Roundtable News | Acquistions & VR Failures | Episode 293

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increasing your revenue by learning from your competitors they just release a free guide on that actually so head over to appfigures.com app f i g u r e s dot com forward slash on o n forward slash gain dev unchained to try app figures for free if you like it then use our special code gdu 3030 to get 30 off for the next three months [Music] what's up everybody welcome to another episode of game dev unchained the number one game development podcast about game development and the lifestyle thereof i am your host brandon pham back at it again with the new episode of this year and kicking it off uh right with the one and only ray graham how you doing ray hey what's up man how you doing i'm doing good it's been a while

it's been it's been a minute it's been a minute yeah so uh you know it's a little later than usual where we want to post our first episode but uh as everyone are catching up to at least my latest status and everything uh just kind of been taking a break and um up to this point we've been doing a lot of recap episodes so uh this is a round table news episode [Music] and for those who are new to listeners or followers of old uh you know what this is about where we as game developers look at the news and how it affects us and again these are opinions of our own and not of our employers so please don't try to get us fired uh to kind of kick things off you ain't got a job man who's you i know right you just be complaining to me and i'll be kind of uh striking it down saying that i'm okay

but the the main thing is uh you know it's been about two months where i kind of took a step away from the mic and uh re regrouped basically and uh since then dude this has been the craziest period of studio acquisitions that i ever seen uh let's start it off with activision man uh 68 billion dollar purchase um also recently sony buying bungie for about 3.5 billion dollars and then there was another acquisition in the meantime too microsoft by activision but they also bought something else shortly after i i'm kind of forgetting there was at least three major acquisitions this past month well regardless why i looked that up it was take two it was take two and single take two and zynga there we go yeah zinga's stocks went up when no one thought that it would ever

do that so to kick us off right what do you make of all this right i have a theory but let's hear yours you being the guest of course i i was just talking about this the other day and i think it's really just the consolidation right it's just consult like the continuing of the trend of smaller companies getting eaten by the bigger fish right and then another bigger fish goes along and eats the bigger fish right because games are getting more expensive to make you need more talent you need more iep you need to contribute you want to make a platform where you can control that stuff so you just gotta amass the warchest of ip at least that's my that's my opinion well i mean microsoft is definitely batting a lot harder i mean this past year you know they uh they acquired a lot of studios um uh what was it the uh

oblivion right uh and then they they took care of the uh the ninja ninja studio what was it called the heavenly sword ninja theory ninja theory so they've been on a slow grind uh basically acquiring as much as they can on this war path and you know we talked about this a few times last year where game pass is kind of like their future they're slowly taking a step away from the console hardware business right so it makes a lot of sense that to make a streaming platform you need ip and a lot of it to make a monthly service worth it right uh and sony uh i don't know if this was out of left field i'm surprised that bungie having that long relationship with microsoft that and literally being next door to microsoft

right with the halo franchise that sony was the one to soup them up i mean was this a big surprise to you no well it wasn't a surprise that i wasn't microsoft right because remember they were owned by microsoft and they paid microsoft to go away and get their independence right like they did that for a reason right and and then they went into a publishing deal with activision that expired in 2019 i think i heard um and so now it's like okay and they last year they made their intentions though they wanted to grow and have multiple ips that they're working on and grow the studio they're building that built a bra you know brand new office i think it might be finished already or it was still in progress um so they expanded their office space like immensely right so um so they wanted to hire up and have multiple projects going so you know all of this costs money man you know and in these uncertain times having having somebody who can back you

up financially is like super beneficial for them you know what i mean yeah i mean it's definitely for a bunch of i think it made a lot of sense and maybe where a lot of these studios are for sale for probably the same reason right it is getting i mean we're past the point of a console generation transition right we're a year out and those are always tough uh because there's a lot of mystery there to for any studio to kind of get up to speed and see what the business is about it's cold out here in the streets you know i mean no seriously it's like it's it's like what you're competing against the games are just getting bigger and more impressive um like it just takes more energy more effort to make games that like at the scale that these folks want to be making these games at and and it's just getting more costly and it's more risky and so having a little bit better

backing makes it less risky you know what i mean um i think activision is not the activision case is not exactly that right because activision had had has money and been making those games but i think their recent scandals and the the price drop made them an attractive target for microsoft to to kind of scoop them up to to leave to alleviate them of some of their woes you know what i mean um but but in terms of budgies definitely like it's just that added security and you know it's it's an arms race of of triple a games out here right and so folks folks need to be able to get that backing so that they could get better marketing so that they could reach more people um and and then in turn make more money right yeah i mean uh for for for for bungie like i said you know destiny wasn't that big of a hit i mean it did okay but it definitely died down pretty fast but uh

and they kind of got out of the activation thing the same way they left microsoft and since then we haven't heard too much about bungie they obviously are probably working on new ips keeping the destiny alive as much as possible but during the pandemic you know no one really talked about destiny uh it wasn't in the the newsreel uh as much as probably what they have hoped uh i think if anything it maintained uh uh hardcore followers right yeah yeah i think like destiny has our dusty two at this point right has like their followers and people are playing the pvp and and that's going right like was it a runaway success like they were that people were expecting probably not but i don't think it also was like a complete flop for them either right so um so it's interesting yeah i mean

still though like i'm very surprised um i'm very surprised at these prices right like you can arguably talk about activision being worth that much right they have a call of duty mega billionaire every year they have candy crush uh and a bunch of other ips uh with warzone especially exploding the past couple years so it it i mean 68 billion is still ridiculous but like i think if someone really sat down to try to do the math that they can find the breadcrumbs of why it's worth that much but bungie right bungie no like i i think all these prices are just the price the price is what somebody's willing to pay for it that's what the price is right and if if you're going and buying activision blizzard for 68 billion dollars and then playstation comes knocking on bunji's door but she's not going to be like oh we'll take a couple hundred million right like

i mean like i think i think 3.6 in the relative scale uh makes sense in that case you know what i mean right does it though but man in that relative scale that we're talking about right 3.6 billion is what like my math is telling me 20 times let's just call it 20 times uh less than then uh you know then um that division price tag is bungee we're talking about relative right you know i look at acquisitions not just in the game industry but like look at the movie industry right disney buying uh let's say lucasarts right star wars was only four billion dollars and here's the thing that people won one i think does the got a way of murder for getting star wars for four billion dollars right but um but like in the grand scheme of things the prices that people are paying are not about what is here and now

they're paying this money for investments in the future right the same thing with like facebook buying oculus right like that price tag everybody was like that price tag is ridiculous it'll never make that back and they probably still haven't made that money back right but it's it's a bet on what future they can do with it right um not not just the now right and like i said like when it comes to the stuff the price is whoever's willing whatever you're willing to pay right that's the price that's what it's worth right it's really hard to to put uh well i really undervalued bungie that's because right now you know it's not like they have halo right they already sold halo franchise they only have destiny i mean but destiny isn't that mega of a hit well it's only 8.6 billion man those well yeah three points somebody said this and i thought it was interesting um like playstation has like single-player experiences on lock right um they have a lot of games in our camp

that are really good and have that unlocked but there isn't much in terms of really good multiplayer experience or even games as a service in their camp right so now if you like hey we could ready by a developer who has experience in this realm and this could propel us into this area and and potentially money the money that that also brings in for them right so so then like maybe 3.6 billion isn't that crazy you know if you think about it like that right oh their new ip better be bomb man and they're going to be destiny 3. that's what that's what all i got to say i mean the only thing that destiny had going for is that it was able to fight off anthem but i don't even give him credit for that because anthem kind of just shot itself and it's on it's you know in his

