TWIG #358 Steam Machine, the Future of PC Gaming?

Is this a general outlier versus what we've seen in the past where a lot of these sort of Asian IPs do find an audience in the West? Also, I don't really want to watch this video, so I'd rather [laughter]
No, dude. This Adam, this is player empathy. Do not avert your eyes.
You're make you're making a Adam uncomfortable. You know, his Canadian sensibilities. [music]
Hello everyone and welcome to This Week in Games 358. I'm Jen Dano. I fill the marketing and publishing role on today's podcast. Today we have special flying in from Canada for shooter talk is
Adam. Yeah, Adam Teler. Good to be here product. There you go. Eric strategy investing.
Phil fourth chair. [ __ ] that. Monizations are [laughter]
I love it. I love bumping you to the end. All right, here's what we have going on the episode today. It's the [ __ ] on Call of Duty 7 session. Just a stunning ass kicking that's going on.

We're going to go over a bunch of the numbers that we have available to us today on Wednesday, November 19th. Let's see. Oh, Valve and Steam's Gabe Cube is coming. It's called the Steam Machine. That's the real name. GDC released a US salary report and all of Europe gets pissed. Ubisoft speculation. Is someone buying them? I think Adam, you threw this in here. Miiamoto releases pictures from the liveaction Zelda movie to a positive buzz. The guy looks like Link. I was like super impressed with that. Phil hits two ends of the spectrum. Phil, this was really kind of funny. You've got the cozy games and then sexy cozy games. Like I was a little bit weirded out, but you're going to hit all of that for us later. Sadly, we don't have time to talk about this subject that just dropped this morning, which is Unity and Epic have just announced that games made with Unity are coming to Fortnite. This includes Unity's new commerce engine. It just got announced. We have a ton of questions, so we decided we're just going to bump that to next week until we can figure out what's

going on. But that could be kind of interesting news. All right, let me just do a few quick shills. Apps Flyier dropped news of their big fall release. So, if you're in UA or growth, go check that out. On Tuesday, last night, I had another Yoda session at UCLA. So, thanks to Nick for having me uh come and talk to, I don't know, 20 30 MBA students. And then I wanted to do a little bit of a sad note. Uh, Trailblazer Interplay co-founder Rebecca Heinman has died of cancer at the age of 62. Heman taught herself to code by reverse engineering code. Won a national space invaders contest when she was just 14. Although she has a starter array of game credits to her name from the time at Interplay and Beyond, Hyman said Bards Tale 3 was what started her on her path to being a studio head. She was also a gaming icon recipient in 2025. She was part of the LGBTQ community. So sad news of her

passing, a lot of people remembering her. It's just great. Again, women in games who have been making games for 30 years was pretty big. Game devs. Here at Heroic Labs, we know that great gameplay is what players love. But integrating metagame features like challenges, progression, and rewards is crucial for retention and monetization. But coding them is a tedious and timeconuming process. [music] That's why top studios have turned to Hero from Heroic Claps. Hero provides a complete suite of battle tested metagame features that are quick to implement, letting you spend more time on the core gameplay experience. Ready to ship fully featured engaging games? Check out her today at heroiclabs.com.
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All right, so corrections, Phil. What did we get wrong?
Well, kind of more of an update here. I mean, Eric and I were talking about Amazon Game Studios, their huge layoffs. Was this the end of Amazon Game Studios? But we talked about Moral, which is their studio where they hired a lot of the X-Rainbow 6 Siege team, and that they were working on a MOA. And that was the question mark about whether or not

AGS was dead. I got a lot of text messages from former AGS friends. Yeah, they're toast. Uh, the Moral Studio is being shot. It's trying to be sold. And after Tomb Raider, just as you said, Eric, they are dunzos. So, we can add that to the graveyard of failed tech companies that have tried to do gaming. And you can already feel the Grim Reaper coming from Microsoft. Yeah, I think Twitch got a lot of unknown hits as well. I think a lot of different arms, although there's still a lot of Amazon people around, which is interesting. It's like which sections got toasted, which sections didn't. It's going to be interesting to see what the fallout is there.
I think the point I think Philip's making is that basically Amazon is done. Like once they get Tomb out, they are no longer going to be making games. It's Twitch casual games around.
Yeah, but that's what I said. I think I that's what I said originally, which was what I was hearing from folks. So,
you're right.
Not good.
And that closes the book on Moral
and Mobas. I hope

it's an RTS moa, Eric.
Oh, okay.
Oh. Oh, even better.
In that case. In that case. Oh, yeah. Green lights all the way.
Two of Crest's favorite genres put together. All right, let's get to Call of Duty Black Ops 7 launch. So, let me just give you a little bit of a rundown on some of the numbers. So, the fall showdown has begun. Call of Duty versus Battlefield 6 versus Arc Raiders. That's the one we didn't know was going to be in the mix, is now in the mix. Later on, maybe Tarov, but probably not going to be in there. So, I have to admit to being really stunned at just how bad this is for Call of Duty. I know we predicted it. I know we were saying it was going to be bad, but this is actually stunning how bad this is. Black Ops 7 launched on Friday, November 14th. So, we're less than a week into the launch. So, I'm going to cover a few ratings and more marketing things and Adam info will come in with some actual CCU DAU numbers. So, on the rating side, historic low user

scores, Black Ops 7 sits at a 1.7 out of 10 user score on Metacritic, making it the lowest rated Call of Duty installment in franchise history. even worse than Modern Warfare 3's 2.3 out of 10. 22 Critics have it at an 82%. Open Critic has it at 75% for the critics. So, there's definitely a difference between critical response and user response. On Steam, the game has a 44% approval rating. Twitch is down 60% versus Black Ops 6. Twitch viewership also fell with Black Ops 7 peaking at like 160,000 concurrent viewers versus Black Ops 6's about 400,000. Google Trends. This was kind of interesting. I pulled up a bunch of stuff, but the gist is that Black Ops 7 had about a 65% drop off from Black Ops 6. Black Ops 7 actually dropped 40% from what Battlefield 6 did in Google search

