Microsoft Moves Halo to Activision, Discord Courts Fanduel & Is RPG Grind Gone? |Games for Breakfast

[music] Good morning, MATT. OH,
GOOD MORNING. WELL,
MORNING TO ALL OF YOU.
WELCOME TO GAMES FOR BREAKFAST, THE ONLY INTERNET talk show. We talk about this week's gaming and tech news, but that also you might be a little confused by our thumbnail. Not to worry, it'll all make sense. It's not an adults only Halo game produced by Activision. We promise the text all makes sense in the thumbnail. We will get to it. Will, how are you this fine Friday morning?
I'm pretty good. I was fine until it was morning and then my brain just like hiccuped a little. It just went
all you got to do is add more syllables. [laughter]
That's called mispronouncing words.
Misprononunciation. There's two different things. If we want to get real hyperbolic about it,
I hate this. [laughter]

Have we started chaos? Have we? I listen. I I I said we wouldn't talk about the specifics of what the pre-show on Twitch was, and I'm not going to do that.
See, look. Yeah. Good morning to everyone. Nothing happened, and we didn't discuss the topic previously.
We absolutely did not. I will say every topic discussed in the pre-show had nothing to do with video games. Is it true? That's why it's the pre-show. [laughter] It just
Anyway, you don't need to worry about that. You're here now. Hello on YouTube and Twitch and Nebula. Hello Brad, Janet, and Rocky. We are so glad to talk with you about this week's gaming and or tech news. Do we have any uh moments of bleess before we actually just jump into our main story for the week?
No, other than I'm starting to smell toast with the number of extra salables and misprononunciations that we're getting. So, if you notice me,
buckle the buckle the heck up, Will.
Okay, great. Excellent. Uh, no, I think it's I think we're safe to jump right into

There is a good thing. Tetris Freak asked a good question. I'm so sorry. Where is the pre-show? We do 15 minutes early on Twitch just to sort of like warm up our uh I wanted to say like vocal cords like we're actually like performing with an instrument, but no, it's to just meme Lord around a bit and reminisce about things we cannot speak of here. Um, please stop by if you're interested in any of that.
It's also our tech check. So,
it also is our tech check.
So, you know, there's a reason. All right. Uh, without any further ado, uh, lest we have much ado about nothing, let's jump right into our main course. [music] Yeah. And that's the last joy we'll experience for the next 20 minutes.
Uh yeah, it it seems it seems
No, there's interesting things to talk about here, but it does sort of it is wrapped in yuck.
Yeah. Okay. So,

y'all remember Xbox's multi-stage reset plan? Uh this got announced earlier this year and they just completed uh phase two. [snorts] Yeah, phase two. Uh this was released uh September 22nd
by Matt Booty, hence Call of Booty. We'll explain
Call of Duty. It was the Call of Booty. Um, they eliminated 268 more positions across Halo Studios, other first-party studios, and the X uh XGS management and central functions layer, which is corporate speak for they laid off a bunch of middle management and also gutted the studio that's named after their former flagship franchise. That certainly bodess well for the future of Xbox.
Um, and then they they started shuffling. They like sort of they they they said all that and then they put all their stuff on the table and they covered it with red solo cups and then they started playing like the the the

shifty cups and shells game and it it's it's turning kind of weird. So [clears throat] Playground and Turn 10 are joining as one studio that'll do both Forza and Fable.
Great. similar only in that they both start with the letter F.
So, actually, I don't this is the only part of the in in the announcements that that Matt made in his post. Uh, and we'll have links to all this and all the articles about it in the show notes. Um, the uh I I don't know much about Playground and Turn 10. In it, he says that they um these two studios have been creative franchise partners for over a decade. So, I don't know what that means. Maybe if anyone knows, please message us on Blue Sky or leave a comment here uh on on YouTube. uh because I would love or message say something right now because I don't know exactly what that means. I guess I guess I just don't follow those studios as much as some others. So like maybe that one makes sense, right? Like I I can't I

can't confirm or deny the the the sense that that might make,
right? Um yeah, I I agree with that. Uh okay. Also, King is going to of Activision Blizzard King uh will be taking over Microsoft casual games. So, now they're just doing all of the casual like phone lifestyle bejeweled Candy Crush style whatevers all in one place. All right, cool.
Which makes sense. That's literally why they acquired Activision Blizzard King for the King part as well. That makes them just prince money. And why would Microsoft keep doing its own mobile division when they literally bought the the leader in the field?
Yeah. Right.
Right. That sucks. That truly sucks for um
uh Well, it it will suck, I think, eventually, I think, cuz this is only the first there's like one more third of layoffs coming. This thing says uh to

include Microsoft casual games and uniting our two global leaders in casual game design and live operations. I don't know if there's two global leaders. Um, but the I think the the other shoe is going to drop there. I feel like um they're merging them first and then we'll see if that actually keeps jobs in the long run. I I doubt it.
Yep. Bethesda is taking over Obsidian. Obsidian's not canceling any projects. Bethesda's just kind of amiebaing them and just yoink.
Okay.
Uh so that's uh grounded. There's gonna be a new Fallout uh project. It's not a new Fallout game. It's New Fallout project. So, that's interesting. Who knows?
Jingo. No, I have no idea.
Yeah. Right. Okay, great. [clears throat] And then you know the thing that makes the most sense really just truly the most sense out of all of this. Activision uh will be taking over World's Edge and Rare

and uh will also be developing the next Halo title. A totally normal reasonable thing for anyone who's ever paid attention to any amount of the gaming industry ever. You know, Activision making Halo. It makes sense, right? Total sense. There's nothing. What does anyone else smell smoke? Is anyone else checking to see if this is opposite day? Like, I'm so hu. So, essentially, let's kind of go through some things here. Um, so Microsoft has cut an additional 268 employees across Halo Studios. Their flagship title name thing that used to be 343. um basically and and relegating that team to just sort of being like support for existing Halo games at the moment and they're going to build out a Activision team that is going to be Halo specific and focused. Now, the thing that I like obviously we've talked about

layoffs and things like that in the games industry and how it's sort of cannibalizing itself week after week after week. That's not what I want to focus on here even though I do still want to call out the bad actors of this when this goes on. mergers uh are the death kneel of creativity and that's in the macro and in the micro essentially uh like there was a a Halo there was a Halo developer that got promoted and laid off in the same week uh which is insane. There was even after Gears of War shipped uh the the story director there, I believe, uh just got laid off like right after it went gold. Like there's there's either no plan or immense cruelty uh going on and either way is is [ __ ] Um, the thing that is so odd outside of all of that actual human uh cost is thinking of your video game, I guess, IP as interchangeable building

blocks between studios and and teams. It's something that is becoming increasingly like in corporate America or corporate business around the world. It does feel like in many places that that's how things operate because essentially a lot of times there's not a lot of like the business that is being done is not 100% creative and collaborative. you you I I don't get me wrong, there is value to maintaining a a same team and making sure that like your your company or team vernacular or whatever is on on point so you can keep moving and working more efficiently and quickly. You work better with people that you've worked with for longer because as long as you get along because you start finishing each other's sandwiches like you get the you get the vibe shift there. Um, the thing with video games and film and and any sort of creative endeavor that has a team-based thing is I feel like what a lot of these

as the video game industry has continued to move away from an art into a business, I feel like what these places forget is that the actual value proposition is far more tied to specific groups of people working together than IP or team name. Right. Like the idea that you can just give Halo to an Activision team and make something that is as um it's funny. I don't even want to say good because good is relative, but make something that is as feature complete or or um something that will actually like stick in the in the craw of the industry in a good way as Halo has done. Um and expect it to roll out on an Activision Call of Duty like yearly kind of scale, which let's not be let's not kid ourselves. That's what they're wanting

to do with Halo, right? Um they wouldn't be giving it to these teams if they didn't want that. Um, I think that is a complete uh short-sightedness and no real plan and just moving people and numbers around on a spreadsheet. It feels to me like something that was born out of a boardroom that no one who actually makes games ever possibly fathomed or got to have an actual say in.
Yeah.
Um,
it feels like some some somebody was told find a way to keep cutting costs. By the way, this is despite the fact that uh Microsoft is is is currently growing year-over-year.
Yeah.
Right. They're they're still growing year-over-year. Like it's not they're not like they don't this is this is all the money problem, right? This is not like we have to do this or Microsoft or Xbox is going to fail. This is like
we're not making enough all the money. So anyway, uh it feels like some junior exec was told to like find a way to do

this and they went uh well I've never played either of them, but Activision and Halo sound like I mean Activision makes Call of Duty and shooters are just shooters, right? So like they can make
it doesn't even sound like I I agree with the the the the feeling of what you're saying, Will. I don't think this is a junior anybody. I think this is all like up top. I think this is all people that
think they understand the game space but really understand a business space.
Yeah.
And uh I I I have a we will and I were talking about this the other day. We were working on some shorts that Will was writing and um Halo has been in the shooter space sort of the opposite end of the pendulum swing from a Call of Duty. It's been the other vibe, the other feel of a of a shooter um that you could kind of count on to be the other version of either a single player or multiplayer experience in this space,