foot everything just kind of try to bite their style though too but um but no like when they made their announcement that they're expanding and and wanted more ips it's something like four or four different games they're they're they're thinking about working on right so so i'm pretty sure they have those same kind of ambitions right all right so what's the play here so sony obviously is in uh in a better position to uh kind of sit back and uh and be very picky right they have internal ips that are just as big they are growing their their uh game to movies branding right uncharted is coming out very soon last of us have a hbo series already signed off and these two games probably will make kick ass uh video and tv adaptation right yeah so no doubt about that um and it's definitely a bridge for all

their other ips to kind of make that jump either through animation or whatever right uh i am surprised by this bungie acquisition but you know we're the public so we're obviously didn't see what the next five ten years that bungie has up its sleeve so obviously whatever they had uh justified 3.6 billion somehow right he's like somehow okay but so like i'm trying to see what's left for sony to scoop up i mean like it's getting to the point where take two and ea at some point can be sold to these two major studios i mean what is this what else is left as a third party ex um would be ubisoft okay well ubisoft people people said ubisoft is a harder one because it's still their ip is pretty fast yeah no it's not that but it the they're mostly owned by the the brothers right

the the game the brothers right so like convincing them to sell you have to like convince those dudes oh pretty much right and it's like a family business that they started and the chances of them do that is probably pretty low maybe potentially or or you know i think everybody has a price but we'll see right well ubisoft is kind of going through you know at some point you know one of the focus for this year has been um and we'll save it for another round too because it's a whole thing itself where uh the great regs resignation right it's a thing i don't want to talk about it because it's the whole thing but i would like to comment because it is pertaining to ubisoft ubisoft is at least what i've heard is going through one of the toughest exodus right now i've been people are leaving in in and they've been losing people for the last five years in the past year yeah and it's gotten worse right but it's gone way worse yeah

but they've but they've definitely been losing people for like a long time now and and uh of course said all the allegations that everything has made it worse and then also like quite frankly like sledgehammer opening office in in toronto has not helped ubisoft toronto at all yeah uh right so so i mean like yeah there's been some there's been some movements that have caused causes to accelerate for sure yeah yeah well what i'm trying to insinuate is that you know activision was going through a similar and is going through a similar thing a lot of people are leaving a lot of allegations a lot of lawsuits piling up and uh they see it as something that wouldn't be resolved in the next couple years and that basically microsoft gave him a lifeline right it was coming at a perfect time at a great price so i can see ubisoft's going through a similar thing because what they're going through is very similar and in some cases probably a little

worse uh because you canadians are pretty bad and then uh so they might be leading up to to to at least talks i think at this stage right a lot of it you never know you never know what's happening behind closed doors but like it would make sense for somebody to be like hey guys let's take this off your hands right um because yeah the ip like ubisoft has like some sort of good ip right and like and i think like with microsoft like game pass is just you know it's all you can eat video games right and so it's just insatiable black hole of content and like you just need more content coming in there and and if if it's not content that you control um i don't think it's sustainable to be paying all these people to to get onto game best you know what i mean yeah um so so it just makes more sense to have

you know internal content i think it's the same thing like kind of with like netflix right netflix started making their own movies because they're just like at this point we just can't keep paying all these people for their content we have to make our own right so that you know that's that's kind of how i how i i see it i'm sure microsoft's looking for more content and and i think it's it's so insatiable that it's it's there's always going to be an opportunity for some some uh bigger like mid-size or large publisher to get snatched up by them because they also have a ton of money just sitting around as well [Music] well speaking of tons of money right um january 85.4 billion dollars in these acquisitions right uh the three major acquisitions that we talked about uh zynga kind of kicking things off microsoft i mean that division one kind of just takes up most of that right the other ones are kind of small comparison but i mean look at this like zynga 12.7

billion these are exorbitantly like zynga i thought was dead right i thought it was on its way out [Music] here's another thing about this on this topic that i thought was interesting um and i don't and i didn't see a lot of people like people kind of mentioned it right um microsoft by active vision blizzard um king comes along for that ride right so that's that's uh that's a really big mobile company mobile video gaming company right zynga is known for their mobile their mobile games right and i think it's it's fair to say that microsoft and take two haven't really been dominating that space at all right yeah for years and and there's money to be made like a lot of it in that space right so it's like those acquisitions also like that those big price tags like that um like if you just think about mobile alone you know like it could easily make up

for that you know over over over years yeah mobile i think is obviously a safer bet than i think buying someone like bungie who is yeah like kind of like a uh a lull period um in between triple a to quadruple a or whatever right uh there's a lot of things they have to figure out so but i guess yeah i mean zynga is a branded name they have a valuable ips where they were stuck in the trenches for a little while but dug their cells out of it right like i was one to discount them and they were you know as a business was able to kind of thrive through all that horribleness and still remain relevant so there's definitely something to to kind of marvel and and kind of pay attention to for anybody that's wanting to study like

these type of companies turning [ __ ] around um i do want to highlight you know the the big three deals that happen in january everyone kind of knows about the but there are other like smaller deals that kind of make january very special at least a unique uh situation that hasn't happened for a while right a lot of these studios i don't know about maybe you do still front acquiring mobile publishers six ways for 201 million i'm just going to read these off team 17 spent 100 million dollars on any publisher of the label and the hell let loose ip and further 86 million dollars on developer astronaut at that point where we just need to create our own ip's bro huh yeah i i know team 17 for sure you know okay but yeah like i think that's that's the other thing people you know i think i think a lot of folks are seeing all this stuff and they're like yeah man let me just make an ip that somebody wants and then like let me just sell that you know what i mean

and it is i mean what is it right now what is your take right now that that that's causing uh this wave of acquisition like what what is what's the deal right now where everyone's just snatching everybody up i don't know economy cheap money so like are these companies in trouble more so than it was before the pandemic is that is that why this period is special or i don't know i don't know if it's special or it's just a confluence of like a lot of coincidences happening all in the one in the one month but i mean there's there's there's probably some element to all those things playing a part right like you know economy very cheap money uh interest rate interest rates might go up so yeah maybe it's time to time to start you know investing some of that money in and other and other things and other ventures right now than just having it sit do nothing

um this is also around the end of fiscal years for some folks like fiscal year ends in february march time frame for some folks so like let's get some acquisitions in before that like i you know like there's all sorts of all sorts of reasoning around that probably um i know i ain't no businessman so you know i i can't really tell you exactly but um so it's all the money i have i have a overarching theory right so i mean it's not to me it's not a coincidence that the past couple months the metaverse kind of is the hot topic right and to make the metaverse successful a lot of it needs successful ips to power it otherwise who's gonna visit your metaverse with no branding right so everyone to me feels like is just prepping for this ready player one internet 2.0

there seems to be a driving for a common driving force like even sony right he i feel like sony reluctantly bought bungie only to keep it out of microsoft's hands right to me somebody else said somebody else said this somebody today all right so it's a good theory no i think it's just a little bit too much tinfoil hat conspiracy theory oh this means this that means this kind of thing and it's all connected man and i think most of it is i think really okay we say metaverse and all that and i'm just like yeah whatever i think what it is and i think it's clear and it's been clear for a while and microsoft has been kind of at the forefront of it right um it's about the software it's about ip it's about having a platform right and having a stable of different things that you can offer people of various tastes right

