CoVID 19 Updates, Magic Leap Scam, Stadia, VR, PS5, Valorant CS GO | Game Dev Unchained Episode 223

I [Music] what's up everybody this is game Devlin change the number one game development podcasts about game development and the lifestyle thereof this is of course if you've seen the title it's a very special episode every month it is a roundtable the news this is kind of like a tag-team roundtable it's just being Ravus time but it's just gonna be equally as fun and Bray if you hear his laughter in the background I'm gonna cue him in right now how you doing ray hey what's up Brandon how you doing doing good man so let's kind of start this off in the right way it's been about a month since we talked about or actually caught up alright so it's been another month of kovat I kind of want to hear your thoughts and updates within your own network you know personally and

professionally everything just to give people out there a little preview of what your life is all about right now you know it's the same as it's been since we started right so I'm just working from home I mean my office like pretty much all all day you know from anywhere from 6 6 the morning or 7:00 in the morning until five or six a night you know take a couple breaks for lunch show or not but that's that's it you know and then on the weekends staying home although I go out sometimes you know the go get things if I need them but otherwise you know this it's the same it's the same it's been you know how are you hearing from companies I mean we know I'll know you're you're very connected right we were kind of laughing at the horse show that most companies are going through kind of well I mean the poor IT departments being crossed with wire essentially would love

to kind of hear your thoughts has things have things in kind of plateau gotten better yeah I four I'm hearing people are working they have some sort of setups going on you know of course for some people's that ideal but it's it's it's Co yeah it feels like Oh scrambling in the beginning and now people are actually working right but it's still I think people are more being more impacted by having like kids at home and and having the balance you know managing their children and working from home and that that's gonna struggle for people for sure yeah I think I'm pretty much in the same boat I've been hearing things are at least up and running and that whole challenge of that a lot of even experienced remote workers are not used to having just having their own office space and partitioning that I think it was a good few months before I situated in my situation without all

that mess and a lot of people are kind of just battling it at the same time which is frustrating and scary especially not having any breaks from each other either you're kind of stuck in that home yo or five people on a family definitely a different element to it for sure on the bright side I'm finding a lot of time to play games yeah you know so a mess she if I actually have more time to play games and watching movies and watching things that I would otherwise be too busy to do in a lot of other situations so that's for me that's pretty good because I'm actually like I'm not much for going out already anyway so so being able to stay at home and just catch up on all that stuff it was been pretty good for me well you kind of laughing well I'm laughing at that because I've seen your Facebook

updates with your nice restaurants that you go out every business so even take those away man how you been coping with that like you're essentially at home all yeah yeah yeah I cook I cook right so like I'm enjoying having more time to cook already more need to cook at home still order out sometimes we did order in a fancy dinner like in this so they just delivered a fancy dinner to your doorstep like some restaurant so that was kind of cool because they just get kind of old like cooking for yourself my breakfast lunch and dinner every single day but like no but it's been it's been all right you know like of course I went is what this is all lifted I'm probably the first thing I'm going to do is probably go to one of my favorite restaurants and just oh yeah eat but like but right now it's it's it's okay right now and I would say like the immediate step of eating out would be like dining in hell it's very

uh yeah I go give a couple of months for the first survivors to kind of test the waters that not even now my it's figured just put your mask on just your mask on go go after dinner and then like pulled the mess down and eats and then right when I pull the mask on that's one Cove it sneaks in like even right now we're cooking all the time at home and the one time a few times that I cracked kind of order out to kind of give ourselves a break I made the mistake of going to in and out to grab it and just going through that drive-thru and looking through the window and seeing how they were managing the food to me in my mind you know in and out in and out can't figure this out and do it the right way nobody can and they were just open face something for gloveless I was like oh my god as time passes this is just I'm threatening myself and that

was it that was like about a month and a half ago just been avoiding eating out so it's very I know that we should support you know all the restaurants around but I don't know I'm at this rate I don't want to I don't want to dive yeah well I don't think it announced to be struggling if you don't eat eat from there and over the next couple months it's the more smaller mom-and-pop places that really you don't need to support I guess right now yeah yeah my feelings with mom-and-pop shop is that if you're waiting for until the end of summer that everything's going to be completely back to normal you might as well cut your losses and and just go home man because it's at first I was optimistic thinking that end-of-summer right but now I'm really thinking this is 2020 man and even into the early of next year before Priscilla

