Playstation Done Disking Around, Krafton Cash & The KIDS Act is Awful | Games For Breakfast

[music]
Good morning, MATT.
AH, GOOD MORNING, WILL.
GOOD MORNING TO ALL OF YOU.
WELCOME TO GAMES FOR BREAKFAST, THE ONLY INTERNET TALK SHOW WHERE WE TALK ABOUT THIS week's gaming and tech news, but that also, I hate to tell you this, but in in in the later this year, uh Games for Breakfast will be changing. We are now only going to be on disc. That's right, the stream is stopping, and you will have to subscribe to an ancient Netflix-like service where we send you discs of our show in the mail, and then you have 5 to 7 business days to watch it and return it. I look, I'm sorry, uh but listen, we just want to give you more options. And by giving you more options, we of course mean taking away the convenient options that you already have to an option that makes us more

money.
That's right.
Yeah.
Right, right, right. I I like I like lots of these. Uh Glob says, "Deal if it's on vinyl." You know, fair.
You know what? No. You know, laser disc. I spoke too soon. We're mailing out laser discs.
Fly for Breakfast?
[laughter]
Extra Clet Credflex? What about international shipping? Um great question.
Interesting, you pay for it.
Yeah, right. Um let's see. Uh yeah, we're we're simply heating what the market wants, right? Yes.
Uh
How could WE DO ANYTHING ELSE?
KNOW when you open up a Games for Breakfast Blockbuster. True. True. You know, there is Matt, I don't know if you're aware of this, there is a simulator game where you run a video store in the '90s. It's legally not a Blockbuster, but it's a Blockbuster. And you can Yeah, you got to like stock new releases and rewind

tapes and check stuff in and like help people find movies that they want. It's like It's right up your alley.
I I kind of I kind of want that. Can I have that?
Uh yeah, it's it's on um
What's on Steam?
Yeah, it's Retro Rental Simulator. Thank you. Yes. Yeah.
I think I'd stream the hell out of that.
Yeah, right? Like I feel like
Sim Sim Sim Okay. All right.
Yeah. Yeah, we could definitely do that at some point. Thunder has already DM'd it to you. Thank you, Thunder. Thunder is on top of it.
Doing the good work.
[laughter]
We won't We won't begrudge any of you if today, first of all, happy pre-4th of July. Second of all, belated happy Canada Day.
Yeah, that's correct. North America is celebrating independence.
That's right.
By beating Great Britain in the World Cup, hopefully.
We'll see. We'll see.
Listen, listen.

Did Did you hear the US is playing Great Britain in the World Cup tomorrow in Boston?
That's pretty dope. I'm not a sports guy, you all know that, but I'm That's pretty historically uh
If they lose, the Great Britain team has to go in the harbor. Like that's just I don't make the rules, right? But like Um yeah. Uh
Well, regardless, uh we should probably What do you get? What do you get?
THE PENALTY SHOTS FOR THE REST OF THE WORLD. [laughter]
WELL, I HOPE YOU ARE HAVING, EVERYBODY, a a lovely, hopefully longer weekend than most. And thank you so much for joining us here today to scream into the void. Or perhaps uh if you were Wanda Maximoff, uh whisper into it. Um I, of course I'm talking about our first story which you've seen if you came from the thumbnail.
Yeah, uh well I I thought okay, that was

not the the throw to I thought that we were going to do cuz we got to do this.
What do we do?
[music]
Oh yeah, we do. We have those now.
Yeah, we do.
I couldn't hear it, but I hope everyone else could.
Uh I think every everyone else could.
All right. So um any any news about PlayStation come up recently will? Do you think um
Uh they're sunsetting the PS3 and the Vita.
YOU KNOW WHAT? LET'S TALK ABOUT THAT. LET'S TALK ABOUT that first. Sorry everybody, but that's also very interesting.
Yeah.
So uh the PS3 and the Vita stores have been active and you've been able to buy things on them digitally for uh I mean since they've been around. And there was a I I think it was in 2001 there was a big hubbub they were going to try to shut it down and everyone

uh complained and they said they wouldn't. There's something There's something like that, right? If I remember correctly. Um
[laughter]
Mr. Sony Pony wants the game / DLC we need to get before the shutdown. Um well honestly, if I remember correctly any Vita game. Because essentially cuz the Vita didn't have discs at all, did it?
I I mean I don't I You're asking me about a thing that is so not my wheelhouse. Wrong company, wrong format. Like I know nothing about the Vita. I am not a handheld person.
There's game cards. They had game cards. I forgot. They were like flash based kind of like uh
Crisis Core.
Yeah.
Think it did. Yeah, it was like chips.
Yeah.
But not the kind that you put salsa on.
No, no, that would be very bad. So, so, so the Vita, look, look, let's let's look at this. The PS3 came out roughly in 2006. That's a

20-year run, right? The Vita Let's see. Which I always wanted a Vita, but I never got one, was 2012. So, we're looking at a 20-year run and the less than 20-year run cuz the math on that is what? That's 14 14 years?
14 years.
Um We all know here, we've talked about a million stories about this before, um that essentially services due to companies needing to maintain bottom lines and and and based on use usage and what they're how they're making money off of etc., uh do need to shut down. In fact, I think of all the things we'll talk about with Sony today, uh I think this is the least egregious. Do I think there's less damaging ways to do this? Sure. You could uh make sure that uh you couldn't buy anything new, but a server would be up if you wanted to re-download your things. Or are they doing that?
They they are doing that. So, the the

shop is shutting down next year for both of those, but you will be able to download things you have already purchased if for a significant period of time longer. They're just not going to process payments through it, which
Uh and Evan, you might be mismexling up the PSP with the Vita. I had a PSP. The Vita was the second PlayStation handheld that that that came out, everyone loved, and then Sony, with many things it does, like like it kind of does a lot, just decided to stop supporting it and let it die. Yeah. Um It was really sad cuz it was a really good piece of hardware. The PSP I I really Yeah. What was that?
This is the way.
Yeah.
The better it is the more likely Google or Sony is to cancel it.
Yeah, of course. Cuz as we all know, based on the Netflix model, even if season 1 is a hit, season 2 is going to be more expensive, so you might as well just stop doing it. So, while this is sad, this is not

unexpected, and there seems to be an okay amount of time to re-download, try to get things as much as you can. So, yay Sony. You did a a slightly bad thing that was very expected, and if you drill down into the information, no one can truly attack you in an egregious way for doing so. It's a choice that people cannot be happy with, and that's totally fine, but it makes a certain amount of sense in the video game space.
But speaking of things that make no sense in the video game space that people can definitely attack Sony for, have been attacking Sony for, and should be attacking Sony for, hey Sony, what you doing with the discs, buddy? Hey hey buddy buddy, what you what you what you do what you do with all the discs, buddy?
I'd like to think they're hoarding them. I'd like to think that they don't want to sell them cuz they want to fill it in a Scrooge McDuck style silo, and then the CEOs just want to swim around in the discs.
See, I thought that they were going to melt all of them into something that

looked kind of like the Iron Throne, except it's just made out of DVDs, right? Or Blu-ray discs, I guess is what they're on right now. It's just like Chad, what what is Sony doing with all the discs they're not going to be making as of 2028? Wrong answers only. Uh put put some in chat to like bring some levity to this, otherwise
some levity here.
it's just going to be us raging. Like it's just going to be rage. Like I I feel like warranted, well-directed, coherent rage, right?
Well, I want to start our rage with a question before we go the machine entirely. Has a company that you've loved their product ever done something that has sort of made you question the entirety of your time engaging with their product? It's okay if the answer's no.
I don't think so.

By the way, I like some of these disk capacities being moved to AOL.
That's how it should be.
Um read-only data centers, also like it. Uh block out the sun ala Mr. Burns, great. Yeah, 100%. Uh world world's largest disco ball.
There you go. Uh Zara has a good one. Blizzard did for them, so that's very true. Um Sony might want to experiment burning human consciousness onto a bunch of disks cuz they need a bunch for that, I imagine.
Yeah.
Uh and Fen says frequently they've engaged with this.
know that there's um I don't know if there's a company that I have been like so enamored with that like it's its behavior has caused this this feeling.
So, I I I make jokes about being a Sony pony and I I mean in any sort of console situation I do I I I'll even say this even now, I think the PS5 is the best console. Just for me,

for my use case, for what it does, for the uh level of power and exclusives and ease and whatever, cool. Um but part of that truly is that even though it was now separate, uh it came with a high-quality uh 4K Blu-ray player.
Mhm.
That was part of the deal for me. I am big on physical media. Um my my my engagement with physical media in general now is I buy a lot of films and television shows, and I think I'm probably 60/40 when it comes to digital to physical. 60% digital I would say and about 40% um uh physical. To the point where uh I now, because apparently how you buy a game needs to be a statement cuz everything does, um anytime there is a Switch game that I want, even if it's out earlier digitally, you know, X Y and Z, I will buy the physical copy if it is on the disc or on the cartridge. Uh I

