Coronavirus Ruins GDC, Stadia and Geforce Now Deflated, Riot Games Valorant | Roundtable News

I [Music] what's up everybody welcome to another episode of game dev unchain been in one podcast about game development and the lifestyle thereof I am your host Brandon Pham and this is another roundtable news episode which also means I have a panel of game developers here to discuss the latest news and game development impacts in the past month so without further ado I'm gonna go ahead and switch to the three cam love screen what's up everybody all right to my right side let me see I first try we have ray grant what's up ray and on my left side we got Richard Q that's right guys alright oh so uh you guys

know the rules I'm gonna come up with a few topics and let's go ahead and jump right into it right so of course fresh off the news a storm has hit California finally and this is kinda gonna affect ray first so we know he's going to be the first one to die if this is of any impact the coronavirus postponed GDC which awesome meant the GDC is canceled right let's just be honest so of course the GDC is a game developer conference that happens once a year it's one of the biggest events that happens for game developers gonna get together spread the love spread the news share connect all that stuff usually happens in March but we're about two weeks away or a week away when this podcast is out this episode and everybody pretty much with the next couple months GDC included events have

been canceled left and right because of the scare now I want to hear your opinion ray let's just start with you right how much of this is all hype how much is it is real I mean you're in the what do you call it be the hot zone now right you in the quarantine zone is it as scary as everyone's kind of making it out to be right now it just seems like San Francisco is an emergency lockdown all that stuff yeah I wouldn't say it's as serious as everybody's making it out to be but definitely it's better to be safe than sorry right and so getting a bunch of people together in one place usually there's always like the notion of the confu when you do a big event like that you come back home you're only sick is you gonna you got some sort of sickness from somebody else lows there with promo virus going on is really can't take the risk right so you have to you have to be careful so Richard like I I know that you have GDC

plans right and from what I heard you're still planning to go up there to kind of meet and connect and I'm sure there's a lot because not a lot of people had the opportunity to cancel their flights and hotel and everything right so we'd love to kind of hear your thoughts about this is is the corona wet virus scary enough for you you're too tough for it ah tough it out it's it's it's definitely scary you know not a day goes by that I don't get updates like wow you know some number of people have contracted it at a different country and more people have passed by or this conference has been canceled like Google's like their biggest conference just got canceled the thing about going to GDC for me is I was I'm a bit lucky because I have like people that I can stay with like family I can just stay with and so don't I didn't have to like book hotels really too far in advance and like my flights

I've got a lot of points saved from actually when you and I worked together in San Fran Brandon I think like because like as an indie developer a lot of like our strategy for PR is to meet with press and to just talk to them and demo the game like that's actually what our current goal is we can do that in a much smaller environment in a weird way a very large crowded Moscone Center is not really what we were hoping to show the game at anyway so we can kind of keep it more on the down-low in some weird way like because there's not gonna be that like there's gonna be less people at JDC maybe it's gonna be a little bit easier but like when I was talking to my PR team they were like saying like yeah just like flying early fly out the same day and just like you know just just keep yourself safe and so you know I'm gonna do a little risky but yeah that's that's sort of the plan and of course like a lot of efforts are

being made for people who aren't like yourself well you have the flexibility because you're within California but a lot of people kind of depend on that we have to kind of promote and help out with everything that is their game not not as you can imagine not a lot of people can delay a year and pick it up and GDC 2021 so there are relief efforts all over the place yeah it is yeah I saw it saw the relief efforts that's really cool I thought GDC was just supposed to be postponed until summertime but I don't know maybe that was that was something I read a couple days ago is that is that true or that that was my but let's be honest man like it's gonna be they didn't put a date I mean that's the first that's the first issue yeah yeah this will try to figure it out but also like some time is right in the midst of SIGGRAPH and III and Gamescom like it's it's yeah good luck good luck finding a

spot yeah yeah finding a spot and like just having people replan things to kind of fly out there it's gonna be at best a fraction a very small fraction of what would have been you know twenty nine thousand attendees for 2019 right it would be way less and without the crowd not a lot of people are gonna be very interested to kind of go GC people have other plans and other conferences that go so it's as good as dead I think that you just you know count their losses and just move on and just plan for the next one because we don't even know how long the coronavirus was actually extent I think it's kind of fullest for them to kind of plant something and then it still is a problem in the summer and they happened again that would be pretty bad PR but aside from that like I kind of want to look at the overall impact of what this scare is hat doing right you know the last time this was as scary was SARS or

something of the effect where globally there was an issue right but Corona vices had a affecting the stocks market and everything that goes through China basically you know a lot of industries are affected I want to know your thoughts rich about do you think this is gonna play a bigger role in the game of stream this coronavirus thing I also don't think so I think it's gonna really just slow down just like any sort of like global development like so you so like the largest publishers I think will be hurt the most because like obviously it's harder to do like any sort of travel like so so I I know I've worked as a consultant for a ten-cent and like they have very strict rules now on like traveling and they're suspending all sorts of like like people should have to work from home in certain areas and stuff like my LA office was actually

