Rockstar’s Union Gets Busted, Runescape’s MTX Vote & Amazon Unalives New World | Games For Breakfast

[music] Good morning, Matt. AH,
GOOD MORNING, WILL.
GOOD MORNING TO ALL of you.
Welcome to Games for Breakfast, the only internet talk show. We talk about this week's gaming and tech news, but that also we are never late. We arrive precisely for breakfast when we mean to. And we are I mean that because we are going live technically by the clock an hour earlier than we usually do. But as Will has just instructed me, it's actually not an hour earlier. It's actually the same hour we usually would except for all of the dates daylight savings time shenanigans that have to go on to make nothing work as smooth as it should.
Right? So there's there's there's three cases here, right? If you knew that we were going live early and that the time had changed, you're good. If you didn't know that we were going live early and you didn't know the time had changed, you're still good. It's only if you know

one or the other but not both of those facts, you're not good and you're watching this on the VOD later instead of live when you could have if you knew both or neither of those things.
Yeah, knowledge is a curse.
It is. And we plan to curse you so hard today with all of THE GAMING NEWS THAT we have for you. [laughter]
That's correct.
If you came here, you thought spooky season was over. Oh no. Now it's the season of curses, which are inherently spooky and more hardcore. Uh Will, how was how was how was your your all Hollow's Eve?
Uh it was very calm. It was very chill. just uh I I live in a place where we don't get trick-or-treaters, so I got to stay home and everything was business as usual. Uh
nice.
Yeah.
Although I did it, it was kind of funny. Some people were dressed up when I went to um uh play Magic yesterday and I tried to play I was playing against an opponent who had attempted to uh play Commander, so shuffling a 100 card deck

with pro like plastic fake witch fingers on. Um, that lasted about 30 minutes, but I was very very impressed that he managed to take a mulligan and draw seven twice with like, you know, long plastic uh fake witch fingers with the nails on it. It was It was pretty good. It was pretty good.
Yeah. You know, they they they're consummate professionals, people who go and do do technical events on Halloween.
Yeah, that's right. Uh, I I just went to uh uh the Nebula the Nebula karaoke
and it was quite fun.
That sounds excellent.
Uh, a lot of K-pop demon hunters.
Yeah. No, that's I mean it's it's heavily in everyone's mind, right? Like especially because of the um
uh singalongs.
Yes.
Yeah.
Uh I did Idol.
Okay. Uh, it was it was a solid I don't know, seven out of 10. Not my best, but the

first time you know when you I don't know how many people in the audience actually do karaoke. Um, oh no, I just spilled coffee all over the place. NO, Will vamp. Okay, great. I have a feeling that Matt's going to talk about if you've ever gone to karaoke. So, you should tell me if you've ever gone to karaoke so that I could tell Matt how many of you have been to karaoke when Matt gets back from getting the the thing. Okay, great. Excellent. Um,
you still have to vamp though cuz now I'm doing surgery.
Oh. Uh, did you spill it on your keyboard?
Yeah, don't worry about it. Everything's fine.
Okay, great. Excellent. I love this. Um, uh, some people were more into the K-pop Demon Hunter sing along. Uh, were parents than kids. Yeah, absolutely. No, that's definitely a movie that some parents took their kids to because the kid had watched it once and the parents are like, "No, we should go. It'll be fun." And then the parents are like super into it and the kids are like, "Mom, you're embarrassing me in public." Right. Like that. Just like that. By the

way, 100%.
Yeah. That's like take away kids and put in partners. And that's how I am with Jamie.
Yeah. Uh, no. Wrong. Wrong vamp, Dane. Wrong. No,
actually, no, Dane. I mean, I
No, no, no. I thought we said we weren't talking about that on the
sunlight right now. This stuff behind us, that's animated.
Just because I am bioluminescently pale and you can't prove that I've ever seen the light of the day star does not mean I'm a vampire.
It's fine.
It also doesn't guarantee that you're not a vampire.
That's true. No. Yeah. Like Miguel says, "Go with my mom, but she's the only one singing." Yes. Exactly. Right. No. And and to be to Matt's to Matt's choice, idol. Excellent choice. Right. cuz it's it is so Golden is only a good song because it fits in with the plot of the movie.
Um disagree, but that's not what this this show's about. Continue.
Right. Right. But Idol stands alone, I would say, much better than Golden does.
Yeah. There was people did uh Golden How

It's Done or Dun Dun Dun uh Soda Pop and Idol. Um
there was a lot of musical theater kids there though, so it it like it actually people did better. Say, wait, wait, wait, back up. You said it was the Nebula party, right?
So, you're repeating yourself. Okay, it's fine. Yeah. No, the the Nebula crew is nothing if not a bunch of highly educated theater kids who are like, I miss theater. Maybe I'll do performance art and then maybe
I'll give a shout out. I'll give a shout out to I who I think is the MVP of the night. I'm not sure if anyone in the in chat is familiar with a a wonderful gentleman by the name of Thomas Frank. He's a productivity creator. He works with Norton a lot. Um, uh, also the dude's the nicest guy. He's like literally like the the Superman or Clark Kent of of of that group. And, uh, he, uh, just slayed every possible thing. There was one year where he and I did a, um, a duet of the My Chemical Romance

song, the na na na na na na na or whatever, you know, the the eight nas. Um, which was very, very fun. Anyway, we're getting off topic. I'm so sorry. Also, shades with all this karaoke. Sorry, Will. I just uh Yeah, you got to go more. It's super fun. Sorry, Will. Get that.
No, it's fine. I was The Thunder correctly pointed out that that's not the reason I'm a vampire. It's all the other things like my desire to wear grunge, my voice of holy symbols, my fear of authority figures, the fact I don't cast reflections and mirrors. Listen, I thought we weren't going to talk about any of those things on stream thunder. It's fine.
It's okay because it's on the VOD.
Yeah. Um, so, as you may have noticed, this one's early. We're a little I don't know that we're more punchy than normal, but we're definitely a little uh off our rhythm, so that's okay. Also, brief programming announcement before I let Matt get started. There is no design club this week. Jeff is traveling. So, look forward. The next thing that'll be here on YouTube will be the next breakfast next week
to to Well, actually, that's technically not true because so from live stuff. Absolutely.

From live stuff. Yes, but there is. But but we are um we are getting back on schedule with our animated monthly episodes. And the reason why we released the first one on the collapse of the of the board game industry or the the status of it at least at this time and then it was I believe almost two months till the next one about James' um how to design your own game from scratch. There was because there was a push uh we had to move stuff around because of the Cyber Punk Legends Kickstarter. And now we're getting back on course. I believe it's been three weeks or maybe uh four. I'm trying to remember how it works, but basically we are slowly sliding ourselves back into the first week of the the first Saturday of the month. There'll be an animated extra credits episode. We have a bunch lined up. We're getting it. So like this one's going to hit on this Saturday and then it's going to be a month every time. This one coming up is on um we're we're basically soft calling it the road to night reign and we're positing why um what the secret sauce of that game actually was and it's not what anyone

else is talking about. And that one's written by our our lovely friend of the channel channel uh Jasmine that bronze girl BR um and uh it's dope. So that will be out on Saturday and then the next breakfast will hit.
Excellent. Um
uh
so there'll be plenty of things to watch,
right? Matt, could you provide sound effects as I bring up our first image for our first story?
Um um sound effects. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I got you.
You know what this sounds like and I don't cuz I don't play this game.
Oh, I don't have that, but I have this.
I mean, that's fair. That might as well be the sound when you get busted. So, our first story this week, uh, is, as you may have seen in the title or thumbnail, um, we're going to talk a little bit about Rockstar. And Rockstar has been much in the news lately for, you know, the leadup to GTA 6. And this week, they're in they're in the news for slightly less stellar reasons. um which is that the no one's disputing the

following that about 30 employees um between 30 and 40 employees were fired from Rockstar uh on October 30th. No one's disputing that. Everyone agrees on that. The interesting thing is why they were fired. So, um IWGB, the uh union uh that repres that uh was in talks with a large number of these members to form a union at Rockstar alleges that Rockstar specifically fire these employees as a union busting tactic. And Rockstar claims that they were fired for Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Gross misconduct. 30 people all fired for gross misconduct at the same time.
Yeah. This story comes to us from PC Gamer. Um it's interesting. Rockstar has not had the best track record uh in this field and it's um it's so right now the

reason why we kind of wanted to bring this up is not because we have definitive evidence of anything. It is because it is a constant discussion in the industry about things like this sort of happening. Um, now I think it is good that even even if it comes out that this is incorrect, I still think it is good to call out potential times where this is happening because you need to know everyone needs to still be like aware and and able to try to parse this stuff when it happens. What do you got?
And I think it's really important because so I'm going to read I'm going to read the uh the the So Rockstar is one of the three branches. It's really It's like three and a half branches of Take Two, which is a holding company, which covers 2K, Rockstar, and
one more that I've forgotten. I looked up.
Zinga.
Zingga. Yes, that's right. The one that no one cares about anymore. Right. Okay. That's why I couldn't remember it. Um, your crops in your farm are withering.

