Pokémon Poop & All the Gaming Stories Z-A Blocked Up | Games For Breakfast

[Applause] [Music] Good morning, Matt. AH,
GOOD MORNING. WELL,
GOOD 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 is not about Pokemon at all at all. Well, Sans Sans's one of the most important ZA stories that we'll get to after some housekeeping in a moment. Uh, and we'll we'll go over that. So, I don't want to I I I overpromised the underpromise, which I guess is kind of my thing.
I feel like that's true, but like it's really not about Pokemon. Not nearly as much as the rest of the news in the internet is about Pokemon right now. I don't know if y'all have noticed, but like every time a Pokemon game comes out, and it's doubly true of ZA because it's the first Pokemon game on the Switch 2, um, every ev every every gaming site SEO

maxes for Pokemon.
Oh my god,
it's like everywhere. It's worse than when they did it for Silkong. And they really did it for Silkong.
And look, we're doing it.
I mean, we're doing it and that we're not doing it. We're doing it to call out that it's being done, but then not doing it except for one specifically do doing it kind of thing.
See, it's
all right. Great. Um, now that we've sat and Waldorfed it up, uh, shall we should we get on to what, you know, I'm going to be selfish. I'm going to say it's the most important piece of, uh, of of housekeeping that we have to do.
Yes, please. House to keep. the house that the house that will be kept this Saturday, October the 25th from noon Eastern to midnight Eastern is my birthday. Um, we're going to be playing Deep Rock Galactic in support of Director Relief. There's going to be crowd control. We're meeting up with the mods tonight to decide how much it will

cost as a charity donation for you to summon unspeakable insectile horrors from beyond the Ninth Gate in order to murder all of us in hilarious fashions. I have to install the game.
You do.
That's part of why the insectile horrors are going to murder us. Um the uh we're going to have all kinds of things from a small $1 to you want to do a big thing. That's going to be more. Um
we might even have a special donation to turn up or down the hazard level. Haven't decided on that yet. Working on all of those things. But what I do know is that we have an excellent list of guests. We have a fantastic schedule for you planned. And we're going to have all kinds of cool charity uh rewards. Uh and the $3,000 one is something I have cooked up on myself and haven't even told Matt about yet. And I'm very
Oh, you figured it out.
Yeah, I figured it out.
Cool.
Yeah, it's great.
I'm very much looking forward to it. I love crowd control streams. I love doing it for a good cause. I love hanging out with all of you. I think uh we will be streaming that both on Twitch and on

YouTube. Question mark, I believe. Yes,
is correct.
Um and uh it'll be fun. So, pop in, pop out, say hi, support uh you know, if you can. That would be lovely. Um, rock and stone, all that jazz. I I've heard so much about Deep Rock Galactic and I'm very excited that my first true foray into the minds uh essentially will be so unhinged that I will never fully understand what the base game is ever again.
I feel like that's correct. I think we're going to make you the driller.
I love drilling.
Matt, do you like flamethrowers?
Yes. In fact, um I'll I'll tie this all together in a nice little bow. Will wrote a very lovely short on Friends Slop that will be coming out um roughly or Friendlop question mark that will be coming out I believe Wednesday or Thursday. We kind of fasttracked it because it also advertises the birthday stream, etc. And I added a little thing into that script about I do actually think Hell Divers 2 is friend slot, but don't tell Super Earth. Um uh and in

Hell Divers 2, my main uh Chaosium uh element of choice is uh the flamethrower. It's not effective and it just hurts my team and I do not care.
Well, in this case, the driller has a flamethrower that's very effective and doesn't well does hurt the team, but like won't in the normal way. Um so I mean does in the normal way, but is is fine. Uh so we're probably
Darter. I like a lot of these comments too. Darter, we mentioned Oh, wrong one. That was Jimmy. Sorry, Jamie. Uh, we do mention it. We actually do take a little dig AI slot very quickly at it. The short's very good, Will. We We kind of We kind of brainchild that very quickly. And Scott uh did a phenomenal job.
Okay. So, sometimes what you see here are two idiots having a breakfast talk show when we're kind of tired and getting started with our week. And sometimes we have banger episodes. And sometimes sometimes we pilot the content. Joerger so flawlessly that I it is it is

incredible and I feel like this short is a representation of us piloting the content Jager. Um also here now requesting fan art of both what the content Jerger looks like and me and Matt's beans wearing Joerger pilot suits because I think that would be cool.
Okay, there you go. All right. Anyway, um so anyway, all of that to say please be get back.
All of that to say, please join us this Saturday, October 25th, from noon to midnight Eastern. Um, we promise it'll be a good time. There'll even be we have a movie planned for dinner um in in the finest tradition of our breakfasts uh or of our of our birthdays. Yo, I cannot English today. This episode's going to be wild.
Great, Will. We were doing great.
So good. Um, we do have a public domain movie. Uh, many of you may have heard of it. It is called The Last Man on Earth. It's a 1964 movie. You may be familiar

with the remake of this movie or the re-reake of this movie called I Am Legends starring Will Smith. This is the original Black and White interpretation of that novel that got turned into that Will Smith movie. I'm very much looking forward to this. I've never seen it. It promises to be a great time.
Uh so yeah. Yeah. It's got Vincent Price in it. That's correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so please, please join us uh for that um on uh on Saturday as well. So, uh yeah. Okay. I think that's all of our housekeeping um or house cleaning,
although some people may need to do more house cleaning uh because of our next story.
That's true. You want to make sure that you've changed the various uh This is a really Okay, you know what? I was going to make a litter box joke, but at the same time, I actually don't know the physiology of what we're about to discuss very well. It seems like between translation errors,
uh, the Pokemon Company and Nintendo

don't do either.
That That's correct, Matt. So, we've we've had a deep existential Pokemon lore question answered. And we would not be a gaming news show this week if we didn't do at least one Pokemon story. So, we picked only the most important, which is that the Japanese version of Pokemon ZA confirms Pokemon poop. That's right. Ne before in the cannon, from what I understand, has this ever been uh mentioned.
No, it hasn't. This has sort of been one of the things that's been handwaved. Right. So, like Jeff and I have been playing through uh Shining Pearl, and Jeff has had some very interesting questions, like what are burgers made of in the Pokemon universe?
And that's a great question, Jeff. Next question. And the question of
Pokemon obviously eat cuz they can eat berries,
but do they poop? never been answered canonically before, but now thanks to a piece of side dialogue in Pokemon Z only

in Japanese because in English it simply refers to Pikachu's tummy problems. Uh it's not it's not as clear, but in Japanese it definitely says poop. Definitely says poop. So
So I guess the question then is and maybe this is different based on the size of various like real world animals, right? Like, does Pikachu Okay, there's two questions really. Does Pikachu poop in in the Pokeball? Like, do all the Pokemon have like little bathrooms when they're in there or or do they have to wait till they're out of it and then is it based around if how domesticated the Pokemon is, how large the Pokemon is? Like, do you need like actual like fields for them to to graze and do their business in? Or if they're small like Pikachu, is that like a litter box situation?
You know, these are really good questions. And I don't you know, Matt,

I'm terrified of thinking about it for too long because then I feel like we'll begin to ask other questions like what the Great Pokemon War was about.
There was a great Pokemon war.
Well, there's a Pokemon military.
Okay. I've I've fallen off since the days when fighting to be the very best that no one ever was.
No, this is the original one. What's Sergeant Lieutenant of the electric type gym leader named Lieutenant Serge?
Sure, but that's like Listen, I think we know a lot of people that like give themselves military rank and they're not in militaries cuz they think it sounds
because they all dress like Guile for fun. Um, you know, that's fair. That's valid. Although, right, I feel like this is just one of those deep lore questions that Nintendo and the Pokemon Company are just like, "Shut up. Stop writing us fan letters." Like, that's that's really what it is.
Oh, no. Let's see.
There are at least three different canonical wars according to Nova, who is

our our Pokemon expert.
Lias has a great Did we We didn't mention this yet. Uh, the Reumaka poops. It is written in the Pokédex that people that that people actually cover themselves in poop to keep warm.
Ah,
so is is that the first mention? And this
Okay. Wait, but but importantly H but
yeah, I get what you're saying.
Um it's it's only confirmed that that one species of Pokemon poops, right? Because it's like a thing that it does, right? It's it would be like it would be like if we had a wildlife dictionary and people thought that only wombats pooped because wombat square poop is mention or cubic poop cuboop if you will um is mentioned right
I'm loving a lot of the lore dubs that were there's a huge amount of lub dubs uh Lieutenant Serge is actually a veteran according to fire uh red and leaf and leaf green but does it say a veteran of what Rios Uh the uh I believe it's one of the

canonical wars. One of them takes place I think right before Red and Blue. Um yeah. Yeah. It's wild. Um. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. No, that's you know, I feel like this is this is really the truth of it, right? It's like Uma Musim. Don't think about the Lord too hard or it breaks your reign. That's true.
But then, okay, I would I would ask this question, Brad and Janet. If we're not supposed to like the only purpose of lore is to think about it too hard, otherwise it's story.
I'm going to I'm going to fire back on this one. Right. Okay. Are you ready?
Yeah. Think about all of the consequences and implications of the fact that in the Cars universe there's a pope.
No. Yes. Think about that. That's my

point. If you're not think about that, think about it. That's what that's where that's where you start unlocking your full potential,
right? I guess. Sure. Right. I don't know. It's just very fascinating to me that this is all like the story is interesting. The story about the story is also really interesting that a number of people have like latched on to this as like being the big reveal of ZA. It's not any of the mega evolutions. It's not any of the cool gameplay stuff. It's not the fact that it runs on the Switch one pretty well or like and there's lots of cool stuff about it, but neither Matt or I have played it, so we're not really going to talk too much about it. It's this lore implication that Pikachu poops. Yeah, I think it's very important uh to really, you know, dive into this particular story because again, Will and I have not played it. We hope if you are playing it right now, you're enjoying it. I do know that my special correspondent who was supposed to come in today has not gotten back to me yet. So, that will not be happening. But, I will report for her. Uh, Extra

