620: Daniel Bloodworth: Hades 2, Cloverpit, Anata, Power Wash Simulator 2, Lego Party, Carimara, Fortnite Demon Hunters, Sonic Racing Crossworlds, Xbox Gamepass price hikes, EA sold for $55 billion

Interactive Transcript

Speaker A Elc.

Speaker B Yeah, there it is. When that robot voice comes in, you know it is time to begin. And wherever you are, whenever you are and however you happen to be listening, we're so glad you're chosen to tune in to elc. Woo. Especially if you're one of our geeks and sneaks using this podcast to power you through a workout or a run. Or hey, maybe you're out there browsing the pumpkins, maybe you're frolicking in the patch, maybe you're enjoying the fall leaves. Whatever the case, we're going to be in your ear holes for 90 plus minutes of gaming goodness. Because DLC is your downloadable commentary for the week, delivered the way we love it to be. And that is completely free thanks to our patrons@patreon.com DLC pod those amazing people are bringing the show to you. Their support, their belief in what we do, their the value that they see means that we get to keep making this show and they get some value in return. Including ad free versions of the show, video versions of the show on demand, and a whole bunch of bonus content including extra episodes, extra shows, entire seasons of shows that like Feeling this with Christian Spicer and Alex Solman talking about the feelings behind video games. Extra bonus chats where Christian and I are hashing out plans and philosophies. We also got the Wednesday paid DLC program which is the complete other side of the spectrum. It's just all goofballery fun times. Hanging out with Lana Bashinsky, getting into it with the patrons and their ideas of what's scary, what's not. All kinds of fun stuff. Also we got this show, the main show dlc. The show all about games in their many forms. Games played on desktops, laptops and consoles. Also games that involve dice, luck and cardboard. I'm your host, Jeff Kanata. The spell with two N's and one T. And I'm joined as always by my friend slash co host slash nemesis, the guy who's I believe in a pillow fort as we speak because he just loves pillow forts. Mr. Christian Spicer. Hello Christian.

Speaker A Hello Jeff. Hello everyone. Yeah, my daughter and I went to Blink 182 Alkaline Trio show last night. So we are out of town. No video, but I'm hopefully, you know, travel mic travel setup. We weren't up too late, you know, just late enough to make this still feel early.

Speaker B It's awesome that your daughter joins you with the on the pop punk shows now. How much, how much fun is that?

Speaker A I gotta get it in while I can, because, you know, that window closes at some point where it's no longer cool. Cool to go with your dad, but so far, so good. We're having a blast.

Speaker B No, it's never cool to go with your dad, but maybe not with your.

Speaker A Dad, but she just doesn't go with me.

Speaker B She's just not aware of it yet.

Speaker A I think I'm just cooler than your dad was, Jeff. I think that's what we just established.

Speaker B I mean, my dad's pretty cool. Hey, we got a massive show for you this week. Almost too massive. It's tons of news. A heap in helping. A news that is really crushing us with the weight of its despair. That's okay. We're gonna get through it as we always do. And it's, I think, really an interesting series of topics. We also have a ton of games to get to and an awesome guest to do it with. You know that DLC always stands for your downloadable Kanata and your downloadable Christian. But this week, I'm so excited because DLC stands for Daniel's Loyal Companions, because that's how you might describe Easy Allies. And from Easy Allies, we have Managing Director Daniel Bludworth joining us. Hey, Daniel. How are you? Hello.

Speaker C Hello. Yeah, Managing Editor is what I put as my title. Whatever it means, it doesn't matter. It's a word on a business card.

Speaker B Well, you know, hey, that sounds pretty impressive to me. I like it. We love your work over there. We love the easy alleys. You guys are awesome. So much fun to watch and listen to and so delighted to have you here. And I know you just. You just got back from TGS from Tokyo, right? Yeah.

Speaker C Yeah. My first time in Tokyo since 2010, which is just unreal. Once I, like, looked like. Because I go back through my photos to, like, try to figure out when was I there.

Speaker B Yeah.

Speaker C Like, oh, my gosh. But this is amazingly high energy for Sunday morning, by the way, so I'm trying to keep up.

Speaker B No, don't feel the need to.

Speaker C I'm.

Speaker B I. Yeah, I'm a weirdo that way. But, you know, I. Hey, I'm. I've never been to tgs and even that. Which is crazy to even think. Think about because all the years I wanted to go and almost went, and I never went. And I know we're going to dig into it a little more during the playlist section, but how. How was your trip? Did you enjoy it going back after all those years?

Speaker C Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of things there. I mean, first of all, I have to give a shout out to one of our patrons, Soul Tab. Because I was not planning go to tgs. And then I went to pax, which I was also not planning to go to wow. But at pax, I met On Takahashi from UKIO Studios and he was really like, hey, you should come to tgs. And I'm like hahaha, that's funny. And and then I mentioned it on our podcast and Soltab reached out in the DM is like how much money do you need?

Speaker B Wow.

Speaker C And I did some napkin math and I'm like $3,000. And then like as soon as I had a badge confirmed, he sent it over. I'm like, incredible. Well, there we go. I'm going to TGS now.

Speaker B Wow. What a cool thing. That's amazing. And yeah, we got a lot of news, so let's jump in and start the show the way we always do with Story of the week. Story of the Week. It's the story of the week. Story of the week. Yes, the story of the week. Story of the week is the part of the show where we make our case for the most important stories that happen in the world of games. This week you can always submit stories for our consideration by sending us an email to dlc feedbackmail.com you can also send us comments, questions, high fives, whatever you like. We love getting them from you. DLC feedback gmail.com but that's not the only way to participate, to reach out, to talk amongst friends. We got a discord with some cool folks hanging out talking video games and all sorts of other topics. It's 5x5 DLC on Discord. Good idea to hang out there if you're so inclined. But Daniel, you are our guest so you get first pick of stories. What would you consider to be your story of the week?

Speaker C I would definitely probably agree on the the Xbox One. Yeah, for me that's the one that I included in our podcast this week outside of my TGS coverage.

Speaker B Yeah, it's a big deal, right? Microsoft dropped the hammer this week, announcing massive price increase from for Game Pass across the board. The biggest of course will be Game Pass ultimate, which is getting some new things. It's going to have more games, Ubisoft back catalog of games, Fortnite Crew membership with a thousand V bucks a month, some extra perks. But you're going to be paying for all that extra stuff because it's a more than 50% price hike for the ultimate. Up to $30 a month from 20. So that you know, people have made the joke. Xbox 360 now means $360 a year. Yeah, of course, that's not the only change.

Speaker C Yeah, no, the biggest, the biggest thing there is that the Day One games are now only on Ultimate. I think that's really the price hike. The price hike is. Is that the Game Pass that you were paying for before, which you know, is like $15 a month now to get an equivalent product or service, you need to pay double that.

Speaker B That's right, yeah. So the sort of, you know, Game Day one on Game Pass thing that they've been touting is reserved for only that ultimate tier, which is going to be even more pricey. Everything else is changing as well. Game Pass Core is now going to be called Game Pass Essential. It's going to have more games, evidently, and it'll remain at the $10 a month price point.

Speaker C I think you have cloud streaming now too, on that.

Speaker B That's right. Cloud streaming is now part of all the tiers of Game Pass, So I guess that's a plus as well. And then the next tier down, which used to be called Xbox Standard, is now going to be called Premium. So, hey, your standard became premium. That's cool, semantically. And it'll also have, evidently, according to them, more games. But it also goes up. Oh, no, excuse me. It remains $15 a month, same as the previous standard subscription, but no longer has Day one stuff. Actually, this feels like maybe the tier that is going to catch most of the folks and actually give them extra without charging them more. But PC Game Pass, which is what I've been subscribed to for the last couple of years, goes up to 1650amonth. You know, if, if we Recall Back in 2017, when Game Pass launched, it was only 10 bucks. Now we're up to 30amonth. What is your take on this, Daniel?

Speaker C I mean, I think it just nuked the conversation around Game Pass, you know, like it was, it was a meme. Right, the incredible value meme. Yeah, people accusing journalists of, you know, being paid to talk about Game Pass all the time and all of this stuff. And now it's like it kind of doesn't matter anymore. You know, it's like. Yeah, because that, that, that middle tier now, that premium tier, it's so vague because it's like you'll get first party Xbox games within a year of release, but not Call of Duty. And then I guess maybe some third party games will be day one, just like their day one on PlayStation Plus. But it's just, it's just A big what am I getting? Question mark there now and then, you know, if I feel like there's a lot of people that like they're, they're not gonna bump up to 30 or they're not going to bump down from pre from ultimate to premium, they're just going to bail, they're just going to full on bail. They don't need this anymore. And like, yeah, if they have a PC that's capable of running those games then obviously that's the way to go because you're paying, you know, just a little over half of ultimate to get all the stuff that you wanted.

Speaker B Yeah, I mean that's, that's the direction I've gone. Just because you know I have the PC to run this stuff. It runs better on the PC anyway. So that's where I'm staying. But certainly not an option for everybody. There's a report in Bloomberg that last year's Call of duty Black Ops 6 going to Game Pass cost Microsoft $300 million in lost revenue. So you know, they spent the what7 bill to buy Activision. This is all, you know, the fallout of that stuff. And Christian Spicer, I know you have been predicting exact thing year after year and you've been right every time that you know this, this price is going to creep up. Well, no longer creeping, now leaping up. Lena Khan, who is a former head of the ftc, chairman of the ftc, blasted this. Lena posted on I Believe it was X that Microsoft's acquisition of Activision has been followed by significant price hikes and layoffs harming both gamers and developers. As we've seen across sectors, increasing market consolidation and increasing prices often go hand in hand. This is what they argued when they were trying to prevent the acquisition from happening. And it has happened. What is your reaction, Christian?

Speaker A It's a mess. I mean aside from the naming convention problems that I think Xbox continues to have across consoles and now game past years and it's like oh well the crappy is now called still kind of crappy. And this one is just like, it's confusing. Like same great taste, new look. It's like what are you changing? Like something, something is happening here. You know the deal has been altered, pray I don't alter it anymore kind of thing. And that's what it really feels like, feels like Microsoft and Xbox are doing with game pass. That $300 million loss for call of Duty, however that was calculated I think says a lot of folks wanted to dip into Call of Duty but not maybe stick with it. And when it monetize other ways for them. And I think Microsoft sees a bigger share of that revenue coming in from people who will buy it because of FOMO or wanting to play just a little bit or something like that. But that otherwise won't be captured via one month of Game Pass subscription. I think Game Pass now and as someone who has, you know, let their Game Pass subscription lapse last month ahead of this stuff, but I feel like Game Pass now really seems like it is subscribed for the month when it has a few things you want to play versus a subscription you let run because you don't think about it anymore. Like this is. This is really expensive and as Daniel mentioned, like you get the game within a year. You know, what, what is that like at this point? Like wait for the game to hit the service for you to subscribe versus just knowing it's going to come out. I anticipate this within the year thing is a play for when it launches, when those games launch on let's say PlayStation 5 or Switch, maybe if they're not day and date on Xbox and PlayStation, it can be like now available on PlayStation 5 to purchase or available on Game Pass Premium or whatever one it is. But it's very difficult marketing. I don't think they can say play it day one on Game Pass. I don't think they can advertise Game Pass as being one. Let me rephrase. I don't think they should advertise Game Pass as being one thing because what it is across these different levels is a pretty dang different service. And while I love cloud gaming, I think it's also in the realm now where it has too many different things that are trying to justify the cost additions, but that don't necessarily, necessarily resonate with a wide enough swath of gamers. It's like gaming now is so broad and the person who wants all of Riot's games probably isn't the same person who wants Fortnite Crew because there's not time to play all of Riot's games and grind through Fortnite and that person probably isn't interested in Ubisoft's back catalog. But it's like all this stuff where they try to advertise like we're giving you more. It doesn't feel like it's more of what anyone necessarily wants, if that makes sense.