did that with Starfox, which we'll talk about a little bit later today. Um And and oftentimes uh through that there's some interesting things that can happen. Uh dare I say some lightly pro-consumer things that can happen. Um if you go to any of the major big-box stores, I wouldn't even say GameStop, I don't think fits into this, but like your Targets, your Costcos, your Walmarts, um they tend to maybe not the newest games, but they tend to have some games on sale. In fact, actually Costco for some reason had a bunch of Switch 2 games for like a week for like $20 off the list price. And that's the thing that Nintendo doesn't ever do, right? Um and that's one of the great things about multiple storefronts for pieces of media that you can only engage with on a single device. If you can buy things multiple places,

it's not that it's going to be sort of uh ubiquitous or will move the needle of like it's not going to make GTA 6 any cheaper, but like the the the idea that a company that wants to sell more little pieces of plastic could sell them for slightly less, that's an enticing proposition that kind of keeps in the undercurrent of things everyone a little bit more honest and not as price gougy as as as someone could possibly be.
Yeah.
And one of the things that I think Sony is trying to do by saying that after 2020 in January of 2028, they're they will not be making games on discs and they will be moving full digital is trying to completely wall off the garden. Um it's an interesting move because I don't think and we're going to see but I don't think that

a console as a completely walled off garden ecosystem, i.e. you cannot buy software for it anywhere but the company store actually will thrive. I think I'm not saying it won't work for a bit, but the greedies are going to get greedies and it's going to become too expensive for the mainline person to do and eventually it will shrink that corner of the industry.
How long do we think it'll take if the PlayStation 6 comes out and has no uh disc drive and no physical media support? How long do you think it will take for someone on the internet to find a way to like put a new derivative of Linux on it that lets you connect to uh to an external Blu-ray player through USB and like just remove

all of Sony's copy protection stuff?
So you can't like so there's always that, right?
Right. But like if it's easy enough
No, it will never it will never be easy enough for the layperson to do it. We've watched the inchitification of every possible At first I was just going to say entertainment uh medium, but kind of American life. I don't want to get too EP in in all of this, but like is there a single thing in the last 10 years on a on a larger scale, I'm not talking about individual accomplishments or moments of happiness, that has gotten better?
Hey Matt, maybe you should turn down the volume in this bus.
Like like
[laughter]
It's a little
Also, let me tell you about uh Democratic Socialism. No, the the
[laughter]
Listen, New Yorker. Listen, New Yorker. You're making IT ALL OF US jealous over here.
I listen, listen. Ramadani's killing it.

Uh But like my point my point is and not even like not that everything is egregious. There's some egregious things, of course.
[laughter]
What What do you got?
I like this. Hold on. Where is it? I got to grab it off the thing. Hold on. It's coming. It's coming. Uh uh Miguel says, "We at Sony want to give consumers the opportunity to upgrade our 500 GB consoles to help empower them with more transaction choices in this hardware crisis. Good news for anyone wanting the 600 GB GTA 6."
Yeah, right.
Yeah. Yep. Yep.
Um Someone did say uh uh solar panels have gotten way cheaper, which I I think they might have, but the subsidies went away in a lot of places.
Yeah.
Uh and uh weirdly, printers kind of suck less, but they were already at the bottom, I guess. I haven't really engaged with printers much.
3D printing.
3D printing's neat.
Yeah. That's like a thing that's gotten better.
Yeah.
Resin printing was like impossible.

Yeah.
Yeah. I'm not trying to be super depressing, but like I'll back up. When it was uh PlayStation We just talked about this on our Xbox episode, like making fun of Xbox trying to make it so you couldn't let people borrow games and live in their own little digital ecosystem. And Sony did the thing about like sharing the the disc, right? There was very clearly clear shot across the bow, made total sense. That was back I'm trying to remember the dates, we just went over them. Uh in the in the you know, 2010's area, right?
[clears throat]
Um that span of 10 years. I would posit, truly, not that there was not bad stuff going on then. Oh god, there was. But the vibe, the overall vibe around the video game industry, outside of thing like I'm talking about like the corporatization of it. I I I'm not even talking about like uh games journalism and Gamergate and like that all that garbage.

Like it was not as the the internet itself was not as hyper cynical, angry, etc. Like I I'm feeling there's a groundswell of no matter what side of any aisle you're on, there's a groundswell of anger and discomfort and unhappiness in the United States.
Yep.
So, I think like even back then, this didn't fly. And everyone was kind of more chill in this particular arena.
Yep.
I don't see how this works well for them. And I'm not even talking like like look, at the end of the day it's will people buy the thing. And people talk a big game, we know this about uh you know, who is going to engage with what, and people are all saying they're not going to buy the PS6, and they're not going to work do deal with Sony and all that stuff. And I hope everyone that's saying that is is being honest and sticks to their guns.

Um the thing that I think is different now is I think people in general have far less disposable income overall. So, if you have maybe half of the disposable income you have now as opposed to when this kind of thing was trying to be pulled before or something that you were mad about in the in a media space, and then you just kind of like had some money and you're like, oh well, I really do want to play this game. Like, okay. Like, that's an easier like get over your little moral hump than oh, I have groceries are now, you know, I'm paying $100, $200 more a week on groceries or whatever. I don't have the disposable income. Oh, Sony's doing something I don't like? Well, screw them. I'll find the cheapest option elsewhere to play a video game. Like, it's compounding, right? Like, it's not We are not in the same space. Everyone is more angry. There is less money to go around. And now they're trying to make it harder to get games.

What did Hold on. I just got Valkyrie for Bees has a beautiful take on this. This has made me want the Steam Machine much more than I did last week.
Well, we we're going to Actually, I was going to say we're going to get there. Let's get there now.
Yeah.
Um we know that the industry has been moving towards digital releases for a long time. What is it? 84% in the 2024, I think was it was it 2025 or something?
varies by publisher. I think Capcom released a study that it was like roughly 93% of their game sales were digital, right?
There is no question that game sales digitally are eclipsing eclipsing physical.
Right. And and and let's be clear. Maths largely in on physical media. I haven't bought a physical game in forever. And I'm still upset about this, right? Like
Because it affects everybody. Like, that I think the things that have been getting me the most sort of upset while sort of just reading up on all of this is people that are like, well, I buy digital, so it doesn't matter. And to that I say, and we'll get to the Steam Machine cuz I think I think

Valkyrie is I want to talk about that cuz that's very, very interesting. People are like, "I've been buying only digital games." It's like, well, no, you haven't.
Yeah.
You've been leasing digital games.
Right.
Now, there's a difference of how you lease that based on where you do. Let's talk about PlayStation. Yes, you can crack open your PlayStation if you know what you're doing, take that hard drive and download the files to a different PC to have them and try to tinker with them and do stuff and break your terms of service and do all that jazz, but it's very difficult to get something actionable and working for a layperson. Steam. You do have all of the files on your computer and do you need to have a uh does it need to be online? Does it need a couple DRM kind of things, etc. Like, yeah. Um but you can much more easily move those files around like you could

it for all intents and purposes like I I correct me if I'm wrong, Will. I could take my Steam library, take the files that it all has, move it to a completely new PC, log in on Steam, connect those games to that Steam to my to Steam on that, and it would just run.
Yeah. In fact, Steam Steam kind of does that for you. Like if you like it is very interesting. Um it'll automatically move files across your network if you are trying to install a game on a new computer.
Well, that's what I'm saying, but like you have control over how to move the data around to wherever you kind of want it.
Yeah, it's on my PC, I can do whatever.
Do you need Steam to play it? A lot of the times, yes. Sometimes, no.
But Steam can start in offline mode.
That's right. And the other thing is PC and Steam are not the same thing.
Yep.
There are multiple stores on PC that you can go to. You could go to Epic if you want. You could go to GOG. You could go to itch.io. There's all different kinds with actually

different levels of ownership of what you are buying, air quotes buying. But on PlayStation, on Nintendo, on Xbox, because there's only one place to get that digital thing and one place to use that digital thing, the lines are blurred there and we've seen, and we'll talk about a story in a minute that proves this point perfectly with Sony, that all it takes is them to just say, "Oh, no, we don't have this anymore." and you lose access to it. Heck, it doesn't happen all the time, but what should worry us is even all of us who run on on any of these platforms. Steam and Valve at this point seem pretty magnet- not magnanimous. What's the word I'm looking for?
Magnanimous feels
Magnanimous
Yeah, it feels right.
where if there's a problem, you can generally get by it and and and talk with someone or get something back or if there's an issue with your account or something like that, they have game

returns, they can you can I Can you let people borrow games on Steam?
No. Uh not hm
Not not easy.
Yeah, there's a family sharing thing, but it's been That's been weird over time.
Yeah. So, uh Sorry, I got lost in my in my descriptive anger. Um essentially, what I'm trying to say is when we talk about buying a digital game, in my opinion legally, the language does need to change. We've talked about this I think a little last week and actually I was talking to folks on Blue Sky about this um about what the verbage should be. And we we talked a little bit to uh Will. We were talking about like, you know, changing things from buy into like uh you know, uh gain access or check out, you know, like again, it's it's not crazy important and people will still act the same, but it is far more honest. And I think what Sony is doing here, even in