History's uh wonderful artist Ally uh messaged me on Friday apparently because it came out Friday. Yes. or
yeah like Thursday at midnight
Thursday or Friday
she had pre-ordered a special version of it and uh apparently the plushie got delivered but the game didn't and so far there is no uh response back from customer service on that. That stinks. Uh that stinks. Uh and uh I'm sorry Ally. I'm sorry that's awful. And I hope you get your game soon. Um, that way you can dive into the deep lore implications of um a specific small yellow Pokemon and how its uh digestive tract actually functions and finishes the job.
Yep. Uh but if you're playing ZA, we hope you're enjoying it. Uh everything I've heard about it has been largely positive. uh despite some concerns early on about like Mega Evolutions being locked behind Pokemon or behind rank battles online and some other stuff, but

largely I've heard good things about it. So that's good. Um I'm glad
is anyone in chat right now, have you been playing it? Have you been liking it? I would like to if if if we kind of move on and we can ramble for a bit about this before. I'd like to know sort of like your favorite thing and your least favorite thing because every time a poke I have not really gotten into a Pokemon game probably god maybe the Game Boy Advanced days. Um and we tried after a panel uh after a design club live we tried to get into Scarlet and Ruby
Violet.
Is that right?
Scarlet and Violet. Scarlet Violet. Ruby and Sapphire. Scarlet and Violet.
Thank you. Sorry. Um, and uh, I tried to keep going with that and I just couldn't. And I'm always like, "Oh, is this the one, you know, like that gets me back in the game?" So I' I'd be curious.
Yeah. Um, uh, Coppers points out that there have been a lot of QL improvements. Uh, so

good. So that's really good. I'm always happy when because Pokemon's a menuing game, right? Pokemon is a game about menuing
and to have quality of life improvements there is always good. Uh, also as an aside, um, I I will I will address this here and now as a representative of Brad. I heard that there was a heist and that the French crown jewels were stolen out of the Louv. I don't I know where everyone in Brad who's feverishly a fan of heisting things was at the time of said heist. Definitely. And know nothing about the heist.
Fair.
Yeah.
Uh battle system and gameplay loop, but how dull the city is. That's kind of been a thing in the Pokemon games, right? Have Have any cities in Pokemon games been like, "Oh man, that's the best." Like that seems that uh you know uh Hegar, that seems like uh a Pokemon type.
By the way, uh uh Janet can't see it.

Brad is currently losing their mind with uh with these with these heist emotes. There's there's a heist emote over on
because of course there is. Um
yeah, I I just think it's always good when Game Freak takes meaningful steps forward uh because they're kind of in a league of their own, right? They don't really have competition in their space. Um PAL World isn't really competition in their space. It's competition in an adjacent kind of weird aside space, but it's not competition in their space. Uh, and so it's always nice when they innovate because they don't have a lot of pressure to do so. So, it's nice when they do.
Yeah.
Uh, are we ready to move on to the rest of the news this week?
I believe so. I heard this as well, Dragon. Just a real quick thing. The one of the uh one of the big problems is that every time Pokemon comes out or a big game comes out, all the websites SEO max for it, which leads to what feels like, we're going to say a

slow news week, but it's really not because there's a bunch of like important stuff that's just not as flashy that happens. Yeah, I mean it's it's interesting because the stories we have today are actually quite interesting and we wanted to we wanted to kind of topload the episode with the stuff about Pokemon because you know in the name of the game we do like talking about what's going on in gaming. Though since Will and I have not dove into this yet uh we couldn't talk about it specifically other than asking you your opinions and this one silly story. But that doesn't mean that like everything else slows down. It just means Pokemon kind of takes all the air out of the room uh in the news cycle and we want to make sure
SEO be damned uh that we actually talk about the other things that are going on that that have broader implications for the industries about games and the tertiary stuff uh than uh the release of another Pokemon game which again is news question
right it's it's just not like it is as

expected there is a game there are Pokemon in it most people like it some People are disappointed in some parts of it.
Yeah, we that's a story we've heard before, right? And so uh and I I found it funny that the poop story is the one that kind of like uh you know
breach containment,
floated to the top. Uh because the the way like if that's the thing that people are talking about, that probably just means that the people that like the game are playing it and the people that don't like the game don't like it enough for their dislike to break containment.
Correct. Yes. It's It's literally like it's a Pokemon game. It's kind of like how there weren't any stories around the Switch 2 launch
except for like
everyone was just playing Mario Kart.
Yeah. Because everyone was like, "Great, this is it. This is what we're doing now." So,
yeah.
Yeah. Um Okay. So, first up on our list of uh stories. We're talking about TwitchCon. This is the 10th TwitchCon. Uh and we've got two batches of stories. One of which we're going to deal with because I think it it needs a lot of uh

professional critique. The second one is we're going to talk about the problem, a historical problem that TwitchCon has had. So, first up, this is what got announced at TwitchCon. Okay, this this is all of of their their announcements, and I hate some of these a lot. Um,
yeah, I read them all. Will, I'm so curious on your thoughts.
Okay, so number one, Twitch is continuing to invest in dual format streaming. So, it means that we could go live both horizontally and vertically. I don't actually know that that would make much of a difference for us. Like we we might experiment with it at some point, but they are they are doing that.
What would that do to our frame?
I would have to run a second canvas that so essentially when we go live in horizontal and vertical, it doesn't do anything. I go live on Twitch twice at the same time. Once with a vertical frame and once with a horizontal frame.

Yeah.
Yeah. Well, so it's not I I would say with all like Twitch has tried to stop competing with YouTube. That's why they completely seeded the pre-recorded content space.
Yeah.
Right. And even the VOD space, right? They have completely said don't like we have a clip somewhere saved of a Twitch live stream that ended with if you missed this don't worry you can catch it tomorrow on YouTube from the main Twitch account from Twitch in their own chat saying if you missed this don't worry you can see it tomorrow on YouTube like they've seated that game entirely so this is them I feel like trying to compete with Tik Tok um I don't really think that this is going to make a huge difference, but it is a thing that they are continuing to do and we could look into it at some point. Um, uh, yes, that that is, you know, that Yep, that's also true. You can
That was the thing I was thinking about.

Yeah, you can also just turn your phone sideways and watch things in 16 by9 like the makers of technology intended. Yeah. Um, also they've announced that you will be able to go live on Twitch from your Meta AI glasses. Okay. Um, so I have not used any of these. I don't like Meta, uh, as far as I can throw it. And, uh, I will say the if, if it was a different company doing it, their partnership with Raybands was really cool, but I still won't go in I won't support it or use it. Um, this feels very strange to me. Like, okay, so does that mean specifically they want you to be able to stream the ca like the forward- facing camera from your glasses?
Yes.
So, like anyone could just stealthily

Yes.
Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.
Correct. It's a horrible idea. It's an absolutely horrible idea. And by the way, the camera control will be terrible. The camera control on mobile streams is also is already bad. Like, huge props to IRL streamers, the links that they go to to stabilize their video. Like, some of them have steady cam, like mobile steady cams to help with like motion sickness, but like it already jerks stuff around.
Yeah.
It's bad technologically. It's bad social. No. Bad. Dislike. Zero out of 10. Great. Um, okay. Uh, next up, um, clips. So, they've they've been doing a bunch of stuff with clips. One of them is that if you're they've been adding a new feature where

if you post and share a clip from someone else's channel, you can get a badge in their chat if your clip reaches a certain number of views on social media of their content.
Stupid.
It's very stupid. It's very stupid. It's turned off for our channel. Don't worry, I turned that off. I didn't start with that. No, like that's a whole thing. That's sort of their their idea with clips. Um, and so, uh, they're they're doing I'm all about trying to figure out different ways to get people to engage with clips,
right?
But that seems like a lot of,
how do I put this? a lot of faux not that the effort is foe but like it's the thing you can tell God I'm I am pontificating and tinfoil hating very hard here so please don't take this entirely seriously but this is the a

product like this or a feature like this feels like a boss said we need a way to get people to share clips more
and then to get it off their desk someone's like what if we gave them a free digital shiny thing
y
and they're like brilliant and they did it without thinking of like do people actually care about this at all.
That's correct.
But they're building it.
Yeah. So, um the uh
and then they can say look we did it and then it's not going to work.
That's correct. So, um their the the perceived problem in spite of all of this is that streamers don't end stream and immediately make and share highlight clips of their stream. In fact, that's about one in four. We don't largely because when I'm done with stream, especially on like Mondays for instance, I'm pretty cooked. And then I have to do the chapter titles. If you're watching this later on YouTube and there are chapter titles, we don't put those in right then. We do those
because we don't know what they are
because we don't know what they are, right? We don't know how long
they are is more accurate,
right? Yeah. We don't know how long we're going to talk about this, right?

So that comes after our Monday stream and Matt and I have a chance to get done with our Monday work and then we meet later in the evening to do that, right? So, like that's what happens as soon as I get off stream. I don't have time to like make and share clips. So, their solution to this is that a new feature called auto clips that they're building. It's not live yet. Don't worry. Don't panic. Okay. Are you ready to scream, chat? Are you ready? Okay. I'm gonna read
warm up. Remember, it's important to to to pre-scream. Me, right? Okay. Great. All right. Awesome. I'm quoting directly from the twitch.tv blog. Okay, you ready? As you stream, auto clips will help you automatically create clips based on the best parts of your stream using AI and a variety of signals from the broadcast, such as positive excitement from the stream or funny banter. You can also handpick these moments while streaming by simply saying, "Clip that."

