WB Game’s (Possible) Netflix Future, Mario Kart Patch & Game Awards Gossip | Games For Breakfast

Good morning, MATT. AH,
GOOD MORNING, WILL. AND
GOOD MORNING TO all of you.
WELCOME TO GAMES FOR BREAKFAST, THE ONLY INTERNET TALK SHOW WE TALK ABOUT this week's gaming and tech news, but that also we the only place you're going to be able to hear this announcement. Everybody listening, thank you so much for being here for our official merger announcement. That is right. We are merging with lobster at games for breakfast is going to be merging with lobster for in a deal that ish I don't I I don't know if I can say the actual numerical value but I'll say roughly the weight of the Atlantic Ocean. So So stay tuned for that. There's going to be no challenges to it. Uh it's all going to go really smoothly. And the best part is we get all of Lobster's video games.
Does Lobster ha have many video games?
Oh, so many titles. Will um the first

title is actually called title, which is weird because it's not a title. It's title as in the tides of the ocean. You get, you know, there there's classics. Everyone in chat, in chat, fire off with your favorite lobster video game uh owned property that we will now have full control over to do whatever we want with and run into the freaking ground.
You know, that seems reasonable. Uh I do just want to bring up that um Walt Thalamu has the right point. Uh this is definitely the kind of merger that results in body horror.
WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? In no way will this result in any problems horrific, body or otherwise. This is This is America. There's no problem with that.
You're not making a good CASE THERE, BUDDY.
NO, NO, NO. WILL, you're just you're not you're not thinking uh fourdimensionally. You see, the fourth dimension is currency
and [laughter] and we all get to pretend we live in it.
Nope. Can't. We're leaving. Done. Done

with this. Can't. No. We are We were prepping this show up to the the the absolute second that this went live over on Twitch where we still prepped during the pre-show for 15 minutes and now we're here on YouTube. Good morning. Thank you all for being here.
Yeah, that's right. Um, also Matt, this is a great time to mention
if the beginning of the show looks a little weird, there were technical problems during the beginning of the show. YouTube hiccuped.
Hooray. We're having a It's okay. Uh, no. I mean, there's nothing we can do.
HOW WILL EVERYONE see my my wonderful lobster bit that I made up five seconds before the graphic hit?
I think it only hiccuped during the graphic, weirdly. So, I think it'll be okay. But
they they're trying to stop our merger, Will.
That's it. They're trying to stop the signal. Can't stop the signal, Matt.
I bet you know what? I bet you it was flipping Paramount.
Bet you it was.
They don't want it. They don't want us to have this. They don't want us to have nice things.
That's also true. Uh it it is known. Uh

so friends,
red,
we we do have uh a fair
I've never loved or hated a man so much.
Say, Red, you want to come in here and do the show? [laughter]
You should. By the way, we need
Come on down. Um
Oh, boy. Uh
Um Well, before we before we get into it, how are you? Are you okay? Are you still breathing? me.
Yeah.
No, I've been dead for years, Matt, on the inside.
That's fair. You know what's interesting about that is uh something related to lobsters I can't think of. Let's get to our first story.
Uh yeah, let's let's do that thing. I don't Okay. All right, y'all. This is Man, this is going to be one of the episodes. [sighs and gasps] So WB has accepted an offer

provisionally and I need to stress this provisional from Netflix to be acquired for roughly $72 billion
give or take 10 when you when you uh equate for like the debt that acrews for it or something.
Correct. There's like it like the total valuation is like 87 and a quarter. But like anyway, Netflix has has has made the offer. WB has said yes. And now we have to ask all of the other people who have to check off on this, which is quite a long list of people because it's WB and Netflix. This is this is um you know how every merger that's been happening we're like oh man this is the largest example of creating monopoly that we've seen in a long time. This is the next one of those. I dropped my flash drive. Morning's a mess.

Morning is a mess. But that's okay.
Um you know travesty in motion. I don't know, but I bet you sure it's all made up. Um
I I you know, and Glom, we know the answer to this. We we know the answer.
We know we know the answer to this. Of course not.
Like, [sighs]
no, of course not. It's all It's all going to banks and CEOs and yacht manufacturers indirectly. Like, it's not
Man, that yacht business is just booming.
Yeah. Right. You know what else is booming?
Orca snacks. This brought to you by Orcas Hate Yachts gang. My favorite fact about the ocean. Anyway,
your favorite fact about the Will, we're in the middle of a merger. You can't be saying things that are that are that are not purely positive lobster right now.
Orca gang. Cancel this.
Orca gang, rise up. Eat the yachts. EAT

THE YACHTS. CAN'T SILENCE ME. There goes Will's lobster-shaped yacht. Um, look, I there's no world where this is a good thing for anyone. Um, specific I mean for not for anyone. There's a few [laughter] nice there's a few people obviously that we mentioned at the top that this will do gang busters for. But the way that um it's funny when WB has been sort of shopping itself around because they can't figure out how to make one of the most recognizable brands profitable for some reason. um including owning HBO. Um [laughter] the the thought that came to me was well specifically in the games division of WB um it hasn't been really batten a trillion lately and um granted there's

some there's some monetary winners in there. I know like Hogwarts Legacy sure and um I believe um I think that that might actually be it right now. Um but like I'm a huge fan of Mortal Kombat and they own that. Uh, I love the Arkham series. They own that. There's a bunch of other uh and I've never actually been uh a big fan of the Game of Thrones games. Actually, shout out in the in the chat or the comments if there's a Game of Thrones game that you really like. Uh cuz I'm curious if uh if those exist. Um, I I kind of was just like, well, if someone buys Warner Brothers, I hope it's someone who knows what to do with video games. And by someone, I of course mean of obviously corporations are people, so we're talking about these like like they're individuals, but I hope it's a group that understands video games. And when Netflix when when this sort of moved to the next stage,

I was like, well, okay, cuz listen, Netflix does have games. In fact, they have quite a few games. Not like that they release on consoles or on PC, but like on their service, there's like uh, you know, a fourth of their real estate on whatever uh, you know, tablet or phone you're using it on. Like there's a games section, I think, for some smart TVs, too. I've never really used them, nor does Netflix ever talk about that element of their business model. Um, it felt like they got in when everyone was like trying to just do it and like, oh, we have games, too. And Netflix did what, in my opinion, if you're going to take the the loweffort lift, uh, probably the smart move of just like getting a bunch of games to put on your platform somehow. Again, maybe I if I was in charge of that, I'd talk about it a little bit more and make it more of a selling point. Um, but yeah, I don't know if Netflix is the is the is the group that's gonna um pull

WB Games uh sort of lift them back up out of their out of the muck that they seem to have fallen in over the last few years, months.
But but okay, so and I cannot believe I'm saying this. In all fairness to Netflix, what merger or acquisition would like? Is that a thing that's a function of the merger or acquisition or is that a function of the WB games has been going in a direction that might be mandated from the top? But also just like we forget this a lot. I think it it's very easy to forget this, particularly with like bigname studios. So many games fail. So many games fail on the regular. As someone who like professionally dredges through Steam on the regular, right? When I'm looking for new games for stream, when I'm looking for new games for our weekly Rogue Review show where I review a new rogike

every week, I have dredged through and I have found so many games that look really good and are just not financial successes. So even games that have a bunch of backing aren't necessarily going to be financial successes either because oftentimes they're not as singular in their vision as a lot of like the indie stuff that
Well, it's hard to be but Yeah.
Right. Yeah. Because it's hard to be right. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, right? But it's singular vision games tend to be more um deep with their appeal with a very narrow they go they go tall not wide right they go incredibly tall in a very narrow slice of the market and when they don't succeed it's hard to see how games that don't engender that level of love will succeed at least in my opinion so like lots of games fail so I'm I'm not sure that I can say that any merger would save WB necess necessarily

like okay uh this was a rumor. It was never anything real. Uh and again I picking a corporation to be like that one uh is the equivalent of picking a kaiju that you really like because it looks cool even though they're all going to flatten your city. Um
yeah, knife head. Team knife head, right?
Sure.
We're all team knight chat. What's your favorite kaiju anyway? Go on. Um, like there was a rumor that Sony was maybe gonna buy WB.
Sure.
Now, that would feel to me again, please know any of these things is bad. I'm not championing a thing, but like, oh, here's a company that like works in a standardized movie studio system. That'd be good for the for the uh film side of things. And a company that's very successful, if not the most successful console, at least on Black Friday, right? like uh which we're going to be talking about soon. [laughter]

