Roblox’s Louisiana Lawsuit, AI Age Verification, and Pokemon’s Unhappy Meal | Games For Breakfast

[Applause] [Music] Good morning, Matt.
Oh, good morning, Will.
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 we seem to have a a obsession this morning with lasers.
That's right. Um, I don't know why lasers have become such a uh a fascination with our with our with our Brad this morning.
Why do you think that we need a reason?
You know what?
For lasers.
You know what? You're correct. And
knowing is half the battle. The other half is laser based.
25% red lasers, 25% blue lasers. Will, your thought process is flawless. I yield my time. Uh,
I don't know what to do with your time. I don't
It's just It's just an hour and a half. Easy breezy. You got to fill it. Uh,

you right. Okay, great. And now Matt's just going to leave to go play with lasers. Don't play with them near a camera or your eye.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hi everybody. Good morning. Uh, thank you. Or, you know, good morning for now where we are, but also good afternoon, good evening, or good night depending on where you are elsewhere. Uh, and how many times you've watched The Truman Show?
Oh god. If you haven't, okay, wait, hold on a sec. There are definitely people young enough who watch this show that they don't know sometime, get uh a blanket and some hot cocoa. And if you have a cuddly pet, maybe a cuddly pet, and watch The Truman Show, which is either one of the saddest funny movies or the funniest sad movies ever. I would be really curious for uh uh a late millennial or early gen alpha.

No, that's Yeah, there there's like millennials in the Yeah, I guess technically millennials are Gen Z and there's Gen Alpha after us.
I watch never not grown up with YouTube.
Yeah. who is also like an adult uh to watch the Truman Show because I feel like a lot of the vernacular because it's based around honestly network television which is uh still around but also depending on where you grow up a bit of a dying medium.
So um I'd be curious how effective the Truman Show is for people for for young people at this point for like people in their like early 20s, you know.
That's right. Bler Gen Y. That's right. I don't know my alphabet. Thank you chat for correcting me. Yes, I'm wrong. Also, a real quick reminder that the actual um generational terminology we use is all made up.
Uh all of it's fake.
It is literally not it's it's to make uh the user to be angry at people that are older and younger than us.

And uh it's dumb, but we still use it because it's so clean and and vernacular focused. Um just just a quick heads up there.
Yeah. Uh yeah, that that is correct. Uh Daff, you are 100% correct. The Truman Show in this case uh would merely be a Twitch stream. Uh it's it's literally just a Twitch stream. That's correct.
And people have kind of done it. Like
people volunteer for it. It's called Big Brother.
Yeah, but that's edited. Like the idea I don't know. Again, the Truman We don't have to go too far into the Truman Show. This episode's not about the Truman Show. Uh,
isn't every episode at least a little bit about the Truman Show?
Yeah, but I think we're getting to the end of how much this episode can be about the Truman Show.
Okay, that's fair.
Uh, yeah.
Uh, anyway, my brain is now stuck on the Truman Show. So, shall we uh get into our proper news stories for

Yeah, I'm going to make some coffee. We got some stuff. I'm going to push this button down. It's the magic coffee button. It's a good magic coffee button. Uh, first thing reminders.
Yeah, first thing first, a couple reminders. Uh, number one, Friday is your last day to get in on the calendar Kickstarter.
We will be doing uh uh a final push stream. Probably two hours prior maybe or one and a half, something like that.
Like that. Yeah, but it'll be me and Matt because everyone else is asleep. This is this is the price we pay. This Yeah, this is the price we pay for being East Coast. Um, so, uh, please join us for that on Friday and you can exclamation mark Kickstarter and Twitch chat or I'm sure the mods have the link over in YouTube.
Indeed. Yes, please go check that out. If we get to I forget what it is, if it's 65 or 70, uh, we'll have unlocked uh, the ability for everyone to vote on essentially uh, making a physical puzzle that you are also fond of doing digitally. You'll get to vote on what what element is made into a puzzle that you can buy in the web store. as someone who accidentally contributed to this in

this fashion. I need you all to get there. I need this. I need this validation. Uh give me please. Let's get a puzzle. I want a puzzle. I'll do the puzzle. Look, if we get there, not only camera, you could do the puzzle on stream,
right? I was going to say, not only will we commit to like getting the puzzle sorted, I will get a copy of the puzzle and I will do the puzzle on stream physically and I will accept back seating from Twitch chat.
I don't know how well that'll work, but
it won't that's the point, Matt. That's the It won't work at all.
I see. Okay.
Um All right. Uh next up, Pax Waste.
Oh, yeah.
Uh is is arriving. Um, it's not this coming weekend, but the weekend following the last weekend of August. Uh, importantly, put if you are going to PAX West, please mark your calendars for Sunday, August 31st at 6:30 p.m. con time um in the Blue Dragon Theater where

there will be a design club featuring Matt and Jeff and Cat and some special guests.
Special guests are locked up. I believe Jasmine will be there and I think we're waiting on one or two more.
Yeah. Um, but yeah, it's gonna be fun. Also, side note, I just found out about this because I I was just asked. Uh, a friend of the channel, Jenna Stober, is doing a phenomenal panel as well at 4 pm in the Firebird on Sunday. Uh, that is going to be called Tears of the Kingdom, but tears spelled T I E R S uh where uh she a wonderful panel and myself will be rating on a tier list various things from Tears of the Kingdom, T A RS. Uh, so please check that out. Also, I believe so. Yeah, Sunday is like stacked. You have that at 4. I believe the 5:00 p.m. at Firebird as well is um movies with Mikey Mikey Newman and Dan Olsen doing uh some chicainery that I absolutely love seeing. So, I'll be in the audience watching that right before our design club panel at 6:30. So,

Sunday I always forget that PAX West is
Friday to Monday.
Yeah. I'm always like, "Oh man, Sunday is the last day." I'm like, "No, it's not."
Yep. Yeah, I think that's correct. That does, however, mean that if you are looking forward to it, there will be no stream the first of September. There will be no
So, there'll be a breakfast next week, but not the following.
Correct. Yeah, we're giving you all advanced notice so you can because we all know
flying planes,
right? Yeah. You won't
We found out in the pre-show, Janet, that uh a member of Brad, who was it again? Boros was on watching on a plane
is watching us on a plane. Uh and then we basically made it canon that they were also flying the plane, but they're very skilled and I'm sure it's fine
flying low enough to catch everybody's Wi-Fi network to
Yeah. And also if they're clipping, they have to do it both physically and literally or metaphysically. Metaphorically. All the ways you can clip something, be it a a video on Twitch or uh buzzing a

tower.
Yeah, that that seems correct. Uh, all right. Next up on our list. Um, so I have made a mistake. I have made I have already decided that I've made a mistake. Um, I am starting Elder Ring for the first time. I am not historically the biggest fan of Souls games. Uh, but we're giving them a a fair shot. So, I am I'm starting this afternoon here on the Twitch channel my Elden Ring playthrough. Um, I'm pretty sure I know what my build's going to be. I think Matt knows what his build's going to be. The reason that Matt's build is relevant is that I will have seamless co-op set up so that Matt and a couple other cool people uh who I will be sending the password to once it's enabled um will be able to drop in, drop out and hang out um and you know jump into calls while I play Elden Ring and try and become Elden Lord and also probably commit a minor arson. And by minor arson, I mean it's kind of a major arson. I've watched Matt play. I've just never played. So, like there's this

weird line between like I do know kind of the major story beats, but I don't know a lot of the mechanics. So, it's going to be a fun time with Twitch chat. So, please join us for that.
Also, trying to re uh combobulate your ability to use the original Elden Ring control scheme after playing Night Rain for 80 plus hours is a task.
So, I fixed that. I fixed that because I play Night Rain on the PS4 controller.
Sure. I'm playing Elden Ring on the Switch Pro so I don't get them confused.
Look at you go.
I have figured also um the importance of the D-pad is very different between the two games.
Um and I need easier access to D-pad for Elen Ring than I do for Night Rain.
New guy. Uh I I like this comment, but I don't think there's anything actually. Well, we'll be doing in place of push-ups when he dies. 30 second philosophy debate.
No, no, no, no. We don't have My gimmick is that I don't like Dark Souls games. Yeah,
there's a different there's a different gimmick at stake here.
Back when I was doing Elden Ring, we did

Elden Ring fit where I had to do a Elden or a ring fit workout on the Nintendo Switch every time I died in Elden Ring because we did Dark Souls, which was push-ups and sit-ups and nonsense and
yeah,
Dark Souls will return if there's a Dark Souls 4.
Yeah. Uh, Pixel's also correct. I have done a lot of par practice.
Yeah.
Um,
there you go.
Yeah. Uh, okay. Cool. Great. Let's get on to the news of the week. First up, Gamescom starts on Tuesday. We will not be co-streaming the opening. We can't make it work on our schedule because it's rudely in the middle of the day for the East Coast, folks. We both have other obligations. Um, but uh, look forward to it uh, next week. U, pay attention to Gamescom. There will probably be some major game announcements and we'll be talking about it next Monday.
Uh, are there any games at least that have been announced right now that they're going to talk about it that you are excited about, Will? So, I mean, uh, say the line, Will. Well, they've said that there'll be a playable demo of Silk Song at Gamescom.

Great.
Yeah, but that's not going to help you.
No, it's not. Um, I think nothing that like has been confirmed for opening night live is like super tickling my fancy right now. Um, that doesn't mean that it won't. It just means that at this point the big stuff generally doesn't land for me, right? Like most of the stuff that I'm interested in is like tomorrow I'm playing The King is Watching. It's a 370 megabyte indie trash rogike about running a kingdom. Like that's what excites me at this point. So,
right.
Yeah. It's funny. I'm more excited to learn about the big names than play them in a lot of cases. That's not entirely true. Like Resident Evil has gotten me back after uh obviously Resident Evil 7 and uh and Village. Um, uh, I think that the Resident Evil Reququum I'm interested in. I'd like to learn more about. I'm super pumped for Ghost

of Yoai. Um, Ninja Gaiden. I'm always that's these are some of the confirmed ones that are going to be on the opening night live. Uh, Ninja Gaiden uh, 4, I guess. I'm always interested in Ninja Gaiden, but every time I pick up one of the new ones after I think two, I I feel like I've just been a little bit disappointed. Silent Hill F, always on the lookout for that kind of stuff. World of Warcraft Midnight. Again, I'm never going back, but I do like to keep up to date with what is happening in Azeroth, so that's always nice to see some pretty cinematics.
I was I was given an anecdote that you may appreciate on the World of Warcraft front.
Okay.
The race to world first for the current raid tier is currently going on. Uh and progress was halted because uh weak oras broke. and nobody they practiced the fight with weak orasuras instead of actually solving the mechanics themselves. So, because weak oras broke, they couldn't progue for like half an hour till they fixed weak oras, which as a Final