I'm still know I'm so hopeful that these all to stay at home orders get lifted at least maybe in June or July hopefully you know what I mean but like I don't I know some places I know my my job you know we have a plan for gradual return to office right so even after all that stuff gets lifted it's probably to me you know there one or two months after that before the office is back to normal you know I mean so so for me it's like yeah we're gonna run home this could be like this for a while for me right regardless of what happens with the state home orders whatever is there a segmentation or at least a pattern that you're seeing with who they're letting back in the office first like the sacrificial lambs like then the marketing department and then [Laughter]

there's going to be the people that absolutely need like that do their jobs better and are more efficient back in the office you know what I mean and and then look if you don't have to be an office like stay home basically right and and then we'll disappoint of okay now everybody's back in the office now let me know there's Ana massive Co vid outbreak in the office right in and you know they it's safe right but you know there's some folks that are just dying together that's the office or that they are just way more efficient when they're back in the office and giving those folks like when everything gets lifted an opportunity about the office in a controlled environment this could be cool yeah yeah I mean there is a good percentage of parents that I think at first I see it like a black-and-white situation it's like the parents that are really loving the kids are loving this right now and the parents who are just seeing work as an escape

it's ready right now and it's it's very I think it's very real to cut except that and I mean there is a need for a break and be selfish I don't know that from people kids I've heard more just that the pain of the homeschooling situation oh you know like III heard ton of complaints about that more than more than straight-up complaints about just the kids in general you know everybody seems to be enjoying the presence of their kids I don't know about you Brandon but I love Mike but yeah I shut the door when I'm working I look like kids what I know but B is but people are more dealing with that those issues I think more so than just the kids running

around the place yeah I think if anything you know hunkering down and just really just accepting this as the year 2020 for everybody would be the hello board for sure yeah I mean that's just the way it is I don't I don't even really think the kids are gonna be back in September to be honest like there's no way how can they it's too early too early well I mean let's talk about what's not too early all right let's go ahead and go into the next topic or the first topic of today or the roundtable news and again I just want to reiterate that these are opinions that only reflects upon ourselves and not of our companies I'm a lot safer than Rea over there but I just want to reiterate that so let's go into it why magic leap is scamming everybody all right so I'm gonna go here and then switched my camera to to this news article that we've been checking out here so like the last time we talked

actually it's funny how these roundtable news are tying in to each other because it just takes about a month for things to kind of show its ugly colors right so magically the last time kind of as a warning signal of fire or where there is a fire there smoke right or there is when there's smoke there's a fire they were asking 10 million 10 billion dollars that's kind of like a prayer hell marry that nobody bid on and then shortly after they found out that no one's really liking them as much they basically laid off I think a good portion of their staff it's like a thousand people are some like that yeah I didn't realize they were that big of a company to even start with do their they're nervous enormous man Australia Florida no offices in San Cisco enormous company yeah well I'm always impressed with these

companies being able to build these hype trains it's funny how these companies are all in the area man the bay they seem to be able to kind of okay hoard all this investor money and have nothing to show well that's where almost like Kleiner Perkins and all those all those dudes are in or in the Bay Area but um like at the entity day right I think I've messed with magic leap right I tried it I thought it was cool right I didn't think it was like $3,000 cool right and that's really what it all boils down to is that unlike VR they were able to get it they weren't able to get the price down to something reasonable for that so people on the streets would just feel I can't give me that right and and and with all of these things the other thing I say about all these things as content sells or content actually will sell you the Box right and I didn't see any content that would

really sell sell that right to the mass market especially at to have two thousand three thousand dollar price point right and then they realized that too and they realized they couldn't or these currently we're struggling with getting the price down to consumer level and so they're like okay this is called enterprise or any free to go with only enterprise all of the things that are they to consumers well that's that's done right gaming gaming the gaming applications and all that stuff just well you don't need to do that anymore right um it's and it's it's sad for the people that are working there you know it's just overnight jobs jobs are gone especially during this time getting laid off during the cove itself is like probably a horrible situation but like yeah like I don't know about no I wouldn't use such strong language as scamming and all that kind of stuff because you know investors are invested

in the promise you know I mean and I'm actually paid I promise and when you when you mess around with it you're like oh yeah this is promising right but uh it just you know like money money dries up nobody's investing everything okay well how's this to be how you gonna scale this in unison this and I think they could still be a viable business just to an interpreter because it could be applicable in that space for like architecture or for you know training or surgeries or whatever right it's just not a good super good question so that's that's basically that's basically the story right well as you were saying that like you know they had great promise I wish I went back to college and redid it and majored in promises because it feels like it's a lot of effort effort to make something that could convince people to give you billions of dollars you know I

mean and it's sighs the company's it was obvious right don't get even all those people it reminds me a lot of this about if they had a product she did yeah so I want to ask you this right from from the time you demoed and it feels like even though the article I was pulling up and I'm reading through there was a lot of smoke and mirror like even the press and everybody even the consumer market was kind of like at arms like it's like all right all right I see where I can go right but let's just see were you guys actually how close you actually get to it but like how far away if you were to guess how many more years would have taken to them without any all these financial troubles in the pandemic to get to where they were saying that this technology will be for consumer and be basically a profitable business without investor money yeah I think

they're so far far far away from the to formally like the video you know the initial video they showed the first-person shooter in the office kind of thing given given the size of the screen like you know that the screen size is actually really really tiny well you may look at through the magically the screen size is super tiny it's like a little box right so delivering the promise of what that video was like they're years away from that right and then on top of it I had no idea what it would take to make that tech cheap enough and small enough where it would be so bulky and cumbersome right so yeah like I think they're way way way way too far off and that's time that's also kind of why he did the pivot now you're like hey we're really far from this money's gonna run out so that's kind of make a