right? And if you've never played either of them, which is more and more possible the further into time we go, the the the comparison that I normally make is that Call of Duty is very um progressionbased,
right? unlocking additional stuff, stuff like killstreaks, um, and and and prestiging and all of that. And that's like very progression based. Halo is more of a what I would call a sport shooter where everyone walks in on the same playing field. Like you unlock cosmetics and you get like a cool rank and stuff, but like it's about knowing the map. It's about rolling out as a team in a very different way, right? So like they have
very fundamentally different uh design ethoses. Actually, on that note, if Brad and Janet would be so kind right now, I'm just curious for our current watching audience. If you had to just pick, you know, real quick, Nerf Nerf gun to your head, what would be the answer for the game that you have the most interest in or have played the most of? Is it a Call

of Duty title or is it a Halo title? Just one word, COD or Halo. We'll we'll do just to sort of get the feel. And like if it's neither, that's totally fine. But like um this is more like if you actually do play
these, right?
It looks like
and Mila, yes, I did see Warframe. I'm striking it from the record. I'm sorry. Uh for this particular end [laughter] as well,
we've got we've got a fair amount of Halo.
Mhm.
Um Doom. Okay, great. Great, great, great, great, great. Yeah. Yeah. New Super Sandwich dropped COD or Halo. Yes. No, but it looks like we're largely It's largely Halo, but there are It's COD folks.
Yeah, it's not like 100%. It's like 75.
I want to make it very clear, just cuz I don't play COD doesn't mean I don't think and know it's not overall as a franchise an excellent series. I I don't love the the year after year sort of like micro change. Like it seems like because their release schedule is mandated to be so heavy, they don't do a

lot of changes and sometimes the games seem to get a little bit worse. At least in things that I read. That doesn't mean that the franchise is bad in any way, shape, or form. I know it's not monetarily. You could look at it and the amount of people that spend the amount of time in it, it has to be a really really fun game. Um, I'm curious like I guess the second part of this question is does this news legitimately excite anyone on either side of that camp? because like I was trying to think of like what positives could be here and as people sort of answer that um I'll just sort of say my thought and we'll kind of go back through Halo 4 I really loved I loved the the the the the narrative that they were doing. It was more of a personal story between Cortana and Master Chief and I really liked that. Halo 5 but but the multiplayer in Halo 4 kind of stunk. Halo 5 I didn't play, but I heard the story was bad, but the multiplayer was great. And then Halo

Infinite, uh, the way that they, like the fact that they had to delay it, and the the the the launch of that game and the peacemealness of it made it so it would never recover because Halo was not the same uh, IP driver as it was when Halo 2 and three were out. Like, it just the the slow roll of that killed it whether it was good or not. Um, so like I was like, so it's fair to say that the last two and a half Halo games have not really either a lit the world on fire or b made every fan or the majority of fans happy.
So I was like, sure, like getting maybe personally, I don't think it's 343 or the Halo Studios team's issue. Again, this is anecdotal outside. I'm I'm not part of this team or whatever. I don't know. All of the problems that Halo seems to have seems like middle management problems or seems like overzealous asks from the parent company problems, not they don't know how to make a good Halo game problems.

That's what it feels like as an outsider. So, when I say the next thing, it's not that I don't think that three that uh that the Halo team could could do it. It's that I don't think they're being allowed to do it in this new like what's going to happen. I think with moving this to an Activision based team is they'll make something. Who knows if it's good or not, it's not going to feel terribly Halo and but like it will do what it says on the tin. The Activision the teams under Activision that makes COD games is their machines. Like they know how to do that, right? And I I also think any detriment there isn't because of a a design philosophy problem. It's a release schedule and management problem, right? So, like now you're just gonna make another game that is ve that is wellmade but now feel like COD again. Like I don't have faith that after doing these games for years and years and years [clears throat] that they're going to be able to jump into Halo and make it

feel like something different.
Yep. Agreed.
Um,
sorry I rambled there for a second.
No, it's okay. I think there's like it's important to know too that Halo has always been sort of much tighter on the balance and the and the design, right? Like who remembers the kurfuffle, the absolute kurfuffle when they changed the battle rifle to the DMR? Does anybody else remember this? This was like a huge deal, right? But like in Call of Duty, it's just like, "Oh, there guns just there's just guns like every kind of gun everywhere, right?" Like, yeah, people people love, by the way. Okay, so the difference, in case you're wondering, the battle rifle is a three shot burst, and if you landed all three as head shot, you probably killed someone. Yeah.
And the DMR was a um single shot that

had roughly equivalent damage, but you couldn't three-shot burst because it had bloom, right? It had reticle bloom like you got off target so you could like do single shots and plink people but like it wasn't the same at all.
Um yeah. No, and bloom was like a huge deal, right? But like that's the level of like fine-tuning that Halo went through and I don't get the sense that that's the thing on COD. The thing that's like the big news on COD and we're actually going to be having a design club on this next week. Uh the thing is already up if you want to follow it on YouTube is um we're going to be talking about skillbased matchmaking. Uh Jeff and I want to dive into the world of skill-based matchmaking a bit and talk about that because the the big the big push back that I'm hearing and seeing about the next one is people don't want skill-based matchmaking in Call of Duty which is weird to me. That's weird. That I don't So we're going to talk about that cuz we don't have time or space for me to wax poetic about that here. But if

you want to join in on that and you have a Call of Duty sort of stake in that, um, come hang out next Tuesday as Jeff and I talk about it.
Yeah. The other thing to remember here a bit that I keep having to remind myself is actually, let me double check this before I say it or maybe I'll ask here and then you can tell me if I'm right. Halo 1, 2, and 3 was Bungie, right?
And then Halo 4 was 343 Industries, which then became
2, three, and Reach. and reach and then was
ODS ODST was also bunggeie.
That was also Bungie.
Uh correct us when we are wrong. Um
here but like Okay, cool. Um the other thing is like so Halo has been passed before too. A team that I think with Halo 4 did a great job with the single player.
Well, I I don't know even about past. 343 has been part of the production since like two. I think 343 was 343 wasn't spun up out of nowhere. They were a support studio.

Okay. Okay. Okay. So maybe I'm I'm off base there in what I'm what I'm trying to say because I was like is like basically what I was trying to get at and I think it doesn't hold water anymore is like was the magic of Halo kind of already I mean from a sales perspective yes but like from a from a play perspective like I remember two three ODST and reach like those are my those are my jams. Um, four I liked, but four I played once, right? Like I didn't ever go back. And I feel like all the other games I listed were games I played multiple times and had tons of hours in the multiplayer.
Yeah.
Um,
so uh they've existed since 2011 and Okay. Uh, their first uh game that they worked on was Halo uh Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition for the 360. And then they worked on four Spartan Assault, Master Chief, Spartan Strike, Guardians, and so on. But the the other thing to keep in mind is that it's 343

Studios because uh 343 Industries because it's named after 343 Guilty Spark.
Yeah.
Like it's named for Halo.
Yeah.
Well, it was until it became u
Halo Studios.
Halo Studios for like two years
and then got Yeah. gutted. Yeah.
Like Okay. So, I I think it's pretty clear to to that Will and I don't think this is a move that will make Halo better. Um, it might make Halo different, but also feel the same as other things. And it's not to say that like these teams don't have the capacity to make something new and interesting. I don't think that's it at all. I think this move from Matt Booty and the team at Microsoft essentially is a uh a notice about what they find important. And I think what they find important is not what made Halo special to begin with and trying to get back to that. It's we need exclusive games that come out on a yearly schedule. This team can do that.

