Resident Evil Requiem is Rad, Valve Sued by New York, & New Pokemon!!! | Games For Breakfast

Good morning, MATT.
AH, GOOD MORNING, WILL.
Good morning to Zoe, not you.
That's right. And of course, welcome to Games for Breakfast, the only internet talk show we talk about this week's gaming and tech news. But that also, I'm just going to have one pastry this morning. It's going to be this chocolate scone. I'm just gonna have the one like a normal human being would. Zoe, you got this. Laz, they're all here. They know. So, I'm just gonna take a quick bite of this.
I missed [clears throat] that. Today was one scone day.
It must have been a year since we last had one scone.
That's a good That's a good chocolate chip scone.
Okay. Excellent. Excellent.
Well, how are you?
I'm well. And you? Oh, you expected me to vamp longer while you chewed on your scone. I see. I'm doing really well. Uh, I just wanted to take this opportunity while Matt is chewing to give all of you a very

important scheduling note at the top of the show. There will be no games for BREAKFAST NEXT WEEK.
WHAT? WHY?
WHAT DID YOU DO, WILL?
I didn't do anything. You are going to be out of town.
I will be out of town. I'm sorry.
Oh, so don't add me with this. However, there will still
Well, what did you do to make me go out of town? [laughter]
I don't know. I don't bear any responsibility for this. I am not my co-host keeper. Um, but we will still have content here on Twitch as per usual. So, uh, come hang out and we'll we'll probably talk about the the state of the gaming world while I do things which may or may not be Azeroth related.
Yeah. There we go.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I had a thought and it was
Where'd your thought go?
Uh, probably to the cats. We've both been having cat issues this morning. Zo. Uh, Zoe was in here because she had a giant fuzzball on her face that she couldn't get off. We had to fix it right before the show went live. And I'm real tired because the cats broke into my room last night. I need you to

understand, chat, that I went to sleep with no cats and a closed door and woke up with two cats and an open door. So, the room was the wrong temperature and also cats. [laughter]
And also cats
right now. probably a better experience overall, I would say, than watching the Nightmare Fuel remake of Cats, the m the movie, the musical, the experience,
which I did. I reorganized uh my Blu-rays this weekend, and I do own the the the the Taylor Swift vehicle, Cats. Um I have watched it a few times. It is nightmare fuel and uh I will never regret purchasing it because I need there to be a record so that it never happens again.
Yeah. Yeah. That that seems that seems good. It's a it serves as a reminder to future generations that some things should just be left alone.

Uhhuh. Oh, you can't hear me. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How about now? Now we have to reload the thing.
I'm back.
Okay, now you're back. All right. Excellent.
I heard a little boop boop and I was like, "Oh, well, Will's still talking. I bet you chat can still hear Will."
Yeah, I can. But uh it our our audio call dropped and and now it's fixed.
Okay.
Back. [laughter]
Yeah. Okay. Cool. Great. Great. Great. Great.
Well, let's let's get let's get into the big story this week,
which I did not expect
to be the big story this week.
I think Okay. So, so I think the reason that this is the big story is because it really hit like it's not that anyone expected Resident Evil Recreum to be

bad, but I also don't expect I don't I didn't think at least personally that it was going to be this titanic of a force in in this weekend, right? Because two things happened this weekend, right? One, WoW Midnight got early access. We played on Friday. Mhm.
It's very nice. Very It's very good. It's got a lot of improvements over other stuff and there'll be even more improvements as uh the game fully launches or as the expansion fully launches. But that got real overshadowed by Resident Evil Reququum's launch like big time on like every social media platform on like everything everywhere.
All at once.
All at once. That's correct. It It was It was actually pretty impressive. Um, and like I said, I didn't expect it to be bad, but I also didn't expect it to be this.
Yeah, there's a lot of it going on. I ended up um sort of saving it for Saturday evening. Um, and actually, if

you're going to be uh at PAX East in the month, I don't even know when it is. Um, we're going to be doing a design club uh on the first hour of it. And I'm I'm debating what part of that it should actually be because there's kind of like three different ways this game starts. I'll get into that in a little bit. But um we'll have a panel of game designers up there talking about like the design theory and stuff behind the first hour of Resident Evil Recreum. But uh and you can come say hi and and say hello and see us in IRL uh you know FaceTown. But the um the I played it Saturday and it kind of knocked my socks off. like it. I was trying to describe it to some folks and it's it basically takes every lesson at least so far. I think I'm like four or five hours in. It takes every lesson that Resident Evil has learned uh both what works and what doesn't and just does the absolute optimum path in my opinion for like a game that I would enjoy. Uh if you like Resident Evils, I

cannot recommend this enough. the two different styles of play between Grace and Leyon are so welcome and at least at as to this point I've always switched back and forth um I think twice. Um it always feels welcome. Essentially, Graces is more survival horror and it's not a power fantasy. It is definitely like you are in trouble and you have to either hide or maneuver and your resources are low and you don't have a lot of options. You get you have a weapon but it's not like by the time you do that and then you go to Leyon. Leon is spin kicking and wielding chainsaws and literally I didn't know this minor spoiler. This isn't a story spoiler I don't think for Resident Evil Reququum. You know why it's called Reququum other than you can fit the like the nine in the in the thing that they blink in the title,
right?
It's Leon's gun. It's like equip Reququum in the first thing. And I was like oh wow. It's a big pistol and I'm like oh this is neat. And

you shoot it down a corridor of zombies and it I it was insane. I was like, "Oh,
is it is it like Samaritan, right? Is it like like Hellboy Samaritan?" I'm not a very good shot. Fortunately, the Samaritan shoots very big bullets.
It's nuts. And it's I don't even So, my point is this. Uh it it basically gives you two flavors of Resident Evil. I would say like the true survival horror stuff and then the more action stuff around RE4, which I just did finish my I had never actually completed RE4 before two weeks ago or a week ago or something. And I played it through entirely in VR and it was easily my favorite VR experience I've had. So I've been literally in the head of Leon Kennedy for a while now. And uh so that's sort of the gameplay mechanic behind it. The thing that I think they also nail is Capcom's tried andrue like super realistic yet

utterly batshit like logic behind what is going on.
Yeah.
Like you you're playing and it's hyper. It's you feel like real and focused. There's there's a section in the beginning of the game where you're walking through a city street that is like some of the most beautiful uh sort of renderings of something like that and then chaos ensues and there's a zombie outbreak and it feels it feels both claustrophobic and big and actiony and crazy and you're like wow this feels kind of weirdly grounded. the zombies will I have to tell so I know other games have done this and other zombie stories have done this but this version of the virus essentially like as you're going through this uh mental institution this hospital that you end up in for the majority of the first part of the game there are people who are infected there that worked there are security guards and nurses and doctors and chefs and um receptionists

the zombies still are trying to do before you interrupt them. They're still trying to do whatever their job was in a weird twisted way.
Sure.
Like it's so and like they'll even have like it won't be like conversations, but like there was an two orderlys at the top of some stairs and like I was hiding below them trying to hear cuz it looked like one was like essentially trying to like hit on the other one but it was zombies. they weren't actually doing it was just you can infer a lot of what goes on in the facility based on zombie behavior
and I thought that was a very nice touch. The ridiculousness comes in I think when you start getting into the mechanics. I don't want to spoil anything but there's one thing like the crafting system in this game
is total bonkers. Capcom, if you've played it, you know, but how you make things like bullets or vials of serums and things makes no logical sense.

None. None. What? Yeah. Odin, it's essentially watering plants with coffee.
Yeah.
No, I mean, but but like to be fair, that is a series standby.
Yes. And I'm I'm glad that in the sort of like hunt for hyper realism and all of these really wonderful moments that they did, they found a balance where they can still be nutty. Like this this makes no logical sense when you the the minutia doesn't make sense, but the macro of it all feels real and lived in. Um has anyone else in chat been playing this um at all? Am I am I Please please someone uh I want to hear some other people's first impressions as well.
I have not yet begun playing it. I have watched some people. It It is very interesting. There is a ser There is a scene um that many streamers are reacting to that I actually haven't seen, but I have seen their reactions because they're posting like the frame by frame of their reactions.

