Welcome to Off the Console, the hottest new podcast that's all about gaming, tech news, and anything nerdy.
And as you might see here, we have a special guest, Noah from Steamedick HQ.
He is the CEO of Steamedick HQ and also a writer there too.
And unfortunately, Gardner was unable to join us this week due to some unforeseen circumstances.
But uh...
but I'm not gonna say what it's, know, why he has to do community service.
Honestly, seeing Gardner was the only reason I came on, I think I'm just going to take off.
okay, okay, damn, we ruined his day.
But not as much as what the government might do as they are inviting the CEOs of Discord, uh Steam, Twitch, and Reddit.
And on top of that though, FSR4 on Steam Deck?
Is that even possible?
And of course, know, updates on Stop Killing Games and many more topics this week.
I'm high tech lowlife and I'm joined by uh guest star Noah Kupetsky from Steam Big HQ.
Did I get it right?
And also James from Games Revealed.
How are you guys doing?
By all means, I'll go last.
I'm the guest, I should go last.
No, no, no, no, no, the guest has to go first.
What have you been playing?
Okay, so I guess I guess I will go first I've been playing a lot but I think I think the one I've been playing the most of recently is actually endless legend 2 I'm a huge fan of
4x games in general and Ever since I was younger I loved endless legend since it's kind of a hybrid between a 4x game and more RPG esque elements with actual progression for like
heroes and the units that you have there um But unfortunately, I never had friends that would be willing to play with me.
So
Unfortunately, I played Endless Legend alone, but I'm very excited for number two.
uh They've made some really great improvements to the formula, streamlined a lot of it and expanded on the heroes and what they can do while also simplifying it to make it easier
for uh newcomers.
And then the whole new tidefall, the new tidefall mechanic is significantly better over their snow mechanic in the original game with new lands that unlock, which create new
pathways so that you can, you
shift your tactics and strategy throughout the game with new uh resources that open up and it's good so far.
That sounds pretty good, man.
I haven't played any the Endless Legends games, so I'm not super familiar with them.
They're like tower defense, like rogue legis, almost, aren't they?
No.
So Endless Legend, have a whole, so Amplitude Studios is developer and they have a whole endless, like, guess series.
And in that series, they have a bunch of different types of games within that.
So Endless Legend is their 4X version of the game.
Then there's Endless Space, which is basically like Stellaris, but it's space.
ah
I honestly, they have a good chunk of it.
um I think one of their series is like that, but they really do kind of a little bit of everything.
Kind of like Warhammer.
Warhammer should do.
They should make a Warhammer fighting game.
I bet you that would bang.
Mortal Kombat-esque Warhammer game.
Yeah, like, moral combat.
Like, but better, of course.
I know.
I really like Mortal Kombat.
don't know.
I don't know if Warhammer could top it.
It'd be really good though, Warhammer in the middle.
It could be really brutal.
that universe is brutal.
No, it wouldn't be bad.
Just, I don't know if it could top Mortal Kombat for me.
Mortal Kombat and Tekken are like my top two fighting game, 2D, 2.5D fighting games.
Yeah.
Yeah, it would be...
I mean, it would be difficult, but I think they could do it.
Like, League of...
Like, Riot's making a League of Legends fighting game with a stupid name, but it looks pretty fun.
They call it...
It's called 2XKO, and I'm not sure if there's...
It's supposed to be pronounced two times KO or two times knockout, but it...
Damn.
2K0?
Man, that would be...
Man...
They should just name it...
Just make it League of Legends Fighters.
FighterZ.
Lucky Dragon Ball Fighters.
that is a- that's a name alright.
That's a better than fuckin' 2XKO.
Yeah.
know what?
I'd play this.
I'd play 2x KO.
Like, I'd played a ton of League of Legends in college.
It's free to play.
It's gonna be free to play.
Right now they had to close beta with a lot of the big fighting game personalities like Sonic Fox and all of them trying it out.
Like Justin Wong too.
Damn.
Is it gonna have their anti-cheat?
I think it is going to have their anti-cheat.
It'd be crazy if they didn't, especially with how much any company that has their own anti-cheat pushes it.
I should say, is it gonna have the Valorant anti-cheat?
Cause that, I can't really have that game on my computer.
Yeah.
but I don't know for certain.
It says that my editing software is a virus, so...
and won't open up unless I delete it.
What's your editing stuff?
didn't she resolve?
I can't believe you're using such a virus anti-nus-sot-muf.
I've already...
I got confused.
As I was saying it, got very confused.
yeah, 2x KO is going to use Vanguard.
I'm not surprised, they put that shit in League, and now you can't play League on Linux anymore.
GloriousEggroll is very sad about that.
Mr.
GE himself maintained a specific version of ProtonGE just for League of Legends.
And now he can't play League anymore.
That's so sad.
It is sad.
Any company that makes those kinds of decisions, it is very sad.
I find it sad.
I hate that.
I don't like that.
um So I guess it's James, what are you even playing this week?
Well, I mean, I Hollow Knight essentially after we got done with last week's podcast.
uh I beat the boss in one try.
And so.
so cool.
Damn, you are a baller gamer,
I guess, everything else was hard and I felt like the boss wasn't.
uh So I'm gonna get on to a silk song soon.
Yeah, and so.
I think the last judge, I think it was.
And you're gonna beat it in one...
One try.
unfortunately, I'm already past that point.
I can't beat it in one anymore.
only, I died once.
But it was like, it was like one in the morning.
So was like, I'll do it tomorrow.
Well, hey, time's the charm, you know what they say.
Yeah.
you're just too good, Hi Tech.
There's no way you're gonna ace through it.
It'd take me a long time to get through, like any of the other bosses.
you're gonna do so well on your next try that it's gonna count as your first.
And you can say you beat in one try.
I appreciate the optimism, fellas.
We're just cursing you at this point.
I appreciate the optimism, I hope the boss doesn't take me like a million tries to kill.
This one boss, that would suck ass.
But I mean, hey, the game's hard for a reason.
For some people.
want to talk about bosses that are cheap, Toa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree.
my god.
Ooh, I heard about that, it kinda looks like Hades.
The general gameplay is pretty much like it.
They've got a lot of really great ideas in it, but it's just not executed well, unfortunately.
And those bosses are just a nightmare.
So it's like a poor man's Hades clone, especially since it's Hades 2.
even say it's a poor man's haze.
think the presentation is really top-notch.
The soundtrack is phenomenal.
The visuals pop and feel very unique.
And they have a lot of really cool mechanics in there, like being able to forge your own sword and choose its design.
And I made mine look like it just went through a grinder.
And if you're running around, can actually see if you equip the sword.
You can see your created sword in their hands.
looking as fucked up as you make it and I definitely fucked my swords up.
um It was awesome.
It's just, unfortunately, it doesn't do enough to stop it from feeling too grindy.
So there's a lot of grinding no matter what you do.
um You have to get pretty lucky in each run to get the right upgrades that are going to really benefit you.
And bosses, it doesn't even matter.
bosses are so bullet spongy where it just takes so long to kill them and then they just hit you like once in a like a one two combo that they have and you're just dead.
So.
Damn.
That's unfortunate.
It's if they if they I think patches could make it better but as it is right now on on release it just It's not there
I'm sure they'll fix uh some of gripes that people are having, especially since it seems like it might be a common issue.
It might not just be you, right?
no, it's not just me.
It's something I've seen others bring up.
But even still, even if it is just me, it shouldn't be.
It's definitely not a bug I have.
just I have 500 health, and the boss does 300 health of damage, and it has combos that are really hard to detect because the chaos also kind of envelops the marker on the ground of
where the enemy is going to attack.
So you kind of don't know.
And with all the chaos, you accidentally dash and you hit an explosion and 300 damage and then the enemy is attacking at the same time somehow and you're just dead.
Ah, damn.
Sorry to hear.
I was kinda looking forward to that game.
Maybe I'll check it out on a sale or something.
It's definitely worth checking out.
Like I said, the mechanics are all there.
Like the dual, the two swords that you have, the fact that you have two people that you control uh in each run.
is really cool.
It's just not executed well.
I see.
So with that, uh I think it's time to move on to our topics.
But before that, though, if you like this podcast, if you're listening on, we're trying to hit a thousand subscribers before the end of this year.
So if you're listening to us from like Spotify or Apple Music or whatever podcasting service that this is on, be sure to check out our YouTube channel, give us a like and
subscribe.
And this will help us out immensely, especially since YouTube's been having issues with uh likes and whatnot.
Well, not likes, but view counts and whatnot.
visibility just in general.
Yeah, it's been it's been rough YouTube says it doesn't affect your ad revenue because they stopped counting uh ad free views like ad watch they said they stopped counting ad
block views as like views and that it doesn't affect your monetization or whatever but like Still kind of affects you though to be honest because like some like some
I think it affects you but it also is a two problem issue.
I revenue is greatly down and also views but I don't think they correlate fully.
think YouTube is screwing with how much people get paid out on ads.
not to mention YouTube started to re-emphasize shorts more, because I mean, we even noticed this in our own channel, where we don't get that many subscribers per episode, per
like two hour or so episodes, but when we start doing shorts again, the subscribers start rolling back in.
Yeah, I just that shit at me.
I need to the shorts back up and scheduled.
I uh.
shorts might be a good idea.
I don't do that.
It's something...
I feel like it's something I should...
it fairly easy with the tool.
At least get it going because here's well, I don't think it's full YouTube's fault.
It is our, it's just how things are kind of evolving.
People are much.
a whole with TikTok.
Yeah, I get it.
People are more willing to give you 30 seconds than two hours.
And so they see a two hour video, they're not as likely to click it.
But if you catch them with the hook of a small video of a little clip of it, and like, okay, I get what this is, then they might go, YouTube needs to do a better job of linking
the content better.
Right now it does, you can, but I don't think it's great yet.
But yeah.
that's the idea, man.
Lure them in with the short and then they watch the full episode.
That's kind of the idea behind it.
But hey, mean, it is what it is, man.
TikTok.
It's probably the number two video platform.
People are saying they want a viable alternative to YouTube.
Unfortunately, TikTok is the only other alternative and they don't let you upload anything past 10 minutes, I don't think.
They certainly won't let us upload.
a long time for TikTok.
I would think like three or four.
No, they recently upped the limits.
Of course, we still wouldn't be able to upload like a full episode of the podcast on there.
we do.
We just do part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six.
Yes.
some topics wouldn't even fit one part,
Jesus Christ.
Part uh 1B.
1A.
In the end you've got like 25 shorts just for one podcast episode.
Man, that would be crazy.
All right, so it's time to get back.
that tool when this is done, I'm curious.
Yes, uh Jameswell.
uh
Clips just as a, yeah.
Opus Clips.
One more time, just one person.
I'll post it in Discord right now.
Okay, let's get into the topic about how our freedoms are taking over.
They're gone.
No more games.
Like only certain types of games.
zero games ever made ever again.
Yeah.
this is in wake of the uh assassination of Charlie Kirk.
uh Figured I didn't get that out of way first.
Essentially, they are inviting the CEOs of Discord, Steam, Twitch, and Reddit.
And they're all talking about the radicalization of online forum users.
But like, here's my thing though.
What about Twitter and Facebook?
This is why it's really polarizing.
South Park did a really good episode on this on why they're probably not in that lineup because they've given Filthy to the current administration.
um Meaning they're placating to the whole, like they're already said, yeah, here you go, here's your prize, we're gonna invest in whatever, um invested in, you know, whatever.
Yeah.
And so it's really weird because Discord was involved in like what happened with, you know, with the assassination.
But uh Steam, uh I don't think, Steam, Twitch and Reddit, I don't think were involved.
And we don't even know if there's any correlation at all.
So far, I don't think there's anything in Discovery with everything.
So.
So here's a letter to Discord, Discord CEO Mr.
Sakini.
So as you can see right here, he's been invited on Wednesday, October the 8th at 10 a.m.
Write this down because this will be very important to hear.
Now don't know if this will actually result in any change, but it is kind of a...
conundrum to see what's going on, but I think the main reason why we're talking about this topic is because Mr.
Gabe Newell himself was invited as you can see here.
They want to parlay with Mr.
Gabe Newell because they think that Steam is responsible for uh extremism on the internet.
It kind of sounds like we're getting back to video games being a motivation for uh crimes being committed when that has been debunked multiple times.
No, they are.
are.
RFK Jr.
has specifically pointed out video games, I believe, at one point, and so has someone else in the administration.
And so they're trying to bring video games back into it.
Got it.
It's still, it's still been debunked.
That doesn't change just because, just because RFK Jr.
said something about it.
Well, the problem now is that they're trying to bring it into this whole Charlie Kirk assassination thing, which, for full disclosure, we don't endorse any political violence.
It's a...
Or violence in general, yes.
Yeah, we don't endorse violence in general, but it's very concerning that they would point to this, uh because the kid played Helldivers 2, Counter-Strike 2, VRChat.
Like, you gotta be kidding me.
And some people in government are actually saying that they honed their skills in Counter-Strike or Helldivers.
No!
Hone your skills in fi- Look, listen.
Playing in FPS with like a mouse and keyboard is very different compared to like shooting an actual gun.
I mean, it's not- it should be pretty obvious, right?
Hi Tech, have you shot a gun before?
Sorry, I'm not meaning to call you out.
Okay.
So if Gardner was here, I have, if Gardner was here, it is, he would also, you know, agree with me, I think, on this.
It is very different.
Yeah, like it can help with like, reflexes and some other stuff, but like, it does not translate one to one.
It is, it can help with like,
a couple of things, but if you're good in the game, it does not mean you're going to be good at all in the real thing.
haven't we also seen pictures of the assassinator or the assassin, oh my god, the assassin holding guns?
awesome.
Is he like a son of Arnold Schwarzenegger?
lol
like a Terminator-esque.
Yeah, that's what I was going for.
Definitely wasn't just misspeaking.
um No, but didn't he have pictures?
Weren't there pictures shown of him like holding guns in the past?
Like, I thought his family was pro-gun.
Yeah, so I'm sure they would have let him go in the back and shoot some cans with the guns.
I know some people that do that.
I know, I wouldn't assume that he goes in the bag and shoots some cans.
That takes things too far.
I can safely assume that like they're very pro-gun, but yeah, that is what it is.
though, violence in video games isn't the same as violence in real life, because I mean, it's...
they're totally...
like I get that some people, like, they can't distinguish between reality and fiction.
It's been a lot more of that happening as of recently.
