Xbox Gets a Co-Pilot, Project Helix’s GDC Debut & Fortnite’s Financial “Woes” | Games For Breakfast

Good morning, Matt.
Good morning, Will.
Good morning to all of you.
WELCOME TO GAMES FOR BREAKFAST, THE ONLY INTERNET TALK show we talk about this week's gaming and tech news, but also where we ask the question, if you if you give a man a digital fish, he'll be happy with the title it gives him in an MMO for a day. But if you teach a man to digitally fish, he'll be on the hook to keep playing that MMO until the sun burns out.
That's correct, Matt. It is indeed true that I will be playing that game until the sun burns out. That's correct. There's nothing wrong with that. Like,
no, no, no. I just uh if you're wondering why that's the call out today, we were just talking about digital fishing and specifically Final Fantasy 14 and how we might be doing an episode on digital fish, like fishing mini games and things. Uh and now I just got fish on the brain. will I can't not. They're just flopping around all over there.

They are to scale, however. So, and that is a joke I stole from the pre-show. Um,
they are to scale. We have a wonderful show for you today. I should probably post on Blue Sky that we're doing it. Um, do not let the stark at least early thumbnail fool you. Uh these are all I I these are all really interesting stories that Will has gathered up for us this week. Uh we had a interesting quandry of how to like talk about and package them though. Um so we'll see. Here's the goal for the show. Brad, Janet, Will,
uh anyone who's watching live right now, sadly if you're watching this in the VOD or if you're watching this over on Nebula, uh you can't do this directly, but you can also just message us on Blue Sky and let us know what you think. We need to find the perfect image for a thumbnail for this episode based on what we talk about roughly on the first or second story if we have to. Um,

right now it's fine. It's fine. We we were hitting our heads against the wall. We had to go live because the show must go on. But, uh, that doesn't mean we can't change it. So, if you think of the perfect image based on the first couple stories that we are talking about, please let us know in either chat as soon as humanly possible.
Indeed. Uh, generic. If it's not Pocopedia, I do not want it. I did watch um about Pokeipedia. Uh,
or Poke Popia. I keep calling it Poctopedia. Popia. Um, I did watch uh Dunkey's uh video on it, which was very, very entertaining.
Yeah, I haven't I haven't seen anything about it yet, but that's uh largely because I've been busy watching Slay the Spire 2 content. Popia and Slay the Spire 2 came out on the same day and I'm Ascension five on all my characters and Ascension 6 on a couple. So, I am
very deeply invested in Slay the Spire 2 and we'll be playing more Slay Spire 2

here on the Twitch channel at some point. So, I have I have not seen the Pocopia. Uh but that is that is not Pootopia's fault. It is in fact uh I got hooked by a different line uh as it were. hooked, lined, and sinkered.
Yes. Uh, also, this is very worth noting. Um, uh, yes, we mentioned it briefly in the pre-show. The show must go on. There will not be a breakfast for the rest of March, unfortunately. Next week, uh, we have other obligations the week after. The crew will be traveling back from PAX. But don't worry, I'll be here because I'm always here because I live in a digital kitchen. Huh.
Um,
you [laughter]
But I I I will be here uh streaming as per us. It just won't be breakfast.
Um,
shall we dive into our stories then this morning?
I think so. I'm just posting about the show right meow.
Right meow.
Right meow. So, let's get into it.
You got to be kidding me. You're posting right meow.

Some real fishy some real fishy quotes going on here.
Yeah. Uh, okay. So, first and foremost, uh we have news of that is technically breaking but not terribly shocking, but it is kind of cool that they did it. So, Xbox at GDC, which was this past weekend, um
which Jeff was at.
Jeff was at, which is why there wasn't a design club last week. Uh GDC uh announced Project Helix, which is their next console
Xboxes. Yeah.
Yeah. It's It's their next Well, we'll get to is it an Xbox in a second, but um [laughter] that they announced Project Helix. Uh and the this is sort of them, I think, putting a foot in the door. This is kind of them like sticking their foot in the door. Um because the first alpha uh versions will be set to devs in 2027. So, we're thinking that this is

going to be a
the dev sets. Yeah.
Yeah. the 20 Matt Matt's thinking holiday 2028
at the earliest at this point, which makes sense from the PlayStation has already said it's not going to be doing stuff. We've already talked about the RAM and the hardware shortages that we're going to be experiencing due to the the wonders of the technology that no one wants AI. Um so, or at least it no one wants shoved down the throat of every product ever. Um so this this announcement which again you know it's an announcement um was talking about a lot of different things in project helix um specifically more okay I might be call me oldfashioned but get off my lawn um the [laughter]
the what I would imagine would get players hyped for a new Xbox console might be

well a couple things at this point. One, a more uh core very clear message that um that Xbox will be focusing on said console which the new CEO of Xbox uh has said which is fine. Uh but the other just might be games. Talking about why why this Xbox will be the place for games to be and maybe some of the only places you can get games or at the same time it's also also going to be a PC. So you're going to be able to seemingly play other like play your Steam games on this most likely, right? They're trying to, this is the whole reason why we think um PlayStation is dipping out of the PC market because I think they want their own walled garden if that's going to be sort of meshed in that case. And I can totally see that. Um but the the thing that really struck me about this story and all the reporting around it, uh there's a couple things you can check out the show notes once they're posted from IGN and um and also uh Windows

Central. Uh, Windows Central has a great um, uh, sort of tertiary interview with Asha uh, Sh uh, I never pronounced the name. Charra, right? um basically talking about like her the the by line of that interview is essentially like she wants she and uh Matt Booty want to listen to the teams and try to get uh the best possible again it's all sort of corpo speak but the best possible thing for long-term Xbox users she says she's done it before with products she'll do it again we time will tell but I think and will I I don't know. I've seen this around a little bit. I don't know if you you'll agree with the statement. the the presentation at GDC, at least from the reporting that we've gotten to to read, seems less like a get pumped gamers for a brand new piece of hardware that's going to change the way that you play video games and you'll like you can only

experience the best possible thing on this and more of kind of a directionless like technology and specs bump. like it they they said a couple different things. Um specifically that you're going to be able to play PC games on the console along with Xbox games. It's going to have a custom AMD chip. Um it's going to work on uh a type it's going to like focus more on like they're calling it neural rendering which I'm sure is some sort of like a combination of like I don't know all the terms but like AI upscaling and that sort of thing. And they're going to, this is actually the most exciting part of the technical gobbledegook was they're going to try to work on new texture um compressions.
Yeah.
To try to keep sizes of games down because I think the industry is starting to see that the price of hardware is not going to dip anytime soon.
Correct. So if someone's asking for 200 gigs for Call of Duty, um you really

like you have to justify being 200 gigs now.
Yeah.
Yeah. Um but but yeah, so Will with Did you kind of get the same vibe there that like this was this felt more this this didn't feel like it was for us?
No, this is definitely a GDC presentation aimed at GDC. So a reminder that unlike a lot of the Oh dear, that storm [clears throat] is quite loud and quite close.
Oh yeah, we had one this morning is probably that we got your first one and that's the one that's coming to me. Let's see if it makes it to me before the show's over.
Yeah. Um, so, uh, the, um, GDC is not a con like, um,
PAX.
PAX, right? Uh, or even E3, rest in peace. Uh, GDC is for professionals who are developing these games. So, this is this is a tailored presentation for them. So, this is not to get people hype. This is to tell developers what

kinds of things they can be looking for and why they should develop for they should develop with this thing in mind for pitches that are at least this far out. Right? So, if they have a game that they're working on that they're not planning on coming out till holiday 2028, early 2029, they might want to consider thinking about the process of bringing it to Helix when it's closer to completion. Right. And so that that sort of feels like what it is to me. Um sure at least.
Yeah. Um the most interesting thing is like the dev kits aren't going to get into anyone's hands until early or until sometime in 2027, right? Um but because this is a like [clears throat] I I think will the thing you just said is absolutely could 100% be part of the reasoning here. But I think [clears throat] another reason why this was done and maybe even earlier than they thought it was going to be, who knows? Uh is the shakeup that has

