The "Parents Decide Act" Sucks, D&D's New Game Masters & Bloodborne's got Jack | Games For Breakfast

Good morning, MATT. A
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 WE'RE ALSO I HAVE A BOUNTY TO put out. That's right, Will. Pull up the first graphic. Thank you. I am trying to platinum Returnal, which is a wonderful game that I cherish and love with all of my soul. I have three ciphers left to do. If you don't know what it is, you can feel free to look it up if you'd like. But here's the problem I ran into, Will, as I was running my um teenth. I believe I checked. I have 147 hours in this game. Uh I want to I I need to get three more things that are randomly generated. In the second biome of Returnal, there is a glitch where if you actually bought it early enough before they patched it, it might count, it might not count one of the ciphers towards your platinum trophy. And so, the bounty that I have for everyone who is interested in

helping me out is this. I've been researching this. If you want, you can message me over on Blue Sky with any way you've found to fix this bug. Because the thing that has come up to me the most and I refuse to do this and I cannot do it before Soros releases is to start over. [laughter]
This is my bounty request to all of you. I'm sorry I I took over the but also segment, but I am furious. I learned this at 1:00 a.m. last night and I am really really mad. That's No, you know that's fair. That's That you Yeah. Uhhuh.
So, I'd appreciate the help. Also, hey, Lazarus, well done. Where'd you go? We're excited you can catch this live. Thank you so much for for HANGING OUT THIS FINE MONDAY MORNING. WILL, how are how are you? You know how I am.
I'm doing better than that, I think. Maybe. I

don't know. I'm awake now. I wasn't expecting that, but that's okay.
Yeah.
Uh I'm I'm pretty excited. Uh, FanFest is this weekend. Uh, and I'm I'm flying out on Thursday and very excited. Speaking of flying out on Thursday, uh, and we'll take this moment at the top of the show to let everyone know there is no design club this Thursday because I will not be near my computer. No, no means no design club. I will also be no breakfast next Monday because I will be flying home. So, uh,
like an eagle. Yeah, this will be the last time you see our faces on the tubes of you until next Thursday,
not this Thursday,
but there's a bunch of stuff on Twitch if you'd like to keep hanging out there this week. Um, oh, also I will say this. If I'm going to go back to the Returnal thing for a second, I am I'm committing to this. If you if your lead leads me to not having to restart Returnal and finding the last

one in the Crimson Wastes, I will send a Zoey plushy to your house. [snorts]
I will do it.
We'll talk on on either Blue Sky or here or somewhere. I if if it's basically that thing you see like if your information leads to blah blah blah, you can do whatever. I need this done and I need it done before [laughter] What? The 28th.
Yep.
Just throwing that out there.
Yeah,
that's I I forgot. I was like, why did I call it a bounty? I had an idea. Oh, yeah.
Yep. Also, I like I like this next season of Abolish Everything. Abolish bugs to permanently lock you out of getting platinum trophies.
I wonder how many people that has affected. I I probably not as many as you'd think. Um, and the other thing is tr truly I don't know how true this is. Like the problem is in this game, if you're not familiar, these things I'm hunting for, it's totally RNG based. It's a tile system because it's a rogike and it you basically it spawns it when you start your run, right? So, I've I've

marked down all 20 rooms that these things can possibly be in, and I think I've seen them all, but then some people are like, "Oh, maybe if you reinstall the game, maybe if you do this, like this other So, that's my ne my next try." But, um, anyway, I don't want to derail too much. I've already yelled enough. We have a lot to talk about today, Will.
We do. We do. I do. Oh boy, do we ever. The first thing that we have to talk about uh before we begin, we're going to need you uh to for reasons of think of the children uh to verify your age with your operating system and then use that to verify your age everywhere.
If you could just do that like real quick. Yeah, great. We can't we can't legally keep going with the show,
right?
Until we know every piece of information that we can sell from you, right?
That's kind of where we're at.
Won't you think of the children?
So, if if everyone would just uh in compliance with the with the upcoming

what the hell is it even called again? the the uh the Parents Decide Act,
HR 8250,
uh which I believe is in the House of Representatives being overlooked right now or was introduced into the House uh by two uh representatives, repres Representative uh Josh Gothimer, uh Democrat from New Jersey and uh Elise, Representative Elise Stephanac, Republican from Nova, York. Um, yeah. So, Will, why don't you break down why we're talking about government policy on a on a show that we have fought tooth and nail to make sure that when we talk about video games, it stays completely non-political,
right? Yeah, it's super non-political. Um, that might be the sub theme that that might be the sub theme for this week. Okay. Um, so the text of the bill is as follows. Um there's a requirement an operating

system provider with respect to any operating system of such providers will carry out the following. Require any user of the operating system to provide the date of the birth of the user in order to set up an account and use it. If the relevant user of the operating system is under 18 years of age, require a parent or legal guardian of the user to verify the date of birth of the user. Develop a system to allow an app developer to access any information as is necessary collected by the operating system to carry out this section. at any regulation promulgated under this section to verify the date of birth of a user of an app of the app developer. So, this is a new law that's being that's currently in committee in the House of Representatives to make it so that anything with an operating system and console users don't feel smug, your console has an operating system.
It sure does, Will.
So does your phone. It sure does, Will.
Um,
my French press doesn't.
Your French press, you know, doesn't,

right?
So, um, they, uh, they want they want you to need to verify your now. Okay, we should be clear. Currently, as it stands, it could ask you.
It could say, "What's your birthday?" And then you put it in and that's the end of it. But we but but but we we know that's not what's going to happen. This is an excuse. This is an excuse to do something really stupid in the name of but won't someone think of the children?
I mean Grant brings up a great take that we put up here. Uh was basically like what about public libraries and school systems and all that stuff? Now, like again, this is so early. Uh it is under review and all of that stuff, but it it is making headlines and waves because it would quintessentially change the way that every uh piece of hardware that operates on an OS would be regulated by the US government.
Yeah. Um, I I would also like to point

out uh at its core what this act is trying to do is uh and put more safety regulations in for children online or at least that's what it it's positing itself to do. Uh the core contradiction that I feel is that it's pretty much parents already have the legal authority to control what their children access. Like it's already there.
Yep. So
what what are we doing here?
Oh, are we doing performative uh work so we don't have to do real work? Are we also with the way that this uh bill or whatever is set up this proposal? I mean like tell me that you don't know how the how computers in the internet works without telling me you don't know how computers in the internet works. Like it it makes no sense. Will brought up you brought up a great question too like or I think it was you that you posited like so this would mean that every computer has to be online now.

Oh yeah that would that was a that is a consequence. I didn't bring that up when we talked about it but but that is that is a natural consequence of this is that in order to do this you would have to have access to a verification server at all times. but completely ignoring the fact that there are computers that are offline, right? And like by the way, this doesn't make a provision for computers that can't go online. So like
it doesn't do much of anything. Like the thing right now, it's just like, hey, we're going to do this and if this passes, the FCC has 180 days to figure out how to make it work. And then compliance with all tech companies would be a year after the date that it was signed into law,
which let's let's just let's just pause real quick. You have so it's it's 180 days to find out what the regulations are, but a year from the date the law passes. So you have half a year.

You have half a year
to set up, implement, and push out to every operating system in the country the ability to do age verification for every account. You
just vibes coded, man. Like,
yeah, right. Yeah. How hard how hard could it be, right? It's just like some code. Code's easy. My grandson codes, right? Like [snorts] I don't This is stupid. This is This is very very stupid.
It's performative. It's a waste of time. If it passes, it will be so mired in nonsense that no no uh no amount of uh uh parents deciding will it actually that also means that parents aren't deciding like sorry I just kind of realized the the optimal naming convention of this it actually means

that
correct
it's taking the decision away of how to do things for your child away from parents. Yes, that's correct.
Should be called the parents no longer have to decide act.
Right. So, so th and those are those are just some of it. Okay. So, let's let's just to briefly recap. One, this is never going to happen in a good way. Right. It two, the the timelines presented in the bill make it abundantly clear that they have no idea what they're doing.
Yeah.
Right. They want to put into law time frames that make no sense. Okay. Um and then let's let's just address just real quick. So there is private information your age. Now it could simply be a binary check which is the smart way to do it but so no one's going to do it that way. There is a thing there's a piece of

information that now an app can request from your operating system and your operating system has to give it to it under this law. Right? Okay. Cool. Great. Awesome. So now any app can request private information from your operating system and by law your operating system must provide it. Q screaming just endless screaming over the inherent stupidity of this.
You know what's so interesting too on the corpo side of this where companies would might be pushing for this to help get more data right from from personal computers about people they want to sell things to or do whatever under the way that this is written now. It's not just you large company who's lobbying. It's literally like like if if it was a hundred years ago, Win Amp could do this. Like and if everyone if every company has every piece of data on

