Rod, Karen and Charles discuss listener feedback, entertainment, Xbox’s leadership shake up, Nintendo selling 20 year old Pokemon games again, Poktopia being sold at a premium on Amazon, Sony not planning to bring single player titles to PC any more, Steamdecks running out of stock, Sony Plans To Minimize PlayStation 5 Hardware Price Increases By Focusing On “Monetizing” Existing Installed Base, Microsoft quietly retires ‘This is an Xbox’ marketing campaign, Sony’s PlayStation Store has been testing dynamic pricing on games, Highguard is shutting down this month Bluepoint Games, Sony’s famed remaster studio, is being closed, Amazon cuts ties with Maverick gaming, Amazon Prime charging more for streaming, , EA Lays Off Staff Across All Battlefield Studios Following Record-Breaking Battlefield 6 Launch, Former XCOM Director Jake Solomon Announces Shock Closure of Studio Making ‘Next-Gen’ Life Sim, King Of Meat Is Latest Live Service Flop To Announce It Is Shutting Down, Gaming accessory maker and publisher Nacon files for insolvency, Nintendo Suing United States Govt. Over Trump Tariffs, Master Chief And Yugi Actors Speak Out Against White House Video, Live-Action “Samurai Champloo” In The Works, The new game from Yakuza creators sounds like it’s in real danger, Video Games With Loot Boxes Will Now Have a 16 Age Rating Across Europe as Part of Huge PEGI Shakeup, New York sues video game developer Valve, says its ‘loot boxes’ are gambling, Atomic Arcade, the Studio Behind Hasbro’s Big-Budget G.I. Joe Snake Eyes Game has Reportedly Been Shut Down, IGN-owned Eurogamer cuts editorial staff, Sony hit with $2.67 billion lawsuit over alleged digital sales monopoly, Epic Games just increased the price of Fortnite V-Bucks, New Data Reveals Wonder Man’s Weak Viewership Vs. Other Marvel Shows, Sony Plans to Reboot Wider Spider-Man Universe, Discord is delaying global age verification, Valve Finally Details Steam Machine’s Verified Program, Resident Evil Requiem Fan Who Registered Secret In-Game Website Says He’ll Give Capcom the Domain Back for Free, Resident Evil got one star reviews for being too scary, Buffy: New Sunnydale Continuation Series Scrapped, Sarah Michelle Gellar Confirms, Mega Man Actor Drops Out Of Sequel Over Non-Union Contract, ‘Family Guy’ Spinoff ‘Stewie’ Gets 2-Season Fox Order and Rosamund Pike Says Her Doom Movie With The Rock Was ‘Probably One of the Worst Films Ever Made.’
The Nerd Off: (Protected Content)
Hello Karen, Rod, and gently used nerd guests. I just wanted say thank you to Rod for bringing up House of Gold by C.T. Rwizi, it was an amazing book. I listened to the audio book and the narrators for both Hondo and Nandipa were both excellent. The story was compelling from beginning to end and had me truly caring about all the characters. I can’t recommend this book enough. I’m about to start C.T. Rwizi’s Scarlet Odyssey and I hope it’s just as good. Y’all have a wonderful day.
Thank y’all
-Jason
What’s up Fellow Nerds,
I largely agree with your thoughts on what is happening in the game industry and how you pulled lots of different pieces of evidence to reveal a bigger picture. I also think the game industry is the canary in the capitalism collapse coal mine. It seems like every corporation, in every industry, subscribes to the “line must go up” infinite growth scam. Profits and even record profits don’t matter. You need always increasing record profits forever (or the illusion of this), or it’s layoff time. I think this is why we see almost every business (not just live service games or streaming services) pushing subscriptions instead of products you buy once – they want customers pay forever for services they rarely use so they keep getting money forever. In the end, gaming as a luxury industry may be the first to collapse, but the rot is going to hit every industry eventually.