Fantasy 14 raider who's not allowed to use weak oras,
I get a little chuckle out of.
Yeah,
it's very it it's there's nothing wrong with weak or it's just very different approaches.
Uh, and I can't imagine like not being able to because some plugin doesn't doesn't work. But they're also designed very differently. And I'm I'm going to be very interested to see what Blizzard does potentially in the announcement for Midnight about removing the reliance on weak oras to do mechanics.
Totally. Uh side note real quick uh uh Lous uh want to know how I can watch these VODs of these chats. Just so you know, all of these will go up in the live tab on the regular YouTube channel and all the VODs are there. So if you have to go, you have to jump. Thanks for hanging out for a bit, but if you got to watch it later, that's how you do that.
Yeah.
Um
and and and I think that this is this is also very accurate. There are many things I miss about playing early 2000s WoW with friends and friends and friends, but you don't miss WoW. That's how I feel about Destiny. Like I I get that feeling, right? Like I

remember raid raiding in Destiny 2 at launch. And I remember that feeling of like, hey, this is cool. We're all doing this together. And like the first time we cleared um the first raid and it was great and it was awesome, but like I don't actually miss the game. I miss the feeling. I I Wow. Is that for me? There's no question. Um
Destiny is a little different because I feel like I enjoyed the physicality, like the actual gameplay of Destiny more than I enjoyed the gameplay of WoW.
Agreed. Um however uh it is the the feeling that everyone is chasing there is just like what I think okay Destiny your brain has to be I think and that's like in high-end high tier raids and things this is the same I think but like the majority of Destiny and the majority of WoW I feel like you kind of have to be paying a little bit more attention just by the nature of it being a first-person shooter like and

the the the fastness of it than you do in in again this is not talking about raids. This is not talking about boss battles. This is like the day-to-day grind of WoW. Yeah. Right. But but I think what is a boon of that and what why that is actually a good thing is one of the reasons why WoW felt so social is you could do both things. You could just go hang out with your friends and farm and chat. I mean MMOs do that all the time. Of course you're do it in 14 all the time. Yep. But like the game play was simple enough where almost anybody with almost no institutional knowledge of video games could play it and come hang out.
Um and that is why I think it has such a social uh hook in my uh in my comeuppance I guess uh of of in sort of online video game space because like every one of my friends played it even who don't normally play games and it was just a place to hang out with your friends in addition to high-end gameplay if you wanted it.
Yep. Right. Right. Absolutely. Yeah.
Uh but I miss it. Uh we we talk about it

enough. We're just again to to this point I I've heard literally nothing about World of Warcraft Midnight. I just
I'm I'm excited mostly because of the things that they are changing. Uh and I'm interested from like a very uh analytical design perspective to see what their um what their current ongoing onebutton rotation thoughts are. We've talked about that before. and the move away from weak wars um and into hey you don't actually need any plugins to play this game because right now the beginning of WoW is all right get all your pluggon fixed and you're like wait what right and that's I think they're moving so anyway that's gamescom more on that yep yeah more on that next week all right uh next up

back in the day. You pay for whatever is trending, pal. Like, and that's a mod plushy or whatever. Uh,
what?
Start that start that whole thing again. Um, our our sound app kicked you off of
the off of the channel and muted you in the middle. It wasn't loaded. It wasn't It wasn't up. Yeah. I didn't touch anything. I was reading our notes and then it was like, "Hey, Matt's muted." And I looked and the sound was different and All right. So, anyway.
All right. This is a real uh actual PayPal ad that uh was up on Billboards. Obviously, I'll let you see where I added things or changed it, but the you pay for whatever is trending, pal with the Modang plushy, like that is a these are like ads they put up and I was like, "Wow." Okay. Uh and so that's why we're using this graphic as the story that will now introduce.
Yeah. So, one of the problems uh that's

been happening on Steam has now um sort of trended over to PayPal, which is that several payment processors have um threatened to pull out of of of Steam um because uh Steam has uh not safe for work or adultly content on it. PayPal being the most recent one. Uh however, it's it's a little more interesting than that. Uh, quote, "In early June July 2025, PayPal notified Valve that they're acquiring bank for payment transactions in certain currencies was immediately terminating the processing of any transactions related to Steam. This affects Steam purchases using PayPal and currencies other than the Euro, Canadian dollar, the British pound, the Japanese yen, the Australian dollar, and the US dollar. So, and that's all from Steam's purchasing issues FAQ as reported by Rock Paper Shotgun. So, that's huge. So, if you're not using

euros can uh some form of the dollar, the British pound or the yen, you cannot currently process transactions on Steam. You have to go into one of those currencies and do it that way. But that might not be possible depending on where your Steam is set up because a reminder that the currency that you're using is not in all cases but most cases region locked by Steam. So this is another big snafu.
Yeah, I'm uh I'm not sure where this is going. I don't um
I'm not I'm not sure either. it it um Valve is saying that by the way you could just get Steam gift cards from uh places and put balance into your Steam account and then purchase whatever you want in those countries that way. That is obviously a corpo immediate

workaround because they don't want to lose all of the revenue from every country that's not using any of those currencies. But even so, like this will hurt like and again I don't know what I don't know what the revenue um amount is from countries that aren't using these currencies regardless. Do you know what I mean?
Um but anytime you have to do a secondary window, you will drop
10 down to like 10 to 20% of it. Like I I even use So uh here's an interesting thing that I've been yelling at YouTube to fix forever. um you cannot link to any video in a short outside of your channel. So uh in the case of we're doing that calendar Kickstarter, right? We can't actually point you at the end of a short that mentions the calendar to that Kickstarter. We have to send you to a video that is it could be listed any video. We choose to unlist it an unlisted video uh about the calendar Kickstarter that then has a link. So rather than A to B, it's A to B to C.

And in this particular and and we've noticed that there's roughly a 10 to 20% drop off uh oh no, sorry, a let me rephrase that. An 80 to 90% drop off, meaning about 10 to 20% of people actually move over that make it to the end of a video. So here it's the same thing, right? like these companies, there's no way that there's not going to be a monetary drop off even because you still have to either go to a drugstore and buy a Steam gift card or order one online and have it delivered or I I think sometimes there are actually I'm not sure if this works if there are like gift card codes you can order online
from places.
I imagine that there are that is a service that is available in some places. You do need to be very careful with that. Yeah.
Um because that is a way that scams happen. they will send you codes and uh then not acknowledge uh or or send you fake or used codes. Gift card codes over the internet are a weird and very sketch

kind of thing for phys like if they're trying to translate physical cards into online.
So my point is anytime you have to go from A to B to C rather than just A to C, I guess, uh it it really does limit you. Now again, I don't know what the full market value of the countries that don't use uh these specific types of currencies is, so I don't know what the actual detriment is, but um yeah, I just Yeah, look it, as we know, and we've said on this show many times, no art is political. So, um, and I don't want to dive into politics here, but there is an interesting correlation about a lot of the stories that we're going to be talking about. Um, and I and and and I will use the phrase that I I feel like uh I I I never love saying because it's been co-opted, but you can all do your own research. Um, and essentially look at like why this is happening now

uh in the grander context of all of the other things that are going on. This is a video game talk show and we're going to talk about video games, right? This is this is a specific thing that also it's it's very interesting to me in all of these stories we'll talk about today. The timing of all of this.
I agree.
I I and again this is not me saying there's a grand puppeteering conspiracy nonsense. No, no, no, no, no. It's when the winds shift, that's where the boats go. Like that's just sort of uh how it kind of functions. So,
um, yeah, I I'm curious to see where this all kind of goes, both with the Mastercard stuff and and now with PayPal. Um, again, and and I want I want to make it very clear too, this Steam and and online purveyors here are not also blameless. I think that they don't do a good enough job at um, basically keeping an eye on their store.
Yeah. Um, now does that mean that

anything like like there should be actual humans looking at things and and figuring out if they want it in their store or not? That's basically how it should function.
Yes.
Uh, and now
make enough money to pay people to do that work.
And now uh various groups are pressuring payment processors in bad faith to get different agendas across because of this uh crack uh in the armor. So,
I don't know. It's complicated. We have a couple episodes about this uh before we can dive deeper. This is just more the continuation of it. And now PayPal jumping on board.
Um
and and the specific currencies in general being refused to be processed does mean that parts of the world that are not
Japan, Australia, the US, Great Britain, or or sorry, the UK I guess because all the UK uses the pound. Uh and what was the last one? I'm I'm losing I'm missing one. Oh, I'm missing one.
Also, role playing. It was a joke.
Yeah. Oh, no. I
Everything Everything for, just to be

very clear, everything is political. Politics is the interaction of people. That's right. And this stream is by its nature political because there are people here talking about things that involve people. Yeah. Right. That That's
So obviously all art is political. I It's just It's That was me being cheeky.
Yeah. Okay.
Um Wait, did my Discord ping through?
No.
I heard I got a message and I want to make sure. Perfect. It's set to the right thing. None of you. Great. Okay. I didn't have to call that out.
All right. Great. Um, let's uh jump to Speaking of things that are uh totally going fine. So, Pokemon
I'm hating it. Um,
so Pokemon had a promotion and this this is in Japan, by the way. This is a Japan. Um, they had a thing where they put I could have told them this was going to

go poorly. They put Pokemon cards in Happy Meals. Now, if you weren't pay if you have never looked at the behavior of humans as regards Pokemon trading cards, simply read Lord of the Flies and you won't be far off. Um, I'm pretty sure I've seen grown adults clustering around a Pokemon card vending machine chanting pig, pig, pig. And so could have told them this is going to go poorly, but it's gone super poorly. Uh to the extent that they are having to overhaul the entire way that the promotion works because what you are seeing here is food being wasted. People were ordering mass quantities of Happy Meals and then dumping the food which
no why they can't have nice things.