everyone, no one has a competitive edge anymore.
Correct.
That's like the dark reason why it's stupid.
Yeah. like what they're going for will actually not even work if it does.
Correct. Yeah. Uh and yes, and remember remember like we're not even being logically or morally consistent here, right? Because the government was screaming about Tik Tok having backdoor access to to people's computers, but now they want to begin the process of putting a thing in your computer, right? Cuz like do we honestly think it's going to stop here? Like do we do we believe that once your computer has a file on each user that it must provide to an app on request that it's going to stop with your birthday, right? Like so theoretically

theoretically it is possible to to exist in a world where your age is verified without verifying your identity. theoretically.
I also just really appreciate in this dark story how WinApp is taking over some of the chat and I just want to say thank you for that. I like it a lot.
Yeah. Yeah. Right. [snorts] So, um my worry is that eventually this is going to turn into like I don't know if you I don't know how many people are familiar with this. It's called a prox card. It's a it's a it's a system that's used by the federal government to have computers lock out. You may be familiar with them in medical context, but essentially it's a unique ID card that you have to use to access a computer and like feels like we're starting to get to that point where like you have to digitally verify your citizen ID number and like maybe I'm being a little hyperbolic for the sake of uh illustration, but like this is not a good precedent to set at all.

Well, the precedent is no, the precedent is you don't need precedent. Like the precedent is we you can name uh you can find a air quotes problem and pitch that hey companies solve this. Hey everyone, do it by this time. And then companies, whether they think it's a real problem or not, then are legally bound to do so, which inevitably, even in the best case scenarios, will make all of their product work because it's solving for a problem that doesn't exist and taking resources away from problems that do exist.
Yeah,
it's a it's a net lose for it's a net lose for individuals. It's a net lose for the companies. It's a net lose for the government, but it it in my opinion, it is the the same kind of performative BS that that essentially people with however long their terms are like, we're going to get something done. And they since they can't do anything real or have any actual good ideas to help their

constituents, they come up with an imaginary boogeyman that they can pretend to have solved. And then by the time it actually comes back to bite anyone in the ass, they're out of their office.
Yeah. Correct.
Rinse. Repeat. Yeah.
Yep. [snorts]
Yeah. So,
so what can we do, Will? What what can be done here?
So, if if you're in the US, uh you could find out if Now, I I want to be very clear about where this is at. This is uh once again, this is uh HR 8250. It is currently a House uh bill, a House resolution. Um it is currently in the energy and commerce committee of the house of representatives. So you can find out if your uh representative is on the energy and commerce committee and you can pay attention, right? That is kind of a weird thing, right? Is that there will come a time where if this

makes it out of committee, it comes up for a vote in the House and you can call your representatives and be like, "Don't vote for this. Don't vote for this." Because it's got it's got bipartisan backing, right? which means that it like every individual vote will matter, right? Cuz I don't think they're going to be able to get they're going to be able to whip the votes on both sides of the aisle for this. I strongly suspect this and it may die in committee. If we get enough people on the House Energy and Commerce Committee to say that this is a stupid idea, then it'll die in committee and we won't have to worry about it anymore and that'll be the end of it, right? But for for now, paying attention to it, calling a representative, and finding out if your representatives on that committee is are the big the big three things. Um
I'm seeing if I could find the representatives.
Yeah.
If we can find them, we can we can uh
Yeah. Yeah. And Zip is right. If you don't have a rep on the committee, pick one of them and call them anyway.
True.
Right.
And and and call them. Do call them.

Right. Because you can ignore an email, you can ignore a letter. It's really hard to ignore the phones ringing constantly
unless they hang up.
Uh yeah. Oh, hey, cool. Braon has it. Thank you, Bron. Uh oh, it's a it's a big committee. Well, that's a
it's big. Yeah, it's like I'm looking at it right now. It's like 60 people, but or more, but there is a there is a one Republican to make it a Republican majority.
Yep.
Is there is is a very it's a very large committee. Do do call people. Um uh so yeah, that's that's where we're at now. We thought we would turn that frown upside down.
Oh, that's right.
And we would we would ask all of you for some help,
right? Because now that it's very clear that the government doesn't know how the internet works or how age verification works or how even any kind of legislation to uh actually do any protecting of children would even function. We thought it would be quite a

good idea for everyone in chat, both in Brad and Janet at Twitch and YouTube, and feel free, Nebula folks, if you'd like to uh message Will or I and Blue Sky, send us your your late entries to this. But I would like you to essentially verify your age right now, however you would think would be a great way to do it. Like for instance, earlier I on my Blue Sky post I said, "Please verify your age by letting me know which Nick tune you're familiar with,
right? What are other incredibly let me let me be very clear. Incredibly stupid but just as effective ways to verify your age online."
Yeah. Uh this is good. Uh I use I used Winamp unironically.
Yeah.
Uh my first VoIP app was Ventrillo.
Great.
This is really good. Oh wow. This is very good. Uh, I watched Victoria's Growing Up on Nick. Okay, cool. I got I still own a tube full of Pogs.

That's it.
Nice.
Mila still remembers Mario Paint. The old one, not the new one on the Switch, too.
That's good. Uh, Stewart's imitates the sound of a 56k modem. Good.
Yeah.
There we go.
Yeah. Great. Great. Great. Uh-huh.
My neon wind breaker.
Yeah. Uh 3.5 in floppy discs that you inserted into the A drive. These are nice. Yep.
I used Team Speak to play MMOs.
My Minecraft account.
There we go. There we go.
Yeah. Uh oh, these are these are so good. Some of these are really great. Chat, you're popping off.
I'm as old as the OG Dune movie.
I like I like Annie. My mom got mad at me for picking up the phone when she was checking her email.
My high school diploma is older than some of my kids' teachers. Get off my lawn.
These are great.
WAIT, [laughter] ZIP DISCS FOR MY COLLEGE THESIS STORAGE.

AMAZING. I have motor memory of blowing on Super Nintendo cartridges.
Oh my god. Uh, wait. I would play Super Metroid in a Toys R Us for five minutes before it would [laughter] reset. THESE ARE [laughter] GREAT.
I saw Free Willie in theaters.
Amazing. These are so good. Uh my 50 person Skype call also excellent.
Oh, I have an iPod and a shoe box with music downloaded from [laughter]
Yeah. Uh, I will not show you a photo of myself, but I will hold up a copy of DuctTales FOR THE NEST WEBCAM.
THAT'S GOOD. That's great. I was excited to get a 256 [laughter] megabyte USB drive.
I have a 512 meg thumb drive that I found from my time in high school.

Oh, I remember when Han shot first.
Wow. Wow.
Oh my god, this is great. I kept Beanie Babies in boxes for their [laughter] collector's value. [snorts]
Yeah, [laughter]
I I had to upgrade my computer to 8 megabytes of RAM.
I
I still have a 1080p monitor.
Uh where is this? I once owned a Furby unironically.
There we go. There we go.
That's good.
I still have a VHS copy of the first Pokemon movie. Right. Good.
This is excellent. Yep.
I feel like my my tackling uh summoned summoned summoned Zoe. Let's see if she'll come up here. She hasn't put on her work clothes yet. Nope, she's leaving. Never mind. Well, she'll get her when she comes back. [laughter]
Oh, my face hurts laughing. But like we got to we got to do some we got to do more stuff like this, right? cuz like

this is on its face and through and through stupid. It's
nothing and and truly like the joke like everything that everyone has listed and thank you again for doing so is literally just as effective as the vapor wear version of an act that these people are putting forward.
Correct.
And that should say something. Yeah, and I think it does. I I really do think that it does. Um, so we'll we'll be paying attention to this. I think this is this is the big deal. And again, um, it is in a world where everything has an operating system. I did see I did see some very salient comments before. Am I going to have to tell my fridge how old I am? Your fridge has an operating system.
Yeah.
If you have a smart fridge, right? Am I going to have to tell my car how old I am? My car has an operating system.