Give them Halo. What is the game? I it doesn't I mean they'll be great. It'll be great.
Yeah. Well, especially because like there are no Xbox exclusives anymore. I looked I can't find a single Xbox console exclusive for the current generation. They don't exist, right? And I think that's part of the reason that Xbox is floundering a bit is because they don't have an identity anymore. And I feel like shipping off Master Chief to Activision is just like them taking the last of their identity and lighting it on fire, right? They like took their identity like down to the beach, built a bonfire, and torched it cuz they were like, I don't we don't need this anymore. Right.
And actually, a lot of people have said this, AJ. I I agree with this, too. I think it would have been better. You wouldn't have gotten a yearly release, but it might have been more in line with what Halo was. Yeah. And I think that sort of shows like they granted they gutted ID as well, but they could have

not gutted ID
and given any of this. Well, just to be clear, they could have not done any of it.
Well, so but actually this is
they could have not merged. They could have not been sold or bought. They could have like the the the problem is when that happens, you set into motion things that do kind of need to happen for the company to continue to exist. And it you get into this real like and I I I we've talked about this a million times, but like I hate the way that these um high-ups messages to their workforce and community sound like essentially like inevitability is like the sun rising and setting. Like it is at this point an inevitability like a thousand%. but due to decisions made by probably people higher up than Matt Booty. Like that's why they're here. Like it didn't

have to be this way until it did.
And then like uh I I sorry I'm just reading his so I'm just going to read you the beginning of it. Says, "Hi team, I'm writing to share several updates as part of Xbox the Xbox reset outlined earlier this year. First, we are eliminating 268 roles across Halo Studios, other firstparty studios and the XGS management and central friction layer functions layer, pardon. Uh, the actions completed since July inclusive of the studio studio devestatures bringing us roy bringing us roughly 3/4ers the way through our previously announced restructuring. I am deeply grateful for what our colleagues have helped build and know how difficult today will be for those leaving and the teams around them. The last sentence of that actually really bothers me. Like I actually I I appreciate that he starts with we are cutting 268 people. Clear. Like shitty but clear.
Yeah.
The thing I don't like is and I know how

difficult today will be for those leaving and the teams around them. That should be if we want to be completely transparent. Uh and I know how difficult today will be for those uh whom we have to let go today. or like or who we are letting go today. Not people that are leaving. These people aren't leaving. You're kicking them out. And listen, you might have to do that. But don't like every time this is written like this, it's couched in this crap that makes no one but the person writing it and the people above them feel remotely better.
Like, if you're gonna shoot someone in the face, shoot them in the [laughter] face. Like don't don't that's a poor analogy, but like it's it's don't try to don't try to act like you punching someone in the jaw is giving them a pat on the shoulder.
Yeah.

Right. Like [snorts] I don't know. I it just this whole story made me upset for the devs at Halo Studios. uh upset for um weirdly like the devs at Activision. [laughter] Like they have jobs and that's great, but like who knows if they want to just make another one of like and it makes me feel bad for like essentially like what like why we would make we why human beings would make another Halo game anyway.
Yeah.
It's now a number on a spreadsheet. Not because someone had a good idea and that sucks.
Yep. Um, I don't know if I have really anything else other than that. It was just it's just a it's just a bummer. And like this is again sadly this will be this won't

be the last time we talk about Microsoft doing their layoffs because they're only three quarters through. So, and that that of this thing.
Yeah.
Yep. Agreed. All right. You ready to talk about something completely different?
Yeah. Let's tone shift.
Yeah. All right. Great. Excellent. Uh,
let's tow and drift
nerd fight. [music] Yeah. So, Matt and I disagree on something and we're gonna we're gonna have a little nerd fight about it.
I'm excited about this. The last nerd fight, if you remember, we both kind of could argue either side. It was a fun exercise, right?
Yeah.
This time, we actually have some pretty deepseated opinions.
Yeah.
Uh and so this one's going to feel a

little more real, I think.
Yeah. Okay. So, uh let's set the stage. Final Fantasy 7 Revelations.
REVELATIONS. Revelations is introducing a new feature from Square Enix, which is they are going to at certain points during the story, if you've skipped side questing and grinding and all of that, will be offered the chance to just level up your team to the recommended level for the area that you're approaching. So, if you are approaching an area that's level, let's say 20 and your team is level 15 because you have skipped the side questing, you'll be offered the opportunity to level up to level 20 for freezes. This is not a paid thing. This is just part of the game experience. They're saying, "Hey, if you're just continuing on with the main story, you're underleveled. Would you like to be level 15 or level 20 rather because you're level 15 right now and you're probably gonna get your butt kicked by choose whatever famous Final Fantasy 7

bad guy you're about to fight. Okay, that is a pretty fundamental like change
for a for an RPG with JRPG roots, right? Like that feels strange. Um, and let's let's sort of start the tone before we sort of say our sides and do whatever. The reason why sort of grinding existed in early JRPGs is to extend the length of the game and in the time uh in a production cycle with how much you could make or what the graphic capabilities were or how much space you could put on the cartridge that your game is going on. You the easiest way to continue time is to oh well, you can't fight this monster until you're level 20. And to get to level 20, you have to keep fighting and grinding through all of these other little monsters for six hours. And that makes more of the game, air quotes, more of the game. And then you're ready to go and fight the big monster, right? Like that's kind of the onus of grinding. The hope there, and

they very rarely hit on this, I think is outside people that just enjoy that like sort of continuous um repetitive gameplay, um is that um the combat is engaging enough or whatever the activity of grinding is engaging enough where you don't mind doing it. I don't I think there's been more misses in those categories than hits, right? Like I think I think that's something somewhat agreeable,
right? So, let's let's offer clarity. The Final Fantasy 7 remake games as they currently stand don't have grinding, per se. They have side questing. And I believe Matt in your because you've played them and I have not.
If you complete all the side quests, you are more than prepared for the next area, right?
Very much so. If you clear if you clear as much of an area as the story chapter allows, in my opinion, you are more than geared and leveled enough to move on to

whatever the next story beat is. I would even posit depending I've never I I actually I I can't say this for sure because I love all of the the the BS side stuff and like I think that like I have not just tried to speedrun through it so I don't know how difficult a fight might be. I also believe uh Brad and Janick, if you could please uh figure this out for me right away before we begin, it would be helpful. I believe there was a certain level of of um combat scaling. Allah uh like oblivion in a sense, right? Like like the the enemies scaled with your level as you went a little bit. So it was making it so you wouldn't ever feel like you were stuck. That has its own problems. We've talked about that in the past.
So, yeah, there lots of people have lots of feelings on this, which is really

great. Yeah, we wanted because this is not
simple, right? There are there are uh let me let me read out some camps and then uh maybe uh I'll let
we'll go in. [laughter] Yeah, we can flip a coin. We'll flip a coin to see who goes first cuz that's fun.
Okay, great. Um so, in chat we've got people saying it's optional. Why? Why why does it matter if an optional feature is added? We have some people saying that it devalues or that it demonstrates rather that the game is poorly balanced or that the game that parts of the game aren't fun and engaging if people want to skip them making this necessary. Um we've got a group of people talking about um scaling right and and and different ways to do scaling. Uh and there is a group of people and I think this is very interesting who say if this is the problem why are we using levels at all just
yep
do the whole thing on vibes. Um and that that is a whole other choice option

thing. So um yeah
so essentially I I am on the camp of disliking this. I think there are better ways to get the experience that this is trying to get across across to whomever wants it without essentially insulting part of the game you are releasing in various ways. Um and will you are for this?
I am. I think this is um more ways to play the game is good and um I think the perception of it is fully on individual people, right? Like I can see

I'm against this and I don't want to use this. Okay, that's fine. I'm for this and I do want to use this also fine, right? But like people who are saying that like the the thing that doesn't ring true to me at all is having some kind of value judgment on either the game or the play experiences of other people. And I'm not saying Matt's doing this. I'm saying that this is
Oh, I'm doing it. I don't know if I'm doing it [laughter]
by having more options that make the game more accessible to more people.
So, let's do this. Uh we're going to do this. Uh we're going to flip this Lancer coin. Uh, the symbol is going to be tails and the mech is going to be heads. What would you like, Will?
Heads.
Okay. Will is the mech. And you can choose if you want to go first or second if you get
Okay.
If you win. So, Will is heads. It is heads. Will, would you like to go first or second?
I would like to go second. I would like to go butt.
Okay. Here we go. Um, we don't have music for this. We really should get

music for this. Next time we'll do it. We were so excited. we had something we actually disagreed on that we didn't like prep this other than sort of our arguments. Okay,
I understand that grinding is essentially an old school issue and thing that they had to do in in RPGs and has become the almost like the deacto thing that you that you do in a JRPG or an RPG oftent times. I think that is bad. I think that um for people that like the grind, I think that that works well, but I think there's other ways to do repetitive tasks in a thing that might even make a different kind of number go up that doesn't gate content later if you want to do it. I'm always a fan of the thing where essentially if I grind on something then it like I could not do it and be a bit more challenged, but like if I kind of grind a bit for something then it's easier. Do you know what I mean? like it's like and that's a that's a real balance issue that you have to play with. And you can have difficulty settings, you can have all of

those different things to really mitigate what that means per player. The thing with Revelations and the new Final Fantasy 7 uh trilogy of remakes is the side quests admittedly should have a bit more polish and do feel like they move slow in almost like the movement and UI of them, but what you're doing is not grinding. what you're doing with the side quests is well it's partially grinding but like nine times out of 10 other than like finding towers and doing one or two other like Ubisoftesque kind of like map tasks is you are doing story missions that teach you more either about the world or your main party. um stuff that I find incredibly interesting and valuable. And would I like these side quests to be more engaging? I just did one in in in Rebirth that was so stupid. I did one