pivot and see if we can make a sustainable profit business just focusing on the people that will pay thousands of dollars for the hurt yeah I mean this pivot definitely is admirable for any company that can see the dangers and actually have a chance to or give themselves a chance but this type of it kind of reminds me of like the GameStop type of pivot where it's the last roll of the dice well for sure for sure it's a it's a Hail Mary roll of the dice right the one thing we're not talking about is how is how they did this during Col fade right and kind of Mitch cacophonous a reason why they're doing this and like and that's that's react to me that seems kind of disingenuous I'll say a nicer way it seems disingenuous right it seems seems like yeah to blame it to believe in on covin why their product is me five

years old maybe being interfer ition yeah maybe maybe it played a role in it maybe but like I think it was like when when they announced it and this a neighbor shifting to enterprise like like I was not shocked by such an announcement but that's just that just made sense even with the pivot to the enterprise space and this is something that I feel a very similar headset that was promised by Marcus off a few years ago hololens did but they saw kind of the path clearer and earlier and they actually pivot towards enterprise and have secured like a major American military contract since and they're not as in the news as much for a consumer market but they're definitely making money in profiting and are probably

leagues a hit magically I don't know how much do you know about that hit said it's much yeah yeah no I actually tried both and I do think the magically mentioned it was better in my limited interactions you know had bigger bigger aspect ratio right I don't even know what the current state of the hololens tickets these days i've been shackled okay any new hardware inc like that if there is anything here but like everything about my sleep seemed seemed better better quality image and everything seemed better than the hololens like the leaf at least the last version all inside right yeah but I'm pretty sure since um you know magic doesn't make money anymore in hololens is getting military to be updated there yeah yeah sure I'm gonna sure if that's that's if that's profitable about what I have no idea right so I can't comment but but

yeah yeah well you know naturally if you'll be there to and that military money actually somebody be sure they're giving that covitz US SBA loan money if anything people layoff in even investors now are I feeling are a bit too naive to think that they're gonna be turning this around anytime soon they've lost I think people's faith in its product and I'm pretty sure the CEO or is looking for a way out of anything and I can't yeah yes maybe if they're smart about it or maybe they're just gonna talk to gamestop and work together somehow it's just as ridiculous but a good rinse hopefully this is the last time we talk about them

I always tracked them because they've always been super hyped but I never really I've never tried the product right it sounds like you were impressed with it but from what I've seen through the demo it just seemed too far away for it to make an impact immediately ya know and I think it's the same with all this stuff right like with the early VR stuff the newer yourself is built on the learnings of that technology has improved there's hololens there's magic leap there's other spatial computing stuff when people like a arc it just on your iphone there's there's there's things that happen like be working on that that people keep kind of hinting at right there's also stuff right that um that you're gonna see down the line this but I kind of try to improve on this tech and you know sometimes you're the first part first in there and you fail and then other times you're the first person how you succeed right so it just depends

on the time right I think the same thing with like you Google stadia right stadia is on the line of working on tech that was developed before that really failed dramatically like on live gah I failed dramatically and now everybody's back at it again trying to be successful with with game streaming right and maybe everybody who's trying out will fail too but then there might be somebody that comes after that improves on technology and learns the lessons right I think that's the main things about learning you know there's a lot of failures along the way to actually being successful yeah yeah i i think through the rotting corpse of magic leap and stadia something really good out of all this you should you should have combed the agenda to talk

about the stadia connect because there's a stadia connected a yeah you Nana conference alright we could talk about hello this okay yeah no rights right so it's nice Tina can write I think what's called stevia direct whatever I remember the name all right why don't we give you a little summary of what you saw here and why I pull something up because I completely Darfur me today yeah yeah well the main summary was they showed a bunch of indie games that are coming to stadia they announced what are they events EA the last Star Wars game fallen order Jedi fallen order whatever that is available this will be available stadia now what else punky of gene just gonna be on Stadium those are those are kind of the big the big take aways FIFA FIFA Madden or the

me on stadia and they and then be shown off the budget can be indie stuff you know more variety kids co-op multiplayer games so yeah like you know they're dirt they're swinging for the fences right I okay I think that's a I think I'd be able to be too strong it's not exactly sure swing for the fences cuz like a long those games so I'm kind of like I don't know but um but like about to about too excited I'm not too excited about Owens games but but I think bear they're trying to beef up the the catalog very jumpy forget one this is where I feel it was a mistake I mean this guy is face right here I think I made fun of this guy and uh I've seen this guy's face at every single console right we're talking about initially Sony he had a weird spinach margasoft which was and now he's over a monkey I'm not gonna hate on this guy