and and so sony is like we're pretty good like we don't need to be snatching up everybody and then they're like but wait we we don't really do multiplayer very well okay let's snatch up somebody for a good price that does multiplayer you know um and and and they're like okay yeah the bungee thing seems like a good price i don't think they're doing that strictly haha microsoft you can't have bungie but he wasn't going to get bought by myself no way that was never going to happen right you know what i mean you're telling me if sony was in the picture that microsoft absolutely they actively gave microsoft money to buy to get rid of microsoft out of bungee years bro they're they're they're very reasonable you know what bungie was like you know what bungie is like to me at this point right they thought they were the hot chick right and then they got tossed out by activision right i mean they got first first at first first the breakup happened with microsoft all right and they went on to do this thing and then it didn't work out with the activision

again i think out of these two major publishers right kind of cutting ties with them uh mutually at least mutually it's not like it's not like bungie forcibly got out of their microsoft contract no no no no no no no it was a two way street microsoft no microsoft would have gladly had bungie making halo until the end of time yeah sure and bungie's like no i want to do other things we want to do other things on microsoft's like i know about that right because this is where the money's at well they have the hot chick syndrome right that's what i'm saying you're supporting right there no that's actually wanting to make different experiences sure and they made destiny and it was hot for a second but it wasn't as hot as halo right and they're living in their shadows and they're sitting there with activision you know that original deal was a three-game deal right it was a 10-year

what do you think and it was got caught off in like five to six years what it really showed me was like they just don't want to be owned and controlled by anybody and so that's [Music] yeah oh no and then you see it obviously with the zombie deal where they're like and of course like this could all change of course right but like their promise we phone he's like we won't interfere independently operated you still do your thing we just publish your stuff right like actually not even that like they still they still retain the rights the publisher stuff too right so he's just like we'll just back you right you know what i mean so yeah like like it's clear they don't want to be owned by anybody they want independence but they but independence comes at a price you know what i mean and and with sony backing you independence is a lot better you know what i mean right and and so it's clear from the deal and from the terms of the

deal that like they just don't want to be owned by nobody and they don't want anybody controlling their ip telling them what to do right they learned that from microsoft microsoft took the halo i like that took it but like bought it bought it right right yeah right but um but like they learned from that they're like no we we don't want to do that again right um like that's that's how at least i interpret all the different moves that are going out there now sony owns destiny no they don't because they still bungee still retains all their ip and they have complete control wait how does this work they bought the studio i mean they didn't buy the term you don't know the terms they didn't buy an empty they didn't buy a campus i mean they bought bungie because of their ip that's what it was 3.6 billion of course they're getting they're gonna get a cut of of things out of this right but but literally bungie retains control of the ip sure if you go to

in-n-out like uh franchise uh owner right that person will probably say yeah i own this in and out in and out has nothing to do with uh the branding and they get a ten percent that that's ownership man it's like internet owns you you're a franchise owner my jesus skill this all can change right but like after the deal closes bungie will be an independent subsidiary right sure will remain a multi-platform studio so they're gonna still make multiple games with the option to self-publish and reach players wherever they choose to play yeah right yeah yeah so like like of course of course this could all change like like down the line next you know it's only any suits or yeah the same way a 10-year deal became a five-year deal with activision right things change yeah but i'm just telling you what the terms are today and and it's definitely way more in line with with what bungie wants than say the

deal that they had with microsoft or with activision previously yeah it's in it's near it's sony's betting ons on them i mean it'd be great if they make like a an another halo branded mega hit right sony will be happy with that but for sure they have a line there where when you don't make a halo clone of some sort right we will come over and take over and we're going to use whatever resources you have to do what we think is best right they have one more chance in my opinion to kind of shape things up and do what they can as a studio and prove themselves again i mean it's a sensitive time like it's so hard right to be a studio that had a mega hit try to do it with destiny didn't quite get there uh you're there's only so much uh self-validation you can go through before you just look at the clock

all right these owners are old as [ __ ] now right and they're like hey i'm going to retire none of them are none of those dudes struggling for money right no but like like right now right now their whole goal with that studio has been fulfilled right they've sold to sony for 3.6 billion dollars what ambitions left are there to try to recreate a halo you know you could have you could have just been like from the money that i don't know how many of them are still around from when they initially got bought by microsoft right but from that though you get it disbounced or or from the activision deal you could have just bounced right yeah i don't think it's a they didn't bounce because they wanted they still had that grit man they still had that i need to prove to the world that ego the ego can take them very far right right and look at this clearly yeah clearly it worked it worked to a certain

degree because it's they sold it for 3.6 billion dollars no no but i think it's i think for scratch i think it's more clear that they want the company bungie to become like a a big multimedia entertainment thing right they wanted it and with sony support right their ips can get more reach like you say with the film stuff film tv adaptation and anime true multimedia company you know i mean and not just making some video games i'll wait in the sidelines and see right bungie at a point where i've never been a halo supporter but i at least uh recognize that it is a successful ip for for its own reason right so there's respect to that i think destiny started as something interesting right and maybe part of the reasoning of why it failed was because the activision tampering too

much of their business model and it just turned a lot of people off maybe or the game just wasn't that interesting really right honestly we're sitting here honestly we're sitting here and talking about how destiny kind of flopped the first one flopped the second one didn't bat it don't care yeah like yeah kinda did okay and we're comparing it to like to like halo right which is like i think any game godsend yeah like any game that would that would end up being as big as halo like nobody nobody can predict that or know that that's what it's going to be right and so now forever you have a bunch of yahoos on like some sort of youtube podcast thing talking about how oh you're your other game that made millions of dollars right it's not as successful as this other like one that's like the top two percent of video games ever made right like i like i think like it's really hard to make that

comparison you know what i mean um hard for you i'll make the comparison i think bungie is washed up right and i think whatever they put out from this point forward you're straight tripping you're straight triggering there yeah i i don't think they're gonna recreate that magic they're gonna take a while i think this past two years they had the opportunity to kind of take destiny to wherever they wanted but i the ship has sailed uh i think they're saying destiny to 52 um what's this is making an estimated 200 million dollars for revenue last year yeah let's say or overall let's say last year i i don't know i really doubt that's last year bro dude look at our look at our circles right i'm looking at my kid i'm talking to you i'm talking to my friends that play games no dude the destiny franchise hold on the destiny the dusty franchise is the most popular series of gaming

today since 2014 pulling in more than 167 million players who have played more than 8.6 billion hours right in the first two years maybe right right like it's a those numbers are front loaded right they but also no way they're concurring players they're pretty good right now also those numbers are way less than some of the biggest games out there right and so because it's not as big as fortnight and warzone the games we talk about all the damn time it's like it must be a [ __ ] failure but like those are some big ass numbers know for it for especially when you consider like bungie the studio is a couple hundred people a couple no they're not they're 900 people are they 900 people these days that's the last one i read yeah there's a nine that's crazy yeah that's why they bought like a freak bro this is my theory right

and it's probably truth uh probably they this is exactly their timeline right their head was huge right halo was a hit and their sequel became hit they sold their baby right because they felt like hey we can do this again destiny happened it wasn't as big as they wanted right they started blaming activision for its troubles they divorced from activision activision was the same with microsoft glad to walk away from that deal right they were just cutting their losses at that point and for the last two three years of them handling destiny their own way very little impact right it's like oh maybe we don't know everything that we need to know in this changing landscape of videos i'm glad i'm glad you're never going to apply for a job with budgie because you're talking crazy right now you're done bro so they're at a point where yeah their their for sale sign is was for everybody

