Highguard SHUTTING DOWN on March 12th - Kinda Funny Games Daily 03.03.26

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Today's stories include the hope that we might be getting a new Vegas remake.

Pokemon, Pokeopia is the best Pokemon game ever.

And we have a Scott Pilgrim EX review round up.

We'll have all this and more because this is kind of funny games daily.

What is up everybody and welcome back to kind of funny games daily for Tuesday March 3rd, 2026.

I'm here for a day.

Roger Percorny.

Today I'm joined by my CEO.

Gregory James Miller.

What's up, baby?

Huh?

You saw that, bro.

Everyone saw that.

He hit me.

I'll do a lot more than that.

All right.

I just threatened to lay you off in the last show.

I don't need any work.

Can we start in a nice place here?

Yeah.

As I'm loading Rockwood.

Can we start in a nice place?

Please.

If you are tuning in just for KFGD.

Before this, we did our reactions and review of the Nintendo indie world.

Presentation.

So if you're looking for all that news, go over there.

I gave you a little bit in here.

I gave you a little.

I just gave you a little bit.

Oh, dude.

Just a few bullet points in there.

So it's people like, I hate the games cast and I don't want to listen to Mike.

They could just get boom, boom, boom.

This is the big thing you need to know from the indie world.

Yeah.

For sure.

Greg, how are you feeling?

How are we doing today?

I'm feeling great.

There's too many games to play, which is always the problem.

It's always the issue.

It's always the thing going on around here.

But you know, we saw this drop here.

Many shoot adventures.

Rockwood.

All exciting stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So how do you deal with this immense first world problem?

Right?

Because I'm at the point now in my life where I was thinking of like, what if I just have a board

in my house where I just start moving around like with posted notes of like what I need to

be playing?

Yeah.

Because I like had that balance of like, I want to play games for our top 100 eventually.

There's some, there's some games that they're win-waker.

There's games I want to play.

I appreciate you.

But then I also have, you know, redacted.

All these big games are coming up.

Yeah.

These shadow drops over here.

What do you do with this?

I mean, it all comes down to the workload and what we're on and what I'm needed for for

a review or preview.

Today, I'm previewing a redacted game.

We talked about in the last episode we can't confirm we have Crimson Desert and we're

working on a review for that for the day before release, which I think is the 17th.

Don't quote me on that.

If that's right.

Whatever Mike said in the last show.

So like that kind of game is going to take priority and everyone wants to have an opinion

on that.

I need to go play that and see if I should be on that review.

If somebody else should be a lot of codes are here, obviously for it.

So this other stuff that's smaller stuff falls by the wayside.

Yeah.

One of the reasons I was giving you shit in the show of like, let's do rockwood for party

mode is like, that's my chance to play rockwood.

I don't know what repo is.

I don't care.

I want to, and this is my shot to play a game.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

That's the downside of the job.

In quotes is that I don't know how Mike and Andy do it.

It means to think, but they go home and stream for hours and they don't stream the thing

they're reviewing.

Yeah.

Now, granted, they have lots of free time that I don't have both as CEO as husband as father,

but there's just so much going on.

Like yesterday, Barrett was on the couch playing Pokemon on the big screen out there.

And I walked over and just laid down and started.

Pocobe is like, given I'm like, I cannot look at my computer.

Like I cannot like this close to GDC and everything else is going on in the schedule.

I'm like, and they announced the indie world yesterday.

Like the amount of planning it goes to run this ramshackle business.

I was just like, I need to play Pocopia for 20 minutes and not worry about what's going

on over there.

But that's part of the problem is that I love to keep playing Pocopia and that's no insult

to any of these games to show my hand.

I'm crazy.

Desert one way or the other.

It's just like, man, I really want Pocopia.

This is a problem that Jordan Miller spent 120 hours on this game.

I'm 35 in.

I'd like to keep going.

Yeah.

And do you ever have like the burnout of video games?

I know.

I'm sure never.

No, I'm starving all the time for video games.

I talk about this all the time.

You know, that's one of the differences between me and my wife, of course, is you know,

Jen works in the video game industry, the other side helping people publish their games.

And so she likes to have hobbies outside of games.

Yeah.

She likes to do pottery.

For hikes.

Yeah.

And it's like when her day ends, she's excited to do something that's not talk about video

games.

And I just want to play video games.

I just want to get back to video games.

Did she hard stop you sometimes when you're talking about video games?

Like, do you?

No, never hard about it.

I'll see your drift.

I'll see your drift.

I'm like, you know what I mean?

Cause like, when I'm into the, oh, in Pocopia last time, this happens, I see her go

off to wherever she needs to go and her head to do what she needs to do.

She's like, that's nice, honey.

That's nice.

That's nice.

That's nice.

That's the way she's trying to tell me about nature outside of my garden.

Yeah.

I think it's so interesting about you and it makes so much sense, right?

It's the reason why you built this business, why you are so still hungry about this.

I'm like, you've always told the stories of like, oh, like when we're going hiking,

like, you just want to sit back and play video games.

She's cutting your hair.

You just won't play video games.

Like, you were so disrespected.

Oh, sure.

She does.

Absolutely.

That's just, this is your life.

Your life is video games.

I hold her one day somewhat recently where she was like, like, how are you?

And I'm like, I'm fine.

I'm like, no, but how?

And I'm like, Jim, there's not that much interesting things going on up here.

Like, at some point in my life, it's all videos.

At some point in the last two or three minutes, I've thought about Ghostbusters Superman

and everything else is video games.

Like, it's just whatever.

You know what I mean?

It's incredible.

Yeah, I'd love to.

Yeah, you know.

But it's like, yeah, I think of the, you know, the Kumail and Emily are getting ready

to do sex criminals.

Yes.

With the Matt Fraction comic.

Very excited.

Very excited.

They're getting ready to do.

I think a series of it, right?

And they're in the writers' rooms.

They're posting a lot about it.

And I think about all the time, like, not to be too disgusting.

But sex criminals about, is about these two characters who meet and the deal is they've

known for years independently that when the orgasm time stops and they can exist in

the space, come world.

One of them calls it.

And it's like, if I had that ability, I would just play games.

I could just stop time, man.

Like, hold on to every video.

I mean, like, oh, man.

Rotwood sounds awesome.

And then just go into the subliminal space.

I guess in this, I orgasm right here.

But like, you know what I mean?

Go to the bathroom.

Come back out.

Rotwood was awesome.

That's incredible.

And we killed them, everybody.

Well, Greg, we get to do your favorite thing.

We'll just talk about video games.

I know you want to play the game.

I'm just going to say my favorite thing is playing them.

I'll settle for them.

Second favorite.

Second favorite thing.

Because, of course, this is kind of funny games daily.

If you're watching live, be a part of the show by super chatting on youtube.com slash

kind of funny games.

Remember, we couldn't do this without our producers on patreon.com slash kind of funny.

So thank you so much.

Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster, and Delaney, the psalm, twining for now.

Let's begin with what is it forever?

We'll be the rope a report.

Let's jump.

It's time for some news.

Six word.

No.

Six word.

Oh, okay, six.

Okay, got you.

Story number one.

Everybody.

Fallout, New Vegas Remastered.

Hopium is from Andy Choc over at PC gamer.

We got a little tweet, blue sky.

Post over here.

We can look at while I'm reading this article.

Not fans eerily anticipating a new Vegas remaster got a big ol' snort of the good stuff

over the weekend in the form of a social media post from Iron Galaxy Studios, which shared

in a very subtle, nothing to see here style, some idle, or perhaps not, musing about what

it's getting up to.

Quote, today's our February company meeting, the studio wrote via GamesRadar, it's time

to catch up with what the company's been up to, and what's coming up next for IG.

Not the most rip-roaring bit of prose ever posted, but what caught eyes wasn't the words,

but the image.

That's not just some generic please stand by, my friends, but a fallout new Vegas loading

screen.

Now, does this mean, unequivocally, that Iron Galaxy is working on a new Vegas doover?

Of course not.

It's possible that whoever took the pic just happens to have that image as the desktop

wallpaper, the fact that it's slide one of 72 as seen in the right hand monitor, possibly

a mere wait for everyone else to join the meeting message, selected entirely at random,

and with no greater meeting or intent, hey, it happens.

Still, it behooves me to point out that this might not be entirely coincidental, too.

Iron Galaxy's best known recent work is probably Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 plus 4, but it's

also worked on numerous game ports over the years, including fallout 76 and the VR versions

of Skyrim and fallout 4.