But...
yeah, it's a mental health issue.
Here's my thing though.
Do you think this...
this whole thing could have a real chance of somehow implicating video games?
Or do think the video games industry will be exonerated from any of this responsibility?
So I think most people will exonerate it because studies have already been done that shows that there isn't a correlation between the two.
However...
But we're not talking about most people, we're talking about the government.
That's what I was about to get to that.
That's what I said.
However, with this administration, I think it's very possible that like if, if Trump wanted, uh, something done similar to what, you know, I'm not going to say that, um, but I
think it's definitely more likely to happen as we've already seen free speech been, you know, tampered with recently.
Uh,
this is just another version of free speech being tampered with.
And yeah, I think definitely possible.
a hypothetical.
What if Trump wanted Grand Theft Auto to be banned?
Because as you know, Grand Theft Auto is the leading cause of crime...
of crimes.
What if they banned Grand Theft Auto 6...
What if they banned GTA 6 before it got released?
Ban it from ever being released?
uh
would be, I can already see Rockstar would be lobbying to hell and back to get whatever they can, whoever they can into the office to overturn that.
They put way too much money into Grand Theft Auto 6.
If it is not allowed to be released, oh, they're screwed.
that would definitely put them in bankruptcy, for sure, I would imagine.
no it wouldn't put them in bankruptcy but ah they wouldn't ban it they'd be like okay you got to censor it you can't have any here's a shade here's a little shade thing from family
guy you can't have anyone that's darker than no but i'm sorry that's bad joke but like they're
it's it's family guy.
You're just quoting a joke.
It's OK.
quoting a joke.
it's, I could see them censoring, maybe even more like Australia or maybe some of the Asian countries where, you know, instead of blood being red, it's gonna be white.
ah Which you've seen some of those games, right, that got edited to white.
Well, it doesn't look good.
Yeah.
blood from the androids and aliens.
Yeah, Noel, that's not what people think it is, but yeah.
But look, I'm just saying it will be like that, you know?
Look.
So we know rocks.
turn GTA 6 into an alien game with like the actual alien franchise, I'd actually be 100 % like for this.
And I would support our administration at that point.
That sounds so cool.
Yes.
privilege?
So, do think the gamers would care though?
Like, cause we know Rockstar wouldn't take this lightly.
Do you think the gamers would riot in the streets?
Yes, GTA six is going to be the biggest game to come out ever.
And whether it's good or not.
Agreed.
Ever up to that point, ever that in existence at this point that it does.
So I can see them really targeting it.
And Rockstar has used it in the past for marketing, but hopefully they don't tow the line too much on this because they like.
The administration, it will be interesting to what they do because they're all over the place on everything and they don't really listen to um the judges too much.
They just do executive orders.
And so that'd be interesting, like a GTA six ban executive executive order.
That would be insane, to be honest.
Now...
I don't think it'll happen.
think when it comes to this administration, the big thing that they look at is, you know, at least in Trump's view, profit.
And with Rockstar paying taxes, like it would bring in massive amounts of profit.
And Rockstar, isn't Rockstar based in the US, like their main headquarters?
Yeah.
So I don't think he would actually do anything.
If it was made by a company that's based outside the US, that could be different.
But since they're based in the US, I think they're safe.
I don't think so.
I'm sure they have studios outside of the US, but I'm pretty sure that their main headquarters is in New York.
Their parent organization is Take Two, which is also in New York.
ultimately it is a US company.
So here's a counterpoint.
I think maybe Trump might threaten a little bit so that uh he gets the US to have stock in the company.
Just like Intel.
just like, well, the US owns a part of Intel now, so.
Yeah, and I think that's a wrong decision.
Yeah, well it's- it's a-
gonna fail, unfortunately.
Here's the thing though, the government, if it's run effectively, when it invests in companies and stuff, those companies do very well.
But the way that this is going, it's like reverse socialism, which is kind of funny.
ah It's really funny that it's happening this way, but that's a whole other rebel hole to go down.
So in addition...
time to be alive.
Yes.
Steam and Discord, we also have Twitch right here, which...
We know nothing about what content the kid watches, at least I don't know anything about the content, but...
Of course, a lot of people in this field consider Twitch to be liable because they allow uh Hasanabi to be one of their top stars, essentially.
and some people in the right really don't like him, so to speak.
Well, anyone who disagrees is usually seen as an enemy.
And I'd say that's true for all sides.
I agree.
um He can be pretty inflammatory at times, uh so does, mean, should, Kick should be up there, not Steam.
I'll be honest.
Kick is crazy.
Like if you want to talk about stuff that happens on that, that's crazy from streamers, Kick is the one that they should be going after potentially.
of my kick, the better.
that been very friendly to Trump, like Aiden Ross?
yeah, that's probably why they're not up there.
Same deal with Facebook and Twitter, to be honest.
Even though there's way more of that shit on Twitter, for sure.
I would say there is way more inflammatory, especially compared to you know, valve and steam and video games, which again has been debunked when you have many studies that have
come out showing how the negative effects of like Facebook and Instagram have been on younger minds and how both Facebook and Twitter have both been subject to fake
advertisements that have been used for misinformation.
to sway people, that's what we should be targeting, because it could be misinformation that could be influencing younger minds to commit crimes.
and older minds, Facebook is notorious for promoting.
Yes, but Facebook co-tos to the current government, so of course, they're safe.
TikTok does too.
That's why you don't, anyone that's like in good favor of the administration is not on there.
And that being said, that is very, very bad, by the way.
ah
the banning of TikTok, which is kind of funny.
Well, right now, they're...
not to ban it.
I know they're trying to like find a new buyer for it, which I also find ridiculous, but.
They have a buyer and it's, I can't remember the name, but it's some conservative billionaire.
so, take it with what it is.
Like it's just gonna be another Facebook at this point.
I like Instagram, but I'm so done with it.
I just want an alternative that just doesn't suck.
ah Blue Sky's pretty good, but I don't know.
Blue Sky needs some work.
Yeah, blue- I don't really go on blue sky that often.
I like blue sky.
It's just not, it's not fully ready for prime time.
Twitter feels much more snappy.
There's more features to it.
uh And as much as I don't like Instagram, I personally don't enjoy using it.
It's pretty unmatched.
There's not really anyone, any other uh social media that kind of doesn't like Instagram right now.
What's your guys' poison of choice on this?
What do you guys go to when you open up your phone for social media?
social media, business-wise or personal?
personal first than business.
Well, business just makes like you have to do everything but personal.
uh I really don't use social media as personal.
Like I have accounts and I've told myself to use it more because I could be using it as like a way to promote myself which could promote, you know, the website but I just never,
I never do it.
I mean, people usually have social media managers for that.
Like, some sort of intern locked away doing social media posts.
for exposure.
SDHQ has no interns.
I do it all.
Yeah, it is not fun.
I've I'm horrible with my like branding accounts on social media.
I'm a little better with with off the console, but need to get better with that because I kind of been posting clips.
But high tech, I know that you're on X quite a bit.
It's not X, it's called Twitter.
I know, I agree, we should just call it Twitter.
I go there and browse.
I do not like Twitter at all, I hate it so much right now.
on the internet, because it's funny.
Ah, dude, I get on there and I just get, my stress level goes up so high.
I can't do it.
That's usually that's honestly how I feel about all social media nowadays.
Like even on blue sky I see I see a lot of it like luckily the one thing I really do like about blue sky is that you can create your own uh create your own feeds and I think that
is really smart of them to do so I just have a feed that only has post that mention you know handhelds the steam deck ally legion go any of that stuff and that's all and I just
stay on that and it's so wonderful it's
share those feeds.
You can share those feeds with other people too, I think.
Now you guys want my feed?
I want your feed.
Not feet, but feed.
ah
my feed.
It's called Handheld Mentions.
But once I figure out how, yeah, I can share it.
I have no problem with that.
It's nice.
I'm looking through it right now.
Look at that.
game called Gemporium is Steam Deck verified.
This person released a demo ship miner that runs on the Steam Deck.
Five settings that are ruining your Steam Deck experience from America Gist.
Thank god, America.
Yo.
our Steam Deck experience.
Nice.
I do like that a lot because like with Twitter, it's designed to infuriate you because they want you to keep you on longer.
I don't like being manipulated like that.
me.
I'm telling you though, the like I don't move from that feed because as soon as I do, it's politics.
And you can see in trending like one, two, three, three of the three of the six things in trending right now are politics related.
It's because politics are so inflammatory at this moment.
think in a couple of years, if things get better, it will just die down.
It's how it was in the past too.
ah
I hope so.
Do you know, I still look back to the good old days of like when, I'm not going to say Obama was like an amazing president, you personal feelings aside.
There was just so much respect between the two people running for president, between Obama and McCain and Obama and Mitt Romney.
It was so respectful.
Like even though they had very big disagreements about policies and how the government should be run.
They still respected each other and they still respected the government.
And I think that was just, it was beautiful.
Like we didn't have to all agree on how to run the country, but we could all respect each other and love the country that we live in.
And instead now it's just filled with vitriol and disappointment.
were, though, given how everyone's changed drastically?
I think it is, but it's just gonna take a lot more hurt and people are hurting right now and it just sucks that we're gonna have to get through this.
think...
I don't think it'll ever return completely.
I think there is still going to be...
I think we've gone too far that there are going to be people and groups that are still very, very inflammatory.
And I don't think that's ever going to change.
It might get a little bit...
a little bit...
What is it?
It might not be as dramatic and or the groups might have less people than they do now.
But I don't think it's ever going to completely go back to the way things were.
Here's the secret though, a little, it's not really a secret, but those groups existed before all this crap happened.
A big catalyst for this is like Fox News being created in the 80s and some other stuff.
Like it is designed for reactionary um content.
So.
Yeah.
profit incentive.
Yeah.
That's why people with blue checkmarks like to rage-bait all the time.
That used to never happen on Twitter because you used to not make money when you were verified or had Twitter blue or whatever it used to be called.
Yeah.
it was nice.
just don't...
Unfortunately, I don't see that changing.
And even after, like, let's say the whole MAGA movement just somehow dies.
I don't see it changing because Twitter is still going to be the way it is now and people are still going be able to make money, so they're still going to rage bait.
And these groups, they're not going to be completely eradicated.
Like you said, they existed before.
Now I think they have a platform.
And I think that is...
they're not going to let go of that platform even if it's tiny.
They truly are the masters of baiting.
Yeah.
Also, Reddit was invited as well.
I'm not really big on Redd- Honestly man, Redditors annoy me more and more as of recently because Redditors have always had this whole year's of thou.
And also when they're talking about serious shit, one person always likes to make some sort snarky comment under a comment and that really annoys me for some reason.
It's-
every social?
I'm a big Reddit person, so I apologize.
prevalent on Reddit.
Yeah.
because I can kind of control my feed a little bit.
Like I can join groups I want and they'll still inject some stuff sometimes, but like it's been the one I've been able to control my feed the best out of all the social medias.
If I like need a good time, just relax, I get on Instagram because my Instagram feed is pretty designed to just be fun and interesting.
It gets a little political sometimes, but for the most part, I can just relax.
That sounds lovely.
And so, uh October 8th is the day of reckoning.
We don't know what's gonna happen.
We don't know, because I think personally speaking...
reckoning.
don't think anything major is going to happen.
I think they're going to try to pin blame.
It's not going to, it's not going to stick.
I think the general public is going to see through it.
Unfortunately, what the administration does or what they want to do is going to be very, very up in the air, but
you...
Honestly, you would think...
record, Noah, with predictions?
Uh, I don't keep track of my predictions since I, okay, look, I, I would say, I would say, let's, just, let's just go the basic.
My predictions can be 50 50.
I don't know how accurate they are.
think I'm more accurate when I'm predicting game stuff, but, um, when it comes to like politics and things like that, I, I'm not a hundred percent sure.
This is, this is more, I would consider it wishful thinking.
Yeah.
It would be a shame for to find out that no one actually uses Steam to communicate with one another.
Come on, let's be honest.
Barely anyone uses Steam, like, chat to talk.
game chats, they're just gonna be like, wow.
as my main social media.
Yeah
The is an interesting one.
It's structured like it wants to be a social media, but like no one really uses the social media aspect outside of like maybe pimping their profiles out.
Which
I like that we have the option.
of these days, one of these days we're all gonna, I'm gonna move right on over to steam social media full time.
One of these days.
be crazy if you did.
I know, right?
some issues with the Steam uh social side, right?
Like we've talked about that in the past, unsightly things that have happened.
Let's talk about some pimping.
Nice.
He has to show off all his uh street cred.
It's so, it looks much cooler than my account, I will say that.
How many hours of Bellatro is that?
can't.
162 hours.
Man, come on, you gotta up the ante there.
Aaaaa uh
there are too many games where they're like a make sure it's privated and make sure no one can see and I'm just like you know what don't just private my entire account fuck it it's
I don't I don't feel like doing Doing all that shit, so just I just private my entire account Fox is actually the only person that I know personally that has more games than me
And it's it's probably one of the things that devastates me the most whenever I have to talk to him
because I'm just reminded in the back of my head that like I used to be the one that had the most games and now
Hehehehehe
I don't.
Nice.
Man.
a...
It's cruel.
It's unfair.
I've worked so hard to buy games.
So many games.
And he just comes in with 10,000 games and now I'm just...
You've invested thousands, hundreds of thousands.
there used to be a bug where you couldn't load Fox's entire game library on your web browser.
It would just crash.
It's that crazy.
load too many games.
ah But yes, Steam.
Hope nothing bad happens to Steam.
I'd be-
with this high tech is that from my understanding, it is not like required.
It's a formal request that they come.
um So we'll see if the CEOs, I couldn't see Gabe Newell doing this until they, unless they like really forced him.
they'd have to rip him off his super yacht.
But I think, and this is a call out, and we need to figure out how to get this to Gabe Newell, I think he needs to do the power play and go up there and be like, yeah, I'll come
up, but I'm not gonna talk about what you want.
I'm gonna be announcing Half-Life 3.
AHAHAHAHA!
Damn!
Now, if anyone was going to use a platform to announce a game, that would probably be the greatest announcement and way to make the announcement in video game history.
Dude, that would like, probably...
like...
screw the game awards.
How about going into the government?
going to the government when they requested something completely different.
who needs the game awards when you can go on C-SPAN?
Life 3, bitches.
Drop some likes and then leaves.
I'd love that dude, that'd be- make my day.
band, the commentators are just questioning like, what is this?