their statement saying but wanting to give quote choices and we should read the statement cuz it's
So
Um Actually, you know what? Let's just do that.
Yeah.
They say buy. And that's not what any of this is about. Let me pull this up. It's very short. So, uh book book time with Matt will be very quick. This is um the the uh physical disc production ending in January 2026 for new games releasing on PlayStation consoles posted on July 1st.
2028.
In response to shifting trends in consumer preference, new games will be released on PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only. This is from senior director of Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sid Shuman. Uh RIP to his inbox. He says, "As consumer preferences and the broader entertainment industry continues to shift away from physical discs to digital, physical game disc production for all new games releasing on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued starting January 2028. Following this date, new games will be

available on PlayStation Store at a and at retailers in digital formats only. This transition has no impact on games that are already released or will be releasing prior to January 2028 in disc format. This is a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs. This transition will enable us to align more closely with how most of our community prefers to access and play games today. We'll continue to prioritize our resources to drive innovation in how players can access games and provide choice as to where players prefer to purchase new games, whether that's at retailers or play or the PlayStation Store. We remain committed to delivering a world-class gaming experience to our fans and we thank you for your continued support. Now, I was wrong. They don't say the word buy. They say the word purchase.
Yeah.
Um there they again, very sort of sneaky wording here. Um

I the specifically how most of our community prefers to access and play games today. Not buy. That's not purchase. Because they know that that's not what they're doing.
Right.
Ah um How chat like I'm going to scroll back through after I after I ask this, but like how are you all feeling about this even if you're like what I I think I know what fans of Sony and fans of physical media feel about this. But like I think I'd like to hear more about like more people like that are in Will's camp who don't really engage with PlayStation, care about the industry at large, but also are primarily digital users. Like what like And I'm not trying to like if I would love to hear why if you do think this isn't a huge deal, why that is. I don't think I'll agree, but I also like I don't want to jump down anyone's throat. Does that make sense?
Yeah. I I think for me I think the the

reason that this is a big deal is that um the move of so that this the inevitability of this move is one that uh heads in the direction of PSX and Project Helix, the follow-on that the new thing from um Xbox both not having any way to receive physical media means that there's like I want there to be competition for the PC space and if you're not doing that, like is there a competition for the PC space? Right? Like I I I think it's bad for the industry as a whole when uh product silos, consoles, lose their defining individual features, right?
I feel like the feature that that keeps price like in line. Like it's it it I do

truly believe the ability for a second-hand market and and even first-hand sellers to price drop games for sales and things.
Yep.
That does affect PlayStation Store putting things on sale.
Yeah.
Like if Walmart decides to put I'm I'm just making something up right now. And I know this is this is a little more complicated than this, but like decides to put like Last of Us one No, no, how about this? Final Fantasy remake and rebirth cuz the third one's coming out so they're going to do a big old sale. And I And Sony might do that, too. But like the reason why Sony might do that could be directly tied to big box stores wanting to move inventory that they already have, so they're going to drop it to $20 or whatever. So Sony, who makes more money off the digital thing anyway, might try to parody that or even knock it down a little bit to get it closer. Like And that it's not as direct as that, but that's kind of my like the example of why even as someone for someone who only engages in digital copies.

Yeah.
Um this will affect how much you end up paying.
Yeah. And there's There is an inevitability with how people engage with this medium that the majority of folks are going to be downloading the games. Like that's sort of it. What I want to see is essentially because it's not like selling less or maybe making less physical copies of games. That's not going to cost the company more. That's going to cost the company less. So if they cared truly about their actual customers, they would try to pass that on either in a monetary savings or a uh adjusting sort of what digital ownership means to sort of be a balm against a trend that they see

coming. Because just because the trend is going a direction doesn't mean that like everything that that trend drags with it is good.
Yeah.
Like just because something is big and like a a wave of nonsense see many political things going on forever doesn't mean that like the dregs of what it pulls and what it does and the effects are all good. Like is a digital game is downloading a game so much easier than getting in your car, going to a store, you know, talking to a human, and then walking out, coming back, loading it. And then of course we all know installing the game on your console because nothing runs off the disc anymore, which is fine. I like fast load times. I don't need to be playing Mortal Kombat Trilogy on the PS1 and waiting 4 seconds when I transform Shang Tsung into Sub-Zero. I don't need that in my life, okay? Uh

So so there is there is true value there. The flip side is you do not own that thing. There is no easy way to give that thing to another person after you're done with it or sell it. You also don't you lose the uh you lose a human interaction, which some of you might not want, but I think a lot of times especially talking about video games and stuff might in person my my interactions are more positive than negative.
Yep.
And you lose uh a social element of the the thing, going to a space to purchase the thing that you like. There are There are pros and cons to this. And I think if you're going to say, "Well, no. It's only this now." You should at the at the minimum acknowledge the good things that are being lost and try to come up with ways to mitigate that damage.

And they have no interest in doing that because they don't care. They don't care about the actual art of video games. They don't.
It's kind of Yeah, it's kind of funny cuz like the the speaking for the indie trash, right? Speaking for the indie raccoons, look up from your dumpster diving for just a second, right? Like that is the place where a lot of people feel like art on is is cemented in video games and they usually don't have a choice but to release digital only.
Yeah.
And that's weird, right? The the but like later on, we've talked about this before, too. Like Blueprints is getting a physical release. Great.
I I ordered it. I already ordered it. It's on the cartridge. I need it on And that like I want it on Switch because it's on a cartridge.
Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like we've been play- I've been playing a lot of like beautiful, wonderful games that are digital only because the the publisher's

too small to like even get a deal for discs. Right? And that's
And like I I don't like it's funny. I don't want to demonize digital distribution.
Yeah.
Digital distribution has given us some of our favorite like our some of our favorite games would not Hollow Knight would not exist. Like truly. Like And and to really And we talk about this in our last Extra Credits episode. It's because of Xbox. Like the Xbox Arcade kicked that into gear along with PC downloads. Steam then came around. Like, it it it's it's all like so many wonderful experiences wouldn't exist if not for digital distribution because it it it it um uh I'm having a hard time finding my words today. It levels the playing field of of devs being able to release something.
Yeah.

But just because that's excellent doesn't mean it should be the only way we do it because with that I'll go back to Xbox Live Arcade many of those games are lost forever.
Yep.
Unless you have a hard drive on a Xbox 360 you can't play them.
Until it re-released on the Switch, Scott Pilgrim was gone. You couldn't get the Scott Pilgrim video game. Scott Pilgrim the movie the game, you couldn't get it anywhere because it was Xbox Live Arcade only and they stopped distributing it and so people were like were trading it in and then it finally re-released on the Switch. And the net code sucked, but that apparently
Um So I think the thing that again a corporation is a corporation and again at this point I'll thank Sony for reminding me how much of their friend

how much of my friend they are not.
Yeah.
I mean, you always know that intrinsically, but you get excited. They make a cool thing. I'm still super pumped for Wolverine. Right? When it comes out. And and that's the other thing, too. I Something I've I've been saying how disappointed I am with a lot of people on the internet in the discussions. Here's something that I'm actually heartened by. Not only is it do I feel like the anger is being put in the right place, but a lot of this a lot of the anger about this doesn't feel as performative as say like shooting up a bunch of Bud Light with an M-16. Uh side note uh I should really say having someone else shoot up a bunch of Bud Light with an M-16 because he definitely wasn't aiming in that direction and it's hilarious. If you know what I'm talking about, great. If not, you've lost nothing. Um people are not like breaking or burning their PS5s or doing anything incredibly wasteful or stupid. They're just saying, "Oh, if you're doing this, I'll engage with

your physical media and your console that I've already purchased and then you get nothing. Good day, sir. You stole fizzy lifting drinks and now [laughter] the vats have to be cleaned and washed. You get nothing."
[laughter]
Um like I I I do appreciate that the the response seems like it is in the right place. And I know why Sony Actually, I'll say I I I understand why Sony announced this now because it's so far away.
Mhm. People will forget.
Yeah. Um but I think as we've learned as Wanda Maximoff learned, some sometimes you can't make everyone forget. And then those people start to remind people. And then your House of D in this case uh falls crumbling down and Magneto can't be your king anymore. Um
Yeah. Did Did Did you also want to talk about just just I see Matt Matt's Matt's anger levels went Did you want to remind

everyone how Sony also took 551 movies out of people's digital libraries as a reminder of the fact that there is a huge problem with digital ownership in 2026? Did Did you just want to Okay, great. So I've I've pull pull the cord. Pull the cord.
All All go. So while the decision to make the first announcement seems really smart and from a corporate level of sort of obfuscation, I don't think one hand was really washing the other here because at the same time they proved exactly what Will said and why you never own anything digital in a walled garden. When basically Studio Canal is a distributor of a bunch of movies including Terminator 2 and a bunch of other ones. And basically if you bought movies on Sony's like movie service. Again, it says buy or rent. I don't actually don't know if you can actually rent on on PlayStation. I know Amazon has like buy or rent and it's like $3.99 or $19.99.

