[MUSIC]
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to
another episode of Off the Console.
It's the hottest podcast.
It's all about gaming and
tech news and anything nerdy.
My name is Gartner, and I'm
joined today by my friends,
HiTech Low Life and James, aka The Brink.
How are you doing, my friends?
Doing fine. It's another week.
It's hot as hell this week, though.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's been crazy here.
How about with your games?
You know what?
A couple of days ago,
it was like in the 60s.
It got into the 40s at
night, so we're in 90s now.
We're doing pretty good weather wise, but
I fever like I'm in like a fever
dream state because of all the gaming
I've been playing last week.
But we'll get into that in a little bit.
Absolutely.
This week, we're going to be talking
about the Stop Killing Games initiative,
which might be dead.
We're going to talk about Xbox layoffs.
We're going to talk
about all kinds of stuff.
Mario Kart World, the Fedora 32-bit
drama, all of this and more today.
So before we get into it, though, we'd
like to start to show off with what we've
been playing or working on this week.
James, what have you
been playing this week?
Expedition 33. And I'm almost done.
I know I've been saying that for a while.
I get stuck on a game for a little bit
and especially this type of game where
I've put 70 hours into it now.
It's been a while since I've put this
much time into a game
and like in the last
week, probably 40.
So that's one of those things where you
just sit down and play for eight hours
and you kind of, I don't know, kind of
lose track of time and yourself.
So pretty good.
It's a fun game.
So much extra content than I was let on
to believe because a lot of people like,
oh, yeah, you can beat in this much time.
Like, well, there's a lot of content.
So yeah, it sounds like it's kind of a
big investment, even
playing it for over a
month at this point.
It doesn't have to be.
I just I'm a completionist.
Once I start playing a game, I will like
I put 200 hours into Witcher 3 just with
all the DLCs and everything, just because
I completed pretty much everything.
Um, yeah, they're not.
I see.
Yeah. Hi, Tech.
What are you up to?
So I started a new gacha game unrelated
to one of the topics
that we may or may not
be covered today, but I started a gacha
game with my bro called a theory and
restart.
And I know there are some misgivings
about gacha and the monetary systems and
whatnot.
I just want to say that
I'm immune to the FOMO.
So I have no issues with
playing as a free to player.
And I also I can also manipulate my gacha
luck a little bit so I can get the best
characters for free.
Nice.
Did they get you?
No, no, I'm not a hacker or anything.
I just I'm just born lucky.
Anyways, but aside from that, though,
I've been looking to
see what steam sale games
I want to get something that I might have
missed out on or maybe some hidden gems
that are like 80 to 90 percent off.
Have you found anything interesting?
I was thinking about getting.
Expedition 33, finally,
it's like 10 percent off.
Yeah, I mean, it's worth it at any price.
Yeah, if anyone has recommendations for
games we should pick
up in the summer sale,
let us know in the comments.
Yes, please.
We're on YouTube and we're also on the
Fedave so you can leave us a comment
anyway that you have.
Yes, and we're aiming to hit a thousand
subs by the end of this year on YouTube.
That's right. Yes.
I think we can blow past it, but it's
only with the support of the
audience so we can do that.
Cool. And I've been playing nothing.
I've been working very,
very hard the last week.
I haven't had any time for
games, which kind of sucks.
Yeah, but I just did a complete refresh
of my company's website.
So I've shown these guys earlier.
It's really, really neat.
If you want to show it
to the audience, you can.
Oh, yeah, let's do that real quick.
I yeah, you got to invest in some A.I.
Over like underlings.
That's that's how I freed up time to play
expedition because I'm
working on my project.
But oh, yeah, you know,
it's not it's not perfect.
Can we just like skip the A.I.
in our local computers and like have them
be humanoid robots that do like
like Star Wars? Yes, like
droids of Star Wars, like
to have a little bit of a personality.
I could agree with that.
Yeah, I could get down.
Yeah, like, you know, you know, because
like there's so much time
that we spend on like menial tasks and
shit, like washing the dishes and stuff.
I think we really need a robot needs.
That'd be sick. I'd be down robot maids.
Like a robot
babysitter for your kids, James.
Mm hmm. That's the TV.
Just throw a couple of Cheerios on the
floor, TV, and I can be
gone for a couple of days.
All right. There's
stories of people doing that.
Sorry. No, that that I
just worry like, you know,
actually, I'm not even going to go there.
Never much.
Yeah, this is my
website. I'm pretty proud of it.
I think it looks really nice.
Got some social proof on here.
And then there's like a fun portfolio
section where you can go
and see some of the work that I've done
for other companies and what have you.
Pretty neat. Looks really good.
It does look really good. Yes.
There's a contact form here.
You can, you know,
fill out the contact form.
That's a good way to like drop me news.
If any of you are like running an open
source project or anything like that,
you want me to cover it, you can drop me.
You can fill out the form on my website.
That's what I was trying to say.
I don't know why I was blanking on that.
Anyway, yeah.
So that's what I've been working on.
Fun, fun stuff.
I think it's time to get
into our first story, though.
We get the stop
killing games might be dead.
Hi, what is this all about?
So for those who don't know, the stop
killing games movement
is a very simple movement.
This like essentially, oh,
this is there's been more.
Anyways, so what I'm saying is that stop
killing games is a simple concept.
They want to introduce legislation to
I want to prevent games
from permanently dying out.
There are a lot of games out there that
are simply unplayable
because they rely on infrastructure.
So what so when I say, you
know, stop killing games,
they really mean implement plans to for
like end of service.
Like there are plenty of for every like
red fall or multiverses
that's playable offline nowadays.
There's like a million other live service
games that are literally unplayable now.
And while you may not
like these games, others do.
And this is a great effort
towards game preservation.
I I am a game preservation absolutionist.
I think all games should be preserved,
even the bad ones. Yeah.
I agree with that. Honestly,
we really need to have this.
And it doesn't we don't need to put like
a financial burden on the companies.
We just need to force them
like, hey, if you're going to
not support this
anymore, you need to either open
at least open up a weight so
that people can still play it.
Or release at least some of the software
so that someone else can
implement it to be more open source. Yes.
I think the the simplest thing is to just
have legislation in place
that says if you're going
to make an online only game,
you need to have a plan in
place from day zero on how
when you retire the game, when
you retire your own services,
that game can still be
played by people who bought it.
Yes. So, for example, the
the two games I mentioned
do have plans in place.
In fact, they've already
been implemented like Redfall
was a game Microsoft released.
It was meant to be a live service game.
They didn't do so well.
And critically speaking,
they didn't do so well either.
So but you know, and that entire studio
got laid off, too, I think.
But yes, so there is a
silver lining, though.
They did make the game offline playable
in case you actually like Redfall.
It's not a bad game.
It's just it needed
two more years of work.
That's what's so shocking is that it's
actually has a lot of original ideas
and artwork and all that
is just needed more time.
Another game that we also like to talk
about is the multiverses.
So remember how we were I was ranting
about how, oh, you
didn't bother the case.
You can't play all the care.
So it turns out I was wrong.
Turns out all the characters are unlocked
when you play offline.
So. Hmm. Yeah.
Yeah. So you can play the game if you
have in your library.
I think I think it's been delisted.
Can one of you guys check?
Yeah, multiverses has been delisted.
I don't know for certain
because I have the game.
I have the game in my library, so I can't
exactly check it myself, you know.
Multiverses is no longer available.
Yeah, I guess it has been.
Look, he's been delisted.
Yeah. So as I was saying,
it's certainly possible to make these
games playable offline.
I know like WOW would
probably be a different story
if, say, World of
Warcraft were to die off.
I don't know how possible it
would be to for someone to like
effectively make an
offline version of WOW,
given that a lot of the
activities are multiplayer, right?
Like there's well.
I part of. Yeah.
I was going to say, like,
it doesn't have to be that
if the company retires their services,
then the game has to be
made playable offline.
Like it could be that they're like, OK,
we're done supporting
the like official WOW servers.
So here's the server netcode and you guys
can do whatever you want with it.
Yeah, like private servers.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Private servers.
So just either open it up, they could
even still have it trademarked
or whatever they want, copyright,
whatever they want, but open it up
to where you could at least
launch your own private server.
And that's how they're going to have to
do World of Warcraft
when they finally
retire it, because that'd be.
That'd be a clusterfuck if they didn't.
So I think one thing that should that we
should consider here,
though, it's like if
let's say that you I don't
know how World of Warcraft works,
but I know that there are
a lot of games that have
characters that you can buy or DLC
cosmetics and stuff like that.
One of the things that should be
accounted for here is that you retain
that, you know, your purchases are still
honored after it goes open or whatever.
If that's like making everything
available to everyone,
or if it's like there's some way of
validating your purchases
after they close down their servers.
I think it would have to be the first
option because I don't think they're
like I'm sure making a validation server
would probably be a lot less like a lot
more cost effective than like
having a whole game server,
but at the same time, though,
I think if they're not actively selling
these microtransactions anymore
or running the game, then I see no harm
in making all of these cosmetics
and whatnot available to everyone.
You know, even if you piss off like the
whale that spent like
thousands of dollars in the game, right?
Like, fuck those guys.
Can you ask? Yeah.
I mean, sometimes they pay for the games
that you play, but yeah.
Yeah, sometimes they do.
Sometimes they do. But yeah, yeah.
But there has been some opposition.
And when I really say some opposition, I
really mean one content creator.
Yeah. Any any guesses as to
who the content creator is?
I think we all know the name.
It's pirate software.
Pirate software, a.k.a. Thor.
Supposedly his real name, too.
Yeah, Gardner said his real name.
The whole picture it is.
I want to look it up now.
All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Please.
That's I'm just smite the whole thing.
Dude, that's too badass of a name to be a
mere content creator, man.
Well, I would imagine that to be like the
name of like a body,
like a bodybuilder or some shit.
Come on, content creation.
Oh, so maybe it's not his real name.
OK. Yeah.
So you told me that
Thor isn't his name. Wow.
Sorry, I'm sorry to disappoint.
Star Wow. Which star? Yeah.
Yikes. So pirate software.
Does not like the movement and he can.
And I think his points can be really
boiled down to three things.
First is that we're essentially dumping
problems onto developers
like unjustly and not
providing like any real solutions.
And what are your thoughts on
that point, Gardner and James?
Well, I don't know.
Keep going with with his points, because
I think I have one point
that will sum up like answer
all of his problems with it.
I know he says it's too
broad and doesn't have solutions.
That's one thing. Sure.
It creates legal and technical burdens
that most indie studios can't afford.
And three is like main
point is that it creates
unrealistic
expectations for online games.
I'm sure there's more points to it.
