[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like two, two thirty-sevenths of the truth because there are literally thirty-seven line items listed in their like hardware patch notes that talk about stuff that they've done with this machine. And it is crazy. Like the screen is not just OLED.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Digital Foundry are reporting that because of memory changes internally, you can expect a five-ish percentage increase. Uh, is neither here nor there, but it's something. It runs cooler.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, it is lighter. They say it's 30 grams, but when you hold two Steam decks next to each other, you're like, yo, this feels a lot lighter. I swear to God, it feels like more than 30 grams, but whatever. It must be because they wouldn't lie about it. Uhm, the little power button.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's orange now. Incredible. It's kind of more of an orange, yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's just like so many things. The UI, it's faster and more responsive, like it's more snappy to navigate around the UI. Uhm, there's, there's, as I said, literally dozens of other things that I haven't even kind of remember now, but uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it's fantastic. Like it, it really is. Steam Deck was literally my handheld, favorite handheld ever. I would use it all the time if I wasn't having to record footage for video, like for reviews. It would be like how I play video games. Um, and this is just take, that takes that already incredible device and makes it better by almost every metric. And I love it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, absolutely. Like I thought about that a lot. And I'm like, my, I think I might do a video on this. So I'm not sure. I may have already said some of this already in a previous video, depending on when this goes up. But, um, my take on it is that you don't need to buy this if you are a


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you already have a Steam Deck and you use it casually, right? If you use it just, you know, once a week maybe or when you travel or whatever and it just kind of sits around, no, you don't need this. Absolutely not. However, if you are a Steam Deck power user, if it is your daily driver,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's like your thing, then you should absolutely buy this. It is definitely enough of an upgrade to justify its existence. Just by virtue of the screen alone, because it is so much better. Like we're literally talking a 90Hz screen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not variable refresh rate technology. That isn't quite that, but they've recalibrated how they manage refresh rates and target frame rates and they've unified it into a single


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, there's a million things, not a million, there's 37 things, uh, that make this thing better. And, uh, the screen is the biggest one for sure. The battery life, absolutely, but I actually don't use my Steam Deck that much away from power, so it's not that big a deal for me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But all of the little things in the improvements pile up and you will, if you are a regular user of this device, you will absolutely feel good that you made this purchase. I don't imagine anyone's going to think, eh, I really didn't need this. I think those things will all add up and you'll be like, yeah, this was money well spent for sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I was impressed with the Switch OLED, but as soon as I took out the OLED, I'm like, oh, I can definitely see this screen is better. It sounds better, like the audio was better. That's another thing, by the way, improved audio, didn't even mention that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And also the kickstand on the Switch OLED was significantly better. And I'm like, okay, these are all nice improvements. And again, if I was maining my Switch every day, I'd feel good about this stuff. But for me, I was like, yeah, whatever. Like I don't use my Switch that often. So this is all nice to have, but not essential.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There is more improvements here, they are more profound, and, uh, yeaah, it's, you're right Jake, to, to, to, to liken it to the Switch OLED is definitely selling it short. It's significantly more improvement than that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'll definitely bring it to game board.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That is why I did not play this because I have not played through the Kyu saga and I feel like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To like get introduced to this character and like whatever and I haven't done that and so I skipped playing this one for that reason. But I'd really like to because I played Isshin early this year and that was fantastic. I loved Isshin.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uhm, and I loved it in large part because I really like Kiryu as a character. He's different in this. He's a different character, but he's not really as I understand. Like it's kind of the same guy in every way, you know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but until that time, I, and because the thing is, I want to do that so that I can catch up and then I can be with everybody else and play like, oh, the new Like A Dragon game is coming out, Infinite Wealth. I can't play that because I haven't played, I haven't even played the previous one, like, whatever, you know what I mean?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. Because you can play it without it, but I know you miss out on so much stuff, you know? Uh, and, cause like for example, I played Lost Judgment without having played Judgment. And I didn't like that game for a lot of reasons, right? And, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everyone loves my lost judgment review. But like, definitely, uh, feedback that I got was very much like, you need to have played the first game in the series to really understand what this is about. And I'm like, okay, I take that. I agree that that obviously would have helped. Um, and I definitely feel as though I'm guessing


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That, that kind of sentiment only becomes magnified when you're talking about a series with eight games in it as opposed to a series with just one. So, um, yeah, I really want to, I do want to go back and play those games for sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, sure. That, when I, cause I played a preview build of, uhm, uh, like a dragon 8.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yakuza like a dragon, like when they did the turn-based one, when they made- Isn't that seven?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, you're right. I know you actually can. You're right. Yeah, I'd like to. Uhm, but I was the same as you. I was like, I really like this tactics, the turn-based combat thing. It's really working for me and I like how silly and absurdist it gets and how, like, it has the, you know, you execute a move and the screen changes in the background and there's this big wind-up animation and all that shit. I think it really works.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because yea, similarly the, the, uh, the beat'em up combat of like Lost Judgement for example that I played through, I was like, it's competent, it works, definitely.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That is cool. I like that. It's not monetized at all, is it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. It's like, it's very cynical. Like it's still not like number one selling like box product in the moment this week and still going to sell like millions of units and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sledgehammer out there being like, oh no, this was absolutely the game we always wanted to make. And, uh, we've worked tirelessly on this and this is not, because obviously Jason Dreyer is reporting that it's had a truncated development cycle, 18 months. It was originally meant to be kind of an expansion, but then it got turned into a premium full price product.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they were like, no, that was never the case. You know, maybe some of the developers were confused about it because it's a sequel, like a direct sequel offering as opposed to a standalone offering, but it was always a premium product. But then you've got this really half-assed three hour campaign that is like, it's right there in front of you. Like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, like, people who play COD are like, that's it. But it's so hard to say with Call of Duty's audience, because I hear that so often with every new release, and then three weeks later, they're like, this is the worst fucking COD I've ever seen in my life. Sledgehammer sucks, blah blah blah. So you just have to kind of take it slow when it comes to how people view this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, well you actually have to have BOTW2 installed too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What a mess installing modern warfare 3. I felt like a boomer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think we're good. We covered it all off. We talked about the video games. Yeah. We played them. We talked about, finally you saw Robocop. So I feel like this is, you know, that's a big thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm on threads, actually. Yeah, you're big on threads. I'm there. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm doing the threads thing, and uh, You're doing good. I'm here on the YouTubes. Look, I'm enjoying threads. It's a very different vibe.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, just on the odd occasion. So, uh, you can find me there. And, uh, come say hi.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We do. Yeah, that's it. I actually spent like nearly like a full 10 days working on that video because I was like, we have to do this properly, man. We don't fuck around with Robocop.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, no, I'm, I'm feeling good. I'm obviously, uh, very tired and it's, you know, it's been a very, very exciting, very stressful week and I'm basically just running on adrenaline at this point.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Our team is, is so talented and seeing all the stuff coming in and now we've got, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As of this podcast, we've got the first episode of Fully Remblematic done. It's up on the channel, ready for premiere.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is it? 600 people w-waiting for it to go live tomorrow at 11am, where he used to go, so. Awesome.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, we, uh, yeah, so, you know, I've been on a lot of podcasts by this point, but essentially what happened was like over the last


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You kind of have to go back a little bit and give context. So I started on the escape aspect in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, 2018 as managing editor of video, uh, under enthusiast gaming. And by July 2019, I was editor in chief. So the first project like Yahtzee and I ever did together was like, I took, made him go to E3, uh, put us in the