told to go home and until further notice do not come into the office and that's pre-empting sort of like concerns that they have because the location of our office like there's like high traffic among with like other companies too because it's a shared working space and so you know it's not like like things are still gonna get done but maybe they won't get done as fast or the quality won't be as high there's definitely like a lot of people just like kind of joking about oh man is there it's gonna break out like in Koreatown in LA or something or like oh there's news that it happened in San Antonio or you know so there's it definitely dominates a lot of like conversations and there are some real-world impacts that happen but I don't think it's going to affect the video game industry as a whole I actually think like PR will be certainly stifled a bit because of these conferences but then I think that just means that you know creative marketing will have to play a

bigger role and maybe maybe that actually makes it easier for Indies to to get their word out I don't know we'll see how about you right how do you feel no I just think it will be a way to get better at video conferencing remote working yeah like it you know in my company we already do a lot of that already or do you distribute it all around the world and so it's just like okay well don't travel do critical meetings over over zoom and then it's just business as usual right so so I don't I don't see I see it can be a lot of lot of difference would come out of it where people understand that oh wait this still works we could still do some meetings we can still do remote work and maybe we don't actually have to be offices all the time right so that's that's one good thing that will come out and that maybe people will like this yeah I mean it is encouraging that the

game industry has proven to be recession proof in 2008 so now we're gonna be corona proof or virus proof 2020 and I do think there is some side benefits of people realizing like hey maybe we don't have to be standing next to each other as much and maybe there is gonna be a rise of remote work in the game industry and more of that now that people have cooties so aside from that the corona virus hopefully is just one of those things that I feel like is just overhyped and people are just being extra careful I think GDC is has always been a hotbed for diseases so even without a virus a new virus coming about I think people have always kind of been scared of GDC because be you know we always come back with some type of sickness just rubbing shoulders with the dirtiest types of people game developers so in the meantime I think it's all good I mean it

is sad I was really looking forward to it like many of you guys I don't know right you lived there but I was fully planning out to be up there for a whole week party it up it's one of my favorite times of the year to kind of meet old friends it is kind of weird to kind of not go this year it's been like five years in a row for me at least for all the people out there I feel bad for you again extending my you know empathy for people who just we're looking towards that as as a way to kind of promote their game and can't really do that as much I hope I mean we can I mean you still come you can still come a partying up right well I just won't be partying with you all stay far far far away from you but yeah he'll be on a zero I sure there's be some folks partying it up I think so see I would like yeah I would love to see if GDC kind of really I mean if it's favorable they would probably would release up who is actually gonna still come like of the

I'm pretty sure they're the record-breaking number would have been thirty thousand again or something so it would have been would be pretty nice if they just let those numbers slip and like you know 5,000 10,000 people are still gonna show up might actually help I don't think so yeah companies nobody's coming Indies Indies and small folks I want to come out and just meet up with friends apart yep though I'm sure there's still be some better coming right now a few maybe yeah yeah Richard and his buddies old for that stuff now you never taught to party men so fresh from our last round to but we're kind of talking about stadion rates data kind of had like a hobbling start and in more recent news pretty much right after we talked there has been some kind of like dirt coming about about stadia there's

developers coming out saying well indie developers especially coming out and saying that the exclusivity deal is that they've been approached with husbands just downright deplorable and laughable it completely disrespect I was surprised to kind of see that type of thing but at the same time we kind of leveraged or earliest way in on how stadia is doing as a platform you know early adopters like our friend Ray over here have been 49 days and Counting without any real news or updates on their news page or whatever is this still coming is this still true have they fixed that is it still a thing that you guys don't know what the hell is going on yeah I'm not watching for any new stadium news right I I know that there's things in development and there will be things coming down eventually I

think you're also over selling a bit the the news about the deals with the indecent really it's just like it is like why should I put my game on this platform if I don't know the numbers of people that are using it and there's no financial incentive for me to do so either right so like why should probably like why should I spend time right and that makes perfect that makes perfect sense but they built down right to the to the money part man they said like a lot of there's no money there's no money so that's right and that's that makes sense to me right there like Google is not pouring just money down the drain to try to get people onto the platform when they're trying to try to use it in other ways right and so to develop developer IP that will that will actually stand out on their platform

yeah good luck with that so rich I kind of walk want to walk over to you right so yes so Google as a as a company have been in recent years been earning a bad rep with not falling through with their products right I mean they're just it's just they're more of their thing now and and on top of that they're trying to get people to get interested with stadia and they're just not doing a good job I think in a very noobish way into the game industry they're just mmm causing a lot of mistakes right like what would you say as a game developer if you want to you know as in your opinion like how can they turn this around at this point to kind of earn everybody's trust for developers for gamers like is zero Road back for for some of its not interested in this platform at all like what would be a like a business way to kind of get

on the good chain so so uh I I always had a theory when I was a little kid that like people don't buy they're not attached to platforms they're attached to games and like very very young like say when say Mortal Kombat came out and I was on the Super NES and it was on the Genesis and it was like oh my god like he could do the blood code in Mortal Kombat that's like the superior game and so like everyone like sort of flocked to that it was less about like the platform it was on it was more about the game itself and the features it has I think like the the problem like with Google sort of business model with stadia is that you're just they're just letting you play games with you otherwise can play just like more conveniently and that's just like you know I kind of said this in the last round table that that's not that's a hard thing to sort of quantify also because like the pricing is a bit wonky and because like you know you have to like factor in things that you don't normally factor in like oh what's my you know what's my hardware specs you know like most people don't think about that very much and it's