Everything.
Everything, right? Like it's it is so incredibly silly and short-sighted and does not work this way. Um so, uh our sincere hope is that this gets defeated. Like it's not even and like God, we're going to leave this alone a little bit or I'm going to get my dander up. But like the is both ethically silly, right? Because now you're creating a point of failure where people can get their information stolen out of their operating systems. Like we already tell people like how God Okay, wait. Hold on, hold on, hold on. How many of you by show of hand or hype or check mark or upvote emotes were told as a kid to never tell anyone how old you were on the internet? How many of you got that speech about like not telling anyone on the internet anything about yourself? Right? Like,

and now and and and and now the government says you must tell anyone who asks how old you are on the internet. Make it make sense.
Zoe, can you make sense with it?
Nope.
I got don't use your real birthday. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. always say 13F Cali [laughter] when a stranger asks
I don't
the old jokes um
the old jokes that they check out.
Yeah. Right. Like it ju I don't man I don't know. So like it's it's a bad idea on the like spreading information. It's a bad idea from a technical perspective. It's a bad idea from implementation. This bill just sucks. Like I don't think there's another way to put it. There's nothing good about this bill. Even if even if you believe that there is

legislation which could protect children on the internet and I'm willing to entertain that conversation in good faith another time. I think we can all agree this ain't it, right? That this just makes it like worse. This just makes the internet worse for no gain for anyone. Literally no one gains from this. So, uh, yeah, we we we have, uh, fervent hopes that this gets defeated in committee or that it gets shot down in the thing or that the Senate saves us or that something else stupid happens and everyone loses this bill.
And it makes it so clear, too, because like the solutions here, like as Will just sort of said, like maybe there is a solution somewhere else. Yeah, I'm sure there is. I bet you that solution is infinitely more complicated than pretending you can wave a magic wand and fix it with one decision. like it's it's infuriating because so much of um and it feels like it's by design, but a lot of times I just feel like it's laziness that then causes the bad things. Um, like you could in a more

sane world put more money and resources towards education uh from a young age and even for some adults uh about the sort of essentially like the dark sides of the internet, how your information is being used, what you can do to protect yourself, what to look out for. uh encourage uh programs of ways that parents can teach their kids these sort of things in uh an early education like work with their earlier schools and and have a uh rather than just throwing an iPad in front of somebody and picking a god and praying like you could actually have things in place to help those conversations and that education happen. And in in a perfect world it would go beyond this but it would cause the systems to collapse. I'm still furious how in most United States um uh school systems, there is still not a class on uh how credit actually works in the country, how to do your taxes, how to uh

essentially live an adult life. Um you just sort of are expected to pick it up along the way. I know some places have it and it's more than when I was in school, but a lot of the issue I feel like comes from not like not solidifying those types of [laughter] critical pieces of education that keep people moving in a in a forward momentum in a positive way. And I don't think obuscating uh I don't think abdicating responsibility for individual children to uh the people that have proven time and time again they have no interest in actually protecting them aka corporations is going to actually solve any problem real or imagined. That seems correct to me. Uh yeah. No, I I like this one. Why does the government instead sponsor education programs at local public libraries for parents on how to protect their children online? I have bad news for you. Government doesn't really like libraries.

It doesn't It doesn't really like libraries because the people who pay them a lot of money don't really like libraries. But you're correct. If you want resources on how to do things on the internet or in life, go to your local public library. It is probably one of the best places in your town that you're not going to enough that you should be going to more because most librarians, by the way, awesome as hell. Librarians are dope.
Fricks brings up a great point and this is actually part of the issue. I think also parents just won't go for the most part. You're not wrong. But what you what you do and again this is why I said I think that an actual solution is far more complicated than just flipping a switch is you have to slowly but surely change the the the way that in the ether in the in the meta game of life all of this stuff is accepted. You make it more normalized. You make it more engaging. You figure out a way to do it and slowly but surely more and more people will. of course no one's going to go now cuz all of those programs if they ever existed are completely underfunded and there's

no way of actually getting hype up to have it happen like that that's why I think that like tons of small steps I hate to bring it into No I don't because the guy's awesome Zoran Mani my wonderful wonderful mayor at this point is kind of just showing how it gets done on a on a micro level for one city he has a bunch of larger policies hell the tax plan he just passed for people who own second homes that are valued in over $5 million in New York City now have a crazier a much higher not even that much crazier just a higher income tax they have to pay. This is for people that don't live in New York and don't actually really provide any value to it other than raising the profit margins and the skyrocketing rent and all that stuff. But there's also he's fixing potholes. He's doing bike lanes. He's he's showing that a system that has been rotting for years can actually work in small ways to better the communities that they're supposed to support. And when you do that and when people who are disillusioned with the system start

seeing someone is doing that then they get more interested in that system. We are seeing a snowball here and it's it's really lovely to see and I truly believe that that could be the case for every problem like the one we're talking about in this story. But it takes someone who is crazy charismatic, has a ton of time and energy and gives a [ __ ] And I'm sorry, but most of the people in uh I I you know I wouldn't say most of the people, but I don't believe that the two people who wrote up this bill and brought this forward have any of that. I agree. And uh I I it's it's funny because we're seeing it work sometimes in small ways and I hope that even cascades into um looking at large problems like ones to protect kids on the internet and changing the methodology of how we attack a problem like that
because the only way it's going to be fixed
is through small incremental bits of change. Not hey what if we told Google to find out how old everyone is.

Yep. Yep. 100%.
Anyway, I'm sorry I'm ranting a lot today. The Returnal things really got me pissed, too.
No, I No, I think this is this is one of the things that I think this is like really important, I think, for both of us for like a variety of reasons to like really stand up and say, "Boo, this sucks." Like just like loudly without any reservation. Boo, this bill sucks. Right? It just sucks. There's no excuse. It's a bad bill. Vote it down.
We don't like putting like just saying like something sucks in a thumbnail title unless we like unequivocally just believe it. Like it there's a certain level whenever you do either live shows or any videos on the YouTube like you're like it's only clickbait if it's not true,
right?
Uh and this bill this act sucks like through and through the core. We can't like if if genuine truly genuine if you could tell me one

good thing about this bill like as written and not like it's getting everyone to recognize that like Congress doesn't have any idea how to legislate the internet kind of thing, right? Like I will be shocked because it's just bad. It's just bad all the way. Uh so you should know about it. And uh, of course, the other important thing is if you're not in the US, this will probably end up affecting you, right? Because part of the problem is they're either going to split the user base, right, inside and outside the US, or there's going to be some kind of trickle down effect where the US and the GDPR are getting in a fight. Um, which has been brewing for a while, but
Yeah.
You know. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And apparently the Brazilians are saying that it's already coming to Brazil, that this idea is already present in in in action in Brazil. Um, and I'm sorry. I'm

so sorry.
Yeah.
Yep. Uh, okay. Let's let's move on.
Let's move on.
Let's let's not let's not do this. It is a terrible story. All right. Ah, [sighs]
side note, I named it this because have you seen the thing going on for the second Space Balls movie? In the original Space Balls, there was supposed to be called Space Balls 2: The Search for More Money. And now at Cinema Con, Mel Brooks came on uh and they did a thing about the the sequel to Space Balls and how Mel Brooks is like, "It's not going to be called The Search for More Money because I found it. It's right over here." And it just says a bag full of cash. It says Space Balls: The Money. And now the second Space Balls movie is going to be called Space Balls the New One. So, now we're now you have you're caught up on this particular graphic about Xbox Game Pass.
Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. Uh I like I love this space balls. The chat message.
The chat message.

Um okay, so uh there have been a whole bunch of there's been a whole bunch of chatter about um the changes that are uh coming to Game Pass. Um, Game Pass, Asha Chararma, who is the new CEO of Xbox, has uh been on the record saying that Game Pass has become too expensive for players. Probably true. Uh the the big one is that Okay, so do you remember the initial pitch for Game Pass? The initial pitch for Game Pass was you could get a bunch of games and you could get a bunch of titles the day that they came out
as part of your Game Pass subscription. And the current scuttlebutt rumor is that they're considering not putting this year's Call of Duty

on Game Pass is a day one release.
It's almost like it's just not profitable to do that. Will
Yeah.
I don't
So they're trying to think of it. I don't know if they have the full plan yet. uh they want to move it into more a quote flexible system. Um, there's talks of them. There was something that they said, "God, where is it in this IGN article?" And I don't know what happened. I mean, I know what happened, but IGN lately has been having like popups pop up over their popups and then pop up over the ads. And so, every time I think I have like, ah, I've moved to the part of the article where I now can reference this. Now, it's a commercial for uh a uh a refrigerator uh with an AI assistant. And now I'm just like, "Cool, man. Great." Um, but the the idea that I was trying to find was they were talking about maybe doing

a tier of Game Pass that only included Xbox exclusives. To which I say, what Xbox exclusives?
Yeah, it's a great question, Matt. They would like you to ask the next question now. I don't know. I have no no further questions.
This is my life now.
Um, look, I think we can all agree. Um, I imagine actually here's No, YOU KNOW WHAT? I WON'T JUST speak for all of you.
Does anyone in chat right now believe that Xbox Game Pass the highest tier is a good value?
Cuz like I can see a world where someone believes that. I just I don't
I can see a world I can see a world that someone believes that too. I think that for some consumers it absolutely is, but it's not sustainable for Xbox.
No, not at all. I genuinely don't even

know what it has. Xbox doubled the price in Brazil.
Well, they doubled it everywhere. Well, they No, no, 50% of it everywhere.
Yeah.
And then I guess doubled it in Brazil. used to be but isn't now
only if you want or need all the stuff included otherwise. Nope.
So Ramian the thing is and I don't have an Xbox can't say they don't need everything's an Xbox Ramanian don't you remember you could do this on your litter box or whatever. No you can do it on your PC. You can do it on your phone. You can do it on your TV. Um yeah have a look back. So cancel by subscription for what they did the hi-fi rush.
Yeah yeah. All right cool. So it seems like everyone's on the same on the same.
So so so I think everyone is in agreement with the current CEO of uh Xbox uh Asha Sharma who is is correct. It it is uh not it needs a more flexible system because it's become too expensive for players. Yeah,
I think that also