They are rotted.
They're rotting in the fields. Go t your digital crops instead of actually touching real grass. Anyway, um the the take two statement is as follows. Um, we strive to make the world's best entertainment properties by giving our best-in-class creative teams positive work environments and ongoing career opportunities. Our culture is focused on teamwork, excellence, and kindness. Rockstar Games terminated a small number of individuals for gross misconduct and for no other reason. As always, we fully support Rockstar's ambitions and approach.
Right. So, nothing about unions. Um, so nothing to see here. Go home.
Right. Yeah. That statement is like the most like I think the only thing that's not like corporate double speak there is the statement Rockstar Games terminated a small number of individuals for gross misconduct. You could have ended that there, but not. But when you add, "And

for no other reason," I immediately think of all the other reasons that Rockstar might fire about 30 people who were all busy organizing to form a union.
I have two thoughts. One, this is how statements like this from companies always come out,
which means which which means they work for what they're trying to do. Like we're looking at it, we're talking about it longer than the statement probably was ever want they ever wanted to be talked about, right? Like we're we're finding the clues in in the in the turd sandwich that we've just been handed. The the we're autopsying the turd [laughter] sandwich,
right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like
but but so let's but then there's also a different side. You know me, I like to play for for at least uh you know 20 seconds before I get mad again the corpo devils advocate because that's where the devils live. Um, and like there are laws, and I'm not specifically um up on on the UK's laws in this particular regard, but there are laws saying why

companies sometimes cannot say publicly why they fired a person. This is supposed to be for the person's benefit, but I can see in this sort of case, uh, it's actually working out well for the company. And it also says that these people were were removed for gross misconduct. And Will and I got into an interesting discussion about this while we were prepping for the show this morning. And basically that could mean that these 30 people were talking uh on like an outside server discord or something like that. This is all again this is we're just making it up. This is this is just we're positing what could happen. And there could be a rule in uh Rockstar's um in your employment contract that says you have to only use um internal communication software to communicate about Rockstar business or or or or company business. And then Will did bring up the following point which is very interesting as well.
Union business is never company business. It's always wholly distinct from the from the nature from the work

of the company. Right? the union doesn't care about the company's uh like overall goals or its trade secrets or any of that. The union's business is in making sure the workers are treated fairly equitably, right? So like it I would almost say that it could be the opposite that they were discussing union stuff using company resources and that's why they got fired. But that would be but like for instance it's it's interesting and again I don't know the exact protections here and there but if they're doing it in company channels yeah right uh if they're doing it in company channels then there's a full company paper paper trail uh digital trail that would get the company in more trouble where if it's offsite what they can do is sort of what this statement says which is like oh say that they even though will I a thousand% agree with you that discussing union business is not company business because not everyone agrees with that definition. And even if it legally

doesn't include that, you can move you can you can do the the [ __ ] dance maneuver of like making it sort of feel that way and like and then it's just sort of a public opinion,
right?
Like play.
And of course, and let's be very clear, this isn't going to hurt Rockstar at all.
Oh, no.
Right. Cuz like everyone who bought who's was going to buy GTA 6 is still going to buy GTA 6. 2026 will be defined as a release year for games by the presence of Grand Theft Auto 6 and people trying to get out of its way enough to have their game which exists in a relatively similar space succeed at all when everyone when the again the majority of gamers buy one or less games a year. So many people's one game a year this year will be GTA 6. In fact, I would say that that will be the majority of that majority that that's my guess would be the majority of those people who only buy one game a year will only buy Grand Theft Auto 6 this year because

it will be the only game that they need if GTA 5 is any indication. Right? And I don't think this moves the needle on that at all unfortunately. Right? But we should be uh keeping up with unions in the industry because I think the main reason that we bring this up and I why one of the reasons why I like talking about it is I want the whole industry to have as many unions as the film industry does. Yeah. I want there to be like I want there to be locals. I want there to be like a big overarching thing. I would love if like video game writers uh were in the same position as like the Writers Guild of America was when they shut down late night TV for like six months. Um longer. I don't even remember how long the writer strike was. Like I would love I would love the industry to have unions be that powerful and to take care of these workers because there have been so many cases where games have come out and people have said, "Hey, we're sorry it's

not great, but like Danny keeled over at his desk from exhaustion and he was the only guy who could fix the combat engine and he's in the hospital from exhaustion." Right? I'm being hyperbolic, but like that level of like overwork has become so ubiquitous and I would really like there to be unions to counterbalance that. Obviously, there's always going to be some amount of like, hey, we have to hit this deadline and that's an important thing, but the ways and the means that people go through to hit those deadlines is what I would like to see more push back against. I'd like to be there to be a counterveailing force against that general trend. And and what I'd also like is sort of like and again reason why this is sort of a a very recent story and hopefully one that doesn't go away and I'm glad that PC Gamers talking about it. It allows us to talk about it. I want I want things like this to continue in the conversation as GTA 6 does ramp up because listen the like this game and the amount of people that work on like not everyone at Rockstar is

evil. Um like it's it's I I want accountability in the places where it should be and and that does mean continuing to discuss it, but like it also because this is a juggernaut, this probably will get run over. And I'm happy that PC Gamer is talking about it. We'll see. We'll see how this actually moves forward and if uh the IWGB can do anything with this to move it forward and keep it in not only the public eye, but do something in a legal space. Um the h how this would probably play out is is essentially because they have more money than God some sort of settlement if it goes that far, right?
Yeah, that would be nice.
Um but we'll see.
We shall indeed. Uh
I'm still picking coffee out of my keyboard.
Oh, I'm I'm aware you're going to be doing that for most of this episode and that's that's okay. Uh I got this. Um, but at either rate, by the way, we we wish uh nothing but the best for the nent union at Rockstar and we hope that in spite of this there is union at

Rockstar cuz that would be cool.
Yeah.
I just think that would be nifty if after this story they were like, "Surprise, we voted to you guys anyway. Go hack yourself."
I mean, that's the other thing, too. You hope that talking about stories like this wide enough and loud enough get more people that are there interested in it. It's this it's the Stryand effect, right? Like that's what you want to happen. Yeah.
Uh, you want to turn a frown upside down. So,
yeah. Good luck to all of those affected and hopefully that continues on and it gets stronger because of this bad thing.
Yeah.
Okay. Next up, we're going to talk about something kind of weird.
So, Bruce Gabe.
Yeah. Well, I read this story. Yeah. Um, I read the whole the whole story. I need you as as someone who is um uh I don't I don't speak Runescape.
Okay.
Um I need you to tell me can you tell me

the version of this in based around a game that I would understand. [snorts]
I know that's a lot.
Maybe. Yeah, maybe. Okay. You played World of Warcraft. Did you play in the sparkle pony era of World of Warcraft?
Remind me what that is.
Sparkle ponies are the premium cash shop mounts that are big and flashy and run around and like you can only buy them from cash.
Oh, yes.
Okay, cool. Great.
Yeah.
So, Runescape recently ran uh an experiment where they had um uh groups of players participate in a couple of different experiments. One of them was removing um it's not really pay to progress, but like catchup or boost mechanics, kind of like an XP booster um mechanic. Uh they removed that for some number of players. Um and then they took a sentiment survey. One of the other ones was that they had servers that had all cosmetic

items disabled, so you couldn't sparkle pony. Everyone looked like cuz it's kind of funny. I don't know about you in 14, right? One of my earliest clips of 14 is me standing in the middle of an idyllic forest. Like, you know, it's a it's it's got like wooden um it's got like a blacksmith and like wooden houses and like maybe there's a mage or two. And then someone walks out in front of me, gets in the regalia from Final Fantasy 15 and takes off like flies away like there's a flying car in the middle of my idyllic fantasy forest, right? And that's a thing that isn't some people's jam. Some people don't mind. Some people think it's cool. Some people don't like it. So, they did a whole they did a whole um uh world that didn't have access to those cosmetics. And again, they took a sentiment survey. Um and they uh they did this with a couple of other they did a they did one with double XP with limited microtransaction items.

They did one that was a um cosmetic drop and then they took sentiment surveys on all of this. And you can read their um their report on what all of it is. I'm not going to go through all of the details, but essentially they did a bunch of single variable studies with their community on
does turning this off make does turning this part of microtransactions off make the game better? Does turning this part of microtransactions off make the game better? Does doing this part or this part make the game a better experience for our player base? And the answer overall is that for the most part players seem to enjoy the experience without microtransactions more.
Yeah.
Shocking everyone here. I know you're
it's interesting when stuff like this comes up and it's like when and this isn't always the case in these studies. Um but it is interesting when you're

like yeah the thing I thought initially before you did this in-depth research is also correct.
Yep. Um and they you know they addressed some of the um so not in every case all the feedback wasn't positive. Um people for instance treasure hunter is a um it's a skill where you get some progress for free but you get more progress by making microtransactions is the short version. We don't need to go too deep into what it does for Runescape. Um, and some people had feedback on how they viewed the removal of treasure hunter negatively and they addressed that and they said, "Yeah, we understand that like feeling like um uh you know, it's a disadvantage to people who are more casual or uh who don't have a lot of time to play but who don't mind spending money on the game. that lets them feel like they have a chance at catching up at people who do have more time to play the game who like

work from home and have Runescape up on another monitor and they're just AFK farming, right? Sure. It lets those people feel like they have a a way to catch up and so they're addressing those pieces of feedback. But all of this culminates in kind of a fascinating um idea uh which is that they've
this is the part I understood. They've introduced a button and and the button is kind of fantastic. So, if a 100,000 Runescape players press the button, they will remove the treasure hunter skill from the game. There's no vote against. It's really It's really designed to succeed. There's an IGN article that um it talks a little bit more about it, but it is a fascinating idea that it's um it's sort of rigged to succeed.
Yeah.