been at Xbox recently with its leadership. I think that they desperately want to change the narrative of that. Even though I don't know if that has really hurt them any more than they already were. Like it feels like anyone in good faith like still is like, "Okay, well they're saying the right things. We'll wait and see." Right? like this feels like they want to start talking about the next project and not sort of the functionality of who's leading it anymore.
Yeah, I it does feel a little like this is like, hey, this is the first conference since Asha took over and they really wanted to kick down the door AND BE LIKE, HAHA, NEW BOSS, NEW US. EVEN THOUGH THAT'S not something you can do with this, right? Like this has clearly been in development for a while. Like you go just randomly show up to GDC and like pitch a speculative console that'll be in people's hands in two years or in a

year and a half, right? That's not that's not how that works, right? This has been in process for a while. But they do I think they wanted to credit Asha with this maybe to like lend her some credibility with
with the industry, right? as being someone who is hardware focused and not there to sunset Xbox and replace it with an AI that tells you what a good time you had playing a game
like look it's going to be hardressed especially after the Steam machine kind of comes out to sort of well I mean we'll see on cost and how that how that'll work but like because this is all speculation at this point but like okay PlayStation's leaving the PC market so they're going to have their exclusives and that's going to be one reason to move people over to whatever hardware they keep doing, right?
Yep.
Nintendo, for all the good and bad that Nintendo is, um, and I don't think they've done a terrible amount of iteration on the Switch 2, but they took a a thing that was working based on a crazy iteration

that they did on something and just kept it going and made, in my opinion, a better console. Th this isn't [clears throat] I would love to be excited for an Xbox, but everything that this says it's going to be doing outside of the new fancy buzzwords for technology and rendering capacities that PCs will probably have anyway if this is just going to technically be a PC. Um, there's still nothing in this announcement other than this being from Microsoft and therefore if they are going to keep going down the road of hardware that this will still be a juggernaut in the space that would get me as a developer or a player excited.
Yeah, I I I think part of that too, at least for me, is that in the back of my mind I have the the the last statement we got on what their next generation was going to be and it was from Phil Spencer. So like he's not in charge anymore. So it might not be another thing, right? But like the

um there were statements made that this was not going to be for like the casual gamer. This was going to be like a big serious system for big serious people with a big serious price tag.
Yeah.
Right. And like that doesn't excite me terribly much. Now granted, I am so far from an Xbox gamer, right? Cuz like
Yeah. Who's who's in in either of the chats on YouTube or Twitch, Brad or Janet? Um who is actively still on Xbox right now like as their main console?
Yeah. Sound sound off with a wave if you're if you're someone who who still uses an Xbox as your primary
because like because I would imagine that if uh if I was one of those people, I would I might be more excited about this just because it means that the the ecosystem isn't dying. like or it's not trans it's not transitioning. Okay, good. We got we got a few. We got a few.
Yep.

Yeah.
Yeah. So, so there are still some people that play it, but a lot of people like I think I think for a lot of people the move to PC was easier.
Yeah.
Um
by the way, this isn't I just saw some things in the the chat. This isn't shaming anybody who's still on the on that platform. I think it's you pick what you like and you use it. That's awesome. Yeah. Um
it's just not something that we're particularly invested in. So we don't necessarily see the value or the purpose in this, right? Like
Yeah. Like I see I see uh both Darkman, Oopsie, a couple other folks. Like does this announcement like excite you and like so the the shakeup happened, right? The leadership shakeup and that's kind of hard to sort of get behind and like you don't kind of know. At least right now this is them saying there's going to be a console
and it's going to do a few of these things. Is that enough to hold your um your I don't know if the word is loyalty but attention as this be is your primary place I would like to you know

yeah I also think by the way from from a hardware perspective one of the things that is worth mentioning is that they are doing custom AMD hardware that is that that they that they are working on this new custom AMD hardware and they're working on finding ways to make graphics ICS cards more um efficient uh and to decrease the CPU bottleneck. I think those things are interesting from a developer perspective. What that means for gamers though is isn't as obvious, right? Because um
yeah,
this is Okay, I'm going to use a really old example. Are you ready? Are you ready to turn to dust? Do you remember back in ye olden days before the Xbox 360 when you had an N64?
Do you Do you remember? Do you remember when you got Donkey Kong 64 and you had to put the little extra RAM cartridge in?
Oh, there was another game that got it before that though.
Correct. It was Command and Conquer.

Yeah, but they were like there were a small handful of games that used that technology and most of the games didn't benefit at all because they weren't built with that technology in mind. Right. So, like there were a couple of games. And by the way, the only reason that DK64 needed it and why it shipped with it was that there was a memory leak in the gold version of DK64 that they couldn't fix before it shipped. And it was cheaper to bundle the RAM cartridge with every copy of DK64 than it was to fix the problem when it went to to ship.
Yep. Oh, and Perfect Dark.
And Perfect Dark. Yes. So, um the uh the my point is that you can have the coolest new fancy technology that goes with the console,
but if your game isn't designed to use it, you won't notice, right? So, like while it's cool that they're announcing all of these specs, I think it's really hard for gamers to be like, "Ah, yes, I

am excited by the number of teraflops that I can expect out of my new Project Helix console when it rel when it launches holiday 2028, right?" They don't care about that. They care about what Halo 6 is going to look like. We're on six, right? Six. Six.
I think Infinite is technically six.
Okay.
If you don't count the side spin because wasn't there a Halo five or am I crazy? No, there's Halo 5.
Pretty sure.
Side note, oopsie kind of hit the nail on the head. I need them to start showing me they're going to use the hundreds of IP in fun new ways. Yeah, that would be the thing. And maybe, look, maybe in the coming uh conventions that are more consumer focused, they're going to I think
maybe Hey Will, maybe we're part of the problem.
Uh we are a talk show that talks about gaming news and sometimes uh perhaps because we are not in uh full-blown like devs, right? like this is not something that excites us and we you know we're being very honest about like who this audience is for. I'd be interested what Jeff thinks about it too. Um but

in the world where Xbox publicity is kind of cratering.
Yeah.
I think [snorts] this is something that is looked at more like with more scrutiny. I think like I feel like if Xbox and PlayStation and and uh Nintendo were all kind of on the same keel, I don't know if I would put as much like tinfoil hating into this type of announcement. Does that make sense?
Yeah.
Um we're going to see what I mean. Heck, maybe they'll maybe Project Helix will just be a RAM cartridge with a little red top that you plug into your Xbox One X or whatever and then that'll just uh make it go
Yeah. Right. Who who who even knows? It was also kind of interesting. I I saw some of the um the the social media posting that they did to get people into their booth and it was them showing off a bunch of dev kits from previous generations of Xbox which was weird.
Yeah.

I don't know.
And no no other I was reading too again this I believe come to us from IGN. No other dev kit ever reused a shell from an old dev kit for an Xbox, but they had like a bunch. And people were commenting on like how the pictures themselves looked like they were like the things were like dusty a little bit. Like there's the there's one of the the disc drive uh where there's like that little teeny bit of felt on the top and the bottom where the disc slides in and like that looks a little dirty or maybe it's just the light hitting it from a different thing. Like it's just there's a lot of small pieces to this story that that Will just brought up too that makes it feel weird.
Yeah. Makes it makes it feel a little a little last minute, a little rushed, a little not what we expect from one of the big three.
Yeah. Because again, you put into account how quickly that turnover was and how um it felt like even with the the resignation letters or

the leaving letters coming out at different times from all different folks at Xbox, like I don't know. I don't know. And again, does it matter? No, not really. I mean, we're going to see where it goes. And uh I think we've said many times on this show, you know, I think competition is good. I want all of these things to do well. Um but I also want them to make good decisions to get us there, right?
Yeah. I I really do wonder if they had planned on announcing anything at GDC. I I'm I'm
It doesn't feel like they were.
I feel like they probably weren't going to and then they were like, "Hey, we've got a new boss. We really need to make something stick."
That's my point. This is the Elder Scrolls 6 of console announcements.
Yes.
Do you know what I mean? Like
Yes.
WELL, EVERYONE'S THINKING ABOUT Game Awards are coming up. JUST PUT IT OVER MOUNTAINS GO and like and look, we're talking about it, so it worked, I guess.