But honestly, I can't
stand to watch him for like.
A minute. Another.
I'm not a fan.
He's not like fully wrong. It's just
you like when they make when they make
the laws, they can add exceptions
and for small business slash
indies, they really want to.
But on top of that,
being able to make sure your source code
is accessible for like, let's say,
always online games is
not a burdensome thing.
It is a financial problem.
More than anything, people don't want to
relinquish their IP and some other stuff.
And there I know what
companies are going to say.
They're going to be like, there's
proprietary stuff in there.
I'm sorry, but most of it is not
proprietary in the sense of like,
it's been done everywhere else.
So with these types of systems.
So basically, my takeaway
is if an industry cannot
make money ethically, then that industry
does not deserve to exist.
Point blank.
And so and I don't
believe that it is ethical
for a company to accept
payment and sell you a good
and then have turn around and turn off
the good after you've made a purchase.
That is that is 100 percent unethical.
And it should not be
allowed in any way, shape or form.
And so I think all of his points are moot
because they are their typical like
libertarian, anti-government.
Things that don't hold water when
actually scrutinized to any deep degree.
And so, you know, oh, it's
going to put burdens on Indies.
OK, put a little carve out in there for
Indies, but it's not even going to.
Right. Like it's just so foolish.
It makes me really upset. Sorry.
Like, OK. All right.
So let's. All right.
So I want to debunk each of his points.
The initiative is to
broaden, lax, clear solutions.
It's a it's a fucking loss.
It's a fucking law.
Yeah. So yeah, of course.
Like let's look at I think it was Denmark
or something that banned
microtransactions from
like valves games, right?
Valve had a company solution.
Where's the problem?
And no one's have no one
has an issue with that, right?
Of course, it's of the.
Yeah, it's up to the it's
always up to the developers
to come up with a solution to a problem.
And, you know, we're just bringing it up
to light and making making it
so that they have to
come with a solution.
It's not the burden isn't on us to come
up with a solution, right?
Or I guess in this case, Ross, right?
Yeah, at the end of the day, too, they
could also bake into this
like for indie studios, some type of
especially the use much better at this
at implementing services that
could help with Indies, too.
Like it's just like,
hey, here's a little kit.
Just throw that your some of your code
into there and you can.
Say you're done.
Yeah, the community
can take over from there.
Yeah, they don't even have to do much.
And I'm not sure why even
bothered mentioning Indies,
because I don't I don't see most in these
making actual life service games.
Like, yeah, life services
are expensive to make and run.
Yeah. And not to and not to mention
people don't really have faith
in a life service game like being made by
a first time indie dev.
Like, you know, all those kickstarter
MMOs that used to exist.
Yeah. Like those are all
red flags for a reason.
Because yeah, they're really hard.
There's some games where I could see and
I can't think of any, but I could see
it being useful to have a
little caveat for Indies.
But yeah, it's definitely like it's so
small that it's not going
to affect almost anyone.
Yeah, like.
Like what's an indie life service game?
Because I'm having a hard
time coming up with the same
because a bunch of them I'm thinking of
are actually have offline modes
to where you can just
do your own servers.
It's only big companies that typically
try to make sure you don't so
you have to use their services.
The more I'm thinking about this more,
I'm like, this is actually very much
a systemic like issue with big companies
trying to just milky it
from all your money.
Yeah, let's not forget
who pirate software is.
He used to work for Blizzard.
Like and his dad did as well.
And I've heard him.
I used to watch his like VODS sometimes
and he would be like, you know, having
great affection for his old employer.
So I'm like, well, I I'm
taking his like smoke screen,
you know, pearl clutching bullshit
like for what it is.
And it's just a guy, an industry insider
who is deliberately misrepresenting what
this movement is and
what what it's about.
That's what it seems to me anyway.
Yes, not to mention he
does run a live service game.
I mean, a sort of live
service game rivals of aether to
it's kind of a live service game.
I believe it's playable offline.
But, you know, the online modes are, you
know, where it's at, to be honest,
for like fighting games and whatnot.
And also let's talk about the last one.
It could hurt the industry by setting
unrealistic
expectations for all online games.
What unrealistic expectations?
I think that's already the expectation.
You buy a 60 dollar video game.
I'm expecting to play it forever.
Like there's no expiration dates on these
like things, right? Like.
Yeah, and what he's saying there is
it's unrealistic for you to
expect to own the things you buy.
Which is bullshit.
It's a dangerous path
and at the bare minimum.
It's just it's not
much of an expectation.
We've already mentioned like it doesn't
honestly take that much,
especially for these big companies to
make sure that it is
at least opened enough to where you can
run your own private server.
Yeah, yes. I don't know.
I think so, especially if you put this,
you don't have to do
this retroactively yet.
You could just
retroactively have the law say, well,
if someone wants to reverse engineer a
system to make something
that's already released
work, they can do that legally.
And then from here on out, companies have
to have an exit strategy
or else they'll be fined
a certain amount because
what the user or what the buyer purchased
is not usable anymore.
I think is very
reasonable way to do this.
Yes. So last time I checked this was
which was like earlier this week,
the signature had like 50,000 signatures,
so it's gone up like 10 percent,
which is great news because
yeah, yeah, 500,000. Sorry.
But it's great news
because, well, basically,
there was concerns that stop killing
games basically lost all momentum,
which is unfortunate. But now big content
creators are covering it
and Ross has found himself
multiple powerful allies,
arguably more powerful than pirate
software who at the to we are
at the start of the week, he had pirate
software had the must viewed video game
video on stock killing games period,
followed by Asman Gold, who
who reacted to that video. So.
Yeah, what was his take on it? I'm
curious as Asman Gold.
I think he does. I'm not
entirely sure to be honest.
I didn't watch it. All I know is that all
I know the place these days
all I know is that pirate software got
all the attention, not necessarily
the not necessarily Ross, but, you know,
now we have much bigger content
creators like Moist critical covering
this and Muda Har from some more
again gamers, you know, gamers Nexus and
even Linus Tech Tips
covered in his own podcast, actually. Oh,
yeah, this is I have a feeling
they'll hit their signature
goal. I think interesting. Yeah.
It's hard to because if you go and try to
sign the petition, it's only for
like members of the
EU. Yeah. And I think UK.
Maybe. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
I mean, I think the I think the UK has
his own separate stock killing games
like thing, but he's got a
lot of more powerful allies,
very powerful like in the YouTube space.
And I mean, it shows they got 10 more.
They they made it up 10
percent. It's amazing.
I've also, you know, I've also wanted to,
you know, I don't know
if I should be mentioning this on air,
but I did email him.
Ask if you want to join us for the
podcast and he might join us,
but he's fighting the
good fight right now.
Yeah, he's in the trenches.
So if you guys want to see
a curse farms join us here,
then you got to get subscribed because we
don't have a big enough audience
for him to join us yet. Yeah.
I mean, he's he's he isn't he isn't
joining us because we're not popular.
He's joining us because he's focusing on
getting as the word out.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it just helps.
It helps a lot. So and Ross,
I don't know if you're
watching this right now, dude.
I'm high tech low life on
the one that emailed you.
But keep up the good fight.
Yes. And yes, let's
get a let's get it like,
I don't know, United States
slash Canada version going.
Yeah, I'm totally game for that.
The question is, how
do we get that started?
I don't know. I'm not really
good at this type of stuff.
Maybe maybe we can get
there once they're funded.
Like once it's fully signed, maybe we can
look into it for us.
Yeah. But doing it, the EU is probably
the best way to do it
because the EU is very consumer forward.
They actually have a functioning
government over there.
That's true. We'd
have to wait three years
before we could
probably get something through.
Yeah. All right. But let's.
Yeah, let's move on.
We're going to talk about the Xbox
potential layoffs that are reportedly
going to happen here.
Hi, Tech. What is this about?
Reports suggest that we might be losing
up to two thousand people from Xbox,
which does include entire studios.
Like that's talks.
It does suck. And apparently the Xbox
unit has like 10,000 people in it.
So that could be anywhere
between 10 and 20 percent,
like George Broussard says now. Yeah.
What do you want to bet?
Half of the team
that's working on Windows
Xbox experience are going to be laid off.
I'll say that. Don't say that.
That's what Microsoft does, guys.
That's literally what they do.
Well, it's OK.
They had to lay off
the blue screen of death.
People will get to that later because,
you know, they can't support that color.
It's OK, dude.
I was going to install Bazzi on my ROG
Xbox Ally X anyways.
Yeah.
That being the Xbox Ally X
Series X version S version.
They just need to get better
at just name it simple, guys.
Keep it simple.
That's also not in Microsoft.
We have. I know.
Well, it's the KISS mental methodology.
Keep it simple, stupid. Just come on.
Yeah. At least they didn't
make a like Xbox Series X Pro.
Imagine how much worse
something would be there.
Don't give them ideas. Pro Max.
Oh, go the apple round.
So the Xbox, the Xbox unit has about
10,000 people in it.
That's like 20, up to 20 percent of the
Xbox unit being laid off.
That's a lot. That is a lot.
So many people.
Now, does the Xbox unit
include studios like Activision
or publishers like Activision or are they
kind of independent?
It's got to be independent.
Yeah. Right.
I'm sure Activision and Zendimax are
independent, so to speak.
So I bet you there's probably more than
that in those companies.
That's what I was thinking. Yeah.
Yeah. But I can imagine like studios like
Oblivion being counted
in the Xbox division.
Yeah.
Oblivion like Obsidian.
Sorry. Does that say Oblivion?
Yeah. Obsidian
separately from Bethesda, right?
Yeah. Wasn't part of the Bethesda.
Yeah, they're not. They're not part of
the Zendimax. Yeah. Yeah.
And I think Ninja Theory
2 was another one, too.
They released a hell of
divers. I mean, how blade.
Yeah. Well, yeah.
I mean, I don't know
what to say about this.
I just feel really bad for the people who
are going to be losing their jobs.
This is a tough time
to be losing your job,
especially if you're
in the gaming industry.
Yeah, it is rough and
it's really hard because.
A part of me kind of resents
live action or a live service
for this kind of because it
attracts so many gamers when
and it consolidates a lot of this
money into the big and into
really big pockets when indies
and some smaller really good company
game studios could
really use utilize, you know.
Now the cells.
I mean, I feel like live services are
like the tobacco industry
where it's like they're
completely unregulated.
You know, for a long time, they were
completely unregulated
and they have done nothing
but just refine and pollute
and destroy the gaming industry, like to
make things their products,
to make things more addictive.
And and that's what
most live services are now.
It's like they're hiring psychologists to
make the game even more addictive
and to make their loot
crates or whatever they have
be more appealing and
extract more money from whales.