like this that's øg øg shipping consoles over many many years right so you know but bro there is about being the frontman of a competing product that just D values the product right you can't be at Tesla and say Tesla is the best car in the world and then next week I see you over at BMW safe know this is the best car in the world it just it just leaves a bad taste consumers how could I trust something sometimes things happen and you yeah well that's why the fennel didn't have them because we understand good PR give it away give it away two months two months to stay be a pro you know so you get a bunch of free game so stadium Perot and and then they made a bunch of announcements they had game eternal yeah yeah sure I got a taste of the two months stadium ready

popped up in everyone's email I think it was a smart money incision for sure to Elise have people try it I logged on for about two minutes I looked at their catalog and then I immediately unsubscribe I said it already with magically posted again like you know content salesman and and they have some stale content on there there's stuff that like is old and people have already played and like you're not going to get a whole lot of people attracted they are working on first party brand new stuff when that stuff hits like maybe it'll be successful right but right now it's like it's a waste it's a wasteland of old games that you've played already you know that's like that's the number one thing but that's why they doing this though to say hey we may have the old games that you've played already but if you haven't played these games you know and you don't want to install them and you don't want to download them you're your own good you know octave a traveler is a pretty good game you know

I mean so why not played and I think to like their whole founders edition thing was kind of holding it back but now it's just you could play it in a web browser it's free to try it out right so like there's no hard and try to no playing right now I'm not waste your time like a muscle so Zane is probably not for us right it's not really for us right like who is it for that's a good question that's a good question you know like I can't really say who maybe people that can't afford or don't want to buy a super expensive console well here you go you could play stadia you don't need to buy the console right I just wonder what

like for me like the proper rollout would have been kind of like a closed beta right just to get people testing until the first party content was ready to go right I don't understand why they had such a lackluster launch knowingly so and then have basically vacant months of not producing content for there you know yeah they're they're number one fans but it's just under serving everybody and what will the two big they're two big games right where were Odyssey and destiny right but if you're a hardcore player you've already played these games right but for folks that like I said they haven't and you did it by a console right like you can play on save you why not right it's it's it's I understand it I don't understand I don't

understand housing successful but I think I think it has to be successful with this little solo check for tonight anyway but there it can be successful you know with a really standout first party title that really leverages the cloud-based machines leverages YouTube leverages all of the cool features and says this is why you have stadia right right now none of this is saying this is why he has stated you could play this on a bunch of other systems right and they're announcing some exclusive very Meza so exclusive games right that are going to be the first first one stadia so they're gonna release the first one stadia and then probably be everywhere else later so that's cool you're trying to lock down some exclusives right but you know it's there indie titles or like you know very fun games to play you can play with your

friends play it on on the couch or whatever but you know it isn't destiny right or isn't it isn't a game of the destiny caliber right yeah it's definitely what they can afford right now for sure yeah go for it yeah I would say this right um in this time where you got Sony Microsoft and Nintendo like this is if anything the best for the console that you should be competing the only thing with this is kind of relevant to what we were talking about with how magically pet this hype at the beginning right and that eventually died down we're talking about three to five years before that first party game from the Assassin's Creed team is producing it's gonna be out maybe right does this have enough legs until then can they afford basically

operating at a loss until then it's Google cool thanks well as Google shows yeah it's the real question I know Google Google could spend the money yeah sure but like cat they have to be really devoted to this right and yeah only time will tell with that right I have no idea what I'm seeing right now is this without sound in context I am so bored yeah what is he doing this is a yeah I think this was like testimonials as somebody's for streamers and players made also it is clearly isn't that I get some random ask gamers that isn't ready for cable time right in a way the boring gameplay video as if that was your cutaway shot and your cutaway ops I

would say home state is what I'm seeing here is I'm seeing a lot of RIT right and a platform that you want to reach a bunch of different people you have to bring the variety right you have to bring many different experiences same thing with the like you know Xbox game master there's a lot of different experiences and different types and caliber and quality of games you got to do that you got to do that on all these platforms like for real for real you know I think it's at the end of this video where they show that the Bungie stuff let's go funky so what's the big announcement 50 it's free completely yeah it's available now it's available now you can start playing this is a big deal a lot of pubsey players out there the definitely getting a lot of mileage out of the game already so the day you get and I think it's it says free to say via fro and they're getting you two months to stay do pro right so you can

play it for free for two months translate yeah man don't fight all these other battle Royales that are free play this one goodness Dania punch punch each the mr. granddaddy I guess whenever I look at this stuff I'm just so I guess it's good to have a fourth player in the fray of things Google is a major I just don't understand why they launched this way they could have done closed beta and we wouldn't be creating as much it would have been just fine they would have had the same amount of paying customers you know the hard cores and it would have been forgivable if they weren't updating every month on their stuff I think it's very weird that they watch without a key first party game I don't know if they thought they needed the launch like I