So if someone was working on a new Vegas remaster, it's not entirely unreasonable to think

that Iron Galaxy would be it.

Correct.

Do you want me to read the rest of this?

They go for a finish it off before we get to the breaking news.

And yes, just in case you haven't been keeping up, there is

much interest in remastered new Vegas, and as Bethesda learned with last year's oblivion

remaster, there's probably some bucks to be made on it, too.

There have been a couple fall starts in the past, including a steam glitch and an ill-advised

Fallout TV show countdown and fellow PC gamer guy Sean Prescott told me that it'd be

weird if Bethesda went ahead with a new Vegas remaster without doing Fallout 3 first.

And yeah, fair enough, but maybe Todd Howard just really wants people to stop bugging him

about it.

Still, this sure feels like something doesn't.

It's a little premature for full on rejoicing, but even I, and in, in, in very, very

veteran, a hater, have to admit that it sure looks like new Vegas fans are in for some

good news.

Hopefully very soon.

I have breaking news Roger from Iron Galaxy's Blue Sky.

No, you are not.

Kevin, there's a link.

Nope.

There is nothing to see here.

Sorry to disturb the volcanoes, but that was just a BTS look at our company meeting.

We use that slide every month.

It has nothing to do with anything fallout being worked on.

As you can imagine, we love Fallout.

Now pardon us as we retreat back into our vault.

Okay.

I thought this is going to be scary or breaking news, so I'm happy that it's just that I,

did you expect anything that they were actually teasing it?

Iron Galaxy does not feel like the company that would be teasing things like this.

Or they would have the ability to tease a remaster from their, you know, social accounts.

Like, when I saw this, yeah, did I think it was real?

Absolutely not.

Yeah.

But I also said, how fucking stupid can you be Iron Galaxy?

Iron Galaxy.

Do we not exist in the same fucking universe as you?

Are you so head down on all your games that you don't understand how badly we as a society

as a fucking gaming people want a new fallout?

I got to sit here, talk to fucking Todd Howard, no new fallouts.

No more successful than any fallout.

We can't get a new, we're going to remaster oblivion.

I say this loving Bethesda and loving my fellow gamers, fuck you oblivion fans.

You didn't deserve it.

You didn't need it.

You didn't deserve it.

You're all playing Star Skyrim for like the 900th time on fucking any platform.

You still love Skyrim.

You didn't need oblivion.

We needed a fallout and I know Todd right now trying to rise up over in Bethesda so we'll

don't forget about 76.

It's not a fallout, Todd.

It's a fine experience.

I put 90 some hours into it two summers ago, fine.

It was good.

I liked it.

I enjoyed it.

It's not a fucking fallout because I'm just wandering around West Virginia and it's like

there weren't even people originally.

So I'm going to fucking, I mean, I'm going to fucking fallout.

Give me a fucking fallout.

Like, I just want to fallout and so back to you Iron Galaxy, you're not off the

hook.

The fuck's your problem?

It's not your first day in the internet, Dave Lang runs, he's a founder, he knows that

the internet works.

He knows how people get excited.

That's just, that's just, that's just, I knew it wasn't real because no, you wouldn't

know.

Well, you wouldn't see that.

It's too on the nose to be a tease, but God damn it, man.

God damn it.

You can't be like, hey, all you fucking dogs, you're fucking really hungry and we can

see your ribs, you're the snake, what you can do, what else I would stick to the dogs

today.

We need to fucking say because we're starving dogs, Iron Galaxy.

Don't get me started on Utah Howard, you're not off the hook either.

Just fucking remaster, let's somebody remaster it and then oh my God.

Okay.

It's never happened before, there's a first for everything.

Asha Sharman, this is your moment, first order of business, just announce it, just announce

it.

We hear you Xbox first console, it can be exclusive, I don't give a shit.

Just fucking announce it, say go over there and be like, listen Todd, for a while here,

the dog was walking the man, but now the man is walking the dog, all right?

And I'm telling you, we're remastering the fucking games and I understand the whole thing

now is we need to make the bottom lines good.

We need to fucking how much could these 70 people at Blue Point cost?

Get them, get them Sharma, bring them over Miss Sharma, put them in a room and say you

work here at Xbox now and your first order of business is fucking remaking Fallout 3 in

Vegas.

That's all you can, and there we go, I'm so happy to have a job, Miss Sharma, everyone

will say to you, oh my God, she gave people jobs, that's great, that's amazing, that's

good, she's filled in game requests, that'd be great, will Todd be mad, yeah, will be

you say Todd, you shut up, you can make the other fucking other scrolls people want,

all right?

You get ready for that Starfield stuff, did a thing, fucking Starfield, apparently getting

content soon, maybe April 7th, we talked about yesterday, fuck, come on, but then back

to you, Iron Galaxy, what the fuck were you thinking?

You know what?

All right, what the fuck were you thinking?

Were we reaching out to somebody?

Who, are we gonna get, Dave Lang still works there, right?

That's my thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I was gonna, I was waiting for it, yeah, also they should take

blue point and call it green point.

That's great, that's great.

I thought a bit before everyone else did, I was waiting, and then put it in Brooklyn.

It says they used to be CEO and now I'm not magic, I'm not sure.

Hello Dave Lang, you're live on kind of funny games daily, how are you?

Hello best friends, how are you doing today?

I'm fucking pissed off, what the fuck were you people thinking?

Do you not, do you not know how much we want to fall out remaster and remake it all,

and you're just putting up a load and screen, saying, ha ha, um, yeah, that was, uh, before

she didn't miss you guys.

Dave, I'm just a creator for like 15 minutes, and that was the best response you could have

given me.

I love you.

I love you too.

All right, have a good day, bye.

Everybody put up the article, so what you need to do is go do the redo the thumbnail and

unfortunately, miscommunication, and where you put fall out T's or whatever.

That's incredible.

I love that he answered like two rings and Dave links the homie, he's the best, he's

the awesome.

Well, he's still in the doghouse.

Oh, I mean, I'm not letting him off the hook that quick.

I should try to, can't write the ship though.

This could be the chance.

This could be the chance.

I mean, I know this is a tale is all this time, but we are in a show where we have to

talk.

We do have to.

Yeah.

When are we getting a fallout remaster when does miss Sharma, who I'm a feeling to

again, miss Sharma, yes, when does she go, you know what?

That fallout fan London thing they made, they made fallout London those kids.

Let's get them.

Let's get that and put that out officially.

This has to already be worked though.

Right.

Like the fallout remaster remake.

It's just a matter of time.

I hope so.

And our show Todd's like, oh, yeah, we know we love.

We love surprise.

We love shadow drop.

I love shadow drop.

It's like great.

Love shadow.

But like, it's time to do it.

I mean, do you see what's happening, Todd?

Well, I think that do you see what's happening, Bethesda, where it's, you know what, you know

movie.

I'm about to quote.

I don't.

A fucking great one.

Michael Douglas.

All right.

Atman.

No, what?

No, the American president.

Oh, yes.

He's got the, he's got the, he's got as a little right hand man there, right?

Yeah.

Michael J. Fox.

Yeah.

And Michael J. Fox is urging him to swing back our Richard dry fist because he keeps

he talking in the American people and it actually was kind of scary because he, it was

very much predicting where the thing we're in now, right?

We're like, this guy who doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about just keeps talking

and the people keep believing him.

And the president is like, I believe in the intelligence of people and Michael J. Fox

didn't believe in the intelligence of people.

He's like, he's like Mr. president.

The people are so thirsty that they'll listen to anyone talk and they'll drink the sand.

And this man is feeding you sand.

We want to eat sand right now.

We want the steak, we're the starving dog.

I need a new fallout.

We'll, we'll just stop fucking teasing me with screens.

Again, Dave Lane, you're not fully off the hook.

I appreciate your response.

But like, this is where we're at right now, okay?

Okay.

We're just, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,

not seen Adela wants all this money?

Yeah.

Guess how you make the money?

You fucking remaster the fallouts, you remake the fallouts you put out the

fallouts, you say oblivion, no, obsidian, it's been nice.

Oh, man, a vowed you got a fish person in it, delete everything from your

computers.

You're not making a vow to you're making Nubiegis

to go.

Just go or it just import fallout Nuvagus.exe into abaoit.AMC it's that

simple.

Great.

That's what I've been saying for years, put it in the av bridge.

it's fine. I'm tired. Do you not think that we're going to get another remastered around

April, which is when they did the oblivion remaster? Like, I feel like this might just

be an annual thing. That was one of my predictions. I would like that. And I would hope that.