And it's like, dude, we can't
let that continue, you know.
No, like Expedition 33 is addicting it
up, like and it ends, which is nice.
Yeah, that's the thing.
Like there's plenty of like we can do
games that don't last forever,
but not everyone wins into that.
And I get that I just like that.
Like life services, especially these days
are very off putting for me.
Like I don't want to touch them because I
don't want to set there
and just play it all day.
I know that like I've
done that with Counter Strike
and it gets annoying, and I definitely
don't want to do that
where I have to keep on paying like
that's Hearthstone is a great example.
I love Hearthstone.
I paid into it somewhat.
But once I realized I would never catch
up to where I want to be
with the decks I want to
build, it killed the fun for me.
They killed it for me.
Hmm.
Obviously not for everyone, because, you
know, I don't know how much
Hearthstone makes now, but they were
making billions every like they were
making about a billion every year.
They're in their heyday.
So I mean, that's crazy.
That's crazy.
There's no way those developers were
getting paid well enough
for that, you know, it just trickles up.
I hate it.
Yeah, I really want.
Just the game industry is a very it's
it's a very both artistic and very
it's just that's very different realm.
And I'd like to see it
treated less like a business.
But unfortunately, in order to make
games, you need to make money.
So interesting.
Brandenburg says this is the fourth big
layoff at Xbox in the last 18 months.
Yeah, they had three major cuts last year
and the closure of several subsidiaries.
So I mean, this is this is just kind of
the state of like Xbox right now.
They're there. It seems
like they're closing up shop.
I think the rebranding really heavily.
And so I could see them continuing to go
this route and then maybe
those are still rehiring the South.
Big companies do it anyways when they're
like, well, instead of trying to find
you new jobs, we're just going to lay you
off with the severance and then
we're going and then it looks good on the
books, even though they technically
lose more money and then they'll hire
some of these people back.
I wouldn't be shocked. But it is not like
if you're thinking about
going into the gaming industry, just know
that be prepared to be, you know,
potentially laid off all the time.
And it's very stressful
and it does affect the games.
Yeah. So now. So yeah, it seems like
Microsoft is starting to realize
that maybe the games industry is a little
too volatile and a little less
profitable than imagined.
I mean, a lot of people really go into
the games industry thinking on a profit
like like, oh, if we just do this and
that, we'll be profitable.
Right. But obviously that's almost I
wouldn't say almost.
It's not really the case usually.
But yeah, it's
profitable. It really is profitable.
You just got to be good at it. Yeah.
Like any other thing.
You just got to be good.
Well, what I'm saying is you can't go
into the games industry with a profit
like mine. You have to be
really willing to make games and.
Yeah, it's just these execs, they don't
understand like honest like.
It's very rare to find CEOs of companies
that actually play their games like
this. Bobby Cottice still work at EA.
I mean, Activision.
No, well, I don't think so.
All right. Well, I doubt
he ever played a video.
Well, actually, no, that's not true.
He founded Activision
and they found that we did.
Did you not? I thought you did. No.
No, no, no.
Activision was founded by the guy that
did show this pizza.
Oh, shit. Well, what's his name?
I'm looking it up now.
Anyway, anyways.
Microsoft, I am I am concerned, though,
because what happens when Microsoft
leaves the game industry?
Because I don't think we've had it.
I don't think they're going to leave, but
more of the conflict industry.
Here's the thing.
I Microsoft is is like they don't want to
be running Windows anymore.
They don't want to be doing like consumer
facing products anymore
because there's way more money in the
business to business, like in this
software stuff,
there's way more money in it.
And Xbox is exclusively consumer facing.
So it's like they I I'm looking at the
writing on the wall and I'm saying
like Microsoft never been like the number
one in the console market.
Right. They've always been like number
two or number three.
And it's like so they're
not making a ton of money,
not what they could be for less
investment in other industries.
And I just I just don't see how Microsoft
is going to continue doing this
when they could be making more money
selling Office 365
and teams to, you know,
to companies that
want that kind of stuff.
I mean, that's why these big companies
are so big, like they have multi
revenue streams. And so
they either need a break off, like we
talked about, I think, a week or two ago
and just like, OK, Xbox is his own entity
now and let it be profit,
like try to go for its
profit and not worry about other
departments. But, you know, you got to
have like, especially with these big
companies, you got to have multifaceted
like products and stuff like that.
I shouldn't say multifaceted, but you
have to have multiple products.
Are we still thinking that Microsoft is
going to leave the console market?
Remember how you know every remember how
everything is an Xbox?
Are we still thinking that Microsoft is
not make Xbox anymore?
I think that's the case.
I think they're going to
go to a very branded like
their brand instead of building consoles.
I definitely believe
that. That's what I would.
Well, we'll see what the handheld, the
Xbox handheld, how it does,
I think will partially determine this.
But they're also working with Meta to
make an X, you know, an Xbox Meta
headset. Right. Like that
was like a year ago, I think.
The Questbox.
So what I'm concerned about, though,
is what happens when Microsoft leaves the
dedicated console market?
Because the last time we had two
competitors in a console market
was Nintendo and Sega
all those years ago.
And then certainly joined the market.
And then things haven't
been the same since then.
There's always been three people.
Heck, one Sega left.
Guess what? The company joined the fray
after Sega, like right after Sega left.
Microsoft.
So there's always been at
least three per generation.
See, what I would like
to see is Perifractic's
Commodore come in with a new console.
I don't know if you've heard about that.
No, I haven't.
So do you know the
YouTube or Perifractic?
I'm afraid not now.
Well, so a YouTuber just
bought Commodore like the brand.
Well, and yeah, and he's teasing some
really interesting stuff.
He hasn't announced anything like
concrete yet in terms of
like the hardware product.
But I would really like to
see an Amiga games console
that's running like modern stuff.
I would love to see something like that.
So that would be so weird.
Yeah, what would a modern Amiga be?
Just like a regular
gaming PC at this point?
Well, I mean, like it wouldn't use X86.
That's for damn sure.
It would use something else
and be exotic and be cool.
And it's exotic.
Well, I mean, exotic
meaning like, you know,
maybe RISC-V or something, it wouldn't
use like it's like an arm or CPU,
I don't think, or X86.
That's a that's a little
too out there for me, Gardner,
but I'll be cautious.
I'll I'll be cautiously optimistic.
For you.
I'm just curious as to
how much it'll cost us.
That kind of brings us to our next story.
Sony is facing lawsuits in the EU.
Is that right? Or is it?
It's it's a it's a lawsuit in
whatever country this is.
The Netherlands. The Netherlands.
Yeah. Here, let me share my screen.
There we go. Yes, please.
So it's a consumer group that's they're
essentially saying that
consumers pay on average
47 percent more for digital
games than physical games.
And that Sony is also pushing towards a
digital only feature, of course.
And they're saying that
Sony's large market share and,
monopoly on digital sales
amounts to a quote, Sony tax.
So I am curious what they mean by
monopoly, though, because
are they talking about how Sony is the
only one that sells like PlayStation
digital copies like you can't just go on,
you can't go on like
Humble Bundle and buy a PS5 key.
Is that what they're talking about?
They could be referring to that or they
could be referring to the fact that
in order to get your games on the Sony,
like the PlayStation Store,
you have to go through
Sony and they take a huge cut.
Oh, so what you're saying
is steam on PlayStation five.
That would be sick. I
think that will be sick.
I think more people would enjoy.
I think more people do that than like
steam on Xbox for sure. Yeah.
Well, there's more play
stations than there are Xbox.
Yeah, that's what they have to start
submitting play PlayStation.
Um, builds to steam then.
Would that be how that works?
Because you wouldn't be able
to just play like a steam game
right on the PlayStation, I mean,
technically, but. Well.
Yeah, how I would want to see
it happen is we just do that.
We just run steam, we just run steam
games on a PlayStation.
Performance be damned.
Well, yeah, you have to work for Orbis.
Yeah, it has to be.
Yeah, you'd have to do it through Proton
because operating system. Yeah. Yeah.
But I mean, the hardware is it's
basically PC hardware.
So like it should be
very capable to. Right. Yes.
Yeah, if optimized and all that, that
would be I would be curious.
I think they'll just have a.
I don't know if they'll open up the
steam, but definitely
would like to see some
rules come into play on.
Some of this. Hey, so here's something
interesting, though.
There was also a lawsuit in the UK in
regards to Sony's claims over 30%
three percent cuts, so those are the only
one facing lawsuits over their 30% cut.
Yeah.
I mean, this the Sony
is excluding competition
and it's exploiting
consumers and game developers.
So I mean,
I don't I don't necessarily
disagree with that. I mean,
you know, the idea that you're you're you
have an exclusive store,
you have exclusive control over the
software that is allowed to be,
you know, launched and
played on your console.
That makes you a.
By definition, like a
vertical monopoly, right? Like.
Like kind of how it's kind of the same idea as like, you know,
same idea is like Walmart, right?
Like Walmart has they control everything.
They control every tier of
like product sales like they.
It's not just like the how the
merchandise looks on the shelf.
It's also the
distribution and the warehousing.
So and it's kind of the same idea with
Sony, I would think.
Yes, I would. I think so, too, man. It's.
The big question is,
how are they going to
like what's going to happen?
Are they going to actually
try to make changes to it
or are they just going to find them like
a few hundred million dollars?
Because that's like chump change that's
only probably. Yeah.
I don't know.
I'd love to see where this goes, so we
should follow up on it for sure.
Agreed. Now, I'm not
saying I like Epic or anything.
But Tim Sweeney, if you're watching this,
I think I know who your next target is.
They're not directly
competing, though, with Sony.
That's the problem.
Well, maybe they should be.
Maybe they should try getting the Epic
Game Store store on PlayStation.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, I mean, that would be
like a Tim Sweeney thing to do
is support like Sony, like PlayStation OS
before you support Linux.
I can see that.
Well, yeah, what a weird vendetta he has.
But I don't know if we covered that.
Did we like fully that like
now you can on iOS devices?
You can
now like navigate the user to
a separate page to charge them
instead of have to use the iOS storage.
I think that that whole
thing went through. So.
Yeah. Yeah. Right.
Hi, Tech. You just had a little spasm.
Yeah, no, it's my it's my avatar.
Sometimes it does that like sometimes it
makes it look like I'm lazy.
I am I am I right. I when I don't.
Yeah, I wasn't sure if you were just
going like that or not.
Yeah, that would.
Yeah, something else.
It's kind of unwieldy sometimes.
Yeah. Have you seen some?
If you look at some of the like really
detailed ones, they're crazy.
And they're also
equally crazy expensive, too.