I mean that's the correct thing, but then from her company side of it, I can't imagine like they wouldn't be saying that if it wasn't also making them money. It's too expensive and therefore they're losing money, right?
Yeah. I mean, with Tyler on this, Microsoft, Xbox Game Pass is too expensive consu for consumers. Also, Microsoft doubles the price of Xbox Game Pass.
To be fair, that price doubling uh it's very Tyler, I agree. It's funny, but to be fair, as much as we can to Microsoft, who definitely needs it. Um, they did announce that well before uh Mrs. uh Sharma was uh put into the CEO role. So, that could be Old Guard doing that and trying to, you know, plug holes in the boat. Um, and maybe I mean, I don't think I don't think you become CEO of a company and say, "Our flagship product is too expensive and have that be her thing beforehand." You know what I mean? like
Yeah.
Uh unless it's all part of the game.
Yep.

Yeah.
Uh
so we'll see.
Yeah, we we shall indeed. Let's move on to some good news, some interesting news. You may recognize some or many indeed of the faces in this picture. Wizards of the Coast has announced a new Dungeons and Dragons actual play series. And you might be like, "Bwilled, there are so many actual play series." Dear friends, we have special reason to tell you all about Dungeon Masters, the new actual play series from Dungeons and Dragons. Uh featuring such talents as Neil Nubon. Um and that is uh you may recognize the dungeon master,
the the dungeon master proper.
Yeah. our wonderful friend Jasmine, that bronze girl, Bular, um, who has written for EC, who's been on a bunch, who's run games for us, who has, uh, who has been all up, who's done Dimension 20 Coffin Run, one of my favorite things over there, who was just on the critically

acclaimed Katie Mirich vehicle, Dimension 20 on a bus, uh, and who is also, uh, the the narrative, uh, lead on, uh, Fading Echo, which is a wonderful indie game. You should check out and, uh, wish list right now if you already have not. Um, I am so I'll use my one for the day. [ __ ] happy about this. The cast is stacked. Uh, obviously that's a no-brainer. Uh, the actual trailer does look sick. And it's it's I I cannot believe it's taken D and D so long to sort of get on the bandwagon of the thing that would not exist without them. Uh, and I am so happy that someone like Jasmine is at the helm of it because uh, it makes me believe in it. I mean, that's kind of that's kind of it. Like I mean, you know, uh, I've seen how she runs games. I've been in the

games and, you know, I don't know. I'm I'm incredibly proud of her and I'm incredibly proud that this project is act is coming to fruition because uh with her involvement, I know it will be fire. That's just kind of it. And it's so rare. It's so rare you could say, "Oh, because my friend is doing this this giant thing, it's going to work and be awesome." And I can say without with with no shadow of a doubt that that is the case here. Uh, if you want to see a truly amazing game run by Jasmine, I highly encourage you all to go back on I believe it's on the history channel. It's on history. It's on history, but you can find it. Um, she ran a game of Vampire the Masquerade, which
a charity reward for a stream.
Yeah. Which was
so incredibly f That's how we met uh Dream Wisp, right? We met We met Jen Cret through that game. also an amazing talent in the in the TTRPG space, but

that game was so incredibly fire and the way that Jasmine told the story in like three hours, four hours. I cannot wait to see what she does with an entire series. I'm so hyped for this.
And als Yeah. Uh and also, uh you know, I haven't met the only other cast member I've I've met is Mayana Baron, which me, Jasmine, Mayana, and ify at where was it? Unplugged did a 1-hour oneshot as a panel. And uh Mayana was an absolute delight. She is, if you don't know, the voice of Coupe in um and one of the writers I believe on Dispatch.
Um so uh everyone at this table is an absolute MVP and I am
I believe so it comes out on the 20th I believe. Is that today?
Uh the 22nd maybe
today. Today is the 20th. Also uh in case you haven't
comes out on the 22nd 6:30 on DBC or don't recognize the other players. The other players are D'vor Wild, uh, who is the voice of Liselle, Neil Dubon, who's the voice of Visarian, uh, and Christian Navaro, in addition to Maya Baron and

Jasmine Bular.
Yeah. Uh, also, uh, Tyler, I do see that you mentioned how uh, where did it go? Uh, that Variety sort of worded it in a certain way about like it being the first D&D actual play. I think what they mean is Dn D's first actual play. I'm sure that that is a type but you know and again you got to remember variety type headlines are not meant for especially in like in my opinion like nerdy stuff are not meant for those already in the know. It's trying to get out the the generalized thing as quickly as possible. But that is inaccurate. You are correct.
Yeah. Um also uh people bringing up like tossing out critical role. No no no no no. This is them wanting to have their own thing inhouse. I think they recognize that um they can't critical role is its own thing now like that is past anyone's ability to control uh it is it is on its own trajectory doing its own thing and I think while everything in the industry

will be in conversation with the idea the critical role exists for as long as it exists I think there is plenty of space for other things and other DMs in other styles to do other stuff and this this group does have advantages Right. Being first party with Watseed means that they get all the cool toys early, right?
And I believe they're they're mark from what I understand, at least from the articles that I've read about it, uh the the game that Jasmine is running, there'll be pieces of that that you can also download like while it's going on, so you can run small elements or something like that,
which is really cool. the the and and here's the here's the like I feel like in my in my humble opinion uh D and D should have jumped on the actual play bandwagon officially and gone as hard as they're going here uh ages ago uh they didn't they at way back in the day possibly should have partnered with Critical Role or even D20 or something right like but like that just never happened due to I think the corporate structure of Watsi and Hasbro um and

that means that they're going to move slower the interesting part here is I am incredibly hopeful again due to who is who is controlling it that uh that this weight will be very much worth it and be good for the game for actual plays and to give different uh a different group of people uh a a platform to do this at literally the highest level running with the game itself. I also I also want to just
this is a thing I think a lot of people don't know. This is not their first actual play.
No,
they have tried other actual plays before with other groups. Um and those have had a variety of problems. Not the least of which is that most of them were online games.
Yeah.
Using either Theater of the Mind or digital tabletop. This is a table and a set and they put like this has production value behind it.
This is them actually ponying up to do

it. Well,
actually, you know what I'll say? Weirdly enough, in to Will's point,
what an actual play is has been elevated by countless peoples in the TTRPG community. But the but the forerunners are at this point, now I'm not going to talk about like podcast specific ones, but really Critical Role Dimension 20, right? like those are the two and then everywhere else, you know, there's hundreds of other great creators that do it in the space and lots of them that do a lot of production value. But I think the proliferation of the first big two there has made it clear what m maybe everything is an actual play, but what a successful actual play is when you're all like when you're making a content for a visual medium. And I think finally, finally, Watsi got on board and now they're putting their hat in a ring that is on par with from a production value standpoint and I would argue a cast standpoint uh with the other groups.
Agreed.

