So what are your
thoughts on the Game Awards?
Oh, God, I have so many thoughts.
Really?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Like, I feel like it
could be structured and paced
in a way that is much more interesting.
More fun.
I think you need to look in the nuance.
Like, you gotta look at the
fetishization of the Muppets,
you know, once his face
really loves the Muppets.
So we also agree that Joff Keighley's
fucking Miss Piggy, right?
Oh, yeah.
She's something, yeah.
He's porking her.
She's porking her pun intended.
We did so well, High Tech.
We did so well.
You ruined it.
Welcome to Off the Console, episode 60.
And today, I've got my
co-host, Gardiner Bryant,
in games revealed.
And for those who don't
know, we're the hottest podcast
where we talk about gaming,
tech news, and anything nerdy.
And next week's
Christmas, that's crazy, isn't it?
Bananas.
Oh, man.
It feels like the
year's gone on way too fast.
Maybe it's because we've
been having too much fun
with this podcast.
That's probably it, you know.
It's that, and I've been
swimming in slop, so, you know.
It makes the time go by fast.
We've all been swimming in
Webster Merriam's Word of the Year,
but that's not a topic for today.
The topics for today, of course,
are us saying goodbye
to the LCD Steam Deck.
Brings a little tear down to
my, brings a little tear down.
And we've let the post,
we've let the Game Awards
really marinate for about a week.
And I think it's time for us to really
talk about that too.
And also a lot of Steam related news,
lots of Steam related news,
lots of RAM news and AI news.
And do you know rats can play Doom now?
No.
Yeah, well, we're gonna
talk about that later.
But for now, let's talk about
what everyone's been doing today.
Let's start with you, James.
What have you been doing today?
Or this past week?
This week?
Yes. Today I woke up and I ate.
That's what I did today.
But for this week, I played Dispatch.
I played and beat Dispatch.
It's about a six to seven hour game.
It's pretty good.
It's, to call it a game is interesting.
It's very much like an interactive comic.
It's a visual novel.
Yeah, a visual novel.
I mean, you do have
like the dispatching part
where you have to
manage sending superheroes
to go handle crimes and
issues and stuff like that.
That part was actually pretty fun
where you have to strategize
who has the better strengths.
You gotta upgrade your
heroes, then send them.
It was simple, but I had
a lot of fun playing it.
I'll probably play through it again.
So it was like a management sim, right?
Yeah, kind of.
Yeah, but that's only like
half of the play time is that.
The other half is cut scenes
because it's a visual
novel kind of style thing.
Lots of choices to be made that
determines how things go.
And it is like, it's
more of an adult comic
because you see a supervillain's penis
within 30 seconds of starting it up.
Oh, do they blow it up or something?
No, no.
It's essentially
like, it's just acid dude
or sludge or whatever.
And so it burns all his
clothes off and he's naked.
I mean, makes sense.
It'd be more realistic that way, I guess.
But yeah, it's a more
fun adult version of comics
than some of the other stuff we have.
The boys. The boys. The boys is fun, but it's nerve wracking
because, oh jeez.
Have you read the boys comic?
It's kind of crazy.
I can only imagine.
Yeah.
What about you, Gardner?
What have you been
playing or doing this week?
This week I have gone
back to the old staple.
Oh, N64?
Domekeeper.
Domekeeper. It's good. It's a good one. Domekeeper.
It's a good one.
That is a good one.
I can't not play it.
Also, I've been drinking a lot of coffee.
Mm, I really like the cup there.
Too bad our audio listeners can't see it.
It says I'm a ray of
effing sunshine on it.
And then, let's see, what else?
I don't know, I've just
been working really hard.
Just writing and getting
stuff up on the Bryant review.
It's been fun.
I posted an article
there this week, Hi Tech.
Yes, I did.
It's the Steam Seal one.
Speaking of which, yeah,
I've been trying to find a,
because almost everything I want to buy,
I've already bought at some point.
So now I'm just trying to
find some random hidden gems
that are like a dollar or
something crap like that.
Something that no one's ever heard of,
because that's
something I'm interested in,
finding some weird hidden gems
that no one's ever heard
of until I play it, that is.
And that's basically my
week for this past week,
just doing that and
messing around, playing games.
I mean, I looked at the
cells too, and I'm like,
do I need this?
Do I not?
I might buy one or two things, we'll see,
but I'm not buying them
at like super discounts
and buying them at like half.
Like Kingdom Come, I kind
of want to try that out,
but I still don't
know if I want to pay $30
to try something out.
If you wait a year,
you'll pay $20 instead.
Yeah, but do I want to
wait a year to play it?
Probably.
Do you want to play any new games?
Any new games?
Yeah.
Well, we'll talk about that later, I was
alluding to a topic.
So to get the show started,
we have to mourn the loss of a specific,
I really do mean
specific piece of hardware
that's changed all of our lives.
This Team Deck LCD.
For those who don't know, the Steam Deck
LCD was at one point
just called the Steam Deck,
because that was the only model.
And now, as you can see here,
it will no longer be in production.
So if you look at Valve's website,
if you were to try to
buy a Steam Deck today,
an LCD model, it says out of stock.
And if you look at the
note down here, it says,
"Note, we are no longer producing
the Steam Deck LCD 256 gigabyte model.
Once sold out, it will
no longer be available."
And lo and behold, it's sold out.
Yeah.
This is interesting.
I'm curious your guys' thoughts on this,
but I wonder if it's
because of RAM prices
and it just doesn't make
sense anymore to produce it,
or I don't know, what do you guys think?
It could be demand.
It could be a mix between demand
and I'm sure people still buy the 399.
I'm hoping this preludes
to a drop in the OLED price,
but with RAM prices, it might not happen.
It is not the most
RAM-heavy device either.
We gotta remember, it's
16 gigs all around unified.
And so it doesn't get hit as hard as
maybe the Legion Go,
whereas Double Lap.
So it's sad, but it's also good
because the OLED is just
the better version all around.
And so I'm hoping that they
kind of adjust prices down,
but I think Valve
would be the only people,
company to do that,
because every other company
is just increasing prices.
I don't know if Valve can afford
to lower the prices down.
I mean, it would be
nice to get a $400 SKU.
They could afford it, but yeah.
But the bigger question is,
would they lower the
prices of the existing ones
or would they make a new
SKU, like a new OLED model,
a 256 gigabyte OLED model?
Because if they don't do anything,
it's a de facto price increase.
You know, I mean, we
get a better piece of kit,
but like it's still a
price increase, right?
I'll see it that way.
Well, I've always believed that,
at least with the 64 gigabyte model,
when they first launched the Steam Deck,
I think that that was like
basically at cost, right,
for Valve.
And it was kind of like
there in order to have like that,
this is the low end,
and then if you can
just go up a little bit
and you get the mid
tier, and that's really good,
compared to the low end storage, right,
it was always kind of
like a upsell for them
and not really like what
they intended people to buy.
And I think maybe at this point,
the LCD model has been acting as that,
like this is the low tier,
and for just a little bit
more, you can get this tier,
like the actual good one, but you know.
There's psychology behind
having a three tiered system,
like three options,
there's a lot of
psychology behind that, but yeah.
I would be interested to
see if they end up introducing
a one terabyte, or a two
terabyte model on the high end,
and then having the 549 be the low end.
Yeah.
I mean, am I wrong?
The Steam machine has a two terabyte.
Yes, it does, it has a 512
and a two terabyte model.
And that is also a
2230 form factor, right?
It actually supports up to a 2280,
and that's what the Steam machine does.
Okay, but the two terabyte
is or is not 2230, do we know?
The Steam machine, I don't think we know
what SSD Valve will be using,
especially it's all in flux though,
because like SSD
prices are going up as well.
Right, yeah.
It would be interesting though,
if Valve introduces a two
terabyte high end Steam deck.
Yeah, I could see them doing it,
it's just, I wish they'd
make it easier to upgrade.
Like for us, and I've upgraded my,
so many different
Steam decks at this point,
it's so easy, but if they made it easier,
like, oh, well, there's a
couple of devices out there,
I'm trying to think of one that's easier.
All you need is tend to be
a little easier sometimes,
I don't know, but yeah, it's,
I'm kind of hoping they drop that,
the mid tier OLED down to
399, or 499, sorry, 499.
And then yeah, do the two terabyte,
I'm kind of hoping they do a little drop,
but we'll see, I guess on that.
So as you can see here,
Valve's refurbished
models are sold out entirely.
Look, wow, that's crazy, you
can get a 64 gigabyte Steam deck
for 279, well, I mean, not
anymore, but you could have.
Yeah.
There's, the problem with the 64 is that
a lot of that memory gets eaten up
with either one or two games,
unless you're really into
like the small indie games,
or cash and stuff like that,
like the 64 gigabyte
was kind of a mistake
to release at the time.
To be honest, I agree with you,
because I had a friend that
bought a 64 gigabyte model,
and she, you know, she bought
a big SD card to compensate,
but of course, I guess
no one at the time knew
that shader cache
took up that much space.
Yeah, it was a cluster of,
like it was complete cluster of,
I remember dealing with that too.
Because one of the models I got was a 64,
and yeah, you'd have to use
third party tools to fix that.
And so.
To be fair though, a lot of
people bought the 64 gigabyte
model with the intention
of upgrading the storage
at a much cheaper cost.
Oh, agreed, like I do
that all the time too,
but you know that a good chunk of those
were just people
trying to get the best deal.
Oh yeah, for sure, for sure.
I mean, thankfully
Valve did change things up
and they made the 256
gigabyte model the base model.
And then they, that's
when they also introduced
the Olags too, by the way.
So the value proposition
does change quite a bit,
because everyone says the
Steam Deck is $400 starting,
but now everyone's gonna have to say,
oh, what's 550 starting?
And for like an extra 50 bucks,
you could get an ROG Ally,
the original one with a Z1 Extreme.
Now, I'm not saying that
it's objectively better,
but some people do value performance,
and honestly for $50,
that's not a terrible upgrade.
No Olag though, and
probably worse battery life,
to be honest.
And no Steam OS.
No Steam OS out of the gate.
And that's also another thing too.
Yeah, you'd have to install it,
which definitely is worth it.
Yeah, no, the
performance increase you get
with the Z1 Extreme is noticeable,
but it gets just screwed by Windows.
The notice, you get a huge bump actually,
when you upgrade to Bazight or Steam OS.
Like even with the Z2 Extreme,
I have a video comparing multiple games
that I released a couple of weeks ago.
And it was like a 30% increase
over a lot of the games I
tried, that Bazight gave.