Speaker C Jeff yeah, yeah, I have the same problem with the PlayStation Plus Essential, right? Like the essential tier on both of these is just insane because like all I want out of Essential on Either platform is online multiplayer and cloud saves, like that's it. I don't need any of this other stuff and I really don't think I should be paying for those things to begin with. But that's what you're putting in essential. And so for those to be like, you know, $80 a year, $120 a year, it's just like, man, what are you doing? Like, like the console is supposed to be the affordable side of things and you're just handing it over to Steam at this point.

Speaker B It is, it is wild to see this. It seems like Microsoft is continually over the last, I don't know, half a year to a year making announcements that seem counter to their, to their well being. You know, raising the price of Xbox, raising the price of Game Pass, you know, these kinds of strange sort of anti consumer actions. And you know, I've been reading a lot about this. There's a few quotes I want to read to you guys and then I'll get to sort of my take on this. But according to Circana, which is a statistics and survey company, Game Pass the average. I don't know how they determine this. I didn't dig in and find out how they actually came to this number, but they claim the average Game Pass ultimate player plays 550 worth of games a year. I don't know what that, what playing that game means booting it up for 10 minutes. I don't know if that counts or it has to be something larger. I don't know the details of that. But of course according to them, they, they, you know, they play $550 worth of games a year, which would still make it a deal by that metric.

Speaker A I feel like that's like the average buffet eater eats $400 worth of shrimp, you know, and it's like, I don't know, it might be true, but you also would never otherwise eat that much shrimp. Right?

Speaker B Like, yeah, that's perhaps true as well.

Speaker A You also don't enjoy all that shrimp.

Speaker C You try more than you would. Yeah.

Speaker B Sample more things than you might otherwise. Yeah. Which, which you know, may be a value that is perceived by the people who subscribe. Certainly is for me also kind of says us players who unsubscribe to Game Pass or Pass plus said they were unable to justify the cost but liked the service. The other quote that I wanted to read to you is the same thing.

Speaker A About Ferraris though, by the way. Um, I like can't justify the cost.

Speaker C Yeah. The insurance bill alone. Right. Someone gave you A Ferrari is like, I gotta get rid of this thing.

Speaker A Yeah, I love it. I love the service. I just can't.

Speaker B Yeah, I love the shrimp. I just can't justify the buffet. Let me find this other. Oh, hang on. I lost it. I have too many tabs. Too many tabs. Well, I can tell you, here's my take is I think we're witnessing not just in video games, but across the entire economy in the US in particular, a bifurcation of the haves and have nots. Or I should say a further bifurcation of the haves and have nots. There's some statistic that the vast majority of video game spending is done by the top 10% of earners in the U.S. this is people whose households make over $200,000 a year. And I think most of the most spending in most sectors, not just video games, is done by those people. So you have. What's happening in video games, it seems to me, is Microsoft. And everybody is realizing that we squeeze the people that can afford it, our whales, right? We can, we can increase the, the, the cost to people who won't notice. We can offer them $120 super edition of the game. We can put in extra bonus features, DLC that helps you get better in the game, that, you know, makes things faster, that saves your time. We'll upcharge and upcharge and upcharge the folks that can afford it and will sustain us and that those prices to those people will keep getting higher because they'll keep paying it. Meanwhile, the other end is all this free to play glut that everybody else is sort of relegated to and can serve that market and free to play you into, you know, still spending money, but also kind of not have the upfront cost that might be an impediment to the folks that will be put off by such price increases. So they're willing to sort of lose the median spender, lose the middle guy, squeeze out the middle guy, and. Because it means we can soak up all the profits on the high end and still serve, you know, push them into the low end of free to play. And I, I see that happening, and it really makes me sad, frankly. It's, I think, a very disheartening turn of events. And it seems to be happening not just in video games, but across everything. It's like, it's the, the, the. The expensive stuff is getting more expensive and the cheap stuff is getting worse and crappier. And woe to the folks in the middle who don't know where to place themselves.

Speaker C Thoughts? Yeah, I. It's funny because I had the misfortune of having a tweet take off this week that was very much along those lines, like what I just said about them, you know, kind of handing things over to Steam and, you know, and it was like one of those things where like, most of the replies didn't read past the first four words. But yeah, it was basically reflecting that. Whereas, like, I'm saying that like, hey, like the, the consoles are like struggling to keep up with what Steam is. Is doing in terms of growth and all this, and they're losing out on, you know, what we used to get where, you know, okay, we would get the. The price dropped to $200 and the price dropped to $150 and then more and more people would get in and all these people are applying, but it's like, oh, but it's PlayStation's most profitable generation ever. And I'm like, yeah, but the market share is down. Like there are fewer people jumping in. That's the problem. Right, right. But like you're saying to your point, it's like there's more money being spent at the same time.

Speaker B Yeah, because the halves are able to fund everything. The halves are able to, you know, we can keep squeezing and squeezing and squeezing and, you know, at a certain point it'll have to break, I would guess. But this doesn't seem to be a trend that's. That's at its peak yet. I found the other quote that I wanted to read. This is from. This is a post on Blue Sky. Quite lengthy, but I think it'll be interesting. It's from Frank Cifaldi or Kifaldi. I think it's Cifaldi who created game history.org this is a thread that Frank posted. He says, I used to work for a company called Game Tap. We were probably. We were probably the first Netflix for Games. Started around 2006. It didn't go well. I used to think the idea was ahead of its time and maybe it was. But I also think times have changed and this is. This no longer makes sense. Our big thing was pushing that we had over a thousand games you could play infinitely for something absurd like $10 a month. The way we hit that number was balancing newer PC games with about half the catalog being emulated. Old console and arcade stuff as part of the content team. I looked at player behavior closely and it was pretty consistent. People would sign up, boot up Pac man and Sonic and other games they remembered Sample them for probably less than 10 minutes and basically never play them again. What we saw is that players did basically one of two things. They either played the larger AAA PC games to completion or they channel surfed and rarely stuck to anything. I presume the latter got bored and bounced, but I don't know. And I had that level of granular and I didn't have that level of granularity with the data. As content providers, the only levers we had to pull were continuing to add more content. So we just kept pushing new games, sometimes like 10 titles in a week, which was incredibly expensive from both a licensing and tech perspective. The new signups from these didn't keep pace with the cancellations. The company was also also way overspent on licensing deals, creating original video content, executive salaries, and even starting an IGN clone for some reason, which didn't help. We also created original games and banked really hard on the promise of episodic content. We funded the Telltale Sam and Max for a while, a missed MMO that saw almost no crossover with other titles and American McGee's Grimm, which by the final episode had, if I remember correctly, less than 200 unique players. I think by the time I left, subscriptions were $5 a month and still bleeding. What the data told me was that people didn't particularly need access to a lot of all the games at once. They just wanted to play specific titles and if we didn't continue meeting those specific needs, they'd leave. Now keep in mind, this is in 2008, which is very different time. But basically his point is perhaps this is still the case. Now I'm wondering what you think of that, Daniel.

Speaker C Yeah, I think there's definitely more engagement with, with Game Pass. I think there's a lot of.

Speaker B The.

Speaker C Indie scene has changed so much in that amount of time and there's just such a flood of incredible titles out there. That Game Pass, I think does a good job of helping people curate that because, you know, you look at Steam and like, you know there's literally like hundreds of games released every week, right?

Speaker A Yeah.

Speaker C So if you see something on Game Pass, there's a fair chance that it's gone through one of those curation rounds. Right. You know, and so you know that it's probably pretty good. It's probably not just something that somebody like slapped together with, you know, a bunch of off the shelf assets. And I think a lot of people do find, you know, find that discovery valuable there. And I think that there are a fair amount of indie devs that you know, find that helpful as well as, you know, especially with the. The upfront check that Microsoft is going to give them. And yeah, and like you said, like, for. Because of the price of Game Pass, there are a lot of people that just have this passively kept it there, because then when there's something that comes out that's interesting and that you hear is like, oh, it's on Game Pass. And they're like, oh, yeah, I've got Game Pass. Cool. And then you go and you play it. And so, yeah, I think it's definitely changed a lot since the Game Tap days.

Speaker B Yeah. Christian, as I said, you've been predicting this. We all knew that the $10 Game Pass subscription in 2017 was too good to be true, and we were all enjoying it while it lasted. But I think incremental increases like this, We've seen it across the video streaming services. Every subscription creeps up, creeps up, creeps up. The. This sort of huge jarring leap breaks from that pattern, I think, and it. It no longer is the. The pot boiling around us. It feels like a real. A real moment to cause people to drop the service, which, you know, if social media is any indication, many have. What. What do you think of this? I mean, is. It. Is. We've been vocal. I. I won't speak for you. I've been a vocal proponent of Game Pass. I still think it's a pretty awesome service. I know you. You let yours lapse, but do you think this is the death knell for the concept of Netflix for games, or is this just something else happening? Tell me what you think.

Speaker A Yeah, I think it's something else happening. I think it's the continued evolution of what this type of gaming is and can be, I think including things like Fortnite Crew. And as I mentioned, you know, the Riot games in there already demonstrated.

Speaker B A.

Speaker A Shift in what game subscriptions provide and what folks might be looking to them for. People that are attracted by that are very different than folks that want to play Starfield or Indiana Jones Day 1. And I think we're just seeing what the idea of what a gamer is, is such a broad term now. It's like saying, I'm a booker. You know, I love books. Oh, yeah, I'm a total reader. I love all. I love book. I read all of them. Every book that comes out, I read. And as foolish as that sounds, like that's what video games and people that cover the industry and people that were like hardcore into the. Into the hobby used to be able to do. And mean it right? Like pretty much every big important game you could play or have a real touch point with. And it's just not the case anymore. And I think these subscriptions are another kind of reflection of that. And I think it's hard to cater to everyone with them. And I think we're seeing some of that with, you know, Disney and Netflix and stuff like that as well, where it's like, what are the subscription services going to be? Is it going to be. For a time Apple TV plus was like the, hey, this is pretty good original sci fi. Like that's what you're going to subscribe to that service for. And like Netflix is like, this is a pretty good actor, you know, from that thing doing a thing that you can have on in the background, like that's what that service is known for. Or Peacock has friends. And it's like, what is the message of Game Pass now? I think that's where it's becoming muddy, but I think it's just an evolution of how these companies want to provide their products. And I don't think it means that subscription services for games are going to go away, but I do think we're going to see continued changes to this stuff. It's wild that we're talking about Game Pass being this, that and the other. And Ubisoft has had theirs for years now. Right. Like it's been a thing and it's kind of just trucking along and if you want all the Ubisoft games, you can just do that one. Amazon has theirs. That's all cloud based and streaming.

