Also, there are some interesting Pokémon
lore bits that Nintendo dropped.
For example, do you guys remember
Lieutenant Surge in Gen 1?
He's the Lightning gym leader.
I do remember him.
He's the guy that kind of looks like Gile
from Street Fighter.
Yeah, so I think he was apparently in a
war and Lightning Pokémon saved his life
or something like that during the war.
But then they never
talked about the war again.
And they also retconned as Epithet, which
was the Lightning American.
I don't know, there's just a lot of crazy
rumors I've heard about
Pokémon lore back in the day.
Oh, and also, we can't forget about the
Game Freak leaks, if
you guys remember that.
The Game Freak leaks?
I don't remember that.
It was the one with the
stories of Ticeplosion.
Oh yeah, no, I do remember that. I don't
want to talk about it.
Never mind.
Yeah, now you remember.
Yeah.
Welcome to Off the Console, the hottest
new podcast that's all about gaming, tech
news, and anything nerdy.
And we're covering a lot of different
topics today, including Take Your Game
Show, happens in two weeks.
And also talking about the Apple event,
the Nintendo Direct, and a
couple of other things too.
And my name is High Tech Low Life, and
I'm joined by my co-host,
Gardner Bryant, and games revealed.
And what have you guys been playing?
Let's start with you, James.
Okay, let's jump right into it. I spent
30, according to Steam, I
spent 35 hours playing a game.
I played Hollow Knight, because I'm like,
I know that. Okay, here's the thing.
I like to play things
sequentially, typically.
This is one of those games where
everyone's like, "You don't need to," but
you get some good context on the main
character in Silksong.
Because you run into her multiple times
in Hollow Knight. So
I'm glad I played it.
But it is a really
fun game. It's really...
It is fairly difficult, but since we
talked last, I picked
it up for the first time.
I watched my wife play it a little bit,
because she loves it.
And she's been playing Silksong while
right next to me while
I'm playing Hollow Knight.
So I got to watch her
play some of that too.
But I got it. I'm at the very end. I'm at
the boss, but I
wanted to go do more stuff.
I technically could have beat it by this
recording, but I decided not to.
But kind of...
That's fair enough. You got 100% it?
Probably not 100%, but I want to get more
charms. I've only
gotten like half the charms.
And I don't want to sit there for like a
half a day trying to beat the boss.
I prefer to be more prepared.
And so that's... A lot of the bosses, if
you run into one, that's too hard.
But usually just my advice is maybe avoid
that boss if you can.
And get some more items, because some of
the charms, man, make it so much easier.
Yeah. And what about you, Gardiner? What
have you been playing?
I've been a little sick this week, so
I've taken it a bit easier.
I played Bulletstorm for a little while,
which is like one of my
favorite of like the 360 era.
First-person shooters.
And it's really, really fun.
But I also have been doing
some fun coding projects.
Actually, one major coding
project I'll show you guys.
I went on my blog and I added this little
support meter up here
that shows like goals
for like fundraising on the blog.
And I'm pretty happy with this.
So... And I actually wrote a blog post
about how it works and stuff.
So if you're interested in that, you can
check out the blog post about it.
Did you hit your goal? That's awesome.
We hit the first goal.
That is...
And we're very close to the second goal
here. We're like $5
short the second goal.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
That's pretty kick-ass, man.
Yeah. So it's very exciting.
And this counts not just like the ghost
blog system, but this
also counts my patrons who
have like logged in to redeem their free
membership to the blog.
And so that was like a non-trivial thing
to figure out, but I did
and I'm very proud of this.
So yeah.
Also, I wrote an open RCT2 installation
guide because that's a game
I've been playing recently.
So lots of fun stuff on my blog.
Oh yeah.
As for me, I finally picked up Silksong.
Like I said, I would.
And it's been a lot of fun.
I find myself getting
a lot lost very easily.
That said, there's some people
complaining a lot about
the game's difficulty.
We'll talk about that later.
That's one of the topics.
And I mean, I don't know if maybe gamers
have just gotten worse
at video games over time,
but like, I think they might have.
Yeah.
And like these gamers complained about
game journalists sucking at video games,
but like, you're no better than they are
either, to be honest.
Like that's just my opinion.
All right.
We're talking about more.
I'm better than game journalists.
Yeah.
Nobody is as good as
high-tech low-life at video games.
Yeah.
I gave you access to chess mess and you
were like, here's every
way I broke your game.
And most of them I had not even like
considered as a way to
break the game originally.
So to be fair, you'd be a game tester.
Yeah.
But game testers get paid shit to me.
They do.
It's not fair because it's a grueling job
that some people are just really good at.
Yeah.
And I'd imagine it'd be a lot less fun.
Like as time goes on, I'd probably be
sick of it by like year one.
Depends.
Do you like destruction and
destroying people's dreams?
Then you might be good at it.
Yeah.
But I want to play the game too, dude.
You do.
I don't want to like...
You played a lot.
Yeah.
But I don't want to like have to repeat
sections just to like
find new bugs in a place.
Like, yeah.
I'm sure playing a game is very different
than like play testing
a game for like specific
bugs and stuff like that.
But I mean, Silk's
song is a lot of fun, man.
I think you should pick
it up after you do it.
I know Gardiner is going to pick up
eventually when he finds time to game.
Yeah.
At some point.
Yeah.
But yeah.
I need to get it back into it.
It wasn't really on my radar this week.
I've been too busy wanting
to play dumb action games.
Oh, James.
Thank you.
Wait, now the real
question is, did it update?
It didn't update.
Fucker.
I thought that I had
got it working completely.
I'm here to help you.
Yeah.
Bug test.
So James just donated to my blog, so I'm
going to like update the account here.
I want to see it hit the next step.
It needs one of those like Twitch-style
pings where it goes...
When like you get a
donation from someone.
Yeah, I have to do.
I don't know how to do that.
Yeah, I don't know either.
Oh, I know why it didn't update.
Gosh, sorry.
Anyway, this derailed the...
It's all good.
Yeah, so you better beat Silk's song
before Hades 2 comes out
since that's now apparently
coming out this month as well.
Hades 2 is already out, isn't it?
It's in the real access.
No, like 1.0.
Oh, oh, oh.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
But hey.
Both the games are hard.
Slay the Spire got delayed.
Slay the Spire got delayed though.
Oh, Slay the Spire 2?
Yeah, Slay the Spire 2, yeah.
Oh.
Till March of next year.
Yeah, there's too many
games to catch up with.
Like I still need to
beat Doom Dark Ages, so...
And I still need to be Hades
1 before Hades 2 comes out.
I'm not...
Come on, dude.
Dude, that game is so hard.
One, two, it is repetitive.
I don't do well with repetitive...
Like, Rogue-like dungeon crawlers.
I just don't do very well
because it's too repetitive.
I get bored after a while.
But it's such a good game.
All right, it's time to get
into the meat of the topics.
The first of the topics
here we've got Tokyo Game Show.
So, Tokyo Game Show is one
of the big three gaming expos.
The other two, of course,
beaten Gamescom and, formerly, E3.
You know, I kind of miss E3, guys.
I don't know what you...
But I kind of miss it.
I know it's been on the decline, but
that's kind of why I miss it.
I miss it, too.
Honestly, I think a lot
of people shit on it a lot.
And I get kind of tired of
the shit on everything culture.
But at the same time,
I'm a part of it at times.
But E3 is, for better or for worse, at
least it was something
that was exciting during
the beginning of summer.
Which we still...
We have something else that replaced it,
which is nice, but yeah.
It's not the same thing.
Jock Healy's event's not the same thing.
It's just not...
Yeah, it's not quite the same thing.
I've always wanted to go to E3 as a kid.
I really did.
But given that flights to California, all
the way from the East Coast,
they're probably not that cheap.
And you'd have to get a hotel.
And you'd have to pay for tickets.
And I think E3 used to not
be public for a while, right?
Yeah, you had most of its life.
Yeah, but I think by the time
you would have wanted to go,
maybe you could have gone,
probably would have been open.
But before that, you just needed...
You could go work at GameStop.
As long as you say you're in the
industry, you can go
up to a certain point.
Damn, maybe we should have
been content creators early.
We could say we were
part of the gaming industry.
I mean, I kind of was.
And I think I got a discount when I went
last time, but that was...
You've been to E3?
Yeah, I've been to E3.
Dang.
It was awesome, honestly.
It was when Luigi's Mansion 3 was out.
And so they had like Nintendo went all
out, had a huge Luigi's Mansion thing
that you can go in and play the game.
I miss the days when game companies would
go all out to promote their stuff
and to try to actually win us over.
Instead of now, they're like, "Well, we
have dark patterns that addict you.
We don't need to do anything.
You're coming to us
anyways for the drugs."
So...
Yeah, that is true, man.
Tokyo Game Show looks like
it's a lot of fun though.
Valve was there two years ago.
No, they were there 2022
and then 2024, I think.
For the Steam Deck and
Steam Deck Ola, respectively.
And I don't think they'll
be showing up this year.
I saw the list and Valve was not listed
as one of the companies, of course.
So yeah, they're not gonna be showing up.
That's unfortunate.
So I can imagine Valve showing up next
year for the Deckard or Steamframe
or whatever it's called.
But yeah, Tokyo Game
Show is a lot of fun.
It looks like a lot of fun.
Maybe I should have delayed my trip to--
Maybe I should have went during Tokyo
Game Show to my trip to Japan.
It could have been a lot more expensive.
Shoot, you're right.
It probably would have
been a lot more expensive.
Albeit, Tokyo is massive, so...
Maybe an influx like
that wouldn't matter.
Let's say you're going to
San Francisco for let's--
Or LA for E3, stuff like that.
Those will raise the
prices of hotels in the area.
And you have to go pretty far out in
order to get a decent deal.
That is true.
But at the same time, though, Japanese
trains are so convenient.
You could just stay in Airbnb.
Like, that's close to a station.
You could live in--
You could stay in Kyoto
and go, like, it's so fast.
Mm, yeah, but I don't feel
like paying for a bullet train.
No, I know.
A bullet train.
Well, yeah, I don't think it's included
with the pass, is it?
Because when you go to Japan, you can pay
for a pass that's good
for while you're there
that just lets you get onto any of the--
at least in Tokyo's
public transit systems.
No, well, what I did was I
got one of the Suka cards.
And so I just loaded up
a bunch of cash in there.
And then, yeah.
Oh, no.
Oh, yeah.
If you're going to Japan, you get the--
it's like a tourist transit pass.
Like, it's a really good deal.
How much is it?
I don't think I've thought about that.
I don't know.
It's been a few years since I've been.
But yeah, here are the-- here's a full list of the exhibitors.
There's a ton of exhibitors.
Lots and lots of exhibitors.
Some you may-- most
you may not recognize.
Some you recognize like Arc System Works,
IANEO, Bandai Namco, Capcom.
I mean, come on, dude.
It's Japan.
They're going to be there.
EA.
Let's see if there's
anyone that sticks out here.
Oh, Hori. Oh, Hori.
Inti Creates is pretty cool, too.
Konami.
And then they just have
individual games listed, too.
Like, Mecha Break.
That's not a company name.
That's just a game name.
So I'm guessing their booth
is just like the game itself.
And then--
Ubisoft?
A lot of the usual
suspects are Ubisoft is in Japan.
They got to represent the Assassin's
Creed Shadows game, man.
Yeah.
I don't think that game did well.
Yeah, I haven't heard
much about it after.
Maybe I'll pick it up on sale, though.
It looks kind of interesting, especially
when you can spartan kick
people out of the walls.
It looks fun, but yeah.
It does look fun.
They do have a dedicated indie game area
as well, which I think is
one benefit over the others.
They focus a lot on smaller
developers at TGS as well, too.
I wish all these places would do that,
which I think it's becoming more and more
a lot of the shows are starting to do it.
But I don't know.
I mean, Japan's always been kind of
indie-friendly, too.
I mean, if you go to Comiket, you used to
see people selling
Dojin software as well.
In fact, some of the big Japanese
franchises now, like Fate, started out as
essentially an indie
game, if you really think about it.
Like Fate State Night.
It's kind of weird saying it's an indie
game, so to speak, when
it predates the term indie
game.
It does.
It's really interesting because, I mean,
a lot of the studios that
are big now started out as
indies, and technically.
I mean, technically, yeah.