Like, oh, yeah, I've seen people spend
five thousand dollars
on like their V2 model.
Wow. Is that like a 3D model or is it
like a sprite based?
So there's an engine called Live2D, which
well, this is sprite based.
But essentially, Live2D can
be used to make 2D like up
as long as you like do the layers and
stuff, from what I understand
and rig the bones and whatnot.
It you can effectively make 2D
animations from what
would be still images.
It's a whole it's a whole process.
I don't fully understand
myself, to be honest. But.
Yeah, yeah.
So you basically need two people.
You need a artist and you
need a what they call a rigger,
which is like a puppeteer, essentially.
Yeah, it's an interesting one. Yeah. But.
I thought it would be fun if
James and I also had a
V2 remodel for an episode.
I don't know how would that
be expensive or something.
I feel like we talked about that a few
months ago. And yeah, well,
I still go with I still go
with the one I was talking about.
Well, they do have like, I think they do
have like generic ones you can use.
You wouldn't have a unique design or
anything, but you can do.
You can be a generic ones.
I'm game. Awesome.
We'll discuss we can discuss this in a
future episode. Agree.
Let's do it.
Cool. So let's talk about this one here.
What's going on with the
Ready or Not development here?
They're getting censored, apparently.
So Ready or Not is a
SWAT simulator of sorts, and
it's pretty disturbing,
like some of the stuff,
some of the cases you see are pretty
disturbing, including one like.
So so each case is like
it's a separate thing,
but some cases lead in other
cases and there are some like
truly like controversial, like truly like
awful things you see.
And they're they're turning down some of
the gore and some of the nudity
and some of the imagery and revolving
children, I should say.
And there wasn't any good.
There wasn't any there wasn't any actual
like imagery of that kind,
but just implications of it happening
because you're busting a ring of sorts.
Yeah. Wow.
So there is some controversy.
Well, namely one to two reasons, first
and foremost, is that.
They they're trying to
prepare for a concert release.
And, you know, they the
games are on PC for a while.
So in theory, they could maintain two
different versions, but
one, they say that it needs it needs to
be the same for cross play purposes.
And two, maintaining two different
versions of a game
just isn't super feasible.
And it's supposedly not
just like a texture change to.
So they list some of the stuff down here
that if you go down and scroll down,
you can see some of
the stuff they changed.
That's that's fun.
Yeah.
Nudity, explicit
representation of violence.
Console content change conclusion.
So one one case has a busting a streamer,
and that begins a whole like myth arc of
you trying to bust a CP ring in the game.
It's crazy. It's crazy shit, man.
Some people aren't some people aren't
thrilled about the censorship due to,
you know, you know, just, you know,
censorship being censorship bad.
You know, I'm saying, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
But at the same time, though.
Some of it is kind of
egregious, like the violence.
Yeah, it's it's hard one.
I like bringing it up to the point where it's not that hard.
I like regulations for certain things,
but yeah, like they've been trying to
regulate violence and
video games for a while.
And if it was up to certain lawmakers, we
wouldn't have grand theft auto period.
But there are some limits.
Like the children thing
definitely is a limit.
But if it's just
described, I don't know, you know,
ban books at that point because books do
talk about some of that stuff.
Yeah, I mean, I'm reluctant to call it
censorship because for a few reasons.
First of all, they this is like because
of like age rating stuff,
which is private, like it's
not done by the government,
at least not the the
whatever it's called.
I'm trying to point out the.
It's our B.
It's our B. Yeah.
Yeah.
Let's see if it is the yes, or B or not.
Well, they mentioned the S.R.B.
PEGI USK.
Yeah.
OK, so those are, I
believe, government agencies.
But it also sounds like they were doing
this for the first party like publishers
or not publishers, first party partners,
meaning Xbox and
PlayStation and Nintendo.
So I don't know.
I don't know.
And they're doing it voluntarily, right?
Like this isn't like them being like
we're being forced to do this.
So I don't know if they if they really
wanted it, they could
just have a separate
version on when on the PC and just put a
couple of flags in there for when they're
building. Like, don't get me wrong, it's
not fun to support two different builds,
but they could do it.
But it sounds like they just
they're fine simplifying it.
And they're also saying that because it's
not just a simple texture change,
it's how they're having issues with cross
play since this game is supposed to be
multiplayer and even.
Yeah, because it's a
SWAT simulator, basically.
Yeah. I hear the game is
actually really good, though.
Yeah, I've seen some stuff on it, but.
I don't know, man.
I had never been in content creators
doesn't go well together.
Yeah, OK. OK.
All right.
If one of us gets swatted during during
this podcast, should we
keep it in the episode?
No, yes, maybe if it but
it's not going to happen.
Yeah, it probably isn't going to happen.
It's kind of like how Linus Tech Tip says
if he dies on camera, he expects them to
monetize it.
Yeah, you know what?
I can respect it.
I can respect it, too.
Yeah, if it's if it's why it's one thing,
if it's ice,
definitely keep it in the video.
Well, you get
deported and where's Gardner?
He's deported.
Yeah, hey, man, it's it's footage, man.
And.
Now, it's like it's a crazy,
it's a crazy situation overall.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Uh, Nintendo.
They updated Maricart World and they
removed like a feature that people liked.
What's up with this?
So it's not a feature.
It's more of a workaround
because people really don't.
I so my cart has a bunch of tracks that
are basically just intermissions between
different tracks to write.
OK, so the big feature
is the new open world.
And while the actual free
roaming feature kind of sucks,
there are multiple quote unquote tracks
that involve you driving from
one course to another as well.
And people really
don't like those courses.
And so basically what people would do is
they would just select random select.
And yeah, so you get you get a choice
between you get a choice
here and you get to choose.
And generally speaking, these choices
tend to be the intermission courses,
whereas random select will not choose any
of these three that are listed here.
Where and random select gives you a good
chance of getting the
traditional three lab courses.
But now random select will also include
the choice ones as well.
Meaning you have a good meeting that
Nintendo just remove the only way to like
consistently pick three lab courses, even
if it is a random course.
And people really don't like it.
I know it's a I know it's a stupid thing
to complain about, but it's stupid.
But when you're you're building software,
that game is in games or software, you
list you try to listen to your users on
especially stuff like this.
If it's a fundamental change.
OK, but come on, just let them skip it.
Yeah. Yeah.
So Nintendo really wants you to play
those intermission courses.
It just sounds like a control issue.
It's Nintendo. What do you expect?
Yeah, I want to see some.
So this was this was like
highlighted in a recent era post.
I want to see what I want to see what the
comments say, though.
But if you see if you see here, these are
all courses, the
courses that people voted on.
And as you can see here, most and
sometimes everyone would pick random
because they really don't like the
intermission courses.
Yeah. And I kind of
don't either, to be honest.
I haven't played that, so I don't know.
Look, people are saying they're glad they
decided to wait on picking up a switch to
and they apparently ruined online play.
Yeah.
What they legitimately low key
completely ruined online now.
So Nintendo has never done a good online
experience ever, have they?
I can't think of one they've done online
that wasn't like Pokemon.
Well, no, Pokemon
wasn't developed by Nintendo.
So now, yeah.
No, I don't think they have.
Yeah, I mean, the only my only experience
with Nintendo online is Mario Kart Wii.
And that was awful.
Like it was just full of people cheating.
To be fair, though, with the Wii was like
the one of the most popular games in the world.
The most hacked systems ever.
Of course. Yeah. Yeah.
But still, it was ridiculous.
I don't know, maybe just
don't play online games.
Well, maybe just don't play.
So you can play this offline and you
still get the option to select courses
like manually instead of randomly
selecting courses, too.
It's just an online only thing, which is
some bullshit for some reason.
Like, yeah, I understand.
This is going to make me
sound like an absolute boomer.
But I understand playing a game online
with like your friends.
But as far as I understand it, Nintendo
online doesn't really
let you do that, right?
Like you're basically
pitted against just strangers.
I think you can party up with your
friends, but I think you can.
But but you are mostly playing
constraints, I think.
Yeah, I just don't understand that.
I don't get it. I'd rather play games
against the CPU or my friends who are
sitting on the sofa next to me.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of and
it may make me a boomer, too.
But I think it's just a millennial thing
is I don't like to sit
down and play online.
These types, especially these types of
games, these are couch games.
You play them with people
in person or just against AI.
Yeah. Yeah.
I'm kind of the same way, too, though I'm
a little more lenient because I do a lot
of fighting games online.
Of course, it's a bit of a different
story than playing with 23
other players in my card.
It's a little more intimate because I get
to I get to personally destroy them and I
get to let them know that.
But playing fighting games offline is
always a better experience.
If you're in if you're not someone that's
into fighting games or maybe you want to
learn fighting games,
then there's always
something called locals.
You could go to your fighting community
local area, play some games there.
Heck, you can even go there and try out
some new games because I'm sure someone's
probably going to bring
like one of the newer games if it if a
new one ever releases.
The only thing you need to do is maybe
bring a controller of sorts.
And it's a good it's a good way to learn
fighting games and play
with people in your community.
It's better in person, too, because then
you can see them cry.
Is that really what it is, high tech?
You can just see your opponent cry.
Yes. And also, no matter how good the
netcode gets, playing offline is just
always going to be better,
especially for execution
heavy games like fighting games.
You know where you need
frame perfect reactions almost.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Playing playing man, I've I've played
fighting games in my day
and I just can't imagine like playing a
fighting game and losing
because of like rollback, you know, or
something like, oh, my God,
that would make me so mad.
I was thinking that happened to me.
I've seen that happen.
The netcode has gotten a
lot better in recent years.
But offline play is still the way to go.
Personally speaking, that's why
tournaments are generally offline.
That's why you have to travel to Las
Vegas to get to the biggest fighting game
tournament of the year.
Right.
James could do that.
I could do that. James could do that.
He could be the next EVO champion.
He had to face against all the Japanese
gods like Tokido or Daigo
or Western or Western
demons like Justin Wong.
I couldn't my wrist get tired enough
playing just expedition.
That's where that's where
fight six come into play.
Honestly, I still.
Yeah, maybe.
I'm too old.
That's like you have to be 15 years old,
I guess nowadays to do.
All the Japanese gods are like in their
50s now or 40s now or 30s now.
They're still kicking ass.
I mean, melee's best players are like.
They they tend to be older, but there are
now younger players coming up.
And playing. Interesting.
I'm just thinking of, I guess, I guess is
what I which is what I usually play.
Online. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair.
So. How about this story?
Steam is dealing with a bunch of
potentially stolen games
that are flooding it from itch.io.
What's going on here?
So for those who don't know, it's a
website where you can publish your games
and also other stuff, too.