Uh so I'm very excited. Uh I will be tuning in uh April 22nd, 6:30 p.m. PT, which means it's going to be late for me, but I'll do it. Um,
I'll be on a plane or I'll be going to sleep to be on a plane.
It is now time for fake ads. Twitch chat is getting real ads for things they can buy. Don't worry, they're not going to miss anything. We're going to do fake ads for things you can't buy. Starting with Matt right now. Hey everyone, Matt from Oh, wait. Will take the graphic off. We're telling different things. We're talking about like we're doing all other stuff. Wait. Hey, listen. I'm selling you something you can't buy. But first, I do need you to enter your age into your chatbot. Uh, not necessarily goes to me. It just goes to the corporation who owns me. Uh, that would be Matthew Crow LLC. Uh, under, uh, Will from Extra Credits LLC, which is under an escorp of, uh, Animated Kitchenet. Uh, which then is obviously a shell company for, uh, Flexel Sticks, of

course. And but all you got to do, listen, I'll sell you the thing. Just how old are you? Uh, Snacken, I need you in mod chat to remind me that I have a gag for that. Uh, and I need I need you to I need you to put that command that you just ran in mod chat and I will write the command for it when we're done with breakfast. I have a gag. Okay.
Hey, sell us that gag.
Hey, did you ever want a chatbot to verify your age? Well, I'm currently thinking and I'm spitballing and it doesn't do this yet, but I'm thinking that I can get Brad Chatbot to verify your age by spitting out a random age between 18 and a thousand uh every time someone presses exclamation mark verify age and put out an official statement something like this chatbot hereby verifies that at user who just ran the command is officially x amount of time old for purposes of age verification on

the internet. I feel like that's about as official as anyone putting their age in like a drop-own menu would be. And you shouldn't be giving the computer your ID. Why stop at a thousand? I need to set an upper bound or it'll do weird things, right? I like I need I need a reasonable integer. I also need to make it like fit in chat, right? Um so I I think I can I think I can uh make that work. No, darn it. randomly generate it every time. Uh, which is the best part.
It should also not only give numbers. [laughter]
Yeah. So, someone some people are suggesting ASL chat. If you want to help with this, stick around after breakfast. I have a thing where we're going to be looking at a new uh shiny thing for Brad's enclosure here on Twitch and we'll be working on some chat stuff and I can write the command on the bot then. So, uh, stick around. We'll we'll work

on it afterwards.
We're actually doing this might be a good time to Here's I'm gonna sell you something that you can't buy, but actually you might be excited about because I think it's kind of neat.
Hey everyone, MATT FROM EXTRA CREDITS WITH WILL from Extra Credits talking about games for breakfast on Extra Credits. I'm not going to sell you anything you can buy. What I am going to do is sell you information for free. That is correct. That uh that some changes might be coming to Games for Breakfast in the near future. And by near future, I mean months down the line. But Will and I had a very exciting meeting last Friday to discuss various visual improvements and implementations we might be able to do to this show. It's gotten me really pumped. You don't have to do a dang thing other than keep showing up and having wonderful conversations with us, but we might be adding some things to this program that make it just a little more shiny and a little more fun for everyone involved. And I can't wait for you to see it. Don't buy it.
Very excited. Okay. Uh, speaking of things that you can buy or will be able to buy tickets for at some point in the future,

Bloodborne [screaming] is [laughter] getting a movie and the exact producer on it is Jack Septic Eye.
Okay,
listen.
All right, I'm here.
Jack Septic Eye knows his Bloodborne. If there's one thing I I don't know, actually even before this news came up, I knew who I know the name, but I've never really watched any of his stuff outside of his Bloodborne stuff. [laughter]
Sure.
Oh, he he knows he So, uh I am pretty hyped for this. I'm not going to lie. Uh I do Look, let's get let's get the disappointment out of the room. we're going to be getting an animated Bloodborne movie before we get Bloodborne uh remastered or Bloodborne on PC or Bloodborne 2. Um although there isn't like here's here's a weird reason why it might give me hope that like there's something else Bloodborney coming down the line is that if Sony cuz Sony's kind of holding the p the the strings on on this along with

FromSoft. It would be a really good look to have this movie come out around the same time as another video game Bloodborne project.
Yeah.
Uh so maybe maybe that is a a harbinger for things to come. But I am always excited when uh someone who has a deep appreciation for the source material gets to work on an adaptation. Uh Jack Septicai will be producing the director and the writer and everything is not uh yet been announced. Of course, those things will change hype levels on varying uh you know sliders as it goes. Also, uh while Jack Septic Guy is a phenomenal YouTuber and and uh and creator, I am not sure what his producerial um chops are for an animated piece of content, producer can mean a lot of different things. I'm sure there'll be other producers as well. This does feel I I in an interview or in one of his um I believe in the um in the YouTube video that he posted that this modded uh thumbnail came from. Um he's

been this has slowly been like a maybe in the background for like two years. And I'm I'm wondering if I was a if I was a to guesstimate how this sort of moved forward. I bet you he was sort of maneuvering in the background to try to make this happen. Um and then um Markiplier's um uh Iron Lung.
Yeah.
And the success story that that is like I think a lot of Pierce and a couple other like YouTubers that have sort of and and to be perfectly honest, Patrick Williams, a bunch of other folks, Nebula folks like everyone's sort of moving in this direction. And I think the success of Iron Lung is showing Hollywood that's like, oh, maybe YouTubers might know what they're doing when it comes to adapting either things that they love or or just uh uh creative vision in general, depending on what it is. That's not a gloet thing,
but uh before as a YouTuber, it was truly impossible to break into that world and now it seems like there are cracks and very talented people are getting through. Um because I think

Hollywood needs some some some new folks in there, you know.
I agree. I agree. I'm very excited. I'm not a huge Bloodborne person. I like the world. The world seems interesting.
Yeah.
Um and yeah, I'm I'm mostly just excited to see more creators whose names I know from YouTube uh doing big projects that will get people excited. Uh very cool.
Uh all right. Are you ready for what is possibly one of the weirdest stories?
Yes. Okay. So,
yes,
if you go
everyone right now, go to echothedolphin.com.
Uh, maybe mute the tab.
No, don't mute the tab.
Okay.
It ruins it if you mute the tab. If you're at work, if you're at work, crank the volume.
Okay, great.
If you're at school, get in trouble. [laughter]
Okay. All right. Okay.
Echo. Uh, it would be, let's see, could someone type it in chat because I don't have my window. co the dolphin.com

uh echo defender versus future exactly.
So this website I believe has been up for a almost a year.
More more than a year. Yeah. Th this is the official Echo the Dolphin website and uh quietly in the corner um there has been a countdown running. And that countdown ends this Wednesday. And I was alerted to this uh by Average Joe over on um over on Blue Sky who sent this to me last week and was like, "Hey, hey, hey, there's this really weird thing." So, what this probably is is the official announcement this Wednesday of all of the details about the Echo the Dolph, the new Echo the Dolphin game that was announced last year, as well as a potential remake of the original Echo the Dolphin. Um, which would make it the

first Echo the Dolphin game to come out in 26 years. The last one came out in 2020. you are now dust in the wind. So, uh, just an interesting little fun weird factoid. I do love when I I love God, this is the part of the internet that I love is when the internet does something weird and stupid like this, right? Their marketing campaign is a timer on a website and here we are talking about the timer on their website because it's happening, right?
Oh, sorry. For everyone whose bones aren't dust, Echo the Dolphin was a game on the Sega Genesis that was beautifully weird and a little bit hard to figure out at first. I believe if if if people aren't familiar, when you boot up Echo the Dolphin, it just throws you in the ocean and you control the titular Echo the Dolphin and you swim around and you see the fishes and you do whatever, but it's in like a a restrained sort of sidescrolly area and it doesn't really tell you what to do. Uh, and you I

remember as a kid just swimming around there be like where's the rest of the game and then finally a friend had to teach me uh that you you have different uh things you can do and like if you dive down and then then I think accelerate you can jump higher than usual and you have to jump to a certain height to trigger a cutscene where some otherworldly force steals all animals out of the sea except for you. drops you back down and your adventure begins. Um, I remember when I first saw that as a kid, I was like, "What?" [laughter] It felt so like a secret, even though it was probably supposed to be in the first two minutes of the game.
Yep.
Um, yeah. Uh, so I have a very soft spot for the Dolphin. I think it is a phenomenal game. At least the original is. Uh, is it a metaphor for over fishing, Tyler? I don't know. The game is weird. Uh, but I like it a lot.
Yeah,
I should go back and beat it. I don't

know if I've ever beaten Yeah. Yeah. Deistic, maybe we do a stream where we try to beat Ekko the Dolphin.
That could be fun.
If I f If I somehow end up finishing Returnal before Thursday, I'll do it Thursday.
Okay. Seems good.
I bet you you can beat Echo the Dolphin in two hours.
Yeah, bro.
If you know exactly what you're doing, like if we just like don't like if we just strategy guide it.
Yep.
All right. Everybody get your popcorn.
Nom nom.
Get ready to sit down. Matt now will give you his thoughts on the Masters of the Universe trailer or Master of the Universe reveals.
Sure. Uh so at Cinema Con uh this last weekend or last week, I can't remember when exactly it was. Uh they showed three scenes from the new Master of the Universe movie. I Okay, I'm trying something new, chat, with Street Fighter, which the trailer