interest. Battlefield 6 outperformed it in search interest with two peaks at 44%. So what I loved about what Battlefield 6 did was that they had two big kind of search interests. One for their the beta that they had and then also one at launch. So something that we haven't seen historically when you look at trends for these games. So Adam, take us through a little bit of what you saw for Steam.
This tells the pretty grim story here. You look at the six on this graph, which is Black Ops 6. roughly a 70% drop in CCU versus Black Ops 6's opening weekend. So that's 100K this year versus about 315 on six. The real challenge here is that it's basically a blip on the CCU chart compared to Black Ops 6. The like real piffy part of this is that there's been free weekends previously that have driven larger spikes in CCU than Black Ops [clears throat] 7.
So this is pretty grim. We are waiting

on sales data still. So, so far it looks very soft on digital year-over-year. But I would still wait until there's sort of better data across platforms including console before reporting real numbers. Like here we're looking at Steam, this is only one section of the market. But if these numbers are to believed, right, like 70% drop in CCU, significant drop in their go to market KPIs, then my assumption of just how strong the floor was on sort of COD sales is likely challenged. This is going to be a pretty poor year for COD. And I believe it's actually their own doing. I think for context here, the most important part is that like COD is on this cycling studio model and we all knew this would be another off year, right? We all knew this was going to be a weak year. They went from a three-year cycle and up to 2019, which I think continually delivered great games to now sort of a 16 18month cycle with sort of skeleton crews in early dev and then these like massive resource spikes of piling on their resources for that final push up

to launch. And that's where we started to see this sort of like Modern Warfare 3 and Black Ops 7 types of performances. This just requires teams to really lock in, I think, like big innovation bets really early in development and those resource spikes basically force a very consistent vision and really difficult studio cohesion and iteration capability. So, the key issues with Black Ops 7 in my perspective are sort of four key things. One is campaign. It's worse than Modern Warfare 3. This is likely why there's a big knee-jerk sort of hater reaction to this. So, I would expect that like as people get exposed more to Call of Duty, these things will settle into a better spot, but knee-jerks are going to happen. The innovations that they made that they locked in early just aren't resonating with players. I'll say like they added a PvE extraction mode. There's this cursed zombie mode. It seems like those are getting more positive vibes, but their movement changes actually made things

feel worse and a lot of the features and innovations don't really hit the main audience of COD. On top of this, the theme has shifted from sort of modern military to this like hallucinations focused theme and like let's call it like zombies hallucinations and fantasy focus. Like Black Ops was always the number two brand for COD, but it always leaned into sort of modern military espionage. I think in this one they just went off the rails. They went too extreme in this one.
I remember seeing that in the trailer. Like we we were like, "Wait, what game is this?"
It looked like a sci-fi game. So
it looked very Yeah. So I hear you on that a lot. I thought you were talking about the AI hallucinations, which is there was a lot of [ __ ] being given for AI usage in the game as well, which is a whole other topic. But anyways,
I'm not sure if that actually had a ton of impact on sales, but like I think pretty strongly that their shift away from grounded modern military hurt them, especially in comparison to Battlefield 6.

Yeah.
And lastly, major performance issues at launch. The thing I'll call out here is actually controller players. A lot of issues around auto aim and how controller players felt, especially with movement being behind sort of keyboard, mouse. There's actually like there was an opportunity here. there was an open lane with Battlefield 6 because it was so Battlefield 6 was so PC ccentric that if they executed well for like console players PS5 there actually would be some differentiation but in this case unfortunately the controller seemed like it took a step back. So again, I think this is the year that they take it on the nose as COD and they expected that. It's just their intended off year, but I think this performance is going to start to signal this is going to suck even more for Microsoft and for Activision likely leading to further layoffs. Unfortunately back to modern military supposedly Infinity Ward is focused on an overall like engine overall. So that should be good, but the pressure will be on them

to deliver. Moving forward, I think Microsoft and Activision need to figure out their studio cycling model because I think that's at the crux of this. It's like them just mounting on tech debt, building on this engine and as well like how fast these cycles need to operate and how quickly those resources spike. But as EA, there's opportunity. You've got an open lane this whole year to really deliver on Battlefield 6's live and I think set up a pretty major step change. Yeah, I you do say it's like off cycle off year for them generally speaking. Okay. But they did do another Black Ops game, but they did future which makes no sense, right? To do just generally speaking. You know, my objection to this Activision deal from the get-go was this is what the likely result would be, right? They have lost the rudder of the ship, right? because there's no one really managing this and pushing the [ __ ] forward anymore. And being in an environment where everything

seems to be falling apart at the seams is just a really really tough place to be building, you know, innovative and new [ __ ] right? And so next year is the proof like whether they can actually pull something out and I hope they are doing everything in their power moving heaven and earth to spend as much money and build as much teams in order to build the right game for next year. I have my doubts, right? I just don't think they have the resources anymore to do what they need to do in order to get this thing back on track. But that'll be my prediction for next year. I don't think the game is nearly as bad as people are suggesting. Like I mean the single player is [ __ ] terrible. Absolutely terrible. Like there's no doubt like the single player was basically phoned in. Co-op gameplay is really tough. Like open world co-op gameplay is very tough. The zombie mode is phoned in. Although it has some highlights, but the multiplayer is still solid, right? which is what people play Call of Duty for. So, I think that will find its audience again to some degree, you know, the hardcore Call of Duty fans, but I just don't think it competes

with the Battlefield, you know, engine, the destructible environments, you know, the newness of the franchise. And then Arc Raiders is obviously super, you know, relatively innovative in that space, too. So, anyway, I hope they pull it out for next year. I just really have my doubts that Microsoft is in a position to make the investments required to make that happen. And this is part of the problem with this whole acquisition to begin with and you know their failed you know subscription strategy.
Do you think KODC knew there was these cracks in the cycling studio model and do you think they might need to take a break say after Infinity Ward to get this back on track?
Okay. First of all, no. Dude, they were able to be the top selling game for the last [ __ ] 20 years, you know, in all of gaming. In all of gaming. consistently, right? I think one year I think they lost it to Warner, right? I don't think the leadership knows how to manage studios, right? I don't think they know how to manage the skew plan. I don't think they know how to get things