It's probably not great.
It's probably not a great description.
Gardner can probably give a better
description since he
has an itch.io website.
Yeah, I mean, it is
is a platform for Andy.
Indie games to be published.
Yes, it's yeah, it's very
simple to get your game on there.
You just make an account and then upload
it, you know, upload your bill.
But it's also like it's full of games and
they also do lots of
what are they called game jams, right?
Like you can host a game jam on there.
And so you get tons and tons of
submissions from people.
And so there's a lot of
content and it's ready to be stolen.
Yes. So the thing with itch.io is that
they generally speaking,
like not a lot of big, big Indies or even
really big use itch.io.
Even though you get I believe you get 100
percent of the profits, correct?
Or do you or is it like not 100 percent?
I don't believe it takes a cut.
I think the only thing is the payment
processor takes a cut.
But how does it make
money to keep the website up?
You donate to them.
Oh. Let me let me log in.
I'll just make sure I
could be wrong about that.
But yeah, itch.io is full of small
developers that they're making games
as a hobby and maybe
they're selling them for like.
Five bucks a pop, or maybe they're not
even selling it all.
There's plenty of games out there that
aren't being sold at all.
And people can just apparently download
them and upload them to Steam.
And then they make a shitload of they
make way more money on Steam
because seems a much
bigger store. Yeah. Well, maybe.
Not not often.
Well, you're going to get more eyeballs
and you're going to have more people
willing to pay for
something on Steam. Yes.
So that's really the thing, like most of
these games that are being stolen,
I would imagine, are the free games that
are available to download
for for for no cost to the thieves.
And they turn around and sell them on.
Sorry, there's a train going by.
They turn around and sell them on on
Steam for a significant
markup over zero dollars.
You know, yes.
And the truth is that
some of these are not real.
Some of these have been
removed from Steam as recently
like hard cop to wasn't
an example they mentioned.
That's actually still on Steam and it's
not removed just yet.
So I don't know, man.
It looks like the creator of
hard cop two isn't active on it.
I owe anymore.
So I guess he hasn't
taken the opportunity to.
Take the game down.
It's also free, if I'm
mistaken, like on each I.
You can you can download it and play for
free or donate however much.
But on Steam, it's two bucks.
So not only does Steam
have a bunch of crap,
it's because, let's be honest, not all
it's games are made equally.
And most of them are kind
of not great, in my opinion.
But they're flooding the steam.
The thing with itch is that it is
extremely indie, right?
Like these are people who are just
getting started with making games
or this is maybe their third game and
they're they're not
like trying to make money.
They're trying to learn
in a lot of instances.
So I don't know.
And here's the thing.
This is you can name your own price here.
So hypothetically, I
could say zero dollars.
Oh, wait, what the heck just happened?
If I click no, thanks.
Just take me to the downloads.
I can then go download this game. Right.
And now there's and so someone did this
under the name Me on Steam.
And now they're like selling these games.
What are they selling it
for on Steam? Do we know?
Two bucks, two bucks.
It's robbery, dude. Like, yeah, it.
It makes me mad. It makes me very upset.
Are there I mean, there's copyright laws.
What are the I mean, one way or another,
they could probably get
them taken down, right?
Yeah, my understanding is that the
developer who made hard cop two
is no longer publishing
games and not engaging on itch.
So unless someone complains about it on
his behalf, it sounds like
nothing's going to happen with this.
Here's what steam can do.
Steam could honestly kind of fix this by
working with it to just have an AP
like as long as there's an
API, they could just check.
Like there's a couple of artifacts that
they could probably like from the builds
that they could probably check when
submission, when people submit things
to make sure that it's not copied over.
They could they could fix this probably.
Honestly, I'm thinking I'm thinking about
how you could write up a script to check.
Well, the question then becomes how do
you like, well, by what
measure are we doing this?
Like check sums? How do we make how do we
ensure that they can't just flip a bit?
In the code and then publish it and wow,
it's a totally new game.
Well, first off, there are a couple more
than just doing a check sum.
Like, yeah, you're you're correct.
And you could do a check sum on the whole
thing, but that wouldn't work very well.
Yeah, but there are usually things you
could check for like assets and all that.
Now they could get around it, but then
they're going to have
to do a lot more work.
The harder you make it for them, the less
likely they're going to flip these.
Yeah, that's what I'm
kind of talking about.
I mean, the title alone and I mean, they
ripped off so much stuff you could.
There's a lot of points of of like
checkpoints that you could check on this.
Between the itch IO version and this just
to honestly also to prevent just.
A ton of games that were not meant to be
on Steam, be put on
Steam for pay that are paid.
So, you know, this reminds me of a
situation that happened last year.
So there was a game called Tiny called
Wild Card that was on Steam.
It was it was there was a Steam page.
There's them and everything.
If you look it up, Gardner, well, I'll
show you what I'll show
you what I'm talking about.
Wildcard.
Yeah, Wildcard.
It's the second one.
That one.
So this is a game, but
here's the crazy part.
This was also stolen from another from a
developer on the show as well.
And the game is called Dire Decks.
Look that up.
On it.
Yeah, on it.
I just had it.
What is it called?
Dire Decks.
Dire, the I.R.E.
Yeah.
And it's available
for free here, which is.
So obviously Wild Card isn't out.
But there's a good
chance that you probably.
Actually, that's that's quite fun.
Yeah, this looks really cool.
But this is the kind of
stuff you'll find on it, right?
You're not going to find stuff like this.
On Steam, or at least
you're not going to.
Yeah, I don't know.
Sorry, I'm playing this game now.
Oh, you're playing this?
I thought it was a demo.
No, no, I'm playing right now, dude.
Nice.
Yeah, so it's a it's a Rolex deck, but I
covered this a while back.
Of course, Terry, what's his
face, never released the game.
Terry Brash, I think his name was.
That's unfortunate
because that's pretty cool.
No, but the the actual
game itself is on H.I.O.
And you can play it.
Yeah, like this is I'm
fully playing right now.
Yeah, this is like a fully realized game.
This is the rest of the podcast.
This is just can you
guys hear the sound effects?
Yeah, yeah.
Like it's just like it feels really good to play.
Like it feels really good to play.
Dude, you heard a you
heard a here, folks.
God now gave this game is a.
Oh, oh, oh my God.
Oh, no, you're going to die.
No.
Dude, this is great.
Anyway, sorry.
I'm done.
Oh, he did.
Yeah, that's really, really fun.
Check it out.
It's available on their page.
I'll put a link in the show notes and
we'll add it to this.
Do it.
That's really cool.
You made to level three.
Yeah.
Okay, that's in the show notes now.
So you'll find a link in
the show notes for that.
Cool.
What are we talking about?
I'm sorry.
We were talking about stolen games.
Yeah.
So that was on Steam.
Someone stole that.
There's a steam page.
It's not released yet.
There's a quote unquote demo.
And it looks like they
did more than just steal it.
It looks like they made slight changes,
but the game basically
visually looks the same.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Definitely looks like the same game.
My problem too with this is that they
used the name and
everything, but they did.
It looks like they modified it a little.
Well, they didn't use they
changed the name of the game.
It's not the actual game.
Oh, this is called Wildcard.
Okay.
Then I was.
I paid attention to the name.
Interesting.
Yeah, it's a hard one because if they're
not going to release a
game for this to make it easy,
because this would be really fun.
Like it's a little bit of a gray area for
me, but I definitely.
They used way too
many of the graph assets.
Like it's one thing to be
made a game inspired by this.
I'm sure that's probably happened more
than a few times, but well,
it looks like some of it's new.
Like is that little
collecting thing at the bottom left?
That's not in there, is it?
I didn't see it in the other game.
So yeah, it's there.
Do you see that orb?
That's your exp orb.
I don't know if it looks I don't know if
it's the same exact animation, but like.
Well, let's find out.
Oh, yeah, that is right there.
It is right there.
I just didn't see it being.
There's an excuse for
Gardner to keep playing the game.
This is this is
quintessentially my kind of game, like.
But I don't get sucked down in there.
OK, they added some new stuff, but still.
Yeah, I mean, it's quite literally.
Stolen, but with like with some extra
stuff, it's not the same person.
Unfortunately, yeah.
Oh, man, to just I don't.
And the worst part is like
the people who make the game
might not even know that it's been
stolen, you know, or put on steam.
And so it's like, how are they supposed
to defend their their stuff against that?
No, no, they know it was a big it was a
big news story last year.
Right. But I'm saying
like the ones who like who
all these guys right now, you know.
Yeah, I wish we knew.
How to count. There's
just so much of it that.
Yeah. Like, have you ever heard of
Google Trends or Google notifications or
something like that?
Google Alerts, Google Alerts, you can
like put in certain things
like dudelings, arcade sportsball.
And then any time that phrase appears
when Google is crawling your stuff,
you'll get notified.
Like you can put your own name in
and then you'll get notified
if someone's mentioning you.
It's actually really neat.
So if people, indie devs out there put in
the name of their game,
they'll get like an email that says, hey,
we just found this
new thing on Steam here
or wherever they found it.
So that's one way you
could keep informed.
Oh, that is good stuff.
That is good stuff. Yeah.
Yeah.
But also, I think
Valve has kind of response
is kind of responsible as well.
I mean, they did open the
floodgates for all this stuff.
And while yes, I think it's
a good thing overall, because
imagine how much worse
things were back in the day.
Like you'd have to be you had to be a
major publisher to
get on Steam back then.
Yeah. Like imagine if
Bellatria wasn't on Steam.
I'd be crazy, right?
There'd be no next fest either.
That would be crazy.
Yeah. Huh.
At this point, though, I mean,
I think it is probably a
little too easy to get on Steam.
I mean, it's just it's like
a hundred dollar investment
and you'll get it back when
you make 100 bucks, you know.
Not every game makes makes a lot of cells
or makes that much, but right.
There's a little bit of a
barrier, which I'm fine with.
And then but there's definitely
it. I don't know.
It will be interesting
to see like this theft.
They definitely need
to look into the theft.
And I don't know.
Maybe it's just an automated system that
at least helps a little bit more.
But yeah. Yeah.
So heck, honestly, AI would probably do
OK at detecting fraud from itch.
I. Oh, I can see it's actually one of the
places where it would do well
is that pattern recognition.
Yeah. I don't know.
But you know what?
Steam Summer Sale just is going on.
You know, like Steam festivals and stuff.
Yeah, we got some interesting games.
We talked about it a little bit earlier.
But yeah, what guys what games are you
guys eyeing for the summer sale?
Oh, I'm already playing a
bunch on with the Xbox Game Pass,
but I do want to own them eventually,
some I and some of those.
