times. Um, I I wonder if they will hold off on releasing PC until people have had a chance to play it on console, get some time away from it, and then want to buy it again for all of those features. Um, not someone like what we saw with I feel like Sony games have have done well up until this point.
Um, I don't know. I mean, I it would be interesting if they did in January. I also think some people might be very mad if they bought the game in a console and then the game came out on PC in January
and and and this is of course I am suggesting the single the single player only though. This is all single player only. So that does make a difference. I do think the other thing is they did have a lot of trouble with GTA 5 and people reverse engineering it. So keeping it on console uh does decrease

the chances that it will be as effectively uh reverse engineered because obviously obviously they spent all the time at the end of GTA 5 like buying up all the modding groups that modded the online versions of GTA 5 on cons on on PC so they can't do it again is really what what they seem to have done. So uh so so yeah. So it might be that they're going to be a little conservative. You might be right. They might be a little bit conservative because they really want to get the online thing out and maybe they won't want to do the single player only version on PC. Maybe they want to launch the PC version with online which which I think will be uh won't be in January or February. So yeah, I don't know. I guess I I guess watch the space.
We will see. Uh time to start wrapping up with the usual ending segments. We got to talk about what happened last week on Steam, what's happening this week on Steam. What were the biggies last week? What popped off? Yeah. So, um, Ace Combat 8 very interestingly did really well on I mean obviously the Ace Combat series, you

know, like fighter jet game is actually interesting because it doesn't have that many, you know, it's not like a hardcore flight sim. So, it doesn't have that many competitors and it went all the way out to almost 50,000 concurrent users, which I was really impressed by. It does have like another another version of Ace Combat is sort of weirdly in there as DLC that was pre-order only for like weird rights purposes. So I So someone did point out to me maybe people are splitting their time between that game. I think it's like an Ace Combat Zero remaster and Ace Combat 8 on the same game CCU. But even then um you know I think that's a that's a really good result. So I was definitely you know that's done I think above average and has got pretty good reviews as well. Yeah, I am very impressed by what Bandai Namco has been doing. It seems like between this and Armored Core and I mean Dark Souls before this, these series and developers that were always consistent in that PS2 era now seem to have like

achieved their true final form uh in this era. and and Ace Combat may have been the toughest one or I guess the most impressive yet even compared to Armory Core. I would not have expected a flight jet fighting [snorts] game to be to be this big. Um any any other stuff? How did Navalis Knights end up doing?
Oh [clears throat] yeah, like okay. Like uh we have it topping out at 7,000 CCU which I think is pretty good. I mean let's say that's going to be Yeah. I mean I but it's a little I have 1.2 2 million wish lists. I think from partly because it had a bunch of cyberpunk fans on board and so I I do feel like it's um you know it's a bit more of a management sim than anything directly like cyberpunky. So I I think it's it it did good but it was actually number where are we in number like six in the week. So so so the rest was Transport Fever 3 which had pre-orders which inflates it CCU came out and uh you know that's obviously a classic management sim that

did 47,000 CCU like pretty good. And then there was a there was an idle ARPG which got 39,000 CCU, a desk, but that's but that's one you have permanently on your desktop. So I don't think that CCU can really be compared to the other games. Uh and then and then Minecraft Dungeons 2 did pretty good. 32,000 CU. All these games, interestingly, I found people complaining about them, but I didn't really find anything fundamentally wrong with them. like Minecraft Dungeons 2. When we did the screenshot, I had 62% positive reviews, which is not amazing. But if I went and looked at all the stuff people were complaining about, I didn't feel like there was anything fundamentally wrong with the game. It just didn't have the years worth of DLC build out that Minecraft Dungeons One does. And I think there was some stuff they need to clean up. So, I think ultimately, yeah, I think I think that I think those are the biggies. And also, there was a Dynasty Warriors 3 remaster that actually did did reasonably well. That's a often often a big title. So yeah, I think but yeah, I think I think in the end in the end, I knits did good. It's probably slightly underperformed its wish list,