wonder if they thought they just needed to launch before Xbox one series X and PS vibrant like they seem to get out there before the new console cycle subtle air I mean I don't know man if their stadium about like who cares if it's a console well that's the biggest I think yeah yeah no go ahead but I was just saying that's one of the biggest advantages is that it's in the cloud rings that you can upgrade the hardware whenever you want they can just get faster so why why try to be a ps5 when you're gonna be a PS 5.5 and at any second right sorry any minute but the biggest the biggest draw for me when they showed that trailer was the YouTube feature the ability to kind of jump in like that's huge that's a huge feature not only are they attacking twitch but

like all the consoles at once they should have just worked on that and have a division like game ready and just watch with it they would have had a better success than what they're doing now but you coming at you also know but you also know that like it's hard to make those epic games like completely unique experience on some new experimental hardware I'm sure that when with the the kits were working a lot of those features weren't even where King yet right those are promise features but that weren't quite working yet why pregnant ready for primetime were quite ready to scale out to the older players and so there could have been a gradual release I do think the barren wasteland that is the content offering is pretty it's like bad it's really bad but but yeah like I don't know how you watch it unless you were

working on it working on the games three years before the launch right you know anew and we're brand-new like when it comes to making video games like Google's bringing glue there's know how to do this right so so that's why it's taking longer yeah I mean the only lingering hope that I have is because they have a lot of your old co-workers over there some key players especially all those people off at once I'm anxious to see what games come out like the the flagship first party games like what what actually comes out I'm super happy just to see what happens I am alright and now you know I said small plug small plug to like you know you know there's the Google was at Stadium acres program

with with unity of course so folks can make stadia games with unity right so yeah you know well now this to live off of you can reach once you can read it yet close every dot for right see and I thought where they can publish this games ya know and I'm also curious to see what happens with like you know projects cloud for Microsoft surrenders or so whatever so nice a to do so do you see that all spent too much on this topic but do you see the X cloud what Sony is doing threatening what stadia is doing like stealing their steam or do you think they can still coexist because state is so different I think it depends on the business model and it depends on the games right you you know from day one when project X cloud is like a debate or whatever and

you have your Xbox series X or whatever those first party Microsoft items are going to be on that thing that's right you know we worked in the past you know your game past you probably have game pass and a extra five dollars and then all of a sudden now you have they're all your gamepad so next cloud like you know sleaze something like that and then if it's exactly what if it's and if it's that it's gonna be a problem right extreme it's already a problem as well right I seen the games that they are beta testing right now it's [ __ ] way better than what because you're talking about the Xbox library right and Sony has the same ammunition they have the Sony library Day 101 say awesome games great content is king always so I don't say my own opinion is I I don't see how stadia can can do anything I mean

football back on legend flagship first party games but they're not gonna have hundreds of pieces but Microsoft does that [ __ ] it's either Microsoft has a solid 5 right but Sony bro Sony yes every every five years vitia can have maybe 0.5 awesome game right like how how are they gonna beat any of these systems in the long run it's impossible how does it gonna work but but also like I said right does it need to win right just need like define define what is the success rate like is it you know I mean right like always such a fine I'll define Google's Google Maps Google the search engine all right these

are and that's it nothing else exists for seeing every success first ad to be successful everybody the world that's what I'm saying that's what I'm saying that's so I'm so worried for your friends in the mansion right now shaking in their boots over at the Seaview they know the outcome has to be better than just good it has to be the best console ever right this is like I said this is like the first step right plan launcher you know you know I know how it goes I just don't want to hear another thousand people lay off at Google because they they didn't plan out PS five and Xbox having a history of games that they can

pull from that all they need to do is upload to a cloud server and call it done like oh it's oh it's a thing to kind of fall into and not realize oh okay right now everybody seems to be not really doing great yeah I know this one yeah well I mean let's just go ahead and talk about the next topic then as I kind of switched over and talked about it so like last time we talked about it was when I was kind of hyping up half-life Alex and we were talking about you know how well at least for me valve index seems to be doing and the funny thing you were saying is because they only have like ten of these headsets that people are selling at a thousand apiece but data is showing that they are doing

really well man they're taking ten percent Alisa a 10 percent hundreds a hundred thousand hits hold on back up right yeah that's 10% of the 1.29 percent of all users yeah right so that's like a small number all right how many are any you guys either in the grand scheme of things right okay because they say the 1.29 the one point two nine percent equates to about a million people yes yes yes right so 10 percent 10 percent of that is yeah hundred thousand right yeah which I find that actually pretty hard to believe actually ok let's let's say that's true [Music] you know I still yeah somebody needs a loser I still think these numbers are kind of yeah lately I think maybe it was like

psvr PCR is is like more than a million right PCR is like psvr is in five million five millions again hit sets and this is like this look a thousand different headsets so they they they add up to about a million right which is kind of like come on yeah yeah well to be fair librarian yeah no and this is all slowly users day Oh headset and not really take it to account users that are actually actively using the headset right which is another yeah from what I remember at least one half left Alex came out it was a good number of concurrent users initially as you can imagine a lot of hype around it right but right out of the gate $1,000 headset I have you know we're talking about mere four months right we're