What's going on?
And here we see Gabe Newell leaving, leaving the floor, just getting out of there.
Ugh.
gaben out drops mike and leaves dude that would be awesome gaben nual should do that man
that, would personally buy ten thousand dollars worth of games on Steam just for that.
Genuinely.
the foxes, GameCop.
Yo, no.
Do you think 10,000?
Dude, it took, my account is according to like SteamDB worth like 30 to 40,000.
There's no way 10,000 is gonna bring me to five.
like 10,000 really shitty dollar games.
yeah.
You think there's 10,000 of dollar games on Steam?
Probably not.
But there's probably a significant chunk.
Anyways, man.
I need to beat Fox right now is about 5,400 games.
That's still a lot.
He's got double the games, holy shit.
told you, I told you he's the only person.
Look, 4750 games is still more than a majority of the people on Steam.
You guys are crazy.
have 800 games and I've been, I've had steam since the beta client of Counter-Strike Source.
I think a lot of the games that I have now are mostly from, you know, work.
Like, before I did, I probably bought around 4,000 of the games on my account, but a lot of them have now come from, like, reviewing.
Like, Sonic Racing, Dying Light the Beast, ToA, you know, Endless Legend.
These all came from keys that I got for reviewing, so it's not like a...
It's not like I...
I honestly don't purchase many games now.
Like it's been...
It's very rare when I do.
That's totally valid, you know what else Gabe could announce while he's on stage?
The Steam Deck 2.
Oh.
Yeah, Steam Frame 2, I guess.
Ah
I'm still very, very adamant that the next Steam Deck is going to be by the end.
I want to say next year.
I really think they're going to be doing this where they wait a little bit and then have an APU, custom built APU with RDNA 4 cores.
That's just what I'm waiting on.
I've read someone leaked the Steam Deck 2 releasing in 2028.
Now, I don't know if that's necessarily true.
there's a lot of those leaks.
think the Steam Deck is getting to the point where it is having trouble running a lot of the AAA games that are releasing now.
um And while it's still able to do some of them, like Dying Like the Beast is playable on the Steam Deck and upcoming games like Silent Hill F got uh rated Steam Deck playable.
So it's still holding its own, but there are still
many more games that are struggling on their like oblivion remastered I don't think it should have that verified badge like I don't know like it was is did it get changed I
thought it released as verified no it's still verified yeah you got me for a second I was so sure it released verified I remember writing up that article and just thinking to
myself how is this possible yeah but that that's what I mean um
So, but now we've seen how some games would look with like the next generation of upscaling from like AMD and is a night and day difference enough to the point where I
think that is the generational jump that Valve is waiting for.
And I've been saying that for a while.
I was saying RDNA 4 with FSR 4 is going to be that next generation jump.
Now that I've seen first hand how FSR4 looks compared to FSR3, I'm even more sure.
Yes, which brings us to our next topic.
FSR 4 on the Steam Deck.
It used to not be possible, but now it is thanks to what I believe you said it was an SDK leak.
So AMD accidentally leaked their SDK for FSR.
And in it included a version of FSR4 that is able to run on RDNA 2 and 3 GPUs and not just only RDNA 4.
So yes, does run.
However,
There is one major drawback, which is it uses INT8 instead of uh FP8.
And floating point 8 is uh basically what houses the AI accelerators, which is what allows this upscaler to run very effectively.
However, we don't have that kind of access.
So it does have more of a power draw.
But like on older games, like I see you're playing it right now.
It's my video.
God, I did great on this video.
You know, I'm not, I'm not big on like YouTube.
Like I don't, I don't do a lot of YouTube videos, but man, man, I did great on this video.
Um, but there is a larger power draw that comes from using, uh, FSR four instead of like FSR three or FSR two or XCSS.
Um, but.
The image quality is significant.
Like it is a giant difference between FSR3 and 4.
I haven't done much testing with X-ESS and I've heard that it is much closer to each other.
But when you're comparing uh between FSR4 and FSR3, it is a night and day difference.
So here's my question though.
It is a leak, right?
So is it necessarily legal to be using this, like, version?
AMD and I wouldn't say it's illegal to be using it.
It's just probably not going to be supported by AMD.
um So I think this is more of an uncharted territory, gray area where...
um
I get what you're saying.
So like we can look at the instructions right here.
So you want to just, I guess it looks like you just replaced the DLLs, that correct?
So there are multiple ways to install it.
So in this case, if you don't want to install anything extra, then you can just replace the DLLs.
You to use the specific DLL that was leaked, that is only available, that has the FSR4 in it.
And you have to replace.
the files in there with the latest version of the FSR SDK and then replace one of the files with the leaked DLL.
That's one way to do it.
The other way is you can use the plugins.
So there are two plugins that you can install and use.
We have the Deki FrameGen plugin, which was made by XSX, Jason Derulo XX, I think.
and that actually has FSR4 in it.
So I believe it's now on the Dekki store, so you don't have to manually install it, but in the video I go over manually installing it.
And uh that's the way I personally choose to use it, because there are some games where you can't do the DLL swap, like for whatever reason Silent Hill 2, I was not able to do
the swap.
So you're going to have to use OptiScaler, and that is automatically included in the Dekki FrameGen plug.
And for the audience, can you explain what OptiScaler is?
Opti scaler is basically a tool that can be used to inject new up scalers or force frame gen in games that don't usually support it.
I'm sure there's more to it to opti-scaler, but that's mainly what I use it for so that is
lossless upscaler or whatever it's called.
I forget the name of the tool in Windows.
was mostly for uh FSR frame gen.
Lossless scaling is its own plugin, its own thing.
But uh there is FSR uh frame gen that is included within OptiScaler, and that you can force.
I see.
Ooh, is this a...
this is OptiScale.
Yeah, it looks...
yeah, it looks kinda...
you think that this will be like, it so that, let's just say hypothetically, if all games were supported, do you think it would help make it so that all the new games coming out
would be playable on the Steam Deck?
If we had the...
No, not necessarily.
I think it would make a lot of games look a lot better.
Like, you can see Hell is Us right there.
You know, it's easier to see in the video, but it's a pretty monumental difference.
Especially when moving around, and that's why I say I recommend the video, because the video shows the shimmering of FSR3 when you're moving around, and that's just completely
gone with FSR4.
uh I think...
Holy shit, this is a huge, like, improvement.
And yeah, you can see the...
if you just look at the branches of the tree, like FSR3, you can barely see them.
And then in 4, it's just beautiful.
ah I would say.
I would say it'll make a lot of games look better.
And if we had the accelerators to reduce the overhead that's needed for the new upscaler, I think it would be better.
But to make it more playable, probably not, because we still need to have the boost in power.
we can only do so much with the power that we have um already.
right.
So it appears to use a little more VRAM and almost double, yeah.
more overhead.
Definitely needs more GPU power.
uh Is it GPU?
Yeah, I don't
at the shadows here, it's a night and day difference.
And the branches like you said, you can even...
more apparent in motion, but it is uh a monumental difference.
you can even see whatever this mountain is back here, whereas you couldn't before.
It's good shit.
Let's see.
it really does need the, what is it?
It really does need the accelerators though.
For Spider-Man, it's a little bit harder to tell, but if you look at the windows in the back and the pedestrians on the ground in three, their blurs or just the details of the
windows are gone.
And then with four, you can actually make out the pedestrians and you can see the details on the windows further away.
Man, that's crazy.
There's some differences with Hogwarts legacy, but for whatever reason Hogwarts legacy for me just does not run well I got a lot of people in comments being like hey Why is your
Hogwarts legacy so bad like why is it performing so poorly and I'm just that's how it's always performed for me.
So Could be the area I'm in specifically
I got to once you get to the town, the town is just not very playable with Steam Deck.
You can still do it like my wife put in.
She beat it like four times, put in like 100 plus hours into the game on Steam Deck, but I feel like she had a different experience than me.
It's weird.
this also sounds like you're talking about Dragon's Dogma too, because that definitely had like a lot of issues.
Like it was actually unplayable on Steam Deck, unfortunately.
I know my-
Cyberpunk, Cyberpunk is another one like Hell is Us where moving around really makes a difference.
Hmm.
I'm inclined to agree.
uh
I guess it's a different time of day that makes more sense.
So yeah, in the end, it's definitely showing the...
uh What is it?
It's definitely showing the changes and the benefits of using FSR4, especially visually.
But we still, for like, know, AAA games, we're still going to need the extra power from the newer tech, and we're still going to need those AI accelerators to really take
advantage of FSR4 fully.
And know, OptiScaler, it kind of looks like, damn it, was that?
What was that that I was thinking of, James?
I think you know what I'm talking about, right?
It's like, it has an interface that kind of looks like, oh, reshade.
It looks like reshade.
wonder, it almost makes me wonder if this could be, you could use this to activate like some reshade shaders.
Doesn't look like it, but maybe some sort of reshade.
Opti-scaler combination app.
I don't know.
It does look very interesting though.
Yeah, it does look very interesting though.
I wouldn't have expected FSR 4 to be here, but thanks to the good graces of AMD, FSR 4 on the Steam Deck is now a thing.
Of course, I feel like this won't be so necessary once the Steam Deck 2 comes out.
I am curious though, should the Steam Deck 2 come out, what will you do with future reviews and whatnot?
Will you incorporate the OG Steam Deck or will you at some point phase out Steam Deck 1 reviews?
Yeah, I mean, I'd have to...
play it on both.
You gotta beat it on both to give us the real uh scoop.
Kill me.
Actually, idea.
No, I can't.
I would have to.
I think for, uh...
When that happens, think I'd have to find some way to make it work.
folk kind of like what I do with the OLED.
I focus more on the newest release and then I will, you know, do some light testing.
I think I'd do more light testing with the Steam Deck and then full on testing with the Steam Deck too.
Or if I can find some way to do them both, I think I would.
Luckily, a lot of the games that we review have cloud save so I can just save in certain parts where I know.
It's similar to how I review games.
When I play through the games on the default settings and I find the spots that are the heaviest, and I optimize for those.
Because if you can optimize for the heaviest spots, everything else is going to be covered.
That's generally how I do it.
I think it'd be the same kind of thing, but I'd play through it on the Steam Deck 2, find the heaviest spots, save there, and then test those spots on the...
Steam Deck 1, essentially.
I think that's a good idea.
Good way to do it.
expect you to phase out Steam Deck 1 reviews when the Steam Deck 3 comes out,
Gotta do all three.
You gotta do.
we're, we're, we're switching, we're switching to the AI max plus three 95 handhelds only starting now.
doesn't make for a very good name though.
AI Max 395 plus HQ.
When you say it like that,
Would you cover the Deckard and like, let's say like the Fremont and Steam Deck 2 and all that, or are you just gonna cover Steam Deck 2?
So this is actually something I got a uh question about recently.
um As much as I would love to cover everything Valve, I do think the focus of the website is handhelds.
So in the end, it would still have to be handheld related.
If the PC console that
Valve is making has some sort of Steam Deck integration, then I would absolutely cover it at that point.
And same with like if they make another VR headset and that has some correlation or some like connection to the Steam Deck, then I would cover that.
But if they are individual devices and they don't really relate to the Steam Deck directly, then I don't think I can justify covering it.
Especially because for like Steam Deck HQ,
right, though?
Like you'd just be like, okay, this is how it is, but you wouldn't really do anything much more than that.
a review of it, but I see us doing something more like a review for another handheld over a review for a VR headset from Valve.
We are Steam Deck HQ, but I see us more as handheld geared and focused on games with other handhelds being a side thing.
We covered the GPD Win 5.
when they announced when pre-orders were going live and their prices.
I do see uh us covering that kind of stuff.
hopefully, uh at Tokyo Game Show, we do have an interview set up with IONEO.
And I'm trying to get one set up with GPD and one netbook.
Because I know one netbook will be there.
GPD, don't know yet.
But they were last year.
Hopefully we can do that and I would love to talk to them a little bit more.
I've got some questions for them, especially with the AI max plus 395 handheld, like the GPD Win 5 is really going to be breaking ground in terms of power with the handheld.
So uh I do want to talk to INEO about that and what their response is going to be because they teased a 395 handheld, but the battery is actually included in the device.
So I definitely am.
curious about what they're going to do since the GPD Win 5 has an external battery.
um But also just how the Android scene is going to look as well since Google is going to start uh not allowing side loading.
So I'm very interested to see what they're going to say since INEO has been doing a lot into the uh Android space when it comes to handhelds.
And so with that, yeah, you said you're going to TGS, right?
So you should ask him about Bazite.
Why don't you ship with a handheld with Bazite pre-installed?
Is that something that they're allowed to do?
Because that's the thing.
The reason why when it comes to shipping handhelds with an OS and you're selling it with that OS, usually the people who make that OS get some cut of the profit.
So I don't know.
mean, I could ask them about that, but I haven't seen anything ship with Bazite pre-installed.
Bazite would allow it.
It's the type of operating system and the type of license they have.
I'm pretty sure they'd allow it as long as they're not charging extra for that version.
uh Steam Machine, not Steam Machine, the Emu Deck Machine, They were trying to make a sort of console that was gonna ship with Bazite, but then no one wanted one.
Also, you could also ask them about official Steam OS support, because Lenovo is one, why not Ionia, right?
uh I mean Lenovo did is shipping with steam os on one of their versions of their Handhelds yeah, but I'm sure valve is getting a cut from that, too
I'm sure they are, but I'm sure...
Or maybe Valve could subsidize it.
their money back from...
oh
Yeah.
see Valve subsidizing uh these devices, to be honest.
Like they don't need to subsidize them, but I could see them doing it just to just get Steam out there more and more, you know?
Like, instead of running a Windows OS device, you could get more Steam OS devices and, hey, we'd have more Steam OS users and, some anti-cheat developers would be interested in
letting their games run Steam Deck, or Steam OS rather.
They have the money to do it.
They should at least use it instead of buying another yacht.
Dude, what game does with his yacht?
His like fourth or fifth yacht?
no, he has like eight or nine I swear and then he bought the yacht company that makes them
on.
The guy's done so much, he deserves at least 12.
Well, he also owns the yacht company, so he technically has all those other yachts.
Alright.
if you think about it, he needs to have more yachts to keep up appearances.
Hey Gabe Newell, you can invite all of us and Gardner Bryant onto one of your yachts so we can host an episode and heck, heck maybe you can be a guest, you can be the second guest
host, it'll be a five person episode.