Yes.
Listen, I don't have a lot of faith in scalpers,
right?
Um but like couldn't they like
you Okay. Hey scalpers, I know you watch this show,
right? Yeah. you have a really big PR problem, namely that you're kind of pieces of [ __ ] But if you wanted to if you wanted to kind of clean that up, something you could do is maybe work with some shelters or or people who are in need of food to then give the food away that you're doing to scalp these Pokemon cards, you dummies.
Like this this picture sucks. Like
yeah, this is not okay. And like also also can I just I'm just gonna piggyback. This makes all of us look bad. This makes all of the card gamers and the and the fans of things look because these are the stories that breach containment. These are the stories that like get onto the

mainstream news about like large amounts of food just being dumped in a craze as Pokemon fans clamor for limited edition promotional merch and act poorly. Right. This is th this is one of Pokemon's biggest problems is that for some reason grown adults completely lose their mind when Pokemon's involved. I will remind people that in the early days of Pokemon Go, they had to remind people to not play in cemeteries and to not tag team logos o all over the place because people were spray painting Pokemon team logos near various Pokéstops. People and Pokemon when they mix, people lose their minds. just absolutely lose all sense and common decency apparently.
Like this is just infuriating to me that people are just uh a like so many

levels. Abandoning food, making uh people's lives harder, denying children the intended audience of this the ability to maybe get a cool thing that that kid might enjoy. Right? like
now and you corre I'm not as deep into into this element of Pokemon as as some in chat might be. What is the responsibility of the Pokemon company in McDonald's here? Now we because now this isn't like the first time that this has happened.
Correct. There there were problems with this at the Van Go Museum. There's there's precedent and and and data to show that people are going to act like garbage and scalpers are going to be idiots and all this stuff. Like we know this is going to happen.
Mhm.
At what point is there also something to say about how like like someone I I forget who in chat said these should all be common cards? Like if we want it to be for kids like and things that people don't or like things you can get elsewhere, this should just be free card

with no chance of pulling a great thing like like it should be. So there's So part of the problem
is that Nintendo uh not Nintendo, Pokemon has this history of making promotional cards not powerful but unique, right?
But rare,
but well rare because they're only part of that promotion. But people want exclusivity because that's what brings people for the promotion,
right? At least in their mind is like Pikachu with a Grafeld hat isn't a good card. It's just rare for the sake of being rare. And part of the problem with Pokemon right now is that the consumption and collection of Pokemon cards is far more relevant on the economic side of things
than the actual power level for gameplay,
right? So, so really what's Nintendo and the Pokemon not Nintendo uh the Pokemon Company and uh McDonald's are complicit then in just not really

caring about the experience and trying to get as much product out the door as possible.
Yeah.
Whereas I think now a backlash especially in Japan as uh RD mentioned um in Japan that's a rather taboo thing to do just to waste so much food and litter around in general.
Yeah. And that So that's going to come back and bite McDonald's harder
than normal in this. Um Yeah. I I don't I wish there was a way like I I understand they're trying to get people to the door. That's what a That's what a tie-in does. Um, but when you're dealing with a product that actually has scarcity be part of its value proposition, which again, you can debate the the morals or usefulness of that when it comes to something that is artificial.
Y
um it makes it so much more complicated. This sucks in a lot of different levels. It does.
Uh, however, I will say there is another

fast food joint that is doing a very different kind of promotion. Very, very right. Uh, I give you I give you the uh I believe it is called uh the misery and misfortune meal from Wendy's.
That's correct.
Uh it is not a happy meal. Wendy's says there is nothing happy about this meal. Uh, it is 10 chicken nuggets with four mystery sauces that apparently are all spicy and a blood blood strawberry uh dripped uh frosting and some fries. It's to promote the second season of Wednesday on Netflix. Now, I am not a big fast food person. I when I travel, if I'm on the highway, I'll stop and get something. I'm going to find a Wendy's and buy this. Like, this worked. I don't think it's a good deal. I don't think the chicken nuggets are particularly good and the sauces being a mystery also bad. But the lizard part of my brain is just

like,
yeah,
well done.
Well done. A
and and there there's another difference and I want to hold this up. Right.
The food is the point, not ancillary to the thing that is drawing people in. Right.
And a and it's also um IP synergistic. There's a whole press release uh about this that we'll have in the show notes, but like it's they're talking about like oh well the other uh well-known uh pigtailed girl, Wednesday Adams, because obviously Wendy is also has pigtails, right?
Um yeah, it says what happens when two iconic pigtailed praor join forces in the kitchen.
Uh they create a meal that is pure punishment in a bag,
right? And it's like, you know, your audience, you're doing a service with your brand and the IP that you are matching with. Um, again, I I think fast food and Wendy's has some problems, of course, but like this just

feels like the right kind of thing to move your chicken nuggets as opposed to the Pokemon one because no one's no one's buying this and throwing out the chicken nuggets,
right? You're buying it for the chicken nuggets because you want to try the stupid spicy sauces with your friends and watch as everyone runs for their frosty. By the way, really smart idea. Super spicy stuff and the frosty.
Yeah, also I'll try that guy if I can get I I don't know. It must be a Wendy's in New York.
Tell you what, we can also try uh this didn't make the fast food news for this week. There is a new flavor of Baja Blast at Taco Bell.
Taco Bell. It's like Midnight Purple or something.
Yeah, it's like Midnight Purple. Uh, I I will happily do a review of that because that is the only thing that I can consume that is produced at a Taco Bell.
Yeah.
Uh, yeah.
I think they use the term Annie. I think they use the term pigtails because they can be considered it. I They are braids as well, but like I think they wanted to say they wanted to have the alliteration of uh uh provocators.
Yeah,

pigtailed provocators is why I think uh
anyway. Yeah. What flavor is the sundae? I think it's strawberry with uh with the vanilla uh Frosty.
Okay.
Anyway, I I thought this was great. I wanted to have a nice happy story to mix with the McDonald's nonsense. Uh and now with all the fast food brands who we know watch, uh there's an example of a bad thing to do and an example of a good thing to do.
Yep.
Because we're we're nothing if not helpful.
Yeah, exactly. Speaking of helpful, it's time to give you a helpful update on the Craftton lawsuit. Oh boy.
Oh, good. So,
we need like a theme song at this point
for the craft and story.
Well, this this is going to be the last one for a bit.
Okay,
so um what has happened now?
Wait, I have it. Wait, I have the theme song. Will, I'm so sorry.
I hate this theme song. No. Why is it the drought? Ah, god. Everyone's getting anxiety.

Okay, great. Um, so, uh, the founders of Unknown Worlds, um, the the triumvirate filed their legal complaint against Craftton. And this is probably going to be the last thing that we hear until we start getting like actual trial news. Um, but Crafton's response to their filing is thorough and scathing. In legal speak, it's a lot of they we didn't do any of this, they're lying. We didn't do any of that. They're also lying. These things are technically true, but unhelpfully so. So, um, and the reason that we bring it up is that if you would like to read it for yourself, we'll have it in the show notes. The complete text of the response to the original legal complaint is now available so you can read through. There's been a lot. This is one of the very interesting cases where

it doesn't actually matter what a court decides because the way that this is playing out is really about the fate of Subnautica in the public court of opinion which is a fascinating sort of twist to this. It doesn't like the money the money that people are seeking on either side isn't really gonna be the core of the issue. The core of the issue is who comes out of this Craftton or the um Unknown Worlds team comes out looking better in the public opinion. Um, and so it's very interesting to see a legal brief that or a legal document that is very much, in my opinion, written to be read by the general public and to be consumed as like a um as a thing uh that they're willing to say in a court document, right? That like
Yeah. I I the more this goes on, the more I

It seems as though and I This is uh removing all morality as much as I can from the tale. It seems as though both groups entered into this deal about Subnotica 2 with the idea that they were going to be able to one up the other group.
Correct. Whatever side of that moral coin you fall on after reading all the information, that's that's between you and uh and and and some other worldly deity that you may or may not uh chat to from time to time.
The everything has been like increasing levels of thorough, which does tend to make me believe that they're both were like, "No, I could we can get these losers." like it just feels like both sides were trying to do that from the jump and now uh we'll see which one actually does end up going through cuz it feels like the

the the three owners um I always blank what's the what's the the initial company that they sold or they're a part of
Unknown Worlds
Unknown Worlds those three folks will probably come back with a very detailed other list around these things as well and like
here's the very interesting thing that I I'm gonna I'm gonna say this is a very and I want everyone to listen to this because I don't want people to misconrue if and this is a huge if I am not saying this is the case if everything that both sides are saying is true and uncontested like if they're not saying yes no right if everything that both sides have kind of agreed to is true it doesn't really look good for the Unknown Worlds crew. They're going to need to find something new, in my opinion, to dispute because if everything that they've both agreed to is true,

it doesn't look like the founders of Unknown Worlds were doing a great job. That is not to say that that is the case, merely that that is where we're at at this stage in the legal proceedings with what has been leveraged. because there's a lot of things in this briefing that are contested, right? That like the um the the Unknown Worlds team is like these things happened and the uh and Craft is like none of these things happened, right? We don't that is not a thing that we can base any evidence on unless you're willing to just take what one side says on faith. The other really interesting thing, by the way, in all of this, there is a redaction if you're looking. The redactions are uh for the profit from Subnotica and the release dates of the potential release dates of Subnotica 2 are all redacted. So they did go to
Isn't that the crux of the entire thing though?
No, because the year is unredacted.

The the if it's in the past, right, it's redact. They just don't want to say when this year they're planning on releasing it. um because that is like an industry secret kind of thing along with the amount of money that they made. Um so just as you're looking into it, be aware that there are redactions.
Um so
yeah. Well, so we'll we'll see. Uh I feel like this is the fourth time we've talked about this as it keeps moving down the pipeline.
Hopefully the last for a while. All right.
Uh I think we got time. Yeah, we got time. Uh, Matt, are you gonna cosplay when you go to the K-pop Demon Hunter singalong screening?
Uh, yes. No. I wish I had time to. I do not. They are. Now, everybody rejoice for K-pop Demon Hunters is now coming to a theater near you, not just on your smalish screen from Netflix. They are going to do legitimate singalong uh versions of this movie to help uh seal the Hanmoon. Uh if you have not seen the

movie, I won't spoil what that is, but it is kind of interesting that a singalong also works narratively with the movie.
It it does. It's also very interesting. this uh K-pop Demon Hunters has broken a lot of Netflix trends, which is one of the reasons why it they were like immediately like green light a sequel. I don't know how I feel about that one, but like the movie slaps. The movie literally, and I was talking to my room about this last night, the movie is literally, "What if we took the Disney formula and stripped out a lot of the restrictions that Disney places upon themselves to keep it familyfriendly, but use the Disney formula to tell a different story, and it's really, really good at doing that." It turns out the Disney formula is good. Disney is not the only one who can do the Disney formula, in case we've all forgotten, Dream Works. Um,
uh, if you are interested to see if it

is available in your city, it will be on the show notes. It's, uh, sing-pop demonhunters.com, and I believe it's on the 23rd and the 24th. Mostly regal cinemas. Um, uh, however, I think it's funny, Netflix bought the Paris cinema in um in New York City, and I'm curious if there's a if there's a act Oh, no, it's sold out. Great. Okay, never mind. Uh but the uh yeah, it's it's they're going fairly quickly. So if you are interested in this uh please go check that out. I know I I was really hoping it was AMC because I am a Stubs member. Uh however, it is not. I will happily pay to go see this in select theaters August 23rd and 20. It's such a good idea.
Yeah, it really
it's such a good idea. Um I'm very happy. So it's funny. We recorded our podcast episode on K-pop Demon Hunters like weeks ago, but like it's only

gotten more popular, but we've been heling it because she and I were traveling and a bunch of other things, but I believe it's going to release next week, next Sunday. Um, and like it seems like this is the right time. It's getting a theatrical release. It's on the top of the Billboard charts. It's like it it feels like this is the movie that every parent like every kid is asking their parents to watch like nine times and parents aren't minding. Like it's not it's Look, Frozen is great. From what I hear, you kind of want to die after the ninth time you watch Frozen. Like um
Yes.
Yeah. So yeah, and some smaller landmark chains, Dolphin, to your point, are are doing them as well.
Yep. Uh okay, cool. So uh we're probably gonna have to split this story up around ads, but that's okay because it's a big story and we're going to be talking about it for a hot second. Are you ready, Matt, to talk about
Hey,
Louisiana is suing
suing Louisiana.
They're suing Roblox, Matt.
Insert. Oof. Um.