Yeah.
I think that's awesome.
Yeah. Um and they are currently over the 100,000 vote mark. Um the vote will end on November 12th. Uh, so the the vote is currently at 119,186 yes votes. There is no way to vote no.
Zoe agrees.
Um, so this is kind of a big deal and uh I I I want to bring this up because I think it's not clear because Runescape flies under the radar so often. There are three big MMOs in the world. There were three MMOs that were are still kind of on top of the heap when it comes to looking at all MMOs as a whole, right? There are three that you really want to keep in mind.
WoW, Final Fantasy 14, and Runescape. It's still a huge deal. It's not a flashy big deal, but it is still very

much a big deal. It's still a game that a lot of people play for nostalgia or a lot of people play for um you know in some of the new ways that they've developed play Runescape but like faster seasons or like iron man modes or whatever. It's still super relevant. It just doesn't get flashy, right? Because it doesn't have like as many like world first races or like big patch announcements or whatever, right? It's still a thing.
Yeah. And the idea that one of the big three would give to players the idea that if a 100,000 of you a poulry number of gamers by the way that is like no gamers like we probably got more people to vote for Bodie McBoatface than 100,000 right like I get 100,000 people to do a lot of things on the internet if it's funny right but 100,000 Runescape players voting yes to remove a microtransaction skill from a game is super easy right So the fact that they're doing this is a fascinating look at the way that they

are approaching microtransactions and might be a sign that they think that the uh way that they approach funding MMOs is changing, right? Which would be really interesting.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I like this a lot. Um I'm curious. I mean obviously these features for again I don't play Runescape, so correct me when I am wrong. a feature like uh the way you can level up with treasure hunter basically paying paying to win is essentially like a catch-up mechanic or a speed up mechanic, right? Like the way that the the the game itself would say it is like oh for I believe in the in one of the articles it was uh and I I loved this term for time poor players.
Yeah.
Um and and that lets you sort of keep up with the Joneses in a way and still be able to play with you and like look there's definitely some value to that, right? Um, but
in fact, you has Jeff told you the story about the first time he investigated

someone doing uh MT real money transactions on on um not Runescape on EverQuest.
No. Oh, no. He did. He
right. They the they saw someone selling an Everquest sword on eBay
and they
they're like, "How is this?"
They had all of his billing. They figured out who was buying it and they fig they had all his billing information so they called him and they asked and he was like, "Yeah, I'm a lawyer. I don't have time to grind for it, but I don't mind paying a little bit of money to have someone else grind for it for me."
Yeah.
Right. And like that's that's existed since EverQuest, by the way. That was not against to EverQuest because they hadn't considered that anyone would do that. There's a difference too between and I there's so many this is opens up like 19 cans of esoteric worms but like there's there's something in certain ways more as so long as it's not taken into like a gambling uh situation or anything like that. There is something that is just like these

things could work if people could just do small bespoke things like that one lawyer for a one sword being like hey I'll pay someone $50 to grind for this sword like but as opposed to here's a marketplace from the company to buy that sword for $50 because there's still you know what I mean
I can't hear you over the sound of thrown in liberty doing exactly that only with really scummy tax practices.
Yeah. Uh, okay. This is interesting from Gold. Uh, treasure hunter is un is unfortunately one of those things that keeps some skill training realistic and not boring, especially agility. man alive leveling agility is rough without
and I think that they're I think that based on what I've seen of their of their thing they're aware of the ways that some things will need to be rebalanced or there will need to be um not monetary compensation but like the the systems will need a counterveailing force to compensate for the vacuum of power created by removing it right like

so 100% the game will need to change as a result of this right but this is a way to do that that removes an element of microtransaction that players have a negative sentiment overall towards have a net negative sentiment towards.
If there's one thing and I don't know many things but if there's one thing I have constantly heard about Runescape in the community is the constant back and forth is very very good and uh this is something that just seems this is just something that seems like a win for everybody. I I wonder how much money the company would be set to lose by not doing this. It can't be that much if they're do like their business can't be in jeopardy if they're doing this thing.
Jagex is not in jeopardy. Jagex is is again they get to fly under the radar and just keep
like don't mess with Runescape. Like they learned that when they tried to do Runescape 3. Just don't mess with Runescape. leave OSRS running forever

and you will like it's an infinite money factory. You don't have to do
literally anything other than keep it running. It's fine. Right. So yeah, but this this is this is definitely the first time I've heard of something like this on a scale this large in the industry. And so I'm very excited to see how this ends up playing out. Uh yeah, I I'm very interested to see how high the vote total goes. There's something I liked in WoW. I never used it because every expansion I' I've never gotten back into WoW,
right? Like I've since I became clean after Pandaria. Um the but like with something I've always liked in MMOs if they're trying to get you back on board is when you buy the expansion, you get a level boost to whatever the level is to start the expansion if you want it, right? like that always feels fine, I guess, cuz you're already spending.

I mean, it's it's like part of it to be able to play the game right from the start. Um,
yeah. I don't even know. Like, wow. I I I couldn't even fathom trying to play through from what I got off WoW to now. It would be mind-numbing.
Yeah. [laughter]
Right. the dragon once more. Literally.
Yeah.
Uh well, we were talking we were talking about doing some sort of uh
we were talking about doing like a a hardcore um or no, we were talking about looking at it once the new uh UI or once the new add-on list stuff dropped,
right?
Because that's something that I'm very interested in. And back in the day, uh Scott uh EC artist Scott Dit uh was really into WoW. I don't know if he still is or not. Um, but he was trying to get us to do like an EC sort of guild type thing, which would be very fun if we could pull it off with everybody.

But, um, yeah, I don't know. I feel like when that drops, there'll be there'll be some content around that because I I I do miss exploring what it's doing, and this is the first time in a while where I've been like, "Oh,
this could be interesting."
We already have one healer slot covered.
There you go.
All right. Uh, next up, let's talk about another another game launch. Um, this one of Arc Raiders. So, Arc Raiders is a brand new extraction shooter um that uh came out over the weekend and it did amazing actually. It did like incred
So, happy to hear this.
Yeah, incredible incredible numbers. Um, it had really big numbers in its recent play test, but this was its official launch day. Um, it had a peak concurrent of I'm actually gonna check. I've got an article here from um, IGN, but I want to see where it actually is on uh, Steam DB right now. Yeah. So, its all-time peak

over the weekend was 354,836. And right now in the it is a Monday morning. Okay, there are 203,529 players on now. A large number of those are probably in Europe, but it's still work hours in most of Europe. So, there's either people playing hookie or playing before or this is all in Asia, which is possible, but would be a little I don't know how weird that is actually for for uh Steam's demographic, but um a bunch of people got on over the weekend and it's like 88% positive on reviews. So, this is kind of cool because extraction shooters are a thing that not incredibly common and a lot of them recently have had issues. Tarov had a lot of push back as it exited early access. Dark and Darker had its whole problem era, right, with the lawsuit and then like I tried to play Dark and

Darker to see what the what the hype was about and it blue screened my computer. like just a bunch of stuff. And Arc Raiders just having what appears to my eye to be a largely unambiguously good launch seems a sign for this genre of game that is gaining in popularity.
Uh folks are bringing up uh the AI in this game, which I wasn't uh sort of aware of. There is AI voice in it.
Yes.
Uh for callouts and things, not whatever the story stuff is. I'm trying to dig through it a little bit. I haven't I haven't they they have responded to it. Um I by the way this is not a like you should play or you should not play Art Raiders. Um this is a this is a phenomena. This is this tipped all the charts this weekend. So
especially in the week that uh
or in the in surroundings of Battlefield 6 and Call of Duty Black Ops 7 like
correct and it crushed both of those. So yeah, and that sort of also serves as a mini sort of sentiment analysis for do

do do people care, right? And like I'm not saying you should or should not care. Let me be clear. I'm saying that this is sort of indicative that once again we're kind of in the minority on whether or not um things like having an AI disclaimer, things like having a you know uh denuvo really matter to us. Um because
I think if it's I think there definitely should be a it should be like a pack of cigarettes,
right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Absolutely. Um
Yeah.
Yeah. And like I again it's it just crushed everything because this also has this just has easy.
I think a lot more people are willing to deal with easy antiche even though it is colonel level because it doesn't launch on boot and it does fight with other stuff but it's easy to quit. Yeah.
Easy as opposed to like some of the other ones that are like haha you have to have this on from the moment you turn your computer on to the moment you turn

your computer off. We have full control of your computer so you can play our video game. So, stepping away stepping away from the whether or not uh ba based on whatever people feel about the these games, why why is this having a moment surrounded by these other games,
these other these other like behemoths? Um, obviously the the gameplay is probably good, right? Like it's probably the loop is good. They also spent a bunch of money on I believe on um streamer advertising during the like they definitely did the thing where they got the people who are super invested in this game. So like I saw Cone playing it all weekend. I saw Shroud playing it all weekend. I saw XQC playing it. Like they got all the big names in streaming to do it. And that's obviously not enough to tip the needle entirely, but it is a way that you get a lot of people to play your game.
Right. So
yeah, I just find it interesting that

this was able to to uh find find its large niche in the middle of these kaiju.
Correct.
Uh of the industry.
Yeah. And again, that's despite having an AI disclaimer, despite having easy anti-che, all of these things which normally would hamper a game success.
Yeah.
It's it's apparently not having that effect, right? And that's weird, right? That it is just blowing up like this. Now, someone did bring up that this may be really big in Russia. I really wish I could get a player.
Oh, interesting.
Um, Russia does have like a very big soft spot for like Dota and PvP games. Um, there's a big rush.
The loop of this one is different, right? Like cuz people were saying the people they could tell instantly when Battlefield people came over because they'd instantly shoot, but there's like
Yeah, like civilians and other characters and things in it that like make it a bit more of a I I don't again I have not