It was crazy how much
Windows slogs it down.
So what's interesting though,
is that in this
Windows Central article by,
I believe it was, no,
it's not Jez Gordon,
it's another guy.
It used to say here,
"We will provide
support for the Steam Deck LCD
"on an ongoing basis."
And it doesn't say that anymore.
When I look at this,
I loaded this like,
I can refresh it again
just to show you guys.
Yeah, let's see, it's not there anymore.
So does this mean Valve
isn't supporting the LCD models
that are currently out there?
No, I mean, no.
I don't see, I mean, I wouldn't imagine
they would just cut support altogether.
Well, if they have a-
Yes, they did.
Yeah, I don't think they can cut support
when they guaranteed support,
but it's just, they
don't need that anymore
if they're discontinuing it.
So anyone that bought
it has that already.
This is a sales page.
I have heard some theories
that people are suggesting
that we might get another mini refresh,
like a slightly upgraded Steam Deck OLED,
or some crap like that.
You know what would make sense
is if a refreshed Steam Deck included
the specific hardware
for gamepad compatibility,
like Steam Controller compatibility.
Oh, you mean like the puck?
Yeah.
Hmm, that is a good point.
I wouldn't mind that,
but what would they put it?
I mean, it would be integrated
like it is in the Steam machine.
Hmm, that is a good point,
but we'd have to wait
until like the Steam Controller
actually releases for
that to make sense, right?
I mean, they could
release it now, but like-
I mean, theoretically, I don't know.
I don't know if this
would even be possible,
but theoretically, it's 2.4 gigahertz,
and there's already a 2.4
gigahertz radio in your Steam Deck.
So they might just be able to roll out
some kind of software update
that lets them bifurcate the WiFi,
or the Bluetooth radio
to add that functionality.
But I don't know how
feasible that would be,
but it could be.
I mean, that's the thing about the valve,
like doing the hardware and the software
all together is like,
they can just kinda screw around with it
and see if they can
add a firmware update,
where they can multiplex a Bluetooth
and a Steam Controller signal.
Who knows, right?
That's just my speculation,
but that's the nice thing
about controlling the
whole hardware stack.
Yeah, that is true.
I mean, I don't know, to be honest.
It's kind of a crazy
thing to think about,
valve doing a refresh for that.
That would be really weird to do a
refresh just for that.
If they're changing the board, then yeah.
I don't think he's insinuating
that valve would only do that.
Just like a...
I'm not saying that either per se.
It's just what else
would the bigger screen
did have to change the whole device,
unless they went with
the more bezel-less.
There's a battery maybe
could be improved a little bit.
I feel like at that point,
if you have to change the casing
and a lot of the process,
because that costs money every time,
because they have moldings,
they might as well just
release the Steam Deck 2
at that point.
Yeah, I mean, some have also said,
oh, this must be a sign that valve's
finally making the Steam Deck 2.
I would love that for
that to be the case,
but valve doesn't play by
standard industry playbook,
because they're privately owned
and they just kind of
do whatever they want.
Well, neither does Xbox,
because everything's in Xbox now and
that's not standard.
But I mean, 2027 is the years
that it's predicted for Steam Deck 2.
And that based on console release cycles,
that's kind of like a
console release cycle right there.
So if they release 2027,
they're going by the playbook, I guess.
Hey man, maybe they'll
announce it this year, 2026.
Valve's gonna make a
new year's resolution,
announce the Steam Deck 2 and show it off
and invite people like
Linus, Tik Tips and Wired
to our headquarters again.
Yeah, no, that would be interesting.
I'd be excited for
something like that, of course.
But I don't know if
they'd replace this tier
with anything in the meantime.
If they're gonna come out with a Steam
Deck 2 in like 2027,
I don't know why they would
do some type of weird refresh
unless it's like the two
terabyte, like Gardner mentioned.
That's the only one that
would make sense to me.
Yeah, bump down the prices
of the 512 and one terabyte,
introduce a new two terabyte at the...
I think some people would
get kind of pissed though,
especially if they were to buy it now
and then like a week later,
the two terabyte for 649 comes out.
I think the two terabyte
would be closer to seven.
I think what would
happen is the existing SKUs
would just move down a slot
and there'd be a higher priced two
terabyte model on the...
So no, so no, $400.
Dan.
I definitely don't, yeah.
Oh, that's not gonna be $400.
I'm hoping, we'd be
lucky if it's like $499,
like essentially $500 even.
Yeah, if they do change the price,
I think that's where they would go, $499.
That's the only way they could go.
And we'd be lucky in this
type of market if we got that.
What the heck is
Disney Dreamlight Valley?
It's one of Emily's favorite games.
It's kind of like Stardew Valley,
but with Disney characters.
Is it?
It's a little bit like offline MMO style.
Like you get to wander a world.
Yeah, you do.
But I think it's, I
mean, my understanding,
that's how Emily has described it to me.
Yes, it's just an open world.
Dreamlight Valley, I'm Googling it now.
Because I'm looking at the
top played Steam Deck games.
And as you can see here.
Yeah.
It's a life simulation adventure game
by Gameloft Montreal.
The game has players tend
to a magical valley populated
with various Disney and Pixar characters
who previously underwent a curse
that caused them to lose their memories
of their lives in the Valley.
Yeah.
Some sort of Disney multiverse stuff.
Are there Marvel characters
or Star Wars characters though?
Oh, I don't know.
Can I meet Spider-Man in here?
You should download it
and give it a try later.
Let us know.
Man, it's only 30% off.
Fuck that noise.
Emily plays that game all the time.
Like that is her favorite
game right now, I think.
Maybe we should bring Emily
onto the show at one point
and ask an interrogator about this.
And Terry, get her to this.
Yeah.
Oh look, Ark Raiders.
I didn't know Ark was supported.
Interesting.
It is, yeah.
I didn't know it was verified,
but I knew the
anti-cheat worked on Linux.
Easy anti-cheat.
Wow, that's true.
Wow, Apex, why can't
Apex Legends do that?
Well, it's gonna,
well Apex did support it
then they took it away.
So this will support
it probably for a year
and they'll take it away
once they get their cells.
Unless the steam machine sells enough.
No, yeah.
It, I just, I do think
we'll silently get more support
for multiplayer games on SteamOS.
I really think that's
probably the way they're gonna have
to go so they don't eat too much shit.
Yeah, I think we're
probably gonna see like four
and a half, five, maybe 6% of
like Steam users being Linux,
like Linux SteamOS on the
hardware survey next year.
I think it's gonna start to grow rapidly.
We're gonna hit critical mass.
And like once we get
to like six, seven, 8%,
maybe 10%, stop.
Once we get to around like eight or 9%,
that's when I think like game publishers
are gonna not be able to
justify not supporting Linux.
I agree with that.
I agree too.
The performance and the
experience is so much better
than Windows at this point.
And even with Windows,
Xbox full screen experience
or whatever they call it,
that is an okay experience.
They definitely need a
higher, better UX people though.
Yeah, well, the problem
with the Windows gaming thing
is that it's like one
tiny little team in this,
like the entire Microsoft like machine.
And it is a very,
it's a niche upon a niche
that Microsoft really couldn't give two
fucks about later on.
You know what I'm saying?
Like they're gonna, this is like the tail
on the elephant swatting at flies, right?
Cause right now Linux is
just kind of a fly flying
around this elephant that is Microsoft.
They don't care, man.
Like they're, they make
the vast, vast majority
of their money in cloud.
PC gaming is nothing to them.
And especially on a
handheld, they do not care
except for this little team in Microsoft
who aren't going to be
able to make the kind
of structural changes that
they need to, frankly, Windows
which is a platform that
Microsoft doesn't even care
about anymore.
Like they're, everything
is moving in Microsoft.
The institution is moving away from
like end consumer marketing.
I just don't see the, the
Linux, the Windows gaming mode
being a thing.
I think they greatly care for Windows,
they care for it as a
delivery system for AI
to get people hooked to their AI,
which new reports are
showing that people give no Fs
about co-pilot.
So they're, they're having to,
we'll see what Microsoft
does in the next year or two
cause this might,
what we're talking about
might change greatly.
Cause I think they're
pivoting right now a little bit
because they're pivoting
after investing a crap load
of money in AI sounds not great.
Business wise, I mean.
It's just gonna happen.
I mean, they might pivot
the AI, they might pivot.
There's a lot of things,
but people don't like AI
getting shoved into their
system in such a violent matter.
Not to mention like Windows itself,
not even the AI portions of Windows,
just like the regular
like Windows portions
is extremely messed up too.
Like they have to
preload the file Explorer.
Like what?
They preload the bloat,
they don't fix the bloat.
What kind of nonsense is that?
You'd want to preload it anyways.
Like they should be doing
more preloading if they're, so.
Well, I mean, when,
when Explorer crashes,
it takes down the start
bar, like the task bar.
So like, how is it not preloaded anyway?
Like, but to your
point, high tech, I mean,
the fact that they, you know,
aren't fixing the, the,
the jank and the bloat.
And they're just kind of
doing like the Donkey Kong 64 fix
where they pack the, the,
the, the expansion pack in
instead of fixing the actual issue.
It's like, that's,
that's just Microsoft for you.
I, okay, here's the
thing guys, you don't,
even with a small team, in fact,
arguably with a small
team, you can do more
if you don't have too much handcuffs.
The Xbox full screen mode
with one person could make that
more of a better user experience for
handhelds and TV people
for this type of stuff.
I'm just saying, all they have to do,
all they'd really have to
do is mimic the Steam OS
just a little bit and
they'd be there, but they're not.
So it's not a great experience.
They, they can't.
I, like, I genuinely believe that
Microsoft like structurally
is incapable of the kind of agility that,
that a team would need
to have to compete with
what Valve is doing with Steam OS.
Like Microsoft is just
like, there is no single team
that can make a decision
that can't be countermandered
by C-level corporate executives.
And, you know, and, and to
the point you made earlier,
James, about Microsoft
still cares about Windows
as a delivery system for AI.
That's true, right?
Yeah, you're absolutely right about that.
And it's also a
delivery system for Office 365
and all of these other
like, you know, OneDrive
and all this other bullshit.
OneDrive, OneDrive, that's the thing.
I think I hate it more than AI.
It crashes my explorer.
So doing game
development sucks on Windows.
The thing is though,
it's like Microsoft cannot,
literally cannot build a streamlined
and focused version of Windows
without these other special
interests within Microsoft
foisting all this extra crap
into that gaming experience.
Right?