Oh, we're going to talk about that.
Um but like the so like that would have been an okay fit from a oh well I the this company buying this other company understands intrinsically the business model that they operate under for the most part. Yes, there's the streaming stuff with HBO that I don't think that Sony would be good at, but like two out of three ain't bad. Um, this is Netflix as an entity is so fascinating
because it failed like nine times but kept going
like and and again I am of the elder millennial age of remembering when they mailed out discs to your house and then they the I forget when this was but when they decided to because they had games for a while too before Gamefly was fully Gamefly, I believe. Um, and then there was a time when they were going to split the Netflix gaming and the Netflix movies and they were there was please

chat if you can figure out what this was called. They like were gonna drop the Netflix name and call it like Movie Fasts or something. Like it was the dumbest title ever and there was like the emails leaked from the CEO who was kind of going insane and then like somehow they bounced back. Like this is the company that will not go away. Uh and if this goes through that will only solidify. I just I wish I guess what my whole point is I wish that there was a pedigree of wherever WB Games was going to save a lot of the games and franchises that I do really like. I mean
um
I I just because WB wasn't doing good with them, right? Like in my opinion.
Yeah. and and and now uh and I I'm so sorry that I have to uh move the story in this direction unless you have anything else specifically for uh the game side of this will
no go
um uh by this morning

apparently uh Paramount has now challenged uh another Kaiju has entered the fight and Paramount uh is now in this contest uh being led I don't know if it's from the shadows or or not yet. Uh by one Jared Kushner hoping to push the the Paramount side of this deal through. Gee, I wonder where his money is coming from. Um I'm still we're still like catching up on this because this sort of at least broke to us uh 20 minutes ago. Um, but uh it's being reported by Axios right now that Kushner is part of the Paramount's hostile bid for the Warner Brothers Discovery. Um, we'll put some all this stuff in the show notes as well. Um, there's a whole bunch of nonsense in this. I don't know. I I don't feel u

educated enough to to fully comment on it. Uh but that's just the the ever growing nonsense that's happening right now.
Yeah. And we should probably clarify something for um uh for the comments and for chat real quick because this is sort of an exception. We generally try really hard to have like especially for stuff like this. We've got five different news organizations that we're reading for this. And so when people slide into chat or the comments and go, "I can't believe you didn't know about the Paramount thing or whatever," that's generally because we're ignoring it because we don't know enough to say something, right? And a reminder, and this is sort of a weird live reminder, that Twitch and YouTube chat are awful, awful places to try and convey nuanced ideas to people who are trying to have informed opinions about ongoing events. Yeah,
that's tough, right? So, in general, we

have we have a way that we're laying this out. So, don't like be shocked if we're not mentioning like specific parts of the Paramount deal cuz like by the time we had to lock prep to start talking to all of you, that hadn't been revealed yet and we don't know the details yet. So, I there's a lot of chat traffic on that and I wanted to address it. What what uh what do you all think about uh this entire cluster of nonsense going on? Uh both the the Netflix bid, the Paramount counter bid. I believe Trump even came in saying that like oh he just heard about it and didn't know much but which I love. I love that line all the gosh darn time now. Um, and then but he's going to have a hand in it somehow, even though no president has really done uh [laughter] merger nonsense before.
Hooray. Oh, we're having so much fun with this. Uh, okay. So,

the people who work at WB are the ones that lose in this, right? Almost certainly
the people that work at Netflix would too. like like
you think that I mean I don't know one no company in a merger gets off unscathed.
That's that's very true. I and here here's another thing right and this is this is a thing that comes up a lot and I think it's becoming more clear with this one specifically. Um and I think this is crystallizing for me because Matt has a pretty deep emotional attachment to Mortal Kombat. It is becoming harder and harder to care about ongoing video games as art that influences our lives and that we enjoy without becoming deeply in mired in this weird emotional dance of like who's buying which corporations so that I know

whether or not I'll still love the thing that I've loved since I was a child when all this is done. And it's al it's also like a heat death of the universe kind of thing, right? Like I think someone said in in chat, I'm so sorry I missed it, but it was good. It was like someone literally said uh they all it'll all end the same for them, which is true. It's just a differing time period, right? Like uh Netherrem was bought, if we're going with the Mortal Kombat analogy, right? Netherrealm was bought by WB and you can see in the last few titles the nickel and dimming beginning like the quality of the games I think is still there in the Mortal Kombat series but the nickel and dimming of what you are actually paying for. And like they tried selling three fatalities for $15. I don't believe that is the artist's original intent. I believe that is the uh publishers's intent to milk the holiday Christmas and Thanksgiving fatality pack. they have walked it back after like 6 months or something stupid. Um

but and this is for Mortal Kombat 1. So you can see like so that happened just with that merger of a smaller company into a you know large company. Now these are two larger companies and you're telling me that somehow the experience of the things that I liked from either of these companies is going to get better? No. They're going to lay off a bunch of people and they're going to try to pretend AI could do a bunch of work and then uh every the price of all these streaming services is going to go up and then we're going to get a redone ending of The Sopranos because that felt like someone in an SEO uh search was like, "Oo, someone would really like to see that." Like it's it's mad.
Are they are are they going to do are they going to redo an ending of The Sopranos that makes it more clear what happened? The point is that it's not clear what happened. That's the whole thing.
That's my point is that they have they've completely lost all of the nuance in the art. Right. See the Right. Like there's Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. Uh I

I don't know. I just think it like the only people that this works for are the people who are ending up with the bags full of money. But at this point, like, okay, may maybe this works. The bags full of money that are being moved around for this, like the comically large Scrooge McDuck style bags of money are sealed. There is no exchange rate between a bag of money, a billion dollars, right? and money that goes to employees or to people who have worked to make the thing go at this point. I like I have no faith that at any point anyone will crack open many of those bags of money and distribute the contents in the form of real people money to employees or in any way to pass like benefits on to the consumer. Right? It's just people

trading these things which might as well be a different currency around, right? While we just lose out over and over again because the things that we love get worse and worse and worse and more diluted so that people can try and take money away from us and then put it into a bag marked a billion dollars and then seal it up so we never see it again.
And maybe that's a little cynical, but that does feel like what's at stake here. Art, art and commerce have always mixed, right?
Yeah.
But I feel like with the tools at at the human race's disposal at this current junction, um, makes it so the commerce completely outpaces the art. I I don't know if I'm saying that correctly, but like I don't mean that in like a moral or enjoyable kind of thing, but like the ability to make money off art has increased exponentially over the

ability to make art through commerce. Does that make sense?
And I mean by art, I mean something meaningful that like a human being made
maybe. Yeah. Um that sounds right.
And and so I go back to the comment again. I'm sorry, I don't remember who said it in chat of like this is all going to end the same. The the inshitification of uh the internet and streaming and the shows we watch and everything's going to be designed for second screen so you can be shopping on Amazon while you watch Stranger Things season 9. Oh, did you think that's done? No, no, no. They'll bring it back till they're 90. Um and
and the characters will still be like in their teens, by the way.
Yeah. No, they'll be 90 years old, but they'll be in college. Um because at the end of the day it becomes a IP slurry nostalgia machine. I'm feeling a little I'm feeling a little a little a little bummed this morning and I'm sorry to be negative.
Um but when you have Vecna staring at

the WB water [laughter] it's kind of that's where Yako uh Wow.
Yako Wacko and Dot dot. Yes.
Wow. My brain just fried. Uh, that's where they live.
Just before they run around the Warner movie lot, they lock him in the tower whenever they get caught. So, we get loose and then vam moose. And now you know the plot.
It was really funny. I was watching uh a video the other day and it had turkey and the straws the background and I flashbang someone with none of you actually know turkey and the straw is anything other than the tune to the state song.
Anyway, there you go.
Right. Okay. So, yeah. Um I [snorts] I think this is like a tough thing, right? Like and I think gaming has it really tough because
Yeah. Let's circle back to the thing that brings me joy.
Okay. Well, okay. So, this is this is why, right? And we're beginning to see this more and more and I think there's

like a big sociology and psychology paper in this somewhere. Gaming is uniquely impacted by these moves because these are ongoing pieces of art that have a long-term relationship to our sense of identity in a culture that we participate in regularly. Even if you're not impacted by this, I think you can imagine a game that you as a gamer find very important to you. Right? Imagine if you will for a moment. It's not going to happen. But imagine for a moment that the rights to Stardew Valley or Undertale or Outer Wilds or Slay the Spire or Hollow Knight or any of the other indie darlings that you that we love, right? That that makes it a little easier because they haven't been through this Shell game before entered the Shell game, right? There would be an emotional cost to it because we have an ongoing relationship with them that's participatory. We