And that'd be very cool. It's just the idea of like, again, back to drinking the sand.

Yeah. At what point have we just done the whole self-fulfilling rumor? Sure.

Where like they made we thought they were going to remaster fall. Somebody said they knew

they were remastering fallout. Yeah. And then it's like, okay, well, now they do oblivion.

And it's like, oh, shit, they must be doing. I was like, are they really doing it?

Is that really along the way? Yeah. It has to be. It has to be. It's just a matter of time.

It's a matter of when did this actually go? Did they in the beginning of fallout season one?

They're like, fuck, we should have done something. We got to make this happen. We got to go.

And maybe oblivion was already going at that point. So this is a little later in development.

But I still have hope, Greg. That when we start fuel that, we start fuel the,

the ledge. Oh, yesterday, the rumor was that we talked about from somebody's site,

the Polish site was April 4th, April 7th, April 7th, April 7th.

Yeah. April 22nd was the initial release for oblivion remastered. Sure.

So maybe by the end of April, we together, we get a two, two, why not?

It's our fields, it's our fields old game. You know, I mean, like how many people are actually

going to buy it on? You know, I mean, like, you go over here falling. That's all my

starfield note, no, no, my no sodium starfield. Somebody's like, once they're releasing on

PlayStation 5, how quickly is it going to be? Man, this was a misjem that we all miss red.

I'm like, I don't know about that, man. I don't know. You guys need to get a little sodium

balance is actually it's good. So constructive criticism isn't all that bad.

That's incredible. I'm going to go to some super chats really quick. We got hard,

hard will find super chats as Bertha tax for me and the switch. Happy birthday.

Alvaro C. Ansys after COVID for a year. I had a coffee and needed to clear my throat a lot.

I hope you get better soon, Greg. Thank you. That means a lot to me. I'm struggling through.

Every day I wake up and I'm like, I feel so much better and then somebody makes me laugh and

it sets the whole thing off. Yeah, yeah. I got somebody to get dressed like he's going to the

Olympic Village and he says, oh, you don't get off anymore and then I fucking cough the entire show.

That's making fun of Mike. Oh, okay. I thought your costs go on and then I had a break down.

That was the urgent care procedure. What's up? That's a very specific. Why is he dressed like?

Why are you going to the place? And then we had Matt Rocks, a super chat that says, you don't get

to call them stupid when you spoiled Kevin Smith being on your podcast under no pressure.

That's not what it was. Okay. That's a mad Rocks. Go read. You can go listen to me in the comments

on yesterday's buzz. Great episode. Everybody watch it. Great episode. Great man to me.

The editor. Great guy. Very talented. I'm checking right now to see if we can do this locally.

Okay. What are you doing? I'm checking if we can do this locally. For what?

Rockwood, remember? The trick was done. We're not playing fucking Rockwood. We're playing Rockwood, right?

After this. We're not happening to take right now. We have everything set up over there.

We're not doing that. It's going to be just you guys going. You don't know that.

I know. I know. I know. I saw the absolute stream. Pokemon.

Poppia is currently the highest rated Pokemon game ever.

Wow. That are critic. This is from Chris Skelly and over at VGC. This is the second

new story for today. Pokemon. Poppia or as Mike would say,

Polktopia. Yeah. What's up with that? I think it's just funny. There's Mike doing this.

That's just Mike's doing his thing. Honestly, but he says so much that I honestly was calling

that. Poppia like in my personal life. It was going to be like, what the fuck you saying? I mean,

like, oh, Mike is currently the highest rated Pokemon game in Metacritic's history.

The Lifesim, which many are describing as a cross between Pokemon and we're crossing Minecraft,

Viva Pignata and Dragon Quest Builders, is set to release on March 5th as a switch to exclusive.

Pokemon. Poppia is currently the highest rated Pokemon game in Metacritic's history.

The Lifesim, which, oh, sorry, I don't think you just went through twice there. According to

Metacritic, the list of highest scoring Pokemon games is as follows. Pokemon. Poppia 88. Pokemon

X and Y 87.5 87.7 for X and 88 for Y Pokemon Black and White for, which is 87 Pokemon Heart Gold and

Soul Silver 87 Pokemon Sun and Moon 87 Diamond and Pearl 85 Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon didn't know

that existed 84 Platinum 83 Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire 82.5 and then Legends RCS within 83 Greg

as the number one Pokemon fan. Somebody who loves Pokemon. Yeah. Loved. Poppia.

And it's played every single one of these games on this list that I tried. You know that

does it deserve to be the highest ranking? You know, I think as time goes on, I'll be

interested to see because your time on games that have so many reviews slotted for them and where it

goes on. Do I, I don't, yeah, of course, the joke is I'm the Pokemon fan of the new generation.

So am I going to go in here and tell you should be above Heart Gold, Soul Silver? No, because I

know how much people adore those fucking games and whatever, but I do think what it speaks to is

something I hope even though this wasn't them game freak and the Pokemon company in reality take

to heart, which is people want something different, not throw it all away in the Pokemon,

fucking smoke cigarettes or whatever, but like. Poppia is such an interesting take on the Pokemon

world that I really hope and we pray that right as these Pokemon generations continue to go on,

we see them do everything we like of voice acting online MMOs like maybe even like this doesn't

affect Jens, right? You we still get the Jent and we still have the as normal, whatever.

But for as many people have been screaming everything when power of hit so many people are like,

this is the dream I wish it was Pokemon. Like why is that they should hopefully be working on a

spin off game that is that that is you running around playing with other people doing these things,

but then taking an idea that is fucking weird today's Gregway, which I still have not uploaded to

cool Greg brings from a question of why in this tumultuous video game industry is Nintendo the one

that doesn't seem to be laying people off the right closing studios left and right and really

being affected by it. And I think so much of it is Nintendo's commitment to fun and making video

games and making fun before profit. Luckily they make a lot of profit and they make a lot of money

and they have a work chest and there's a bunch of I go into a bunch of different things about it,

right? But it is this idea that like cool. Let's make a game where you're fucking Ditto,

which when we first saw that trailer, I remember we all laughed at it. Horrified, right? It's disgusting.

It's body horror and now 35 hours into that game. I fucking love Ditto. I fucking love Ditto.

And I love this Ditto and I love these Pokemon and what they're doing. Like there's such and

they do such a great job here of taking, you know, Dragon Quest Builders Minecraft and

Animal Crossing toss it in and giving that Pokemon shine in doing something different with Pokemon

period that really in that not only doing something different, but pulling on the years and years

and years and years of nostalgia and games in history to be like, man, yes, this is a side step

to the main generations, but it doesn't feel like a side project. And it's so smart because Pokemon

is so much bigger than the games, right? And I think the Pokemon company has not that they've

gotten locked in because they have Pokemon cafe. They have, you know, MMO. They got a bunch of

things that are outside of the traditional RPG, but I do think that they forget sometimes how

cute and lovable these characters are. So being able to take them and put them into a farming

game, that is all of these things that people enjoy is just such a smart idea. And yeah, as soon as I

saw this trailer, I was like, oh, I can't believe this hasn't been done to this respect sooner.

And I also think it's so smart that they collabed with the team that was already making games

that were like this, right? They were already beloved. It's kind of a match made in heaven right

there. Yeah. And I think, you know, even looking at what we just saw of DJ Rotem going in the,

you know, people jiggly pop dancing around these guys popping out before I played it. And I watched

this kind of stuff. I was like, oh, this looks stiff. Like they're going to pop out and stand there

and be weird little animatronics and like, that's so not the experience. These Pokemon pop out.

They have personalities. They talk to you. They wander around with new Pokemon show up. They make

relationships with them. Talk about how much they like this. It's like, there's a real world

thing going on where it's like, I want to go check in on them and see what they're doing and talk

them stuff. So like, you know, is it the best Pokemon game of all time? Probably not. No, I mean,

people want a very specific thing from Pokemon. Yeah. But in terms of, I think what everybody says

they want from the gins of pushing it into a different direction. Like this is so well done.

It really does sit and go, I think, you know, ZA is a game that got the amount of shit you'd

expect of like, man, around the city is not that interesting. You know, I mean, I don't know if I

like this real time battling and yet again, like this one, I think is in that side project

vein, but it's so committed to its vision that I think even if you played it in where it's not

your cup of tea, you'd still be like, I see why it's so many people's cup of tea. Yeah. So shout out

to them actually doing this and it being as good as we want it to be. I'm very, very excited.