Heck, I'll even be, I'll even cook the whole time.
Am
included.
I invited, I invited, I said all of us and Gardner Brian since he's not here right now.
All right, well now if you guys ever do a yacht episode with Gabe and I have to be included in it.
Yeah.
Speaking of inclusion, Stop Killing Games has now given us an update a week ago.
Actually, we could have talked about this last week, but we didn't.
It wasn't up when we made the podcast episode.
But essentially, there are some updates.
First and foremost, 97 % of all signatures were in fact valid, which is incredibly high.
uh
I don't know how many are usually fraudulent in these European uh campaigns, but the fact that 97 % of signatures are in fact from real people tells you that there's a real demand
for people uh wanting to stop killing games.
Well, and those are from Europeans too, because that's another part of the criteria, right?
Is that you have to be a European citizen to in order to sign it and have it be valid.
I'm shocked.
97.
Honestly, when I saw those like, that's a little too high.
But that's
97 for 99 that's a beautiful thing.
Also Ross the cursed farms we had him on a prior episode of off the console He's taking a step back and honestly, man, it's well deserved reward.
It's a well deserved rest man.
He's been he's been bustin ass trying to get this initiative off the up and then also combating misinformation from the likes of pirate software, which
is unfortunate that he doesn't see it the way we see it.
Every good movement needs an enemy, so he had to be it.
true, man.
Imagine a video game without an enemy.
Imagine Mario without Bowser.
Exactly.
thing I'll never get about the Stop Killing Games initiative.
I just can't understand why anyone would be against it.
I can understand why developers would be against it, or not even.
I can understand why publishers would be against it.
But I can't really understand why anyone outside of that would be against it.
Because it's just preservation.
It's just that games that have released aren't lost.
I think it's just a fundamental misunderstanding from Pirate Software that he refuses to acknowledge.
Because uh one of the biggest misconceptions with stock killing games is uh that, you can't kill games when they're not vi...
you have to keep games up forever even when they're commercially non-viable.
But that's not what we're asking for.
Kill more games.
Stop supporting games if need be.
Just let us play the games and host the stuff ourselves.
with our own equipment and money and stuff.
Mm-hmm.
No, and I think, I just can't see why anyone would be against that.
It's like, to me, anyone who's against this is basically against things like emulation.
And if without emulation, we would never be able to access, you know, hundreds of thousands of games that have been released in the past.
I don't know why Pirate Software would be against it.
Part of me thinks it's because he worked at Blizzard for so long and that he's got that AAA publisher mindset within him.
Yeah, they corrupted him.
He's got that blizzard brain freeze going on.
I don't, I, but honestly man, I don't know why.
And another thing too, but I think, but I think right now, I think it's because, right now I think it's because the internet hates him for disagreeing.
And so he wants to, so I think he wants to be the bad guy and he's just spiting.
Yeah.
He's doubling down at just out of spite at this point.
And he's lost a lot of, it doesn't make it better.
No, no, no, no, no.
He's lost a lot of subscribers and there's a million expose videos about the downfall of pirate software even though he still has over million subscribers.
He's probably not in a downfall.
He's probably hitting a rough patch, but I he's in a downfall.
Yeah, it kind of reminds me of all those videos that they made about Linus Tech Tips, the downfall of Linus Tech Tips.
When there was that whole beef with Gamers Nexus and Linus Tech Tips.
Drama is drama.
Yeah, you got to you got to take it with a grain of salt oftentimes because it's going to be overblown and then you have to you got to give it some time for it to blow over because
some things are just everyone makes mistakes and so if you go after every single one that makes a mistake you're going after yourself too we all make mistakes it depends on the how
big the mistake
my daughter right now.
Everybody poops.
Everybody makes mistakes.
Speaking of, it looks like Ross here submitted his own response.
says, far as me stepping back, it's more like I'm quote unquote uncalled for anything where me being involved would help a lot.
Most of what's happening right now is best left of people familiar with European political processes like mortis.
Mortis, I pronounce that right?
So I'm leaving most things to people that know what they're doing better.
They're doing better than I do to maximize our odds.
So I could probably see Ross being summoned to parliament to be a key witness in this case.
Like a key figure for saying why, yada yada yada.
But then, letting all the other people here.
We've got all the other people here taking care of all of the minutia of government.
I don't know.
he mentioned that he was gonna try to step down after it succeeded and everything like that and give it up to the more European officials and people that could really propel it.
I mean, yeah, it succeeded.
He got the attention, he got people rallying, he proved that there's a real appetite for wanting to play end-of-service, live-service games.
Sorry about that.
But, I mean, yeah, he deserves a rest, he's been bustin' ass.
It's been crazy, and...
uh
Yeah.
It might be too late for some games, to be honest, like Anthem is going end of life and we're never going to play Anthem again.
Which is a shame, Anthem got a bad rap, I don't think it was as bad a game as it was made out to be.
There were some issues, but I did like the fly.
Like I said, it's not a perfect game.
eh I think, yeah.
Yeah, I mean...
Let the community fix it.
I'm sure there's a community who would do it.
that would be awesome man.
They just let people like mod the games to not suck as much and then people will start playing that.
That would be awesome.
I would go back to play it.
Fuck yeah.
Aw, Too bad Anthem's gonna be dead before uh Stop Killing Games happens, but hopefully this'll prevent future games from being killed.
I'm sure you've heard the news about Splitgate 1 being preserved forever.
Good stuff.
And I mean, even though it's not law yet, the campaign's already bearing some fruit.
So, yeah, it seems that way.
It's bearing some fruit.
even like a Redfall, game that's been critically and commercially panned, has an offline mode now.
And also...
it, I really like Redfall actually.
uh
You you want to link up?
there you go.
Do it.
end this episode early.
Hahaha
2 also has this as well.
So I reported earlier that, oh, you don't have all the characters, but you do have all the characters, just not all the cosmetics and shit for Multiverses offline.
after everything that happened with multiverses, I'm genuinely shocked that it basically died out so quickly.
Part of it is because there was no like consumer confidence.
Like remember multiverses was up, it had launched twice.
It like launched an open beta and then they concluded that open beta for like a couple years and then came back and people weren't as excited.
Yeah, they shouldn't have done that.
I think it was just a bad idea.
I guess it's just surprising seeing as how it was so...
There was a good chunk of excitement for it, especially when it was in its first open beta.
I don't know, it's just kind of shocking to me that they basically killed it.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it is what it is,
I expected more.
love Super Smash Bros.
and Warner Bros.
has a fantastic slate of characters but in all honesty, Warner Bros.
when it comes to their games, they just don't make good decisions.
Warner Bros.
in general doesn't make good decisions.
Not just their games.
Have you seen...
have you...
like you've seen what's happened with DC like the past like 10 years.
It's insane what they've like done.
I mean they're trying to get it back with Guns DC, so I'm optimistic.
I haven't seen Superman yet, but you know, I like Guns movies.
I really like The Guardians of the Galaxy, so...
Gardner loves, like, James Gunn Superman.
For a lot of great things about it, Yeah.
it.
I'd heard great things about Peacemaker as well.
Peacemaker,
You
Peacemaker's funny.
It is here.
things about it.
haven't seen it.
honestly, I don't do much with DC because, you know, I wasn't really a big fan of the movies before.
So I just, you know, I'll keep an open mind to going into it though.
Yeah.
changed that for me a lot like I thought super the new Superman was really good I am NOT a Superman fan in any way, but they actually humanized him a little bit which is what he
needed
Yeah, because remember the last time they tried doing Superman, they made him like, see, it was full of like Jesus allegories and how he was a like, they were like comparing him
to Jesus, not just that, though, but also the one with Henry Cavill.
No, the Jesus one.
Oh.
But like, there's also- but like, they also had- I don't know, he just seemed very emotionless and not very human.
Like, no- knock on Henry Cavill, because he's the goat.
But I don't think the Superman role was written very well.
By Zack Snyder.
He was, I think he was good for the role, but I agree, it just wasn't.
The writing wasn't there.
But I think Cavill, if he was still Superman-like with Gun, I think it would have worked too.
Man, if it was still Geralt of Rivia in the Netflix series, that'll...
Man.
No one I know won't...
feels like he got shafted because both he lost out on Superman and at least it seems like he lost out on Superman and the Witcher.
He had an opinion and I think he fought against writers, but the problem with the writers of like Witcher is that they didn't know what the fuck they were doing.
Yeah, he...
Haven't they deviated from the Witcher pretty heavily?
Yeah, and he was trying to lo- he was- he was basically trying to lobby against, like, what they were changing.
and played the games.
He is, he was...
a full on gamer and I respect his opinion.
universe very well, probably much better than any of the writers, unfortunately.
Yes.
That's...
Yeah, he's still...
Thankfully, he's still making his Amazon Warhammer series.
mean, we didn't hear much about it, but the Secret Level episode was really good, and people really liked that one, even if some of the other episodes weren't super well-liked.
But like, yeah, people.
to seeing what Kevill's going to do.
Dude, hurry Henry Cavill.
It's crazy, man.
He does like one of the nerdiest things out there.
I think we talked about this with the Fox.
There was like a nerd tier list and I think Warhammer's like squarely at the top.
Yeah, that's right.
Would you agree?
It's like Warhammer, then D &D, and then like anime in the video games.
Would anime be considered nerdy though?
You would consider anime as like a nerd thing?
certainly used to be nerdy.
Definitely a lot nerder.
It's lot more mainstream now, but like...
call I what's the difference between geek and nerd?
Because I don't know when I when I think of anime, I think more of a geek than a nerd.
In this case, I I- I- I tend to use Nerd and Geek uh interchangeably.
they're kind of used like that, but the main distinctions are like a nerd is an intelligent, socially awkward, or introverted person focused on academic or a complex
intellectual pursuits, while a geek is an enthusiast obsessed with specific hobby or pop culture interest, often gathering facts and memorabilia related to it.
ah Yeah.
those definitions, anime would definitely be in the geek category.
Yeah.
Yeah, so I think, so here's the geek tier list.
At the top, it's Warhammer.
Next is like D &D or like tabletop role-playing games like Cyberpunk.
And next is anime.
And then below that is...
the world of anime is vast and the fans are a range between mild to ridiculous.
And then under anime is video games.
In my opinion.
Yeah.
that.
uh Have you guys watched The Simpsons before?
I don't know about that one.
I think that's a difficult one for me.
think video games might be above, just based on how widespread they are now.
Because I would consider mobile games as part of video games.
And I feel like there's more people who play video games than watch anime.
Well, my tier list is not based on how popular it is, but how geeky and niche and obscure and how deep into it you really have to be.
Like, you'd have to be super deep into some shit to Warhammer.
So, video games are a lot more mainstream than the others, which is why it's towards bot.
Fair enough.
In that case then I do agree.
Comics are some weird shit though.
I don't know where to put those because like superhero movies are very popular But like when you actually read the comics they get into some really weird shit
That's a hard one probably below anime but above games
Nah, that's a good one.
That's good assessment.
I think anime tends to get...
Yeah.
if there was like neck and neck I could I could probably see anime and comics being tied
Honestly, that's not a bad assertion because there are lot of animes that are uh mainstream.
They've got that mainstream appeal.
Like, know, obviously Dragon Ball Z, Jujutsu Kaisen, Naruto, all that.
And then there are some other ones that are very obscure or very not to Western tastes.
Like, uh my little sister can't possibly be this cute.
Real serious, by the way.
Yeah, no some of their names so my wife and I have been getting real into anime recently and we just we we are on like a binge we've got like a watch list of like Ten different
anime that we are planning to start we just finished one like we love these comedy anime and there was one we just watched that just completely fucked us up it's called a sobiasa
base and It is so ridiculously funny.
It's so stupid, but so
Man, I need to watch more anime.
been a little bit since I've watched an anime that, like, a new anime that's interested me.
If for humor, Konosuba's my goat.
I like Konosuba.
Konosuba is so funny.
I can't wait.
I'm still I'm waiting.
Isn't season four coming this year?
I can't wait for it.
See, I would know.
We watch that.
uh You like Konosuba.
Check out Asobi Asabase.
Seriously, it's it's it's similar to that.
It's a mini series and it's like little five, six minute episodes contained within like a twenty three minute episode.
It follows uh three girls in middle school, but it is just the most ridiculous and stupid thing.
It's just so good.
And also with anime, there's also some truly delicious garbage.
Like for example, uh domestic girlfriend is truly one of those.
domestic girlfriend?
Yeah, that's the name of the series.
Or Domestik no Kanojo is what it's called in Japan.
It's some truly delicious, like, garbage.
Oh man, that looks great.
I'm looking at right now.
I'm curious.
Is it, is it actually good?
Like, have you seen it?
No, it's- I've read it, it's terrible, but it's like a train wreck that I can't like move my eyes away from.
It's like one of those like- it's like one of those like bad movies that you like know it's bad, but you watch it because it's hilarious.
Well now now you've got me curious about it.
What what makes it so ridiculous and so train wreck such a train
So it begins with our main character, his family is...
So essentially his dad is a single dad and he's getting remarried.
And then his two new sisters, one of them is his teacher that he has a crush on, but they can't do it because...
And then the other is a girl that he of just slept with at a party.
And they're both his sister.
They're both his sisters now and so, oh no, it's...
It's some...
It's some truly...
It's some truly, like...
Bad stuff.
Yeah, that one might be a little bit too weird for me.
I will say, we really enjoy the comedy anime.
That's kind of where we gravitate towards when we're watching together.
I do like a range of it, but Dandodan is one of our favorites right now.
And recently, the episode's been so good.
Yo have you watched Angel Beats before?
Angel Beats?
I don't think so.
I think you'd really like it too.
It leans more into the slapstick humor.
It's made by the guys that made Clannad.
Yeah, but essentially it's a...
It basically takes place in the afterlife with a bunch of like kids that are going to like the high school in the afterlife and they're rebelling against God, but there's a lot of
like crazy like slapstick.
I think you'd really like it.
I literally have up our website where I'm these on our watch list.
I put Angel Beats on there.
Dan to Dan is really good though.
Definitely recommend it.
Especially the last few episodes have been especially funny.
I need to catch up.
I've been watching with my brother and he's been busy.
Yo, so speaking of catching up, it looks like Microsoft is catching up to the economy.
That was a really good segue.
Thank you, thank you.
Unfortunately, pricing has increased substantially.
Well, not substantially, but they're going up.
This is the second time Xbox prices have gone up, and this is only in US so far.