Okay, hold on.
Bless you. Gazite. One more.
No, just two. I'm allergic to zombie virus apparently.
That's fair. as most people are. Um, and and that's been really cool. Um, the graphics are really good,
but the thing that blew me away wasn't actually the game. It was that it was the top directory on Twitch for a good chunk of the weekend. And by top director on Twitch, Twitch, will we talk about that? Normally, we mean the top game because just chatting is such a behemoth category that generally speaking, it's very hard to be better than just chatting because that's so much of what people come to Twitch for. No, this weekend people were coming to Twitch for RE9. That they that was most of what they were here for. Like it was it was four times when I looked at one point it had 400,000 viewers. Just Chatting had like 300 some odd thousand and Wow Midnight

had a 100,000. So like
not not doing small potatoes numbers. It's a very beautiful like I mean as beautiful as a horror game can be. It looks disgusting but like you know.
Yeah. No. Uh it's funny. I think that a highprofile game like Resident Evil Reququum that is narrative focused and looks like just impressive and fun is also a game that I feel like is primed for a lot of streaming. It's like watching a really long horror movie, but you get to do it with your friends and have reactions and things like that. That makes total sense that it would work in in a media landscape that is making it slowly but surely harder and harder to watch things virtually with friends. Makes total sense. We'll be doing I'll be doing a playthrough of it at some point on this channel. Like there's no question.
Yeah.
Oh, Omar, we're playing it. Well, I'm playing it. Will is listening to me yammer on about it.
And I will probably be playing it at some point, but I gota I got to find time to fit it in and all that jazz. Um,

I did want to uh also bring up, speaking of media landscape, that there is uh this has caused at least one piece of weirdness um which I think is is absolutely fascinating um and I wanted to bring up here. Um, if you are looking for reviews of Resident Evil,
oh yeah,
because so many people are talking about it,
some sites have now been exposing themselves as having written AI reviews of Resident Evil because so many people are looking for Resident Evil reviews, they're trying to like backstop their AI review sites as legitimate. by posting just, you know, kind of sloppy, very praise, like praisewritten AI reviews of Resident Evil. To the extent that Metacritic has had to step in and start pulling credentials from people to be part of the Metacritic

rating because they're like, "Yeah, this No, no. Yeah, I'm glad they cracked down on that because look, there's enough real humans playing this game and loving it and writing about it. Like
this is not something that that we need as a as a society is is people doing AI slop of any kind and in this specific case uh in the review space. Yeah. So good on Metacritic.
Yeah. Huge huge up on Metacritic. Okay. I I think we have we have another picture for this that I think I think we do need to talk about. Let's talk about our boy
Leon Thirst Trap Kennedy.
Why? Why he's so hot? Why
I
He's 49. Matt,
is he Is he supposed I thought he was 50s. I don't even know.
He's He's canonically like well past middle age. Yeah, I think he's 49.
Yeah.
Uh I don't know, man. I really really

like the the the narrative around both Leon Kennedy as a character and what is happening in this current cycle of the game.
Yeah. Like there's been multiple articles and a lot of people have been um talking about like uh you know for the people over at Capcom that are attracted to men they just cooked with Leon like like he
it was just there was just a series of meetings where they're like no that shirt can be tighter. No that shirt
but not even that like they made him look like a like a like a goodlooking older dude. There's like lines on like the the he looks aged. And this is what I really appreciate and maybe this adds to the attractiveness. If you look at even in the RE2 remake and the and RE4 and now this I did not play six. I think he was also in was he in five or six? I think Leon was in six. Um you can watch canonically from rookie cop arriving to Raccoon City

at the height of the nonsense to now the light go out of his eyes.
Oh yeah. No, he's definitely like traumatized.
He He And in this he just shows up and it's just an instant like Yeah. Everyone wants to fix Leon. [laughter] It's so funny. I think uh and and I want to give a shout out to both um sort of that design and also I have to find who actually is the voice actor for Grace um because she uh and Angela uh Santalbano is the motion capture and voice actress for Grace Ashcraftoft in Resident Evil Reququum. They're both great. Both uh her and um I forget who voices Leon as well. God's saying it's Mercer, but I don't
It's not Mercer. I don't think so.
Let me see here. I'm gonna find the name because I feel like we should do uh

Nick Nick Arapostites. Uh er no, Apostle Apostites uh returns says Leon Kenny. He's been doing it for a while. Yeah.
Um
but there's a again the gameplay loops are so different between the Leyon sections and the Grace sections. And I think one of the the animation is actually super clutch as well. And the the fact that you can switch between the first and third person for either of them. For instance, I'm playing it. It suggests you play first person for Grace, third person for Leon. But you can have them do both, which means they did animations, specific animations for both styles of play, no matter what you want, which is awesome. But in Grace's sections, the very subtle it, it's the sound designer and the voice actor are cooking on so many levels because her sort of like small noises she has never feel repetitive and she's always like it adds to the sense of like she is not a super soldier or anything. She is just like a

fledgling FBI agent that was not ready for any of this. And the the level of fear you can get just by like the breathing is phenomenal.
Right. And I assume that we don't have um the Ashley problem of Leon help, right? Like we don't have that which has been a historic
I would say problem with with four specifically, right?
Um no, it's funny. And Grace I'm still I don't I'm not far enough along yet. She has some trauma behind her, too. And she is like incredibly like the the story sets her up as incredibly timid and and like she doesn't like super early cut scene when the FBI is like, "You got to go investigate this thing." Um, she like doesn't look her boss in the eye. Like it's real. It's real like she's dealing with some stuff and there's like and to then throw her into this nightmare and have the voice actor kill it in this way is uh like the story that her experience builds and I

love getting to feel like like being put in the shoes of being like that helpless in that situation. How would you survive? And then when the intensity of that feels like it's too much in walk swagger mc old dude
and like then you switch gears and you're like no. Oh, wait. Is there a horde of zombies coming? Well, there's a crowbar on the ground. You can hit X to throw. Okay. Like, it's just like you're shooting and he just grabs it and WHIPS IT LIKE A 100 FT. IT LIKE BECOMES God of War. It's nuts. Uh and great and I love it.
Who's Gordon Freeman? I don't know him.
Yeah.
Right. Yeah. Uh uh
I think that that's and everything like
I have yet to hear significant criticism of the game and I in an era where PC ports are not necessarily the best.
The Steam port is by all accounts phenomenal. It is overwhelmingly

positive as of my last check at like more than 95%. Which is great because there have been so many big high-profile games, including high-profile Capcom games that have launched and just been absolute fail sauce on PC. Looking at you, Monster Hunter, looking at you.
Yeah,
it's better now, but like that's way too late.
Uh Ly, I did notice that as well. There's some accessibility stuff. is um uh there there's a ton of options, but they're not laid out in the most easy place to find what what you're looking for a lot of the times. Yeah, it was like three menus in
um but yeah, I don't know. I think this has been for the for this franchise.
Um
yeah, and this is sort of the case. Leon showing the difference and Leon and Grace both showing the difference between high level and novice characters. It's great to play a Resident Evil game through the literal eyes of a fresh start of someone in Well, actually, yeah. No, for us, for the narrative, Grace is the daughter of a character in one of the offshoots, the

DS games, the 3DS games, I believe. Resident Evil is I think it might actually be another R word. I can't remember what it is. But the um but she's new to all this and Leon is very much not. I love this game so far. I've been only thinking about playing again. I'm not going to have a lot of time, I think, in the next week and it's going to kill me. Um, so uh a thousand uh thumbs up for this, but there's another element of of sort of this story um of Resident Evil Reququum success that I was like, something feels weird and rhy. And I was like, okay, the original Resident Evil came out in 1996 in on the PS1, right? And I was like, something else just got released that I that I engaged with this weekend that also was released in 1996, 30 30 years ago. And let's look at both franchises,

uh, sort of where they started and where they're going. Um, Scream 7 launched this uh this I believe this weekend. Um, and it's so
Yeah, I think it was like
it's so Yeah. Oh, and you're right. Resident Evil Outbreak. Uh, yes. And Grace is the daughter of Alicia of Alyssa Ashcraftoft from the PS2 offshoot outbreak. That's right. Is 96.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah, it is. Breathe that in. Um, so Mila, uh, you know what? The movie's bad. So, yes, he did. I won't say how or why. Uh, I went and saw Scream 7. And there's been I don't I I don't want to go too deep into movie news. This is a game show, not a show about movies. You want to listen to more movie stuff. You can go listen to my podcast, the only podcast about movies. There's be a link in the description or the or the show

notes or whatever. But there's been a lot of drama with Scream 7. specifically uh Melissa uh Barrera uh who was sort of the face of five and six um spoke out against the uh genocide going on currently in Gaza and uh basically got axed for reasons. Then Jenna Ortega left not wanting to work without people that she wanted to work with. Then the original director uh Christopher Landon uh was getting death threats from people who thought he was the one firing people and so he left and so Scream 7 was in a really weird spot. They but then they got a lot of the original cast including Dev Campbell who uh I think even though this movie is bad did an excellent job. Uh and this is directed by Kevin Williamson the original writer of the first three Screams. I would pause it if I was going to give my quick review, even though I did say I did not like it. This movie, Scream 7,