out on time. It's the same idea as taking guys out of Riot and putting them in a new game studio. It's like these guys know how to do one thing within the game develop. They don't know how to allocate resources and allocate budgets and build P&Ls and [ __ ] like that. Like they know how to make games, right? And so these people with these particular skill sets, they don't know how to allocate the resources properly to execute against the market, right? The fact that these guys are almost like three weeks late, you know, to the game when they knew Battlefield was coming was a huge mistake on their part, right? Like they don't have the right people in place. Not to mention Microsoft is not supporting them the way they need to be supported. They need to be spun out. Period. End of sentence. Like it's over, right? It's [ __ ] over for Xbox.
Look, it I I would say uh h history may not repeat, but it rhymes. And it's amazing to me that this is the exact Battlefield 1 Advanced Warfare story all over again. Advanced Warfare was one of the weakest entries in the series

critically from a player-based perspective. It pushed the series way too sci-fi. Remember that's when you had the exoskeletons? You were shooting each other.
Sorry, take Call of Duty Advanced Warfire you're talking about.
Correct. Oh, apologies. And Battlefield 1 was at its strongest. And so like this is the same story all over again. And I don't think that Adam, we've underscored how awful these numbers are. We're looking at the PSU actuals from Steam right now. And this again, remember, it's one skew on Steam. They don't separate out the different game versions. And so this also includes freeto-play war zone. But the Black Ops 7 release is it looks like a content update. And not even that doesn't even reach the content updates that we saw earlier in the year. And when you look at Video Game Insights, who pulls in PlayStation and Xbox numbers comparing Call of Duty's DAU to Arc Raiders, Arc Raiders looks like it's besting it or at least matching it this IP out of nowhere. And when you look at this drop in merged DAU for Call of Duty around October 11th, that's when Battlefield launched. Like there's a direct line

from Battlefield launching to Call of Duty having the air sucked out of the room. And I think that we've talked a lot about the Call of Duty having a miss here, but I think this is really the ascent of Battlefield and Arc Raiders. I think that really delivered the final blow to them. And I don't think we can underscore enough what an incredible story this is because this is Vince's game. Remember Vince was at Infinity Ward. He's the one who built Call of Duty at a franchise. Remember, he had the lawsuit with Bobby over Studio Bonuses where he left to go start Respawn and that's where Titanfall comes from. And now he gets the Battlefield franchise back and he delivers a final blow to I wouldn't say a final blow but at least a pretty critical blow to Call of Duty his former franchise with his new franchise Battlefield. I think that is an unbelievable story. An unbelievable story and I think this is going to continue. I think Call of Duty has real competition now. I think they're going to be bringing the heat every single year. DMZ looks like it's not doing anything their extraction mode. It looks like Arc has totally taken the wind out of that. Red Sack may

not be succeeding, but I think it may be eating into War Zone to some degree. This is bad news bears. This is bad news bears for Call of Duty. I think you you're [ __ ] in the bed if you're Microsoft right now.
Listen, I agree with all of you guys and you know, I do think there's so many different things at play. One of the things I wanted to bring in from a marketing perspective is I hate to do this, but I need to comment on the marketing that I'm not sure was very good. No. First of all, I didn't see it anywhere. And I get that I'm a not necessarily in the video game audience, but I click on so much stuff I should be. So, I didn't see anything. And what I did see was something called the replacer. And so, I guess the idea is that there there's this guy or this girl and you call them in when you're playing Call of Duty. And so, there are all of these clips. They're on YouTube. I think it was their TV campaign. And when you look at YouTube on the views for some of these, okay, I'll grant one of them got like a million, a little over a million views, but the rest of them are at, I

don't know, like 20 23 to, you know, 50k views for this. It doesn't do anything with the game. It was, I guess, designed to be funny. I just think what really contrasts me in the marketing of Black Ops 7 versus the marketing of Battlefield 6, it is just truly night and day. And sorry marketing team for col for Black Ops 7. I'm not sure that it hit the mark, especially when you compare it to Battlefield.
I think the replacer's actually been like a reoccurring character for most of their pre-launch campaigns since like Black Ops 2, maybe three. It's a gimmick that they've been doing. So like I think it speaks more towards the go to market being relatively phoned in.
Yeah. Yeah,
but I think more to your metrics on like YouTube and engagement like there just was none. Like people were not resonating with their USPs with their innovation areas. You could see it in the beta metrics. You could see it in in the YouTube. So like even when they brought up a gimmick like this, it

wasn't nostalgic anymore. It was more an eye roll like just another COD campaign.
Yeah. And that's actually what Battlefield 6 did was like make fun of [laughter] all of the Akad campaigns by having the celebrities come in. And I thought that was really fresh and new where these guys are, like you're saying, going back to what they've already done. It's just you got to go something something different. Sorry, Chris.
You know, morale is at an all-time low. Management is not helping figure this out. Sarah Bond and the rest of them are not doing what they need to do in order to get people back. They're reducing spend, they're reducing headcount, like they're just not prioritizing Xbox. So, this is what happens, you know, when it's not a strategic asset. They're just not making the investments. And so, morale is bad and so they're just phoning all this [ __ ] in, including the marketing guys. They have big budgets. So, it's like, you know, they're just not as motivated as they used to be. You know, you say some bad things about Bobby Cotch, dude. The guy is [ __ ] motivating, you know? Yeah.
Like, yeah.
No, I I didn't say anything. I didn't

say that. I just asked if like did he know that the issues were going to creep up like this?
He was worried about a lot of things including China. This has nothing to do with China, right? So absolutely nothing to do with China. this is just a mis
I also had heard that you know once the Microsoft deal went through there were 30% budget cuts across you know everyone and that's a really difficult thing to do when you're a plugged in machine that you're doing this year in year out for someone to come in and say hey you know 30% budget cut like that's decimating to teams to budgets and so maybe that played a role in this as well. All right. So, let's keep going and we are going to go to the next story, which is the hardware nobody asked for that might change everything. Disruption. Disruption. I'm just kidding. I actually don't think that's exactly the case. But Valve's newlyannounced Steam Machine. And no, this is not a retread on their failed 2015 experiment. This time it's