participate with these things. It's not a oneandone like a movie, right? And arguably a movie is not a oneanddone anymore, but like I watched The Martian, right? I had an experience of watching The Martian and that was because I could participate in that singular finished product for two and a half hours and it was good and I liked it and that's it, right? But when I play a video game, particularly a game like Mortal Kombat, where I'm going to be spending dozens, if not hundreds of hours getting good and climbing the leaderboard, developing a main and backup characters and learning the matchups and doing all of that, it's a different participatory experience that like is deeply impacted by changes because it's over a longer period of time, right? Because it's longer, it feels like this is unique among all like media mergers because media mergers aren't new, right? This has been happening for like god as long as media's existed, right? In some form or another. It just feels like this is like a weird particular

quirk facet of the way that capitalism and gaming interact. And I think that that's like the thing that I'm really coming to see with all the mergers is that the
um is that we're in a place where I think a lot of like enjoyers of other forms of media might not necessarily get it in the same way. Like there's an at stake, but it's not nearly as deeply emotionally invested and long-term as gamers takes generally are. I think when you you were dealing with franchises and IP and things that you have a tie to and that not only p pushes like I think I think we myself included use the word nostalgia a bunch to sort of cover a wide range of things but something like a Mortal Kombat or even a Marvel or or or something like that to me was incredibly formulative in my years again it was a product being sold to me as a child so congratulations it worked but there's really good art

and artistry from human beings in those franchises that I think allowed them to be as successful as they were to then be gobbled up by other companies. I cannot think of a IP or franchise that has been bought by uh in a large merger or something like that that has gotten better because of it. Um the closest the closest I could think of on a large scale is Marvel. However, that was a bell curve. Like given a long enough time that eventually goes down, too. Like it kind of just has to. Or
there are some really old ones, but I don't think that like we'd think about them terribly much.
Like what? Like what are you thinking?
Square and NX used to be two different companies as an example, right? Like that's not and it's not the best example because we're definitely not talking about scale, right?
Yeah. I I think I think that's what I'm talking about. I think when you get to a certain scale, um I've never And please

sound off the comments, message me on Blue Sky. Um you know, if you're watching this over on Nebula also, God, so thankful for Nebula. Um stuff made by people. Um the
Call Dave. That's the new slogan.
That's the slogan. I'll let him know.
Stuff made by people.
I think I'm supposed to go to archery with him tonight. We'll see how that I don't know. Hey Dave, we got this slogan for you. Um, no. I just I I I just wish there was an example of something like this turning out better for the consumer. Now, let's hold on. I'm going to try to just have a the most minor frown upside down moment, but I think it's only going to be for a moment and then I'm going to bell curve down myself. Um there is a real possibility that if someone like a Netflix or a Paramount didn't come in to buy Warner Brothers, they would go bankrupt and uh we would not get any of these uh things that we like from them

ever again or for a very long time. and my lizard brain says, "Oh, no. I need I need a new Mortal Kombat." That that'd be really sad to have that happen. But I think I'd rather know Mortal Kombat than like a zombie virus Mortal Kombat that's just like kept alive because it's a it's a IP that people recognize the name of. And I I'm using Mortal Kombat as a specific example of of any IP that you could you could insert your own favorite in there. Like it, you know, the impermanence of a thing might also make it better, if that makes sense. Maybe these things don't have to go on forever. Maybe we do need to let Star Wars rest so some new cultural icon can come through and do something. But the very nature of the business model doesn't allow for that to happen. And then we get stuck into these stories. Um,
yeah,
there was some positivity in there, right? I'm going to eat this biscati. I think that's what I'm going to do.
Matt, I think it's time for us to move

on from this. Uh,
good. Is it time for eating biscotti?
That's right. It's time for eating biscati while I explain uh what we're going to talk about next.
I don't want to drip that into my coffee,
which is THE GAME AWARDS.
HEY,
so all right. So, two things. one, if you want to watch the Game Awards with us, we will be doing that here on YouTube and on Twitch this Thursday at half hour before the show begins. The show begins at 7:30 Eastern, uh, and goes till 10:30 Eastern.
You don't have to be here that whole time, but we will be. Uh, so we're starting at 7 Eastern. So that's 4 Pacific or there will be a thing up in uh either today or tomorrow that you can find on YouTube and on Twitch that will show you when it's going to be in your time zone. Bring your favorite non-alcoholic sparkling cider. Bring your favorite t-shirt with a suit tuck with a tuxedo printed on it. Bring all of the other acra that you would use to watch an award show that's not really an

award show with all the gravitas that's not really gravitas that it deserves. Um, [laughter] right.
I'm not a little cynical about the Game Awards this year. You are. So, um, we will probably
I I have I didn't get a chance to run this by Matt because again, we were planning up until the second we hit go live here on YouTube. Um, we will probably have a bingo uh that uh this year. I have a way to put a bingo on screen that I have I have acquired from a friend. Um, so we will we will probably have some kind of onscreen bingo. Uh, so we'll be workshopping that in the Discord for what what do you think? What do you think goes on Game Awards bingo? We'll we'll find out. Um, yeah. So, there are a bunch of things happening at the Game Awards. We're going to try and give as much interest to the games that

have been nominated now. Uh we're going to we're going to talk about what we're interested in now. Uh largely because Oh god, my cynicism is through the roof today.
Oh, why?
I don't I don't know why, Matt. It's probably because we're going to give more time to some of these categories than the Game Awards are.
And that's just a hot take brought to you by the truth. So,
have you tried the truth? Nah, never mind. Don't do it. That's the slogan for the truth.
Yeah. Uh, so we're we're going to talk about our our the categories we're interested in. Um, we're going to talk about a a little bit of weirdness and then we're going to talk about our game of the game of the year uh nods and and predictions. So, um, [clears throat] first up, uh, I think we'll just rally that back and forth. Are we are we going through every category?
No, no, just the ones that we listed.
Oh, yeah, sure.
Yeah. Um, so, uh, I've got my eye on

best indie. Um, surprising no one being shocked.
Yeah. Being your resident indie trash panda. Um,
the the vapors, [laughter]
uh, I think Silkong's probably going to win best indie. Um, largely because spoilers, I don't think it's going to win game of the year. I don't actually know that I agree with that, but I do think that is the likely case uh is that uh best indie will be won by Silkong. The noms are Abselum, Ball X Pit, Blueprints, Clare Obscure, Expedition 33, Hades 2, and Silkong. I'm going to spit some fast heresy real quick.
Okay.
Clare Obscure doesn't belong in this category.
Well, that's not really Isn't that kind of true, though?
Yeah. Are you bringing us the truth again?
I continue to bring the truth, which is also a form of heresy. You're welcome. Um, it doesn't uh Claire obscure doesn't belong in this category with the others. It's punching. Its weight class is way too high. Uh, arguably Super Giant might

be too big to be in this category, but they're still kind of small and scrappy. Bar Obscure, that studio is way too big and got way too much external backing. Even though they don't have a publisher, they did get a lot of external money in a way that I don't really like putting in with the indies. So, I'm gonna choose to ignore Clare Obscure here and say that I think Silkong's going to win and should win.
I think Silkong will probably win because this is where you get to say the name Silkong and not have it take the breath out of anywhere else in the room. Y
um again the the way that this works is we have the what do we want to win and what do we think is going to win based on politicking and reasoning
and look Silkong out of I I actually I don't know the development story of Abselum and Ball X Pit. In fact, Will and I bought Abselum on release day because they said they would have crossplay. He bought it on Steam. I bought it on Switch. Uh and I don't believe either of us have touched it because then we found out that

they're going to implement crossplay. Um, so I I'm dying to play that game.
Yeah.
Um, I actually just tried Blueprints for the first time uh over the weekend
and I loved it. Um,
I think Blueprints is remarkable. And actually, I'll I'll I'll go twice because my second category is best uh best debut indie.
Can we before we do that cuz Yes, let's do that. I think what bothers me the and this is this is an across the awards show gambit. This is not a game awards specific issue. What is an indie game?
Correct. Great question. Next question.
You know what would be great? They said made outside the traditional publish that the quote. Sorry, I'll read the whole thing. For outstanding creative and technical achievement in a game made outside the traditional publisher system. So that's fine except in in the case of something like uh Clay Obscure

which again phenomenal game no question about that. Um so so as long as you get money from someone who doesn't call themselves a publisher then you're independent. Like that doesn't jive with me. I don't I wish there was a better definition of what considered in in this specific uh show what an indie game is,
right? Yeah. So, um the part of the problem here, and Jeff and I have talked about this too, is that uh this is a tag with it is a little empty, right? Unfortunately, it means whatever you want it to mean most conveniently in that moment. And I think for a lot of people, it's a vibe more than anything else. It's a marketing. It's a marketing term,
right?
And but also this whole show is marketing terms. So term your marketing. Like I I guess they do it. Maybe I just don't Maybe they do do it clear enough and I just don't like it.
Yeah.
If I'm going to be real fair.