But like, it was just, well, Type Moon
used to be just like
two guys working like...
I don't know, man.
It's a crazy thought to
really think about it.
But yeah, I mean, Tokyo Game Show, it's
happening in like two weeks.
We should be getting some live streams
with some pretty big
announcements from companies.
I mean, what I'm interested in is seeing
what everyone's got to show off.
Xbox is going to be
there, too, of course.
Xbox is still in Japan.
Yes.
They really are going...
They're trying to go full throttle in
like, being in Japan,
despite the fact that they
almost killed off their one Japanese.
Do you?
Tango Game Works.
But yeah.
They're still trying to get the ever
elusive Japanese market.
But I mean, yeah, that's E3 for you, man.
I mean, not E3, sorry.
It's Tokyo Game Show.
Yeah.
Interesting stuff.
I'm hoping that
something cool comes out of it.
There's so many shows
to follow every year now.
Yeah.
And look, you've got
the special sponsors.
Grandma sponsor, Okishimasu.
You've got the...
You've got PlayStation.
You've got Nintendo Switch 2.
It's not even sponsored by Nintendo.
Sponsored by the Switch 2.
You've got Kodansha.
And then you've got Happy Net, Playism,
Hobby Japan, Indie Game Incubator.
Never heard of them.
Nextone, World Map, Cryware.
I can't read this.
BenQ.
Tom, man.
They need to update their logo.
Who, BenQ?
Yeah.
They've been using that forever.
Dude, come on, man.
It's not broke, man.
It's like the Cracker Barrel situation.
Have you guys heard about
the Cracker Barrel situation?
Yes.
It's so stupid.
I mean, at the end of the
day, who goes to Cracker Barrel?
Well, no.
Hey, hey, hey.
Do not talk shit on Cracker Barrel.
I have to say that
because on the West Coast,
it doesn't matter as much.
People don't care about
Cracker Barrel as much.
See, it is here.
Can I tell a story about
Cracker Barrel real fast?
Totally irrelevant.
Yeah, go for it.
My grandparents used to...
When they were alive, they had a shop
where they restored
antique cast iron wood stoves.
Okay?
And it was awesome.
That is cool.
It wasn't just that.
My grandfather also had this
thing called the doll circus
that he did with my grandmother.
My grandmother collected
Barbie dolls and all kinds of stuff.
And my grandpa would put them on little
ferris wheels and shit.
And the ferris wheels would move.
And it was cool.
So I grew up there.
And then one day, they got
this contract from Cracker Barrel
to sell them a ton of wood stoves.
So if you go into a
Cracker Barrel in the US,
there's a non-zero chance that you'll see
a antique cast iron wood stove
that was restored by my grandparents in
their little gift shop.
So that's my little story.
I love Cracker Barrel
and their food is awesome.
Yeah, I do love that story.
I disagree with the food
being awesome, but yes.
I'm sorry.
I like some of the Cracker Barrel stuff.
I've only been there a few times.
I like sausage, biscuits, and gravy.
I love biscuits and gravy.
And I was not that impressed.
I once went to Cracker Barrel with
Wendell from Level One Text.
So there's also that.
That's cool.
Wendell like Cracker Barrel?
Yeah, he does.
Nice.
At the end of the day, logo and branding
really needs to be done right.
And they just f'd it up.
I just hate that it became...
I really hate that it became...
Minimal text.
Well, it just became a
mainstream story where it's like,
Cracker Barrel didn't need to rebrand.
Yeah, Cracker Barrel
really didn't need to rebrand.
They didn't need to get rid of...
Who was it?
Who was the mascot of Cracker Barrel?
He had a name that I heard from the news.
He had a name?
Supposedly.
I mean, apparently
there's a name for the mascot.
I don't know his name, but...
I think they did.
They did it with the murals.
I mean, it was a pretty dumb rebrand.
The guy gets simplifying, but that's like
a tech-oriented thing.
BenQ, though, I will say,
looks like a medication brand.
I'm just...
They should rebrand.
What is a rebrand going to be?
Is it going to be like BenQ?
Just remove the purple, honestly.
Just remove the purple thing.
It makes it look like a
stomach or a liver or something.
I don't know.
Just get rid of the kidney.
That's what it is.
It's kidney medicine.
Yo, what if they just made it into a box?
Would that satisfy you, James?
Like a box around BenQ makes it look like
a monitor instead of a kidney?
Sure.
That'd satisfy me.
I'm just saying.
There's some brands that need to be
revamped, and that's one of them.
Yeah.
I agree, but at the same time, though,
I don't like how
everything's being more simplified.
Imagine a ZOTAC right here,
like change their font to like
Ariel or Calibri or
some bullcrap like that.
Why?
That's also...
ZOTAC is already a
simplified version of it.
Fonts are important to a brand.
That's actually the thing you need to
focus on the most when doing logos.
Yeah, but what I'm saying is, imagine if
they didn't have this
stylized font where the A is a
delta instead of just like a regular A.
Imagine how stupid that would look.
It would be stupid, but that's not the
point of simplifying your brand.
You don't go to a simpler font.
I think we can all agree that Ask, scroll
down, scroll down, the last section,
asks use of Comic Sans as
the best branding on this.
Is that actually Comic Sans?
I can't tell.
That looks a hell of a
lot like Comic Sans to me.
That's a variant of it at the very least.
Who is Ask Corporation?
Now we have to know.
If you have to ask, you should...
Dude, you have to ask.
It's a...
Oh, wait, why are they
sponsoring like a gaming...
They're an equipment sponsor, meaning
they donate equipment to it.
Same with BenQ.
Yeah, I can understand BenQ doing like
monitors and stuff for games,
but like they're donating like water
valves and like pressure...
They probably have a
lot of different things.
So yeah, who knows?
That's interesting.
Takes a lot to run an event.
It does.
Got to pipe that water
into those venues, I guess.
Yo, one of these days, we'll hit up
Japan, go to Tokyo Game Show,
and then get some sushi.
Oh man, I went to the
Tsukiji Fish Market.
I had the best sushi I've ever had.
It was like...
So it was like this like older lady.
She was serving like
this like fatty tuna.
It was like 2000 yen for four pieces,
which I think comes out to like 15 or so
at today's exchange rates.
Yeah.
Man, it was so good.
It was the best sushi I've ever had.
And I'm gonna be kind of sad that...
I'm not gonna be able to
find sushi this good in America.
At least not for like a decent price.
Yeah, I was gonna say, with
that, it's really freshness.
If you can go to a
fish market around here,
like you should be like,
especially on the West Coast,
you should be able to
get something similar.
Yeah, that's the problem.
I don't live in the West Coast.
True.
Probably the closest fish market is
Gardner's lobster market
up in Maine or whatever.
Hey, hey, hey.
We call it a lobster pound up here.
A lobster pound.
A lobster pound?
Yeah, that's what it's called.
Like when you...
Is it like a puppy pound
where you stick animals in there?
No, that's messed up.
I don't know where the
origin of that comes from.
That's what I'm saying.
I'm not sure where the origin of that
comes from, but it might be.
But I have a friend who is a lobsterman,
and he drops his lobsters
off at the lobster pound.
At the lobster pound?
The lobster pound.
Do they cook them live so
they can hear their scream?
Yeah, they don't scream.
Like you drop them in the...
They don't scream, but they can hiss.
Meaning the pressure, like the...
Yeah.
Sorry.
The show is off the rails already, guys.
It's pretty off the rails.
Yeah.
Take your game show.
I should pay attention to it.
Yeah.
We should go to the
next topic because it is...
It is...
It's another event.
The Apple event.
Yeah.
Now, Apple traditionally
has their events in September,
where they unveil their new stuff.
And this time, it's a new iPhone.
But it's not just like a
refresh of like the iPhones.
It's a brand new type of iPhone.
The iPhone 17 Air.
Have you seen the gardener?
Yeah.
And like...
It's amazing.
I don't know about you.
I'm waiting for Jay Riggever to get his
hands on one of those.
And so I can watch him like snap it in
half with his bare hands.
Yeah.
I mean, honestly, dude,
like why would you want that?
I don't understand why
anyone would want that.
Apple, man.
Apple does what Apple wants to do.
They're the Apple of Apple.
They're the Apple of the US.
So the problem with Apple is that they
keep on doing these
planned events that are...
That are just...
Every year, they have
to do it in September.
They have a planned event and
it kind of kills innovation.
They're pretty much incremental
innovation where it's...
They probably could come out with
something a little bit more powerful.
And to be fair, they probably could pack
more into this iPhone Air.
But they have to keep
on selling every year.
And it's a little unfortunate
because it kills innovation.
That being said, I use Apple devices
because they're so
energetic and I don't have to deal
with the stuff for my day-to-day life.
But this Air is just so weird.
That they added another
SKU when they already have...
I get it.
It is thinner.
It is nice.
But you're going to slap a case on there.
It's still going to make
it thinner and lighter.
But I think just replace one
of their other SKUs with it.
Instead of adding another iPhone, just
replace one or two of
the other ones you have.
Let's stop with this.
Six different SKUs.
Let's do three.
You have a small, medium, and large.
Yeah.
Wait, so the iPhones, I
think, came out yesterday.
So I want to do a little
sleuthing on the internet and see...
Careful.
If he has Jerry Riggs,
everything, iPhone 17 Air.
You can't show Apple events and stuff.
They'll take it down.
That's happened multiple times to me.
Okay.
So no, they don't have...
He hasn't uploaded a video of himself
snapping an iPhone in half.
It'll probably happen next week.
To be fair, I feel like you could snap
most phones these days in half.
Yeah.
You can't snap my phone in half.
You know, I have a Google Pixel 4a.
I'm still on the 4, by the way.
I don't need to
upgrade my phone every year.
I don't care.
I hate these things
and I barely use them.
So, but the fact is, this
is too big for me still.
I want something really small where, when
I'm holding it comfortably,
my right thumb can reach the top left
corner of the screen.
That's what I want.
That's real innovation.
Because there are no phones on the
market, as far as I have found,
that let me reach all the way up to the
left corner of the
screen in my right thumb.
What do you need to do
with that left corner?
Go back?
Go back or whatever.
I don't...
Dude, just use your other hand.
You just got to get an iPhone, man.
You just swipe back.
I don't...
I do not...
I...
When I got this phone, I had to...
Like, literally, this phone had the
stupid little swipe bar at the bottom.
And I was like, "No, give me my buttons
back, my fake buttons."
I hate the swipe gesture stuff because it
feels like dark patterns, all of it.
Really?
Yes.
Really?
Yeah.
I didn't like it when I
first did it, but it got easier.
Swipe is a dark pattern to me.
It feels just awful, like,
addicting, and I hate it.
Yeah, I don't know if
I'd say I'm addicted.
It's just a gesture to me.
It's just a means to an end.
I'm not sure if I agree with
that notion, Gardner, but...
Yeah, I guess where I'm coming from, what
I mean when I say that is, to me,
I can feel something in my
lizard brain that goes, "Ooh!"
When I do a swipe gesture thing.
And so that, to me,
feels like a dark pattern.
When a UI design isn't to facilitate you
going fast or something,
it's to release dopamine in your brain.
That...
And for me, that happens when I do that.
So I don't like it.
I get frustrated sometimes because it
doesn't swipe, so...
Swipe or no swiping.
Yeah.
Swipe or no swiping.
That's also part of
the dark pattern shit.
It's like, if there's a lottery of if
it's going to work or
not, and then it doesn't,
and it frustrates you, and then it does,
that can be part of a
deliberate design pattern.
That usually makes me stop using stuff.
It's successful most of the time enough.
No, it's...
I'll say this.
Instead of the air, or
at least doing the air,
they should have done it as a foldable or
something where you could get it smaller.
Do something different.
Dude, you can fold it.
It just won't be
functional after a single fold.
I mean, high tech.
The small's good.
Our thin's good.
I don't think it's any more foldable than
some of the other phones.
Like this Google phone I have.
I bet you it's pretty foldable.
But...
Is it titanium?
I don't know, man.
Is the air titanium?
Because I know the Pro Max is.
I can't remember if the air is though,
because I thought it
was like a titanium alloy.
I think it's
exclusively titanium, so they say.
Yeah.
And so it's going to make it a little
harder for it to bend.
I'm just salty that
Apple made headphone jacks.
I'm not looking at phones anymore.