But I I'm looking forward to seeing where this actually moves, especially as Steam has said, they plan on launching the Steam machine this year. I also love Did you see Was it Gabe or was it someone else over at Valve that's like if anyone has a line on RAM, let us know. [laughter]
Did you see that?
I did not see that. But
on social media, there was someone I could I can't remember who it was. If anyone knows in chat, uh, please remind me. But it was just a very silly like, "Oh yeah, by the way, we could use it."
Yeah. Uh, okay. So, in the midst of all of this with Project Helix, at the same time, Xbox has quietly sunset the This is an Xbox campaign.
[crying] [laughter]

It's the montage, right, of all the different things that that had the question asked of them.
Is this an Xbox? And like it's a slow fade of like a smart fridge,
right?
And then um basically everything you can play Doom on,
right?
Yeah. Yeah. There's a there's a Game Boy Color in there for some reason.
A pregnancy test.
Yeah. Right. Your car,
every kind of Yeah. Your car. Um, a toaster.
Not a good car. Like a 2006 Honda Civic. Yeah. Right. Like [snorts]
a parrot, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
I did.
Is this announcement at Xbox? We don't know.
Right. I did I did see, if you haven't seen it, there is a parrot. Uh there's a video of a parrot whose previous owner was a was an Xbox user. And one of the things that the parrot you learn to do is make the notification ding for Xbox.
Yeah. Right. It it just wanders around making the notification thing.
Oh god. That's like when my Discord I don't change the thing and when we're doing the show and it pings and everyone looks over at their Discord,
right? Yeah. You're everyone's activated

like a sleeper agent. Where ping? Where ping?
Yeah. Uh so it's gone. Uh it's not even on their website anymore. In fact, I believe the only mention of it, if I can find the thing again, and this comes to us, I believe, from uh gamedeveloper uh.com. God, this was so silly. This campaign, this is an Xbox. This is an Xbox for your lap, which is a laptop. This is an Xbox that tags along to one of the many portable video game systems. This is a cat box, litter box. This is an Xbox that goes in the wall, which is your smart TV. This is an Xbox that makes calls. That's your phone. This is a bento box. Very nice. This is an Xbox on the inside, and it's showing like a Fire Stick. This is an Xbox that you wear, which is a I believe a MetaQuest. Uh, and then this is still an Xbox with the other Xbox model of the Xbox S. Um, and we actually called this out, I think,

when it first happened. how I mean I think this is actually our thumbnail from a year ago or whatever this was. Um basically you get a 404 error message when you click the link of the original announcement. Um, yeah. And the only the only reference that you can get to uh is an Xbox Wire article in September of 2025 that's talking about the ROG ally. So, I think it's safe to say that I believe shocking no one saying that your product is unneeded because all the other products you already own can do the thing your product does.
Yep.
Not the best look. Um, people were confused and I don't think too many people were excited by this. Um I think this

was the first sort of nail in the coffin.
Yeah, it is kind of interesting that they just like
sort of clean slated it. THEY WERE JUST LIKE AND THIS NEVER HAPPENED. MOVING ON. RIGHT. Like that is that is sort of an interesting um way to to try and approach it.
It's great if you want to be a software only company. Yeah. And that's the weird like god to be a fly on the wall in these in these offices to see like what is actually going on.
Yeah. Crazy.
Yep.
Crazy. But that's how it goes. Um, yeah. I am glad this has sunsets. Uh, not a good look, but I added a little side story. Will, I don't know if you saw it in the show notes.
I I I did. Could you Could you say more?
Yeah. Um, so, uh, on the current generation Xbox, which I will remind you is an Xbox, um, they're marching forward with a few, um, essentially AI features,

uh, in the coming weeks andor months. And this comes to us from Kotaku. But what the one that is um the one that I really want to talk about is they're they're gonna add co-pilot to Xbox. Microsoft Copilot the you all know it, you all love it, you all use it every day. Um this will be a version that runs on the Xbox. Um, [sighs] yeah, everyone's kind of freaking out in chat. Uh,
yeah, I I I'm I'm with RC to do what exactly?
So, I I'm going to quote the the Kotaku article here, and it basically uh they said there was a video that showed off like the features in brief. Uh, and one uh one was a way like a a man's voice telling the player to quote opt how to optimally calibrate their Ford Escort in

Forza Horizon. Another one telling a player how to get started in Sea of Thieves and a third example including the explaining explaining where to earn a specific drop needed to complete a quest in Diablo I. So essentially it's cutting out the middleman and just reading wiks to you badly and hallucinating I will assume.
Yeah. Yeah. or it'll it'll pull off the top rated the top SEOed wiki which is often wrong because it'll be a fandom or Fextra life instead of the actual wiki for the game.
I was trying to think of positive things here. Um, and like I was trying to think like is there a way that this could help like with accessibility of some sort of thing and possibly, but um I just I don't know if this is something that everyone wants. I understand why a company would want you to stay on the

console that they own and not go to another thing to look up stuff, but there's a I think there actually is a value proposition when you're playing a game and you're stuck or you want to learn something about it. Like I think there is something that makes the game itself seem more valuable. If you leave the place that the game is to go to other places where people are talking about the game because that means the game has left like the importance of that experience has left the initial place it exists and gone to another one. And that tells you that more people are thinking about this in another way. And then when you're there you start feeling like it's a it's a bigger deal even than it is. and it kind of makes it feel more important, which I think overall would be good for said game. Does that make sense?
Yeah.
Whereas if it's just a robot reading you stuff on that console, it doesn't it doesn't give that feeling.

Maybe that's not as important, but like I don't know. And then will stuff like this slowly kill the wiks that it's reading. Well, I mean, FandM's already doing a pretty well, Fandom tried to do a pretty good job of that. Then a bunch of the wiks relocated to other places and wiki.ggs started sp, you know, popping up and the big important ones.
Yeah.
Have all moved elsewhere.
Red has a good one. Hi there. I see you're tilting on this level. Would you like to write a raging social media post about it? It's clippy. again, Microsoft, you could hide so much evil behind the comedy of bringing Clippy back, and I don't understand why you're not doing it.
Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Uh it also uh will um it's it's going to have some kind of um

better. it is going to have some kind of super resolution frame rate optimization thing that's built into Copilot that some Windows 11 stuff is using. And the last one is um it's going to autosave your highlight reels,
right?
But see, here's the problem. Valve did all of this without using an LLM. Also, the PlayStation 5 literally records every hour of your gameplay on a loop and then you can just tell it what sections to keep if you like it,
right? Like I don't like there's no actual value being added. It feels like this was a move to like plate someone in the AI department who was like we need AI on all Microsoft products and they're like fine, we'll put it on Xbox, but like not really. I I do hope that there's some way to kill the background co-pilot

process because one of the big problems is that the it doing all these things it listening waiting to be asked what you need it doing the the background gameplay recording stuff that does take processor cycles. What if I don't want that?
Yeah.
What if I don't want any of that? What if I just want a better gaming experience that doesn't do those things?
Yeah, actually RC, this is a great question. I don't think it's going to on the Xbox, at least from what I'm understanding. That would and if it was, it would be part of like the baseline Xbox um like actually does Xbox only have Game Pass? Is that the only online or do you have to still like if I have God, I'm so out of the Xbox ecosystem. If I just had an Xbox Series X, do can I buy a tier to let that play online and not do Game Pass?
That that is part of Game Pass. It's one level of Game Pass.
But like remember how didn't they up the lowest level of Game Pass to like $30 or

something like that?
I don't something like that. It's really expensive and not worth it. So,
but my I guess my point is it maybe it's locked behind that.
Yeah. Um, also though, uh, I will say that in the Project Helix notes, they have mused that, um, the new Xbox won't be a payto-play online service.
I think that that would be the correct call. If they're
because it's a PC as well, right?
If their ultimate goal is to compete with Valve with a PC marketplace, first off, good luck. Second off, that's one of the ways that you have to do it, right? Because Valve is just like, "Hey, why would you pay monthly when you could just come play Dota and CS GO for free?"
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Also, Sultan, I'M SO SORRY YOU MISSED THE BEGINNING OF THE SHOW. WILL, WE SHOULD BACK it up. We should do the whole thing again. Do we want to start it again just for Sultan real quick? Just we'll we'll we'll we'll run it back.