So, it's going to scan for when we say clip that.
That's correct. You know, I don't care about that.
I Okay, so I kind of do in the same way that I care about the fact that Alexa works the way Alexa does. So, the way that Alexa works or any other Amazon device or any other Google Home device is that the microphone is always on.
Damn. and that we're aware that we're being like we're broadcasting this. This is obviously done with intent, but the idea of them crawling through content listening for key phrases feels really weird to me that like like it explicitly doing that, right? I'm sure they do it anyway, but like
I was going to say that's already been being done for a long time. Now they're just giving the consumer something to do with it as opposed to collecting data or doing anything else. Like I if look uh

there is uh again this to me and I'm open to uh rebuttal uh wow we're off the Pokemon joke so I don't need to do that anymore. Um the like I feel like this is just an ease of because otherwise it's like either you say clip that or you click and you move a thing and you have to do the whatever and blah blah blah. So, I'm gonna say that it's actually bad for chat engagement because one of the ways that you can engage chat is by asking them to do a task, right? All right. Deep deep psychology time. Chat will sometimes disengage for a variety of good reasons. Sometimes it's a slow stream. Sometimes things are happening, whatever. But when I when someone new comes into chat and I say, "Hey, Brad, there's a new Brad. Be nice. Don't lick them." I swear, Jane, if this makes sense at Godex. Okay, Brad will immediately begin spamming lick emotes in chat. That's sort of a thing that drives chat engagement, right? Similarly, saying,

"Hey chat, can someone clip that pop off I just had?" Right? Um is a way to foster chat engagement. Right? And so this is removing that and replacing it with something that is almost certainly worse because the best that this clip thing is going to be able to do is get an approximate thing. I'm going to have to go back
going to be time. You'll set it to be 30 seconds,
right? I'm going have to go back and recip it anyway. So it's not really saving me anything. I could just put a marker in.
Yeah, that's fair.
Right. And so like I don't see the value being added for them explicitly spending time, energy, and resources crawling through all of our content waiting for a streamer to say clip that.
And I I I I agree with all of that. I will say they're already doing that data collection and scraping to everything that's going across their servers. Like that's probably one of the reasons why this is financially almost soluble for them. Um like that this is just an option giving to people if they want it. I think we I wouldn't like turn it on. I

think I could see use cases for people that maybe are, I don't know, just starting out, don't have uh that much of a engaged chat, etc. Just something quicker to do that they can also remind. Like to be perfectly honest, what I would love, and maybe there is a way to do it somewhere, is like literally just leaving markers for yourself to go back and do it later.
There is a way to do that.
Yeah,
there's a way to do that from your stream deck.
Yeah. So, like, you know, leaving markers is always something that I like doing so you can go back and know, oh yeah, wait, this moment was good. And then you could do the actual work of um
Yep. Also, I have been exhorted to have a rant about Rocco's Basilisk later while I'm playing Final Fantasy Tactics.
Okay,
so that's that's fun. Um uh okay, next up, uh some good stuff. Watch streaks. If you watch a channel a lot, you'll unlock watches. Watch streaks were a beta only feature and now they're available more widely. You can um if you watch a channel

continuously, you'll be able to get them. That's cool. That's nice. It's a little engagement thing. It's a little hey, you've watched a bunch of this. Have a little number go up. Awesome. Co- streaming is improving. Nothing really to say there. It's nice that we can see what the uh reach of an event that is being co-streamed is. Yep. But that's that's it's a small thing. combos. Nothing really to say. They took You ever You ever on mobile, you go to like Tik Tok or YouTube and you see the little like floating uh awards or other It's that
but for Twitch on desktop. It's not great, but like it's fine, I guess. I don't know.
Um
Oh, they're doing their more streamerled promotions because se September works so well. They're letting c certain streamers unlock that. Right.
Right.
That is the streamer taking part of the cut as well.
Yeah.
So that is kind of a contentious thing about where the revenue

where the who is losing money for a discount on a sub.
Yeah. Um, and how much of it they're losing is kind of a the the it's it's a fine idea, but the exact numbers are the part that need the finetuning. We've talked about those before, though.
Um, they're they're working to do more sponsorships. They're changing some safety and moderation stuff. There is a really cool thing which is going to uh impact us which I really like because we're actually currently using Twitch in a way it's not intended which is that groups of people are going to be able to more effectively manage a singular Twitch channel which I really like um with like roll updates. So
that's all the big stuff. There wasn't like a big killer feature announcement at TwitchCon this year which is kind of weird. Normally there is, unless they're calling AI clips like their big killer feature, which is not great.
I don't think Twitch is in a position to be I mean sadly dumping a lot of money

into something large and whatever, but also they need the idea, right? I think some of the stuff we're we're mentioning here, like maybe 40% of these things, feels like getting getting a task off someone's desk, not not a creative innovation that really is going to help move the the art of of live streaming forward.
Yep.
Um, and again, I don't have that either, but it's also not my job to.
Correct.
So,
yeah. All right. And then we would be horribly remiss if we didn't talk about the problems of TwitchCon. So, let's set some background. You've never been to TwitchCon, right?
I have not.
Okay. I went to TwitchCon once. It was fine. Uh there were plenty of like networking opportunities and workshops and stuff. I found that it wasn't a great value for the time that it took away from stream or the cost to fly out to San Diego and get a hotel room and spend a couple of days doing it. It just it it wasn't for me. I think there are there are streamers and people for whom

it is, but it didn't do anything great for me.
Did it feel like performative education?
Yes.
That's not to say you can't glean something important from it.
Yeah. But I think when you add up the co like the reason why I really enjoy going to gaming conventions, PA packs, Gen Con unplugged, whatever, is because like while there might be a edutainment thing, maybe we even do them like in design club and stuff like that. Like there's no there's no intrinsic promise to it. The promise is you're going to go see a bunch of fun games, maybe meet some people and play some things, right?
Rivals is big there, right? They're
rivals. feel like VidCon and TwitchCon specifically are like, "Yeah, you get to go see your favorite creators or whatever, but also like there's business tracks and I don't know like has anyone in chat in either of the chats here, Brad or Janet, ever gone to one of these things and like gotten like some really good advice and it moved them forward?" I'm sure it's happened, right? But there's an

intrinsic promise to these things that I to like cons like that that I never really like because I feel like it's so hard to actually deliver on and it's such a cost and time sync.
I think one of the one of the things that uh holds it apart from something like GDC is that TwitchCon and VidCon are double-sided. There is a public facing side and an industry facing side as opposed to GDC which is explicitly industry facing only. Yeah.
Right. Or PAX which is explicitly public facing only.
Yeah. GDC. It's interesting. GDC is what I mean obviously it's different a little bit, but like the the audience is what these conventions used to be. These all used to be just industry things that then all of the gaming journalists and and and magazines and things would go and talk about or or
you know Xplay, right? Like or uh Attack of the Show or anything on G4.
God, you're going to make me turn into dust,
right? But like now now we're all our own G4s. So, uh,
now that it seems like being Morgan Web.

Um, ANYWAY, ALL RIGHT.
That's the strongest one.
Correct. Um, all right. So, having been there before, I will tell you that one of the problems that has existed with TwitchCon for forever as part of the professional track is Twitch not doing a great job taking care of their uh, streamers that they invite. So, I'll tell you a story and then we'll we'll go into what happened this year. So, when I went, there's a thing called the partner party. You have to be a Twitch partner to get in. You have to register ahead of time. You cannot I don't believe you can even bring you might be able to bring plus ones, but like it's a it's a specific event for Twitch partners offsite at a different place that's fully hosted by Twitch that's supposed to be pretty swanky with like a DJ and stuff. When I went um there was a table and on that table were preoured drinks left unattended.

Tight
tight tight tight tight tight tight tight tight tight. There's a huge number of red flags. It's a massive number of I don't understand basic safety and security at public events number of red flags. That's like a huge absolute like if you are someone who is watching a space for signs that it is unsafe, that is one of them. And indeed it was unsafe that year and several people were hospitalized that year as a result of those drinks. Okay, great. Excellent. Twitch has had a problem with con security for a very long time and we need to I I am personally of the rather extreme opinion and again this is just my personal opinion that Twitchcon is absolutely a stain on Twitch's professional reputation and should be cancelled. It is always dangerous. There is never a year where there is not a story like the one that we're about to tell you where someone is injured, someone is

assaulted, someone ends up hospitalized every year at TwitchCon. I do not recommend going to TwitchCon. That is my personal recommendation. Okay? Because this year what happened was uh Emiru was doing her meet and greet which let's be very clear she wanted to cancel and Twitch said that she was contractually obligated to do if she wanted to do any of the other things that she wanted to do at TwitchCon that she was contractually obulated to do this meet and greet over her objections about her personal safety. And indeed when a individual that was a four time self censor when an individual came out of the crowd and assaulted her and Twitch security did nothing nothing about it. Right? Her fears were justified. In fact, her own security and her own manager took care of her after

this incident. and Twitch later on that day said that the person had been removed immediately from the premises, which Emiru vehemently disagrees with in her own statement on the matter. Um, and it sort of highlights that Twitch doesn't do a good job of running conventions
because because here's this is the interesting thing. Um, conventions as a whole, and I actually don't know, we could actually find this out pretty quickly. who runs TwitchCon because it's not Twitch. Like Twitch is in charge of TwitchCon, but who puts TwitchCon on,
right?
Um because there's only a few companies now that basically run like Reed Pop and a few others that like that run.
I cannot imagine this is Reed Pop.
Yeah,
it's way too sloppy to be read Pop. Read Pop does packs.