Oof.
Oof. Okay. So, I don't even know.
This show is completely not political.
Yeah. Super apolitical. Yeah, totally, totally. Um, all right, let's go through some basics because we're going to establish all of our groundwork. It is entirely possible that lots of people watching the show may not know how big Roblox is.
Sure, Roblox is huge. Its recent high was just shy of 22 million concurrent players, most of whom are kids or at least and this is one of the main objects of contention in this lawsuit are say that they are kids and that is a huge problem. Um, Roblox has had a lot of um, allegations, pretty serious ones,

leveled against it in the past for the way that it interacts with child children doing labor, uh, intellectual labor, coding, making things that those kids then can't profit from. There have been cases of kids making like mini corporations in Roblox to make Roblox games. And like that's all super weird and very we depending on your legal jurisdiction either illegal or barely legal or in a gray space or it's but that is not the the the main part of the argument. But suffice it to say this is not the first time Roblox has been in the news for doing weird legal stuff. This is and Roblox is a huge deal. Okay. So both of those things kind of need to be established upfront if you're not aware. Um because I this might just be me. Roblox isn't a huge thing on Twitch. Um Roblox actually is barely a whisper on Twitch. Uh and so it doesn't interact primarily with my

workspace.
I have a theory on that.
Yeah, please.
Uh I think the theory on that is Roblox itself is a destination, not just a game. like the the communities in Roblox are playing these games together or or all engaging in that and they're not what they're you're not watching someone else play Roblox. You're playing Roblox. Like does that make does that does that feel corre again? I don't know. I haven't I I've only researched Roblox. I haven't like actually like played it played it. Um but like that's what it feels like. It feels more like an app and less something that you watch. Does that make sense?
Yeah. Um,
yeah. So, um,
oh, and and yogurt also brings up a a great point.
Can't be on Twitch if you're under 12.
Yeah, that's correct. If you're Yeah. Um, so the

I cannot stress enough how weird this is. the Republican attorney general of Louisiana, by the way, is the one who's going after Roblox. That's weird for a whole bunch of reasons we don't have time or inclination to get into here, but it is worth noting as a weird thing. Um, so,
well, it's not weird like, okay, this might be a little redactive, but we only have an hour. Um, broken clock. Yeah, it kind of feels broken clockish
like uh the phrase broken clock is right twice a day. Um the you know the opinions are my own as are willsolves of blah blah blah blah blah. But like that's what this sort of feels like, right? Like you could gestures broadly and look at the draconian nonsense that is sort of coming down all over the place and be like, well that's that's some BS. And then you can look at this, which is part of the same suit, and also

or not the same lawsuit, but the same grouping or or vibe. Um, and really see that, yeah, th there's this is having this has been a problem for a minute, you know.
Yep. Uh, okay, cool. Great. Awesome. I got it. Uh, excellent. Wonderful. Sorry. I had to click a button at exactly noon, and I clicked a button at exactly noon. Uh, the uh the magic you monster.
Will doesn't have a problem. Will has a solution.
This is a thing that I want to um this is a thing I want to get to actually do with my little brother. Um this is a limited edition booster box uh that has a bunch of really cool cards and I've traditionally really enjoyed doing this with my little brother. So, I'm trying to get one so we can do that together. Uh so we can draft it together. So, um the Okay. So, I'm also checking our ad time because we've got a minute and 50 seconds till ads. So, we'll probably we'll do the rest of our setup and then we'll talk about what this means

afterwards, I think.
Yeah.
Um,
so the main claim by this AG is quote, and I'm quoting here, Roblox is overrun with harmful content and child predators because it prioritizes user growth, revenue, and profits over child safety. Every parent should be aware of the clear and present danger posed to their children by Roblox so they can prevent the unthinkable from ever happening in their own home. That's the allegation that's being leveled against Roblox
by a state AG here in the US. I don't know how much more serious allegations could like there's not very many more serious allegations that could be leveled against a live service platform whose target audience is children than the ones that Louisiana is leveling against Roblox right now. This does feel, in my opinion, like it has the potential to spiral into an existential threat to this. Um, if it goes the way Louisiana

wants it to go, I don't know if it will, but that's my kind of take on the like initial outlaw like outlay of it.
Yeah. I mean, the state is seeking permanent injunctive relief uh and prohibiting them from quote uh this from Kotaku, engaging in any activity in violation of Louisiana Unfair Trade Practices Act, representing that roadblocks has adequate safety features, uh restitution to the state of Louisiana, attorney fees, all additional civil penalties allowed under law, and all additional damages allowable under law.
Yeah.
Um
so, uh while while that digests and everyone sits with that, we're going to do a funny improv bit for a little bit while Twitch gets some ads. Uh, and we'll come back with uh thoughts and a breakdown of that uh here in not terribly long.
All right, Will, do you want to start?
I would love to start.
Okay, here you go. Here is something an advertisement for a thing that you cannot buy.
That's right. Hey there, Wolf from Extra

Credits here. Is staring at all of the political news that's all over the video game space recently making you feel down? Consider following more pet pictures on your social media. That's right. In fact, one of my favorites is an entire account on Blue Sky that exclusively posts pictures of cats in bodeas. That's right, everybody. You should follow cute cats, cute dogs, animal rescues. Because while it is important to pay attention to all of these things and to be an informed consumer and to be engaged in the political sphere that takes over our art, it is also important to stay sane.
I also would like to tag in something real quick to to Wills. There is a uh wonderful Blue Sky account called Possums Every Hour.
It does what it says in the T,
right? And and it should also be noted that a lot of these are just textless. Like there's no there's no like please go do a thing. There's nothing. It's literally just someone who has a bot and

points a folder at that bot and says, "Upload all these pictures of cats in bodeas." And that's it. And that is a beautiful thing. Beautiful part of the internet, right? It's just we get to look at cute cats.
All right, here we go. This one is completely halfbaked and we're gonna see if it goes somewhere.
Sure. Hey everyone, Matt from Extra Credits here. Do are you a person who usually argues in bad faith, but then all of a sudden you got something right? Well, then may I interest you in broken clocks? That is right. You can take any clock that you see around, preferably you should already own it, and then just break it and leave it at whatever time it is. And then at certain points it will still be the correct time of day, which is probably the same amount of time that you normally doing bad faith arguments, especially if you're breaking clocks that you don't own, would be doing with arguments trying to get people to believe various things. Now, should we be able to see through everything that you are doing? Yes, absolutely. But with a broken clock, you'll be right at least two two times a day.

It kind of worked. It was okay. It was all right. It was five out of 10.
Uh, by the way, a status update. So, I got in line. I got in line the second, the actual second that the product went live. I am currently in line for more than an hour is my current expected queue time. So, we'll see if I get it by the end of the show, but I probably won't. We'll find out this afternoon how long it actually takes. Um, hey everyone, Matt from Extra Credits here. Do you like waiting? Well, let me introduce to you the absolutely free thing you can do, a Q- line. That's right. You don't even have to leave your home anymore to get in a line for a thing that you want. Simply do what Will has just done. Sign on to the website at exactly when these pre-orders are supposed to go live and then hit a button and be told that in over an hour you'll get to pre-order the thing that you want. Hooray! Q lines. You don't have to buy

it, but you can wait as though you are going to, and there's a simple chance that you might not actually get the thing that you are waiting for.
That's fine. I tried. Yeah.
Like I I I totally tried. Um for any Magic nerds in chat, it's the Atlanta Convention in a box and it comes with a box of Mystery Booster 2. Uh and and that the Mystery Booster experience is premium for drafting and for uh doing stuff uh with people. It's also got a bunch of promos and some other cool things. And um yeah, it's a it's a fun little thing. Um okay, I believe our ads are over in 15 seconds and then we will return to screaming. I think just screaming. I think the way that I feel about this is best described as just continuous screaming.
Okay.
Um
I believe you.
Yeah.
You let me know when we're back.
We are in fact back. Boom.

So, all right. I want to put aside the and I think this is hard for me too and I want to be honest about this. The political leanings of the person and the general political leanings of the of the uh government of the state in question when we talk about this, right? because I think it is really easy to get lost in the um partisan nature of this rather than focusing on did Roblox do something wrong here or was Roblox negligent here. Right? So, we're going to we're going to try very hard uh to ignore that partisan part of this story even though it is sort of an inevitable part of it. We've acknowledged it. It is a part of the story. We're gonna leave that alone for the moment and focus instead on the

Roblox part of it because I think that that is where we can actually like get somewhere that's not just partisan screaming.
Um,
agreed. So,
we already had our fun.
Yeah, we we had our fun. So, there are here's one of the problems. Uh, problem the first. There is no age verification or any kind of check on signing up as a child to Roblox. Nor could there really be one, right? Like how
I mean why could there not be one?
How would you do it?
You would. Now again, every every version of this has problems, correct? But let's but let's but but if we are going to go with the with the preconceived notion that a parent should be in charge of what what their child does and what information you give about your child online. Yes,
there are ways that parents if they tr

and I'm not saying you should or should not do this uh should uh could could um prove the age of a child for their child.
Yes.
Um again, lots of problems with that, but I never want to dismiss the concept of uh what is it? the perfect being the the enemy be the enemy of the good
because like right now it's a free-for-all nightmare.
Yes.
So something's got to happen and there's not a lot of great things for on a lot of different ways like no there's no solution that fixes the entirety of the problem.
Correct. And I also do want to point out the Medusa skirt here has a really great point which is that there is a constant tension here between verification of the age of children right in a in order to put kids in a playground with only other kids that is walled and safe right um

and uh protecting that child's privacy right that's a that is a huge there there is a balancing act right security and access are a spectrum uh the most secure server is one that is off and buried in concrete.
Right.
Right. But then it's useless. So there there is a there is a a scale here. Each individual uh parent, user, company, government is going to have to decide where they would like um their products, things that are available in their jurisdiction, things that they give to their kids to fall on that scale. But we need to acknowledge that like it's not working right now. There's a lot of like very questionable, not questionable, bad. There's some bad stuff on Roblox. I was trying to be politically correct about it. No, there is some straight up heinous stuff. I will not repeat that is available to kids on Roblox.