Very, very excited to know Thursday. Thursday. Thursday. Thursday is the last. The games has

played for me and Joey jumping into our world showing some stuff. I'm excited to play it. Yeah,

Leon's is all about it too, right? Not as much. Not as much as I want it because she's very

particular about her animal cross. She likes animal crossing. Yeah. She has animal crossing.

She played what's the dream like Valley? She enjoyed that to a certain extent when she was

starved for animal crossing content. Now she's in the place where it's like, this must be

one of the best games ever if I'm going to play it. So I'm going to buy it. I'm going to play it.

And then I think it's going to rub off and she's going to look at me and be like, I'm buying it.

I am so fascinated for getting the wild because I, I'm an animal crossing fan. So many people are

animal crossing fans and so many people are different kinds of animal crossing fans. And I don't

think this is one for one. Yeah. Where you, oh, you love animal crossing. You'll love this. I think

there's so much gamey stuff going on in here and like quests and like you have to do this to

one rock that kind of thing, which is what I love. Yeah. I'm going to be interested to see how many

people are like, man, too much busy work or too overwhelming or whatever. I just want to decorate

the homes or how many people are going to get it getting that first biome and just do that. Yeah.

Because like they're, you know, the professors very clear of like, all right, cool. You've done this

and you can run off and you should run off and check on the other thing over there. But you could

also stay here if you want. Yeah. How many people are going to sit there and be like, I am making

this world perfect before I go anywhere else. Oh, that's about breaking news. You want to go to ads

and we'll come back with the breaking news. Yeah. We will. We will go over and tell you about our

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is active. And we are back with some breaking news before then to set it up. Yeah. We yelled for

Mike. He's come here. He does not know what he's about to see. I know what you think's going to

happen. Tell me what you think is going to say. Well, I mean, like I said, like I said,

my mind goes to baseball, baby. So maybe you got a cameo from baseball, baby. And he's talking

to me about. He's like, baby, grunk. We talk about it. Let's talk about it. Okay.

Video game breaking news right now that we would call you out here for Halo seven is announced.

Oh my God. So close Roger. Go. Okay. I'm just going to I'm not. Yeah. Today we're sharing

difficult news. We have made the decision to permanently shut down high guard on March 12.

That's nine days from now. Okay. Wow. Yeah. Since launch more than two million players stepped

into high guards world. You shared feedback, created content, and many believed in what we were

building for that. We are deeply grateful. Despite the passion and hard work of our team,

we have not been able to build a sustainable player base in to support the game long term.

Service will remain online until March 12th. We hope you'll jump in which us one more time

to show your support and get those final great matches in while you still can. The team is excited

to release one final game update to enjoy the remaining life of the game game. We will be adding a

new word in new weapon, account level progression and skill trees full patch notes are coming and

we're targeting tonight or tomorrow morning for patch release from all of us at wildlife. Thank

you for playing for supporting us and for being a part of high guard story. Oof. Okay. Well,

a lot to break down a lot to talk about. I mean, the simple part is, okay, high guard is going to

be shut down in nine days from now. Yeah. That was very short lived. Of course, this is the game

of the year when we talk about just kind of unfortunate situation, fumbling the bag and the opportunity

to just a really, you know, I don't know how to describe it, but an unfortunate bad situation for

all these people losing their jobs. Another games as a service that comes out doesn't find an audience

that closes down and this one was very swift and quick. Concord asked, of course, we can talk about

that. But I mean, we saw the writing on the wall since day one really since the gamers got

against it during game awards, right? That was a tough kind of hill to get over and win that sentiment

back after the game awards. Of course, if you don't know the story, it closed Jeff Keeley's

game awards last year. It's one of the better game awards with announcements when he did have

that as the final announcement of the show. People did not like seeing kind of a generic looking

shooter. The team didn't do a good job at describing what a raid base shooter is at the same time.

They had better trailers. They showed later on in its life cycle, but that first one, the initial

hey, this is us in the world did not go well. Of course, the big story was the team over at

Wildland Entertainment wanted it to be a self job. They wanted to capture what they did with apex

legends. There's a lot of members from respawn that went off and did this, right? A hundred to

200. I thought was the number back then. And so then we go for a full month long. Nobody's

talking about this game. Everybody on the internet's talking about this game and doggy on this game.

The team from wild light is not answering questions. They've gone radio silent because their plan

was to self drop this so there was no lead up to this unfortunately and they didn't switch gears

to answer that. Then we get today one. It comes out. It is a good game, not a great game, right? It

is a game that you can find fun in, but unfortunately, it's a mixed bag of all these different first

person shooter genres that just wasn't. Wasn't the master of all of them, right? They were just good

and adequate at all these different genres for the raid based shooting right there.

And so it went from 190,000 peak concurrence on day one to quickly far less than that. By I

think week one, it was less than 90 percent. Last time we checked, yeah, it was like 300,

stuck around or something like that. And so yeah, this is a game that was going to

live or die by the free to play model of monetization where it needed a player base to buy cosmetics

to stay involved in the game to try to keep this thing alive. Unfortunately, the players did not

stick around high guard to their credit and wildlife did try to pivot. They came out with a 5v5

mode. They talked with the audience. They tried to adjust as fast as they could. Unfortunately,

it wasn't fast enough. They laid off 80 percent of their studio. They laid off like 80 out of the

100 people. There was 20 people left and that clearly wasn't going to be enough to get them there.

Even though they said they had a year's worth of content ready to rock and roll, but we all know

as the needle goes into the red, you can only drag it for so long. I mean, that is the story of

high guard. It just wasn't great. It was good. It needed to be great. The fact that it's another

concord. Yeah, that's what's crazy is concord happened. And I know we talk about, I talk about

on the shows all the time, chasing trends and how that's just not the place to be, right? And that

just doesn't work to see PlayStation chase that trend miss it. Have this huge fuck foible concord.

Everything that happens, right? And to see these folks doing the exact same thing and not

learning from that. And even to the point of, we have a year's worth of content. Yeah.

Remember, that was fucking concord. We have, we're going to drop a new story trailer every,

our new story segment every week. We have them locked. And it's interesting. I would push back on

that, right? Like learning from that. This is a talented team that was coming from respawn and

apex legends, right? Like their goal was to split off and make a first person shooter, right? We

heard the early stories was, hey, we were playing rust. We really liked this raid mechanic that

had in rest, were you invade each other's bases? And we tried to build off of that. So it's like,

I don't feel like this team was chasing trends as in like my mind of like, that's a first person

shooter team. They were going to make this, right? But I do think of like looking at the marketplace

and going, we're going to live or breathe and die on free to play model right here. Maybe that's

not the way. And most importantly, hey, when we announce this game, we should probably have

answers for people. We should probably follow this up. I don't like the excuse of, well,

we were going to self-drop. And that's why we went quiet for a month and a half. But you,

you changed your mind. Exactly. So you have you, you, you, Jeff Keely said, I want to show this off.

And of course, we all go, that's an opportunity of a lifetime to have a closing spot at the biggest

award shows last gaming presentation. You have to then adjust your plan and go, you know what? Like,

if we're going to do this, then let's roll out the marketing immediately. I don't care what

it is. We got to figure it out. And they didn't do that. They kind of dug their heels in and said,

this is us. And they just let the gamers kind of dictate what this game was going to be before

that. But the problem is, is the gamers dictated it, but you didn't answer. You answered with a good

to fair game. And it wasn't great. And unfortunately, they had their answers right away when it was like,

oh, that's fine, skippable. They could have controlled the narrative here. I think that's as I look

back on all this, I think about if they shadow dropped it, not shout out, if they put up their

trailer with Keely, right? And then they were like, hey, we don't really have a plan right now,

but we're just going to put on fucking live streamers. We're going to talk to the audience.

We're going to be in our discord. We're going to be responding to people doing voice memos. Whatever

we need to do to be out there and show our faces and show what this game is and explain it. And you

don't have to explain it into the detail that you were, you know, when you did the preview event,

right? But you can still be answering questions and be there and showing them what this game is

a little bit more. Yeah. Having drops there. It's, it's, it's really unfortunate how they,

they had a game that was good enough that I think could have succeeded in the right light. But

they were unable to, in the biggest stage of the world, capitalize off of a massive audience of

people that were watching and then were hungry for a game that was coming out in the next. I don't

know if it would have succeeded. I don't know if it would have found an audience. I think it was

shadow dropped. If it was shadow dropped, like I think there's just so much going on in this

market space right now. Overwatch dropping the two coming back with their 10th anniversary

with so much energy, arc rateers being on top of the world, just dominating the shooter market.