Yeah.
of course, because there's no other reason for the prices to go up only in the US other than terror.
So, I don't even remember what the Xbox Series S launched at, but it's $400 now for the lowest end Xbox.
like 350?
launch that 350 I thought launched it like 300 I don't remember
it $2.99?
I don't know.
I thought it was $3.49.
Xbox Series S launch MSRP.
It launched at $299, according to Wikipedia.
a rock.
Damn.
It went up a hundred fucking dollars throughout this entire generation.
that the prices have started going up.
Yes.
never, I don't think it's ever happened to where we've had consoles go up before, up until this generation.
Yeah, like, it's gone up twice in one year.
Yeah, yeah, PlayStation went up like a few weeks.
uh The Switch One went up in price too.
Not even the Switch Two, the Switch One.
How does that make any s-
We'll see.
I don't know.
was hearing that weren't they importing a lot of Switch 2s before the tariffs so that they didn't have to increase the price?
But obviously that's going to run out.
manufactured in Vietnam, I believe, yes.
That's why you don't see a lot of the price changes up until now is because they had a huge inventory and we're hoping that probably the administration would kill the tariffs
because they're not, tariffs are not a good policy ah and they're still not dead.
So we're gonna see, I think we're gonna see more price hikes.
If they keep on with the Xbox or with these tariffs,
We'll get more price hikes for the Xbox, I'm pretty sure.
So who's paying $800 for an Xbox Series X?
That's fuckin' PC gaming.
At that point, you know, add another 400, 500?
Shit, man, you get yourself a gaming PC that'll last you...
Cause like, we're like, reaching towards the tail end of this generation too, aren't we not?
Yeah.
It's been like five years since the consoles launched, so like...
I guess maybe two more years left.
Yeah, so this is like the tail end of the console generation, and they're charging $800 for this shit.
Yeah, it's a little bit.
Yeah.
It's a little secret campaign they're doing.
They're gonna charge $1,099 for the next Xbox.
I don't know, I'm just messing, but still.
I would die, that's not worth it.
Definitely not worth it, dude.
Just go to PC.
that now, but we'll see.
But yeah, I hear you on that.
honestly, at this point, I don't know if Xbox is really going to focus on consoles as much anymore.
Like they're moving so far away that I think they're mostly just going into software at this point.
Well, if you recall, uh in a recent marketing campaign that Xbox did, everything's an Xbox now.
You see that PC that you're podcasting from?
It's an Xbox.
Now shit.
my god.
that Xbox?
I guess that's also an Xbox.
on the Steam Deck yet.
me ask you guys this.
Is my Xbox Series X an Xbox?
Soon it won't be.
would imagine so.
I would imagine so.
logic.
ah No, think honestly, I think it's really the smartest decision they could have made the Xbox as a hardware was definitely nowhere near uh PlayStation or switch levels of sales so
I think them switching more to software and focusing less on exclusives and just opening up more I think that was an extremely smart idea and we now we've seen the ripple effects
like PlayStation is doing the same thing now You know and they're starting to focus more on
uh Multi-platform releases and they still do some exclusives like ghosts of yote is going to be an exclusive to PlayStation But I think it's going to come to PC and possibly Xbox
sooner than it would have before
Hmm.
just don't, think there's no such thing as unlimited growth in uh like a very single category.
And I think we're starting to see that kind of happen with like, um with the economy with a lot of these big companies are starting to hit like their walls.
ah I just don't see PlayStation hardware being able to be.
grow that much more so they have to expand out their cells in order to get those year over year growth um in their revenue.
You know, it's funny that you mentioned that because someone else actually mentioned this in this article right here by the game business.
And so, you know, this is a little interview that they did.
It's an hour long podcast.
I haven't listened to it, but I've also read some parts of the article.
One thing that really stick and so, you know, there's a lot of things that they cover, such as, for example, how Capcom president, Tsujimoto Haruhito, Haruhiro, yeah, an
interview with Nick Kay.
They were talking about how
The high prices of the PS5 was impacting their ability to sell Monster Hunter Wilds, which...
I mean, guess that's technically true, but at the same time though, Monster Hunter Wilds has an insane requirement for PC that you can't really run on most PCs, right?
Like, you definitely can't do it on a Steam Deck, that's for sure, right?
No, definitely not on a Steam Deck.
Yeah, it does have higher requirements.
It's bit tougher than that.
heard there are some issues with people even running on a 5090, which is the cream of the crop gaming GPU, and if a game has issues running there...
and just reminding me of Borderlands 4.
We'll get to them later.
yeah, so also what's interesting is the average age of console buyers is going up.
like the average console, like it's going towards people that are older and also more affluent as well, uh which is one thing they mentioned.
uh Which is interesting though, because the console market has always been sort of a traditionally younger market, uh if I recall.
Well, it's becoming more expensive.
And because of that, people need more time and more money to buy it.
So it kind of makes sense, especially in this economy.
and Z are big time, I think, in the mobile, phones and all that.
I think the data kind of shows that.
But yeah, it's also more expensive.
Like everyone kind of, like you can focus on a phone and like, yeah, everyone kind of needs a phone nowadays so they can get a phone that they can play on.
And that means they don't need a TV, they don't need a console, they're able to.
survive with how much cost of living is going up.
So I think that Kate.
also have other things competing for time too, such as, for example, Roblox and Fortnite on mobile.
You
I barely play on my Steam Deck now.
I just play Roblox on my phone.
Damn, there used to be a time where you could play Roblox on your Steam Deck, but you know, they took away that ability because too many cheaters on Roblox apparently.
I like how that was their priority too, because I'm like, dude, you guys have a pedophilia issue and you're focusing on taking it away from Steam Deck.
oh
obviously it's those damn cheaters.
That's what's making Roblox so bad.
4Kiltschids.
to be definitely not the pedophiles that abuse roblox to get details and interact with young kids.
You gotta save the YouTube self-censored lingo, the PDF file.
my bad.
Can we?
I don't think we got censored last time, I don't think it dinged us, but...
God, you know, that really pisses me off that like...
Alright, so I've seen some documentaries on YouTube talking about stuff like this and one of the things they like to say is instead of saying suicide, they say unalive themselves.
And instead of saying pedophile, they say suicide.
not, sorry, instead of saying pedophile, they say PDF file.
Okay, here's the thing.
When...
I just don't understand why it's become that censored.
Like, what if someone is making like actual educational content and someone is actually a pedophile?
To me it just sounds so stupid to say PDF file.
Dude, there's just a level of unseriousness that comes with just using those terms, like seriously.
On a live?
not gonna lie, it makes me laugh every time.
Which is horrible.
I know these are very like, what's the word?
It did.
Tik TOK is a big part of it for sure.
Um, these are very serious, serious topics and serious conversations.
Absolutely.
And they should be taken seriously if you're going to be talking about them, but to censor it the way that they do makes it feel like they one don't take it seriously.
Like the ones who are enforcing censorship like that.
They don't take it seriously and it's just, it just ruins the, just not ruins, but it lessens the impact of how bad it actually is.
Yeah, it makes it seem so juvenile, too.
Like, that's like the kind of shit you would say, like, instead of saying, you know, fuck, you would say, well, F you, like, right?
That's like, that's something a kid would do.
Like, when they want to, like, get around, they want to say the word, but they can't say it.
Well, or if you live in Utah.
or...
man.
Uh, yeah, it's an advertising thing.
At the end of the day, they're trying to placate to advertise.
Advertisers probably don't even know the shit they're talking about.
They're like, well, can I have swearing?
We can't, you can't say, why would you say pedophile?
Like a pedophile is not going to say pedophile.
Like the only people that are going to say PDF file or whatever high tech to placate you.
Uh, it, I'm just messing with you.
I'm just messing with you.
It is.
It's be used almost always in education or people that are gonna be shitting on it.
So it's like Stop, I get it.
Like I don't mind a little censorship in the sense of like You know, yeah inciting violence and stuff like that, but geez I Don't know It it's it's advertisers and I have to
say this and it goes a little off topic but
Did you hear what fridge companies are doing now?
Because they're running out of ways to make money with fridges.
Samsung, I think, is now on their 1800 and plus fridges are going to have advertisements of it.
So like your milk's low, bam, ad.
I'm assuming that's how it's going to go.
So.
buy an old refrigerator if they're still good.
That's just my...
It's cheaper and it's now better because it doesn't bombard you with ads.
just works.
If they can give me a trailer while I'm looking through my food, or, you know, looking through the fridge for food, if they can give me a trailer for, the next video game,
maybe.
If it's, really targeted.
And it's still, you know, you know it's gonna be abused.
Ugh.
you might as well just like cut, like open up the refrigerator then cut off the speaker wires.
That's what you have to do.
lessen the impact.
dude, hacking with open source fridge software.
uh
Open open source fridge open source truck.
I thought open source was mostly just software.
Now it's like, you can build a truck that's open source.
Some of it could be hope.
uh
confusing for me.
Definitely, it's definitely more of the software.
more software, hardware's a lot harder, but it usually means it's not like uh a patent or you're allowed to uh affect the build of the patent.
it's a good thing that hardware is getting more that way, because then it allows for like rights to repair and some other things that are important for owners of products.
So here are some other things this article mentions too.
For example, Fortnite creators will sell items in December.
They'll be able to sell in-game items in December.
Right, that's cause for- that's cause you can sell items and roblox too that doesn't- man
That's gonna be a new class in the new education department that the administration's coming out.
sell in-game items is it similar to like Counter-Strike where people can resell like in-game skins?
No, no, no, like you can make like in Roblox, you can make like a custom like item, like a hair, and then you can sell it to other people.
like there's all sorts of different things, mod, essentially just mods.
Paid mods.
Got it.
Lovely.
My favorite.
Great.
not against paid mods, by the way.
I actually really was for that.
I was probably one of only gamers for paid mods.
just...
It needs to be regulated.
I guess I would agree with you there.
I'm usually in the camp of no paid mods, but at the same time, there are some mods that deserve to get money for it because of how much work they put in.
So, yeah.
and if someone wants to go out of their way to make their mod even better and I'd pay for it, go for it.
No, I think that's fair.
There are mods that I'm like, you know, that really do go over and above or add a ton of content, deserve the money.
with some mods deserving money more than the actual developers do, like there are mods for like Skyrim that I would say deserve more money than Bethesda does.
I agree with that.
At the end of the day, complete conversions of games or making, let's say, the old Morrowind in uh the newer version of Skyrim's engine or something like that.
Yeah, stuff like that.
I would pay for stuff like that because you know how much time that takes to make?
That's a full-time job.
And so I'd rather than be comfortable and do it because they're all so passionate about
I do agree with that, but then when it comes to paid mods, do you think that it should all go to the developers or should it be something more intersplicet with the actual game
itself and then like, let's say Sky Oblivion for instance, and then Bethesda would take a cut.
like with how Bethesda originally wanted to do paid mods?
I think it should all go to the developer of the mods.
None of it should-
controversial.
90 % should go to the modders, 10 % should go into the transaction, into the devs or the platform, and that's including Steam.
I don't think that's a controversial take.
As much as I do believe that a majority of should go to the mod developers, I also think that it wouldn't be possible without the hard work that developers have put into the game.
Bethesda, for instance, they made a game that they've basically repackaged 10, 11 times.
But it's still like these mods would not be possible without the work that they put in to make the base.
I would want a mod manager, and then so that 10 % would go into also making sure the mod manager is up to date, making sure that the developers can mod the game.
Yep.
100%.
Yes, uh Valve, think if Valve is involved, think Valve would get a cut to one for, and that's a lot of money though that comes out of these.
my take, I've said this about Valve and Steam many times.
Compare Steam as a DRM uh to any other storefront.
There is none that can match the features that Steam has.
It eclipsed.
And if they need to take a little bit extra to...
keep those features alive and continually add more to it which they do continually do.
I think it's worth it.
I agree to a point, but their revenue is really high.
for a private company, are making billions.
And so I think they could cut their revenue down to like 20 % because right now they did.
Yeah.
Heck, even 10 % for Indie.
saying, but I'm also in the camp that they don't need to cut it.
I actually would argue and say that of every company, Valve is the only one that justifies the 70-30 cut.
I think they can justify it.
I just don't think it's very good for very small indies.
What they do, it...
agree with that.
think they're scaling it the wrong way.
I think they need to switch it around.
think for like indie games, it needs to be something like 80-20.
And then when they hit a certain threshold, like a million copies sold, then they switch it back to 70-30.
They don't do that.
there to benefit the AAA companies, the companies that Valve really wants in Steam, you know?
Yeah, and I understand that.
just think it's backwards.
Like I understand why they want to keep the AAA developers and publishers liking Steam and wanting to continue uh publishing on Steam.
But at the same time, like Indies are just as big, if not more, when you look at them as a collective and
some when some of the big companies cannot are like, I shouldn't say big, but like there's some pretty decent indie games that just didn't sell quite well enough and they might not
make another game again.
And so if you.
roller-dome.
that.
Yeah, here's actually a pretty decent example right here.
Have you heard about what happened with a game called Planet Centauri?
Uh, no, but I do know of the game.
So basically what happened was that one of Steam's features is that it's supposed to let you know when a game releases.
Or in the case of an early access game, it's supposed to let you know when the game hits 1.0, right?
But in this case, they had 138,000 wishlists and apparently it failed.
The feature on Steam failed.
Which means they only ever got like...
So obviously...
These aren't all guaranteed sales on day one, it certainly would have been a little over 500 in five days, right?
Yeah.
So basically they got fucked over because Valve's systems failed.
And apparently it was a bug where less than hundred games since 2015 have experienced.
And I guess this is one of them now.
Did Valve take responsibility and help try to fix it?
They tried to offer it as like the daily deal so that it would be on the algorithm But it's done a lot of damage to the algorithm because I mean because how the algorithm...
Gardner would be better explaining this since he actually has sold a game on Steam, know, doodlings But like from what I understand it's a kind of a black box kind of like the
mythical YouTube algorithm and one of the things that really helps out is the the wish listing and the amount of sales
wishlisting used to be much more important, it's also cause like it's not as useful as it used to be.
But yeah, it is big.
Like if an indie game doesn't have any of that wishlist uh users emailed, it could make the game fail.
like it kind of did here.
Yeah, it is a big deal, but it's not like all 130,000 are gonna buy that.
It used to be more and more that like good chunk would buy it.
It's probably more like a 50 % would, if you're lucky.