The developers and other workers in the games industry are particularly vulnerable because they don’t have any of the longtime union protections that the older movie & TV entertainment industry has. And the explosion of content across all entertainment means it’s easier and easier for customers to spend less and less on games in general. So the big publishers will continue with layoffs and studio closures to make profits “grow” despite (and maybe even because of) producing successful and profitable (but “below expectations”) games. A few lucky independent game developers and publishers will continue to survive because of their success and resisting being bought out by the big corpos, but the industry is not sustainable and the big publishers don’t care.
What’s up, fellow Doomslayers
Doom 2016 was super fun & a good way at throwing back a game franchise that probably didn’t need a soft reboot. Then again, Doom was never really my thing, besides playing a GBA port back in 2002. I also didn’t think any of these had a deep story lore. I still don’t care for the narrative since Doom Slayer’s personality is more stoic than Ryan Tannehill. All this nigga wants to do is rip & tear & that’s all I wanna do, jack! Anyway, Doom ’16 is fun. Haven’t gotten far on Eternal, so I’ll update on you all on a later show.
Also, great stuff on the upheaval at Microsoft on the last show. I really thought Sarah Bond was done wrong by her ex-employer & the co-workers upset at her “this is an Xbox campaign”, which I also think her ex-boss played a role in that, are taking an unfair dig since only 8 people have a Series S or X, so they had to do something to catch up. Besides, the last person to screw Xbox’s reputation was a white dude that basically shat on the 360 user base for those who didn’t want the XB1. I don’t know what can be done to salvage the brand, because it’s in a pretty tough spot. Gaming, as a whole, is in a tough spot, where there’s numerous job losses, over dependence on AI, etc. It’s a crappy crapshoot. Sony didn’t do itself any favors ditching Bluepoint for a stupid live-service GOW game (and they’ve even raised the price on the PS5…again).
Gaming is a luxury, man. I’ll tell y’all who’s also a luxury? Jiaoying Summers bad ass self. Saw her at Miami Improv while y’all did the late edition of Nerd off, two week ago. So good.
Anyway, Peace!
Ahoy Y’all,
Nintendo suing the US government because of the tariffs should start snowball going downhill. Phil Spencer should sue, too. He lost his job because the price of the brick went up, in my opinion. Sure there were other factors, but that price hike was probably the nail.
Sony can reboot if they want. I haven’t watched any of their Temu Marvel movies. And we just got the brand new day trailer. Scorpion is here, Banner is here,Tombstone is here, Frank is here and when you see frank you are going to get the devil of hells kitchen. WE BACK (I never left you marvel, I had faith in you,baby. I enjoyed Wonderman).
More and more live stream games are having grand openings and grand closing weeks after launch. Concord, WB’s Multiverses, a handful of ubisoft games that no one knows about close down within a year of release, even days after launch. It has to be heartbreaking for a dev team to spend so much time on their work just to be told you failed and what you put your life on hold for means nothing…………..unlike the folks at Rare that are celebrated the 8th anniversary of Sea of Thieves on March 20th with in-game celebrations, fireworks, a new boss fight and improved ship battles. Yarrrr and shit.
Currently reading the Absolute and Ultimate comics. I find it funny that Marvel and DC started alternate universe lines within a month of each other and they are both selling better than the main lines.
And finally, a game called Retro Rewind came out on steam. It is a vhs rental store simulator and let me tell you, I am 10 years old again at my parent’s video store. We had the best popcorn in town. As much as I like supermarket and power wash simulator, I actually lived and watch my folks do all this stuff…….and yes we had an adult section. Not a separate room, but a binder full of women like Mitt Romney had, but naked. The game has an adult section too. And the dreaded late fees. Retro Rewind is basically what my childhood was. I just wish they had the part when a customer didnt bring back Terminator 2 and my dad had to Deebo his stuff back on their doorstep. That tape was $120, better give Tommydeee Sr. his property back plus late fees, punk. When I tell people that I grew up in a video store people usually say “wow that’s cool” or “oooooh, that’s why you are the way you are”. I say yep to both responses.
Happy days and peace to all of you