Like my phone is definitely thick enough
to accommodate a headphone jack.
Heck, I think this...
When they removed it, I think that was
like the iPhone 7 when they removed it.
That one was thick enough to
accommodate a headphone jack.
These are all thick enough.
It was a big part of it was for getting
better ratings for waterproof.
Like water resistance, waterproofing,
and it was also just a simplified
component so they could fit
a headphone jack in there.
Like if they say anything
otherwise, they're just lying.
But I just think it's to
simplify the whole system.
Yeah.
But I think my favorite tradition when it
comes to iPhone releases are all the
hooks that that 4chan comes up with for
people to destroy
their phones on accident.
I think my favorite one is either between
like the update that
makes your iPhone waterproof
as per 4chan or the update that lets you
charge your phone in a microwave.
I mean, yeah, the microphone was classic.
I mean, if you do that,
then it's kind of just...
You deserved it, I guess.
You shouldn't say you deserve it.
You learned a lesson.
It was a teachable moment.
The water one is that
they are waterproof.
Pretty good.
Well, no, they are now.
But like it said that...
Yeah, but like back then they said that a
software update made
your phone waterproof.
Yeah.
Man. Good times, man.
So on top of the new iPhones, they also
announced Apple watches.
And also new AirPods.
They're said to be the best act of noise
canceling like ear pods out there.
And I mean, I'm sure they're pretty good,
but like I'm more partial
to like the Sony ones that
come out the WF-1000XM.
Like I think it's like
out of five now or six.
I'm not sure.
I...
I would...
Of course it's going to be the best.
Like they're going to say that.
And they probably are.
Like the AirPods Pros 2s
that I have are pretty good.
They might have bad mics and some other
stuff, but like they're noise canceling.
And I have three test
cases at home for this.
I have two kids and a dog.
And if I need some sanity, I
will turn that head count...
The noise canceling on
and it is pretty nice.
This is...
The AirPods Pros 3s are probably the, I
think, best or the more interesting thing
to come out of all this because
they include like translation and some
other stuff in it, which other headphones
have been able to do for a while, but it
is still cool to see.
Yeah.
Also, also apparently there's a new
feature where you can do real time
translations to like have conversations
with foreign people.
So I don't know how good that'll be.
Google does it too.
Google's...
Yeah, Google does it too.
AirPods 2.
Yeah.
So it's definitely going to be
interesting to see how it goes and how
Star Trek is going to get in like the
next few decades because
it's only going to get better.
And I think that is actually...
I think it's a good thing.
I think removing barriers
for language is a good thing.
Yeah, it'll be like Tekken.
You guys ever play Tekken?
I've played Tekken better.
Yeah, dude.
Remember.
So I mean, one of the things they've done
in recent times is I
think starting with Tekken 7,
they started making...
They made everyone speak their native
languages instead of like
either English or Japanese.
And so like now like French characters
will speak French and like
Germans will speak German.
Koreans will speak Korean and of course
the Japanese will speak Japanese.
That's cool.
And yeah.
Also, I also want to mention the price
because the one good
thing that Apple didn't do
was like raise the price substantially
except for I guess the pro models.
Did they go up a price much though?
Because the 17 Pro Max, it looks about
like what it typically is.
Yeah, no, no.
The regular Pro went up $100.
See, when I get a phone, I get it every
few years and I just get the
highest one and it just lasts
years.
Yeah, that's fair enough.
So the iPhone 17 is still $800.
And the Pro starts at $10.99.
Apple is now shipping...
Apple now by default gives it 256 gigs
instead of 128 gigs to start with.
All these companies have got to change
the defaults to like a
terabyte on everything.
I'm getting tired of these small...
Like I get it.
They make a lot of money.
The cloud is nice honestly and the way
iPhone manages my data.
If I don't use an app for a very long
time, you can enable this or disable it.
So it's like totally optional, but you
can make it so that it
will save all the data for it,
but it will delete the app.
It's like the most of the content.
Let's say it's a game and I
don't play it for a while.
You can select apps and games to say,
"Hey, don't ever remove this for space."
But for some of the other stuff, it will.
Because I have fast enough
internet, it's not a big deal.
It will re-download it
if I need it once a year.
But I have to say, it is really nice.
It can be annoying, but it's nice.
Yeah, so my brother is trying to upgrade
his iPhone 14 Pro to a iPhone 17 Pro.
And he's finding out that there might not
be that many good trade-in offers.
You might have to just take the loss.
If you're doing the trade-in, you got to
do it every generation or two.
Once you get past three or four
generations, the
trade-in's not as high just because
people don't want to
buy that old of an iPhone.
To admit, out of all the phones, the
Apple has a really good trade-in offer.
Yeah, I agree.
I think it's still among the best.
Because it's like 400 through Apple,
which I think is still
pretty decent for a phone
that's like three
years old at this point.
Yeah, that's actually not bad at all.
But yeah, it's going to be hard when the
rest of my family wants to trade-in their
iPhone 14s as well.
Thankfully, I don't have an iPhone, so I
don't have to worry about this.
Yeah, well, I mean, you have to worry
about upgrading no matter what.
Yeah, but I mean, I
already did my upgrade.
I have an S25 Ultra, so
I won't have to worry.
You have for a while.
Probably for a few more years.
Yeah, for a while.
I mean, I do a lot of mobile development
and where I work right
now, I do both Android and iOS
along with web.
It is beneficial to have both the old
phones and the new ones.
So I might be exceptional.
I think some people that upgrade every
year are just chasing some
type of change in their life,
I guess.
Or they're like mobile
reviewers like MKBHD.
They get it for free,
though, most likely.
Most of them do.
It's still an upgrade
every year, even if it's free.
Okay.
I'm not wrong, am I?
You're not.
You're technically right.
I'll throw that out.
Technically.
The best type of right.
So that's kind of right.
Oh, man.
So yeah, I mean, phones are happening.
New iPhone.
I do find it interesting that they made
the camera bumps a lot
bigger than these new iPhones,
especially with the air too.
So all the relevant computing components
are in the camera bump of that device.
Yeah.
And the rest of it is
just battery, supposedly.
It's so foolish.
Like the coverage that I saw was like
making a joke about the fact
that there's like the camera
bump and then there's the very slim thing
for the battery and the screen.
And then only for the iPhone Air, they
have a MagSafe battery
attachment because the battery
won't last all day.
That makes sense.
Yeah.
I don't.
I mean, Apple's intended tends to be more
like efficient with
their software and whatnot.
So I can imagine the battery being a
little longer, like battery
life being a little better
than it doesn't last a day.
Like that's all their phones, from my
understanding, will
last a day of normal use.
If you're going very intense, they won't.
Their marketing says all day battery, but
there is speculation.
I don't know if it's been tested yet or
not, but there's
speculation that because they
released the MagSafe battery for the Air,
that it probably will
only barely last a day
with very light usage.
So I would be shocked.
I like Apple's pretty meticulous with
that type of stuff, but I don't know.
It'd be interesting.
I do.
We'll have to say that battery will
probably work with the other devices too.
Yeah.
I'm not here to defend though.
We'll see.
If it doesn't last all
day, that's a huge loss.
That's a huge L for them.
Yeah.
We'll find out.
I guess we'll find out soon enough.
In the meantime though,
speaking of huge loss,
Nintendo got this patent and it's a huge
loss for the gaming industry as a whole.
So for those who don't know what
happened, essentially
Nintendo got a patent for
what is effectively summoning a character
and letting it fight one another.
I hate them so much.
So I hate patents period
though, but yeah, not a fan.
Like I get it for like small, medium
businesses to help protect their IP and
to like get somewhere.
So big companies don't steal from them,
but big companies weaponize it.
And we've really got to reform this or
we're just going to end
up like who wants to do it?
Who wants to be a small creator, a game
developer that wants to, because
summoning a character to fight someone
else is a very common
thing to do these days with
games like that's how many different
games that are Pokemon
ask that are like this.
Like, yeah, I mean, can you, is it even
like legal to have like a patent for a game mechanic?
Yeah, it is.
I thought that that was it.
I think it has to be a specific
implementation of the game.
Because remember, remember that one
studio had that patent
for like the Nemesis system.
And now that studio
doesn't even exist anymore.
Right.
But the past is.
Yeah, the past is the
radio dial in mass effect.
That's a patent.
That's patented. There's the dialogue. Yes. That's a patent.
I didn't know that.
And yes, it is.
It is disgusting.
It's this type of stuff where it doesn't
take any real money to
create these types of
mechanics.
That's what the whole
point of patents are for.
Technically is innovation that costs a lot so that people can recoup their costs.
It's not just that it's not just that it's not just that it's not just that it's not that it's not just that it costs a lot so
that people can recoup
their costs in creating the
patent.
Software patents are a joke because
they're always
incremental on someone else's work.
And they should be removed altogether.
This is a huge thing
that needs to be reformed.
It's just going to destroy
the gaming industry more.
Mm-hmm.
So the specific implementation of this
patent, I believe, is for
third-person games like Pokemon
RCS.
Because this whole-- but it's really-- as
we all know, it's meant
to be another patent in
their case against Power World.
Which at this point, I think we've talked
more about Power World's
lawsuit than the actual
game itself.
Yeah.
Which is kind of unfortunate, really.
I mean, Power World is a fun game.
But I played a lot of it,
and I'm kind of over it.
It's just unfortunate that a game like
that is being fought.
They have to fight so hard to just stay
above water or to exist.
Where, yeah, is it a
little bit of a copy of Pokemon?
But you could say that about everything,
even Pokemon itself.
Yeah.
I mean, I think it's like a-- I think it
really should fall under parody.
Because like--
Yeah.
It kind of-- I mean,
it's Pokemon with guns.
I mean, come on, dude.
It sounds like a parody already.
Oh, yeah.
But not only that, though, it seems like
Hoyo, the creators of
Honkai Star Rail and Genshin
Impact, they're making
a creature game, too.
And it looks like they're concerned that
maybe Nintendo could go after them, too.
And they'd be a much bigger target than
Pocket Pair, because they
make a shitload of money.
I hate this.
Is this happening in Japan,
though, like these lawsuits?
I believe it's a US patent, right?
This is a US patent.
Yeah.
That's--
Yeah.
Then we could at least
do something about it.
I don't think there's a patent-- I don't
think there's a
lawsuit in America just yet.
But I think they're going to use these
American patents to
fuel their Japanese fight.
I don't know.
It's a crazy
situation, especially since--
Yeah, there's a specific
implementation for this.
But at the same time, though,
theoretically, Nintendo could just go
after anyone else who
are using the concept of a summon, so to
speak, which is kind of stupid, too.
Like, they could go after Digimon.
Yeah.
They can go after Shinigami Tensei, which
has you recruiting
demons and then summoning them
to fight with you alongside you as well.
Wouldn't--
Would Monster Rancher count or no?
I think Monster Rancher could count, too.
Do you summon
creatures in Monster Rancher?
Well, I don't know if
you-- I don't think it means--
I mean, you don't technically summon
creatures in Pokemon, either.
You release them out of their Pokemon.
You can't summon them, essentially.
Right, but the only Monster Rancher game
I've ever played was the one on PS1,
and you could summon monsters by putting
a music disc in, and it would--
Mm.
Generate a monster based on the hash of
the device or the disc.
It's like, how is that
not summoning, you know?
Dude.
It's ridiculous, man.
Yeah, summoning is crazy, man.
You can summon in Final Fantasy as well.
You can summon creatures to fight-- well,
it depends on the Final Fantasy.
Sometimes, I think, you just summon and
they just do a big attack,
and sometimes you summon them in their
actual controllable characters,
like in Final Fantasy X, than your
animas-- no, your aeons.
So not to change it a little-- like what
we're talking about a little bit.
But the U.S. grant office or whatever-- I
can't remember what it's called.
Their patent-- not
their grant office, sorry.
Their patent and trade office.
How compromised is it?
Because a lot of the other parts of the
government are pretty-- in my opinion,
compromised, meaning they flushed out a
lot of the people that were doing the job
just to put people that
aren't qualified at all.
And I'm wondering if companies are going
to be able to get more--
because this should
not have gone through.
I have worked in a
patent office for software,
and it is actually typically difficult.
And I'm assuming money does help and
certain things do help,
but I'm wondering if Nintendo is going to
be trying to do more,
and some of these companies are going to
try to put more patents through
that are obviously should not be granted.
