Gaming is not Doomed (we just have to learn from it) | Games For Breakfast

[music]
GOOD MORNING, MATT.
GOOD MORNING, WILL.
to all of you.
WELCOME TO GEYSER BREAKFAST, THE ONLY INTERNET TALK SHOW WHERE WE TALK ABOUT THIS WEEK'S gaming and tech news, but that also we have to say right up front, Will is not just cos playing due to the fact that we have Doom and the demons of hell on our thumbnail today. We're all just breathing it now.
That's right. You know, I looked outside, there was a there was a cacodemon cavorting. It was, you know, terrible. I did see the Slayer though, so things might be improving in the near future. I just need to stay out of his way, out of the demons' way. I'm just going to lay low.
We have sent that we have sent the Doom Slayer to Canada to fight whatever flame demon is is encouraging up there. Hopefully to help out the firefighters and get that done quick. Seriously, that's a it's an absolute it's a nightmare up there and hopefully it's and fire service and everything are

being safe up there and getting getting doing doing what they can. Um but
We got a show to do and the show waits for no one.
That's true.
It doesn't wait for my lungs, so, you [laughter] know.
Well, I I was you know, this normally the part of the show where I ask Will how he's doing. Um but instead, because I know, I will just ask you for a quick favor, friends. Actually, Will, you know the exact favor we're going to ask and you coined this term, so I want to make sure you get to say it.
We want your werewolf engagement. That is to say, we would like you to like and subscribe.
Specifically like and subscribe.
Right. Not not a regular subscription, right.
No, no, no. Not and I want to make it very clear, it's not like and subscribe. No, no, no. Like and subscribe. So, you you specifically when you do all those things, hitting the button, ringing the bell, etc., you then contractually obligate yourself to become a wear creature of your choice. Doesn't have to be a wolf.

Could be anything.
Yeah.
Whatever Whatever your your your YA heart desires.
You You could also It's also you know, mossy engagement. A like and subscribe.
Yeah. Uh-huh.
Also [laughter] true, right? Yeah.
Oh Yeah. If If you Yeah. Comment right now if you have other ways to mispronounce and make fun of like and subscribe.
Yeah.
Because it's a thing that does help, but also I'm sick of saying it.
[laughter]
Yeah, right. It's like not a thing we want to do, but need to do, right? Yeah. Uh so anyway, we're going to make fun of it while we remind you pretty much constantly. Uh that's Yeah. That's it.
But welcome welcome welcome.
Yeah.
Um What other housekeeping do we have? Oh, um this is the last Games for Breakfast for 2 weeks. Uh I'll be traveling a little bit uh for some of that. I have a wedding. Uh then there is Gen Con. So I believe the next one will be When did we say? The 7th of August?
7th of August.
Yeah. Cool.

Uh and then Yeah. And then uh another super special announcement. Um Next Tuesday, please join us here on YouTube, here on Twitch, and over on the Extra History YouTube
Uh-huh.
for a very special kickoff live stream for our Kickstarter.
That's right. WE'RE DOING THE CALENDAR AGAIN.
Could you believe that history continues to happen every day?
I can't.
It's wild. Uh we also have a very special, very cool add-on that I'm very excited about this year um that you'll get to see some uh about I believe when the campaign launches. Uh but we'll be showing off art. We'll be talking. We'll be answering your questions. We'll be here for uh you know, 2 or 3 hours when the campaign goes live next Tuesday. And you can uh if you're over on Twitch, you can exclamation mark Kickstarter get the link to uh get a notification when it get live goes live. That's what I wanted to say, but

my brain
get live.
Yo, I like when it get live, too. I like it much better than it when it get dead.
Yeah. Well, uh history does repeat itself. It is it it is Where did it go? Here it is. It is written. Um
[laughter]
but enough talk about things from the past. Let's talk about things from the past because gang, listen. Brad over on Twitch and Janet on YouTube and Rocky on Nebula, thank you for watching over there. Um oh yeah, by the way, please comment uh on anything you're you're hearing today and also message us on Blue Sky if you're watching over on Nebula or if you're watching anywhere, just say hi. Um Will and I were going over the show notes today for today and we have a bunch of stories. Don't worry about that, but we also got real sick of just uh a constant stream, like a firehose of bad gaming news. Uh that's not to say we're not going to have some. Don't worry. We know all of us are just hungry for it. Um but uh for

the main story of the show, we we took what is essentially a smaller story and wanted to expand upon it in a way that speaks to the times that we're living through in the games industry, uh but that does not have an uh entirely negative bent.
Yeah.
Um so with that in mind, well, I guess it is time for our main course.
[music]
Yeah.
[laughter]
I also uh believe that we we we've gone through we've double shot. Those should not be definitely loud anymore. We do apologize for that.
We're getting there.
Yep.
Uh but you know what is definitely loud? The cultural impact that the game Doom has had on not only the American psyche but the world. Um There is this this what we why we're going to talk about Doom today is not because uh there's a new game announced

or the horrible layoffs at id. Um the Um essentially there was a smaller story. Um I believe that the Washington Post
[laughter]
Uh essentially decided to name uh in its uh thing for I believe the 250th anniversary of uh the United States of America, Doom as one of the most 25 influential works of American culture. Um say what you want about WaPo and you know, there's there's a lot to say. Uh this list uh that they've been doing seems to be quite positive of throughout the years. And uh this announcement really got us thinking about kind of the the how true that statement is.
Yeah.
Uh and and eventually, you know, what Doom did for the video

games industry. But then what else we can kind of learn from it as we try to uh rip and tear until it's fun again, right? Um A show of hands quick both YouTube and Twitch if you wouldn't mind. How many people here were alive and playing games in 1993 when the original Doom was released? I just I would I would like to I would like to know. So, I I am an old. That's totally fine.
I mean, I was playing like you know, not Doom. I I was playing What was it? The dungeon There was like Dungeon of Doom and Tower of Doom, but those were not Doom.
1993 Thunder. It was 1993.
Yeah.
Um Okay, we got a lot. We got a lot of yeses and a lot of nope. We got a good We got a good a good cross-section here.

Alive, not sure. This is a I think there's a lot of a lot of folks here, too. Alive, not sure about playing, right? Like that seems like uh Which is totally fine. Um I first encountered Doom at my friend Bo's house. Bo was the one that had the computer. Did everyone always have the friend that had the computer? The one that could actually run the games?
Uh that was me for a really long time.
You were that friend.
Yeah.
I and and whenever we'd play Doom at Bo's house, it always felt like we were getting away with something. It always felt like, we shouldn't be Oh my god, what? This is Oh god, there's demons and it's scary and there's blood. Like it just didn't That was kind of the first definitely the first uh first-person shooter I ever played. Um but almost like the It was It was one of those things that you look back on and it is entirely obviously safe. But

when you're young and it's the first time you've experienced something like it, it kind of recombobulates your brain chemistry and like what your what you think a game can be.
Yeah, I uh I remember actually playing Wolfenstein with my dad. Like
Yeah.
So so so I was I It was pre pre-Doom, right? Cuz it was Quake, Wolfenstein, Doom, right? In that order.
Uh
No. Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake.
Yes. That's right.
Sorry, I was just agreeing with you because I like doing it and then I was like, wait, that doesn't sound right.
No, I There was Wolfenstein is definitely pre-Doom. I thought there was something pre-Wolfenstein as well.
it's called Commander Keen. That's what id was doing back then. And that was technically a side-scrolling shooter. Commander Keen uh was the first, if I remember correctly, like side-scroller that they got to not look jank on a PC. Like consoles were doing it for a while, but for whatever reason um I don't I don't know why that was
Yeah.

something like that.
Yeah.
Oh god.
[laughter]
We are not going down this rabbit hole. Just I'm putting it up so you know it's here, but we're not doing it.
Yeah, don't don't look that up. Don't. Just just don't.
Uh That's Jeya. You played Wolfenstein at your grandma's house. She was a cool lady. Hell yeah. Um And and yes, Christopher, again, uh yeah, I scroll and pro Yeah, or actually ever what I was saying, oopsie. Uh scroll and processing and Christopher says the lack of GPU. Yep, entirely. Entirely.
Yep.
Um So, I think before I dive into or we dive into more about like our argument about what Doom could possibly mean for the future, I kind of want to go through a little bit of what was said about it in this article. And right now, I don't subscribe to WaPo, so I'm getting this from Gamer, which is a uh uh recounting. Um but essentially, the list commemorates the day of the uh the 250th anniversary of the United States of America and covers a remarkable breadth uh from from Thomas Paine's Common Sense

to The Star-Spangled Banner, uh Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, Levi's jeans, Mickey Mouse, and recordings of the legendary blues man Robert Johnson. Uh but now, uh for the decade of 1986 to 1995, Doom is in the list. Uh it it beat out things I like the the article lists things that like it could have possibly beat out uh for that thing. It's like The Joy Luck The Joy Luck Club, Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, The Simpsons, Seinfeld, and MTV reality series, aka The Real World, which are all things that did have huge cultural impacts for that time period.
Yeah, this is this is not a small This is This wasn't like a decade where nothing happened. Right? Like this wasn't despite one of those being a show about nothing. Um he does feel like really interesting to have this be here for this decade, right? When like everything began to change, I

guess.
Yeah. It's funny because so so they they quote a lot of different things we're going to talk about a little bit more, but like everything from its marketing campaign of the way it did shareware to its first sort of fundamental 3D or as we kind of think of it right now if you want to think about how the game runs like a 2.5D to trick you into 3D sort of environment to its permissive use of settings to try to make it run on almost anything like a potato so other people could play it not just on the one friend's computer. Um and also the fact that it had controversy as well. Obviously after um you know, not to get too dark with it, but like video games became a very large boogeyman specifically Doom after the Columbine shootings and obviously video games have been scapegoats for many tragedies trying to point directions into anything but actual reform of any fashion. But regardless, so Doom has a like and also the cultural cachet at that point, I think there's like some statistic where because it was on MS-DOS, it was

installed on more computers than Windows 95 at one point.
That is a true statistic that has been floated.
Like crazy, right?
Yeah.
So so Doom is a game that that that the kind of game that breaks containment every so often and everyone in the culture, if you say the word Doom to literally anyone nine times out of 10 they're going to at least know that that was a video game on the computer maybe that you shot demons.
Yeah.
Um And there's some other Oh, sorry.
Most people probably don't know why you're shooting demons, but they know that you shoot demons. Most people don't know that it's cuz Doom Guy's pet bunny got killed.
Uh yeah. Yeah, and Dark, we will be getting to that as well. There's a whole There's a whole section on that.
Yep.
Um yeah, and also yeah, Roy, constantly, all the time. Uh oh, Will, you found another thing about this specifically.
Yeah, that the the um this is not the first time that Doom has received major cultural accolades

outside of the realm of video games, right? Cuz like the video game industry is pretty good about like recognizing the roots of the video game industry, but for it to break containment pretty significant. Um the Doom soundtrack for the OG Doom was added to the national playlist in the US Library of Congress uh when when that got spun up. Um and this was back in May. Uh And so that that just feels really cool as well. Um
Sorry, I was trying to look up one person's name.
Yeah, uh so it was um it the the list of things that Doom is alongside here feels almost as ridiculous as the list of things it beat out for cultural media of the decade. Um Taylor Swift's 1985, Mambo No. 5 by Perez Prado and his orchestra, that's the original, not the Lou Bega version, Feliz Navidad, Weezer's Blue Album, The Devil Went Down to Georgia and Midnight

