Xbox Tells Sony to Say Less, Digital Ownership & SITTING in Minecraft! | Games For Breakfast

[music] Good morning, MATT.
AH, 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 then also, I have a special announcement. Will, I just got our quarterly reports, and they're looking pretty good. So, let's see. Zoe sent me in the stuff here and it says uh Games for Breakfast is making more money than it ever has, which is great. That's great news. Uh it says that uh the seauite's getting a raise that has to come down and trickle down to uh oh uh we're laid off.
Oh, guess that's a show.
Thanks for coming to games for breakfast, everybody. Oh god. Dark humor.
Also in this case,
also Zoe would never lay us off. Zoe is the best boss ever.

The the seuite in this case stands for cat suite.
The cat suite. It's made up of one cat.
Yeah. It's Yeah. It's just it's Yeah.
Uh everybody, I was saying to Will and uh um Brad over on Twitch in the pre-show, and if you ever want to come to the pre-show, if you're watching this on YouTube, if you're a Janet or a Rocky on Nebula, uh we do that about 15 minutes before the show. And I was telling them over there, uh, this episode is either going to be one of the best episodes we've ever done or one of the worst episodes we've ever done. Will and I are both operating on a level of sleep that would make OSHA cry. And I think I think we might have uh we might be going slightly insane. If anyone who is here for the pre-show can sort of back me up on this about what happened there. Um, I think the only way to keep me from raging is to eat like one blueberry.
I have a blueberry here.
Yeah, just one one blueberry. You know,

roller asking the real questions. Why not both? Great question. Next question.
Uh, one small [laughter] piece of scheduling note as Matt uh digests his one blueberry. Uh, it takes a second.
Yeah, it does. Uh, if you're over on YouTube now or you are interested in them, next Tuesday's design club topic has already been scheduled. We're doing them in advance so I can tell you at breakfast what next Tuesday's design club will be. Uh, next Tuesday's design club will be on designing and maintaining live service games. We're going to have some special guests joining us. The number of those guests is up in the air, but there will be at least several and potentially many. I think it counts as many uh guests to come and talk with us about designing live service games. Uh people who have been designing live service games uh as part of their careers for a significant period of time to talk about the specific design challenges that emerge in those environments. So please come join us for that on Tuesday 2:00 p.m.

Eastern, 11:00 a.m. Pacific, both here on the tubes of you and twitch.tv/extra TV slashextra credits
of course and pets I'm sure will be around at some point.
Yeah. No. Yeah. Okay. And vi violence gets it. Yeah. One too many
too many lots.
Lots. Yeah.
Correct.
All right. So, uh is there anything else we have to talk about? Oh, and we'll be playing Destiny on Twitch after this as well if you happen to be watching this live. So, come hang out with us while we uh try to move our eyes up guardians. Um we'll see how it goes. Um, I guess we should start with the screaming.
I suppose
we're not going to scream. We're going to talk like normal. As long as I have a blueberry in my stomach, I think I think I'll be okay.
Okay. [music] [music]
Yeah.
Yeah. [laughter]

Um Oh. When do we get to the screaming? Now. Um,
right. R right now.
Right now.
Right now. Absolutely.
Oh. Hey, has everyone just been enjoying their video games? Has it been has it been a a stress-free time where you can sit down by yourself or with a pet or some loved ones and just sort of like vibe out and not really have a care in the world? Or you look outside and outside's pretty dire. You've been working really hard. Maybe you've been studying or protesting or going to two jobs and you just want to sit down and play a game to unwind in the hour, an hour and a half you have before you have sweet unconsciousness kiss you good night. Um, how's that going? Is it going is it going okay? BECAUSE NOT FOR ME. SORRY. SORRY. Every time I yell. Every time I yell, I a blueberry.
Okay. So the the story is that Xbox appears to be trying one of the world's

oldest technological solutions but for a company uh which is turning it off and back on again. Um in a message uh that was published on the 6th of July uh authored ostensively by Asha but this is these are always done by committee. Asha didn't write this
she didn't write this whole thing
um
but it's her name's on it so that I mean you kind of got to treat it that way. Yeah, right. But we should just keep that in mind. Um, here we'll just begin at the beginning
like they are. We are beginning the most significant restructure in Xbox history. After careful consideration, I've made the difficult decision to reduce our team by approximately 3,200 throughout fiscal year 27. This will include approximately 1,600 RO eliminations today. And in addition, four studios will leave Xbox to new management. I recognize the year-long restructuring creates additional challenges. Unfortunately, it is not possible to make all the necessary changes in a single day. And I wanted to be direct

about the scale.
So, that's roughly between [clears throat] 12,000 and 14,000 employees at Xbox. That's what roughly,
my math is awful, 12 20%ish.
Depending on what your number is.
Yeah. Um,
gone. Now, a couple things at the beginning of this. Um, there have been things in this letter and a couple other elements where uh companies are being spun off uh and given some runway to kind of uh handle themselves and given their IP back. That's the least they could do. I believe that is if I if I'm scrolling through here, I think that was in like the fifth or sixth paragraph. Compulsion Games and Double Fine Productions will return management and transition to independent studios with their IP catalog and runway for their next games.
Yeah.
Minimum minimum viable distance of of this Fallout. Uh Ninja Theory and Undead

Labs have entered uh uh teams to join new ownership with funding to complete and grow Senua and State of Decay 3. In France, Arcane's management is being required by consultants with its work council to review potential strategic options. There's some interesting wording here. So, couple companies I think are both Compulsion Games and Double Fine American.
I believe that is correct. I'm pretty sure Double Fine is Double Double Fine is North American for sure.
I don't I'm pretty sure they're US, but they could be Canadian, I suppose.
Yeah. Sorry, I have a pet hair that's like on my eyelashes and I cannot get it. Um, Ninja Theory and Undead Labs. I don't know where they're based, but they're going to basically be bought and not like that. Those teams aren't getting their IP and stuff. They're essentially going to be acquired somewhere else to finish the two games that they have for PlayStation or for for Xbox. I'm so used to saying PlayStation now. Um, but France, the way they word this, I'm going to read it again. In France, Arcane's management is

beginning is uh beginning required consultation with its work council to review potential strategic options. Um, I don't know if there is I don't I don't know if I'm reading bile in that sentence or if I'm just so angry these days that I'm sort of infusing it cuz what she's saying there is absolutely true. But like I in my head this is trying to like saving it for last with these other two things that are just already done. We're going so fast. But France and their work council is really slowing us down here. Like it feels like that's a bit of a shade
like at at the fact that they actually have to go through a work council.
I I didn't read it that way. I
maybe I'm just poisoned.
I Yeah, I I read it as like, okay, cool. Arcane is part of this, but the action isn't being taken today because there are required steps because they're French.
Yeah,
like that. That was as far as I read it.

Um
right. Again, I might be reading and Christopher here's like this is the vibe I was getting, but that doesn't necessarily mean that that vibe was intentional. It's just uh I'm sens I'm a I'm a I'm a sensitive boy these days.
Yeah.
Um
uh also, uh they own some stuff right uh right right towards the top there. Uh our business today is not healthy. We're operating margins that are three to 10 times lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses. We entered Gen 9 with a smaller install base and a higher cost structure. To grow, we bet on Game Pass, multiplatform, and a broader portfolio of content. While those businesses have created meaningful value, they did not grow at the pace we expected. As that happened, our core business weakened, and we added more teams, more investment, and more time, hoping for a better outcome. And now the industry is facing the most severe hardware crisis in its history. We must reset Xbox.
Yeah. So, like,
by the way, apologies to anyone watching on an Xbox. No one is watching this on an Xbox.