Like this is--
I'd love to see them
try pushing it even more,
because obviously with Nintendo, you
know, you give them an
inch, they'll take a mile.
I think they will.
This is not a good sign.
This should not have
gone through, and it did.
Like maybe a couple years
ago, it could have been like,
I-- this might show that it's open season
for maybe other companies,
and that's just going to
destroy the game market.
A lot of mechanics are
built on top of each other,
and if you have to worry about copying
some mechanic that's a trade--
I don't want it.
I will stop creating games when I have to
start thinking about
if I'm creating
something that is patented
without knowing if there's like 20
different patents to worry about.
Yeah, and even-- I mean, even back then,
if you guys remember,
Bandai Namco used to hold a patent for
having mini games on
like a loading screen.
That patent did expire, yes,
but by the time it expired,
you know, we got SSDs and
games load super fast, right?
And we've gotten to the point where like,
we've started masking loading screens
instead of having like,
dedicated loading screens, right?
Like, you know what I'm saying?
So like, that patent expired doesn't even
matter anymore, right?
Yeah.
Why can't-- I'm not saying--
Why can't the--
Oh, sorry, go ahead.
Why can't Doge get rid of
the patent and trademark?
Well, I don't want it
to get rid of trademarks.
I think trademarks are
important, per se, but like--
and patents are too, but
it's so heavily abused,
I'd almost rather it just be gone.
Well, we can't-- well, I don't know.
Money. Money.
Oh, I--
Money.
I know exactly.
The other thing is, like, patents,
trademarks, and copyrights are like,
part of the Constitution, so
we can't just get rid of it.
We can get rid of like--
Are patents, though?
I'm pretty sure patents are.
I don't know.
I think patents are a little newer, but I
could be wrong about that.
When you say part of the Constitution,
do you mean like, it's in like, the main
body or like, or it's an amendment?
Patents are in Article 1, Section 8,
Closet of the Constitution.
And there you go.
Then--
That's crazy.
Admit the Constitution.
I'm not against that.
I don't like patents.
It was a-- you can obviously tell.
They've just been heavily abused so much.
Patents suck, and Nintendo sucks too.
But, you know, it's about that--
despite the fact that Nintendo sucks,
sometimes it can put on a good show.
Like so.
I agree with that.
So, hold on.
I don't actually have a new article for
this, but I'll read out some
of the stuff that was announced.
So they announced a new Mario Galaxy
movie alongside a
re-release of Mario Galaxy 1 and 2.
Hmm.
They announced Virtual Boy games with
some Virtual Boy accessories to come--
to go along with it too.
So, hold on.
Let me show you what it looks like.
Oh.
Virtual Boy accessory.
So there's actually two accessories that
you slot your switch into.
You can either get the one
that looks like a Virtual Boy,
or the like, Google
Cardboard, like, Virtual Boy.
[laughs]
The Cardboard.
I--
It's still like--
Oh, 25 bucks.
Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I was--
Oh, 25.
I was really expecting to be like 60.
That's how bad their pricing is that I'm
like, "Oh, okay, 25. That's not too bad."
The--
If you're looking to spend more though,
you can spend $100 on the Virtual Boy.
Yeah.
I think it's pretty cool, actually.
Yeah, so it slots in-- the screen slots
in like this, and it's
like Google Cardboard.
Yeah.
So this whole-- this whole accessory just
to play like the 14 games
in the Virtual Boy library?
That's correct.
I think it's cool.
I also don't need to play it, so I don't
need to get it if I don't want,
but I think it's cool
that they have the option.
Maybe.
What if like, they actually release new,
like, unreleased Game Boy--
or Virtual Boy games like
they did with the Star Fox 2?
With Star Fox 2?
That would be cool.
They could.
That would be kind of cool, actually.
I'd be interested in that.
I-- honestly, I'm
interested in the accessory as is.
I don't think it-- like, could it be
cheaper, of course, but--
[DING]
It's up to them if they want more cells.
Did you guys play the
Virtual Boy when it first came out?
That's the thing.
I've never played it before, but I've
only seen stuff on it over the years.
I've seen the AVGN video of it.
My friend-- when I was in elementary
school, my friend Matt had one,
and he was the only person I ever knew,
and I played it for about 10 minutes,
and it gave me a really bad headache, and
I was not interested after that.
I've heard that it does that, yeah.
That kind of reminds me how I'm the only
person I've ever known that has a--
that had a Sega Saturn growing up.
You guys ever played a
Sega Saturn? It's awesome.
I've played it a little bit.
I just had a regular Sega.
So we'll see what else.
Metroid Prime 4 has a release date.
We have Pokémon Pokeotopia, which kind
of looks like Minecraft almost.
We've got Fire Emblem Fortunes Weave,
Dragon Quest VII Remake,
Yoshi and the
Mysterious Book, and some ports.
Resident Evil 9 is
coming to the Switch 2.
And, of course, Final Fantasy VII Remake.
I think both the remakes.
And there was one that was shown off in
the Japanese direct that
I'm kind of interested in,
Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection,
which includes the trilogy, but also the
two different versions of each game,
since the Battle Network and the Star
Force games did that
with two different versions of each game, kind of like Pokémon.
I do wish they had more
Nintendo-specific games,
even though, I mean,
Metroid Prime 4 Nintendo-specific.
Pokémon.
Fire Emblem.
I guess what I wanted is some classic.
What, you mean like a Zelda?
No.
Oh, they did put up a trailer.
I want Luigi's Mansion 4.
Well, they did put up a trailer for--
Well, they did put up a trailer for the
High World Warriors game,
the Age of Imprisonment
or something like that.
Okay.
So there's that too.
I get what you're saying though, but they
also just released two bangers.
Well, I don't know if I'd
call Mario Kart World a banger.
It's fun.
Agreed.
They did, but for a release of a console,
I feel like it's just
been lacking over the years.
I just do not feel like there's been
enough decent games to come
out with releases that are
like unique to why you
should buy the console.
Maybe they should have just delayed Tears
of the Kingdom and made
it switch to exclusive.
I bet you--
I thought about exclusive, but like at
least release it with it.
Make it more of a reason to get it, but
I'm not necessarily asking
for exclusives completely.
I just would like to see maybe exclusive
if it's designed
really well for the console
and takes account in all the different
capabilities of console
maybe then, but I don't know.
I think consoles are kind of dying.
Oh yeah, they also announced DLC for
Pokemon Legends ZA, which as
we all know is not out yet.
And it's a pretty big expansion too, $30.
It's got two versions of Mega Ride Shoe.
That's so--
Yo, it's so funny that Pikachu was like
the mascot, but no one
gives a fuck about Ride Shoe,
like the evolved version of Pikachu.
He's not as cute.
That's so mean.
Is it?
I like Ride Shoe.
I don't make the rules.
You gotta look like you're less dangerous
and people like that.
Mm.
You don't see it being a snake.
Yeah, I mean, also there's some
interesting Pokemon lore
bits that Nintendo, I guess,
dropped.
Like for example, do you guys remember
Lieutenant Surge in Gen 1?
He's the Lightning gym leader.
I do remember, yeah.
He's the guy that kind of looks like
Guile from Street Fighter.
Yeah. Yeah, so I think he was apparently in a
war and the Lightning
Pokemon saved his life or
something like that during the war, but
then they never
talked about the war again.
And they also retconned as Epithet, which
was the Lightning American.
And then, I don't know,
there's a lot of crazy stuff too.
Apparently, when in development, I think
there was a rumor that
the grass gym leader, Erika,
was actually supposed to be a ghost gym
leader and that she's
actually dead and that the one
inhabiting her body is a ghost Pokemon.
But of course, apparently
that never came to fruition.
I don't know, there's just a lot of crazy
rumors I've heard about Pokemon
lore back in the day.
Oh, and also, we can't forget about the
Game Freak leaks, if
you guys remember that,
from the first episode of this podcast.
Man, that was such a crazy leak.
The Game Freak leaks?
I don't remember that.
It was the one with the
stories of like, Tyranitar.
Oh, yeah, no idea.
Oh, Tyranitar.
I don't remember that.
I don't want to talk about it.
Never mind.
Yeah, now you remember.
But, yeah, Nintendo has been
kind of all right, I guess.
The Switch 2 isn't as exciting as the
Switch one, but I guess we
also haven't had like a major
Breath of the Wild level
release for the Switch 2, right?
I mean, Donkey Kong bonanza
is supposed to be really good.
I mean, it is.
But it's also not like a new Zelda.
I think people would like flock.
I think people would flock to it a lot
faster if they announced a new Zelda.
Maybe.
I think people, I don't know, I bet you
they're a little fatigued.
There's been a lot of Zelda stuff lately.
And so, I don't know.
I'm not a big Zelda fan, though.
I think.
Also, have we talked about the Zelda
movie at all in this podcast?
Yeah, we talked about
the casting, I think.
Wait, I think that was one of the
episodes where I like had to go MIA.
Yeah.
Was Jimmy from, was
Jimmy part of the episode or?
No.
Oh, dang.
That would have been a good
topic to talk with him about.
Here's my thing on Nintendo Switch.
I think it is too
similar to Nintendo Switch 1.
Like the Switch 2 is, it
feels more like a 1.5 upgrade.
They just bumped the size up and the
graphical power, don't get
me wrong, is much better,
but is still a little behind on what it
could have been released two years ago.
Yeah.
I agree.
I think it would have been more
impressive if it was
released two years ago.
And it's so incremental that that's how
they should do it, in my opinion.
Because then and still really
make sure that they're back.
Like a lot of games are backwards
compatible and just, if you're going to
go incremental route,
make it so that it's that way and that
people can just upgrade
into it as time goes on.
If you're going to make it so similar.
Yeah.
I mean, it's kind of
the Wii U all over again.
I think.
Yeah.
I don't know about that because people
thought the Wii U was
just an accessory for the Wii
and they didn't buy it
because they already had one.
But I mean, like the Wii U when it came
out was basically a 360.
Right?
Like it.
And we were already on
the Xbox One at that point.
Like it was just a generation behind.
It felt like it was a
marginal upgrade at best.
And I don't know.
I just don't see the Switch 2 being like
the Switch 1 killer, which
is what they wanted it to be.
Yeah.
That's a...
I will say the Wii U is more innovative
than the Switch 2 is.
I will say that.
Now that being said, if they're going to
include like some
innovation, which they did, like the
mouse sensors that are in the controllers
are, you know, I think pretty cool.
They need to do much better with the
games and promoting those
new features because that
is one of the only ones that I can think
of that's new about the Switch 2 as
opposed to the Switch 1.
There's only like one or two things that
are actually truly like
innovative and that's it.
Like the...
If you go into it, it
feels just like the Switch 1.
Like if you're using Switch 1, you're
going to, I guess, love the
Switch 2, but I'm used to my
generational changes of consoles to also
have UI enhancements
that are more prominent.
I get what you're saying.
Yeah.
I mean, to be honest, I don't think a lot
of developers are going
to make use of the mass
functionality and the ones that are just
going to like make it
so that you can just
point and click with your
mouse like in an FPS, right?
Or RTS.
Honestly, I'd love to play
Starcraft on the Switch 2.
I know that sounds
weird, but yeah, why not?
But I don't see many developers wanting
to make like a dual
mouse game like in Mario...
Like in that, like
what was that game called?
The one where you're on like a
wheelchair, you're like a paraplegic.
Well, you're not paraplegic.
I think it's just, yeah, I know what
you're talking about.
Yeah, the wheelchair basketball game.
Yeah.
I don't remember what
it's called though, but yeah.
And then you've also got a...
What was it?
You've also got dual...
I don't know if it's dual...
No, I wouldn't...
I guess it is dual mouse functionality in
Mario Party, but like
everyone else has a mouse and like...
So I don't think it's really dual mouse
functionality, but it's
multi-mouse functionality.
Like you can have up to
four cursors of the screen.
Yeah, I think like Wario games and Mario
parties and stuff like
that actually benefit greatly
from this, which cool.
Should have released one.
I don't think they're
that hard to release.
Should have done it.
I don't know.
I would kill for a new
WarriorWare, to be honest.
I think WarriorWare could
have been released with this.
Yeah, WarriorWare is so much fun.
Emily and I still play WarriorWare on
occasion on my Wii over here.
Yeah.
The original one or
like the one on the Wii?