I'm trying to see.
Yes, that is correct, chat. It was in fact not Emu's normal security guy. It was her backup security guy because her normal security guy got banned from TwitchCon after he stopped someone from assaulting her a couple years ago. That's correct.
I knew there was I I knew there was a twist there as well. It it is um it is it is like again I don't see the benefit of going to like if you go to TwitchCon or you're a person that goes to TwitchCon and you have fun that's great. I'm so glad you have a good time. I can't recommend going to someone who's like asking for my honest opinion on it as someone looking out, right? Like,
so what I'm finding here very tertiary, I don't want to hold the story up too much, but what I'm finding out is it actually is run by Twitch.
Oh,
like,
yeah, right.
There's a So, there's Twitch Interactive is the parent company of the streaming platform Twitch.tv. Twitch Interactive

is the company that And then Amazon owns Twitch Interactive, which is owns Twitch.tv. Um, that might mean that they are just buying a bunch of different vendors to do different setups and they don't have an actual company that specializes in. Again, I don't know. If anyone can find more information, please shoot it our way. I don't want to just slow everything down here. I didn't know we'd go and we'd sort of dive into this bit of nitty-gritty. Um, but that speaks volumes to this. Like, I'm pretty sure, let me look up what company puts on VidCon. Like I know it's going to be like YouTube, but like that's not Yeah. Here we go. So, Informa is a company that runs VidCon. VidCon uh that it was acquired at Paramount Global in 2024. Inform operates conventions through its Fan Expo subsidiaries, which runs events like Mega Con and Toronto

Comic-Con.
Sure.
Right. that there are specialists that do this and it is absolutely obviously the height of hubris for a streaming platform site to attempt to put on an in-person convention. Those are not the same thing, right? It is it is um have you ever been
I'll say this I'll say this real quick. Um we have been approached in the past with companies around uh either gaming conventions or other things to throw parties with them be in in in conjunction like you know extra credits presents blah blah blah and every single one by the end of the conversations we have turned down because and I this isn't everyone sometimes it just doesn't work out but I remember and I'm not going to I'm not going to throw names or do anything like that but I remember getting into a specific a conversation with a group that I was like, "Oh, what's the security detail? Like, what's the how do you handle

that?" And and they're like, "Oh, we'll have someone at the door." And I was like, "No, sure. That's someone checking that's someone checking IDs and tickets, but like like security like you're going to have 300 400 people in a space. Uh what what's how is that being?" It's like, "Oh, well, we don't have that." And I was like, "Well, then you don't have us." Like, it's very simple. Like I coming from a television background and production, I I have run sets before and it's different of course, but there's so many different contingencies about safety and and um and all of the things that you have to plan that are other than the one thing you are doing, a shoot, a convention, etc. Like you need to make sure that everything else is locked up or else the core reason why you're there will have cracks and inevitably be far worse for the product and the people who are putting it on than if you put think of those contingencies beforehand. Um, a lot of people just think that they can throw an event or a party

and you you can't. like when you get to a certain size, you can't without thinking about things like security, without thinking about things like um uh venue safety, fire exit, like all of the stuff that like heaven forbid you never need to think about on the night, but TwitchCon seems like a pretty good example of like, well, you didn't really think about this thing and one of your biggest streamers just got assaulted and her staff had to handle it.
Yep.
It's pretty rough. Not a good look, TwitchCon.
No, it's really not. Right. Um, and so yeah, also we should be continuously calling this out, even if it's not. Like, every time TwitchCon comes up, I try to not shut up about this because this is a systemic problem with TwitchCon, to the best of my knowledge, globally.
I want I want to actually say this, too, and maybe that's why again, tertiary research right here. I won't even call it research. I Googled it for three

minutes. who runs TwitchCon. If it is not a convention company, that is an issue.
Um, and uh,
I also want to swing the pendulum the other way and say managing a convention of a ton of people is insanely hard. And you can have the most buttoned up security and still have awful things come through. Nothing is nothing is for sure like people do work hard at these conventions. TwitchCon specifically has had problem after problem after problem after problem. It has now become the narrative of TwitchCon where streamers don't feel safe going.
Yeah.
And when you've gotten there, that is an endemic failure of your system.
Like, so like I I I just wanted I there's two sides to this. One, it's incredibly difficult to pull off a con. The other side is Twitch doesn't seem to be interested in putting on one that is safe.
Correct. And I also want to point out that like yes, it is absolut it is impossible to be prepared for every contingency, but their response,

right? You don't need to be prepared for every contingency. You need to have a generalized response plan to when things you haven't anticipated happen and their Twitch failed again, right?
And this isn't something too like this isn't something that like oh they couldn't have planned for this X Y and Z. This is literally here's a famous person meeting fans. What do you do in that situation? Do you perhaps have security around certain lines to like make sure that that like stuff like this can't happen? That's step one. This isn't like a big brain thing that happened here. Like it's it's nuts.
Yeah. Correct. Absolutely. Yeah. Um the the we could go into more detail about the reports about the behavior of Twitch security, but suffice it to say they failed on every level, right? And that's just unacceptable. So, Twitch, do better. Also, to just go back real quick. We don't need AI clips. Why are you doing this? Stop that. Stop. Get

get some help. Do better. Okay, let's talk about something completely different now so that I don't scream endlessly.
Reboot.
Reboot. Let's talk about Switch 2
now in stores.
That's right. Uh, can we do this in two minutes and 20 seconds? I think
Yeah, this is a short story. I just find it interesting.
Yeah. So, uh, the Bloomberg is reporting the Switch 2 has ramped up in an attempt to sell 25 million units this year. That's the story. That's pretty ambitious. And it means that if you were a person who didn't get a Switch to because you didn't want to hassle with pre-orders, they are available in many places on store shelves now, which is pretty impressive given that the last major release where we had like pre-order hiccups and everything was the PlayStation 5 and you couldn't get one for forever and now they're just Switch Twos on shelves. Granted, that was co
also true. Also true difference.
I really think and I I'd have to go back and look at um specifically uh release dates and how they've played out, but like I think and again Nintendo's doing

its own stuff. I I I always want to preface because I know everyone's mad at Nintendo and I'm mad at Nintendo about a couple things too. This is about a console release strategy. I think it is very smart to do what they did. Release it as much as they could. again dancing around the tariffs in what it was May.
Was it March, April, it was ear? It was earlier this year.
It was the tariffs were initially announced the day the switch to was announced,
which was May,
April.
I don't remember. Anyway, let's talk about a little bit before summer or summer. And then by the time the holidays come, you've ramped up production, gotten your thing, your ducks in a row, and now there there will be and for like there will be more units available for those who can buy one for a gift, right? Like this isn't going to be the FOMO of um like shortages of a thing. It seems like they they slow rolled it. And again, uh I was looking at the um in the Kotaku article, they had a graph of like Switch hardware through the like through the years. And

uh you can check that out in the show notes. But um basically, if they if they do end up getting the numbers out that they want, they're they're chasing the Switches the Switch on one's popularity. Like the trajectory could match it eventually, which is something that they want. Yep. So, that's cool. Uh, now it is time for the part of the show where we do fake ads while Twitch chat gets real ads. So, uh, please stay tuned while Matt and I do some hilarious advertisements for things you can't buy while Twitch check gets ad for thing that they can buy to turn pre-rolls off so people can just hop right in and catch us doing our thing. So, uh, we'll be back in three minutes. For those of you seeing ads, everyone else stay put as Matt attempts to sell you a thing.
Oh, it's me, huh? Okay. I did the intro. You get to
Great.
Hey, fellow youths. It's me, Uncle Matt,

trying to sell you internet security specifically for when you do conventions. Here's what you got to do. First of all, you pick me up a pastrami on ride and then you get it ready for me wherever you want me to sit down and I'll go to your little cartoon convention and I'll talk to all the people in the bunny ears and I'll say, "Hey, you're safe. Don't worry about it. Just don't do any of your events while I'm eating the sandwich." Because I got to tell you, when I'm eating that sandwich, I'm not looking at nothing but the beautiful, beautiful condiments and bread in front of my face. SO, JUST GO DO THAT. I'M HUNGRY. And that's my impression of uh TwitchCon security.
It's very It's a very good impression of TwitchCon security.
Um,
okay.
I don't know where I blacked out.
It's fine. No, that's pretty good.
Are you ready?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Here we go.
Hi there. Will from Extra Credits here,

content specialist here to sell you the idea that you could do so many better things with clips than AI. That's right. Like making it easier for viewers to clip. You did that. That was good, right? Or asking streamers how you could improve the clipping experience to help them manage it on their social media in addition to all the other things we have to do after we stream. Right? Instead of setting up AI and spending a bunch of money developing an AI model to scrape our content for us, you could have a conversation with us about what we need and and that would be helpful. Hey youths again, it's Uncle Matt or as I like to say M. Listen, there's a lot of talk about AI taking jobs, and I would just like to say that for the price of one pastrami sandwich, I'll go through your clips. I'LL GO WATCH THEM ALL. I'LL watch all the yucks. I'll

watch all the all the all the wacky goofam ups, except at lunchtime when, of course, I will be eating that delectable cured meat uh between two pieces of grain molded into something that my hand can grasp. But other than that, I'LL WATCH ALL the videos of the games and the video games that you're playing. So, don't go AI. Go M.
Well done. Well, well done. I like this.
It is It is short. It's just like um
um Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh
thank you for clipping that as if to prove a point. Um, yeah. I also think that like it it's worth noting just as an aside that we get some pretty great clips, right? There are people in the community like I want to call like I want to call like Arab Boros and um uh a couple others, particularly Arab Boros, who lurks and goes back through footage