Speaker C Yeah. Luna actually had an announcement this week as well.

Speaker A It did, right? Right now it's just a name change, I think, but that probably is the.

Speaker C Well, it's more that. Yeah. Luna itself, you know, was, when it launched, it was like a stadia competitor. Right. That was the main thing. But now that like cloud gaming is becoming more taken for granted, they're going into this like family friendly, like you don't need a controller, like a lot of jackbox style games and stuff like that, in addition to, you know, the more traditional games that we're thinking of. But yeah, they really are wanting to lean into like, hey, if you've got like, you know, any kind of Amazon device that can stream or whatever, then your friends just need a phone and you guys can play games together in the living room.

Speaker A And I think that's a great point, Daniel. And I think that just kind of further reflects on what this kind of changing landscape is. Or maybe not changing, but Just how broad the landscape is now. Right. And so I think we're seeing Game Pass figure out what that is going to be for Microsoft. And I agree with you, Jeff, that it is right now seeming to lean into the. How much, how much can we squeeze these whales for, like, how long until they notice the squeeze. At what point does someone say, this is too much for me to have on in the background? And I think they're, they're playing with that. And, and for me, even before this price increase, I agreed a lot with that Blue sky post you read, Jeff. Excuse me, where I, you know, I, I don't think most people have time for all of the games that are available on Game Pass. It was just cheap enough. All the games that they want to play, I should say it was just cheap enough that you had it, because why not have it? But I would agree with that post. I think a lot of people didn't necessarily feel good about how they were gaming, much like eating at a buffet, it's really fun to do for a little bit. And then after a while, I think you leave kind of feeling sick and empty and it all kind of feels a little shallow.

Speaker B The wildest thing to me about all this is that everybody called it. I mean, Lee Hepner on Blue sky posted in March 2023, Microsoft told the court Game Pass prices will not increase as a result of the Microsoft Activision merger. On July 10, 2023, a federal judge whose son works at Microsoft rejected the FTC's challenge to the merger. Here we are, two years later, a little more than two years later.

Speaker C The funny thing to me is I really don't buy into that, that necessary cause and effect.

Speaker B You don't think them spending $7 billion on Activision resulted in them raising the prices on Game Pass?

Speaker C I mean, it's, it's weird because I think there's part of it that's there, but I think it's, it's like, it's just this weird mashup of different factors. And so I think it's, it's, it's more that, like, yeah, Xbox spending that kind of money suddenly, like, turned Daddy Microsoft's head, right? And now it's like, hey, what's going on over there? Even though that's basically been Xbox from the start, right? Like, the reason the original Xbox got any kind of market share was because they put out a machine that was more powerful than the X, than the GameCube and the PlayStation 2 at around the same price point. And even back then, we're all, like, this doesn't add up. Like, this machine should be more expensive and they got out of that generation as quickly as they could to launch the 360. Right?

Speaker B So. Well, I think, I don't disagree with you, but I think that might be a distinction without a difference. Right. It's like it didn't raise as a result, but it made the parent company go, hey, let's get a little return on our investment. I think those are the same thing.

Speaker C Effectively, but I also think it's like, it's there. So, like, let's put all of our cash into AI. Like, you know, like, if we're going to be losing money somewhere, we want to lose our money on AI and let's just pull it from everywhere else.

Speaker A It's market conditions. Right? Former lawyer talk here. We're not going to raise prices because of the merger. We're going to raise it because of the.

Speaker B Any other reason we can think. Because the market that we created as.

Speaker A A result of the merger, market conditions are totally different. We don't have a competitor. Oh, I mean, that market is so different.

Speaker B How could we have seen that company coming? Anyway, it's a mess. We will be on top of it and continue talking about it. I know a lot of people are being forced to give up Ultimate. You know, I'm not a huge fan of the fact that PC Game Pass went up five bucks or whatever a month. Not, not, not pleased. But I do think that's the sweet spot for me. I personally am going to continue subscribing to PC Game Pass because I do like to play as much as I possibly can and. But, you know, if that gets over 20, I'm gonna have a real hard time justifying even that. So it's hard. All right, let's take a quick break for a sponsor. We'll be back with more disheartening stories right after this. This episode of DLC is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace. Squarespace, the all in one website platform that is designed to help you stand out and succeed online. That is for everybody, not just, not just established businesses that are looking to scale up and do better. That's even for people just starting out. You get everything you need at Squarespace to claim your domain, showcase your offerings with a professional website, grow your brand, and get paid all in one place.

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Speaker A Travis Barker still kills it on a drum kit. You know, that's what. No, I'm just kidding. Positive story for a guy to be able to play for that long that technically and put on a show. What a feat. I just wanted to get a little feet.

Speaker B Is that what he said?

Speaker A On his feet?

Speaker B Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A No, his feet are probably hitting the kick drum all the time.

Speaker B So.

Speaker A EA did a thing, guys. EA was acquired. Speaking of bills, Billions was acquired or made private, I guess, kind of still an acquisition.

Speaker C Has it gone through? Because that's the thing, like as a question when the story broke of like it was still. It's like in motion, but maybe not quite there yet.

Speaker B Yeah, I would agree with that. In motion.

Speaker A All of the.

Speaker B Yeah.

Speaker A I mean, I don't know if the, the blood, I mean, ink is dried.

Speaker B Yet, but it takes a minute to move. 55, Bill, you know what I mean?

Speaker A Not for some countries. I don't think it does.

Speaker B I think. I don't know how it works, but I'm pretty sure trucks, you know, to move. I don't know. Go ahead.

Speaker A Yeah. So the Saudi Arabia's private investment fund, or public investment fund, sorry, Silver Lake Partners and Jared Kushner's affinity partners brought all this money to the table to turn ea, to make EA private. I think it's also coming with 20 billion of debt from Chase, I believe is financing that, that 20 billion and it's Saudi Arabia's continued spend. They said very publicly what I want to say it was last year. So it's probably three years ago, the way time works, that video games was going to be another. The next big focus for them. And what they wanted to do with.

Speaker B This, hey, it's expensive to murder a journalist. It costs a lot of money to do that. Luckily, we have a lot of money.

Speaker A They invested in sports, they invested in soccer and is it live, the golf. Golf tournament. They're investing in comedy right now. They're doing a big push there. And now they're doing this big push in games. And to be clear, they have a lot of investment in games already, often as minority shareholders in a lot of big gaming companies. But this, with Jared Kushner and folks full on acquiring EA for $55 billion feels a magnitude bigger than those minority holdings in those other companies. To me.

Speaker B Yeah, Scopely, which is the company that does Monopoly Go and other mobile games.

Speaker C Yeah, they have Niantic, all of that.

Speaker B Yeah, yeah, Niantic, which is Pokemon Go. Those are they.

Speaker A Well, Niantic. At least they don't like Geo Track people.

Speaker B Yeah, yeah, yeah. What could go wrong? Yeah, this is, this is a big deal. This is EA is a massive sale again. 55 bill. That's nothing to sneeze at. And it means the company is no longer public, it's now private. So, you know, I think this is, you know, it's hard to keep this in, out of the realm of, of personal opin in on, you know, sort of a political side because this is a, these are actors on the international stage that have done some real heinous stuff and some real, you know, it's, it's not, it's difficult to look at this and not think of 911 and think of Jared Khashoggi and all these horrible, horrible things that have happened as a direct result of the same people writing this check. Not just the same kind of people, literally the same people. So it's hard. It's hard. This one's a hard one for me. Daniel, what is your feeling?

Speaker C Yeah, I think the, the weird thing for me is I feel like despite all that, that these are very money company deals were like, yeah, they're trying to buy some cultural relevance but at the same time I think they really just want to own things and, and it's like, and, and they don't want to mess with too much of, of that stuff. They don't want to like, they want, they want to have like some separation there. Right. That's why it's behind, you know, like the, you know, public investment fund and the savvy games and all these kinds of things is like they're trying to create some layers of distance between those, those things that you don't associate with all that. I think to me the thing that's, that's more, a little bit more worrisome to me at the moment is, is what you're saying about that amount of debt and how they think that they're going to be able to get that back. Like they're just putting this big, this big bet that AI is going to save them tons of money, which is entirely unproven and most likely false. And so that's going to result in a lot of pressure on these studios and a lot of layoffs and closures and other things like that.

Speaker B Forgive me, I, I said Jared Khashoggi his name is Jamal, or was Jamal Khashoggi. I forgive me for that. I was conflating, obviously, Jared Kushner's name. Yes, I, I agree there are, there are worry points across the line here, but according to Electronic Arts and their CEO, who remains the same. It's all going to be fine. It's all going to be fine. I suspect this Andrew Wilson, of course, the current CEO of ea, who said, you know, we'll continue doing what we do. Not planning to lay off anybody as a result of this cut to six months from now when EA announces massive layoffs, which seems inevitable to me, but, you know, hey, I've grown a bit cynical about these kinds of things.

Speaker A No, see, they're not planning to because they've already planned it. That's the market conditions. Market conditions made the plan really quick and then was like, no, we're not planning to lay anyone off. Meanwhile, they have the, you know, reduction in force plan ready to go.

Speaker B Market conditions are changing as a result of $55 billion that we paid. I don't know, I don't know what else there is to say about this. It is disheartening is the word of the day.

Speaker A I think it's a big wait and see in terms of, aside from the, you know, the humanitarian issues and if there's going to be, or to what extent control will be exerted over the types of content that comes out. You know, what does this mean for Bioware and the types of games that they've traditionally made? What does this mean for. Is it Hazel Light Hazelite, however you say, yeah, what does it mean for that type of studio? That I think those games probably did well. But for a time EA was, you know, unravel, I think was part of their, like, hey, we're going to give, you know, we're going to be a publisher that helps and highlights these other types of games and these indies and you know, have a, have that type of branch or does this mean like, EA is really going to be Activision 2.0 where it's like, we have Battlefield, we have FC, we have Madden, and we are going to really leverage these ongoing microtransactionable games to also now really continue to squeeze our whales. And I'm curious and how. I don't know how this will shake out. We are seeing some continued pushback in terms of loot boxes and microtransactions being labeled as gambling and not being allowed for minors. And so I think there's kind of a few question marks in the air for what EA's business strategy is going to be, including as Daniel mentioned, their, you know, very public saying of AI is going to get a lot of this done for us. But I think immediately for folks that play games, I think the impact that might be seen first and foremost are the games that EA makes. Does the next Star Wars Jedi game come out exactly or doesn't make, you know, where do they take those risks and what do they look like?