Let's be absolutely real. Uh if you are, obviously comment and uh I I I'll don't forget you to to werewolf engage.
Yeah,
that's like comment.
Oh, I thought I could be mad, but I'm going to start yelling. [laughter]
Okay.
Calming. It's calming. There's antioxidants.
Yeah, that's right. Xbox corporate has red brain. Got it. Correct. So, look, um, we were talking about this a little bit before the pre-show when Will and I were just sort of prepping. Um, Asha is an interesting figure because, um, she her job is to do this. This is what her job is. her job is to be the face of essentially very unpopular moves publicly that can save the company money um and try to get it back on track after

just sort of letting it do its own thing and having it sort of flounder. Um she is also like we were talking about this like her hands are tied because what the you know shareholders want that's what they're going to go for but also she took the job so she tied her hands.
Does that make sense? Um, and I
you don't get to complain about being the hatchet man when you
She hasn't when you when you see a wanted ad that says wanted hatchet man and you're like okay
and she hasn't she hasn't complained at all about that. Um, in fact, I think even though you know these things are written by teams and everything, like this this letter is very I've done this, I did that and that is at the very le like again this is awful and I'm in no way uh praising the moves that are being made but at the very least uh there is a now there is a definite face to these actions going on.

Yeah. um which is uh a a a thing that a lot of companies don't do. Um but again I will say there are [clears throat] there are there are some small humane things they're doing while they're trying to write this ship. But there in others I just I just sort of [clears throat] I won't begin to understand the complexities of Microsoft's financials. Um but it feels like there would be more humane ways to go about this downsizing.
Yeah.
Uh specifically not not announcing the first 1600 and then being like and there's going to be more down the line. Stay tuned viewers. like like what what a way to destroy any sense of loyalty, morale, safety, joy in an industry that I would

argue was built first to imbue those things.
Yeah.
Um Yeah. I don't know. Will, what what do you what Here's This is a great question. I'm gonna ask Will this question first. I love that. I'm like my question I'm gonna ask. It's great. Um, but I'd love to hear Brad and Janet your thoughts instantly and you can message us on Blue Sky if you're watching us on Rocky. Uh, and thank you everybody who actually has been doing that lately. I've been having fun like the next day sort of going through and chatting with folks. Um do we think take away take away the um the way in which this is being done and the damage and hurt and harm that is causing it's going to cause 3200 people initially plus all the people that are left are going to be floundering too cuz they're going to be doing like three jobs. Do we think that this is the correct move for Xbox as a company in our in our limited knowledge

of our scope of knowledge?
No, I think this this uh so uh Nova pointed out in YouTube chat that um they're setting Asha up to be the the the fall person,
right? so that she's going to take all of the blame for all of this and then she can leave and then they can get a new person who'd be like, "I'm not like her. I'm not going to do all these things." Right. So the
also I think if that's the case that she is in on that.
Oh yeah. No, 100%. That's like the job.
You get told that that's the job, right? Um, I I have a really hard time believing that letting so many people from so many good studios go like uh Wickl in Twitch chat mentioned ID, right? ID Software got absolutely massacred y
during this and ID's been

nothing but consistent, right? Like even if you don't like them, you have to admit that the Doom games are bangers. Like toptobottom bangers, right? Like they've
I I feel like the the one of the long-term problems that this really exemplifies is brain drain on the industry. And that's one of the reasons I don't think it's the right move. Even though it feels like in the short term it will correct their course,
the risk to the industry of longterm like brain drain from we we're letting 3,200 people go. Some number of those people will leave the games industry forever and they're all people who worked at Microsoft or Microsoft studios and those people are all talented, welltrained people with long portfolios of good work in the industry and the industry is losing those people forever. It cannot feel correct to me to do that

because it's not only harming um Microsoft in the in the short term, right, by uh engendering mistrust in their management decisions, but also it hurts the industry as a whole for the long term.
And I think that that cannot be the right call. There must be a better way. I don't know what it is, but also it's not my job to know what the better call is. I just need to be able to point at this and say this ain't it.
Yeah. I think I think the um part of the letter as she goes on, they say um that they are going to essentially uh reset the platform. Quote, we know that great technology gets better when it gets simpler, not bigger. Today in some parts of the company work passes through as many as 14 layers of management. Uh and they're 40% larger than we started this generation. Uh even as our player base and play time has declined.

That is completely has slowed decisions, blurred accountability and made it harder to deliver for players as we re if Xbox we will simplify. So they were talking about like uh they will reduce management layers to no more than five and whenever possible three. So at first my gut was like oh that you know I don't want anyone to lose their jobs but 14 layers of management is too much management. Uh that is too many people in the middle that should not that that I I can only imagine why nothing gets done. Um but then I start thinking about where middle management comes from in in video game development. Uh granted there are transferable skills like if if a good producer taking enough time who's never worked in games could come in either be mentored or learn the system and produce video games the same way they produce film or music. Like it's all but but it's all institutional knowledge, right? Like you just have to like the skill set the tools that you

would be using uh mentally anyway are similar. you're you're making sure people deliver X by Y and a bunch of other small things um interpersonal stuff yada yada yada but I think what I what what I kind of as I was noodling on this a little more is those layers of management are probably people who worked their way up like either through dev or through other things and like they were employed by Microsoft uh but for so long and as Microsoft ballooned then more middle management positions became there then they got those management positions and so it's still going like that is still a group a large group of people that like Will says it will be a brain drain on the industry because even if new producers come in even if new management comes in depending whenever they decide to start growing again half of that knowledge base is gone right like uh

yeah and also Christopher brings up too that that management count probably includes team leads.
Yep.
Um,
can I can I can I bring up the the beef that I have with this announcement?
Oh, sure.
Just real quick.
Oh, just the one. Do you do you want to do you want
I have like a very specific one.
Oh, okay.
Okay. Second, uh, the the last paragraph. Okay. the I'm jumping all the way ahead to the last because there's a whole bunch of like little stuff about like how and the why and the witch and the whatever.
Also, a shout out to Dave McCarthy.
Yeah, that was weird. [snorts]
I don't know if I'd want my name in this message.
Yeah, right.
Could you just do a separate message after my 17 years with Xbox?
Yeah. Okay. So, a bunch of this is weird. A bunch of this doesn't sit right with me. one thing just leaps out at me as being like, "Oh, you're either ignorant or maliciously

lying." And it's obvious and provably true. Second to last paragraph. I want Xbox to be one of the few companies that entertains more than a billion people each day and gives everyone the opportunity to create and connect. I know we can achieve this goal. Xbox has many of the most beloved franchises in entertainment history, talented studios around the world, and we will return to growth in 2027.
Okay.
Do they?
Yeah. Right.
Do they?
Okay. So, that a bunch of that is like, but do they though? And the second one is no, they won't. No, they won't. There is no physical way that they will entertain a billion people. That's not possible. Like it's not it's not that it's a lofty goal and it's untenable. It's literally impossible,

right? Like it's that's not how numbers work. That's like me and Matt saying that we want this show to get a billion views every episode. Like could it happen? I guess theoretically there are a billion people, but is it ever going to happen? No, of course not.
So, it couldn't happen. It actually couldn't happen. I think the way that she and I think this is stupid phrasing and I think it's dumb as hell and I think she's rightfully getting dragged for it. Um, you could argue in a world where I don't know this isn't going to happen, but let's just pretend for a moment Master Chief becomes the any Sony property that's worth anything right now, which is like 90% Bethesda properties, but let's just not pretend or Blizzard properties. Um, let's say for a moment that um a new TV show hits on one side of that spectrum. Maybe there's a a World of Warcraft TV show and a Fallout movie

all of a sudden happens that everyone really likes and Xbox as a game company in an interactive space gets their is together. There is a slight chance that at one point during two giant launches across three different types of media that you could for one fleeting moment get a billion people in a day.
There are like
but that is so so nearly insane
that to put it in this very real press release
is absolutely maddening. Uh yeah there's I believe there's 8 billion people in the world. 8.3 billion people in the world.
8.3 sounds about right. So, uh, and someone pointed out they want one in eight humans to touch an Xbox
in a day, right? They say
every day.
They want every So, so to get to
they technically say more than a billion people,
right? So, pick one, whichever one makes more sense to you, India or China.