played it yet, but the like of of like it's not just shoot anything that moves,
right?
Yeah. I think the the the interesting idea of like it's okay to have the battle royale instinct of fighting is bad for everyone involved, right? Like in battle royale, you really shouldn't be fighting unless you have a decisive advantage and you're sure you can win because otherwise you're burning resources on a gamble and you're usually better off waiting until you have a decisive advantage to fight. Um and so here people are doing like the friendly check thing and like using in-game coms to be like, "Hey, no, we're good. we're not gonna everybody, you know, back away slowly. We're fine kind of thing, which is always an interesting part of Extraction Shooters. So, yeah, it's weird. It's interesting. It I definitely did not expect this to blow up this big this weekend.
Like, it was the top of most of the Steam or most of the Twitch stuff that I was watching. Um, there was someone playing Art Raiders and it was a big

deal on Twitch, which I was not expecting at all. Maybe my maybe my read on the everything is all off, but that was my that was my my thoughts on it.
I'm trying to find actually this is weird. Arc Raiders is not coming up for me on Steam.
Interesting. Came up for me.
Super strange. There we go. I found it. I want to see what the disclaimer actually is.
I've got it. Uh the the full disclaimer so we're all on the same page is during the development process, we may use procedural and AI based tools to assist with content creation. In such cases, the final product reflects the creativity and expression of our own development team, which is to say they used some amount of generative AI and we don't know how much and we don't know where.
So, there's a PC games article uh PC games an article that says a dev that's saying Arc Raiders dev in no way use generative AI whatsoever for its visuals, but here's what it did and why it has to enclose it on Steam. So basically they're saying Arc Raiders no way uses generative AI uh in the Ashur's

design director Virgil Watkins during an interview with him ahead of the game's launch. We use something called machine learning or reinforcement learning and that's to do with the locomotion for our larger drones with multiple legs but there's no generative content whatsoever.
Ah okay great this is okay. Uh this is another case where the buzzwords are killing stuff. Um do you know what machine learning is Matt? uh roughly but not like I know how I know that it is not generative AI. It's not scraping and doing nonsense. It's not scraping everything for the nonsense it creates.
Correct. It's a uh it's an optimization essentially strategy or you can use it analytically but it essentially involves running a simulation over and over again and choosing the most effective one of many simulations to run hundreds of thousands or millions of times to generate an optimal outcome. Mhm.
Um yeah, that is that is a significant difference between um that it it is in

no way generative AI. It does not do the learn set thing. It does not involve copyright infringement. It's been around for years. And one of my biggest beefs with the current wave of generative AI direct is that it has sort of co-opted a thing that has good uses and doesn't have the overwhelming majority of the problems that generative AI has. Um, so again, I don't
I just added that PC games and article there. There's also a link in that it'll be in the show notes. There's also a link in that article which I'm going to go back and read later when we're not live on air. Uh uh basically uh that lets you uh go to the full interview from this guy.
Yeah.
Um
yeah.
Yeah. And they keep saying in this article uh as is not contributed to any of their like visuals or anything like that. So
yeah.
Yeah. All right. Uh next up on our list Oh, uh an update on previous story.

I was proud of this one.
It was very good. Um the uh Nintendo pocket pair lawsuit continues on unabated. However, uh you may recall that as part of that lawsuit uh and a part of that process, Nintendo applied for several patents last year uh including patent JP 202431879. It's not
this is both this one that we're talking about today is in Japan.
Yes, correct. It is not one of the ones that is directly um underpinning the PAL world lawsuit, but it is one of the ones that was filed in the same batch. Um the uh it is a patent that regards Oh god, hold on a sec. I'm gonna I'm gonna make sure that I've got which one it is. The uh implementation of

mechanics for aiming and throwing items to capture battle creatures like those used in Archus. Um, and this one got rejected for prior art essentially.
Yeah, because like Ark does what it's talking about and a couple other things do it.
They pointed at Ark, Monster Hunter, and funnily enough, Pokémon Go.
Amazing.
To uh say that no, this is not the first time um that this has happened. So, this doesn't mean that their lawsuit against Pocket Pair is dead. Um
Oh, god, no. It just means that there is now some question about whether or not they will be granted the rest of the patents that were filed in this tranch of patents.
And this we're actually going to have a written by a patent lawyer uh and one of Jeff's friends. We're going to have a ve I think it's like 19 minutes long or something uh an episode specifically on patent law and what Nintendo did with two patents coming out in months from now or maybe maybe it's a month from Saturday actually. Uh but that's going to be specifically dealing with patent number uh 2,43,397 and also what was the other one? uh

patent number 12,49,387, which is the two that came before that both started in Japan and then got to the US and passed through the US patent office uh incredibly quickly and with such little push back that most patent lawyers and litigators uh had their necks snapped so quick over to be like what the what? Um so there's some very interesting stuff there. This is a different one that is in Japan right now and it's the first one out of these batches of of this reach that Nintendo and uh the Pokemon Company are trying to do that uh has been outright rejected. Now the interesting thing about patent law is what they get to do now is just be like okay and go back and change the patent and try again. And because there's deep pockets in these corporations uh they can do that almost infinitely. Though it is to be clear a slow and expensive process. Um, this is not something that like you can't really slap these. I mean, you

can, but the slap is the slow as molasses and as expensive as uh the GDP of a small country. So, like it's um Yeah, it's crazy.
Yep. Um I don't really have anything else to say on that. I just wanted to make sure that we got that in there as an update, which is good because we have ads starting in 15 seconds here on Twitch. So, we're going to do some fake ads for things you can't buy while Twitch gets real things for ads you can buy. Uh, and then we'll continue on with the rest of our stories.
Yeah. Also, hello tourist.
Hello.
Hello. Did you say [laughter] hello?
Oh, no. I said hello. Well, that's close enough. Um, come inside and meet the misses.
If anyone understands what we're talking about, uh, you're my favorite. Okay. Uh, Will, do you want to go first this time?
Uh, yes.
Okay, here we go.

Hi everyone, Will from Extra Credits here. Are you confused about the time that the stream started? Are you also confused about the time that it is? Consider a world without daylight savings time. That's right. We can just don't do that. Just stop it. Like I understand that it has a purpose and like it had a purpose, but like [music] don't. It messes everything up for like several weeks out of the year and I'm not convinced that it has a benefit. So like maybe just stop doing it. Just don't. Just like decide, pick one and then stick with it and stop doing the flippy floppy thing. No, I don't. No.
I think I think that was great. I I completely agree in principle, but uh Will, I feel like where there's money to be made, you kind of need the opposite direction. Hey everybody, Matt from Extra Credits here. Uh would you like to not What if daylight savings time, right, happened, but like more of it? What if time truly meant nothing and you

couldn't schedule an entire thing? Well, then let me tell you uh about my product today, which is essentially every day is daylight savings time. What does that do for you and your productivity? You may be asking, "What a great question." Here's what it does. You essentially will never have a responsibility again because no one will be able to schedule your time accurately and then therefore you kind of get to do whatever you want whenever you want it. Do you want to spill coffee in your keyboard at 9:00 p.m.? It won't matter cuz you won't even know when 9:00 p.m. is
Yo, I like this one.
Ready? Oh, daylight wasting time. Yeah.
I like this. We move clock every day. [laughter] Scary.
Yeah.
Okay. I got one. I got one.
Oh. Uh, hold on real quick. Tourist, we do not have plans to do a board game uh live design. However, uh the last episode of Animated Extra Credits, which you haven't watched, which is how to

design anything from scratch, gives some really good advice on essentially what James did with his card game Cyberpunk Legends. Um, and it's not to design the best possible game you ever could, but how to design and actually make the best possible game that you can in at your current juncture. It's actually really, really excellent in that regard.
And if you want to see more live content talking about game design in general, normally that's me and Jeff on Thursdays. There isn't one this week, but there is one most weeks. Yeah. Um, where we dive a little bit deeper into a crunchy design topic.
Do you have anything on board game stuff coming up or No,
we might. I don't know. We We were talking about doing one on Riftbound. Um, but that is going to lead to
Riftbound is dope.
So, I haven't gotten to play it. I think the biggest thing that Riftbound is doing is eliminating like the way they've chosen to do resource management is fascinating.
It's awesome. I've played
it
three rounds of it and I like it a lot.
Yeah. I don't have anywhere to play it near me, so I haven't gotten any. And

there's no digital client yet. When there's a digital client, we'll talk. Um, but I think it's a it is a fascinating like thing. So, we might do something on that uh soon.
Um, yeah. Okay, cool.
And actually, uh, popping to that point. Sorry. Well, I know you got one more. The episode, the EC episode we're talking about brings up that exactly like why did James make this card game? A lot of different reasons. That was one of them, you know, like just the moment like the resources he had and the knowledge base he had at the time,
right? the the when you when you build a digital card or uh board game, you often will prototype with physical stuff. So, this you just get to prototype and then polish it and that's the game, right? It's a whole extra step that you don't have to worry about. And you don't need a programmer, which is also really uh useful because
like there not to say that it's not great to work with programmers, but like the fewer people you need on the team, the easier it is to get started.
Yeah. Right.
You all uh Jeff knows one of the Riftbound folks.