No. Can we not do that?
Unfortunately, I regret to inform you that we cannot do that.
Sultan, I tried. But you you can do it by going back in the VOD, which is here on YouTube.
BUT LIKE IT'S NOT THE SAME.
It's true. It's not. But hopefully by next month it'll be aligned again.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Daylight savings the worst thing for our show schedule because everyone's thrown off, including me who's still trying to fix my sleep cycle.
I I half thought Will was going to hit the the intro button again. Like I thought he was going to do it. Uh
I the long pause was me considering it, but we've talked [laughter] about not doing that cuz it does confuse people. So um [laughter] yeah, so that's that's what's up with the this is no longer an Xbox campaign. Uh rest in peace, sweet prince.
Sweet prince.
May
sweet
May flights of AI angels sing thee to thy
Is this a flight of AI angels? This is a

flight of AI angels.
Yeah, that's right.
All right. Thank you, Xbox, for your gifts. Hey, let's move on from Microsoft, a company that really does nothing wrong, to another company that just never does anything wrong.
Great picture, by the way.
Thank you.
Uh Fortnite has announced that they will be raising the price of V-Bucks kind of. Well, okay. So, I think I I'm actually going to argue that that they
Before we start, so I'm so sorry, Will. Can I just say this one thing from their official post on March 10th, Fortnite V-Bucks price increase. Okay, they don't even and I kind of appreciate this whether or not it's legit or not. This is all of the words before they show it to you. The cost of running Fortnite has gone up a lot and we're raising prices to help pay the bills. Here's what's changing starting March 19th. [laughter]
Yeah. So a and and I actually argue that

they're doing this the worst way possible. Um because they they've actually increased prices twice at the same time.
What?
So
wait, are you saying that there might be some obuscation here with a with a digital currency?
That's correct, Matt. So all right. So previously
What kind of world are we living in?
I know, right? Previously, it was $9 for 1,000 V-Bucks. Now it is $9 for 800 V-Bucks.
Previous the $23 pack was 2,800. Now it's 2400. $37 got you 5,000. Now it's 4,500. $90 was $13,500. Now it's 12,500. And if you want to buy the exact amount you need, the cost doubled. Instead of 50 cents for 50 V-Bucks, it's a dollar for 50 V-Bucks. You You You monsters.
How could How could you How could you

say this? There's a blog post from a from a from a company. Sure. You don't think people would just come out here and lie on the internet, do you? People would never just lie on the internet to customers.
We've gotten so used to, let's even go back to Xbox for a second. We've gotten so used to being like the the the press releases for a thing reading something like, "Give me give me two seconds. This is about the project helix, right? This is the this is the level of of of of of corpo slop that we get consistently, right? The entire design of the console is used to usher in the next generation of console gaming by advancing the state-of-the-art and really breaking a lot of these barriers down. Project Helix is designed to play your Xbox console and PC games, delivering high performance and providing the ultimate player first experience. We're partnering close with AMD to define the next generation of rendering and simulation. Project Helix is powerful by a custom AMD based SOC and it's co-designed for the next generation DirectX. Project Helix brings intelligence directly into the graphics

and compute pipeline delivering stepchanging functions, gaining efficiency, scale, and visual ambitions. Again, it's all about experience and uh but you know that sort of thing. [laughter]
Just like hey, we're broke. Give us more money. Now, I think that we're so used to long- winded stuff that I I I I appreciate the tur tur is tur the right word when you're doing something very quick. Yeah. Right. Um, but I feel like for something like this, maybe a little song and dance might be needed. Um, because the last line of raising prices to help pay the bills,
I listen, I'm sure truly it has gotten more expensive to run Fortnite in the

last few years. I guarantee you it has. There's no way with all the stuff going on in the world that it costs less to run Fortnite now than it did two years ago, right?
Yeah.
But also perhaps maybe uh there's other ways to make up the diff here. Uh perhaps maybe uh maybe some higherups could take a little less money if it's not going well while they work on some other things. Maybe uh I don't know, maybe they could stop the losing um strategy of just buying a bunch of games and giving them out for free, hoping that the Epic Store takes off and maybe focus on reasons why maybe people would want to visit a store in general in the first place. Uh because normally when there's a free giveaway, you get someone into a store, but they're not really conditioned to like think that there's value there other than getting the free thing and then leaving. Um
I routinely walk into Costco, do a tour

of all the samples, and then leave, right? Like I don't
sweet, sweet Costco. I love Costco. How dare you will. In fact, you go back and buy something right now.
I love Costco.
Jokes on me. You have to pay for a membership to get into Costco to get all the free samples. Yeah.
Um free. [laughter] Yeah, free. So, um I I also want to just circle around real quick to the to the you're it's a pro the price increase twice. So,
yes, because that's the first price increase we've talked about,
correct? So,
and they hide it behind a battle pass that is technically cheaper now,
right? So, so the battle pass does still roll. If you you pay 800 V-Bucks, you get 800 V-Bucks back if you complete the battle pass, which is good.
Yep.
Good. That's a good way to do it. So that as long as you're continuously playing, you don't have to put more money in because what they really want is player retention.
Yes.
Um, however, that is the only mention of a cost change to an item

that we see in the announcement.
And the value prop changes, too, because while it went down from a,000 V-Bucks to 800 V-Bucks, there's also a series of 500 extra V-Bucks that you could get as a bonus throughout the battle pass in sometimes uh that you can no longer get,
right? So, so, so here's here's here's how the cost went up went up twice, by the way. So, say that something is now, I don't know, say say it's it's in it's in a weird lumpy spot. Say it's 1,700 V-Bucks, right? So,
that does sound lumpy,
right? Yeah, it's lumpy, right? And there are plenty of things like that because that's how secondary currencies work. So, previously that would have been $18, right? You buy two 1,000 V-Bucks packs. Well, now it's more, right? Now, it's significantly more because you either have to buy three 800 V-Bucks packs, or you have to buy the

top up, which is an additional $2 instead of the 50 cents it would have been or the the dollar would have been previously because the V-Bucks pack went up, right? So, if they're not changing costs in the shop, changing the amount of V-Bucks in the pack rather than adjusting the cost of the pack means that it is far more likely you will need to buy multiple packs or use the now twice as expensive exact amount pack to get the thing that you want. Right? So, they've changed the amount that you can acquire, but not what V-Bucks, not how many V-Bucks something costs. So this is actually way more than just a simple price increase, right? This is using the obfuscation of the marketplace to continually just milk people for money.
Yep. Uh and and people don't seem happy

about it.
Yeah. No one Yeah. Lots lots of people not very Yeah. there there are um a collection of uh creators and players who are boycotting uh Fortnite on March 19th.
Now, can we talk about this for a second? Like the the actual like uh I I've looked into it a little bit, but I'm just looking at their like post right now. It's like a big flashy uh boycott Fortnite. Don't play on March 19th. Protest the V-Bucks price hike. Hit Fortnite where it hurts. I don't think I just don't know. Like, okay, I have a short-term goal and a long-term goal. I don't think people just not playing on the 19th is going to do anything because it's just one day in what is essentially a battle pass subscription service.
It is the first day of the new season, which is where
and they want their numbers to tank, right? That's what they want.
They're attempting to tank numbers on a notable day. That's why it's March 19th specifically.
But, so that seems maybe like a good way

to short-term goal it. Maybe that's all they need. Wouldn't a better long-term, and I use the term boycott because it wouldn't exactly be this, be to just uh essentially engage and keep playing Fortnite, but be sure not to buy a battle pass or buy anything because at that point, you will be costing them money. Like, it will be more than you not playing. Granted, that you won't get that initial like number dip and news story, which maybe is more important. I don't know.
So part of it is that if you are causing there to be water, you are allowing whales to exist. Sort of, right? Um
maybe, but the battle pass isn't for whales.
No, but it's not
I get it. No, I mean I'm not I'm not trying to disagree. I I think I was just sort of thinking about like what the most effective way would be, and I actually don't know.