the night after
and makes clips of funny things that they remember. like the amount of encouragement that that provides to a streamer is huge. Um, and just like a huge thank you and shout out to viewers that do that because that is how you get good clips. You don't get good clips by an algorithm. You get good clips when someone does a thing because that person understands your content. See, like by the metrics, we don't clip well, right? Because our bits are longer than 10 seconds, right? We have longer, more drawn out conversations and bits and it doesn't clip well a lot of the time and it takes someone who understands our content and our humor to really clip us correctly. And I don't trust AI to do it for a second. I think they're all going to be garbage. So, there's that. All right. Um, let's talk about other [Laughter] All right. So, you remember do do you remember when um when we talked about

how Saudi Arabia was gonna buy EA? Do you remember?
Yeah, sure.
Okay, cool. Well, there's a bit of a snag.
I'll say a complication. I know it's calling it a snag. I actually don't think this is much of a snag.
Okay. A minimum a complication. uh which is that the secretary of the treasury and several senators of the United States are um kind of concerned that a company as big as EA would be delivering all of its information directly to Saudi Arabia. Now, why they weren't this concerned when Saudi Arabian interests bought Pokemon Go, a game which notoriously has geot tracking data on millions of people? it's too complicated
is unfathomable to me. But they didn't. So that went through, but now they're

upset and potentially worried about this. So there may be additional regulatory hurdles for them to clear. I don't know that that's going to be a particularly high bar, but it is an additional wrinkle in this tale.
Yeah. Like here, hold on.
I like this one. I I like Medusas. They were eating lunch when Pokémon Go was bought. Maybe it was a delicious pastrami r. Yeah,
I think it was on Ry. Um, I think I mean it's funny. It's I I I hate uh globalizing in this way and wrapping people up, but on average with the uh age that our representatives are usually and their familiarity with technology, it is easier to understand like like I could see Pokemon Go or uh you know, Niantic or whatever gutting across someone's desk and be like, "Oh, they're a gaming company." like, oh, they make a Pokemon game. Who cares? Like, and not DIG. I know they don't do

that specifically, but there's a difference between that and buying EA, which is a company that makes multiple g like that like has a what is essentially is already a propaganda wing if you want. It could be and it could very easily do it somewhere else, right? Like so like even though the geocaching thing kind of is a huge deal as well, I think because people don't fully understand what that is or what that entails and they have other things to hopefully be governing, I feel as though that is why something like that slips through the cracks.
Yeah. Um I'm trying to figure out because basically this uh the Kotaku article brings up that like not only is there backlash from senators and developers but uh basically to get it through Wall Street banks will have like 500 million in fees alone right so what I wanted to do like I'm trying to think of like so if it's going through for 55 billion that's not accounting the 20 billion that they're like making up or or or

basically borrowing against
financing with debt. Yeah.
Um that's really like what like a percent 2%. I'm trying to think. I'm terrible with math, but like what is
like one?
So like oopsie. And I know that's insane for like anyone who's sane, but like that this is a drop in the bucket. This is a this is a pass go uh
we're in what I would call monop monopoly money territory where like it doesn't actually matter.
It's all fake,
right? Like it's just a number of zeros. It doesn't actually do anything, right? Like it's it you you are you have reached a point where people might as well just be like trading gold bars for all of the good that like the actual movement of money does for the economy.
Yeah.
Um Yeah. It's It's not.
Yeah.
So, it's interesting. I again I don't think that like

I I one I feel like I'm giving uh you know folks like who who actually spoke up about it. Richard uh Blummenthal and Elizabeth Warren basically uh called from the Treasury Department to put the brakes on the stuff, right? That's basically what the Kotaku article says. This is not me uh poo poo talking uh Bloomthal or Warren at all in this. I appreciate that they are saying something. Yep. Um, I wish more people would say something. I wish um that saying something did more things.
I think that's my big wish, too.
But I I It's funny cuz like I know that the headlines for this are like backlash and snag and whatever. I'm like I think this is the cost the imaginary cost of doing imaginary business
and uh it's just going to roll through.
Yep. Yeah. That's uh that's 100% where where I think I land too.
At least in the current administration and how the government is like that's just like that's just how it's going to be.
Now again this I want to go back to the

story though because if you remember
buying this is insane. Like again, there are many smarter people than I that I'm sure have crunched the numbers and blah blah blah, but like
they're going to buy this because they're doing it against borrowing basically a third if not a little bit more of the money that they're spending. They're going to do massive layoffs, massive, massive layoffs. And then the products that are already just sort of fine are going to suffer. Like I I don't see a way that even trying to even if even if the most malicious idea is true and there and like the other governments want this company to sort of like inject more uh non-American culture or or or propaganda, however you want to whatever like the good or bad version of that is,
whatever the pearl clutching is. Yeah.
Yeah. I don't think it's going to be effective because the product is going

to be worse. Yeah. Like it's that's I I I can't imagine a way where they end up making not because like not because like a company owned by Saudi Arabia couldn't actually do uh beautiful art if given the chance that they're not going to be given the chance,
right?
Like that's not why this is being bought.
Yes. Um, so I I I'm so curious just like five years from now [Music] when when we're when we're streaming Will from the bunker where where like where this deal will be and how many extra imaginary zeros will be on the next company who buys it like
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't know. I I I think uh uh who was it? Somebody correctly pointed out that the interest Yeah. A new guy pointed out that the interest on that 20 billion is

more than EA makes in a year. So EA goes negative on the debt.
Yeah.
EA literally cannot ever in its current path recoup the the debt that is being placed on it.
Yeah.
Right. It's just not possible. So
sorry, side note. Uh uh Nquib, I I actually just put your comment on listening to extra credits on the radio and then I gave a thumbs up and then I realized if you're listening to this on the radio, you wouldn't have been able to see the thumbs up. So I'm giving you a verbal thumbs up for thank you for listening to us in an audio format as well. I do very much appreciate it.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Okay. Um
Oh, no. R2, that is my bunker. I It's the It's the box I used at PAX West.
That's right.
Uh that Will and I can fit in there.
Yeah, that's right. Matt has the bunker. I have the undisclosed location. It's great.
Um, yeah. All right. Um, next up,
we want to give kudos and also recognize that there some things are harder than

people thought they were. So, GOG has been committed to game preservation for a while. It's one of the big selling points of their company, right? It's a it's a thing. Last November, they committed to the game preservation program. Um, and it's a great idea that they're going to try and maintain all of the games that they sell indefinitely and keep them running. Now, if you've ever tried to play a classic game, that's difficult. I tried to play for my birthday several years ago, the Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time. It's an FMV
Oh, I remember that. Oh my gosh.
Yeah, it's an FMV um point-and-click adventure game about traveling in time. It's a wonderful ride. Um, it also runs like absolute crap. Uh, and I had to jury rig a two PC solution with my
with my streaming rig and my laptop at the time in order to get it to run at all. It it is a challenge, right? Because many of these games that are beloved things from our childhood are

difficult to play. Not because of any malfeasants on anyone's part or because of an abandonment of support like um in an ongoing sense, but simply because they were written for a different processor architecture in a different time, right? Okay. And so GOG has been attempting to work against that. However, they're discovering that it's harder to do that than they thought. Um, which is a little discouraging, but they are they are um soldiering on. Um, one of the one of the problems is that they'd already begun working on this. They had about 3,000 games that were restored and could work and a bunch of those have broken again because it's not a oneandone, right? Because technology is an evolving thing. It's not a one and done. Many of the g they're going to have to continue to update support for many games as time goes on. And this is a big ask for GOG, which is admittedly not a giant company, right? It's not as big. If it were Steam tackling this, I

would say that there would be more resources at their disposal. And GG isn't small, but it's smaller. And this is a big undertaking.
Yeah.
Um, as a result, they're scaling back their goal.
They kind of have to
for the preservation program. They they had hoped to add 500 games to the preservation program by the end of 2025, but it's looking like there's only going to be somewhere between 300 and 350, which is still 300 or 350 more games that are being preserved. Let me let me be very clear. That's a good thing. The heartbreaking thing is that this is proving so much more difficult to do than anticipated even by people who are deeply um intellectually, emotionally, and financially invested in doing this.
Sure. Yeah,
I uh it's great that people are trying to do this. I think the trying is all you can do. Like the technology is moving at a pace um that is affecting art faster, I think, than any other time in human history. Um and being able to

preserve how a thing was is a complicated and kind of esoteric problem anyway. Uh so you have to do what you can and uh I'm appreciative of GOG for for sort of taking this torch even though it is a it feels like a sysophician task right like there's no end and you'll never do it right
but it's still worth doing.
Yeah. um as an example and uh Demon Works is bringing it up just as I was about to in addition to all of the um one of the things that I think is really interesting here uh and sort of an indictment of the copyright system as it currently stands uh is in additional of the technical challenges because there are a lot of those right for instance some of you the the programmers in the audience will will cringe and wse visibly when I mention that some games have their frame rate tied to the processor clock speed.

That's a problem that needs to be overcome before you can have a game run on a processor that runs multiple orders of magnitude faster than the processor for which it was originally designed.
Um, so yeah. Um, in addition to that, the copyright for some of these games is esoteric at best. And they have they have literally reached the point where they are hiring private investigators to figure out who has the rights to some of these games because nobody knows.
Yeah. And even some of the people some of the people that own them didn't know that they owned them.
Yeah. Uh the the Kotaku article goes on to sort of talk about them finding one uh person who owned a bunch of games that didn't know that they even did and then they're like, "This is great. Yeah, go for it." Like,
yeah,
you know,
but and and it it is really nice to see that they are that committed, right, that they are willing to put up that kind of money to do this for an R.