It's fundamentally opposed to the way
Microsoft makes money,
the interests that all the
other like Windows teams have.
I just don't see it as possible.
Yeah.
That is a good point.
They gotta break up that monopoly.
We should have broken up.
We need to break up all the monopolies.
It would get better products.
Yeah.
But, I mean.
Sorry, I could go on for ages about this.
I could, I could too.
You brought, oh my gosh.
You got me thinking about the OneDrive.
If it's.
But we shouldn't
distract this from the fact
that the LCD is unfortunately dead.
RIP Steam Deck LCD.
Yep.
RIP.
And with that said
though, the game awards.
No one got a free Steam
Deck of the game awards
because they're not doing that anymore,
which is kind of lame.
I guess.
Yeah, so.
They can't.
They sold out of the LCDs
that they would have given away.
So what are your
thoughts on the game awards?
Oh God, I have so many thoughts.
Really?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I think I'm done with the game awards.
Well, you're not gonna
watch it next year with us?
Well, I'll watch it with you,
but like I was, I had a
little bit of enthusiasm
going into it.
Probably misplaced.
Half-Life 3?
Well, yeah.
That's been almost the entire reason
I've ever watched the game awards.
Half-Life 3, I'll split.
But like I wrote a
post about this on my site
and there were six games
that stood out to me, right?
What were they?
Out of six games, they were Tank Rat,
Bradley the Badger, the Free Shepherd,
Coven of the Chickenfoot, For Loop,
and Order of the Sinking Star.
No Mega Man?
No, I have no, I have literally no
interest in Mega Man.
But Mega Man's so good.
Yeah, I disagree.
But the thing is,
there were like something
like 45 announcements according to IGN,
and like less than 14%
of them had any interest
to me at all.
And I was just, I don't know.
It just, it was to me.
I did read the article
and you had some thoughts
on the Divinity trailer.
Oh, yeah.
That was also, that was horrible.
I genuinely, that was one of the most
uncomfortable moments
for me.
It was so violent.
It was, I just couldn't
get over how violent it was.
And I did not like
watching like a human figure,
even an animated figure suffer like that.
It just, yeah.
I thought it was a Diablo
trailer to be honest at first.
Well, the other thing is
like, okay, did you guys notice,
was there an orgy that was
happening in that trailer?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I was so disturbed by the violence
that I didn't even
notice the orgy happening.
Yeah, they were banging.
Oh, I didn't even see it.
Like literally, I was
completely unfazed by that.
It was like, yeah, wild to me.
And then the thing
is, it's like, you know,
back in, what was it like 2021 or
something, Mortal Kombat 11,
there was like that
developer who was saying like,
how the higher ups at
the company were like,
you need to reference real gore and
actual violence and stuff
in order to make the
fatalities more realistic.
And like, that's like a thing that like a
lot of developers now
at these companies have to seek mental
health treatment for.
And I was curious as to like, were the
developers at Larian
being asked to like
use, to reference real gore
when making that violent depiction?
It made me deeply uncomfortable, dude.
I'm sure they'd be using AI,
which we will talk about that.
We will talk about that
because that was a really hot topic.
I don't think they used
AI for that type of thing.
Well, no, they were,
no, they said they were
using it for like concepting,
but we'll talk-
That's not concepting though.
Well, we'll talk more
about that later though,
cause that's a cold can
of worms in and of itself,
to be honest.
Yeah.
I thought, so I grew up
on violent video games
and the problem, I liked the trailer.
I don't like Larian's
style of games that much.
Like Baldur's Gate 3 is fun,
too many decisions for me.
And I don't like the game, the combat.
It gets a little
frustrating after a while,
just the type of
strategizing you have to do.
Yeah, I was also
disappointed that wasn't the end game
and the big reveal for the night
was some mid-tier Overwatch clone.
I was not happy about that.
But it's releasing in January, dude.
But it's free to play, dude.
Because it's a live service game.
So they can release it quicker.
It doesn't have a lot
of depth to it right now.
People are calling it Concord 3
after "Man of the Mountain's" amplitude.
That's crazy, cause it
does look better than that,
but it doesn't offer like,
Overwatch has what I want.
It has sci-fi
goofiness, that's perfect for me.
That one had like fantasy slash sci-fi
slash maybe some
goofiness to it, I don't know.
I will say though, as
far as the game awards go,
I was eating pretty good.
I mean, anything more would
have been like "Half-Life 3"
or like a "Dead Space Revival" obviously,
but I will say my top
picks from that were
Control Resonance, I'm a
huge Control and like Alan Wake
person, I love the games,
I love the stories in them.
I thought Tankrat
looked really interesting,
no law, very gory, but I'm
a big Cyberpunk fan also,
and it looked like it might actually be
a more action-packed Cyberpunk than 2077.
Resident Evil looked
great, and then on to Antos.
It is from one of the games
that I just found fascinating
a few years ago to play,
and so having them come back
and make something
like Antos, like I, yeah,
I'm really excited for this one.
I really like the thought provoking
that their previous games had.
So like how much
thought they put into it,
it gets you thinking, and honestly,
it's influenced someone that my game,
game that I'm working on too, so yeah.
So I got to see a couple of
games that I'm interested in.
First on this list is Phantom Blade Zero.
It's not a new game announcement.
They've announced it
and showed up a few times,
but it looks pretty sick.
I'll also point out, I think Badger,
or the Bradley the Badger one, just to
point out real quick,
was the surprise one
where I started watching,
I'm like, "Ugh, this,
I don't know about,"
and then I watched more, I'm like,
"This is actually gonna be really fun."
I'm really excited for that one too.
Yeah, that was the first one
that really piqued my interest, I think.
Apparently it stars Evan Peters,
best known as
Quicksilver in the fairly recent
X-Men movies.
Interesting.
And a Megahorse story.
He didn't last very long,
right, that Quicksilver?
Is that the one that died?
No.
No, no, no, no, the
X-Men one, the Marvel one.
The Fox one.
Yeah.
See, Game of Dragons
looks pretty good too.
They released some screenshots.
Oh, they got Madon Suk.
I was wondering about that.
And I mean, we got a new Mega Man.
Apparently, Gardner
doesn't like Mega Man.
No.
I'll be honest.
But I kinda wish it was Mega Man X.
What?
You don't like Mega Man either?
I'm not a side-scrolling kind of person.
I much prefer Duck Tales.
I actually agree with that.
If they released a new Duck Tales,
I played that a lot as a kid.
Yeah.
Ma, no, Mega Man.
Mega Man's a Mega Man here.
That's crazy.
Mega Man's good.
I respect that it's a good game.
It just doesn't
captivate me after I played.
I've never beat one, but I
used to play it as a kid.
I played it as a kid.
X though.
No.
See, I played the original Mega Man,
and it was like, I
didn't really care for it.
It was too frustrating.
I prefer Mario.
Okay.
But have you played Mega Man X though?
It's way better.
I think a better comparison was you
prefer Metroid, right?
Oh yeah, I like Metroid a lot.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah.
Shovel Knight's fun too.
Shovel Knight's kinda
in that vein, right?
Yeah.
It's like Duck Tales.
If it were also Mega Man.
Yeah.
But does that have a
cartoon to go along with it
that you can watch
every Saturday morning?
Duck Tales.
Ooh.
Yeah.
Street Fighter movie.
I love Duck Tales.
Like unironically, I
watch that shit sometimes.
Street Fighter movie
looks like delicious garbage.
I'll probably be watching it.
Oh, it's definitely
slot, but I'm gonna enjoy it.
I like this one, but it's Switch
exclusive, which is sad.
I guess campy is the better word for it.
It's campy.
Yeah, orbitals actually
look kinda cool to me,
but if it's a Switch
exclusive, I am not going to play it.
It might come out on Steam later.
I don't think there's
any financial incentive.
There's not like a
Nintendo funded game or anything.
But if it doesn't have a
Steam page for me to wishlist,
I'm going to forget about it.
No, I'll remind you one day.
And of course, everyone's favorite game,
Concord 2, I mean 3.
High.
Oh my gosh.
High chord.
You know High Guard
basically just sounds like Overwatch.
High, Over, Guard, Watch.
If you replace it, it's Overwatch.
Yeah, there's synonyms.
It's funny.
That is funny.
It's funny.
Comes out on one.
With horses, Overwatch with horses.
You know, Paladins is
Overwatch with horses.
It's true.
I played a little bit.
Does it have horses and paladin?
Yeah, you do.
Yeah, I'll show you.
I played it.
I don't remember.
I've played.
I will say that High
Guard, the art style,
is like not offensive to me
where the art style and most,
like, you know, are those characters
so like boring and uninspired.
But not Overwatch.
Dude, Overwatch is so
interesting in my opinion,
but it's Blizzard and
they had the remnants
of the Blizzard art
style, which I love so much.
Oh man, I am the exact opposite.
Like Blizzard's art style pisses me off.
It makes me so angry.
Which one, the cartoonish
one or like the Diablo one?
Like the Warhammer ripoff bullshit.
I agree.
Diablo three looked like Warcraft.
I love it so much.
That's one of my favorite art styles.
I prefer the Diablo, like Gothic style.
Might be a little too
violent for Gardiner, but.
Well, look, I know I was
like harping on violence.
Like I grew up playing violent games too,
but like violent games when we were kids
were like not in any way that realistic.
That's the problem that I had.
It was just like, it was, if
you paused it at any moment,
it was like photo real.
The only thing that like
doesn't look photo real
is the animation.
Like, I don't know.
It just, it bothered me like deeply.
That's fair enough.
I'm sorry I'm such a wuss guys.
No, no, no, no.
We're all different play styles.
It's totally fine.
I'm more offended by the fact that you
don't like Mega Man.
Yeah.
I don't think Hitex is
handling this very well.
I like the music in Mega Man.
All right, fair enough.
Fair enough, the music is pretty good.
So yeah, the game
awards was controversial.
A lot of people had an
issue with the fact that
Expedition won all the awards almost.
Yeah.
Especially the indie awards too.
Yeah, I mean, here's the thing.
Like clearly it was a
very like great game
and it deserved to win, right?
But like the fact that it was nominated
for so many categories,
and it won almost every
category it was nominated for,
it really robbed the show of any
semblance of stakes, right?
It's like-
Like no tension.
Yeah, there was no tension.
It was like, why am I watching this show?
If I already know who's
going to win each category,
like why am I watching?
How do you solve that?
I mean, I'm just saying-
Yeah, I don't think you can-
Expedition was all the
categories it got nominated for.
It, I think there was
like one or two games
that deserved it over it,
but it was so close that it
was so, it was subjective.