weird because like the type of people I think that stay is shooting for the people that depend on the hardware like on their phones or like consoles to be relatively stable so thinking about how that factors into the experience is tough so even with that confusion going back to my original point I think like having like a good exclusive game will actually like help remedy things quite a bit because it helps show a blueprint to everybody else like you know this is the kind of like experience that's unique to stadia that other games can't provide I haven't thought a lot about what that game might be but but I think that would actually help Google sort of turn it around and demonstrate that they can provide value to it zooming that's their strategy I think like them offering low amounts of money is trying to maybe play possum a little bit while they do try to negotiate and get like a really good deal from someone to make some kind of exclusive content I'm not quite sure it's really I guess to answer your question about whether or

not how they could turn it around is I think they need to develop their own games I'm not sure how they can do it because they certainly don't they're not a first party publisher or developer yeah sorry I don't know maybe check next month no no they they have a first party teaming in in Montreal makes games yes a lot of raises shoot no no I mean no way no it what I can totally understand how you feel like there isn't a first party because if not really good now see they're still being made yeah my apologies to Jade and and yeah I just it's because like that was like a kind of a very great lead-in point for stadia games but not it's just it's kind of like watched over by all of the yeah

yeah it's great that they brought like the people the the Pele right but these are people that take five to ten years to make a game we're looking at yeah it takes a while that I could game period right and so it's gonna take a while before you see these first party games about lithium but I want to ask you Ray like we're a third in the year right of 2020 we're in March now all right it's safe to say that we're not gonna have anything this year for stadia there's no exclusive games coming out there's nothing exciting gun that's why the their best choice in action right now is just being quiet because they don't have anything to talk about it is is there anything this year that can do is do they need to be as aggressive as Xbox been buying just bunch of third parties and just get something out there to kind of save some face I've no idea

what their plans were for GGC I have no idea what the plans are for e3 I assume there are plans for all these things and maybe we'll hear more around around e3 mm-hmm do you guys still think e3 is gonna gonna happen or the coronavirus is gonna get worse with what's going on with that I mean we're basically two months away from that so I don't know seems really close it doesn't sound like no high it's slowing down hi everybody let's wait to see wraps at end of March right a lot of travel and a lot of companies are closed until a end of March and then the nervousness so we'll see like maybe by then after all the precautions are taken they will start tapering off so that it won't be the number if effective people won't just be growing crazy but we just wait and see yeah I mean between the two cities of San Francisco in LA if I had a choice in

outbreaks I prefer a San Francisco I don't want to be in Los Angeles much it feels bad you know you know the current advice reminds me of it's like I forgot that game is called it's like epidemic or something and it's like you can create this virus that can spread like crazy and then you eventually see the world like shut off all like air transportation and you know the lethality rates not super high but you know you infected everybody and then eventually someone next to cure and then you lose the game so I feel like that's kind of like you know obviously it's not a video game but it just kind of I feel like there's the response to it has been pretty strong in the wake of like yeah yeah sorry I think like fully you know like the I'm not sure

exactly when SARS happened Brandon how did it sort of like die down like I can't I'm trying to remember like when that happened my memory was like it was a lot of SARS was a lot more deadlier because but the thing is they didn't get the data until after everything happened it was 10% kill rate of whoever goes got infected right right now it's we're at Corona is at 2% but might be climbing but you know we're still in like the beginnings of it we're talking about Orange County where we're from right there's just recently today there's like two cases in Santa Ana that just happened so the spread is slowly happening but it isn't as crazy as I feel most people are making it out to be but again you know I'm at home most the time now so I tell my wife is like until our neighbors start like spazzing out we have nothing to worry but were the last ones that get infected I just don't see

it being a big deal I feel like America of anything over like you over reacts more than other countries that are actually impacted by this right now so anyway go on yeah there's also remember too though like there are two deaths in Seattle both folks though dies you had a compromised immune system so like it's not that big of a deal right but it's still like in the u.s. there are some cases of people dying and getting affected right it was like it's still something you should take serious you know but but yeah it's not like you're gonna catch it and just drop dead right like that's not necessarily gonna happen but it's definitely you don't want to be spreading around and catching right so you know you still have to be careful and take it and take it serious yeah so just as a looking at some statistics so

SARS lasted about two years of court at least according to the wiki outbreak data and infected nine 8,000 people whereas coronavirus has been around for what like I'll just say conservatively four months and it's something like 90,000 people worldwide have that's a lot more time out so it's yeah it's highly highly contagious so I think like that's kind of like why there's been such like drastic measures because it only takes like a couple people and then it just kind of all held sort of break loose cool yeah it's the new zombie virus well we'll see man I really doubt at this rate III is gonna happen I think they're praying that it will but the this if anything day-to-day week-to-week it seems like this thing has been coming in at least in the United States becoming more of an issue yeah I'm very uh I'm very well I'm not too surprised that GC

was canceled I just I was surprised how long it took for them to finally pull the trigger it took them a good while I mean we were looking at that list everybody I'm sure of the booths that we're kind of being read read lined out and it was pretty much how a virus would infect at the booth if it was done it was like epic Amazon unity Facebook was first it was like all the major companies so it was just really they left with no choice but that is what it is with stadia just to kind of finish that up my heart says because Ray's team is still there right that's a lot of hefty checks ever raised old friends or the Ubisoft it would be soft crews over there so I'm sure they're working on something exciting is just gonna take a while but what I'm