Yeah. Yeah. To to do Yeah. Because there's one way. I mean, one way to do this is to do it wrong and do it illegally in a way that wouldn't be accessible to people because the the because of piracy concerns or because of many other things, right? That's not what they're interested in doing. They're interested in trying to in the very difficult legal framework that we all exist in, try to find a way to preserve these games as much as possible. And it's neat. Again, it is impossible and they'll never be done, but I do really appreciate that they're doing it. So, thank you, Gogg.
Yeah,
speaking of old games and preservation, Chad, you remember Atari
back in ye olden days? Remember the Intellivision,
the the competitor to Atari?
Yeah.
Well, Atari bought them in 2024.
Yeah.
Uh, they decided that it would be a cool idea to re-release the Intellivision. I think

this is dope. Uh, and maybe it's my old man blood talking, but uh I love this. I uh never had an Intel television um again because I'm a thousand years old. Uh I had an Atari 2600 uh a less powerful uh console of the time. The commercials, if you go to the Polygon article in the show notes, they have like a link to the YouTube videos of like the old commercials of like Atari versus Intelvision. It's like the first console war. It's cute by comparison. Um, what this is Yeah. like uh Yeah, Lumis. Precisely. Precisely. This is a thing that like is going to be like if it functions the way that they're saying it functions, which is essentially it's preloaded with a bunch of the games. Uh the controllers, as you see here, are no longer wired. They are actually like USBC dock charged. And it has HDMI out. It has USB port like but

it still looks like the old school int television like this is not preservation but it's a really nice secondary option. This is this is usable nostalgia that I'm sure the games themselves when running are essentially probably running on a equivalent of like not exactly but like a Raspberry Pi or something right like
it's like a pie
but this is going a long way to if you cannot truly continually get the exact uh processor clocking or like any of the incredible numerous minutia of a video game from the past running and working. This is a really cool option that again is not accurate, but it's it does to your brain what all these remakes and remasters do to our brain about specific games. We If you play Resident Evil 4

now, in your head you're like, "Oh, this is kind of how it's always looked." No, it has not. Like, you know what I mean? like and so and I'm not talking about like graphics specifically for the Intelvision, but the experience of using an Intelvision hopefully will be enough to make you feel that like oh this is what it was like even though it wasn't actually. And I really really appreciate this.
Yeah.
Um
I do too. I think this is I think I think getting a a a new intellig. So, you know, if if this is it is going to clock in at like 150 bucks, which is not a small amount of money, but also for for a collector of int television stuff, this is a worthwhile and worthy investment. It seems
it's also really nice because um you know they it the company of int television like no longer exists. This is called the intellig spirit by

the way which I think is a apt
name.
Yeah.
Um
yeah and and yes chat you're correct. You need to hook this up to a giant solid wood TV that's a CRT in order to get the real int television experience. Yes, that's that will be true. However, consider also they don't make those anymore. So, we're going to have to find ways to get as close as we can without CRTs. And I don't mean a terrible CRT filter.
Please stop putting mandatory CRT filters in games.
I have a Commodore 64 monitor in my storage unit for that very reason.
Um, it's the best it's the best CRT monitor you can get for any classic video game. I'll fight anybody on that. It's just it's it it's so vivid and perfect. Um it's amazing.
It's true. The uh the Melee players own all of the all of the CRTs. That's true.
Yeah,
that's correct. Uh okay, let's talk about a company that's made some missteps.

What are you talking about? What are you talking about? We all play Destiny. It's Destiny Doomsdays, right? Like we every doomsday we play Destiny.
Yep. I definitely played Destiny the last Tuesday.
Yeah.
Which was in the month of Smirch, by the way.
That's right. I want to again give our our classic Destiny disclaimer. I love Destiny and Destiny 2 so much in theory. I've wanted to love and play them for years now. I have since not
because they make it difficult to onboard and they do silly things a lot.
Yeah. Um, I I want I want this game to continue, but dear God, do they make it hard for that to keep happening. Will, please continue. All right, so July 15th, 2025 of this year, a time which you could be forgiven for forgetting because it's this year and everything is a haze. Uh, the Edge of Fate was released, their newest expansion, and with it came the introduction of

unstable cores, a new currency used to upgrade gear past the current season limit. New currency added uh to the game that you needed to farm and collect, and the the ratio between time spent farming and the number of cores needed to upgrade higher tier gear was pretty egregious in many players opinions. and it has been one of the most disliked parts of the new expansion. Well, it only took them three months and they've already they have announced that they'll be removing unstable cores. They said our bad. Our we gave it three months. It's our bad.
That's how unstable they are.
Yeah, correct. So, in true Bungie fashion, they're giving everyone 777,777 of them because it's Bungie and that's what they do. uh and and then they're going to be deprecating them as quickly as they can, but they have to write the code to get them out of the game. Um it is kind of

like first off, props to Bungie for listening to the community and saying, "Hey, we tried this new system and it didn't work. So, we're going to make things right by giving you enough of the stuff to get you over until we can get it out of the game." Right. And uh on the other hand, how did another currency make it into Destiny 2 in the first place?
How many currencies are in Destiny 2?
That's a great question, Matt. We don't have time to list them all.
We're going to find see if we can find out. Glimmer, legendary shards, enhancement cores, enhancement prisms, ascendant shards and alloys. And then there's different crafting currencies which is ascendant alloy, harmonic alloy, resonant alloy, silver,

but those aren't you don't buy those.
Correct. Then there's glimmer.
Well, glimmer you don't buy either.
Correct. No, none of these are these aren't things that you would purchase. These are things that you would farm. This is part of the the gameplay loop, right? This is this is more analogous to um uh grind currency, not purchase currency, right? But there are way too many grind currencies and there's way too many currencies in Destiny 2 already. It's approaching like currency soup levels of just like yo could you don't don't um
God I just want I just just let
those are vertical trees. Okay, cool. That Yeah.
Is this a farming sim?
Yeah.
Yeah. Essentially so props to them for undoing it. But like why my big question is what's the design impetus for adding another new one to begin with? Again,

having not played it, I can't like dive into what I expect for them to do uh completely outside of it in a bubble. You make a a new currency that is hard to obtain so that you lengthen your play time with the content you currently have. And by lengthen the play time, I mean, yeah, there you go. Uh where you I mean specifically like so you have to grind and do the content over and over and over again to get the drop. Yeah. So I don't know.
Sorry water for a second.
It's okay. I at some point I do want to do a script on like the the the the like just an exploration into like on a brand new account buying the latest expansion what it takes to start Destiny 2.

Yeah, I think Yeah. Yep. I would be I would be down to to come along and help record that.
Yeah. But
yeah, hopefully hopefully the next one guys keep trying. I I want I want this to do well. You are still the best gunplay in the business in my opinion. I just All the other elements need to kind of come back.
Yep.
Man, remember Sparrow races? That was fun.
All right.
Don't die, Will.
Trying very hard not to die.
At least for the next half hour.
Okay, great. And after that, I can die.
I mean, I don't want you to, but
I have permission. I can I can shuffle off this mortal coil. Great.
Yeah. I just again I don't want that.
Pardon?
Last story for today. The EU is moving strongly towards a uh recommendation for the EU Parliament to ban loot boxes

for kids uh under 16. They did they did do that.
Thanks. Um so what uh the PC gamer article has more details you can check it but the um the base version is that the internal market and consumer protection committee uh adopted a report that uh encourages the European Commission to tackle a bunch of things. This passed out of the um out of the committee with 32 in favor, nine against, nine abstensions. The five against means that this might not pass.
Yeah.
Reminder that everything in the European Commission must be done um unanimously. It's a federation that way. So, it'll be interesting. God, take one drip of one sip of water. Goes

down the wrong thing. Done for me. Take another sip to confuse it back into submission. That's normally the trick. Yeah. Here we go. Everyone perceive will taking a sip of water. Do it again. One more. One more will do it. I think talk to your not doctor about drinking water before somebody else does.
Okay. Um so this is coupled with a recommendation that it limit access to social media uh and specifically social media which has retention algorithms or engagement based recommener algorithms for minors as well but this is a broad package of recommendations.
Yeah. Also, this would basically make essentially uh kids 13 uh if you hit 13, you could have access to social media with a parents permission or 16 without permission and uh with some recommendations uh such as them recommending the loot box ban. Now, someone asked in chat what they are

actually defining as a loot box. Um, I'm not sure if they actually have that in writing at all because everything from uh the literal Destiny loot box I have behind the EU flag there to uh
that's an Overwatch loot box map.
What did I say?
Destiny.
Oh, sorry. It's still in my brain. Yep. Overwatch loot box. Um to literally uh cracking packs and Magic the Gathering is technically a loot box,
right? It's a physical loot box, right? Are blind boxes loot boxes,
right? like
and maybe there maybe their hardline will be literally digital things because there is a even though it's minimal there is a singular barrier to a physical type of thing that is a little that can limit in a way.
Um yeah I'm I'm super curious to see how this goes. I think again everything is complicated and we want to be very careful about like and then like okay great so we're limiting all this stuff how

right we just
how are we doing it oh is it is it photo IDs and AI nonsense and like all that well then then that's bad so like it's all
let's talk to Discord about how well that went
it's complicated and the the problem especially with any of these stories is I tend to agree with a lot of it up to the 70% point until you get to implementation and and no one has the right answer. Um, so it's kind of hard to go rah rah. Yes, hooray. Absolutely. Like I can do that in theory. Um, but then how how well I don't I I'll sort of try to pause this for myself, but I'd be curious what you think of what also YouTube and Twitch, Brad and Janet and uh Rocky over on Nebula. You can message us on blue sky if you have ideas here. But like what is the way to implement this that actually works? I don't I don't have one,
right? Because I think that there is