but it's still going to be selling hundreds of thousands of copies over time, so I'm sure they'll be happy with that.
Um, we have the week ahead. I think this is the last, arguably the last big AAA release week before GTA 6. There's one exception really worth noting here. Phantom Blade Zero comes out at the end of October. And I know that there's a lot of interest and hype around that game. But this week, we have New Gears of War, Eday, we have Star Wars, uh, Galactic Racer, we have a Hellraiser game. Um, I assume that those are the biggies. And then there's a big question mark that I have for you, which is Order of the Sinking Star, which is the new game from Jonathan Blow. But I don't know how much not just interest but awareness is out there for this game.
Yeah. So so those are some of my biggies. Like Gears of War E Day was my was my top and and it's interesting Gears of War day like I was looking at it because I looked at Digital Foundry

did a breakdown of it. Like that game looks beautiful and uh well beautifully gory I guess. Um and also uh you know I think it is actually pretty good but I just feel like the Gears of War franchise has maybe like dropped off people's radars a little bit. Um although it has got 8 880,000 wish lists. So so so we'll see how it does. But definitely that's the top one. And then and then there is this MMO AI N AON 2 uh like like that has huge uh CCU already because it's doing advanced access. So so it's advanced access CCU is towards 200,000. I mean it's a lot from Asia but also also from the west. So that's worth noting as as as a big title. Uh but yeah, Order of the Sinking Star, I think, was number like five in in our list. And and it's interesting. I mean, ultimately, um you know, it's kind of interesting because it is a basically a soaker band game. You know, so Ban being like you you you know, you push push around blocks, which is not very mainstream, but it's got like some

high-end voice actors in it, and they've really tried to build it out. I know it's got some controversy around the, you know, the the original people who made the puzzles that was based on aren't necessarily massive fans of of where Mr. Blow has been going recently. So, there's there's some uh there's some stuff going on there. Like, I think it's going to do I think it's going to do fine. Uh but, you know, I think it I I I I don't think it's going to maybe do the numbers of previous uh of previous titles uh from um from that studio because they were just done when it was a lot everything was a lot less busy. And maybe this is a bit less mainstream. Like I think the witness had something good going on where people were like, "Oh, you know, I don't understand what this game is. I just have to play it to check it out." I think if you look at order of the Sinking Star, it's reasonably clear quite quickly what the game is. I think I think it's probably got a lot of hidden depths, but it is a top it is a top down So games.
It is [clears throat] also is it partially like the parsley of video games? There are people where even just a simple taste of a Soabond game is an

instant no. And I am very much one of those people. Um, so I I'm I'm I'm curious about a game that seems to have this investment in it for a genre that can be a hard pass um for for a lot of folks. We will we will see.
Yeah, we will definitely see. Let's wrap things up with what's new, what's upcoming over at Game Discovery Co. Plus and the Pro Data users that people have access to.
Oh yes, a good update. So, so in in the last week, we relaunched our big UI redesign and it's worth noting now actually plus got a rename. So plus is now called basic and uh and and plus is called basic not because we want to insult the people who have a uh a a subscription but basically what we found was people were confusing plus and pro a lot uh because they're quite similar names and we would often get people say hey I've got a pro subscription and we kind of have to politely say no you have a plus subscription sir uh there was a

lot there was a lot of confusion there so so basically um you know our basic subscription is what you get when you sign up to the pay bit of the newsletter which is like 20 bucks a month or whatever and that's what you know a lot of people have and so uh but but then pro is what our kind of enterprise level users have with all the extra stuff with the console and with the wish list and stuff. So we've just so we've made it clear now that that that is uh that is what's going on and we've had pretty good pretty good feedback on on our UI redesign. We put a screenshot in in Friday's newsletter. So that's really you know we're doing a lot of a lot of cleanup at this point. We've sort of found one or two issues along the way. So so I think I think next couple of weeks we're going to we're we're going to be cleaning that up. Um, but yeah, it's been a it's been a great transition and we really appreciate everyone for using the tool. Now it now it looks a bit nicer.
That is a fantastic reminder that if you enjoy this show, you really should be subscribing to the newsletter on the off chance that you somehow aren't. The Game Discover Coletter, not the Game Discover Co show, which is a thing that I'm doing right now. If you enjoy the stuff that

I'm doing, you can always check me out over at Postgame. And that otherwise is it. We have done another episode of the Game Discover Co show. If you enjoy the show, please share it with a friend or consider leaving a review on Apple Podcast or wherever else you're listening. Goes a long way to getting the show to the people who will most enjoy it. Otherwise, that is it. I am Chris Plant and I will throw to Simon to say goodbye.
Thanks everyone. It's been another good one and uh chat to you all again next time. Bye.