Yeah,
Roblox has a problem.
Now, here's here's sort of let's let's let's pause there for a second and sidestep into the corpo nonsense of Roblox as a company. Is this laziness and trying to get absolutely all of the money? Possibly. Very well could be. Is Roblox as a company still profitable and able to take as big swings as it does if it does do this because it will limit their player size. Now, I would argue that for the betterment of humans, I don't care if this makes it fail.
Do you know what I mean? Yep.
Um, however,
I if if you're thinking like a corpo, that is something that I imagine is crossing a lot of the seauite's minds when it comes to this stuff. Now, the the the true issue is you're you're skirting lines and and and sitting on

Easy Street until you basically get a lawsuit from a state,
right?
Uh and then the entire thing like that just kicks the door open.
Correct.
And the entire thing can come crumbling down. Now, there are Roblox as a as a as a as an institution, that's an odd sentence, is both helpful and incredibly problematic in very different ways. On the good side of things, Roblox tends to um is can be kids first foray into actual game design, which is something that is I I think cool and important. Um, however, then there's the predatory nature in which the business side of it can be injected into it when they're at a very young age. Then there's all of the stuff that the lawsuit in Louisiana

is bringing about about uh predators getting in the system, etc.
Let me try this another way. By the way, let me see if this this help this also helps. I'm going to say that there is no really good way for Roblox to continue to implement their business model if we reframe it. Roblox is largely a free-to-play game, right? You can pay money for certain cosmetics and for access to some in-game currency which you can pay or tip. And there is an in-game economy, but you can play for free. Which means, as we've discussed before, if you're not paying for a service, you're not a consumer. You are the product.
Right?
So, now we have an entire ecosystem that is trying to make children into a product. And then we're really shocked Pikachu face when children as a product are being treated like a product by people who should not be treating like

children, who shouldn't be dealing with children at all. Right.
Yeah. Because there's an interesting that you know what, Will, that's a that's an excellent recontextualization because in truth, we adults signing up for any service with a ULA.
Yes.
Uh h however uh loose or draconian that is with any of our personal data that we agree to let loose on the field, we are adults with the forethought and knowledge or we we we should have it. Uh we we have it more under the legal framework. We are responsible for not having that forethought in a legal and practical sense. That's another great word.
A kid could not be responsible for not having it because they're a kid and they like
Right.
Yeah. So like Yeah. I I don't see them getting out from under this. So, the

we've got a Kotakaco article that we'll link that has some author thoughts. I've tried to base largely what I've been um thinking about and saying about the lawsuit on the actual context of the statements made by the Louisiana AG rather than paring someone else's opinion. Um, I will say that I do agree with their take that I don't actually know how much they're going to be able to stick this uh in Louisiana specifically. It may need to go broader. They would have to prove harm against specifically people in Louisiana, I believe, for the jurisdiction to matter and then they'd have to go somewhere else. It's a little more complicated because of some legal stuff. Um, but I also think that this is regardless of why this is being done, and there's an argument that this is just being done as like a lip service or as a um as a publicity stunt, I don't really think it matters why

you're doing it. It's still trying to hold Roblox to account for being scummy.
I I I Yes. It is very difficult in the current political climate to take anything I'll even I'll even be hyper generous that the opposite side says as a act of good faith uh regardless of what side you are on um for whatever reasons that is. I just uh so something like this I would say as Will and I which are some pretty hard lefties uh seeing something like this we're instantly going to be like oh but like at the same time that's just from who did it and like
so so there is yeah like
I go back to the current like political wins thing. We're going to talk a little bit more about the AIA restriction of

some things going on and a couple other things and and whatever. There's there's a there's a reason why the won't you think of the children excuse works so well as a political dog whistle. And the reason that is is in a few cases Roblox it seems as though that is very true. And then the second you can have that then it can sort of permeate out uh even though what what is being done would would protect kids and would be moving us in a in a good general direction that the the thing that I that always sticks in my craw is well now they're going to use this one this one time the clock was right and be like well now the clock just works. You're like wait right
like it worked right here and this is good and I'm happy you're doing it. Thank you so much for doing that. It's not it's not a universal

thing. It's not a cudgle you can now swing and hit everything with. Um I think that's where my complexity kind of where where I have trouble even discussing this.
I mean so okay so the um all right we're going to we're going to do this because I don't think there's a good way to do it without it. There's a difference in two words that are often in the United States in particular used interchangeably. One of them is political and the other one is partisan, right? And so lots of times those two things are used interchangeably, right? That something that is political is by definition partisan. That's not necessarily true. As we said earlier, political things merely relate to the relationships between people.
That's literally all that means. It's uh originally like uh it's a matter of the city and the city in this case is means a um any collection of people who are acting together and living together, right? That's all it means. But partisan things tend to be very divided, right? But I do think it is a political thing

that should be nonpartisan. Wild case here that our kids should be safe on the internet. And so the I want to avoid making that into too much of a partisan thing even though that is my instinct based on the current political climate. It's hard to Yeah, it's hard to differentiate it when you have a group that you've watched intrinsically
not give a crap about kids, be it healthcare, education, uh you know, uh school lunches, like things like where you're like, look at all the ways that there's there's elements where they just really don't seem to give a crud, but this one they do, and they should, but they should care about all of it. But it feels less it feels disingenuous when it's the one thing that happens to align with their
political dog whistles that move forward. Yes. Again, I want the good thing to happen. I want I want a company like Roblox to be held accountable and

either uh
somehow and I don't know how clean up this cesspool of a place or uh cease. I like I don't know what the answer is. I am at this point given uh the more we talk about this and the more I am seeing the laundry list of crimes that uh Roblox is being accused of and I'm going to use crimes not in a legal sense but in a moral one. Uh burn
moral crimes.
Yeah. Burn them all to the ground. Just burn the whole thing to the ground. Like I don't
Can we talk about that for a second? Can we Let's Okay, hold on. Let's do this. This is a this is an interesting thing too. Also, Will, you're on fire today. Uh you've made like three points that have taken the garbleygook in my head and been like, "Yeah, that's what I'm thinking." So, thank you for that. Um, but the the Okay, let's take away the incredible amount of money that would be lost by corporations if Roblox disappeared tomorrow.
Yeah, I don't care about the money. So, Right.
Well, I mean, okay,
it's not about the money, Matt. It's about sending a message,
right? But before that, let me just uh also be clear. Not everything is simple.

I don't know how many people work at Roblox. Not every one of them is evil. That would mean many people lose their jobs. There's there's some there's some there's some bad stuff that would happen there too for the greater good. What I just I I never like to just one side.
Yeah. We're going to acknowledge that that that there are consequences to the thing that we are proposing.
But let's let's pretend for a moment that we don't care about any of that. Yeah.
Okay. Um let's talk about young people and video games andor game design. So what the the need in my opinion so or like or maybe even like current online community and again people correct me when I am wrong here but it feels like the benefit of someone uh kids playing Roblox for their and I use benefit in like air quotes but like the thing that they get out of it is
they it it's fun. They have an online community probably their first uh not

saying that it's safe that's why we're all in this this discussion anyway. Um, and they if they want to, they can either play games with their friends or learn how to make games.
Mhm.
This goes away tomorrow, kids will be upset, sure. Uh, but many things upset kids kind of for their own good. Um, and we had to if we had to rebuild what the good things that Roblox maybe was initially trying to do. And I asked this to Brad and Janet right now too. What are some some constructive good ideas if if you know money wasn't an issue and uh you know Roblox is gone tomorrow? What are the solutions that could be done with a with a with a product or a thing that could do those things without all of the harm that Roblox is basically ignoring?
Yeah.
Is there even a way to do that? Or is

the solution as we are going to talk about with some other online uh age uh restrictions is the solution just yeah kids really shouldn't be doing that yet
from a social from an online so you could learn game design there's I'm sure there's like many different ways to do that
right
but like
so I think uh Medusa skirt has a really great uh question that sort of leads us in a direction here
I Minecraft not end up here? And that's a really great question. I have some I have some thoughts on on why Minecraft didn't end up here. Minecraft is in a bunch of silos, generally speaking, right? Minecraft is in silos. You are in servers, right? And each of those servers is responsible for its own conduct and can be separately burned to the ground if there's a problem,
right? And different networks are in charge of maintaining them, right? Hypixel is in charge of maintaining the Hypixel network. That's their bag, right? You can also play Minecraft by yourself in a place

where you can learn the fundamentals of game design. You can build an adventure map. You can learn uh simple, you know, uh people make calculators in Minecraft. There's all kinds of things that can be learned there about logic gates and the like in in that space. But I do think that part of the thing is that it's not all one contiguous space. Yeah,
it is a series of discrete spaces. And I think that that is a big asset to Minecraft in not making a whole big pool of kids accessible to gross people, right? To terrible excuses for human beings. Um there is right so there's a um that that is a thing right because I think the size of the community and the contiguous nature of it is part of the problem um because it's too big to manage right it's too big to manage in any realistic way um it's there's just too much right it's why for instance each YouTube channel is responsible for policing their own comment section it's

the same reason that each Twitch channel is respons responsible for moderating their own comment section, right? But robots,
it does and and truly and truly. Does that stagger growth? Oh, yeah. Because you have to do it, but it also makes what you have far better.
Yes, absolutely. And we've we've worked on that here, right? Like here.
Shout out to the mods.
Shout out Yeah. Right. There are mods. If you don't think they're there, they are. They're just hiding and we'll show up when needed. Right. They arrive precisely when they mean to.
That's correct. Um, and we could not do what we do without the moderation team, right? It it is one of the things that I think is like the most important things that I work on. So, uh, is working with the mods. So, I think it's too big. I think one of the big problems is that retaining membership in a contiguous online giant space is how they make money. So, their

profit motivation is in keeping as many people in that space as possible for as long as possible. And that already involves some dark psychology versus Minecraft, which is pay once, get it forever, right? Like, I'm one of the people I'm a pretty big Minecraft stand. I'm of the opinion that when a kid starts to play video games, you should just buy them their copy of Minecraft because you can make it age appropriate. You can adjust the difficulty. There are lots of things they can learn, they can build, they can be creative in a sandbox that you as a parent can control and it's 30 bucks now, right? Great. Awesome. It's their copy of Minecraft. They've got it forever. Um, and that sort of uh tells a different story than, hey, come play Roblox. Stay here continuously so that we can continue to make profit.
Make this your job.
Right? There are kind of that is kind of the end goal of Roblox, right? Like correct.
And that doesn't mean that there's not

good things that can come with it, too. But
you you essentially their their goal is to get people who are young, get them to learn their thing, make things in their thing, make making things in their thing their job.
Yes. Yeah. Um and and and Chad is correctly pointing out that uh Roblox allows you to make unlimited accounts without needing uh a Gmail. Yeah, that's another big one, right?
That's insane.
Yes, that's correct. I can't sign up for a social media account anywhere without that, right? Um, and so there is it feels like one of the reasons that I think we just need to burn world blocks to the ground right now is that it feels like there is a complete abdication of acknowledging the responsibility that they have to curate this space safely for children, right?