different. The Steam Machine is a consoleiz PC running Steam OS and it's coming out in early 26. It's alongside a new Steam controller, which reviewers seem to say is pretty cool. And the I can't wait for Chris, and the Steam Frame VR headset. Watch out, MetaQuest 3. So, on paper, it sounds like they're going to go head-to-head with Microsoft and Sony. It's about $550 for base unit that performs kind of like a PS5. It runs 4K at 60 frames per second and looks like a mini Xbox. Looks like a actually like a black GameCube. So, Adam, tell me a little bit more about what you see with this thing.
There's speculation that it's like 700 plus.
The article I read had like two sizes. One was like a 512 gig box for that lower price point and then like a one gig box for a higher
price. Just people fishing. I don't think it has not been announced yet as far as I'm aware.
Yeah. I guess my my quick take here is

that like I I like this play by Valve, but like anything like I I look at LinkedIn and the opinion pylon is already in like extrapolation to the moon mode, which I I don't really want to jump into like let's compare this 2015, right? Those machines failed for some pretty critical reasons. Number one was that they were built by third parties which led to a bunch of confusing options, price point pressure, and really led to a really tough comp to just buying a regular PC. Now in 2026, Valve is building it like they did with the Steam Deck. Now also Steam OS. Before it was Linux. Nothing ran on Linux in 2015. in 2026 because of Proton that's been fixed on most things run on Steam Deck absolutely well obviously based on the specs. 2015 was also early in sort of that PS4 generation. 2026 is late in Gen 9. I think that's actually pretty good timing. So PS5 and Xbox gamers have some money to spend now late in cycle and I think this should

compwell to PS5 Pro.
To be clear, it's still running Linux.
It is. Yeah. But the Proton um system has fixed the Linux issue. Okay,
now things run on it. Before very few games actually ran on Linux. Now most games do.
So my hope as well is that maybe for the Steam Machine they actually bring out some content exclusives if they do Halfife 3.
Why would that would be some damn good time on it? But there's that those are just rumors. The challenges I'll call up two. One is the specs and their actual shelf life. buying sort of like a PS5 Proesque spec thing right now. How long will that last? Like a 2026 machine. NextG is coming in 2027, 2028. So for me, like the deck when it launched barely ran Elder Ring and Cyberpunk and now my deck is actually bricked. [laughter] It could only play indie games. So, I think they're going to need to figure out some better life cycle management to

make sure titles actually run well on the hardware for the foreseeable future. Otherwise, it ends up just turning into the Steam Link. The main spec to watch there is 8 GB of VRAM. This is the critical spec to watch since it'll actually bring down 4K and sort of high refresh rates that I think players have been pretty focused on. Sort of PS5 Pro and above. Also, anti-che and sort of anti- Steam. So Simos can't run titles that have kernel level antiche. So those are titles like Valerant, Battlefield 6, GTA Online, just the online component, Fortnite, Rainbow Six Siege, PUBG, Call of Duty.
What the [ __ ] is left?
Yeah, [laughter] so major
major PVP titles right now can't run on Steam OS. So they have to aggressively go after the relationships with these studios to figure out how to make sure that those things can run on this hardware. Also things that are just off steam can't run. So League of Legends, Fortnite, Minecraft, Roblox are

definitely the notable ones.
90% of the revenue driven by gaming is not allowed to play on the Steam Deck. It's like
well it's the same thing as like most of those titles like Okay, so League of Legends, Fortnite, Minecraft, Roblox are not on Steam. So you have that on PC. So for those reasons, the C machine Machine will not outsell the PS6. So LinkedIn, please get off that. [laughter]
That's so
that's not the goal. It'll sell singledigit millions in sort of year one. And that's mainly going to be on price point and availability. It might take some share from Xbox given that it can play a substantial number of titles and also get access to your existing Steam library. And I think it'll just do what Valve wants, which is to continue expand its ecosystem. That's why I think it's a smart move and why Valve continues to be a pretty durable company. I don't think it needs to be a console killer to win here. It can sell single-digit millions and make its margin off of those. It just needs to execute against increasing engagement and expanding the ecos. You know, I have to admit, Adam, sometimes I love you on

the podcast and sometimes I just generally don't like you on the podcast [laughter] because you make too much.
You make too much sense, you know? It's like it's just like it's hard to get like over the top when you're just making total sense. Like what you say is what I should say, but what I'm going to say next is what I want to say. Okay. [laughter] I I don't disagree with any reason.
Like sorry. I'm not a very dramatic person.
No, clearly not. Clearly not. First of all, let me just say one thing. What the [ __ ] are they doing making a VR headset at this day and age? What the [ __ ] is that about? Like why would you waste any money on R&D building that [ __ ] They must be seeing something I am not in terms of usage on their platform or something. I don't know. But that seems like a really expensive thing. I think VR is kind of deed dead. All right. So, let me start there. I do want to say I applaud them coming out with the console. I kind of wish they did this year decades ago building their own

thing like reinforcing the PC architecture and the PC platform as a whole. I mean, I think they kept it open for a long time. But I think what you're saying about the specs are actually the right approach to thinking about it. But from my perspective, I think the specs are actually really bad. Like it's not good, right? Like the CPU is actually quite good, but the GPU is [ __ ] terrible. It's not future proof at all. Like the 8 gigabytes of RAM is a problem.
They're going to have to rely heavily on what is it? Like frame generation and all that stuff.
Yeah, it's like indie games at best. like things like, you know, CD projects, games, and stuff like that's going to be really hard to run on this device, you know, which it's okay in a small device like the Steam handheld, but when you're talking about a [ __ ] 65 in like, you know, 4K television, it's going to be [ __ ] horrific, you know? So, there's some issues there that I don't know if they're going to be able to optimize and fix. And then again, you know, back to what I was saying earlier, it's like, you know, with this anti-che thing and

stuff that's not running on it, right, natively, it's like, dude, like 90% of the market is kind of eliminated by or at least 90% of the revenue and maybe 10% of the hype, you know, it's like what all that matters. But the big thing here is the price point. So, the bill of materials kind of suggests a $700 price point. And I really have a hard time believing that Steam or Valve is going to subsidize this in any meaningful way. I mean, it's possible. It's possible, but a 700 price point is just a non-starter. I mean, that is a niche device at best, right? And frankly, the PS5 is just a better overall device and overall ecosystem, you know,
Chris, is it a niche device for a niche market? Like, that's what I don't understand. It's like, if the idea is that the play pattern is, hey, it's going to be more indie games. We get that you're going to play your big games on your PC that you probably have. Why would you want to spend that much money for that small amount of content? That's

what I don't get from like a market fit perspective.
Sometimes I think people assume that people are either PC gamers or console gamers.
Yeah.
But there's enough market data there to suggest that there's a lot of people that have like a good high-end PC and then have that secondary console device and like have a TV and want to play some of those games on PC. So, like right now, if I'm an Xbox player, I don't own that many games because I have Game Pass for a long ass time, right? I want to have access to my Steam library on my TV, right? Like, there's a pretty compelling part of that. The problem is for PS6 and like PS5 players right now, right? Like, there's a ton of content that I want day one already on console and then when PS6 come out, it's going to come out with a significantly better spec and be more future facing. So, I think for PS5 players, it's a significantly weaker argument. But like, I'm saying this as somebody who currently has a PC connected to my TV because I want to be able to play higher spec games and be closer to the Steam ecosystem on my TV.