that essentially you're in a town and uh a woman lost her chickens. Classic RPG problem, right? And you and Red have to go the cat have to go cat dog. What? He's a cat dog. He's a fire cat dog.
Alone in the world. Little cat dog.
Yeah. Yeah. uh you and Red because his nose is so good have to go find these chickens. Now granted the first three are like across the street but the the last one's in the woods, right? And when you do it like wouldn't it just be fun to like grab the chicken and bring it back and that'd be nice, right? No, no, no. What Final Fantasy Rebirth does is essentially makes you take something they call a clanker and it is a it is a bin on a string that is full of chicken feed and you have to throw it and do a miniame that is like a timing of like pulling it and pushing it to make the chickens come to you. It's janky. It's not great. But I I I played through it and it felt a

bit like a grind, but at the end of it, I got a little bit of Red's story. I understood Red more. I I I got the the vibe of it. Cat Dog theme in your head. Yes. My point here is this. I would rather find a million different ways to make this um the the want for moving forward in the story as the main story. If you don't care about what Yuthi's got going on, if you just want the main story, there's a million better ways than stopping the game and saying you're underleveled. Do you want to be leveled now? Basically calling out that you're not doing content. Uh and in a in my opinion, truly devaluing that content. There's ways to do that. like in the in the most recent version of um I think it was remake on the Switch 2 um I think there was an option in one of the myriad of Final Fantasy 7 redoss there was an option to

make every hit do 9,999 damage if you're playing just for the story that's a cool option right and you can do combinations of other things like that just to get through the thing if if the story if that's the point that this is trying to solve. That is an option and there's a million other options. What I would rather and I'll pass it over to Will in a second is if they if if they feel that a lot of people are complaining about having to do side missions, make the side missions more engaging. And if they're not engaging to the majority of players, don't make them. The problem here is that games are now becoming, especially large ones, they have to be, and I understand why, but it makes a worse game. If you're trying to make a game that appeals to absolutely everyone, you will make a worse game than if you just were appealing to some

people. I yield my time to Will be B credits. Okay.
To rebut.
Great. Excellent. I I think for me the I see a lot of people talking about how like this um devalues content or whatever. This is just a fancy way of doing a P&R, a point of no return, right? We already have those in games. We've kind of crossed that. I'm not a big fan of them, but there are definitely points, particularly in Final Fantasy games, where a point of no return occurs and you have like you're not allowed to like do any more business in the world, right? Right. I'm thinking about Final Fantasy 6 in particular, right? You can't you can't do any business in the first half of the game once you've blown up the entire world and had a time skip. Um, right. So, we've already kind of passed that point. And yeah, insert disc 2, right? Is a point of no return for for a lot of games. So, if we've already had those, this just feels like a more uh complete way to do that, right? Hey, you're about to pass the point where you

could do these side quests. If you don't do them, you'll be underleveled sort of thing. I'm not sure that's what's happening. I'm
Yeah, I don't know if that's working like that, but um
so I think the Yeah. Oops. missed that hidden ribbon. Yep. [laughter]
100%. The one that's off screen that you have to know to navigate for blindly in the dark. Thanks, FF6. Hate you two. I I love FF6, but I hate some of the design decisions in FF6 in particular. Um, yeah, like Shadow who is dead. Correct. Also, that um I killed Shadow in my playthrough of FF6 because I didn't know that you could wait for him because
why would you wait for him? There's a time or two.
Canonically dead.
Canonically dead. Um, so I feel like the while it's true that like those things, I don't think they designed this in a vacuum. They said that specifically that they designed they're adding this in response to player feedback, right? In response to a minority, but a loud

significant minority feedback on the previous games, which is, hey, it's cool that you've got all the side quest content, but that's not why I want to be here. I just want to get like I find the it's not that the side quest content isn't compelling. It's just that it is also kind of hard to like do the um to do the side quest when like the world is in danger, right? Sepharoth is going to summon meteor. It's up to we got to go gang. It's up to us. But first, we got to help this lady with her chickens, right? So, it's not that it's not like it it's not that it doesn't offer a compelling reward or that it can't possibly be compelling. is that if you're going to have a game with world ending consequences, at some point players aren't going to want to do the side quests, because there are again world ending consequences being suggested for the main story, right? If you have a truly compelling apocalyptic main story, side questing maybe not the most important thing. So, I feel like there are there are two sides to that

part. And I think that um I think it's it's good to to offer people those options to just get to like to to to do the thing where you barrel through and and and chase after like there is a certain harmony in chasing after saving the world regardless of what else is going on, right? And and giving players the option to play in that fashion I feel like is good. Um, now I I hope my my I will admit that my hope is that there is an option to turn the option at each checkpoint on or off. Like you can play in a mode where like you just can't do this at all and a mode where it is offered. Right. That's my hope. But we'll we'll see.
Yeah. And I don't think this is actually to be very clear. [clears throat] I mean there there I think the the things you're talking about I think are going to be two different things. I think there are times I'm I'm trying to remember I think in remake where they're like hey you can't go back after this like they tell you which is fine and good.

Um but I don't think that's going to be this I think it's going to be like you're about to fight Emerald weapon and you're not leveled enough. Do you want to be level boosted? And then I don't think that's going to lock you I'm making stuff up and this is not a correct thing or timeline of anything that's ever been in Final Fantasy but like I don't think that would stop you from going back to let's say any of the disc 2 content before you fought Emerald Weapon. you would then just be level 20 instead of level 15 and you'd get to sort of do it. The thing that I sort of take umbrage with is not the ability to do what it's doing or the endgame of letting people go through just the main quest on its own, but it's the developer signaling to everyone who might not know this is even an option, hey, there's this side stuff that a lot of people don't like. Do you like want to do or do you just want to like skip it? Like, and if that's the case, make make your make the stuff if you care that much that you want to skip the

stuff you're making for some people, make that stuff more engaging.
And I know that's that's also I understand in a vacuum like development cycles are what they are, right? Like I you can't just make make infinite time and money to make something better, right?
But like you're kind of telling on yourself,
right? But I think it doesn't have to be, right? Let's say, okay, let's say we're doing the emerald weapon thing, right? And there there is um a thing, right? Hey, you're you're approaching an area that is significantly above your level. You have multiple options. Would you like to proceed anyway? There are side quests still available in these side quests will help you achieve the level. List all the side quests. Or if you'd like, you could simply level boost right there. Like if you present it in that fashion, I don't think it's a disservice to the content that exists. It's a way to prevent player frustration from running into like the le by accidentally going the right way. Right? I don't know about you all, but when I

play when I play a lot of uh games like RPGs or like I'm exploring a dungeon, right? The trick is to always go the wrong way first, right? Because when you go the wrong way first, you get all the stuff and then you go the right way, right? So like Elden Ring in particular is is all about this for me, right? I I don't want to follow the Bay Quest. I want to go the wrong way, right? But sometimes I accidentally in going the wrong way go the right way
and and then I'm like, oh, I wanted to do the other stuff, right? So in a game that's sufficiently complex, I think that is also an option to say like, hey, you've accidentally gone the right way.
I don't mind being told things like that and giving a bunch of options. I think I think my core problem is it feels like this is not born out of that. It's born out of people complaining they don't like the mini games. And listen, if enough people

don't like the mini games, don't make the mini games.
Right. But mini games are part of FF7's like identity.
I know. but that you're changing what the identity is at that point anyway. So what like do you know what I mean? Like grinding is part of FF7's identity, but they're getting rid of that. And I think that's a good thing. Like and I because I don't like I know we said grind for levels in this graphic. This started with grinding in RPGs or not. What the remakes do is not grinding.
Yeah.
It is. And and someone who said the point before which I think is the best point out of everyone here. Then why are there levels?
Yeah.
Like you know what? Like you could just make if you're making this game a more sort of actiony that you're doing it because there's a pedigree and you're trying to have cake and eat it too. Like if you want an experience that gives people a lot of these options without the lockout of this, you could the the less the the smaller your net you're

trying to c cast is the the more I don't even know what the right analogy is. the the wider net you cast, the more holes you're going to have because money and time is not infinite. And I think just like picking a lane would make me happier. Even truly even if it wasn't my lane, like just don't don't present an option. And to your point, Will, perhaps it's in the wording. If there were three options of I don't know, like whatever you said, like, "Hey, you're going here. You might not be ready. Do you want to try it anyway? Check out these side quests or level jump." Like that's the lightest touch that I'd be kind of like okay with because at that point you're you're it it's fixing the damage that I

think it does by doing something that is also good and special which is letting people know there are side quests.
Yeah.
Do you know what I mean? Um I don't particularly love the UI in in Rebirth. Um, I find like clicking through all the menus to get to all the things is a little bit cumbersome because there's a lot going on.
Yeah.
Like in a way it would also while giving people the option to skip them if they just wanted to go straight through, it would also alert people if it was presented in that way. If it's just you're not ready for this, do you want to level up? I have a problem with that because you are you are literally just saying the rest of the game to get to this point isn't worth you playing. And at that point, why did you make it?
Okay, I have a question.
Yes.
Would the problem remain if uh it wasn't a