Train to Georgia, and The Fight of the Century: Ali vs. Frazier, a broadcast recording of the famous boxing match between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali.
I had to put down my coffee. That was too insane of a list.
Right. And so like it's all of those and also the soundtrack to Doom.
Yeah. Uh
What?
I think I think uh Gene Park, who puts these lists together over at WaPo, said at the end of the the the quote is sort of ultimately uh the game spirit of sharing and community being that of its shareware and modding and how it got proliferated to where it did along with its pioneering approach to guiding players through abstract 3D environments in real space is rooted in the upbringing of one of the designers John Romero who is of Yaqui Yaqui descent I believe Native American and Mexican. So and actually Romero's been quoted in the past and sort of says in this article that a lot of Doom's design especially the level design was really influenced by just that understanding of the environment the world and that comes from my dad my grandpa and everybody generations he says where people lived on the land and

believed it should be shared. So there's like an ethos at at id that especially you know back in the day before they were gobbled up by a bunch of different people and then eventually Microsoft
and then capitalism and yeah
Yeah yeah yeah it's it's cool that the methodology of wanting people to to essentially walk in a space you've made um was something that was prolific. So again I want to I don't even know if people the people who weren't alive for this Doom was shared both on the internet it was only like 2. 83 megs or something like that Doom was shared on the internet if you had even like dial-up you could download that eventually whereas also it was shared on floppy disks and what you got in it in the shareware version was a full kit of the first eight and maybe nine levels if there's the secret one I can't remember of the first part of the campaign knee deep in the dead and then when you beat that which is kind of a whole game in and of itself it brought

you to a screen that asked you to like if you like this mail us a check or do this thing and we'll send you the game like wild if you think about it's like it's it's it's it's like a one-time OG Netflix for this stuff
Yeah Doom is so small by the way that it is used as a metric for um like the the the most basic level of computing at this point. And they've done absolutely ridiculous things like publish Doom via DNS and then reconstitute it.
Mhm.
Like they published all of the source code to Doom in a DNS record entries and then reconstituted it over the internet using those DNS record entries.
Yeah.
Which is absurd, right? It's like not a thing you should be doing, but they did they could and they did, right? Yeah.
1,000%. And you know, so obviously I believe John Romero and I'm trying to

remember this correctly was sort of the a lot of the influence for the look and the feel of the heavy metal and and all of that. John Carmack there was four four of them I believe there was Romero, John Carmack, Adrian Carmack, and Tom Hall. And but John Carmack was apparently at the time like a wonderkin like programmer. Like he's the one that sort of figured out the the overall hack of hack the overall like structure of how to make something like Doom feel like a fully rendered 3D space like that can run essentially on a potato and that is tiny tiny tiny. Um even the tricks I remember back in the day and we will get to the modding I have a lot to say about that. Back in the day like when you were in a Doom level and you could like look through a window into another part of the level knowing how that was coded to do that is is a bit nutty. Um I it it the game itself whether you talk about the cultural impact or even the impact it had on the

industry obviously the the boomer shooters all came from that Doom clones were left and right. Everyone wanted the next Doom at that point. Um I'm I'm trying to think if there was any other any other specific things about the award before we get into like how this affects now. Um, I'll I'll finish with what with Park says at the end of his article here. He says, "No decade can be summed up any more than a country can be summed up. But if we wrote an autobiography of not of not words but works, books, music, and art ideas, dress, and culture, these 25 would be among the most momentous. Um, they're not necessarily our proudest moments, but they are defining acts of culture. It is an imperfect list and incomplete, but that's the that is America, imperfect and unfinished." Um, and I think that is a really really really apt description of Doom. It's we've proven that it's not finished by it by it staying with us and

changing and the community helping to build it as much as id and eventually the other owners of it did. Um, it is imperfect due to its it could go from how it was made, its subject matter, maybe the the heavy metal tone isn't for everybody, sure. But like those two things about about imperfect and unfinished do not make it any less warranted as truly not only just a milestone but like a beacon of what this art form can do.
Yeah.
Um, and sort of with that beaconness in mind, not to be confused with the lovely streaming service from Critical Role. Um, I think this was also this this timing of this release, I don't think this was meant to be it like this, but I think it's very apt for where we are in the games industry right now. If you've watched this show, uh, Will and I have gone over I think

week after week the the very real non-pixelated demon horrors that are happening via all the stuff with Sony and the discs or all of the layoffs everywhere. The most recent being with Microsoft or whatever nonsense Nintendo's getting up to or Roblox being a real poop. Like there's there's a whole bunch of other things out there.
And don't worry by the way, we will be commenting on many more of the eternal screaming horrors later on in the show.
Yeah.
But first we wanted to like focus on something good.
Yeah. Uh so let's let's talk a little bit about what we think that the current industry, even though 1993 obviously is a very different time from 2026. I think there's still a lot of interesting things that the games industry could take away from the success of Doom. And um and and try to claw back some of

what makes this industry not only special but actually work. Um the first in my opinion, and we can sort of ping pong on these will if if you want. Um but the first is sort of the distribution model.
Yep.
Um you could go buy Doom in a box at a at a store. That's totally fine. Uh but the way that they gave away
Like a third of the game.
of the game for free. Um spoke spoke volumes. Now now there has been some things that some of the people that have said that like they didn't do that again with Doom 2 because it they feel like it actually did hurt sales. Not because people didn't want more game. It's because the only time the game told you to get more game was if you made it to the end and not everyone made it to the end. And it felt like a complete experience. I remember when I when I when we were playing at Bo's house, we beat it and we're like that game was so cool and that screen came up and we're like wait,

there's more? Like we we thought that was the game. Um
And like that for that era, right? That era of like quarter slinging in arcades or like Super Mario Bros. or what have you, right? The the game length, I think a lot of people need to keep in mind was much shorter. Right? It is not It is not the 40-hour, you know, or even 20-hour like we're talking like a couple hours for some of these, right? And now [clears throat] like the Mario speed run is absolutely ridiculous. Yeah.
Um
Um so so there is a there is a there's two sections of this. There is the A confidence in your product. You're not trying to trick anyone. Like, this is what we've made. We are incredibly proud of it. Here, have some for free. is something that

um that's the kind of move that makes a game into a franchise or a game into an IP or like something like or a cultural touchstone is really kind of the the build point of that. You proliferate something so great, you're confident in it and it's also a commercial It's a commercial and public success. You've kind of won You've kind of won everything at that point. Like the And and it's funny because I do know that games put out demos and I'm always very happy when games put out demos. And on Steam, it's kind of easier than ever to do so. I'm always happy and impressed. Actually, shout out to Fading Echo. Fading Echo, friend of the show, Jasmine Bhullar, and Sam the Bear Art and and a bunch of other folks. Their game I think comes out in 5 days and their demo came out I think 4 months ago. It's an excellent demo. If you haven't gotten that, please check that out. And that's the great thing about demos, right? You get a good chunk of the game and you can when you're through

it, you're like, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I want more of this." And you know, and you feel smarter with your money, and that is a confidence in a developer's product that they're making something that people will actually want to engage in.
Yep.
Um I think that is something that the industry could do more of. I think some of the larger and actually Onimusha, the new Onimusha did demo as well. Like I and I think that's for me the the largest game that did a classic demo lately.
Yeah, cuz like it with Next Fests and with a lot of Steam's publicity around demos, it's become more of a thing for Indies. But Indies are also using it as like a sort of pseudo early access betas in a lot of cases. They're using it to um fix stuff up and and get feedback on the demo and whatnot because they don't have like money to do QA testing.
Yeah.
Um so it is slightly different, but it

is like a big part of Indie culture and far less so a uh a thing.
the other thing, too. Pragmata, I guess also had a a demo. Um
Pragmata is so good, by the way.
Is are those both Konami?
Uh Pragmata is Cap- What? Yeah, it's Capcom.
And and I believe Onimusha
Yeah, Onimusha I think is also Capcom.
That would kind of make sense. Yeah, okay. So yeah, Capcom still seems to be on the train.
Yep.
Um which I think more larger companies could like a demo sort of does two things in my brain. One, it actually makes it so consumers have an idea of what they might be purchasing and or leasing. Um but two, it is you have be so confident in your game to give away part of it for free and

have feel like no, this is going to make people want to pay money for this for more.
Right, because the downside of a demo is that every person who plays your demo, there is a chance that either they will be satisfied with their experience with the demo and then not want to buy it cuz they got everything they wanted out of the demo, or they don't like your game and so they don't buy it, or I guess the worst possible option is they were going to buy your game and the demo gave them a bad impression, but they would have loved your game if they'd actually bought it, but the demo soured them because you didn't do a good job with the demo or the demo isn't like complete enough or whatever and you lose a sale on the demo that you would have had and had a satisfied customer otherwise.
But I would posit, truly, that the games industry would be healthier if there were more demos. And not just because people would understand what they were buying. That's a great knock-on effect. But also, to Will's point, if you build a bad demo, that's a death knell for your for your

for your entire game. So, you better make sure you build a good demo. And how do you build a good demo? You make sure your game is good. Like like there is there there is a level of ephemeral quality control or or polish or or or style or or je ne sais quoi that if you know you have to give away part of your game for free to convince people to buy your game, there's a balancing act that's being done there. And I think that more of that like to be that confident, you'd have to earn that confidence. Otherwise, the ones that don't would sort of be weeded out. So, I think Doom in this particular case was a uh a phenomenal example of how to do this right. Again, much different time in '93, but I don't think I don't think that um I think that's how you become a household name. That's one easier avenue of doing that is making sure that not only are you doing your thing great, but did you know you can kind of get a decent amount of it for free?

I just I just think it's it's something that the industry has kind of forgotten about a lot.
and I think this kind of goes with an experience that maybe we didn't have or like I had a lot of all the way through high school, less so in college, but all the way through high school. Um and I'm wondering if other people had this too, and I think this was sort of rooted in Doom as like a thing, computer lab culture.
Yes.
Like computer lab culture was like a whole thing both in mostly in schools, but in other places where like if you didn't have a computer at home or you were being taught computer stuff or like you know, you were doing uh doing work for a class in the computer lab, right? Like that kind of like place where you could like sneak Doom onto the computer in the back of the room kind of deal was like a big part of that, and it feels like that's rooted in and that I remember God, multiple summer camps cuz I'm a in case

anyone was not aware, I have always been a giant nerd. More of the summer camps I went to over the course of my high school had computers than didn't. Okay, great. So we're on the same page, but I remember like hanging out and playing games and like pointing people at games like Doom in computer labs as like a form of like bonding and like gamer culture was was that whole thing, and that feels very rooted in Doom's model.
What a perfect transition to the next element of Doom that I would like to talk about, and that is truly the proliferation, not the invention, but the mass proliferation of multiplayer.
Yeah.
Like across different systems. So in a computer lab or even across the internet, Doom introduced the term deathmatch. Like the reason why that mode is called that in a lot of different games is Doom. And again, the multiplayer of Doom is pretty simple. Like it's not it's not blowing any minds

today, but most multiplayer games back in the time that it it released were either slower or turn-based that you'd play on the internet. That were that that that were the popularity of Doom. Doom kicked that door in. Uh and then hacked the door apart on the floor with a chainsaw. Like Doom turned And you might even say it for better or for worse, but Doom turned an online gaming space into um something that would that felt more to me akin to a culture of an arcade. Now, again, you multiply that by time and anonymity, and it turns into some pretty bad stuff, especially with like you look at any, you know, COD BLOPS lobby, whatever, right? But back then this was the it sort of seeded the idea of like what types of games could be played at a fast pace across multiple systems.
Yeah.
Um Yeah. Yeah. It also did this again.