No, I think that's that's also true. Um so yeah, I don't I don't know. I think
and then and then secondarily, should there be this actually I don't know the answer to this. Let's let's let's have chat fight it out with us.
Should there be overlap in best indie and best debut indie?
No.
Because and if and if there are if there is then why not just make it like best indie studio and best debut indie? Do you know what I mean? Like because right now two of these uh blueprints and uh Clare Obscure are in like if you're going to split them up, split them up, I guess is what I'm saying.
And here they're half split up.
I agree.
Yeah, I agree. The the the full list for best debut indie is Blue Plants, Clare Obscure, uh Despalot, and Dispatch. Um,

I think for a debut indie, I think Blueprints gets it. Um, and and and and here's why. Blueprints is absolutely completely unhinged. It is like, however deep you think it is, you're wrong probably.
Yeah.
Like you're probably just wrong. Blueprints is deeply unhinged and is a mile deep and is the work of a incredibly small team. I think it's a solo.
It is a solo
and uh
and I believe they're first.
Yeah, correct. By the way, funded by mythic spoilers, the magic spoiler site.
Uh I believe blueprint I believe, God, I'm gonna I'm I'm butchering this, but I believe they worked in another uh either film or television for a long time.
Yeah, correct.
And then they did this.
Yeah. And I think yeah, I think the um I think that that's a big deal. And then I

also think that once again, Claire Obscure is
it's it's kind of weird because one of the problems with debut indie is it's not any of the people on Clare Obscur's first game. It's their first game together. And funnily enough, there was a fifth game in this category that withdrew from nomination because the developer said, "Not actually my first game. I've made other games under different labels. It's just my first game under this label."
Yeah. which uh kind of makes it hard for me to feel like Clare Obscure should be there at all if a if an if a solo developer withdraws because they've made games under other titles and they're going to stay in even though they each independently have made games. So I feel like it's a pretty clear blueprints for me but um
yeah I think blueprint should win. I think uh to Thunder's point Dispatch is probably going to win. I mean, you just

look, was it last year that um Laura Bailey and Aaron Paul like went up there and talked about the game?
Yes, correct.
There's no way. There's no And that's not to say the Dispatch wouldn't deserve a win here either, but that is the thing that seals the deal for me on what will actually win here.
Yeah. Uh okay, Matt, what are what are I've got one more. What are you
Oh, yeah. So, I'll do I'll do uh one of the ones uh surprising no one with all of my Mortal Kombat talk. Um, it's funny. I really love um best multiplayer game and best fighting game. I'm going to pull these up right now. Obviously, multiplayer game. It's funny. This year it I felt like a lot of times the the multiplayer category is a bunch of games I didn't play. And this year is a bunch of games that I played. Um, in fact, the only one on here actually I guess two. I've only tried Arc Raiders very briefly, so I won't even count it. Um, obviously Elden

Ring Night Reign is my choice. I think the it is a that game is a victory lap wrapped in the triumph. U, but also I love that Peak is on here and I love that Split Fiction is on here because these are all game like specifically I I think and I not having played Arc Raiders enough to know this, I'm I'm confident saying Battlefield 6 isn't this. Um, but I feel like Night Rain, Split Fiction, and Peak all did things in multiplayer that, um, have not been done often and as polished and well in multiplayer. So, I'd be happy if any of those three win. Um, I just really, really love Night Rain, as everybody knows here. And I think um it's insane to me they were able to pivot as hard as they did uh from the wonderfulness that Elden Ring is into the wonderfulness remix that Night Rain is.
As someone who is playing both of those

games regularly, right? I'm playing Elden Ring here on the channel on Fridays and I usually end up getting dropped into a group with Matt on Thursdays for for Night Rain. Those two games could not be more different for sharing as much as they do if you tried. Like they are radically different games. And I think Night Rain is a triumph of, hey, we've got this idea for a thing that's loosely connected to a thing that we did before and we're going to save a bunch of money by using a lot of our really high quality assets that we've made and curated and love and it's going to be totally different. And I think it does a really good job at that. I don't know that that qualifies it for best multiplayer, but I do think it deserves the nod for being such a weird offshoot from base Elden Ring.
I just know, and again, it's all preference, right? But like I just know for instance, Night Rain is the game I've probably clocked the most hours in this year and it came out mid year.
Yeah.
So, uh, and the expansion, oh boy, it is

lovely. Anyway, yeah, so I don't know. I was I was shocked. I I knew I was going to vote for Night Ram, but I was like, "Oh, there's actually some really great other options here for different reasons."
Um, yeah.
Yep. Uh, I went twice. You should go twice. And then
I'll go twice.
I'll do my
next one. I'm going DOWN THE LIST. OH, YEAH. THIS IS JUST A more of a of a small mention, but I like it because I like these games so much. So, best VR/AR game. And normally I look at this list and there's one game that I recognize or I've seen uh a name of and no others because I feel like the space is small and kind of stagnating. This year, for whatever reason, I felt like it kind of got a lot better. Every one of these um is a game that I have not only seen a picture of, seen the title, and seen gameplay of, but I've played a few of them, and I was like, this is a really great [laughter] this is a really great sort of move in a

positive direction for VR AR, at least for um not I'm just going to say sexability, but that's not what it is. Um uh visibility being pushed across mediums that isn't normally like interested in it. Like I feel like I fell off the VR train a while ago, but now I've these are games that are good enough that I feel like they've transcended uh essentially like the category that they're in. Um right now it is Alien Rogue Incursion, Ark and Age, Ghost Town, Marvel's Deadpool VR, and the Midnight Walk. And I am voting for uh Alien Rogue Incursion because it just it it feels so nice and spooky. Um, but I don't know. I I don't have much else to say other than I loved that I knew every one of these games and I which says to me it is being served to a wider market than they usually do somehow that they came across and that the the quality is good enough where there's five that deserve to be here, right?
Yeah.
And Yeah. I mean, uh, bull. Yeah. Maybe

this is the case, too. Like because I think it's a it's there are tools in there that make it easier to make them.
Yep. Yeah, I agree.
Uh, okay. My last one uh is is my um least cynical take. I have a lot of cynical takes, including up to and not limited to uh The Game Awards is a pointless show of pageantry that is devoid of any actual meaning and what wins doesn't really matter. And in the same breath, god dang it, I need South of Midnight to win games for Impact because South of Midnight was beautiful and deserves to win something. I'm annoyed. I'm annoyed that South of Midnight didn't show up more often. I thought South of Midnight was amazing. I thought it had an interesting art style. I thought it had great um storytelling. I thought it was uh compellingly written and excellently developed. And I thought it was great. and it only showed up in

Games for Impact, which there's a whole bunch to say about Games for Impact, but like I want South of Midnight to win because I want them to win something at the same time as these awards are stupid and really just an excuse for Jeff Key to meet Hideo Khjima and show a bunch of trailers.
Well, they're best friends now. Uh what uh wait uh so wait, let me What are the other categories here? I'm trying to get into it.
Uh the other nominees nominees. Other nominees are Consume Me, Despalot, uh, Lost Records, Bloom and Rage, and Wanderers Stop. Of those, I'm I'm vaguely familiar with Consume Me. I'm more familiar with Wonders Stop because I chose not to play Wonders Stop because I need to assure you all that I don't have enough tears in my body to play Wandertop. Um, and uh, the other two I'm less familiar with, but I will I will say that of them I felt like God, I love South of the Night. It's such a good game. I had
You've been talking about that game for a very long time.

I had like some minor quibbles with the combat, but like believe me when I tell you that the combat is the least important part of that game by a country mile,
right? That like the impact of the game and the story that it's telling and the way that it's telling that story without pulling punches is really good. Well, I'll tell you the what I hope uh it better win for not only all of those reasons, but also a few others that we'll talk about as we close out this Game Awards story.
Yeah.
Um because Oh boy. Um
Yeah. And then my last one that I thought was uh a kind of silly one was best adaptation. Now, I did not watch the Devil May Cry Netflix show, nor did I watch Splinter Cell Death Watch. Did anyone watch either of those things in the chat right now? So, I can just see if they're any good. Um, the others are Last of Us, uh, season 2, Until Dawn, and a Minecraft movie.