Like it's the role of the judges.
I think that's an issue
with the greater games industry
as opposed to the award show itself.
They should have just
made games that were
as good as Expedition.
Am I right, Fos?
Partially.
Yeah, that's easy to say.
But it's also, it's one of those,
I'll say this right now.
It was not a AAA title.
So it was kind of a
spit in the face of like,
Ubisoft was over
there sitting there like,
what the fuck do we just do?
We let these guys go and they make this.
You know that they're a little bitter.
So for me, it was kind of a
spit in the face of the AAA,
which was kind of nice in some ways,
because maybe we'll wake them up maybe,
or just at the bare minimum,
kind of just get them a little bit, but
that's how I saw it.
I mean, hey man, they got
the flowers and deserve.
Maybe next year we'll have a better show.
Maybe we'll have a show where we have
more than one viable
game for every category,
you know what I'm saying?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and I'll have
to say the best do bit,
the best indie game one that they had,
is they didn't have a lot
of choices to go up against
Claire obscure, like Blue Prince is good,
but I don't know, I'm
having a hard time thinking
of a different indie game
that could have been placed
in this, but.
Well, the big question is whether or not
they should count as
indie, because, you know,
they had quite a bit of a budget,
and they also had a
Hollywood actor in there too,
Charlie Cox, Daredevil.
Was that early on though?
Like, I think there was a
lot of stakes going into it
for them early on, and
then they polished it off
at the end, so.
Well, the fact that their
publisher had enough money
to like put like half
of the game announcements
on screen at the Game Awards,
kind of robs them of
the indie cred in my book.
Well, they got that money from,
they probably spent the
money that they earned this year
from Expedition, because it made so much.
Yeah, but like, I mean, if
the publisher like went to them
and funded even half
of the development time,
I just feel like that is
not the spirit of indie games.
Yeah, it's a really hard one for me, but.
It's tough.
I mean, dude, it's
like, dudelings, right?
Like I financed that myself.
That's an indie game, right?
And it's like, you know, if I,
but if I made a bunch
of money from dudelings,
and then I turned around and started
paying other developers
to make games, that, I
don't, I feel like those other
developers wouldn't have
the same indie cred that I had
when I made dudelings.
Like, I just, like, I
don't know, it's just,
indie to me means independent.
And if you have a
publisher that is like going to A,
like front the cost of developing a game,
and B, make a bunch
of money from the game
that they are publishing,
then that's not independent.
Yeah.
But then we'd have to
take into account the fact
that other companies
like Valve are, you know,
technically independent too, so.
And, you know, no one in
the right mind would argue
that Dota or Counter
Strike or Half-Life 3.
Half-Life 3 would not be like,
if it was just like an indie
game slot, I wouldn't, yeah.
But Valve started out being
published by Sierra, right?
Right.
And, you know, and
when you're at that level
where you can self
publish and it's not a risk,
that's not indie either.
Yeah, so there needs to
be a better definition
of what indie is
because I mean, we've seen,
we've seen a lot of contention points
with this indie category too.
Cause like, remember a few years ago,
David Diver was
nominated for indie despite
literally not being, not even like being
an indie studio published by Nexon,
but literally the studio
is a subsidiary of Nexon.
And they're a very big company.
I think I'm just in the
opinion that they need to rework
the whole like tier system
of A, double A, triple A,
just rework it, make a
game awards for each one
and have better, it's one of those ones.
I wish they would have had a
better indie game selection.
I just like, dispatch is
good, but it's barely a game.
I mean, here's the other thing too,
is that double A games
don't really get the attention
because like, let's
look at the game awards.
We have awards for game of
the year and all that stuff.
They usually get taken up by
a bunch of triple A's, right?
And then you have
specific awards for indie games.
But what happens to the
double A games that aren't indie,
but also aren't like big enough to be
those triple A games
that get all the attention.
80's two is a double A, isn't it?
No, technically it's considered indie.
Technically itself, but
it makes so much money.
I mean, I would say that,
that 80's two would be
a double A game, right?
It's on that.
Bastion was an indie game, right?
Probably, I don't remember.
I feel like it was published by somebody,
but like, Bastion would
be closer to an indie game,
but they've made so much money
and they've been so successful
that now their self publishing efforts,
I would say are double A.
So Bastion was apparently
published by Warner Bros.
Oh, that's right, yep.
Was that in the beginning,
like when they first released
or was that eventually?
Because a lot of these
indie games will release
and do really well and then they get
picked up by publishers
to publish onto like
Nintendo Switch and stuff.
Let's check the Steam page.
Interesting.
So it says now that it's
published by Supergiant,
so maybe they bought the publishing
rights from Warner Bros.
Warner Bros is so stupid with their IPs,
or with their like, what's this?
Yeah, I'm not worried, yeah,
Warner Bros is another like
can of worms in love itself.
But then Supergiant
Games did start publishing
their own games with
their next game, Transitor.
Yeah.
And then Hades is one of two.
I think part of the problem too is that
some people will say
they only play indie games
and so if you have a game like Hades 2
where it's heart is in
the indie space per se,
like it doesn't go too complicated,
it doesn't go too massive,
but it would still play a lot like a lot
of the other indie games.
Would someone that only
plays indie games play it
even if they knew that
it was like a double A?
I don't know.
Well, I mean at one point
does an indie game developer
become double A?
That's the other thing too.
At what point does it matter I guess too?
It's another thing.
Yeah, that's also a thing too is that
when people say they
only play indie games,
what they're really saying is they don't
play triple A games.
And I mean, that's totally fine too.
I mean, they'll play some, I mean,
I like a lot of double A games too.
Double A games that
aren't necessarily indie,
but also definitely
are not triple A games.
Like Mega Man would be a
double A game, truth be told.
Even though Capcom is
a big triple A studio,
it's clearly not a triple
A game, so to speak, right?
Right.
I'm sorry, high tech.
It's Capcom, but yeah,
it's a, you're not wrong.
It plays like a double A,
and it looks like it's
funded like a double A, but yeah.
I mean, that distinction of
like A, double A, triple A,
all has to do with the budget, right?
It's like, so I would
say Mega Man, it depends.
It really depends, but like.
I mean, clearly they're not
putting Resident Evil money
into the Mega Man, right?
Or Street Fighter
money into Mega Man, right?
That'd be ludicrous.
Maybe they did that
like once upon a time ago
with Mega Man on the PS2, but like,
Mega Man X on the PS2, but like,
they certainly aren't doing it today.
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't know.
I think the game
awards and with a lot of,
this is, Gardner, I'm not
trying to target you on this.
I just, a lot of people
complain about the game awards
and I just, I don't know.
I think just, it was good enough.
It could have been better next year,
like it'll hopefully be better next year,
but it's a commercial
kind of awards show.
It was fine.
It felt like, I mean,
I watch the Super Bowl
because I enjoy football,
but that's not why
people watch the Super Bowl.
They watch it for the ads, which is fine.
Most people watch it for the ads, right?
For the halftime show,
but it felt like the
game awards was just the ads
and it was just like
the worst Super Bowl game
you've ever seen.
Like that's how it felt to me.
It was just ads with a
bit of the halftime show
with featuring
Evanescence and that it was like,
it was just ads.
And the trailers,
make no mistake, are ads.
Like they pay a
quarter of a million dollars
for tickets featured there.
So it's like-
I don't think it's a
quarter of a million anymore.
I think it's straight up a million now.
Is it a million?
Yeah.
Well, I think it was, yeah, okay, yeah.
But I agree.
I come for that though.
I come for the trailer
reveals and stuff like that.
I think that's the thing
with the game awards though.
It's trying to be,
it's trying to be both E3
and the Oscars.
Cause like, if we look at the Oscars,
I don't believe they make
announcements at the Oscars
besides who wins, right?
Right.
So boring.
The Oscars is boring, right?
And so I like the fact
that like an award show
that's like
celebrating the games industry
is trying to be fun.
Even if it's like the
same, it's falling victim
to the same like
hype, hype train bullshit
that the games industry thrives on.
I don't know.
I thought Will Smith smacking Chris Rock
was pretty entertaining.
You only get that once a century.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I just, it could be like,
I feel like it could
be structured and paced
in a way that is much more interesting.
More fun.
I think you need to look in the nuance.
Like you get, you gotta
look at the fetishization
of the Muppets, you know.
So we also agree that Joff
Keeley's fucking Miss Piggy,
right?
Oh yeah.
She's something, yeah.
She's porking her.
Porking her pun intended.
We did so well, high tech.
We did so well, you ruined it.
But yeah, game awards.
Hopefully we'll have less Miss Piggy
and more Kermit the Frog.
Or Big Bird.
Kermit's gonna come up and slap him.
That'd be hilarious.
Maybe we can have some
Sesame Street characters.
Remember when Sesame Street collabed
with Game of Thrones of all things?
I did not know that.
Yeah, they did.
I did not know they did that.
That's crazy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like Tyrion and Cersei
Lannister are arguing.
Cause you know, and then Elmo comes up
and teaches them about respect.
And then the tagline
ends with respect is coming.
It's the funniest thing ever.
You guys got it.
I love that a show
about incest and murder
is being featured on Sesame Street.
It's pretty cool.
I've never watched Game of
Thrones, so I don't know.
That's a lot of hurt.
But you have watched
Sesame Street, right?
Oh hell yeah, dude.
I love that.
Look, there's a Game of Thrones parody.
And here's Elmo
talking to Tyrion and Cersei.
Oh, it's the guy from the moon, right?
Look at this shit.
It's real.
Wow.
That's what you get with all the...
Oh shit, now my
recommended is being filled up
with Sesame Street stuff.
I can't keep looking at this.
Okay, I mean...
All right.
You could do worse
than having Sesame Street
recommended to you on Sesame Street.
Yeah, I could.
But let's talk about the steam sale.
Have you guys bought anything?
No.
Neither have I.
The steam sale is the same.
So once you've like,
padded your library pretty well
over the years with steam sales,
it gets harder and harder to find a deal
because you've already
eaten up all the good deals.
And some of the games that come out now,
you'll get like a good deal,
but they do what, four sales a year?
So every sale, I
probably buy one or two games.
I don't look that hard anymore.
I just look for the games
I'm kind of excited for,
my wish list.
I have my wish list, watch list.
And that's what I kind of go after.
Also, they've also done two new events
with the steam sale, the
winter one more specifically.
First is the steam awards.
Oh boy, another award ceremony.
I can't wait to argue about how,
so this one, unlike the game awards,
is 100% community voted,
which means it's gonna be some bull crap.