like a like a big UI box, but was instead Tifa training,
right? Like is there some like Christopher says like make it diagetic,
right? Yeah. like instead of instead of um hey uh you it's like are you ready to leave town? We've got some extra time. We could go training and then you get like a training montage or even a training miniame, right?
Like I think it is structurally like you could fix Yeah, you can fix Okay, let's let's pretend the chicken miniame cuz it's stupid. I don't think it's I think it's dumb. But I want the story from Red.
Change it. You're walking and all of a sudden Red comes up to you and he's like, "I smell something weird and I'm hungry." And you're like, "You don't have time. Chef Ross's doing the thing." And Red just takes off. And you're like, "Follow Red." Like or like you like something like that. Like you get into the story of him finding the chicken in

a way that's not just like some like I feel like the way that oftent times these mini gamess are presented is very very very slow and monotonous. Even if the miniame itself could be fun, I feel like there's ways to be like, "Hey, we've heard a lot of people don't really like the mini games, we're working on making them more engaging." [laughter] Like, I'd rather that
use squats.
Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] Right. Um, so maybe it is.
I love how we build this as a nerd fight and we're like working collaboratively to like try and find a middle ground that everyone's happy with.
Well, I I don't know. Like the interesting thing about this particular nerd fight is I think I speak for both of us when I say we see the other person's point.
Yeah.
But we do sort of feel strongly that like in like your opinion is like this is a good thing, right? Like you you'd prefer it to be presented in a specific

way, but overall it's a good thing. And mine is I would prefer they find the solution to the problem they're trying to solve in different ways.
Yeah. and some of which they've already kind of done. And because I I I feel like, and I could be very alone in this, I feel like it presents the idea that they're saying that some of the game you bought isn't worth everyone's time. And if that that could be true, but then make less stuff and make the extra stuff you make worth more people's time. Or you could let it be spiky, right? That's what MMOs do. That's what big open world games do. You make you make some things that are not going to be for everyone and you make those systems optional.
There's there is an entire zone in 14 that's a that that is literally the gold saucer. You never have to engage with it

at all, but you can
in seven and eight. You don't have to fight the weapons. I think beyond. But if you want to do a super hard thing to get a cool material,
yeah, you have to fight emerald and you don't have to fight ruby or diamond.
I forget what I forget what the It's been years, but like Yeah,
I think you have to fight one of the weapons, but Ruby I believe is uh
I would almost rather You know what? I This is what I'd rather. I got it. I have the solution. Why didn't I think of this sooner? Make experience if you got to do levels and pretend like levels and numbers matter in these games now, like which they don't really seem to really think that they do. Make the main quest level you up enough to make those numbers go up. And you're always ready to fight whatever the next story beat is. But if you do the extra stuff, it makes those fights easier because you did the extra stuff.

You have gear or other options or you unlock a special um one of the one of the best examples from OG Final Fantasy limit breaks, right?
Oops. Did you say that beforehand? Why did I have the main quest? Yeah, said it right before me. Yep.
But yeah, like right like do that because that's less obtuse. Like that's less spiky in my opinion. And that gets sort of everyone kind of what they want. I think there might be a group of people that I'm not thinking of that maybe that would rub the wrong way. But normally I would imagine completionists like myself that want to do something that might be tedious or like a lot more other like extra stuff would enjoy the power boost that something like that would give later on. And you'd have the option truly of like if you got special gear from doing these things and you want a challenge, don't wear the gear, right? Like

I don't know. I don't like it. I DON'T LIKE THE WAY IT'S WORDED. And again, I think I think that we're going to see when the game comes out in April, right? Like we're just we're just we're we're guesstimating at this point.
Will I really hope it's something like you laid out? That would be great because it would point people to it and maybe more people would see it than missed it on the map.
Yeah, that that that is my hope. Well, because I think uh I think Meling said it the biggest thing that I think we both agree on on this is that the communication of this mechanic and the way that it's laid out to the player is everything.
Yeah. And like you can really botch this or really smooth it over in the way you present it, whether it's diagetic or not, how it's um suggested as the main option or a backup option, whether or not it tells you that there are side quests, whether or not you can um like whether it's a point of no return or merely a arbitrary gate that you get to

open and then go through, right? All of these are Yeah. Um,
so at this at this point, should we ask for a vote of who thinks this is a good idea or a bad idea? Now, it's funny because if I was writing the polls for this, it would be like I agree with Will, but Matt made some good points or I agree with Matt, but Will really said some smart stuff cuz we're kind of like we're really bridging the aisle even though I think uh we're both kind of like hard set on on our particular sides of things. Is the third option sympathy is the third option uh I still I still don't care about this.
Yeah. Yeah.
Right. Cuz like that is another one like that some for some people it doesn't change anything because they're going to play the game that they were they the way they were going to play it and they're just going to keep going and ignore that this exists, right? Which is I think in my camp and that it's good that it exists for other people but like not like you're not going to use it.
How about we do this? Can we set up

polls on Twitch and YouTube and we understand truly we'll just say like is Will Wright or is Matt right?
Yeah,
but we understand that we're not actually fighting. [laughter]
Does that make sense? Just cuz I don't want to make it I don't want to make it more complex than it has to be. But I feel like in every nerd fight we should have uh Brad and Janet vote in real time. And actually Rocky message us on Blue Sky if you'd like to get your word in edgewise on this. You can message me or Will. We'll get back to you and talk to you about this because it's something that like I don't know, man. It's [laughter] ever since Will was working on the short about this, I was just like, "This is bugging the hell out of me."
Yeah. Uh
yeah, we need a Chiro meter. Get Get Chandler in here. Get Get abolish everything. Oh my gosh.
All right, there are now polls. We will continue on with our other
We'll continue with the next story and

then we'll come back and get the answers to the polls
cuz the next story is not terribly long.
Not terribly long. It's just annoying because
Yep.
We might be gaming the law.
Oh, that's the part.
Is it not it?
No, it is. But I wasn't. It's fine. We might [laughter] some real gremlin energy up in here today. And you know what? I'm here for it and I hope that you are too. Chat, we're talking about uh everyone's least favorite uh gaming the law personages, the house of mouse. This barely this stretches the cadruli of gaming the law as a topic because it is sort of interesting what's happening and there are some customer protection laws that will maneuver around it. However, um this was a headline that was going around all this week.
Yeah. So Disney Plus has clarified in

their European subscriber agreement that regardless of what tier you're on, basic or premium, they are now permitted to show you pre and post content advertisements for other things. So you can be like, I want to watch Moana. and they're like, "Hey, have you watched our National Geographic stuff?" So, like trailers and then an ad for other stuff when um when you're done. Uh and that now I'm giving it the most charitable interpretation possible that they're advertising you other content on Disney Plus. That is not necessarily true. they could sell you things and also stuff
on your ad free um
right on your adree yes accounts.
So there's a couple things here. Um,

one, uh, when I first saw this headline, what I thought was Disney was sort of going cuz I think isn't Disney and ESPN kind of the same? Doesn't Disney own I'm trying to remember like there's a bundle or something. And I was like, "Oh, well, for sports, it's funny. My parents just got Netflix for some NFL stuff and they got the no commercials plan on Netflix." And then when my dad was watching football and there was commercials, he got real mad and I was like, I see I see the disconnect, but like football and live sports are like they're they're doing nothing during commercial breaks like right like you're not going to they're not that's always going to be there. I thought maybe perhaps this was Disney sort of prepping itself to do more live sporting events through ESPN or like other thing, right? You know what I mean? Um but apparently it is just to show you know commercials over the beginning and the ends of this. Now

every other streaming service already does this in their in in their ad free campaigns. They will show you normally commercials for other things on their service. Um and Disney feels like it's like a catchup. But for whatever reason I think this stuck in the crow of a lot more people. And I think I know why. Even though this article in the show notes here from IGN does clarify this. Um I think this got a lot more traction because Disney Plus as a service is also something that parents very much rely on. And I don't think parents were comfortable with if you're going to do a marathon of Blueie having commercials for other shows or other things on their in front of their kids.
Yeah. Uh, apparently though, from what I understand, I want to find this section. There is a Disney kids account.
Yes.
That does not have this included with

it.
Correct. This is only like plus proper not kids.
Yeah. which thank goodness for small wonders,
but that's also not a catch-all for you an adult because if you put it as a kids thing, you're not going to be able to watch some of the shows because you're on a kids account.
Both of you to assume that I want to watch Disney Plus for anything other than a Bluey marathon anyway. I'm a burned out millennial in 2026. Bluey is love. Bluey is life. Who's with me, chat? Like, come I want to see I want to see the last season of Daredevil Born again and that's about it right now.
Okay. All right.
Um yeah, so this this is just another sort of like slow crouching of initification, but it is an interesting one because I think that was one of the things that led a lot of the the scare around it and Bluey is fantastic.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh by the way, we we have now um ended the poll as we predicted Matt. We actually we we