Yeah.
Um Sony, because their licensing deal ran out, sent a message to everyone on PlayStation Network is like, "Hey, these these a bunch of movies are going to be removed from your system and you can't download them again. Thank you." Like it's literally that. It's literally just that. There's no uh anything else that's going to happen. It's just these these movies that the language that they used was you bought them and of course the EULA has all the little sneaky nonsense in it. But there's two like when when when the normalization on a digital service is rent or buy and the prices are different, you think the value prop is different and you are trained essentially from knowing your entire life what buying something is that you then have that thing. You will have access to that thing. You've bought it. And now I guarantee I guarantee damn to you that there is going to be a class

action lawsuit about this specific thing and Sony will pay and it will be a drop in the bucket in comparison to the money that they saved here. But what they should have done, like again, there's a way to do this bad thing. All of this bad thing, and mitigate harm and come out as at least looking like you're trying to be the good guy. You could you can do the bad thing and still come out looking a bit more like a hero. But the sides of the company, cuz this ship is big and it seems like one person is steering one way and one and there's another section is steering another way, they're just choosing not to do that.
Yep.
It's like the the movie's going away is is such a perfect encapsulation of how you own nothing on PlayStation. I was out for drinks with some friends last night and we were just I was basically giving them the rant that I'm

giving you now and they they were having a great time. Um, and essentially they're like, "Oh, yeah, this isn't the same thing, but I lost access to my he they had PlayStation Plus and then they lost access to that account because they like lost the password and no one could get it back to them. So, all their games are gone."
Yep.
And they've tried to talk to Sony and they've tried to go through and maybe there's ways to do it, but they couldn't figure it out. So, they just stopped and now they're completely on PC. This was years ago. There are so many bad things going on in this industry. Layoffs, uh, personnel abuses, things that need to be solved via unionization and a bunch of other things. But to have one of the three major players, actually I'll say one of the four because I'll just put PC and or Steam and or all those things as another way to get this stuff. To have them do a thing that is so blatantly

greedy and bad for the overall health of the things that their consumers enjoy buying from them is tone deaf and stupid. And it's funny. Do I think that in the short term this will damage them? No. Do I think in the long term this will damage the video game industry not having the option of another place to buy software? Yeah. Um And I and I'm still trying to square like what I'm going to do like a diskless PS6. No. Uh I I can't I can't imagine a world that I'm going to do that. Here's the thing. It is not that like it won't be something I want. Do you know what I mean? Like I I don't doubt that they can make a piece of hardware that I'm like, "Give me that thing."

But I'm trying to think of like what would make me Is there anything for Now I'm going to talk to the other side of the the people that like are in this and do care and are like, "Screw you, Sony." Is What's the thing and everyone sort of chime in and chat. What's the thing that they could do at this point say Discs are gone. But just let's pretend They're not backing down from this. That's They've been planning for this for a while. This isn't changing. What's the thing they could do that would make you as okay with that as possible? Will, do you have any sort of thing like thought in that realm?
Um They could introduce a meaningful like real proper digital ownership model. Right? That that would be a thing. Right? I don't know if it's possible, but a thing that introduces real meaningful personal digital ownership. Um
Yeah, a lot of people are saying that now.

Right? Like that would that would that [laughter] would be
Ghost of Tsushima 3.
Oh, hey, you know.
BUT THAT'S THE THERE'S A VALUE prop there. Like
Right.
I think people are saying digital ownership, permanent ownership. Um
Uh d- uh
Perpetual.
Yeah, perpetual unified online store.
my own discs.
But but some kind of um
Signed digital license you can transfer, yep.
Yep. Back up the download off device, yep, yep, yep. I I I think that that's reasonable.
Sounds like NFT Hebrew talk to me. That's the interesting thing, right? Like we do get into this other thing. There's ways that a blockchain can be fine. NFTs are
Right. NFTs are not a- The the idea of a blockchain being updated with your record of ownership of a particular thing and then propagated outside the control of any individual company is like the only reasonable use of the digital

ledger, right? Like that's all That's all the blockchain is is a um publicly propagated digital ledger,
Sure.
right? That is like not a terrible idea. Um The problem is that the way that people have been doing it is essentially like an art scam.
Yeah.
Right? You're using You're using a spreadsheet as an art scam and like that's not how that should work.
Sure.
But like real digital ownership doesn't necessarily involve the blockchain.
A a comment swung by from a from a a person that chats a bunch on here and I actually want to talk a little bit more about it. Ryan said, "I appreciate your passion about this, but I think your take here is pretty hyperbolic." I really hope so. Like and I'm not I don't I'm not trying to like get into a debate or convince you of anything. I I but I'd like to know like why that is. Like because weirdly if if you if you can convince me of that, maybe I can be less angry.
[laughter]
Do you know You know I mean? Like I I I

I I would love to know sort of like more about that thinking. And I think that was in in conjunction with my um comment about like being very bad for the games industry as a whole, I think. And I don't want to put words in into Ryan's mouth.
Yeah.
Um And if if you don't feel comfortable talking about it more, that's totally fine, too. I just I'm I'm legitimately curious before we sort of move on. There are other stories, I think, because otherwise I'll just spiral uh and complain and and that won't be fun for Jamie, will it?
Don't worry. Don't worry. I got you.
fast question?
Did you throw the broken fork out?
No, the broken fork Jamie's asking about a broken fork that we got as a wedding present.
Where is it?
The The broken fork is on the edge of the wooden thing in the kitchen that like extender thing. It's right on the edge next to the wooden bowl.
Sorry to interrupt.
SEE? A PHYSICAL OBJECT. I KNOW where it is. And we have ownership of it. You just can't eat salad with it well because one of the things is boing.
Right. And and so so so I think the other thing too here is

again the other thing that Sony could do would be to let third-parties offer alternatives.
Yes.
Right? So some people don't like Steam because you can't download the installers. And they prefer GOG because you can. Sure. 100%. No question. If that is your preference I respect that. I don't share that preference, but I understand why you have that preference and more power to you. But that's because there are options.
Mhm.
Right? [clears throat] If there were options for games like they could remove the wall, right? They could say, "Here is a Here is a device that doesn't have the walls around it that can allow different third-parties to sell you games on this service with different terms that you get to choose between." Great. That restores some element of choice. It's not as good as physical media, but it is a more meaningful step towards restoring

consumer confidence and consumer choices.
And I think this is this is this is where I land. Regardless of of how this is going to affect the industry later on down the line, even though I have my take on it. I be I would be love I would love to be wrong. Um I'm pissed at Sony for taking away an option and talking about how it is inevitable Um inevitable and um and actually it No, it's more choices cuz you've chosen this. So we're choosing for you because a lot of you chose this. It's like No. You You couched it in giving more options and being committed to that, but you're doing the opposite. And that to me is a bold-faced lie, and therefore how can I trust you that you actually give a [ __ ] Like that I think that's where my stuff boils down. I did see Ryan uh uh popped back in. I want to make sure I catch. Uh to be clear

I think uh Sony going digital sucks. I'm one of the people who primarily do digital purpose, but um But Xbox tried to do it, and Sony made fun of them for it.
Right. It's been on the wall for Nintendo since the Switch. Right?
And the writing on that wall has been responsible for some of the best games that both Will and I have ever played. Like there are good things, you know, here. But I I think I think I think I actually in in waiting for the response sort of talking through it. I think I actually nailed down if I if I was in therapy right now, I would have mentioned that I had a breakthrough moment. The The thing that's happening I do not like. But I think it's how that thing is being told to me from the other party, from Sony. Because it's a lie. How they're doing Whatever they're doing, they're lying about why they're doing it and how they're doing it and trying to couch it in something that is more choice when it is less. And we are seeing so much a picture behind a news desk about, let's say, I don't know, a great

American fair, and saying that there's thousands of people there. When your eyes are like, there's six. Like, you're you're doing one thing, Sony, that we can see, and you're saying it's another thing. And I think that's where, um, I'm I'm I think that's where I'm the most upset. I can be upset about the action, but I think what what makes me like what makes me actually like I could be mad about a thing, but what makes me emotionally upset, and this is probably my fault, in fact, it is my fault, is I feel like even when Sony has, and this is Yeah, no, this is my fault. Even when Sony has done bad things in the past, I've always been like, well, their good outweighs the bad, right? Like that sort of it. And now it doesn't. And now I'm the fool there. Corporations aren't your friend. Everything can change. I think what

I love Valve, and I love Steam. I know they have their issues, too. But like, I I think it's also important to realize like they are not immune from this. It takes a generation or two and ownership change to completely, like, again, we talked earlier, when has a company sort of a bad like disappointed you so much? I mean, the smallest like the the a microcosm is Blizzard.
Yeah.
Right? Like
Yeah.
everything can change. And if you don't own your thing, and the the the group that has control of the thing that you bought or you leased, and you care about having access to that, you can There's also a world where you don't care about having access to that. There's games I've played once, and while I want it to be preserved somewhere, I don't need it. Right?
Yeah.
But like, it's just it's it's it's a big lie.
Yeah. This is This is also and and I'll I'll I'll I'll step in too on this one. This is also a massive problem for game preservation. Like if if this if if

physical games are truly going completely away in 2028 and we needed this before, let me be very clear. Right? We needed this before, but now we super need it. We need ways to preserve art in meaningful archival forms for historical preservation purposes because there are games and pieces of art that are foundational to artistic mediums that are being lost forever. And it's illegal to save them because the DMCA is wretched pile of mistakes. Right? So, there we need That is the other piece of this is that we've needed that Let me be very clear. We have needed that for a long time. This is not new news. It's just even more pressing than it was before.
Yeah. Um
Zeraiah makes a very good point in chat. I don't know if I could if I click it, it's going to be huge.