Speaker B Yeah. All right, one more story. This is kind of looping back to the Microsoft of it all. There is a report, the Verge is reporting that Microsoft is internally testing a new ad supported version of their game streaming service, their cloud gaming service. This would be, would give gamers the ability to cloud stream games. Presumably they already own or a subsection of games. Perhaps they do not without paying for a game pass subscription, but would require them to watch about two minutes of ads before streaming begins. This would be on Xbox and PC and mobile. They are testing it internally according to the Verge, with employees and they will roll out a public or a sort of a beta test soon in the months that to follow, they say. So I'm curious Daniel, what do you think of, you know, again, I, I think this is more example of what I'm talking about of, you know, this bifurcation that's happening. It's like, oh yeah, no, no, we've got something for the, for the folks that can't afford it will just serve their eyeballs ads. Is this something that you would be interested, well, maybe not interested or you think this would be useful to a subset of the audience.

Speaker C It's a lot of question marks on just implementation on this stuff. I mean for one, I don't really, I don't really like the idea of this kind of like barrier being broken. Like this is something that we see in mobile games that we haven't really seen a whole lot of advertising in the console or PC space. So that's kind of worrisome that like, okay, this is a first step into things that could happen in the future. How else would they implement these ads? But then if I just look at this thing in isolation, right? Like, okay, well it makes sense if you're using this service then you know, it's got to be paid for somehow. And so advertising is a way to make that happen. But then it's like, yeah, how, how, how often, how frequent, how do these ads, you know, work? Because okay, number one, two minutes is too long for a pre roll anyways. Like 90 seconds is about where I tap out and. But then if you're gonna have mid rolls, which I hate in every form, when do those mid rolls pop up? Do they pop up when you push pause? Do they pop up every 15 minutes? Like how often are you gonna have to sit through another ad?

Speaker B Yeah, well, as I prepare for our second ad break, I understand, I understand your, your reluctance for, for mid rolls. According to the Verge article, there's evidently a limit of a one hour session for your two minutes of ad investment and then five hours max. A month. A month. Which seems very low, but this might be very low. Yeah, this, they say this might change if and when the service is rolled out to the public. Yeah, two minutes of ads for an hour of playing.

Speaker C It's about what Twitch does, right?

Speaker B Yeah, I don't think that's out of the norm. And you know, these so called fast channels in, in, in the world of streaming are evidently quite profitable and there's numerous of them. Fast channels, of course is an acronym for free ad supported streaming television. And you know, it's how all of us grew up with actual TV where you'd watch a part of a show and then a commercial would come on and then you'd watch more of that show. So it's not like it's, you know, unheard of. But in the ga, in gaming, it certainly is not considered normal. Christian Spicer Fast or FAZ FASC what do you think?

Speaker A I'll be more on the Furious side of, of this one. I mean, four years ago, five years ago, whatever it is, I would have said like, I don't think this would hold up. I don't think people would tolerate this. But every quarter, I guess that's changing now as well. Every time they, the streaming lords, give us peasants their peek behind their curtain. Disney and Netflix tout you know how many folks have signed up on their ad supported tier and that seems to be doing so well for them that they're also raising the price of the ad supported tier. So it seems like in, you know, media watching, people are very willing to tolerate advertising again and, or they found the inflexibility of how much they're willing to pay for the thing. Right. They're willing to make that trade off to consume some ads to get the thing for less dollars. And I'm curious how that translates to gaming again. Four or five years ago I would have said there's no chance, you know, when hell freeze is over, this will take off. But now seeing it be tolerated in other spaces, I have to think it's going to be tolerated here as well. I do think two minutes on mobile is. Is too long. Like if you're sitting somewhere and trying to play a game on your phone or something like that and you have two minutes of ads, you've probably lost the chunk of time that you were trying to kill by playing that game. Unfortunately, I think this will be successful. I also think, gentlemen, that these changes, this, like, advertising coming in and the price increases going up. I think we're going to see continued slash renewed piracy. I think a lot of this stuff, and it's not talked about a lot, but I think a lot of the stuff that we've seen that was like the golden era of subscription services being priced well for the consumer, was born out of industries reacting to piracy. And like, well, we got to charge them something, but we can't charge them too much. But, you know, if we charge them too much, everybody's going to continue to Napster their songs. And apple was like 99 cents a song. We're going to make it easy, we're going to make it convenient. You're going to get the thing you want to get, and it's not that much. And for most people, that worked, right? That switched them over to monetizing instead of downloading the Backstreet Boy song they wanted, but takes them 10 times because four of them are, you know, plants by the record label. They don't have the whole song on there. I think we're going to see more piracy start both with tv, media, movies, and also gaming as the enshitification of being able to play continues.

Speaker B You're saying they got them to buy, buy, buy. Yeah, yeah. Well, I will say as we head into a commercial break, we are grateful to all the folks that endure our ads. It is one of the means that we are able to continue making this podcast. But it's always possible for you to support us directly@patreon.com dlcpod and remove the ads from your experience. And we are especially grateful to all the folks that choose to do that. But we will take a break right now and be back with the games that we've been playing right after this. All right, let's dive into our playlists. Ooh, what you playing this week? You tell us. Ooh, what you playing this week.

Speaker C Daniel?

Speaker B I know, like I said, you've been at TGS and you've been playing a lot of stuff. Where would you like to start on your playlist?

Speaker C Yeah, we can talk about the TGS stuff for sure. And you know, I don't know exactly where. Where you want to jump in in terms of stories, in terms of trips, in terms of games. But yeah, you let me know what.

Speaker B What stands out to you as most, you know, most impressive to you and newsworthy.

Speaker C Yeah. Like I said, first time that I've been back since 2010, so seeing the show through basically new eyes, almost as if I hadn't been there before, because back then I was with game trailers. Right. And we were rocking a crew of like six to eight people.

Speaker B Yeah.

Speaker C And so even being in Japan on my own was a very different experience than just like following where the leaders were going. So I had a lot of people that were helping me to, you know, here's where you should stay and, you know, here's how to use the train cards and here's where to get press registration for TGS and all that stuff. But in terms of the show itself, you know, it's really. It just shows me, like, what a different era that we're in. Because in 2010, TGS was really on a downturn. Like, it, like, halls were like very. Just wide open empty spaces. There's a bunch of mobile stuff. And then, you know, had like, Monster Hunter and like a Dragon and not a whole lot else. And now it's, you know, not only are the. The main halls packed full of people very similar to Gamescom, but they also have like this whole other building where they have indies and a bunch of other stuff. I had some friends, though, that are very frustrated with the Indie hall this year, though, because in the past, the Indie hall was the Indie hall, and now it's being taken over by a lot of merch and like, AI vendors and like Samsung and things like that. And so the indies are kind of getting shoved into a little bit of a corner.

Speaker B That's a bummer. Yeah. Don't want to see that. Yeah. But you found it was kind of sort of grander and maybe back to its former glory or at least sort of showing signs of life.

Speaker C No. Yeah. I mean, I think that, you know it from the sound of it, they're basically like hitting their capacity. Like they, like on the public days, like, they simply just cannot put any more people in there. I think people were even saying that, like, tickets were sold out, right? Yeah, they had, I think the total attendance that they. They cited was like 263,000. But the way that they count. That is kind of funny math because it's like they count you every day. So if you go four days, you get counted as four People. Right, right. Okay.

Speaker B So divide that by some. Some subset of actual individual humans. But yeah, that's a lot of. Still a lot of attendance over four days.

Speaker C Yeah. And they have two business days. It feels, I think that this, the second day there, I think there's like a higher end pass that people can buy to get in on a business day or whatever. So I definitely felt like the increase in crowd on the second day. But overall, even on the second day, like, I was still able to, you know, pop up to things and play games in a booth without having to wait in line very long or anything like that. And then on the public days, it's just like, no, if you don't have an appointment, you do not belong here. Yeah.

Speaker B Yeah. Well, what was the coolest thing you played while you were there?

Speaker C I think I'm going to. Oh, this is another thing that's funny for me because I have been traveling like a madman this year. And so I was also, you know, at Summer Game Fest and at Gamescom and at PAX and booking this show last minute. So there was a lot of things that were there that was like, I don't need to see that because I've already played Prague twice. Right. So.

Speaker B Right.

Speaker C I did play the Switch 2 version of Resident Evil Requiem. And that is really, you know, I think, I think that's one case where like, you, you're buying this version because you want to play it handheld. Right. And if you're buying this version because you want to play it handheld, then it holds up. It's great. I like played it in desktop mode and like, really the only places where I could like spot the difference between the PS5 version is like, if I really like, if I walked right up on top of a statue, you know, and saw like the textures and the modeling and stuff, but otherwise it's just like I'm just playing Resident Evil Requiem on a handheld and it just looks and runs and plays the same as if it was on the PS5.

Speaker B Wow, that's great. That sounds cool.

Speaker C Yeah, like the lighting and the audio and the HD rumble, all that stuff was, you know, just really good in terms of like, new stuff. I think one of the talks of the show is Ananta. I don't know if you've seen this from NetEase. There are a lot of social media posts going around comparing some of the things in there to other open world games. But yeah, it's basically like a, like a GTA with anime characters.

Speaker B Yes, we did talk about this a little bit. The name does not catch in my brain. But, yes, it is that sort of GTA anime version.

Speaker C Right, Right. But there's also a lot of other things in there that, like, some of the combat with the main character looks like, you know, playing as Venom and Spider Man 2. When you're traversing around the town, they swing like Spider Man. There's, like, very uncharted style, like, car chase scene. But then it's like, it get. That's the thing is, like, it gets so over the top in so many ways. So there's like, this giant truck that comes out, like, literally knocks the car off of an overpass, and. And they. They're flying through the air, and they just kind of do some flips and land back in the car and keep driving. You know, it's like.

Speaker B Yeah.

Speaker C And I think it's like. It's that kind of, like, boldness and flashiness and just, like, willing to just, like, have more fun with it. Whereas, like, you know, like, GTA has gotten a little bit more to the serious side. I mean, you still do nonsense stuff, especially, like, after you played the story, but it's just more over the top. And, like, one of the missions I did, and. And you can do the GTA 5 character switching thing, too. So there's, like, seven different playable characters. Wow. And you have just, like, a little, like, wheel, and you, like, pop over to that character, and then you shift over to, like, whatever part of town that they're in. And I. I did this mission with this character where she just kind of inadvertently picks up a delivery job. Right. Somebody texted her the wrong number, but she decided to go with it. And you're driving this delivery truck across town, and then, like, the back of it starts, like, rumbling and stuff, and the tarp comes off, and you see that it's a coffin. And then a few minutes later, after you keep, like, you know, bouncing the coffin back and forth, this vampire pops out.

Speaker B Nice.

Speaker C And they're sitting in the back of the truck, and they are literally like puking rainbows as you driving to the. To the waypoint. And you get there, and you're delivering this vampire to a bunch of vampire hunters. And they're like, oh, you, like, you already defeated him. Like, what did you do? And he's like, I was just driving badly. I guess I just got car sick. Yeah.

Speaker B Hilarious. Okay, well, that's different than gta.

Speaker C Exactly. Right? And it's just like. Yeah, lots of. Just it's. And the combat feels good, and the. The driving could probably be better, but you could say the same thing about the driving in gta. Right.

Speaker B So yeah, you came away positive on Anata.

Speaker C Yeah, I did. I. I do think that, like, we're looking at something that's going to be in that kind of Genshin space, right?

Speaker B Yeah.