Uh, I don't believe Sonic was this year, new guy.
Yeah.
Uh, how was Devil May Cry? Surprisingly good. Splinter Cell was fine. Great. Um, [laughter] I like a mentor's comment. Devil [clears throat] May Cry is fine if you don't know any Devil May Cry.
Although,
oh boy.
I I will continue to to just rip spicy takes from the ether. Uh, that's the point. It's not for existing fans. It's a marketing tool to get more people to buy into Devil May Cry. Just like Arcane is miraculously good for existing League fans and really a way to get more people interested in the League.
Yeah.
Right now, Arcane is superb and does a masterful job of balancing like being a good show for people who don't know

League with being a good show for people who do know League. Sure.
Which makes it an outlier, right? But the vast majority of these crossover things are tools to get people into that thing.
We I we gave Netflix a ton of ish at the beginning of this show. Um they're whoever is running their animation department uh from a marketing andor content perspective is actually quite killing it. Um the also uh edge runners for cyberpunk same same sort of again it's marketing but it's an excellent show that works well for new uh people that aren't into cyber punk and people that are deep into cyberpunk. Um so I think they they're doing something well there. However, with all of that said, even though I did really like Last of Us season 2, even though I do think from an adaptation perspective, you could argue that Until Dawn was better. We all know that, and it's not a better movie, by

the way. The movie's trash. Uh, but uh a Minecraft movie will be sweeping this uh instantly. They want an excuse to hopefully get Jack Black on that stage, and I think this is probably the way to do it. Y
um in fact, I want that on my bingo card. Let it be known that Jack Black shows up to accept the award for a Minecraft movie.
Okay.
Uh because he's got something to promote in the new Mario movie. Like it all it all all the boxes are there.
Yep.
Uh
and also Yeah. And I also side note didn't mind the Minecraft movie.
Will was on the podcast. If you want to hear me and Will talk about a Minecraft movie for an hour with my co-host Shahir Dow, uh go to the only podcast about movies. We'll put a link uh I'll put a link in the show notes to that episode, too, just around this part. Cool. Um, Matt, do you want to do you want to do Spice first or game of the year first? Let's do game of the year first because we're on like the discussed topic.
Let's do game of the year first.
Okay. So, uh, the noms for game of the year, which is really the award that

anyone actually like that that the most people care about, right?
It's a good thing we have a three-hour uh three-hour preamble before that,
right? are Clare Obscure, Death Stranding 2, Donkey Kong Bonanza, Hades 2, Silk Song, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. Okay, so there there's two ways to come at this, right? One of them is what are our personal picks,
and the other one is what do we think is actually gonna win? Um, and so I I I think I want to do what what's our personal pick, Matt, of these, what do you think should be game of the year, ignoring what anyone else in the world says, what does your heart tell you?
So, I have a problem here.
Uhhuh.
I was interested in playing all five of these g all six of these games.
Uhhuh. And like a consumate YouTube

professional, I have only had time to play one of them.
Y
uh and that is Silk Song. Now, do I think that Silk Song should be game of the year? No, I do not. Um I Hades 2 for me has been my we go on break in two weeks and I am going to play the I'm just going to play through Hades 2. Like that's going to be my game while I'm on break. I'm just going to rip it apart. I've been wanting to play it since the open the early betas and all that stuff, the early access. Uh, and I've chose not to. Um, Donkey Kong Bonanza looks really fun and seems super innovative in a lot of fun Nintendoy ways. I I would love to play it. It is. It is. I I will say I don't think Nintendo has innovated
like this is this is I I would say the third in the Breath of the Wild Mario Odyssey sort of I would I would put this in that triumvirate of like

weird ways to treat existing characters differently and to refresh the entire property with a really good new take. Yeah,
I think it's surprisingly good. I didn't like the post game. I thought the story was really good, though.
Cool. And then Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. Uh I mean, shout outs for just the title alone. I re Death Stranding as a franchise falls into the category of I loved it intensely for two weeks and then I fell off hard and I never had the desire to go back to it even though I thought it was great. Death Stranding 2, I was like, "This is going to be it. I have a PS5 Pro now. I can like I can crank this thing to 11. this is one of the exclusives. I'm going to do it. And then I didn't. And I I that's I don't know why that's no that's no slight to the game. It just didn't get into my purview. And then there's Clear Obscure Exhibition 33 which has permeated the culture so hard that I know most of the plot points now even though I've not

wanted to know them. And uh I haven't played the game. So, I think Claire Obscure Exhibition 33 is going to win this. Um, I don't feel comfortable saying like a personal preference though because I've only played one of the games and the one I did, I would guess two or three others of these would beat it for game of the year anyway. Does that make sense?
Yeah. I think uh I I think I am also aligned on wanting Clare Obscure to win and believing that Clare Obscure will win. And I'm capable of doing both of those things independently. I think Claire Obscur's impact has been remarkable. Um I think it has it it was a phenomena that came out of nothing. Is it a perfect game? No, absolutely not. Is it a better game now than it was on launch? Yes, definitely. Absolutely. They made some serious improvements between launch and now. Um,

I just think it's it's definitely a game. If you haven't played it, look up nothing except maybe the prologue because you don't make a ton of decisions in the prologue. It's mostly lore dumping. Watch the prologue. It's like an hour. You're going to cry a lot and then you get to decide if you want to keep going, right? And that's like that's my take on Clare Obscure. I think it's going to win and I think it's I think it is my choice to win. Um, yeah. I It's funny. I these days I tear through games so slowly and especially with the Nightright addiction. Uh
yeah,
like even more so because the time is obviously limited. Like I feel like Silk Song is going to be a game that I'm going to be playing for like a year or two.
Like it is
it is much bigger than Holiday. It's bigger, but also like there's moments in my life where I do want to take like two or three days and like get back into the groove of it and like feel it out and whatever, but then I do notice that I

get sick of it and but like it's not that I'm it's not going to be like a sadly like a Death Stranding for me, right? Like where I get sick of it and never think about it again or not even I actually I didn't get sick of Death Stranding. I just didn't think about it again,
right? where where I'm I'm active like I think about Silk Song at least probably once a day being like, "Oh yeah, I should probably go back and try that boss again." Like so
and of course Sasquatch has the um has the has the real take.
Uh I hope Sas I hope uh Clare Obscure wins so Benstar can be on stage and go off on how the industry treats its workers. Say less.
Yeah.
Yeah. That's that's the main reason I wanted to win. All right. And now, uh, it would not be our pregame awards game awards talk if we didn't talk about a category that or a thing that just didn't exist this year, which is future class. So, [clears throat]
not only doesn't exist this year, all record of it is gone beyond the wayback

machine.
Correct. And it also appears to be one of the finest examples in why Jeff Keley desperately needs to take Will's class on shut the hell up. So Future Class
you take you can get a you can get your doctorate in that.
Right. So, Future Class was a program started by the Game Awards to recognize um trends setters, upcoming talent, uh people who were doing innovative things, people who were speaking truth to power, people who were changing the industry for the better in a lot of different ways. And it did a good job of recognizing some number of those people.
Not a perfect system, but better than nothing,
right? Better than nothing. And then it didn't get run in 2004 and people kind of scratched their heads and went, "Okay." And then it didn't show up in the NOMS this year. And someone said, "Hey, that's kind of

weird. Uh, hey Jeff, what's up with that?" And Jeff Keelley said, "I didn't want to do it. It's my show. We do what I want." In essence, I'm paraphrasing. and now you can't find any record of it anywhere. Now, first off, this is stupid because you just recognized a bunch of people for causing good trouble in the industry and then told them that their award category wasn't important anymore, which is just like stupid on its face because like why are you going to annoy a whole bunch of people who are wellknown and respected for making noise when stuff seems unjust? That's that's really not intelligent. Second, let's be very clear. What Jeff Keley said was absolutely true. He It is absolutely Jeff.
Did he actually say it or was it just a group? I'm trying to find a quote, but people are saying there is no no actual quote from him.
Uh I believe I
right now all I'm getting is at this time we're not planning a new future

class for this year and do not have any active program plans for future class which I uh like a statement from the game awards. Yeah, I I will try and find it.
I just want to make sure. I'm not against, you know, giving Jeff a little a little guff, but I just want to make sure we're guffing him, right?
Yeah. No, that's fair. Um I will I thought that was in the thing that I sent you.
Maybe it is. Let me uh
I will find it. Um
it's all good.
So either way, let's be very clear. They get to do whatever they want. They're private organization, right? They they don't need to run future class. Maybe don't say that bit though. Like maybe maybe don't do that. Maybe say like it's it's difficult, right? Cuz like it feels very much like this is them cutting loose.
I have I have two theories. I have two two uh intermingled theories. Uh they're