Marathon just weeks away from you and having the title of bungee, right? Like there was just so

much going on in this pot that like even if this game came out as a stealth drop, I will still

stand on the hill that like it was good. It was not great. And that's the issue is like good enough

isn't good enough in this market. And the problem is we would have seen this come out high numbers,

sponsorship streams, whatever. And it would have just slowly ticked away.

Maybe it lasted another couple months, but like this was not going to make it no matter what.

Yeah, no. And it's it's also so interesting, right? Because you have this this game that

sorry, I'll also you go. Oh, okay. Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's all right. You don't come back to

this, right? And so yeah, it's interesting of like when we talk about, hey, we had a year's worth

of content, right? Yeah. Different than Concord that was like, hey, we have story content.

This team seemed like, hey, we have heroes week two. We got ranked mode week two. We want to come

out every other month with a new hero. We want they had this big plan. And it was interesting

of like, this is a veteran team in my eyes, right? This is an indie studio. But like this is a

team of veteran two. This is their second go. They did apex legends. They learned from that. They

should they were ready for that. And I think it's just clearly the market was not ready for that.

I don't think the gamers wanted this at this moment. A hero rage shooter that was just looking

generic, right? Like too many people pointing to it's like, we got a hero shooter like never before

sure. And it's like, well, that character looks like hella for Marvel rival. That character looks

like the guy from Overwatch. Like, you're not bringing anything truly interesting. Besides this

riding mechanic, that friend and I talk about a lot is like, this was kind of, we checked that

for you. This was kind of the defining factor of like, there was a moment in between the game

where you get on these mounts and the speed picks up and you shoot people off and it says capture

the flag cat and mouse game that was like more of the most interesting stuff to this game. And

unfortunately, it was also mixed with like a very boring mid game where you would just kind of

either loot or you would scavenge for supplies and it would be minimal gun fights and they

changed all that with 5v5 and try to do adjusting to that. But like, there wasn't much to hang

your hat on in this game that would stop the world to play this. What I was going to say was

that I don't think it's also impactful enough to say, hey, we're the team, some of the people

that used to work on at this studio now, right? Because we're in there. Exactly. Everyone says

that now. I think if this was actually, you know, respawn proper. Oh, big difference, right?

Sure. Then you can do the shadow drop, right? But as we're, you know, Monday, Monday morning

quarterbacking this, right? Looking back on what this could have been, I just don't think that

this was the right call to be like, hey, we're the people that made Apex. Remember that worked

for that. It worked because it was respawn, right? It worked because it was the Titanfall people.

And that was such a different age back. It was for multiple reasons, but it also had the caliber

of like, hey, this team works on amazing things and it's out now and it's and we're connected to

the Super Bowl and we're doing this. It had so much going for it. I just don't think they

then being like, hey, we're the people that some of the people that have worked on a game that you

like back in the day, that's not going to work out or be the thing that's going to get dry people

to download it. It's such a competitive market space period, let alone a very specific genre,

right? And I think that's what's, I think even to what I was speaking about a little bit more than,

you know, bandwidth or quality or what you've done before, I'm talking about like seeing this

concord again, right? Is the idea that I know how hard games are to make and I think it's so

crazy that you could launch a game and be closed this quickly that you just don't have,

like they rode this thing to on empty, right? Across the finish line and then needed such a huge return

on players jumping in and buying stuff and doing things to justify keeping it around and

keeping everything going. And that was that back end stuff that we heard from, you know, Jason

Shryer or Paul Tassie, somebody reported that net East was involved in this. Tencent, one of those

two was involved in the early backing of this and then pulled the backing as well, right? And

so like, like you said, great, this game, if this game is released under EA, right? If they all

stay at respawn, could they not have the conversation with EA and say, hey, we want to make a different

kind of shooter under the umbrella. Maybe you can back us more, but like this was a team when we

went down me, Andy and Blessing, they were going to just like, no, we're funding this, right? They

did not talk about Tencent and then it came out with that, but like it was very much, we're going

to ride this lightning bolt and hope that it pays off. Yeah. Free to play is the way to go. We don't

want to have that upfront cost, which now we're seeing right now gamers are willing to pay the

upfront cost of $20, $40, $60. If you haven't, exactly. So like, our graders is the perfect

example. Our graders and tell me who makes the finals and our graders that end bark studios

is on a tear right now, right? Like that team has two back-to-back hits that cost money,

that people were able to buy and say, I'm in on this and like, there we are now, right? So like,

the gamers are willing to spend money if you have a good game. Free to play is great so people can

come in and try, but if it's not great to good, they're not going to buy microtransactions for

a game that they're going to play for a week or two months, it's interesting. There's no refunds

wrote. Yeah, I was going to mention that. I was like, I do think they should free. Thank you. Yeah,

they should absolutely be refunding people. I don't know if they have the money to back it,

you would assume not, but if somebody's playing this game and you know, playing it for a month or

so and putting in money to it and the game is dropping, you know, going away completely. Yeah,

you got to be in refunds. Crazy that we're having this conversation now. And five days ago,

Bloomberg published a story that is the story behind the high guard's failure, right?

Let me give you a few graphs from there. It's what we're talking about in getting into this, right?

When high guard came out of January 26th, of course, this is a shy guy, Jason Trier.

The player count was impressive, peaking nearly 100,000 concurrence on PC platforms,

team, with similar numbers across PS5 and Xbox. But early impressions proved negative,

and because the game was free to play, it only generated a revenue from in-game payments that

would require players to stick around. Reviewers criticized a number of elements,

including the large map sizes and tedious mechanics such as mining, many of which were vestiges

of early versions of high guard. Critics also pointed out that the game was so complicated that

it was much less fun if you were playing with strangers and the mics weren't on. A problem that

wild light might have identified earlier by letting the public try out the game before release.

And the days that followed high guard's biggest problem became player retention,

a challenge that wild light's management emphasized to the staff multiple times. A week after

the game's launch, they'd lost roughly 90% of their players, which was a scary number.

A hastily released 5v5 mode was praised, but didn't bring people back.

Still, wild life staff were under the impression that they had enough financial runway

to keep working on the game and addressing issues for at least the next few months.

But, at an all hands meeting on February 11th, just two weeks after the game's release,

the company told its employees the studio was out of money, and most of their 100-person team

would be laid off. They would stay employees for another week and then receive a small severance.

During the meeting, management said that 10cent had pulled the studio's funding,

according to people familiar with the events. Although the company didn't spell it out,

staff were left with the impression that their financing was contingent upon hitting certain

metrics such as retention rate, which they'd fail to even come close to achieving.

Yeah, it's, I want to, can I switch over to the marathon conversation really quick?

Or we can, come on, I'm going to have a conversation.

I mean, we saw the writing on the wall for this. This was unfortunate, right?

The layoffs of 80% of your 100-person staff, which clearly, we're not long for this world,

right? And this shows you, video games are extremely hard to make. The costs are ballooning,

right? Like through the roof. And you look at that of like a 100-person studio was banking it

all on free to play and hoping micro transactions would come in, loses 80 to 90% of the player base,

add up all those salaries. There's not enough snow bike mics to give you $20 plus a day

to keep that funding, right? And like, that's where we were two weeks ago when it was like

the website's down, right? The discord's not leading to the real discord, right? Then we go on,

it's like, well, there's 20 people left. It's 20 people really going to run this video game for

a full year. And hopefully, as we know, these games are extremely hard to just change course on,

right? They came out with a 5v5 mode, but there's not much more. You can really course correct

on with 20 people in the studio and money dwindling here. So it's an unfortunate.

And again, I hate to bang the old drum that I do all the time, but I think you turn to 10 cent.

And it's, I mean, don't get me wrong every time the contract here, your player attention

makes this that they have about, we're just talking about companies that are coming in just looking

for a buck. Yeah. You know what I mean? Nobody giving, and I'm not saying this is the example

that it should have been, but like, nobody coming in and be like, I believe in this vision,

and we're going to, we're committed and we're going to do this and make it right by the players

and make something great and make cool art. We're going to come in and get a higher player,

and generate and get you to fucking by the battle pass and all the little, oh, you're not fucking

plugged pulled, you're done. Like it's over that quickly. A few super chats I want to get to,

we have, we have simple super chatting. Oh my gosh, why the hell am I going to be doing this?