Kind of kind of made the LAN party or your in your computer lab or whatever essentially bringing all your computers over to a friend's house and running up their electric bill, lugging your CRT monitors over there.
Duct taping a kid to the ceiling.
Yeah, you know.
You know, good times.
Um I just I I I sometimes forget because we we we interact with this stuff all the time, and I sometimes forget how um sort of subversive and new this was at a time. And I I think what we're seeing a lot Actually, I'm going to reverse it back. I think what we're seeing a lot especially with everything sort of being clamped down in the industry today and like multiple different paywalls. Like, oh, you need your PlayStation Plus account and then you need your internet and like all this other stuff. Obviously, PC doesn't have those things. But, what we're seeing now that's getting like the most popular kinds of multiplayer outside of essentially like console shooters and things like that. Are these games that have a similar feeling of

I I want to say the word jank, but I want to say it lovingly. Like like um there are so many like we we we call them friend slop today. But, things like Peak or what's the new one Chameleon? Mega Chameleon? Like, these are things with incredibly simple premises that are taking the the the basically the original fun vibe of what multiplayer was back in the day before it got like essentially hyper competitive, which competitive's fine, but you don't want it all the time. And now we're seeing sort of like so many examples of people just wanting to come together and hang out and be silly. Hell, the thing we normally play after the show when Will and I just play Destiny, we're not like grinding to be the very best like no one ever was. We're just like, oh, this is neat and we can hang out together doing a thing. I feel like that hang out together and do a thing in multiplayer it like hanging out in almost like a real-time sense where things are going

on in a fast-paced environment is something that Doom sort of proliferated. And now I do actually think the vibes of games that are getting really popular and friend sloppy are kind of derived from or at least chasing that dragon that I remember from back in the day.
I'm so excited to be playing pilots with you.
Oh my god. Yeah. What's it Oh, side note, what's that game called? I keep forgetting. Um I sent I sent I sent that to every Discord person I had. Um oh, uh Dear Passengers is the game we're talking about.
Yes. Oh my god.
Well, I have a list of friends who are just going to come play that game. The list is long.
Yeah, I have I am also adding to that list. So, yes. Mhm.
Well, yeah. Let's let's look at that at some at some point.
Yeah.
Um, uh, do you want to talk about the next point or do you want me to hit that?
Um, uh, I mean, we yeah. Like, it's no secret that I'm a huge fan of

taking base games and changing them to fit my esoteric and sometimes nonsensical whims. Uh, see the things that have happened with Minecraft, um, while I've been here. Uh, but [laughter] that all has its roots in like in Doom. Right? Like, the modding scene on PC being as robust as it is, as it is, being as long-lasting as it is, right? Think about like the big moddable titles, right? Skyrim, Skyrim, Skyrim. Skyrim gets there three times. Minecraft is on there like 12 times. And if we go back far enough, we get to Doom, right? The idea that you were engaged in a conversation about what the game should be in a very empowered way started with Doom. Right? You could do other stuff, but like Doom was like, "Here's the tools. Here's all the thing. Go

Whip it and play the game."
Uh, I had two physical books that were like this thick about Doom modding. And they came with the CD-ROM with the tools in them. I'm try I might have one on my bookshelf. Hold on. I might still have this thing. I didn't even think about this.
Chat, you ever you ever get a scam call and then they actually take the time to try and leave you a message? That's like, "Hey, you should call us about the authorization for a MacBook on your Amazon account." And you're like, "No, I will not be calling you back. Thank you."
I looked at my bookshelf and I realized it's in my parents' attic. But I do own it still. It has a big like non non-id demon red demon on the cover with like a pentagram. It was this thick. It was a soft cover book. It was like the secrets of Doom level making or some nonsense like that. Um and the

the ability for me to go in and make a Doom level and keep testing it and running it and testing it and running it. And then like having online communities like ready to play and just have like and it wasn't like it wasn't easy to get the share out there. But like there were places to do it.
Yep.
Um
And and and a reminder as well that This is This is so weird. All of e-sports all of e-sports owes its existence to the modding community. And the modding community owes its existence to Doom. We don't have Doom, we don't have e-sports.
Yeah.
Like there's a like there's not like a weird like tin foil hat correlation, right? There's like a direct line between Doom modding and Counter-Strike, Valorant, League of Legends, Dota all of those.

Like there's a direct chain of action.
The the the fact that John Carmack just said, "No, just here you go. Here it is. Go go make a thing with it."
Yeah. Wild.
Is is wild for the time. Especially I I truly think because Doom and the way it looked and played was a technological marvel for the moment. To just be like, "No, no, no. Now go learn this and you can go do it."
Yeah.
And it's like again, what confidence, what absolute just like as the kids would say today, aura farming. Just being just be like, "Meh, go." Like I I and the and the knock-on effects that that has had throughout the industry is absolutely insane. So So again, I think going back to what the games industry can learn from today, and I know this is more PC-based than console because console is more locked down. But like I would love to see more companies be that confident in what they're doing and allow like truly not

only allow, but like essentially openly bless going forward and doing something with their game. Some of them do, of course, but like
I mean the
I mean, truly, I think one of the reasons Minecraft Minecrafted is because of that.
Well, right. Like vanilla Minecraft is essentially just a mod loader at this point. Like you can play it, but I think most people put some level of QOL mods on, map, backpacks, right? Uh graves. Like there're just some standard things that that people generally put on to like improve the experience.
Yeah.
Uh
So
Uh
I I I wish I wish more companies would again, I think it all comes down to the games industry today, even though there are phenomenal games made by incredibly talented developers, the publishing side and the marketing side and and and the way that it's sort of treated on the general face of

culture, a lot of times, and I think marketing has a feeling of this, too, but like it feels like it's kind of like a trick. Like and that doesn't mean that a trick can't be enjoyable. A magic trick is enjoyable. But I I just feel like and as some of the stories we'll get into it with the actual gaming news of the week in a little bit here. I feel like there's some some loss of like I'm going to back up one second and sort of wrap up this thought. You might have noticed on the YouTube thumbnail that I put out Odysseus looking at at the Doom Slayer. And at first it's because yes, we are going to be talking about the Odyssey later because I saw it yesterday. But then I kind of got to thinking as my brain does when I smash a bunch of bad Photoshop together. Does this actually connect? And I think there's two ways to look at it if you

want to look at Doom in the context of like something like the Odyssey. Or uh specifically an element in the Odyssey. So, spoilers for the story of the Odyssey, not the film of the Odyssey. You saw nobody [clears throat] behind Doom Guy? Uh you have to look at the YouTube thumbnail. Yeah, or you saw nobody, I see. Yeah.
It's joke.
I get what you're throwing. It took me a second there. Um Doom if you want to look at it in a positive way, Doom is essentially the Trojan horse. It proliferated an idea and a bunch of a bunch of things that helped in the moment and made a lot of things really wonderful and now over the course of time uh Zeus's law is broken and uh now things are kind of crumbling back, but hopefully there it could come again. The other version of that is

you could look at it in a sense of Doom isn't the Trojan horse. Doom is essentially what the promise of Zeus's law is. But the real Trojan horse is horse armor.
[laughter]
The first DLC, which has opened up a slew of nightmare, and now there's no more generosity in any of the great houses. So, uh my loose connections, I think, stand on both fronts, and I did uh just want to take a moment out of our normal doom and gloom, no pun intended, just doom this time. No gloom. Uh I I I just wanted to talk about the things I thought the the the industry could learn from looking at the past of one of the most successful and influential pieces of art our American culture has ever given,
[laughter]
the video game Doom.
Yeah.
Rip and tear until it's fun. Da na da da na da da na da da da da

Yeah, that seems good. Okay. Thanks everybody for for coming with us on this on this journey into exploring a thing that's being recognized for being so influential.
Yeah.
Okay, we've got a fair number of stories to get through, so we are going to roll right into some good news. All right, we got time for one good news story before we have to uh take our little ad break.
That's right.
So, Matt, you will you now have 2 minutes and 45 seconds to to squeal incoherently about the Dusk Bloods network test. Ready, go.
Well, it's not a demo, but it's kind of the next best thing. Uh it's going to basically you're going to open up uh registration, I believe, on July 22nd for the test between August 21st and August 24th. Um Dusk Bloods is the new FromSoftware

game that's going to be on the Switch, too. I am very excited for it because it's basically PvPvE. Um obviously, everyone who's here who who has witnessed me witness in the last year and some change knows I am a huge Night Rain fan and I didn't think I actually would be. Um, and this feels like the next evolutionary step. I've actually did the the previous the Night Rain test when they did the Night Rain uh network test. And uh the one time that both James and I could play, James had to get up at like 3:00 in the morning cuz it was my 6:00 in the morning. And we got up and we're getting ready to play. It was the only time we could do it in the test time. And the servers just borked. The servers did not work and we sat there for the 3-hour span trying to fix it and then we went to work.
[laughter]
SO, I'M HOPING OTHER PEOPLE reported that their tests were fine. Um, I'm hoping that the Dusk Bloods version uh is going to be a little bit better than that. Um, I am a big fan of

network tests for these kind of games. Not just because I want to see sort of what they are, but I think they give obviously valuable insight to something that has to be uh tweaked infinitely to make sure that it can handle a player base and that the players start doing in in mass what the what the developers actually think they're going to be doing. Um Yeah. Yeah. I just I'm very excited about it. I want to talk about it. It's it's in the spirit of a demo, but not quite cuz it'll shut down and then
I I should I should also apply. I have a I should I should I should at least give it a shot. Um
It also feels like Bloodborne with the Sony serial numbers filed off.
Yeah.
It has blood in the name.
Yeah. It is uh someone in chat mentioned that this is uh legally not Bloodborne 2 because Sony won't let us make Bloodborne 2. Um
There it is.
Yeah, right. Yeah, Survivor mentioned it, right? So, like, yeah, it's the makes sense. All right. Coming up, we're going to do some ads because Twitch chat is about to get real ads for things that Twitch wants them to

buy with their hard-earned dollars. So, we're going to give you ads for things that you can't buy with your hard-earned dollars to counteract that. So, please enjoy these nonsensical ads while Twitch chat watches some real ones to keep our pre-rolls off so people can just jump into the conversation.
Would you like to go first or would you like me to go first?
I would love to go first.
Here we go.
Hi, everyone. Will from Extra Credits here sitting next to Matt from Extra Credits here except Will from Extra Credits here is wearing a mask so it's kind of hard to tell who's talking. Um consider taking a full breath. Just consider it. Think about it. Now, imagine if you couldn't. That would suck. So, the thing I want to sell you is maintaining a positive outlook when you can't breathe because hopefully the fire from the Canada smoke stops soon. Maybe. Hopefully. I I don't know. Possibly. Um imagine taking a full breath and that's