curious about is are they willing to kind of sit that for the next three years with bad press in hopes that that Assassin's Creed ish game is gonna break records everywhere it don't know I have no idea man it's Google I used to be a swish man it has to be some kind of big world stadia game that connects youtubers and viewers alike it has to be some kind of global change of the game that connects all the Google services together like there they always go big like that right but who knows who knows but it's gonna take a while I'm just curious to see how you know ever since the launch or whatever like is there any gonna be any good press that comes out you know

nothing but bad stuff happening ever since the announcement yeah so anyway he's moving on talking about the streaming world a bit right so this was kind of a surprise because the day that I was kind of excited about g-force now being like an alternative right being the answer the interim step to to streaming games right after beta closed and officially launched Blizzard Activision pulled out so none of their games work and surely after Bethesda pulled out and none of those games work and people forget DeForest now was in beta or alpha for like four years so they had no issues until they finally launched which was a big sucker punch to the gut which also means that they lost all trust like everybody who buys into the system's like also tomorrow all these games can disappear [ __ ] that I'm

gonna wait for the next thing so I want to know your thoughts race shaking is said did you anticipate something like this happening of course like when when it was first described to me I was like that sounds a little bit too good to be true like it is like how did they secured a view of all of the publishers and how did this work and it turns out they did not right so there's like give me back my game right and it's the same kind of problem like if you have any sort of platform like this it's a problem getting the content and signing the deals right and the big players are like like we'd be one of the journalists we want to control our IP we don't want to just be having people streaming it wherever they want from whatever service they want we want to make sure that we get we recoup some of the costs of this right so what do you think about that I mean it sounds pretty fair on paper right with it's very similar to the VRA

Cades rich right have you ever seen those popping up in Orange County they have these VR setups in like strip malls or whatever it's like licensing deals right for those games to be displayed and played on the hour or by tokens you have to pay a different fee than for just buying the game outright for $60 right I'm assuming g-force now didn't have that type of deal or at least this was so new that licenses are companies like Activision didn't hand a deal to make this profitable enough for them to kind of loan their games or their libraries to this service do you feel like this is just one of those things that will never happen again I don't think people are going to stop trying to invest in services like GeForce now just like you know the they're not gonna give up on Google stadia anytime soon issues a very similar sort of exactly one to one but you know what I mean it's like the

ability to take your games on the go honestly like I'm just gonna say that I I'm pretty sure that it's just a lot of like bottom line motivated like you know when you license out your game to be played on like something like a platform like GeForce now maybe they just aren't making as much money off of it maybe like the the the margins are so low because I haven't looked at like GeForce now's like sort of what the cost is it's a $5 a month yeah that's time I checked yeah oh my god oh my god that's so low that's so little [Laughter] yeah I don't know like I honestly sorry I don't really know what else to say but I feel like um the companies that have proven in the past to to make decisions based off monetary gain such as like Activision Blizzard and Bethesda it doesn't surprise me that they would take a step away from it and maybe like

they're afraid of like losing some control over who plays it and not being able to like monetize it I think it's also like body-mind actually just texted me saying I think the compression issue is huge too I don't know what that means but I'll say it for you Bob so I there boom but uh I guess something good to mention about like as soon as Activision pulled out right and NVIDIA was kind of doing like damage control and they're saying like a misunderstanding was the reason why Activision kind of removed this games and kind of going the detail you know because they were all all these publishers were a part of the service - four years straight right they I mean it was a long time that it was okay until it was not okay so it was a bit of a surprise but the thing that most people I think Nvidia sigh was not

understanding it's like they're not prop well they are profiting right they're just providing a hardware to kind of run people's accounts but like I think what Rey is shaking his head to is like you're still allowing connections to my game therefore you can't just rent it out just like early days of podcasting or anything you can't just run people's podcast without asking them at thinks of that nature right so it makes a little sense but at the same time it's it's a sucker punch because I was super excited about it it just seems like no one's in the leading leading position right now for streaming I think everyone's kind of just waiting for PlayStation Xbox to kind of release their thing and just make it official ready because all these newbies making noobish mistakes and not and not announcing gains on on game day man it's like letting people sit early adopters especially sit 60 50

days now right right without saying anything about what's going on it's kind of kind of crazy so I guess people are know this is the beginning this is the beginning man the beginning of video game streaming so everybody's just trying something out and seeing what will stake every is waiting to see what next-gen consoles are talking about or what services Xbox and Playstation talked about right so like word it everybody's just waiting then see a name like this is just this is just the baby steps baby step the tippet eyes you know baby yeah Bergen and like you know five years from now what does it look like you know I mean is it gone or is it the new normal no sir I I still might be my stance have always been the same like five years from now what the streaming look like it's just gonna belong to Sony or Xbox so I feel like those two megaliths are the the ones that are gonna stick with a

plan because they have plans to kind of grow and do things correctly they've been in the game so long they know the next console the hard the next hardware isn't an hardware upgrade it's it's a service upgrade so they're preparing for that right I mean there's been a lot of rumors how the next ps5 the Scarlet is that the Scarlet is that what they're calling it I forget yeah the next Xbox one right are are are they're gonna be the last actual hardware that they're gonna release hi there's been rumored for so long and it feels like it's if anything that's becoming more and more true and they've been pretty silent man I mean they have their own X cloud and PlayStation now and stuff but they're not really premiering those as their main thing it's kind of like a side thing right now so I'm still waiting for that big net announcement saying that