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But yeaah, so like that was kinda like the start of this whole journey and kinda getting Yahtzee more involved with the team and everything and so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, over the last four years, like, you know, basically I got put in charge of the Escapist brand at its lowest point, where everybody hated it, nobody wanted to touch it, nobody wanted to do anything with it, and I got offered.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, the editor-in-chief job after Russ Pett's kinda self-combobulated on Twitter again, and so, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I was kind of like, well, shit, I've only run outlets with a few thousand people reading it. I don't, I don't know. I want to take on this absolutely hated outlet as somebody that's kind of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not an unknown name in the industry, so that could go one or two ways. Either I'm good at this or I'm going to be hated as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but I decided to take the risk. I thought it would be a fun, fun challenge to kind of...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Try to reform this brand and turn it around to something positive and add RD.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Built up a lot of connections in the industry with the indie scene and all that through my, my work on only SP and, and gave me married my two previous brands.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So yeah, so like basically just kind of paired new talent with Yahtzee. We brought in Jack Packard and Marty Sleva and just kind of made sure to pair new talent, the old and really engage with the community. And I was very transparent with them and everything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, so we did that until, uh, last year, about September of last year, and then...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, one day I wake up and on Twitter we're sold to gamers and without warning and I'm like, okay, do we have jobs? Like, what's going on? And, uh, it's like, oh yeah, you're all going with them, the gamers and you're fine. I'm like, okay, great. So we get to gamers, uh, and I want to, I've been prefacing a lot of like our interviews because like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Gamers at the start was actually like really good. It was uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That company is full of people with media backgrounds, so I was excited about that. Uhm, they didn't fire anybody from the escapist when we made the move.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like our salaries were good, we had good benefits, you know, they were in, they were excited about working with us and kind of building us up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then they brought in a, the red flags kinda started to go up when they brought in this video manager.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was too old for the job, basically, and just didn't understand the current climate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so he kind of set us back six months and so he got fired six months ago.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then I got hired for that job. And so by that time, you know, once you get to that role as uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To clarify, I was editor in chief of the escapists and a video strategist for all of gamers. And so they wanted me to like basically rebuild, build the whole video department alongside, uh, Greg Johnson, my, my manager.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so that was asking me with not only running the Escapist video, but also rebuilding Destructoid video and Prima video, Mary Sue video, and Dottie Sports video.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it was an exciting challenge, but also like, you know, anybody that's been on YouTube knows how hard it is to revive a channel that's been dormant or dead for either months or years at a time. It's impossible really. It's basically impossible. Yeah. And so, you know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The writing was kinda on the wall by that point, but like the escapists...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wanted to take our model on the Escapist and bring it to other sites and so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] During all five years that I was four and a half years or whatever I was running the escape as we had started building up our premium models based on things that like last stand media does like min max does like defector media like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, building a sustainable revenue that compounds year over year through Patreon, YouTube memberships, live streams. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and so that was working for us, like we were growing revenue, we were doing well. Uhm, we weren't profitable yet because back at EG, there was only Yati, myself, and Omar, our head of production that were full time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then everybody else was contractors and all that and kind of made empty promises about going full time. Uh, and you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I warned them, I said, if you, you know, if we hire everybody too quickly, I'm going to have to play catch up. And that's going to be really tough to get that, raise that money fast enough. And they're like, well, we're going to hire what we need.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A few months before I got fired, like the goal was to go from 5.6 million views from the CEO to 10 million by the end of the year. And I'm like, there's no possible way that's happening.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Clickbait bullshit, my man. Yeah, yeah, and I refused to do that and I wasn't going to let them milk Yahtzee and they didn't like, you know, how much, uh, how much I protected my team. They just wanted to like Yahtzee to do as much as he could and they like thought he was just kind of sitting around not doing enough for the money they were paying him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From, from what I've heard, like, I was, I was called useless at the company. I'm like, okay, like, uh, it's...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, to get back to your original question, Jake, like how we got that started, like it's a fucking madhouse really. Like we, I had had an inkling that I was getting ready to either get let go or get demoted because I went home for Halloween to visit my mom's birthday, visit my mom for her birthday and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, during that week, I got a Google slides report from my boss that basically told me the same thing that I've been told a million and one times. Yahtzee's profitable, Frost is doing very well, the rest of your content isn't. And I, it's not like I didn't know that, but also like our premium memberships were growing because of that content. You don't need