But I think Space Marine 2
is definitely one on my list.
Oh, yeah. Space Marine 2
is on my list, too. Yeah.
Heck, there's ready or
not right there on my.
So maybe it's not for
you getting ready or not.
Ultra Kill is Ultra Kill is super sick.
I've heard a lot of good things about
Ultra Kill, so I'm going to add that
to my wish list here. Yeah.
You don't like Doom internal, so I mean,
Doom, the Dark Ages.
So I'm sure you'd enjoy.
I'm sure you'd enjoy Ultra Kill.
Yeah, for sure.
Ooh, Mass Effect Legacy.
Ooh, or Legendary
Edition, I mean, six dollars.
Dollars, dude.
Is that gorgeous?
Is that a remake of the first game?
It's all the first games of remaster is a
remaster the whole trilogy.
Yeah, it's really good.
Honestly, the remaster is pretty good.
I had all 40 DLCs, it says.
I got to do when I bought my graphics
card, I got this for free,
but it was through fucking EA.
I was like, I'm not going to ever play
that, but now it's like six books.
Oh, my God. It's so tempting.
You know, it is. It's a good game.
Definitely. And lots of hours of play.
Like I recommend it to anyone that can
even stomach sci-fi.
It's the original Mass Effect
is one of my favorite games.
Like so good.
Come on, Gardner, you
know you need to do what get
you to get it on Steam this
time, so you don't have to worry
about doing it through EA.
Yeah, I haven't played it through EA, so
I probably will have to do this.
We know it's electronic arts, but
I don't know. They they've actually been
doing some cool stuff lately, so
maybe I'll that's how
I justify buying it.
Yeah.
What else? What else? What else?
Any other noise is pretty cool, but it's
like kind of weird and esoteric almost.
Hmm. Yeah, I've heard about this one.
Like everything is destructible, right?
Yes. It's like, you
know, those Fonzam games.
Yeah, it's like that. Nice.
Oh, I have a game that I want to recommend to people.
I wonder if it's
Domekeeper. Have you
guys played Domekeeper?
I have not. I have not.
60% off right now.
This game is absolutely worth it.
So basically, you're you play as the
little the little Martian guy.
And
you have to like go down
into the mines that you dig out.
So you play as this little guy and you dig out.
The areas and collect these resources and
bring them back to your dome.
And then you invest your resources into
upgrades for your dome, because
we quickly after you start playing, you
get waves of these enemies
that come and attack your dome.
So you have to defend it
using the resources you
collect. And it's so addictive.
Oh, no, this is my type of game.
Yeah, I've added it to my cart.
Yeah, I'm going to get a couple of them
in this definitely like within a very
reasonable price range.
Oh, shit.
Yeah, don't keep her.
You know, what's a
really good game, though?
What have you guys heard of a
game called 100% orange juice?
100% orange juice?
100% orange. Yes,
that's the name of the game.
Wow. Can I type for a second?
100% orange juice. I
have not heard of this.
It's like Mario Party.
No, it's kind of it's pretty sick, actually, but it's like, you know,
it's pretty sick,
actually, but it's like it.
OK, so it's like Mario Party, but there
are no many games, though.
It's based it, but it's replaced with
like a car, like a battle
system and like a card system.
It's insane, though.
Oh, this is like 12 years old.
It's like a dollar,
twenty ninety two or something.
Yeah. Yeah.
But there's a lot of DLC characters
because the game is really popular now.
Well, I shouldn't say now, but
this is just a trailer for.
Yeah, one of the
characters, it looks pretty neat.
One of the funniest characters is you can
you can encounter a random single
and they can sometimes roll a seven and
it like it's like it like you can die.
If you if you miss your
dodge rolls, it's awesome.
That's funny. They call
them they call them bird Jesus.
Yeah, that's funny.
Looks neat.
James, you have any recommendations?
Um.
Yeah, I hate.
I really enjoyed it during the.
How was the beginning
of the year's steam fest?
Hasted that one where
you just continually run.
That's on that one.
So that is that is a really good one.
Yes, I remember that.
I haven't bought it yet, so
I'm actually put it in my car.
I plan on getting that.
Yeah, that looks really nice.
Yes, it's like my kind of game.
Yeah, same like I
I those types of games are kind of cozy
for me where they're just nice to set
back and just relax and do it just play.
So definitely what
I'm going to be getting.
There's also another game I like that's
also super duper cheap.
It's called one way heroics.
It's a road like like a
traditional road like.
Mm hmm.
And it's wack ass in Japanese.
And it's really hard to.
So it's like this.
So like, you know, those auto scrolling
levels like in Mario, where it goes to
the right.
Imagine that, but also a road like.
Oh, wow.
And it's all I picked this game up and it
was like 69 cents when I picked it up.
It was even cheaper than vampire
survivors and it still is for
the most part, to be honest.
Hmm.
It's metaphors on cell two.
How much is this?
It's a dollar a dollar and eight cents.
The DLC is more expensive than the game
itself, to be honest.
Yeah.
The plus the one with
your world heroics plus.
Oh, yeah.
You can buy them two dollars.
Yeah.
Neat.
I kind of like the art style.
It reminds me of.
What does it remind me of like a like a
SNS early SNS makes me
think of final fantasy SNS.
Right.
Yeah, like early Final Fantasy.
Yeah.
Nice.
Cool.
We've got a few more
stories you want to move on.
Yeah, let's move on.
All right.
Here we go.
Nexon here.
All right.
There's a game.
There's a gacha game called Blue Archive.
Mm hmm.
And it's like a it's like
it's a typical gacha game.
You unlock characters.
They're students in a high
school and they all have guns.
And it's supposed to be released.
It was supposed to be
releasing on Steam the other day.
But it's not on Steam.
And they didn't give a reason why there's
just been a delay due to
platform review processes.
And visual novel gamers have been kind of
upset with Valve because this has been
the case for a while now.
There's actually one but there was
actually one game by the
guys that made Steins Gate.
I think you've heard of
Steins Gate, right, James?
Yeah, called Chaos Ted Noah.
That was supposed to be released.
It didn't get released on time.
It almost didn't get released on time due
to Valve's bullshit.
But then but then backlash happened and
Valve like approved it.
So there's been a there's been an
interesting double
standard with visual novels.
I think a lot of it has to do with the
fact that some of them
include like lolly type characters.
Yeah.
And that can that can
cause issues, of course.
But then sometimes we get
games like Sex with Hitler.
That's on Steam.
It's a real game, by the way.
Gosh, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, like I don't understand how those
games are allowed on Steam.
I don't know.
Well, like.
Over a lolly character is
what you're talking about.
Yes, I think sometimes sometimes that
tends to be the case.
But lollies, you know, lollies are
depicted as like typically younger girls,
but they're actually 3000 year old
dragons kind of thing.
You know, that's the
whole trope with that.
And so I get it.
Yeah. The lolly thing is a little weird.
And so I definitely could see why they
want to prevent that.
I can see it.
I can see them want to prevent that for
actual hentai games.
But this ain't hentai.
Yeah.
Maybe it's because they're
high schoolers with guns.
I don't know.
That is true. Well, if that's the
case, there's a lot of.
A lot of Japanese games, actually, with
high schoolers with guns have high
schoolers with stuff like that.
Yeah.
I don't know what it is with Japanese,
but they like their high schoolers.
So it has high schoolers
with guns or a gun, I think.
Yeah, I think only one of them.
Persona three, they're not technically
guns or technically evokers, but you shoot yourself much like a gun to summon your persona.
Yeah, it is kind of weird.
People have been clamoring for a persona
game set in college, but apparently
college, but apparently, according to the
Japanese, last I recall,
college is very different.
They're committed here because like, you
know, you don't get the
crazy college parties and shit.
Not like you would like a college school like Radford or some shit.
It's going to be much more of a fun game. Yeah, but it's going to be much different
than high school in Japan.
Like, it's not like they're partying in
Japan and in high school.
I don't know, to be honest.
Honestly, I'd much prefer some of those
games be set in the college age kind of
setting because it is weird to play as
high schoolers sometimes, even though I
do like the persona games and I've been
playing them for years.
As I'm getting older, I'm
just like, this is weird.
Well, someone made a persona game by
featuring young adults.
And I think that's a good thing. And it hasn't been very well.
It hasn't been done very well.
It's called Y2K.
Yick.
Give you the name.
Interesting.
Yeah, it's well, I think that game had
more problems than just being persona,
but for adults in adult.
Yeah, I don't know.
It's an interesting one.
I'm not going to play this gacha game
right here, Blue Archive myself.
I'm max level.
You are a gacha king.
Is this because of your
RNG manipulation abilities?
Yes, I have.
I have.
I have good RNG.
You know how it is.
It just doesn't apply to anything that
actually matters, like lottery tickets or
anything like that, unfortunately.
No, I tried.
I tried.
But I mean, you are like a like a wanted
count card card counter, right?
Like you've gone into.
That's how you can go to Vegas.
I have not counted
cards officially speaking.
OK, I'm just good with probability.
Yes.
So it works with some type
of gambling, but not all.
Sometimes.
Yeah.
OK.
He just wants to visit Vegas.
He's been he's been quite about it.
You know, my you know, my older brother
went to Vegas many years ago to watch the
Manny Pacquiao versus Mayweather fight.
Yeah.
And he said it was a waste of money.
The fight.
But he still got the fun of Vegas.
Yeah.
There's a couple of shows that are fun in
Vegas, but definitely.
I don't know. I go there for the food and
the big buildings and
there's a couple of things to do.
But the gardeners should go to Vegas.
But Emily, let's you go
to Vegas with the boys.
Yeah, dude.
The boys.
The boys are back in town.
Dude, I don't know if I can tell the
story, but now I'm
going to tell the story.
I don't care.
So we went to a wedding.
Right.
And a bunch of her friends were there.
And one of her friends.
Her husband and her were
like, it's eight thirty.
We're going to go to bed.
And while the rest of us were like pretty
much everyone else was like, hey, you
know, we're going to go out for like the
after party for the wedding.
But I was really tired.
So I was like, Emily, I think I'm just
going to go back to the hotel room.
And she's like, OK, I'm
going to go out with them.
And I'm like, cool.
Have fun.
And it was totally normal.
Right.
But her friends were like the two that
were going to bed were like, you can't
separate at a wedding.
And it's like, dude, the wedding's over.
Like, what are you talking about?
Anyway, I don't know why
that reminded me of that.
Like, dude, I've gone to like scale and
stuff without Emily.
Like, we're totally cool
with that kind of shit.
Well, yeah, it's a little
it's a little possessive.