When GTA 6 comes out, it's only on console. Like, I mean, you can't even buy it on this machine, right? This machine's not contemporary in that way. It's
Yeah, I didn't have GTA 6 on my list, but that's a really good good call. What really bothers me about this is not necessarily what it is, because I do support it. I think it's a great idea. I think they're basically going to eat some of the Xbox's share, but I'm spending way too much time at the actual coverage of the story as opposed to covering the [laughter] story myself. I want to be crystal clear on this point cuz Yoast was driving me insane with this [ __ ] This is not innovation on distribution. This is a [ __ ] console, okay? Like we've been doing console for like 30 [ __ ] years, right? This is not innovation at all, right? They should have done this ages ago, right? Like it doesn't even make any sense, you know? But the reason they don't do it is because the hardware business sucks. It's a low margin business that you have to subsidize to make it work, right? And that's why Xbox is losing right now. So it's like people like think like this is

the second coming, dude. The Steam handheld has sold 6 million in three years. That's [ __ ] nothing. That is nothing. That is not an even an install base that you can sell into. That is a secondary device for the super hardcore, right? So, stop listening to Kotaku. Stop listening to IGN. Like those guys. Like this [ __ ] is small. Like the all the market's on the PS5. [laughter] The real takeaway is just spend less time on LinkedIn.
I think I got to shut it down. I got to shut it down. It's too much.
Crazy. X Xbox ROG Ally is exceeding its expectation sales for the high-end [clears throat] unit of 20. Well, I mean they of course they don't.
They sold in like a half a million units.
Exactly. Right. [laughter]
I mean I we should just get like a betting pool on how many units they're going to announce and it's going to be under a million. I would have to imagine.
Press, you know, Xbox is maybe going to do 4.5 million hardware units this year. Steam Deck is doing 2 million. When I start to look at these numbers, first of all, I think it tells you more about Xbox than it does about, you know, where

Steam
that's also like tail end generation sales versus like when we're talking about the first spike of sales for Steam Decks, first spike of sales for this machine. Unfortunately, it does not mean like it's going to,
you know, flatline to 4.5 or 5 million.
I think that's all fair. And to your point, you know, PS5 is doing 18.5 million units in FY24. So, we're not going to get close to that. But still like, okay, Steam Deck plus this box. Okay, you're starting to add what if you add another three, maybe five million units on top of that. It's looking really competitive to Xbox just in terms of getting an install base out there. I would say that the mystery to me is where's China? I mean, that's been a huge part of the growth of the Steam platform, as we've talked about quite a bit, and Eric, you like to tell us that it's been responsible for basically all of the growth. So, where is the Chinese distribution plan? Because if you remember like consoles were banned in China which is why they relied so heavily on PC. So I'd love to see if Valve has a strategy to put this in the hands of Chinese gamers. And then I

think to everyone's point like who is this for? Like who is this for? And just like the Nintendo Switch the problem is that Switch goes out and sells a [ __ ] ton of units and then what it does is it collects dust on everyone's TV console which is the same thing that's happened to my Steam Deck and also to my Switch. And so even if you're selling hardware units, the question I have is are these going to translate to new monthly active users? is this going to translate to marginal incremental play time and increased sales for all the games we're talking about? And that's to me where this falls apart, even if they're able to sell units, is that doesn't help the ecosystem or the platform. It just helps Valve get some extra dollars and cents for the hardware enthusiasts.
To your point, the one thing I was thinking of is could the Steam Machine be the gateway drug for younger console kids to bridge to PC?
$800 at $700. Well, it's cheaper than a gaming PC. You know, gaming PC price point yet. We don't know the price point.
Okay. We don't know the price point, but Okay. But a gaming PC, a really solid one, is what? Two grand, three grand. I mean, Phil, you were talking about your

motherboard or something cracking.
I'm a little bit different. It's a There's different price points for a gaming mix. You can still get one for one kid.
Yeah.
Sure. But so, this is less than that. And so maybe this is like a great gateway drug for younger kids or it's a gateway drug for older Gen X players. Like you know, Adam, you were saying, "Hey, I just want to like a low friction way to game on my big computer in the TV room. I want to utilize my 2,000 games in my Steam library. I just want to sit on my couch. It's ease of use. I don't have to sit at my desk." So maybe there's like a play pattern or a use case that we're not thinking of where this could be kind of interesting. I also think it fills the gap of the Xbox identity crisis that Xbox is going through right now. I think this is going to be an Xbox, right? Like they have that campaign, this is an Xbox, you know, with sales declining and people not really knowing what it is. Steam is becoming the third console. just that idea of taking your library to your

couch with this device could be interesting. That being said, it's priced the same as those other consoles. So, I I'm not quite sure, but I also applaud the effort and like let's see if we can get in there.
I am 100% supportive of this. I think it's a great idea. I think they should iterate on this and make a get put together a hardware strategy, use all their gajillions and invest in the hardware stuff. We need someone to replace Xbox as the second console as they, you know, continue to fail. So, more power to them. I hope I hope they're successful. Moving on to Ubisoft speculation. So, they basically halted trading on the stock and postpone earnings indefinitely, which really does not happen often
just to be clear. Like, whoa.
Yeah, that's not good. Right. So, generally when you postpone earnings, it's either one, there's a sale of the company brewing, two, there's a major restructuring, or three, they're missing numbers dramatically. And given how