But we were talking about blockchain versus other things. There's of course problems. I don't I It's funny. We're doing We're doing a a tinier faster episode on this at some point soon.
We literally scrambled and wrote it yesterday.
And one of the things that we say truly and it's funny cuz like we We get on the show and we talk with you all trying to think of ideas and stuff like that because I think it's cathartic and it's it's some at a little bit fun of like trying to like work our way around even a thing we don't like, right? I like interacting with the community. I like talking with all of you. I like talking to Will. I like talking to my wife about a fork that's broken. Like I just like interacting with people. Um But when it comes to the solution and because we were trying to keep word count down, Will and I were like coming up with solutions kind of like what we were talking about now. But then when we got to like we're like, "Okay, there needs to be if we're going to come back, there needs to be a uh a version of a license, a perpetual forever license that says you own a copy of this game and you'll have access to it, whatever." And then we were trying to think of all the different ways that that would physically work in the space, right? And then what we landed on was

actually, we're not the billion-dollar company, you figure it out. Like, the it's on the company. It's not on us to figure out how to make that work.
Yep.
You know? Um The only The only responsibility we have as customers is whether or not we buy the thing.
Yep.
Or lease it.
Yep.
Anyway, thank you uh Will and and chat both on YouTube and Twitch, Brad Jennett. And hey, Rocky on Nebula, I know you've been quiet this entire time. Message us on Blue Sky. Let us know what you're thinking uh because I think the story is far from over. I I think I unless
something crazy happens like they walk it back next week, they won't. Um I don't really want to talk about it more like in the next episodes or whatever. Like, I think this is going to be big for a while and I would prefer to sit on it a bit, keep reading, keep learning stuff about it, getting other people's opinions before I sort of modify my own at this point, right?

Yep. It's time to do ads.
I love ads.
PUT PUT MUSIC ON.
OH, you want music?
I want music.
Okay. Music for Will.
All right, everyone. Will from Extra Credits back for Extra Credits who's got a big upset spaghetti over Sony doing things. Let me tell you the idea that somewhere deep in the very bottom of this box, there is a small thing called [music] hope. That's right, chat. Remember that somewhere deep in all of this, it is bad and yes, we should be upset, but also we should be hopeful that people will work together to come up with solutions. Brad is smart, Janet is smart, Rocky is very smart, right? [singing] You all can can can be part of the solution and hope that we will we will come up with a a a better world.
Uh on that note,
[clears throat and cough]
Hey everyone, Matt from Extra Credits

here next to Will from Extra Credits next to Brad and Janet and Rocky who all talk on Ames for Breakfast on Extra Credits. I really appreciate Will's take about hope, and I think there's a way that we can actually like, I guess hope harder. And uh the the thing I'm trying to talk about here is what if we all, this is a hypothetical, okay? A hypothetical experience. What if we all got on a big wooden ship, possibly with a bunch of sails, and a and a Jolly Roger at the top, and essentially we went around and screaming sea shanties. I don't know what those sea shanties might be, but maybe it's something along the lines of uh you know, uh if if if buying isn't owning then then then something isn't something else? I don't I don't know. I'll I'll get back to you on that.
Yeah.
Blame Red. I'm currently stunlocked by trying to think of a digital version of Barrett's Privateers. So, that's Red's fault. Blame Red. Uh

yeah. Anyway,
Shave his belly with a rusty razor.
That wasn't, you know, sure. Okay. All right, chat chat chat chat chat chat. Take a deep breath. We're going to We're We're going to leave this alone. We have many We have many other stupid things that corporations and groups [laughter] of people have done that we need to talk about. We're going to be talking about some weird news, some good news, some bad news, okay?
But, we want to we want to take a second, right? Round ourselves. Take a Take a sip of your drink. Pet a cat if one is near you. Do all of the things, right? Okay, great, excellent, awesome. It's time for our first segment, gaming.
[music]

I I love that intro. It's so good.
killed this.
I just love the billboard with us cuz it's like the worst billboard.
That's Every time I don't know how much you drive on the interstate, Will, but like that's literally the entire interstate everywhere in America.
When I Yeah, when I drive on the interstate, yes. I typically don't. All right, so first up and and foremost, um the ESA has said what what might possibly be the dumbest thing I've ever heard a group of people say in an like it's it's remarkably stupid. It is a new special kind of stupid.
And then they walked it back ever so slightly.
Right, but like it was too late. They said the stupid thing in public and then they were like So, um there was a hearing uh on a in the California State Senate over the Protect Our Games Act, which was a subs

it's a one of the many bills that's being pushed out everywhere by stop calling games. And so those are having there's too many of them to talk about all of them. Some of them are having success in some places more than others. Um it's doing not great in California. Um But, one of the people who came to talk about uh to to push back against this was the um ESA and um they they Okay. So, the VP
Entertainment Software Association, by the way.
Yeah. The VP of State Government Affairs was asked about uh community servers. And this is, again, I'm quoting from a vice president of the ESA. They're illegal. They're not in any way affiliated with Microsoft. Microsoft for Minecraft has

got a lot of criticism because of those community servers not employing the same safety standards that Microsoft does on their Minecraft servers. She also uh compared it uh to a black market for video games. And they they consider community servers piracy.
And they said they have lawsuits going for Minecraft servers.
have lawsuits depending lawsuits against private servers right now in the US United States Trade Representatives in their notorious market reports on counterfeiting and piracy as named some of these big private servers as a notorious market. So, I I just want to like point out like this is this is so
Well, one, like obviously the point is stupid, right? But two, in Minecraft's case, it as IGN has reported, it's also just false.
Right. It's just completely entirely false. It's not a little false. It's not technically false. It's completely

wrong.
The Minecraft website encourages people to set up their own servers.
Yeah.
But because the this person from the ESA was in front of a judge that probably didn't know or have the time to dig into the the you know, the intricacies here, and there wasn't someone to push back, they just kind of like went They either just lied boldly and hoped no one would notice or didn't do the research themselves, the most basic research, and and was just ignorant about it and just saying what they wanted to be true.
Yeah. So, here here's here's here's why I'm bringing this up. We don't need to dunk on the ESA. They do that plenty on their own.
Yeah, they're fine.
We don't need to talk about the bill. The bill is one of many that are being considered across the country, and we'll we'll talk about them when they pass and how they're going to impact the industry. What I do want to talk about is this is a fantastic case study example where we

can point at it and remind people who care about these things that a lot of times the people who are influencing lawmakers are idiots or dishonest or both. Right? Cuz those are the only two options, right? The only two options here is that the person who is supposed to be an industry expert on this on this material was either maliciously lying or merely incompetent. But in either case, you as a person who cares about this in in the world can do a better job. Right? Again, we talk all the time about how you're probably not the average consumer of video games cuz you're sitting here on a Friday right before the 4th of July when many of you have off from work and you're watching two guys in an animated kitchen talk about video games, right? You're not the average video game consumer probably.
And thank you for being here.
Yeah, [laughter] thank you for being here. You can do a better job, and you

should do a better job, and you should speak out, right? You should educate people on how that's not true and what your experience is, and you should point them at resources, and you can say things more coherently, right? Don't feel like you're not qualified cuz this person is the vice president of state government relations for the ESA and they said this crap with their whole chest in an open meeting on the record.
I want to I also want to I really want to call out IGN here in a good way because the article will be in the show notes, but they um basically IGN sent the ESA a link to the page and noted that they encouraged Minecraft team with like like it's been encouraged to have their own private servers and they asked for a comment. And the ESA got back to them with a comment um that is pretty damning and then they adjusted it. Um essentially, I'll see if I can do this really quick. Private servers infringe on the intellectual property IP rights of game publishers. Publishers

reserve the rights to exercise their rights against them. The provision CAAB 1921 that proposed these servers as a legitimate alternative to keep their games running raises concerns about a publisher's ability to enforce their IP rights. In addition, private servers operate with no oversight from the publisher and do not uphold the same trust and safety standards. They could create an unsafe environment for players and be counter to the industry's commitment to fostering safe and fun play for all players. Now, that's the first one. Um then after a lot of discussion and talking, the ESA represented a new statement, I believe, to IGN um because they realized what they said is just sort of not true. Uh They they added some things. Like private servers that host or distribute copyrighted game content without authorization infringe on intellectual property. So, that doesn't really sound like it's the server, does it? It sounds like it's the item or the thing or the asset.