With all of the negative combos, high guard should have put it all on the table,

shouldn't plan for seasons because the studio might not even make it to season one.

So I guess they're mentioning the fact that they were like, hey, we have seasons of

content that we're building towards, but at the base level, it was all crumbling, right? So,

oh, so they're saying like, yeah, hey, just put all the seasons out day one because you're not

going to make it. Or like, even planning for it because like the base level of it is just,

well, you have to plan for it, right? We saw this with Halo Infinite. Halo Infinite comes out with

a great multiplayer suite. People are excited to be back in the Halo universe and they start yelling,

give me more. And Halo Infinite in particular was built on a 10 year plan, right? That was a big

pipe dream that we're all going to live. This is going to last for 10 years. We're going to make

this a live service. And when we said, this is great, give me more. They said, oh, shit,

we weren't ready for that, right? Like we get now we're behind the eight ball. When you talk

with this team, when I say like veterans, this is a sophomore experience they've been here before,

they knew exactly what the answers were. Hey, you can't just start making content after you

release the game and think you're going to catch up with the players. You got to be making this

content while you're building the game. So it's ready to roll out month by month, season by season.

And if you don't, people are going to leave. There's too many things trying to get at my attention

and my wallet and my gameplay time. And so yeah, like I don't agree with that. I think if they

were meaning like, hey, if you had season one through four planned and it was ready, just drop it

all like, yeah, I get that. But like they are still also fine tuning all of that adjusting. When

you don't they have 20 people, it's hard to drop probably three new hears and be like, all right,

we got to balance that with the 20 people we got live and in person. I don't think that that's how it

goes. A bud. Super sad and says in terms of marketing, market failings for HG, do you think there

are parallels for the future of skate to sorry to switch topics, but it feels like like a correlation.

So in terms of working just in jet. I mean, it's written for the wall for this.

Yes. Yeah. We talked about this game of the year. When I gave skate my game of the year,

right? My number one vote, right? Where it's like, I adore skate. It feels so good to play skate.

I like coming back to skate. I realized that they've made all the wrong choices and had the wrong

messaging. And I think we talked about early access as a viable model. We just had a whole conversation.

I think when you're EA early access doesn't help you and do things. I don't think it's so much

the marketing failings of skate that I mean, the problem with skate for so many people

about the core values of skate. Yes. Where it is like, it's not what people wanted. They wanted

skate for. They didn't want a cartoony skate world. They want to be counter culture. They want to

be rallying against it. And then of course, to have people in the debt streams early on say stuff

like you'll never have to pay for new maps. And then here we are season three launches next

week. And guess what? You got to pay to get to the island one way or the other. And of course,

reason being behind that. Well, I mean, it doesn't take a rocket science of like, I'm sure skate

isn't doing well. I do have skate. You know, the steam DB for high guard, right? Right now there's

242 players playing the peak was 460, right? Skate to right now. There's a little over 2,000 playing.

24 hour peak was a little bit above that by like 40 people. Yeah. So more people. But again,

not great numbers, right? You look at a chart all the way down and it'll be interesting with season

three next week. Do we see a spike or is it? Yes, of course. But like, even if season three spikes

next week, guess what we're talking about? Tencent looks at high guard and goes, nobody's fucking

playing it. You're done. You're telling me electronic arts isn't going to look at skate and be like,

no one is playing this. You're done. Yeah, especially with their new owners coming in eventually

here from Saudi Arabia. They're not here for art. They're not here to make like, oh man,

we really wanted a skate game. We can turn this around full circle. Just lay people off as well.

But they also do love American culture and they love like putting their tentacles into all of

it, right? I could see them being like, hey, this is our end, right? Like the fighting game.

What was that king of fighting, king of theory? But they put so much energy and marketing into

that game. Yeah, do that. Cristiano Ronaldo. We're in UFC matches. We're everywhere with this

fucking game. And like in the grand team of fighting games, no one's playing this, right? So

I grew with you, but also at that point, specifically. I mean, I could see them being like, we like

skating culture. Here's my thing is I don't think you'll get to it. Like that's the interesting

thing with this buyout or whatever. Like I don't know where that falls of like, are you trying to

clean it up for the new owners? You're just going to let them come in and do it and whatever.

But it falls into this question right of like, uh, super jet here from Jay for Ellie,

who says what's more dead free to play or games of service? Yeah, that's what I was going to get to.

Well, here we are. We're there. Thank you very. Uh, yeah, that's the fun conversation. I mean,

how what do you take from all of these lessons that you have seen, right? Like we've talked about

this for years. You've talked about this since you started this company and back at IGN, right? It's

like you're learning from all these different lessons and we see the trend happening. But you

can't predict five years now. You can't predict 10 years from now. Also, all the money and

opportunities are like quickly tightening up. They're not giving it out as much as they were. So

you really got to pick and choose your battles here, right? And you are going to start questioning

like, should I be leaving Halo studios to make my own studio right now? And like possibly

risk it all by me at my stable job here, where it's like, yeah, at any moment, we could all be

laid off. But at least we're making Halo seven where I go off here and it's like, we just know

that you can get off making Halo. Of course, but I mean, it's tough. I, here's the deals. I don't,

I'm not super briefed in high guard. So I feel I don't want to throw shade at anything like that.

I still think in this day and age, your path to security in the video game industry or at least

success is paved by independence. I don't think being at a big corporation with a big thing.

Like, you know, what are we at right now and where we have video games and et cetera and so on

so forth? Like where we are at is that you need to get these fucking business suits out of video

games. How do you make a successful game? You have a fucking vision that does not start with

monetization. You have a vision that does not start with how are we going to what, what is the

business model for this game, right? Like that is what people are saying when they are trying to

mimic fortnight when they are trying to figure that out. Those are not the conversations that should

be happening at a pre pro level. It should be that you are setting off to make a really cool

game, which means you will make a much smaller game. We are now back to the conversation that is

always like nails on a chalkboard of high moon studios, ascension studios, right? The people who

did the one that I always forget the hot and the fucking one just up the road of like, we are,

we have a pedigree in triple A games and we're going to make a quadruple A game with that like

now you've never made a game as a studio. You do not know how each other work. You do not know the

workflow. Start with something fucking small. Do a 2D Metroidvania with three of you and make

money off of that. When you when you come out and you're like, we are going to come out and

compete on the grandest stage of them all with free to play is like, bro, no, that just isn't

a viable option. It's a possible option. But look at this again. The days of I have a great idea

and I'm a partner with a big fucking firm company venture capitalist, whatever that leads to this.

These people don't care about art. They care about the bottom fucking line. And so we need to stop

hitching our wagons to them thinking that, well, this I'll be the difference. I'll do the thing.

And I know that like, I'm so privileged. I'm talking I've never made shit in my life except

this company, right? But not a video game. So I'm not I totally get like leaving and then you

find a thing, but then they want a thing. So then you do it suddenly you look back like,

oh, this isn't really the vision, but at least we're employed and least we're doing this thing.

But then we get here and it's like, what was it all for? I mean, I like that, Greg. And like

that's such a right nail. You're hammering the nail on the head. Like that is exactly where we are.

And that's what it is. I guess like when I look at the first person shooter genre,

how many indie first person shooters are blowing up the market, right? Like it is a difficult,

it's a different world over here on this side. What's like you're competing with Call of Duty's

Fortnite's halos, counter strikes. Like it's not over making an indie game anymore. It's like we

are competing against the top dogs in the world. And if you don't have that industry back,

if you don't have that stability, you're not going to be long for this, right? Like there's like a

but here I just there tell me, name me five indie first person shooter games that look

indie that like our stay was standing the test of time, you know? Dead drop rogue. What was the one

we just say? No, I'm serious. I'm serious. Whatever the one was just the indie direct that looks

like not great on the Switch, but we went and looked at the the steam page where you're like,

Dave, that whatever, Dead Shot Rogue, someone in the chat, help me. Like I look at that. I go there,

but it's also the idea of like as a developer, right? Again, I'm not a developer. I'm speaking

out of my ass to some degree. I understand it's what I was talking about. We make carburetors

here. Don't try to make a fucking window. But if I was like, I'm so fed up in my job and I'm

going to leave, I better leave and have and I'm going to make a first person shooter. I better

leave and know what that market wants and what that audience wants and what will separate us.