[ __ ] up this family is, it could be all three for all I know, right? You know, who knows, right? But I'm thinking that probably 10-centent is going to put them out of their misery and acquire them. I don't see anyone else coming to the table because of the ownership stake that Tencent has. It is possible the Saudis, but I think they got their hands full at this plate. Now, this is all speculation, by the way. I have no idea. But the real issue here is the same thing. It's like Vantage Studios all the value of the company. So with Assassin's Far Cry and Rainbow 6. So it's likely this division will get sold. The rest of it will likely get shut down. So So as I said a few weeks ago, Paris is going to burn. You know, [laughter] Viva Viva Canada.
God. And do you think like the performance issues like even Vantage Studios, Siege just had their X update, the freetoplay update, it has not been going very well. Shadows sales looks like they're flat as a pancake, right? They're definitely not hidden targets. So like even the section they carved out to be like the prize

jewel doesn't seem that strong right now.
They don't have any releases this year at all. Sorry, next year in 2026. There's nothing coming out. Yeah, it's scary. But yeah, I have to imagine 10 cent's going to put them out of their misery or let's hope. But we'll see. The next thing quick one on EA. So the S4 came out and it kind of more or less confirms like everything I was saying and that you know all these other pundits out there were completely wrong about in terms of the expectation of like 30% reduction in headcount and not enough cash flow to cover the debt. all that [ __ ] that was complete false narratives of people that don't understand what they're talking about, including Jason Shrier, Yoast, and Reese Elliot, and a bunch of others. The only thing that came up that was a little bit more controversial was that the board of directors decided not to go after other potential counterparties to take the deal from the Saudis without shopping it around to other acquirers. And this was in the directly in the S14 itself. So for two

reasons, one is no one else is likely have the strategic interest or financial capability to beat the offer and the outreach could disrupt the business risk leaks or lose the investor's interest. So in my brief experience with M&A, I totally think that this is actually a valid concern. you start doing a bidding war and then they walk and then the people that are coming in to do the bids are not really that serious and it could co cause serious problems and I think the Saudis would find that very insulting as well that if they were to do that. So I personally think this makes sense. You know some people on the message boards and slacks were like basically like thinking that this is a really bad good deal for the shareholders but I think this actually makes sense. They released some of the numbers of how much the leadership team is going to be making from the deal and it's pretty stunning.
You mean like retention bonuses going forward or cash payouts at
cash payout? I think Yeah, it was like I think Andrew Wilson's getting some over $und00 million or something.

Money, money, dude.
Yeah.
Still doesn't make him CEO of Disney. [laughter]
Try again, Mr. Wilson.
Yeah. Or CEO of in Intel. Sorry, he's not going to be a media mogul yet, right? So, actually, that is actually a really interesting question now, right? Does he become a media mogul with this new EA Saudi back company or does he quit in three years and do PE, right? That's people keep on asking me this question, right? Is his way of like building out an empire, you know, they start building buying [ __ ] teams and leagues and, you know, they buy the Bundes League or I don't know what the [ __ ] they would do, right? like it's like, you know, buy FIFA, right? And then like create like this conglomerate. Maybe he's building his legacy as we speak. I don't know.
No, it is an interesting idea, especially for EA Sports. You know, their vision is always to be the premier sports entertainment brand, not necessarily just video games. And the Saudis own a number of the English Premier League teams. Do they buy a

league? Does it become even more vertically integrated as a sports entertainment brand? That would be pretty interesting.
If I may be so bold as to say he's not the right guy to do that. Just let me just let me just throw it out there. Like Andrew Wilson is handsome. He's got the BMI, but he is not the right guy to build a media empire. Just to be clear, this is my my conclusion after watching him work for the last 20 years. So that is my humble opinion. Well, I actually think media is like the wrong word because media is like for dinosaurs. I think this integrated, you know, gaming plus sports, entertainment plus live is really the future of what's working. You know, there's the other fight that's the Paramount Warner Brothers. Who's going to buy Warner Brothers? Is it Comcast? Is it Netflix? That's the other scenario to what you were just saying that, you know, they're shopping around those media companies, which is like who wants to buy a seat

for the Academy Awards versus those are all dying businesses. This could actually be interesting if you're pairing all these growing businesses.
I'm not disagreeing with the idea of what that is, but I'm just telling you he is not the guy. No,
he's he's not a strategic thinker in that way. He is not.
Who do you want to put?
I have no idea. I have no idea. It ain't him though. In the game of growth, everyone is looking for that power [music] up. Vibes is exactly that. It's built by industry people so they actually get the challenges you're dealing with. As a [music] result, they become the fastest growing gamified rewards platform out there. And the results are kind of nuts. [music] With their AI powered targeting, you're not just buying stalls, you're bringing in the right players. And now they've got this [music] new rorowass optimization engine. So, your campaigns basically level up automatically. Vibes is built different. It's designed for growth. And I guess you could say it's

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Oh, yeah, definitely fanboying, but I would say I'm more cautious with this one. Like, it looks nice for sure, but I'm more cautious than I am excited. Like, I just don't know how the writing is going to

actually do this IP justice. Like, like Zelda has always been an incredible game. I would never say the stories of them were particularly amazing. So that's why I'm like, what are you going to do with this world? How are you going to create really strong writing? And Zelda in general has always been a pretty quirky IP. So going realistic, gritty, I think, was the wrong choice. I still believe that this should have been an animated.
Making it realistic and gritty is not the right direction.
I hear you. All right. So what else we got? Let's talk about some interesting trends that the West needs to wake up for. It is time to wake up the West. There are two games that have been, I would say, really interesting mirror images of one another. And we've been covering one of them throughout the year and we've been touching on the other one here and there. And of course, I'm talking about Love and Deep Space, which is the action RPG husbando game, which is from the developers of Love Nikki. And the other

one is Nikay goddess of victory. And if you look at the sensor tower data, they are almost mirror images of each other. And we look at the KPIs, you'll see that as well. So goddess of victory, this is the one that's more, let's say, for the males and has a lot of bountiful female characters, is 79% male, 21% female. And we're looking at iOS United States. The average age is 27. Then we look at Love and Deep Space, which is more focused on male characters and is for a female audience, which has the inverse distribution, 16% male, 84% female. The average age between both of them is the same. And so why do we give a [ __ ] about them? Well, it's not just success that they're having in the East, they're also having success in the West. So we're looking at revenue for both of these titles in the United States. And Love and Deep Space is doing around 6 million a month while Nicay Goddess of Victory is doing around five, which is really impressive for both of those titles. And when we look at the monthly active users,
Love and Deep Space is scaling in the