discussed this in the in the when we were setting this up.
Janet agrees with you 56 to 44.
Okay.
Brad agrees with me 57 to 43.
WOW.
SO IT'S GREAT. So all in all the
fact has been fulfilled.
It's roughly a tie. Yeah.
But I feel like it's very interesting that Janet agrees with you and Brad agrees with me but like in similar ratios.
Yeah. I Yeah.
Platform bias. [laughter]
Interesting.
Yeah. Very Yeah, it's it's very interesting.
I like this. This is a good This is a good nerd fight. Thank you everybody for participating and thank you for everybody for your uh your your you know contributions in chat because
yeah that was great.
It it's really fun to like that story and that discussion is the kind of thing I want this show to be more of. the industry is fighting tooth and nail to not make the the interesting

conversations about the actual games.
Yeah.
If they just stop hurting people, we could talk about video games in a purer sense.
Um anyway,
yep.
Wonderful.
100%. Uh cool. that. Can we Can we be done screaming about the the Disney Plus? Can we?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm done. I'm done.
Okay, cool. Great.
Oh, but but don't worry, Will. The next section's a real upper.
Yeah, that's what I always think when we bring on the bad news.
WHAT DO WE GOT, WILL?
Do we get to use my favorite graphic again?
We do. much though. I wish we did not. All right, let's talk about Discord. So, this is in bad news for a reason, but we should

also be clear that they did
they did do good.
They did do good.
There was some good good things.
Yeah. Okay.
Just not the second half is bad because they did good for probably bad reasons.
Yeah. Okay. So, age verification is rolling out on Discord. And in line with all the feedback they got the last time they announced this, they are doing better.
Yes,
they're doing better. So, they laid out the process by which they believe 90% of Discord users will not need to do anything.
Yep.
Nothing.
And there's multiple ways now. Oh, sorry.
Yeah. And I'm in that 90%. I can confirm that I didn't have to do anything. And Discord was like, "Hey, your account's old enough. You're an adult. Great. Awesome.
How do we how do I see that? Nothing's changed for me."
If you go into your Discord account, you click on the cog for user settings. Go to account status. Above account standing, you should have

a thing that says age group. You might
in account.
Yeah. Uh account account status.
Account standing.
Yeah. And then above account standing, you should have an age group thing. And it may not show that yet because not everyone has it.
No, it says
Oh, no. You're in the adult age group, so nothing changes for you. Okay.
Yeah. Um, so a lot of people have it. Not everyone does, though. Um, and uh the the methods that they've outlined for how you can choose to verify your age if you're in the undecided group or mistakenly get labeled as a teen are pretty manifold. You can do the things they said you could do before if you want to. But if you don't want to, you can verify your age through the Google Play Store or the Apple Store with the Apple Store. Both of those are legit. You can verify through Google Wallet if you've already got your ID set up through Google Wallet or you can verify through K ID using either their age pass feature
or

you can give them a credit card. They run the credit card past Stripe. Neither Discord nor K ever sees your credit card. Stripe just tells them that the credit card exists and is owned by an adult and that's it.
So,
so wonderful options for figuring out age groups on Discord. Good job. No Skeletor meme at this point.
Correct. So, uh,
but Will,
yeah.
Oh, sorry. You got one more. Oh, and I was just going to say they they do have a blog in which they outline all the technical stuff if you are interested in technical stuff. We should put that in the show notes as well.
Yeah. Um, so that's Yeah. Great. Awesome.
Um, so that's great. So, Will, why then do you think I mean it's so good that this happened because now like it's not gonna they're not going to have some force-feeding things down your throat and we can all know the age groups and people so content can get specifically to age groups that that that um I won't say want it but that like I don't know maybe governing bodies find appropriate for specific age groups now uh you know

not not necessarily like you know new discords to join or like cool places and people to meet but you So, like really what we're all on Discord for which is the ads,
right? So, now there's another feature which you can go to your uh data and privacy tab to see. Um, and you can go down to manage sponsored content and tell Discord that you don't want to see ads for real money gambling like FanDuel because this age uh verification multitude of ways you can do it comes just in time for Discord to start advertising gambling sites. Hooray. Um, you can turn it off. You can you can say you don't want to see it, which I've done, and that's great. I suggest you all do too. I want to show Discord that this is not a profitable move for them because it is predatory.

Um
um Oh. Oh, hold on. I should probably bring this up.
Yes.
If you don't see this, it's probably because you're in a place with reasonable insane laws that says that they're not legally allowed to do this.
Yeah. Uh like
I was
the EU probably.
Yeah. Um
uh I want to find the thing because also I was very proud of like uh Mani did something very wonderful, right? Oh uh yeah, New York just sued Poly Market
as well.
Yeah.
Uh because these like I know things have gotten deregulated out the wazoo,
but the you're it's gambling. If I have to turn off real money gambling in Discord, that's you telling me that it's gambling that you're advertising.
Yep. So, uh, people in chat missed it. So I will I will say one more time
in your user settings the data and privacy section if you go down to sponsored content there is a there is a

um manage sponsored content section where you can turn uh you can add real money gaming to the list of things you do not wish to see.
What's so funny is I went to go do that. and I just clicked the box expecting there'd be a drop down or something and it just filled in real money gambling which to me says if it's aggregated across all users of what people cuz I never typed those words like perhaps like it's just the thing that everyone's turning off also uh this is hilarious and sad I go to turn this off and see a FanDuel ad cool yeah they got to get you right before you leave
this is just crappy and and it's a bad Like like
you were so close, Discord. You were you could have waited a week. YOU COULD HAVE WAITED A week and it would have been better.
Like I can't say with with full authority that like oh the reason why they wanted age restriction is so that they could advertise

uh gambling on their site. I don't I actually don't think that's the case. However, the timing makes it really look bad. Like it's it's just like Yeah. Like to Will's point, wait a week, Discord. Like that's some that's some thirsty for some gambling advertising money. Uh yeah, because it's you're literally advertising something that has the capacity to uh really hurt people.
Yeah. Um and yes, there were there have been an acceleration of laws passed that demand that social media providers verify age, which is one of the reasons that Discord's been doing it. Um, yeah. Real Money Gaming is not gambling. Real Money Gaming, pardon.
Oh, my bad. My bad. Yeah. And yes, so someone asked, um, FanDuel is a gambling site in and of itself. Yes, FanDuel is a one of the most insidious kinds of of of gambling um site in that you can bet on

sports matches from your phone. Boo. No bad zero points. We are
core fan duel offerings. Sports books. You can place real money bets on professional and college game outcomes, point spreads, and player statistics. Online casino, you can play traditional casino games like online blackjack slots, roulette, and live dealer tables for real money. And you can do daily fantasy sports and faceoffs, which I don't know if that actually Oh, you can win cash prizes. Yeah.
Cool.
Yep. This is
cool. Discord.
This is the This is the the Believe it or not, I actually have a kind of gambling I hate more than this, but we'll save that for another rant another day. In case anyone's wondering, it's um box breaks.
Box breaks.

There's a new kind of thing that that people are doing with card games, with TCGs and with sports cards, where you purchase part of a box based on like say say I want all the Baltimore Orioles cards in a box of baseball cards. Um, I can purchase just the Baltimore Orioles sight unseen and get all of the Baltimore Orioles cards from that box. So, I'm gambling on gambling
fun.
Yeah, it's it's it's real bad. Yeah, it's real. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Also, I I think I think this this sums up most of us. I have no money for FanDuel. I buy MY TORVEN FORGE.
YES.
YES. That is This is the way. That's not gambling at all. That's just buying something that you'll be able to enjoy with your kids and your grandkids one day.
Yeah. God, I love I was so I Sorry right now. I'm going to go to Dorbid Forge kick their Frontier comes out comes out very soon. Their Kickstarter for it and

I have their um uh Cities Reforged coming in soon from their last Kickstarter.
And uh I realized that I am completely I live in a small New York apartment. I don't know where I'm going to put this stuff, but um I realized because I haven't been playing a D and D game like my curs game ended uh beginning of this year. I miss building like I miss building terrain for games and like to the point where I was like do I just like I don't I'm not dying to run a game right now but I'm like do I just like do I just write like a oneshot so I could like build stuff and have people come over and look [laughter] at these builds
and play them of course. Uh but I just I I miss building so much. Um and you could just do it for fun and take pictures but uh my camera sucks. uh which says, "I thought you were going to play about prediction markets." In my mind, that's the same thing.
Yeah.
Prediction markets are just a way to circumvent um some amount of regulation to essentially do the same thing that

FanDuel does.
Yeah.
Um except for more stupid things.
Doride, uh does your wife know you buy random D and D knickknacks? First of all, they are not random. They are very curated. Second of all, yes, she played in my four-year Curse of Strod campaign. And third, she really doesn't like how much Doran Forge is taking up the closet. We're working on it. Um, we're working on it. It's a It's a It's a compromise. Marriage.
Yeah.
I have to compromise by getting a larger [clears throat] storage unit. Um, [laughter]
all right. Let's, now that we've had a wonderful pallet cleanser, uh, let's let's go on to the other piece of bad news for this week, um, which is this box. [laughter]
What a what a shitty box.
What a terrible box. All right. So, this box, this box is $400 US.
Will, does it come WITH THE GAME?
NO, IT DOES NOT, MATT, BECAUSE THERE is no physical copy of Grand Theft Auto 6, and this is a physical box of stuff.
WILL, WHAT'S IN THE BOX?