kind of tinfoil hatty, but let's go with it cuz that's what this whole episode seems to be. Um the first and foremost, um you can kind of Okay, there's [clears throat] a trend. Uh I don't think this is a like, oh, this is the plan all along. It is a happy um occurrence that's going along with the way that media is being treated these days. Have you noticed that there aren't too many new movie stars? right? They're not like like there's there's actors that you know, but like there they seem to be uh popping up a little bit less and less and uh if there are some it's kind of people that you don't fully know for them as a person, but like they can carry two or three different franchises. There's a there's a methodology about like, well, if you if you prop up an actor and that's where all the media is, like Leonardo DiCaprio is a great actor, so you'll go see a Leonardo DiCaprio

movie. Well, what if instead you'd always just go see a Captain America movie instead of seeing a Chris Evans movie? Do you know what I mean? like you you have a series of characters that eventually can be played by different actors yada yada yada and then the company owns all of the hype right like it's on the character not the actor playing off of that and I again I don't think this is a active like mwaha move I think this is a side effect of a lot of different industry decisions but it does help play into a lot of the different narratives so for instance back to the game awards I think two things one uh with the industry in freef of all a lot of upandcomers that would be tied to uh corporate things that would be that the sponsors of the show would be happy with don't exist anymore. Uh and two, I don't believe that the games industry, and again, this isn't Jeff Keley, this is just whoever's paying the game awards bills, it's an

inadvertent thing. It's like it's it's not okay, but they can pretend like they don't realize it or maybe not even realize it. is that it is better for game companies to not champion designers or developers because then they own the IP and then it's always ah yes this is u I don't know Mortal I'll go back to Mortal Kombat instead of like Ed Boon and and John Tobias right like and again that was a while ago so like
in this way if there's a thing that is awarding upand cominging talent that gets their name out there that could cause a hype cycle around a person as opposed to an IP. I don't think they want that.
I think that that's also true.
And I think there's a weird knock-on effect that happens in media around that, especially as we're going down uh in a in a blaze of nightmare into an AI riddled future that um they want to divorce the thing you love from the

people that made it as much as possible. Again, I don't think there's an edict from on high. I think it all feeds into itself and there's a lot of convenient truths that sort of hitch when when you're moving in a direction like this.
Yeah, that makes sense.
I think that's a good I think that's a good read, too. It is a bummer, right? I I think I think we're all agree, by the way, this just sucks.
Yeah.
Right. Um and so, yeah, I don't know. I think it is helping. It is helpful to me in one way, which is that I just get to drink my cynicism milkshake and uh get to show up and watch a bunch of premieres and just know that that's what I'm watching as I'm watching a three-hour ad program. Uh
I want to also make it clear, I think that the Game Awards themselves as a production have gotten better over the years.
I agree. But as it's doing it, I feel like it's always one step forward, two steps back.
Yes.
Um, and look, there's not even there's not

even a debate. This is the Oscars for games. And again, awards, we say this every year. It's just marketing. The whole thing is marketing. We're playing into it. We're going to stream it. We're going to make content out of it because Will and I like talking about this sort of stuff. and we can Statatler and Waldorf for a while and be cynics and hopefully you enjoy and you get a little bit of a a baby amount of catharsis while we take the piss out of this show uh that seems to be essentially the Academy Awards but for uh digital entertainment,
right?
Um [snorts] but like you just have to I mean it the Game Awards is truly and and I don't mean this as an insult. I mean this as a compliment. It is the one of the greatest fake it till you make it stories in media.
Yep.
Like it is it is truly an accomplishment that it has gotten to this point. It has filled a a niche in the in the marketing cycle that no one had before.
Yep.
And now we spend twothirds of our show

talking about it.
Yep. I agree. Yeah. Uh okay. That that's our thoughts on the game boards. join us Thursday uh where we sit down and we'll have a bingo card, we'll have predictions and we'll do all we'll do all that stuff.
Bring your Martinelli sparkling cider #notsponsored by Martinelli's yet one year. It's funny, we were this close to actually getting a Martinelli sponsorship and then we kind of just let the ball drop. I really have to get back into that and like every time we think about it, it's around Game Awards times, but they've already completed their marketing spend for the year. I need to really lock it in because God, could you imagine the Matt and Will Game Awards watch party sponsored by Martinelli's?
Oh my god, we'd go off. It would
we it would it would all frowns would be turned upside down.
Yeah. Okay. Uh that concludes the the the our treatment of the game awards, which means it is now time for us to do some ads. So, we're going to do some fake ads for things you can't buy, while Twitch tech gets real ads for things you can buy to help us keep pre-rolls off. So,

uh, please stay tuned. Uh, if you're if you're getting ads right now, you're not missing anything. And everyone else, including you there watching in the VOD later on or you watching on will get this hilarious rendition of uh ads from me and Matt. Uh, ready, steady, go.
Will, you go first.
Okay,
here we go.
Yep. Hi everyone. Will from Extra Credits here to sell you something that you can get in dwindling supply in the media and in the world today. Yes, that's right. I'm here to sell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. That's right. You too can embibe real things [music] that aren't made by AI that aren't uh manufactured half-truths sold to you by marketing corporations. You can just have the truth. I'm not saying I'm the only person [music] who's selling it. I'm not saying I'm selling a lot of it. I'm saying that you can have it and that's the important part. You should demand truth wherever truth is available and

that's a vanishing number of places right now,
you know. Well, I you're it's so true. It's so correct. I'd like to piggyback off you if that's okay.
Hi friends, Matt from Extra Credits here. You know, with our current merger coming up with, of course, lobsters, I feel like we are uniquely positioned to be one of the only people to tell you about lobster truths, specifically in the video game format. So, let me tell you a few lobster truths that I just looked up. [music] First of all, a lobster can live for a hundred years, and they don't stop growing, which is just like our market cap. Am I right? Also, they grow. They have to periodically mol their sheddded skins and exoskeletons to keep getting bigger, right? Just like we'll have to do with all those employees. Listen, I could go on and on, but just please let our merger go through.
I got another one.

[laughter]
3 2 1 LET'S JAM.
Hey there everyone. W from here to sell you something that's better than a merger with lobsters. That's right. We should merge with orcas. That's right. The orca industry and us should merge because do you know do you know what's better than merging with lobsters? No. No. It's fine.
Will, if you ruin this merger for me, I swear to God.
I just want to eat a super yacht. That's all I want. I just one super yacht. I just want to eat a super yacht. That's all I want. I just want to [screaming] [laughter]
Oh, I think we're safe. Are we safe? Are we safe?
Oh my god. I can't breathe.
All right. All right. Cool. Anyway, hi

everybody.
We're back. [laughter]
That's true. Orcas are a billionaire's natural predator. That is correct. That is a true fact about orcas. By the way, if you're wondering, um, what I'm on about, uh, we talked about this forever ago, like years and years ago on EP. Um, there's a school of orcas in the northern Atlantic, uh, who has a thing for eating yachts. Uh, they don't do it cuz they're like, as best we can tell, orcas do it cuz they're bored and they want to play. And it's specifically yachts because they're the right size for it to be interesting for an orca to take it apart. And it's also like not too big for it to like be a problem for them to take apart. And they're generally not made to be terribly sturdy, relatively speaking. So orcas actually do take apart millionaire yachts like on the regular. Uh which is why I love them. Go Orca Whales. I'm on team.
Go Orca Whales.
Yeah.

After the merger.
Yeah. after the merger.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Um let's talk about some of the other news that happened uh this week.
We have [laughter] we have six stories to get in in 35 minutes and I think we could do it.
That's fine. Uh number one uh is this model from uh from Hello Games No Man's Sky. So, uh the once human uh has begun releasing or has been releasing, I haven't tracked it, uh items in loot boxes, uh there are decorative items for loot boxes that you can get and there's microtransactions and all that. Um you might imagine why I haven't been covering once human because
we're just not we're just not all over that one. That's crazy.
Right. I know. Anyway, in the most recent batch of them, it appears that there's a thing that looks suspiciously like the No Man's Sky Stargate. It's really this No Man's Sky teleporter, but

it's a Stargate.
A Stargate.
Uh,
legally distinct from a Stargate.
Yeah. Legally not a Stargate. Um, and it showed up almost one, potentially one to one in Once Human. And people were like, "Wow." Uh that seems kind of sketch. And below you see Shawn Murray's response. Um which is uh jokes on them. We didn't finish that model. Uh we forgot to do LOD on those rivets. So those rivets have like more polygons than many large starships do. Uh they're not well optimized. So if once human did take them from No Man's Sky, whoopsy poopsy, that's way more polygons than you thought. So funny. So funny.
It's so hilarious to me. There are stories about people forgetting to to do level of detail stuff and then like crashing things. Like there was a um there was a
uh VR chat like room that you could use