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 100,000 views on every piece of content if people are signing up to support it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, and they just didn't want to listen to that. And so I get their report and by that point I know, okay, I think my time, my time's up. I knew it by then. Uh, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I get, I get home and I'm like starting to panic a little bit because I'm like, I just bought a house last year. I got to figure what am I going to do? And so I know like a bunch of people on, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Comments in all that red are like, oh they button, you know, he, he got the channel three days before he got fired, so this must have all been planned out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, the YouTube account name on that is actually the getaway. I basically just went and grabbed a brand or brand name that I thought maybe this is something we're going to use. And I just had a backup in case like if we, if something did go down like this, we could just direct our community to go there so we didn't lose them. And then, uh, but yeah, so Monday.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Monday rolls around and, uh, we're awaiting a meeting with, uh, my manager, Greg, and, uh, Riyadh, the CEO, and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I finally get the message from Greg and HR to come talk to them. Like, all right guys, see ya. I'm going to go get fired. I'll be right back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So yeah, I go, I go have my meeting. I go get fired. I come back and then Jack Packard is called in to get fired. And then after him, Jesse Schwab, one of our senior editors called in to get fired. And then Matt Laughlin, who was the direct editor of extra punctuation gets fired.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So like our entire video team was basically ripped up and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Matt Laughlin did extra punctuation, Jesse Schwab was doing the stuff of Legends, which was very popular.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so pretty much all that was left by that time was Omar and then Yahtzee and Frost.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I mean, and everything, you know, we, I basically spent all day Monday after I got fired because we'd all agree, agreed we were going to do this and go independent together, writing up a business plan as fast as I could. Like here's.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're, Yahtzee, Omar, Jack and I will all take celery cuts. Uh, here's what we need to basically...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Get at least our salaries back and be funded if we want to run our own independent outlet and I've made all these rejections.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And including like how we're gonna sell sponsorships, advertising on YouTube, Patreon, Kickstart, whatever the fuck we're gonna do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, so Tuesday rolled around, I've got the Patreon page ready because Jack, Jack threw out a, the name Second Wind kind of half-assedly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we originally set it all on a bonfire and then Jack threw out that name and we all kind of like, oh, that sounds good. Let's go with that. Okay, Java, uh, who has good blood on YouTube. Can you make a logo for us? Yeah, man, I got it. Okay, logo's done.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Patreon page, I'm putting that together. I'm like, I'm just gonna transfer everything over that worked on the escapist so we can get this up and running, direct people here. Uh, but we didn't plan to launch that day. All we wanted to launch was our social pages to direct people where to go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Including our Discord. And then somebody found the Patreon link.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let's just see what happens at launch and then it just blew up and that's it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, we, we really, I mean, we're all creatives that, you know, even the video editors and everything, we're all super proud of what we built on the Escapist together and, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We really just took what we're, you know, everybody's been asking, how are you guys getting this done so fast? And it's like, well, we had the whole structure already.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like we knew we were a very solid team and so we just basically took that over to second win and it kept going.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, we sold our own sponsors, we did all of our own marketing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I keep bringing up your stuff because I'm like, skill up as a sponsor on every episode he does. And also like extra punctuation is doing 200,000, 100,000 views every week. Like, why don't we have a sponsor on every episode we do?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's no rea- like what, what is the corporate company giving us at that point besides paying our paychecks?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, you know, like, if we're earning all the money ourselves, and I knew all the money that came in from my team, I did all the tracking on that. And so, you know, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What, what exactly are they doing for us? Because they have this huge network of 17 sites, but there's no cross promotion of anything we do on those sites. There's no marketing from the parent company when we launch a new show.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, we, they made us, uh, separate 3MR to its own channel, 3MinuteReviews to its own channel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I go in and I'm like, hey, are you guys going to say anything about this? You made me do this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, do you have a plan to market? I'm like, you can't just send out a fucking tweet. Like, how difficult is this? Uh, so I mean, yeah, we.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We were basically for the last five years, we prepared for this moment just on our own really just to become a business and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, uh, we were basically independent under corporate owners the whole time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which they don't like that. I mean, they don't like you being transparent and, you know, like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, I won't call myself that because we're not running a website anymore, but you know, basically just director of content and a co-founder. Uhm, so like there's really, there's nine of us that were full-time that came to do this. So I, I don't know if this is like the biggest games media try to try to start up that that's gone. I, you know, might be. I think so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so when we were, when we were all resigning or getting fired and everything, like I had spent years kind of studying, you know, West End and MinMax and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, most recently Defector Media and how they started things up and so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Once we were all at go, basically I sent out my tweet. I had the whole team retweet it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then basically everybody started going and resigning or getting fired and we all just retweeted each other to get the word out. Like, Hey, we're.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, here's what's happening and here's where we're going and go and set it up. So like defecting media is like really.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Somebody commented on another podcast that we did today. It's kind of gross that there's like a plan for this kind of thing to happen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A template, yea, of course. How to escape corporate overlords. But I mean, you can only do it if you know you have the team of people in a community behind you that knows what you're doing and is supportive of it. Definitely.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One of the fun parts about our team is, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think that, I feel like half of us are actually working on games in some form, like game development ourselves.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's also, I don't know, I've already seen the first episode, obviously, it's, I don't know, it's the most...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It just feels refreshing too. It's a, you know, new art, new art a little bit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The first time I met Yahtzee, like I said, was at E3 and while we were at E3, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My three editors at the time, Omar, Matt and Mike.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're, we're, and Yazi, we're all in an Airbnb together, and Omar and Matt and Mike are all on Adobe Premiere doing all their keyframing and typing and everything, and here's Yazi over here dragging shit on Windows of Moon. From another age. God bless.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, so, yeaah, our plans are kind of like really fluid, so we weren't planning on doing written stuff. Uhm, I've, I've, I am...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, you follow me on Twitter. I am very much a proponent of that content should stop being free.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or at least support it in some way, like I'm fine if it's free, but I feel like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The, I don't, I want nothing to do with the ad revenue model really. It should be additive or supplemental to what you're already doing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, so we don't have a website, but like people really loved, uhm, Darren Mooney's columns on, on the escapists. He's, he does in the frame.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I, like he's, I think he's legitimately like the best film critic in the business. And uh, people really wanted his column so bad that like we added it into the $5 tier on the Patreon and they were just publishing his columns through there and people are signing up in droves to get it, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I did, uh, the last time I did the math, uh, we were over 50,000 today.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A month, that's so insane. 50,000 a month and yea, the Patreon is updating like every second right now because all the free trials from last week are going through.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And legitimately since we launched that thing, we've been getting a new page on like every four or five minutes. Uhm, so right now...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think we're tracking tours being like 70 or 90 thousand a month.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right towards the end of Enthusiast Gaming.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then turns out like he's ultra talented writer and he's great.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that's, that's kind of how we knew like we'd be okay going independent. Cause like we got, we got Frost and, you know, JMade is, does fantastic video editing and analysis and design delve and Darren Moody within the frame. Like that man is an encyclopedia of movie knowledge. It's insane. So we just.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We really, I really did like, and I found Theron Moody on Twitter, just scrolling through Twitter, he had a, he had like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A long thread about like a Christopher Nolan movie, I'm like, got right in touch with him, like, you wanna come right there for us? He's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's awesome. Yea, we pick up a lot of talent off the street.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah, we're working on a new video series with him too. So that was, that was one of the really frustrating parts about The Escapist was like we had a lot of really cool video series, uh, that just never took off because it was, you know, it was, it was Yasi's audience and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, they just kind of saw this other stuff as extra or whatever, and so now with Second Wind, it's really exciting because this whole new audience has found us, including Yahtzee's audience, uhm, and they're really, really jazzed about supporting all this new stuff that we're doing, and it really opened up, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What I'm really excited about is like, we're gonna be able to use this platform to get a whole new wave of people you've never heard of in front of hundreds of thousands of eyes now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, no, we just like we really just wanted to make enough on Patreon to get our salaries back that we lost from gamers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and then just keep doing what we were doing because it's really fun and like we all loved our jobs. Uhm, now that we've got this extra money, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're already paying, we are already paying just from the stream donations that we got over the last week. We are already paying our freelancers better than their payday gamers. Cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So yeaah, like we're gonna pay people well, we're gonna give people, like we're working on having a video essay spot on the channel that like we can bring in, you know, freelancers to make their own video essays and give them a spotlight. Uhm, but I mean based on the,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, the money from the Patreon, and that's only one revenue source for us, because we're doing ad revenue, we're doing some merch.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're partnering with SharkRobot for merch and so we launched our first line on Saturday during our launch party and I had called them before because uhm, to kinda give you the scale, like how big this got, how quickly, aside from the YouTube, like our Discord for escapists only ever got to like 4 or 5,000 people after 4 years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The second win discord after three days had 30,000 people in it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, so I like, I said, hey, who's interested in merch and here's the designs and hundreds of people are like, we're going to buy it. So I called Dave.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That shark robot, I'm like, hey, uh, be prepared, like, there's a lot of interest for merch. He's like, ah, well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, generic merge doesn't really do super well in everything, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's what I said earlier today, it's like I don't understand, I don't understand corporate media because


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Think about the way you guys are doing things, you know, the independent outlets, because it's working. It's working if you build the talent, and that can happen under corporate media.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And like we, that's where we were headed. It was, we weren't profitable yet, but you know, when you do these kind of things with Patreon and all that, your revenue compounds year over year, you get annual subscriptions, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You add $6,000 in March, next March you already have $6,000 and you add on top of that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Every, every person I've ever talked to about it, my family who has no idea how it works, talk to them about it, they're like, that makes sense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, we're, uh, it's, I think a lot of us just haven't processed how well this is going at. Yeah, we'll probably process it easier when we're getting paid.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so yeah, we, we, uh, we decided not to pay ourselves until January 31st. So we're basically just, uh, accruing a war chest, you know, so that we're sustainable, uh, just cause we don't want to, we want to be sustainable. And so, um,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Their plan right now is to go to Kickstarter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To basically raise, you know, the first amount of funds we need to fund the first year because, you know, we gotta, we gotta get incorporated, lots of legal fees, all that kind of stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and if we raise the amount that we're looking for on Kickstarter, then we're basically set for the future going forward.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh yeaah, I wanted to do so many undergamers, but, uh, because of...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, unit per ca- er, cost per unit. They wouldn't let me do it unless we, we sold them at like a high, high cost. And I'm like, well, we're competing with Noclip who does them for free, so...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that's not going to work very much. Uh, so yeah, basically planning on going back to doing them for, you know, we need to be paid to do them a little bit just because of the amount of work that goes into them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but we're definitely not gonna try to charge anywhere near what Gamers was trying to get us to charge for them. And yeaah, those are my, those are my vacation projects basically.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, so the person that's going to end up leading the edits on those documentaries is actually Javan Starrett, uh, who does Good Blood.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So yeah, we're, we got some cool plans in place for that. That's cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was having meetings with corporate and all that. They were like, how do we get, how do we become like game ranks? Oh no, like, and I'm like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They, like, I was part of, like, the strategy was like, let's do list, cause they'll do really well at game ranks, and like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's not the list, it's not the list guys that do it, it's Jake Baldino. Oh stop.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, just our, just our Twitter. Yeah, that one's been popping off a lot. Okay. Yeah, I went, I went from being a nobody on Twitter overnight to all my tweets getting like a thousand likes now. Oh boy. Good luck with that. It concerns me a lot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, just uh, dog pictures and good news about the new brand and that's it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I trick-or-treating, so there's a whole other world over here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, no, no, I had uhm, okay, so I had slipknot hoodies, the whole thing, but I also wore, do they call them Jinko jeans in America? Like the really wide?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I have IMDB Pro, which means that you can access like everyone's, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hello. I did. Yeah, I've been in Atlanta, uh, for the past few days and I didn't bother to change, uh, to adapt to the time zone. And I think I've made a huge mistake.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Three, but we just, we had daylight savings as well, so it's technically kind of four.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We have cleared out every store for cards in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and I was just busy. No, I was on a plane, and it was just very, very tight getting back, so I am excited to watch it back because you'll know that I've been threatening to dip my toe into Destiny. I do have Lightfall downloaded, but I've been playing