So, get bent. Like it's it's so stupid. Uh so, hopefully Stop Killing Games can can I guess they're going to basically like
Or so
this particular law didn't pass, but it didn't pass in a way or it didn't advance in a way that means it can't try again. So they get to run it back. Um so
great because now more people like this has been a rallying cry to more people who know what they're talking about to be in the room with this chucklehead and then they can go again.
Yep. Uh okay, cool. Our next gaming the law story is is is the conclusion of a long saga.
It's been years.
Years in the making uh Krafton and Unknown Worlds have settled for a huge amount of money. Um the uh the Bloomberg article by uh Jason Schreier has the information. Um

But essentially uh Ted Gill is on the record as saying that the developers of Subnautica 2 will be quote compensated significantly more and will receive further incentives as the game continues to be updated. So the the Unknown Worlds devs are getting all the money. Um Krafton has capitulated on that. The only thing that it appears that Krafton is getting out of this is that uh Ted Gill is leaving. Now, it's not directly said that that's that that is like a thing, but like it's definite it it smells like we'll give the company all this money, but you got to leave.
Yeah, because how cuz they can't truly Krafton at this point cannot run this company after being seen as being duplicitous and and attacking this person and still have that person be in a place of power at the place. What And Ted Gill, what's he going to do? Cry into millions of dollars and go start

another studio based on this terrible deal that that that Krafton should have never signed.
Right, it's the it's the the gift of the person drying their eyes with $100 bills, right? Like Sure. All right. Great. Excellent. Awesome. So, that that is the um
the end.
hopefully the end of this saga. By all accounts, everything I've seen of Subnautica 2 is great unless you have thalassophobia, in which case Subnautica 2 is hell. It's hell. It's actually a form of hell. Um so, yeah.
I really This has been a wild ride ever since the the the fake leaked images of like people trying to game the system, but that was them, and then the the CEOs of Krafton having their chat GPT logs leaked about how they were asking on how to get out of this contract that they signed, or what would be the best way. Like, it's so I I hate that things that are this poorly

grifted take so long to come to fruition, but it's nice to see one come to fruition in a fair way every once in a while, even though it took forever.
Yep.
Oh, I'm sorry, Majerling. You're right. They were subpoenaed. My bad. They were not leaked. Good looking out.
Yeah. Uh All right. Next up, let's talk about the RAM apocalypse. So,
[laughter]
there is a lawsuit a class-action lawsuit that's been filed against Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron of uh
[snorts]
fix of fixing component prices while reducing supply of DRAM globally. So, these are three of the manufacturers that account for the overwhelming majority of components of RAM, and there is now a class-action lawsuit alleging that they intentionally are reducing the supply of consumer RAM and increasing

the supply for AI data centers, and that they colluded to fix the prices of their products. Um and the first one the first part of that doesn't really feel like an actionable statement. Like it's a company they get to choose what to produce. But the second one about colluding for price fixing definitely feels actionable if it can be proven. So, we will see.
Here's what I'll say. We are in the middle of a series right now on Extra History. If you haven't watched the first presidential corruption with Grant's gold scandal, uh we talk about a ton of corruptions about the the Grant administration and around it um that was going on around the time of his presidency. And there's the gold scandal. There's um there's the railroad scandal. There's the whiskey ring scandal. There's a million different scandals. And a lot of them when I was reading about this story, I was like, "Oh, this is a bunch of companies coming together to decide to do something illegal. Like it all like these things have been

tried and found before. Like Now granted, not no one has ever nearly punished enough for uh white-collar crimes. Um so, the the punishment might not go anywhere. But like what we want is the fix, right? What we want is RAM not to cost five times as much until 2030 because we'd like to buy a new PC in the next five years.
Yep.
Um
And it's not even like we could significantly redistribute the amount of RAM that's in AI data centers through means unknown to all of us uh because it's the wrong kind. Yeah. It's the wrong kind. It's not like
They're using the materials to make that RAM.
Correct. Um so, yeah, it's
And oh, and also, yeah, they uh Yeah, Medusa's reminding me of something here. But, basically they all kind of got in trouble for this or like

accused of it or something like in 2006.
2003 is it?
And then they knocked it off. Like, this is not the first time. It's not the first time that a group of companies has tried to run this grift. This is not the first time that this group of companies has tried to run this grift.
Right.
so, hopefully there is some sort of uh guardrail put in place with this. I know that's a tall order considering where the money is going and who's spending it. But, again, just because the current structure of law and and sort of retributive justice is not functioning great, doesn't mean you stop calling things out.
Yep. It's true.
In fact, a lot of truly I not to go back to the Grant series and please go watch it. I think app two comes out in a week. Or it's on I think it's on Nebula right now. Um but the a lot of consumer protections were put in place and a lot of stuff was like a

lot of conversations moved forward after the Grant administration. Granted, many of those today are being dismantled. But, for a while they were working.
You mean
Working okay. And
dismantled like the set for the 250th anniversary?
What happened? What?
Oh, it's falling apart in real time. It wasn't built to take the heat. So, the set for the 250th anniversary is like actually falling apart and like it's leaking the the temporary caulk that was used to hold it together.
No, the triumphant arch?
Yeah. Well, it's it's it's much worse. I I feel I feel afraid for the performers. Parts of the stage are falling down onto the stage.
Yeah, it's it's it's terrible. It's it's actually awful, but I I struggle to think of a more accurate representation in real time of the collapse of the structures that Matt is talking about.
Well, this is going to ruin the tour.
Uh yeah, that's what's going to ruin the

tour.
THE WORLD TOUR.
[laughter]
ALL RIGHT. CHAT, CHAT, WE'VE GOT some good news. Let's Let's take Let's take a break and we're going to talk about some good news. All right. Chat, we have actual uh good news for all of you.
Oh, yeah. Starfox on Switch 2 slaps. I needed to talk about this because it's so good and I know it's just a remake of Starfox 64, but it feels for me, for someone who has not played that game in a long time, just like the perfect encapsulation of what I want to engage with right now. It is a sort of like I don't know if you've whoever has played Starfox or not, you basically do different spaceship missions across the map, across the galaxy trying to get to the planet Venom, but there's so many different secrets and things that you can get to based on what you shoot and where you go and what you do in these missions. So, you like you it paths you

during your your run. I've only beaten it once, but I haven't found nearly everything again. And the cool part for me is the truly the challenge mode that they added that tallies all of the things together, like that you have to do in the missions, making the missions, which are very fun and look gorgeous, infinitely for me at least, not infinitely, very, very, very, very, very replayable. Um I love this. I hope that this was the number one seller. Um I'm trying to think on a lot of like I think it was Walmart and it might have been Amazon like for the actual physical card for in video games and I'm sure it was selling very well on digital as well. But like I'm really hoping that between this and the Super Mario Galaxy movie's cameo of Starfox that this gets us like this shows like oh, people want this. Also, the multiplayer is fun. Uh I have not cuz I don't hook up my camera to Star Fox. What you're seeing here is like it it can face map your face and put it on the characters in the little windows when you play online. But

like the dog fighting is fun. I really want to find other people that have it to play the dog fighting with because you can definitely tell like teams that are talking to each other versus teams that are not because like they stay in formation. Like it's it's just interesting.
Comms are very important for stuff like this.
It's really good. And I'm so happy that it's good. And granted, it's it's built on really good bones, right? Um but in a world of remakes I feel like this is one of my absolute favorites and it's reminded like it's reminded me what I really love about the series and uh I just wanted to sort of sing its praises because I was I I just it it's top-notch. Voice acting's great. The the the the art style, fantastic. I love Star Wolf's team, like the bad the bad Star Foxes. Um there's so many like little like even the voice actors are doing such good work. There's um one of the characters in that bad team is Andross's nephew,

like the big bad's nephew. And like it's just nepo baby vibes and you can tell like Wolf doesn't like him. Like it's just you can get a lot of context from around what they do. It's I I really love it and I will stop uh just singing its praises, but I wanted to talk about uh that that for just a moment.
Yeah. Excellent. Excellent. Uh in other good news, GitHub has announced that they will uh require all code to be human authored. Uh they have they're putting their foot down after the vast majority of their um pull requests on GitHub were coming from uh AI slop um and they said no, enough, stop, cease, desist. So, they're they're done with this. They're they're yeah, Godot remains Godot-ed. Um that's that's all.