They just like these things don't feel like they're particularly difficult to do given that most places do them right. And
yeah, I I don't think it's to do the things that will help it not fix it are not difficult. The fact that they haven't after the scrutiny from the was it people make games did the doc? Uh no. Who did someone did game maker? Oh, someone did a really great in-depth dive.
People make games.
Yeah, people make games. Um
the um like even after that, even after a bunch of things like
there's ways to do it. It would just eat into their profit, which they did our episode on Roblox back when it went public. We I think we called it like it's $30 million bet or something. And in it, we're like, "Hey, yeah, this is, you know, a profitable thing. However, they're going to need to now balance essentially, this was years ago, uh where the question we posed was like,

we have to balance essentially uh or they have sorry, they have to balance answering to shareholders now that they are public and uh dealing with a product that essentially is selling selling air quotes to children and therefore upping their security game. Can they do that? We don't know. Seems like now we know that they can't or won't do that. Yeah. Um, I will be very interested to see where this goes. I think there'll be some good that comes from it. I think that good will eventually also then be used to cause a lot of ill in other places.
Yeah,
I think that's kind of the path. if precedent is to be believed, what we're going to see. So, as for this very moment, Will and Brad and Janet, I would like to focus on the good. And actually, um I you know, I think I

think moving forward with this lawsuit is a positive for uh children in this country.
I seems it seems like that is the case. A and if nothing else, right, let's let's I I I I do want to um there are lots of people saying that the Louisiana Attorney General doesn't have a lot of evidence because it would be a criminal uh proceeding, not a civil one. Um they may believe that they have a hard time convincing a jury. That may be the the core issue because juries are not necessarily known for having the best understanding of the way that the digital landscape works. Um, however, I will say that even if this lawsuit is unsuccessful, the information that is gleaned and gathered by people who are interested in holding Roblox to account is of value, right? Um, this is uh to put it in gaming terms, this is worker, this is like zurgling checking your opponent's econ, right? This is this is gathering

information. Even if this is not the successful run at Roblox, this is still forcing them to make information public which can be used in further lawsuits against them, right? This is just good. Uh and I I think that that is that is a big one. Um
yeah.
Yeah. Uh sorry, I'm just I just noticed the time and I'm seeing if I can push my meeting. I think I'm going to actually move my meeting from 1 to 1:30. It just seems like the right move at this point.
I mean, we we've got some we've got some good ones. All right. Uh Matt, are we ready to
Yes. Yeah. Sorry. We are ready to move on to the next thing. I would like to uh thank everybody in both chats in YouTube and Twitch, Brad and Janet for uh engaging with us in this conversation. This is not a easy or simple discussion to have and everyone has been awesome and has like said things of different opinions and and everyone is just discussing it and on the internet

that is a rarity and I like to call it out when I see it. So, thank you very much. I appreciate that. Absolutely. And let let's continue that spirit as we keep on trucking down the road of nightmare.
All right, chat. Everybody put on your taking off caps. Oh, that's right. We didn't. Did I put these in the wrong order? Am I going to put these in the wrong order?
Let's see. Hold on.
Well, it's supposed to be the end of uh
No, I don't have one here. I missed it. That's on me.
Uhoh. It's fine.
Oh. Uh oh. Where are we?
We're at the beginning. I I screwed up our slides. Uh the next story is actually the death of Dialup.
Um
Oh, just it didn't load the graphic.
Yeah, the graphic didn't load. I thought I grabbed it, but apparently I didn't.
It's okay. Um I'll describe it. It was two godly hands holding up the AOL connectivity line of uh when you're when you're signing into America Online via Dialup.
Yeah, that's correct. Um AOL is finally discontinuing discontinuing the service. And we wanted to highlight this for a couple of reasons. One, y'all, Dialup

was still around. And two, this is going to suck because there were people still using that. And I know that's hard to believe in an era where most people have cable or fiber, but there are still parts of the world that don't.
So in the United States, I believe as of 2023, the estimation was 163,41 households as per the article on
That's households, by the way. So if we assume I think it's 2.5 per household on average, that's like a little over 300,000 people who are going to be left without access to the internet because their dialup went away. Uh I'm just looking up if there's any other ones. Uh like for instance, is there uh yeah, highspeed internet.com dialup internet service providers. So right now the only ones that are listed

and their speeds up to 56k. Man, I remember when a 56k baud modem was like like fire
lightning fast. Yeah. Yeah, you wanted to put Lightning McQueen cow. Yeah,
there are three now uh I believe currently that you can still use. Uh and it is NetZero, Juno, and DSL Extreme.
None of those sound like particularly reputable places to get internet compared to AOL, but
those are names I have not heard in a long
in a long time. Yes, that's correct. Um, so and I think uh Chad is correctly pointing out no one is doing this because it's it's it's the thing they want to be doing, right? Like no one is like, yes, I love my dialup, right?
I will not I will not.
Um, and so this this is both, hey y'all, people are still using dialup. And and second, not to get even a little more political, but like maybe it would be really good if we established ways that people could get access to better

internet that is kind of like necessary to do everything. Uh
I mean there it is insane to me. It's I mean only on a moral level uh not a institutional level. It is insane that uh the internet is not treated as a public service uh like a uh like uh water, electricity, etc. Like uh look, you do not need the internet to physically live. However, to actually exist in modern society, you kind of do. Um and you can get it different ways, cell phone carriers, you know, etc. that but like it it's just it feels like that should be something that is treated as a utility.
Yes.
Um
Yep. Absolutely. Um so we'll we'll we'll see what happens but um
FS and Chad
FS and Chad for AOL forever in our hearts along with
goodbye.
Yeah.

I love all the AOL noises because to save like space they cut off like the first five frames of every like sound. So it's we've got mail isle's done
like goodbye.
Yep.
Absolutely. All right.
In chat.
Okay. So let's talk about the other thing that's been happening as a trend in the internet recently and why it kind of relates to the Roblox thing and also is its own whole series of interesting crap. recently several groups and we're mainly going to focus on the three that I have like some hard evidence.
The three I use.
Yeah. The three we use that are near and dear to our hearts. There are others but these three like deeply impact us. So imagine, get this, that we're going to try and talk about the things that deeply impact us that we have some experience with
both professionally and personally,
right? Uh and those are YouTube, Discord, and Blue Sky are all doing age verification. Now, a lot of this is

because of a recent U law that came into effect in the UK. A lot of this is UK based. Um, but the practice is sort of it feels like once we've let this genie out of the bottle, um, it is only a matter of time before other countries look at the thing that the UK is doing and be like, hey, they did it and got away with it. We should do it, too. So we wanted to kind of like get out in front of that and look at this as a as a thing which is that these three companies among others are verifying people's age and at least in two of these cases actually in all of these cases they are to some extent being uh done artificially using some sort of artificial uh system. Now, that may be an AI. That may just be a um a God I hate this. When we talk about AI, now a lot of people think exclusively of LLMs. There is facial recognition AI. There is um uh analytical AI in addition to

generative AI. And I do want to differentiate those because analytical AI is one of the things that AI is actually pretty good at um and has been used for far longer than the current crop of LLM crap. And uh AI has become such a ubiquitous term that many people who are not living and breathing in this space don't fully understand what that actually means or what it can be. Uh and it is it is an increasingly difficult thing to explain.
Yes. Uh, I was having a chat actually with my parents about it this weekend and it it took me like I don't know 30 minutes to like kind of get the idea like even remotely out and I'm not good at it like so it's hard to sort of differentiate all of these different AIs when we just use the buzzword all the time. Uh, yeah, it's tough.
Yeah. So, um, as in an attempt to verify people's ages and and this is kind of this kind of goes back to the Roblox thing of like

this is really hard to do and kind of easy. It's kind of hard for a company to do and kind of easy for a person to pass through. Um, Discord and Blue Sky are both using uh facial rec uh recognition scans. Um,
and that is the AI is trained to think it knows how old someone is based in the picture.
That is correct. However, it is full of problems, including but not limited to you being able to use stills from the most recent Death Stranding trailer to get through Discords, which is
shout out to Kajjima and his team.
That was for making the most realistic game.
Yeah. Um and and those are of a there are a category of problems with that, right? Uh namely uh feeding facial scans into unknown AI systems

is maybe not great there. I'm going to go with is probably not great. There's probably unintended consequences for this. There have been a whole bunch of um discussions as those features arise about what happens with that facial telemetry data. Where does that go? Who has access to that? Now, of course, there are already uh there's already plenty of people who post their photo on social media. I'm all like Matt and I are super easy to like we gave up on this a long time ago, right? There are five years well there were thanks you Twitch. Um there are a bunch of episodes of us on like talking and looking to both sides and you know from uh most angles here on YouTube, right? Or on Twitch if the VOD's still around. Um but the idea that you now can't get access to social media without feeding facial telemetry into something or giving that company your ID.

Yeah. your government ID, which has various levels of power depending on your jurisdiction, is sketchy at best
because and and look, it's sketchy on two levels. One, it's a company that's making money off you and is literally selling your data in a million different ways. So, what's to stop it from selling this data even though they super pinky promised that they're not going to. And then two, every one of these companies has because again to your point will uh internet security and and like network security is uh spectrum um eventually because again president has had this each one of them have been hacked have had people get all of the information. So it's just another vector for people to steal your information. Correct. And and let me let me give you let me give you a really great example that will send some people into deep middle distance flashbacks. Are you ready, Matt?
I guess.
Okay. So, I'm going to remind you all that there's a social network that already demanded that people upload their ID in order to be a verified user

on it. And then that that uh social network got hacked and everyone's ID that was part that was a verified user on that platform all got leaked. Now, it's true that that social network was Parlor, aka the deep right-wing uh alternative to Twitter when Twitter was too left for them. Imagine that such a thing could exist in 2025. Hilarious. But all of those IDs made it onto the internet because the people thought that they were trusting their information to someone who was secure and was following good data practices. And dear friends of the breakfast hour, they were not. Right. So there are there is already precedent for company demands IDs, company gets hacked, IDs all make it onto the internet.
Yeah.
Right. Um,

so, so the tool the the tools that are being used here, like it's funny cuz like it's always interesting talking about these stories. You have to kind of like get in your head around like what a different user would be. For instance, I pay for YouTube Premium. It is connected to a credit card. Yes. Therefore, I have proven to the internet gods that I am above the year of 18 years old. Right? like
yeah, which is which is in my opinion a better way to do it.
That's a better way to do it.
I think it does come down to almost a similar Roblox problem with a lot of like Well, okay. So that's that's but like for instance, this is my own personal decision. I think there is a value proposition of using YouTube Premium. I think it is good. it it it I don't see ads and uh a view is actually worth more to every creator that I watch when I'm watching with YouTube Premium than if I was watching an ad. It's not by a ton, but

it is more.
Yeah.
Um so there is a value proposition for me there with Discord. So, okay, actually there's three different levels. Discord has Nitro. Discord's also going to try to go public. I I like Discord for like like you can do more things and your bandwidth for your calls is better if you're on Nitro. There's a couple other features, but like it's kind of like you could you could take it or leave it. And if if Discord had my credit card information, like even if this is something interesting, even if Discord even if I didn't buy Discord, this is tough. I was going to say like if there is a methodology to get a discord account that you need a credit card that would destroy a lot of the people's access to discord which again in the protective nature of it could be a net positive but that's also going to kill a lot of communities and places that could be helpful

and I think that that is that is again it is where each company wants to fall on the
security access spectrum. Sure.
Right. And like I think the reason by the way that we're okay with credit cards, right, is that credit cards are already sort of a not anonymized, but like we know what to do with a credit card that gets stolen, right? That's much easier to than other Yeah.
And and uh banks and credit card companies at the current time are good with sort of like, oh, if you catch it, you fraud it, you're not you don't owe it. Like there's a lot of security measures put in place there. Should that information leak, should your social security or your driver's license or something else or real ID or whatever number leak, there are not the same uh ease easy fixes for that.
Yeah. Right. And then the the last one, the one that sort of cooks my noodle and the one