If you're lucky.
people have to really pick and choose what games they want to buy.
It's become tough.
I mean, unfortunately, it being a daily deal, don't think it's gonna...
They don't think it's gonna make up for all the lost visibility, because the game's been out for like a year at this point.
A daily deal won't help.
What they need to do is just feature it on like right when you jump on feature for a few weeks.
They sox but.
should have done like a giant banner like they did for like silk song.
They should have just done that for plants to untie to make up for it.
I think that would have helped a lot.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean it's just the unfortunate reality of what happens when all the cogs don't work.
mean Steam, I would say, props up like 90 % of all PC gaming, right?
And if something doesn't work for one developer, then, you know, it really royally fucks them over, right?
Now it's a shame to see this happen, especially because the game did have a uh decent following and it probably wouldn't have failed if everything worked the way it was
supposed to.
Well, it doesn't give confidence to indie developers to know that they might not be able to make it.
And indie developers do not make much.
Hmm, I mean, I don't know what more valve can do at this point but
this point, I think it might be a little too late.
They could give them a million dollars So they build the next game
oh just one million though?
I mean I-
don't know, like they make so much money.
That's my problem with all this.
oh
let's say 50 % of the 138,000 wishlists would have bought the game and it's what, $15.
So what is that?
Like, let's, let's go 70,000 people.
You know, that's, what is that?
700, a million 50,000 is about what they would make.
30 % of that would go to valve.
So I was at 105, 210, 315.
Oh God.
I'm trying to do the math in my head, bear with me.
What was that?
685 with, so 685,000.
I'm looking at the game and it looks like...
700.
So I think they would have made 735,000 after after valves cut with 70,000 sales.
Yeah, no, I played it in in early access.
It's good.
Damn.
That's super unfortunate.
Let's see if anyone talks about it in the reviews.
In the recent reviews.
Ah, here we go.
Hey man, mean, the news made it, dude.
I mean, there's a good chance that this game might get its second wind now that people know that 1.0 is out.
What a, out of curiosity, what plugin do you use for your browser?
ah I use augmented steam.
gotta look into that.
There's some little features right there that I think are kind
and also SteamDB.
So augmented Steam, uh the whole backend of it runs off of is there any deal?
So it gives you deals based on stuff like that.
So yeah, it tells you historical lows and all that good stuff.
It looks fun, the game's 15 bucks.
player stats.
I think that's cool.
Though I mean, Stanley B has that too.
It's just, I like how this one looks a little
Though, I guess it doesn't show the followers, and it does for SteamDB.
So let's see what's going on here.
I do wish they made one last update to make it Steam Deck verified, given that this game...
They've gone through the wringer.
They don't have to do anything else.
to.
But I think having one more update to just show people...
I don't know.
I don't know, what's whatever.
It's unfortunate.
They are still alive though.
They are making a second game thankfully.
So they're not out of business or anything.
I would kind of understand if they feel pretty jaded by Steam and Valve though.
Like if they wanted to take like an exclusive deal from Epic, think I could understand why they would decide that.
That's totally valid, I mean, I probably, I mean, unfortunately...
if I would, I don't know like nothing, no shade to them, but I don't know if I would buy it it's an epic exclusive, but I can understand.
Yeah, the other thing too is that like I forget who, I don't know if it was Dave O'Shree or was it someone else from like the indie publishing area that said that the Epic Games
Store is a marketing black hole.
I'm not sure it sounds like something Dave would say but Honestly, it's I don't know I as much as much as like You know, there are some really cool games that are released on epic
like Alan Wake 2 is on epic Tankhead is also on epic uh But unfortunately like I don't think they'll ever ever get the traction that they would if they were on Steam
Absolutely, so I mean...
I mean, definitely do publish on Steam.
Hopefully they don't get screwed over a second time, otherwise, yeah.
And it's no shade to the developers.
I understand why they would take an exclusive deal, especially as an indie dev.
Getting guaranteed income is massive.
But also, it's
I don't think it's selling out.
I think it's fine.
even think Epic is doing Epic exclusives anymore.
think they stopped doing that because they...
as they should.
I don't think it is a great business decision, especially in the PC ecosystem.
And as we see, consoles are starting to move away from it too.
um But I think in general, just the Epic storefront is just really poorly made.
Yeah, speaking of poorly made, this argument that Nintendo is presenting.
So a little bit of a back story.
We've been talking a fair bit about Power One versus Nintendo because I mean, it's a huge deal.
And we talked about the patent that they got last week.
now, Pocket Pair brought up an argument that, you know, they pointed to a couple of mods that did essentially what Nintendo patented, like, you know.
Pixelmon for Minecraft and also they also point out this mod for Dark Souls 3.
Wait, that's a mod?
Wait, Pocket Souls?
I need to see this.
I'd play that.
So it's a mod in Dark Souls 3.
Is there a video of this somewhere?
Yeah, I just need to see- just show me something.
I wanna see what's up.
Here, I got you.
There we go.
Okay.
So it's not actual Pokemon that are in the game, looks like it's creatures from Dark Souls that you can bring out.
Yes.
I think.
look he can't!
Nintendo's coming after ya.
Uh...
Not static.
prior art in Japanese court.
Do you think that's true?
They're...
They're crazy.
Nintendo like the Japanese system and all that stuff is crazy over there.
They don't let you mod games.
You can go to jail
for modding your save data.
for just about anything it seems like with when it comes to games it's really weird
Well, you know, the reason why Nintendo says that it's not prior art is because without the hard work of the original devs, those mods would never exist.
So therefore it's not prior art.
But without the hard work of the professors that taught them, other companies that came before that art is iterative, we would not be where we're at without um prior works of
other games.
That's how it is.
hear PocketPair make that argument.
I mean, that's probably what they're going to make when they, you know, during and they've already made because that's that's the reality of the thing of how copyright, how
creativity, how entertainment, all this works is everything is built on top of something else.
It's all iterative, iterative.
So.
don't know if you guys have heard, but Power World 1.0 is coming pretty soon.
That's so crazy, I thought that game was already out.
know, it's so crazy to think about, Nintendo and their games are probably some of the most creative and brilliant ever created.
Like, way that they inject so much into their games.
And they're also one of the biggest companies that stifle creativity from everyone else.
If anyone tries to do anything similar to what they do or tries to keep their games alive, they just crush them.
It's just kind of crazy to me.
Imagine games like Super Mario Wonder and Mario Odyssey and the things that they do.
It's just so crazy how much love that they put into their games.
And then as soon as anyone else wants to put love into their games in a similar fashion, they're like, no, can't do it.
Nope.
of Japan.
Yeah, they definitely are, but it's just...
Yeah.
It is interesting though, they'll collaborate with basically anyone in Japan, commercially speaking.
Like I saw, like I was in Japan, I went to the Pokemon Center there, they're playing videos of a Hatsune Miku song where there were Pokemon in the video too.
No, it feels like Nintendo is very pro-Japan and I- and I- it- to me it's kind of patriotic in a way and I- and I respect that.
Yeah, pocket pears are also Japanese too.
But I guess they don't like the fact that...
Dude, they should collaborate with Power World.
Dude, release Power World on the Switch too, and then have like an official skin where you can like, you can put Pikachu in the mines.
they will never do that.
Ever.
That would be hilarious though.
That would be, but I just can never see them doing that.
Even though it would be cool of them to do.
I really disagree with how aggressive they are against companies that, you know, like I said, they're just trying to keep their games alive.
And like their ideas alive.
And it's just kind of a shame.
It's similar to how I feel about Warner Brothers patenting the Nemesis system.
You know, they should never done that.
And it really makes me upset because it was a brilliant system.
And now it's just gone.
It shouldn't be legal.
It's software patents are a joke.
God, I hate WB.
Also, here's one more thing too.
Power World has had to change the mechanics due to Nintendo, if you recall.
So if you recall, you used to be able to throw your pokeball, I mean, pal-sphere at like a thing, and then it would just do it, but now you, but now you just kind of summons it
beside you too.
Instead of like being able to throw it out and throw it.
Man.
You you not mentioning like that the way you that's why it was taken away and they got sued because people like you calling it a pokeball.
Amen.
So now you're part of the problem.
You're part of the problem.
He's just calling it like he sees it.
um
All I know, I'm just messing.
I don't know man.
I hope Power World wins.
That's just my thoughts.
I have a feeling it's gonna probably be one of those things where they settle to where Pal World has to pay a certain percentage.
just feels like, I don't think Pal World's gonna go away, but Nintendo's so big.
Yeah, it's...
So what sort of classification do you think Power World would be in?
AAA?
AA?
Indie?
uh
Indie.
They've they made they made a lot of money.
It's like it's like would you classify uh when the original Hades released?
Would you classify the developer as AAA?
I feel like at some point you start being indie and start going firmly into AA.
And it really depends on how big the company is.
still independent studio and that's how they started.
I would say maybe starting at their next game, they've got enough backing and enough money now where they can start off with a higher budget with more people and burst out of that
indie.
indie, and no one in their right mind would say Baldur's Gate 3 is an indie game.
Right?
But that's what I mean, like, but would you say that uh when it was released, like, Divinity Original Sin 2 would be closer to an indie game?
They started out indie, became double A.
That's, yeah.
And they're doing really great things with their funds.
mean, they've started their own publishing arm.
And uh that's great as well.
So the way I see it is they are not indie anymore, but Power World is still technically a game that was born from indie.
Yeah, like Minecraft.
I don't know if I'd consider Minecraft to be an indie game anymore.
definitely started indie though.
Yeah.
started indie.
Yes, but it's also now owned by Microsoft.
That's if if if pocket pair becomes owned by Nintendo, then no, the power world is no longer an indie game.
Yeah, so I was reading this article uh that was determining what a double A really is, and more importantly, the kind of misleading label of an quote-unquote indie game, so to
speak.
Because it really depends on how you classify an indie game, because if you go through the hardline definition of indie being like it's an independent game...
It becomes much more, what is the word?
It's much more open, more encompassing of many more companies.
Yeah, like for example, you could consider Capcom indie because they're independent.
can consider Bandai Namco and their self-developed games as independent games, yeah.
or valve.
Valve is definitely an indie studio.
100%.
Yes, and also one more thing too is, uh you know, the fact that like indie gives off a specific, but like would you consider games published by Devolver Digital to be indie?
So that's a tough one as well.
They're an indie publisher, I think any game that now has...
I would say self-published games from independent studios or indie studios are definitely indie.
Ones that are published by bigger studios like Devolver Digital or Critical Reflex, it starts to go over to that AA standard or like the higher production indie.
you know, maybe something like a step above, but right under AA.
It's that one is a tougher one because on in all like they especially it gets tougher that a lot of these publishers then call themselves indie publishers because they're
technically right.
But then it loses some of that indie status because now these games have backing and that's one of the big things that I think would signify in indie game is from a studio
that doesn't have the same backing.
that like a double A or a triple A would have.
Well, if we go back to like the record industry, there's only three big companies and anyone outside of those three big companies, know, Warner Bros or Sony or I think
Universal, I forget who the third one is.
But anyone outside of those is considered a quote unquote indie label, despite the fact that they're also massive companies as well.
And I think that I think by that, I mean, you can disagree with it.
I don't agree with it either, but it's also the official design.
So there's not much I can do unless you want to be unless you're like a big top dog I'd like some music
record labels suck, but also, um, I mean, that's just kind of how it's designated.
But when I think of indie, I think of like the one man team, like Slaven away in his basement and making a game like Cave Story.
I have a question for you.
Would you consider, like isn't the developer of Stardew Valley concerned about making a new game about being a chocolatier?
Would you consider his next game to be indie after he has obviously made an insane amount of money from Stardew Valley?
Hmm...
Wow.
developer, still funding it himself, but he has an extreme amount of money from Stardew Valley.
I don't think it's just about money.
think it's about scope.
I think it's about um a lot of that.
Let's see.
So.
definitely more nuanced than just money, for sure.
But I think it's important to take a look at all aspects.
I would say, yeah, it's still an indie game.
But it's an interesting hypothetical to think about.
Yeah, it's self-published, presumably, and he's a solo developer.
I mean, he truly is independent.
And yeah, he has a lot of money that he can stick into the game, true.
But at the same time, though, a lot uh of production costs for games traditionally has been paying other people, and since he doesn't pay other people, it could be a lot less
than we really think.
Yeah.
No, it's true.
I'm just saying, think the definition of indie has become very cloudy.
It's no longer a simple, oh, this is indie and this isn't, because anyone can use the indie moniker.
Like that's what Dave the Diver used for the longest time.
They would call themselves an indie game and a lot of others called them indie game.
then, you know, they've got Nexon's backing.
Okay.
I don't recall them ever saying that they were indie.
I feel like it was, they accepted it.
Yeah, they accepted it, but like that was because everyone else thought that well everyone else and fucking joff keely said some bullshit about uh In about words not
for like the best indie game that year?
They were.
mean, of Stars won, but like, I think...
It honestly was probably down to the wire between those two.
I feel like had there not been so much pushback on Dave the Diver being nominated, it might have had a decent, a better chance of winning over Sea of Stars.
But at the same time though, I feel like it shouldn't have been nominated to begin with, to be honest.
Because not only was it backed by Nexon,
consider Dave the Diver an indie game.
Yeah, not only was it just backed by Nexon, but it was also like a, it was also a studio within Nexon.
Like they, they made a like subsidiary.
It's like Capcom making Clovers and saying Clovers is an indie studio, right?
Exactly.
Yeah, it's just you can't.
I disagree with it.
Yeah.
So this article, I didn't get to the point, but this article proposes two different classifications for indies.
First is the K.
I don't know why, I don't know where these names actually came.
Oh, it came from a Japanese car, a really tiny one, a K car.
I've seen a couple of these in Japan.
But yeah, the K classification of games are much smaller games.
think Undertale or Geometry Dash and then the MIDI games.
Wait, why are they...
They don't have an explanation for why they call it MIDI because it's not like the file format.
Is there another definition for MIDI that I'm not aware of?
You are asking the wrong person.
well, the MIDI classification of indie games are some of the more higher scale indie games.
And some of them really do.
where I'd say Divinity Original Sin 2 is.
Because Larian did have games that released prior and they had a decent amount of money.
And then I would say MIDI is probably where they are.
And I'd say a lot of Devolver's published games probably lie in MIDI in that scale.
And then, of course, you have the AA, which uh they point out clear obscurity as this dot right here, like firmly in the middle.
Yeah, I would think so too.