came out. It's pretty fun. with the Master of the Universe movie, with Mortal Kombat 2 the movie. I'm trying desperately, desperately to know that most likely they'll be bad, but still be hyped and excited to go see them anyway because I don't want the crushing weight of reality to rain on my parade of being excited for a thing. I don't want to lie to myself, but I still want to be happy about it. Um, so there were there were three scenes shown. Uh, one thing that actually gets me a little bit annoyed um, at the I believe uh, they had a whole bunch of people on the sta on stage. They had the director Travis Knight was joined by Nicholas Glazine which is He-Man. Uh, Camila Mendes who is Tila. They introduced about 20 minutes of the film. And this is some minor spoilers for what's going on in the movie but like it's also kind of I'm only going to talk about the first one. Uh, I believe, let's see, uh, I just want to make sure I know who's saying

this quote. Uh, Travis Knight said this. They said, quote, um, if you watch the Filmation cartoon, you know that every episode Skeletor has some grand design for power. He was going to do some kind of scheme. He's going to get his ass kicked and he's going to promise to return next week. Lather, rinse, repeat. Same thing every time. And we wondered what would happen if he actually won. And that's essentially how we start our movie. Okay, cool. I it seems like that is a novel way to do it except
isn't that
the old8s He-Man did the exact same thing. Uh premise-wise it starts with the war is over and Skeletor's taken Grey Skull and then He-Man gets zapped back into the 80s uh Earth. In this one, I believe the king Randor uh sends like 14year-old Adam to Earth to protect him from Skeletor and that's why he's a fish out of water. has to find the sword and come back to Attorneyia to save it. But like I didn't love that like the beginning of this was like it felt like

we're doing something new.
Also, isn't that what the Kevin Smith Netflix He-Man No did?
No. Kevin Smith Netflix He-Man did an interesting thing because they kind of discontinued the story from the from the animation.
Oh, that's right. Yeah. There there's a point where he's going to win and then it ends up being spoiler spoiler spoiler. You should watch that one, by the way.
It's good. It's really good. pretty good.
Uh there was a couple other scenes uh fighting Trap Jaw and then him and Tila going and doing some stuff and like Skeletor taking taking the tower and whatever. I think this movie looks like the the actual art design of the movie looks really cool. It also has Jared Leto, which is a which is really the kiss of death for a lot of different things as Skeletor, which makes me really sad. Um I don't know. I I stand by my wanting to be hyped about it, but I think it brings up a bigger conversation about Cineacon and about these essentially IP grabs from our childhood that are turning into uh major motion pictures and that is um

I understand like the want and the hype and I mean they had everything there. They even had uh Avengers Doomsday stuff was shown there at Cineacon and I think I think I'm getting to the age where I just don't want the info. Does that make sense?
I just want to go see the movie.
I just kind of want to go see that. Like, look, you got my You got my money. You got it. You've done it. Now, am I going to praise what you've done or drag it on the internet after the fact? That's on you. But you got my money.
Um, I have my I have my Mortal Kombat 2 IMAX opening day tickets. Red and I are going uh like we're we got it. So like I don't know. I I chat. What about you? Like as far as games is a little different because you the experience of playing it or watching your favorite streamer play it is different than a trailer is. But have you like sort of abandoned for films

like movie news or movie trailers? Do you like going in cold? Do you like picking it up? Like do you like getting every little tidbit you possibly can? Like where do you land on media consumption like a television show or a movie before it comes out? I'm just curious. Merith prefers to go in cold. Just don't want nostalgia grabs. Well, actually B while people are getting their things in. That's interesting too cuz like I don't really either. He-Man I can't tell if it is. Uh, Street Fighter feels like it's doing something actually new with the IP. Bring it back to the old way it was that in a new format. Like it's not, but like I a lot of the stuff I definitely feel you. Uh, haven't been to a cinema over 15 years. I know I'll watch something regardless, so I'll go in cold. Uh, let's see. Yeah, just give me the release date and

shut up. [laughter]
That's That's Yep. That's 100% that. Yeah, 100%.
I watch trailers but avoid everything else. If it's a thriller or suspense, I don't want to know anything. So plot so the plot twist works. That is very true. And in fact, the latest film uh we just talked about this in the podcast uh two weeks ago. Uh the the uh Zenaia and uh Robert Patson film, The Drama. There's a really interesting conversation to be had about the marketing of that movie based on what that movie not as about but what the but real life issues that that movie deals with. And uh without spoiling anything, there are good arguments on both sides that I think from a pure not spoiling uh uh a large plot point of the movie franch uh standpoint. It does an excellent job like the trailers do an excellent job at opuscating what's not only what that what the drama is, but the but then the style of movie that it is. It feels a bit like a romcom. It

kind of is, but also very much isn't. And then the titular drama also is something that in some in a lot of circles would benefit from some sort of trigger warning, but then you don't get that like there's there's a snake eating its own tail of for something that is a piece of media that's meant to be a surprise like that, how do you market it? And we talked about it a lot on the only podcast about movies. If you're interested in that conversation about marketing, I just um I don't know. I think I'm getting kind of over things like Cineacon and like, "Oh, we're gonna show you 20 minutes of a movie." Like, come on. I just I just wanna I don't know. I just want to watch a movie.
Yeah, 100%.
Guys, I just want to watch The Mummy on 4K. That's really all I want to do. Is that Is that too much? Nope.
Is that too much to ask?
Nope. Absolutely not too much to ask. I want to I want to do that, too. I feel like that's a good That's a good thing to be done,
really, honestly.
Uh, okay. Next up, we have the end of a

saga. Turtle Wow has been in talks with Blizzard for a hot second. Turtle Wow, for those unfamiliar, was one of the largest thirdparty private WoW servers. Um, they were taking sort of a different route, sort of starting in the same place that WoW did and branching development, making their own content and doing all kinds of stuff. We're trying to port WoW to the Unreal Engine and this that the other and doing all this stuff. And Blizzard was like, "Hey, you know you don't own that, right?" And Turtle Wild was like, "No, man. It's fine. Just just do THE THING.
JUST RELAX, GUYS.
Just relax. It's a prank, bro. It's just a prank that's making us a bunch of It's just a prank." Uh, well, now it turns out that they have reached uh they they have they have reached the end of the line and Turtle Wild will be shutting down very early in May. Um, they've pushed out the rest of the content so that the people who are supporting Turtle Wow can play everything until

then. But, uh, the end of Turtle Wow is nigh. They have they have thrown in the towel in the face of Blizzard's cease and desists. Um, so that that wraps up that story kind of neatly with a bow. I don't think anyone should be surprised by this outcome. Like
Turtle Wild being like, "No, we can. It's fine. Just trust us." when they're actively taking subscribers away from Blizzard is like can't do that my guy like you can't you can't do do that.
Um so yeah so that's that's the end of that. Uh but we we addressed it way back when when this like first broke and I thought wanted to circle back and and and talk about that and say well it's over now. Uh, okay. That's all I had on that.
Hey, let's [clears throat] move on to the BAFTA.
The BAFTAs.

Uh, two pieces of news out of the BAFTAs. Number one, uh, Clarecure won best game of the BAFTAs. Amazing. [laughter] No one.
Hey everybody, Clint won the BAFTAs.
He won the BAFTA.
33 win the bastas.
That's right. It is now the second game ever to sweep all five major game of the year awards after Balders's Gate 3. Um
I will say the Baptist also had some really interesting stuff happened to them too like that Dispatch also tied I believe for how many awards it won just different awards. Um, I liked overall I really liked the um the BAFTAs while like every award show is a commercial um which is fine. There's nothing wrong with that. Feels more prestigious than like the Game Awards which like wears its advertising moniker as a badge of pride as opposed to a thing that they have to do. Um which again, you know, different flavors for different folks. I I just really

think that um I I think even like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, what a BAFTA, like there's there's a couple like things that like I don't know. I I really appreciated the the breath of the different styles of games that were uh brought up. I believe um I think uh I'm trying to remember. I think Blueprints might have won some stuff there, too, which Oh, uh best game design.
Blueprints got best game design. South of Midnight got best new IP.
Yep. and Death Stranding actually got artistic achievement. Uh, which was an interesting win over Clare Obscure, but uh I also here for like again I like that it feels like this is a bit more of a diverse maybe voting pool or how they do the awards or however it is. Um, and it and it's just nice. Um, uh, also Jennifer English won uh for her performance in Expedition 33. You know, one of these days I'll play that game. I own it. So, there's that. Um, [snorts] yeah. I I think it's I think overall it was really really good. There was, however, one um I believe one one

oopsy doodle uh that Will wants to talk about.
Yeah, a bit of an oopsy doodle. Okay. So, we got to talk about two things here. Uh, one of which is kind of a a a broader question that Matt brought up as we were prepping the show, and the other one is like the specific question about this game. So, uh, this story concerns the trailer for The Quiet Things. First question, why do Game Award shows find it Nessa to show trailers? Matt made the very
Academy Awards doesn't do it,
right? Ma Matt made a very excellent point that we're sort of parodying the film industry with our
Grammys doesn't do it,
right? Grammys doesn't play.
Tony's doesn't do it,
right? It's just games.
There are commercial slots like there are commercials like if it's on broadcast television,
right? And is the fact
Emmys doesn't do it. Sorry.