hey full-on playstation play on your phone at any point or whatever it works don't worry we're here we got those exclusive games right this is why you want to be on our service I feel like they can do that at any moment in the coming months and that's gonna completely take away from whatever Google is not doing I mean is that good do you feel like that's sort of the case ray like do you feel like it doesn't matter what these fools are doing it's gonna end up being Sony versus Microsoft again or do you think stadia is actually gonna be an actual player yeah I think static could be an actual player as Google has all the money in the world right so they could just pour money - it's like saying hey you guys got three years let's see how this goes right I would you know I would

agree with you if Amazon right had a successful game studio by now and if Google skilar Apps hasn't been about killing off apps like that's their main thing they haven't been doing anything successful like it's hard to kind of root for these I guess Silicon Valley companies because it's hard to kind of see them follow through like Amazon still struggling with the exclusive game and from what I've heard with their new world and all these other games did it's a I'm sure you've been here yeah even thinking about Amazon right now I'm just talking about you know might you have like Amazon it's like let's not talk about that but like for Google right for Google like you know they got people that make video games working for them right and so then I okay guys the time we're sticking here's how much money we're gonna spend on this let's see what

happens right like I'm pretty sure that's kind of their approach to it right and who knows what else they have in the back burner who they sign up what other games are coming like I we don't know right but yet the silent is deafening right now for sure so they definitely need to come with something but we'll see yeah I really do hope it'd be nice because right now is Nintendo Sony and Microsoft it'd be nice to have a four player their advantages is pretty much let's go back to their announcement it's like the YouTube tie-in future is a huge feature to be able to be watching somebody play and be able to join them I mean that's amazing they're the only companies that I know that do their and they have YouTube they're the only ones with YouTube it'd be nice if they have the patience to kind of figure that out I was on dude

this is how disappointed I was all in with Google Wave did you remember that [ __ ] it was like that real-time email gonna change email 3.0 or whatever I was on that stuff you know I was having small development teens on that and they cut me off and what was another one another one that I was a part of Google Voice it was a point oh don't forget that I think from wave a lot of stuff came out of wave that's in Google Drive and cool docks right now sure so they kind of code they learned some lessons and coalesced some of the technology I am still furious about Google Google Reader yeah right I love Google Reader and I was a part of that yeah but I you know I have something that takes this place now but still I was I'm still mad about the Google Reader should still be here but it's it's gone right and there's a whole host

of things they've killed off right but like I said they got money play no video games a long-term investment they hired video game people that are telling them this is a long-term investment and so they just have to you know they're like okay guys you have X amount of years let's go right and and right now are they bungling all of this and and there's not a proper rollout plan along one hell yeah first or yeah but but who knows what is up there up their sleeve you know let's just pray that you're the vets over there know what they're doing we're all praying for them so moving on to the next thing right I know we're talking about g-force now but I mean it all ties in together to what streaming looks like it is the year the streaming I think at all gonna end with Playstation announcing whatever they have plans for and I think people are

kind of waiting for the big dogs to come into play with this stuff so nothing counts until they announce what they're doing so let's let's talk about and move on to the next and this might be really quick but it's something that we've been talking about and a few roundtables now and it's worth talking about because I grew up with Game Stop throughout my my career right before digital gaming became a thing I hung out a game stopped a lot a lot of times I played it was between Game Stop and Best Buy where I sampled games right so bravery has no has no empathy to towards this but I don't I don't really either because I don't know why they're still around to be honest but every month there's always a story saying how employees are talking about how their bosses are being really desperate the thing that I teased about if you remember ray how about how they should turn their store into like a

hangout right make use of their physical space was is actually a thing are they're actually rolling that out do a few selected store to kind of test that idea I don't know if they listen to game downa J and I don't know where but but it's exactly how I said it's like how can you turn these little stores which they have so many across the states into many hubs right into a hangout spot to be around champs you know Electronics Boutique bigger because that is also what got rolled into Game Stop and also uh babbage's right bigger like I remember back just those were the spots on go to gay games right but that's that's that's just not it anymore right and day and those places now games not kind of absorbed all of that and turned into a big just use game use games to get new games you have to like go up to the

counter get a game behind the counter otherwise the whole like 80% of stores is full of use games right it's it's just it's just a leach and a drain on the industry it should just die in a fire yeah right it definitely turned out what else you're not gonna cry it so it's not yeah yeah it's I'm not going to I'm not gonna shed any tears for game stock going out of business or file for bankruptcy or not because also if you go to gamestop story these days it's so depressing crowded because of course they're gonna take the space and they're gonna cram it fully use games let's let's work the people their money now so it's crowded it's it's dark dingy depressing stop the staff doesn't know what the hell they're talking about blank yes and I'm gonna go and do all that what I can just download the game that I want online and just be done with it like what what are we talking about here right why am I going through this place it serves no purpose right so I've known