Yeah. Yeah. Trust is a big deal.
No. Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm probably going to be going to the
next cloud conference in
Berlin at the end of the summer.
And I don't think
she's going to go with me.
So well, OK, now I'm offended.
You're not taking me next cloud.
One like that.
One like self hosted thing where you
basically host your own cloud.
Yeah.
I need to step one of those up.
It's so cool.
I have one.
I set it up the other day.
I have the server.
I just don't have the storage.
I just I just need more.
I need more drives, man.
I need more and the need drives.
I have I have one of those link station
pros, the one that's like all SSD.
Mm hmm.
It's done quite well for editing footage,
but I need more
storage for like actual back.
I mean, one of those.
Nice.
Yeah, that is super nice.
And like I I'm I set it up on my home
lab, but my home lab doesn't have like my
home lab is like an
old PC that I retired.
So it has like a PCI Gen two.
So I don't have like a good graphics card
in there that I can like
do a acceleration with.
But this supports a I acceleration so you
can like have it like crunch through your
photos and it will like catalog them and
describe what's in them
and facial recognition.
It's so cool.
I can't wait to get that set up.
Dude, that's awesome.
Yeah.
I'm a huge, huge proponent of next cloud.
So I think I'm going to
go to their conference.
Cool.
That's that's really cool.
I set that up when I finally do my home
lab, but it might be a year.
I need to buy more and be
me drives and then set it up.
Finally, dude, you know how much storage
I have in my in my how much let me just I
don't know exactly how much.
Let me just check.
Oh, it's not going to say right now.
It's too much storage, dude.
So I have twelve twelve terabyte drives
in that machine and they're raid.
It's like an in a raid configuration.
So I've lost a little bit of storage.
I think I've lost one and a half drives,
but it's still like several
several many, many terabytes.
It's a lot.
What are you for your OS?
Do you use Proxmox or Proxmox?
Yeah, I have I used to
have a Proxmox set up.
Now I have an unraid set up.
I have forty four terabytes of usable
space on that on that PC.
Nice.
Yes, I'll get there someday.
And then I have seven and a half
terabytes of storage on my now.
Nice.
Yeah.
I'm in sixteen terabytes on another one.
So I have a bunch of storage.
I haven't died in need
of storage for my videos.
Yeah, dude, I'll tell
you editing from like.
So I also have a Postgres server set up
on my home lab where I have all of my.
DaVinci Resolve projects.
So they're being stored on
the home lab versus on my PC.
And then I have all of
the footage on my NAS.
So I'm literally any PC in my house can
edit any project that I've ever done
without having to download anything.
It's all done in my personal cloud.
It's pretty cool.
I'm jealous.
I continue to use third party services
because I'm just I am going to get to my
like I talked about doing a home lab.
Yeah, but I've this website and getting
back into doing more videos is kind of
preoccupied my time for
now, but it will come.
Well, you know, God knows a guy.
I know a guy.
You know, a guy, a home lab guy.
Maybe what you're talking about me.
No, I'm saying, you know, you know, you
know, a you know, a home
lab expert on the YouTube's.
She might be about you.
Are you talking about Wolfgang?
Yeah.
I mentioned them earlier.
That's why.
Yeah. No, he's he's cool.
We've done a few videos together.
I it's more of a less I need
I want to buy the equipment.
I just haven't done yet.
Yeah.
You know what I'm thinking about doing?
I this is like totally off topic, but I'm
thinking about taking this mini forum, a
PC and using an e GPU on it.
And then taking this PC, which has one
hundred and twenty eight gigabytes of RAM
and turning it into my my
my primary home lab server.
I mean, do it.
I'm going to be going like my next
project this year is I'm just waiting for
more next gen hardware to drop like the
Legion go to I'm really hoping the
software is decent enough on there.
But because I want to run Windows for my
games for now, well, I'll do it.
You can do it.
Yeah, I might dual boot it.
But just because I've been playing more
Xbox game pass, I'm sure I'll get out of that phase eventually.
This year.
But right now I'm putting I put all my
funds into like any extra funds into my
website slash some
other stuff that I'm doing.
But I really am.
I really think I'm going to be moving
over to a handheld as my main main gaming
device and use an e GPU.
I really like that.
Was it the Fox that does it like that or
as a Fox started like that?
He doesn't have a big
ass desktop anymore.
He just uses his GPD when I forget which
which one the latest one,
whatever it is right now.
But he uses that as his main PC to look
into a forty ninety.
I don't know if I'll go that high, but
I'm definitely going
to be getting an e GPU.
I don't need to have the
like the best graphics.
I just need to be a little better than
the steam deck or a lot.
Well, I should say a little bit better
than the steam deck and my ROG ally.
But I also want a bigger screen.
That's it.
Like I just want a little bit bigger for
some of these games, like playing
Expedition 33 on the ROG allies.
Seven inches.
Just it just wasn't
quite good enough for me.
I want I want an eight inch or so.
Then it's on to the home lab because I
really like that idea.
What I'd like to do is have a.
A like a virtual Bazlight instance, like
a VM Bazlight with a GPU pass through and
then be able to stream games locally and
while away from home.
That would be swift.
And speaking of
Bazlight, what about Fedora?
Have you guys heard about this, the
Fedora 44 drama that occurred?
I say drama, but in quotes,
honestly, it's news to me.
It's Linux.
It's always drama, right?
Yeah.
So essentially, Fedora wants to drop 32
bit multi-lib support, which means that
they're going to stop building 32 bit
packages for common libraries and or
they're proposing to stop building them.
And this would hit in Fedora 44, which is
like a year-ish away.
Basically, they would no
longer support 32 applications.
And that would mean that steam, which is
still 32 bit, would not be usable on
Fedora 44, at least as a native package.
There are there are workarounds for that.
But that actually means that actually
would have some consequences for projects
like Bazlight, which ship Fedora.
I'm sorry, they they're based on Fedora
and they ship steam as a native package.
And if like the upstream isn't shipping
the 32 bit libraries, then that would
mean that they they either have to do it
themselves or because they're a small
team, it would really mean that they
would have to just shut down
Bazlight and some user service.
So that would be the way they would do it.
And then they would have to do it somewhere else.
They don't want to do that.
And so, Kyle, I don't know how to
pronounce his last name,
Gaspadnich maybe said it's got some.
He told me that.
OK. Yeah. So God's Benetitch.
Is that right?
Yeah.
He commented on this and I don't know if
I'll be able to find his comment.
Hey, just so you know, we
should not like hastily do this.
We should kind of figure out a better way
to do what you guys are trying to do.
And essentially they want to like free up
their resources as a project because
building libraries twice once it's 32 bit
and once the 64 requires a lot of work
and testing to make sure things are good.
The functional not going to crash.
So they've actually come to what seems
like a good compromise where they're
basically only going to package the
necessary 32 bit libraries for steam and
then let steams like Linux
runtime handle the rest of it.
You know, is this not the reason I'm
pretty sure this is the reason why Valve
stopped supporting Mac
OS for a while, right?
Because they they because they stopped
supporting 32 bit applications and I'm
not sure why Valve doesn't
update their thing to 64 bit.
I'm just super curious
as to why that's the case.
Yeah. So it's not super
simple to port it over.
Am I right, James?
My understanding is that porting a game
or anything from 32 bit
to 64 isn't just like.
Just like the Linux team library
shouldn't be that hard to port over.
It's you lose a lot of
support for games at that point.
Yeah, right.
So moving over, moving off from a 32 bit
architecture into a 64 bit solely getting
rid of that backwards compatibility could
hurt some game support, which in return,
I think you can emulate it.
But it's been a while
since I've looked into that.
Yeah, my understanding is that because of
the the Steam Linux runtime, which is
Valve's they're they're like native in
house binaries that they've built for
these games, like even if Steam itself
was 64 bit, they would be able to run 32
bit games using the
Steam for Linux runtime.
And that would include running games
through Proton that are 32 bit.
And I also believe that Valve just ported
Steam to 64 bit for Mac OS.
But that has its own knock on effect
because they don't support games that the
OS doesn't support on
on Steam on on Mac OS.
So that was probably
more trivial for them to do.
But they have to maintain
the backwards compatibility.
And at some point, they're like they're
just going to have to port it to 64 bit.
But yeah, I don't know.
Lots. There's a lot up in the air, but at
least at this point, Kyle's post here was
able to come up with a few
compromises in the discussion.
There's over 400.
Comments in this thread, and it looks
like at least in my discussion with Kyle,
I did a video interview with him.
It seems like they're in a good place and
all of the doom and gloom headlines from
the news outlets were were,
you know, not entirely truthful.
They were just for clicks.
So I'm so that's good that they're not
fully killing off 32 bit support, but I
do have one question, though.
Yeah. Would there be so for my
understanding, the only reason proton
works because there's a 32 bit version of
wine and a 64 bit
version of wine, correct?
Yeah. So is there no way to make 32 bit
applications run in the 64 bit like
through another
compatible layer of sorts?
Well, the.
My understanding is that.
32 bit application. So.
I could be wrong about this because I'm
not like a low level
programmer like that.
But my understanding is that when you get
like a 32 bit application, it has to have
a 32 bit library because when you get
like a return result, those those results
are going to be 64 bit wide
if you're on a 64 bit library.
So the app itself needs to support like
all of the hard like typing in like C and
stuff will require, you know, receiving a
32 bit integer, for
example, versus a 64 bit float.
Am I right about
that, James? Do you know?
Not that it's been so long since I've
like 64 bit came out forever ago.
Yeah, I think I mean,
that sounds about right.
It's just how it has to
be interpreted. So yeah.
But I mean, to answer your
question, high tech, I think.
At least this is my understanding of it.
Valve has 32 bit and 64 bit libraries
like native Linux libraries in the Steam
Linux runtime and Proton
is running on top of those.
So as long as Valve is shipping a 64 bit
version of Steam, then any distro that's
not using like not shipping their own 32
bit libraries, it will be fine for those
games that are still 32 bit because
Valve's runtime is separate
from the system libraries.
So that would like be providing and
develop, I guess, presumably developing
their own 32 bit
libraries for their buildings.
And then developing them and games that
are running through Steam typically are
running against Steam's built in
libraries rather than
your system libraries.
So they're already
doing that. Makes sense.
But yeah, so at this point, like it looks
like we're, you know, everything's moving
forward. The proposal, at least what Kyle
told me, he said that they have three
different proposed solutions and they
haven't determined which one they're going to go with.
But the most likely one is probably that
for door is only going to be shipping the
required libraries for Steam as 32 bit
libraries. So yeah, pretty neat.
And this was a huge deal. And a lot of
people asked if I was going to talk about
it. So I got I got Kyle on
the line and we we did a video.