Now imagine every single person in either of those countries playing an Xbox once a day. Does it seem ludicrous to you? Cuz it seems ludicrous to me. And
so again, to be clear, and I want to I want to make it I want to make it clear what is ludicrous. Obviously a billion people playing an Xbox a day is ludicrous. But they the way they say I want Xbox to be one of the few companies that entertains more than a billion people each day,
right? And that gives people the opportunity to create and connect. So that could be literally any that could that could literally like you might be able to say because you can install Game Pass on Windows.
Like do you know what I mean? Like but it's such a it's such a
obuscated thing. It's it's her getting that number based on a very thin fraction of a possibility across all mediums that Microsoft touches but couching it in Xbox.
Right. And and so the the big problem is that it completely for me from a

rhetorical perspective, this is a garbage way to do this, right? Like I'm not even I'm not even going to like I'm just going to focus on the fact that this is a nonbelievable statement and that from a rhetorical perspective by putting this so close to the end, she just undercut everything else in the entire message. She just shot all of her credibility by making a completely noncredible statement, right? Like from a rhetorical perspective. Yeah. Death clock numbers. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Um it it completely undercuts everything because now I cannot take her seriously. Like
So you're saying there's a chance,
right? Like I can't I cannot take this seriously when someone is with a straight face trying to claim that they are going to have a company that's currently floundering do better than
any company has ever done.
Steam or Pokemon, right? Even if they count every Minecraft account, that

still only gets them a third of the way there cuz Minecraft is about a third of a billion total.
You know what's funny? Christopher again with a really great point. Uh, it's an AI hire. The idea is AI grifter territory. Like that's what it is. It's like this will revolutionize everything. Well, how will it do it? Well, when it gets good enough. Well, how will it get good enough? When it does. And you're like, what what are we saying?
Right.
But isn't that kind of not to not to expand, isn't that kind of everything now?
Yeah. I I I like this. I feel like most big companies saw By and large and Wall-E and thought, I want to be like that when I grow up.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I like Isn't Isn't everything imaginary more than just like money now?
Yeah. and how, you know, I never thought that the Seinal Entertainment uh franchise, which

I think ruined most of television for most of the 2000s through like 2015, uh would ever be the best way to move forward in our entire existence. But I will quote The Real World, the MTV reality show. I think the only thing that will save us is when people stop being polite and start getting real. The there's a there's an oddity that's happening consistently that everyone is just pretending that everything is fine. And it's amazing. It's amazing that the world is still operating. Like what a what a sheer force of the human imagination we've constructed where every and again we're not going to go farther than video games here but all of that outside pretending down to this inside pretending for this one very

large company talking about their games division. People got to stop being polite, start getting real. And I think that's going to happen. I think with with more decisions such as such as all of these layoffs and what Xbox is doing and the brain drain on in the industry and and uh uh PlayStation's last move with the disc thing and I'm sure Nintendo's got something cooking to try to top all this stuff. Like I I feel like [laughter] I think one of my blue skies was uh I think they're just going to euthanize Yoshi because they what what what's the next logical awful? Really funny that you said that because the same day I believe that you posted that they announced a new Yoshi toy with a magnetic tongue.
Well, there we go. There we go. Um, I I I think that what a lot of the AI grifting technology folks don't realize, I think, and and this kind of goes back

and forth, consumer product has moved from the masses to essentially the wealthy. Like that's why everything sucks now. That's why everything's more expensive is because they've realized that there's a just enough rich people to keep making product for rich people. And that's kind of where a lot of gaming, not indie stuff and not I mean there's always I feel like gaming and the arts in particular are places that will always offer something else because well what are all these poorer unemployed people going to do? better just make some art then because they b they can't have jobs, right? Like like
Yeah.
So like there'll always be the creative force from that side of the spectrum. Um but I think what these companies are forgetting is even with this like let's pretend that that's the whole business model. Actually I think it kind of is

that still won't support after a while their fable of infinite growth. It can't.
Yeah.
Like with with eight 8.3 billion people, it can't support that. So with a fraction of that, you're going to support the infinite growth. Are you just going to keep pretending to toss numbers to each other while the rest of us have water wars? Like what what what is the like they need consumers even if they don't think they need as many consumers?
And if none of us have jobs to do the things,
then who's going to be consuming? there. Yeah. No, the math has never mathed. Let's be very clear here. The more we look at this, the more the math has never mathed for any amount of time on the on the bill of goods that we're being sold here.
I'm taking a preemptive blueberry.
Yeah. And anyway,
and they know that. And to some extent, I think they're doing this [laughter]

because they can.
What are we doing? What's going on? I can't do the impression. I can't do the Tucker Carlson. I'm so sorry.
Yeah. Um, so yeah, the I [laughter] Yeah, it just Yep. Uhhuh. Okay. So, Matt's going to need that blueberry in a second because
it's so good. It's so good. It's not. It's okay. So, one of one of the studios that got hit during this was Bethesda, which
which owns probably 50% of these beloved franchises that Microsoft has. And and by the way, we can't we do not literally have time in this show to go through all of the studios that were affected, but like Elder Scrolls Online got hit from Zenamax and like it this this effect if it's if it is an Xbox published title or like an Xbox studio, they got affected. It was broadreaching. It was

like every studio has been hit. Okay. Like I don't want anyone to think that we we're not aware that like Yeah. So we just literally don't have time. Just that if you know of a studio that's related to Microsoft in a parent like in a in a publisher developer like capacity or they're a wholly owned subsidiary or whatever, they got hit. Just assume that. Okay. But at Bethesda, it got worse somehow. It it got worse. Okay. And you might be like, "But Will, how could it get worse?" Well, you see, the folks at Bethesda wanted to put up a tribute to all of their friends who got fired because, you know, that's a thing that helps the people who are left being asked to do all of the work of all of the people that just got fired. Remember,
and they called it literally a celebration of service.
Yeah. Right. That Yeah. Right. So, it's a celebration of service and they posted pictures of all their friends who weren't working there anymore.