United States. It's hitting around 800 to 600,000 monthly active users. Nicay is doing really well, and that's remarkable given that it's a squad RPG. And if you remember, we've been covering AFK Journey and a lot of the struggles they've been having. And they published that piece a while back where they talked about the six-month cliff that basically all these squad RPG faces. And Nikay has has hung in there. It actually has avoided a lot of that. And there's a lot of things we can talk about how Nickeoid the Squad RPG problem. And then we look at like the cumulative revenue for both these games. And again, we're just looking in the United States for Mr. Eric Crest. Nicay Goddess of Victory has done over $140 million since it launched in 2023. Love and deep space since its launched in 2024 has done $86 million Mr. Crest just in the United States. This husbando game from the east that is a mainstream success and when we look at the app store rankings for both of them these are both top 100 games.
Yeah,
love and deep space is always hanging around 40 to 60 and a K is just in the

same space as well. And not only that, we look at the total global revenue share for both of them. The United States is about a fifth of revenue. So again, these are still games that are primarily generating money in the east, but the United States is a significant part of their story and we are missing out. We are missing out on what these games are offering for audiences in the west. And I think the best way to look at this is to contrast it with big run studios. This was a mobile game studio out of Oakland and their whole thesis was to make mobile games for traditionally underserved audiences. And their definition of an underserved audience was again focusing on race and ethnicity. And I say when we start to look at the numbers, is that something that's actually resonating with the audience? No. Because Big Run Studios is basically toast at this point. Whereas we look at games from the east, they're going after a far more aggressive thesis that I don't think you would see originating from Westerners. And that has resulted in, as we've mentioned, massive revenue, but also huge changes in how these games are made. Like, if we

just look at, for example, Love and Deep Space. Remember, this is an action RPG that also has photo shoots where you're going on adventures with your boyfriend. You're chatting with them. One of the ways that they've increased revenue over the last 12 months is that they added a wedding event. This is a fantasy that the West keeps missing. Like, women want to plan weddings. That is a huge female fantasy. And we have not executed against that fantasy. And they added a gotacha based wedding game. So you can get wedding dresses out of loot boxes. It feels so freaking obvious. Why are you not doing this? Not only that, they've added features like you being able to sleep next to your boyfriend. Yes, I'm not actually joking. They added a sleep feature. So all of these things are things that I would have a really hard time imagining a westerner coming up with, but again, it's resonating with a western audience. And it's the same thing for Nicay Goddess of Victory. I would find it hardressed to imagine a Westerner coming up with a lot of the images we see see coming out of Nicay. And so I think it's time for us to wake

up and just realize that when we talk about player empathy, it's not what you want players to have demand for. It's what players actually have demand for. And these games are going to continue to grow and we're going to continue to miss this thesis unless we wake up and again look at revealed preferences, not stated preferences. And this to me is a revealed preference. We want to be a little bit more icky than we traditionally have been when it comes to a lot of these genres.
The wedding dress feature is especially when I was at Riot and learning a lot about Chinese culture and Chinese games. These are cultural moments for Eastern gamers that to your point, Phil, are starting to find resonance with Western gamers. So, it's not necessarily icky. A lot of those are just features and play patterns that for some reason are starting to find resonance here. But is it a small I mean did you show DAU or anything like that? Is it a smaller audience that's monetizing more heavily as a result of the revenue or is it a bigger audience than we might assume?

I'd be interesting to know how broad that audience can go in terms of number of people or is it a you know small audience deep monetization. Is this a general outlier versus what we've seen in the past where a lot of these sort of Asian IPs do find an audience in the west? Sort of anime IP does have an audience in the west. Like is this an outlier in that case or is this still like a general halo effect? Also, I don't really want to watch this video, so I'd rather [laughter]
No, dude. This Adam, this is player empathy. Do not avert your eyes.
You're make you're making Adam uncomfortable. You know, his Canadian sensibilities. Well, Adam, are you really disturbed by actual sleep? We're not sleeping with like this is we're just watching a character sleep.
Weird. Can I just call it weird? It's just weird.
No, you cannot.
I got in a lot of trouble, Adam, for that kind of comments, by the way.
No, but I'm just trying to get a sense of like is this is the halo effect that we typically see from Eastern games going to the west, is this a different

halo effect? Like we've seen this for decades in terms of anime games still finding an audience in the west.
What would you take as a way to falsify that hypothesis when you talk about Halo effect? Like clearly they've sustained for a long time, but are you saying they only because they've already been so successful in the east that this is basically just a little bit of an uplift in the west relative to that eastern success.
So what I would double check is look back at history from a number of different anime games like even like Dawan Battle, right? Like Dragon Ball Z, these types of games. These all have had a percentage of their audience and percentage of their revenue coming from the west. Is this an outlier in terms of that percentage?
Dragon Ball Z's number one country is the United States. It's been in monster success in the West.
Monster success for a very long time.
Yeah. Like there's other anime IP. Unfortunately, I don't have an encyclopedia of anime IP, but like there's other been other anime based games that have had a Halo effect on Western. Does that percentage and ratio look different for these games?

So, I would say they're not anime games. Just to remember, these are not based on animes, both of them. So, I think that's important to point out, even though they have that aesthetic and the eastern aesthetic, I think that's important to point out. But, there's no like flagship TV show
or flagship anime behind them.
I think they're actually making content around Nikki, right? Or is it a different IP? I don't know. One of these just announced a major movie.
Let's love Nikki. That's the other one. Yeah, that's the other one from Papercraft. Yeah,
the other. Yeah,
I mean, this has far exceeded Love Nikki. Far exceeded the success of Love Nikki. I mean, we talked about Infinity Nikki, which by the way is struggling pretty hard right now. I look, if I were them, I'd dump that game and I'd be moving everything to Love a Deep Space. We cannot avert our eyes to this. This is really important to understanding players and I think not only are they interesting in the respect to the West, but both of them are gotcha based games which have sustained for a large amount of time, right? And we've been talking about the drop in squad RPG in the west relative to the rise of 4X. And I think there might be some answers here.