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dude, the amount of crypto, uh, and NFT and AI interview requests I'm getting for GDC.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, we, so okay, so, since the chronic fatigue diagnosis, I've had to pull back, not that I was ever the most active person, but I've had to pull back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, because the whole thing about chronic fatigue is just managing energy levels as nebulous as that is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but what I do have is I have a standing desk and an under the desk treadmill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, sometimes if I feel kind of...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have the wherewithal to do it, I will put the treadmill under and I'll just kind of gently walk and type and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just get moving a little bit, which is fun. I used to play a lot of Beat Saber, but now that's my Oculus is there gathering dust. Dragula, which is a song that I definitely legally obtained.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And didn't sideload into my Beat Saber, uh, is the best song to dance to in Beat Saber. It is incredible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hi Lucy, it's been 253 days since you last turned this on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I didn't realize that, I don't know, feels like I've come full circle for learning about shapes when I was four. Preschool. Yeah. That's right. That's right. The final shape.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Playing Destiny when it first came out, uh, talking about the Traveler, Wizards coming from the moon, could never have predicted that another Dagonist would have been a fucking triangle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well I've, I've played up to, I've, uh, El Lago. Okay. The lake.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I've put a couple hours in, I snuck around to Tams and he was like, yeah, you can just play something. Um, the thing that I'm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm really, really enjoying it, and I replayed, uh, for not too long ago, and like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The thing I would say about it with regard to Remake is that I'm not finding myself jumping, and obviously 4 was like way more action focused anyway, but I guess I thought from the early trailers and whatnot that they were going for that grittier thing with this, and I'm not necessarily getting that, but I'm having a blast. The way that like, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Encounters seem to change. I did the opening, uhm, a couple times and like one time I went up the tower and they pulled the floor down. But then another time I went up the tower and they didn't do that and so I'm really, it's kind of already, I'm like, I wanna replay this and just see how different things are gonna be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I find it, obviously it's much easier to play because they've modernized a lot of stuff about it, but it's so fun. It's like stealth around. I'm...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Stuff was hitting me more often than not and I was going, what the hell am I doing wrong here? And then way later on you get an actual tutorial.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause it flashes up in the corner, but it's quite, it's kind of small. Yeah. But the window is very generous. I'm playing on normal and I find the window very, very generous and I'm just... Blastin'. So I came out blastin', you know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I really, I'm really enjoying it. I really also like that they've given the merchant way more lines.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And also it's like, like you said, you haven't finished it, so you haven't got the full.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Picture of it, you're going off, also what you can say, because review bar goes everything and there are certain surprises you don't want to spoil and so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm excited, I'm excited for like the chat when we can talk about it. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ralph recommended this to me and I thank him eternally. So this is not a review of it because Embargo's not up and I haven't finished it, but there is a demo that you can play now so you can get a taste of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I basically just want to champion this game because it is, it ticks so many of my boxes. I think Ralph, when you sent me the thing on discord, you went, this is a very Lucy ass game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Meets sort of the, some of the, at least the characters, the painterly art style of Disco Elysium.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Very, but the vibes are very dour and mysterious.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And also there is the kind of, uh, inventory management of Resident Evil in there too, which I really didn't expect. So basically, you're a fisherman.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I was going to say, I'm pandering, I'm pandering to all of you. Basically, you are, you're a fisherman, you go to, you get sent to this kind of selection of islands.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he explicitly tells you don't go out in the water at night because of the fog. The fog.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's very weird because every time you catch fish and you give them to you, you sell the fish. My cat is going, peanut, Jesus Christ.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've been away for like three nights. So this is why, um, when you, when you take the fish back and you sell them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You have these sort of strange conversations where the fishmonger will go, you know, sometimes they'll ask for an aberration, a really messed up fish that you've managed to catch and they'll just say, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to take it in and just if I'm going to lock the door and don't come back until the morning, that kind of thing. And you also have a madness meter if you go out at night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're a fisherman, but so there's kind of inventory management because obviously you can only catch a certain amount of fish and take them back to sell them, but you can keep improving your ship, your boat. So you can, um, improve the hull.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can get better engines, better lights, better, um, fishing rods, so that means you can catch more fish. And so there are all these little incremental things that you can change and work towards, but the heart of it is a really interesting and compelling mystery and fishing mini games. And it's really good. It's a good sell.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Gotcha. So, it's more than everything is very attainable. You have an encyclopedia, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It really goes out of its way to cuz i you know stardew valley the worst part of the game for me is the fishing cuz the mini games is really difficult i never really got to grips with it this one is like all of the mini games. Very easy there is a mode you can set so you don't even have to actually do them if you kind of tap.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The button at the right time it just makes the fishing go quicker but you can just leave it and it'll just go and you'll catch the fish and that's not a skill check anything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Only when you're moving or when you're fishing or dredging.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, and there's a really cool thing that they've put in. So you get a spy glass at the very beginning and you can just take a look.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Selections of islands to find different fish very smart about not wasting your time and kind of giving you all the tools you know you get this you can boost your engines in a little bit and there's management there too because you can't boost them too long otherwise you break your engine so it's kind of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It gives you all these little shortcuts, I guess, in a way, but also...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's so much in there, there are all these messages in a bottle that kind of speak to a wider thing that's gone on. There's treasures to find and sell, there's little...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] NPCs at the various islands who you have to help. That's very good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I'm playing on Steam Deck. I'm in. I, uh, I was playing on my TV cause I got a stand.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It sounds kind of nice to have, uh, at least none of the games of the server stuff tacked on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My first, my first like, exposure to him was as the phantom in Phantom of the Opera. Which was so-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Tell you who else is in Phantom is, uhm, Patrick Wilson plays Raul. Woah, my god. Amazing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Setting out, setting forth on your own adventure and you want to really find your way in a, and you want a game that will really allow you to do that, I think Skyrim.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's a really, that's a really good question, but damn, it's hard on the spot with four hours of sleep.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In 2020 over lockdown, that was my summer game, I spent 60 hours in there, 40 of which probably in a cabaret club.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fell in love with Kiryu and Majima. I genuinely think Majima's intro in Yakuza 0 is one of the best character intros of all time. It's like a 15 minute long cutscene.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm not gonna spoil it, I genuinely, I am excited for you for when you eventually get to experience it because my jaw was on the floor the whole time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh god, and just the way that it introduces every character with like the dun-dun kind of thing and uhm. Yea I love that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm GameSpot, and I'm bomb during the day, and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Looking at the YouTube comments on Neil Young's Harvest Moon at night, if you wanna cry, like I tweeted this out, genuinely, most earnest comment section I've ever seen in my life. You can find me there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Look, Lucy, there's only one or two options. One, you adopt to your old dialect. Or two, you just become American. So there's no middle ground. Them's the rules. Them's the rules.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Guys, hold on, you got, did you see his, him, him, Jake, I have to ask you, when you saw him on screen, you perceived that as happy? For him, yeah. Yes, I agree.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, look, I, this is one that, uh, I think is just super exciting to me. Maybe only me, uh, the plucky squire. I am, I love, I love Devolver. I think they're a great publisher. They generally make phenomenal games.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, The Plucky Squire, for those guys who don't know, it's like a storybook game where you, it's like a, you're playing as the titular Link character in this universe. Uh, but then sometimes you have to get out of the game and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 3D Y start traversing all over, like you're the, the player player characters, like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Room and toy set and stuff. And I, I'm a sucker of games than the games. And this is like, this is, I saw that and I was like, that's a Gerard ass game. I knew right away. This is for me. And, uh, I w that was probably one of the most exciting things for me personally out of the showcase.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Isn't it, isn't it funny how, how, like, games are full circling themselves in a way? Like, Tears of the Kingdom is nothing like the original Zelda, and yet there are now games that are like, hey, we made a game that's very close to the original Zelda, and they're just doing, just splitting it, but it's, both games are still great, they're still doing their thing, I love it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Before we die even deeper, I think the fascinating thing about this showcase was that they started out with a few titles that were also going to PC. Yes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, exactly. Not just like, oh, it's also coming to Xbox, which most of these games are.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think Xbox got a little cheeky tweet about them going into Xbox as well, but, uh, I just thought it was so fascinating that I was like, oh, PS5 and PC right on the bottom, uh, which I guess means that PlayStation's trying to really get their games ready for the PC market well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes. That's what I was saying. I, I thought it was very, I, I loved the little, like, jokey, like, is this ever happened to you? Uh, it, it understands what it's trying to, to satire or to parody and, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I think it's, I wasn't too impressed with the gameplay stuff, but the aesthetic and the idea of what Helldivers is, is exciting to me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Why, why is it that after the death of the Wii U, we got a Splatoon game and the Wii U gamepad for PS5?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it's great. If you haven't seen Blackberry, by the way guys, uh, ProZD is also in it as the main character. He's great, the movie's great, it's very funny. Highly recommend it. This is a plug to go see Blackberry. Not a brand deal, but could have been.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well Jake, Jake Jango, what the fuck is this? Jake, can I ask you a question? And please, I allow everyone at home in the chat amongst us to dunk on me. Would you have wanted to have been a Kadeo Kojima?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wouldn't we all be pissed at the fact they tried to emulate his style? That's a good point.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It must be speculation, but it also kind of makes sense because there was no Megasolid 3 in the title.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well the other, the other thing too though, that I, I, I really personally appreciate, and I think this is gonna be, this is great just in general for all Milligar Solid fans, uhm, is that we're gonna have,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Please God, that's, that's, that's the big thing here that I'm really stoked about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And here's hoping too to make it a, to make it on PC as well. Cause I would love, I like those games just, you know, we're stuck on the PlayStation 2 slash PS3 era and it's been, oh my gosh, 15 years since we've been able to play those games that way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I guess that's true. I guess I meant like all three.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You could have argued the same thing about EA though for a while. Like, you know, to me...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I agree with you, Ralph. I agree with you. I, I, but I'm also wanting to get in the benefit of the doubt because right now it seems like with what they're trying to plan, they're trying to remind people about what Konami used to be. Otherwise they would just make new IP and not go back in the nostalgia well, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, they're taking a huge risk by trying to revive dead IP, or rather, I- their most popular IP, cause if they fuck it up-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, that is the nail in the coffin. It is do or die for them. So if they fuck it up, then yeah, this is it. There is no like, middling ground with them anymore.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I definitely do. I feel like this was made just for someone like me who enjoys...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not having to always, like, I, I am that guy at home who never takes his Switch with him, so I always play on the big screen. But, uh, I only have one PS5 at home, and so my girlfriend and I are always like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like this device to be taken on the road and have it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Work flawlessly, cause I think we're still not quite there. Uh, unless this was like the new Vita.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where it's like, this is a device that you purchase games on, and you take it with you, and it is an equivalent to the Nintendo Switch or Steam Deck. I feel like this is a pretty niche thing that only certain people will enjoy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When, when, for 50 extra more bucks you get a Switch, or for 100 extra bucks you get a Steam Deck. You know what I mean? Exactly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So right now, when you purchase three months of a Babbel subscription, you'll get additional three months for free. That's six months for the price of three. Just go to babbel.com and use promo code friends. That's babbel.com. Babbel.com code friends.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So if you want to get way more shows and save money while you're at it, please go to expressvpn.com slash FPS. Don't forget to use our links so you can get yourself three extra months for free. That's EX...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash FPS. ExpressVPN dot com slash FPS to learn more.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would be a lot more upset if I paid $70 and I didn't get this feature. The fact that the game is free to play and the fact that they have, you know, kind of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm not surprised they canned it because the launch of Overwatch 2 was not the greatest, and their content strategy was not the greatest, and how they've marketed Overwatch 2 overall has not been the greatest. So to me, like, I guess...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Blizzard's gonna blizzard, you know? Like it doesn't feel like, there's not a lot to be gained from something that they...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Probably weren't gonna deliver on it anyways, so it's probably best that they candid, otherwise they would have gotten, we all would have been mad that the PVE was a piece of crap and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I guess, I guess we have to pick, right? Get a mediocre experience that is forgettable and we've been pissed about because that was the whole point of the game, or cut the experience and focus on resources that will hopefully rejuvenate and continue to fuel the economy that is people playing Overwatch 2.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I view all games as art. So that's why I'm like, yeah, I know what you mean. What? Uh, past past to Lucy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's an unorthodox one. It's one that everyone's going to be like, what? I'm going to say is, um, Suda five ones, no more heroes. Oh, that game is such, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's, it's one of those games where you just describe the plot of man wants to hook up with chick. She says, if you want to get with me, you got to kill and become the best assassin in the world. And he goes on eBay and buys a lightsaber. Like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just that's crazy, but then you have the art style and how you play it with the Wiimote and it's, it's such a piece of weird.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But wonderful game history that I just, every time I play it, I always laugh. It's always over the top. It's always fun. It's like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Video game pulp fiction where you're just, you're absorbing all of the weirdness and all of the chaos through and through. And, uh, and if you know Suda, like that's him to the, to the core, that's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's, you know, it's, he's my Hideo Kojima, for what it's worth. Uh, and uh, yeaah, no more heroes. It's, if you haven't got a chance to play it, I believe they ported it to Switch. And the port is pretty decent. It's not bad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well I know that, uh, I know that we talked about this right before we started recording, but I think it's interesting to bring up, now that E3 is gone, and Summer Games Fest is kind of...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, not, not, it is, it's the main one. There are other ones, you know, other small indie showcases happening. Uh, you know, obviously like Ubisoft, Microsoft, and all that stuff around it. But now that you kind of are, are the one that's surviving, there's a lot of expectations kind of sitting on your shoulders.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's gotta feel like a lot of pressure, like how, how, do you have any ideas of how you're gonna be able to like, kind of deal with that? Cause that's a lot, that's a lot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So go to buyraycon.com slash friends today to get 15% off your Raycon order. That's buyraycon.com slash friends to score 15% off. buyraycon.com slash friends.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, I've been pulling, uh, 12 to 15 hour days to try and make some progress. Uhm, and let me tell ya!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Finding Koroks, uh, finding all of the bubble gems, uh, exploring the depths, which is a crazy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Crazy thing, the fact there's a secondary world underneath the main map is nuts to me, and there's just more, more thi- there's too much! Guys!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The tears of the kingdom kills man, there's too much. Uh, I'm having a great time. Uh, it's definitely starting to, I'm starting to feel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The... I don't wanna say completionist burnout, cause that's just always my job, but...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The open world burnout is, is for real cause I, I had the same kind of situation when I played, uh, Breath of the Wild where after a while I was like, okay, I did all of this one thing. I don't want to do anymore cause I've just been at it for too long.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I really love the, the, the, the, the mechanics of the, of the Proto Proto pad. I really enjoy building mechs and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Coming up with weird, like, transportation devices. Like, the weird thing is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, I have been playing this very wrong, and very weird, and everyone on planet Earth will make fun of me, but I don't care because it's my own little treat to myself. Uh, I have been playing Tears of the Kingdom via the YouTube recommended algorithm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so he'll put out a video, I'll watch it and I'll go, Oh, that's great. I like didn't spoil myself. I knew it was in the game cause I figured it was a majority of the costumes from the first game are in this game again. So like, I didn't even really get spoiled. And then the YouTube algorithm will just recommend me videos.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the videos would be like, all the Korok seeds in this, in this, in this sector of the map. And I'm like, you know what?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'll put on my Korok mask. I'll go in that general area. If I get stuck, I'll look at a map. I have two checklists, cross-reference everything, because no one has the accurate data across the board. Once again, everyone's trying to have the most accurate information and it's just hard because there's a thousand Korok seeds!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's just how I've been doing it. And it's been a weird little adventure just for me in that way. Uh, cause I could go beat the game quickly. I could, you know, the ends in sight pretty easily, right? Like the speed right now for the game is 96 minutes, I think.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, yeaah, uh, and, I mean, casually playing it, Ralph, without doing all the sidequesting and whatnot, how long did it take you to beat the narrative?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sure, sure, sure. I estimate the story probably is like 20 hours if you're doing it blindly and just kinda, just kinda going straight down the pipe. Uh, but if you're trying to complete this bad boy, I, I'm estimating somewhere between 4 to 600 hours.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, at least right now because no one knows everything. Everyone's still finding out new tech, new duplication deck, how to build mechs that break the game. Uh, I, I discovered a really fun, easy mech that basically it takes three pieces. You build, uh, you take a fan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you aim it up at 45 degrees and then you put, uh, you put it on the, on the, on the front and then you glue, uh, the steering contraption.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then you on the back do another 45 degree fan on the back and you have a little airship that can fly you everywhere and you have full control going up, down, left, right. It's phenomenal. It's, it definitely breaks the underground area cause you can avoid all of the goop that's everywhere trying to kill you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but yeaah, I'm having a great time, even though I feel like I'm...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wasting a lot of time, cause I, I, I just, I'm not-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now Jake, I do, I don't know if you knew this, but aside from a couple of the Paraglider fabrics, all of the Amiibo costumes are in the game for free.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The random ones, the random ones give you less though, Lucy. So like, you'll get like a handful versus like if you use the Zelda one, like if you use, I think it's like, if you do the Goron one,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or no, if you do Midna, it's just meat. Nothing but meat. Meat upon meat upon meat upon meat. Uh, that you can then cook in the skewers and whatnot. Uh, but yeah, all, all of the amiibo benefits from Breath of the Wild are in this game for free. Uh, and if you have the amiibo, you have like a one in X chance of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Unlocking that piece of, of, of outfit for free. Uhm, so I got the tunic, uh, I got the, the, the Skyward Sword tunic and, uh, the, uh, the Wind Waker pants.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, I agree with you. I am having a lot of fun. I think it is better than Breath of the Wild. I...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The story stuff is much, much better than, than the previous game in my opinion. The way that it starts, the stakes of it, it establishes a very clear journey that's ahead of us. Uh, and I like it. It's just, uh, I'm not sure if I like it enough to do it all again, cause I completed that game twice. Once on master mode.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And once on regular mode, and now I'm here I am. And I think, I don't know if it's true, but I've heard rumors that master mode is in the game, or might be coming later on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry as I'm gliding down. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna add a tiny spoiler thing. It's not a story thing. It's a mechanic thing. Jake, have you unlocked and everyone at home cover your ears or just