Yeah.
Yeah. Young Young Youngtown kind of nails it. There's always the calculus sort of. Are there more people who are going to be upset about something and stop buying the product then who will grumble but still buy the product?
Right. And this is this was the case uh when the Switch 2 came out. This is the case when a bunch of other price increases have happened. Lots of people grumble, but the Switch 2 still sold like gang busters. So,
yeah. But like, are we talking about the game specifically or the console itself?
Because like a new console costing more money in my lizard brain at least makes sense, especially in this time period where it's getting harder and harder to get pieces to build those things. Uh, I don't love it, but sure, there's other market forces that are causing that. Um, but this feels like

Truly, I think, and maybe this was a maybe I'm wrong, but it feels like the the Fortnite community, this is the kind of move that says to me that Epic thinks that they can just tell them to do whatever they kind of want. And I think this will be a real bellweather moment for that specific community to either say yep or no.
Yeah. Um because again it's awful when a thing that is your lifestyle game does something like this,
right? And Fortnite has pushed so hard to be that lifestyle game and been so successful that now this is like very painful.
Yeah.
Especially because like again in my mind Fortnite is still for like kids on an allowance. Like that's not true anymore, right? But like in my brain it's still for like you know 13 14 year olds, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
Like, and you know what's actually interesting? I hope that like

I hope that conversations like this I can only hope that uh parents out there actually shout out if you're a parent of a kid who plays Fortnite. If you're in chat right now and either chat because I think this actually is a really it could be a really interesting teachable moment. Um, like when a thing you when the company that controls a thing you love and it's going to happen way more in their lifetimes than ours, right, does something that actively hurts the thing you love without viable explanation or or something along those lines. Training yourself to be like, "Well, until they change it, we're not going to do this thing anymore."
Yeah. Like I think I think this could be a really good like but like not just saying like no we're not buying V-Bucks anymore. Explain like as best you can and I I'm not a parent so I don't I'm sure this is incredibly difficult. That's not I'm not saying this is easy.

These simple steps but like if your child is old enough to understand the logic behind what boycotting a thing can do. It's a it's a really interesting thought experiment to try to teach them against something that they they care about, right? Like it's it's easy to boycott something you don't care about.
Yeah.
Um
speaking of boycotting,
we're gonna boycott the show for three minutes while we do uh fake ads for things that you can't buy while Twitch chat gets ads for things you can buy.
All right, I'm going to I'm going to do my ad explaining to Zoe why we can't buy Fortnite box.
Okay, great. Excellent. Yes, please, please do this. Hey everyone, Matt from Extra Credits, also with Will from Extra Credits next to me, but he's not speaking yet. He's going to soon, but right now it's just me, Matt from Extra Credits. This ad goes out to a specific cat of one, and that is my beloved feline companion, Zoe. Zoe, I know you're sleeping on the

cat tree in the other room, BUT WE CAN'T BUY V-BUCKS ANYMORE. We can't buy No, we can't. No, no, no. Because No, listen. I just gave a whole speech about about how it's supposed to be easy to talk to your children about Okay, she's screaming and now she's she's flipped she flipped the table. Okay, just No, wait. God, stop. Stop it. Hold on. See, it's just that easy. It's just that easy. I I don't understand why I don't understand why everyone can't have a conversation with their children. [laughter]
Mhm. All right, I got mine.
Wow, the Twitch chat blew up for that one.
Oh, yeah. No, they absolutely loved it. That was great. Uh, by the way, someone clip that. I need that. Um, a lot a lot of people are a lot of people are. I'm I'm not doing Fortnite

stuff, but I wasn't doing Fortnite stuff to begin with, right? So, like
it's not a big deal. It
it it's difficult, right? Like yes, plenty of people are, but also this is another way to get people to like pay attention and notice the things that Fortnite is doing, right? Like it's not it's not I agree that a lot of people aren't for one reason or another, but they're not
not everyone agrees, right, on why to not play it.
Yeah.
Okay, I got mine.
Okay, here we go.
Yep. Hey everyone, Will from Extra Credits here next to Matt from Extra Credits here, but he talked before, but I'm talking now. Here to sell you patience. That's right. Is your most anticipated Magic product of the entire year out right now? Great. Did you get in line an hour before the show started to wait in line? To wait in line? Yes. Great. Awesome. And now it's telling you that it's going to be Oh. Oh, it's down to 39 minutes until I'm allowed to buy the thing I've been waiting all year for. So, we'll see. But patience for you

and patience for me is really what we need in these trying times. We're waiting for the one thing that might bring us a drram of serotonin in these dark and trying times.
Wow. Okay. Okay.
For for anyone wondering, the Dan Dan deck is is out today. Um, and in fairness, the line is getting shorter and shorter. Um, yeah, I need patience right now.
Wait, can I sell something?
Yeah, absolutely.
Hey everyone, Matt from Extra Credits who just listened to Will from Extra Credits who went after Matt from Extra Credits did his thing for Extra Credits about the ads for something that you can't buy. Now, I would like to not sell you the concept of remembering not to refresh your browser. If you are in a digital line, it costs you nothing other than your sanity to not refresh the browser. Maybe the timer was going down for a bit for your digital line and then it stopped. Don't refresh your browser. It's going to kick you. It will be bad and you won't get the thing you want. Specifically in my case, I think it was

a PlayStation controller, but I digress. Don't don't.
Yep.
I like copper, but maybe jiggle the mouse. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Uh onward to the rest of the show.
I've heard of it. first up and very intriguingly and if you'd like to talk more about this, uh Jeff and I will probably be talking about this in detail on Thursday because I'm probably going to try and write a longer form episode on this. Uh and Jeff and I are going to talk about it on Design Club because this is weird and complicated. Okay,
so previously previously on Extra Breakfast, uh the [laughter] New York Attorney General filed suit against Valve alleging that it was engaged in promoting illegal gambling to children.
Yes,
that's a pretty heavy charge. The um

there's a whole bunch of parts to it. Valve has responded to all of them. Um, and Valve has said specifically that they will not be making a deal with the AG, that they have they have said that they are fully intend to go to court because they think that even if they could settle out of court um with the New York Attorney General that it would set a bad precedent because they believe that they are currently on the correct side of all applicable New York laws.
Yeah. They also have a bunch of pretty salient points about how they're getting picked on um over this uh in in a way that like probably maybe isn't fair. And they're making a lot of comparisons to other longerstanding physical loot boxes like baseball cards,
magic cards,
magic cards and and other things. So, it's not that they're it's not that we're saying that they

um that loot boxes aren't a complex issue, and we'll talk more about that in a little bit, but uh that Valve is simply asking for the law to be exercised um consistently uh across all kinds of loot boxes. And that is sort of an interesting tact to take here. Yeah, I listen I agree overall, but I think you can go back and listen to I think the last uh Games for Breakfast, the one before actually where we sort of deep dive into this lawsuit. Um the difference in my opinion is that and they go into like re they go on and this comes to us from IGN. They go on to talk about how like they believe that the ability to resell something you buy is a core tenant in what they want to do. And that surface is admirable. Um, we talked about this before, the difference between a pack of Magic cards and a thing that you buy like a skin in a game uh in in in Counterstrike or

whatever, right? Um, is that the company that controls the game also controls the marketplace and how that stuff is valued. And if that marketplace or if that game were to happen to go away, the entirety of your value proposition is gone. Whereas, for instance, a Magic card, even though this is a silly way to think about it, you can sell it, buy and sell it through like Magic distributors for people that are playing the game and it has a value based on rarity and like all the other things, but because it's a physical object, you the freedom you also have is technically you could sell it and if someone believed it was, and this is I'm being facicious here, but like believed it would make a really great doors stop or would be a wonderful ingredient in a soup, like you don't get to determine what the physicality the physical value of an object is when you have a physical object. You can use this mug to do a hundred different things. Is it more uh should it be used to hold

liquids while also keying out? Yes. But I could use it as a as a a potted plant, right? Like or not the plant, I could pot a plant in it. Like there's different use cases for those things where for a digital asset when you are locked into that sort of ecosystem and your company takes a cut of every trade it gets murkier.
Yes. So I I think that it is um I don't think that Valve is in the right but nor do I think that the New York Attorney General is in
is in the right either. interesting because there's other things like and this is why this is going to devolve into I think almost a big nothing burger at the end of the day.
The fact that the the New York uh attorney general uh essentially started going into Oh yeah, and by the way, video games cause violence like at the end of the statement
and she like she like sort of like layered a whole bunch of stuff and then got on it like a soap box and we were like maybe don't. And maybe that was a