if if Resident Evil 9, Resident Evil Reququum, takes every lesson that has happened from it, both things people loved and things people have not liked, and then adjusted itself accordingly over the course of 30 years of this data to make something that I think will be universally loved. um for for years. Mind you, uh Scream 7, I think, actually kind of does the opposite. It doesn't really learn a lot of lessons, I think, that the the previous the last two installments of the franchise kind of were teaching. And it doesn't do what the originals did well. It feels almost like that like there weren't lessons like with the small things that could have been improved or different or maybe the fact that it's 30 years later, the proclivities might be a little bit different. Um, I kept having high hopes for it and as I was watching it, there is a scene at the end that robs the entire movie of any emotional stake. And uh, not that I'm looking for the

deepest emotional commitment in a Scream movie, but I at least needed to not feel like a Looney Tunes cartoon. And uh, it eventually does that.
Does is there a moment where you hear the Da da da da da da. And then Ghost Face pops up in the middle of the circle and goes, "That's all, folks." And
no, but there's a there is a specific kill that I'm just like and then when you find out who Ghost Face is and like how it I'm like this is so stupid because one of the things the Scream movies done, and I would argue, okay, I'M GOING TO TIE IT ALL BACK together to Resident Evil. One of the thing the Scream movies really do well in my opinion up to this point is a very convoluted why the killer this time, why the Ghost Face or Ghost Face says this time are doing the killings and they tie it to specific elements or story background beats and it all it by the end of it feels clever. The first Scream did it immaculately. Resident Evil has taken the hokiness of RE1, I know you,

the master of unlocking and like just that sort of be movie nonsense schllock and kept the charm of it in many different ways, but has adjusted its proclivities and how you engage with it for the times.
Yeah,
I feel like Scream 7 just didn't do that. I feel like it was trying to make Scream one again,
but you can't
without you can't go you can't go home again, but apparently you can shop there. Um, and you and it missed the mark, I think, because it didn't even like the the ending twist is just not
it's not satisfying. So, when looking at both of these now, again, bones to dust 30-year-old franchises, uh, it's just an interesting dichotomy that these horror properties that came out the same year, where they are now. And it got me thinking just a lot about like how franchises evolve and how IP can

move to either meet a moment or be kind of stuck in the past. Uh, I will say in full disclosure, I believe Scream 7 is doing well at the box office. Um, I think it it grossed something like 90 million worldwide, which is a which is a record for the Scream folks and and and good on them. But it had real Jurassic World rebirth vibes. I in my opinion, it felt like it had everything going for it, including good actors that wanted to show up and like uh just sort of like the vibe of everyone wanting this to be great. And it just felt like from a from a story and structure perspective, no one could take it across a finish line that made it satisfying for me.
I feel like that's also a thing that these two things have in common, which is that horror is so in so incredibly intrinsically linked to the cultural moment. Like there are some things like older horror movies tend to to deal with like a primal fear, right? Or like something that is like universally like at least a little bit scary, right? like really

good modern horror tends to deal more with a cultural moment. And I feel like that's one of the reasons why it's so easy to miss,
right? And and I think one of the reasons that RE9 is hitting, at least from what I've seen, is that it is there are parts that are like well properly terrifying like with some of the zomb they did a really good job on people turning into zombies. They did like a disgustingly horrifyingly amazingly good job at turning people into zombies on camera because for a really long time they did that off camera. Not anymore. Not anymore. They do that on camera now. [clears throat] No thank you. But it's really good at it.
So anyway, I just thought that was an interesting dichotomy.
Yeah.
Uhhuh. between these two franchises that are that are lit it's literally like its bread and butter is fear and and making a fun thrilling ride in a horror genre

and uh in my opinion I think Resident Evil Reququum has hit the nail on the head and I'll be thinking about it and playing it probably again and again for a very long time and I think past this conversation I don't think I'll ever really think about Scream 7 ever again other than oh man that was a disappointing day at the movies
you know
all All right.
So, with that, I believe this covers all of our Is there anything else people want to talk about with Reququum before we move on?
I think I think most of what people uh uh I think uh most of what people have been saying is that they're either looking forward to playing it or haven't heard anything at all about it because it's not in their neck of the woods or um that they are playing it and it's great.
Here's what I'll say. uh if you are someone that is not uh squeamish or or shy or or does not like if you can basically handle gore and if if that's kind of your thing because it is a gory game and if not there's nothing wrong with that. It's just I'm trying to give that disclaimer up front. Uh

this game, how do I put this? There's a moment in the beginning when it turns from spooky sneaking through a thing to something truly awful happening. And oftent times in a video game that is supposed to be like scary and gory and whatever, like even those moments don't I don't get the same flinch response or like the same like oh god like worry in my chest that I do with a really good horror movie. And here from [snorts] the jump when that happens, I'm like, "Oh, the artistry here is so on point that this feels like I'm like playing a movie and I'm I'm in it in that visceral way." So, if you if that is your bag, I don't think there's a better example of it doing of of something just running on full cylinders in that genre than Resident Evil Reququum. Full throatated uh you know
uh endorsement there. Um, so if if

you're into that and you haven't played it and you can please pick it up. Otherwise, I'll play it on here uh on on the Twitch side of things at some point.
Okay. All right. Uh oh, yeah, that's right. That this is worth noting. By the way, there is um Lark is currently uh on their third playthrough because there is a puzzle at the very end of the game which no one has solved yet. It's been three days, chat, and there is a puzzle at the end of a Capcom game that no one has solved. Gonna be I I will say literally no more than that. But I'm very interested to see how that turns out because uh puzzles that the internet can't collectively solve are one of my favorite things about video games.
Yeah, agreed.
It's it's great.
Absolutely great.
Okay, let's talk about some weird stuff that's happening in gaming news.
Let's do it. And while we do that, I think I will have just just as my treat for the day, I'll have my one pastry. I'll have this apple strudel. Um, just, you know, as a treat because I haven't

I'm very hungry. I haven't had anything to eat yet, and I'm only going to eat one pastry, right?
This delicious apple strudel.
Right. Awesome. Excellent. Okay. So, anyone who's ever played a multiplayer online game is acutely aware of the problem of you have one teammate who just won't, right? And you can fill in the won't for yourself as appropriate to your particular game. Won't heal, won't tank, won't DPS, won't stay alive, won't not stand in bed. You pick pick your thing, right? But they won't. Well, the the some of the community of Marvel rivals have decided that they're going to take matters about teammates who simply won't uh into their own hands. And um there is a there is now a um a a bounty site

where people are uh are are listing for uh like monetary actual bounties.
Insane
to go into people's lobbies that they are accusing of griefing. So, say say say say say say say say say say say say say say say say say say say say say say Matt and I are playing a game and I think that Matt is not carrying his weight and he's doing it on purpose
I'm very busy eating past
and that he's griefing I can put a bounty up on this website so that and I'm not kidding here other people can go into Matt's game and grief his game back and claim a bounty in money for ruining more people's video games
will in what world could this ever not be taken out of context and cause problems?
It's a great question, Matt. I can't think of one. It's just problems all the way down. Um, and uh, it is it's it's a little ridiculous. It's already out of

hand. It was out of hand the moment they made the website. It's it's more out of hand now. People are asking NEIS to get involved and like stop this. But like this is just absolutely wild because people are like I don't I like I what y'all just don't just just don't like I don't even know what to say about this other than like this is the most ridiculous unhinged behavior over a video game that people are sp like okay so so let's let's go with. I don't understand why you think that griefing people's games back and ruining the game for the rest of all of the people on both sides is is a good idea to begin with. And then I don't understand why people would spend money, real actual legal currency, to encourage other people to do this.
It's It's insane.

Yeah, correct. I I [laughter] tell me you you have nothing to do without telling me you have nothing to do.
Right. Yeah.
It is.
Yeah.
It is. I I And also it's the whole what is it? Cut off the nose to spite my face kind of thing or like like
oh this awful thing. This totally awful thing.
Well, we're going to do it to you. And it's like that's not
So if you feel like you are a person who either wants to post a bounty on someone on the internet for ruining your game or try and become like an internet bounty hunter by griefing people's games in a video game, can I encourage you instead to go touch grass? Please, just like with your whole face, go outside. Hopefully you're somewhere it's warm. It'll be warm in most of the East Coast this weekend. Be very nice.