We ran into him at Gen Con.
We've talked we we might be we might be Yeah. Uh okay. Next up, uh speaking of MMO news,
a brief Final Fantasy 14 update. Okay. So Matt, imagine a world where you had to dress for the job that you had, not the job that you wanted. Kind of where now
I mean that's just like the world, isn't it?
Right. That's a boring world. We want to live in a better world.
Ah,
so Final Fantasy 14 is unlocking all glamour. So, it used to be that you could only glam a um an item if the item level of the glamour was lower than or equal to the item level of the thing you were overwriting. So, you couldn't pretend to h be wearing higher level gear when you were actually wearing lower level gear. Couldn't do

that.
Um and uh it had to be for the job that you were um using, right? you can't wear like tank armor on a healer, but now you can because they've removed all of those restrictions. And that's the really cool thing. The Final Fantasy 14 community is celebrating wildly. Uh many people have been using crime tools to do this for a really long time. And
crime tools,
crime tools. Uh and they've announced that they're just going to do it completely. Now, I'm going to say something that some people will be unhappy with, uh, and some people will be incredulous over. I kind of wish they would at some point just move to the WoW transmog system, but they're not going to. So, this is a good step. Um,
how is this different now? Because this feels very similar.
So, okay. So, in the wild transmog system, you unlock a transmog, it's on your account, you can put it on at any time, right?
Yes. Here gear is piece by piece

assigned a model of a different piece of gear. And if you want to be if you want to use a piece of gear as a glamour as a piece of transmog, you have to put it in a you you have to have it and it's an item. It's either an item in your inventory, it's an item.
Oh, you have to be carrying it.
Well, you don't have to carry it. There's a there's a storage item for it called the glamourdresser, but that's only in some parts of the game. and has a limited capacity. So, it's not as robust as the transmog system. Uh, also, every time they've tried to change the glamour dresser, they've had to undo it because it's loadbearing spaghetti code back from when the game was saved in 2.0. And every time they try and move it or add more of them, it crashes servers. So, there are some problems. This is a very good step though um in letting people uh you know do different things. So this in this case is someone playing a tank wearing healer robes which is

that's why I picked it.
Now there's some push back which I think is hilarious.
There are some people saying that the job identity will be threatened by this. Um, I believe those people are forgetting that there is currently job agnostic gear which you can wear at any time with any job including but not limited to an elephant costume, a frog costume or a squirrel costume, a swimsuit, or a mad scientist outfit or
Those sound like jobs to me,
right?
Like the swimsuit's job would be beach,
right? Correct. But any job could have job beach while doing like any level of content. Like you could just glamour over all of your gear and just do it like in a speedo. Like you could just fight like the boss. You could fight God at the end of existence wearing only a speedo. And like according to the game as it currently stands, that's fine. I mean, I guess you wouldn't have to hide everything from God anyway, but I would imagine that combat

you would want more protection than
Yeah, that's
though. I will say inflatable frog costumes very good for for fighting fascism at this point. So, maybe I'm maybe I need to check my biases.
Um uh chat, uh when are we gonna go run through uh Garald with everyone in frog outfits? Uh hit me up. um the but that that's already been a thing for a really long time and so this is just a really great tool for like showing that they're continuing to iterate on things that have been in the game for so long. This is a like 2.0 era chain like thing, right? This was like fundamentally built into the game when the game relaunched and they're changing it which is a really good sign that they're continuing to iterate on a game that has as unstable a code base as this one has and is as old as this one is. Um, and so I'm really happy about that. Uh, and I think it's a good thing and the community in general is pretty happy.
Yeah, it seems like a good

a good change. I don't know, like let people look how they want to look with stuff that they've found. And
Yep. Absolutely. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. Matt, you are far better positioned than I to talk about the cultural significance of this next one. I I don't Uh, Simpsons has come to Fortnite much like everything will, including you. I'm sorry, slash. You're welcome. There will be there will be you the Fortnite crossover at some point. I don't it I'm I'm literally speaking to everyone. This is a this is a vacuum of IP and I have no doubt that there will be um a way to Fortniteify yourself in the in the the near future. Um, and in a laundry list of things coming to the IP slurry that is Fortnite, The Simpsons is here. Now, um, I would first like to point out the

amazing um, uh, announcement trailer, a launch trailer that they did in the style of the Simpsons intro, but in Fortnite. Uh, it is incredibly well done. It feels like a an actual lovingly crafted thing. I also want to call out some art direction stuff because some of the two of the main characters of the show, Bart and Lisa, are children. Now, should they have guns and be running around? No. But that ship has sailed on Fortnite long ago. I'm talking more about like we they're not like tiny running around. They're in mech suits, which is which is a pretty clever uh a pretty clever uh workaround. Uh, and apparently you run through Springfield and you can go through the Simpsons house and like there's a there's a whole thing. I I am not uh as an elder millennial, I am not the most ardent Simpsons fan. I like the Simpsons very much, but I have friends that like live

and breathe this stuff and like will tell me episode numbers of jokes. like that's the level of of of uh Gen Xer or elder millennial that that I that I engage with. So I I don't have the like any sort of like this is the this is the wrong phrase for it, but like purity test for the Simpsons of like, oh, they shouldn't be in Fortnite or whatever. It's the same one I have with Superman or Batman running around with guns. Like these characters don't make sense with guns, but that again Fortnite and the people who buy this stuff don't seem to care. Um, what I appreciate in these crossovers is sort of taking the not just the characters, but actually doing the world. Like I was disappointed in the uh K-pop demon hunters cross over because it was literally just the girls ramen backpacks and a weird kind of it felt like sort of halfassed uh like horde mode with like demons, right? Uh

it would have been cool if like it was set in like that version of South Korea and you could go to the stadium and you had to put on a concert like you know that like it'd be neat to do that sort of thing. Here it feels like they're turning the island literally into uh the Simpsons.
Yeah. I also feel like there is something to be said for the amount of time that this has probably been cooking versus the amount of time that they left K-pop Demon Hunters to cook because
No, I know the real reasons. Um, I'm saying thi this is the kind of thing that like I because it feels like people who were involved in let's be clear a very very blatant cash grab also gave a crap.
Yeah.
Um, and smash and grab is correct. Maggie with a gun is appropriate.
Yeah, that seems correct. No, just you're just correct there. Um, yeah. I just I

I'm always fascinated by my own internal yuck meter when it comes to Fortnite crossovers.
Yeah.
Um, and this one I was just like, "Neat." Like, I'm not going to buy it or engage with it in any way. I just I was like, "Oh, cool."
Like,
this this will scratch an itch for a lot of people. I think the way that they've adapted the Simpsons art style into Fortnite is also very good with the sort of like I I if anyone knows the actual terminology, it's not just cell shading. It's like um there's there's another
animated style.
Yeah. Um I don't know. I just I I appreciate it that uh that this exists and that time was taken to get it right. And that to me is the the herald of what is essentially a good crossover. Does that take away all the bad nonsense crossovers? Uh no. But this puts this up there sort of in the Ariana Grande camp or um you know beyond the skins of things, right? Like when there's like full events and I I appreciate that.
So I was glad. I don't know. I was happy

to see it. I like that.
Is it worse better than Magic Crossovers? I would I would say that this is
more weirdly tonally consistent than a lot of the Magic Crossovers have been. Um
Fortnite has always been and not always but for the majority of its time has always been an unskinned world. Like yes, Fortnite has lore. Yes, there are characters. But
the lore is like intentionally silly
and they have been so ground down at this point that like yeah, Magic had a bespoke world and dimensions and planes walkers and things. And while there was dimension hopping, which would allow any of these things to happen narratively,
um the tone of magic versus the tone of Fortnite
Exactly. So
basically makes the dissonance easier to handle in Fortnite than Magic. Now that's that's from a narrative perspective. Let's look at it from

mechanics perspective. I think magic wins and it's better in magic than it is Fortnite. Again, Batman shouldn't run around with a AK-47. Superman does not need uh whatever a pickaxe or whatever Superman uses to do all of the maybe he punches. I have no idea. But like in the Simpsons aren't running around like just throwing grenades normally. Um whereas in magic they take elements be it Avatar, Spider-Man, Final Fantasy and they take the mechanics of magic and to the best of their ability with the time that they are allotted make those mechanics work for whatever character ability, location, etc. from those IP and make it at least try to make it and when it's done correctly feel like those things where Fortnite literally other than the skin or maybe a different weapon or two like the Thanos Infinity Gauntlet or something uh essentially you are just skdding a a a your character to run around and shoot and build things,
right?
Even if that's not what that character does.
And I think there's positives and negatives to both of them. Um,

but I think I think the fact that we're talking about both of those in the same breath is sort of a sign that those two are sort of like I would say the poster children for ubi like the ubiquity of crossovers right now. Yeah.
That like if it's not a Fortnite crossover, it's a magic crossover.
Um, yeah. Shall we shall we uh move on?
Oh wait, hold on. This is a great question uh from Dreer. Um, so this is for the dad's Jed alpha who are our generation plays this game. honest question as I don't get the appeal. That is a that is a amazing use case you have just put down. If if uh let's pretend for a moment that I am not in the world of gaming and that I had a kid so my life went a drastically different direction than we are right now. if my, you know, 12 or 13year-old or whoever is playing Fortnite and I walked in and saw like a blast of Simpsons stuff on there, that might be a way to get me interested in doing that