and sony picked them up right because sony's probably saw business opportunities there beyond just destiny right and it isn't a new ip all right it isn't like this golden uh uh goose egg that they got brewing in their studio right i mean you know it's a studio with 900 people they built a state-of-the-art office that was basically empty for the last two years right still paying that rent dude in 2015 destiny revenue hit 500 million dollars yeah like and active vision took like 75 of that right so i mean if we're talking about since activision that number is not the same man like out here tripping like straight up bro who who who was the last person you talked to that was just saying hey i just played a round of destiny too right dude that's well that's what i'm just gonna try to tell you right who using that as your as your empirical it's a great measure it's a great

measuring stick actually because if you ask me i have a 11 year old that never heard of destiny i have a 30 year old friend that used to play destiny but don't play anymore if you if you ask me fortnite warzone destiny have you played any of those in the last in the last six months dancing i played fortnite yes i have i have i'm saying i'm saying me right because so it depends on who you like that's sort of but you know friends that have been playing fortnite you know friends that have been playing oh i just i know a bunch of kids they've been playing for right okay but that still counts and you know but your friends playing worse war zones yeah for sure safe but not saying nobody but who is as big as fortnite awards on that bro i'm telling you out of all your friends who's playing destiny right now not even one i'm not i'm not saying that that is not true what i'm saying is using that as a measure of saying it's a great well money used to be made i'm just

saying it's considerably less now and that's why they sold out to sony man a lot of these acquisitions a lot of these acquisitions man if they really thought they were worth more they would have held out no man the reason why they're i already we already said this off the off the rip why they why they sold right yeah it's cold out here man yeah it's more risky to make these things you want to scale up and make even more ip you're making now i want to hire people you want to do all these things you need the financial backing you cannot do this alone right at the scale that they want to do it at yeah right it's it's like you cannot right and so and that's really more saying washed up their games suck they need they they're about to close down they need to sell but yeah you're tripping all right let's just end it here because there's other acquisitions i want to talk about that are like to me to put it lightly worth more to talk about right uh

so where do you see this right you really think the next let's give them the benefit of the doubt next three five years they're going to have a either destiny 3 most likely and a new ip announced that justifies this acquisition being 3.6 billion is that what you're saying that there is something on the horizon here that i i i know bungie is cooking i know nothing all i know last year this is all speculation they posted they posted something saying hey we got we got more ips brewing and we want to grow and expand and all of this right like that's all i know and so like yeah you know i i would imagine that you know sony looks like that and goes what can we do like they're like what can this how can this help us you know uh i think there's a next player that's where sony's kind of weak right now well they're gonna get a little weaker because my next i think their next installment or

whatever it is is gonna it's gonna be even harder to recapture just forget halo flame the destiny flame right i think they're gonna i i just don't think they're relevant always you can't it's always hard it's hard to do that it's it's hard to make halo it's hard to make yeah but i'm not even comparing to halo like i don't think they're going to be able to match destiny's uh popularity with their next i mean saying that about any game in any game developer i'm saying about bungie because they sold for 3.6 no no no no saying that about any game developer you have a non-zero chance of being correct always right because this [ __ ] is hard bruh right like you don't mean like it's easy to make that prediction yeah i know this is me sitting in our living room knowing that it's hard but somehow sony knowing that it's hard still you know gave out 3.6 billion dollars i right had the same discussion like with somebody months ago yeah because

everyone says this is stupid no no i had a different discussion right but it's it's like what i'm saying is it's always hard it's always going to be difficult to make these things and if i say hey your next thing that come out it's not going to be halo yeah of course because it's lightning in a bottle almost always and so it's easy to say that right but when you have the backing of somebody with money that tips the scale slightly in your favor and makes it it makes it a little bit more likely that you'll end up in a good spot right well let's talk about this on a grinder but it still does not mean lightning in a bottle right but it means you're in a spot where you make positive profit and can continue making video games right well this is why is it because you have the marketing backing you have you have all the stuff that so they can reach more people and you have more success like you know how this works well you know we white we would like to say the marketing people know what they're doing all the time in the game industry but you know

we want to hate like we want to hit on marketing all day and we can't hate on marketing all day but at the end of the day we know that marketing works marketing works sometimes but i will say this right uh these acquisitions to me i'm a lover of the game industry i think if you're a game developer go get paid however you can but you know these these numbers are staggering uh if we were just compared to the disney acquisitions i mean these are disney acquisition there's like a structure there right when you uh acquire a new ip you know disney will put it into its disney machine and make banger bucks right it's almost a guarantee right so those numbers to me with the lucas art stuff with pixar with marvel you know there's a certain guarantee there that i feel the movie industry will see that money back right

uh and much much more and and they proved it with every single one one of those acquisitions right with games it's still such a mystery box like you you've been kind of preaching this whole time and these numbers are s much these acquisitions are ridiculous like it's it makes me feel that we need to creatively be and just be playing dice out there for sale because these numbers don't justify like we can't say bungie stuff is gonna sell as well as pixar you know toy story toys right like there's no connection there no [Music] like okay if if i were to here if i were to sit his activation let's put it this way right whenever i come up to you ray's like hey do you want pixar or do you want bungie for the same price which sold for the same price pixar was four point something billion

dollars that's a that's a different price by the way okay okay i'll take away toy story right and give you the rest for 3.6 billion when you talk about billions right like a difference of one billion is actually a very large difference right okay but even if i take like half the pixar branding franchises right and say i sell it for 3.6 let's just do that right you and everybody else in this world will choose the pixar thing because there's a guarantee there with licensing uh to make your money back no one's going out there to buy destiny dolls right or or backpacks like i think what is going on and i also think you're also applying like your your your new knowledge about that like all the successes since to that deal as well right so you're like that's the smartest deal ever look how cheap they got it for right oh my god right i i think

you know if if the folks that were selling pixar knew like their success would continue like that and and things would still be so great for them although some people say that pixar's gone downhill since disney bought them and et cetera et cetera right but um but they probably would have sold it for more right you know what i mean right but like things are worth what people are willing to pay for them at the time but that's just how it works right and and so it's really i think it's really hard to make those kind of comparisons right um and honestly like like honestly movies are big in terms of like the the market gap and how many punch people watch movies and how much revenue they generate video games generate more revenue than movies sometimes now sometimes like as an industry it does right like as an industry yes yeah it's just a fact right so so then if you're gonna go in and buy video game company should it not be worth more than a movie company then

no i know yeah we know how the sausage is made and a lot of it's lush right this is right no there's no structure but i think it's i think it's luck too in jobs right and films no in films no i think i think business model there's more transparency yeah all injured all entertainment i i feel has some sort of this hit driven industry right and pixar got a hit found like a formula yeah and replicate it and and replicate it very efficiently across many different movies and many different um ips right um and like they have some movies that have not done as well as toy story and they have some that have done better than toy story right and so they're not they're not also they're not 100 knocking it out of the park every single movie they make either you know what i mean but they have an assembly line and they have a process right that they yeah but like

you can pretty much say all their movies are making tons of dough maybe not as successful but i think it's the same thing right the same thing you're just saying oh dusty's blah blah it's not making as much as like halo made right like pixar in the same situation i'm sure they have movies that have made nowhere near as much as toy story we're talking about we're talking about a movie uh that they're pumping out like basically every quarter now right like they have a thing where every six months they have a new picture and then the marvel stuff the marvel stuff is on like it's just on it yeah it's just honest that's what i mean with movies with movies right from a single studio you're you're seeing you're getting to a point where you're seeing two projects in in in marvel there's four projects a year right in pixar i think there's like an average of two projects per year and they set it up that way and they kind of trade hands with the walt disney animation [ __ ] destiny right you're talking about five years of development but my point is my point is like i think