talking about kovat having impact and everything Kofi is doing well for steam and their valve had say $1,000 $100,000 in the bank man they'll take that and there's a hardware company right but like if we look at all the and forget all the the shovelware headsets that no one cares about you know the top ones are the ocular and then vive and they're basically doing a third or a half amount of that in basically four months I mean that's pretty impressive mm oculus especially if it's tough to be a big increase very look if you look at how much is actually increased from whatever the last five minutes it's a big increase and you know and I recently purchased a quest so like I'm still kind of bullish on VR a little bit of ways but you know what I

you know why I bought the question but you know why I bought the plan you're the only one at this point that was talking about savoring rubra I'm definitely not that would because even when I when I was playing I have like balance you know like the valve has the group that you're in and it has a leaderboard of the top most played games right as Lee Burton was played games free ones and paid ones I know that for VR and beats a girl's number one this like it's just it's just we deserve to we just have to acknowledge them till they come out with be safe or to say what I will say is right when it's like hardware's been taking taking a some damage in the midst of this pandemic and

at the same time we're hearing Elise more more interest in VR sets and VR software on top of the the impressive numbers I think it's pretty impressive a lot of these companies now I'm sure you've read them are finally seeing a profit like actually functioning as a business now and not relying on investor money like a lot of these bone works is one of them half I've asked Alex definitely made a good portion of money yeah yeah we have the beat sabers and whatever that was making loads of money sure like we're sorry they're like regular indie companies doing it too now there was a time when like the regular unique companies were struggling to make money because they couldn't find the player base or they couldn't they also couldn't get invested in getting a publisher backing right I haven't heard anything around those lines changing that much you know what I mean okay I I

haven't right but not maybe I'm wrong but I just had yeah heard much changing around those lines in terms of like VR video games right like it's kind of a barren wasteland like for VR video games around late you know what half-life a late sportsbeat saber like like what are the other definitely always hear hear about well of course I think it's um it's doing better than stadia at least but but like out like kind of bone works is what the game basically you know the it's an indie team and even in valve was impressed with them and and kind of change their a lot of their game design of half-life Alex to kind of push it a little further but this is a small indie company that really pushed design over everything else and just made a super simple and they made three million dollars in revenue across all platforms right talking about

it as well but these are this is very new to this space for VR you know we're talking about Super Show you're talking about different games I mean these are pieces of the games that makes money and fee all right they're bladed sorce I've heard of that ski room secured them of course those guys always make money off of their their their takes but this is this is very new this is within I think the last end of last year and early this year where we're starting to hear like a turn for VR titles and not being such a risk anymore and a lot of that is attributed to a good amount of VR owners like if you combine string all the hits it's check out that hair check out that clarification about three million revenue it's a rough estimate basis on without know your I store my

stuff right well that's also with our the the other like stores taking their collectors exactly sure so they got a million dollar something around that lines but this is a if you if this was put on a graph right I mean that that is a positive going crazy here whoa whoa geez specialized software on the one man operation did I have a whole but that I mean that is a pot like I'm actually looking forward like this is this is very anti let's just say magically where we're actually seeing a consumer market embracing a technology they're actually embracing it right because they can buy it yeah think of my it right like you

even if or when my [ __ ] was first came out was a hundred books and really about that's ridiculous right but people so bought that you know people are buying valve in ten thousand dollars you know I mean but yeah yeah people like people are buying it that's why it like people buy it there's a market for it games are gonna be there and so wasn't matter anywhere to buy was it ever no you you could only get the developer kits for twenty five hundred twenty five twenty five hundred year Wow so they completely exists exactly mixed anybody to make content for it but also you know well they may need a baby chances already yeah they made it available for people to make for people to make content for it but but like you had a job twenty-five hundred dollars to make content for platform that nobody's gonna buy it's a very odd business plan I don't know what they were thinking I

mean this is number one problem with Silicon Valley companies holidays it's just the tech hype all that investor money and then just right right into the sunset the patents answer work for something you know me so let me kind of talk about the the next topic here this is actually pretty interesting so I'll switch here and look at the psy so the p5 is kind of ramping up to something a lot of people are speculating and and talking about this they're showing little hints in a forest because of co vid a lot of these events that have been planned are kind of taking a divergence and you're slowly seeing pieces of information right and

what we questioned actually a month ago what I questioned was largely really gonna still go on with it with the launch plans in the winter or people are gonna even have money with a twenty percent unemployment rate in the country so some news I've seen is that yeah of course a lot of their products are not being produced because you know a lot of it's being done in China and so they're not gonna have as many devices out at the same time they're very slow and revealing anything yeah so what have you been hearing through the grapevine man is it because they don't have money or what's going on over here do know this I've heard the same same thing that you for is like yeah you know factory closures in China during a kovat the big shutdown has impacted production that's all I've heard like that's it