Truth be told.
Let's be honest, most games are not.
Democracy, it was a mistake.
All right, so what do we got here?
We got dispatch, King and Com,
expedition, silk song, arc graders.
Look, Shroud got his,
Shroud got his wish.
Arc graders is nominated for
Game of the Year somewhere.
I mean, it's really big multiplayer game,
so I'm not shocked.
Yeah, let's see, VR Game of the Year.
I don't know much about
VR games, to be honest.
Labor of Love, really?
Well, actually that's true.
They're all Labors of Love.
Maybe even Dota 2, I don't know.
I've never played Dota 2. Twisted Love.
Twisted Love.
Game of Love's Dota 2, so
maybe that's his labor of love.
Oh yeah, of course.
Yeah, best game on Steam Deck.
Ooh, Deep Rock Galactic Survivor.
I'd probably vote for
Deep Rock Galactic Survivor.
You know I gotta vote for Digimon.
Let's see, Hades, Bull X-Pit, Clover Pit,
Better with Friends Awards.
Oh, this is the friend
slot game that people were,
complaining about.
Friend slot, oh my God, okay.
They're good games.
These are indie games.
These are true indie games
made by just one or two people.
The only true friend
slot things are games
that are exclusively multiplayer,
free to play bullshit, like Fortnite.
That's friend slot.
I could see that.
Repo and Peak are
good, and they're very fun.
But yeah, so have you
played Peak then, Hitec?
No, I'm just voting,
because I haven't played any of those.
Peak's really fun.
I think Gardiner would like it.
He might.
He might de-stress them too.
There you go, voted for
Silksong, doing my part.
You should show the
Gardiner the Peak trailer.
Can you just hover
over it while it plays?
Sometimes it does.
Oh, here we go.
You guys can hear it, can you?
I mean, just a bunch of
guys talking on their mics,
like they're playing multiplayer.
So you just, you have to
climb up these mountains,
these trees, whatever, and
sometimes you have to work
with each other, like
with, to get up to places.
And you find items to use, like these
mushrooms and stuff,
but yeah, you're just
trying to get to the peak
of these mountains, these areas,
to then continue climbing
up the progressive ladder.
Wow, that guy fouled that, oh my God.
It's intense, because
once you get to the top
and you slip, you're just
like, no, as you fall down.
So it's getting over it with friends.
Yeah, so we're all in
this together, Gardiner,
we're gonna get over it together.
No, it looks cool, I like that.
It's fun.
Outstanding visual
style, we got My Little Puppy,
Doom the Dark Ages,
Final Fantasy 7 Remake,
the second one, Silent Hill F, and,
ah dude, it's this game,
and it's Dream Barbecue.
Dream Barbecue.
I haven't played it yet,
but I do like the art style
of that series, I'm gonna go for it.
It's also on YouTube,
like, I don't know, I see.
Most innovative gameplay award, dude.
Blueprints.
Blueprints is
objectively, what's Majorina though,
I'm curious, co-op PvP
experience, it's three bucks,
what is this?
It's Majorina, your mage is an arena.
Dude, I can do that in
a lot of other games.
Oh look, best game you suck at award.
Silksong.
They put rivals in there.
Dude, that's because most
people suck, let's be honest.
I guess, it's a hero shooter, so.
Wait, Deltarune came out this year.
Officially, I think so, but there's still
two chapters that
are, yo wait, why is this
a Japanese trailer?
Look, it says chapter
one and two are waiting,
and then Sans is speaking Japanese.
What is it, why would they do that?
Why would Tilby Fox do this?
This is the first time
we're seeing Expedition 33,
our PC game versus Beta, right?
No, we've seen Expedition 33
in a few of these categories.
I just haven't been paying attention.
It wasn't Game of the Year,
I voted for Silksong though.
Let's see, oh shit, this is a hard one.
Might have to go Deltarune.
Tilby Fox is like an amazing musician.
Tilby Fox is good.
It's the story rich story game.
Yo, where's Expedition?
I thought I won story of the year.
See, no, I'm not human. I just don't know
what they won.
Expedition should be on there, but.
I'll vote dispatch.
Dispatch was all stories, so that's safe.
Did you play dispatch?
No.
Have you watched any of it?
Some of it, but not.
See, what are these cozy games?
Oh man, they have a whole
category for cozy games.
You're kidding me.
Haven't they always?
Must've forgotten.
Cozy games are so cozy.
Slam around for two.
What do you have against being cozy, Hyten?
Yeah, man, I'm stressed all the time.
If a game isn't a
constant struggle for survival,
I don't want it.
(laughing)
You need more stress in your real life.
Oh, that explains Mega Man.
No.
(laughing)
Slam around for two on
there is really good.
Mega Bomb right here?
But it's so similar.
It's like the opposite of stress.
It's like the opposite
of sit back and relax.
Unless you get a really good run.
That Mega Bomb guy I have played,
a low-fi, is this even a game?
What is this?
It looks like a calculator.
It looks like a bunch of
random shit to-do lists.
Is this like your actual to-do list?
It's a waifu simulator.
It's a waifu simulator?
I don't know.
You got as, you picked as interested,
like, "Man, maybe I
will play a cozy game."
I gotta go with Mega Bonk though.
Actually, can I change my vote yet?
Yeah, I can change my vote.
Have you played,
have any of you guys
played Slam Rancher before?
It's pretty fun.
I played the first Slam Rancher.
No.
I really liked it.
That was good.
All right, so, there, I
voted for my Steam Awards.
Oh, this game looks interesting though.
I've seen, it's like Resident Evil,
but like, as a traditional rogue,
like more like, you know, rogue,
term-based, grid-based.
You see what's going on, right?
Yeah, this looks interesting.
I might try it out.
In fact, it's on sale.
Shit. It's of necrosis.
It's 10 bucks, why not?
AK House of the Dead.
On Rata 10's on sale too.
It's made by the guys that made Patapon.
You guys ever played that?
I love Patapon.
It's made by the same guys,
which is funny because
they also released Patapon
on Steam at some point.
One and two remastered.
Mm-hmm.
Oh, I didn't know Patapon
was on Steam, that's awesome.
Yeah, Bandai Namco apparently is
publishing this now.
I don't know when it
came out of Sony's hands,
but I sure hope they
released Gravity Rush on Steam.
Yeah, that's one that
they should release.
Yeah. On Steam for sure.
I'm gonna look for more games.
Oh, Void Wars out?
No, you need to stop.
We've got the most
exciting portion up next,
our next, for me, topic.
All right, so let me
add this to the card.
What the Steam machine's launching with.
It doesn't need-- Half-Life 3.
Oh my goodness.
I apologize, high tech.
I'm just too excited for this.
I know.
Half-Life 3 as a Steam
machine launch title.
I'm here for it. Exclusive?
No, I'm not.
Exclusive would piss
off the entire internet.
They'd love to be honest. Dude, you joke,
but that would be awesome.
If they did a Steam machine
exclusive for one month alone,
you know how, like--
That'd be funny.
There's no way they could do it
as a Steam machine exclusive,
but if it was a Linux exclusive,
that would just make me laugh.
I'm down for that.
Kind of a little bit of justice.
People would piss off
the entire internet too.
Imagine waiting 20 years for Half-Life,
and then, oh, you have to install Linux
to play Half-Life 3.
Like, me all-- They come out,
and like, don't you have a
Steam Deck to play it on?
You do the whole mobile phone thing.
Yeah, you wanna see 40%
Linux adoption overnight.
That's how you do it right there.
You probably would get a huge spike.
I need to clarify that I
am fucking joking, okay?
Like, I don't
actually want that to happen.
Dude, if you go,
like, man, I got notified,
because I have like a
Google Alert on my name, right?
And I got a Google
Alert on a Reddit thread
a couple of months ago,
and it was like someone
shared one of my videos on Reddit,
and one of the comments
underneath it was like,
"Gardner Bryant, oh, you mean that guy
who just wants Linux
exclusives and hates PC gaming?"
And I was like, "What
are you talking about?"
Anyway, sorry, that's a whole--
That's hilarious.
He hates PC gaming,
but isn't Linux part
of the PC gaming world?
Obviously not, dude.
PC equals Windows, duh.
I'll say this right now, Internet.
Gardner convinced me I do
want Linux exclusives, so.
Yeah, Linux
exclusives are the future, man.
Windows is going the
way of the dinosaur, bro.
Dude, you're welcome,
and welcome to the party.
But real talk, though.
Rising RAM prices
could affect Half-Life 3.
Yeah. Your thoughts?
This is what happens when
you sleep on a hit, Valve.
So.
I mean, is it going to,
just release the damn game.
Release it, release the game.
You might wanna tie it to the hardware,
but you can release it.
Half-Life 3 is not gonna get
affected by RAM prices at all
if you wanna choose to
go that route, you can.
No, it has to be,
it has to release with the Steam machine.
That way you can maximize sales.
I don't even know if the
Steam machine's gonna get hit
by RAM prices in the first year.
They probably have such a big allotment,
and they've already, if
they're releasing in Q1,
they already have the devices made.
Depending on how much
they're gonna make for Q2, Q3, Q4,
I think it might depend on cells,
and they might still,
like, that might be affected,
but the launch should not be affected.
Mm, I don't know, man.
I don't, I mean, I don't, I agree.
I don't think it's gonna be affected
by RAM during the first
year, but I don't know.
I think people are
freaking out about the RAM thing
maybe a little too much.
I think it's a big
deal, but we already have,
every, everyone that PC games right now
already has a PC that they can game on,
and I don't think
Half-Life 3 is going to be a very,
like, they're usually highly
optimized, the Half-Lives are,
so I don't, I think
it's gonna play out anyway.
I also, I mean, also not to mention,
Valve doesn't pay the
same price as we do for RAM.
Like, we, like, they have,
they pay business-to-business rates,
and while, yeah, I'm sure
those are going up in price
as well, it's still,
they're really going up a price.
Samsung can't even get their own RAM
from their own facilities, so, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, they're
gonna go up in price,
but it's still gonna be cheaper
than buying them individually, right?
Like, B2B is just a bulk discount,
it's going to be better no matter what.
It's a bulk.
Yeah, it's a bulk discount.
I mean, it's like
buying stuff off of Costco.
It's more expensive upfront,
but per unit it ends up being cheaper.
Yeah, and it's 16 gigs for the,
that's coming into the Steam machine,
and then eight gigs as the VRAM, so.
Yeah.
It's not even like
crazy high, but we'll see.