Speaker C Because it is. It is a free to play game as well. So we'll have to see how that stuff shakes out. But I think that, you know, Hoyoverse at least has found a way to make that work and keep an audience that doesn't grumble about it too much. So we'll see what. What NetEase does with this one.

Speaker B Very cool. Awesome. That's a Nata was at tgs, one of the things Daniel's playing. Maybe we'll go and round robin this week because we all have lots of stuff to talk about. So, Christian Spicer, what is on your playlist? Or at least one thing on your playlist?

Speaker A Sure. I will start with a sequel to a game I'm not sure if you've heard of, Jeff. Years ago there's this game called Hades. It did pretty well. People seem to like it.

Speaker B See, weird thing is I've never heard of the original, but I do know the sequel. That's weird, right?

Speaker A Yeah. Yeah, it checks out. Hades 2 by Supergiant Games. Greg Casavin is the game director. Hades 2 has gone 1.0. I'm actually surprised, Jeff, that I am the first one bringing this to the show. I thought for sure you would have chomped at it when it went 1.0 and dove in again. I don't think.

Speaker B It's almost like I've played tens of.

Speaker A Hours of this already, but not since 1.0.

Speaker B That's great. Not since 1.0. I have not.

Speaker A Yeah, so I put in about. I think I played only an hour or so pre 1.0, and it was pretty early, right? It was like when Early Access first started. I bought the game back then and now it switched over to 1.0. I'm playing it primarily on my Steam deck. I put about five hours in on this 1.0 release and it is, you know, noticeably different. Again, I have not been playing with every update that they've put out, every patch along from initial Early Access Release to now 1.0. But it feels bigger, it feels more complete. There's, you know, even in your hub, there's more people to talk to, more things to do, more things to unlock how that kind of story is laid out for you in that Hades style of live, die, repeat, get a story beat. You know, when you're back dead again at your hub. All feels complete's not the right word, but it noticeably different. Like, it does feel like they added a bunch more content to this game and it feels more like a finished product, which I'm surprised that I reacted that way to it because when I first played Hades 2 just in early Access, I didn't feel like. It felt lacking. You know, at no part was I like, oh, this is clearly a shell of a game, like a paint by number. And they just haven't done the painting yet, but I can see the outline. Like, Hades 2 and early access felt like a pretty good game. And so seeing all this additional content, it really sticks out. Like, yeah, they did a pretty big update to it. What sticks for me, though, Jeff, is that I think playing it now in this 1.0 fashion really highlights that it isn't the Rogue type game. And I think the game that Supergiant kind of pioneered with their take on the Rogue type that they do in Hades 2 really isn't for me. And because it feels punitive in ways that I don't enjoy. Like, I like getting the story beat, but getting it after I fail on, you know, the second boss. It feels like they're trying to put a spoonful of sugar in my medicine. And I feel that way across how the game gates their upgrades. There's always. And I think it's. I mean, it is. It's the carrot on the stick, but it feels like I'm always feeling as if I don't have the thing I want. Instead of feeling rewarded and powerful for having just done the thing and playing these, you know, four or five hours with Hades 2 1.0 really highlighted or coalesced that idea of why this rogue type game doesn't usually click for me. And I think that's it. Instead of feeling like, oh, I'm so close to doing the thing that gives me the thing, that now I can do the thing to have the power to achieve xyz. I always feel like the thing I really want is still one run away. And then when I get that thing, there's another thing that, that, ooh, if I have that thing, then I'll be able to do the thing to take down the boss that beat me five times in a row. And so while no shade toward Hades 2 in terms of the package it's delivering, the game that it brings to the table is not one that I particularly enjoy. And I don't think I will ever finish it in this 1.0 state, but I Wanted to give it a fair shake now that it's quote unquote done.

Speaker B Yeah. Your ban on Roguelites lasted what, like three weeks?

Speaker A No, it's still the same. I bought the game four years ago. I'm going to check it out now that it's gone 1.0. I'm not. I do not plan on buying any additional ones. And playing this game in its 1.0 release, I think really highlights. Yeah. Why I don't like them. It's always feels like it's putting you down. It always feels like you're not doing good enough. And it's the antithesis of kind of what made games like Battle Royales really take off. I know we talked about this years ago, Jeff, about. They're always empowering you and you don't have this lag time of like feeling bad that multiplayer games used to have her to be like, you died, here's how bad you did. And I feel like Hades and a lot of these rogue type games are constantly reinforcing how bad you did, I think. And then trying to come up with creative ways to make you not feel as bad about it.

Speaker B Well, I think it's a matter of perspective. Right. Because you can look at it like, oh, you did bad, but here's some. Here's a little piece of candy. Or it can. My perspective on that stuff tends to be, oh, you know, I would. I would be dying here. Regardless of the game I was playing. At least this one allows me to sort of have some persistent improvement, some value for the time invested that I can apply to the next run. So maybe I don't fall victim to the same traps that I fell into this time. Or I think. Or even if I don't fall, or even if I am falling into the same traps I'm approaching in a different way, it's switching things up. So the next run is. Has variation to it.

Speaker A And I think that's probably the motivation they want you to take. But I think that's a slightly at least false narrative on the count that no one completes these games on their first or second run.

Speaker B Right. But.

Speaker A So you do need the thing. It's not. You couldn't have. You could have beat the thing before. You need the thing in order to complete the thing. The process is getting to the thing for me. I'm not trying to yuck anybody else's jump who does like it. For me, it feels like a treadmill that keeps stubbing my toe.

Speaker B Yeah, interesting.

Speaker A But that's Hades 2.1.0. I'm curious if you check it out again, Jeff, if you dive back in, if it will sink its teeth into you the way Hades 1.1.0 did.

Speaker B I think the. I think perhaps the flaw with an Early Access that feels so polished is that it doesn't feel like the 1.0 is a big deal. You know, to me, that's. That's maybe the slight thing that's keeping me away. It's like I didn't. I didn't find that game lacking when I was playing it, you know, like.

Speaker A Like I. Yeah, it wasn't Baldur's Gate 3, where it's like, this is clearly a sketch.

Speaker B That's right. This is the first act I, you know, or. Or, you know, numerous other games that I played in Early Access where it's like, oh, this is not finished, you know, which obviously wasn't, but it didn't feel that way anyway. All right, I want to talk about a game called Clover Pit. Folks that live that listen to the show. No, I am a huge fan of Balatro and have been talking ad nauseam about all the different Balatro likes that I have played and have scratched the itch in new and interesting ways. Clover Pit, I think, is closer to Balatro than many of the other ones I've talked about that really are stretching the concept because Clover Pit is also gambling.

Speaker C This is Balacho, and specifically gambling. That is anti gambling for both cases. Well, they both hate gambling, purportedly.

Speaker B Yeah, we'll get into that. But Clover Pit, it sounds like you've played it too, Daniel. Feel free to.

Speaker C I'm familiar with it. I haven't got to play it yet.

Speaker B Okay, so this is. This is Balachro with a slot machine rather than, you know, a poker or card based system. And it really, to me, they themselves, the publisher for this is.

Speaker A Can we call it a Cilotron? No, sorry, it took me too long. I was like really running it in my head.

Speaker C Really?

Speaker B Yeah, the window closed on that.

Speaker A I know, I know, I know. I shouldn't have. It's too late. Sorry.

Speaker B Panic Arcade is the developer. I wasn't able to find a specific person's name, but they're based in Italy. They describe it as Balatro meets Buckshot Roulette, which is a game I have not played, have never played Buckshot. So to me, it felt like a marriage of Balatro and Inscription, which is a game that I loved, was on my top five of the year, the year it came out. I loved Inscryption, but it has got that, if you recall, Inscryption it is sort of a first person. You're trapped in a room, you can walk around. There's stuff in the room to interact with little puzzles that unlock over time that you can figure out the thing to. And there's sort of a mood to inscryption where the game is sort of taunting you. And it's kind of dark and foreboding. A lot of that is in Clover Pit as well. And so you are in firstperson mode. You walk up to a slot machine, you've got little trinkets to buy that effectively work like Balatro's, you know, jokers to add different twists on what happens when the slot machine comes up. So you can sort of mitigate the odds of things coming up. So you can, you know, create all kinds of wild rule breaking exceptions, you know, can make lemons come up more often in, in the, you know, on the slot machine you can make things have bonuses and you know, score double and all, all kinds of stuff. So whatever your mind can imagine, there's tons of those. And you earn the coins that you earn that shoot out the bottom of the slot machine can be applied. You have a minimum you're in debt and you have a minimum you need to earn. Just like Balacha, you have to hit this minimum to, to get to the next level. But you can also use those same coins to buy things. So you're kind of got this push and pull of how am I going to use my resource? Exactly. And then there's other stuff going on too that is mostly the sort of the inscription side of, you know, the room and things. Taunting. There's a trap door. If you don't meet your, your minimum, the trap door will open. It's very foreboding and scary and it looks kind of gross. It's got this like old school, like Castle Wolfenstein aesthetic to it where everything is 3D but sort of pixelated also in those big, thick, chunky pixels. It's got a retro look to it. And here's the problem with Clover Pit from my perspective is it is very effective at what it does, which is scratch the little lizard brain part of me that pull leverage. Hear of nice noise money shoot out which, you know, I have been known to gamble at the casinos, much less in the recent years. But I used to love going to the casinos and playing craps and blackjack and all that stuff and poker. I didn't ever really go to the slot machines because it always felt like the least possible amount of input, the least possible amount of Interactivity. And so at least with Balatro, I'm like, making decisions. And yes, Clover Pit adds decisions because you have to choose which upgrades to purchase and how do you spend your money and whether to spend your money. And so there are, you know, there's a game there, there are decisions to be made, but the problem is ultimately I'm just pulling the lever and seeing what happens. Like, it's just do, do number match, what happened next. It's very simplistic and dumb, and I feel bad about myself while I'm hooked on it, because I am hooked on it. And the being hooked on it is very obvious and kind of the point. And Daniel, you know, brought up the fact that there is a developer's note that comes along with Clover Pit that says, and I quote, clover Pit is not a slot machine simulator. Our slot machine is designed to be broken and ultimately overcome. If you're looking for a real gambling experience, please look elsewhere. Or better yet, don't look at all. We really don't like gambling. That's what the game is about, which I think is a laudable sentiment. It's a laudable sentiment I appreciate.

Speaker C Oh, I thought you. At first, I thought you said a lot of bullshit.

Speaker B No, no, no, it's a lot. I would say it's. It's commendable to be. To have that sentiment. And much of the game's tone reinforces it. However, there is a lot of having our cake and eating it too, here, because what the game. Most of what the game does is what they seem to be rallying against, right? And what I'm. What I'm experiencing most of the time I'm playing it is bling, bling, bling.

Speaker C Bling, bling, bling, bling, bling, bling.

Speaker B Money shooting out, you know, and me going, hey, lizard brain scratched. Me likey gambling, you know, and yes, there is an underlying message there that they're trying to get at, but it is inside the notion of what. What is ultimately captivating about this is the slot machine part. And so I don't sort of feel bad about myself while I play this game, even though I appreciate that it's effective. It's. I know, fun feels like the wrong word, but it's also, you know, it is addictive. I found myself playing it longer than I wanted to, and I'm doing stuff and I'm having fun kinda, but, oh, goodness, is it make me feel icky. Like intentionally icky, but icky nonetheless. So that's my take on Clover Pit. All right, Daniel, back To you. What is another game that's on your playlist?