And then HR told them they had to take it down
because it's a public space in the private building. It's public space in the private building that they pay rent for. And Yeah. Yeah.
Into the sun. I hereby proclaim into the sun. Into the sun with all of it. Just we don't Yep. We don't need it anymore. Just Yep. Yeah. Right. No. I'm I'm 100% with New Guy on this. I like this one. Hey, HR. You could just not, you know, it's real easy to just don't. Right. Like,
yeah.
Yeah. like the I feel like the the callousness and the
well and let's
dehumanization of the people involved in this from from the corporate side [clears throat] is just wild.
Let's break it down. The uh

[clears throat] why why take this down? Why? Because it reminds everybody and now it's on social media,
right?
Yeah. that the that the that the layoffs are happening and happened and that they affect actual people because when you just have a little Microsoft Xbox wire setting resetting Xbox that's cute. Oh, they're throwing numbers around. No, each one of these numbers is a person.
Yeah. with a life and a family that affects the economy and affects the loved ones around them and has assuming hopes and dreams and needs to and and and has all the potential of good, bad and the other, right? So like uh and this is a reminder that these things that Asha has in her letter are not just numbers and shrinking number to number go down so number go so other number go up. Uh numbers are people. People are numbers. Uh not all the the

numbers here are people. But not all numbers are people. But these people that are numbers are also people. No, the blueberries don't help when I get confused. Um but you get what I'm saying.
Yep. Yeah. Right. I like Copper Chef. An internal support is now a public point of anger towards the company. Good job. Yep. Because you know HR's job is to protect the company, right? HR's job is not to protect people. By the way, in case you've ever worked in a place, HR's job is to protect the company from you as an employee suing the crap out of the company for them doing something wrong. Okay? That's HR's job, among other things, right? Um, so in this case, not only is it a um an ethical and moral failing of HR, it's literally a technical failing of HR, which is bananas. It's bananas.

BN A N A N A N A N. Yeah, that exactly spelled just that way. Right. But like the fact that this is a failure on every front is wild to me, right? Like you have to try to screw up this hard.
Yeah.
Okay.
Hey, good luck. Good luck rushing out all those games you want to rush out now,
right? But
I'm sure the next everything from Bethesda will go real well.
Yeah. Um, and then I just we'd be remiss if we didn't mention in conjunction with this letter
that I need a blueberry. I'm gonna I'm gonna need I'm gonna I'm gonna need a blueberry. All right. This is yesterday. Okay. yesterday after seeing this Asha got a side gig, like a side gig cuz, you know, she

wasn't busy enough with all the the firing and the and the restructuring and the resetting Xbox. So, she got a side gig and she's now an advisor to the US Federal Reserves on jobs and productivity. That's the whole story.
So, we know what that institution values at this point.
Yeah.
No, hold on. I like this one. Uh, I like Rut row, but I also like
what?
Yeah, it's uh it's strange. I mean, not strange if you're paying attention to anything outside the games industry. this is exactly the kind of person that they they have been cultivating. Uh and there I what what is the most worrisome is not even it's not even that it's like oh uh productivity and jobs. It's because she's an AI person not because

of the things she's doing at Xbox. She's a higher profile AI person now and the Federal Reserve wants to use AI to somehow do something to make the money better. I I for some people I have no I I don't know it feels like
also to give you an idea of the company she's in the former CEO of noted great company that isn't a parasitical blight on the entire country of the United States Walmart is also involved in this. So,
oh sure.
You know,
uh, according to the news release, the task force will quote, "look at the economic impact of new generational, sorry, new general purpose technologies, including artificial intelligence to inform the Federal Reserve policy judgments. uh supported by Federal Reserve staff. The task force will operate independently with a quote mandate to follow the evidence, provide candid feedback, and produce rigorous findings

for the Federal Open Market Committee. This comes to us uh from video games.com, which is uh pulling it from a couple other places. I know there's a Forbes article. We'll have a bunch of articles in the show notes. We've been pulling these from uh Bloomberg was had one on the Obsidian shifts. Um, PC Gamer had one about the billion the billion folks a day.
The the PC Gamer article in particular does a really great job of breaking down like all of the data that concretely points to that being a completely nonsensical, ridiculous statement.
Yeah. Yeah.
Right. Like it it would be I think it's 24 times the current daily user cap of Steam.
Yeah. And also uh shout out to Kotaku for breaking I believe the HR crackdown at Bethesda.
Yeah. Um, I I know that's not like the the sexiest part of the story. Uh, but it's one of the most important I think because it starts it starts really humanizing what the numbers are,
right? Because Yeah. Right. It's very easy to get lost in the sauce, right? It

it is so incredibly easy to be like, oh, number of jobs, right? instead of remembering that these are all individual humans with individual human needs and faces and desires and families and everything else and really yep yep yep yep
okay
um yeah Xbox just really uh it was saw what Sony was doing was like wait hold on say less um insane what will Nintendo do next week what will they do
I don't know it's it's either got to be Nintendo for Valve.
Yeah. Whose turn is it?
Yep. Right. I think it's Nintendo's turn.
So, yeah. Uh Yeah. Okay, cool. Uh I'm going to suggest that we take a deep breath. Take a deep breath and let's do just just assume before we get to before

we get to the ad break. We'll do the outbreak in the middle, but like we're just going to do like a tiny bit of good news. [music] Okay. All right, everybody. Everybody breathe.
No blueberries required.
Yeah. No, no blueberries required for this. We We do have some good stuff.
If it sits, it ships.
Yeah, there you go. That's right. if it sits at chips. Um, Minecraft has introduced a new content update, and as part of that, uh, we're getting a whole bunch of stuff. There's a new biome, there's a new wood type, all great stuff, all good things. Um, all free updates reminding you that you paid 15 bucks for Minecraft way back when in ye olden days, and it's still getting updated with more free content. Excellent. It's getting wool, stairs, and slabs, which is cool. And one of the things that it's getting with that is a

new uh entity object, the cushion. Uh and the cool part about the cushion is twofold. Um one of which is mentioned by Mojang and one of which is not.
Ah,
the cool thing is that uh that Mojang mentions is that you can sit now. You don't have to do minecart stuff. You don't have to do boat stuff. You can just
No mods.
No mods. You can just sit and that's really cool. There's also a straw bed, which is like a bed roll if you've played modded, but it's a temporary bed that doesn't reset your spawn point. So, that's really nice, too. That's a whole thing. Um, uh, but the other less publicized thing from Mojang is that because you can sit on it, it has to be an entity, not a block. And if you know what I'm talking about, you can see where this is going. It is a new era of building and redstoneing and creative stuff because entities in Minecraft behave very differently than blocks do. Blocks you have to like put down in a

place and entities you can do all kinds of weird stuff like float them and stack them in weird ways. I've already seen someone use cushions in the beta snapshot to make a donaire kebab shop because they stacked all of the cushions like on a ro. It it's wild. But
and I mean as as two people who are sitting at this very moment, I know some folks in chat. Oopsie of course is sitting. A lot of people probably are. Uh I feel seen.
Yeah. Um I I think it's I think this is very cool and very good. And just like another it is really nice to me that yes, Mojang is owned by Microsoft. Yes, Mojang is still a giant company. Yes, companies are not your friends, but man, does it feel nice when Minecraft just gets like a fun little update. Like, man, is it just nice. Like, it's it's not going to save the world, but it's it is such a nice breath

of fresh air when you're just like, great.
Corporations cannot be your friends, but subsidiaries of corporations can be really nice landlords.
That's right. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm 100% with dad on this one. It hearkens back to simpler times. Yes.
Right. And so we're just getting like a whole bunch of cool like new features in vanilla Minecraft and that's great. And that's you know for for a day when we've spent an hour screaming about the how terrible everything is in the games industry. This is nice, right? Yeah. I like I like
and it's just fun. Like it's a fun little thing. And I know even like it's Will was telling me that some some people were actually getting like upsetty spaghetti about this anyway like cuz everyone's mad at something nice. Um and the because like it takes away something that mods did or like some other thing and it's like okay I just can't this is just
both create and supplementaries two major mods.