The Wii, yeah.
I still have my copy of the original
WarriorWare on Game Boy Advance.
Oh, hell yeah.
And it's like...
And it's a delightfully
weird WarriorWare games.
You should definitely...
Like for the audience that hasn't played
them before, you should
definitely play them up.
Like I think one of the funniest ones is
like the Booger minigames.
Yeah.
Like you're like having to press A to
like sniffle your snot back up.
See, bump your noses.
Man, they don't make weird games anymore.
They need to do...
Yeah, honestly, it's a
big miss on Nintendo.
They have a lot of IP now that we're
really talking about those that they
could have released.
An easy win because I think WarriorWare
doesn't require like
a Breath of the Wild kind
of style of development.
Like you just need to get some really
creative people together
and they could pump
something out in a year or two.
They just make it fun.
That's all that matters.
And I think the mouse could have been
really good at part of
it, the mouse controller.
But you know what I'd kill for?
A new Zelda.
Really?
I like Zelda.
And they take so many...
What do you mean there's so many Zelda's?
Dude, we only get like one new Zelda
every like console generation map.
No.
Because Breath of the Wild had...
There was two related to
the Breath of the Wild.
Right?
And then you had what?
Two...
I feel like two Zelda games that are not
Zelda, but like Zelda adjacent?
I don't know.
I'm not a Zelda person though.
I'm gonna complain against it.
I want more Luigi.
Okay.
Fine.
So now, any final thoughts on this
Nintendo before we go on to a
different part of the world?
Let's move on over to...
Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia is an interesting one
because Saudi Arabia is of course
host to a number of different esports
competitions and just sports in general.
And there are lots of different concerns.
So essentially they
bought Pokemains Company, RTS,
who was co-owner of Evo
alongside Sony themselves.
And while I don't see them moving Evo
from Vegas to like...
Wait, it's been acquired by a whole city.
How do you pronounce that?
I don't know.
I'm not gonna lie.
That's so bizarre to have a city buy
something like that.
Oh, when you're Saudi Arabian, man, you
have a lot more money than people expect.
A lot, yeah.
Yeah.
So there are concerns within the fighting
game community about
Saudi Arabia's involvement in
the FGC given the number of human rights
violations in that country.
And just general anti-LGBT sentiment,
especially given that one of the best
fighting game players of our time right
now, Sonic Fox, fits
squarely in that community as well.
And he says he will
continue to attend Evo.
He's an eight-time champion, by the way.
I think he's got one of the highest
records for Evo championships.
And he wants to continue to attend Evo to
fight for representation of the people,
which I do find admirable.
But I think it's...
But what happens if they move the event
from Vegas to Saudi Arabia?
Don't go.
Which honestly, you cannot guarantee your
safety with some of these countries.
Yeah, I mean, that's my concern too.
Yeah.
Unless you fit a very
specific profile, it is...
I want to say a diversification of
different events, different
communities, and stuff like that
in the world is good.
Like, I think it is.
We need to get along better and no better
way than through games and
entertainment, stuff like that.
But there's certain human rights that
need to be upheld anywhere.
Yeah.
So it's not just fighting games.
They've also invested hard in a bunch of
other esports as well too.
Yeah, Saudi Arabia and I believe a couple
other of those countries
over in that part of the world
are investing heavily into a lot of
Western style sports and esports.
So it's probably going to continue.
It is interesting to see how it's going
because I didn't think
they were that big into games.
Are there a lot of esports champions that
come out of these countries?
Well, there was one Tekken player that
recently emerged and he's
a very good Tekken player.
Arslan Ash is from Pakistan.
But Pakistan is not one of the countries
that are investing in all this.
But he is the Middle East, right?
Yeah, he is in the Middle East.
Yeah, that's true.
I mean, I think I'm sure there are some
players from like these countries.
There's got to be Saudi Arabia.
What they're doing.
So a lot of these Middle East or these
countries over in this part of the world,
they're investing their money into...
They think of this as a portfolio, right?
So they're investing into diverse
industries for their portfolio.
Because they know that oil money and some
other stuff is going to
be drying up in the future.
And so it's really...
It is not bad, but I'm not happy about
them investing in the gaming community,
which tends to be very diverse in the
LGBTQ and other
communities that they don't think
potentially should exist.
That's not good.
Yeah.
And the fighting game community is among
one of the most, if not the most diverse
gaming communities out there.
I mean, yeah, we sometimes
get people like Ralodia God,
who is probably the most insane.
Sometimes he's really racist and bigoted.
Other times he's very eloquent in telling
someone how to die, so to speak.
It's...
Have you seen the full video of him?
Like the big video where he's like, "You
should kill yourself
now and give someone else
a piece of oxygen."
It's weirdly eloquent.
Is it more of a bit or is
that how he truly feels?
Is he on social media
saying that or is this his...
It was live on Twitch when he said that.
It's insane.
You need to watch the full
video of him saying that.
Because if it's a bit, I'm a little bit
lenient to that type of stuff.
But in the Ghost of
Yota kind of thing where...
I don't think it's a bit.
Then, yeah.
Because he...
I don't know for certain if it's a bit.
At some point, the toxicity is probably a
little bit of a bit,
but I think he actually
is that toxic in person.
Yeah.
I definitely don't recommend anyone
because there's a lot of
online personas that do stuff.
And then he says it becomes a bit.
But then, come to find out, that's
actually how they think
and they just kind of...
I don't know.
I mean, he was banned from
Evo, though, to be honest.
Okay, that's fair.
It's probably not a bit.
That's not a bit.
I was just wondering.
I didn't know he got banned.
I don't know this part
of the gaming very well.
So thank you for informing me on that.
That's...
Yeah.
But yeah, the fighting in
community is very diverse.
And it's got some of the
most interesting people.
They've been at it for a very long time
before most other esports, to be honest.
Because the people used to travel
worldwide for this stuff.
And they still do, actually.
But even back in the 90s, they traveled
worldwide for this stuff.
I mean, it's cool.
I'd love to see this type of stuff get
promoted out into
different countries more.
Hopefully, it will...
Hopefully, it drives a good change in
these countries instead
of consolidating into just
removing rights to players that want to
go to these events and that feel like
they'd be threatened.
Yeah.
I mean, a lot of it comes down to the
concept of sports washing,
where it's like the countries
with human rights violation histories of
it will invest in sports
for a number of reasons.
But the biggest is to be able to silence
athletes who are using the word "the"
and using their platform to talk about
human rights abuses.
Yeah.
And then...
Like guitar.
Yeah.
Like all those years ago.
The other thing is just kind of being
like, "Hey, your favorite
sports event is being hosted
in Saudi Arabia or wherever."
And for the audience member, the sports
fan, that builds a
positive sentiment with them
towards the host country.
So there's a lot of
different ways that they can do this.
I mean, didn't Saudi Arabia also invest
in the PGA tour or something?
And they were using their poll over the
PGA at that point to exclude a golfer?
I don't remember exactly the story, but
there's something to that effect.
I don't know.
But I don't really know.
I didn't really follow golf.
Well, that's news to me.
It sounds...
So PGA Tour rejects the offer and the
investments and stuff like that.
And so they created
their own rival league.
Yeah.
But I think you're onto something though,
because there are multiple...
That's why I'm being
very vague in all this.
There is more than just
Saudi Arabia that's investing
in this type of stuff.
Yeah.
I don't know.
We've talked about something similar to
this on the podcast before,
and I want to make it clear that when I'm
talking about China or Saudi Arabia,
I'm talking about the
government and not the people, right?
Because I got a DM from a guy from Saudi
Arabia who was like,
"I'm very disappointed
you were espousing
very regressive ideas."
And it's like, "Dude, I'm
not talking about the people.
I know that there are
many, many good people.
The majority of the people
in these countries are good,
but the governments do
things that are horrible."
Yeah.
That's why you have to be careful with
the sort of discussion,
especially in regards to these countries,
because at some point,
a lot of it can really tip over easily
into what is effectively xenophobia.
Yeah. A lot of the discussion on the Chinese
government doing bad things ends up
eventually going back
to like, "Oh, Chinese feel bad, right?"
Right.
Obviously, that's not how we feel, but
I'm sure that's how some
people out there feel too.
Just watch a couple
of our other episodes.
You'll see we bash on probably...
I bash on America more than anything.
So as a country, not as the individuals.
There's a lot of great people here, but
at the end of the day,
governments usually
get formed by the people.
And there are so many good people in a
lot of these countries.
Russia is one where I lived there for a
while, and there's a
lot of good people there.
But unfortunately, you end up with a
government that can be very...
Yeah.
...depressive.
I get what you're saying.
So it's unfortunate.
Yeah.
There's also discussions about fighting
game players, whether or not
they should even take this.
And I'm of the opinion that I can't blame
them for wanting to take the money.
Because fighting game players get paid a
lot less than your average
esports professional does.
Because in general, they
just pay out less, to be honest.
Yeah.
And honestly, I'm not going to blame
anyone that needs...
Because it's their life.
At this point, it's their livelihood.
So if you cut them out of that, then what
are they going to do?
Go back to working a daytime job?
Former Evo champion
going back to working a job?
I mean, you eventually have to.
You age out really fast, don't you?
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, but at the same time...
Well, it looks like a Justin Wong.
He's been there for a very long time.
While I don't think he
actively competes anymore,
he is effectively a sportscaster now.
Yeah, true. And a Twitch streamer.
So he's made it big enough to actually be
able to do things without
having to actually compete
in these major tournaments.
Well, I'm sure he still competes every
now and then, but not
nearly as often as he used to.
I'm not sure any of the fighting game
players have really aged out to the point
where they have to retire
because they can't keep up.
I think the five gods of Japan, like
Daigo still plays too.
Yeah.
I always think of FPS,
especially, and that tends to...
FPS and even RTS, I
believe, tend to age out fast.
But at the end of the day, it's becoming
a little bit more like
regular sports to where
you age out into a career
that's hopefully like a...
Like a Jason To...
Yeah, like a lot of...
Your sport.
Exactly.
Like a lot of these football
players and other stuff I do.
But the difference too is football
players and a lot of
those types of people,
they end up with lots of money to retire
on if they plan it right.
Where I don't think
esports pays nearly as well.
And honestly, the problem with a lot of
esports, in my opinion,
is that they're mostly unwatchable for
anyone outside of the sport.
Like if you were to watch football as
someone that doesn't know
anything about football,
I mean, it might be difficult to
understand, but you still
kind of get the idea, right?
I think it's just a stigmatism issue.
I think if my dad was to watch League of
Legends, you know, a tournament,
I think he'd be like, "This is silly.
This is a cartoon thing."
To be fair, if he probably sat there and
watched the whole game,
he'd probably get into it.
I think people that are
competitive do actually will.
If they sit down and watch it enough,
they will probably enjoy it.
Yeah, by the same time though, they have
to attract new people.
And like, Gardiner
probably wouldn't stigmatize it.
But if he watched League of Legends, do
you think he would understand?
Like, Gardiner, you've never played
League before, right?
No. I've played Dota a little bit, so I
kind of know maybe how
it works a little bit.
I think you could catch on pretty quick.
Yeah.
Do you think Emily
would understand though?
Because like, the thing with like sports
is you also have to
appeal to the people that
don't play the sport too, right?
I don't think Emily specifically would be
interested in anything like that.
She doesn't like the competition aspect
of sports, but I think you'd have...
I think that there is like a...
You know, you have to have like a kind of
convergence of like
interested in competition,
interested in like video games in order
to have that overlap
of like wanting to watch
competitive games. You
know what I'm saying?
Yeah, I guess that makes sense.
I really don't know if there's a huge
difference between a football
and a League of Legends match. That
sounds weird, but you have two sides and
you're trying to get
to one side to do a goal or you know, the
difference is like
one's fighting and you get
to see like different techniques and the
other one is, I guess in football stands,
like kind of fighting where you got your
defense and make sure the
offense doesn't get through
and all that. And there's a lot of
technique and a lot of
strategy that goes into it.
Well, the thing though is that in like
football, there's a lot of
downtime and the sports casters
can use those down times to explain
specific strategies. Whereas like in
League, there's like
actually no downtime and there's a lot of
different builds and
stuff in League and a
lot of items that drastically change how
a character plays and
like how you're supposed
to level them up and you may not be able
to convey some of those concepts to like
the average person. Whereas like, let's
look at a fighting game, for example.