Miss Inc. Witch, with the economy so bad, even hate mobs want to work for free. I'd click the button, but I'm I have my hands.
Yeah. Um Oh, here I can I I can put this up, right? Um Yeah. Uh and it's, you know, I just I just Yeah. Like don't just just don't just just don't.
Also, I love I love Sean. Uh, gonna start big a big shot bounty show like from Cowboy Bebop.
Yeah. For this
shy. All right.
Well, you're a big pur bucket, aren't you?
Yeah. Uh, okay. So, uh, that's all we really want to say on that. It's happening and it's weird. Next up in in much more, uh, serious news, that was sort of a a pallet cleanser.
Mhm. The state of New York is suing Valve in their capacity, not only at Well, okay, this is a complicated lawsuit. Um, uh,

and I'm going to try and do it the the proper justice. The claim that is being leveled by the attorney general of New York against Valve is serious if they can get it to stick. They claim that Valve is facilitating illegal internet gambling through in part their sale of loot boxes. Now, there's a part of this which is feels a lot harder to prove, which is there's an addendum to that statement, which is to kids. That one's really hard to like deal with. And that that part I'm going to leave alone because I don't think that there's like a really great conversation to have about the to kids part. So we're just going to focus on the claim that Valve is uh facilitating illegal internet gambling. Okay, that is that that's the part of this claim that we're going to focus on. It's a broad reaching. Um

so this claim is deeply rooted in two things. one that Valve sells loot boxes which contain items of randomized rarity in exchange for real currency. Right? So, the way Valve's loot boxes work are you get loot boxes by playing the game and then you unlock them using a key that you buy either from Valve for $2.50 or you can trade it on the market. You can also trade loot boxes on the market or between players. Okay, cool. Great. And the second part focuses on that market. The second part focuses on the fact that you can take the object that you get from the loot box. I take $2.50. I give it to Valve. I get a key. I open the box. I get a knife. What have you got there? A KNIFE. [screaming]
NO.
RIGHT. OKAY, GREAT. I get I get a corambit and I turn around and I sell it on the Steam marketplace for the maximum transaction value that is allowable on the Steam marketplace. it in return. I buy a Gabe Cube whenever

the Gamecube comes out. And that shows that I have gained real real world value from gambling on a digital good. They're also alleging that Valve is facilitating this further by letting other websites use your login to log into Steam. So there are sites where you can log in and transact business in real money. You can't take money directly out of Steam. You can only use it to purchase things in Steam. It's Steam credit.
I believe the only way to actually get real money out, and correct me when I am wrong, Will, or anybody here in Brad or Janet is you can use Steam or Valve sort of credit to then buy Valve hardware.
Yes,
you can buy Steam Decks, you can buy whatever, and then you can sell that. Mhm.
So, it is a a few steps away from being able to cash out. Can you technically do it? Yes. Is is Valve paying you in real

money? No. What you believe with that sort of stipulation uh morally miles may vary.
Correct. And part of the lawsuit does focus on the third party sites that allow you to bypass that by essentially acting as a middleman.
Yeah. So, the way that those work is I log in with my Steam account. You log in with your Steam account. You say, "I want to pay Will a million dollar."
A million dollars.
A million dollars. That's right.
That's a lot of dollars.
And so, that's a lot of wallets.
You give the website a million dollars. And then I trade you the object, whatever it is, the McGuffin of Power. I've received the McGuffin of power from a loot box. and you want it for a million dollars, you give a million dollars to the site, I give you the mcguffin, you toss me the rope. Um, uh, [laughter] and the website gives me the million dollars. Right? So, it's sort of like a middleman system that bypasses the cap, the market transaction caps.

And all of this is, in the state of New York's opinion, facilitating illegal gambling. The reason I'm bringing this up is that this is The current AG of the state of New York is not a big fan of picking fights. She doesn't think she can win.
Mhm.
She's been doing a lot of picking fights. She's pretty sure she can win lately. The other one is that this is unique, right? There are
unique New York. You
Yeah. You know, you need unique New York. Um
Yeah. Okay. Um, there are lots and lots and lots of groups that use loot boxes, right? I'm sure you can think of some. Everyone from Wizards of the Coast with magic uh booster packs, which are just physical loot boxes. Yes, they're just physical loot boxes. That's how that game works. To um Hoyo and their use of

loot boxes as a fundamental game mechanic in all of their gadget games, Ginchin Impact, HSR, ZZ, whatever, right? Um, but New York didn't go after any of those. They're going specifically after Valve because of, and this is the part that cooks my brain, the thing that makes it feel the most fair to gamers of the digital loot boxes is that they're non-gameplay impacting and you can trade them afterwards. And both of those are things that are cited by the attorney general of the state of New York in her press release about why she's doing this is the two things that gamers like the most about the Valve system are the two reasons that New York is specifically targeting Valve.
Yeah.
Again, that's a lot of like leadup. This is wild. There's also some interesting things too, like again the the moral justification of of any sort of payment structure or gambling or however you want to sort of put any of these bits of the story. Um, the thing I

believe that Valve is going to argue against that is sort of with with from my understanding the statutees on the books of like what constitutes gambling is essentially taking a chance with a monetary value to either win something or lose your monetary value. And the argument that I think that they're going to be making and I think a lot of places like say Wizard of the Coast or anything with like an actual physical product or even a digital product in these digital loot boxes that they're going to say is well you're still getting something.
You're getting something.
You're not you're not whether or not this is correct or moral or what they're actually thinking behind the scenes. It like you pay for a thing and the thing you're paying for you will get something you know it is random. The chances are posted Therefore, it is not gambling because you're not putting money in and then getting absolutely nothing back,
right?
Um

I think that circle is hard to square in a lot of different uh moral implications.
But I'm curious how the law in New York State will shake out with that because that that precedent is sort of there for a bit.
And that doesn't say that it can't change.
Yeah.
But uh
I don't know. Yeah, it's [laughter] like this. Not a lawyer, but my defense strategy would to play draft kicks for my phone in the courtroom. You know, hang hang on to all of those thoughts. Hang on to all of those those and those related thoughts. We're going to do another story, but we're going to we're going to do it on the other side of ads because we're going to need we're going to need a levity break before we do the next stories. So, just just hang on to that thought. Hold on to all of the Poly Market DraftKings thoughts. We're gonna
There's Yeah, there's also I mean that we can't we'll we'll get to that too. But like it's interesting that this is the thing that it that people are going after.

And I'm not even saying that it's not even coming from a good place or that like more regulation for certain things is not a good thing. But it is all coming from the the places I think that that politicians and officials know that they can win which is sort of the methodology of protecting the children. I think there is some value to the idea that we shouldn't like they cite a statistic that's like a child who engages in gambling like practices uh from a young age is like four times more likely to develop a gambling addiction. That just makes sense, right? Like that doesn't seem far-fetched.
Um, but also I think one of the things I wish was also being tackled, but no one wants to because there's two like this is the weird Okay, follow me here and then we'll do the break and then we'll talk about the other story. They're going after this because it feels like

a moral win if they can get it done, but also not a large enough in a major, and I mean like I know Valve is major, but I'm not talking like defense spending major, a win against a company that is probably not lobbyed a bunch,
right? Whereas uh as we've seen in the United States over the course of the last few years, gambling specifically on online betting sites like a poly market or even even state regulated or statewide gambling and casino laws have seems like they're universally laxing across the board. I went back to my hometown to one of the malls that I used to be a mall rat at and there's a casino in it and I kind of wanted to die like
I I had a similar experience
and it's it's
good
like what I would love to see and and and my look

the I'm not saying that there I love video games. I don't want Valve to have to pay a ton of money, but maybe there's some things they could do or change to to make it so this isn't happening in this particular way. You know, I that that's one thing, but also it feels like a small to mediumsiz fish that is also not paying for any sort of uh lobbying or anything else. So they can get away with a moral win, which maybe would be helpful in certain situations, but not tackle the actual larger problem of essentially normalizing gambling on literally everything on your phone all the time. And I kind of wish that was the conversation, the starting conversation, and then trickle down to these things.
Yeah. But this feels like a small enough fish where you can get the moral victory, you can get the headline. Hopefully, it's helpful. Um, but it's not going to solve a root of the

problem, which I think is a much larger, to be perfectly honest, like the the legalization of like legitimate casinos and gambling in your pocket. Um, I don't know. That's kind of where I'm at.
Yeah. Let's Let's We're going to take We're going to take a quick We're going to take a quick ad break while we sell you things that you can't buy while Twitch chat gets ads for things that they can't buy either probably because they're hideously expensive like RAM.
Also, yeah, real quick. I I I think uh Ann's Ann's point here is interesting. It's also a clear-cut win that if Valve's methods of loot boxes is illegal, no method of loot boxes is legal. Yes, I think it's still again I'm tinfoil hating and I don't I'm still sort of baking this opinion so follow me as I sort of do this live that will be reg if that wins and the regulation for that will be down the line and it will be good. Um, I think they're going I think the overall subject is going to be like,

well, we've taken care of the children gambling problem
and that's not then the conversation will not continue to the poly markets or to the more legalizations of casinos or the infinite ways that our entire society is based around making people uh essentially uh get addicted to various forms of gambling.
Yeah. Um I I just I don't want it to I just don't want it to be if they win this case be like we did it and move on because then all the people like legitimate large swaths of the population which again financial security is something that is going uh a bit down the toilet these days. More and more people might turn to gambling. It's becoming more and more lax and legal and casual and um I think that is a huge problem. There's a reason why sorry I kind of I pivoted us. There's a reason why in the gaming space, specifically video games, the industry as a whole has tried to position itself to not be the