Creates probably the single biggest mod family. Yeah. um in Minecraft, I would say, history at this point. Um have seats that function identically to this. Uh but I think those people are underestimating how important it is for it to be in vanilla, right? I was talking with some people last night about how hard it is to mod Minecraft.
And if you think it's easy to mod Minecraft,
you're already invested, right? like you've already done the work of learning how all of that works. Getting someone into that from zero can be kind of hard. Um and so, uh having it in vanilla is really nice.
Yeah.
It's just it's just a nice it's a nice little quality of life thing that they didn't need to do.
Uh but they did.
Yep. Uh okay. And then I think we could do this in a minute before
we absolutely can.
Okay. Cool. Great. Awesome. in history

doesn't repeat itself, but boy does it rhyme sometimes. Hey, do you know there's a plague in WoW again?
There's another one. This is the third one or the second one?
Yeah. Uh, it's um it it's it it happened again. It's already been patched, but people did manage to break containment with a boss debuff and plague an entire server. And there's just plague everywhere. And that's funny. It's fun when it happens cuz they everything gets fixed and it gets rolled back. But it's it's just a fun little like unique circumstance to WoW that we always are like, "Nah, they did it again. Good job."
Yeah. One one of my favorite DC episodes I've ever worked on was the World World of Warcraft Epidemiology episode, which is just so it's just a fascinating look at the first time this happened. And so when this popped up, I was like, "This is even though this picture is kind of gross, this is a delight."
Yep. Absolutely. Uh, okay. That
Are we doing ads or you gonna finish the

good news?
No, it's time for us to do ads.
Okay.
Uh, so Matt is gonna do a fake ad for things you can't buy while Twitch gets ads for real things that Twitch wants you to buy. Uh, and we'll be done with that in like 3 minutes and then we'll keep going with the show.
Okay, here we go. I'm ready. Are you ready, Will?
Sure.
Are you ready for me to be ready?
Yes. Hey everyone, Matt from Extra Credits sitting next to Will from Extra Credits over here in the Extra Credits place where we can all sit now. Thank you, Minecraft. Listen, I can't what what I want to sell you today would be blueberries because they're helping me out a lot. But sadly, you can buy blueberries. So, due to the contractual obligations that will and I have committed to ourselves, uh the ULA states, I cannot sell you these. So, instead, I'm going to sell you the concept of imagining that a blueberry can actually calm you down. Look, if everything else in the world is simply imaginary and we're all just kind of operating on vibes, why not just make something up for yourself that actually helps you? Because right now, I'D GET

WORKED UP, but now I can pretend not to be.
Well, are you ready?
Uh, moment. I need to check a thing. Did we Did we typo? Uh, I think
we might we might have typoed
on my on my blue sky most likely.
Uh,
or on the title.
Well, you know. Yeah, on the title.
But didn't we change that? It's not hold beer anymore.
I'm so confused.
I thought I had changed it to the current one.
Change it to the change it to the non-millennial one, Will.
Oh, my bad. My bad. Behind the scenes. Oh, that's cuz the one that you sent me in the thing is the is is is
Oh, did we not update it in the thing? We got to update the thing.
Didn't update it in the thing.
Got to update the thing. We had a whole

discussion chat. Let here while Will fixes this. Let me tell you. So, we're old, right? Um, and so we were coming up with night titles and I was like, "Oh, this fun Xbox tells Sony to hold my beer." Hold its beer, right? And then we were like, uh, you know, hold my beer's real like millennial drinking culture vernacular, right? That that kind of clock set. Uh, what is the what is the Gen Z version of of the titling? Uh, and what we came up with uh, which is essentially the same sentiment is say less.
Yeah. Or
so it should say Xbox tells Sony to say less. So now,
but now if you're watching this, it says that whether you're watching live or on the VOD. And if you're watching on the VOD, it always has.
Here's a question. Does that update links like on Blue Sky?
Uh, if the
No.
If the preview is uncashed, yes,
but it will take a second. Like you'd

have to uncash the preview.
Cool. Neat. We learned something. Hey Will, now that YOU FIXED IT, DO AN AD.
HI, this Will Extra Credit next Matt Extra in Extra Credit Kitchen. Have you tried fixing your mistakes live on air? It's a great thing that more people should do. You should humanize [music] yourself and be honest about the mistakes that you make rather than just powering through and being like, "We never make mistakes ever." because then your audience gets the [music] fake impression that you're somehow superhuman. Uh, and you should own your mistakes and be like, "Hey, we screwed up and made a typo in the title." And then you should explain the joke. And then you should explain explaining the joke so that people understand that not only you're relatable, you're funny.
Sometimes explaining the joke isn't funny, but explaining that you explain the joke has a 25% chance to be funny, but then explaining that you're explaining that you have to explain the

joke, you sort of exponentially get the funny percentage up. And there will be a point when that knocks off a cliff. You just have to kind of balance out when that's going to be.
Yep.
A fixing production fixing problems in production. Do not recommend.
Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. [laughter] Yep. Yep. All right. Cool. Great. Excellent. Awesome. Yes, YouTube is fixed. Uh or at least it should be.
I'm curious if uh
Yes, it's fixed. Uh okay. You may have to reload, but
I'm gonna check something on my phone. your phones, right?
On your phone. All right, cool. So, do you remember do you remember do you remember last week, Matt? Do you remember?
I do remember. I do remember.
Okay, great. Awesome. Do you remember last week how lots of people big upset Sony no discs no more?
Sony no discs no more.
Sony no discs no more. People big upset spaghette. Okay. Um well, one of the ways that people express their upset spaghette is they cancel subscriptions.

That's a thing that we're all pretty used to at this point. I know many people have canceled Disney Plus and Paramount and HBO and Hulu and everyone's Netflix. Everyone's canled something at some point this year probably, right? Okay, great. So, a lot of people went to cancel their PlayStation Plus trying to get people to not stop making discs,
right?
Which who knows if it'll work, but good good on them.
Probably won't if we're fully honest.
They've done the dark math, but good vote with your wallet.
Yeah. Right. Exactly. That doesn't mean you should still you shouldn't do it. Um well, they found out that um PlayStation is so desperate to keep people around that if you threaten to quit, they will uh knock some money off of your uh subscription. So, if you if you threaten to quit, you can save 50% on three months.

Now, yeah. Now granted, granted the companies do this all the time and I guarantee you this was in place before all this, right? Like this is a this is a thing that phone companies and every subscription service for streamers and everything have done forever. It's just funny that people are leaving uh PlayStation Plus in droves and now people are noticing that PlayStation also has this thing as well.
Yep. And
yes. Yes. But only if you threaten to quit. Uh so essentially you'll quit and and I haven't done this but what normally what normally people um in these situations or companies will do is it's not like you'll be hitting buttons that say yes I'm quitting deactivate my account I'm done like whatever it is and then like before that goes through it knocks you to a page and be like hey one last chance to try to get you to stick around uh discount. So like you have to be ready on a company's thing to roll the dice of actually quitting because

you'll never know,
right?
Yep.
So
um
you know uh if you are a person who still wants to use so two two parts to this story. Number one, if you're upset about this, canceling your PlayStation Plus is a way to send a message to PlayStation that you are upset with the management decisions that they have made and that they can, you know, that they won't be getting as much money from you in the future uh because of this decision. That's a valid way to make your voice heard. Second, if you're not interested in canceling your PlayStation Plus for whatever reason, maybe get yourself a discount. Right? Either way, story good, right? It's either good as a reminder to quit or good as a reminder to not quit. Whichever one, but your PlayStation Plus exists and you should think about it is is sort of
that's kind of Yeah.
Yep.
Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Uh okay. I think that's it for good news. Though I will say both of our are our the stories in our next segment are not bad news.