I DON'T EVEN REMEMBER. I'm just annoyed.
Can I read you the word slurry that is in this box?
Please read me the word slurry that's in this box. What a Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool. Sorry I clicked. There's also a vinyl and CD set that also is not in this box. Um,
a physical [laughter] vinyl set, by the way. Grand Theft Auto 6 won't get a physical release. Will get a physical soundtrack. Make it make sense. Keep going.
Put the whole game on vinyl, you cowards. Okay, here we go. So, what do you get for a $400 box again? Maybe I'm not following the story of this unreleased game yet enough. So maybe this makes sense to someone in the audience here. A ma maka the gator figure. Oakley frog skin sunglasses. Uh Leon uh Leonita key crossbody bag. Keys cross body bag. New era 940 snapback hat. Maka the Gator magnetic mirror. Chunky the manatee shot glass. Vice City

collectible swizzle spoon. Vice City razor blade keychain. Uh, Leonita Key enamel pin set in metal tin. Leonita key sticker pack in stash bag. Double-sided souvenir poster with map of Leonita.
I love I love collectible uh dude drug paraphernalia. I love I love the the razor blade keychain and swizzle spoon. If you if you put all of what the what this manu like what the cost of this manufacturing wise, there is no way everything in this box costs more than $40 to $50 to actually manufacture at scale.
Right. I like I like some of these responses. A lot of stuff that nobody wants. Got it.
Uh there's been some comments on the Kotaku article about this. I want to I want to give a shout out uh if I can still find where it is. Like swizzle spoon sounds like bargain brand flickle sticks. And why is the

spoon swizzling?
Why is the spoon swizzling? That's a great question. You know, uh, [panting] Rage Score Midriff would definitely know. Um, there was a comment I can't find on the Kotagago article that's like, "Man, I hope scalpers eat all these up and then just have garages full of them because no one buys them."
Yeah. Yeah. Uh,
so so I I I I want to I want to address something because I think Dragon's got a good point. Separating the merge box from the game perspective is smart. That's 100% smart. Final Fantasy 14 has done a while. It makes sense from a skew perspective. 100% all of that is true.
Agreed. However, it becomes it feels infinitely tonedeaf when they're pushing the we don't need physical games because physical media is dead thing and then pushing a $400 box

of poorly constructed merch. What we assume is poorly constructed. We haven't seen it.
Connected to the thing that you said shouldn't be physical.
Right. So, it's like that
it also
feels disingenuous like unlike and and it also feels like Rockstar has burned most of their goodwill. Um unlike Square with 14, right? And like I'll be the first one to take Square to task when they screw up with 14 because they've definitely screwed up with like some stuff and I'll absolutely take him to task. But this feels worse. Also, very important fun fact, the past tense of swizzling is swazzled.
Swazzled. Well, I feel quite swazzled about this because here's the thing. Not that I want this game to be sort of digital only, of course, but if you're doing this, and you you here's here's the interesting thing. Why not include a digital copy of the game in this box? Now, the the waiting, right? We just

sort of talked about like, oh, if you order this, maybe it'll be delayed or whatever. But like there's ways you could also like you could get the copy uh you could get your digital copy in an email and get this box. Do you know what I mean? Like it costs them nothing.
Yep.
To do that. Yuck. Like it's just stupid and bad and I don't know.
Yep. Okay, that that's it. We're we're done with bad news. I'm I'm taking away your bad news uh your your bad news permissions for the rest of today.
That's right. No more. Yeah. So, actually, is it true? Yeah. There's three stories left and they're only good news.
Correct. All good news. Ready, steady, good news. All right. Cool. Great. Excellent. Awesome. Uh I got tired of bad news. We were on too much bad news for too long.
Just kidding. Bad news. Will and I aren't done with Destiny yet. Yeah,
because good news, the team isn't done

with Destiny yet. [laughter]
Yeah. So, Bungie came forward hat in hand this week and said, "Y'all, we goofed. We goofed big time. We goofed on a lot of angles. We goofed. And here's how we're going to make it right." They're beginning by beginning the process of unvaulting all the Destiny 2 content. Now,
not all of it.
Not not all of it. All of the expansion content, seasons will remain vaulted.
Seasons will remain vaulted because they're seasons and that's a sort of thing that tends to happen throughout. Although I know that some places do let you rerun through seasons.
Correct. So, uh, and absolutely, I'm with Ninja on this. I wish they got rid of everyone who worked on Destiny. 100%. And they expressed that they also screwed up in that respect. Um, now it is this the best it could have been, the best that this way could have gone? No, absolutely not. Should we still la them

for seeing the light and making a good choice now? Yeah. Because we want them to continue down this path, right? We're not saying it's the best thing ever. We're not saying it's the best thing since sliced bread. We're not saying it's the best thing since Destiny 2 released. We're saying that this is a good choice by them to begin restoring content to Destiny 2, to continue working on it, to get Destiny 2 back to a place they're happy with. Right. This is uh I think that's good. They're also working on Marathon, though I am less familiar with Marathon. They're they're not happy with how Marathon released or how it launched, which makes sense because Marathon is currently getting their teeth absolutely kicked in on PC at least. Um, I looked yesterday while I was researching this. Marathon had fewer than 1,500 concurrent players when I looked. Compared to War Dogs, 250,000. So, teeth kicked in. Uh, Marathon did

not do well and they it needs a real overhaul or they are probably going to have to can it. Um,
yeah. So,
uh, and so here, uh, Poria Turkin and, uh, Josh Dean are seen here on this couch, and you know it's serious because it's people on YouTube on a couch with serious faces. Um,
one of them almost grabbed a ukulele.
Look, I like I I want to It's the the the format is dunkable. I think what these guys are doing is not. Um, I think that Oh, God. And it's so funny. I was just I just looked it up to find their names exactly and I looked at the original video from Bungie has 1.1 million views which is great. Uh Moist Critical's response or or view of it very unexpected great news called has 2.6 [laughter]
right well one of them has Moist Critical in it and the other one doesn't.
I know it's just funny. Um so um in Charlie we trust uh the

this to me and watch the video for yourself. We'll put it in the show notes. I'll throw it in there right now. Um, the this to me feels earnest in a way that many of these kinds of things don't often. Um, I think these guys, the two guys we see on screen here, whether it be them or people above them or around them, are taking responsibility. And you can see sort of the weight of um failure for to people that they care about kind of on their faces. Uh specifically Josh. Josh on the right. There's moments where like they're reading off a prompter. Let's not get it twisted. But like you can tell how emotional this dude is getting. And I don't know the thing that I don't understand from the story yet is like, okay, so they're doing this and the team

is gutted. Like how much runway do they have? who who amongst that like did they get enough of an influx to do this like like I'm sure that unvaulting content is cheaper than making brand new content but like because they're going to do it for free. Anyone who bought the Destiny things who have it get it back, right? So like who who's funding this if Destiny is such a a failure in its monetary value? Like that I I don't know how they have runway essentially. And is it all the layoffs? Like now that they don't have to pay a bunch of people, do they have like is it a sustainable thing that they can do with an incredibly small team and then slowly build back up like that? Maybe that's what it is.
Yeah. I I am I am also uh wondering about like funding. Um it could be that contracting the team

combined with making the all-in-one Destiny 2 bundle for everyone who wanted to play Destiny 2 when it was a fixed singular thing was enough to give them more runway, right? Like Yeah. I wonder, do we we don't have sales numbers, nor can we figure out like what that package did.
Yeah,
I'm sure it did pretty well.
Yeah.
Um
yeah, I don't know. Um I I think this is a good move. They're also talk in the on the marathon on the marathon side of things, they're talking about how they want these two games to sort of live in um tandem. And I think Marathon being sort of an extraction shooter um they I think they want to lean into the things that they think make Marathon special more than the things that possibly their previous parent company

thought would make it profitable. that they're not quite saying that that's the vibe I'm getting from what they're talking about. I haven't played any Marathon.
I would I would love nothing more than if Marathon kind of turned it around and started getting a good word of mouth and some buzz again and try it out and have some fun in there. I love the concept of Extraction Looters. I think uh uh Hunt Showdown is still one of my favorite sort of like games in that genre. So like anything that's a little bit faster paced and a little bit more sci-fi coded, I'm there, right? I don't really do the regular military shooter ones. It's just not my vibe. Um, but I like the look of Marathon. Marathon is obviously some an IP that is important at the core to the folks at Bungie. Um, and I feel like they might have been hamstrung by Sony in their live service initiative.
Yeah.
Which, side note, everyone failed with the exception of Hell Divers 2, which checks notes was not in their live service initiative. Um, so I don't know.