that assembly line in that process some people look at that and say oh that is like oh the quality is not as high as it as it should be just kind of like we're just like just turning this stuff out and like it's really just mindless fluff and i think that matches a lot what people say about video games right that these companies that just make sequel after sequel and have a process of making video games um but ala ubisoft and yeah and and call of duty and all those games right um people say the same thing about them right but they but they found a process for making something repeating it yes the successful studios like activision ubisoft have proven that they have mastered a process that works and that's worth and that's worth money yeah as long as bungie [Music] i don't think they're at that level

right and that's why the price was lower rate i i just gotta i'm a skeptic i mean i just gotta see uh like i understand these other acquisitions even zynga i kind of give them i would i would understand people i would understand people were tripping if if bungie got bought for like 60 billion dollars or something crazy and everybody's like 60 billion it's the same as activision that makes no sense right but like like it's it's it's relatively scaled down i think appropriately for for what for what we're talking about here you know i think bunchy definitely got the better end of that deal is all i'm going to say to conclude it's worth it's worth what people are willing to pay for a breath all right have to have some type of write-off so let's just count that off as one uh i mean you know we can talk about activision a bit but i mean uh

you know aside from the acquisition aside from what's going on over there um i mean we didn't even talk about blizzard as part of that deal right i mean that alone yeah was worth more than like that activision no that division blue stuff like i think it was that even though that number is ridiculous yeah it's most folks most folks were like i can't be mad at that number right because they're like call of duty starcraft diablo sure uh what else we got i can't even like overwatch overwatch they're like king the king by itself like it's just like you know i mean like it's just money money printing machines keep forgetting what else activision makes now besides blizzard stuff it's like it's cod used to be tony hawk used to have guitar hero well still it's still tony hawk they just made a new turning off the other day

yeah but yeah it's not yeah all the guitar hero stuff is done now pretty much like um oh skyler the the toys for bob i know that died so islander the skylander stuff um but this is also this is ip that you know you can you can revive and do things with right um and then they also own a bunch of back catalog stuff people are talking about like a bunch of old games that we used to play back in the day on pc um like let's listen they have a lot of good old activision i think did they don't they have a lot of the interplay games from back in the day or something i can't even remember um but like you know like they have a lot there's a lot of items there right sure so it just makes sense you know what i mean yeah i it's more i think it's more interesting to talk about who's dex right is it ubisoft is it ea i'm surprised no one's buying epic yet is it i'm saying that i'm saying that right now even you guys

uh well maybe we can't talk about it but you the community bought freaking weta right yes uh crazy yeah that was out of left field it's like you guys completely skipped games and just went into virtual production i guess full force um yeah you can't comment on it but at least you know that was i think one of the biggest deal that was to me um [Music] in a sense made sense yeah but i mean even when that deal happened a lot of people are like we're just looking at the price tag going what you know what i mean that was a ridiculous price tag too what was that well i gotta look that up it was in there it was like over five billion right it had bees on it yeah it was crazy but yeah let me find this out for the listeners up there just so uh 1.6 yeah 1.6 billion for a visual effects house

[Music] well you say a visual text house is like one of the best visual text houses in the world but yeah but still yeah yeah i mean it's it's and this happened in november right this is at least announced in november i mean the last three months have been insane with acquisition it's like i've never seen anything like it and uh just to count the last five ten years you know i haven't seen back to back like this i think it's it's all the same thing man it's it's it's cold out here man you try to sell you try to sell stuff to people you need to expand and grow to give them the futures they need and you just need somebody there to back you you could do it yourself it'll be a slower grind or you could get an infusion and partner somebody and get the right i'm going to pull out my my c-suite talk and be like you get the right synergies and then you

can you can propel your growth even more right and everybody benefits right and it's we just been seeing this slowly you know all this consolidation in the video game engine space epic unreal epic and unity just gobbling up um um different different ideas too different they're not ips but different technologies that kind of should make a bigger experience um you know like quicksole getting bought by epic and all that um and well you guys bought um the your own human character uh creator too right yeah that happened that was just recently too it's very interesting it's exciting i mean overall as a consumer and a game developer like i'm i'm i'm actually looking forward to what these deals will enable these studios to do right i know i've been hating for 30 minutes on bungie i'm excited you know there's 900 900 mouse defeat

there right so now it gives them a foundation to not worry about oh you know destiny's not that great uh the next iep doesn't sound great either you know it gives them a little calm before the storm and i'm glad that 900 developers are sleeping easy um with the sony deal and i'm looking forward to to always hearing you know what sony is going to give the res you know how they're going to give the resources to make them even more successful right all the stuff is we'll see right you know in facebook by oculus everybody's like well we'll see what happens there right and it's been i will say this i will i want to ask you this right like we're hitting the hour mark i want to kind of end up with this i'm surprised that there hasn't been too much vr hololens ar acquisitions that

you know i thought for sure that the pandemic will accelerate any vr ar technology movement but completely dead right i mean magically i think got uh uh saved right by another yeah a sale or whatever right they were kind of yeah and they also and they also pivoted to be more commercial use yeah but um like it's kind of it's kind of hard to say that right like i think i think a lot of the the buzz around vr all that has kind of died down has kind of been replaced with the metaverse but like a big component of what people what people are trying to strive for in the metaverse like it's gonna require vr and ar i feel yeah right um and so that you know like facebook basically put all the chips on black you know me and and and renamed the company right um and and i'm sure vr ar is going to be a big component of

that and there's new devices they're developing i'm sure and apple's developing devices i'm sure and everybody's doing yeah but but um but there isn't the buzz like that's the things that it died yeah the buzz was so high for vr right um then it's it's probably died down a bit to like more manageable levels of buzz that everybody realizes there's like a really big oh it's pretty dead in the water right now like i'm we we say that we say that but like quest is trucking right quest is striking to a degree right i'm not i'm i i i kind of measure it's again my my my six degrees of kevin bacon right like i need to see my brother-in-law i need to see my sister-in-law i need to see these regular people having a set and we're just not there yet they're not going out racing to get a quest too because like you're not gonna not

everybody's gonna put this thing on their face i think so far they've shipped 10 million units right yeah um which is was just pretty pretty respectful in like in vr vr terms right but some people are doing one million units or whatever right sure so but it's there's still a barrier to like putting this thing on your head and like and and not being able to see out and there's still a lot of technological hurdles to make it way more mass mass mass appeal yeah that's i think that's the main thing holding all this stuff back right now but it doesn't mean we won't get there you know what i mean but that's what's holding it back that's what's made the buzz die down that's what like if you're making a vr game getting getting funding is is a lot harder than it used to be back in the day right everybody's kind of moved on to metaverse and nfts and all that kind of nonsense right yeah so so but like it does not mean that the tech still won't improve right and and especially with facebook pushing all the

chips in um they they could probably will it into existence yeah i mean that's the only thing that to be honest i feel is keeping that sector afloat right facebook is seeing it as their future facebook 2.0 right my only concern is that just seeing what facebook is working on right the horizon and all these silly i was like man these guys i know we have friends that work there right i know we have good game developers there it's like this is the best they can come up with they know this is [ __ ] right i just feel like these our friends are chilling over there right they know this is stupid right right it's non-appealing and you know what it reminds me of when you watch a stupid movie or tv show right and and and somehow there's a clip of a kid playing video games and of course the game graphics is made by like