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, save your, save your blueprints and you can just summon them and you're good to go. It's, it's a godsend that I felt the fatigue Jake that you felt until I got the auto builder. Then I was like, I don't care anymore. And I can creatively think and not worry about the consequences.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It like saves it as the most recent thing you've built. And then once it's done, you can press save and just anytime you either, either when you're around those pieces or you spend a zone, I to summon them from thin air. Uh, and then you can just.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Summon your torture devices or your penis flame monster, whatever you come up with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Seeing you guys talk about this game in our discord.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was the most fascinating thing I have ever had the pleasure of looking in from the window because it's been good. It's been hilarious. I don't know what you guys are talking about, but the fact that you're talking about them the way that you have been is just like, it sounds like you're making this up through and through.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would love to make a series about shitty games and what it's like to complete them and do like a day by day journal vlog of like, this is what fucking happened on day one and why this sucks balls. I'd love to do that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is one of my favorite games of all time, one that I feel like a lot of people slept on and one that does not get enough love, especially Nintendo, by not putting it in the Mario All-Stars 3D pack, you bastards. I'm talking about Super Mario Galaxy 2.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Arguably the better of the Galaxy games. Uh, it learned a lot of its mistakes with regards to level design and UI. Uh, it's a lot of fun. It's lighthearted. You get to play as Yoshi or you have Yoshi with you. Uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's, it's a great time. If you, if any of you, uh, have not played Mario Galaxy 2, I highly recommend it. I don't know why it's not on the Switch, and it's, it's very unfortunate that it is not. Uh, Jake, what do you got?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Loved it. Highly recommend it. Legit. Very legit choice, Jake. Thank you. I'm trying. Lucy, what do you got?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was the exact same at Best Buy here in the states, Ralph. Always sold out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, we were sold out of WeFits for I think 18 months.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On YouTube, I'm ThatOneVideoGamer, but everywhere else, I am TheCompletionist or Completionist. Uh, this weekend, I just did a, I just did a video, if you want to hear more, uh, Tears of the Kingdom stuff, on my first 100 hour impressions of the game. I go way more in depth than what we talked about today. Uh, but yeaah, I'll see you guys soon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Very successful appearance first time through, sorry to interrupt you, I was just saying everyone loved you the first time through man, so we had to have you back. Comment section was just all about the blessings, so it had to happen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a few reasons. I think number one, people were naturally quite cautious about this when they heard that Rocksteady was making a looter shooter, and they also knew it was live service.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This information was already out there before, like for quite a while in fact, and people were a little bit skeptical, but a lot of people, myself included, were very much like, nah man, they're gonna put their own spin on it, it's gonna be fuckin' sick, just you wait and see man, rock steady, like they don't miss, whatever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of, you know, in terms of menus, in terms of gear, in terms of their plans for battle passes and cosmetics and also you got to see warts and all, well not the fully, but you got to see a good chunk of what this experience is actually going to be like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it really seems like everyone's kind of worst nightmare from a, like, you know, live service perspective. It's kind of like, what game would you absolutely not want Rocksteady to make? Probably something like this, you know, which obviously I think as well, we should say we shouldn't prejudge it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We haven't played it. We don't know, right? And it could end up being extraordinary for all we know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Based upon what we've seen, based upon what these type of games are, based on what they've been in the past.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, just based on that gameplay, and I guess another complaint that people had was about how homogenized a lot of the character designs were. As in they looked different, but they all kind of played different. Captain Boomerang's running around with a sniper rifle and SMG, and Hing Sharks got a minigun, and it's like, what are we doing here? You know what I mean?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was just in every category, like gameplay and monetization and itemization and whatever. It was just not clicking with people and yet the reveal went very, very badly. I can't recall public perception swinging against the game so quickly in one fell swoop. Like this is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The purple weak points part was the goofiest part of the whole trailer, by the way, for anyone that didn't see it. Like imagine every enemy, including tanks and helicopters had these big purple pustules on them, which were obviously the weak spots. To be fair, it makes sense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sure, okay, it makes sense chronically, but at the same time, it also is just kind of like, is that what, is that what we're doing here? We're shooting purple, purple glob things for 500 hours while leveling our battle pass and, you know, killing Batman for the 85th time. And I don't know, man, it's just, oh, it hurts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I, but I mean, I think, I think as well with this whole Rocksteady thing, it's like, I'm very much in favor of developers making games outside their wheelhouse because, you know, I do speak to developers and they get really bored making the same type of game over and over again, you know, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A whole bunch I've spoken to. And so they're like, I would love to try a different genre, a different this. And I'm like, I really support that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I think with this, it's kind of like, I don't know that this is really being made for like, pure reasons, if that makes sense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That have managed to deliver a level of immersion like Rocksteady have delivered immersion. Like the way that they did Batman, what that meant for Batman as a character