and buying in from the corporate corporate side. They make more money for the family side. Maybe that is something that like, oh, now you're playing this game with your kids. Yep.
Right. Like that this I think that's a that's a big pull because Yeah. Alpha doesn't give a crap about the Simpsons. I don't believe
I think I think Futurama would hit alpha more,
but even then like that more is not a lot before anyone's like, "Oh my god, Gen Alpha doesn't do Fortnite. You're so out of touch." No, no, no, no. Or doesn't do Futurama. Futurama would be more. Not a lot, but more gen.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um Okay, cool.
Also, yeah, this adults play Fortnite with the kids. Sim is still airing, which means it must still be watched enough so they think it's profitable enough to keep making it. So, there must be some popularity. This Simpsons could also be it could be like a double crossover thing too, right? Like the Simpsons is something that you could also watch and enjoy probably with a your teenager or young not super young kid, but like you know it's silly enough where they get it, but there's adult things that you'd get.
Have Have they said if it's going to be

double-sided? Is there going to be like a Fortnite episode of Simpsons?
Uh, I do not know. I bet you there is not.
Yeah,
but maybe there is one.
That That would be weird. That feels more like a South Park move than a Simpsons move. Yeah. Like South Park would totally do a Fortnite episode.
They probably have.
Though for for reasons regarding the world outside, I believe the South Park schedule is chaka block full of things to talk about and make fun of for the next like three years, give or take. Um, so they might do a Fortnite episode, but you know,
so I think actually
there's a Fortnite. a lot of videos about how good this crossover is. I think the episode that we're talking about is actually in Fortnite.
That would do it. Okay, great. Is this like
It's called the Fortnite Simpsons special full episode something. Again, I'll I'll I'll dig into this a little bit.
Wait, hold on. Is it uh is it is it is it is it like an message from Emperor Palpatine? Like
I don't know. I don't know. At the at

the end of this, and I love this, there was a Fortnite couch gag. Uh Arla says here at the end of the video they all you know at the end if you if you're not familiar at the end of the intro of every Simpsons they all run to the couch to like watch TV together and there's always a change of the gag at the uh at the end of the Simpsons and uh or the intro and here it's all of them running to the couch but the ring is closing.
Yeah. And like everyone gets knocked out except Homer and Bart. And then Bart kicks Homer out of the ring and then he's the last one and he laughs. Y and like that's like that to me says they understood the assignment. And and since there is no turning back from the IP slurry that we are in. I will take this kind of implementation every day over over lazy slop that's just sort of a hey did you understand that Skeletor is in Call of Duty?
Right.
Yeah.
You know.
Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Okay. Uh,
also, Bull, I would I would I You want me to buy Fortnite skins? That's how you

get me to buy Fortnite skins.
The whole The whole squad is the the whole squad is the Golden Girls. Absolutely, 100%. I don't know anything about the Golden Girls, and I would drop in as a Golden Girl with Matt. No question. 100%.
Uh, all right. Next up in tonal shifts. So, [laughter] yeah.
Wait, should we do a pallet cleanser? Should we do Uh,
okay.
I don't know. So, uh, no, this would be Bart writing on the blackboard, uh, I will not make deals, uh, with regimes with questionable human rights activities.
Yeah. Yeah. 100%. So, the IOC has um backed out of the their 12year deal with
one year into their 12-year deal.
One year into their 12-year deal with Saudi Arabia. um to have Saudi Arabia host the Olympic esports in Riyad.

This is a weird story. So, let's back up a bit. Saudi Arabia has been doing esports washing for a hot second and has wanted to do some um some amount of like international esports games before. They had them in 2004, they had them in in uh they had them in 2024, they had them in 2025. And in both cases, there were um people who declined to participate because they didn't feel safe going to Saudi Arabia. Fair. Um to be clear, that's not to say that the US is exactly squeaky clean on this problem either right now.
Yeah. Yeah.
Um
that's not what we're talking about, but you're you're correct.
Yeah. Uh so the Olympics has dabbled in the idea of including esports. So there would be like summer winter esports to get to I don't really get the Olympics drive on this. I think it's to reach the youth.
Oh, it is a thousand%. And they need to

they need to classical sporting events need to essentially fight for the attention of younger people. Games and social media are what kids do now. Um there's a reason uh one of my buddies works for Phenomenal Show even though I'm not a big football fan works for Slime Time which is the Nickelodeon sort of NFL um the NFL does like highlights of games for kids and they make it they like I think that they they again kind of like the Simpsons Fortnite crossover. I think like they do an excellent job with young adult like young adult programming and packaging what football is for that generation.
Yeah. to get and then it's the on-ramp because then they're familiar with the game and they they they can as they age through they'll go just to the the regular programming because if they don't do that that's not going to happen right not
yeah by the way I just want to point out that we had these two comments back to back in Twitch
let's go

one who dared put politics in my video games and then followed immediately with what's this games in my politics preposterous
no notes exactly
preposterone all the way down
inside you there are two wolves They look like this. Um,
I also like Ryan's comment about what this would be. You play indoor or cold video games the winter and beach games in the summer. I agree.
Yeah, you're right. 100%. Um, and Mario Tennis is a summer game, right? Just play Mario Tennis. So, um,
and then almost watchable, [laughter] you know, you know, 12 halfozen that's the other.
Unsure unsure on that one. The upshot is that they uh will um here's the IOC statement. The IOC for its part will develop a new approach to the Olympic esports games and pursue a new partnership model. This approach will be a chance to be better fit the Olympic esports games to the long-term ambitions of the Olympics movement and to spread the opportunities presented by the Olympic esports games more widely with the objective of having the

inaugural games as soon as possible.
So, so this to me and this is interesting. Um yeah the reason one of the main reasons why you know hosting something like that in Riyad would be difficult and why many esports players put up a stink about various events there etc is that uh a lot of people who are in esports don't fall into the um the the model of type of person that feels necessarily safe andor like they something terrible wouldn't happen to them in that space right like a lot of people in the and again this is a How do I put this? This is a uh probably a group of people that is at least outwardly more diverse than your classical um like traditional Olympic sports crowd. I think that's a fair uh analogy. Maybe I'm I'm mincing some words there. So seeing what like you if you're a commission trying to get people to play your games, you have to look at where

the talent pool is. And they probably signed this deal not really thinking about it because the Olympics probably didn't fully understand esports as well as they thought they did.
No, that's definitely a big how do you do fellow youths?
Yeah. And now after being a year in, they might be like, oh yeah, someone just said like, oh, are they doing this because of this or losing money? I think it's I think it actually has a lot to do with like where their talent feels comfortable performing,
which again does translate to money, right? Like
Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. So yeah, and both and and and also um Saudi Arabia has also said like they're going to keep moving in a direction to try to do their own esports thing.
Yeah, they've they've had ambitions of doing the World Esports Championship Cup thing for a really long time. They did host chess this um this summer. Uh Magnus Carlson won. Everyone was shocked.
Yeah.
Right. Okay. Um but I I I am I think I am less Okay. Here here's here's what I

am gonna say. I am less interested in the angle of this where it's simply not going to be in Saudi Arabia anymore. Like that was kind of like a okay, that's their idea. I guess I don't really care. What I am interested in is what the better solution is,
right? I'm I'm very interested in looking in the positive direction. Like they could have said anything that was like, hey, we're doing something different than the thing that we plan to do to do esports broadly. And I would be more interested in that I think is the angle for me is that there is a large amount like the world of esports is very large and there's a lot of possibilities and it's very interesting to see the IOC acknowledge it and say hey we need the thing that we were doing isn't going to work. We're going to try a new direction. I'm just interested in what the new direction is at this point. Um I also want to know like what what the categories are. Like there's a lot going on here that I'm not 100% sure on now that it's going to be

disentangled from the way that the Saudi Arabian World Cup was going to be formatted. Like there's a bunch of like weird formats and everything else. Also, chess is in the esports world cup. Weird. Yeah. Again, this is all boxes. This is all framing. Like basically, if chess is going to make money, then chess is an esport.
Yeah, I know. Does that say that you can't play chess on the computer? You absolutely can. Uh but [clears throat]
also
Yes. Yes.
Yeah.
That's that's the esport we all want to see. The 40 meter nest toss. Correct.
Don't we have a short about
Yeah.
the It was It was a Tales from Twitch. It was the console the console Olympics.
Yeah. Exactly.
Maybe that's what it is.
Yeah. Here I want to RD says something else interesting. I'm of the opinion the way to get people into sports is to get people kids playing sports. Baseball has

this problem too. Part of kids uh in getting into sports is making sports not dominated by a culture of tox toxic baseball dads and hyperco competitive helicopter parents. I would have much more uh I would be much more into sports as a kid if I could do it more casually. This is probably more sports opinion than the crowd is used to. No. And actually here's here's the other thing. So, while video games and esports are flashier, right, and probably can get a younger person's attention faster if they're already interested in in computers and and television and consoles and things. I think it's also a faster way to have that more laxidasical not laxidasical more casual engagement with something that is intrins it can be intrinsically competitive but you have your crew and your group and it's not as rigid as a sport like as a sport is and I that's not to say that I don't think traditional sports have value I think they have a ton of value I think they do an incredible job teaching sociability and um and teamwork and like at at their

best right and to your point RD D. Yeah, that's that was one of the reasons I didn't get into sports. I I love this will be the this is this is going a lot. This will be the oldest thing I say all day. Um, when I was younger, I was really good at football. I also hated playing football and engaging in the the the more structured version of football. Like if there was a world like again going into these alternate timelines like if if the if there wasn't that level of I don't structural toxicity. I don't I don't know what it is because it works for some people and it doesn't work for others. But like I could see a world where like video games were far more welcoming because I could do them at my own pace and and there wasn't a sort of pressure. And I understand that in team sports there has to be a certain amount of pressure and you can't do them at your own pace, but that also makes it ripe for uh elements that don't work for

everybody. And it it's really complicated. Um but it's an interesting point. Um I think it's I think in in the future for for getting young and side note, this is my last sort of rant on this, but I find it incredibly interesting. There is a difference between let's say getting kids into football and getting kids into the NFL, not into it like but like engaging with the NFL.
Um there's some crossover, but we should remember that at the at the core, no matter what group of the whether it's the Olympics, whether it's uh the NBA, the Major League Baseball, the NFL, uh the uh uh soccer, the whatever what's the soccer group? I don't remember. I don't I don't know this.
We We went over at the beginning of the show how I'm bioluminescently pale it could be compared to the vampire.
My point is that we I think it's very important to differentiate the game that you can play and love and the organization that is the corporate spearhead of making money off that game.