some beer I have know nostalgic feelings right but those sores used to be sources to go to back in the day the in emojis left those bars the dust it's in Hitler well let me turn it to someone that actually has a heart for nostalgia so rich I want to ask you right because you're the game designer of the group right one of the biggest trends in the last few years has been analog gaming like a lot of board gaming car gaming has making been making a comeback Kickstarter campaigns making millions and millions of Kickstarter so there's a lot of upsurge a party group party or physical interaction with gaming right is there a chance that game stock can turns these spaces less about digital games well I mean can they somewhat convert into this type of space to kind of have a chance I mean they still have these physical stores all over the place so I think the main challenge there is

raymond was kind of saying is that there do exist like those hobby stores already and they generally are much larger because you need to have a lot of physical space in order to accommodate a variety of activities like most game stops i want to say are like maybe at biggest like 2,000 square feet and and like most hobby stores that i like go to and know of have like multiple floors and they already are pre set up with more like you know Warhammer D&D like car games and you know they also have a store on top of it too so I think that while that is sicker I think it's correct Brendon it's like yeah I want to use your physical space for like other games I still think that like it's gonna be hard for a game stop to convert over to that just because like the reason why it's going to use games sales all the times because you know like keeping all of the profit and it's not hard to imagine like oh if we just saw merchandise to so you could buy like fortnight dolls or pokemon dolls and stuff and like they're gonna make a lot

more money off of that than just trying to you know because these are the things that like people will impulse buy a lot more like you don't really go online to buy like like physical toys because like if you buy digital games like going online is way easier but you know like I she said like Brenda's like using the space for interaction I think it's definitely the way to go but again you're also competing with people who already just run board game night in the comfort of their own homes and stuff like that so and it also like the hobby stores which I think are much larger and generally more specialized they Game Stop so so I think I think it'd be very difficult for them to turn around I would in mind more hobby stores in general I love comic books and and and all that stuff so you know that's me yeah but I'll slide I don't think hobby stores are as profitable as the profit Game Stop is looking for right yeah yeah exactly nothing says losing money like like operating a hobby store

yeah I mean every year it's equally as impressive seeing that gamestop is still in the headlines like they're still having enough money to come up with a new scheme so I'm still very impressed that they're still kicking in in somewhat surviving I don't know I I can say that next year it seems like they're really on their last legs this time every year feels like they're on their last leg but it really does feel this year they're on their last legs but I mean they're they're facing a problem that is happening across all industries right less and less people are going some balls for shopping for anything now malls are closing left and right not just GameStop stores but at the same time I'm starting to see like a lot of these VR location-based services happening everywhere right so it's a weird kind of justa position to kind of see how people s people are going the malls but like more game arcades are popping up again where our kids have

died a long time ago besides David Buster's right so I don't know he's I was gonna see some like that's that's almost all the time before I started all of this like actually like I worked at Gamestop and that's actually like I worked with like during like a holiday rush in a mall that actually had an arcade near it and uh and like a skate park near it so like that that to me was like the pinnacle of like like gaming before it became cool to have like location location based gaming like Pokemon go and stuff and so I look back on those days really fondly and you know I kind of wished that like that happened more but like yeah I don't know I think

it's gonna be just be tough because like you know most people are lazy they just want to stay home and the people who do want to go out can it can be choosy with where they go also so I just don't know if they could just like your original suggestion that go to a Gamestop that's been converted over into a you know board game stop or something like that like I just don't I just don't see that happening now we might be like this might be one of the last times we talk about game stuff I just wish because there seems to be like a return to wanting to be in groups again alright we're talking about the event Buster's is still fine they're always filled I mean I don't know if you guys ever been to well you shake your head but man they're always full whenever I go back at least in their inspection one and then and then vine spectrum ever inspections the most crowded place that you could possibly but people still yeah right but like and then places like round one you guys are

it around one which is like that Japanese it's a blend yes I mean work this what I mean this one baby as well yeah yeah again I used to have Medicaid all the time when I was in high school but back the day I just live in an arcade and so like I remember but that's like you know and I and I I want those times back for sure cuz there's always a fun time to discover new games and and also the competitive scene right now he's super competitive yeah with it but yeah mostly those days are well she it's gone you say it's gone but like I came across like there was a little space of the mall where they were setting up all these pinball machine

there was like 12 to 18 of them in a room and I was there with my 9 year old son and of course it's his first time seeing such a thing what are these machines right so he was just having as much fun as I was like it hasn't gone away I just feel like it hasn't been re presented to this new generation of how this stuff is still valuable especially I figured if anything in contrast it's actually more fun out because everybody's on their phone and in their little bubble right like these spaces are more important than ever to show that hey interaction is actually pretty cool so my hope is still out maybe gamestop is not the answer might be round 2 or Dave & Buster's - we just got a yeah I think the logistics are really important like making sure that the space is large enough for like there being a variety of activities that's why I round one is awesome I I love going to that place and and it's super cool super dope yeah yeah I guess closet space game stuff I can't do

anything right these days it seems like top golf is also kind of blown up right at the top let's see hey I've heard that I haven't gone on one is it is it golf okay Dave and Buster's it's it's basic you know it's basically it's a driving range but it's game of fire right so all set oh I heard about them exactly exactly and the balls have chips in them and they track it and you have different games that you can play so it's also like you could be a good scrub at golf and still have a fun time they serve alcohol I heard they have arcade cauliflower kids right it's a rock all food some places do concerts as well it's big in itself right and I just went to one a couple weeks ago in Vegas and it was time it's right next to MGM Grand damn that's cool it's like these type of spaces are have a gamified aspect to it