Speaker C Yeah. How many, how many do you do we want to have?

Speaker B Let's do, let's do three each. How about that?

Speaker C Okay. Okay. So, yeah, I'll pull another from Tokyo Game Show. I got to check out Power Wash Simulator 2. Speaking of games that kind of pull you in and addict you and have you play longer than you think, this was actually a really funny demo because as you know, Power Wash, you kind of get in the zone and I'm there power washing this box truck and talking to the developer and fully going off on tangents and just chatting away. And at some point in the demo I'm just like, like, yeah. So what else is going on in this game? Well, should. I should know things about this game, right? And, and really the, the thing that like kind of struck me is I feel like this is one of those instances where it's a sequel of like, oh yeah, this is the game that like, now they can make what they wanted to make. Right. The first Power Wash was kind of an unexpected hit. When they were working on it, they, you know, had a lot of limitations, very small team, you know, and then it took off and they were able to do a bunch of, you know, expansions and brand synergies with Square Enix, who had published it with the Final Fantasy and all that kind of stuff. And now this is just a, you know, fuller, more robust game. You've got some more tools at your disposal. You've got like, you know, devices like a, like a scissor lift to like, lift you up to higher spaces or like a little window washing seat thing, you know, more environments. They're very happy that they have better, better, better looking dirt to scrub off.

Speaker B Yeah.

Speaker C And you also have like a hub you like now, like, you're not just a guy with a truck, but you actually have an office. And so there's a lot that kind of like fills out in that office and it kind of serves as like a progression because when you do jobs and you get like little mementos from those jobs that go up on your bookshelf and you will like get like furniture and things like that. And so like you get this like nasty couch and then you wash off the couch and like, okay, now I'll put that in my office. And I'm like, I don't know if I would do that, but it's Power Wash, so I guess we will. Wow.

Speaker B Yeah. It's funny how these games have become so popular. You know, we saw no fewer than two different Power Wash pixel art games announced recently. You know, people like the power washing, you know.

Speaker C Yeah, I just saw another one the other day and I don't remember what it was, but there's an. Yeah, there's another game that kind of uses some of. Oh, it's Kaiju Cleanup where he's spraying monsters. Basically you're going in and, and like a Kaiju has been killed and you like playing as a crew to go in and like carve it up and like take it all away and then. Yeah, you power wash the blood off the street.

Speaker B That's foul. That's crazy. The victuals of a giant, what, skyscraper sized monster?

Speaker C That's. Yeah. Like there's one part where they just like had a bunch of meat cubes stacked up and then somebody knocked them over and they're just tumbling everywhere. There's also a very cool. I saw at Summer Game Fest a game called Ambrosia sky which uses similar like power washing mechanics. But you're going into these places that have been infected by this kind of fungal growths and you've got to wash away the fungus. But then there's also like different elemental fungal growth so you can like connect like electrical ones, like complete circuits and things like that. But then it's also doing a lot with its story towards like you're going in to find the people that died in these situations and kind of give them a proper burial. So yeah, so that's an interesting one to keep your eye on as well. But yeah, with Power Wash Simulator, you know, you've, you know, it's, it's, it is a bigger, better version of that, you know, and there's, there's more story there. There's also what I think will be really great is they will have a split screen co op mode so you can sit there and just like with my demo, you know, be with your significant other. You guys can be in the zone washing things down but you know, just chatting about your day.

Speaker B There you go.

Speaker C And they have a lot of Easter eggs and stuff in there too. Like a lot of the names on the books and the businesses and stuff are or people from the development team and all that.

Speaker B There you go. Power Wash Simulator 2 coming soon. Christian Spicer. Another game from your playlist.

Speaker A Take down, take down K Pop Demon Hunters.

Speaker B Sorry, go ahead.

Speaker A Thank you for doing the high note for me. There's no way I'm gonna even attempt Golden. I'm not an idiot. I know my range. It's this the Spice man or Nothing. That's all you get. But K Pop Demon Hunters Rumi, Mira and Zoe have come to Fortnite, which, my goodness, you know that they were hustling on this as soon. As soon as they could, right? They're like, oh, we gotta. We gotta get this done. Having it come out around Halloween, I'm sure something else kind of probably got bumped because Fortnite traditionally does some great Halloween events and collabs. So I imagine there were other plans. But then as K Pop Demon Hunters took over the world, it's gonna be.

Speaker B Weird to have Pumpkinhead in January, but, you know, it'll be fine.

Speaker A They'll make it work. They'll make it work. If Disneyland can start Halloween time, what is it like August 2nd, Fortnite can Fortnite its way into whatever it wants. So the characters, the hunt tricks, the main three main characters are all in the game now as well, along with a demon rush mode. Fortnite Games created by Donald Mustard and Tim Sweeney. But after Donald Mustard stepped down, Charlie Wen took over as chief creative director at Epic Games. And Charlie designed a lot of characters for the mcu, did early drafts and modeling for what the costumes and characters will look like in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And also, this was in a 2019 blog post that Sony put out around the God of War 20th anniversary book that they put out in the Celebration. Charlie is one of the folks who concepted Kratos. And there are these incredible napkin drawings of Kratos and him talking about developing the Blades of Chaos being chained to his arm. And they're just these beautiful ink drawings done on, you know, what look like cocktail napkins. And I had never really put two and two together. I remember that note from 2019. And, of course, poring over all the information that came out around the God of War celebration. But having him in some management lead position over something like Fortnite, I think explains at least partially why these characters across franchises continue to look so incredible in Fortnite. Like, the Huntrick, these models are incredible. Like, absolutely incredible.

Speaker B And it.

Speaker A Every time it blows me away that I can have a game where I can be running around as Zoe and have her look exactly as I'd want her to in this world. Come up next to robocop and also have him look exactly as I'd want him to look. And here's Master Chief saunters in, like, the way they're able to go across franchises truly, truly second to none in this, you know, K pop Demon Hunter interaction. It's not only the characters you see changes to the power ups, the, the way in the Demon Rush mode, the circle you're in is the golden hormone kind of shrinking or shifting, which is such a cool change. Like, Fortnite has all the money, so they're able to do something like that. Right. But it feels so specific to the mode. That mode runs. It started now and it goes. It's scheduled to end November 1st. And it's funny that it's like kind of what Fortnite started as, you know. Yeah, they've had Rush mode. Yeah, yeah, they've had these rush modes before. So it's not tower defense. You're not doing a lot of preparation ahead of time. Like you're getting your guns and finding chests and stuff like that, but you're not setting traps. But then, yeah, when it starts, it's this horde Rush mode where your safe zone keeps kind of moving and shrinking, contracting and bring you to stage set pieces and stuff like that. But the characters, if you want to buy the characters, they're not cheap, are they?

Speaker B They're not free. No. Okay.

Speaker A No, no. You have to free them. Their souls are currently being held hostage by capitalism. But they're incredible. They look so good. But if you want to just jump into it and experience it, if you have kids or adults that are really into K Pop Demon Hunters, in the Demon Rush mode, you can pick up, there will be Huntrix NPCs, so you will fight alongside Roomy or something like that. So it's a cool way to kind of still feel that connection to the franchise in a way that doesn't cost any money. I don't think the Demon Rush mode is particularly the best mode of Fortnite. I still prefer just traditional. No build Battle royale is kind of still my bread and butter, but it was really fun jumping in, you know, with the kids and running around. And my youngest kept saying they would never use guns as we're. As we're mowing down these demons. But man, just when you think, you know, Fortnite's done everything, they do something else and they, they bring you back in. It's incredible. At least if you haven't. Jeff, check out the character models in game. Like preview them in the shop maybe when your kids aren't there, so you don't buy them. But top, top notch character models. Really, really cool.

Speaker B Awesome. That's K Pop Demon Hunters in Fortnite. We're going to take another quick break. Our last one. Be back with the rest of our playlists right after this. All right, Daniel, let's, let's talk about LEGO Party because I see that we both have been playing that. Actually, before I get to that, I want to mention I did finish Lego Voyagers this week with my son with the, the co op game that I talked about, I think, last week. And weirdly, have you guys ever done this where you're like, okay, I'm going to stop playing. And it turns out you were right at the end.

Speaker C I think we did the same thing with Lego Voyagers. We're like, so weird. We were right there. It's like, oh, we know we're almost at the end, but we have to stop now because we were on a streaming schedule and we're like, okay, we got the shift over, so.

Speaker B Oh, I didn't. We didn't have any idea. We were at the end. I thought there was much more to come. And we, and we carved out another block of time. We sat down, booted it all up, ready to go. And we're like two things. And they're like, oh, that's the end. And I was like, oh, we were. We could have finished it last time we played it. Actually, the end really affected my son. He got really emotional. I'm not going to spoil the ending, but it is a bittersweet ending. And he was like, dad, what are we not. Are we not together? Is there not? And it was very. He actually got really emotional. I was kind of proud of him for that. Anyway, another LEGO game came out that Daniel and I both have been playing. It's called LEGO Party. And yes, you guessed it, it's basically Mario Party with Lego. And that's not a bad thing in my opinion. And it turns out to be a whole bunch of fun. This is a, you know, a multiplayer board game Mario Party esque minigame extravaganza where you're moving your little minifig around a series of of squares on these really cool maps. I think they have four. There's a Ninjago one, a space one, a pirate one, and I like a fantasy castle and stuff one.

Speaker C Yeah, we played the, the pirate one. I'm very interested to see the others now.

Speaker B Oh, they're awesome. They all have real fun quirks to them. And the whole thing is presented like a game show with these two host characters. It's just funny because, like, kids, I don't know even kids have a reference to a game show anymore. Like a traditional TV game show. Like the kids even watch network.

Speaker C You're not watching the game show Network.

Speaker B I mean, do kids. I. Because I feel like, this is aimed squarely at kids and I do.

Speaker C It used to be. Yeah. Well, with us growing up, like, yeah, Jeopardy. Would just come on after the cartoons, right? Yeah.

Speaker B Or you'd watch the Price Is Right because you stayed home from school that day. But yeah, now kids are just watching the 40th K pop demon hunters.

Speaker C What.

Speaker B You know, airing that they just push play on because they don't have to watch prices. Right. Anyway, it's a. It feels like a very, you know, old reference to be making for kids that there's this thing called a game show where people talk like that. Anyway, I thought it was charming. I will say. I want to hear what you think, Daniel, but I will say the. The mini games are really fun, but I wish they were more LEGO centric. There's a couple and I'll highlight them. One of my favorites is you have to look at like traditional paper LEGO instruction booklet and you have five seconds to look at it and see all the pieces that are being used. And then it'll. It'll take that off the screen and show you three pieces and it's like, which piece of these is not from the instructions that you just saw. That's one of my favorite ones. Like, ah, but. And there's other ones where you have to build a shape out of Legos. But most of the game, most of the entire game is just a LEGO skin. It's not very Lego y. It's just like minifigs. And the. It's. It's leveraging the IP in fun ways in that everything looks to be made out of Legos and there's LEGO minifigs and there's like 300 minifigs for you to collect in the game and stuff. So the aesthetic is great, but I wish it was more LEGO at its core because you can build stuff, you can add things to the board as you're playing, but they don't get constructed, you know, visually out of lego. It just sort of appears there. Like the Lego ness of it, I think could have been accentuated, but that's basically my only gripe because this game's super fun. I don't know what you thought of it.