They're just weird news.
Yeah.
Uh as they usually are when we begin gaming the law.
[music]
So, China uh has a court that is now essentially um allowing the digital ownership of digital or the ownership of digital assets to be passed down uh to descendants or other people in different legal ways. Um, this comes to us from Tom's Hardware. Uh, but essentially in China, there's been a bunch of different This story is kind of winding. There's been a bunch of different individual cases that have set precedent for a current one that allowed basically someone's I'm trying to uh trying to find here a Redditor. Uh, wait, no, that's the different thing. Hold on, hold on, hold on. The way this is

written is slightly odd. It is also we should while Matt's looking we should also say that a lot of this is reliant on machine translation of Chinese which is not always the most reliable thing but it is an important
like it's an important enough story that we're down to mess with it.
Yeah.
Um
uh because all of the court cases that it's using to sort of set precedent for these things uh is in stark contrast stark contrast to the rest of the world. Uh essentially, um multiple Chinese families have successfully sued for the rights to inherit their deceased relatives game accounts.
Yes.
And there's multiple different versions of this. There was an item in an MMO that like uh after a man died, his wife wanted, but he had to get it from his in-game wife. But then there was like different like legal precedents between like uh you know IRL relationships, etc. There was another one that was called the Golden Blade case.
Um and then there was

um what's it called? A Bitcoin users holdings.
Yeah.
Uh that moved in China upon I believe uh someone got to inherit it. So like you kind of get to a point especially especially in this Bitcoin nonsense like I I actually don't know in the United States. Can you can someone inherit a Bitcoin wallet?
Yes. And that one's a little weirder. A Bitcoin is a because Bitcoin isn't tied to an account. It's tied to a wallet which is part of a digital device that can have its physical ownership transferred. Yes. But the difference is that Steam's user agreement does not include a provision for transferring that your Steam account is yours. You can't give it to someone. You can't have someone in

it.
But Bitcoin and Bitcoin wallets by their very nature, regardless of value, is designed so you can give it to someone.
Correct.
Or sell it to someone.
Right. And it's it's also very important that the Bitcoin wallet itself uh and this is one of the big fictions of the way that current um ownership laws, property laws work in the United States because the Bitcoin wallet is tied to a physical object. Yeah,
it's a lot easier to mess with than it is a a purely digital object that does not have a physical like a single physical repository, right?
Wait, a Bitcoin wallet has a physical repository?
Yeah, it's on the hard disk, right? So, like if I have I don't for the record. Um,
but isn't the data for like a golden sword on on a hard disk somewhere?
It's No, it's on the server. the s the data for the golden sword in an MMO is like the the actual

right it's not on the disc at your house
correct which means you don't own it the Bitcoin is on the disc on your the
I get what you're saying I get the I I'm I'm poking holes because I understand that blockchain uh the whole thing about it is that it cannot be duplicated and therefore it is treated as an individual item. I just from a from a I I guess I don't know enough about Bitcoin and like sort of that world of trading and inheritance and everything to to really say. So apparently what you're telling me though is that they you can in fact inherit a Bitcoin wallet
uh
in the United States.
Yes.
But what if the wallet meets a magnet?
People have gone dumpster diving for wallets with like thousands of bitcoins from the early days of bitcoins. Uh if you're unfamiliar with the way Bitcoin works, uh Bitcoin is has been getting exponentially harder to make more of.
That's part of the way that Bitcoin works. So if you were in on Bitcoin at

the very beginning, you've probably got thousands of them kicking around in the wallet.
Um
cold wallets.
Anyway, this story was interesting. Again, it is a uh uh machine translation um from Chinese to English. So, some of the stuff may be broken, but it's interesting to see how other countries are beginning to handle handle treating digital ownership because um I think with the proliferation of all the stuff that Sony's doing and the way that we have all been leasing our games, um I think that it's going to become more and more in the mainstream to start talking about it, especially as the people who own these giant Steam accounts um start passing away of more natural causes due to age.
Mhm. So, yeah. Okay. Uh, next up in our gaming the law section, we have a interesting story regarding Nintendo and Europe.

Nintendo has announced that due to incoming regulations in Europe, the Switch One, the original Switch will no long
and the OLED
uh and the OLED. Yes. The the Switch the not Switch twos.
Yes.
Switch on. [laughter] Um they will no longer be available in Europe from midFebruary 2027 onward, but that they will remain available globally. Yes.
Um, and this is due to incoming regulation in the European Union regarding consumer replaceable batteries. Um, Nintendo has said it would be too hard too hard to do for the Switch one. Um, they're
and they did it for the Switch 2 if I remember correctly.
Correct. They they need to do it if they want their current generation, but they're not going back and making a new version
um of the Switch One to become compliant with the new regulations in Europe. So,

they're just pulling they're just pulling the whole thing uh from sale in Europe uh in February 2027. So, if you're in Europe and you want one,
getting it before February 2027 would be prudent.
Um
I think I think the main the main pull I think is just that it's cheaper, right? like at this point like other than price
I don't know I don't know a reason to go for a one than a two
especially a two with a removable battery
if you can get that in the magical place known as Europe
Europe yeah
uh yeah
um I I too uh Andrew love this graphic uh I loved it because it looked like the switch was waving back
and it kind of warmed my heart in a weird little way. Yeah.
Yep.
No blueberry required.
Uh, all right. Unfortunately,
is that the end of our good news or

gaming the law? That was in the middle of our good news.
Yeah. Which which means you you know what time it is, Chad?
Oh, good. Okay. What's cooking first, Will, on this pot of blurry mess. I forgot about that. [laughter] Okay, we'll take this one. Take take it away. So, uh, unfortunately, it appears as though there are, uh, some, um, hardware issues with the new Steam machines, and some of them are

already experiencing the red line of death, aka the red ring of death. Um, and there's currently no way to fix it because it looks like GPU failure. How many is this affecting?
I don't have a great answer for that. It is enough that it is showing up on social media. Um, but it's not I would I would say it's not ubiquitous.
Sure. Sure.
Right. But there are definitely people who are already
I mean this this is an interesting story. Obviously you don't want any of this to happen, right? Like this is a this is something you you you obviously is awful especially if you're waiting for something like this and there's a limited amount and it's crazy expensive. Like of course um it does feel like there is an inevitable amount of these things that will happen. I'm I was curious if we know any amount of numbers and I don't think from the Kotaku

article that we do. Um,
yeah. So,
the user was like, "I was tired and irritable after a long day of work." Uh, posted the car, the username is Mihill. Uh, an ominous GPU error code wasn't exactly the seamless plug-and-play experience I'd hoped for. But I guess if anyone encounters the same error, don't panic like I did. Just let it sit for a few hours and it will somehow sort itself out. Anyway, I'm sorry for the Oh, so there's a false alarm. Wait, when did they change this article?
No. Okay. So, part of the problem is that
there's an update. Yeah.
Um part of the problem is that it was in this case
GP GPU errors are kind of finicky and kind of like weird, right? Like remember, okay, how many of you by show of hands or hype in chat had

an or or knew someone with a Xbox that red ringed or had an Xbox that red ringed?
Okay.
Oh, right.
I had three,
right? Yeah, I had I had I had one, but mine wasn't the death ring. It was the CD drivecon gone pad ring. Right. Okay, great. Awesome. Now, how many of you had how many of you tried to fix it somehow and something that did work for you for ineffable reasons didn't work for a friend or vice versa, right? Like, yes, in this case, it sorted itself out, but is it always going to? Maybe. Hopefully.
Yeah.
Right. But it's still kind of a it's it's still kind of a a blow to consumer confidence in a thing that's already launching with like a not great track record or a not great consumer uh sentiment.
I do remember wrap the towel around it.
Yeah. Wrap the towel around it. Bake it.