like for me I don't care I don't care about that's the I don't care about if it's a launch and Christmas or not and I'm pretty sure we'll all right like you know this business as usual right maybe you you won't be able to find one as easy as saying that's what series X maybe who knows but at the end of the day what I really want is I want to see the games right I said it before for every look for magic leap and for stadia and right like content content rules right and so it really matters wanted to launch at us what do they look like and why why am i buying yet another console I think with Sony and Nintendo it's always a safe bet they always produce hits from their first party TV host Microsoft I think is starting to understand that and maybe their second a second round of releases

with the new studios they've been snatching up it will finally hit a stride but Sony and Nintendo are very reliable when they talk about the first party games it just always becomes classics yes in classics right so I I do I'm very excited to kind of see I'm not even talking me even first party like I'm not too sure what first party things you say yeah maybe something from gorilla on décima engine right maybe you know right but uh but I really just want to see like some just some good games that really show this is why that hard drive is important this is why you need this extra power and like this is why you need to buy this box because this game is amazing and you can't get this anywhere else right that's that's what I want to see right that is something that I have not seen as yet even with Xbox Series X like you know when they made the big splash they showed gears yeah

and I'm like yeah oh my ghoul right so I shouldn't kill you know maybe he sees that yeah after three they should have killed you it's very surprising that he'd snatch up that IP and that big definitely walked away super happy about that there yeah please here anymore I'm not gonna hate on user workers if you just franchise that a lot of people love right but it's not my cup of tea but I know I don't like people like it right hey man I love other people I think no here's one gifts to your street I was on board the gears that yours did the goose the goose fandom don't care man just there's some hardcore gears fans out there so I guess I'm the dinosaur though I guess I like horizon zero dawn and other awesome games is never every time

I see the new trailers from Gears I just like what is new I can't I'm like I'm really looking at what I mean is that his son is that that always do it it's keeps a word excuse worried good god only for right showed that you can't just just can't put a number behind it and people are gonna buy it that's a friggin game design with thematic values and story elements and twist and turn and epic moments that they repackaged an ascension look just as good or better than all the other ones and it didn't work because there was a t somehow gears didn't get the message and didn't do what the next God of War did would completely reimagined it right if you really I'm cool with it I mean that's why final fan yeah can keep yeah it's kind of like what

Bioshock is doing right they can do whatever at that point these franchises know like III admire I admire that he's a warrior disheartened God of War did that do that switch and I think the game is great and I played it and one of my favorite playing it's a quick good game um it's not here it's not a kind of working alright like it's not a car game it's a new game with Kratos in it you know I mean that's kind of how I feel about it you yeah right so like yeah I wish it we've got to change her a gun with the chainsaw to something else I mean that's a shoulder game yeah well the last thing I want to talk about because we are hitting that hour mark and we covered a lot and there's two topics so we can talk about but I feel like we need to kind of give

some lip service to valor that seems to be what the dominant thing was the last month I was gonna talk about Red Dead a bit or the Rockstar guys but there's not too much info on GTA 6 so maybe next time so valor n't the past month have been enjoying a lot of a uptick with twitch fees because they tied the whole marketing behind watching twitch watching people play the game to get beta Q's right and so there was a huge amount of people interests that kind of flooded the twitch channels I kind of want to ask you like we all know that streaming is a strategy that every game needs to consider as part of the game design right you have to be at the drawing table and consider streaming or vo ability as entertainment along with the gameplay itself like if you're not doing that you might as well just call today and go home and quit then what

what we're seeing there's been a lot of talk about because of the interests of going to twitch there's all these fake channels being set up that saying they're live but they're not and a lot of pro streamers are generally saying that it's boring to watch and that all this interest is kind of fake and that it will fade and be a fad people who are liking are liking it because you know it has a lot of cool counter-strike values that have been tried for the through the test of time right 20 years is nothing to kind of scoff at I actually think it was really smart for them to kind of innovate off of counter-strike and and kind of add their own flavor I think it's it's very smart it's very clever it's really safe and I kind of want to know your thoughts did you get a chance to play it and have you talked to people around is it something that you seem pretty

interested in nope nope every one of those questions right yeah I know it exists I don't know the streamers are playing and I know like I've seen some friends of mine are also playing and streaming and I'm just like I look at it and I'm like nope not another one of these I'm good into counter-strike before were you kind of tight I played back the day I played some kind of strike with folks I worked with back in the day I didn't play a lot of chemistry I played way more you know call of duty modern warfare and battlefields than I've ever played Kem strike but yeah yeah like I play cash back I know I know I know I've had some tense and fun moments playing Counter Strike for sure but I'm just not into it that much and and valoran like it looks like overwatch with Counter Strike Team Fortress like you know there's so many of these games

have been made right and so many of comic-con fails I don't think the only the only thing I think the subset that makes Florent not something that will come and go is it's made by riot right then when it comes to streaming and eSports they know what's up you know they know how to do that right you know so like maybe they'll have a permanent slice of the market where it sits right but in terms of my my interests or engagement whatsoever it's literally at zero like I do not care at all I heard was in beta I heard yet get keys and deal string I'm like nah I don't care I don't want to go through all right if it fills up on my tab yeah I'm very because overwatch was like it the biggest thing when it came out and for a