that was that included like a toothbrush was like on in a cup on a you know on a um in a bathroom or something. And uh they grabbed a model of a toothbrush not realizing what it was for. And it was actually a hyper like detailed toothbrush and it had more polygons than like four or five copies of the rest of the room put together.
Amazing.
And it was just like in the cup uh and was causing crashes. So that's hilarious.
I think Sean Shawn Murray gets the official Games for Breakfast High Five over the internet award this week because it's such a like this is the kind of stuff I want. Like dude found out someone probably stole a thing from his game. doesn't get super upsetting spaghetti about it. He just like calls out a dumb thing about like the design of it and like like allowing them to know that he knows and also [clears throat] just like seeming like a funny decent guy like I don't know. I really really enjoy that. And I believe at this

point they have removed this from the game and they're going to take this opportunity to quote uh reassess their their art pipeline or something
which means they're going to take effort to make sure that next time they don't get caught. Man, my cynicism is like through the roof today. I need to like h Okay. Uh so yeah, just an interesting story. Cool thing about No Man's Sky, cool thing that happened in the industry, and a cool reminder to check your assets when you use them because sometimes,
speaking of assets, Yeah. speaking of assets and optimization.
Yeah.
Uh, did you know that you could now save Super Earth at at 85% the size?
Less the size. It's 15% the size that it was.
It's 15% the size of the original Saving Super Earth from uh all of the threats to manage democracy.
Basically, this comes to us from IGN. Uh, Hell Divers 2 devs have been working with Sony Studios uh, to create a slim version of the game on PC that reduces the file size from 154 gigs to 23 gigs.

If I hadn't already give out my high five to Sean, this would be going to y'all. Um, this is a phenomenal phenomenal thing. I wish we kind of saw more groups do. Um, look, I don't think there's any excuse for a bloated file size in a in a finished product you are shipping. However, I also understand that due to corporate overlords and possibly some mergers, uh, you don't have all the time that you would really really want before your game has to be out.
Yeah.
Therefore, I would love it if the continue like if the if the pipeline in general would be something like here's the the game, it's out. It's huge. We're sorry. They don't have to say this, but like then 6 months down the line when you're probably finishing up playing, but you still want to leave it on your system in case you want to hop back. Like they they do release and test versions of a slimmed down version for you to to do

to use.
In this case,
yeah,
there was a reason it was that size. Um, the redundancy in the install is a way to speed up load times on physical hard drives on on a spinning platter.
Right. Right. Right. Right.
So, so, so let's just be clear. This isn't a lack of optimization. This is optimizing for a different purpose. Right.
But I would love it. Let's even say that like they they could still have that pipeline. It could still be the reason, but like I I think it is a worthwhile endeavor for those who would value it.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah. So, I I think that 100% I'm with you all the way on like smaller file size good and um there's a bunch of like really uh good things that come of this. It is also really interesting. Um the gen article has it and I believe the post on Steam has it. I'll link that in the show notes as well. um for uh the

how do I want to put this for what like the process was and their thought pattern and why they went through all of this. And it's a really good read on like it's a human readable thing on like hey here's what we were prioritizing and why we prioritized it and how that resulted in this file size and here's the steps that we've taken to to get to the place that we are and here's what we believe the impact will be both positive and negative of this choice. It's a really good read if you're interested in seeing companies talk about the why of a choice like this. I think that and that's the other reason that it made my list for this week was it's a really cool thing to do when they're this transparent. It's not just, hey, we did the thing. Celebrate us. It's, hey, we did this thing. Learn about it. Right. Which I think is really valuable right now.
No, I agree.
All right. Cool. Uh, Matt, would you like to laugh with me?
Sure. I'll take a laugh. I'll take a yuck. [laughter]

Oh, so Xbox had the worst Black Friday I think Xbox has ever had. And that's it's pretty bad. So, uh, the gamer has the data um from, uh, I'm trying to think, uh, Circana. And so you would think that on Black Friday there'd be a a console in first, a console in second, and a console in third for gaming devices. And you'd be right. But the Xbox isn't any of them. You see, the PlayStation 5 was in first, accounting for like 50% of gaming device sales on Black Friday. Um, the Switch 2 was in second with about 24%. And the Nex Playground is a Connect style fitness device.
Yeah, that's right.
And it it is technically a gaming device

by its own description and by all metrics that we care to mention. And it came third and Xbox came fourth. And the next, by the way, the the the the next playground was 14%.
So just doing the rough math here, 47% plus 24% plus 14% means there's not a lot of percent left for Xbox to occupy. Even if Xbox occupied 100% of the remaining, which they didn't, not a great time to be Microsoft. Not Not a great time to Yeah. Uh
yeah.
Uh so
uh sorry I got a little distracted. A tiny little work thing came up, but I took care of it. Uh thank you for driving that story, Wolf. Yeah, this um I mean it's not like they didn't want this. Like they th this generation of

whatever Xbox is has officially given up on hardware. I know they can say that they're not, but their actions are speaking louder than their words. And they and that's fine. Like that's okay. If they want to do something different, that's totally fine.
Yeah.
Um but the I I just kind of wish they'd be like, "Yep, no, no, we're done." Like, and I I I I know why they don't. it it's market cap and it's it's it's trying to get like they want consumer trust for whatever they do next and they don't want to look like they're abandoning something but like I don't know man the to be outsold by a fitness console that's pretty rough like I that means that to me says a majority of young people that are asking for a video game

console have not asked for an Xbox. And if you're not getting that install base early to get sort of the good again the good sort of nostalgia brain chemicals going and getting enlisting in the console wars little soldier then it's not going to work for you.
Yeah. And by the way, to be clear, this is the best it's going to be for them because next year Steam Machine, I think then we're going to to fall into essentially what I think what they're going to try to do is one of two ways. There'll be the the the portable one, the Switch version of the Xbox, which we've been saying for years now will happen. the ROG Ally is kind of their test case for it. That kind of came and went from the news cycle. I know people seem to like it, but no one's really talking about it. Um, it's going to be either that or uh their like premium premium thing, which is

essentially a better Steam box, I imagine, right? Because they said that the price of that would be it would be not for the average consumer. Or it's going to be a combination of both. They make that switch light console Xbox something that is like the price of a new iPhone and that's the the the gold tier MercedesBenz whatever tier console thing you know and they'll still do their services to play on the Steam machine cuz like why if Steam is going to come and take their lunch would they even bother to fight in that fight? Yeah,
because technically I I I'm sure if there was ever a deal like they could make game pass work on the Steam box or you could you could Linux not Linux and you could install Windows on it and do whatever you wanted, right? Like
the Steam one of the problems is that the Steam Machine might not actually be competing directly with the Xbox is also competing with Alien Wares. It is a mid-end PC, but it also performs the

functions of a console. This is kind of a weird thing. The steam machine is a bit of a platypus in that it does two different sets of things that make it seem like it should be in two different categories and yet it's in one category.
Yeah. And um the interesting thing about the Steam Machine, I know we're talking about Xboxes, but like so since the Steam doesn't have other than like a few Valve titles, right? since it doesn't have like exclusivity. It doesn't have exclusive console. It doesn't have exclusive games. Um, but what it does have uh Oh, am I am I pixelating out? I look weird. Oh, cool. Anyway,
you look fine. I'm just going to fight you on that one when you finish your thought.
Oh, that it doesn't have exclusive. It doesn't have many exclusives.
Yeah.
It's the number one place for indie developers to publish for the first time. If what you care about Sure, Sure. Sure. I'm talking about I'm talking about things that like like you that like actually for instance would

traditionally move a console sale
traditionally. Yes.
Non-traditionally and for Steam's market base those are important parts of the
Sure. Sure. Sure. This is going to move that. I guess this is this is sort of part of my point. That's going to take this in installed user base and not only give it a place to actually like, oh, here's a product that you could put in your living room to utilize this stuff so you're not just tied to your to your uh PC or whatever all the time, but also that it's going to be a company that is going to work with people and these companies that are publishing games to optimize the game for that system in a way that no other optimization for a PC has been done. We've seen this with this the the Steam Deck when it becomes Steam Deck approved or optimized like that's when you know that like oh we're good here. So even if like I I think as the Steam machine gets more ubiquitous this is going to be the first time that we've seen a trough of games this large being actively sort of maintained in a way by a console manufacturer that is that I mean every console does that already but