Yes. Which is why I think that the best game for the best sport for everyone to play is ultimate frisbee. I think I frisb is great.
Genuine. It's It's a lot of fun. It's no contact and there isn't a giant governing organization trying to make a ton of money off it. Boom. Problem solved. Play pickup ultimate frisbee with your friends in the park. Do it. You won't cower.
Play disc golf. Disc golf is dope. Um, play dodgeball,
but don't train the way patches would train you. It's not
You get brain injury that way.
Yeah.
Okay. Anyway, this is a this is a fascinating story and actually I'm glad I really like the sort of turns we went with it because we we are not a sports show but intrinsically sports are games. Yes.
Like it's just played differently.
Yep. Cool. All right, everybody maybe put on your taken off caps. I don't know.
Amazon games

is going to be no more. Is no more is in the process of vanishing like
no more. Yeah. Like it's in the process of not feeling so good, Mr. Stark.
Yeah.
Um,
which has some broad impacts, but is kind of I'm not surprised. Okay. So, first off, Matt, are you surprised that Amazon Games is folding?
No.
I don't think anyone is surprised that at some point in the nearish future, Amazon Games would fold, right? They did not put out a lot of um games that a lot of people would consider top tier. They're probably um they're probably their best one is the new world. I just noticed that you changed it to say old world. Good job. Um
uh and they by their own admission did not understand the assignment. There's been some LinkedIn posts. I don't know if you've seen these floating around where they're like, "Yeah, we wanted to take on Steam. We thought we would win by being bigger."
My brother and Gabin, that's not how that works.

Exactly. But here's this is the and we have so many facets to talk about with the story. I'm very excited to sort of dive into it uh in the next 25 minutes. I just realized how long we're going.
That's why I'm moving this forward.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But the um the essentially the cool like okay in business normally that works
like like so I don't I don't even fault them for being close-minded into thinking that that's the case. Oh, there's a bespoke online place where people buy stuff. Well, we're the biggest place where people buy stuff online, so surely we can just throw money and time at the problem and and it will go away. And uh I I'm sure it wasn't that simple, but probably from the top top top top level it was. So, and to sort of dive into this pool and not understand, you know, it's it's the classic sci-fi trope of like, oh, there's there's a species we got to clear off this planet. Oh, they're they they don't understand what's going on, but it's Avatar, [laughter]
right? Um, so like I

and and let's let's swing something around. And this is not going uh believe me, this is not a like a positivity thing here, but Amazon games did provide a lot of space for jobs in this space. Um whether or not those people were being used efficiently or fairly or in contracts that were clear, I have no idea.
Um but it is sad because now I think they're going to be uh let's see.
Is this is Amazon is a total dropping 14,000 people or is this just their games division? I'm trying to find the actual numbers. I think they're in total dropping 14,000 and part of that is the entire games division because it's not just um the uh it's not just New World and continued development on New World that's going um over uh under they're also cutting the

um Lord of the Rings MMO that they were working on. Um and they're also I believe there was a Tomb Raider
Yes.
Yeah. that uh that there was a Tomb Raider game that they were
Yeah.
Um I I never played New World. Um I on a personal level I didn't like the sort of um the aesthetic of it.
Yep.
Uh I do understand that a lot of people liked the game and it played well and people enjoyed it for the an MMO experience.
Yeah. Um, and that's always sad. And again, right now it's not gone. Uh, they basically said, and they're still saying, I think you can still spend money on it, but they're being clear like it it's going to be sunset.
Yeah, it's sunsetting in 2026. There will be no future major content updates. And they actually uh I don't know if I put this in the show notes. Did I Did I remember put this in the show notes?

Um, there is a the developers have actually hidden a note. Let me see if I can find this.
Yeah. in the game uh for like because they they had a feeling that the writing was on the wall at some point. Um so that's kind of like a cool
Yeah.
You know,
uh Barry says very short time I worked at New World's never going to compete with the big boys, but could have been niche if Amazon wasn't Amazon. Yeah,
I think there was a space in the world for New World, right?
Sure. Um and a lot of people are saying like all this money could be used towards indie games, etc. And that's very true. I I won't even begin to try to theorize what could make a competitive gaming studio release like a a a thing that wants to both make games and compete with Steam. I I don't know. Uh obviously being huge and throwing money at the problem doesn't do it. There's something like my initial thing is like yeah why

not just like essentially uh be the patron of a bunch of independent games give them funding have them throw like you know produced by whatever Amazon studios but like don't touch them like and then make money that way. It's funny because that seems like a good way to make a decent amount of money, but not all the money. And all these groups that are this big are interested in is making all of the money.
See, but here's the thing. They can't make all the money. Like, that's not on the table. So, I feel like the problem is that they've been so poisoned by the idea that they must make all the money, they don't realize that that's not a that's like a non-starter, right? So, so Will, in reality, I a thousand% agree with you, but you have to think like a corpo.
If they ever admit that they can't do it, the entire house of cards of their entire business model falls apart. No, in their eyes, they can do it. They just

haven't done it yet. I I truly believe this. The second that a a a group of CEOs starts being like, "Oh, man. Maybe we can't do this." and their whole thing is just built on freaking vibes. Like when the vibe shifts, you're toast. Now, that's not flipping this. Steam is not that. Steam is built on actual and again, Steam has problems. Do I'm not just being like, "Oh, hell Steam." And and just because a a service right now is run by people who I think is is doing a good job does not mean that service one day will be not be run by people I do not think is doing a good job. But it's bad to just have one bastion of hope. Um, they are a company. They are not the Rebel Alliance.
Right. Yeah. Correct.
The But like Steam worked and did a thing and became niche and became a juggernaut in its space because it started in that space and it understood that space and overall it has gotten that space somewhat more correct than

anyone else.
It's earned that. Steam also has made act and because of that they don't collapse when they make active choices not to make all of the money. They make far more than they need and they've sort of capped it. But that's kind of been that's where they're coming from. Whereas something like an Amazon, the only reason it became an Amazon is because it never stopped never stopping.
Do you know what I mean? Like
I agree. So like, yeah, of course this failed.
Yeah. [laughter] Right. Like it was never like success was never on the table here. And some people in chat have correctly pointed out that there's uh this does fit Amazon's general MO of like propping up big projects to lose money um and then writing it as a tax write off and then dumping it when it becomes too unprofitable. Spoilers, a bunch of you are watching this on one of those losses right now. Twitch is one of those projects for Amazon. Twitch has

never been revenue positive. It is absurdly expensive to run the amount of streaming that Twitch runs on the regular.
I'll make a bold statement that I can't back up. Um, the only reason Twitch still exists is because Amazon believes that they can turn it into some sort of cash cow someday.
Yep.
And make all the money and kill YouTube and do a whole bunch of things.
Well, except they keep seeding ground to YouTube.
They do. No. Again, I'm not saying that they can. They believe they can. And the second that they say that they can't,
it starts all collapsing.
Yeah.
Like, and I'm not talking about like the actual company or the monetary value of it, but like
the the the structure of how it operates,
right? It's the it's the don't you think they look tired of the of it all if you're a human, right? Like it's the No, it's the it's the first it's the moment that you admit that the strategy is fallible, right? That it is not

brings up it took Yeah. Sorry. It took almost 10 years for YouTube to make a single drop of profit. Yeah, absolutely. Twitch I wonder I mean they're not they're not on a road to profitability. This is the the the technological miracle that this show is coming to you on Twitch and YouTube of course, but like is and of course Nebula. Hello Nebula. We love you. Thank you so much for subscribing. Uh you're the best. Um the the fact that this show exists and we can be in an animated kitchenette together uh even though we are miles apart and then broadcast this to the entire world essentially on a whim is insane and expensive. And not just for us to do it, but literally anyone with the right amount of bandwidth and hardware. Like
to to handle that is a a herculean feat of technology and finance. And I don't believe that Twitch I believe Twitch believes it can do it,

right? But I don't think
I don't I if we're going back to the game side of things and and Amazon games folding, I feel like Amazon games was something that was also a kindred spirit to the Twitch side of Amazon's business model. And this probably does not bode well for Twitch.
I agree.
Yeah.
I got sad.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, a bit.
So, let's we we've been yammering.
Yeah.
Chat, both Brad and Janet, YouTube and Twitch right now who's live and with us. How do you feel overall about Amazon games closing? And obviously feel free to dunk, but also like I'd love more indepth than the dunks. Like more than FS in chat. I want to know like
did you engage with any product? Do you think it was more positive or negative? Were there positives? Like that sort of

thing?
I I'm going to I'm going to do a a willpowered summary of some of the stuff I've seen in chat. Um I saw a bunch of people saying they could not name a single game besides New World that Amazon was involved in. I'll remind you all that they tried to make a hero shooter that bombed so hard they had to unrelease it.
They did that too. Yeah. Um, yeah, I think uh there's a lot of people who were sort of who enjoyed New World to some extent who are sad about the loss of the potential Lord of the Rings game. I think um yeah, I think there there's a lot of uh general negative sentiment towards like Amazon. Like it's sort of a rip bozo moment, I think, for some people. Um, yeah. Scrapy, now I have the their version of Game Pass for free.
Yeah. Aiden, could you could you uh I'm curious about that.
I I like this one. Choosing an MMO as his flagship. Yes. I think they completely failed to understand the assignment uh on