same as gambling. And I think that reason is people that make games, people that care about games, game preservation, game theory, you know, stuff, all the stuff that we sort of do here, uh, know the value that games bring. And there's nothing wrong with a bit of sort of fun gambling in in in a sense, but like it's like everything sort of in moderation. And when it seems like there are companies or businesses preying on the natural proclivities of the human mind to do bad things and extract value, then that's where some protective things should sort of step in. Um, and I think that the gaming industry maybe before all the consolidation, which we'll also talk about later, uh, has been trying to like basically been trying to make sure they could still make games for the purpose of playing games. Uh, and now with the

proliferation of these betting sites and things, it's becoming like it the lines are starting to blur because you play Cookie Crush on your phone and you bet on Poly Market on your phone and soon you're going to be betting on which cookies are going to be dropping in Poly Market. Like it's just that's a oversimplification, but like you could see the the natural roll out. Anyway,
ad break. Will, you go.
Hi everyone. Do you need a brief moment to just take a deep breath from the existential horror that surrounds you and the way that it's pressing in? The walls are closing in. It's all getting dark. Oh god. Oh god. It's all getting dark. I can't see you anymore. Consider advertisements. That's right. Nothing breaks tone like an advertisement. Are you watching a horror movie? Is is is she about to open the door? The door that you scream not to go into? Don't worry. We're immediately going to smash cut to ads for a bubble wand. It's probably a bubble wand. Or or maybe maybe it's some felt markers. Maybe it's

like one of those ads for a thing that you almost wanted as a kid but couldn't get cuz your parents wouldn't let you use the phone to call the 1-800 number to order it. It's that but ads.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [clears throat] Hey everyone, Matt from Extra Credits with Will, who's also from Extra Credits over on Games for Breakfast on Extra Credits here. Do you want to have a small breakfast? Perhaps just one singular item to sate your hunger and start your day right. Well, if that's the case, may I suggest one almond croissant? That is right. With one almond croissant, you could definitely not have any video evidence of you eating any other pastry on your breakfast. talk show that you co-host. Rather, you can just enjoy this almond croissant free of the guilt of thinking that perhaps someone might accuse you of eating other pastries. I think not.

Okay, great. [snorts] Okay, chat. I'm going to need everyone now that we are back from ads to take one communal deep breath. Okay. [snorts] Hey everyone, Will and Matt from Extra Credits here. Take a communal deep breath. Ready? Here you go. Hold it for five. [sighs] You know what box breathing, right? So, it's like ready and exhale. and hold for five. And then you do it again. You just do it again. It's box breathing. It's It's not bad. It can kind of calm you down.
It's It's pretty useful. All right.

Remember what I said to hold your comments about
What is the story about? What is the story about, Chad?
Hey, Chad. What are we
chat? What's the story about?
Chat, what are we gonna talk about?
What's the story about?
Who gets it? Who's gonna Who's gonna Who's gonna tell us what what the story about after defrosted cake? Mhm.
Nope. Sawyer. No.
Nope. Pokemon not dead.
It's a pun.
I want No. Someone's got to figure this out. Where are they?
Ah, there [screaming] we go. Ian got it.
All right. So, let's let's talk about just like a real quick problem that's sort of in our spaces and in our adjacent spaces and why it's [snorts] I'm going to use the word evil. I'm going to use the word evil here. And I don't normally like we we try and not but no it's pretty evil. It's pretty evil.

So poly market has not only facilitated the transfer of wealth based on insider knowledge of upcoming war crimes. We won't get too deep into the nature of the upcoming war crimes or any of that, but just like go with me. You the the the stuff will be in the show notes. People bet that war crimes would happen and then war crimes happen and those people made millions of dollars on Poly Market
with uh I believe six accounts that were 24 hours or less old.
That's correct. Made Yeah. Uh a million dollars because Yeah. Because people died. Okay. That's bad.

And then they they they somehow made it worse for themselves by saying the the ability to bet on war was an invaluable service that they were providing.
Yeah. I got to find the quote. Which which article was that in Will? Was it on the block or was it on um
It was on the Verge.
The Verge.
The Verge article. These all, by the way, uh if you're new to games for breakfast, hi. Hello. I'm Matt. That's Will. Um all the stories that we are referencing and talking about, we have sort of the sources that we pulled from in our show notes that will be up uh later today once the uh in the in the description uh either on Nebula or on YouTube where this lives.
Yeah.
Uh normally they're up like by five or six.
Yeah. I I generally try and put the notes up as quick as we can after we're done. The chapters won't be done for a bit because we have to meet up and decide what we're going to call each of these chapters. Like this chapter will be may be called insert endless screaming here but it might not be.
I found the quote. I found the quote I

think.
Um note on the Middle East markets the promise of prediction markets is to harness the wisdom of the crowd
to create accurate unbiased well let's I'll get to the thing accurate unbiased forecasts of the most important events to society. That ability is particularly invaluable in gut-wrenching times like today. After discussing with those directly affected by the attacks who had dozens of questions, we realized that prediction markets could give them the answers they needed in ways TVs, TV news and X could not. Okay. Okay. Okay. Let's go with that first sentence first. The promise of prediction markets is to harness the wisdom of crowds. I want you to think about

Tommy Lee Jones line for Men in Black and that is that a person is smart. People are dumb, panicky and and impulsive I believe is something along the along the line. The crowd is not smart. screaming fire in a theater and then everyone screaming and running.
Yeah. So, so, so I actually have a more specific bone to pick with this if I may real quickly.
Sure.
I'm I'm gonna rarely rarely do we disagree like this. Crowds are actually very smart
about very specific things under specific circumstances. The wisdom of crowds is a real scientific phenomena. If you do marbles in a jar, right? You do marbles in a jar and you put a number of marbles in a jar and you have a thousand people guess, very few people will guess correctly. But the average of those thousand people will be pretty

close. That is the wisdom of crowds of incredible [snorts] import to this phenomena. The most paramount important thing about the idea of the wisdom of crowds is you cannot allow people to communicate. It must be an individual thing because the second that people communicate about something like odds,
it completely throws it out the window because people will then move together because they don't want to be wrong which means that everyone will be wrong together.
So let's I'm going to yes and you off that. That's a that's very interesting like sort of context about this. Yeah.
So you put that in a in a poly market scenario, right? You put it in in a in a anonymous gambling scenario and in theory based on what how the system is supposed to work then perhaps that is correct. But what are the end goals of this accurate unbiased forecast? Well, it didn't save lives. So that's out the

window, right? this wasn't like a Minority Report nonsense machine that stopped a bombing. So that's not really the value here we're talking about. Um, so is the value that this specific um anonymous data that people are betting on, I would argue that the only value in this particular case that the company is uh interested in is making money off of the few people that probably insider traded to get that million some odd dollars, right? Because Poly Market takes the cut of the Poly Mark is the bookie. Like, so it's still profiteering off the prediction of death.
Mhm. That's correct.
So, so you know what? Let's let's rescend my initial Men in Black recounting of the the the promise of prediction markets is to harness the wisdom of the crowd to

create accurate unbiased forecasts for the most important events to society. Let's say yes. But I think the actions here of Poly Market and Kashi who got into some trouble and actually decided to not pay out things on the I believe the death of the Iranian leader. They decided to not pay out on that which thank you for uh clearing the lowest possible bar.
That bar is beneath hell.
Um but the but like forecast the most important events to society for what ends? Poly market. It's so your bookie business does well,
right?
Congratulations,
right?
Um, this sucks.
I award Poly Market no points and a ticket one way directly to the heart of a dying star
into the sun. Into the sun. Like and and we bring this up because Poly Market is unfortunately getting more and more entrenched.

It's mainstream. It had a Super Bowl ad, didn't it?
Right. Yeah. It's getting and and because because esports is a bigger thing and because gaming is a bigger thing, it's becoming more entrenched in our spaces, too. And I we just kind of wanted to like flag the play like immediately. No. Poly market. No. incorrect.
It's um it's it's a pretty it's a pretty brutal outlook. There's there's no
like
and there's bets on these things for like a bunch of stuff that is just sad. Like there's so much garbage going on. Do we do you can bet on literally anything now? Yeah, that's the point.
But sure, let's uh let's go after let's

go after Valve to start. That'll
Yeah, right. Yeah. 100%. Yep. No.
Okay. Not saying there's not a problem there to be fixed.
No, there absolutely is. It just feels really weird to me in particular that like that's the place that we're going to direct eye and regulatory oversight, not this monstrosity of
Yeah.
disgusting. Like this is just awful. Like it's
maybe the wisdom of the crowd, they should figure out a way to use that to know that uh it's not going to be good for human beings to constantly gamble on everything.
Yeah.
Yep.
Wisdom.
Yep.
Uh [laughter] I like this. Every time I'm on a Discord server and discussing some news or whatever and they send a Twitter link to a Poly Market tweet, it takes me to a flaming ring of death. True. True. That's that's it's worse than the time knife really to be to be honest,
right? Um yeah. Uh yeah. And and yes, this this applies while while this particular case was unique to Poly

Market, the general principle does apply to things like Robin Hood and to other prediction markets and other other bet on anything apps. We're just really dropping it from the top rope on Poly Market because this particular weekend they were the worst possible example of humanity's greed writ large across the entire internet and deserve no points and a swift corporate execution and dissolution into like giving all of their money to like the poor or to the people who have been impacted by their absolutely garbage business practices. It's Poly Poly Market, but now death is for sale at Poly Market. That's the
That's the Poliwag. Yeah. Right. Okay. Yep. Yep. Yep.
I needed something. Okay.
Yeah, we needed something.
Okay. Yep. All right.
And my bad Photoshop is a bomb for my soul.
It's true. Matt did send me a very large number of really truly terrible Photoshops this morning. And it I think it helped. I think it helped both of us.