while it kind of kind of stayed but I don't really hear too much overwatch lately it's always been for tonight a pair when out doggy warzone like it is just one of those games that just don't have that last hour I mean what what what is the difference I wanna I wanna say lasting power right because there is an overwatch like eSports League where people are making like money money playing or you know there's there's NFL owners own overwatch teams right so be sure like but that's a huge yeah yeah that's a huge accomplishment right so but uh but yeah like but yeah definitely like when people sit down to play one of these games right overwatch seems to be fading from that discussion right yeah and it's all about yeah apex I hear a whole lot about eight back so for tonight more than I hear by anything else yeah it's not like I come

from this space race you know shooters are my thing right and I just been so disinterested with shooters lately because of the battle royale phase I might be alone in this I just don't like battle royale alright even with modern warfare war zone that's my game right I'm going in there it's the the loop I'm just not interested it's like I'm looting and waiting and then I'm looting some more and then I get shot yeah anyway can i I went a couple times it just doesn't matter there's no thrill in it for a man yeah that's just my problem battle real to but I was the apex though felt different enough where it felt fresh when I want to play apex but yeah like yeah generally I'm not down with the old battle royale at all and then these days especially now like I don't have the time do the best to get good at these

games so I'm just like I'm gonna swing me on some team with a bunch of people that are super serious about it and I'm gonna be like the scrub and this will be a horrible experience for everybody so just now we can scrub together like we are definitely having a lot more time to play games I mean I'm using this time to kind of catch up on these single-player games that I've never touched I'm playing through Last of Us yeah that's so far back so I'm like whatever time I do have I'm playing that with half live Alex you know I'm kind of spending my time between the two but like I've been kind of moving away from the world clear because it's been so polluted that unreal it's too much like how many barrels do you hate yeah yeah do not go back I'll go back to my my nerd my nerd games you know I'm playing like a no a no 1800 chimera complacent

chimera squad just came out right yeah XCOM career squad that's what I'm finding like actors exactly yeah here's tactics just came out so I'm gonna play that like he knows him go back go back to the nerd strategy just me and the computer playing these games you know those decimal does what I'm doing right now like I I'm not I think I don't think I'm full up with shooters and like I don't eat the play anymore this games like at all it's it's definitely I feel like that that definitely is it is a is a trend at least 15 developers not only for catching up on games is just like I want to walk away from an entertainment experience with bettering myself in some way right like creatively I'm getting something from the single-player strategy games that I am improving myself on these shooters yeah I mean you get better and shooting but you you're

walking away just being rapid rapid that really good at aiming right but you're not walking away and being somatically you know intrigued and interested and creatively going back to your table and bringing that experience into your art or whatever that you're doing right I mean I can get really to that lures them but doesn't do any air well it's a different it's different experience right like those games about creating your new your own story in your own experience with the people you're playing with and you know the other games are like a crafted story that somebody's telling you right or something wants you to experience and it's up to you to decide which one you want right but uh definitely it's just yeah there's some shooter fatigue and battle royale fatigue for sure it's a bit much but it doesn't seem and we're looking like the old people here everyone seems to live in this it's the fat aid fad right people people are

telling us man we're all did and we're going but I'm playing last of us in cracking 20/24 forgets or maybe maybe people are preparing themselves for the number two that's coming out but it's a good game man last I was pretty good mister anyways that concludes this this month's Round Table's news and it's a bit lonely but it's never lonely with you Ray I want to thank you for coming on and sharing your thoughts maybe a lot of these topics are tying it together but we're definitely not they're not lasting as long as before I mean Game Stop was a hot topic but I mean they're out magic leaf is seeing their way out I'm pretty sure stay Diaz next year I don't see how that I survive this I I see I see them I see them

sticking around we'll see how it goes I'd be very surprised to see you talk about all the Google products right I have to pick some phone and I was shaking and worried about it disappearing because I hate my phone before you remember my phone was a micro Microsoft phone right right I saw that guy in my hands he was yeah - Mike where's my stuff is gonna that's the sir first that's your first mistake that was your first mistake listening to yeah and then I think you know that is known for shutting [ __ ] down the day after or the day before they announce it race I think pixel pixel photos safe it's a safe bet now yeah man Google Maps Google search engine Google pixel that's all the products that they had nothing good

I'm not sure fine fine fine for everyone that's around a thousand more I can name that are long Google are in that Google for yeah there's a reason why they named their system stadia I mean it was just in good hopes that it would stay see you later all right so that ends today's podcast I want to thank you very and of course at all times you can tweet at him for any of his opinion at how do you pronounce it again I always say it wrong I also forgot my twitter handle after you said aunt water on right I never say it right waa GA RA SS alright we'll see it in the show notes Moo I'll flash it in the post-production

for all you tweet it create out a man with your opinions so explain alright guys that's it and that ends today's podcast good night you [Music]