It is the fact that this isn't on broadcast television and it needs to pay for itself somehow the reason that this occurs
probably.
And I think the answer is probably, right? But like it is a unique difference in kind between game award shows specifically and award shows for every other form of media, right? Every other artistic award show doesn't do this and games do. So it's kind of weird. Um so that's just sort of a thing to to keep in mind. Okay. The story here is that the BAFTAs originally had said um that the Quiet Things, a uh game by Silver Script Games, um and written by Alex Jones, the founder of Silver Script Games, uh was going to be shown and it got pulled due to uh in in their words sensitive content.

Um, potential uh potential trigger warnings. The the game is a autobiographical extremely dark game about childhood trauma. It is art. It is capital A art. It is in that same vein as like that dragon cancer. Like, hey, I made art to deal with the fact that life is like not the best. Um, and so there was back and forth with the BAFTAs about whether or not it was appropriate for the audience and it eventually ended up getting pulled after a round of revisions and the revisions either didn't get in in time or weren't everything that the Baptists wanted and it was too late to change it. So they pulled it and so I BAFTA's official response, the official statement was, "We made a compliance decision not to show a trailer of an

unreleased game that contains themes that may be a trigger for some in consideration of our guests as we were not in a position to to sufficiently warn them. We fully support games that engage with difficult subjects and made the decision in relation to our event only and with the well-being of all guests as our priority. Okay. I think this is a really interesting problem for award shows in general and for games sort of specifically. We don't have an equivalent of a red box trailer, right? So, like for those unfamiliar with film, there's a green box trailer which is suitable for all ages and a red box trailer that you only show before rated R movies because you've already verified the age of everyone there and they're down to see rated R stuff. So, like a radar trailer is a red box and the all ages trailers are green box. And there isn't an equivalent of that for games. There's just the games trailer.
Sure. And I think that this is starting

to become a thing we might need to think about or a
Well, I mean, here's the thing. Where where would a red other than the internet, where would a red a red box trailer go for a game? Like, that's in a high-profile thing, right? Like, we don't really
Yeah.
Yeah.
No. And and I think that that's I think that's a really good point. I I just I like because
or red box, you can do either one. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Um
because the the the the preview thing that comes up is red instead of green.
Yeah. Um so I think that there's like cuz I could see both sides of this. Like number one, it makes sense that the BAFTAs would want to be aware of things that are um potential triggers for people in the audience of their thing, right? Like that's like if if you have a certain vibe and then you're going to throw uh triggers related to childhood trauma just like in the middle of the show,

that is not maybe the most conducive to you having the event that you want to be having, right? And like that is a concern. I also see the point of view that like it is difficult to be an event that uplifts games as a form of high art when you're also not willing to deal with all of the subjects that art deals with.
It also it also throw So it's interesting because I I would argue especially I mean look at Expedition look at a couple other things but like BAFTA is willing to do that
but it's it's in the context of its awards not its trailers. And now listen, I was talking to Will about this and I think we kind of came down on different sides of it which is totally fine. I sort of came at the this from a having worked on it in my in my past larger award shows like when we were working on the EMAs or other stuff at Viacom and MTV the way that clips and things for award shows go um it is very very strange. Now I imagine that the BAFTAs has a good production staff around it.

It's large enough where it's it's probably huge. But
to me, having seen the inside of how these shows can kind of work, this feels like a um essentially a lower to mid-level producing error that snowballed kind of out of control. I imagine that when they were putting this together, they wanted this game in cuz they liked the the studio and the creator and everything and and then they got the first cut of a trailer that dealing with this game's very dark and very real childhood trauma themes. They were like, "No, we can't show this. Please cut out this, this, and this." And then the they went back and the game studio did sent back a second trailer and they thought it was fine. Now, what I imagine happened, again, this is pure conjecture, but this is normally how this stuff kind of goes. someone got that trailer back. Whether or not a low to mid-level producer didn't show it to an executive producer or a showrunner, or that showrunner was shown it in a in a reasonable amount of time, but then didn't get to it, or they didn't decide to make a decision till the absolute

last minute, but somewhere down the line, production or uh the producing was done poorly and communication broke down. And then probably around the 24-hour mark or something like that, they just said, "No, pull the trailer. This isn't enough." even though the developer did exactly what was asked the first time. Like this isn't just one person ping-ponging back to another person. When it comes to shows of this size, you are going through a cavalcade of people and it feels like this was a time ran out and uh there were mistakes made on the production end and that sucks for the developer. There's no question. Yeah.
Um so I don't blame the BAFTAs here like as a I don't think it's like it's not like John C. BAFTA like is trying to uh snub art.
It's not a policy thing, but they did drop the ball on a procedural thing.
Exactly. And and and then the question that I'm sort of interested is like, well, how do we how do we make it so like and and truly like

this is a award show that is supposed to elevate art. I think for instance, if if the Quiet Things comes out, it has critical acclaim and all that stuff, there'll be no problem awarding the Quiet Place awards for its game about childhood trauma. I don't think they're going to shy away from that. But also you the the math and your responsibility changes when you are having people who are responsible for a piece of art walk up onto a stage and accept an award for it versus here's a complicit advertisement for a consumer audience for a product. Like yes it's art but it is also at that point as a trailer it's a product they're selling.
Yeah. And and that's a delicate balance that um I think the Baptist is going to have to get a little bit and and to be perfectly honest, every award show that that that I believe wants to elevate forms of art, but they have to figure out ways to do it. Like again,

I don't know the deal behind why like how much money was paid for this spot or if the Baptist asked the creator to do it and it was a pro bono thing. Like it's it's all up in the air. Who knows? Um, but I could see a world where um for difficult things like that that they want to elevate perhaps, and I can't believe I'm saying this, taking a page out of the Game Awards book and doing uh like an expose for a couple minutes on the game in a tasteful uh not a trailer, but in a tasteful like breakdown of like what the game is, what it deals with, like you know, that sort of thing. uh in more of a um a look at how the art is being made as opposed to just throwing something that could be like that you're putting next to things that have no trigger warnings
and then you go in and you change the the vibe and the the flow of your show completely. So, it's it's a complicated problem. it. And I I really do feel for

the devs and the team for having the trailer pulled because even if they said they'd submit a different one, oftent times in these projects there's just no time. Because I was saying to Will like even if it's a 24 or 48 hour turnaround, often times producers and executive producers don't want to keep making media changes because if you already have three different versions, there's always a human error chance of like if you can't triple check it and there's a million things to do, it just sometimes they'll just be like, "No, eh." or you know what else truly could have been cut for time.
Yeah,
I think there's a lot of there's a lot of levers to pull here.
Yeah. I also think that it's important too that um it is so strange to me how inconsistent the industry as a whole is because I don't think anyone really batted an eye at the last Larian trailer which was insane
actually unhinged like I do think though that the Game Awards has le and I I use

this both as a compliment and an insult has way less cuth than the bath us. [laughter]
No. Very fair. Very fair. Right. But like I just
chill.
Yeah. No, it is it is sort of wildly like games as a whole have this interesting problem I guess where like I don't know man. 14 is still rated T for T and has had graphic onscreen body horror for years and like all kinds of stuff that would normally get you rated R or or or M like if if it were in the first cut, right? And like they're finally getting their rating bumped up in Japan because of the GOS tool, not because of any other content in the game. Like the the level of inconsistency in the gaming industry

about what is and is not a thing that you're willing to put in front of different audiences is bananas to me. Yeah.
Like that is the other like part of the story that I just want to like draw attention to is like dudes there was a Larian trailer and we watched like some stuff.
Yeah. The Larry trailer was insane. I was looking at that I was like because it's not even the game,
right? It's Yeah. Right. It just Yeah. Anyway, um so uh if if a g a game about childhood trauma named The Quiet Things seems of interest to you, it has a
The trailer is out. You can look at it on YouTube.
Yeah, you can check out the trailer on YouTube. It does have uh dark themes in it about childhood trauma. Now you've been warned and you can go into it and watch it with that fornowledge.
Indeedly.
Uh oh, sorry. I should probably explain this. Uh, G-pose tool is a free form um, camera tool that you can use to pose