Yeah. Fighting games are really difficult
to actually play and like
really to be really good
at, but like you can watch it. You
immediately know what's going
on, right? It's just two guys
fighting each other and like even if you
don't understand like that
they did a crazy frame one
link or whatever, you understand that
like, oh, he's doing a combo and oh, and
you may not understand
like, oh, he's plus on block or you might
not like he's minus or
plus on block, but like, oh,
he did a move and like a slow move and
like it's going to cost
him. Like you understand basic
concepts like that, right? Yeah. It's
easily translatable like
the average person. I was just
thinking like if you're going to have a
game that'll have a bigger
appeal to other folks, like a
video game, I think a fighting game is a
more like versus something
like Dota or League is going to
be an easier sell. Just because like it's
1v1 and there's one screen
for both players, you know,
like if you're doing like league, then
the they're, they're having
to cut between. I've never
watched one, so I don't know, but like
they have to cut between all the
different people and all
this shit. There's a lot going on. I
think it's, it can be
very similar to MMA fighting
football or soccer, even maybe soccer is
better to League. Soccer doesn't have a
whole lot of downtime
either. From my understanding, so. Yeah,
but building soccer is easy
because they can just follow the
ball. They can follow the ball. I agree.
I agree with this. I'm not
saying I'm just saying I,
it's the competitive nature that people
get into. I'm not trying to
do a complete one to one, but I
think. Yeah, I mean, I would get into it.
Fighting games are how are extremely
competitive and they're
fighting for what is effectively scraps.
If you're interested in fighting games,
by the way, not just
you guys, but anyone listening, do
yourself a favor and go to your locals.
And sometimes if a new
fighting game comes out, someone's going
to bring their setup with the new
fighting game and you can
play for free. If you bring a controller,
that is. That's cool. And some of them
are willing to teach
you how to play and you'll have a group
of friends to play and get better with
too, if you're interested.
I suck so bad at fighting games nowadays.
Dude, come on, dude. Of
course, I also like doing fight
sticks because they just feel a lot more
comfortable to play on. So
maybe I should get a fight stick
or you could 3D print and like buy the
buttons and stuff. And you'd have a much
cheaper fight stick.
How much are they?
Depends on which ones you want. The one I
have is the Kamba Obsidian 2.
And I think that one actually recently
went down in price, but MSRP,
I think it came out like $300,
but you could buy it right now for like
$180. This is the one I
have and use right now.
It's a PlayStation fight stick, but you
can use it on PC at first.
It says it right there.
I mean,
$180? Yeah, I'd rather
buy it than print it.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, it would be more
economical to do so. But the
cool thing about fight sticks
is that they're very modular and they're
very repairable too. If
you're someone that really
likes to repair things, you know, right
to repair and all that cool
stuff, you can customize that
moda. You can even get custom art on it
too if you're that kind of person.
Now, customizing, like we're going to get
to customizing at the end
with something I posted.
But yeah, I'm all for
customizing. I like 3D printing for
simple and like customizing. But yeah.
Silksong. So would you say
Silksong is an easy game?
No, my wife's cousin right next to me is
definitely saying that it's not that easy
of a game. Yeah, so Silksong is not an
easy game, which is why there has been
there have been some
concerns about its high difficulty. And
of course, the ever so in the
inevitable get good comments.
So Silksong is hard, someone say. I've
seen some clips on. I've
seen some clips of people
struggling at specific points. Like
there's one part. There's
one point in Hunter's March.
I think it was the area where you have to
bounce off of like what
looks like bell peppers.
They suck so freaking bad. I had to help
my wife with one and I hated it so much.
Sorry. I didn't have any issue with that.
There's. Oh my gosh. The mechanic is so.
Once again, high tech
showing his skill level.
Oh, like I like I might have failed it
like the first like
two times, but like I.
Yeah, I tried that for a while. Like it
barely took like 20.
Yeah, like I even got used to it with
like the weird you get
you get another crest,
like close to that area where you like.
You know, I think you get it
in that area where you like
start like doing like. All right. So
there are crests in the
game that like change and
move set substantially, and there's one
that makes your attacks like more feral.
And one of them changes your in one of
them changes your like
dive attack to where instead
of it being like a straight diagonal,
right? And it's instead like a.
Like an inverse parabolic like sort of
projected where you move
slowly first and then you curve
down and I got used to like doing my dive
attacks that way too.
But okay, in addition,
but in addition to that, there were some
criticisms were too
specific bosses in the game.
More wing, which you fight in gray
something. I forget the name of the place
and sister splinter.
I also think it were you fight or two,
but I beat both of them
before they nerfed them.
They actually nerfed those two bosses in
particular. I'm not sure
in what ways they were nerfed, but I beat
them before the nurse. So
I heard one of them wasn't
that hard actually that it didn't really
necessarily need to
be nerfed, but I don't
think either of them really did. I think
people just have a hard
time dealing with like
enemies like showing
up in a boss fight too.
Because I do hate that shows up. Yeah, I
do hate this. Yeah, I
get I get the concern,
but the same time though, I feel like at
some points they can help out with
help you out with staying alive a little
longer because you can
build up mana off of a well,
not mana, I think it's called silk. Yeah,
you can build up silk.
It's still in this one. Yes.
You build up silk in this and you can use
it to heal. Yeah. So I agree
with that actually does help.
I mean, it's a matter of perspective, to
be honest. They did fix a
bunch of bugs in this patch.
They nerfed the bosses a little bit. They
also increased rewards
for certain things too.
But in addition to that, though, one of
the most popular mods in
Silksong is an easy mode.
So what this does is this removes this
removes double damage from like regular
enemies and environments too. I hate
double damage. Yes. But I
wouldn't use this. I don't
like double damage either, to be honest,
but I mean, honestly, man,
I really think you should
play the game on modded first. That's my
personal opinion. Here's my
opinion on this hall. I think
accessibility is an important thing in
games and I honestly would
love it. It's an indie developer,
but super successful. I would like to see
more accessibility
options put into games like this
that are really difficult to like some
people. They struggle with
a bunch of different like
physical or other elements that they want
to enjoy the story because
the game is actually very
interesting. The environments are very
fun. I don't play it for
the difficulty. I play it for
a lot of other stuff. The difficulty is
just kind of like
makes it rewarding for me.
I think a lot of games should. I don't
like the sentiment of get
good. I like the sentiment of
let everyone play it and just add a mode
for it or something. I don't know. Or
just allow mods like this.
I wouldn't be opposed to an easy mode,
but only after like the
player dies five times
in a row. Kind of like how Ninja Gaiden,
let's see, would unlock Ninja Dog mode.
But to be fair though, a Ninja guy in Dog
mode, Ninja Dog, they
relentlessly mock you for being
an easy mode too. That's a hard one
because that is funny. Like
I said, there are, I think it
doesn't like for the people that like,
well, I beat it and it's
hard and all that, like that
doesn't just diminish what you
accomplished by allowing some people to
be able to finish it
in an easy type of mode. I don't know.
The thing with easy mode mods is that at
one point does it not just become,
it doesn't become a like a game of
downloading mods to make
the game easier and easier and
easier progressively because you've
already unlocked the
floodgates at that point, right?
Sure. So most of the mods here are like
easy mods that make the game
objectively easier. Like for
example, this one right here, this one
here gives all enemies a
health bar. Bosses and enemies.
And you can even change how it looks too.
Like you can change to like a life bar,
a different style life bar, another life
bar. You can even change the hearts if
you really wanted to.
You can even have like their health
values right there too if
you want. Is that really like a
difficulty thing though? I mean, it's not
really a difficulty thing.
It's more of an accessibility
thing, but like I might actually do that.
I think there's a very clear, I think
there's a very clear
difference between a game where you know,
you know, precisely how much
HP and enemy has. Whereas a game
where you don't, unless you've been
keeping track like
manually. Right. Yeah. Yeah. See,
there's also another one with the compass
effect. Oh yeah. And in Silksong for
those who don't know,
in addition to buying maps and also
various things that
upgrade like your mapping skills,
you also have to buy the compass and you
have to have it equipped on
you to, you know, find out
where you are on the map as well. And
this keeps, this makes it so
that that happens. Yeah. But
it's always on. It's always on. Right.
Yeah. To be, I always have
the compass equipped in the
whole amount of night at least, but yeah.
So like basically it
prevents me from using another item
sometimes. Yeah. And there's another item
here. Always have magna
effect, which pulls rosaries
and shards towards you always, which is
something you're supposed
to equip an item for. Yeah.
Yeah. There's another easy mode mod where
you just respawn at the start of your,
at the level you died in instead of at a
bench, which I can imagine trivializing
the game quite a bit.
Yeah. You know, like at a certain point
you bought the game,
play it how you want.
Yeah. I guess that's fair. That's my
sentiment on it. For example, I love
Spelunky. I will never
stop talking about how much I love
Spelunky, but I also love modding
Spelunky. Like I even will have
like, I'll play with a trainer so I can
like get the items I
want. Like I, you know, it's,
it's less fun to play the game when it's
not like, I can imagine
more fun ways of playing it.
So that's how I'm going to do it. Right.
That's how it comes, what
it comes right down to to me.
I think, I think a lot, I think what I'd
like to see though,
from like the Hollow Knight
Soaks on modding community, cause they
have like, they have the modding
framework that every,
every game that you see and he uses now,
they have a Beppany
X, which I think every,
just about everything uses now. I would
like to see more
interesting mods outside of just
making the game easier or harder. Like
imagine new areas or some
type of that or new enemies.
I'd like to see stuff like that. That
type of stuff will take a
lot longer. Like these are very
easy mods to put in. That's why you're
seeing them upfront. But I agree with
you. I'd like to like
add additional mods like that are very
transformative,
transformative, I guess, of the, of the
game experience. Yeah. The experience.
That's yeah. You'll see
like easy stuff get added in
the beginning. Like, Oh my gosh, skip
intro. The guy drew on like, wow, right
there. Skip intro that
thumbnail. Well, I mean that, that's kind
of, that's kind of ridiculous. That is
kind of funny though.
Let's see. You can force PS5 icons.
There's not that many
interesting mods. I mean,
to be fair, yeah. The game only came out
like two weeks ago at this point.
No, it came out last week. So yeah, like
only a week, like a little
over a week at this point.
I mean, yeah, I'm hoping we get more
interesting mods at some point.
Even like, even like mods that like lets
you reskin the character.
That'd be kind of funny to see.
Yeah. I am of the opinion that you should
at the very least play
the game as much as you can.
Non-modded because you know, that's the
intended experience, right?
Like, oh, there's also a, oh yeah. For
those who don't know, there's also an
additional hard mode
you can unlock called Steel Soul, which
essentially makes it so that if you die,
your save data gets deleted. You know,
it's like a, it's like a hardcore mode,
like an Iron Man mode.
Damn.
I'm not going to do that because that
sounds a little too cray cray for me.
I stopped the time to do that type of
stuff. I mean, I respect,
like, I can see people that this
is their game and this is the only game
they're going to play for a
while. Like, okay, go for it.
Like I'm not against that type of thing,
but if you're going to do
that, might as well add an
easy one. Get good. Well yeah, they did
add an easy one. It's called normal mode.
I'm just kidding. I know, but there's,
there's people that like
their reaction times because of like a
physical issue or
something like that aren't as high,
but they still want to enjoy the game. So
trying to be inclusive on this.
There are some quality of life things I
would like to do. Like I would like to
not be restricted to
a bench when I want to like change that
equipment and stuff. Yeah, honestly,
there's stuff like that
where it doesn't even feel like it adds
difficulty per se, because
I can always get to, it just
makes things more time consuming and it
is frustrating. Yeah.
Cause like, yeah. Cause like
the pause is like real time, I think like
you can't actually, yeah.
Like when you're like in that
menu, like I wouldn't know because you're
sitting on a bench when you're changing
equipment and stuff,
but like, it's real time. They could make
it like, they could make it
like dark souls where you can
change the equipment like in real time.
But like, if you're like next
to an enemy while you're trying
to change equipment, they'll just like
kill you. Yeah. And that's
what would happen. Yeah. Yeah.