I think it did. I think it did. Oh, okay. Uh, let's a brief update uh and and a bit of a pallet cleanser uh on a lawsuit that was um
by the shareholders.
Yeah. About the shareholders. The lawsuit leveled against Wizards of the Coast for um overprinting cards and deceiving customers has been dropped without prejudice so they could bring it again, but they have dropped it for now. Um we just talked about the story when it first came up and it felt important that we just let you know that that lawsuit is no longer ongoing. Uh, so if you were real worried that Wizards was going to lose big there, I guess they're not as of right now. That doesn't mean that another lawsuit won't happen, but that one in particular has been dropped. Um, so yep. Uh, okay. Speaking of corporate greed, let's talk about Paramount and WB. Um, [screaming]

hello baby. Hello money. Hello corporate consolidation. Every company's going to be one. There's going to be no obstacles. Um, okay. So, okay. There's a lot of different ways this will affect gaming. Weirdly, gaming is going to be the thing that's kind of on the tail end of this. We we talked about this before when we talked about Netflix buying Warner Brothers. This is but a modification of that thumbnail. I just made it messier. Um, so Netflix has officially bowed out of the bonkers price gouging uh acquisition request of Warner Brothers Discovery that now Paramount Sky Dance uh is on the hook for I believe for $111 billion solidifying money's not real. Yeah, it's not a real
um now a couple interesting things here.

Um the what do you got? [laughter]
It just it just the WB frog will now be a generated also do a zigile. Yeah. Yeah, that seems about correct. Yes. Uhhuh. Um, essentially Netflix decided when when uh the Ellison's were just real thirsty to get this deal done, um, Netflix decided to finally step aside. And in doing so, I don't know off the the very top mark here. I have to find the actual number. Um, essentially, make sure we got this. Oh, yeah. Uh, Paramount Sky Dance will have to pay 2.8 billion a breakup fee that Netflix

negotiated in the agreement that they inked with the WB. So, Netflix has to do nothing and gets $2.8 billion. Hey, hey, you know, just just for anyone out there who's listening, I will do nothing for way less than $2.8 billion. I'll do nothing for a cool million.
Yeah.
Think of the savings.
A cool willion. He'll do it for
think of the savings that you could report to shareholders by instead of paying Netflix 2.8 billion to do nothing, you pay me1 million to do nothing.
1 million.
Right. Yeah. Exactly. Right. And then you just Right. And then you report all of that as a savings to your shareholders and and they go wild and elect you I don't know god emperor for life whatever you're after or something.
So the other element of this is from the the reporting it doesn't seem like and I could be wrong here. If you have other sources please send them our way. You could you could blue sky us. You can message us in the comments. All that

jazz if you're watching this on YouTube. Blue skies if you're watching us on Nebula. Um, it doesn't seem like Paramount Sky Dance or the Ellison's actually has the full $111 billion even with the Saudi investment that is happening. And let's say that they do and they are able to make up more zeros. They're going to have to gut so much of both companies to try to stem the bleeding for years
to make this work. And the reason why the WB is being sold like this in the first place is also because of consolidation.
They couldn't turn it profitable based on consolidation. And this is after a landmark year of films for the WB. Like gaming has been a little bit, you know, it is what it is. But like it's all just a gigantic house of cards

that will mean worse media across television, cinema, and video games for the foreseeable future in those spaces.
Yep.
And uh what sucks is, and this is just sort of my soapbox opinion thing, this is all business people doing business stuff. No one involved in any of this stuff outside of the um certain elements that could see a media organization use as propaganda machines. No one really cares about any art being made from any of these companies. It's all number go up. It just depends on which number you're talking about. It's not enjoyment. Um, and that is an awful place for a ton of trades people and creators and um, people in every every medium in video games and television and movies that now have to essentially watch more and more jobs get shredded to make less and less good products that eventually the

company and the merger or whatever will fail and split or break up or sell. We've seen it happen a billion times, but that's not going to stop the intrinsic heart and heartache and destruction that causes for the actual people that make the stuff that make these companies money in the first place. It sucks. It's stupid. And I wish people would just be happy with making a [ __ ] ton of money as opposed to trying to make the inevitable and false all of the money. Maybe because that is a fool's errand, but also maybe because again with numbers these this big, it's all made up. Just can't you can't you imagine a different thing to do? Can't we just draw some zeros on a piece of paper and be like, "No, this is your net worth now."
Yeah.
Uh like it makes it's it's uh it sucks. I hate to be all doom and gloom. It's why I wanted to start with Resident Evil because I was so happy with Resident Evil.
Yeah.
Yeah. If you haven't read Snow Crash, read Snow Crash.
I'm with Dural on this. This is this is getting increasingly more. Although my my thoughts were I think slightly more

positive. If you haven't read Down Out in the Magic Kingdom, that's a pretty good place to start.
Um, about the idea that at some point it becomes inevitable that the production of art will be removed from capital control if returned to the artists uh, as sort of like a fundamental theme, but it just bites. I'm real afraid for what's going to happen to like the WB game studios. I'm not even a particular fan of the WB game studios, but god do I need there to be more quality game studios. And even if you don't like all their monetization, right? Like Mortal Kombat, the Batman games are like important to have in the industry, they're someone's favorite games. I hate this.
I want to I want to just put out what Paramount's statement was here, and it's laughable. Call these jokers out. They said, "Our priority is to build a

vibrant, healthy business and industry. One that supports Hollywood and creative, benefits consumers, encourages competition, and strengthens the overall job market. Any idiot with a a polysai degree or who has literally been on the internet and counting uh can see that every time someone has said this, it has not happened when they do this action.
I counted that was at least six lies. Matt wasn't talking for very long and he read at least six lies. There were six lies in what HE SAID. THAT'S SO MANY lies per minute. That is an incredible amount of lying per syllable that they are doing here. Why?
I guess I guess I'm getting to a point with a lot of these stories where it's like where where other than your two false

internet dads in an animated kitchenette are people like screaming at the pe like no one who controls us is listening to us currently. So, like when will when God go when will there be an adult in the room?
It's not us. I don't want to be
We're not even in the room, right? Like I'm saying like in these places a moral adult, I guess I should say.
Yeah.
I don't know. It's just [clears throat] really
Okay.
Yeah.
Yep. Yep. Yep. 100. Yep.
Hold on a second.
I was gonna say I heard I heard a Zozo. Oh, no. She's She's just
Why are you freeze?
I don't know. Can you hear me?
Yeah.
Weird.
I'm staying very still. Don't move.
Don't move, Will. I I'm standing very still.
Uhhuh.
Also, what happened to MY HEAD? OH, GOD. WHAT HAPPENED TO MY HEAD?
UH, I LISTEN, DUDE. I don't know. But you're
Am I stuck in purgatory? Did

Did Paramount Sky dance come for me?
Apparently. I Dude, I I don't even know. Hold on. You want me to refresh and we'll see what happens?
Uh, yeah. Yes, please.
Here we go.
Hold chat. Sorry, we're having technical difficulties.
One second. Boop. YOUR CALL IS IMPORTANT TO US.
YEAH. MHM. YEP. 100%.
PLEASE STAY ON THE LINE.
UH, small good news while we wait. Uh, not bad. Uh, a whole bunch of Cartoon Network shows are free on TB if that helps. Excellent. Hey, that's good.
Okay. Uh, let's talk about an update to a previous story. [laughter] Okay, so Discord,

let's start at the beginning. Discord said that they were Okay, let's start at the very beginning. Last year, Discord rolled out age protection for users in the UK because they legally had to or stop operating in the UK because of a law that got passed in the UK under flimsy pretenses at best. Okay, great. Excellent. Then uh they announced a couple weeks ago at the beginning of February that they were going to roll out a teen by default experience, which is a godforsaken terrible idea. The way that they were going to do verification of the fact that you weren't a teen so that you could access the rest of the app was invasive, poorly considered, and in general crap. Um, it was not a good way that they were going to do it. No one believed them, especially when they had worked with a vendor previously who had leaked a bunch of data. Then it came out that they were going to be working with Persona, a company that is funded and I believe owned in part by Peter Theal, who is another
Persona.