what I'd like to sell you today. Thank you for making that much better.
I I tried I tried to I hope I I hope I did.
It was very good. It was yeah, it was it was great.
I can't wait. Hold on. I have to see if I have the thing I want to I want to try to sell.
[cough]
Okay. [clears throat] Hey, everyone. Matt from Extra Credits next to Will from Extra Credits who just introduced himself from Extra Credits next to Matt from EXTRA CREDITS. NOW, WILL WANTS you to take a deep breath and I think that is a great idea. I think clean air is something that we all need consistently in our lives to basically live, which is why I would like to offer you for the low low price of all of your money air. That's right. Canned air straight from the planet of Spaceballs where you can just crack this baby open and there's a at least 16 oz of air. Can you measure air in ounces? I'm sure you can. It's 100% wild by volume and you please breathe responsibly. This is actually is from Yeti but that you can just this can may contain traces of moose breath,

porcupine dander, poison ivy, or a swarm of angry bees. Don't worry about that.
There's probably not a swarm of angry bees.
No.
Is Canada smoke more polite than American smoke? Yeah, probably.
Yeah, but I still don't want that smoke. [laughter]
I still I still don't I still don't want I still don't want that smoke either.
Yeah, that's correct. Um
Yeah, this is a this came with a Yeti koozie. It's just like it just says rare air. It was like the can in the koozie.
That's really funny.
No taste, no fillings.
Yeah.
Oh, 12 oz fluid oz. There's a lot of good stuff on this can.
I accept air is a fluid, so
I know.
It used
Ingredients: nitrogen, oxygen, argon, carbon dioxide, water vapor.
Amazing. Uh
Oh, then it does say this can is a novelty item and not intended to store

food or beverages of any kind.
Yeah. Yeah. Um Yeah. Okay. All right. Uh
All right. Okay. All right.
Okay. Okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
All right.
We're here. We're doing this. Sorry, chat. It is um I am giving it my best shot. It is distracting how hard it is to breathe sometimes.
I'm sorry, buddy.
It is It is okay. Where do you know? I'm not upset with anyone except for the fire. That's that's it. Um
Doom guy is Doom guy is trying to take care of it.
Yeah, two Doom guy is trying to take care of it. All right. Next up on our list of good news stories. Compulsion Games is already rebounding. So, Compulsion Games was one of the studios that got let go as part of Xbox's giant cleaning house nonsensical last week. Um and Compulsion Games is of course the studio that made South of Midnight, one of the

darlings of last year that got ridiculously overshadowed by Expedition 33, but South of Midnight is a premium game. I highly recommend it. Um it's a wonderful story about uh folk magic in the United States. Uh and it's it's a very good story. Uh I really enjoyed it. It was it was great. Um but uh they are already out and about looking for new uh partnerships. They are they are rebounding. They are immediately heading back out. They're saying, "Hey, we're Compulsion Games. We want to work with you." So, uh here's hoping that they find new work, but the fact that they're already like, "Yep, we're going to keep going. We're going to keep doing the thing." is very positive to me. Um I am a big I'm a big believer that they are going to they are going to keep going and keep on trucking and come back uh stronger than before with another title that's hopefully just as good if not better

than South of Midnight. Um
Yeah, it's on my list. I I I God, there's too many too many games.
Yeah.
There's too many games and not enough time. We're launching a Kickstarter in 4 days.
That is
Is it right?
4 days.
Okay.
Yeah. Great.
Uh yeah, at some point I'll play a video game again. Maybe even in an hour and a half from now when we're done.
Uh all right. Um that is unfortunately, I regret to inform you all, it for good news. Uh which means that it's time to get into a very chunky segment on gaming the law.
[music]
All right. Uh we've got four big stories. Well, three big stories and one uh Uh Uh
Thank you, Tim.
Glad to be here, Bob.
[laughter]
Um
Al, I'd be Al.

Yeah, whatever.
Borland, you you you you you honor the name Al Borland in this house.
All right. Um first up, Paizo has officially ended their contract with the Archives of Nethys. Now, I know for the most part we're a D&D house, um but I know that there are some uh there are some Pathfinders
Pathfinder's dope, man.
Pathfinder is dope. Um but the Um So, I will try and explain this quickly for all the D&D nerds. I know the Pathfinder nerds already have strong feelings about this. The Archives of Nethys were the public access repository for all of the rules and information that was contained in all of the stuff that came out for all of the Paizo properties. That's Pathfinder first and second edition, Starfinder first and second edition. They had a deal with Paizo where they would get access to things early and then um they would upload it in wiki form so that people could more easily search and

use that information in their own games. Paizo is canceling that contract effective immediately, more or less, um and saying that they never saw a positive ROI with their investment into the Archives of Nethys. Archive of Nethys is not going away. They're just changing the licensure under which they operate, so they will have to have different inform less information available on their website um for people, and they will no longer be getting things before the street date. So, there will be significantly less content later on the website for people to use for their Pathfinder and Starfinder games.
Also, just a note, uh just cuz Barry asked the question, is it similar to D&D Beyond? No. Uh Yes and no. D&D Beyond also does character logging and creation and also like you can kind of run your games on there via map or no, where where where the information like the books are there as well if you buy them. That is also a paid service based on what you own

digitally, etc. This is This was just sort of a repository of of the books themselves. A much more, I would say, prolific and and permissive, I should say, system.
Yep. Uh yeah, a digital digital bookshelf. Right. Um and uh the From an editorial perspective
Cuz they both put out statements and they're both a little bit weird.
Yeah.
[snorts]
As these things are.
Correct. The The Paizo statement
Which came second.
Which came second, right? Archives published on Tuesday. Paizo published on Wednesday. The Paizo statement doesn't really feel like it holds water.

It feels to me like there's something else going on, which is fine, but like the statement not great. Um they say that the the It's true that they didn't make any money, but that wasn't the sole reason they decided to end the license. They also mentioned that like the license takes resources to manage.
Yeah, I didn't like that part. That part feels like excusy magus.
Yeah.
I mean, it does, but if your if your company can't support one lawyer to run a license for you. That's a That's a bigger problem than the license he gave out.
Correct.
And I get wanting to simplify. I get that. But I this there's something a little bit more to it.
so much stuff that's chaffed up into the conversation before they get to the part about simplifying their licensing structure that like But is it all But is that it though?
My guess, my very uneducated, minimal

business knowledge guess for everyone who wants that take is uh cleaning up their licensing makes it easier for them to license. And by that I mean if there was ever going to be a Pathfinder movie or animated series or anything like that, cleaning up loose ends of more permissive structures that you've had with sort of like friend companies makes it easier for other companies to want to get involved because they know that they'll have the only piece of the pie. I don't know if that's anything in the case here. I'm just saying that could be a deciding factor. Um I don't think it doesn't seem like revenue from the site is a thing because it never really was there to make money.
Well, it doesn't make money direct, right? Like the thing the thing about these that I think a lot of people don't necessarily understand is that the support system for a game like this is

one of the things that makes you money in the long run. It just isn't cause to affect thing, right? Like by encouraging a community and making it easy to engage with your resources and to run your game in that system, people are more likely to choose your system and buy things for it.
Uh and people are bringing some context that I didn't know. For instance, Wombat says important context they had to do layoffs last month because their book printer went bankrupt and RT says Paizo's having a really difficult time since a bunch of their merchandise has been stuck on a legal issue with a company distributor that went bankrupt.
Yeah, but so the interesting part here in my mind is that while all of that is true, they're disrupting the status quo rather than maintaining a thing that wouldn't cost them money. Like they're generating negative press for no discernible reason.
And and to Maz's point here, and Jeff does normally bring this up, I think more than we do. I I feel like Will, would you say that

you and Jeff are kind of the very different sides of the pendulum and I'm a chaos thing that like tries to see the one side like 20% of the time THEN I'M LIKE, IS THAT SORT OF
YEAH, NO, that's correct.
Okay, good. Businesses do have to make money, 1,000%. It does sound uh It sounds like there's other problems that they could be doing to fix that particular thing that isn't poking the community in the eye. And like it feels like there's other parts of the house Again, I don't know what's going on here, but at first glance it feels like there's other parts of the house that could be cleaned up or dealt with. And I don't even want to say that like this is all of Paizo's doing. There's tons of stuff that can happen to a business that is is beyond their control. See tariffs, right? Like there's so many things especially in physical product. We do it once a year for the calendar and Jeff and Kat live in a nightmare. Like it it is it is it is absolutely

bonkers that anything can get produced ever on any scale, let alone a small to medium one. And so So like I don't even I'm not trying to like lay a a blame at anyone's feet here. I just think that as a system that is excellent that came from essentially the want of a system that they loved becoming too non-permissive and locked down doing something like this and not figuring out a creative solution where both parties could keep going seems like a misstep and kind of antithetical to what their company's sort of baseline for why it exists is. Again, and maybe I don't I don't interact with this community at all. From what I've been able to parse, the Archives of Nethys seem like a good group of people that do volunteers to like like get things moving. And But at the same like

I don't I don't know if there's been friction there. There's a thing in Paizo's statement about like it became because they use all the official art, it becomes unclear to the community like what art is usable places and what isn't. Like there's all different levels of severity it feels like in what their essentially their IP where it is used for what can go. Does ending this make that narrative cleaner? Possibly. Does it hurt your community in the roots of which it was grown? I think so. And and I'm not I'm not deep enough in the community to know which one of these is going to prevail like over at the end of times. Um
Yeah. Yeah, I think this this at no point does this read like the move of a company that is stable or in a good spot. Yeah.
Right. Like
And I want them to be. I I'd like to make it very clear. I I think the

tabletop industry is like like every industry is better when there are multiple good things on the shelf.
Right. I would I would like a a whole swath of Pathfinder, Starfinder. I would like more, you know, um Powered by the Apocalypse and Forged in the Dark games and like all of those. I would I would like more options than just D&D.
Yeah, Lancer, the Zine games like Save the Music Dam the Man or um
10 Candles or Dread or
All those like you want those things. And I think we we have a whole thing we have a whole episode if you haven't watched it and you're interested in tabletop stuff. Uh Dungeons and Disasters over on the EC channel. Uh it's one of my favorite episodes we've ever done where we take a look at the history of D&D and how every time it tried to lock itself down this is during the the kerfuffle two or three years ago over their licensing agreements. Every time D&D has tried to lock it down under any company it loses money and hurts the

industry. Every time it's permissive it gains money and helps the industry. And I think it is so insane to me that in the pursuit of all of the money as opposed to just a ton of money every company that has something like this eventually pendulum swings back to lock it down.
Yep.
Uh it it it's like you don't have the foresight to look 10 or 15 years or the the four not the foresight the hindsight to look 10 or 15 years back.
Yep.
Um wacky. And it sucks. And I'm sure we'll hear a little bit more about this. Again, I feel like I'm I'm the least qualified to speak to this because I I am not an active member of either of these communities. I've dabbled in Pathfinder and one one kit run one campaign nine years ago. So like I like I have fallen off the train. Uh Yeah, so I hope I hope they can either come to an agreement I hope this doesn't get like weird and uglier. It's it's it's very cordial right now. There's like little jabs and I hope that's kind of where it stays.