no that's never happened on P the PC side of the equation. Yep.
Yeah. Anyway, rip Xbox.
RIP Xbox. We spent more of this time talking about the Steam Machine than the Xbox, which is par for the course now.
Yeah.
All right. Next up, we have uh some very interesting news. Uh Zootopia has set a new record opening. Um it's the biggest non-Marvel box office opening ever.
Zootopia 2. dystopia 2 with $566 million.
Now granted, about three4s of that, maybe it might be three-fifths, I don't quite know. Uh is from China.
Sure.
And normally films are not released at the exact same time in China in the US. They normally have different release windows and everything. So this kind of like balloons it a bit. Again, it's crazy amount of money, but um it also is nowhere near like uh Nija 2, which was

like 2.1 billion over in China, which if you haven't seen that film, uh is great. You should see that. Um, yeah, this is just interesting because I think this is the like this is a I look this is what I would consider a true sort of four quadrant type thing or at least three and a half where the ticket sales for this movie will be great regardless because it is an event you can take the family to andor your kids. That also means that it's going to be something that you're probably buying between three and five tickets for. Um, and that also ups obviously that sort you turned like a little thing that could be a streaming thing at home into an event that you get to do with your family. Yep.
Um, and I truly as movie theaters are slowly dying, that's a thing that becomes few and far between.
So, I think they took a I think Zootopia 2 was in in a prime spot in that way and in the release bracket to actually just have nothing in its way to just run wild with this. And uh, I think it's neat. I

never saw the first Zootopia. I don't know if the trailers have always looked good.
Yeah, it's fine. It's it's it's a Disney movie. It's not It's not one of their better ones. I think it's good. It's fun. It's like light. It's It's got like some interesting backing to it, but I don't think it's like great. It's good, right? Um Okay. Uh I don't know why I put these in this order because now I have to get good and upset again.
[laughter] [sighs]
All right. So, we've been talking a lot about Roblox and getting blocked places. The latest place to block Roblox is Russia. All of Russia has blocked Roblox. However, not for any of the myriad of reasons that people might usually be blocking Roblox. No, Russia blocked Roblox because it has queer propaganda in it. That's it. That's the whole story.

That's the continual rage inducing nonsensical tale of Roblox. God, I cannot wait for this game to die so we never have to talk about it again. I just I want it to just Can we please just away? Just gone.
Bye.
Yeah. Uh
I like Yeah. No, we're on the same one. Yeah. Robux for me gay. Sorry, Mother Russia. Yep. Nope. Timothy's on it. Yeah. right? Like,
oh boy.
Yeah,
it's funny because like obviously child safety and a bunch of stuff, Roblox is hitting a bunch of roadblocks uh across the world. This is Russia doing a thing that could be seen as helpful, but for all of the wrong reasons.
Right. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I don't [sighs] Also, I just want to point out uh where is it? I got to find it. the the it's I

feel like this has just become the oldest of hat at this point.
Oh, are you talking about the the statement?
Yeah. Uh Roblox's statement of we respect local laws and regulations in the countries where we operate and believe Roblox provides a positive space for learning, creatation, and meaningful connection for everyone. Um Roblox is a deep commitment to safety and we have a robust set of proactive and preventative safety measures designed to catch and prevent harmful content on our platform. I feel like I've read that statement like a hundred times this year. I feel like
I've never read it more lies per character than that statement. Like that statement is 150% lies by volume.
And as we know, Will is all about the truth.
Right.
Today, Will speaks the truth except when he's bismerching the sweet, sweet merger that is moving forward from what I'm told between extra credits and lobsters. Orcas, orca whales, or orca whales.

We're gonna do it.
Can't stop it. Can't stop the signal.
We have We have a a good piece of news uh to end on. Uh or at least an interesting one.
I think it's good.
I I think it I think it is good, too. I just don't know if it was in time.
Um I think it is because I think Well, okay. So, anyway, sorry. Uh Mario Kart World uh hit with the Switch 2 and was a huge phenomenon for a week and a half and then it kind of went away. I uh recently had an absolute blast with it. Uh I think I talked about this last breakfast, but I brought the Switch 2 to Thanksgiving when we went to Jaime's family and this was like the first video game that like a bunch of like five and six-year-olds played. Did I talk about this on the show before? Will I'm the best uncle. Um it was literally me and a bunch of kids in a basement and like the thing, this isn't the actual story, but I just want to tell it. I was very impressed with what essentially is uh accessibility options uh in Mario Kart World. Not only does it have um a drive assist uh thing that the Mario Karts

have had before and also uh it has a auto accelerate cuz there's some kids that were too young to remember to hold down the go button and none of them could stay on the track at least for a while. So like I set up each controller uh to be specific to the child and then I just let them go nuts and they lost they lost it. It was so much fun. So, kudos again to this game for uh for all of those things. The thing I'm talking about right now, though, is um there is a new update that actually tackles a bunch of people's biggest complaints about this game, and that was that the drives between the courses in the titular world were kind of just boring straightaways. Now, I liked them. I thought it made for really good combat moments where you could think more tactically and not worry about racing. That's just me. I was in the minority. They have gone back and eight of the between tracks they have added different bends and turns to to make it feel more like a race. Now, they haven't changed

the geometry of the track that much. In fact, most of the additional track stuff is in water areas, but I think that's just cuz it's easier to do, but this is a rare case of Nintendo listening to their consumer base. Um, and I think they saw the people that actually made this game saw like, oh, maybe we went too hard on this. They also did a couple different balancing things and patched some other stuff. But like if you go to the Polygon article, which will be in the show notes, they have um a bunch of pictures from a Reddit post of the of the way that the course used to drive you and then how the map has changed. And it's really nice to see that they took some constructive criticism and and adjusted things to try to make people happy because I do believe that they're planning on making Mario they'd love Mario Kart World to be the phenom that Mario Kart 8 was. Um, and Mario Kart 8 also took a minute because it was on the Wii U. Um, so like I don't think this is a game that's going away anytime soon. I think this is going to eb and flow much like 8 did. But I think um I think when

eight started I think for a brief moment 8 was out selling world still.
And then they're like okay
a Switch 2 is still $500, right? Like that is that is still that's still a tough
like sell right when plenty of Switch ones still work fine. Plenty of Wii Us still work fine. We set up the Wii U for my mom.
Yeah,
we set up a Wii U in 2025 because it still works and it does what my mom wants it to do.
Yeah,
we don't need something new. We don't spend 500 bucks on Switch 2,
right?
Um Yeah.
Okay.
So, uh yeah. Anyway, I just I called that out. Uh and again, we we poo poo on Nintendo quite a bit here and rightfully so. This is a rare case where it feels like they're listening and doing something good. So, here we go. Yay.
Yeah.
All right. I think that is going to be it for our show.
We just speeded those. We spent so much time on Netflix and so much time on on

uh on uh what was on the Game Awards.
I can't even remember what we spent time on. That shows
Listen, we're going to be spending three hours on Game Awards on Thursday. I I think I could eject it from my brain as soon as this show is done and then come on back later.
Yep. Absolutely. Uh coming up this week, we got a bunch of stuff here on Twitch. Come join us. I'm playing Dota 2 right after this. I'm going to poke it with a stick and see what's changed. I think the last time I played there weren't facets and the map still didn't have the bigger size. You know, they made a mobile map bigger, Matt. They can do that. They did. Yeah,
they have the technology.
Yeah, they made it even bigger. It's wild. Um, tomorrow we're doing the Rogue Review. Uh, Wednesday we're going to be visiting the community Minecraft server. Thursday there's uh a design club on Are you ready to turn to dust, everyone? 20 years of generation 7 because the Xbox 360 just turned 20. So Jeff and I are going to talk about Gen 7 and everything it did for

gaming and how it was a pivotal moment in uh gaming development
and how you only went through five Xbox 360s in that life cycle. Yeah. Uh, and then Friday, uh, I'm gonna get even more very lost at Elden Ring. I have no idea where I am. And that's
Did you make it through the Lake of Rot?
I did. I finished Ronnie I finished Ronnie's quest. I'm now someplace new underground, and I don't know where it is. It's great. I love it. Uh, I don't have a map. It's amazing. So, uh, please join us for all of those things. But for this show, all that remains is for Matt to do our patented signoff.
That's right, Will. Every time at the end of the show, we like to have a community uh sendoff to make sure we all feel good about the week. We're going into it together. We're all part of this community. And thank you so much for making it to this part of the show. If you've made it here before, then you already know exactly what to do. And you'll do it with me in tandem as you do every week. If you're new here, if this is your first Games for Breakfast that

you've made it to the end of live, I'm gonna give you approximately 15 seconds just to raise your hand and chat. And then don't worry if you don't get this one and you you don't know how the ending works. That's totally fine because come back next week and you can just do it with us then and then you'll be part of the community as a whole. So, thank you so much for watching Games for Breakfast. And uh without further ado, here we go. Lobsters rule, Orcas Drool. I got nothing. [music]