Speaker C That is really funny for you to say because I, you know, met with the developers at Gamescom and they were talking about just how strenuous the process of making a LEGO game is. Every single thing in that game has to go through LEGO and be approved by build masters. That it can actually be built not just with any LEGO bricks, but with LEGO bricks that you can buy today. I love that though.

Speaker B I love that requirement. Like, I love that they are committed to making that true. I love that.

Speaker C Yeah. So they're talking about every time that they would make something that was a circle, it was a huge, you know, ordeal. Because you can't just like scale the circle. Like it has to. Like you've got a circle that can be this many blocks or a lot more blocks, you know, but you can't. There's no in between there because there's no set of bricks that will make that circle and still be to scale. So it's. Yeah. Very interesting. Also want to point out that this is the first game published by Fictions.

Speaker B Yes.

Speaker C Which are the people that left Annapurna last year. Right after. Yeah. After that switch over, you know, just basically, you know, internal differences in direction with where Annapurna wants to go. So I'm still kind of curious what Annapurna is going to do because right now Annapurna is kind of in this space where like they're fulfilling the contracts from the previous team. Yeah. And they built out a whole new team. And the only thing that we really know that's new is this like collaboration that they're doing with Remedy. But as for the game itself. Yeah, no, I have a blast. I think that this game, like, is legitimately better than Mario Party.

Speaker B I agree.

Speaker C I think it's filling a hole that does not exist on other platforms. Right. Like what, what else are you gonna play on PlayStation?

Speaker B Right. Yes, exactly. And the fact that it's multi platform is. Is a huge boon. But it's also, I think, genuinely a blast. And all of the, the mini games are really wacky and fun and there's lots of variety in them. And you're, you know, you. There's ones where you're teaming up with people, there's ones where you're all individual. There's ones where everybody is playing at once. There's ones where you all take turns. It's just you're constantly doing something new and different every few minutes. And there's a surprisingly surprising amount of strategy involved in just the sort of board game element layer of it.

Speaker C Yeah.

Speaker B Because you have, you have the, the studs which are your currency, but they don't. Whoever has the most studs doesn't win. It's these gold bricks that just determine the winner. So you're leveraging your studs to get yourself in a position to get gold bricks and there's a whole bunch of different ways to do that. But so like you actually Are have to think a bit about how to strategically win the game if that's what you want to do. It's not just whoever wins the most. Mini games. No, no, no. Because those only give you studs which don't determine who wins. So I thought that was clever and it's so fun and so charming and there's so many unlockables and you know, the, the voiceover game show thing can get a little grating and I wish.

Speaker C I wish it's one of the things that our team really liked about it.

Speaker B Well, I do. I, I like it too. I really like it. But at a certain point I wish you could just skip stuff more.

Speaker C Yeah, I think that's the thing. We played like one, one map and I can see if you go back to it, it can maybe get old after a bit.

Speaker B Oh dude. I've been playing it so much with my kids. They love it. They love. My son loves this game and once he's like, mom, will you play with us? We can all play together. And we've been playing a lot of two player with two CPU controlled opponents and it doesn't let you skip the CPU controlled opponents turns. It's like, just let me skip stuff. Like just let me get to us doing the interactions. And I felt like that's a simple thing that could have been included where if, you know, if, if a human being isn't doing it, let me skip it. If I've heard this, you know, the, you know, it will show you things, it will cut to stuff. It will have little animations. The Ninjago characters will fight a monster because you step up on a square. All of it awesome the first five times you see it. Beyond that, just let me skip it. And the fact that I can't skip it is like, yeah, it's an oversight. Like just let me skip it. But a minor gripe for what is I think a really fun game and easily recommendable. Again, this is SMG Studio and director Mark Fennell. They're based in the in Australia. This developer. So Lego Party is the game. A huge win for me. Daniel, you have one more thing you wanted to mention.

Speaker C Yeah. A game that's actually out now or by the time people hear this. Karamara, which is out today, October 6th. And. And I've been on this critical reflex kick and I don't know how familiar you are with this publisher. They're a newer publisher. They had a couple of hits last year with buckshot roulette and mouthwashing. And a few months ago I was Talking with someone at playstack and they said, hey, you should check out Critical Reflex. And I started checking out Critical Reflex. And the more I check out Critical Reflex, the more I'm like, yo, I really like what these guys are doing. And. And on that kick on my obsession, they've actually just released like four games in the past couple of weeks. There was Trollu, which is this goofy little game where like you're a guy taking like selling tickets on the bus. So people come on the bus, they give you money, and then you have to make change. And then it gets really crazy and wacky and like you have grandmas that want to fist fight you and all this kind of stuff. And you have to literally throw people off the bus if they, if they're trying to like deceive you or whatever. And then there was no I'm Not a Human, which is doing really well right now, which is kind of like a social deduction game, but single player in a way, with a lot of different endings. So there's a lot to like poke and prod in that game. Eclipsium, which I really, really like, which I would describe as like a psychological horror game without the horror. It gets into all kinds of craziness, but it goes places I didn't expect it to at first. I felt very walking simulator when I started and then by the time I got to the end it's like, oh, this introduced all kinds of wild mechanics. Kind of like playing like a Mario Galaxy in first person or something. But Karamara is the new one and this is, I think, and it's really brief, it's like hour and a half or so. And a lot of these are fairly shorter games. And this is kind of a PSX style, desaturated textures, a lot of dithering, that PSX thing where like sometimes textures kind of wobble and stuff, you know.

Speaker B Yeah.

Speaker C And it's first person and I would say it's like a different form of like a point and click adventure or like Case of the Golden Idol kind of a thing. And you play as the titular Karamara, which is kind of like a gobliny shaman esque character, but this character can't speak, so they communicate by like turning things in the environment into cards. So you see something up on a shelf, you turn into a card and then you use that card to ask somebody a question. And you're hired by this, this freaky old woman to get the ghost out of her basement. And the ghost asks you three questions and it's who am I. Who killed me and what did they kill me with? So, kind of like, clue. And so the whole rest of the game is exploring the house and the yard and the basement and the environment and figuring out how to solve this mystery. And it's. It's really cool. And it really goes. By the end of it, it went into directions that I. I didn't really expect. I had. I had that. That arc of, like, at first, like, okay, I'm really feeling this. And then I got to this point where, like, okay, I think I found all the clues, but I don't know how to put them together. So I'm kind of frustrated because I. It's not clicking. What's the answer? And. But then once I knew the answer and I could go back and kind of see, like, what those clues were, I was like, oh, like, there really was, like, every little detail here matters. It's all very well fleshed out and thought out. It's just about you putting two and two together to solve that mystery. And then, thankfully, I don't want to get too far into it, but the reviewer's guide also included some tips on some secrets that are in the game. And after you finish, you may want to similarly find a guide, because I think those secrets definitely shift your perception of everything that's going on there. So it's a very story rich lore. Rich. Even though it's a house in a basement in a yard, this looks wild.

Speaker B Again, the full title is Beneath the Forlorn Limbs, which pretty cool subtitle.

Speaker C Again, one of those things where, like, it sounds like a bunch of words when you hear it.

Speaker B That's true.

Speaker C Once you finished it, then it makes sense.

Speaker B Oh, all right.

Speaker A I also love every video game that described a situation that sounds fascinating as a video game that in real life, I would just be like, nope, you're gonna. Nope, don't even finish the sentence. I am gone. Thank you so much.

Speaker B This looks really cool. I might check this out. This. This is just coming out. Karimara, Beneath the forlorn limbs. Really cool pick. All right, I have one last game to wrap things up with, and that is a game that I did not think I would want to play, but here we are. Here we are. It's called Sonic Racing Cross worlds.

Speaker C Oh, yeah.

Speaker B I. You know, I've not been a cart man, a Cartman. I barely even have visited South Park. Now I live in Colorado. That's terrible. But no, I don't have a kart racing guy. Until very recently, until having kids, I just wasn't into Mario Kart. I'm sorry, I just wasn't. But I wasn't. I'm not into racers in general usually, although that has changed a lot too in recent years. Anyway, I have gotten into racers and kart racers and Mario Kart World gets a lot of Play. Mario Kart 8 got a lot of play in my house, so it's just in recent years that I've sort of developed an appreciation for these kinds of games. And along comes Sonic Racing Cross Worlds, which looks very derivative, or at least it did to me on the outside, and it felt like an also ran and something that I really usually wouldn't spend my time on. But here comes Sonic Racing Cross Worlds to change my mind, baby. This game is awesome. This game is very good as a more than competent Mario Kart clone, bringing some really cool stuff to the table, not the least of which is hoverboards. I mean I'm in just for that. You get carts, you get cars, you get monster trucks in this, but you also get hoverboards. You can ride along, which is super fun. But the game looks awesome. It is stunning. I'm playing it on PC and the fact that you can have a Mario Kart much like Lego Party this very similar theming this week for the stuff I've played where it's like a thing that used to be restricted to Nintendo, now has really great options on a multi platform. You don't have to own a switch to play a great kart racer because Sonic Racing Cross Worlds is now multi platform available on everything and I'm playing on a PC. It looks awesome. I will say as somebody who has an absurdly wide 32.9.

Speaker C You know developers hate you, right?

Speaker B I hate them right back because this it is criminal. I understand that I am a tiny subset of a subset of a subset. I am the smallest little margin of human that owns an absurd monitor like this. But if you offer a game that has split screen multiplayer on PC and you don't support 32.9 resolutions, you should be ashamed of yourselves. I bought myself a monitor that looks that is the same size as two regular size monitors side by side. You don't want the split screen of your game to take advantage of that. Come on. So anyway, that's my biggest gripe about Sonic Racing is that I can't play in 32.9 and let my son and I play side by side next to each other with full size displays on the same screen. That would be rad and it should be required. Other than that I have very glowing things to say about Sonic racing cross worlds because the racing's fun. It looks spectacular. All of the. The tracks are wild and over the top and vibrant and crazy. I mean, there's ones that look like you're driving through a field of beautiful flowers. There's like lava pits that are exploding, there's dragons attacking. It's crazy. But the coolest thing about this game is the cross worlds of the title, which works basically like Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart, if you recall that game where a ring will appear on the. On the screen that sends you through a portal into a completely different track from the game for one lap. And the coolest thing about this is the person in first place at the end of lap one has a choice between two different portals. So they decide which other track you're going to be all going to portal to for lap two, and then you portal back to the original track for lap three. So it's like this awesome benefit, you know, special perk for being ahead of the pack after lap one, because you could decide where you're going. And almost always it's just a wildly disparate environment that you're. You go from this idyllic, you know, waterfall, water castle with, you know, all this gorgeous ivory tower to the depths of this cavern with lava shooting up around you and back again in the same in the course of a single match. And it feels like magic. It's super exciting. It adds a level of tension because you can sort of shoot off your. Your power ups and your attacks and then hide in the portal if you time it correctly. So cool. So visually spectacular and a lot of fun as a racer. Like, really has, I think, a good feel to it. Now, again, I'm not the expert on the kart racer feels, but I feel like I would know if this game didn't feel great. And it feels really fun. My son and I have been having a blast playing it. I'm shocked. Now, it is a little weird that the cross worlds also means that it's like Sonic and his pals, but also other people, because the first unlock that we got was Suny Mike.