Right. To reflow the solder, right? You take everything out, you take all the plastic off, you bake the thing, right? That was a whole way. Pennies, right? All all kinds of stuff. Um so there's no guaranteed fix right and yes in this case um one of the users reported that waiting or you know that there's a and I saw some people in chat say that there's a cos um fix or that there's a you know whatever fix. Yeah sure
that works for them. It may not work for everyone right.
Yeah. Well, that does stink and I'm sorry that's happening. Hopefully, it's not a large amount of people. Um, yeah, real quick. A bunch of people said that transition was still too loud. Will, is that one possibly linked to the old one?
No.
I changed all of them.
Interesting. Yeah,
we'll troubleshoot after.
Yeah, I I I did see all those. I was going to bring it up in our post stream

meeting.
Uh, okay. Uh, so we've talked about Xbox, we've talked about Sony, we've talked about Valve. All that's left is for Nintendo to disappoint us.
Oh, good. [gasps] Although, look, this is bad. No question. This is one of those bad things that does not affect me. I can still say that it's bad. Uh, Mario Kart Tour uh officially is going to be shut down. For those of you that do not know, Mario Kart Tour is their essentially their mobile version of Mario Kart, which um has had a trepidacious run, I would say, though it was very profitable. Essentially, it was way too gotcha-y uh at first and they patched it. I forget exactly when. Uh and it's been kind of running ever since. You could actually get a subscription service for it at a time. Uh, but I believe that uh will cease operating as of September 29th at 1100 PM Pacific time. Um, yeah, this Mario Kart will go

away forever and no longer work.
Yep.
RIP.
Uh, like like [clears throat] I do know a decent amount of people that played this.
Yeah.
Um,
this is one of the more ubiquitous ones. Yeah,
I tried it at one point before I stopped mobile gaming entirely.
Um, yeah, I I the game preservation part of me is like, this is really sad. This version of Mario Kart will never be able to be played again. Um, and that sucks for the people that liked it. The other part of me is like, even though I know they fixed it, this still has a bad taste in my mouth from when they released it and the style of game it was. And the skinning of that gameplay and monetization loop on a Mario Kart I really did not like. So there's a there's a vindictive part of me that I will quell real quick. Um that essentially is like good and that's

wrong. That's wrong. That's a wrong take from me. I think people liked this game. Um, and I think it's sad that it won't be sort of saved anywhere else. Um, don't get me wrong, I think right now the optimal way to play Mario Kart is either Double Dash Mario Kart 8 or Mario Kart World. Um, I like the idea of you buy Mario Kart and then you have Mario Kart. Um, but it there's always something sad when something that um you essentially bought and you played and paid for. Yep.
Is now gone.
Yep. It It also like I always feel slightly differently too when it's a lifestyle game.
Yeah.
Right. Because
because we know we know intrinsically that they will die,
right?
And but it feels weird that a Mario Kart will die.
Yes. Or or that like the It's extra weird to me because especially phone games, I think, for like a particular reason. Like phone

games feel like they occupy a particular space in like the relaxation part of my game part of my brain, right? Where like this is a thing that will just be there and this is a comfort to me to have access to this thing and now that thing is gone. It feels extra like it feels extra weird to me when compared to something like um uh uh like a PC game going away, right? It feels like it's in a different category because I treat those things differently as part of my lived experience.
Yeah. Also, uh, Generic makes a good point. Didn't the Mario Kart Tour maps get rolled into the eight deluxe expansion pass thing? I believe a lot of them, if not all of them did.
Correct. However, the costumes that are available in tour are gone. And also uh kind of like with the we talked about this a while ago and there's a short that just came out on the Luna thing.
Yeah.
Right. If someone could play those if

someone could play those games somewhere else they wouldn't have got them through Luna.
Yeah.
Right. If someone could play them on Switch, they might not have been playing Mario Kart on their phone.
Yep.
Right. They the the target Yes. the material may not be lost, but it may not be accessible to the target audience anymore.
Um,
or if you want to get fancy with it, the tar audience.
Yeah.
Um, yeah. So, uh, it stinks. I think this still even though I don't even though I don't like this game, it is sad that this is happening to this game for a multitude of reasons.
Yep. And we also wanted to be equal opportunity with us yelling at all of the big four for, you know, their various insundry sins.
I feel like we're pretty we're pretty fair. Just listen, we talk about what's going on during the week.
Yeah.
Like like I feel like there was three weeks we were just railing on Nintendo hard for all their nonsense. Yeah.
Like

that's when I was like, you know, as a Sony pony, I'm see how that worked out. Yeah. So, um yeah.
Uh
$40 wasted on Diddy Kong.
Yep. All right. Uh turns out, by the way, if you do a bad job, you get fired. If you do a good job, you also get fired. Especially if you work for Ubisoft. So, uh Assassin's Creed Black Flag Reyn just came out. We'll be doing a uh design club uh live um or a regular design club where it came from uh the originally over at PAX West on uh the first hour of this game by the way. Cool.
So you can come see us there. I believe we're in
I don't remember what it's uh it's one of the dates. It's in the schedule. I'll find it later once we get closer. That's like September.
Okay, cool. Um uh so they they launched this game. It's going real well. It's sold like gang busters.

My physical copy is arriving today.
Yeah, time for layoffs. Um, the team at Ubisoft Barcelona is uh laying off 51 people out of the team that specifically worked on Black Flag. now. And and we uh this is always weird, right, when we talk about these because there is some amount of contract work that ends when a new game goes live.
And we want to make sure that we're being fair about this, right? That there is a world of difference between a contract ending and a long-term
employee position getting terminated.
Those are two different things, right? Because the the the model of consent for the employee is different, right? If you consent to a contract for working on a particular game, that's very different than I'm going to work for Ubisoft for forever, right? And then I get fired because the game I was working on got

shipped, right?
Yeah.
Um so yeah, that super sucks. Um, the Barcelona team has been talking since uh, summer 2025 about how they have not they've they never got their all right. So, after Black Flag ships, you're going to do X, which is normally how Ubisoft does stuff, according to this Insider Gaming article that we're we're taking this from. Um, and so they never got their next assignment. So they've kind of known that this was probably coming for a while, but like why didn't you just tell them Ubisoft? Like if if you knew in summer 2025 that you weren't going to keep these people around, you could have been like, "Hey,
we're going to sunset your position after this launches. Please stick around for the launch,

right? and we'll give you this bonus and then you can go to a new job, right? But like they didn't do that. They just strung them along and then fired them. So yeah, uh that makes me uh I don't know. It leaves just like a bad taste in your mouth getting the game.
Yeah. I wasn't going to get it to begin with. Now I'm super not going to get it. But also like this is a weird philosophical concept. It is not virtuous to not do a thing you weren't going to do to begin with.
Oh, of course.
Right. And so like you don't get to be like, "Haha, I'm not going to get this." I already wasn't going to get it cuz I kind of hate Ubisoft. Right. And so
this is the first Ubie. It's You know what's funny? Holy. I I didn't even realize this. Black Flag Reynings is the first Ubisoft

game I've bought since Black Flag.
Sure.
Whoa.
Yeah.
Weird.
Yeah. Also, some of the reworked faces feel a little
I'll let you know. I haven't I haven't actually booted it up yet.
Uh
uh. It's an Ubisoft game though after completing the project. Isn't there a bunch of bases to clear and climb towers to climb before being fired? True. Correct. Excellent.
Yeah.
All right. Uh speaking of layoffs, this this rolled in late last night as we were talking about uh the show, but we would be remiss if we uh didn't also mention uh that GameSpot's been hit with layoffs.
Yes.
Um uh Fandm owns GameSpot, by the way. magnanimous.
Don't use fandom wiks. Don't use fandom wiks. Don't use fandom wiks.