Yep. Uh okay. Chat if you'd given me a million dollars to correctly name which country was going to file an antitrust lawsuit against Sony I would never have guessed Mexico. Mexico is stepping up to the plate and is looking to file an antitrust lawsuit against Sony because they're canceling physical media. Um
This comes to us from Level Up.
Yeah, federal representative Reyes Reyes said, "If this disappear, anyone who owns a PlayStation will no longer be able to choose where to buy their games, will be forced to purchase them exclusively through Sony's store." The complaint will go to will ask regulators to determine whether Sony is using its market position to become the sole distributor of games on its platform, potentially harming both consumers and competing businesses.

So, Mexico is saying, "Hey, this this ain't it. This this this ain't it."
Mexico fighting for its consumers like they say we're supposed to do in America, and America now has just the crappy filter that they put on all movies to make it look like it takes place in Mexico, but outside for real now.
Yeah, that's right. Oh god, I forgot about the Mexico filter. That's so bad.
IT'S SO BAD. Are Is everyone familiar with this?
Oh god, it's the worst.
It's a small thing Sorry, because we're talking about Mexico. Essentially, nine times out of 10, whenever a movie takes place in Mexico, they put a weird brownish-yellow filter on the color grade, and it is stupid and insulting and dumb, and now it's just odd that you go outside in the United States cuz the wildfires just looks like that filter.
Yep, correct. Yeah, it's it's super bad. Mexico's awesome. Uh Thank you, Mexico, for saving us. If this If this
If they Yeah, if they They're doing something, which is more than I can say

for the American government on this thing. So, thank you, Mexico. We appreciate it immensely. We'll be tracking this story as that complaint goes through and seeing if it causes Sony need moves.
Also, check out and check out the show notes when they go up the level up article because it does bring up other things that are also true in America and many other places in uh in the not only the United States, but the world. Essentially, you're also not allowing people that don't have a fast internet to use your thing anymore.
Yep.
Um like not in Mexico, too, but the but the United States, not everyone has high-speed internet. Like it's it's not going to go the way you think it's going to go.
Yep. All right. In other gaming news from south of the American border, further south.
Further south.
Further south, Brazil has successfully sued the crap out of Xbox.
It's like the World Cup of countries going against crappy practices in the video game industry.
That's correct. Um the

big news out of Brazil is that they uh lost a lawsuit brought by a gamer who lost his Microsoft account and all of his games. And X The short version is that Xbox's response was, "Geez, that's real tough. Uh too bad your account's been compromised buy all your games again."
What?
Yep. Um and uh he said, "No, that's No, that No, No, that's not how Mhm. No, that's not how that works. Please, no." Uh and so they uh the user in question was able to sue Microsoft. Now, this is easier done in Brazil than here, mostly because the consumer code um allows people to sue without a lawyer without paying court costs to make it

easier for individuals to sue corporations, and I love this law. I love this idea. This idea is goated. Um Um to to allow an individual to seek redress against a big company without having to uh absorb onto themselves an undue financial burden is great. Phenomenal. Go Brazil. Um So uh yeah. Um
And also like to be clear, this is essentially I'm I'm going to butcher this as well. So all lawyers in the audience, please don't come at me. This is essentially like a small claims court that you can take a business to.
Yes.
Right? Like like this person's going to get uh has the Microsoft has 50 day 50 days to restore access and they get $400. Like this isn't like a big thing, but like this lets people know that they can do that. Like this isn't like set you up for life money. This is get your stuff back and have a little something for your trouble money. And I like that when there are places that put things into place that can
Yeah.
facilitate this. Yep. Because this is

going to be the kind of thing in my opinion that is going to be the drips that eventually crack through the dam of some sort of digital ownership and what that actually means. It's when enough of these things are allowed to get through that it becomes such a huge pain and money drain overall that things have to be rethought.
Yep. Uh okay. And now for a story. Um
[laughter]
Sony has been doing the legal groundwork in the United States
of America.
You're right. This is America. Never been more relevant. Um to launch its own stable coin backed on the dollar. So essentially this is them doing the licensure to issue a cryptocurrency that's backed on the American dollar and their thought is that this would be

um a a way that people would pay Sony for online digital stuff.
Another thing that says to me that they're not backing down from no discs. Though, the interesting thing that the rumor that I heard this morning was uh due to credible sources that Helix would have a disc drive from from Xbox. And I bet But that also feels like they weren't going to do it and now they're just going to do whatever Sony isn't doing, which in this case could be a viable business strategy.
Yeah.
Um
So, uh it They they've applied for a banking license, which is required to do this. Um
Janet. Sony Coney Coney Coney.
Yeah.
Like this could be a lot of different things. None of them particularly great. Um I I think obviously I don't think um

I love I just love the term stable coin because it directly doesn't even imply. It directly says that most crypto is unstable.
Yeah. It is.
No one seems to care though.
I think most of us know that it's all a myth anyway.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. But like uh essentially the like if this is the case they want you to buy essentially like Okay, let's let's try to gamify this out to figure out what the move is here. Let's say cuz this basically got through. They have provincial uh gets conditional okay for US best stable coin. And this comes to us uh from uh payments.com. Um Essentially, it's given the green light from the office of uh the comptroller of currency to establish a national trust bank. This new business known as uh Connecticut Trust National Association will be capitalized at 40 million with

Sony Bank owning 100% of the subsidy. And then they said they're establishing in preparation in preparation for the commercialization of businesses related to the issuance and management of US dollar denominated stable coins in the US. What this says to me is they are now going to essentially, if their digital plan keeps going through, they are going to want to try to sell you Sony coin to buy all of your digital assets with. Um so like much like in any sort of mobile game where you have to buy gems, it's like that but crypto. Right. And then
And and to be clear, there's zero benefit to it being crypto.
No, other than they can try to triple dip and have their their coin increase in value because so many people are using it. There is a

They'll never do this. But they're never There's kind of a secret backdoor Trojan horse maybe good thing here.
Yeah.
So Sony currently and all of the online retailers for digital games, you don't own a thing. You license it or you I keep using the word lease, it's incorrect. I just it sounds funny. If they're If Sony is making a stable coin, a a cryptocurrency using blockchain that will be backed by the US dollar, that's a lot of infrastructure to make sure that a blockchain asset is viable. What else could you do with that?
Well, given that blockchain is just a publicly accessible digital ledger, you could verify ownership of digital assets like games on the blockchain.
Now, do I think they're going to do

that? No. Do I think that eventually, even though these are two very different things, but as the as the pot boils and the frog gets more cozy, I think that when this eventually does come to litigation, probably not in the United States, um there will be someone who puts a bunch of strings together to be like, well, you can do this. You're doing it with your currency. Why can't you do that with another digital asset or ownership proof of ownership?
Right. Now, I'm going to I'm going to take the dark side of this
Oh, good.
and say that this is just Sony taking one further step to being their own zaibatsu. Right? This is This This has every potential of being company scripted. Right? Because it's backed by the US dollar, there will be a chance that if you like get a refund from Sony, they won't pay you in dollars, they'll pay you in Sony coins cuz that's the same

thing and it's it's backed by the dollar, so it's a legal tender, right? But they control it. So, like, that's the dark side of this is that
It's timeshare metrics.
Yeah.
I don't know if anyone's old enough to own a timeshare, if your parents do or something. My parents had a timeshare in Florida. It was a silly little place we'd go and it was it was very lovely. We got to go there maybe like once every 3 years. And when back in the day, a timeshare was essentially you paid real money and you essentially had a deed that you owned property on the location that could be transferred into a couple of other things for a week of the year, right? Now, every timeshare and then including that one and now they're trying to get rid of it. Um and I I warned folks about that, uh but there was nothing that they could really do about it. They every time share has now transferred essentially your lease away and made you sign a new contract to base it not on dollars but on points.

So now you have a specific amount of points that allow you oh well your your points still allow you to come once a year. Actually when when when do this transition your points actually get you to come FOR 10 DAYS. WOW, isn't that great? You're getting we're giving you more value. Except now the time share company controls the currency and then have slowly and surely like every possible subscription service in shitified it enough where now your points are worth less than what you bought them for. This will happen here. There's no world where it doesn't. If this becomes the the mainstream way that we buy Sony games. Um
Yep. Correct. Accurate. All right. Uh
Yeah, to get to get this
Well, actually actually one bit brings up a good point real quick. Uh would at least protect users from having their Sony coins change value since it's pegged to the dollar. I don't know

enough about this to say that for sure. But you know what can never change from being pegged to the dollar?
A dollar.
A dollar. So what is the reason then? And I know they're the corpo reasoning here is to avoid credit card fees. But all you're doing is moving a credit card fee to the consumer when they buy Sony coin through their credit card.
It's also possible that you could buy Sony coin using like Ethereum or Bitcoin or whatever.
you in the crypto space once you're in there you could probably do it.
Yeah.
Again, there's no Yeah, and actually to Glom's point here. Uh Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yep.
Sony at this point I've said I mean I said in the the the little short episode we did and all this other stuff. Like at this point there is no reason for me to buy a Sony console again. I will keep using my PS5 cuz I bought it and it's

mine and I have a disc drive for it so I'll keep doing that. Um heck I bought even you know, I bought the Black Flag re-sync that we're going to be doing for PAX West. I have the the disc for that. Um but yeah, there's no this is getting to be farcical in its in its Cyberpunk dystopia that they're trying to do and it's and it I know I've said it before but I'll say it again. It just stings that the company that you like their product the most is the worst.
Yep.
So.
All right, we need to turn Matt's frown upside down. So I think it is time for our very first
OH, WE'RE DOING IT.
Matt and I.
[music]
NEW BUMPER.
YOU VERY VERY VERY HAPPY.
CINEMA.
CINEMA. That that's correct. Uh

Matt Tell us tell us about the Odyssey real quick and while you do that I will be right back.
Okay, so I got very very very very lucky yesterday. Whoop, pardon me Will. Um essentially I had reached out a while ago to friend of the show Patrick Willems. If you haven't seen his stuff on Nebula or YouTube, please check him out. He makes phenomenal video video essays about film. He actually did one with Jacob Geller on video games too if you want sort of like a transitional thing. It's really nice. And I was in an episode of his where we talked about the Mario Brothers movies both of them and how the narrative works in those. Um the the um I had messaged him a while ago seeing when he was going to see The Odyssey and he had bought tickets uh with our friend Sid Anand at Alamo who's a phenomenal film critic um years ago. Like literally a year ago they bought tickets and I was like, "You have an extra one?" And they're like, "No, sorry." So then like a day and a half ago uh Patrick let me know that one of his friends who was going to go with them canceled and he had one more ticket.