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like the whole, it makes you feel like Batman thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I definitely expect it'll be that thing that Avengers did where it's like we're gonna have a campaign that's for your single player folks and it's gonna be, you know, mission based and it's gonna have cutscenes and whatever and then you'll finish it and then all the other folks who want to stick around and grind out the stuff and whatever, you can do that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's like, okay, well, fair enough. I mean, sure. In theory, you'd think you get to have the best of both worlds, but our experience with these sorts of games is you actually don't get to have the best of both worlds. You get a significantly compromised single player experience.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because vast amounts of development resources have been poured into making all of that other stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In a, in a, um, in a looter shooter during its campaign, exceedingly rare because they want to save the most exciting stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A special Batarang that Batman crafted for you personally and, you know, you had to go on a quest to find it and it, you know, massively transformed your play style. That's cool. And that's the kind of stuff I wanted to see out of Gotham Knights. It never happened, of course. We just got the generic stat sticks and colors.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think as well, one, one thing that I definitely have realized over the last 18 months is that, you know, the live service market is pretty, I'm not, I wouldn't say set in stone right now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I also played other games, like I also played like some Apex and I played World of Warcraft. I played Final Fantasy 14. I tried to keep up with a number of different live service games.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I eventually reached a point in my life where I'm like, okay, I need to make a choice now because I don't have enough time. So what's it going to be? You know? And I made that choice for destiny. I'm like, that's the one that I'm going to invest my time in. Uh, almost exclusively, so to speak.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's been really liberating in some aspects because it's allowed me to sort of like go deeper into Destiny and do some things that I might not otherwise have done because I'm trying to spread myself thin across other, you know, live service games.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but at the same time, it means that I have not experienced those other games and haven't played the latest expansion of Final Fantasy XIV, for example, even though I'd love to do that. My point with all of this is that like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think a lot of people have made a decision similar to that at this point with the live service landscape. They've decided they're an apex main, or they play Fortnite, or they play WoW, or whatever, and that's it. And when another, like, game comes along, trying to, like, sort of shoulder barge into that,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a really, really tough thing to dislodge those people from those existing life-service experiences and ask them to invest in something wholly new. It has to be a really great offering to like, you know, do that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's leaving. I don't know who Sefton Hill is. He's the co-founder. Yeah, sure, sure, sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I learned, I learned that the game director, the other game director for, um, got, uh, the Suicide Squad was also, uh, one of the lead designers on the Division 1 before he left Massive. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So he's like, he has, he has form in that category. Division pretty good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Your vision was fantastic, obviously, but it was another example of just how hard it is to maintain a live service. Um, and it just, it's just, yeah, proof positive of that. And that's another thing that I worry about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, Destiny is what it is, uh, and that is a studio of a thousand strong, and all they do is make that fucking game, and that's it. Uh, they are working on other projects right now, sure, but like in terms of what they've got live, that's it. Uh, I mean, Rocksteady being able to maintain a content cadence,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, but like, it took Bungie so long to get to the point where they could actually do this at a proper cadence, but Rocksteady to get to the point where they can do that and satisfy an audience and actually compete on the live service stage, that is huge, that is a massive drain of resources.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wonder if they have the bandwidth to be able to make a different game after this gets up. Do they need to just focus exclusively on this for two years to stand up the live service elements before they can start thinking about making that Superman game we all want them to make? You know what I mean?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, I don't know. So, you know, it's been in development for like eight years. Is it realistically a 10 year development for that? I don't know. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, please prove us wrong, Rocksteady. Please make us look like jerks. Essentially.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Contact at friendspersecond.com. There's actually been quite a few questions in the last little while, so thanks for sending those to me. Appreciate it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, I think too, I think I would like to write, but the thing is I don't believe I could write.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like I would like to like write a screenplay or a book, but I've never done that before and I don't have original ideas. Like I'm really good at being like, this thing sucks. This thing is good. But if like, like you asked me to come up with new ideas, I'm like, um, what, what if, um, uh, the Joker, but he was good, you know, like I've got nothing, you know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I reckon it would be fun to do that. I would really like to do something like that. Maybe at some point. Or alternatively, I think it would be nice to teach.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I like, I don't know, I just think teaching, especially in, I don't know, content creation and, or whatever, like, I just think it'll be nice to like teach young people how to do it and give them the right mindset. So, cause it's like, it's a shitty world content creation if you come at it in certain angles or you follow the wrong people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I dunno, I think it'd be nice to be able to help young people enter this space with the right sort of mindset.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, I think there's a difference between, I think there are some core fundamentals about what it means to be in this world and do this thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Versus if you want to like pop off and be top of directory on like Twitch or, you know, have, you know, like 70 million followers on TikTok. Like they're different things, you know, and I think that you would, I think all of us would be able to sort of talk about those fundamentals that anyone could take with them wherever they went.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the whole sort of like going viral thing is going to depend on them, their personality, the kind of content they do, who they connect with, all that sort of stuff. That's something that I think that sort of stuff is actually someone no one can teach you. You kind of need to figure that out for yourself with your audience.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I still remember when I got my PSVR1 and I had that game Rigs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was a, um, like a mech combat game. Imagine, like, you know, a big, uh, thunder dome kind of arena with mechs speeding around super fast, shooting each other. And oh man, it was just like motion, motion sickness, fucking cities.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Would you say, I mean, I've heard mixed things, cause I know you have a take on this as well, Blessing, but Jake, would you say that Cold Imagine is a system seller? Cause I've heard some people say yes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I mean, I think to this day, still the best VR experience I've ever had was Star Wars Squadrons.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, which is obviously not a racing game, but like the idea of being in a cockpit and having to steer something is just.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And also what's great about that is that it doesn't, it means you don't get that much motion sickness because for some reason when you're surrounded in a cockpit and you can see like a static dash with the environment moving outside, your brain is for some reason okay with that. And it's so weird that this is how it works.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But yeah, you get significantly less motion sickness when you're doing that. So uhm, yeah, it's a really, it really works for me personally, for sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I haven't actually booted up, um, Gran Turismo yet, but that's the top of my list. You got to. I'm super excited for it. I mean, I was looking at Danny O'Dwyer's tweets the other day. I was just about to say, Danny's tweet. It heightens the game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, like full credit to Sony, that, that launch lineup, cause essentially you've got, just in terms of your headline items, you've got Gran Turismo, which is, well, what, the best racing VR experience you can have right now, full stop, straight away. It sounds like it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, No Man's Sky, which got updated for PSVR 2 and with a whole bunch of new features, which is meant to be superb. Resident Evil Village, which is also meant to be excellent and just consistent with previous VR ports for Resident Evil games. And you got Horizon Call of the Mountain, which is like purpose built. It's obviously like a little bit tech dummit, tech demo-y.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's four really good games available on day one in your VR headset. And there's only like a handful of really good must play VR experiences across the entire VR landscape.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's not many, you know? Uh, and I think for Sony to already have that sort of stuff on there on day one, that's a really good value proposition. And Resident Evil 4 remake, they just announced that there's a VR mode coming for that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Sony announced five new games at the recent state of play. Smaller titles, obviously, but still interesting. There's that new one from the people who did, uh, the Resinfinite, uh, remaster and Tetris, uh, Tetris? Tetris Vex. Tetris Vex. That humanity looking game, that's got a VR mode as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, I was quite skeptical about whether or not Sony would really, like, go all in on this, or whether they would just, like, kinda drop it and go, oh well, let's just see what happens. But, seems like they're putting time and money and effort and marketing behind it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, I think so far it's like a success. That's, that's my, that's my take on it so far. So, yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, the rose. Wow. That's right. Yeah, that's right. I don't know. Actually. I'm not sure about that. I don't know. I'd be surprised if it was. They haven't mentioned it. I thought they would mention that in the marketing if it was, but don't quote me on that. Maybe that's a good point. Maybe that's something