It's all again, it's all shell game nonsense.
Yeah, there's a bunch of shell game nonsense.
Investment from,
right? Peter Theal is involved in that. And Peter Theal is an individual that most humans on the internet don't want to have anything to do with their identifying information. Great. Excellent. So they backed out of that and last week they released a statement like an actual factual like long form statement from their CTO that was pretty good as statements go. I will say now I should be clear everything that we're going to be talking about is on the basis that that statement is true.
Sure. because that's all you can actually do,
right? There is a giant lingering if, right? If that statement is true, if they don't screw anything else up, if they don't bait and switch, if if
is the statement read like trust is earned through actions over time OR

TRUST IS EARNED THROUGH ACTIONS OVER TIME UNTIL NEXT time and then running away through a mirror he punches.
Correct. Exactly. So, we're we're yeah, we're all going to be operating on good faith. Now, that doesn't mean that you need to trust Discord again and and obviously like we're not telling you that you should or shouldn't, but we are going to operate for the purposes of this conversation that Discord made a truthful statement. Okay, cool. Great. Excellent. Awesome. Let me pull this up. [sighs and gasps]
Pull it up.
I thought I I thought I actually linked the the the specific blog. Okay, here we go. They acknowledged that they poorly communicated what they believe their plans are. Okay, that's very important to acknowledge that they completely bungled the uh communication portion of this because that is arguably far more important than the technical portion of this. Right? There are a bunch of ways to accomplish the technical portion of this, but the communication way that you

accomplish this is way more important for a company like Discord and they completely screwed that up. So they acknowledge um their claim is that 90% of users won't actually need to verify anything. Their their claim is that they're operating on a 9010 split and that the fear that everyone would need to do this is not what their actual goal is.
Okay, I can see that. How are they identifying people then?
H
how are they if the law if this is to accompany the law, how is this going to uh function as as identifiable factors?
So, so the law and this is actually a very interesting point that they're hammering in on because I think this is the really important bit. The law doesn't require that they identify who the users are.
It merely requires that they establish

that the users are of age. And that is that is a big step that Discord is is claiming. They are claiming that for everything they're talking about here, they don't care who you are at all. That they only care about being able to ascertain your age for the purposes of being in line with the law.
Yeah. The issue comes from the the the partner that they got caught working with even as a test. Uh Panda, what's it called? I can never remember. Not not palunteer persona.
They're palunteer adjacent.
Yeah. But like all these pwords,
but the but the data that they used to do this verification that is supposed to be anonymous anyway was being stored off device, right? Like that's kind of the thing. And if you're going to do any of this
any any sort of verification where you need the type of things either biometrics or a or a government ID

having that data be you like the second it leaves your device it can be used for other things.
Correct.
Outside of outside of what I I don't think Discord wants to give away everyone's data. I don't think that's the goal.
Right. Uh I think they're trying to navigate a very turultuous situation and their choice of partner in that particular case uh was not uh what they needed.
Yep. So, um, that part is the tricky part is like how they're going to do it and what data is is being used to do it. And this is one of the places where like the just trust us is is is not actually what we're relying on. They opensourced Osprey as a result of this, which is their engine that they're using to like do server

oversight and and to do the data collection. And they have said that in advance of doing any of this, they will publish in full the methodology that they will be using to pair your activity with an age group. Okay, that if true, and again we're all operating under that is true. That seems like the way to do it. If they had started with this, I don't think if they had started with this, I don't think we'd be as upset. If they had said, "Hey, we want to do this thing that puts you in the age cohort using data that we already have access to with your consent and here's the methodology for how we're going to do it and we're do we're letting you know and being fully transparent from the get-go." I think that would have gone better.
Yeah,
I think that would have gone better. Okay, dog is completely correct. The 10% group is still a big group. I'm not ignoring that. I'm going to get to

that in a second. Right. I just want to deal with the 90% first and what their what their promise is for the 9010 split.
Okay. the 10% split is I think they have chosen the most correct path available to them if they desire to comply with this law which I think they do and they desire to not simply kick those users off the site which I also think which is they're going to offer you the choice and they're working on developing more ways of establishing age verification including And I saw it in their blog post. Credit card verification, which is what a lot of people prefer.
A lot of people because that's been a gold standard for a very long time. Like as long as I've been using the internet long time.
Yeah. um a as an option. And furthermore, that when they present you with those

options, they will tell you how your what data will be needed, how that data will be treated, who the provider you will be working with is so that you can decide for yourself how you want to do this or if you want to do this. I I think I think that's a pretty good way to Yeah. Right. I think that is a big if true,
right? I think I think that that and and again,
I think they're 100% correct with we know you don't trust us right now and we're not asking you to. We're telling you what we're gonna do and we're asking you to trust us once we transparently publish all of our methodology and everything else that we're doing, which is good. Which is good, right?
I mean, it's the only move at this point to survive.
Yeah. Um,

I think it's so interesting the the marketing field even in the last three years has changed so drastically based on essentially mood on the internet And I think it would behoove companies like Discord to actually I know not there's not a infinite money to go around etc but like really work with a PR team if this is your goal how do you get this across the cleanest way because I'm sure they have a social team that was in charge of the roll out of this previous information. Mhm.
But when you're doing something this large and not having enough time or resources to read the room as to like what are some potential things people will do or be upset about.

Uh that's when you're going to run into these sort of troubles. And again I kind of not to tie this it's a different issue but it's a similar I think sort of marketing exercise misunderstanding the space for a game like Highguard and Highguard's story. Like there were things that you could market about Highguard that would have made it more enticing and different ways you can do it. Whether or not the game is whatever the game is that would have had a a better chance. Obviously staying power in a video game is based on kind of how good that game is. the initial launch. It feels like there's a lot of hard lessons being learned between what's happening with Discord, Highguard, couple other places of like knowing what to say when, knowing when to be disclose everything, and knowing when to take Will's patented course on shutting the hell up. And I think as [snorts] the media landscape gets more and more complicated, I think those jobs I think pe I think

places are going to have to hire a lot more people who understand the ins and outs of the current internet marketing media landscape because if you don't and you're doing big moves like this,
it doesn't it does not go well. people on the internet at base level. We have all been trained to want to be mad. That's where you have to start.
Yeah,
it sucks. I don't like it. And you can tell by the tone of my voice that uh that's SORT OF WHERE I'M AT RIGHT NOW. But
you can't act like you need to kind of come in with that being the base level now until things cool down a little bit.
Yeah. Um, and if you don't, then it's going to just end like this sort of thing. So, hopefully, look, all of that said, I hope that, and Zoe does, too. I don't know if you can hear. I hope that uh we do see I hope what they're saying is true. Um, I I entirely agree with the quote that I put on the meme this third

time around. Trust is earned through uh actions over time. That's very true. Let's uh let's give them that time and we'll see how it goes. And and I'm seeing a lot of really good comments from chat about new people not wanting to use credit cards or third-party vendors storing data. 100% agree that those are all very real concerns,
right? I think what I would I am I am not done being skeptical by any stretch of the imagination. I am merely saying let them cook. I am down to let them cook on this on this line of thought. Right. Uh and to then publish their technical paper, their methodology, which vendors they will be using transparently with all of that. And then on the basis of that say, oh, I see you've provided first party credit card verification, a thing which I was already giving you, right? I think for new people signing up for a credit card maybe a non-starter. Sure. But I've

disc's had my credit card info for years because of Nitro. So, I'm okay with giving them that information for that purpose because they already had it.
Yeah.
Right. Um, and will you I think you're being very fair andor balanced. If uh if I may come down a bit more hard on the like yes, everything that they're saying is good, but at the end of the day, not being careful in that way showed what the what the value points were.
I agree. Uh, you know, I I do not think for any and any any purpose whatsoever Discord thought that they were going to do an evil thing and help become a a member of a surveillance state. I do not think that is at all what was going on there. But I think that they didn't take the necessary precautions and looking at who their partners were and all that other jazz that could eventually uh contribute

to something like that. And if if I can take one sort of frown upside down moment out of this, it's that enough people were upset that they did hit them where in their wallet and now the methodology is changing from we're just going to do this and oh, it'll be fine to oh god, we have to fix this.
And maybe that and I also don't want to pretend that like a corporation is a monolith. It's not like they're all in lock step on one of these things or another. I am sure there are many people and many partners and many groups that work with Discord that had all sorts of thoughts on this roll out ranging from, oh yeah, this is easy. It's going to go smooth to like this is a nightmare and you should not do this. Like I think everyone has had their own opinion, people that are much more knowledgeable than Will and I on this. I just I'm It's I guess what I'm trying to say is it's still okay to listen to them and

be angry.
Yeah, I agree.
So, yeah.
Yep. Okay, let's real quick. This one This one's going to go kind of fast. Um but this is the first of what I think is probably many.
So,
WELCOME TO RAMWATCH.
Welcome to Ramwatch.
[laughter]
Um, in what is again probably the first of many uh websites shutting down, Myri is a game preservation service that launched in 2022 um that was housing several terabytes of retro video games uh will be shutting down. Um, and uh, the essential the essential argument is it got too expensive to continue to host this and donations were not keeping up with demand. And the solo hoster of this was paying about $6,000 a month uh, themsel out of pocket

in order to keep the service afloat. And that got exacerbated because hosting companies want to pay big bucks to host AI instead. That's that's it. That's the story that it is now getting prohibitively expensive to host content on the internet outside of something like a YouTube a Twitch and ad supported service that's paying for its own hosting. Right? If you're hosting information like ROMs, like speed demo archives, like whatever, those are getting more expensive. And this serves two functions, right? One, to remind you that it does cost money to do those things. And if you enjoy those things, make sure you are supporting the groups, companies, whatever that are doing those things, right? Because they depend on that. And the second one is don't be surprised if some of them go away anyway, right?
Yeah. There's no way that they all survive. I mean, this is all
Yeah, I like this one.