And so yesterday I got to go to the official first screening, the first public screening uh at the Lincoln at the Lincoln uh AMC which is the true IMAX theater in New York City. Um Yeah, and by the way, that was a all these transitions are are uh Nick gems if I remember correctly. Um and they did kill it. Um so I got to go see The Odyssey in the uh IMAX 70-mm format as it was intended. And um I know y'all are you know, I I imagine if you're here you're also a bit of a mythology nerd uh Extra Mythology etc. Hopefully you've watched a bunch of those. Um this movie is I think something very very special but not for the reasons that I thought it was going to be. I actually wasn't like I'm a fan of Christopher Nolan but I actually haven't

really loved his last few films. I wasn't a fan of Tenet. Um Interstellar I liked till the end. And um I really loved Oppenheimer. I think Oppenheimer did a phenomenal job um using the technology and the filmmaking styles that Christopher Nolan likes to do to uh look more inward at at at one specific man as opposed to uh a larger force. Um but uh so I was like I was fine psyched for this. And even I don't want to I don't want to spoil anything if you could spoil something for this story. Obviously, it's 3,000 years old and and and what have you. But, I will say uh this movie felt far fresher than I thought it was going to for such well-worn territory. And it's not like he's changing a bunch of things. There's some things that have changed, but it's a 3,000-year-old story. Everything changes. We were and I were talking about this before. Like, when people are trying to be purists about like casting and that I'm like it's 3,000 years old. What purity test

What years are you basing your purity test on? Like, it makes no sense. This is all adaptation. This is all telling of one of the oldest stories on in recorded history, right? Um the way that this movie does the Christopher Nolan job of doing a ton of enjoyable setup for an incredibly [snorts] surprising and emotional punch, again, of a story that is so old that we all know how it ends is nothing short of miraculous. To the point where I want to make this very clear. About a third into the movie, I was like thinking to myself, I was like, this is good. I'm enjoying myself. But, like, this isn't the cinema event of the you know, like, it's good. It's a good movie. And then you get to the end and you see all of the things and the ways that he has basically set up every domino inside your entire brain and then just goes boop in a surprising way, in my opinion.

Again, not changing the story, just how the film is made, that gets you to actively like It's It's like an emotional dam breaks. That he built over the course of nearly 3 hours.
Right.
Absolute cinema. Wonderful time at the movies. I normally don't say to go see something in IMAX if you have to see it in LieMAX. If you don't know, there's only so many true IMAX cinemas in the country, and they're very rare. It's actually very hard to get into. But if you have a chance to see this in any large format, 70 mm will also do it in a in a standardized theater. Um I urge you to go if you are a fan of the Odyssey and mythology or cinema in general. It's also a huge rebuke to um everything being super digital and nonsensical today. Like ev- like there's a lot There's special effects in this, but there's so much practical I was shocked at the level of practicality here. Like they didn't like CG a boat.

They built the boat. They're on the boat. Right? Like like even even the way and there's don't get me wrong, there's visual effects. Even the way they did the Cyclops. Holy hell. Like I It's it's it's a testament to an incredible level of craft not overly uh relying on fad technologies or or or anything like that to get your story across. And fun fact, like most of Christopher Nolan's films finished early and under budget. Go see this movie. Wait maybe if you can't breathe. Obviously, don't go outside and go to it. Actually, I was walking home and Sedat luckily had one more mask cuz when we left the nice filtered air-conditioned theater, the the the the real-life Mexico filter hit us in the face and it was uh it was bad. But like when you can, even if you're not a movie

person, go back for this. I I cannot I cannot recommend it enough. What's that? [laughter]
Red says under budget, early.
Yeah, yeah. Red, we know. But
Yeah. Uh okay. Great. Excellent. Uh that is uh uh been a been a small diversion uh in the form of uh today's matinee. Let us then move on to the part that we all knew was coming but hoped that we would not have to deal with this week. Uh it's it's time for some breaking bad news.
[music]
That food never tastes good.
It it it doesn't.
Um you want to take this first one?
Yeah. So, uh in in gaming cinema news, uh a bit of bit of a bummer. Um and questions are being raised. The lead actor of the God of War uh television show, Ryan Hurst, uh is

unable to continue filming and is being recast. Um and this is because he tore a bicep doing a stunt on set. First off, ow. Second off, I hope Ryan recovers quickly. Third off, why was an Why was the lead actor doing a stunt?
It could be like there's there's a lot of different reasons like and nothing I don't know the the story of what happened on set. I'm I'm not even going to start putting blame here. But like when you're doing a show like this, there is a level of physicality even for an actor to go through to get into this even if it's not a like basically uh he put on like what 40 lbs of muscle to get this going and now he has an injury that'll lay him out for 4 to 6 months. And then obviously that build-up will be gone and he'll take even longer to to get back into that shape should he choose to.
Yeah.
Um I I I don't know and maybe maybe someone knows this more deep in the story. I don't know if this was Was this during an actual stunt or was this just

a mistake on set? Was this Oh, it says doing a stunt for the show.
Yep.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Still.
Yeah. So, uh best wishes to Ryan Hurst for a recovery that is as speedy as it possibly can be for an injury that's this bad. Uh and we will see what happens to the filming but I'll be really honest I don't really care about the filming as much as I care about that actor getting better.
I know. I know. I I'm not terribly excited for this um show on Prime. I I don't think it's necessary. Um although you know what? No art is technically necessary. I hate when people say that so I should take that back. I just I'm not interested in um this because I feel like I've already gotten this experience and I haven't even finished the 2018 game yet. So um yeah.
That of boy is great.
Yeah.
Uh okay, cool, great, awesome. Next in a story that I have referred to as George Lucas George Lucas and get all up.

Who could have guessed? George Lucas uh um crafter of of stories about rebels fighting against large-scale invasion forces sometimes made up of drones controlled by AI now says AI is pretty cool though. And look, there's a whole bunch of this story has been going everywhere. This one's coming to IGN. It was an interview he had about about the thoughts of the industry and all that jazz. Yeah. And George Lucas said George Lucas and George Lucas is all over the place. That's basically it.
Yeah.
Um look. You either You either retire the hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. Um I I I'm going to do the charitable thing

first and then I'm going to get really mad, okay? The charitable thing is the inevitable march of time comes for us all. Every one of us who thinks we have our finger on the pulse or is trying to stay abreast of technology or information in their own field or in their own places of interest will inevitably fall behind as you get older. I feel myself doing it already. This will happen to us all. It is a universal truth. You it just you can keep up but it gets harder and harder and harder. So it is no surprise that an older gentleman and filmmaker at this point in his career is looking at AI and being like, "Whoa, this technology is amazing." Like it just that strikes me as not a surprise at all. The part that gets me is even like it the thumbnail here sort of says it all. I'm not shocked that George

Lucas is doing this. It bothers me because it further exemplifies the idea that he actually doesn't understand the reason why his stories resonated in the first place.
This would be like uh one of the Herbert kids
Baby, yeah.
Yeah. AI is actually pretty good. What's a Butlerian Jihad anyway?
Yeah.
Right? Like
Let's read some quotes. Let's read some quotes here. Uh let's see where this comes. So George Lucas, founder of Lucas Film uh went on to talk about AI saying, "There's nothing you can do about it. Artificial intelligence means it's much easier to make movies." He told the Rabbits Foot, that's the publishing play the the company he was talking to. "It's very much like sitting here and saying, 'Well, I believe the horse and buggy is really where it's at. These cars, they break down, they need gas. There's all kinds of problems with them and pretty soon they'll be making in them into tanks and they'll be killing people. It's terrible. There's nothing you can do about it.

That's progress. It's the future." Okay.
Holy mother of faulty analogies, Batman. Like
Again, how old is George Lucas?
Older than time itself would maybe be an excuse.
82 years old. Wow, he's old enough to be the president. Um So, this is an 82-year-old man with a very, very illustrious career. Uh who now thinks that that analogy works. Do we warrant this with a response? Like I I like I I I don't know.
Yep.

I just think
Also, his analogy isn't as strong as he thinks it is because there's definitely an argument now that we're seeing the results of you know, widespread fossil fuel consumption stares at burning sky outside and smoke clouds rolling in across half the country.
Oh, yeah. I'm not going to I'm not going to go I'm not going to go full macro on him. It would blow his mind. Uh the the But the even even beyond that, he's basically saying the march of progress is more important than the progress.
Yeah.
Because what are This is my big thing with AI. Progress, it's inevitable. We're progressing forward. Toward what?
Yeah. What are What are we
What are we progressing towards? And if you ask that question enough to anyone that is pro AI,

the logic short circuits. Progress toward what?
[laughter] [snorts]
Yep.
Anyway, that's not a new thought, um but that's mine today and George Lucas should just go to bed in his piles of money on his ranch and maybe remake his movies again. I I don't want to see them like that. I I I I just think he might like it. Keep him busy.
Give him a project for his retirement. All right. Uh next up Crunchyroll continues to disappoint us. Film it 11.
What? [laughter] No, not Crunchyroll. Side note, I don't watch enough anime, so when I made this, I just was like I typed into Google greedy anime characters. And so these are the three character I don't know who they are and I know it's a little dark, so I don't know if anyone wants to identify these characters, let me know if they're greedy in the comments. I

would very much appreciate it.
Yeah, okay. Very good. Um
[snorts]
So, Crunchyroll does anime and manga and merch. And you would think that the merch part might be separate from the other two because it's a store where you can buy merch. Crunchyroll, which as Dark points out, is owned by Sony, has taken a bold new stance and saying, "No, if you want the best merch out of our merch store, you need a premium subscription to access our merch store to get all the best stuff." Now, it's not entire This is like an upcoming thing. It's like not entirely clear exactly how this is going shake out, but that they've made it clear that you will need the $14

subscription to to actually get into the new store {quote} {unquote} experience.
Have they said like if there's discounts?
No, this is just to get in. It's like Costco, Matt. You got to pay to get in. Ignore the fact that Costco has some of the best value per dollar that you can get out of any place in the United States.
And they're company that actually cares about their workers nine times out of 10 and and does I don't know if they
And in one of the best capitalism moves I've seen in a very long time said, "Hey, there's nothing that says that we can't build things on top of our store. Let's build affordable housing on top of our store."
I just like to point out the the Nebula store you can shop at without an account and it's always the same depending on if you have an account or not.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 100% so Crunchyroll continues to forgotten its roots.
Well, I mean they were bought. I mean again God I wish I wasn't so blind before being such a pony that I was, but like everything that Sony has been touching in the last year or two has just turned to ash. This plus Alamo Drafthouse um Yeah. Yak yak yak yak yak.
Okay. uh
Thank you for all the names by the way of the day and I love that one was literally named Greed and I had no idea.
Yeah, one of them is Greed from Fullmetal Alchemist. um All right. Here is a reminder. And this is a very important reminder. That the cloud big scare quotes around the cloud is just a computer that you don't own.
Yeah, it's not like an actual cloud.