So yeah. So I think they could do that
for sure. Yeah. So song. I
do like, I do like when games
challenge players in different ways. I
know some players may not
be capable of it, but I think
at the very least they should try. I'm
not, I'm not against that. I'm just,
I don't like the, I think the get good
is, is funny, but it's
like also at the same time,
let people play it how they want. And I
get it. It's a developer
decision too. But if people
want to mod it, just let them mod it. So
that might take on it. Yeah.
But this is one of those games
that is, that it wasn't even an early
access, which is interesting, but
steam is, is chomping down on early
access now, right? Not, not just early
access for early access
for adult games. Yeah. Yeah. So you can
see, you can see what kind
of game this is. So I do find
it super interesting that valve is going
at. So I think payment
process, I'm not sure what the
difference is between like a game that's
in early access versus a
game that's fully released in
terms of like this situation. But you
know, this article, this
article presents a interesting
theory that payment processes are worried
that like a game, that's
an early acts like an adult
game, that's an early access could add
stuff. That's more taboo, like last minute,
they could add like content that they
don't like, as opposed to
the content that they approved,
so to speak. And apparently this was an
apparently this change was
not like they didn't make this,
they didn't make this change known,
apparently. Valve didn't at
least. Yeah, I get it. So I
wonder if this is also about I believe
adult only games are less
likely to get finished and
can be a little bit more crowding in the
whole sphere of like early
access. So people release it
then they don't release updates and stuff
like that. And so maybe
it's abused a little doesn't
mean that it's right that they abuse it
or that they remove it for everyone. But could be that
too. I don't like the idea that payment
processors like oh, in the
future you could add something
we don't like. I don't like that at all.
I don't like that. That could be the
reason if that's the
reason. Screw that. I don't know if
there's a real meaningful
difference in statistics between
abandoned early access games that are
just normal games and like abandoned
early access games that
are like adult games, because we see plenty of that already in like a normal game. And
we see plenty of that already in like a
normal in like normal
games. Plenty of games are like
plenty of games stay early access
forever, to be honest. I've looked at
both and the comments on
a lot of different games. I like
scrolling comments for
like a ton of different games.
And I will have to say like it is seems
pretty prevalent in this
side of the adult side of
things. So I wouldn't be shocked if
that's partially it. But
at the end of the day, like,
I don't know, like, maybe Steam needs to
be a little less lenient.
Maybe that's the problem is
that early access, they're just well,
it's early access. So we'll
be a little less lenient when
they make updates to it. But I don't know
if that's even the case
though, like people cyberpunk
will make major updates to cyberpunk. Do
they scrutinize every
update, whether it be early access
or not? Or is this truly a payment
processor issue? It's I mean, Valve
didn't care before. So I
mean, I think this would have I think
this has to be related
to the payment processor.
They tighten stuff up on early access and
a lot of this not like
valve doesn't tighten things up,
depending on like, it doesn't necessarily
mean it's a payment
processing thing, like they will
change the way even early access is done
on some of these other
things that they have on Steam.
Just because I think if valve really
cared that much about changing early
access, they think they
would have done it for all games, not
just adult games. Well, then to be
honest, valve changed this.
If this was valve changing it, they're an
extremely data driven
company. And they wouldn't
make an arbitrary change like this if
they didn't have data to back up why they
were doing it. Right?
Like if if adult only games were like,
you know, 800% more likely
than a non adult only game
in early access to never leave early
access, then they might be
doing it for that reason.
Who knows? But but I think but I think
valve would have
announced that change and not just
have it a surprise because apparently
this was us. This was a
total surprise. They didn't they
didn't announce this change at all. Okay.
So I'm inclined to believe
and also the timing is very
suspect because you know valve is still
dealing with all of this payment
processor crap. So I
can't so I can't think that it's totally
unrelated to it. Even if
valve may have data suggest that
maybe adult games get a bad more often.
Hopefully it's not a trend of them just
not updating us more.
sad also suck. Because I know the way I
see more and more
companies are not updating us on
this type of thing. I feel like it's more
shadow updates and yet to
find out like YouTube. Great
example. People are losing revenue and
views and stuff and it was
not an update to creators.
People had to investigate it and it is
prevalent. Right now I am
seeing all sorts of creators
like gardeners a level where it just is
just screwing them over. So
I'm hoping it's not a trend.
Don't get me started on that. It's so
bad. So I so I am of the
belief that it is very much
related to the payment processor issue
that's been going that's still going on.
I mean I'm not sure what more to make of
it besides that. You're
probably right. I'm just
trying I'm trying to inflate the topic
more because it's fun
but you're probably right.
Yeah I get it though. I don't it's not
bad look it's not a bad
looking game. Yeah I think what
I think what ballersgate 3 proved was
that the problem with adult
games is not the adult contents
but rather the shitty gameplay that most
of them have. Yeah yeah 100
percent at the end. Because
ballersgate 3 won game of the year and
you can like you can
fuck up air in that one.
Damn that is true. We
think of super troopers. Hey.
There you go.
Uh I yeah hopefully we hear something
about this is then it's not
silent and I really hope that
this isn't like reason for payment
processes to keep on
essentially policing where it should be
done by on more of the government level
not payment processor
level for this type of stuff.
That's the final my final say on this. Um
yeah yeah this this
whole situation has been
going out of control it's crazy. I don't
know how I don't know if
like people are saying oh
visa will never have my business again
dude come on dude be
realistic. Boycotts almost never work.
Really how you have to do it is you have
to fight for your
lawmakers to make changes usually
unless you have a really big cause.
Changes don't usually like this like
people aren't going to be
able to fight it on the visa mastercard
level. What we need is we
need regulation on them. Honestly
uh we should not be have like visa
mastercard
essentially have a monopoly so.
Mm hmm. Yeah and speaking of fighting for
change. Let's go back to
cash. Oh sorry go ahead.
I do not want to carry cash. I lose cash.
Uh well well Gardner have you ever been
Japan would be the place for you.
Japan's still a cash-based society for
this part. That's awesome. I love that.
Yeah so here we go Lenovo Legion Go. So
uh yeah a creative
modder has transferred the
Legion Go. I don't know if this is the I
don't think this is the
second one. I think this is
the first one but I wanted to throw this
in because I wanted
something fun at the end
because we cover a lot of uh heavy topics
and it's it's a mod. I love
mods. It's a little chunky
but they essentially uh can slot their
Legion Go into this uh I believe 3D
printed case and they
have some batteries in there and it's it
is uh uh what is it
190 watt battery pack.
Um so this thing's gonna last for like as
long as your phone's gonna last for um
it's uh it's pretty cool. I think it is
at least. Dude this looks
like you could 3D print the
inclusion. In fact I think it might even
be 3D printed. That's what
I was saying. It's it's um
pretty sure 3D yeah it's 3D printed dock.
It is um designed to hold
a keyboard and also to have
a battery pack that you can put in. You
can buy batteries like this
and put them in. So uh I make
it rechargeable. Wait did he just did he
just weld all these uh
all these batteries together
himself and like put a bms down here?
That's crazy. They do
themself. Weld them? I don't know
if you need to even weld them together.
You can buy batteries that
are similar to this and you
can just put it together. Um the other
part yeah so yeah I'm
curious if you can get I
I want to attempt a mod like this. I just
don't want to burn my house down.
Just do it outside.
Do it out okay still cause of brush fire
burn my house down. Um
um I don't know. Or get the cops on me
for bombs or something. It's so
sorry katitty. It's certainly not
airplane legal that's for
sure. No this is definitely
yet to drive to play this. Well that
sucks if you're the only one going to
somewhere with this.
It's I'm sure it's more of a passion
project kind of thing. Oh
absolutely. More than half
mods are meant more for just the fun in
making it. Uh it's not the most I
wouldn't say it's the
most practical at this point with the
money and everything spent might as well
go with a laptop but
it's still cool. I like it. I mean yeah I
think one thing I would
probably change is the keyboard.
I'm not really big on this keyboard to be
honest. It's really raised
really high. I would not uh
if I was to change it all I'd be doing
the battery pack in the back and have it
work with the kicks down that it comes
with and just carry my
own keyboard and mouse.
I like that I like the concept but I my
hand would cramp really fast
with that high of a keyboard.
Yeah you'd be doing like one of these.
Yeah I don't like that.
But dude also I am curious how this how
this thing closes and like
is it just gonna press all the keys at
once because like most
laptops have a way to prevent that.
Yeah look at it it has little um
stoppers. Oh I see the
pegs yeah. All right well
my other change would be to make it a
mechanical keyboard too but that's
probably not gonna fit well.
You could have short key um or short
switch mechanical keyboard there's
there's some out there
um do it but yeah yeah you throw in like
I guess rip out a uh razor laptop
keyboard and throw it in
there they have short switch
keys. Dude but razor laptops
oh all you can just do or or better yet
better yet you can just do like a frame you can just
you can just do like a frame you can just
do this with like a framework
you could look at framework motherboard
and just three printer.
That's what framework needs to
start doing is docs like portable docs
that'd be cool for my like
gaming devices like this. Dude
framework if they made a doc that would
be amazing. That would be that would be
pretty sick. And make
it so that I can like different types of
docs that I can do like an
eGPU. Honestly that's what
I really want from game companies right
now is I want a really
flushed out doc for these USB 4
devices that I can slap my video card
into. Have it work without and work with
so that I can upgrade
eventually into it. I'd love that. You
know what I would love? A
Steam Deck 2. That'd be sick.
It's not happening until 2028. Hey man I
can I'll wait then man it'll re I'll
revitalize my channel.
I don't know. I can make a Steam Deck
Masterclass. Something scary is coming
for me on that one like
will I be alive by the time the 2028
comes out? What? I'm
gonna be in my 40s by then.
Oh shit. So I don't know
man it's all downhill then.
Dude don't worry man.
I will be 40 in 2028.
That's crazy. Yeah it's not fun to think
about but you know let it
come I guess. Yeah hey man
the Steam Deck 2. Just just. Steam Deck
2. Hey as long as you can
play all the games I want for
a good long while then I can retire in
peace. I mean I'm not gonna
be retiring in 40 but you know.
Yeah you'd have to be super rich to
retire at 40. Who says
I'm not? I mean I'm not but.
Dude if you were super rich you wouldn't
be working a day job. No I just be doing
this. I like talking.
No. Yeah that's what I would be doing.
I'd just be making
random bullshit YouTube videos
and talking on the podcast if I didn't
need a day job. You'd be
getting on Twitter too and
you'd be more online. Might not be good.
That's true. Just ask
Notch. Yeah oh gosh.
He's perfect. You can go on and do more
stuff even after you
make stupid comments.
Dude Notch what that. He probably became
so rich and so isolated
after like leaving Minecraft.
He was very isolated that was a big part
of the problem. From
my understanding is that
for in his case money did not buy friends
and other stuff he became very isolated.
Yeah and isolation really does. It's not
good. So like COVID I would argue this whole all this
madness began with COVID starting during
the COVID. It exacerbated
it. It was already happening.
Social media is a big driver of
loneliness. It was happening
before that. It just became a
catalyst. I think it showed some people
that they need to get out
and touch grass more but other
people dove even deeper in their
isolation. No. So it's not good. It's not good. It's not good.
But hopefully at least listening to the
podcast helps with some
people's like you shouldn't
substitute as an isolation but at least
you know getting some
different opinions in your life and
and getting some good news. Hopefully the
podcast helps a little bit with everyone.
Yeah that was some pretty good news.
Tokyo Game Show. If there's more news
about that we'll start
we'll probably talk about next week too
to be honest. And if you're
out there and you're lonely
I actually have some very good advice.
Find your local Contra dance and go to
it. Or what's a Contra
dance? Contra dancing is like folk
dancing. It's like line dancing but with
more rules. And you can
go and just watch and learn. You can take
classes and then and learn
how to do it. And it's very
structured. It's very fun. It's super
social. You'll have a good time.
I didn't know. So you can do the Contra
dancing. I never took you
as a I've never took you for
a dancer gardener. Oh dude are you
kidding me? I love dancing.
That's crazy. We're learning
more and more about gardener every day. A
very very rich
individual you are gardener.
Rich in spirit. Not so much in capital
but that's all right. I take spirit
wealth over anything else.