It sounds like high guard did not have that vision. Correct. Or at least that vision got so

watered down by the time they got out that you aren't there. Like that's the thing. Like if the

market is saturated, go to a different market, which I know is very easy to say and impossible,

right? Again, I was just reading did it come by? What was it? Dead zone. Fuck yeah. I was

reading Shire's book again, you know, no, you blood, so wet and pixels and the destiny chapter

talks about like them wanting to go over here and make something that wasn't Halo. And then they

merged the ideas and then they suddenly they're just making Halo again because that's what everybody

knows how to make. There's very few that I can go back to the most recent one that I can go back

to and they fell apart when they were getting towards the finish line with split game. That is

one of the few games where it's like we're an indie team and we're making something so good

that people are stopping playing their call of duty to come here. And there's no way we could

fuck up all that good will. There's a guy lost the plot of course, but like there's very few where

you're like, oh shit, because we're not talking about a PVE here, right? There's a whole different

you're there's so many markets here. We're talking about a PVP competitive first person shooter genre

that like that's the big dog table where you better come correct because you're not going to laugh.

And we've seen too many of these games try to step up there and it's like, hey, you were good,

but you weren't great or like you just weren't there. You never were there. And it's an intimidating

market to try to step into. It isn't like, hey, I'm just making an indie game and like we're going

to have some fun and it's going to it's going to be peak. It's going to be tome. It's going to be

something like that. It's like, no, this is this is over here. This is you got to come correct.

But couldn't and I know we're going long. Yeah. But the question there, I would offer back to you

as a fan of the genre is, couldn't there be a peak? Isn't the idea in this first person shooter genre,

you're talking about just that too many people aren't doing the small fun different thing. They're

just going and making the same fucking shit. I mean, that what I go to, I think of like team

fortress, something like that's like a little wacky and different, right? But like the problem is

like, but that also isn't wacky and different because that's a hero. Exactly. We've seen so many of

you. I'm littered with games like Ubisoft, what they just made ex-defiance, right? I'm littered

with games that are like, oh, we're just stepping into a hero arena or whatever. And it's,

oh my god, there was so many of them competing with Overwatch battle, born, remember that game.

There was another one as well. I know it is. It's like, there's just too many games stepping

into that that just can't compete. And like, that's the one where it's like, maybe you do need

the backing. Maybe it is too difficult to step in and do that because not many teams make us

last can do that. Well, let's go to something that I think a general conversation is. And then I

will eventually end on the marathon conversation right there. Snackle tooth production says a

super chat says games as a service have proven to be company killers. No one will be Fortnite.

And then I want to bring in this one to a larger conversation. But I do think it's it is what we're

talking about here to a certain degree. Aaron Lyme, super chat says the attention economy is about

is also being dominated by Fortnite and Roblox. That's where kids who would otherwise be playing

games like high guard, high guard are now. It's where their friends are and we have to and we have

to see it as a new null experience. I don't know what they're going to say there, but yeah,

you get the point. Thank you for bringing that up because when we were talking about free to play

versus live service and are those long for this world. It's like, unfortunately, we at this table

are not the people that really talk about Roblox. We're not in tune with that market. But it is

everything. But that is everything, right? Like Roblox is everything. This mobile market now,

clash of clans, that's what the younger generation is playing right now, right? And so like,

we'll free to play stick around. Hell yeah. Well, Roblox is getting like 20 million daily

players, right? There's like a freak amount of players inside of it have millions of players.

Exactly. So like, yeah, of course they're going to be alive and well in five years from now because

it is still that of like that kid that's 12 to 20 is not spending their mom's credit card or

swiping the card, but they can jump into a free game at any moment. Yeah, play with their friends

rat and their friends are playing. They're going to be there. It's also the willingness to jump

into this community as Aaron was talking about, right? Because for me, when I was a kid, I have,

of course, had a call duty at Halo, but I was more interested in trying to find those new communities,

trying to figure out maybe I can try this free to play game. Maybe there is this world. Now we're

just, we are so oversaturated that getting your friends to fucking go from counter strike to a

free to play video game. That in and of itself is an impressive feat. If you're going to get five

of your friends for a night when video as we get older video game time is getting harder and harder

and harder, connection times getting harder harder to get, hey, download this new game and try it

out with me. That's crazy. But are we not also and stick with me because I was not dismissive

of everything, making a mountain out of a mole hill. Is this not a problem we've had? That's

is all this video games period because stick with me. We're back to Roblox Fortnite, Minecraft,

all the kids are playing it. That's what they play. Yada da da ba ba ba ba ba. Yes, I agree. But when I

was a kid and I was playing video games and I would try to get Poe to play Spider-Man on PS1

or Genesis or whatever, couldn't fucking do it, but he would play Madden with me. Yeah.

He would, there's people who only only seems poor call of duty. Are we not, again,

giving into the fucking suits here who saw the success of Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft and said,

video games are bigger than ever. Everyone wants to play video games. When in reality,

take all three of those games and say, playing outside, playing the violin, sports, what, like,

kids have always been attracted to a game. And then would you buy a console if you don't,

I never buy a console. I would never do this thing. It's just there. I still, I would,

I would hazard the guest that if you were to go back and compare my generation to me being a

super video game fan and none of my close friends being a huge video game fan, reading EGM,

consuming all the stuff, wanting to buy the latest thing. Yada yada yada. I would imagine that's

still what it's like for so many of these kids that are playing Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite with

their friends, but then are listening to probably not us, but IGN or whatever and looking around

and being like excited for the next insomniac game, even though they're not saying insomniac,

they're into a video games in a way. They aren't the mass of people aren't, but the market read the

wrong fucking lesson there. They looked at that and said, kids are playing video games more than ever

and they always will and we can convert those kids to buy a switch to or whatever. And you can't,

because that's just not how they're built. Yeah. Now, I think you're right. In terms of,

I was reminded by the chat, but also just like thinking through it was like, we forget that

Minecraft, I mean, not Minecraft, Fortnite and also Minecraft are just happy accidents,

right? Like Fortnite did not, was never about to have originally, it was dead on arrival.

It was, Fortnite was dead. Quite literally, it was their moment of like, fuck, we are fucking

out there now. What do we do right now? We did this thing and that was a happy accident right there.

So I, if I'm an investor, if I am one of the big suits and I'm trying to find a game out there

and then people are pitching me games and I am gravitating towards the games that are comparing

themselves to Call of Duty's Fortnite's overwatches and not comparing themselves to

weirder, knee sure ideas. I think that that is, that's the wrong direction, right? If you are

focusing on the Call of Duty's, the overwatches, because you're never going to be able to do that

in a way that isn't organic, right? You have to make something new. You have to go for

indie ideas, weird ideas out there, things that are, that is what we're looking for right now.

It's the attention economy. We need the hooks and high guard doesn't have the hooks, right? You

look at it and it's like, okay, it's all these things I like, but at the end of the day,

it is just this mash of everything. So it doesn't look like anything new, right? There is an

one thing that I can grab on to. Oh my god, the character design is so fucking incredible, so

unique. Oh my god, it has this mechanic that I can, I run to my friends and say, hey, you can do

gobbledygoop with this thing. Oh, gobbledygoop? Oh my god, but I love gobbledygoop. I wouldn't think

that would exist in a first version shooter, right? We just don't have those anymore. That's

sadly the original ideas that sadly, not sadly, that is the original ideas that are going to make

the future of gaming, but sadly, the suits don't see it. So I totally get your point there.

Yeah, I mean, everything that you just say, said Roger is right, right? And like back in the day,

when video games were in their early development and infancy, yeah, that was an exciting time. It was

all new and fresh. Now, how many investors are really out there clamoring for a new game to be

like AI? And then I'm happy with that, right? It's like, when you said all that Roger, that's great,

but the people who have the money probably don't even care about this nor do they know. They just

say, get where the money's at. Give me a call, dude. Go to call, dude, like, everyone,

they're all leaving the stuff. Their kids are bad at investing. They don't understand it.