Right. It's just It's just a computer that you don't own. So, um Ars Technica has more of the story. Uh a bunch of places have actually picked this up uh over the um over the years, but this is uh the story of a user named Joshua Cain um who has proof that Microsoft uh deleted his 25-year-old account with all of his games his entire OneDrive everything in his account because the account was compromised. And instead of helping him recover the account, they just said, "It's been compromised." and then nuked it from orbit. He lost uh according to him, he lost a bunch of his kids' baby pictures, which were backed up to his OneDrive and nowhere else. So, this
Now, granted, just so we're very clear, your data is already uh not real unless

it's stored in three places.
Correct. Rule of three.
Yeah, just a There's a thing. But
Yeah. So, um the the important thing is is severalfold. One, Microsoft sucks. And I will always take opportunities to take cheap shots at Microsoft. I will I'm not above it. I will take cheap shots at Microsoft all day. Microsoft sucks. Second, and equally important, is a chance to take this uh as a sobering reminder to back up all of your data in some place that isn't the cloud. Yes, uh SSDs are super or solid state drives are super expensive right now. Get a hard disk drive. Get a really big one. Back up all of your important stuff. And then put it somewhere safe, right? Just do it the old-fashioned way. Please, please, I am begging you. Do not back everything up to the cloud and then think that it's safe cuz it's in the cloud. You need redundancies.

Redundancies, okay? Cool, great, awesome, excellent. Yeah, get a get a NAS. Get Yes, 100%. Do all those things. Yeah, get a tape Get a tape drive, right?
Yeah. Oh god, a tape drive. Holy moly.
Yeah, get get get something back your stuff up. All right.
[laughter] [groaning] [screaming]
I want to say with this next story about Roblox, um I know you all can't read. The the text is too small. Um but every bit of this I rewrote.
[laughter]
Yeah, Matt Matt sent me like multiple versions of this cuz he wasn't happy with it being scathing enough. But every part of this graphic has been rewrote to just absolutely mock this entire idea.
Tell the story and then I'll read what I wrote.
Okay. Roblox

has a new thing
Yeah,
[laughter]
that's the Yes, that is the
called build. And it's a a tool on the Roblox mobile app. It's available to anyone as young as nine. Where you can turn a text prompt into a game using an AI agent. Whole game. You can just make a whole game. You just give it a text prompt. And it'll make the whole game. Nine-year-olds can make their own whole game. That's [clears throat] That's That's the pitch. On your phone. Y'all got phones, right?
So, I changed the name of the user to thief. Um and then the prompt that uh thief is entering into the phone on the left side of this thing is, "Let's make some uninspired and stolen slop. Preferably something that is both completely

unplayable, but also spits in the faces of hardworking game devs while ripping them off." Uh then the game that was made was called poop out your butt. And then uh the it is responded as, "Here's the slop you ordered. It only cost seven families next to a data center their ability to drink water in a 10-mi radius. Neat." Then you see the game here. Um and then uh thief's friends really want to get in on the access the action and their names are loser, dummy, idiot, idiot, dummy, AND YOUR MOM.
[laughter]
OH, TRULY INSPIRED COMMENTARY, but like Y'all Roblox hasn't been good or safe or reasonable for a very long time now. It's only getting worse.
It's only getting worse. This is This is truly out like let's go beyond it's making bad

stuff. Go beyond uh the ramifications of using something willy-nilly like this all the time everywhere. This just says you have no ideas.
Yeah. Hey, 9-year-old, your ideas stink. You shouldn't learn to make anything on your own. You should just talk to our phone thing.
Yeah.
Right? I don't know about you all, but when I was 9, I had lots of stupid, terrible ideas that inspired me to get better, slightly less stupid, slightly less terrible ideas.
Yeah.
And eventually, I sit before you as a product of being a human who has learned to have slightly less terrible slightly less stupid ideas until I don't know what 7 years ago when Matt and I had a very stupid very terrible idea that's gotten marginally better over the last 7 years and now we call that games for breakfast. Right but like
now.
Yeah, like

This is so stupid and terrible, right? I don't fully have words for how stupid and terrible this is.
Meredith, I love this. When I was nine I mailed Nintendo a video game idea and got a very polite letter back going no thanks but good job.
Right, where where where is that? Where is the the nine-year-old who plays Doom and then learns how to mod it?
The version here truly and I guarantee I guarantee flipping T you it's like this. So this is this is the monkey enough monkeys writing on infinite typewriters will give you Shakespeare or whatever, right? Like obviously Roblox owns anything you do here.
Yeah.
Like you don't own your game. There's no way in hell. I I haven't even read this story like I've read that about the story but I I'm I'm very confident in that and if I'm wrong then someone could prove it. But Roblox is not giving me any reason to have given them the benefit of the doubt. Um There is a real chance that some prompt will knock into again go away from the resource destruction go away from the ripping everybody off but make an idea that then gets implemented into an actual game that Roblox uses or makes

and then that person even though they've used stolen materials to get the like even the person who came up with the prompt won't get it. Like there's there's a lot of issue here. You'll be you'll be stealing from thief which I guess is fine except for all the people thief stole from.
Right. And then last blast is Roblox not accused right now of profiting from child labor? Yeah, but you see Oh god, this is so dark. I'm sorry in advance. Right now they're paying those child laborers too much. Now with this new tool they will profit from child labor and have to pay them less or nothing. So, really it's a benefit to the company that now they're exploiting children for their ideas and labor and they won't have to pay them. Unlike now where they're already engaged heavily in child labor and they're kind of paying them.
Yeah.
So, you see it's better for the company that way.
But uh to to 13's point that I just sort of saw I'll put it up here again cuz we're going if I can can I put it again?

There we go. Uh first thing I ever made was in Spore and it was so hard but I really loved what I made because it was hard. That's what all these people forget.
Yes.
I'm fairly confident. I will I will make an assumption. I will make an ass out of just me. Um that there has not been a person that has generated something with AI that has been proud of it for more than the initial dopamine spike. of someone seeing something that they think is neat. Because you can't. Like I don't think there's a lot of delusion out there but I I I don't think that pride is the thing that is what you're going to be feeling.
Mhm.
And there is a pride to learning a skill and doing it poorly and doing it again and messing up and making something it

took forever to then show people and it's not perfect but you're going to make your next thing better because of it because you really liked the experience of making it. And again, this sort of stuff this George Lucas thinking um robs people of that.
Yeah.
Robs you of their ideas and it robs people of of of the training that you need to to do better and to enjoy yourself while creating.
Yeah. So, Mockingbird has a really important question here. Would Roblox even know that isn't AI not protected by copyright and stuff? Great question. They don't need to own the final output. They just need to steal your idea. Right? So they're not taking the final finished product that the AI Right. That's terrible. They're never going to use that. It's crap. It's poop from a butt because it's a butt pooping. Right? Like this is not It can't do It can't do anything else. It's a butt. It can only poop. Okay, great. Excellent. What they're doing is they're taking the top layer. They're taking what you input

and that's what they're stealing. Right? They're taking your idea and they're saying because you submitted that, we own it now. They They own your idea, not the finished output and they can make the idea better because they will have actual people do it instead of a stupid AI agent. Right?
Yeah. Joseph, I actually think we're kind of saying the same thing in a weird way. These people are detached from reality. I agree with that, but I don't think what they're getting is pride. I think they might think it is. Like but like there is a distinct like I I am convinced that people like can understand the differences in sort of feelings and sort of if they don't like the way that a feeling works, sort of push it down or convert it into a different feeling. That's kind of how becoming a narcissist works, right? But like I I with no empirical data because I've only lived in my own brain, I have to believe that

the the chemical experiences that we have are different based on the inputs that we give them and I know everyone's brain is obviously different. But like there is a joy and a pride that I think is lacking in even the most die-hard true believers because all they believe is the progress. Toward what? The progress. Like it's it's it's I don't know. Maybe maybe we are saying the same thing, maybe we're not, but that's kind of where I'm going from it, right?
Okay.
Anyway, poop from your butt will be available basically whenever you next have to use the restroom. So, um yeah.
Yeah. Uh okay. Our last our second to last story, our last bad news story.
[sighs]
To be clear in this thing, I have I don't know anything about John Madden

himself. He's just the poster boy for this, so the the horns and the mustache are just kind of fun. But, the all ad edition, well, well, well.
Yeah, so at a uh on on the game business show, um one of the VPs of EA, Alexander Dawe, uh it said the following, and because it's a vice president of EA, it's going to go through the industry and people are going to think about it and talk about it like it's worth something even though it's not. Um Chris Dring asked if developers should be thinking about ad opportunities early on in production, and the quote is, "That's a huge opportunity, not just for EA, but broadly, because of the games that have been around for a while. Building that advertising experience is really retrofitting it in. But, as you think about new games that are coming out, as you think about free-to-play experiences that are happening on the console side, like our Skate game, those are opportunities where if you actually design them with the right advertising

and brand experience in there from the get-go, it just makes it easier. It makes it feel more native and creates more flexibility in the types of brands that can come in and out. So, I do see a big opportunity there."
Native.
Yeah, that's that's that's what we want.
We've already been so normalized with it in the real world
Yeah, right.
that we won't mind it.
Yeah, it's yeah, mhm, yep. Don't don't don't you want to be advertised to in your dreams?
It's interesting. They go on to say early experiments included a custom Mountain Dew stadium playable experience in EA's college sports college football 26 and Visa branding in EA Sports FC. And they say, "We did something with Lowe's where they sponsored the stadium pulse and the stadium pulse in college football ended over a billion impressions." Okay. A, fun number you made up. B, what does that mean? Are you assuming that a billion people saw a frame of your game where that

ad was technically on screen?
Yep. As we do these things, it's ultimately it's ultimately around like, you know, are the players engaging with it? Are they talking about it? It's ultimately leading to the brand being talked about and engaged in a positive way or is it about the brand being talked about engaged in a positive way? And those are the things we're measuring and iterating on as we do more and more activations. It's just at this point that's you're hoping that it's subliminal enough
Mhm.
that just feels sort of ubiquitous in reminding you that a product exists and then maybe the next time you're out or you're thinking about needing a sugar beverage, you pick their sugar beverage. Um
So, we thought we could do better.

We've got some
Yes.
We got some examples of better better than this. Better than better than this.
get game advertisement has been around since since video games were incepted almost. Like they they that we've done different versions of this in the past. And right now, I would like to pontificate and pitch back again, pulling back, going the old Doom route, how things were toward making uh advertisements in games better. So, let's look at the past. Let's look at Cool Spot. Do you know what Cool Spot is, everyone? Cool Spot is essentially, what if 7 Up had a mascot? What could the 7 Up mascot be? I don't know, maybe the little dot on the can. Great. Make a video game. There was a video game called Cool Spot. And and it was a little platformer that was pretty fun and silly. And then it gave you a positive reaction toward 7 Up, even though it was just again like a sort of like Mario or Sonic kind of clone. Um but phenomenal phenomenal use there.