there is merit in the idea that saying that like we already limit people who are underage from gambling in casinos. That's pretty universally true,
right? That like gambling at a casino is a thing that you're not allowed to do until you're a certain age.
Okay, that makes sense, right? I think I think that's sort of like unless people really want to fight on that, like that seems like cloally true. So like if we can agree that loot boxes are a kind of gambling and that seems like a pretty straightforward acknowledgement, right? That you are
putting in an amount of money, time, effort, whatever potentially real currency um
to gain an uncertain outcome. That's gambling. Okay, gambling isn't bad necessarily in and of itself, right? It is worse for some people's brains than for others. Fully acknowledged, right? But some people enjoy it in moderation. If we can agree that people can't gamble in casinos until they're a certain age

and that this is a kind of gambling, it makes sense that there is some amount of intent behind removing kids under that age from gambling in a different format. Right? I get that intent. I am also hung up on the implementation.
Well, that's the thing with a casino. Here's how you stop kids from getting into into a casino. Multiple ways. One, you have someone on the on the floor that checks IDs. That's pretty easy. If a kid wants to go to all the trouble to get a fake ID, there'll always be people getting by. But come on, that's that's going to be a very minimal amount of people. You're going to you're going to be protecting a lot of people through that. Also, casinos are in in the ones that we are talking about in the traditional sense are a physical location, meaning that children probably age of 13 really probably can't get there easily. Uh hopefully, right? So like there's other ways to get across there as well. When you move into the digital space, that's a different thing. And then how do you what is the equivalent of the block of either distance or a bouncer? Um, someone mentioned in chat that uh a just a a

global loot box ban would be the easy way to do it. I would posit that that is actually more complicated because what is killing a boss in an MMO or Borderlands or something and the loot piñata that shoots a bunch of loot out and it's all at random intervals. Granted, you could say like, "Ah, well, you're not paying money to do that, like per pull, per boss, per mob, but you did pay money to do it." Like, and I'm not saying that there's not litigation or or or law that could be written around that. It just does make it complicated because randomization of a reward is something that is so intrinsic in video games. Um,
and like, and to be clear, I don't think either of us is saying that this means that it's not a worthy goal. I'm just
Oh, again this is a Yeah. Again, sisophician task. Keep it up. This is good. Um it's it's idea good implementation
difficult.
What now?

Right. Yeah. Like it's it is one of those things where you're like I I guess you and all of your friends are are um you know doing a thing and and you're like let's get pizza. And they're like, "Great." And then then you're like, "All right, you all have to pay for my pizza because I had the idea." The idea is great. The implementation lacks something. Right.
No, I like this. I think I'm going to use that this weekend, actually.
Sure. Great. Yeah. Awesome. Your friends will love me for that idea.
I'm going to make so many new friends.
Right. Yeah. Exactly. So, again, the idea good implementation difficult because the devil is definitely in the implementation, right? Because like I think there are plenty of people who do enjoy games that would be banned under a broad loot box ban, right? And that's I definitely see why some people want to would want to go that route, right? And I respect that that that desire. But I will also say that there are plenty of games that people enjoy responsibly in

moderation that include elements that would be uh removed or games that would need to be shut down as a result of that ban. Right. And so
can we try as an experiment and we're going to get it wrong. So everybody just buckle up for that. Can we try to come up with a wording or phrasing or or or categorization of the type of loot box that we would want to see in this band. Not the implementation of how it is done just like what the definition of that is. I think it's any randomized container
that can be d uh directly or indirectly purchased for um legal tender is really what is really
how do you get across the idea then like the individual container
yes
in a way again could be considered the

game like I think it has to also have to do with like a value propos
within within the context of like a digital structure, right? So like you have to have a game in which the the contents of the container have uncertain value and that the individual container, right, is what must be purchased, not the game, right? Not the overall structure, right? You buy a game, the game has randomized loot in it. I'm playing fellowship now. It's fine, but it has randomized loot in it. That's not what but what we would be saying is if there were a container inside that game that you could spend directly or indirectly through an intermediate in-game currency real money for that's I think where people really have the sticking point, right? Like if you have uh loot boxes for just playing the game, right? Hey, you've hit level 53. Here's your level 53 random reward. It got you could get any one of these shiny things. I
Here's what it is. Here's what it is.

And it's it's it's defining a sub u definition. Let's go let's go hard back into old school casinos. It's the pull. It's it's if you have to pay money to pull the lever on the slot machine to open a thing that has a random chance. If you are paying real world currency per pull or four four pulls, then that would fit the definition of not being allowed. Is there a hole there? Like because again, like that would take out things like an MMO boss dropping loot because you're not paying real money per pull,
right? And and we're also um uh someone brought up the the very real thing that like many games claim that you can't you can't buy milk at your grocery store without gems. True. That's why the directly or indirectly, right? Any in-game currency that you can indirectly

p that you can purchase that purchases the thing still counts, right? That that's not a level of obuscation that gets around the law.
Yeah. Like I'm trying to think of other things. Everything's going so fast in chat. I'm trying to keep I'm trying to keep up.
Um
I think that's a good starting point.
Yeah,
there's of course like you know then it deter like there's different elements. I know people are talking about in-game currencies and things like that, right? There's a different there's a different discussion to be had about what an in-game currency is and those that you can or cannot directly or indirectly buy for real world currency because like you can buy uh you know if if you can buy gems in a game for dollars and then exchange those gems actually the other way around. Let's say there's Starlight that you earn in a

game and you can exchange 10,000 Starlight for one space gem. And you can also buy space gems for real money. There'll always be a market to move those around and therefore it gets muddy. If you can actively switcheroo currencies between in-game earnable, in-game purchasable, and real world.
Yeah.
Um and there's lots of obuscation here. I know people are talking about like, you know, oh, you got to buy the V-Bucks that come in a certain pack number,
right? Yeah. And and and we're not those are all also bad practices that are intended to make you spend more money. We're just trying to deal with this narrow slice of it rather than tackle the whole pro like all of the problems with microtransactions and dark patterns in getting people to spend money in online games, right? We're just trying to deal with what does it mean for something to be a loot box in this context in a way that the EU is trying to take action on. Right.
And Chris even in in chat just said

something along the lines of uh if if paper magic is oluded what about arena now will in arena you once your money is in arena can you get it out at all? It's locked.
Yep.
Yeah.
So when I buy a pre-order uh bundle for arena it it's gone right. It's it's just in arena. My account gains cards, which is cool, but I can't get it out unless I did something hideously illegal and sold my account.
Ooh. Ooh. Okay. Dumb idea. Let's break this idea that's stupid and bad I just had.
Okay, great. Excellent. I love your stupid and bad ideas. They're my favorite.
What if there could be a blanket rule that says any currency that you buy something in a game has to be a real world currency.
Ah, yes. And then yeah right that we eliminate the premium
you eliminate gems you eliminate like and I think there's problems I think there's problems
so one of the problems with that is currently if you are skilled enough at a

variety of games we'll use arena as an example but this
skilled or have the time or both
both in both in Arena's case it is possible to earn all of your premium currency through playing the game So, in arena, you can earn gold by completing quests and doing dailies and stuff, and then you can uh enter certain events or certain competitions with gold, and those events pay out in the premium currency gems as an example, right? And there are other games that do this, too. I'm just using arena because it's where we're at, and it's a sensible digital analog for something that is obviously a physical loot box that helps us get a little bit closer, right? So that that eliminating that step does make it harder for people to do things in game that require that that they currently can do. Right? So for instance, sealed events are only accessible with gems or with real money, but you can earn enough gems by playing the game to get it.

But couldn't you essentially couldn't you essentially
they could assign you a balance to the account that you can't withdraw? Yeah. I mean, look, we all know the real reason why, and I keep using the word like gems, but you know the reason why buyable in-game currency exists.
Yeah.
It's to make more money.
Yeah.
It's to obuscate. It's to obuscate the value of what you are doing because what's a V-Bucks worth anyway? Um, and make sure that just it's it's the old like Renfair trick of like here's you buy 10 meal tickets for $15. You can only buy them in packs of 10. Uh oh, but the roast chicken is 12.
Yeah,
like it's wild. Okay,
I know it's I just keep going back to it. Uh it was a bad one. It was a small one up north. Um but uh
you come to mind it's much better.
Yeah. No, I'm sure. Uh like that that's why these ex like there's no with I'm

trying to even think of the exception of even like the magic thing that you said. There's no like I mean other than getting around law there's no reason to have these other currencies,
right? Yeah. Other than to hold value that's assigned to your
obuscate of value and therefore
take more money from people than than something is even and I'll use this in air quotes worth.
Yeah.
Because value is intrinsically in the eye of the purchaser or the seller. Correct.
Um, nothing has to be calculated
right. Yeah. Value is relative to the to the market supply and demand. Yes.
Yes. And RC. Yes. Or Yeah. Four technically five people total, right? Yeah. That would do it. But I
Yeah. No, no, no. Like that there's math, right? So
I just wanted Dragon Stew. That's all I wanted. I just think it is it is really interesting that like there isn't I think if there were a readily approachable widely accepted definition