move to like try to get Valve to only comment on that. And they did comment on that. Um, but that is definitely not the only thing. Um,
and as we've addressed before, Valve is notorious for hiring lawyer eating sharks to be their lawyers, right? Valve's lawyers are trained on a steady diet of lawyers from other companies who think it's a good idea to try and get some of Valve's money. Like these are not these are like Nintendo level lawyers. They're just quieter about it because most of the time they're not going after people. They're just defending themselves from all of the people who want all of Valve's money because Valve has a ton of money. See Gabin's yacht collection, right? Like
so um I think yeah, this is going to be interesting. I'm actually really glad that Valve is choosing to fight this out in court because I I do think that the most important thing to come out of this

regardless of what the judgment like how much money changes hands or how big court costs are or whatever is what the um is the precedent. Now it is a state lawsuit. So it is only I believe for New York state law. So that means that this will not be a federal president in the US but New York has some pretty aggressive laws. So there may be a test here to see if precedence in other jurisdictions is similar.
I like the end sentence of valve statement. Ultimately a court will decide whose position ours or the New York attorney generals is correct. In the meantime, we wanted to make sure you were aware of the potential impacts to users in New York and elsewhere. It's like they're they're not saying like like I think that's why they kind of believe in their lawyers believe that this is a case that's wittable. They're like listen this is not illegal. Uh, and sure, people could like make it illegal, but like this isn't what it is right now. Now, again, I think it's very interesting because I think both sides of this have some things right and have some things wrong.
Yeah.
Um,

weirdly, this kind of discourse, dare I say, even though it's a little bit whatever, is far more healthy than other forms of discourse right now.
Yeah.
Does that make sense? Yeah. like these disagreements are playing out in the way that they should. Um and and we're going to see where they land accordingly. But it's nice that Valve got back and sort of like rebutted.
Very much agree. Um okay, speaking of loot boxes and changes to loot box stuff,
Peggy 16,
that's right. Peggy has announced that the presence of loot boxes in a game starting in I believe July, June or July this summer um will mean that the game is at minimum pegg as a floor. It is either peggy 16 or peggy 18 and that's it. Um so that is kind of an interesting

change. I think
I think this is the right kind of move. I think again the Peggy system just like the ESRB is suggestions like people can get around it. This is not this is not um like it's all about how involved the parents are in the buying. Right.
Right.
Uh like I think that Oh, I think actually this is interesting. Uh Thunder says, "Sure, why not? 16 is arbitrary." It kind of is, but it's also just like moving the the I think what it's trying to do, whether or not is it is successful or not, is pulling any lever they can to curb the a habit forming on a loot box type thing overall, right? like and maybe once people are and again it is arbitrary sure but maybe once they're a little older they could engage with it and not have it be a problem and not turn into again there's no there's no like perfect solution here um

yeah uh so someone was asking what about gacha um uh and it is according to the BBC article that's reporting on this uh it's uh Anything that allows you to buy mystery items with real or virtual currency.
Yes.
So, probably gacha, too.
Yeah.
Um, yeah, the deta the details absolutely still matter a lot. Uh, and these effect I was uh I looked it was June. It got my Juds confused. It's June that these go into effect.
Also, I believe was it were they saying like battle pass games would be like Peggy 12? Um, games with play by appointment style mechanics such as daily quest will get a peggy se 17. But if the mechanics punish players for not returning, such as by losing content, they'll become peggy or peggy 7, excuse me. But if they punish players for not returning by losing content, they'll become peggy 12.
Yeah. Fortnite, which uses a range of different paid for passes is already rated Peggy 12,

right? Uh, by the way, any game with an NFT in it is Peggy 18.
Yeah.
Which Okay, good. Sure. I I don't know.
Also also, what games right now have NFTs?
Right. Yeah. I I don't know.
God, do you remember NFTTS? Do you remember?
Can we go back to that? It was easier to [clears throat] dunk on them.
I mean, it was much simpler to prove the dumbness and the damage of them than I think it is to do for AI, right? Um, but it's just the next buzz word. Like, I don't know.
Yeah. So, uh, Chad's asking the really big question, which is, is this retroactive? And to my understanding, the answer is no. Yeah,
that this is only for games released in June forward.
Yep.
Mostly because it is a huge cost to because one of the places that these ratings, right, the ESRB ratings and the Peggy ratings show up in a meaningful way is on physical product.
Yeah.
And the cost to rerate physical product

by pulling it down and changing it is prohibitive. and the companies would throw an absolute uproar over that. So, I don't I don't think that's going to happen. I understand why it should. I agree that it it should in an ideal world. Uh I don't think it's going to happen and that that cost is why
I also think and this is why I do like things like the Peggy system and the ESRB overall. If used correctly, this does not say arbitrarily that oh you need to hit that 16th birthday and then that's the only time you can like that's what it's suggesting essentially, right? Like it is up to the parent to either but like this gets it in front of parents' eyes that might not already think about it and then they can decide at what age something like this would be appropriate. It's a starting point for a conversation either between parents or between parents and their kids. And I

think that's really good. I think the the best thing about these um self-regulating rating systems is it is a starting point for a parent who might not get this stuff to start understanding it. Um and I think that's good because then they can make decisions that are correct for their children,
right? Yeah.
Okay. Next up, Art Raiders. Uh, Arc Raiders got some got some flak uh when it came out for using procedurally generated AI voices uh that they had done all of the full actor consent stuff for to do um voice lines in their game. So to be clear when we we start this they got full uh explicit informed consent from every actor whose voice they fed through an AI system to generate new voice lines. This

however was a thing that still upset some number of people and so they have gone through and are replacing all of them um slowly but surely. They're not all gone yet, but apparently a lot of them have been replaced with stuff from real actors. And uh and this comes to us from Kotaku. Uh they're saying one of the CEOs is basically admitting that it's just better it's better to have humans do it, which is a shock to no one here, you know.
Yep. Um so I don't know that this is actually like Arc Raiders was already plenty big, right? Arc Arc Raiders was already plenty big and was a plenty big deal on launch and was a huge thing that made big waves and it I want to be clear I don't think they needed to do this.
No, I think and that that's the this is the case. I think that's the biggest thing about this. This isn't like there was an uproar and to save their game they had to do this. They actually think it's better,

right? which I I think is kind of the ideal case, right?
Yeah.
Um that they are that they're they're going this route, right? Um and we'll talk a little bit more about the industry response to AI here
here in a second. Um
did your thing click? Is that what just happened? Did you get it? Did you hit the button?
I I I I have officially hit the button. Uh it
all right everybody send good vibes to Will right now. And if this isn't live for you, retroactively do so for at least the shipping of this thing that he wants. He's typing it in. He's putting in his information. He's going the distance.
He's going for Dan. Dan,
can he do it? Can he do it? Everyone. Everyone. Yeah. Wait for it. Wait for it. Did it go? Did it click? Has your card been charged?
We're checking. We're looking.
YEAH.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ORDER. [screaming] THAT'S THE SOUND of ordering a thing

you've been waiting in a digital line for. [sighs]
Okay, great. Anyway, we can do the rest of show now. Sorry. Um, so I think this is good. I think this is a big change for uh I think it's good to see uh someone who doesn't need to do this do this in a big way and to say, "Yeah, we just thought it was better." Right? Like I think that those are the main reasons I wanted to bring this up was that they had no need to do this. They were already like top games on one of the top games on Steam. Uh uh Arc Raiders is over a 100,000 current concurrent players right now. Granted, it's currently getting dunked on by Slay the Spire 2, but that's because everyone's getting dunked on by Slay the Spire 2, and I will not shut up about that because it's my favorite fact of the last two weeks.
That's cool. I'm glad everyone's digging it. I I I will get into Slay the Spire at a certain point. I just I It is not time yet for me.
Yeah. Um Okay. Uh, speaking of shooters,