characters doing emotes or combat actions and take dynamic pictures. Um, I've got a bunch of G-poses. Like if you go if you go to my blue sky, my header is a G-pose of my character in a um,
go kos
in a in a a fight arena that I took after the fight was over. Right. So, like it's it's a it's a photo tool. Um, so, uh, okay, let's talk about not feeling so good, Mr. Dark.
Yeah. Uh, jumping back to movies, and I'm sorry we're doing this, but this, we talk about layoffs in industries all the time. Uh, Disney in its thousands of layoffs, uh, did a specific team very, very, very dirty. It's a smaller team, but it still checks out. Uh, essentially, um, they are in in attempts to streamline their operations. uh they have laid off um essentially the I want to get the name of the department right. Um the uh basically it's I think

it's between 13 and 16 people, but the entire award-winning visuals department team at Marvel Studios. They're basically the team that was in charge of not only designing a lot of the looks of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for since it's since Iron Man basically, but also um the the team that other productions and production companies go to within the Marvel Cinematic Univers's umbrella to maintain a consistent visual look uh between all of the stuff.
They're the visual bible team.
Yeah. Um and uh they have laid them all off with sort of the options of like coming back on a pro on a per project basis etc. Um this is a huge blow I guess another one to the VFX industry and the way that a project like the MCU like one of the metrics of its success. Uh to be fair though there is a some push back from a lot of different places. For instance, a lot of the core design and the comic book sort of appeal of things did come from this team. And

there were other elements of production that felt like they should have a bit more control, like honestly art, direction, and costumeuming because a lot of times it would go through this individual VFX department because they kind of held the keys to what was going on. Um,
and yeah, they laid off the artists that did their conference room mural in front of the conference room mural. That's the sort of the big the there's interviews about this over uh I I want to say it was was it on AV Club or was it on Polygon? Let's see. All three of these were in there. Yeah, it go it basically and and now there's been interviews with folks who who uh who've been hit by this and I believe um is yeah Wesley Bert said on on a on a on a Twitter post the irony of having a one-on-one HR layoff meeting in the conference room with my Loki mural on it. Like it's uh it sucks. Uh, and it will because even

if people are hired back on a per project basis, if you don't have
that's not stability.
It's not stability. You you're going to have to start from scratch. things are going to take longer to get any sort like I think maybe I'm old man yelling at cloud here but I do feel like a lot of times after these sort of things even before them in in certain situations there are elements in some of the earlier MCU films from a from a graphics design or visual effects standpoint that look better than the later Marvel films um and like you could cut that down to how many VFX shots had probably have like tripled since since that of like including them etc. But like I think it has to do with um a small team being stretched very thin and then like hiring out a ton of very very very large teams also being stretched very thin and now the team that was sort of managing those teams is now going to itself be a a four

higher basis and there's going to be it's going to not only slow everything down but it's going to make consistency and uh design in my opinion worse. Um, there's a lot of interviews on the Polygon. We have basically three links in the in the show notes, both from AV Club, Forbes, and Polygon. If you're interested in the story, I urge you to check it out, especially the Polygon one because it interviews a couple people who were affected. And um, yeah, just another just another garbage thing that will make uh, movies worse in my opinion, and also more expensive and take longer to make and have a lot more problems in the interim, and it will be Yay. Yeah, just bums me out. Like I think a lot of people were like, "Man, I wanted the MCU to make a comeback." And like I I think I burned out on the MCU a long time ago, but like this sucks, right? Like there's no there's no good spin for this. Like how much money did you actually save shaving 16 jobs versus how much is this

going to screw up the future of one of your flagship franchises? Like I don't understand. It's not even I it the the math is kind of crazy because like even if you think like again it the Marvel MCU as is as a cinematic machine is far larger than anything I've ever remotely touched. But you're right, Will. Like not only does it seem like 16 people's salaries in the grand in the grand scheme of the MCU is uh nothing, but there's no way in a production if you cut a general team that like has institutional knowledge about how things function and then just expect the rest of the corresponding teams to like pick up the slack or hire outsiders or do something else. There's no way that that in my opinion costs and the problems that will stem from that cost

less money than paying these people to do their jobs. There's and listen there could be other reasons but I this whole again you never know because there's corpo speak and there's like oh streamlining and you're like get bent man like it's it's
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yep.
[snorts]
Okay, deep breath. Good news. Little little little This is my little I'm gonna I'm gonna geek out for A SECOND.
WHAT IS THAT?
OKAY, GREAT. I'm so glad you asked. So, uh, we had the live letter on Friday for patch 7.5 of Final Fantasy 14. And we got a whole bunch of information about the main story and the new alliance raid and a whole bunch of other stuff that isn't super relevant to anyone who doesn't play 14. But and there will be no spoilers for current content. I promise. We got this picture.

Who is that?
That's Kefka.
Somehow Kefka's returned.
Somehow Kefka's returned.
Get Oscar Isaac in here.
Deliver the line better. I'm incredibly hyped for this because this is two things. One, this is a pattern break. So, this is likely likely a picture representing the new ultimate raid which will be coming out in 7.5 a couple weeks after release. That's weird because Kefka is part of the Omega Alliance raids or Omega normal raid series from Stormb Blood, which already has an ultimate raid for Omega, the Omega Protocol top. So, this is weird because they've never done two ultimate raids from the same raid series before, and this is cutting new territory for them, which is good because 14 needs to innovate more and

needs to get out of its comfy little uh cocoon of sameness every patch. Also, Kefka. Kefka is, if you've never played Final Fantasy 6, Kefka is among the most terrifying, deeply unhinged, fourth wall breaking, believes he is God Final Fantasy characters they've ever done because he is truly like lacks empathy, just is completely unhinged. And I can't wait to see how that manifests in a video game like because he gets a fight. He's got a fight in Omega and it's already regarded as a very good fight. Um, and this will be another Kefa fight and I'm very excited for it. Um, uh, [laughter] yeah, Kevka accomplished things horror. Yeah. Yeah. Kefka is the villain Sephro wished he could be. Yes. Kefka is among the best Final Fantasy villain. So, I'm

super excited for that. Also, just as a note, um 7.5 looks like it's going to be one of the best patches ever for Final Fantasy. Um we've got a new class coming out. It's called Beastmaster. It is a solo class in an MMO. You go around, you collect um you collect beasts, kind of like Pokemon. uh you wear them down, you capture them, and then they will fight alongside you, and you essentially have a brew your own rotation thing, kind of like Blue Mage, but it's got a solo rogike dungeon. So, if you need me after that comes out, you'll know where to find me. I'll be there doing that. Um because Final Fantasy 14 and Rogike are like the two halves of my gaming existence, and they made my blurbos kiss. So, that's kind of a thing there. Um, but also just the level of quality of life stuff we're getting is huge. So, I'm very excited about this and I'm very excited to see more Kefka and I'm very I'm just very excited for patch 7.5. Very cool.
There we go.
Yeah. Um, yeah.

Well, everybody, I believe that brings us to the near end of this week's Games for Breakfast. Thank you so much for joining us for all of these discussions. I have a request uh I I will remind the request about sending me any information you have about the Returnal Glitch over on Blue Sky. Please do that. That would be very lovely. That's where I will be able to see it. That my returnal bounty and any information that helps me get that platinum uh that if you are the person who gives me that information, I will make sure a Zoey plushy gets to your door free of charge. Um the um the other thing I want to ask uh based on our original story and what the thumbnail is of this thing. We had so much fun coming up with the silly ways that you could ageverify uh things and how even though they were ridiculous, they're about as effective as what that act is trying to get across the door. If you could do me a solid, me and Will a solid. Um, take your favorite one of those that you wrote

and under you can even label it like how I'd like to age verify and then type that in. Put it in the comment on the YouTube vod of this. I want a record that is easy to see of all of those awesome ideas. I know it's a little bit of a pain and you might have to scroll back and figure out what you said, but I think it is I I want to be able to refer to this in an easy place because not only is it hilarious and you are all very very funny, it illustrates a very important point about that story. So, if you could do me one of two solids, uh I would appreciate that one because I feel like uh it's very telling for what this show was about. Yeah.
Um would be very much appreciated. Um, I think that does bring us to the end of of the show outside of doing the the traditional games for breakfast signoff that is always the same every time. You all know it. I won't say you

all love it, but you understand it. you understand why we do it. Because on a Monday morning to afternoon, we want to foster a sense of community and have everyone do an action to go into the rest of the week with positivity and joy to make sure that we're all on the same page doing something that we can all do at our computers, whether you're with a loved one actually right next to you or in a virtual kitchenet with one of your one of your wonderful friends. That way we all feel like we're part of the Games for Breakfast family. So, Will, anything else to add before I take us away with our traditional sign off? Uh remember if you want to come hang out and help you write silly gags for the bot or check out new uh enrichment for Brad's enclosure, come join us on Twitch right after this.
That's right. So please join me as always in our traditional goodbye for Games for Breakfast, specifically how Echo the Dolphin would say it.