I mean, a lot of
people are more concerned
about the VRAM though, you
know, the eight gigs of VRAM,
especially since a lot of, you know,
a lot of conventional
wisdom seems to be pointing
towards VRAM being the current
issue with modern video games.
Yes and no.
I'm a big proponent of using,
especially with these mid-range devices,
using some type of FSR.
If so, if they get, and it's rumored,
I think strongly rumored
that they're going to have
like a version of FSR4 on
it, it will, it won't matter.
The eight gigs doesn't matter as much.
My preference would be to
have 12 gigs of course, but.
Fair enough.
And you know, speaking
of the Steam machine,
it's rumored that
Lenovo is going to be making
a Steam OS version of the Legion Go 2.
Now it's going to have the same specs
as the currently existing one,
but it's going to run
Steam OS out of the gate.
And it's rumored to show up at CES.
So if anyone's going to see us this year
and you do find Lenovo,
you should see if they have one in there.
I mean.
I can already put Steam OS on mine.
Like I have Bazlight,
maybe I'll install Steam OS
because I'll do a
Bazlight Steam OS comparison.
Do it, do it for the content man.
So the biggest thing
with this is that it means
that Steam OS is like
making their drivers even better
for the color
management and some other things
that are on the Legion Go 2.
Legion Go 2 has some,
from my understanding,
I haven't installed it
yet, but I've read up on this
that Legion Go 2 has
some issues with Steam OS
where Bazlight has all the drivers.
So that just means
that we're going to have
a more flushed out
handheld version of Steam OS
this next year, which is good.
I mean, it's going to be
essentially desktop ready too,
right, with the Steam
machine in some way.
I mean, yeah, I mean,
they explicitly add,
they show some footage
of people using it for,
you know, non-gaming
purposes like 3D modeling or coding.
Through.
So, yeah.
So, 2026 is the year like
Steam OS like officially
really becomes released in my opinion,
like from mainstream.
Now, I do have one
question about the Steam machine
that inspects the microSD card slot.
Is it the same one
that we're going to have
with the Steam Deck?
I think so.
Oh, I wish, I really wish Valve
supported, you know,
faster implementations like
SD Express, microSD Express,
like we have with the Switch 2.
Is it necessary though?
Like honestly?
I mean, probably not, but
it would help out a lot.
I think it would be, in my opinion,
it should be necessary.
And with the next Steam
Deck, they should refresh that.
Because for a lot of games
that require faster speeds
for loading, you have to have it.
Some games will break the
loading screens and stuff
if you don't have it.
And so while the SD card's nice,
it's one of the reasons I actually
stopped using the SD card
for a lot of gaming.
And I went to just like
a two terabyte drive is,
I didn't want to worry
about if the game supported
the SD card speeds or not.
Another thing too is that Shader Cache,
if you put your Shader Cache on your
existing microSD card
in your Steam Deck, it
becomes a huge stuttering mess.
Yeah.
But for a faster,
like, for a faster standard
like microSD Express,
Valve could in theory
put the Shader Cache on the SD card
for whatever games are on your SD card.
And it would be a lot faster.
It potentially could
go with those speeds.
Still not gonna be SSD speeds.
But I'm wondering if
they maybe they did try it
and it didn't work out.
Like it just wasn't working for what,
so it didn't make a big difference for...
I wish I had
information like that from Valve
because otherwise I think it's a big mess
to not include the Express SD card slot.
I mean, like
realistically, the games that I know,
like if it's a 3D game and
it's like within the last
three or four years, I'm
gonna put it on the internal
storage and if it's anything else,
I'll put it on my SD card.
And that's, I think that's only,
that's really the only distinction I make
because, you know, I don't know,
if it's a modern-ish 3D
game, then it's probably,
it's possible that it will
use the speeds of the SSD.
But otherwise, I just
don't see, I don't know.
I mean, get to a point
where I don't like to manage it,
but I agree with you.
Like I kind of do that too,
but I have like an SD card
that has all the Resident Evils on it.
And some of the newer
ones don't run as well
because of that speed.
And I just prefer to
have like my labeled SD card
that I can switch between my Steam deck
and my Steam machine, like they promote,
to be able to just have
it be categorized for me.
So I don't have to
keep on downloading it.
Okay, I can see that.
Yeah, I mean, as long as
it doesn't cost way too much
for them to implement this,
I think Valve should
implement this at least with the--
It was probably a cost thing.
Yeah, it probably wasn't cost thing.
They really tried to slim
down the costs on all these.
I hope that in the future,
we're like a Steam Deck 2,
we get a microSD Express.
Read.
Yeah, the theoretical
speeds can go up to,
from what I understand,
956 megabytes per second.
Oh really?
Yeah, that's a theoretical speed.
I thought it was-- But that's not
what they go at right now.
I thought it was like
SS, like SATA SSD speeds.
No, it's faster than SATA SSDs for sure.
It uses PCIe and NVMe protocols.
Neat.
Yeah, so I mean, hopefully in the future,
with a Steam machine or Steam Deck 2,
we get microSD Express support.
Yeah.
Now I'm not saying they
should make it a requirement.
Like Nintendo makes it a
requirement for the Switch 2.
Like you cannot use
regular microSDs in them anymore.
Yeah, that's silly.
But I do think they
should at least enable support
for those that want the
faster speeds on their microSDs.
And it might not even be necessary to buy
like the highest end
internal storage anymore
or even update it if
they do support that, right?
Yeah.
Well, you guys have convinced me.
They want to sell that
two terabyte version.
It's all about the money with the valve.
Yeah.
I'm just kidding.
All right, so also the Legion Go 2
doesn't support microSD Express either.
No.
Do we know of any PCs
that support microSD Express?
No, truth be told, I didn't even know
about the technology
until Nintendo made us think about it.
I think there's another computing
technology, isn't there?
Yeah, there's that weird
little SSD in the GPD Win.
That's a Chinese version, yeah.
You guys remember that?
Yeah.
Yeah, it kind of looks
like a SIM card holder,
to be honest.
You know, speaking of Nintendo though,
41% price jumped in DRAM.
D in NAND up 8%.
The build of materials is going up.
Hmm.
I mean, capitalism is
essentially failed us at this point.
I'll just say it.
Markets adjust when there's
demand, they'll make more.
Samsung doesn't want
to make more RAM modules
because they're afraid that,
they're probably even
afraid of like a bubble burst
kind of thing where they want to,
if we make it now, if we invest now in
like a couple years,
that actually is going to go down
and we'll have a
facility that is worthless.
Right, well, I mean,
I would imagine that they're running
their manufacturing plants
probably close to 80 or 90%
at capacity, right?
I mean, in order to
adjust to this demand,
it would take a decade of investment
to reach the demand here.
I would imagine, like to build out
like the actual
production scale infrastructure,
it would be inherently
deflationary for them
to create more when this
demand is very clearly a bubble
and is going to pop.
I just don't, yeah.
Also, also.
It is a bubble, but like the demand,
like the demand could
still go up over years
because people buy more and more
and we need more RAM in our devices
and we're not getting more
RAM in our devices like VRAM.
Like, and it would be,
Samsung mentioned
about two or three years,
I think, to get there.
And that's when this is
all expected to go down.
If AI doesn't burst in
the next two or three years,
it won't go down.
So it's a gamble and the only people
that really get hurt are us.
Yeah, speaking of RAM shenanigans,
this is also affecting
the smartphone industry.
So four gigabyte RAM
phones are coming back
and where it has it,
microSD slots may make a return
to Android devices too,
thanks to all this bull crap.
That would be good actually.
Yeah, there's nothing wrong with having
microSD card slots in your phone.
I think it's great.
I think it's bullshit
that it took them this long
to bring them back.
It took a little RAM
crisis to bring this back.
The other thing is like,
I don't think it's
necessarily a bad thing that,
I mean, it is a bad thing obviously
that like RAM prices are
ridiculous and all this shit,
but like it's not a bad
thing to have developers
have to be like, oh, we
should tighten our belts
and actually like make
software that's optimized
and concerned with like software,
with hardware that is
considered dated now
because it's like four
gigabytes instead of eight
or 12 or whatever is like being shipped
in modern flagship phones.
It's like, dude, just, you know,
how about we stop with
this like bull crap cycle
of planned obsolescence and
just be happy with what we have.
Am I wrong?
Am I crazy?
You're not wrong.
You're 100% correct.
If a lot of the workers were getting,
it was too slow down to
make sure that proper pay
was going to everyone.
Like if it was a balancing
thing for like middle class,
lower, I'd be for it,
but it's not, it's very.
Kind of squeeze every
piece out of what we have.
I really wish they went
through and optimize things,
but you know, that's
why Nvidia created DLSS.
It optimizes for us by
lowering the resolution.
It's really hard to
optimize like open world games.
Certain games are really, like they're
not fun to optimize.
It doesn't mean that they can't.
And it doesn't mean, and
like even the Unreal Engine 5,
like this 5.7 has some
good optimization tools in it.
It takes time for the like
tech to catch up sometimes,
but yeah, I think we'll be fine.
Like people will just
hold onto their hardware now.
I don't think the engine world,
like games are going to be getting
crazier anytime soon.
So I know some
companies are saying, well,
it means we're going to like, Laureans,
like we're going to have to
optimize now for our next game
to make sure it runs on older hardware.
It's like, that was a stupid comment.
Cause I'm like, you should
have been doing that anyways,
especially for a company like them.
So I don't know.
It's interesting.
The thing too is like, you know,
the hardware survey, like
the Steam hardware survey,
eight gigabytes of RAM has been the
average for how long now?
Like quite some time.
For like the VRAM or for?
For the VRAM. Yeah, okay.
Yeah.
Like for almost a decade.
I mean, I remember like I
bought a 970, a GTX 970 with,
I think it was 12 gigs of RAM.
And that was when the 970 came out.
That was over like almost,
that was probably 10 years ago or more.
And it's like, that's just
been the way it is for 10 years.
So I just don't see the,
like there's
diminishing return on investment
and diminishing
performance with all this,
like all of these upgrades.
And what we're getting in
exchange with these upgrades is
higher costs in terms of like actually
buying the hardware,
but also in like the electricity costs
of actually running these
things with the better graphics.
Who cares about graphics anymore?
Like I want games that look
like, you know, Lego Batman.
I don't want games that are like,
that look like whatever
Larian's crapping out.
The nice thing, they have good games.
They have good games.
I've never played a
Larian game that I've liked.
I'm just saying that.
Well, okay.
I mean, they're not games for me,
but I recognize that
they're really good games.