Speaker C Right.

Speaker B The. And my son was like, who's that? And I'm like, how do I explain who that is to you? I don't know how to explain that. So that is a little weird. But, you know, there's tons of unlocks. There's like 30 plus tracks, there's tons of cars announced.

Speaker C Mega Man DLC coming next year.

Speaker B Yeah, the car customization or cart I should say customization is much more advanced than Mario Karts. It, you know, you can really, really, really tweak and add and mix up the. The abilities of your cart much more than any Mario Kart has allowed. So it does a lot, right? And it's a blast. It's really wild fun. I think stands shoulder to shoulder with. With Mario Kart, which is not, I think, common with these kinds of also rans.

Speaker C Yeah. Sonic has had like a really back and forth. Like, it's been uneven to where like, like All Stars Racing Transformed was really great and had a lot of, you know, had a similar impression on everyone. Right. Like, people are like, oh, yeah, this just goes toe to toe with Mario Kart. The last one before this team Sonic Racing was like one of those few instances where like, I was working on a review for that game and I just got like, I had all this footage and everything and I just. At a certain point I'm like, I'm just bored with this. I don't even want to bother. I don't want to finish this review. But I agree with you, though. Like, Crossworlds has come back very strongly and I really like that. The mechanic of switching between worlds. I think there's a lot there to play around with. The only thing that seems a little bit weird to me is it's like cross worlds. As we were saying, with the other characters coming in, it feels like, oh, this is the. The way to like Fortnite everybody, you know. Yeah, let's just nickel and dime you for new characters and things for who knows how long.

Speaker B But yeah, but there are a ton of characters already in there to start. So it's not like it's, you know, bare bones and then they're gonna.

Speaker C But that's the thing. It's not the number of characters, it's who they pull in. Right. It's like, oh, you got this guy now.

Speaker B Right?

Speaker C So.

Speaker A Right.

Speaker B Yeah. Anyway, I'm pretty high on Sonic Racing Crossworlds. I just need that 32.9 mode, please and thank you.

Speaker A This is. I think I talked about it years ago when it first came out. But speaking of good Sonic racing games, a Sonic Racing game on Apple Arcade, really good. It's like a lot of drifting arcadey in that regard. And it's free if you have Apple Arcade. Works well as a touchscreen game, I think, in spite of itself, but also works great if you attach it to a backbone or something like that.

Speaker C Nice. Cool. Right on.

Speaker B All right, that's going to do it for this episode. Of dlc. We do have parting gifts coming up, so stick around for those. But Daniel Bludworth, always fun catching up with you. It's been too long since we've chatted. Thanks for being here. Really appreciate it.

Speaker C Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker B Tell folks where they can keep up with you and all the cool stuff you do online.

Speaker C Yeah, so we have an independent outlet called Easy Allies and most of our stuff goes up on YouTube and Twitch. So YouTube is where you can find all of our produced videos as well as the podcast which is also on Spotify and all that other stuff as well. And then we do our live streams on Twitch. So we have a group stream that's every Tuesday and then the podcast is every Sunday. And then if you become a patron, you can get the podcast a couple of days early and some other bonuses and stuff like that. I'm also working on like a, like a patron only like little booth tour of TGS that we've got in the works. But I also like at the show I did an interview with Hamaguchi about Final Fantasy 7 Remake and what they're doing with the Switch 2 port and all of that. So you can find all that stuff over@YouTube.com easyallies very cool.

Speaker B Christian Spicer, what about you? What do you got going on this week?

Speaker A Video games. Who would have thought? I mean there really is no, no downtime. I'm plugging away at some big games I have to talk about soon as I get further into them. This just doesn't stop in the Call of Duty beta just went public. What? Today as we're talking about it. It's never ending, friends. It's never ending. But if folks want to follow this show, it's on Blue sky and Instagram as DLC Hype Train. And if you want to get in touch with me, I'm also on Blue Sky. But probably joining our Discord is probably the easiest way to come chat video games with us. Great stuff going on in there. Happy birthday J. Dizzle. Just hit the old man mark. Yeah, I'll call you out, buddy. Joined us as Crossing Over. Oh yeah, wait till those knees start hurting, friend. But it's a great place to come hang out. So join the Discord. Hang out indeed.

Speaker B I will underscore that recommendation. You can also listen to me on other shows. I do the film cast talking about movies and TV shows and we have concerns a comedy science show. Both of them available wherever you get. Podcast. Also the book club. Don't, don't sleep on the book club. It's good Times, dude. Good fun, dude.

Speaker A Come on.

Speaker B I don't know if I'm supposed to say it. I guess I can. It's public.

Speaker A People are talking. I haven't been able to talk about it on our socials yet because you're like. And. But then other people started talking about it. So at the end of the episode, if people are still listening, you can definitely say it.

Speaker B All right. The book club, you know, we've been covering Steven Erickson's magnum opus, this ten novel. Incredible. I think the greatest fantasy series ever written. It's called the Malazan Books of the Fallen. We have just started book 10. We found out this week that the. The newest Malazan book. That is the newest Malazan book, which is called. Which is called. Oh, gosh, no, no. Life Forsaken is coming out at the end of October, and Steven Erickson is dedicating the book to us.

Speaker C Oh, wow.

Speaker B Yeah. The dedication of the book is to Jeff and Lana from the DLC book club and other. And the other book club booktubers who jump into Malazan World. So he names us. It's. I was overwhelmed. Brought me to tears. It's just been an incredible experience. So I feel very honored by that. And, hey, it's a vote of confidence vote from the author himself saying how much he appreciates our contributions to the community around his incredible novels. So get on board. Read something that will absolutely gobsmack you over and over and over and read it with us by checking out the book club. All right.

Speaker A I love the title. Or the, I guess, stinger one liner on the front of no Life Forsaken. A goddess awakens to a new world only to find that some things never change.

Speaker B Yeah, good.

Speaker A Tell me about it, Goddess. Tell me about it.

Speaker B I have said numerous times that if everyone on earth was required to read the Malazan Book of the Fallen, the world would actually be better. It would be a better play. That's how powerful these novels are and how much they have to say about the state of the world, even as fantasy novels can't recommend them higher. All right, enough of that. Let's wrap the show up now with our parting gifts. Hey, give us a suggestion of what to do this week. Give us a parting gift. This is your parting gift. Dance. Daniel, do you have a suggestion to help people get through their week?

Speaker C I'm gonna do one that's gonna be inaccessible to many people, but write it down, keep it in mind. So if you are aware, in Japan, there are many varieties of KitKats here, maybe we'll get chocolate and peanut butter. Right. White chocolate. But if you go to a store in Japan and you look at a chocolate aisle, there's be Kit Kat, Kit Kat, Kit Kat. Strawberries and green tea and all these kinds of things. This time I was looking for something I hadn't seen before. And there are Mount Fuji Kit Kats in like a triangular box even.

Speaker B Wow.

Speaker C And they are blueberry cheesecake flavor. They are really good.

Speaker B That sounds amazing. I want that. All right. Got to go to. I got to go to Japan now. That's it. That's it. Blueberry cheesecake Kit Kats from Mount Fuji.

Speaker C If.

Speaker B If anybody has a chance to get those, you're lucky. All right, Christian Spicer, what is your parting gift?

Speaker A But where are those in Ghost of Yote? Like, where do I find them? Because that sounds real good.

Speaker B I will murder so many people to get to those.

Speaker A Worth it.

Speaker C Worth.

Speaker A You need to kill the six types of Kit Kats. And by kill, I mean eat. It's so delightful. This album came out, I think last year, Friday, two Fridays ago. When folks are listening to this, I didn't have a time to shout it out on that episode. I want to call it out now. The starting line. Have their first new album out in I believe, 18 years. The album is called Eternal Youth. Loved the Starting Line back in the day. Still. I saw them recently on tour. They played with. Was it homegrown? It's great, great show. But the new album, full length album, Eternal Youth, it's great. It's a change of sound for them, you know, a little lower register. But I love when bands take a chance and I love when they feel like they have something to say and come out with a whole album and kind of just don't do singles here and there and kind of see what pops. I think it's a really bold take for them. It's the starting lines new album, Eternal Youth. You can find it wherever you listen to music.

Speaker B Very cool. My parting gift is the second season of a show I believe was a parting gift back during the first season because I liked it so much. It's an animated series based on some YA books called Wolf King. Ah. It's basically Game of Thrones. You know, in Game of Thrones, all of the houses have sigils and they all are associated with an animal. This is like, what if the Game of Thrones. But the sigil of the house is something they can transform into. So it's like they're all were lords. They call them were lords because it's not Just werewolves. It's. It's were deer and where bears and were sharks and wear everything.

Speaker C Animorphs.

Speaker B Animorphs, yes. Super fun. Great animation. Really fun show. Watching it with my kids. Highly recommended. The second season has more death than the first season did, but it's almost all sort of off screen and most of the people plummeting from great heights from things. So, you know, if you don't want to have your kids see death, I can understand that. But it's pretty tame, you know, if you're into like, you know, Avatar the Last Airbender. Nothing much wilder than that.

Speaker C I caught the first five episodes of Avatar on the plane thinking I was like, oh, I'll just binge Avatar. I've always been meaning to get to that. And then I found out, oh, that's all they have of the first five.

Speaker B Oh, no, you got. You got to see it through now. It's so good. Anyway, highly recommend Wolf King seasons one and two on Netflix. All right. Hey, I gotta say, folks, I believe and I could be wrong, you know, my search skills are poor, but I believe we have used up all of our listener suggested parting gifts. So please, I'm calling out, call it, send them in, and if you sent one in that I didn't use, send it in again. Because we want to have listener suggested parting gifts, but I think we're. We're plumb out. So send them to dlcfeedback gmail.com. all right, that's it for this episode of DLC. Thanks again to Daniel Bloodworth and Christian Spicer for hanging out with me. Thanks to our musical contributors Sandra Patrick L, Sean Madigan, and Zero Star for those fun bumpers. Our theme song was composed by White Cube, which is Jason Sherry and T. Ryan Arnold. You can always get merch for our show by heading to our store, which is store.dlcpod.com of course, our biggest thanks are always reserved for our patrons who make this show possible. You can become one and get all the benefits that it entails by going to Our Patreon page, patreon.com dlcpod all right, we'll see you next week. Until then, think about what you put out into the world. Make it a better place.

620: Daniel Bloodworth: Hades 2, Cloverpit, Anata, Power Wash Simulator 2, Lego Party, Carimara, Fortnite Demon Hunters, Sonic Racing Crossworlds, Xbox Gamepass price hikes, EA sold for $55 billion

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