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, actually I've taken a break from playing it so that I could be here with you fine people today.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, yeah, I mean, look, it is a expansion for Destiny. It's a, it's an ambitious one. Um, it adds an entirely new kind of subclass to the game. Uh, it sets it in a new location. It adds a whole bunch of quality of life features. Uh, it is the penultimate expansion in the 10 year saga.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, it's sort of like the second last one that will wrap up that, that moves us towards the big conclusion, which is going to be the final shape next year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, yeah, so far so good. I've really loved what I've played. I've played a few hours of it. I'm about three or four missions deep now. I'm just getting to the part where it's getting hard and there's some real bullshit because I'm playing at the hardest difficulty and it's tricky.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, yeaah, I think a lot of people are wondering whether or not this is a good jumping in point for people, and I can't really say yes or no to that yet, but my general vibe is probably not, because again, this is towards the back end of a saga.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, they actually have also just increased the base difficulty of the game as well to make it a little bit more tricky, not unreasonably so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But like, just to bring it up a level, because the game got a little bit too easy recently. Uhm, yeaah, it's just, and also they haven't touched the new player experience, broadly speaking, which is very confusing and unwelcoming. So,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Great. So again, yeah, BlueC has downloaded it, so has, so has jkreditor. Look, of course, you can push through all this stuff, don't get me wrong. It's not like it's impossible, but what I'm saying is that some games, it's really easy just to fall into them and off you go. The Destiny is a lot like that. It's, it's, it's, it's some work to really, you know, yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sure. I will help you. I can, I can carry you through things. I can explain things in a, you know, try to not be- Right trigger, shoot, go here. That's right, exactly. I have a question.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, you know what's really funny though? In this expansion, they've added a memorial to him in the tower. Like it's just this statue that's sitting off to the side now and you can go up and like press a button and, and one of the like vanguard or whatever will give a little quote being like, I really miss Kade.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Noel North. We ended up calling him Noel Android. Uh, he does a perfectly fine job. Better than Peter Dinklage. Peter Dinklage was really just like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was there for a paycheck, you know what I mean? And so, uh, it was nice, it's nice nostalgia to remember him, but Nolan is definitely doing better work. And the roster of characters is definitely filled out, because back then it was kind of just the cage show almost, but now there's actually quite a few notable characters.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The acquisition from Sony, because obviously they are now a Bungie Studio.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uh, his thoughts on live service delivery, very relevant given what we just talked about with Suicide Squad and just random stuff. It's not going to be a two down in the weeds Destiny discussion because we know a lot of people who listen to this podcast don't play Destiny. But you know, he is leading one of the most successful live service games in the world and his studio has recently been acquired by Sony.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can ask him about if Cade had sex? We can ask him about that. Cade had sex. Jake wants to know, did Cade had, did he have the sex? I haven't.