I'm a huge fan of like
bridging that realism.
I like to see great graphics
upgrades and stuff like that.
I don't chase it as much these days,
but I do see that VRAM has
been stalled artificially
by G4 or by Nvidia to fund the AI.
It really, we should be
having a little bit higher VRAM.
So it does make sense with textures,
but with that they could
also optimize and have us
have like two or three different versions
of a texture render prepared in the games
to handle different sizes.
Like, I don't know, like
this should be a non-issue.
If Nvidia wanted to keep
the game sheeple involved,
all they would have to do
is release the RTX 6000,
make it less than $500
for like the top end model,
cause they make a shitload on AI anyways,
and then that'll keep
the gaming masses happy.
Oh no, a $500 60 90.
That would make headliner.
That would make all the gamers happy,
all of that stuff, right?
But of course, Yeah, but all the C-level
execs at Nvidia get it and fired.
Yeah, Adam Jensen
wouldn't like that either.
Adam Jensen?
Jensen.
Jensen Wong.
Adam Jensen.
What's going on in here?
I need a 500 gigabyte graphics card.
I never asked for this.
That's my Adam Jensen impression.
Man, I've got Deus Ex on the brain.
Speaking of Deus Ex though,
actually this is a terrible transition.
(laughing)
Baldur's Gate 3 AI.
So there's been a lot,
and I really do mean a lot,
of heads turning because of this.
And let me just say, Matt,
it was a mad house out there
reading all the responses to this.
I did not.
We should show some of the responses.
I'll react to them
because this is interesting.
Can you zoom in?
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Can you see it better?
Yeah.
All right, here we go.
All right.
In here is Play Dead Making,
what does Play Dead Make again?
Limbo and--
Oh.
You can go every self layer in.
All right, here we go.
Oh, Expeditions catching some strays too.
Let's see.
When you find out your goat is washed.
(laughing)
Wait, so what even happened?
I don't know what happened.
All right, so essentially
in this interview, Larian,
here, let me pull up.
Let's see.
Larian is pushing hard on generative AI.
Let's see.
She says, "There
won't be any AI generating
content in divinity, but
the creators do use AI tools
to explore ideas, flesh
out PowerPoint presentations,
develop concept art,
write placeholder text."
And he says that, "Some
use of intergenerative AI
led to some pushback on Larian, but I
think at this point,
everyone at the
company is more or less okay
with the way we're using it."
And people were not happy about it,
which actually pushed
this response from Sven.
And people did not like the response
because it started with,
"Holy, but we're not pushing hard
for replacing or, and
people were not happy about it.
Let's just say."
I have zero problems with this as long
as they're not replacing jobs.
Concept artists isn't the weird one too.
Yeah, it is weird.
It takes so much time to get caught.
Like conceptualizing
things and storyboarding
is so important and it can take so long.
I get it, but.
So in the response here,
Sven says here, "We use AI
tools to explore references,
just like we do Google and art books.
At the very ideation stage,
we use it for a rough outline
for composition, which we replaced
with original concept art."
It sounds like they're
using it for making concept art,
even if it's a, quote, rough outline.
I mean, that's what they were saying.
They're not replacing
their concept artists.
They're just, they're
trying to get, it's interesting
because I've used it a little bit for
conceptualizing too,
but it does not replace a concept artist.
Like it's nice to just visualize
what you're trying to think about,
but it doesn't, like it
will do a good enough job
to replace them.
That's the, getting mad at this point
is I think just worthless in my opinion.
I think what in a couple of years
if they're replacing
all the concept artists,
so if they don't hire
anymore and they replace them all,
then that's a different story.
That's when you start
getting upset, I think,
is a little premature.
The responses have
been kind of crazy though.
Let's just say, some of
them are hilarious though.
But it's the internet.
You're gonna have someone
angry at every single thing
that someone does.
That's why I hate X sometimes,
where you just can't
go there and enjoy life.
Same studio, BT Dubs.
The worst person you've ever met.
Here's how AI can improve this.
I don't know, he's just pointing out that
this other guy, Alarian, is saying,
it doesn't seem, I don't know.
Doesn't agree with him.
Use AI tools to explore references.
How the hell am I
gonna go through research
for my Yowie fan art with Alarian?
What?
Oh, whatever.
Let's see, here's my two cents.
I've said before that
people need to give off Pinterest
and art station when collected reference.
So many games look, quote, generic
because concept art has become
self-referencing and inbred.
That's a good point.
Yeah.
I always advocate for
finding your own primary source.
So back to AI, I hate
seeing AI in mood boards.
There's no value to me.
There's no culture, no consideration,
no material reference, yada, yada, yada.
I disagree with like half of the stuff.
I mean, to me, like, to me,
I just don't see the value personally
in using something like Med Journey
or Stable Diffusion
or anything like that.
I just don't see it
because it always ends up
looking like that soft,
weird, boring AI look.
And I don't know, I just,
I'm not an artist either.
Like I'm not a good
like concept artist, right?
But I just don't see the point of it.
I don't know.
And visualizing
something you're trying to build
is very useful, using it
as like the final product
or final concept is a little crazy.
There's a new AI image
generator out there or newer.
Is it the, what is it, something banana?
Oh, what?
Nano banana?
Nano banana is crazy good.
What is nano banana?
I don't know, I've heard the name.
You need to see some
comparisons on like X and stuff
where you're just
like, you see it compared
to the other AI generators
and you're like, oh gosh.
Oh, but we're gonna get canceled for it.
I'm not fully against AI.
I feel like I've
stated this since day one.
I have issues with
the ethical parts of it,
but I'm not against it
from what I do with work.
See, I guess where it
comes down to for me
is there are two real considerations.
One, AI needs to be run locally.
If it's not being run
locally, I don't think it's ethical.
And number two, if it's
adding to the creative process,
that's great.
If it's detracting
from the creative process,
that's not, that's where
it like crosses a line.
And I mean, incorporating
it in like the early stages
of whatever, what's the word they use?
Incorporating it in like the
early stages of that is like.
Like conceptualizing,
storyboards, concept art.
That's where discovery
really comes from, I feel like.
So if you're replacing the early stages
of concept art with AI,
I feel like you're robbing
yourself of the opportunity
for weird things to happen.
So I, yeah, I don't know in
a big company for me though.
It's not, yeah.
That's crazy how accurate this is.
Like I, so I told it to draw
Naruto with a golden AK-47.
It made like a photo realistic version,
which is not what I wanted.
It's getting better
because it also gets those,
like the mistakes that
regular cameras get in there.
And then I also said,
draw that more like Kishimoto style.
He's the author of Naruto.
Dude, what the fuck?
With a realistic background.
Yeah.
He didn't, he didn't.
AI is crazy, but that's terrible though.
It literally, basically is, yeah.
Obviously it's trading
off of a Kishimoto stuff.
So that's why you can draw
it as accurate as it does.
That's terrible.
Yeah.
I mean, it's that, like, you know.
But at the same time though, I think,
I'm not sure if you
really need to do like AI
for mood boarding.
You could just take a bunch of references
from a bunch of different
places like you could in the past
and then just do it, or
maybe have AI find it for you,
but not necessarily generate it for you.
That'd be a better
use for AI to be honest.
Yeah, but like, what's the difference
between using just a search engine
and using AI to search for you?
It's like, just use the search engine,
cut out the middleman.
Well, the difference is that you get a
lot more investments
because you're using AI
instead of just Google,
because a bunch of
investors are a bunch of dumb fucks
that don't know the difference.
Right, right.
Oh, sorry.
We're not allowed to talk too much.
I forgot.
I've said that for
multiple times this episode.
Sorry.
I've done these processes.
They work better than
Google, Googling things,
partially because you also
get Gemini thrown in there.
But yeah, I mean.
I just don't want it to replace jobs.
I don't want it to be like,
it to be like, okay,
well, this is the art,
like this is the concept art we have.
Well, no, you should be using it to like,
not even, maybe not even storyboard,
but to as like, what is that called?
Like the thought cloud.
Oh, here's an interesting
article from Rock Paper Shop.
Gen AI users, Larian,
forced to build divinity
around RAM shortage caused by Gen AI.
Oh, I love it, dude.
That's awesome.
So I think we were
talking about this earlier,
that divinity, that they
have to optimize around the fact
that people can't
afford RAM anymore, right?
Or were we talking about different games?
No, I mean, I did mention this
specifically earlier
that Larian's gonna have to optimize for
what there already is, which is fine.
I think they probably wanted to go a
little crazier, but.
I mean, here's the thing though.
What does optimization
actually entail though?
Because I mean, a lot
of people just think it's
some sort of magical feature where the
code just runs better
because you run a little better,
but like, it would also entail
having to remove things too, sometimes.
It's not usually, it's
not the code typically,
unless you have really bad code.
That's like, you can
optimize, I guess, okay.
But it is either pipelines of like
loading in textures,
it can be event
systems, like dead spaces,
event system doesn't work
well with unified memory
inside of,
Really?
Like, but textures are
like one of the biggest ones,
or end assets.
So, okay, textures isn't the biggest one.
Textures is the biggest one
for like VRAM optimizations.
But like meshes,
objects, in the game world,
if you load them all like
in a big open world game,
it's gonna destroy all your memory
because it just,
that's too many references.
So you have to be
selective when you render.
So you have to have
like selective rendering.
And those types of things can
get out of control very fast
depending on how big your game is.
Yeah, I mean.
I think it's a little
unfair to say this game is bad
because it's not highly optimized,
but it is also fair to say, hey,
you better make sure you market your game
for high-end computers only if you're
gonna go that route.
I mean, to be honest, I'm so glad, y'all.
Well, the thing is, it's like,
I feel like it's kind of
misleading to say like,
games need to be more optimized, right?
Because there are a few types of software
that have to be, like
necessarily have to be optimized
than games, right?
Because games have to be
able to generate all this stuff
right within that tiny
little microsecond window
of when, you know, between input
and seeing it on the screen.
So like software, I don't know.
It just, I think when people say games
need to be more optimized,
it's about like targeting
lower-end hardware, right?
That's really what most people mean
when they say games
need to be more optimized
because a lot of games
are very well optimized,
being able to generate
like beautiful frames
on high-end hardware in microseconds.
It's just how frequently.
Yeah, I mean, it
would be nice considering
that a lot of people,
like we've looked at
the Steam hardware survey
and a lot of people don't have those
crazy high-end rigs.
Like I think the most common
GP right now is still the 3060.
Now, I also did find this weird
because the 3060 doesn't
have an eight gigabyte model,
yet the most popular VRAM size is the
eight gigabyte model.