There's just a lot of weird definitions of what is and isn't indie.
I don't know if I could trust this because there's no quadruple A then what's GTA 6 gonna be?
that's right.
Where's where's where's skull and bones?
That's that's quadruple a.
skull and bones like the corner of this graph and then GTA 6 is like the corner like up here
sex tuple a game?
Yeah
Man, it's gonna be a wild time when GTA 6 comes out.
Thank god we only do PC stuff because god I don't want to cover GTA 6 when it releases.
Don't worry, you'll have a year to cover GTA 6 after it re-releases on PC, because that's how Rockstar operates.
That's true.
think that's probably one of the biggest issues with Rockstar.
I think that's actually going to stifle their income in the beginning.
Because they're not only are they only releasing on consoles, but they're also going to be pricing it pretty high.
I don't think it means that there's going to be less people buying it.
I think there's still going to be a lot of people buying it.
But I don't believe...
I do see some issue with the idea, especially as we see like Xbox and PlayStation going into multi-platform releases for a reason.
Rockstar should really be doing that too.
Do you think it's gonna be $100?
I don't want it to be.
I really hope it's not.
I think it would be a mistake to start that at $100.
I think it's just going to drive up the price of every other video game.
I think it could be the start of people trying to do $80 video games and them just saying, well, GTA 6 is doing $100.
Yeah.
already have $80 video games.
Nintendo did that.
not they're not common enough to where it's like commonplace like uh Silent Hill F is releasing for $69.99 Borderlands 4 went down in price to $69.99 so I think I think it's
still that's still where the majority stays but I feel like if GTA 6 releases at $100 I think that's going to give more fuel to the fire for uh other companies to raise their
prices because now they can say still under GTA 6.
I think they'll try and I don't think they'll succeed other, like a bunch of companies.
Outer Worlds too, they tried to sell out for what, 70 and they had to drop down to 60.
Or 80 and they dropped down to 70, whatever.
Yeah.
sound right, like didn't Borderlands 4?
Yeah, so...
So...
Yeah, go ahead.
it's, think like GTA six is one of the only games that could get away selling it for a hundred dollars.
I think if any other game tries to do that, they will be sorely disappointed in their sales.
I agree with you to an extent, I do still see bigger companies trying.
Especially for their big releases.
and they're not going to go to $100 immediately.
don't think any company is going to be able to hit $100 for any of their games and still be successful.
But I do see them trying to slowly inch up to it and starting with the $80 price tag.
Like I think Xbox will absolutely try again.
Playstation is one of the first that really pushed the $70 with like Demon's Souls when the PS5 release so I think they might start pushing for that too.
um Nintendo might be a little bit slower but I think they're gonna end up doing it and if they're all going to do it then I think every other company is then going to drive up
prices.
There's not many that can, especially with how the economy is going right now, it's only going to increase and I think this is just gonna be the catalyst.
At some point it's going to go up.
GTA 6 could be the catalyst if they do $100.
are not many companies can do what Silksong did where they can actually afford to do that cheap and still make incredible amount of
Yeah, I don't know man.
If it's $100, then I'm sure it's gonna sell really, it's still gonna sell really well and then everyone's gonna, like I think they're gonna, I think some comp, so there's this
weird perception where, oh they charge their game like for like $70 whereas GT is $100 and then people are gonna think, oh, well this game's of a worse quality because it's $30
cheaper.
Like some people really do think that way and it's kind of weird.
But so I think,
that some people think that way, but it's true.
think people are gonna push it to 100 sooner than we expect, they don't want the perception that, this game's cheaper, therefore it's worse.
That's also one thing that's making Indies hard to swallow for some people, especially the crowd that only plays Call of Duty and Madden in sometimes Rockstar games.
It's this perception that, it's cheaper, therefore it's worse.
When you can't really judge art the same way you can judge, like, I don't know what...
tool that a screwdriver that's like $10 versus $50, right?
Yeah, but it's not going to stop people.
I think they're going to have to uh plan for that, essentially.
That's unfortunate.
um
that's why I'm hoping because I'm going to be completely honest.
GTA 6 selling for a hundred, it's probably worth that much.
know, GTA has always been in extreme quality series and they've gone over and above with like GTA 4 and 5 and it looks like they're doing the same thing with 6.
So I respect that.
Like I can see, you know, that it is a very beautiful
game that they're putting a lot into it.
The problem is that people are going to judge, they'd be like, okay, this is $100, I can get this incredible experience that I can play hundreds of hours in, especially if they
have like a very expansive online mode, similar to GTA V online.
But, or you can pay like $70 and get a game that kind of doesn't do everything that GTA VI does.
So I think it's just, I think
I it's going to be a tough one.
I hope that they don't release it for a hundred because I understand they're going to release it for more than seventy.
I cannot see them doing it for seventy.
I just hope they don't go so high that now because whatever if they release at a higher price too it's going to hurt sales for other games because people are going to say I just
spent a hundred dollars on this game so I can't buy this fifty dollar game.
You know I'm hopeful.
of other games, and it most likely will.
I'm sure every company that is going to be releasing their game next year will like any game that could be releasing around when GTA does they're immediately going to postpone.
Immediately.
There's going to be no doubt about that.
They're going to avoid it like the plague similar to everyone avoiding Silksong.
Probably more than avoiding Silksong.
It's just...
not just indies, but also like big AAAs are gonna get like caught up
going to be the biggest launch in video game history at the time.
Like it's there's no doubt about that.
Like am I personally excited for it to that extent?
No, I think there are games I am more excited for like Kingdom Hearts 4.
Kingdom Hearts 4 is my biggest.
It's my GTA 6.
Yeah.
But it is.
Yeah, go for it.
But.
Looking at it, there is no doubt that GTA 6 is going to be the biggest launch in video game history when it launches.
Yeah, man, that's crazy.
I think it's time for, I think we should get the move on with the next topic.
Any final thoughts on this one before we move on?
I like indie games.
Yeah, me too.
They're the future of games, in my opinion.
They're the only games that can really go wild with their ideas.
AA is good too.
Speaking of going wild with their ideas, this lawsuit is wild.
So Corsair, if you guys aren't unfamiliar, Corsair makes RAM.
Generally speaking, it's for people that build their own PCs.
But how do feel about Corsair being sued and losing due to quote unquote false advertising of RAM speeds?
I mean, I don't know much about the lawsuit, but if they advertise ram speeds and they were not the correct ram speeds, then yeah, that's false advertising.
So here, so I'll give you some background.
basically, so basically every RAM manufacturer advertises RAM speeds for use with XMP profiles on your computers, right?
So Corsair did the same thing, except these guys saw that they weren't hitting those RAM speeds because it wasn't quote unquote out of the box.
Which in turn means that, you know, cause like if you plug in, if you got the diameter kit, you know, generally speaking pretty fast, but you don't enable XMP, you're just stuck
to like the default DDR5 speeds, which is a fair bit slower than what these modules are capable of.
But does Corsair specifically say with XMP profile?
I'd have to look at the box.
that it's out of the box, then it is false advertising.
No, they're not advertising it as out of the box.
No, it says XMP on the box, I believe.
But, you know, some people buy it under the assumption that, oh, well, you just buy it and you put it in and you can just use it.
But no, that's not necessarily the case.
it's not just course to the advertisers.
Like everyone else does it, too.
Like Gskill does it.
That's usually what I buy.
no, that is common.
I guess it becomes semantics at that point.
Did Corsair make it obvious enough that you have to basically do something extra to get the ram speeds that they are advertising?
And uh I guess in court they said no.
m
Let's see, Corsair Dominator.
Let's look at a box for Corsair Dominator.
See.
Sorry, I gotta look this up.
I don't actually know what these boxes look like.
Hmm.
Intel XMP ready.
Yeah, that's not direct.
Yes, it is on there, but it doesn't say that you will hit this specific speed with XMP.
Like if they put like an XMP logo next to it or something along those lines, it would make more sense to me.
And does it say anywhere on the box that 5200 is like the speed if you have an XMP profile with it?
Ummm...
hmmm...
going to be the biggest that that's why I think they may have lost the case because it does looking at that box right there again, we obviously know better but Looking at the
box right there.
It it is not apparent that It you have to be using the XMP because it just says XMP certified That's not in the eyes of legal terms are just like I would say logically as
well.
It's not enough
But I would imagine...
I would imagine it...
don't...
Because I can't...
I don't know for certain because I don't have this module and of course I don't have the manual for it.
But I would imagine if it's written manually you have to enable XMP to get these speeds then I would imagine that's still fair for Corsair, no?
Because I mean common sense dictates that you should read the manual.
Is it on the box where it says that?
Is it advertised before purchasing and before opening it?
Unfortunately, Let's see.
Let's look up G skill, try that Z box.
Look at this.
Now think the distinguishing factor is that some of these companies say up to certain speeds, which I think changes things.
Yeah.
to do because then you have uh the argument that you could say, it's up to.
So it could be in a range between these, but it can go up to this if you do this.
But if it's on the box where it just has the one singular speed, then yeah, it is false advertising.
Yeah, so honestly, man, it's kind of an interesting situation.
Some argue that the same could apply to monitors as well, because quote unquote out of the box, your high refresh rate monitors are only running at 60 hertz.
Where you have to go into Windows to change the settings of your monitor to actually run at 144 hertz, right?
Yeah, that one might be a little bit more complicated because the panel itself could be uh like, let's say, a 144 Hertz panel.
It could be a 144 Hertz panel, but it can have a range of refresh rates that it starts at.
So that one's a little bit more tough, I would say.
be an interesting can of worms that this lawsuit might open up.
There's no telling what will happen.
all of it could be avoided by just adding the up to wording on the box.
That's it.
Yeah, I think it could be.
But we sh-
think that they could have had an argument if they had like the XMP, even just those three letters, if they had that like at the bottom of like the speed.
So like where it said like 3,600, uh just right underneath it just says XMP.
You know, to me that's even more clear.
But saying Intel XMP certified, that could mean so many things for people that don't know.
So I think it is false advertising.
That's fair enough.
James, you any thoughts on this?
Nothing at all.
nothing really.
Like I think it's false advertising.
I think if any other company was doing the exact same thing, they need to get dinged to not just Corsair.
ah And I wanted to see more companies that try to embellish things get punished for it.
I really don't like embellishments.
So.
Yeah.
Again, it's not even that hard.
Like, just put up to.
Like, it's really not difficult.
It's just, you know, they need to be held accountable and make it clear that, you know, what you're getting needs a little bit more work to actually hit what they're advertising.
I don't think the 5.5 million is going to do much either.
I think that's a cost of doing business for them.
And all the lawyers are get all money anyways.
All the people that have supposedly been wronged by Corsair aren't getting shit.
They're getting like
if it's a three years thing.
Yeah, anyway, so there were some things I wanted to talk about since Gardner was a developer himself.
Like, for example, you can look.
So there was this tool that Valve added to the Steamworks that lets you look at the impact that each like discount period did.
It tells you how many copies were sold during like a certain period.
Yada, yada, yada.
Right.
It's good stuff.
Like, I don't know what game this is, but you can see here that like they had this 40 % off price before.
they sold but they sold less next time yeah because more people obviously have that game right yeah I want to talk about this gardeners not here though so it'll be useful yeah so
this will be good this is good information oh here's something though steam ending 32-bit support next year for Windows
Yeah, it's bound to happen.
I think most OSes are moving away from 32-bit anyway, so.
I realistically, I can't think of a single person that actively plays games and still has a 32-bit operating system.
Yeah.
Now, this doesn't mean you can't run 32-bit games.
It just means Steam itself won't work on 32-bit systems.
Yeah, I just I think at this point 32-bit systems are becoming obsolete.
every new iteration of OS that I see in every new device that is being shipped does not have 32-bit OS on it.
So I think this is just bound to happen just like how Steam ending older versions of Mac OS.
Yeah, that's totally valid.
Honestly, I mean, mean, honestly, just move the Linux, to be honest, because I mean, Windows 10 is ending support in October.
We'll talk more about it closer to when that happens, but.
Yeah, but like how else are you going to play all your Call of Duty games if they end if you move over to Linux?
I'll just play on my Xbox, duh.
On my $800 Xbox.
but I guess not Linux.
Yeah, Linux definitely is not an Xbox, unfortunately.
Shame, shame, shame.
I mean, you can still stream game pass, right?
Yeah, you can, actually.
Yeah, I could-
at Xbox, because you can stream it about from anywhere.
That's why my phone's an Xbox.
But if you don't have a connection anywhere, you now don't have an Xbox.
When I'm on my plane traveling to Tokyo, my Steam Deck is now no longer an Xbox.
Yeah, well, you know, that's what you get for getting an online-only Xbox.
Yeah, I deserve that.
You should have named yourself online-only Xbox HQ.
We really are going all in to change the name.
Well, I mean it could be worse.
could be truck HQ.
God.
I still, I still, I still have my own work, my own.
Oh yeah.
That, that I could see trucks revealed sounds much cooler than trucks HQ.
uh But yes, this is called...
Tell us about it, since this is the one you submitted.
This is what I submitted and it's more for fun.
Honestly, like it deviates from a lot of what we talk about, but I love the idea of at least the article I read on this claimed that it's gonna be partially open sourced.
I don't think you can mess with the drivetrain or the software for the drivetrain.
And I think that's probably for legal reasons, but everything else is moddable and ah you can.
you can get kits for it or when you buy it, you can get it kitted out like as an SUV.
ah You can have it, you can put like these vinyl uh over it to make it colored.
It's meant to be a really like cheap electric vehicle for people to, I guess, have fun with per se.
I think as things get more expensive, to see something be
a little bit more affordable ah as a vehicle that, you know, that's also, and I think electric's important for the environment too, ah that this is a cool direction, even if it
is Jeff Bezos uh funded thing.
ah it is, I'll be interested to see what kits come out aftermarket for this, because that's like with Jeep and I recently got a Kia, ah
like you can get aftermarket stuff for them to modify them.
um This will be even more interesting to see ah what's capable.
Amen.
Jeff Bezos can throw as much money as he wants into here as long as he gets no say in what happens.
Him or him and Amazon.
I agree with that.
And so.
don't understand is you've called this an open source truck and I have trouble seeing anything outside of software as open source.
Wouldn't this be still pretty clearly classified as like modular?
Couldn't you say this is just a modular car?
it's a modular car.
I'm assuming the software too can be modified.