a third party in mexico you know it looks like nothing like a video game right it's just bad animation that to me is what facebook is doing with vr with their ip like these these are silliness right it's just silliness it's like it's literally what zuckerberg thinks is cool right i think which is clearly not cool no i think there's also technological things that that guy are kind of holding it back to right yeah you can't say that man i always i'm at a point where you can probably say that years ago but nintendo has proven that graphic doesn't matter if it's fun like i feel vr is at a point yeah that it can deliver something compelling i mean there are a lot of good vr games already yeah but like what they're using it for like i'm looking at a stupid version of you in a vr platform yeah it's just it doesn't it doesn't it doesn't appeal to

people man it just doesn't it's not fun but like i'm so fun this is the first these are first steps right like i think what we're seeing is i feel like they got the wrong people man with these first step first step needs to be inspirational like see the potential i'm looking at their first step is like i know where this ends and it's stupid it's like don't waste your time i don't know what step 10 looks like it's the better looking version of this this is a very dumb way of how people want to utilize vr it's they need to just watch reddit player one man like this this is where i feel game studios like valve uh like epic has a better chance of creating this metaverse like i i really do feel ep if you give it the hands that even you guys unity even if in any game studio right just give the hands of like a hey make ready player one happen they'll be closer to making facebook 2.0

than facebook right now right facebook i feel is so outdating themselves um and i think a lot of it is because they're relaxed man like we have friends there dude all they do is eat all they do is eat at their buffet and then clock out at like 3 p.m with their surface pros and they you know i i facebook people are the laziest workers man everyone that i know work there they're just clocking it in and clocking it out there's no passionate inspiration left because look at facebook i don't know this right now just for the record i do not know this guy just look at facebook's website right now man i don't know even facebook doesn't care it's the ugliest ui they're doing nothing with it this is my opinion in my opinion they mean i'm not signing this bro i think their idea is correct right they

need to get a bunch of badass game developers in there to change [ __ ] around because their their user experience right now right is lacking going on facebook.com right now is a [ __ ] chore right everything is a mess right i what i used to love about it it's like cluttered through all these groups and all these marketplace you know like i i feel like when i i don't even bother updating anymore because i know because of their algorithm it feels like no one actually sees it unless you like sell it as an ad right right it's all types of messed up and i feel like the old guards who are managing these game developers coming in right and what's worse is i feel like a lot of these game developers that are coming in are looking for a kosher place to relax right they're not looking to build the next thing it's not the right people i know i can't i can't agree with that i i feel a lot of people are there to try to do something big

and and get paid doing it while of course they're getting paid right but you gotta be hungry but also but if you do but even if you do end up pulling something off you're gonna get paid even more right so they're incentivized to pull something off well the problem is they need these millennials i i'm hating you know the really young millennials um i think i think one of the main problems is like to rethink how it works when you get to that kind of size and scale it's hard to innovate really hard to move right and that's the problem i i feel but um but also like we're talking about this literally facebook announced their earnings like today um yeah they're selling ads sure no no no i know i'm going to give you all right raw numbers do it they did bad right they missed some they missed some targets and so their stock dropped a lot in after market i'm gonna just tell you one stat line and that will be enough for you to freak out i i feel do it meadows vr division three point three billion dollars all

right so that is basically bungie with that they could have bought bungie with that yeah they lost the amount of money that somebody spent on bungie this is for research on 800 877 million dollars of revenue for selling vr sets right basically it's the entire vr business this is what i'm saying man right i love our friends right i love our friends but yo they're just eating too much right i don't think i don't think i don't think they're doing what facebook hired them to do to be innovative and i just you know just seeing the products that's being horizon and all this stupid social like we we said here we have all right horizon work rooms and three avatars is dumb like we're sitting here saying that and in the same breath i know somebody who said oh man i did a horizon work room for work today and i'm hooked it was amazing and like i don't like at that point like

i just don't know who i don't know who to believe or or who like i who am i to say other than to say that bro your friend was probably like cashing his facebook check at the same time right now somebody who doesn't work facebook oh wait does he wear facebook oh he might work oh how interesting how i made that connection before you did all right yeah yeah yeah bro any break bro let me check let me check here's how you know oh yeah facebook oh yeah please ray please tell people about how amazing this experience is nobody is saying that man he's nobody bro it's very easy dude it isn't rocket science you show that stupid video to your wife i'll show it to my son and see what they say you know what they're gonna say i don't get it what's the point of this right that's what they're gonna say it's stupid the graphic looks dumb right

there's what do you do in this stupid world right nothing nothing you do nothing we we are we are they're spending a lot of money to experiment yeah 3.3 billion on 800 million you know 323 billion dollars that's a lot of buffet that they've been feeding their team for doing nothing and i'm i'm you know i i want these game developers to succeed right i want vr i think vr is amazing right i love my half-life alex experience i think it's the next big thing when it comes right again unfortunately facebook buying vr haven't really made an impact that i would think they would be making at this point right i feel like they have slowed down quite a bit i think they're putting a lot of their hopes and dreams

into making facebook 2.0 uh and pushing in a direction that that isn't you know gamer first right yeah the thing i would say about this is i i i respect the boldness of it our respects 2.0 what do you mean the boldness yeah facebook yeah facebook 2.0 meta verse push then the dreamland all in vr is an investment ars and investment virtual reality is an investment right and and like let's let's really spend to be innovators in this space like i i respect the hustle right like for real um but it's yeah but it's 6.5 billion hustlers it's a it's a big company man and they have to move and they need to hire a lot of people and they're going to spend a lot of billions all right and it's ray ray ray all right i'm just gonna ask you

this right you saw what they had with horizon right as a game developer was that 3.3 billion dollar worth to develop like to me like a small indie group would have made something better than that in the last year yeah there's clearly some initiatives like gaps yeah yeah yeah there's clearly some inefficiencies right because like um it's the face no for for example for example to do the same thing that they're trying to do they could have just bought some other there's a company that did i can't remember their name but they they did the uh they did the conference software for afrotech okay right and it was a virtual conference but it was like in a virtual world right so they had these virtual and you could speak avatars dead virtual boots that advertise that whole thing right and this company that's what this their business is is running these virtual conferences and you can script it up and sure customize it bring in your own assets all that kind of stuff

like facebook could probably save a lot of money and just bought those guys and then they could have bought those guys but i think integrated and then integrated well here's the problem right i think i think their main problem is is that they're treating this uh as a business first as an enterprise first product right and vr its roots is in games and i to be honest what made facebook great the first time around was they nailed the user experience right and to me that that the ui ux experience is a game experience right and what they're doing right now they're kind of force feeding these practical use scenarios uh before finding the actual fun of it first yeah well i i agree with that but because like i think we all know like games is not going to pay the bills and it's not bad no but like games right now to me have exceeded the traditional sense of what a game is

right for for when we were growing up or what we play games for it's different now games to me the the the the the fundamentals of what make games applicable to like nowaday tech is that it's the user experience like being able to make something addictive um right right now vr i feel like they're completely misunderstanding why it's fun right why it's cool and they're just basically recreating google meets they're yeah i mean they're they're in the direction of making google docs right like this is this is like the priority and i think they know it's like what makes vr gaming fun is the immersion right yeah and so what if you could be immersed in other things and and form human connections and other things right because like if you get that right if you get that right it's more than just like it's it can make well this is