Their eyes glaze over and they say, just get the fortnight, Roger. I don't want to hear this. I

don't care about that money now. Get the money is right. Money out. Yeah, unfortunately,

that's where you're at. And yeah, it's high guard will be another giant lesson that we will point

to. And unfortunately, in this day and age, there will be a lot of negativity, a lot of name,

calling a lot of finger pointing when it should just be like, this is a lesson. Learn from this

and try to be better and like, man, oh, man, it's unfortunate, because that game just came with

and hundreds of lives have now been affected. Yep. And now I want to have the larger conversation

that I saw some super chats about JBC. Super chat says, I don't think marathon is concours two,

let alone high guard two, but it's bounce rate is very concerning. And that's talking about the

slam server server slam that happened this weekend and people were, you know, the people were

showing like all that graph is going down pretty heavy. And yeah, I think that is it when it comes

to marathon tournament. Super chat. What do we feel? Oh, sorry, Sandy Crane. Super has this. How

we feeling about marathon now with mixed review shooters on the brain? I know I think marathon

was good based on server slam. Thanks, guys. What are you feeling about marathon? I'm like, you

played some of it. I played marathon for one night and I was a mixed bag of emotions. I really

enjoyed the shooting. I enjoyed the world. I enjoyed the vibe of it all, but there was just

something about the moment to moment gameplay. There was a lack of gun fights. There was a

a lot of like, man, this is just an empty boring experience for 15 minutes before we extract that

I don't want to spend a bunch of time in. It did not have the wow factor like I experienced

in our craters, but I am the outlier. I am hearing so much positive buzz about marathon from

others that I'm like, Oh, man, I'm on the opposite side because I, I did not like this experience.

I like some of the experience. I did not like a lot of the experience. And so for me, I am very

interested in this marathon lead up to launch and afterwards of like, will this stick? Will this

happen? What is up with bungee? Most people will tell you if they listen in. They'll say, no,

my marathon's got the juice and it's going to be here. I'm on the other side of going. I did not

like that marathon experience. I will be keeping eyes on that one to see if bungee has it in them.

Yeah, we will see. And then a final super chat here from pairs wants to call in pairs. You can

tell me about marathon. No, no, no. No, no. We're going to the podcast now.

Here says, you guys always smash it out the park with these breaking stories. And I want to thank

Snowbike Mike for coming on here. Yeah, thanks for calling me. I was just getting ready for the

kind of funny podcast. A lot of baseball kids clips that I was gathering for Nick. We got to talk

about this. Okay. We got a baseball phenom here. Okay. We got to be ready for it. And then, but

Mike, before you leave, okay. High guard going out of business. Huge news. I was looking for

something smaller. Where would I go? Roger, I take you to our last news story. The We News

channel where we cover all the small news items. She sees it all about. Is it always this bright,

always right? Oh, my skin, my skin reflects it. I'm all up. I might seem a little brighter now.

I don't know if that's just right. I've been here, Rob. Because you've been looking at somebody

great indie games. No, it's great. I think support indie games, indie games. Five games.

Story number six. We news a lot of stuff to go through really quick. Scott Pilgrim EX review roundup

and Metacritic is at a 77 VGC's. Chris Scullion gave it a four out of five stars. Scott Pilgrim

EX takes everything that was great about the first game, the combat, the music, the beautiful pixel

art and throws it into an all new adventure, rammed with great game references. The open world

structure and relatively short length won't be to everyone's taste. But if those aren't a problem

to you, it's a must have. Did not know about the open world structure. I didn't either. Me and Ben

started it over the weekend. The review code didn't get super deep into it. But I was incredibly

thrown by the open world. I was like, all right, Ben, go to the right. We're just beating the

should. I got to the end and I looked at the map. I was like, oh, this is open world. Very interesting.

Yeah, I gameplays. It's tribute games. It's cosmic invasion devs. They know what they're doing.

If you like the Scott Pilgrim world, what I played, I can see you getting into it. Hell yeah.

A new RPG from Bandai Namco. There is a YouTube thing that is. Yeah, there's a YouTube postup

that about this new thing that we're reviewing. The description reads, a serenity soon to be

disturbed, more to come March 5th at 1500 Pacific Standard Time. Yeah, do your mouth on that one,

everybody. That's three o'clock. What? Xbox game pass update today.

Hey, Xbox game does something today. Final Fantasy 3. That's going to be on the cloud Xbox Series

X and S and PC. Kingdom come deliverance to cloud Xbox series X and S and see coming soon.

Two at ease also coming to cloud S and PC love to a T play that game. It's a fun little time. EA

sports F 125. Oh, Planet of Lana to. Yeah, that's coming out. Yeah, soon.

Construction simulator. Yeah, we talked about that. And then the big one, people excited.

Cyberpunk 2077. That's cloud and consoles. How Hollow Night Silk song, cloud,

console handheld and PC. Was that not already there? That's weird. And DreamWorks, Gabby's

Dollhouse ready to party. Cloud Xbox. I build games nearly at the kitchen tables today.

And Ben was looking at my shorty goes there's a Gabby's dog husk game like you won't play that is like yeah like a March 17

But hey big dog. Oh, yeah, Mike. You're here. So I'm glad we can talk about it. Charlie Intel reports if we met Charlie

Intel it's pretty cool new black ops Royale is coming to war zone black out inspired no loadouts drop in and loot up

Start with pistol and wingsuit no buy station no gulag deploy redeploy is available

Teared armor vests played on avalan 100 players March 12th at 9 p.m. PT. Yes, a lot of people were down on me

I said back. I'm so excited. Down on you. It's just crazy

Crazy, you know what I mean? I'm so excited for this right this was the dream of as we continue on with war zone

What is next? How do you keep that fresh? How do you get the player base back in?

We knew with the changing of the garden going back to black ops that

Avalan was out there that a blackout was rumored of like hey, how do you go back to black out? No or now and like bring in something new

And I'm very excited to try this. I mean come on no loadouts

I think I don't worry about just drop in loot out have fun. That's the dream, right? It's like let's get back to basics

We have gone five plus years since COVID of like hey, you got to know the matter

You got to have the matter. You got to grind the meta grind it. You know what I'd like to do

I just like to drop in and show you how nasty I am and that's all the mess. That's what you want. I fuck yeah

I want the gulag

No, Roger. I haven't played call of a war zone in a year

You know what you want? I haven't played war zone since call duty next

I need a breath of fresh air and the call of duty battery out space because call duty is still one of the top dogs in the first person shooting market

It's so much fun to play

It is the blast multi-players good, but I want that want that battery all experience and I need something fresh

Warzone is had its time. It is time to build something new. It's time to try it. This is just on Avalon

Yeah, but we're going back out to the blackout. Did you play blackout? I know. Yeah, so blackout was like the early

Is battery out? It was much different than what war zone game and so yeah, if you've had a taste of that

You're gonna want to try this. Okay, Mike's very excited about it

Tune in on Thursday March 5th at 2 p.m. PT for a 30-minute Capcom spotlight live stream 30 minutes featuring

Games such as monster 100 stories 3 twisted reflection

Prog Mata mega-man star-forced legacy collection and Street Fighter 6

Following the success of the sold out

2025 premiere in Japan the official concert tour of metaphor refund Hajiyo and barks on a world tour

Spending three continents six countries and eight cities across the globe

But the concert presents a carefully curated selection of pieces that bring the game's epic fantasy world to life

All I'll compose by Shouji McGurrow

Renowned for his work on the persona series. So it's coming to Dallas Chicago Los Angeles

Kawashiyung

Singapore Bangkok London and Paris

Spoo-boo-boo no San Francisco. You think that one's making the distance

What do you mean? What was the last big big one that didn't make the distance and it canceled halfway through the PlayStation one?

Oh, that's the PlayStation one. Yeah, and then we have the first poster for life a strange the TV series

Showing off who's playing Chloe Price and Max Kalfke was first. Who is it? Tatum Grace

Oh

Sorry, they read it in the in the text there and then

Mazey Stella from the hit TV show Nashville

Definitely herself playing Chloe Price. I don't know the show be good

But we got one of the Stella sisters and that means I'll be watching whoo and everybody that is it for

We news

We killed it everybody

I think we look through all the super chats right there. I'm gonna go to you're wrong. I don't think there's anything wrong there

Don't worry about that so oh

Jesus Christ people talking about that no release date for marathon. That's not true. Oh, this is from yesterday

So I think we did everything. No, yeah, no you're wrong. Nice job. We killed it everybody

Yeah, great job everybody. This has been kind of funny games daily

We're each and every week they we run you through with our new news

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Enjoy the kind of funny podcast

And you're gonna learn all about baseball boy. Yeah, I mean internet explorers episode

We're all bringing different things from the internet together to share with one another. So yes

I have Nick will also choose his starter Pokemon for wins and waves. What? Yeah, why you guys have a good show

Yeah, we got some stuff going on. It's too bad Kevin Smith can't be there

Well, it's crazy that you broke embargo, but to serve you

Yeah, fucking you fuck you have you came with the wrong