It's Ramnarok. [snorts]
Wow. Wow. Wow.
Wow.
Wow. So, uh, taking off caps for Mirant and, uh, keep an eye out for other similar phenomena in the days and weeks to come as, uh, this bubble cannot pop soon enough. Death to our AI artificial overlords. Just we don't need them. We didn't need them before. The need is fake. We don't need them. It's not worth this. Stop it. Cool. Great. Excellent. Let's end on a a good a you know we're going to a good a good fun story. We're going to end with some good fun dessert. Y'all here. There's new Pokemon.
Yo, let's go.
There's new Pokemon. It saved us. It saved us from the existential horror. There's new Pokemon.
Well, there will be in 2027.
Sure.
But we did get a trailer. a trailer that I will say I feel like

primed me and played me like a fiddle because the beginning of the trailer I was like I hate this trailer so much. It's oh we going to look at the houses and the sketchbooks and the nonsense and the dream and the be and I was LIKE SHOW ME THE GAME. I'm like they're not going to show me the game. They're just going to show me a logo and I'm gonna be mad. And then they showed me the game and I really really really liked it. Um, people are a little bit uh upset about it being only on the Switch 2. Um, I think, you know, I I I can understand that. However, um, if we want there to keep being new consoles, things like this sort of kind of do have to happen. Um, I am super curious about this. I I want I I'm hoping that they take a page out of Resident Evil's book, honestly, and go with things that have worked in the past and ditch things that have not.

Yep. Uh
yeah.
Yeah. Uh I think that some people are talking about Switch 2 shortages and inability to get them. I I think there will be like I think it is much easier to get a Switch 2 now than it was. And who knows how long that would be
correct. Um uh yeah uh yes that is correct. There was there was an exchange between the IGN Twitter account and the Pokemon Twitter account which was absolute perfection in which I don't even
IGN declared there was a bunch of water and Pokemon responded with 7.9 out of 10 which was the rating that IGN gave the last Pokemon game [laughter]
which was just amazing absolute. All right. Now, it is it is very important that we deal with a very important part of this announcement
because we don't know a ton, right? Like

there's there's only a few things that we know specifically.
Yeah. One of them is this. So, we have from left to right, Pomon, and Geeka. Geekqua. It's either Geekqua or
Geekqua. I hope it's Geekqua. I think it's Gqua. Now, I think we're all addressing the elephant of the room. Game Freak, Pokemon Company. Pon Bon is going to stay a dog on four legs, right? Four legs. Dog. Still a dog.
About the evolutions.
Yes. Still a dog. Still four legs. bigger, fluffier dog. Not not a weird humanoid dog looking thing that people are going to be very abnormal about. Okay. Right. It's dog. It's going to

stay a dog, right? It's going to turn into like a sied, right? Cuz it's clearly a Pomeranian, right? And it's going to get big dog stay. Okay.
Well, Gecko is going to get real sexy,
right? Gecko. Yeah, right. We can have a stupid sexy gay duck thing again. That was fine, right? But like the fire starter thing where like they always turn into furry bait. That got to stop, right? I've also found and seen the best possible evolution path for which is that it stays exactly like that except his eyebrows get bigger.
Amazing. Amazing.
Um, look, I I love these new starters. Uh, I'll probably go Gecka most likely. Um, I think Brout is probably my favorite name of the three.
Agree. Yeah.
Um,
what about No Legs, just a fluff loaf. All about that 100%.
Sure. Yeah, that makes total sense. I'd be fine for that.
Yeah.
Anyway,
maybe it turns into like a Bon and then a Samed. I think I'm about those.

I'm curious. I'm curious what in other things what the both titular wind andor waves will will be. Are we going to be I know that you get to go underwater in this one. Are we going to get to go to the sky? Are we going full Breath of the Tears of the Kingdom here or
It might also be like sailing or or like surfing, right? As like
Well, I think it's Yeah, I Yeah. And I I but I do like that there was a fully rendered underwater world that felt like you get to go down there, which was nice.
Uh but we'll see.
I don't know if anybody heard the cat sneezes that just occurred. They were quite explosive. Um, yeah. I think I think it's uh I think it's going to be very cool. I'm I'm excited to see it. I don't know if I'm going to play it, but I'm excited for it to exist. And
yes, that's kind of where I'm at.
Yep. I'm I'm glad and I'm glad that we could use this as a brief uh moment of levity and fun in the midst of all of our gazing into the eternal unending abyss and screaming about it. So, you know.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Uh friends,
oh, oh, sorry. Oh, one last Pokemon thing. If you are looking for a good Pokemon podcast, uh friends of mine, uh Belle and Brandon, uh do a podcast, uh bi-weekly or maybe monthly at this point, literally called Who's That Pokemon? where they take a deep dive for like an hour into the they are going down the Pokedex and they are great. Belle, you might have seen on uh Oh, I didn't even talk about this and I totally should have um at the top of the show. I'm an idiot. My Abolish Everything season 2 set is out over on Nebula right now. um where I was brought back for the redemption episode. Uh I was voted back by I hope I think a lot of you. So, thank you very much for bringing me back along with Ben, Adam, and uh Elise. And uh we got to go again. And uh if you're not familiar with Abolish Everything, it's essentially a sketch comedy, not a sketch comedy show, a stand-up comedy show where we do presentations with PowerPoint in front of a live audience in NYC and then a opposing panel of improv comics called the political establishment have to argue against what we are trying to

abolish. So, like I could say like speaker phones or chewing with your mouth open or whatever. This time, because I was invited back for the redemption episode, I chose the very normal tact of wanting to abolish the very concept of redemption. Um, and it went pretty damn good. Uh, regardless, Belle, the reason I bring that up, Belle, who has this Pokemon podcast, uh, was one of the people that grills me in both of my episodes. She's the one that uh we are we're she she comes she comes at me hard. Uh but the podcast is very very very good.
Um I uh oh can I where can where can we find uh I will I will put the um I'll put the the link in the show notes to uh who's that Pokemon as well.
Uh yeah, sorry that was just my that was my last bit here.
All right. Uh, as we uh as we wrap up, a reminder, due to circumstances of

scheduling, there will be no games for breakfast next week. There will, however, be a design club this Thursday where we're talking, I believe, uh, do not hold me to this, I believe we'll be talking about, uh, giving games to kids because that's a new thing that some people in our generation and in our age group are like dealing with. And we have thoughts and feelings about like how that works now and and what games to give kids and why and when. And so we're going to we're going to be talking about that with all of you. So please come on Thursday for that design club topic. Uh we'll also be playing more WoW Midnight today and Wednesday. But if you are a fan of a little card game that some of you may have heard of called Slay the Spire, Slay the Spire 2 comes out on Thursday. I will be playing it all day for Friday. So, come play with me, hang out. It'll be fun. Uh, that is the schedule for this week, which means that all that remains to us now is for Matt
to do his patented sign off, the same one he does every time to sort of

EVERY TIME IT'S THE SAME.
Help us close out this uh this show together.
That's right. Because we want to make sure that we send you off in uh a sense of camaraderie and the Games for Breakfast community. And we know that you all love this ending that is always the same every single time and you can all do it at home. That's the most important part of this is that you get to do the exact thing that we do and then it makes us all feel like we're a little bit closer and part of the same community. So, with that in mind, uh please everyone raise your single your single pastry that you've held off for enjoying this entire time and welcome the week by taking a big old bite of this one pastry uh that we're all going to do together. So, until next week or two weeks from now when Games for Breakfast comes back, enjoy the carbs.
Good bite.
One one pastry
one.
[music]