I I I I was glad to see this come out.
I agree.
Um, Destiny is a is a is a special game to a lot of people. Um, and I I would like to see it continue.
I concur.
Even though I bought what I thought would be the last game of Destiny. [laughter]
Yeah, 100%. I Yeah, I'm I'm 100% uh concur.
Uh, okay. And then we didn't talk about it much last week because I kind of wanted to see a little bit more because the other the other stuff we talked about from Blizzcon last week was sort of for the future. Um and it turns out that forever is now
the future is wow.
The future is wow. Wow. Forever apparently uh solves and I can't believe I'm saying this might actually get me to take another look at WoW because it solves one of the biggest problems in my opinion with WoW which is that I don't

like any part of the art style and the WoW forever is sort of their test bed for a new visual overhaul which apparently by all accounts looks gorgeous.
I'm also pumped for controller support. So Jay over at DesignDelf has been doing a mod that lets him play WoW with the controller and has been loving it. Um, and I'm very excited to see what that actually sort of feels like.
Um, I this is nostalgia goggles and who knows if it'll last. I have always really loved the first 60 levels of the core game and probably Lich King honestly. Uh the Burning Crusade's fine. Um the most out of all of my WoW journeys and to have that be sort of not remade but adjusted with even like lighting and some texture stuff and water. Um [laughter] hey Jay, uh we were singing the praises of your controller play uh on on World of

Warcraft. Um, I think that the combination of all of these things and well, I still want to do a hardcore run. Um, I I think that that might be the thing that gets me back to it. What do you got, Will? What do you got?
I'm going to say some cursed words in a sentence, and I'm going to need Brad to forget that I said them.
Okay.
Hardcore WoW Subathon. Will, that's a horrible idea. One second. [laughter] [snorts] [sighs] Will, that's just an awful idea. And you should be ashamed. You should be ashamed for thinking of it. How dare you? How dare How dare you think of that?
Uh, you make you make me sick.

[laughter] No. No. He He didn't mean it. He didn't mean it.
He didn't mean it.
Hold on. I have to go stab it back into its ice shard that is literally right next to my desk.
Yeah,
it's 18 pounds. But
don't stab your green screen.
Too late.
Uh yes. Um but yeah, no, like it it's good. I think everything I've seen out of um WoW Forever is good. I think the idea of horizontal progression that they're taking um from uh a lot of places, most notably Guild Wars is good. Um the idea that you get to 60 and then it's all horizontal. I also kind of like the idea that like it's just level 60 forever. So I can have a war band that's one of everything. Like if I want to, right? Like I can get I can get the whole thing set up and then it's all max level and we're done with leveling, right? If I

want to, right?
Uh side note, S, I have a Frostorn because some very lovely friends years ago bought it for me as a birthday present. They all chimed in cuz I was super hardcore into WoW. Uh Matt, did the sword just squeak? Uh kind of. It drew green screen blood and it did not cut my green screen, but it did scratch it. That thing, this frostboard has made more of my friends bleed and hurt more. Like it's so canonically correct. Like I I it's never cut me, but it's cut a lot of people. [laughter]
Uh by the way, um Jay's in for hardcore. Yeah. So, all right. And I think we'll start. Yeah.
I think what might be fun is essentially doing a hardcore server of friends. um that like I think doing a subathon is like a really good move like and doing that would be a really fun thing cuz we were looking for something. The other idea for our subathon was playing all 96 uh tracks in a row of Mario Kart 8 now that you can do the 96 uh tour.

Yeah. By the way, I I do like this. I like leveling more than endgame content because I um like the experience of being a little lady hunting rats and doing fantasy errands in a big beautiful world more than I like being one of 40 400,000 godkilling deities fighting the legions of darkness. You know, you're not wrong. And that is that is a thing that gets lost in a lot of MMOs except weirdly for Runescape. Runescape never loses it because like chores are a part of the core gameplay, right? But like
doing the Yeah.
Yeah. Uh, Winry, that's such a wonderful way to put that because for me, the godkilling is the end. And then no matter how cool the next godkilling is, it's still godkilling. And like from a scale perspective, you're like, I didn't I
power this power scaling in MMOs is impossible.
Well, not even not even just power scaling, like story story scaling like,

oh, we killed God. Well, now we killed the god's god, but now we're going to kill the god's god's god. And did you know we're going to kill time now? Because that's kind of higher than a god. Like it's just it where do you go?
Actual factual canonical example. We killed the incarnation of the notion of despair at the edge of known time and space in 14 and then went on vacation to America
fudged.
Right. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Um Yeah. Something something Dragon Ball. Correct.
So anyway,
I mean it's good.
I'm I'm excited for I don't know.
I think it's great. Okay. Uh and then last up
speaking of making rocks bleed.
Yeah. I mean I guess that is kind of what we're doing.
So this this PC gamer article, I read it and I knew we had to talk about it.
Yeah. So, [clears throat] uh, Minecraft YouTuber Red Logic has made a simulation of Minecraft that runs at an accelerated

pace. Um, it runs beyond absurdly fast. I'm pretty sure he's given up reg I'm pretty sure it doesn't graphically render um because that's the way to make it the fastest. But it's a Monte Carlo simulation of a world with a specific seed that has a completed end portal. And the experiment was if given a world with a completed seed with a completed end portal, because that's a thing mobs can't do, will the game eventually beat itself? And the answer is yes. If you give it a billion years, two billion years, 1.975 billion years, um, of game time, it will actually beat itself. Um, and I I love this. I think this is

just the coolest. So the the what what what happens is um a enderman after after seven times the length of recorded human history an enderman picks up a pumpkin and accidentally makes a snow golem and the snow golem eventually falls through the end portal and
that's two years later
right and then when it falls through um the
oh sorry no that's way more years later it accidentally which can fire project the snow golem becomes sentient 2 years later, but then it jumps to I think like 2,000 years later for the snow golem to provoke a creeper and blew up in a section of the route to complete to the completed end portal.
Correct. So, okay. So, now um we're we're at year 1,300,000. The enderman slowly begin building a path up from the platform where you spawn in the end to the end island. And then the snow golems get up that and then
that's three the three million years. a year or 3 million years um and uh begin

destroying the end crystals at 122 million years. Um eight of the 10 eight of the 10 end crystals have been destroyed. Um at year 199 million the last snow golem which has been wandering the end for 18 million years destroys the last end crystal. And at year 227 million, the first creeper makes it through that entire chain of stuff, gets the end island, and it blows up, hitting the dragon and doing four damage.
Now time gets real fun.
Yeah. Um because uh it takes a total of 1.975 billion years for Minecraft to beat itself and to kill the dragon, which is in that way.
In that way, which is amazing. I love that. It's so stupid and weird. Um and I I just love this.
Uh I love it so much. Uh how is it this likely? It's it's not it's it's not

likely at all. Right. This is uh this is a Monte Carlo simulation of the randomness inherent in Minecraft. There is no guiding force. This is just random things happening in Minecraft the way that they normally would if you left the whole world loaded and running with no player interference.
I'm I'm so happy. I'm so I'm so happy about this. I think it's great. So, um
what a fun gaming story to kick us off here at the end.
Absolutely. All right, everybody. That is going to do it for our stories this week. Again, if you're interested in a conversation about skill-based matchmaking, please join me and Jeff next Tuesday. We're going to be talking about skillbased matchmaking. We're going to be talking about the emotional implications for gamers of skill-based matchmaking. We're going to be talking about the petition to um remove skill-based matchmaking from the next Call of Duty. We've got a lot of things to talk about for that. So, please join us for that next Tuesday.
But what if perhaps you weren't sick of

Will and I yet? What if you wanted to join Will, myself, and uh Jess from Second Wind for some Slay the Spire 2 multiplayer as I start to not suck at this game a little bit less or more, however it makes me better. Well, we're going to be doing that right now over on Twitch. So, if you'd like to go see that, please come over there. If not, we'll see you next time for Games for Breakfast. Oh, will announcement here just so you know. And now for everybody else, there will not be a Games for Breakfast next week as I am traveling for some family stuff uh next Friday. Um I why we hadn't talked about that before. This just into will as well.
Um
we could talk about if that's what what that what that entails. Maybe we'll do something else. We'll
I was going to tell you coming up soon that I'm going to be gone the 9th. So we're probably not going to have a breakfast until the 16th.
We'll figure out a time to do something between then and now.
Yeah. Yep. Yep. Um, but until then, I guess all that's left is giving our, you know, end of games for breakfast call out that basically is the same thing we

do every week to foster a sense of community and camaraderie and go into the weekend just with real positive and good vibes. So, with that, thank you so much for watching Games for Breakfast. Oh god, what? Hold it. I keep
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