I love this. [laughter] I love this so much. So, um, the Battlefield 6 record, the Battlefield 6 launch broke a lot of records. It
sure did.
It broke It broke many, many records. And then EA was like, "Cool, great. We don't need the Battlefield 6 team anymore. Bye bye. Bye." And they laid a bunch of people off.
Yeah. [sighs] Oh, no, Will, I'm sorry. Hold on. An EA spokesperson told IGN that they quote, "We've made select changes within our Battlefield organization to better align our teams around what matters most to our community. Battlefield remains one of our biggest priorities, and we're continuing to invest in the franchise, guided by player feedback and insights from Battlefield Labs. I have some insights FOR YOU. STOP FIRING YOUR PEOPLE, PLEASE.
[snorts]
ALSO, Battlefield has not like since its launch, the reviews have started to go

from emotionally positive to mixed from what I understand. Perhaps having more people to work on your product or dare I say have better management to manage those people working on your product uh might get that back up there. I I routinely I rout I I I believe firmly that the vast majority of these like failures or like failure to meet targets are the result of bad management. LIKE
OF COURSE it is.
It's it's it's it's just like and it's it's not just in gaming, but like we're a gaming show, so we'll focus on gaming, right? like
the the cascade of terrible management in industries across the world is just out of control, right? Like the game is good. The game has I've I've seen it be good. It's not the game's fault that Arc Raiders and several other big like shooters came out and are sort of competing for similar space, right? But like it still has a a decent player

base. It still has people who buy the game and love the game. Like, yeah, I don't I don't understand why. Listen, and I I'm going to say this sort of as a manager. Of course, the buck stops with management. Like, that's just as as a manager. And again, I what we manage here at EC and Extra History is something much much smaller than this. And I don't think I would do a particularly great job at something as gigantic as the battle as as, you know, making a game the size of Battlefield. But like there are people that can manage that well and have in the past. So like it says to me because we're seeing more and more of this. And you know what I else I'm getting [snorts] flipping sick of is every time there's layoffs now something

in one of the articles whether it's from the the the mouth of Sauron from the company or the article itself is like well we're just correcting for when we hired so much from co and it's like motherfather you actually could have maybe had a little bit of foresight and been like hey everybody we're ramping up right now but this is just a like a year-long gig to see like don't move, don't change where you live. Like there's just sort of human decency kind of things. And listen, it gets harder and harder as a team gets bigger and bigger, but you hire people to cover it.
Y it sucks. I like at the end of the day if you as a manager and I I I say this about myself like if you as a manager like if the product isn't getting delivered in the right way the manager has to work with the team to get it to deliver the right way. And that's not to say that like a

layoff can never happen. Of course it can. But there are often a lot of different levers to pull. um before that happens. And it seems like at least from a outsider perspective, in order to not make a shareholder lose some, a lot of these companies are pulling that lever first.
Yeah.
Yeah. Sucks.
Yep. All right. Next up, I don't know if this applies to our channel and I don't want anyone to hit this button. I'm telling this to
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Don't Yeah. I was thinking about this. Please don't hit this button.
Don't Don't hit this button. Okay.
This isn't a This isn't a bit
Not a bit.
Do not hit this button.
Don't hit the button. Okay. Cool. Great. Awesome. [snorts] So, Twitch is trying a new

thing. And I'm I'm not sure how I feel about this. Twitch is trying a new experiment where there's a button on some channels. I don't know if we have this button even because I haven't looked. That will allow you to gift a subscription to every nonsubscribed follower who um is currently watching. And it's a big button. And I I get I get why I think they think this is a good idea. I don't know. Like there's some implementation questions that I have like one it locks

in when I'm reasonably confident that it locks in when you press the button, right? But I think it tells you the price of what it would be.
Correct. And then that's locked in. Right. So if people joined or leave or whatever.
The other one is that it is um it is sort of a stack shove which I think is actually unhealthy. So what do I mean by a stack shove? I mean that it is the ultimate way for a person to say I am the wealthiest person here or I am the person who is most conspicuously willing to spend a bunch of money here to the extent that I it's like buying a round for a crowded bar, right? Like except it's worse, right? Like it really feels kind of toxic as like a as a thing that's going to get like that's gonna abuse some of

the parasocial relationship between some streamers and some chats, right? Like, hey, why are there so many ungifted people here? Someone push the button, right? Don't push the button, right? And I think that that's a little dangerous. I I get the idea. I think the psychology behind it is not maybe the best.
Does that make sense, Chad? Or am I like am I like wheel spinning here? It makes sense because like okay there is a difference and and and maybe the the the joy or the dopamine hit or whatever someone gets from from gifting subs and things like that it it could change but there's a difference between saying I would like to gift 10 subs to this channel because at that point it's at random right like
uh it is yes there is an algorithm that determines it prioritizes followers above nonf followers Yeah, but it would be 10. It would be 10, let's say, if that's what you select. So, as the spender, I say, I

want to give 10 gift subs because I know in my head that 10 times whatever the cost of the sub is
is what I'm going to spend. We're here.
Yeah, we're here. And again, it does tell you up front, but you're kind of already shoehorned in. Like, you're kind of like, oh, if it's gift all, and you click it and then it shows you, it's like, oh, here's 34 people at this cost. And it gives you the money. And you're like, you're already in the window. It's I feel like it feels more times than not worse than the other way. At least for me personally, I think
yeah, it is a Yeah, I would say I I think that this is this is a very good way of saying it. It is a dark practice, right? that this is this is this has some amount of like dark patterns behind it, right? And and like again it also

jokes about individual community members here aside, right? Like there are definitely cases and uh where you can go into a stream and see that there is one person with a lot of money and a very strong parasocial relationship to a streamer and this allows them to have a different kind of like I'mma push the button moment and and that like that should be dealt with by the way by individual streamers in their own way in their own time. But I do worry about the ability of this to be a conspicuous thing, right? Like it's cool, I guess, like the first time, but then it feels weird.
There's also other ways to swing that energy around already on Twitch.
Yeah.
Like like that there there's methods to do it already. And I would argue that this method feels more like milking money out of

someone like from the from the interaction portion of it than the other options do.
Right. Also like you know I feel like this could be you know where I would be okay with this? You know where I would be totally okay with this? If this were a secret option for corporate sponsor accounts. I would be totally okay with that. You are doing a Taco Bell sponsored stream and as part of the deal, Taco Bell agrees
I would live Moss,
right? Okay, cool. Great. Awesome. Taco Bell does sponsored streams here on Twitch. I've seen some of them. They're pretty good. They uh, you know, create custom meals for streamers and then the streamer orders it and like shows you how easy it is to use the Taco Bell experience app. Cool. Great. Nothing wrong with that. That's a fine way to advertise Taco Bell, right? If part of the deal, in addition to your regular compensation is that at some point during the stream, Taco Bell will hit the button and give

everyone in your stream a subscription to your stream. That's a good tool for that case because it's a corporation doing it as part of an agreed upon thing, right? That would be a cool thing, right? Courtesy of Red Bull at the peak of Twitch, you know, whatever. We've got the big Red Bull button and we're gonna hit it at some point. So, be sure you're here during our esports stream when we hit the Red Bull button and give everyone in chat a sub, right? That's cool. That's different. That's a good way to do that kind of corporate engagement, right? Because it's conspicuous consumption, but it's for a corporation that already has way too much money in their marketing budget anyway, right?
Like that would be cool, right? Or like if Martinelli did it, right, for us, because you know, we're not sponsored by them, but it would be cool. as a funny joke if they did, right? Like that would be I I think
better hit that button.
It' be better, right? But like I feel like that has a different energy than like one person doing it. Does that make sense?
I feel like that would be the ideal

thing or Valve or or or or
in the complicated busking that is streaming. Um, I am not against viable ways for someone who can afford to spend a lot of money to spend a lot of money, but this feels like, and I I wish I could sort of place it, but I did not get enough sleep last night due to a very sick pup. Um, this feels like it it doesn't obuscate what you're going to spend, but it makes the spend, I think, like you don't learn what you're going to spend until you're halfway through the process when before you know exactly how much you're going to spend. Does that make sense?
I uh I believe Hold on. I I just do want to check. We've got in the show notes for later on, we've got the exact gift subscription thing. Yeah. Okay. I do believe that when you push the button,