Just don't
don't do it.
Use use the wiki for the game that you're playing. Especially if it's like you there there are plenty of games that have moved away from fandom wiks for a reason. And part of it is that fandom keeps doing this. I was actually thinking about asking for that disc.
I don't want to. I I I like I I I don't want this show or any gaming discourse ever anywhere to be that's literally why we did the thumbnail
the way we did the thumbnail here is cuz it's annoying and it's sad and it's becoming normalized and it's bad and uh
but like this kind of brings up a larger issue with talking about what's going on in the game space. like we we struggle often times in the week to find anything that is good. Uh because we don't just want to sit here and be like, "Well, everything

sucks." Um
yeah.
Uh
it's just it's draining. So like I I I I appreciate the ask, but I don't think we're going to be doing a a layoff stinger.
Yeah. Uh they cut the site's entire commerce team as well as the vice president of games and entertainment, Chris Grant. Um, so yeah,
this comes from aftermath.site and fandom did not reply for a request for comment at time of publication.
Right. Everyone everyone was shocked by that.
I know they're normally so chatty.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, okay. And then we have one uh in interesting uh story that Matt added last minute. So Matt, could could you tell us a little bit about about this? So this is just starting but this is one of the reasons why I like doing this on Friday because stories trickle in that I literally saw this morning. So I have not done you know the doist of diligence on this yet.

However from uh from two places uh one I could not see fortune.com which I do not subscribe to and screen rant. Um, PlayStation is facing now a $450 million lawsuit following the physical media announcement. Uh, this is coming in, I believe, um, from, let's see, this is response to anti-consumer movement from the Japanese gaming company, a Dutch nonprofit stitching uh, mashandas and cons uh, consumement has filed a lawsuit seeking upwards of $400 million to compensate and affect the affected PlayStation users in the Netherlands. Um, essentially they say this, quote, "No discs means no secondhand market and no uh alternative to the PlayStation store. So from 2028, Sony alone decides what games cost and even how long you're allowed to use it." Um, essentially that is exactly the harm our fair PlayStation claim is about. A price can never be fair when the buyer is left with no ownership and no alternative.

Um, good on them. Uh, I think this is going to be the first of a lot. I think and this truly doesn't mean um like every other digital thing including Steam or anything like is entirely fair. What's interesting about the reason why people don't complain about that as much is they have essentially offered things to counterbalance the bad things around digital ownership where PlayStation has none of those things to compensate. Yeah.
So, it's not that everything is super legal and fair in my eyes on all these other platforms. It's they offer things to make me not look too hard at it. And Sony has just been like, "No." So, uh I think um there actually there's a couple other things. Other lawsuits against Sony and PlayStation are also in progress, including a $2 billion lawsuit

in the United Kingdom. a class action settlement in the United States was granted preliminary approval this spring. So, uh yeah, this is just the beginning. It's a slight piece of hopeful uh a nugget of hope in these dark times.
Yeah. And and uh I just want to address Dark's comment. $450 million is nothing to $150 billion company. Yeah. This is this this just covers users of the PlayStation in the Netherlands.
So imagine if this hits imagine if they have to pay this out. That is blood in the water and the sharks will come,
right?
Two billion in the UK is nothing compared to the number of users in North America. The number like it this is this is this is testing, right? This is will this stick? All right, cool. Great. It will bigger.
I think Sony will fight this like crazy. Not because they're going to be hurt by the money, but because it sets an

interesting global precedent to their decision to try to do this.
Y
um.
Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep.
Uh okay. I think that does it for all of our stories this week. Uh I'm glad I'm glad we got some good stuff in there. I'm glad we can, you know, we'll be able to to pull up a seat in Minecraft. I'm glad uh we get to talk about fun WOW plagues. We are trying really hard to incorporate more good news where we can find it. And a reminder,
actually, yeah, I was I was just going to say uh because of that, please if you you could message us here in the comments, you can message us on Blue Sky if you're watching on Nebula. We obviously tell us the bad news. That's fine. We also would love it. We would love it if you found good news stories that were fun and engaging to talk about because um those are the harder ones. Like chances are Will and I have probably heard about the bad one because the screaming.
All the screaming.
Yeah. Right. Um and this is this is

precisely the reason why um my blue sky has bodega cats as one of my longest followed accounts.
I have pawsums every every hour.
Psums every hour. Bodega Cats. Um, on Reddit, I've got Made Me Smile, right? I've got like all of the like
and and do do that for you and also help us do that for this show. Yeah.
Right. Help us find the the the Yeah. Right. Yeah. Um, yeah, absolutely. In indie indie stuff is fine, right? Any amount of good stuff. Um, I'm sure next week we'll be able to report on the total from SGDQ, which will be a big uh good good news thing. Um, so again, please help us tell the good news stories that you're hearing because they don't get traction because they don't get clicks and we'd like to bring some visibility to those both because we think they should be more visible, but also because it's an emotional pallet cleanser in between
Xbox layoffs and also Andrew brings up a

really great point. Is Blue Sky better than Discord? I don't have Blue Sky. No, if you're on our Discord, uh if you're a member on Twitch or you're a YouTube member or you are uh a Patreon member and you are in our Discord, message us in the breakfast uh channel in Discord. Absolutely. That's to be honest, that's the fastest way. Um but the blue sky is for everyone else who's not in there.
Yep. Yeah, there are there are appropriate channels and I read
I I cannot stress this enough and I think people think I'm exaggerating. I read every message in the Discord. And before you think I mean most messages, no, I read all the messages in the Discord cuz I'm in charge of moderating there. So
that is also not a challenge in the Discord.
I'm trying to save you. I'm trying to save you.
Yeah. Uh I also read faster than you think. Uh [laughter]
no, no, no. It's a lot chat. But
how dare you? Yeah,
I read at a fourth grade level. Um, okay. I guess the only thing that's left

is our patented non- patented because everyone can do it. No, we patent it and we give the patent out for free. Ending of the show.
Insulin patent show.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it's the polio vaccine. Um, but the um, you know, the same one we do every week because we want to make sure that we send you off into the weekend with a lot of really good vibes and just uh, general general good time inness in this awful time. So, if everyone would please join me in raising your tiny bowl of blueberries, which you've all prepped this entire thing. Will's got it right there. He has it off screen. He's just pretending right now, of course. Uh, and and just, you know, eat as many blueberries with me as the screams are in your head. So, thank you for watching Games for Breakfast. We'll see you next time.