what i'm saying like any game if you get that right you know what i mean like like so then looking at and then who's gonna also pay for this kind of stuff right in its current form the people that would pay for headsets and things like that at scale are not average people on the street it's corporations it's corporations yeah right and so business the business right so perfect perfect your recreation of google docs and google meets you can sell it to companies for a lot of money right and then that starts the process that helps fund more research so you can get it to the point where you can become mass adoption for every every person out there on the street right like i mean you could see how this makes sense at least right yeah i can see how it makes sense but i'm not saying i'm not saying this is like the best way to go about it but in this time frame in this time frame the last two years right there was a huge need

for people uh working remotely and getting connected right to me facebook completely dropped the ball uh in these past two years to create something compelling to kind of solve this issue like in the same time zoom like came out of nowhere dominated the conversation right they were itty bitty company and this is a regular meeting thing and they did a few things good but they did it really well and they exploded yeah it's not it's over for them now but what i'm saying peloton right sure but what i'm saying is they made their money they did what they had to do and they focus on you know what they're good at doing right facebook it's about social connection and me going on there to kind of see what you know long time friends who are living far away what's up with them right why are they doing this all these other stuff you know it's like completely missing the point like like i i don't even think horizon is about that you know i i don't even know what it is

to be honest right i feel like it's trying to be nintendo but not quite right with the knees no it's trying to be second life man and and let's let's not forget this talking about the second life anymore but i'm just saying but i'm just trying i'm just saying that's what they're trying to be right they're trying to be a better person you need to go to animal crossing you know from nintendo and just copy it and do that i mean there's a this formula has been figured out through games it's like why do people hang out in lobbies why do people like talking to each other on these online forums right it's been figured out i feel like what they're doing is zuckerberg is trying to reverse engineer and basically invent how this formula has been made by great green designers right i feel like they're just no awesome game designers you know for a fact they have game designs working for them right and so until it's not like they burnt out game designers man it's not like they lack the money or defense right but like i said before i

think a lot of it is also just the scale their third challenge i think they're spending big dollars obviously in the wrong places right they're getting these hot shot game designers with the resume because to them that that that is an obvious choice i'm saying go all the way to the trenches of the the new and up coming game designers with new ideas that have their passion left like i feel like right now facebook sorry for a lot of facebook people we know we have a lot of friends but these guys are burnt out man the number one reason why they went to facebook all right and don't deny this bro don't deny this number one reason why they went to facebook at this point of their career late in their career they're seniors is because they want that steady paycheck and they want to go home right that's the only reason why i would okay i would not say only i would biggest reason why yeah i would say it's definitely one of the reasons

that's the biggest reason why they're not there to make gains bro i i think i think part no i think part of it too the last game designer that was a hot shot that wanted to make gains for vr was carmack and he left you talked about he's still on the payroll though but like you yeah you talk about this a bit too right it's like it's your opportunity to not be working yeah crazy hours yeah to not be worried if tomorrow you won't have a job and we'll be able to feed your children and your family right and for some i would say that it's also opportunity to have proper backing to to really realize any sort of visions or dreams that you may have right like so if you if you're like you're making a video game you're going to make you're going to impact a certain group of people that play that one video game yeah you go to a couple like facebook google or whatever yeah i think

you could do you could do something that impacts and influences billions of people yeah i know i think um the opportunity to make something out of facebook in vr yeah impact in the future with a larger group of people yes i think that is if you and if you are one of the people ushering in this new glorious future of the metaverse like through some some magic like that becomes something that happens right yes i think that's that could be telling you man i agree with you there but i think it's like the fifth reason why and he came to face like it is not number one it is not number two right and those i i hate to say but the people the game designers the game developers that are on facebook right now are not the passionate game developers who are still young in the career with new ideas right and hey man this is not a theory look at what they produce what they produce is not even compelling to me and you right

and we're huge supporters of vr like me and you also like i are probably the ones that have the most vr sets that we know i know some folks that work there or that work there or whatever and like one person particularly said something like along the lines like there's not enough video game people there oh yeah right and absolutely so there's there's that too right it's like yeah well look at this crowd right so we have a mixture of like business people who knows game design right and then like these burn out game designers that are there for the food and paycheck but it's also just it's just impossible at the scale right that they're at the higher it's not impossible i think they're just bro 3.3 billion dollars you're telling me you can't find the right smaller studios that are making compelling vr content right now the right smaller studios like they have bought some of them actually they have they bought some and they need to continue on that path this internal team is a bust what i'm

saying there's others are just like well there's a lot of reasons right like you know this whole like you you want to hire me and you were supporting democracy and know like here's all the baggage that comes with that uh but then there's also people that just want to make video games and have fun and and and not be involved in all that craziness right absolutely i mean it's it's it's an ugly business to be a part of for sure i mean we can sit down and make gains great but i just don't think anyone's just sitting down and making great gaming decisions there at facebook man i i'm only saying this not just to be salty man i i want vr to succeed i love vr i see it as you know to me ready player one so what since when since when did i like vr yeah i've liked it ever since i swear on this very podcast you've been hating on vr for years

i hate it have i not have i i remember that incorrectly you you remember it incorrectly the same way you thought your friend doesn't work for facebook and then he's like championing their stupid products right maybe maybe i'm wrong i swear i've always loved the idea of vr right the first time i mean as an environment artist i think vr if anything has been a great champion for environment artists right being able to be sucked in a virtual world and having things feel tangible i mean that's it's more of environment the character right so as an environment i see as as we are finally respecting what i do for a living right and you know i i was hopeful that facebook would create the stability but the same way that i'm complaining about all these acquisitions that don't make sense it's gonna invite stagnant uh mobility right i really and that's to me it has slowed down quite a bit

um i mean a lot of the og for for oculus left uh from that acquisition like hardcore gamers who wanted vr to be like this next big gaming thing right and clearly facebook wanted to go in this stupid zoom meeting direction right and it's stupid right we can it's not out yet but it's on the path of stupid right so it's like to me it's not it's also not the only thing they're doing sure but it's one of their premiere products right yeah it's veering on this path and um like to me i they just need to buy nintendo and nintendo go in with their team and like you know listen at what they're trying to do and gamify it right and do what game designers do um right now they're just creating like what i'm seeing and what i'm hearing

from friends that are working there people are spending their extra time funny enough making side projects you know they're doing basically you know independent gains all their passions going to their site not at facebook man i just don't see their passion in the products there and it shows like the the the stuff that they're showing right now is completely missing the point of what makes facebook unique or what used to be popular and it's it's very easy man i just want to go on there and catch up with my friends because otherwise you know i wouldn't be able to i mean it's a very simple game design doc that they're completely not no one no one's writing their game design talk over there and i i i i i i do feel like it's dying man and that's why i'm so upset about i feel like vr is going to die uh the way it's going right now the only the only hope i have right now

is what's going on with playstation vr that's that's my only hope of vr right now like i think playstation is investing a good amount of resources they're gonna make some kick-ass games along with that they're going to drive vr games forward right they're the only my only hope yeah i thank you for your hope if you're holding out for vr games bro like but that's what i mean playstation's the only one left no like steam games vr games not where money's at i know but it's sad like i'm very sad about it because if their games are not there the hardware will will disappear like this is your theory though it's just to become lighter weight smaller yeah you know what they call that dead weight well yeah like like it's like it's scrap of course at the same time at the same time technology is also increasing right so so like it's it's it's not