Uh Let's see. Uh their their quote, "AI contributions have the added pain of being demoralizing. Reviewing PRs is already tedious work, but is rewarded cuz reviewers generally feel that their efforts are contributing to educating a new contributor who may become a future maintainer reviewer. If feedback on PRs is just being absorbed by a machine and not going towards mentoring a potential future maintainer, becomes much harder to justify spending your free time on PR review." Which I think is correct, right? Like that Godot is an open-source thing built on open-source principles, and AI by its nature cannot be open-sourced. So,
Um
doesn't belong here, don't do it.
I I love the reasoning. I love this this call out. And also, like this is a I'm not harping back to story number one, but this is a great example of just because A is good or fast does not make B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K like good. Like there are ways that one way, if you pull a lever, can hurt a lot of

different things that might be more important to the process that you're doing. And they've identified this, and they've said knock it off. And I like it. Uh real quick, something that doesn't come up a lot, but I wanted to make sure uh Bell in chat was about uh Discord. So, for any of you that are not familiar, as Will has put into chat, you can join our Discord if you uh become a Twitch subscriber, if you become a YouTube member, uh or if you become a patron. Uh all the same, I think it's uh is it the $5 tier? Is Is that just the Discord
Five bucks. However you're spending it, wherever you're spending it, gets you into the Discord. And some people have asked about the reason for that. It's extra history. I'll be so real with you all. If we let everyone into the Discord, uh fear. I'm in charge of the Discord. Fear. I have fear. Have you seen? No.
And we all know fear attracts the fearful.

Right. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Um
So, uh yeah, that's it sort of that's that's why it's there, but it's a great community. Love talking with folks over there. Actually, when this when the PlayStation story broke, I I I popped in and went off for a little bit.
Yeah. It's great. Uh okay. Let's talk about a weird good news story. So, I'm not
picture of this person, by the way. That's what I could find.
I'm I'm not saying that this is like going to be the best version of this, but it's a great I I'm very helpful for the com for the um the concept.
So, this story comes to us from PC Gamer.
Yeah, this is Robert uh Bowling, uh who has had kind of a up-and-down relationship with the with the gaming industry, has worked on Call of Duty, has worked on some other stuff. Um And he's he's founding a new team, and that's not news in of itself. What is news is that he's stated intent

is that he is designing their first project to fail open. So, what do I mean by that? Well, sometimes you have uh devices, particularly security devices, that can fail closed or fail open. If you fail closed, then it locks forever, and you can't ever get it open. But if you fail open, then on failure, they like as a safety measure, doors unlock, things open up. This the uh his stated first project is uh putting together all of the legal paperwork and all of the resources necessary to say that if their game venture does not succeed upon dissolution of the company or canceling of the project, the whole thing just goes open source. The whole the whole bundle just gets dumped onto the internet as an open source thing with all of the tools required to continue development and continue maintenance of it. This is really a great like this is if this

works
This is a great proof of concept. And he's also releasing all the documentation and all the legal paperwork so that other people can do this kind of thing, too. This, I think, is, in my opinion, one of the biggest and best ways to do like a stop killing games approach to games is to do something like this.
Yeah.
Right? Is to you must begin the project from this place of the game is going to fail open, right? You can't You can't sort of put it in later, do the whole bunch of licensing and assets and everything else. If you start from that place, it's a great way to go.
Also, Amy, to that point, you said oh sweet, that's the thing I've been harping on for years, assuming it wasn't legally possible. The thing that I'm learning, and again, not to bring it back to New York, uh the thing that I'm learning is so many people in places of power, either in corporations or in government, etc., just like, "Listen, we'd love to do all this stuff. We just can't. We can't do it. It's impossible. It's too hard." And then every once in a while, you have someone like uh my mayor

or or hopefully this gentleman uh who come along and just sort of do it, and it turns out there's I forget which comedian did It might have been Mark No, isn't Mark Maron? I don't know. One of the comedians is like, "Mum Dani came along and just like showed that Oh no, wait, you can just do the thing. Like there's a There's a must be a magical button in an office and it's like, 'Oh no, we can just do it. We just do the thing.'" And it seems like like there's sort of proof in that pudding. It seems like even though this is just a statement of intent with the with the methodology that they're putting forward, if they move if they actually do it, they could actually do it. Now, I I do want to just put a little bit of grain of salt. This gentleman was also behind the Midnight Society, which was also the company that collapsed and a year before it collapsed, it was one of the the co-owners of it was Dr. Disrespect.
Yeah.
Um and they were working on an NFT-based game. So, listen, people can make mistakes and people can get better. I I believe this particular Robert Bowling

um when all the Dr. Disrespect came out, he basically dropped him like dropped Doc like a bad habit and like tried moving forward without him.
Yeah.
Um and so that's great. Um so there's like like anything, there is a lot of background and and precedent you have to think about. But, regardless of that, the concept that is being put forward
Yes.
is a great one.
And as a fundamental part of that concept, even if it doesn't succeed here, other people will get to pick up that work and keep going, right? Which I think is like the really important thing. Like it needs someone to start, right? The hardest part is beginning.
Yeah.
So, let's begin. Right? Um okay. Uh Mac got to talk about some stuff earlier that he he's been doing and I get to talk about some stuff that I've been doing as my first magic moment.

[music]
YEAH, NEW INTERSTITIAL.
YEAH. UH OKAY, SO I JUST want to gush real quick. Last weekend, I got to go to a Pokémon TCG swap meet, which is not something I I've like historically been huge involved in. But, I have to say it was one of the most wholesome family-friendly, kid-inclusive events, especially in the trading card space, I've seen. Um there were kids trading cards fairly with adults. Like, it was it was a wild time. The whole event was uh put on near me in a dead mall. The mall is like dead as a doornail. There are like four stores, but they rented out the mall, um and it was it I thought it was going to be like a dozen tables. It was like 50 tables of

vendors. And they had a canned food drive, and there was a uh an animal rescue there who was giving away custom Pokémon-style cards with pictures of the animals that were up for adoption, so you could pass them out to people and see if they could get any of the animals adoption. Um it uh they were giving away Poké Bucks, and every uh like like paper Poké Bucks, and every vendor had a binder full of like not worthless, but like cheap cards that they were trading for Poké Bucks, so that kid even kids who didn't have any money could still go around and buy things. Like, it was an amazing experience. I got to just
That's like life-affirming.
It was It was so life-affirming. There was a There There was a um uh like a a piano there that no one was messing with, and then a guy came in and started playing Pokémon music, like from all of the games on the piano in

the middle of this dead mall. It was really, really good to just see that there are really cool events like this, and I encourage you, if you've been discouraged by other trading card game um fandoms in the past Pokémon is actually like a pretty great place to just hang out. Like the I cannot stress enough that the number of children, particularly girls, who were there, who were treated as equals, who were trading and enjoying and like running around and having a good time was something I am not used to seeing at other trading card events. It was really great to see to see that. The the it was e- e- every uh it was so nice. It was so great. I just want to gush for a bit and mention like this is a kind of place that you can find and go and yeah. And people I saw I saw people mention

like scalping and price hiking and stuff. Um it's kind of interesting actually. The new standard is that um you do everything on your phone so both of you can double-check it. So like
Oh, interesting.
you do everything on your phone and then you show people like the calculation for what the value is that you're doing and then you haggle and if you can't come to an agreement you walk away. But the number of people who were like trading and you know, put all the cards on the glass, take a picture of it, shake hands, and just cards for cards, not even money was great. I loved it. It was It was so It was so much fun. So that's that's my that's my mini card game thing and also I just used to show off the the magic moment uh trailer. Uh the magic moment trailer.
The magic moment trailer. Ryan had a good question. Was it Was it also matches as well or was it just a full trade?
There were people playing. It was just in a different area that I wasn't in as much cuz I didn't have a deck. Um my roomie was sending me out uh to all of the tables scouting for her uh list of

Mimikyu cards. Um
Amazing.
I got handed a list on my phone of like, "All right, these are the cards I'm looking for. Go look." I was like, "All right, great."
Yeah.
But I also got um I did get one thing for me which I thought was pretty cool. I got this is it going to do stuff?
Uh-oh. Is that Aerith?
It's Aerith. It's the surge foil Aerith in Japanese.
Oh, cool.
It's It's Yeah, this is like the coolest version of Aerith and I got it for like half of market rate because it's in Japanese and some people are afraid of Japanese cards. So.
Amazing.
All right. Unfortunately, that is the end of our good news. All that remains is bad and strange news. So
That's right.
So I have
Buckle up.
BUCKLE UP.
TIME TO COOK.
It is It is Jesse.
So So, if we were talking about Will's

wonderful experience at a at a not so dead mall and no scalpers to be in sight, I think we know where they went. Um the Steam Machine, low and behold, not released yet, uh has already had people online trying to essentially jack the price up and sell what I'm assuming places in the queue or like guarantees that they're going to get one.
Yeah. Like people people Well, people They're already in people's hands.
Oh, Steam Machines are?
The The first wave is. The first wave is. Yeah. Um
So maybe there are some real. Here's the question though, and I don't know I I truly don't know this and with Valve it kind of could go either way. Is the Steam Machine like do you need to Does it need to start up on the account that reserved it? [clears throat]
I I can't imagine it does.
Yeah, that'd be weird.
Yeah, that would be against their like

PC thing. But yeah, it's um it it's definitely disheartening that even after all of these things that they went to people are still scalping these like guys.
It's like jacked up. It's I saw I saw a
I I saw one for $3,200.
Right, but that we don't know if that sold. It's just it's
Sure, but it with scalping like that it does it almost doesn't matter if it sells or not. It's a frame of reference that people are using to say like the secondary market price is this. And that's not great.
Yeah, not not a great thing. Bad news all around. I do want to take a moment to talk about the Steam Machine just really quick if we could pivot into like a I'm super curious what 6 months from now will look like with the Steam Machine in circulation in full circulation.
Yeah.
I think that we are going to see in conjunction with the announcement of no discs and all that stuff. Like here is a thing that doesn't have a disc drive.