Oh, sorry. Sorry. Just one other thing because Richard said this thing. I'm so sorry to cut you off, Will. This is where I was going with this. I don't think I would mind because for instance, I don't want to pay for Nitro, right? I don't think I still would mind if Discord needed a credit card to be entered that did not charge you. Do you know what I mean? Like it has it on file to know that you are an adult or that you are signing up your kid for Discord or whatever whatever it is, right? Um again, that's me and there's probably a couple things I'm not thinking of. Uh please shout about in the in the chat, but I think that's sort of where I'm at at the middle point of it. And then there's blue sky which its whole its whole premise personally for me is that it is free. I know that I am the product on it but also it has cultivated overall there's been some uh issues as of even the last couple of days. um that um

I I don't know the best way to age verify on that platform because that's something I don't think does need to be intrinsically tied to it. Again, this is all just based on my vibes. This is not like in my use case
and like a lot of this is based on like public perception, right? Like a lot of this is okay, let's use the facial wreck thing as an example, right? Let's say that there's a way to do facial wreck safely, right? That there's a way to actually just use analytical AI to do facial w stuff and then delete it. The public has to believe that that's what's happening, right? Because it it this is this is again a problem of public perception more than a problem of fact.
It I would even No, no. I think it's a problem of fact. I think people know that companies are not good with this stuff.
Yeah. I I I don't think it's it it is the perception but is perceived correctly. All pe all companies have done statistically has been whiff these security things because they need to

make the most profit so they're not going to have the most robust security that they possibly can.
Yeah, I think that's true.
Yeah.
Uh Joe says the Discord's facial scan is fully on device.
Oh, that's good.
Which is nice. It is
also Hello Joe. Hey Joe. Hey buddy. that that is
Joe would be a Joe would be a really good person to have on many of these discussions. Maybe
there is works.
Yeah.
Time time is a soup. That's a problem.
Um so that's I mean that's good if Discords is full like
that also again
I believe Joe when he says that I also think that one of the problems is the public perception of it, right? Like yes,
but the but that perception is based in fact like
is it Matt Matt buddy buddy we live in 2025 is anything based in fact anymore?
I think so just people ignore it like

like the companies traditionally will it's it's it it all cycles back this is the most asinine nonsense thing but it's following the money companies want to make the most money possible not some of the money all of the money. So they are going to make their products slightly worse if they can eek out more profit. They're going to uh make their security measures slightly worse if they could eek out more profit. Like any that and that is the fiduciary duty of any company that is publicly traded. Like that's just that is the actual goal that is put out, right?
Yeah.
So so how can we even expect a level of care when that is not an end goal? That is not a win condition. Like because and we've also known truly that the bigger the company is, the more like five moves ahead, they don't think because the people that will make the money will make the money first before bad things happen to the company.

Yeah.
I I just think I I I think that yes, it is public perception, but it is widely earned that
companies are not good at this because they're not financially motivated to be good at this. I think that's true. Let's also talk about the last of these which is slightly different. Let's talk about the way YouTube is doing this.
Sure.
So I I did just want to bring this up because it is slightly different. So people were uh asking about YouTubes. So YouTubes is currently in pilot. Um and it's not everyone. It's some it's a group of test users in the US who may not be aware that they're test users. And mercifully, one of YouTube's advantages in this case is that many people's account is older than 18 years. And so you're just automatically you're good to go. If your account is older than 18, you're good, right? You're fine. Um,
and then the other one, which is

mind-boggling, not as I don't know if it's better or worse. I think it's better, but I'm also weirded out by it. Is that they're going to feed your browsing habits, your watching habits into an analytical AI, and that's going to tell whether you're an adult or not, which again, this is so behind closed doors, you don't really know. Like, I I would hope that it is an amalgamation of all of like every possible thing. I can see how viewing habits might be helpful, but it can't paint the whole picture, right? Like uh if if the if 90 well I mean here this is the interesting thing that it will kind of screw people like if 90% of the stuff that you watch is Coco Melon most likely that's not really what the person is watching. They're showing it to their kid. They probably didn't make their kid their own YouTube thing. Yes.
Will they get struck like but again I hope that uh I hope that there are multiple like

vectors that they are doing this in. Yeah. Um well and there is a backup right there is a backup. Um if uh you can you can do government ID but again same problem right same problem. And and again I want to I do want to address this. Lots of companies have said that they delete your ID once it's verified. Right. If true.
Great.
Like again, I go to the the the the the hot soup that is the current uh political and corporate climate. I I couldn't I I don't know. I mean, definitely not in my lifetime. I feel like the level of consumer trust is at an all-time low
that I agree with.
Um, so forgive me even if you are being the most honest uh corpo this side of

I don't know I can't think of one but like the like
chance of Delaware take your pick.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. and you know do they delete it immediately once per month at some future date you don't know
right
there is some amount of required transparency here and some amount of trust
trust me bro
and that's tough right that that is the really tough thing
for uh all of these companies to pull off is they need to comply with the law right and to be clear I also want to be clear they're not doing this cuz they want to. They're doing this in an attempt to comply with a law so they don't use lose the UK as a user base,
right? Which I think not losing the UK as a user base is good, right? Because I

know like there are plenty of people in the UK who use these tools and platforms and with whom we interact.
So good to not you lose the UK as a user base.
Yeah.
The way they're doing it, not great. I also just want to take a second and be like, hey, maybe the the way the law is done isn't the best either. I'm less familiar with the law, but like that that doesn't like no no company wants to do this,
right? No,
they're doing this to comply with a demand, right? Because this is expensive and takes time and generates distrust between them and their users and like other stuff. [Laughter] Sorry, a bit of an aside. Uh, yes, for 15 to 20 minutes they do. Uh, just because of all the concentrated history that is in each bite. Uh, unless you are using historically non-pasteurized milk, in which case, uh, it will be down to

about 5 to seven minutes. Thank you for asking the hard-hitting question, Doug.
Yeah.
Um, Medusa. Oh, how does all this impact flexel sticks? Well, as you know, Flixelsticks uh has a a a a uh perceptually based security system. Meaning, do you perceive the security? Well, then congratulations. It's secure. Um and so really, we're at the forefront of this. I don't know why anyone else isn't using one of these uh apocryphal systems that we've developed. Uh I think that it it works great. Yeah. you know, I just wanted Flixel 6 users, you are safe.
Yeah,
flex sticks. Um,
okay.
What was I going to say? Um, oh, sorry. Flexel sticks. God, how old is Fixel Sticks? Will
two or three years.
Fixel Sticks is a

game. It's kind of like Hecnommancer
that exists. That is an allegory for a lot of different things.
Getting real tired there, buddy.
All you have to do is imagine that there is a game called Flexel Sticks that we are in control of.
That's right. That's it's it's a running
five years grass. Geez. It
It's It's one of the running gags on the show. Yeah. Um
anyhoo
I I just I I worry
I worry right like this this is one of those things that feels like it's very easy to just sort of go with the lowest common denominator or to go with because it's easy and lots of people will do it just because it's comfortable. And I'm not saying that we shouldn't have something like this, but

I am saying that anything like this is worthy of being interrogated thoroughly, right? That this is that this is a thing that we should be paying attention to and asking questions about,
right? Like I'm not I I am I am persuaded by the idea that having some amount of differentiation between the adult experience an adult receives on the internet and the experience a kid receives on the internet are different right that's great 100% behind that idea how we do that is the big deal right and so
I I am I I just encourage us to examine this with a modicum skepticism, right? And to say how much do we really trust these companies to do this correctly,
right?
There's also even in this story and in the Roblox story and and a lot of other things, there's also other side vectors that will not be done but could be done to help all of this stuff. And that is

adjusting curriculum to be perfectly frank to include things that are more ubiqu like Okay, I'm going to back up for a second real quick. Um, something that I was never taught in school and I don't think that modern schools teach at all. If there's any people that have uh recently graduated high school or even remember 10 or five 10 years ago or whatever, I'd be interested in this. Classes in high school never taught me how to, and I know this is an antiquated term already, but like balance a checkbook or manage my money or how credit works. Like nothing was ever taught to me in these skills that you need to have in every day-to-day life to succeed. Luckily, my parents did and therefore I'm pretty okay with it. Like I I feel like I have a good grasp. I am able to uh sort of see scams and what can get me in trouble in the future. And you know, as we get we all get older and and the systems change, that can obviously change too. But I was never taught intrinsic things that would be helpful to be a thriving

member in a in a capitalist society. I was taught how to I don't know woodwork. I was taught like math. I was taught like other things. But like uh you know I really think that a side solution to a lot of this stuff and it's not a solution. It's just it would be helpful in it is if there could be in a perfect world an agreed upon curriculum about teaching kids what the internet is, how it works, but like from a social perspective, not from a like not from a like how does the internet physically work, right? Like hey, you're going to be on the internet. This is in your life. This is what it is. Okay, here's things to look out for. here's uh you know like scams uh people like like just like another vector other than parents to help teach about these things. I know this is a pipe dream. I know that that's not going to they haven't even been able

to do that about credit cards because I mean tinfoil hat my idea is that basically they don't want to do that because then credit card companies will make less money on people not paying their credit card bills. I digress. Tinfoil hat off. um the it would it would be another vector to sort of fight the things that are causing all of these issues. Again, it is not a fix, but like ed educating people about this stuff, especially when it's something that has been like I feel like my generation and maybe will your generation is a bit more like in order to be a part of this space. It was more difficult back in the day to actively figure out how to engage with it and therefore you kind of taught yourself because we existed before and after. I also want to I'm just gonna I'm gonna call both of us out here real quick.
Yeah.
The way we're talking about this, it may also sound like we've got it all figured out.