vr games is not where zuckerberg's going with this clearly and and it's also not where the money is i think clearly as well but like this is what i'm this is where i feel the old guards need to leave because games now have the definition of what makes a game have transcended what we used to grow up with nintendo's it's different now gamifying something means something else now it's just what is this user experience this loop this game loop that makes people want to come back funny enough the original facebook had that game loop right it it was addictive uh for anyone that was a part of it they're missing that like they feel like they went billionaire mindset i think everybody just needs to chill in virtual worlds like just chill like that's not happening like it's still janky it's still terrible everything still thinks it's horrible we need to chill on that and we really need to double down on ar

yeah light lightweight low power ar and augmenting the world that we're in right now the blend um and blending ar 3d stuff into the real world that we're in i think that is really the direction it needs to go yeah and and once you do that like yeah you could have a meeting like sitting at your kitchen table with with other people that show up with their avatars and they are or you know that'll be sweet yeah you know what i mean like i think that is really the direction that this stuff needs to go um who's doing that not facebook that's what's disappointing who's doing that like to me we just came up with a better idea through speech right no visuals than what facebook showed us with their three point well they saw three billion dollar purchase they showed everything though they showed they showed vr then they showed somebody on their phone but that's what's disappointing about it they showed

everything and we saw everything and we were like what the [ __ ] is going on i mean i mean like if if you imagine a world like that it would i think would be pretty amazing where it all works seamlessly like that um but it's just the technical hurdles and and the time horizon all that is just too long and too much for us to even have them right now and i'm more just focused on like let's just focus on what is actually attainable in a very short time frame yeah i agree they're to me they were missing a step like um and we can end it with this right snapchat was very snapchat to me is something that they're doing something really cool with ar stuff right and i feel like facebook should have gone in that direction where in between they had these ar type of features that extended extend their two extended their kind of like web web page um you know functionalities right it would

have been awesome to be able to like you said sit at a kitchen table and you know see your friend through your phone and they are somehow as part of your environment like unfortunately i feel like they're using their whole vr division for the stupid nintendo wii uh i'm sure they have a thousand parodies going on right like i i don't i don't think uh okay but we saw their best three i don't know you don't think they you don't think they showed their best three to us in this last year they saved all the good ones i think they're also doing a lot of research into like what's the future like i think everybody knows that this stuff is not very good right and so it's like okay how did like let's research how do we make it better right oh my god i feel human computer interaction in 3d is very hard yeah right and so like should this

thing be in 3d at all should it be 2d in 3d world like what is the interaction mechanism like i think like a lot of the stuff is completely unanswered questions for good reason because they're hard right and and uh yeah but i think if you give me a month we'll come up with something better legit these are legit heart problems right and so they are hard problems i'm sure somebody but i'm telling you man i'm telling you if it was john carmack with the powerpoint presentation of what we just it would have been so much more compelling to what they showed and it wouldn't have cost 3.3 billion dollars is what i'm saying right what they showed was not worth 3.3 billion brooks right it made me feel bad [ __ ] on bungie for the last half hour right it's like 3.3 billion dollars and that's what i got for this past year at least bungie gave me two destinies in the five-year span i think there's a lot that you

have not seen is what i'm saying oh my god all right i mean yeah i mean what's what's under a pile of [ __ ] i mean like like what more can you you expect any more than your voice why am i always the more optimistic like because you i don't know you're just more hopeful than i am no i think no i i think i agree that like three billion is a lot of money to be spending in a year right that was a year no expense that was a quarter dude a quarter expense yes bro around the corner like i'm all for game developers getting their money but at this point it's extortion right it's like you're what are you guys doing over there like what are you doing yeah yeah that was the quarter but that's ridiculous that's ridiculous yeah but then you like facebook has like 30 or 40 000 employees you're like oh okay that kind of makes sense um okay but like if you were to look at

that it's one sector right vr sector yeah like i'm pretty sure there's stakeholders are not happy about that well the stock price dropped a lot but but but the i think the part of it too is like there's this culture of like growth right you gotta you gotta grow grow growing you gotta spend right and i think there's some folks that are hopeful that vr ar better verse like when whoever solves this problem or is at the forefront of this problem stands to make a lot of money oh great yeah sure so i mean so there's that big at the end of the stick so three billion dollars in a quarter if you think you're going to be making hundreds of billions down the line oh my god see that's the same logic as someone buying a one dollar uh lottery ticket and saying i could be winning yeah you know 250 million dollars this this is what fuels all of this stuff though right there's some companies that have solid fundamentals and and sure and and

have revenue and and don't spend all their revenue and then they make a profit there's a lot of companies like that and there are solid companies that you should that you should invest in and respect and all that and then there's a another set of companies that are just burning through money right with the whole thing that is future growth it's growth now that will get you future earnings down the line it is a bet it is gambling it is a risk right and and it's just like how much people can you could can you convince that it's the right move right like yeah and there's a whole tent like there's a whole bunch of companies that this is how they operate right um so all right all this is my last word right yeah i've been and a lot of them fail a lot of them fail too but well facebook will fail because this is how i go on facebook maybe once to every couple days right to check latest updates for my friends and it's a horrible experience like they

have not if they should be spending their resources fixing the existing problem of facebook and understanding you know what is the next steps and be able to turn that website you know as a preliminary of what this vr world they're imagining should be right on a flat piece of screen i i hear what you're saying but i think they they see that and they're and they're like this is the reason why we need to do this no this is grasping at straws because to me this is the same problem why facebook went downhill because they fattened up all their employees with nice salaries right and a nice lunch right there's no motivation of that team as a culture to innovate right and now they're doing the same thing as game developers bringing in this uh these game developers and integrating them in this culture of fattening up their wallets and stomachs right you want some of that barbecue that's what you saw i wouldn't mind stopping by for buffet any day

that barbecue i'm just seeing the same formula being utilized in this vr department and there is no way of them turning around like i'm you want it like you wake up in the morning and you're like damn i gotta make my own bro there's a reason why john carmack right saw what was going on and bounced right she was like this is not how you make anything fun this is not fun like why would i care about that that's why you left man yeah he's just he saw the signs he saw where you know he it basically was a meeting of zuckerberg getting over excited over his like poster of what 2022 looks like for vr right and jar matt carmack took one glance at it and he just walked out he's like you guys i'm done i i guess it's time for me to retire like that's really what it was no comment i don't understand i'm not anyways facebook call me anytime if you want the innovation i got ideas man

uh but i hope i hope this year try to try to live well uh i mean we we've done more than now are these you start with acquisitions but then you know it was basically me ranting about why why it doesn't make sense but uh uh as always you're just ranting making your yourself unemployable at a bunch of time hey man that's why that's why i created the podcast so i can just rant without remorse that's my whole theme uh as always uh you know this time i actually put your your twitter handle for those watching the video but for those listening can you repeat how people can hit you up uh to challenge you on things that you said yeah twitter so there's the place to do that okay w-a-d-a-r-a-s-s that's what's up all right thanks guys as always uh once a month we do these roundtable news episode if you guys have suggestions hit me up if you have anything to say on what i said on what ray said you know

you can always jump in our discord channel or again tweet at us uh we would love to kind of hear tag brandon yeah i can go all day man uh to all my facebook friends it's all love right [Music] it's all love yeah you know the hate is to motivate rays to motivate you guys to do better all right i'm out thanks guys see you guys next week [Music] [Music] thank you for listening to today's episode if you are liking the podcast go to the apple itunes store and give gamedev unchain a five-star rating this will help spread the joy and love and exposure for the podcast and we thank

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