Once again, I read an article on this and I don't remember exactly, if they
I'm not saying it's not in the spirit of open source, but it's just, I have trouble calling something open source that is not software because open source has always been
synonymous with software.
that's a part of this.
Yeah.
like modify and like redistribute 3D prints.
Yeah, but that's not the same as a truck itself being open source or a physical object itself.
think you can, you'd probably be able to 3D print potentially stuff for this.
That's my kind of my point is that.
ah
3D print a truck.
It is modular, uh you can have an open source game and have it be modded, I guess, if you want to say it that.
the point is, I don't think there's any licensing behind this that you can't change, where if you buy a car, you might get in a lot of trouble if you try to modify the car to pass a
certain point.
John Deere's a great example.
like the right to repair is not a thing with John Deere, except for I think in one state, you have to get your John Deere tractors repaired through the company.
Because the licensing and everything is so tight.
The point of this is that it's very open licensing, including between software and everything else.
Yes, it's modular, but beyond that, if people want to tinker with it, which that's very interesting to me.
that has modified my, like I've modified my Steam Deck about every single way you can.
um And I want to do that to my truck now.
I want to embed my Steam Deck into my truck.
then wouldn't you consider it, would the Steam Deck be considered open source?
Yes, portions of it are open source.
It becomes so much more complicated at that point.
It gets more complicated.
It's a blanket statement.
I'm not saying the whole truck itself is open source.
I'm saying portions of it.
That's what I called it for simplicity.
It's just fun.
but that's what I'm going off of.
That's all I know about it.
And so, um
Gardner, if Gardner were here he could tell us if it's open source or not for realsies.
I like the little...
what you're saying.
If there's no license involved, then you can really go all in with exactly how you want to build it, what software you want to use and all that.
But to me, that's just a truck or that's a modular car.
You're building it from the ground up, able to use whatever you want to to build it.
And yeah.
a truck though.
So if they offer the designs and the specs and stuff so you can um do it yourself, that's open source.
When they open source, let's say the designs of the truck, that's what I think it is.
But once again, I read about this a few months ago and then I saw it recently again and so I wanted to bring it up just for fun and I was hoping Gartner was here, but yeah.
And calling it an open source truck sounds funny.
see so let's design our dream truck our off the console truck see doing what
I don't want a partial wrap, I want to fully wrap my car.
So yeah, like a big part of it's modular.
um
Modular absolutely makes sense to me in this case.
doors holy oh shit dude that's dude that's kind of funny i don't
I guess it's up to you.
So is this you just choosing all the parts and then they build it or do you build it yourself?
They ship you all the parts.
That's a good question.
from my understanding, you can do both.
if you're getting it from the manufacturer, you can get it specked out however you want.
And then when you get it, I think you can also get conversion kits and stuff like that.
And so aftermarket is gonna be another big deal with this.
so you can get aftermarket stuff for the Jeep and all that, but if the designs are shared and if other aspects, like the software is open source, then it's, you know, it's...
got additional ways to modify it.
Yeah, that's just, it's a full on modular car at that point.
Especially if you're able to change it out yourself whenever you want to and buy kits to change it on your own.
That is the spirit of modular building, I guess.
I do like that uh you can actually swap put your own speakers in here and wire them up wire mama if so desired because car speakers aren't super what's the word I'm for well not
just that but they're also not super like accessible to mod so to speak
Yeah, because you know, everyone wants to mod their speakers.
That's the first thought that we have.
If you're a truck enthusiast, or if you're like an enthusiast...
Yeah, I'm definitely not in the enthusiast category.
Can I change the design of the handles?
I don't like those handles.
What, this one?
Like the-
to open the door.
Let find, let me see if we can do that.
uh Door cubby?
No.
uh
part that we just found that we can't actually change?
So like here's one of the articles, Slate lets you personalize your pickup truck with open source 3D printed parts.
So yeah.
sense to me.
Well, I mentioned earlier that the designs that the stuff that you can are open source and so like 3D printed or if you get it, Manufac...
Yeah.
of what it is.
Just that's why I was confused.
Huh.
I guess you can't change the door handle.
That's weird.
What real shame.
you can't change it here, you could uh probably, if you had, man, I don't know if I'd want to 3D print too much of my truck, but, ah actually, yeah.
Yeah, you could.
It's still, like with 3D printing, I guess if you print it really fine, it won't show up too much, because you can tell what's been 3D printed and what's not.
Usually like molding, cast molding is usually the way that you'd want to do it.
But I guess you could, like if they give you the designs and stuff like that and you know what you're doing in like AutoCAD or whatever it is, like you're going to use the modify
the 3D designs, you could make whatever you want for this.
Mm-hmm.
Let's look at the charging port for this bad boy.
So it looks like it only takes like a normal 120 volt, uh US standard.
I guarantee it works with 240, yeah, right there.
have a T40 version.
480 if you think about it.
And also look.
crazy
It's great that it's accessible for all of them.
Crazy that it's accessible with the 120 volt.
I would think 240 and 480 for sure, but 120, that's got to be way too low.
We'll see you slate, Otto.
It trickles.
can charge most cars with 120.
It just takes a while.
But that's the thing, it takes a while.
So it's supposed to be...
120 grand.
And for a new truck, that's insane.
Like, trucks are like double the price usually.
If not more than double, I think.
I'm not really a truck person.
I can almost guarantee you, it's gonna be between 20 and 30,000 depending on how you spec it out.
I don't think it's gonna be under 20.
So it depends on how you spec it out, but it will probably start around 20,000.
Yeah, I mean, honestly, if you just need a truck that functions, and you don't really care about speakers and shit, plus you can probably just buy a- or an SUV.
the conversion.
Like you can get the conversion so you can have four seats, four or five seats, probably five seats.
That's really good in this economy.
Dude, yeah, this is- this is- this might be something, cause like, this is A, a cheap EV, like EVs are not cheap.
Now let's see how much the price increased.
I mean, the article is literally talking about how the $20,000 price
pricing yet.
So when you spec it out, you don't know.
You won't know, but you can...
about how it may have gone up because of the tariffs, basically.
yeah.
It's talking about like, could be a victim of Trump's bill.
Yeah, I mean, anything is everything is almost.
um I was really hoping Gardner would I want to bring this up later with Gardner, because I'm like.
If the software is to also open source, because it's not released, if it was released, I could give you so much more info on this.
But if everything's if it's the most open source truck or car, like software and the models, the three models for it, I think Gardner could have a heyday with this.
Hey, and some other company, some third party company could make like a conversion kit for like other types of smaller cars too, like a sports car almost.
I'm not sure if the engine's up to spec for that, something like that, but like, could be interesting.
one motor.
People want a two motor and the range is not over.
I think it's a small battery.
It's like 100.
40 mile battery, but I think you can get an extension on that.
Like you can get an extended version for 200 and something like that, which.
first thing I would mod, getting a bigger battery, to be honest.
Yeah, that's fair.
I'd get something like this for around town because I already have a car that's for long distance traveling.
I'd get this for around town.
Yeah, I mean...
I just don't have a car right now.
Hey man, I don't know if they'll ship this to...
You live in Malaysia now, right?
If I'm mistaken?
I'm not even going to correct you, I'm just going to be disappointed.
Oh no.
Singapore.
In a m-
Very disappointed.
Thailand.
You're so, you're, you know.
You don't have to keep guessing.
It's okay.
Ah.
you
I was going to say third time's the charm, but you did get it wrong three times.
Hahaha
well.
ahead, take one more guess.
Well now you gotta be nervous man Cambodia
passed the point of no return, so I mean...
It's okay, my disappointment's already hit p.
Your disappointment is immeasurable and your day is ruined.
Yeah.
So you can guess a fourth time and maybe you'll get it right, but it won't make me more disappointed if you get it wrong.
Cambodia.
Man.
He said you had your board.
I think you knew that was not it.
Ugh.
So if you guys hear me, like if.
a guess of where I live.
He lives in Asia.
I was gonna guess Malaysia.
Cause you did mention the last time that you were on where you were.
And I don't
Come on.
He, he, hi tech basically circled the drain.
You just have to.
it's it's it's over there
Yeah, come on.
I know it's on the tip of your tongue.
I know you know it.
I believe in you.
Yes, I think I'm yes.
I can imagine it, can't.
Dude, my brain's broken.
It starts with an I, I think.
Instable.
No, I'm just kidding.
It's not Indonesia.
Man, it is so disappointing that the one thing you said it's not is what it actually is.
It isn't.
Is it Indonesia?
Oh, I thought it was.
I.
you said.
You're like, oh no, it can't be that.
What other Asian country starts with an I?
Uh...
I don't know.
Italy?
we go.
My favorite Asian country to travel to Italy.
Yeah.
Man, I don't know how to feel anymore.
Like, Hi Tech, you knew it.
You circled it with every single one of your guesses.
And James, my man.
I got it.
I just was sure it wasn't it.
I know, but it still said it.
ah
were also confident that it wasn't what you said.
wrong he was throwing out a wrong answer is what he thought
in this truck that I will probably blow up when I get it.
So if you see me dead in the news, it's probably because I mod this thing too much.
Be careful, it is open source.
So you gotta make sure that you're using the right open source 3D parts.
Dude, are you gonna install Arch on this uh, you gonna install Arch on this uh, truck?
Arch, depends on how the whole thing's modded and everything.
I'm gonna make it so that Steam Deck runs the whole thing.
I'll mod the drive train too.
I'll mod everything they say not to and make it so that the Steam Deck is running it.
your steam back gonna be your steering wheel?
Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
be really cool.
it all from your steering wheel and the steering wheels, the steam does.
Should he make it actually connect to his drivetrain or should he just make it gyro and just kind of hope the gyro works?
my gosh.
No.
uh
gyro driving with a steam deck.
Yeah, that sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen.
You think you'll blow up?
No, try gyro driving a car with a steam deck.
Yeah man, I can barely jido drive a Mario Kart, much less a real car.
Imagine that shit.
now.
So think about that.
You think if I got my numbers up again on YouTube, like they would send me a truck to review?
I think it's only like $20,000.
That's a lot of mo-
a casual $20,000.
Yeah, of course.
Yeah, man, as long as it plays.
Hey, over $20,000.
Those tariffs are going to hit it.
Now hear me out.
What if you modded it so that the controller...
so that the car controls whatever...
kind of like how Tesla does it now.
You can play certain racing games with the actual Tesla steering wheel.
Yeah, well my steering wheel is going to be a clip in Steam Deck, so.
and it's gotta be gyro controls.
Yeah, it- it- yeah.
on if you put your fingers over the joysticks.
If it activates.
Oh my gosh.
I know, I'd die.
completely shut off and if you're on the road, good luck.
Yo, imagine trying to like-
just, you can't steer it anymore.
It just goes straight.
Yeah, I mean by shut off, but obviously the wheels don't like lock up.
Okay.
Also, the next Fest is coming up soon.
I forget to mention that before we close out this episode.
Any final thoughts?
Uh, steam?
Make your own- Make your own truck.
All around the steam deck.
Steam uh powered truck.
Well, you know Steam was gonna be in the Tesla, but then they stopped supporting that.
We never...
Yeah.
I never actually got to try that, sadly, because it was only in the Model X, I think it was, the expensive models, where you could play Steam games on there, which is
unfortunate.
Yeah, play Cyberpunk on a...
do you think you could drive in cyberpunk with the Tesla steering wheel?
Yeah.
Probably better than with a controller.
Yeah, I guess that would be my final thought.
Valve make a megatruck.
Or a steam-powered yacht.
You know what, Gabe, you have a lot of money.
You should just buy this uh slate truck company and truly make it open source.
yeah.
go a step, go a step further by the government and then stop the tariffs and then bring prices down.
did become President of the United States.
Become president of the United States.
Use all your money to become president of the United States.
Stop the tariffs and bring down prices of the slate truck back to under $20,000.
I don't see why it wouldn't work for Mr.
Gabe Newell himself.
I think he could do it.
The problem is, and I'd even look past all his yachts if he just let me ride on one.
I'd forgive him.
And what if-
even, hey, look, the man has worked hard.
I'm fine with him having as many yachts as he wants.
If that's what he wants to spend his exorbitant amount of money on, dude created one of the best PC DRMs in existence.
And that I think is the most user and consumer friendly based on its features.
Yeah, he spends his days dealing with his with his neuro uh neuro input company as well as just spending his days on his yacht playing dota 2.
his days, he wakes up, he goes diving, he then has his meeting and then he goes diving again and then he has more meetings and then he dives again.
Like he says he dives up to three times a day, so.
like dives in like the open waters?
Damn.
honestly, it should have been called Gabe the Diver, not Dave the Diver, so...
you
now that is an indie game right there.
I would have allowed Jeff Keighley to announce that as an indie game.
Hell, I would have let him announce Gabe the Diber as Indie Game of the Year 2.
Yeah, maybe even game of the year, completely.
I'm down, I'm down.
Yeah.
Gabe that scrap half life three, you know, your next game now.
No.
Dude, you can't say that.
You can't say that to the Half-Life faithful.
will take Gabe the Diver over Half-Life 3.
I'm just glad Gardener's not here.
He's been waiting his entire life for Half-Life 3.
a man wants, and a man wants Gabe the Diver.
I'm watching you email Gabe.
Tell him you want Gabe the Diver.
Alright, I'm on it.
Alright.
Ooh, this episode is...
I want to be on his yacht.
If he lets me on the yacht, I'll build Gabe the Diver for him.
send over an email specifically mention and can we just take a trip on your yacht.
Just one.
host an episode of Off the Console on your yacht.
Yeah, Gabe Newell as like a guest on this podcast would be kind of sick though.
Gabe Newell as a guest on any podcast would be pretty amazing.
He shows up on some podcasts too, but just not any of the smaller YouTube production ones.
Well yeah, but still pretty amazing.
Yeah, it would be pretty amazing.
We'd have to catch him mid-dive or something.
He'd probably be streaming from underwater.
go up to him while he's diving.
both in the water and you just hold up a microphone to him and have like a waterproof screen that just says off the console on it.
Yeah, that'll be awesome.
you said yes, I would find a way to do that.
yeah i think we should do it let's do it we got you only shoot you guys shoot your shot man he responds
in life and if it's gonna be while Gabe is diving, then you're gonna do it while Gabe is diving.
Anyways, this episode is approaching three hours.
It's going to be hard for Gardner to edit when he gets back.
Have fun.
Alright, have a good day everyone.
uh
Yo, we're out.
Peace out.
Later.
Alright.