No.
No. Okay. So, like and that remains a problem, right? I still there are still things that I wish like I had been taught better or taught more or had like given to me at a younger age, right? So, like we're not saying that we got it all figured out and everyone else should have it as figured out as we do. We're saying that we don't have it figured out and we'd like everyone to have it more figured out
figured out than us. We are in an animated kitchen app.
That is correct. On a Monday,
if you don't mind saying which state I'm just curious because that's awesome that that is the case.
Yeah, like the um Yeah. Yep. 100%. Anyway, this episode has gotten surprisingly deep on surprisingly many topics.
What are you talking about?
I didn't plan to have this done. Matt, are we ready for just just some some dessert? Like a light
real quick. I think just to cap this story off, um the um this is something that is going to be

changing, I think, fairly quickly across the next six months to a year. Um and we'll talk about it more as it does. I'm curious to see how all of these things roll out, how much it affects who does it do the appropriate thing. Does it mullify what the UK wants and believes uh you know the the safety laws there? Um it's going to be interesting this sat you know sadly because we're living in it. If we weren't living through it, it would be a fascinating look.
Correct. I'm tired of living in unprecedented times. I would like to live in some precedented times. I've been good enough. And the last the last thing real quick um is uh this is a video game show. The interesting thing is all of these things even the three companies that are on the carousel here are all like intrinsically linked to gaming
video games. Yeah.
So it's just like it's a it's a way it's a it's a vector.
Yeah. Like
Yeah. Joe, you're going to be on here. We're going to chat more. It's this ain't going away. You know this better than anybody.
Yeah. Correct. Um Yeah. Okay. Are we

ready for dessert? So, the completely unrelated. Okay, Matt, do you know what's for dessert?
I I could check the show notes. I prepped the graphics.
Mike,
there it is.
Um, all right. So, uh, Avatar Magic previewed and it's great and it makes everyone happy. Now, here here's the big thing.
It's great and it makes everyone happy.
Well, yo, so many people are happy about this. Here's the great part about this and the part that I'm really excited about. We're getting new avatar art for a lot of these. So, if you are someone who just likes Avatar and doesn't like Magic, that is okay. You're still going to be able to get a giant mouse pad that's got Avatar art on it, right? Or card sleeves for your other games that have Avatar art on them. And that's really good in of itself. I'm just also really glad to see Avatar cycling back into the popular Zeitgeist because I still think it's one of the best animated shows in any language that I've ever watched. It's like Avatar and Free

Ren are like right up there together with like the perfect length, the perfect story.
Sure.
Like 100%. Um but uh they did a bunch of previews um for the Magic Cards and the Magic Cards look sweet. I'm very excited about it. Uh it is going to be a way to teach people the game which I'm also very excited about. And uh most most of what I'm excited about is the level of fan service that's going into all of these with like Momo has a card and uh there is a uh card called Heartless Act that has new art of AA being uh chained down during Opa's Big Adventure. And like there's all kinds of really really well done art and really good in jokes. Um and I'm very happy with it and it makes me happy and I hope it makes you happy too. Well, there you go.
Oh, yeah. That's right. Uh, Saka's haiku is a haiku. There's a card called Saka's ha coup, and the rules text for Saka's

haiku is it's alpha ha coup. No notes.
Okay. I Okay. Isn't Spider-Man still coming out?
Yeah, it is. That's right, Matt. That is kind of part of the problem, which is that they did this stupid preview thing and no one is excited for Spider-Man. Now, we will get excited for Spider-Man when Spider-Man releases and then we'll go back to being excited for Avatar. But they stepped on their own release.
When does Spider-Man release?
It's a really great question, Matt. Next question.
They don't know.
It's like a month. It's like end of end of September,
early October, I think. I I just
they did a really Watsi did a really really really bad job with this and I do want to acknowledge that um that they really stepped on their own release. They did a bunch of previews for Spider-Man and then before Spider-Man came out they started doing a bunch of previews for Avatar and it

do they really overshadowed Spider-Man?
Do they think that it's different? I mean, I know that it's somewhat different uh, you know, audiences, but like I don't think it's that like I think there's a lot of cross there that might be bad.
I also I'm gonna I am going to say a thing and it's going to upset some people. Spider-Man is not good source material for D and D and Avatar is.
You mean magic?
Oh, yeah. For whichever wati property, whatever. Yeah. Uh here's the thing. I
I will respectfully disagree with you, sir. I think uh and again, I want to be very clear. I do not like the 19,000 sets that they're releasing with every possible IP that then makes it so it's very hard to get magic because it makes it very expensive and you can't actually engage with all of the material, even if it is your professional job. Um however, um I think that Spider-Man and to be perfectly honest, Avatar as well do the

exact thing that they want from this. just like Final Fantasy did. And that is uh and I would not I'll say why I think it works and then why I think it's okay. I think this is the way to get people into Magic to get more people into the system. It is an entry. It is an entry point and I think all three work very well in that way because the game designers at Magic work very hard to make sure that every card that they're putting a character or an ability or a thing in those worlds actually plays and feels like that ability outside of Magic the Gathering just in Magic's rules. Um I think it is an incred like there's a the other side of this is Fortnite. Let's have Superman run around with a machine gun.
Right.
Neat. It does nothing. It does not It does not make Fortnite better in my opinion. It does not make Superman better in my opinion. This is a is a congruous way to actually have tie-ins if that is going to be your business

model moving forward.
Uh it so in that way, Will, I do think that Spider-Man is just as good as a system for magic as Avatar is.
My problem is that Spider-Man's too big. They didn't take a manageable bite-sized chunk of Spider-Man. They took Spider-Man and they picked and chose. And I think that
What do you mean? I'm not f like too big. How?
Um, there's too much Spider-Man. So, for instance, in the Spider-Man set, there are already more than a half dozen versions of a character who could be called Spider-Man, right? And those are all different, right? Because So, we've got
Aren't they treating them like like um like a like a type?
They are. They're their own unique thing, but it to someone who is not deeply entrenched in Spider-Man, it doesn't do well as a magic set. There is also another big problem which I think is underlying a lot of my distaste for the Spider-Man set, which is that Watsi really dropped the ball on the contracting with Marvel when they did the Spider-Man set. And there is not a

contract for um Watsi to make digital cards. And so all of that is a different issue, but that is part of what's underlying my distaste is that on Arena, which is the place that I play most frequently, like daily, we won't be getting Spider-Man. We'll be getting legally distinct not Spider-Man.
What do you mean?
We'll be getting a different version of the same set that has all of the Spider-Man IP files.
The ubiquity is that and that's Marvel. That's
100% right. And so I already have a bias against it because of that. So I do want to acknowledge that in this conversation.
Marvel in the contract did break ubiquity with what Magic usually does because Marvel is big enough to do that. Um however as but again I I kind of go back to it. I think that it is still if their goal is to get more people to buy physical Magic cards, which I think truly for the Spider-Man set and the people that would be out there is to move physical product

more than obviously digital cuz I can't get that license. I think it is still an incredible onboarding experience for people to truly actually get what Magic the Gathering is.
I agree with that. I think I think the middle ground that I think we would both probably be happiest with is if this wasn't a standard legal set.
If this was a standalone product, if this was like Assassin's Creed, if this was if this was a if this was a contained experience, because I do think that it's cool to have action figures with
Magic cards or a standalone Spider-Man starter set. And I think all of that's really cool and good. The problem is that when they had to make the set big enough for standard because it needs to be a certain size, they started just pulling everything in instead of having a coherent plan to bring everything in. And it may not be Spider-Man's fault. It may be Watsi needing to pivot the course. But it's not
I mean Spider-Man has a I mean as a property just not Marvel just Spider-Man has a ton of things to pull from.

Correct. and and knowing when not to pull from them is part of the important part. I think
I don't know.
I think I I I would rather narrow contained.
Yeah. I I It's interesting as a person who knows how to play and loves Magic but is not deep into the community at this point. I still don't know what the differences of those sets that you've said are like the the type of like oh released or the thing or the full set or whatever. I I'm so even out of it, I will just buy a commander deck to play. And I think truly, and I think this is why I'm not upsetty spaghetti about it at all, is that they're shooting for me. They're shooting for people that either have heard of Magic or have a passing fondness of it or played it back in the day or they're shooting for brand new people who at this point do not care about any of that stuff.
I think that's very fair. If if if their target audience is Kitchen Table, then this is dope. But also, I will say I do not bemoone you or anyone else who is like hardcore into the magic community

for not liking the way that this is being done and maybe liking the way that the Avatar set is being done better. Um, yeah, it's just a matter of I think perspective of where your entry point is for this. Does that make sense?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yep.
Anyway,
yeah. Uh,
nom nom nom nom nom nom nom. All right, that's uh that's our last story for today. Hey, thank you all so much for sticking with us for an episode that ran longer than I thought it would. For some reason, when I prepped this, I thought it was going to be shorter, but that's because I'm silly and also tired.
Yeah, that's fair.
Um, friends, that is going to do it for our breakfast this week. A reminder that next week we will be doing a uh brief rundown of all the cool things that get released at Gamescom. So, please look forward to that. In addition, remember that we're going to be uh that Matt is going to be at PAX West, not this weekend, but the weekend after. So, please look forward to that and our panels there and all that. Last note before we sign off, Kickstarter ends this Friday. If you would like to get the calendar as part of the Kickstarter

and push us towards our $70,000 make a puzzle out of our artwork stretch goal, please go.
Can you pull the graphic up real quick, too, Will? Real quick. Sorry to interrupt. Uh, I will just say this. Uh, if you're not familiar, it is a 2026 calendar. History happens every day. It has a history fact on every day plus little QR codes, a QR code at the bottom of every month with various pictures in the dates. Every time there's a picture, you can scan that and it'll take you to a video about the history that happened on that day. We did one for 2025. It was a huge success. We got three to four more days left on this one. There's also beautiful new art that's inspired by historical classics, but redone with historical figures in our bean style by David Huo for every month. And it is an absolute uh uh delight to behold. I have mine up on my wall right now. And uh if you haven't checked it out, uh link right there in the chat. Please go check that out because uh this will be the cheapest you can possibly get it. It will be available in the store eventually. It will be more expensive in the store than the Kickstarter. That's just how it's going to be. Yep.
Um Yeah.
Excellent. Excellent. Well, then all that remains to our breakfast this

morning is for Matt to do uh the signup. Oh, and for me to tell you, I got the box. I got the box.
Oh, great. You got the box.
Yeah, I got the box. Very excited. Uh, and now,
and then after this, if you want to stick around, uh, YouTube folks will be stopping here, but if you want to go hang out with Will, we'll be making his seamless co-op character in Elden Ring right now for the, uh, adventure of a lifetime that I will be popping in and out of. Uh, I believe the next time I'm scheduled to be on that stream will be this Thursday. Um, I have made a character myself that will be a mage build based on Agatha, from Agatha all along. Um, and and what's it called? And Wanda Division. Um, and Will is still deciding on his katana. uh katana person I believe
we're working on that we'll talk about it as we build this morning
so check out if you want to pop over there to Twitch that'll be over there uh and yeah I guess if will if there's nothing else I'll just take us in our traditional sign off that uh is the same every time because we want to make sure that the community can do it along with us to you know invoke a series a feeling

of camaraderie and togetherness and um and also it's a bit of a moment of zen not to take that from the daily show but just something where we can actually like we had a lot of intense discussions today that kept coming and like having a lot of different facets and we can't all agree on it and sometimes that can get a little heated. So, this is designed so not only we can all do it together, but it's just like a breath of fresh air and it's super calming. And thank you so much for watching Games for Breakfast. We'll talk at you next week. Here it is. The same ending we do every time. [Music] Come [Laughter] here. [Music]