that are becoming very popular and it's just the old idea of what we used to go there caves for so when Game Stop says they want to do something but I do I do agree with you rich it's the spaces that they have right now it's just too small but is there yeah is it impossible to do anything with that space to kind of invite this time for mindset is it is it completely a lot of ideas I think one thing that's a common link between like round one top golf and I figured those Dave and Buster's is alcohol and that's where you're gonna get a lot of profit margins out there a long time there you go wine and cheese when you get the game stuff I can get down with that is : coin op coin at bar as well which is a bar with a bunch of

classic arcade games oh yeah that's one of same and people I don't I totally feel like people want like I've been around my kid you've never been a part of this type of that type of life is he walks into it's super wide-eyed and the same as I was when I was his age so I don't feel like that's really changed the answer but the answer it's just came stocked around and go to all these other places I really do think game stuff is done yeah I don't I don't think I have the right people to kind of think and innovative ways just a lot of like old crummy gangsters of use game use car salesman's trying to kind of go when you are at the driving range a top golf what are those big holes on the ground do you like shoot and get points for top golf no no I know that those are the

holes right so basically there's different reasons so so if you if you're scrub you just get into the outer ring you get points floor but if you get closer to the middle yeah you get more points for it and and it's it's super super cool yeah and it tracks your balls oh yeah show some trajectory how far you've hit it you know there's a bunch of other minigames too so it's love it I'm super impressed with them so much I'm in ring yeah you want to fly us to Vegas that's fine a San Jose San Jose and there's one in Roseville and Sacramento this is there's none in North County rich I guess we got a couple weeks maybe I'll just take a trip up to Sacramento to one schools here yeah yeah yeah cool whoa uh probably routing in I just want to ended

up with this one last topic right so uh Riot Games for a long time was kind of teased as right game because they only had Lowell to kind of survive off them but in the last year they came hard man with four am i right four or five games new IPs announced within the League of Legends universe but the most recent one being valor n't which looks like a cross between csgo and overwatch right which I feel is a very smart game design aesthetic to go by I think anything a little bit more than csgo is a very smart game design choice but I would love to know your thoughts let's start with rich right so rich I know you can help god you can be super nice which is fine I can be the super bad one but like please talk about this like this idea of like this branching out from what they're usually just known for one IP

suddenly being able to kind of just explode into these it seems like they just had other reconnaissance with yeah irena science of ideas yeah yeah so you know first of all hats off to riot or finally getting you know a bunch of games out I was there during a time when basically pretty much all of them were in development but they weren't nearly as ready or as polish or as complete as they are now and honestly like I'm enjoying playing you know TFT and legends of runeterra it's it's really fun to sort of like see those games finally out and just playing them I'm particularly excited to see how Valerie shapes out because you know like when when thinking about a game like csgo and trying to innovate upon it you got you think about things like how do you feel like iterative innovation like adding

hero classes adding like really nice like fantasy to it and then how do you do like disruptive innovation so things like battlegrounds like what does battlegrounds done to FPS is and what does like having hero classes like in tf2 due to FPS is so I think like a combination of like a super hardcore shooter in a more team-based game is actually super awesome I hope that like to get more information as the stuff comes out because I think that csgo has like I'm not sure don't quote me on this but I think like csgo has like like risen in terms of popularity on streaming and it's one of those like sort of evergreen games because of the competitive nature of it so I think valor is really cool because it's trying to be as super hardcore competitive as like League of Legends is and to do it in a way that sort of challenges like the nub is old guard correct for CS and I think I know a lot of the people who

are working on well now it's no longer called project a or even Ares it's called valor rant which is a much cooler name and I think that they have the right people to really nail that one the key is to make it accessible I think that when you think of csgo and you think about like you know being headshotted instantly by someone who has faster reflexes than you that's gonna be harder I think for to overcome than say teaching players how to as a team in League of Legends in a strategic game to like learn things so but we'll see I mean like I think there's a lot you can do in the round around gameplay design to make it so that like advantages and disadvantages like swinging back and forth that's a key thing to how make how to make mobos work and it's a key thing to like sort of add another layer of gameplay depth to an otherwise very session based gameplay that's why csgo is still going on and on and on and I know the guys that ride know this and I like if they do hear me talking about

this they'll be like maybe not in their head or whatever but you know I think that they've been working on it for a long time so it's good that it's finally out mm-hmm yeah okay first of all don't even have to add to this of any sort of substance is that we are ignoring legends of rude Tarot which is another one of their new games and also legal isn't about rift League of Legends wild wrestlers which is another one of their new games and all both of those games are actually hashtag made with unity so that's why it's funny how that kind of popped out to me I don't know why - Valerie suddenly just out of those three what though what if it was the

card game and the other and what was it free I forgot what was the third one what is the legends on mobile if you count TF dude that's that's also on mobile and the League of Legends client there's also the the animated series there's also there's also riot forge which has a bunch of games as well - and and you know Valerie was just announced this why I was mentioning it but uh yeah in legends of arintero as well mm-hmm it's it's a lot man that's like the most games of studio announced within the year which is pretty impressive for I mean I guess that's what's what like 15 years of not announcing a new game can do just suddenly just was supposed to they all have been around they announced a lot of those games during their ten-year anniversary and you know Marc and Brennan always had a plan to you know make write games just there's a more documentary that you can yeah I'm