Very nice, man. Honestly, yeah, it's a
little it's a little above my head, given
I'm not a Linux head. I'm still like I'm
still very much a Linux neophyte.
And I know I know a lot of people don't
know this, but I'm still very much a
Linux neophyte in terms of actually using
it on a day to day basis.
I definitely wouldn't say I'm an expert
with Linux, but I have developed software
for Linux, but it's
not low level like this.
Yeah, this is this is honestly still like
slightly above my head to like I'm a web
developer and I like Linux. So but that's
just that's my overview of my
understanding of what's going on here.
But what isn't above any of our heads, I
think, is the dreaded
blue screen of death.
Jay Z submitted this story. Tell us
what's going on there.
I submitted it. So a couple of notes from
this article. Microsoft is replacing the
traditional blue screen of death.
Beside error message in Windows with a
new black screen of death design. The new
Beside will have a simplified black
screen design dropping the blue color
frowning face and the QR
code of the old Beside.
The new version will still provide
information on top of the stop code and
faulty system driver, allowing ID admins
to more easily diagnose and all that other stuff.
It's it and it looks like part of it is
the broader effort to improve the
resiliency of Windows, especially after
the CrowdStrike incident last year that
left many Windows
machines booting to Beside.
So it sounds like maybe that whole
incident that just took down so much
infrastructure is a little bit a part of
this, but I don't think that I I don't
think they had to get
rid of the blue part of it.
It's just interesting that.
Yeah, this is like basically just a
visual change. And they also got rid of
the QR code, which could have I mean, if
I remember correctly, the QR code is
taken to a Microsoft
page on that error, right?
Yeah. Yeah. So that that's like that was
a genuinely helpful thing that they got
rid of, in my opinion.
They're adding some more information for
diagnosing issues, but that's nice. They
didn't have to remove
everything else, though.
There's definitely could have done both.
It was just this is a very weird, like
nitpicky thing to do
to talk about, I guess.
But it's still it's like it's the whole
point of why is Windows focusing on this?
That's kind of like what I'm bringing.
Like, like, why I want to bring it up.
Why are they so focused on the color?
Well, I think that it's a PR thing. I
mean, like that when the CrowdStrike
thing that like people saw that and it
inconvenienced them and pissed them off.
Right. So like tons of people were
impacted by that. So I would imagine
getting rid of the blue is going to make
is their way of being a little bit more
professional and less iconic, you know,
like less memorable.
Yeah. And not so much they can still use
the same acronym because
it's black instead. Yeah.
I actually do like this because this is
somewhat of an
improvement over the other one.
The other one said the stopcode, though.
Well, yeah, but it didn't say what
failed. You can search online for the
error. How initialization failed.
That is true. They definitely could have
provided more information. But the thing is, the blue screen of death is iconic and it's better than the blue screen of death.
The thing is, the blue screen of death is
iconic and it's been in the zeitgeist for
decades now. So, yeah, interesting.
Microsoft is so good at
making shitty software.
Well, it's also the amount of people that
use Windows is a big part of it, too. I
have had my MacBooks in the past.
Honestly, this Mac Studio that I have
does not crash, but we'll see.
We'll give it time. The Macbooks, though,
that were using like Intel CPUs, I think
it honestly was a hardware issue. But
I've had those crash and go
to, I think, black screens.
I've had Linux crash and go to black
screens. So it's not like any other
operating system is crash proof. It's
just Windows is just a
little bit extra crashing.
Yeah. Crash resilience.
And at least, at least the blue kind of
gave me hope. Now, if it's black, I don't
know, my soul is already black enough. I
don't need more darkness. I don't know.
It's a silly thing, but yeah.
Even playing too much Expedition 33.
Expedition 33 is so much about art. I
actually like just playing that alone.
I'm like, maybe the French aren't that
bad. I'm kidding about that. There's the
whole thing that Americans don't like the
French and stuff like that.
They saved our asses multiple times.
Dude, the French, dude, the
French, like a French baguette.
Yeah, man, like
especially French fries. God. No.
No, but yeah. So.
Blue screen death. I mean, I end up with
a blue screen of death like like Gardner
with me and Gardner
were talking about it.
He ends up with one every week. Yeah, at
least once a week.
Wait, if I'm on Windows.
Wait, Gardner, can you scroll down? I saw
something very interesting. That's not
related to the topic. Trump's big,
beautiful bill could mean slower Wi-Fi
for you. What the fuck?
Yeah, this is that's a
very clickable title.
Oh, my God. The FCC is to sell off as
much as half of the spectrum used by the
six gigahertz. Oh, my God. That's right.
No, no, it's look. It's
just more deregulation.
And privatization. And it's it's so
privatization of stuff that shouldn't be
privatized. It's a surprise topic that we
didn't write down at all because I didn't
know the show was happening.
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, like
privatization of public resources is
criminal behavior in my book. So yeah,
our state senator loves sell like he
wants to sell off
like a millions of acres.
Like acres of land. It's crazy. And you
live in where are you? Millions of like
in this in the country, but like
thousands here. I live
in Utah. So it's my plea.
Oh, yes. Yeah. Does he want to sell off
like federal federally owned land or is
it a state? Okay. Federal owned land. So
he proposed a bill. And this just reminds
me of this. But like where, you know,
if he could, he privatized Zion National
Park, which if you guys have never been,
it's beautiful. And that's all I want is,
you know, to pay a thousand dollars to
get into Zion National Park. But this is
the same kind of thing.
Like what's going to happen with these
bands? And if they're selling off bands,
like what does that mean?
What does the article say?
Senate version of the budget
reconciliation bill backed by President
Donald Trump removes protections for
unlicensed spectrum that broadens the
capacity of the six gigahertz Wi Fi band.
This could result in slower Wi Fi speeds
under the bill, which may be voted on at the end of the week.
The FCC would sell off some of that
spectrum to mobile carriers, such as
AT&T, which could use it to improve the
speeds of our bands of AT&T.
And it would be fucking 5G.
Like, like 5G is already shit. And so
like adding in higher frequency bands
would make it even more
shit, like unless reliable.
It's good. Well, it's going to also crowd
all that's why it's going to affect our
Wi Fi. It's going to crowd the the band.
So, you know, more susceptibility to.
Yeah, this is just a data verification.
The thing the thing is, like in
certification, the term was invented very
recently. Right. But like it is a tried
and true method of like ruin, like of
business bros, you know,
ruining shit for everybody.
Yeah, Microsoft is not a saying, right?
Embrace embrace and extinguish. Yes. Yes.
Yes. Sorry, I took that
from you. It's all good, man.
You expanded and extinguished his his
take. But I mean, shit, man. Well,
slower. I scored on. There's got to be
more than just them selling bands, right?
Well, no, that's that's the big part of
it is that like the more you sell off the
band of the frequencies and stuff like
that, the more crowded it gets. It's just
it gets more noise. More noise means you
can drop packets, especially if you don't
have good hardware to.
Sorry, there's to handle all this. So it
says here that AT&T has no pressing need
for additional spectrum.
Yeah.
They could want to also because it's
privatized, they could sell it off, too.
They could use it to like not sublease,
but they could lease it out. So there's
it's guaranteed these whoever proposed
this into the bill is
getting paid handsomely.
Yes. See, could affect negatively affect
the six gigahertz Wi-Fi band. Well,
that's fucking great, man. I just bought
a six gigahertz Wi-Fi router.
The thing is with with higher frequency
spectrum, you get more speed, right?
Right. But it but it travels. It's less
reliable, like you get lower range with
higher frequency, higher frequency can't
pass through walls as
well as lower frequency can.
And then if you are also crowding in the
six gigahertz or seven, you know,
whatever gigahertz range, if you're
crowding that, then there's less there's
a higher noise floor, which means that
signals need to be louder
in order to be more reliable.
And there's only like what's the term?
There's a limit to the to the amplitude
of frequencies like this or
spectrum like this. So your end.
Your salt rock lamp prevents the Wi-Fi
signals from frying your brain, right?
Well, you know what I'm saying, though,
like it's there's there's a just like
there's a threshold for what your
microphones can pick up. There's a
threshold for how loud your Wi-Fi
antennas can pick up the Wi-Fi signal.
And so there's lots of more noise going
on in in spectrum that's adjacent here.
You're just going to end up
with shitty or Wi-Fi signals.
Yep. I mean, heck, if you go to a very
busy like if let's say you go to an a
really busy event where there's thousands
of people, your phone will like won't do
as well because it crowds
the the bands and stuff.
So that's just one more problem.
I went to a concert last summer and my
phone started getting really hot in my
pocket because it was like constantly
hopping radio channels to try and get an
actual 4G signal or 5G
signal up in I was in Bangor.
And it's like when when lots of people
come get around, there's so much extra
noise that it just makes it hardest, like
incredibly hard for your device to
actually function. So I mean, I know.
I can't wait until they figure like
they're going to sell it off somehow. And
then you're for your Wi-Fi 6, you're
going to have to pay like AT&T for
permission to even use the band. You
know, I don't know. Like I.
I'm worried about that because they
already try to privatize like more and
more of the Internet
and it gets expensive.
Yep.
Because these companies, every aspect of
our lives, we had they have to monetize
even beyond games, you know, the gotcha
kind of stuff. They kind
of monetize everything.
Yeah. Well, oh, well, not way it doesn't
pass. I'm kind of depressing that to end
on. Yeah. Let's say
there's any positive news.
Positive. Probably not.
Positive news. I mean, I'm
getting closer with my website.
That's not real news. That's not real
news. But yeah, I have like data being
populated and I have a systems put in
there for fun. It's fun. It's honestly
I'm having too much
fun with is the problem.
I am still thinking about an integration
with the data for an extension for
DaVinci Resolve 2 high tech. So yes, I'm
for around that. Yes. It might not happen
right away, but I definitely
do think that's a cool idea.
All right. So I think the moral of the
story is keep it a good fight. If you're
fighting for something that matters, keep
at it. You will be rewarded and people
will see your efforts in joining you.
Yeah. Yes. Exactly. We don't want to be
have everything be just, you know, a
gotcha. We don't want life to be gotcha.
We have to pay for access just to get
your, you know, faster Wi-Fi.
Well, on that note, thank you guys for
being here. Thank you. Thanks to the
audience out there for
watching. We appreciate it.
Make sure you get subscribed to the
YouTube channel. We're trying to hit a
thousand by the end of the year. I think
we can do it. And yeah, thank you guys
for joining me. James. Hi, Tech.
It was awesome. Yes. Thank you. Awesome.
All right. Have a
great day, guys. I got you.
Peace out. Peace.