or solution to this we'd already be there. I think part of the problem is that there's contention over how much government oversight people want in their um in the in their recreational time, right? Like I I totally I think we can agree that there is some amount of um concern over introducing gambling to kids super early. That's one of the reasons why you can't just go into a casino and bet your milk money on the blackjack table, right? Like that's not a thing, right? Because like obviously it's not a thing. Um but I think it also gets sticky when we try and work on very I feel like the solution here is going to be really arbitrarily crunchy and not intuitive, which is unsatisfying to us as people who discuss this. But I do think that there is something to the

legalistic nature of what's being proposed that certain things would need to fall in or out. So for instance, and we're already making steps towards it. For instance, uh different jurisdictions have demanded that specific kinds of games publish the odds of a thing can. So like anything for which the odds must be published might be a way, right? Because anything there's already a definition of like the gambling aspect where you have to publish um the rate of different payouts, right? And that applies to several different silos of game into many jurisdictions. So that's an option, right? It could be anything where you would have to publish that also. You must XYZ QRS, right? Um and so that's an approach, but I I think it's going to be very very crunchy. Um and I don't think it's going to be intuitive when we get there.
And we do have to keep going back to what is the problem that people are

trying to solve here. The problem is what they are positing and I would agree is exposing children to a bunch of flashy gambling that um is in designed to keep you locked in at an early age will be detrimental to them in adulthood because it will normalize a thing uh far more than it usually is that could exacerbate a problem that could have real world consequences down the line. And I think by the way we should also mention that when we're talking about this and what they're tackling they're also tackling a bunch of social media problems which are a little less relevant to our particular right
this is a larger
this is a larger thing one of the things that for instance they're tackling is infinite scrolling like Tik Tok does right yeah which as someone who has had problems with infinite scrolling in the past I will tell you for freezies that Tik Tok is buried deeply on my phone and it only gets open to see Tik Toks that people send me and then it gets closed

and YouTube isn't on my phone.
Took it off entirely, right? Because infinite scrolling is a problem for my ADHD riddled brain, right? So,
I mean, I think we're all anyone who uses a smartphone, even beyond those things. I don't use Tik Tok, I use Reddit, I use uh Blue Sky, and every once in a while, I use Instagram
and I'll still catch myself in a rotation hole of all those things and have to snap myself out of it. And uh I I have been affected by this as an adult. Like I can only imagine if I was 14 and this and this all was going on how quickly I would be I would be taken in on everything. So um yeah, it it's just it's a it's a really interesting because obviously we can't hide it. We can't say that it like doesn't exist as a thing in our society. And I don't think anyone's saying that like we should say that um you know you can't acknowledge that these things exist for kids but also

trying to find ways to stop people like we don't want gambling uh what was his name Joe Cool right the yeah the camel for cigarette ads like that's I think that's like the first level of like trying to get away from like hey kids addictive habit forming behavior is interesting actually and maybe you should all engaged in it in your free time with your recreational spending.
But think about something even like it's not a mascot per se, but think about something like Candy Crush,
right?
Like like that's not there's not gambling in Candy Crush from what I understand, but it is like there are maybe Candy Crush is the wrong the wrong thing I'm thinking of. Like I'm trying to think um I I'll go OG Overwatch with loot boxes. I think that might be sort of the better example here. Um, you're you get loot boxes for free in the game. It trains you to have the anticipation

and the very like really fun like animated shakeup and and it's a it's a that that loot box reveal is a master class in emotional manipulation and micro doing of dopamine. It is it is it is insane how well that works.
Mhm.
And then you sell that experience. You sell that experience all a cart. Again, four things that you theoretically and due to bad odds can also win in game. But like you you you games are a really easy way to onboard something in the real first ones free approach to do something that essentially will be detrimental to you if done in excess. And what are children not good at? Limiting excess,
right? And it should be noted too that that same experience has been done in other ways where it's not as um where it's not monetized, right? So, for instance, the chest opening animation in

Vampire Survivors is very similar to the chest opening animation in Overwatch, except you can't buy a chest in Vampire Survivors.
Yeah.
Right. And so that leads to a different behavior pattern.
Mhm.
Yeah.
I don't know. As always, it's very complicated. It's interesting to talk about. We We talk about this, I feel, like maybe like five times a year. We kind of do a deep dive. Maybe one of these days we'll uh we'll we'll stumble upon something that is uh good. I I do think I mean it would lose companies a lot of money to do this which is why it'll never happen but making everything that you need to buy in a game actual money like we give horse armor a lot of crap but you didn't buy Microsoft points to do that you paid $2.99 like you're and then that's why it's a meme right because back then especially $3 nearly for a piece of nonsense armor in a video game you're like what the hell and that seems quaint today.
Yeah.
Um but like I think that backlash could

be a very easy reason or one of the many reasons that added up to well what if we obuscate this by like no no no you're buying V-Bucks you're buying gems you're buying you're buying virtue deloons like it's
yeah and by the way thank you to both chats for like actually working with us on this and like having a good faith discussion because like it is this is complicated. There is not going to be a solution that makes everyone happy. I think to to to begin with I think um there are going to be solutions that just make the most people the least upset. Uh is is probably where we're headed. Um so you know
oops 299 is worth four 4.8 today.
Yeah correct. Um
uh yeah
uh both chats couple both chats sadly uh Brad and Janet cannot see each other though we can see both.
Yeah.
Um

yeah and actually Ryan this is this is a great sort of ender to this. Is it weird that I generally uh trust and I'm thankful that the EU is moving forward with this kind of stuff? No Ryan, it's not weird. Um there's something interesting that's going on in the United States uh that I think the due not to get too extra politics on all of this but trust I think in the government on and I'll say I'll say this very specifically trust in the physical like the the the manifestation of what the government is is at an all-time low across party. I think I think some people on the right do trust the Trump administration but that's not the full government. Yeah,
like I think trust has been eroded to a point in the US that it's going to take us decades to like actually start to trust that group again if we ever get there. Whereas something in the EU like this, look, I don't live in the EU and I'm sure there are so many problems, but but it feels like
there's at least a sense of like, ah,

yes, if this is moving forward, I trust they're doing what they're saying. And I think it's um I think the other big thing that helps with the EU is that anything that's going to affect the entire EU and therefore the entire world has to be unanimous.
Yeah. That unonymity really helps to ensure that there must be significant compromises that leave everyone okay if not happy with the solution in a way that um prevents a decent amount of the tom foolery and shenanigans that one might expect in a smaller group that does not require unonymity on something as complicated as loot boxes. Yeah, I will say and also just from from the the point of governance, this reminds me, I'll just do a small plug for the uh the only podcast about movies which I believe forget what even movie came out this week, but last week we did um prime minister as the story of uh Justinda, the prime minister of New Zealand during co through a bunch of other stuff and there's it's a really interesting look and obviously it's a documentary so it

has a bias to it but there's a really interesting look about like like even though her win condition it felt like was make sure the most people don't die that also has negative connotations to economic uh factors and like other things. So like all of the stuff even when you're doing the best thing that you can even when you get a unanimous thing even all the like there will always be downsides to every every decision. Um sometimes those downsides are things that I would agree with like oh no can the companies not make all the money they just have to make a ton of money. Well, okay. Like, so I don't know. It's all very interesting. We'll see. Hopefully, this this moves forward um and can get the um the universal yays and uh maybe we'll see some change. If the EU can get it across the board, maybe uh other places it it will uh will do it as well.
Absolutely. Uh as we wrap up, uh two quick reminders. One, if you have

thoughts and you're not in chat and you don't want to leave a comment on YouTube or you're in Rocky or whatever, hit us up. You can do that thing uh where you find us there and tell us what you thought about episodes. Or do you have do you have the one and only massive solution to all loot boxes across all platforms? Please please let me let us know.
Let us know.
Yeah.
Or sell it for so many gems.
Yeah. And of course a reminder that this weekend you can um microtransact for good by using your donations both large and small to influence our gameplay in some Deep Rock Galactic. If you're if you want to summon a Grunt, that's great. And if you want to summon a Mac Tara, that's going to cost you a little more. Um, but please do join us. Whether or not you're able to donate this Saturday, your viewership is another way that you can give to uh our fundraiser for direct relief in celebration of my birthday. So, please do be there. We're going to have guests. It'll be fun. There will be Steines. There might be beards. There will be a cool reward at $3,000, which I think many of you will be interested in. So, please join us for all of that. Um, this Saturday, noon to

midnight Eastern. I'm uh I'm very excited for it. It's funny. I have um actually I'll spoil this. I don't care. I'm not even supposed to say it. Uh I am recording a new uh Abolish Everything uh on the Friday night in New York City um at 10 p.m. So, I'm going to be arriving to Will's birthday very awake. Um maybe I just won't sleep between them. Um, and then we're going for 12 hours, so it's going to be pretty fun.
Yeah, it'll be good. It'll be It'll be a time.
I don't think um I think should we on Thursday for my stream time run me through the beginning of Deep Rock Galactic for those two hours
so I can
probably and we could play Fellowship next week.
Yeah, I think I know we keep kicking Fellowship down. Anyway, we'll deal with that on the Twitch. is having server issues, so it's wise to k it down the road.
Cool. Great, great, great. And we still

have Abselum uh uh
when that crossplay running. Yep.
Yep.
Okay.
Anyway, uh this has been another wonderful Games for Breakfast. Thank you all for joining us. Uh as always, we're going to end it with our classic ending that is the same every time. And the reason we keep it the same every time is also the same every time. It's because we want the community to be able to engage in one solidar act together timed to so the power of our all of our doing it at the same time can come together and really kick off our week uh in a positive way that where we can survive the turmoils of whatever life is throwing at us. So uh please uh join me as I say thank you for watching the show and we end with this statement again. It's the same every time. ENJOY A PASTRAMI SANDWICH. [Applause] [Music]