more than more than just law but like honestly like and you have a game as successful as law it's kind of hard to I mean it's like break yo you're different that yourself yeah yeah but it's also like you know if you keep having like sort of exponential growth year over a year over a year I mean that's not actually the case but if it's like you know making you billions of dollars and there's no clear competitor you know like I've worked with you know Blizzard on a MOBA and that was that was it was very tough to to try and like uproot League you know and so like when you're there it's like hey like let's so keep this going make it stable and then really like like refined out all of the Rd games get them really nice get into a place where like as soon as we announce then we can just line them up and just like show them I mean that's a pretty that's a pretty solid strategy that's pretty cool yeah and then should select the route terrorization pretty decent card game like I've been playing in a bit and I've enjoyed it a lot for some reason I do

that unity logo I can it turn away from it I don't know it's like halfway through the door I know I just want to say that if you have unity Pro which which riot does and and and even my small indie company does you can make it so that the unity logo doesn't actually appear so so that's the team but like raised trying to change the mindset but is TVs like hey let's keep a little on let's try to make it right but I will

say the Balor has made some really great choices like I'm usually not into those type of games right but mobile type of games I know I should over even overwatch is a stretch for me like I don't I don't know if it's making good choices cuz I saw it yeah one sec so CSL go overwatch I don't know what sets it apart from those games right it's another has a very it's a very stylized art style IV look very similar Java washing I saw baby you know that's what they want to do that's cool like they have a whole stable games that are coming out yeah so they want to kind of touch in everything else points right yeah yeah well one thing one thing that I would say and I'm just guessing at this point the overwatch like east for sort of spectator experience is not as good as it can be just because the game

was never it's like super hard to sort of follow whereas I think that one of the things that League sort of got better at over time was the quality at which they could broadcast the game and sort of analyze the game and if you add like in breaks in the game which like csgo naturally does and then Balor end probably has if they announced it I don't know like we'll say I think like if you have like really good commentary on that and then you do like a like a micro play of the game like round to round then I think it actually becomes a pretty compelling like a like what viewer experience yes whether or not it will hit the same amount of critical I just want or there yeah yeah yeah their monetization model is like overwatch result like I don't know seven trillion copies or something so I'm not sure what exactly it is there but you know like part of it sometimes it doesn't even matter it's more about like making sure like the Riot Games is brand like like stay strong stays competitive

makes like say evergreen competitive games so you know I'm just you know let's see how it goes I think like there's a lot that you can improve on the spectator experience especially for competitive shooters yeah I agree what they haven't announced like what if if it's free I'm exhuming it's free to play all these all these titles I don't know all right you didn't see Terra is free to play yeah I mean that's their thing I mean they've made so much money by making entry so I can't imagine there's any premium premium $60 game that's well well for me from a person who's not interested in overwatch or MOBA or any of that Valerie it looks very appealing to me because it's a little slower pace I can tell what's going on even with all the magic that's going on but also what's what's more likable to me is because it has the

csgo bullet impacts that I like where I expect you to die after I shoot you right overwatch it becomes kind of like a sponge bullet for me when I played through it because everyone has the thousand shields on them right it just doesn't feel fun as a shooting game so if they nailed that part for valor injustice oudy mechanics I am more open to explore the magical elements of it and be willing to go on that ride because I already like the aesthetic so I think they have a core grab of those type of people who are kind of in the middle there which is a lot of people right you're talking about like modern warfare people battlefield people who don't play MOBA that's a lot of people race kind of squinching space why don't you go in there you're going with very little card game did alright we'll see all right there's gonna be more valiant player than card player I'll make that bold claim for next round yeah in every

single one of like riots like new games there this is something like I just learned from like working there there's there's always like a couple of core fundamental game system decisions that's sort of like they form the basis for the entire game and so like improving upon you know you just like turn it down into a single sentence like like this is legit server and Terra is what if we combine hearthstone and magic and you actually had counter play during like a turn-based game so it has more depth than hearthstone but also has it has more death than hearthstone but it's also slightly faster than magic you know so like how far can they go to based off of that concept and you know like wall drift same sort of thing like how can you make a successful MOBA for for league of legends players and which are mostly in north america you know and so like i think it's a it's always very interesting to see another like a big company that's trying to like push

boundaries and stuff like that so you know like cheers to ride for making all of these new games come out yeah i mean it's a great distraction from all the sexual harassment stuff that then kind of i'm glad to talk about the Beeb's again right hey i got a mention a man we can't just forget it's just like two months ago is it so let's just talk about how their designers are doing a great job all right and I'm looking forward to what these games will mean I think all of them like we just mentioned have gonna be a big impact for the genres that are releasing it but I want to also serve this time as saying that we have gone the limit I want to thank you guys my panel game developers out here regram Richard cute for joining me every month to talk about the latest and greatest game news and hopefully everybody

listeners and Watchers have enjoyed our ranting and our opinions and again we only represent ourselves and not on behalf of the company we were [ __ ] so please do not get us fired and that concludes this month's round tip I want to go to your screenshot right here for everybody that is viewing ray thank you for coming on this way alright as always ripping reunit e and rich cube being awesome game designer on this side oh he's leaving Frank thank you for joining me again so thank you guys no problem at all right alright so that's it that's our roundtable see you guys next week you [Music]