Right? But one with a more I can't speak words today. A more free form use case based on whatever you'd like to do with it.
I'm going to push back. Matt, this is a PC. It doesn't come with a disc drive.
You can put one on it.
Right, it's designed for you to put one on it. That's a USB port. That's a USB port on a PC. I can plug anything with a USB in it.
My I guess my so correct. I think my the the the the spirit of my comment was more along the lines of here's a PC that is now skinned like a console. What does that do to people's interest in the free formness of a PC? Especially with the benefits of a console shrinking.
Yeah.
Here's a console that's a PC like I'm just curious in 6 months, 9 months, a year what the landscape is going to look like. Right? Like that's just interesting to me.

Yeah.
Yeah.
All right. Are we ready to do some political screaming?
Oh, yeah. I promise the the the story after this story is a weird fun one. This one sucks a fat one. This one's real bad.
Yeah. This is the Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act or Kids Act, which has first and foremost this sin of having the word that the acronym is be part of the acronym. Sin. J- just All right. So, that's that's a sin and we're going to
Prove to me that you are not a smart person by proving to me you are not a smart person.
Right. All right. So,
clever.
what we're looking at is uh section or title three involves social gaming platforms.
Yep.
And uh it's man, they like really they like

they like really tried really hard. The title is called the Safeguarding of Adolescents from Malicious Interactions on Network Games Act or Safer Gaming Act. Um that's a Kids Next Door Level Acronym. Like guys, guys, Kids Next Door does it better. Stop. So, the part that we're really concerned about is um section 303A. An online video game provider shall provide safeguards to a parent of a covered user, that's any minor, of an interactive online video game of such online video game provider that allowed the parent to limit communication between such covered user and any other user of such interactive online video game. This means, in short, plain simple language to the best of my ability to read this, and I am not a lawyer, any game with chat that is published in the United States would need to have

parental controls. Furthermore, the defined later on, it prevents uh it it's the the notion is that it should be set to the most restrictive setting by default and may be set to a less restrictive setting only by a parent of a covered user. So, this is Now, you might be like, "But I can just tell it that I'm over 18." Sure.
How you going to do that?
How you going to do that? How are you going to do age verification, right? This This comes all of the way back to the whole age verification thing that we were doing with Discord a while ago, right? And this is uh not great on any count, right? Yeah, and I'm talking with Grunt Doc. Yep, thank you, man. We have to protect the kids by taking away any privacy and harvesting your data. We promise it'll be safe this time. Yeah. Terrible. So, like, every part of this is bad. Every part of this is written by

people who are either are ignorant of the way that the internet works or malicious uh in its intention. It's terrible. It's stupid. Stop it. Stop it.
Yeah, I concur. I think this is a nightmare. I saw this on Reddit this morning. I put this into the I put this into the the the show notes very late in the game. I don't know exactly when this was posted, but I If I found it the other uh uh very recently. Um Also,
[clears throat]
I'm just sick of bills from people that just don't understand how the thing works that they're trying to essentially govern around.
Yeah.
It's just It's just It's just It's so frustrating.
Yeah. All right. Chat, are you ready for the weirdest news? the actual weirdest news
If by weird, do you mean arousing?
[laughter]

And I don't know. [clears throat] I don't No, actually I don't. Okay, so it's no secret that Marvel Rivals has skins which are designed to uh titillate and fascinate those who enjoy staring at attractive people.
But how dare you say that Marvel Rivals is trying to specifically go after gooners? How dare you say that with with with just some some swimsuit skins consistently longer than summer really, I feel like. How How dare you, consumer, say that is going on?
Right, when when we have this which includes Captain America in Yeah.
in a swimsuit that would make Borat blush?
Borat swimsuit, right? We're straight.
I
Whatever. What To each their own. Sexy costumes on video game characters is nothing new. I've no problem with it. You know, everyone who's of age, enjoy. Rock and roll.

Something that I've noticed specifically I Groot is pretty attractive. Something I've noticed in video games often times and this is going to be a shocker. People who generally present as female, um the costumes are often more revealing and or in cases like Dead or Alive and things like that, there is the the dreaded verbage of of of jiggle physics of various things and and and stuff, right? So but that has long been that area has long been uh for basically one section of type of character.
Yeah.
But Marvel Rivals, whether they meant to or not, says no more. And I don't know if it's been patched out at this point.
Oh, it hasn't. It hasn't. Uh
But Captain America's nether regions. This was the safest version of this shot that I could find.
Yep. Uh-huh.
Um on the I believe it's the summertime Sentinel scan or whatever it is.
It's
Um

essentially uh his nether regions now also uh are affected by jiggle physics depending on what's happening around him and what emote he is doing.
That is correct. Captain America has never heard of a dance ball.
And so Listen, [laughter] man.
I love this. I know it's this not his little soldier.
Soldier's not that little, kids. Um the the the it's just it's so funny. It's so funny. And like
I You know what? At least they're committing. They're fully committing to being equal opportunity about this, right? Like they want to put superheroes in sexy skimpy outfits with jiggle physics, and they mean all superheroes.
all If you're going to put superheroes in this, you put all the superheroes in this.
I can't wait to see Groot in a speedo.
It'd be funny if Groot was just cuz Groot's not wearing any clothes in the

in this, right? Like essentially. Yeah. What if they just put like a real old-timey swimsuit like the tight the tight
the kind that we've threatened to wear if we ever Yeah. Mad and I have long threatened to to if we ever have to do like a a swimsuit stream or something that we get like the old-school like elbow-to-knee striped bathing suit to the big black and white and the big and the big straw hat and do that. Um Yeah.
Anyway, what a silly world we live in. We had to end on this story.
It was Yeah, it's perfect.
And and Grand Theft is right. The Marvel Swimsuit Edition is a long-standing tradition, but now they actually are paired it with rivals. Like that's how tied this is. Like the comics in the swimsuit issue are now like Marvel rivals swimsuit issues.
Yep.
So, whatever.
Yeah, it's great.
Anyway, I guess
I love how we managed to turn it around.
I mean, I I don't know if we turned it

around. I think I think Captain America may have turned it around. Um Regardless, this has been another wonderful episode of Games for Breakfast. Thank you so much for hanging out and and vibing with us about all things good, bad, weird in the games industry. Right after this, I believe over on the Twitch channel, Will and I will be continuing our Destiny 2 journey uh because we don't have to keep up with the Joneses. We can play as much or as little as we want and keep experiencing whatever Destiny 2 has to offer cuz it's done so. Um so, if you're interested in that, you want to keep hanging out with us, we'll probably just be chatting more about either whatever's going on in our brains or the news or what we're going to eat for lunch over there while we play Destiny 2. We found it's actually a really good kind of like vibes game. Like if you just want to hang out, have something on the background while you're getting ready for your for your fourth plans or or whatever, please come hang out there. Um anything else from you, Will, before we do our before we do our patented ending?
Nope. Thank All that remains is our Oh,

oh, oh, oh, oh, there is one thing. Join us next week for Design Club. We already know what it's going to be. There's it's already listed up if you're if you're over on YouTube and you want to know about Design Club for next week. We're doing a popery of corporate shenanigans. So, Jeff is going to get a chance to weigh in on Sony going diskless, Tim Sweeney's comments on AI disclosures. We'll wrap up the Crafted thing with Jeff and I and I think there's at least one more, but it's it's all listed in the upcoming streams and we're going to try and do that every week. So, we'll have we'll have it here so that you can find it and we can tell you a little bit about what Design Club's going to be for next week cuz now we're
And then at Design Club, there will be a placeholder for breakfast, but because we don't know exactly what the story will be for breakfast, it'll just be like breakfast. I think next week will be 70. Yeah.
That is correct.
So, there we go. And I guess that only leaves us truly with the end of the show that we do it which is the exact same

ending every time because we want to bring you into your holiday weekend with a sense of camaraderie and look, we've gone through some dark stories here and I want to ensure that we are here to be a positive good force that we can all come together and have the same ending and feel a sense of unity in this gaming space around all of you. Again, you make this show what it is. So, thank you so much and with that in mind, I would like to end the show the same way we always do. With talking about how awesome The Mummy Returns on physical media is. Uh you don't look at that. You can Actually, yeah, no, you can have this. Look it, you can have the code if you can get it. That you take that code. Take the digital code. I don't want it cuz you know why? I got this.
[music]