I think there was a lot of people in that room that probably were excited about World of Warcraft and were thinking about it more about it in its heyday like
Right. But it it is it is another indication of like you have no idea how expensive it is to develop and run an MMO versus any number of other games which would have been a better flagship title.
I think they just didn't want to fight Fortnite.
I think you know what's funny? I don't want to God I don't want to give Netflix props but I'm going to do it. Um how Netflix inserted itself into the film industry is how you do it. you you make all like you fund like two or three initially like either prestige shows that are eventually films and then you start inserting yourself into the establishment. So for instance, Netflix owns the Paris theater in Manhattan. It is a one it's an older um very nice one uh screen movie theater um right by the edge of the park right by Central Park. And uh they bought that specifically so

they could essentially put uh movies that they produced from well-known filmmakers in it so it had a theatrical run so it could be considered for the Oscars. They did that so that they could get through the Oscars rule set to have Netflix films be nominated. I went and just saw uh GMO del Toro's Frankenstein which is phenomenal there. It comes out on Netflix I think on the 7th or the 11th. Please check that out. It is it is awesome. Uh slightly different than the book as well. I don't agree with everything that they did, but it is by far one of the best Gamma Del Toro films ever,
which is a lot.
Yeah. But what Netflix did was found the rule set, figured out what they were good at, throwing money at it and finding loopholes and getting in there. And now they are, even though like don't get me wrong, this also comes with a ton of bloat. See Electric State. I mean, don't see it. That movie is awful. But like but you can look at the spend on electric state and see why everything is wrong there.
But like they're still able to ins

they're still able to do things like Roma. They're still able uh you know to do glass onion. They're still you know like this is all because they played the game correctly. Amazon again, they should have not done an MMO. Really focused on a large scale, maybe single player or light multiplayer flagship title that they could throw money at, but that was sort of simple enough to like get through the door in a way and not maintain forever. You what you want is what is essentially like a double A darling to get you through that door, to get talk at the game awards, to get talk at all of these things, breakfast talk shows. Um and then you can move on and do the different things.
Yeah.
Um but they didn't do that. They went with an MMO which is not only an intrinsically difficult property to make and maintain and
for all intents and purposes they kind of did it. The problem is they didn't come into, you know, they didn't think about how the MMO space is probably a

lot different than when the people who green lit this might have played MMOs.
Yeah. I I think that that's that's fair.
I'm looking forward to going through and I'm sorry I ranted again. I'm looking forward to going through these comments later. Uh yeah, thank you everybody for typing in. You all you all went hard and I appreciate that.
Yeah, but overall I think we're going to see um a lot of devs looking for work and I think that that's that's the other one. I think that's that's another common sentiment that Chad's expressing is, man, it sucks for all the people who thought that that by working for a really big company with a lot of money, they would have some kind of job security to build the kinds of things that they got into the industry to make and then Amazon rugpulled them. And that turbo sucks. Like
I want to Yeah, I agree with that. And actually that reminds me of something. Um, [clears throat] I've been playing the Mortal Kombat Legacy Collection. And by playing, I also mean just watching the documentaries of how Mortal Kombat was made back in 1992 on that thing. Very in-depth, very good. But something

that I really enjoyed was Ed Boon, John Tobias, and two other guys essentially were working at Bali Midway, and they were working on Smash TV and a couple other games, etc. And then they just decided because they were passionate about it that they wanted to make a fighting game kind of like Street Fighter but using the the screen capture technology that they were using in these other games. And the corporate culture there was literally and again it's smaller. This is why smaller works. And again the '9s is a different time but but these was a small group of people that were passionate about something and a company gave them enough money to play and they also got out of the way. Like in a lot of these interviews, they're saying they popped in and were like, "How you guys doing? You good? Great. Okay, bye." Because it wasn't like their major thing. Amazon could have done that with a game studio. Games could not have been their major thing. They could have, if they ever had the mentality to do this, not just throw infinite money at the problem. They could have hired a bunch of indie folks to do things or or or smaller companies, etc., and just sort of like checked in on them and

became patrons of them. And you could have had multiple pro like you'd be diversifying what would hit cuz could you imagine if they did I don't know 200 separate projects that they just fund and like they vet it and they do whatever easily five of those would probably be something that would would break containment and then you have five things that Amazon made air quotes that is in their roster and you could sort of like catapult up. No, they had to do the big dumb thing as not as fast as they could, but like the thing that [laughter] back in 2010 might have made all the money.
Yeah.
You know, anyway, sorry.
No, you're good. You're good. Uh, so that's that's the end of Amazon. Um, FS in chat.
That's the end of Amazon, everybody. [laughter]
And Amazon gaming. Anyway, yeah. Um, FS in chat were appropriate. I'm sorry to the people who are gonna I I think the other group of people that I feel really bad for is the people who are big on New World because I don't think I've ever seen sadder videos than people in the

last moments of their MMO existing.
Yeah.
Like those are heartbreaking to me, right? Like 14 will keep going as long as Square Enix exists because 11 is still going. So, like I'm I'm I'm feeling a little insulated from like that possibility, but like the empathy that I have for those people who have put so much time and energy into the world and the friendships and the standing and the everything and to just have it all is kind of sad, right? So, that's the other group that I I really feel bad for.
Yeah.
Uh all right,
let's do this quick last.
I was gonna say our last story real quick because Matt has a heart out is about Minecraft. Minecraft. Um the uh good news everyone is that Minecraft has announced that they will be removing all obfuscation in the Java edition. So what that means is that previously the code in Java was obfuscated to prevent reverse engineering and people did it

anyway because mods. Um and Moyang was like hey we realize now this is kind of silly so we're going to undo it. And they're not undoing it all at once because that would mean that all the current mods stop working. So what they're doing is they're going to run parallel branches, one with obfuscated code and one with nonobuscated code through the next snapshot series and then the first snapshot after the next update will be the first one that is all unobfusated code.
Um, which I think is really good. They're they say explicitly that they're going to um uh make it clearer and easier and um quicker to make and improve mods for Java, which is very interesting because if we if we cast our minds back to when Microsoft bought Y Moyang, they wanted to kill the Java branch and they didn't largely because there's no point because

the modding community would just keep updating it. Um,
I think Minecraft in general, and and this is from a from a a company perspective, not the game perspective, but it is all tied together.
Um, is a an incredible example of a large company coming and buying something and not getting their grubby little hands all over it so much that it poisons the well that they bought.
They had some problem. They did have some growing pains.
It was not instant.
Yeah.
I'm saying like it's still here.
Yes. and it's still popular and they're doing things like this because they realize that there are paths forward to making as much money as possible and also doing things that people like.
Yep. Uh two quick uh responses. Uh one uh in other words, we no longer want to waste time and money trying to prevent it. So community, you win. Here you go. Yes, that's true.
Two things can be true at once.
Yeah, absolutely. And the other one, uh I wanted to answer this. Uh Neo asked,

does this mean there going to be a bunch of Minecraft knockoffs in the next year or two? No, because there's no point because Minecraft has Minecraft is not technically sophisticated. Minecraft is ubiquitous.
Yeah,
right. Minecraft, a reminder, Minecraft runs in Java.
Minecraft is not a very like the Java edition runs in Java. It is not a technically sophisticated game by most current standards. The mods are, but the core game is essentially just a glorified mod loader and mod platform at this point. Um, people can and have tried to release voxilbased survival games. That doesn't matter. Everyone has Minecraft, so why? There's no market for a knockoff, right? In my opinion. Yeah. Um, so yeah,
I'm I'm just super excited. I'm super excited about this. Uh, and that, dear friends, will bring us to the end of our stories for today. Matt, did you manage to get all your coffee cleaned up?
Uh, we're going to take some keys out later and figure it out.

I hope you've got a key puller.
I do.
Excellent. Those are very useful. Um
well, listen everybody, thank you so much for joining us for Games for Breakfast this morning. Um it's been a lovely show. We went a lot longer on a lot of stories than I thought we would, which is always fun, which means we were engaged with it, which is great. Um Will, you're going to continue playing something right now on Twitch. Yes.
Yes, I will be here live on Twitch playing Tactics, Final Fantasy Tactics here in a little bit.
Nice. Well, I guess the only thing that's left to do is end our show in our traditional way that again is the same every time we end the show. We do this to foster a sense of community and make sure that everyone can also join in and saying goodbye to everyone and kicking us off into our week starting a great way. You all know the drill. So, please everybody raise your coffee cups and say thank you for joining us for games for breakfast and then just pour it on the keyboard. Just pour it on the Yeah. Oh, that's not going to come out.