it will tell you. So the
No, no, it does. That's what I'm saying. So So follow me here. Just And I I I want to make sure I'm being very clear. If I want to gift because when you gift random subs on Twitch, it gives you like an option like 5, 10, 25, 50, like or do you put in how many you want?
Yes.
Sure. So, you know specifically how many and a rough number if you if you're buying stuff on Twitch, you probably know how much a sub costs for tier one, tier two, two tier three, whatever the thing is, right? Um, so you know in your head when you hit the I'm going to buy 15 that it's going to roughly somewhere in your math brain cost around x amount of money. you don't have that exact information before you click the I want to buy uh sub for oneclick sub for all then it pops up a window to tell you that amount and the number of people you it is getting you into the system
yes
before you know how much money you're going to spend and look everyone can

figure it out I just think that there's already ways for people who want to donate a lot of money to be able to donate a lot of money and this one for whatever reason and maybe I'll think of a better reasoning in the coming weeks when I've slept more. This one feels a little worse psych psychologically.
Yeah,
it feels a little more manipulating.
Yeah, I agree. Yes, I think that's it. Yep. Uhhuh. I think Arabor has it exactly. It's decision inertia. Once you decide to push the button, you're predisposed to complete the transaction even if the total is financially irresponsible. Thank you.
Thank you. That's Yeah, that that's my concern right now. For smaller streams, great. Because the other very important thing that I do want to say is good here is that it goes to people who are actively watching. A lot of time we get gifted subs on the EC account for channels I'm not watching right now randomly. Right. So
I do want to say that I do think that it is good that it is to the people who are actively watching and I would like if they could move that algorithm to my gift sub, right? I'd like to give my

subs randomly or I'd like to give my subs to people who are actively watching instead of go through and pick each individual person who's in chat.
And you think you'd want to do that too as a company because the people that are there hanging out are more likely to stay and resub to a thing that they're already watching.
Yes. So, so I think that there is a good thing here which is sculpting who gets them from a large purchase and there's a bad thing here which is the whole one button g variable amount weird psychology thing behind it. Um, yeah,
it'll be interesting to see how it plays out. To the best of my knowledge, we don't have this and uh we don't know. I don't know who who does. Um, gift this is an experiment. Anything marked as an experiment might not stay and is given to random channels and we're not one of them this time. So, uh, yeah,
there we go.
Thoughts, feelings? You know, listen, of all the Twitch things, this

is one of the lesser agre like not as egregious as some other things.
It's just an interesting weird experiment thing that I think deserves some attention and some discussion.
I think the conversation behind why it feels the way it like we all kind of were like, "Oh, this is weird." We couldn't really place it until Boros kind of like nailed it. Like I think that's the important part.
Yeah. Yeah. Um All right.
[laughter]
All right. So, as we discussed at the top of the show, GDC was this last weekend and uh every year GDC publishes a survey that they've given to people who work in the gaming industry and is sort of a a big discussion point throughout the week. And this year, one of the um one of the the questions was to please

rate your opinion on the impact of generative AI on the industry. Okay. 52% of respondents this year said that they think generative AI is having a negative impact on the games industry. This is up from 18% two years ago and 30% last year. And overall only 7% of respondents have s uh have stated that they feel like generative AI is good for the industry which is down from 13% from last year. So half. So, it's uh it's not looking great for AI in the games industry.
It's almost as if everyone said we don't want this and then companies are like yeah but like they kind of like really want it and everyone's like not really no and then they did it and now they're like man it's so weird no one wants this

crazy wacky wacky times. Yeah, I I don't know. It ju it's just kind of interesting to me. Apparently, um in the in the shuffle, uh there were a large number of uh venture capital bros and and and people um Lightseed Venture Partners Moritz Bayer Lent said he's shocked and sad about the negativity surrounding AI. Of course, that might be because Lightseed owns stakes in a bunch of AI firms, including Enthropic, but like that's surely not it. um uh and um you know they're trying to blame layoffs. They're trying to blame other stuff for being the real cause of the problem that's the wedge between people and AI, not the fact that it's a lying engine that steals things from people and then generates garbage product.
But let's even let's even though it is uh let's even take it as a just like a

tool is not inherently evil perspective, right?
Sure. The the the thing here is a tool is not necessarily evil, but like if I am trying to sew a garment and someone's like, "Use this hammer." And I'm like, "I don't think the hammer is really going to work well for this garment I'm TRYING TO SEW." NO, NO, NO, NO, NO. IT'S BETTER. It's a better tool. You got to use the hammer. Well, I maybe I don't really feel like using the hammer. Well, also, it's fine. It's fine. You just have to pay $12.99 a month to use the hammer. And it's like, but I'm already sewing. Does this I don't need the hammer. It's not that hammers are bad. It's just that it's not good right now for the for the task I am trying to complete.
Yeah, analyt analytical modeling and machine learning are things that can be good in the right way and those are things that have been lumped in with LLMs when we talk about AI, right? But like machine learning is a good tool and it's not nearly as um thievy and energy

consumptive as as LLMs are as
so yeah it's um yeah I don't
I don't know man I don't even know that this is a hammer kind of feel like this is a sword made from the blood of orphans like you it's not necessarily like it isn't evil but its creation is kind of evil. I think it's probably uh it's not so much that it might just be the the deforesting machines in Ferngully I think is really the
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It may not be evil, but the purpose and it's like the purpose that it's created for is definitely evil. And Yeah.
No. See, here's the thing. I don't actually think the purpose that it's created for is evil. I think a bunch of unscrupulous, dare I say some of which evil people are using it in a terrible way to rip off things and try to make more money from less people. That's just kind of what it is. Yeah.
Um

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's good to see that the the folks at GDC are pretty um are pretty bullish on it. Now, someone in chat did mention that that is in part because uh a large number of European developers were unable to attend GDC this year because coming into the United States is not necessarily the safest.
What are you talking about?
What are you talking about?
I don't nothing.
Well, I've heard the US is the hottest country.
I've heard that. Many people are saying it.
I got bad news. They mean that literally.
Oh no. Oh no. Yeah,
BUT VIDEO GAMES.
BUT VIDEO GAMES. HOORAY. Video games.
Hooray. Uh, and on that weird bittersweet existential crisis note brings us [laughter] to the end of our show. [snorts] Uh, [laughter]

stare off into the middle distance. Sip. Drink. Deep sigh. A reminder uh on a scheduling perspective, we will not be here next week. We will not be here the next week. So the first uh the next time that you will see us on Games for Breakfast will likely be April the 6th. That will likely be our next show. Um unfortunately, we have uh an obligation next Monday and uh the Monday following is uh Matt returning from PAX East where uh
panel.
Oh yeah, panel. Um sorry, 12:30. Uh, I want to say Albatross, but it's in the it's in the thing. Uh, where a bunch of game developers and myself and Jeff uh are going to be playing doing our design club on the first hour of Resident Evil 9. And actually, we were talking about it earlier. We might uh not do the very first bit because there's a bunch of cut scenes. We might do the section right after Grace ends up at the facility, which is like I think maybe an hour into the game. But that's going to have more

gameplay
and less
and less us watching and doing a mystery science theater to uh the cut scenes.
Less of the Pokemon Scarlet problem.
Yeah. Yeah. Or or um or uh Metroid Dread.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh please uh [laughter] please join them for that. Uh you can find it in the PAX East. Uh I will be here. Scheduling will be happening here on the channel as per normal. Please look forward to it. Um there will be content uh it will abound. So uh all that remains then for this week is for Matt to do the communal sign off. The one we do uh every time uh you know to build this sense of camaraderie as we scream eggs essentially into the abyss.
That's right. Because if there's one thing we know here at Games for Breakfast is that we really need to in this in these tumultuous times to make sure that we're all on the same page going into the week. So we do the same ending every time, if you're new here, I'm just explaining it to you, but the

old the old heads know exactly uh what is coming. So, if this is your first time, just remember, just look at it and make sure that you uh you internalize it for in in April when we come back because we'll be doing the exact same ending as we did then, just as we've done in the last 58 episodes of this show, if not more. So, uh with that all said, please have a wonderful week. And, uh and now the the customary ending that we do the same every time. My my my music hits me so hard makes me say, "Oh my lord, you can't touch this." Oh, the right stuff. I MIXED THEM. HAMMERS DON'T WORK HERE.