Let's keep going. The Noid in uh Yo! Noid, I believe. The Noid uh was a character I believe was a Pizza Hut IP that was basically you had to avoid the Noid. I don't know why the Noid was trying to eat or ruin your pizza, but there's so many mascots back in the late '80s, early '90s that essentially uh were trying to steal you or your children's food. Right? Yeah, please put put your examples in
Dominos.
Yeah. Yeah. Uh Dominos. Thank you. Sorry, not Pizza Hut. Dominos. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Uh please put your stuff in the in the chatter if I'm getting anything wrong. But this again, take your mascot, make a platformer, do whatever. Make Jo Make Joe No, John Madden. Make John Madden into a side scroll adventure. Or or make make uh what are they talking about? Lowes? Uh take that guy from the the the commercials and Oh, WHAT ABOUT THE Capital One Bank guy? Let's turn that into like a a rogue light um where you have to uh figure out the PIN number for your ATM at the at the

Capital One lounge. Like do something that is remotely fun on top of the thing you're trying to sell. Let's keep going, speaking of fun.
So, something like Chex Quest.
Something like Chex Quest. You know what breakfast cereal has nothing in common with first-person shooters? Do you know what Chex Quest was? A breakfast cereal turned first-person shooter. Again, taking all the things we learned about Doom and using it as a marketing tool for a essentially a corn-based cereal, sugary or no. Chex Quest was a delight and has been remastered. I think there's three of them now.
I will tell you, by the way, for nothing, this works so much better because now I want Chex.
Right?
I want Chex right now. Like, I would love like some Chex. Right, yeah. Right, I want that because it's it's better. It's just better.
A thousand percent. And then who could forget the classic tie-in basically Matt Wills Martinelli's Adventure, which we all know and love and we're trying to get a sequel made,

but the platformer you know, it performed pretty well. The Martinelli's numbers went up, the bubbles were good, and we're just waiting for that lucrative #notsponsoredbymartinellis money to eventually come in for the first time. So, yeah, it's my favorite game, too, that guy, Jimmy. It's my favorite game, too.
Exactly.
Anyway,
yeah. Um
Yeah, yeah, who Yeah, yeah, Ramian, I do remember this was a problem and we we were going to patch it out, but then we thought, "No." Um craving a Flexal sticks turn-based strategy.
Yeah. Uh
The Snack King, obviously.
Yep.
Anyway, I hate in-game advertising and I miss when it was fun.
Yep, 100%. Okay, uh for a dessert story, we've got something that's kind of like a magic moment, but like isn't yet. It's just a fun thing. So, I've been

stinger.
Okay, all right.
It's a good stinger. WE'RE TALKING ABOUT MAGIC THE GATHERING.
OKAY, all right. Okay.
Gather the magic, Will. Gather the Gather the magic.
[music]
You merely adopted the cards. I bought them. They were too much money.
Speaking of cards that are too much money,
Ooh.
So, there's the the They did a whole bunch of reveals for the Star Trek Magic the Gathering crossover, which is coming out in November. By the way, this isn't the next set that's coming out. We have two sets in between this set and that between now and that set, uh Hobbit and reality fracture, but because
like more information on the breakneck pace that Magic is doing, we have a short and a long over on the Extra Credits side of that and how it's making it very, very difficult to parse.
Um Yeah, okay. So, uh A,

there are two kinds of Universes Beyond sets. And some people don't like any of them, and some people only like one of them, and I'm going to posit that this is going to be one of the kind that Avatar and Final Fantasy are. Avatar, Final Fantasy, and this, oh, and Lord of the Rings, which is barely extended universe beyond kind of stuff. Um / The Hobbit are all things with deep, rich worlds that uh have a tight focus on a story and will be good. Right? Final Fantasy is good. Uh The Lord of the Rings set was great. Um the Avatar set was good.
Spider-Man sure was a Spider-Man set.
A Spider-Man sure was a bunch of spiders. The Marvel set is sure a bunch of Marvel superheroes. The mechanical environment of the Marvel set is better, but the theming is still just what if we put every Marvel character we could think of on a Magic card? Not great. Um this promises to have a whole bunch of interesting stuff that I'm kind of excited for. But one of the really interesting things that I actually think

is kind of cool is that in the theme of going back to the things that started us. Right? Magic cards were heavily influenced by baseball cards, right? And other collectible sports cards of the day. And magic is finally returning to those roots. These are actual hand-signed cards by the actors.
Now, just to be clear, the graphic that I used did not yet have the signatures on them and I have but they are meant for signatures and I just went and found their signatures and put them on this graphic. But
Um the uh So, the way that these work is they printed the cards, they handed them to the actors, the actors signed them, they were sealed, and then put in booster packs. Right? These are not printed signatures. These are actual like signatures on the cards that then got put in the things. Which I think is kind of cool and interesting and different and I'm actually um like while it's on they're only in collector boosters and

yes, there's a very small chance and whatever. It is kind of interesting to see them like actually do something different for the fans of the original like IP like this kind of like baseball cards. Like like sealed baseball cards that have actually been signed by the players or have memorabilia from the players in the card. Right?
This is something that's interesting to me as a as a um fair-weather Magic player. And by that I mean I dabble, I do not collect. Um I buy a new Commander deck at a convention to play with some friends and then I pretty much don't pick up that Commander deck again. Like I just kind of do the new one to have the experience and whatever. And I've been pretty bullish on not really getting into the a lot of Universes Beyond. I think the Final Fantasy one and the I guess Dungeons & Dragons doesn't count. So, the Final Fantasy one was the first one that I did um and the only one I think at this point. I almost did Turtles but I didn't. Um, so I saw this announcement. Now, I've read through I very rarely read through the whole Magic announcement, but the one Will put in the show notes, this time I

actually did. I love Star Trek, specifically the first four series, um, and uh, I'm in the middle of a Next Gen rewatch right now. And uh, God, that series starts slow, but it gets so good. Um, I am very excited for this set, and I would probably buy a Commander deck of probably Picard or Sisko, uh, at at, uh, at a convention. The thing that's interesting about this particular element of the Collector's versions with the possibility of a signature. And it's not even like I I personally don't want anyone's signature. I don't. Like I I don't care. I've never been a a signed thing guy. Um, however, I am a sucker for the Willy Wonkafication of of a product. And this is essentially like a golden ticket. Whether or not this is a healthy thing, I now was like, oh, maybe this will be

the set that I buy a Collector's booster thing to do a draft with, cuz huh, you never know. But it's like it this is a thing that's getting me in the door. To be clear, for a product that I already like.
Yeah. Um, so bad news on the Collector booster front. So, the the Collector boosters went up for pre-order uh, on Amazon and other first-party websites.
gone?
Oh, yeah. Within moments. Um, and uh, so the the MSRP, which doesn't really exist, but the price that Amazon is selling in the market is the closest thing we get to an MSRP. The MSRP of a Collector booster box for this set is 450 US dollars. They sold out immediately. And the The market price of a of a collector booster box of this set is Matt, take a guess.
I don't know. I have no idea.
Like 1,200 bucks.
Yeah.
Right. So, yeah. Um it's
Well, still. For whatever reason, this tickles the

part of my brain that while I know I will never own one of these cards, nor do I actually truly want one.
I I would just trade it away. I would like immediately sell it for credit somewhere.
I I I just sort of like it because it's a it's another link to the the the IP or the the show that it is based off of that is very real.
Yeah.
These are the actors who are playing the characters signing the card of their character.
Yeah.
And because you know what else I think it is, too? Because signatures are truly so baked into like Star Trek convention culture. Like I have Riker's signature from when I was like 10.
Yeah.
Jonathan Frakes. Um I think I think that I think that that's why I'm like I'm vibing with this is because Star Trek character signatures are the things are the first things that I think I knew people did for signatures. They were the first like celebrity culture that I

engaged with where signing a piece of paper had some value to it.
And and and to be clear, I think this is mostly just like an um it's an interesting move for Hasbro to go in like a different direction. Now, of course, as we're recording this and talking, uh Magic Con Amsterdam is going on and there's all kinds of stuff and I got to tell Matt that there's going to be a Masters of the Universe secret layer earlier and uh yeah. Of course, it'll sell out immediately and be scalped for five times its original price, but it'll exist.
like all of these things are going to be the things I buy like 10 years from now when there's like the Flextel stick set and everything else is not expensive anymore, right?
Right. No, it it does feel like what I think there's a there's a like two things are true, right? One, the pricing and scalper culture in many card games is unsustainable. And second, it's fun that it exists. Right? And I'm very much in the it's fun that it exists camp, even if there are like problems with it, right? There are definitely 100% problems with this, but I think

it's cool that it exists. It's just like a fun little It's a fun little thing. Um so, yeah.
I don't know. I I I was shocked how much this endeared me when normally this stuff doesn't, and I think it is sort of that metatextual commentary on like, well, a signature is a very Star Trek thing in my brain. This makes it more Star Trek, not less.
Yeah.
That is why I'm about it. So.
Yeah. Yeah. Uh okay, so re quick recap of some upcoming stuff before we let Matt do his his closing thing. We've run a little long today, but that's okay, cuz we were having fun. Number one, no breakfast next week, no breakfast the week after. Our next breakfast will be August the 7th. Please join us for that. Number two, and YouTube you'll get some help reminding helpful reminder of this. Uh next Tuesday, we are launching our Kickstarter for the History Happens Every Day 2027 calendar
Mhm.
and some special accoutrement.

Ooh.
Ooh.
What? [screaming]
Yeah, um some special accoutrement that go with it. So, please um head on over to Kickstarter, get the uh get get yourself a a notification when it goes live. There will also be a live stream here uh on Twitch on uh Extra Credits YouTube and Extra History YouTube uh where we answer your questions and reveal art as we meet stretch goals. So.
Uh also, uh confero maybe. Um yeah, last year So, we've done the calendar just in case you don't know, we've done it 2 years in a row. This is our Sorry, this is the 2025 Are these both 2026s?
Yeah, you got you got two 2026s over there.
I know. I have I have my stash of b-roll items for all the stuff. So, this is the 2025 and then this is the 2026. And what Conifer was talking about is one stretch goal from last year was the Extra History History of Cats puzzle. This you can actually all of these it's funny. If you if you need a calendar this year in the Nebula store, they are half off cuz the year is more than half over obviously, but there's a bunch of

cool art in there. And we still have a few of these I think left of these Zoe puzzles. They are very hard.
[laughter]
If you're noticing all the space, they are very hard, but they're fun. I did it. I completed it. Um But yeah, yeah, check that out. Tuesday goes live at Kickstarter. Please go and follow that campaign now if you can. Yeah. I guess that leaves just the final thing that we do here. Oh, wait, Will. Before we do our final thing, are we going to play games after this or are you tapped? We are going to play games. Heck yeah, we're going to play some Destiny 2. So,
Wait, wait, hold a second. I just got to do this. It turns out, chat, that if there's stuff in the air that you don't want in your lungs, wearing a mask helps keep the stuff out of your lungs.
Woah.
Woah. Are the Zoe puzzles signed? No. Maybe there's a neat thing that could be

done at some point. That seems like a fun thing.
having ink on her paw.
I know. I know. Um anyway, um yeah, so we'll hang out. If you're over on the YouTube side of things, Janet or Rocky well, actually it'd be too late for Rocky. I'm so sorry, but thank you so much for watching this on Nebula ad-free. We will be playing Destiny 2 over on the Twitch channel. and hang out if you're not there already to continue a lot of conversations. We probably It's kind of like the post show at this point where we just vibe and play Destiny. Um so, if you want to keep hanging out on this lovely Friday, but if not, that's okay. We're going to end this show the same way we do every time, because we want to make sure that we send you off into the weekend with a sense of camaraderie and community and knowing that we're all in this crazy ball of kind of smoky nightmare at this point together. And so, you all know it, you all love it. If you'd please join me in giving the final words that we always do exactly the same at Games for Breakfast. Thank you for watching. Here

we go.
[music]