They can't take it well. They can't take
it away. They can't take my
spirit from me. I'll tell you
that much. That's a good thing. That's a
good thing. That is a good
thing. Yes. Now just need
YouTube to fix the other part. Do you
think it's sorry they could dive into
this a little bit and
then we can I guess end the podcast but
do you think the YouTube
issues are partially because
of like tariffs and people not buying as
much so that like the
ad revenue is just not
worth as much. I think it's two problems
that are hitting at the
same time. The first is that
I'm pretty sure that they were like kind
of hinting at they're
introducing like an actual like
AI like moderation system and that has
had a huge unintended
knock on but also I think that
like we're in that weird space leading up
to Christmas and so like
a lot of advertisers are
saving their money for now so that they
can have like a big Christmas blitz.
My theory is I still think it's somewhat
tariffs. People just aren't
buying as much because they
can't afford as much but also will cost
the living. It's just not
just tariffs but from my
understanding like shadow banning in a
form of if you promote like
let's say you do a lot of adult
games not like adult only but like mature
or have anything that's
like not kid friendly they are
hitting those ones even harder and so you
can get flagged to where
and oh man it's probably gonna
get worse. They probably have been
secretly doing that AI agegating for a
long time and people just
didn't realize and that might be what's
happening. They might flag your account
as like oh you watch
a lot of your cartoons then you're yeah
you shouldn't be
recommended something else.
Yeah well if you go you can actually like
go onto your YouTube
channel and like look at your own
videos right that you upload and you can
then go into the your user menu and
enable restricted mode
and you'll see a bunch of your videos
disappear even though you've
never been like content like
never been told like this is demonetized
this is age restricted
those videos will just disappear
from your from your own video feed and
that's also causing it
because I think that if you have
enough of your like a high enough
percentage of your own videos that
disappear from your channel
in restricted mode then I think the AI
moderation stuff is like
looking at that percentage
and being like this is dangerous for kids
then maybe this channel
is too dangerous for ads
whatever. It's just it's crazy dude. I
really hate like the
generalization I get it like I
would rather be like for kids wise I'd
rather be safe honestly if
you flag them as a kid I don't
want my kids getting ads that are not
like yeah maybe if it's
full-on I don't know because they
got like I get it using the platform got
to pay for it somehow to
an extent but I would almost
rather pay because I want my kid like my
kid likes to watch
documentaries and learning stuff
I'm 100% for like supporting that type of
thing I want him to learn more
I'll pay for that content if you can make
it easier but yeah well
I mean that's where like
um subscription services come in you know
um yeah I just I don't
think kids belong on YouTube
in any way shape or form like sorry it's
it's so hard once you have a
kid and their their friends
are doing it it gets really hard for to
make the decisions on
how much and everything we
really try to limit but I've been testing
out doing the uh
heavily restricted YouTube
um the thing for uh my oldest kid just to
see and for the most part
like I he's not allowed to
watch shorts and he can watch like
learning and some stuff
but we'll see how that goes
yeah dude you know what's like crazy
here's some numbers that'll blow your
mind my my peer tube
tends to get like 130 views per video
currently right okay my most
recent video where I interviewed
Al Khazar from the guy who made Kezeta
has the average number
of views on my peer tube
my peer tube usually gets maybe like a
tenth of a percent of the
views that the YouTube version
does but this time it has uh like 10
percent of the YouTube version
like and but it's still only getting the
average number of views
right so the the YouTube version
of this video has like a 1900 views and
this one has 139 so it's
like close to 10 percent
right is that 10 percent or that one
percent I can't do math I don't know
anyway um so is that
I'm trying to understand is that like you
usually get more views or
less on my on my YouTube video
I would I would normally have expected
that video on YouTube to get like 10 000
views and it has 1900
oh 1900 for some reason I was thinking 19
000 I'm sorry yeah that's
oh yeah sorry yeah that's 10
yeah yeah so so a hundred so but my peer
tube videos are always
getting like consistently
yeah around 130 ish views sometimes more
depending on if I'm talking
about peer tube because people
seem to watch peer tube videos about peer
tube more often it's weird
but uh but other but like
the thing is like this is all clearly a
problem with YouTube's
algorithm right like everything
like the recommendations and everything
like you're not seeing
content that you're actually
uh like subscribed to you're seeing
content that YouTube thinks you want to
see and now it's like
YouTube is actively like removing content
that it knows you want
to see from your feed too
it is 100 percent I'm a feed kind of uh
fiend because I do use
the feed a lot on YouTube
and it has not given me recommendations
for stuff that I normally
like like it's leaving out
channels I'm like I like this type of
stuff give it like recommend it to me
it's not and I'm watching
it less actually yeah same gardener are
you sure you don't want to
watch mr beast I am I think
YouTube just wants I think YouTube just
wants what's best for you yeah but but
really though I mean
I also introduced a new feature called
hype yes where you're gonna
sexually hype it and people
are claiming that's gonna help them the
algorithm but that's just
gonna get game like everything
else in the system let's be honest yeah
it's like there's no way it's not gonna
get game by those at
the top anyways I also think some people
are getting still getting
some decent views and their
revenue is down quite a bit yeah and so
my revenue this month
compared to last month is
essentially the same but it's down year
over year and it's down
like from I mean quarter over
quarter it's down you know like uh so
it's just YouTube it feels
like a losing game at this point
and I hate that I built my company on the
back of my channel
you know I will say this
it's really hard and there's a lot of
different ways to diversify
but it's it is hard I don't
think people should put like bet their
livelihood on a single
company I think it's dangerous
especially nowadays yeah there's a lot of
these companies have shown
that they can make little
tweaks that can ruin your livelihood um
Gardner at least you have
other avenues right now but it
still sucks right and so yeah well I mean
and truthfully my
YouTube channel at one point it
was like making up about a third of all
of my income right and
now it's making up like
less than a quarter um but you know I can
like pivot and like do
more of the production stuff
that I that you know I do for my company
but the problem is I love
talking about Linux and Steam
Deck and free and open source software
right and that has been a
huge part of my life for the last
10 years or 11 years I just had my 11th
year anniversary on
YouTube and it's like crazy and
it's like dude it literally feels like my
channel is falling apart
it's like like like I'm standing
on a precipice and the and the edge of
the fucking cliff is
disappearing beneath my feet
like that's what it feels like and it
feels deliberate like it
feels like YouTube is actually
trying to subvert the work that I'm doing
and it sucks you know I
think I wonder if they're trying
to compete with like TikTok and some of
the other ones I'm just
really trying to push into
uh like SlopTube stuff too yeah that's
what I said yeah
short-form content I've also
I don't know I no no I was being
facetious right like by pivoting to like
SlopTube and Shorts and
shit they are actively harming long-form
creators the people that built the
platform to begin with
and it's it's horrible yeah I agree too
so also one other thing I
should mention I've also noticed
this with like chef youtubing like a lot
of the big prominent ones
kind of moved away from making
recipes and like recreating uh like foods
from like shows or like
making better versions like
fast food stuff and they're just
resorting to just making tier lists and
like they I mean I think you
know which ones I'm talking about right I
don't really watch a lot of
that but I've seen I've seen
like more recommendations for like you
know that kind of content
recently which I don't yeah and I
think and like I don't know and like some
part of it I'm sure is
because you know it makes some more
money for sure but another part of it I
certainly believe is that like well like
YouTube like pushes that kind of stuff
because like making a rest
like cooking and making a recipe
and like all that stuff I'm sure that
takes a lot of time like
dedication to do it does
going whereas like going to like every
fast food restaurant and comparing their
like chicken nuggets
or whatever like I'm sure it takes a lot
less time everyone's doing
that though that's a very
trendy topic for the past two years is
that uh tier lists for
like going to fast food places
and all that I'll be I'll be honest guys
like the I watch those things I'm a
sucker for tier lists
but it has to be the right tier list and
if it's all you do then yeah
it gets very tiresome but I
do like a tier list every once in a while
yeah well it just kind of
it just kind of sucks that
something that they like built them they
don't even do the things they built
themselves on anymore
like I'm sure gardener Brian could easily
like transition to
like making slop tier list
videos but he but I'm sure hey his fan
base would be very betrayed
at that and too he'd probably
betray himself well too right yeah so
dude that's the thing like I could like
very easily sell out
and start like stop doing the kind of
content that I love to do
and start doing the content
that brings in new viewers because that's
what the entire YouTube
algorithm is set up for
it's set up for easy cheap content that
brings in uh new viewers
not recurring viewers YouTube
doesn't care about recurring viewership
on a specific channel
the algorithm favors growth
okay and so the fact that my channel like
if you look at so you
probably like saw people saying
like did you know like like only 30
percent of you guys are
subscribed to the channel you've seen
that before right yes so that's because
they're all prioritizing
growth if you look at my
uh viewership it's like 60 percent of my
viewers are subscribed to
my channel because I don't
produce content for the algorithm I
produce it for the people who want to
talk about my content
or who who like the stuff that I talk
about in my content I should
say so it's like that's really
good okay and yeah and it's because it's
I don't care about growth I
don't I just want to make my
content right but it's I don't know what
I don't remember what I was
brought that up for but like
the fact is YouTube's algorithm is just
is antithetical to your
attention span to your
desires of the kind of content you
actually want to watch and uh and and
it's also antithetical to
us now as creators and it's it just needs
to something needs to
change we need a union man
that's what we need a creator union a
creator union that would be
interesting I agree with that
actually I think there needs to be some
power back into the creators but I
there's well I don't know
if that even could be done because of the
of the way revenue and
everything happens I think I still
it's the hardest way to do it it's either
you're going to have to
create a platform that competes
in a more um and just
like a different way
or yeah uh you're going to have to
regulate it a regulation
kind of thing which is yeah
you know I'm looking at my uh statistics
right now and uh let me see how many
percent yeah because
I'm curious because I know Gardner just
mentioned that uh damn I
wish I had loyal followers
I mean it might be different for me now
let me look I don't it's
been a minute since I looked at
that specific number but yeah 10 percent
is it say yeah mine says 10
percent of my viewers actually
watch my videos those are the subscribers
yeah um I'm just saying
man Steamback 2 is going to
revitalize my channel I can I can start
making the Steamback 2 masterclass series
oh man if I if I relied on YouTube for
like my uh like all my
revenue I would be fucking like
homeless no this shit yeah
our uh off the console it's uh new
viewers of 71 percent
casual users 19 and then regular
users 9 percent oh well my mine right now
is my subscriber numbers is
33 versus not subscribed 67
so that's that seems to have flipped but
also like I'm pretty sure
like even a couple just like
two or three months ago it was like 60
were subscribed so I
think that might have be might
be something that they changed um like
recently well hey off the
console is doing quite well on
YouTube if you guys if you guys are
looking if you guys are looking to
support us on YouTube
I know we just talked a bunch of shit on
it but we do still need support off
we do still need plenty of support from
YouTube uh please give us a like and
subscribe uh over on
YouTube even if you listen to this on
like Spotify or something please and uh
we were thinking about
bringing shorts back uh to the channel I
don't know if you guys
are interested or not but uh
bring a short time if you guys if you
guys like shorts then
uh yeah short clips yeah
ah because people like I think people
like the shorts but yeah I
mean maybe I'm not tired of
taking the us well we'll bring shorts
back more like more like
short shorts but that's because
the algorithm kind of asks for it
channels will need to do more shorts we
did we did a new short
this week right we did two yeah maybe
three but I needed new shorts I need to
get the last episode
yeah this is we're working on it yeah
yeah people subscribe to
the to the RSS feed as well
yeah and you know I'd like to hear we all
I think we all really would
like to hear your thoughts so
if you leave comments uh wherever you can
leave comments I don't know
I don't know Spotify sports
comments more like Apple music Apple
podcast does or not but if
you guys could just like leave
comments and just let us know your
thoughts on you know us or the topics we
talked about or like
stuff feel free to do so yeah and we'd
love to read them out we I
had the bare minimum I read
the comments so I just need to work
better at uh responding to
them so let's see how the
the RNG dice roll goes for this channel
with YouTube yeah
they're gonna flag us as
dissenters yeah I think Castapod's been
doing pretty well though
um hold on can you are you
able to check how many views we got last
episode I'm not logged
into Castapod on this laptop
we had 2,620 ish 2,615 downloads damn
that's pretty good it is pretty good
yeah all right well you guys have any any
last words before we cut off the episode
no no that's it all right wrap it up all
right and we're aiming for
a thousand subscribers on
YouTube by the end of this year so if you
could uh subscribe to us
and uh help us out that'd be
much appreciated yep thank you guys for
watching and listening all
right thank you peace out