Is, you know, eight gigs of VRAM,
despite the 3060 not
having an eight gigabyte model.
Yeah, but that's because--
The 3060. Not right.
All the various like GPUs only
fall into one or two buckets.
You know, three or four buckets.
That is fair, but I don't know.
Anyways, I mean, yeah, I mean,
I'm not sure what more we can do.
I think every developer
should target a lower baseline.
Like I hope the Steam machine,
I was hoping the Steam Deck
would be that, but you know.
Well, it still could be. It was a little bit easier.
I think realistically
the Steam Deck has been
like a good benchmark
for companies to target,
like especially bigger triple A studios.
It hasn't had the amount,
like the big impact
that I hoped it would,
but it has made a
significant impact where games,
what was the one that
came out where they,
was it Larian where they like actually
made a specific build
of Baldur's Gate 3 for the Steam Deck?
Yeah, well the native
Linux-- Pronos did one.
For sure, Pronos did a
Linux build specifically
to target the Steam Deck.
Yeah, and when you have
studios that are publishing
like specific
versions for the Steam Deck,
and they're not saying
like, this is a Linux build,
they're saying this
is a Steam Deck build,
that's progress, honestly.
I agree.
Yes and no, I wish it
was more like Steam OS,
but they're targeting the VRAM probably.
So they probably what they did,
because if they truly optimize it
for different levels of VRAM,
I think they'd have to cut
their textures a lot more.
Maybe, I don't know, there's,
I'd like to see what
some new tech comes out with
in the next few years,
because I think like,
Unreal and Unity is gonna have to do some
more optimizations on their side,
which just takes a lot more research,
doesn't mean they can't do it.
We'll get more optimized, which is good,
but I think when people say
a game's not well optimized
is when it's really buggy,
and I do think those
are two different things.
We've lived with buggy games
ever since Bethesda was a thing, so yeah.
I think people get
confused with that too,
where it might be buggy,
it might be a little glitchy at times,
and that's not as much
an optimization thing.
That's fair enough.
That's just bugs.
Sorry, can't be in this today.
I mean, we're still in the early stages
of this insane VRAM crisis,
so only time will tell if developers
actually take this to
heart and actually optimize.
My money's on no, but we'll see.
But speaking of developers,
did you guys know that
19,000 games released on Steam?
That's crazy.
Bunch was it last year?
I thought it was fairly
close last year, wasn't it?
According to Liam, it was 18,558,
so 500 more games.
And then the year
before that, it was 14,000.
So yeah, it's been going up.
But we dug into this last year,
and a lot of it was
games that were being copied,
meaning they were being copied from sites
that have them for free,
and then being repackaged to pay.
So they were stealing and
selling, so theft-based.
Then there's also some AI slop
that gets mixed into there.
Yeah, and there's a
reason why slop's a big thing
this year in this kind of--
It looks like in Liam's article,
he mentions that he got a press release
for a game that was, quote, 100% AI.
Proudly 100% AI.
Wow.
Of course, he doesn't
like that, so he tossed it.
But yeah, I mean, games don't really,
I mean, a lot of these games
don't really get the attention.
There are so many games on Steam,
but only a few really do win.
And being an indie
dev is like a crucible.
It's like a battle royale.
And most people will not succeed, sadly.
Most games,
unfortunately, will not succeed.
Yeah, my game only had 18 reviews.
Which is crazy.
I'm in that upper echelon
of people over 10 reviews.
That's good.
And it's all positive.
Every one of them is
positive, which is cool.
I wish Valve would push games more
when they get more positive reviews.
I feel like the algorithm
might need to be tweaked
a little bit more.
Oh, weird.
If you look at the store
page, it says all reviews, 18.
And if you scroll down, it
says browse all 21 reviews,
which is strange, but--
Maybe-- I don't know.
It could be a syncing issue.
Maybe they got rid of some due to--
Or maybe something got banned.
Possibly, yeah.
And they just...
So, with...
I follow on Reddit, some of
the indie game subreddits,
and indie gamers that release stuff,
and I see it all the time where one game,
we just want to release
it, get our first one done.
It didn't really sell well or at all.
And it's just people
trying to wet their feet
or whatever the term is.
They're trying to just get into the game.
And so, and it's easier
than ever to produce a game,
which puts more strain, I think,
on a lot of indie gamers to make sure
that their game looks good,
because some of the
slop can as good marketing,
and then the game itself is garbage.
But, yeah.
You could describe a lot
of AAA games with that too.
Lots of great marketing,
but with terrible gameplay.
But I agree.
If you want to stand out in
the games industry crucible,
you're going to have to stand out.
Like, looks like a Bellatro.
I believe that was his first game.
And he fucking nailed it out.
Let me see if it was
his first game, actually.
Local sound.
We're gonna get so
much trouble in Discord.
You guys.
We're gonna get yelled at again.
Oh, no. About what?
Sweary.
They shouldn't, I'm wobbly enough.
We'll try.
Yeah. I'm sorry.
Here's the thing.
He nailed out of the park, dude.
I mean, it was his first game,
at least from what I can tell.
His first published game, and it was...
He made a lot of money.
He had a lot of positive reviews.
People love Bellatro.
Mr. John Bellatro himself.
It's happy. Everybody copied him
to try and get on that success.
Yes.
That's how you know you
made a successful game.
Let's look at Hades.
Hades is another game that
was extremely successful.
And now every other
roguelike is just like Hades.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, so people forget sometimes
that games, especially new games,
have inspiration from older games.
Every game has some type of inspiration,
whether it's even essentially
copying a little part of it.
The problem is distinguishing.
What's your biggest
distinguishing factor?
What's your gameplay loop
that makes people wanna
buy yours over theirs?
So a lot of people are
just trying to get into it,
maybe to make money quick.
Maybe they're just trying to learn.
I will say some of these people just...
I feel bad that they spent $100
and didn't get any traction,
but at the same time,
if they feel good about,
hey, I at least released something
and I'm on my journey, go for it.
But some of those games do end up
being foundational
pieces for brand new genres,
as is the case with Doom.
So this is the little rat apparatus
they used to teach you how to play Doom.
So the Heat did this experiment before,
but now they taught the rat how to
actually fire the gun.
So this is the real
existential threat to humanity.
Teaching rats how to play Doom.
How to shoot things.
Doom 2 specifically.
I will say this doesn't worry me
as much as if a cat gets ahold of this.
Right, yep.
So the prior version of
this experiment back in 2021
only had the rats move around,
but now the rats know how to move around
and they also know when
they collide into walls too.
It's not something that's
always easy to comprehend
in your life for the first time.
And then they have them on
a spherical treadmill too.
That's another thing too.
Interesting.
And they have a little
lever that shoots your gun.
What lever?
Yeah, like a little lever for the,
that's what it says.
They probably use their mouth.
But yeah, when can I get
one of these for my dog?
When are they gonna
build a big one for my dog?
What, are you gonna teach your dog how to play Doom 2? Dude, it'd be like a, He was a Z And they hints that game
engines being a standardized
and low cost virtual test bed.
Yeah.
That's interesting.
You can make a virtual rat race, rat maze
without having to actually build one,
even though they kind
of are already there.
And now they just need to integrate a,
like a smell projector so
they can get rats to solve mazes
and smell the cheese
at the end of the maze.
That's actually how this guy managed
to program collision
detection for the rat.
It sounds like an odor
when the rat collides
or something and yeah.
That's neat.
I don't think they can build a treadmill
where it just like stops all of a sudden
when you collide into a wall.
It'd be dangerous for the rat.
It could, why wouldn't it be
dangerous for the rat though?
It's on a harness, it's on a harness.
You can see it's on a harness.
So it wouldn't, but it might,
maybe it doesn't fare well with the rat.
No, this is interesting.
Yeah, it's not using
like electrodes, right?
It's like, it's
literally just the omni treadmill
and harness.
They're trying to be
more humane it looks like.
Yeah, it's a ball.
They're on a ball, a spherical treadmill.
Interesting.
Wow, look at that.
He's got an ultra wide monitor for rats.
He's got a better setup than me.
Yeah.
I had an ultra wide monitor till it died.
And this rat's got a
better monitor than me.
It's OLED too.
It's an AMOLED display.
I mean, they wanted to
make it look more organic.
It probably helps with the rat.
Interesting though.
The MOV though in Doom, holy shit.
Now everyone's just like, wow,
a rat has a better setup than I do.
Just going to depress everyone more.
Yeah, it's so more messy.
Probably has more RAM
on the computer too.
It's Doom though, come on dude.
You could get away with
Doom on like one gig of RAM.
You can, but that's the thing.
It probably, I mean, if it has an OLED,
why do you need an OLED for Doom?
Now they need to teach
the rat to play Doom RPG.
Or teach the play Doom The Dark Ages.
It made the rat feel
too much like a bad-ass
to get out and start
just murdering everyone.
Wow, look at this guy.
He's a negative Nancy right here.
What a waste.
What's the point, what
is the point or benefit
we get from training an
animal how to play Doom?
I mean, there's always
going to be that person.
This is science.
I was thinking about that too,
like someone's going to be,
we do these
experiments for a lot of reasons.
I mean, it would be nice if they
mentioned the reason here,
but you'd be shocked at what information
we gather from all this.
Just knowing that we can train a rat
to walk in a digital world in some way
is I think very useful
for future experiments
on virtual reality and other stuff.
Well, he is a neural engineer,
so he's probably studying how rats learn,
how rats learn in a virtual environment.
I don't know, it's a crazy time.
Speaking of a crazy time,
we should head on
over to the bonus episode
to have an even more crazier time.
Yeah. Yes.
You guys should join us
over there on Patreon.
I won't say what I said last time.
I feel like I offended a few people.
Uh oh. But--
Well, what did you say last time?
I don't remember.
Normies or something like that.
Normies?
Oh yeah, we were calling,
that's what we're calling our patrons.
We're calling them normies, right?
Fucking normies.
We changed it to that, yeah.
Because I was like,
well, all you normies,
we're going to go over
to the bonus episode.
And then, I mean, it was all in Jess.
People were
commenting in Jess, but still.
But it's time to talk
about the most interesting
gaming center in the world,
North Korea's gaming center.
Well, let's head up.
Let's say goodbye.
All right, goodbye, everyone.
Thank you for watching.
We'll see you guys next week.
Thank you guys.
It was great to talk about
all this doom and gloom of RAM.
Yeah, especially the doom.
Doom, pun intended.
Yeah, doom.
Where's the gloom?