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[Assistant] Neo 2's got a lot of bullshit in it, like it's not, it's not even, it's not good difficulty I don't think, it's got just a lot of annoying trash mobs who will one shot you if you fuck up and...


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[Assistant] There's a video up on my channel if you're at all interested in the detail. But yes, I, uh, went to Japan. I visited Square Enix HQ.


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[Assistant] Uh, I was there with most of the senior development team for Final Fantasy 16, including Yoshi P, who leads Creative Business Unit 3, the studio making it, as well as Yoshi P, who does localization.


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[Assistant] Uh, Takai-san, who is the director, and uh, Suzuki-san, who is the combat guy, and he also was doing, he did Devil May Cry 5's combat, for example, and he like, used to work as far back as like, he's been with Capcom for 25 years, he worked on uh, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, and Dragon's Dogma, and whatever, so like,


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[Assistant] This is something I didn't mention in the video actually, because there was so much content. I just didn't have time to put it all in. But basically at the very start of the project,


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[Assistant] Uhm, uh, Yoshi-P is like, okay, this is an action game.


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[Assistant] And they created a vertical slice of a sequence where they're kind of running through a ca- it's basically what we play, which is running through a castle and fighting some bosses, right? They created this vertical slice, but it wasn't actually


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Real in, in the sense that it was kind of all hard, hard baked. It was a vision of what it would look like rather than being truly playable.


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[Assistant] And then that was just to get a green light from the, from the executives. They got that green light and they said, okay, cool. We're going to make an action game for Final Fantasy 16.


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[Assistant] Do we have anyone in the studio who can, who can do this, who can make an action game? They looked around, they're like, no, we don't have anyone who can make a proper action game. So that's when they started looking around and they knew, uhm, someone, actually Takai, the director, knew Suzuki.


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[Assistant] And he knew that he was at a point in his career where he was kind of thinking about what was next, uhm, and thinking about, and Suzuki was saying, oh, I was wondering,


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[Assistant] You know, would anyone outside of Square Enix have use of my skills? Uhm, and then Takai said to Yoshi- uh, Yoshi-P, he's like, you have to hire this man. There is no one better we can get for this than this man. And then, uh, Yoshi-P got straight on a plane, went to Osaka.


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[Assistant] But yea, it is an action game. It does feel like Devil May Cry-ish. Certainly feels more Devil May Cry than it does God of War, right? It's faster, more like, more aerial, uhm, it's-


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[Assistant] Yeah, 15 fucking sucked. Oh look, I ended up, I ended up actually liking 15 inverted commas.


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[Assistant] Uh, because of the boy band. It was just the bros hanging out, it was sick. And then, and then also when you play the DLC, which wasn't available in the game at the start and you play those DLC stories, that story hits so hard because you realize what each of those dudes sacrificed for Noctis. And it's just like, oh, it's so good. Like it's actually excellent.


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[Assistant] That was a real time combat model, but it felt like, it felt like if you were trying to take, what do you call it? Oh, I don't even know how to just probably describe it.


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[Assistant] It was just weird. You basically kind of threw your sword at places to teleport and you'd hit them a few times and you could cast some spells and.


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[Assistant] Like it just was kind of very awkward and it was a bit nuff nuff and was neither here nor there. This is very clearly planting a flag in that kind of character action camp, right? This is, it feels in that space. It's not quite that. There is, there are some differences. It's definitely more accessible.


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[Assistant] Uhm, but that's sort of where it's going. And you already can just mix and match different abilities to create this sick look and combos and knock and foes up in the air and doing these, ah, it's, it's fun. It's definitely fun. Uh, it's gonna be, I think, confronting for quite a few fans of Final Fantasy because it's so different. But, uhm,


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[Assistant] Look, Final Fantasy has often changed it up, you know, like they had turn-based for a long time.


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[Assistant] ATB with, uh, Final Fantasy VIII, uh, they had, you know, like this kind of like MMO hybrid-y sort of feel in combat with XII, uh, and then XV was different again. You know, VII Remake was this fantastic hybrid of like ATB and turn-based and party.


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[Assistant] They've always tried to mix it up, and this is just another attempt at that, and uhm, I think it's, it's, it's working. I, I definitely walk away from it confident that the combat is going to work. I do not believe that everyone will like it, but I'm very confident that it will work, and that many people will actually like it. So uhm,


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[Assistant] Yeah, outside of that story, it sounds super sick. I'm really down for it. It's much more adult and kind of gritty and political and whatever.


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[Assistant] Very keen for that. Uhm, the voice talent all sounded great and visually it looked fantastic even though there was a lot of motion blur. I was playing the 4k fidelity mode. There will be a performance mode at launch. A lot of motion blur. I would never in a million years play any game with that much motion blur, but I'm looking forward to that performance mode. Uhm.


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[Assistant] And yeah, and the other major thing that came out of that when the interview was that like Yo-YoshiP really hates the term JRPG. Like he's just not down for it. So yeah, basically I kind of mentioned, Oh, Hey, you know, do you feel as though JRPGs haven't evolved over the years? Is that why you're mixing things up so much?


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[Assistant] And, um, and I was, and I was really intrigued by that. And so I kind of probed a little further and he was like,