I agree with the core premise that there's going to be a lot of people that that want sort of a dating sim on mobile in the west. So how do you serve that audience the best? I actually don't know if a gotcha based RPG is the right way to approach that. Like we've seen a lot of these things like even like um Masume of like in the east they tend to go towards that gotacha based model. Those games tend to have a halo effect towards the west and that works for that audience. But if we're now saying like hey actually there's a larger western audience that wants to do more of these type of dating sim games. I don't know if RPG and Gach is the right model approach to go after that audience.
I don't know. Their numbers look pretty good. Well, like for that, but there is different types of people that want different types of dating sims, right? Like right now, if you turn on the filter or turn off the filter on Steam, you can look through a number of different types of dating sims that exist on Steam.
Also a very interesting subg genre that no one's going after. There's a ton of

dating sims on Steam.
And all I'll say, Phil, is like if you want to go after dating sims on for the West with like Western audiences, like go build a company, get the funding, go after it. Yes, I think there's an open lane there. VCs, give me a call. I am totally down. I will venture where no one else ventures.
Well, Phil, can I just say I love that you talked a lot about player needs and wants and the opportunity for female gamers. Like, thank you for doing that. I mean, cuz
and male gamers, by the way. Nay Goddess of Victor is a part of this, too. [snorts]
Yeah. Correct. No, I like how you had the mirror of both sides of the story of how you can create game experiences that, you know, are designed specifically for an audience that appears to be underserved. Do you want to talk about the next audience that appears to be underserved with Hoya Versus New Game?
Yeah, let's go quickly through this, but I think it's important that we touch on this too, is that Hoyo versus Petite Planet entered closed beta on November 7th. So that was a couple weeks ago and this is I would say or at least I'm going to argue this has been a trend of what the Danes called Hug or like these

cozy beast games. Although I don't understand why we haven't taken that and turned into a lifestyle concept. So, if you remember, you've got Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley Value, and I would really say Harvest Home, although Adam, feel free to jump in here if you think there's another one that have been, you know, those box sale games that have these lifim elements. And now we're starting to see a lot of Eastern developers turn them into live services. So, you've got Htopia coming, which is from China XD, Petite Planet, which we talked about from Hoyverse. Remember, we've been really hyping this one up because they've been building essentially the same game over and over again, which has result in a lot of cannibalization, and this is an extremely new thesis. There's Meow Star Aces 2, which is from a Korean company. There's this one called Loafia, which I'm following, which is Solar Punk from an Australian developer. Again, a lot of Western cultural values and making this all about conservation. Let's see if that lands. There's Hello Kitty Cafe, which has had an enormous success, I would argue, on Roblox. There's Pocapia. There's Palia, which I think people have underrated in terms of its life sim elements and have framed it too much as a survival game. Animo I'm a huge fan of. And of course, POW World. I think all of these things are coming together

and we're going to see a huge wave of these games and again I think they're going to have a huge resonance in the west and we can't ignore them because I think they offer a lot of design solutions. I would say again for squad RPG is the thing that I keep having in my mind. How do we solve a lot of the declines in squad RPG without becoming forex? I I think there are answers in this lifim model. Yeah, I think cozy games, you know, which is complete juxtaposition to the last topic, you know, this is on the other end of the spectrum and you know, I think I talk about my wife being this.
Yeah. Different type of cozy, guys. And I know a lot of people who, especially, it's not even older people. It's a lot of Gen Z and millennials who are looking for that kind of escape in gaming. Many of which are women, not all of them are women. And I do think it's an opportunity. I think it's a strong diversification strategy, especially for Hoyoverse in what they're doing. It's a great point, Phil, to do something completely different than let's do Zenzone Zero, like the third execution

of the same kind of game with a different art style. So, I've also heard that they Hoyoverse is setting up shop in the west, might even be in LA. Call me please. I would love to work on one of those games.
Ditto.
Yeah, exactly. like just the ability to take their next IP, which has I think it has some UGC elements to it, too. I don't remember if I saw that as part of it, but it was like a little bit of a different uh angle. So, I also wanted to add in that Animal Crossing has a major update for Switch and Switch 2 coming on January 15th. Obviously, this was playing in my household since there's a player that happens to have 10,000 hours in that game. And I think I've mentioned this before, but you know, she is just like the screams of joy coming when those trailers were playing. So I actually I was like, do you want to make a podcast segment taking everyone through what's coming? She was like was a better game explain. Actually, I think she's a better podcast host than me. So maybe I'll have her do that and talk

about what's coming for Animal Crossing.
Yeah, I see this as the um response from Mihoyo of like I we're cannibalizing. were kind of splitting hairs with Hawkeye Star Rail and Zenless over time. So trying to figure out who their new new audience is. I would say here the one part that I think some people miss is like Genchin is actually a female dominate dominated audience for under 25 more than 50% under 25 60% female. So they've already moved towards this direction of a more female focused strategy and I think that they have good leverage here. Like I also think that they do well with the do what Nintend don't type of strategy where like Genchin was Zelda but done freetoplay omnipatform with a collection RPG. Obviously Petite Planet is now like Animal Crossing cozy done omnipatform. So I think there's an open lane. Take elements from Power World lean more into collection than even Genshin can and you know build a strong and enduring sort of

crafting and building economy that can sustain the level of engagement. The one thing I'll call out here is like Genchin has the RPG component as in like combat that works well for them. This has to lean more into sort of like farming and crafting collection. So I think the structure is going to end up in a space where it goes closer to like heyday and township as an endame instead of say like a Pokemon RPG. I think that's the only way that they'd be able to sustain.
Adam, if you don't remember, I did recommend this many times at Warner, right?
You did. I remember that. I I the coach
It was on the list. It was on the list.
Three years ago. Four years ago.
I remember it was on the list, but then it got superseded by the Metaverse by Matthew Ball.
Exactly. [laughter]
Yes.
[ __ ] [ __ ] Absolute [ __ ] I think these games are ripe for opportunities to just build on maybe that you're right. It is the next potential like collection based RPG games are in a cozy universe that is much more approachable

for more mass markets.
Yeah, makes sense. All right, I think that's all we have for today. We left a lot on the table. We'll get to that next week. See you next week, everyone.
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