I, for one, approve of this as a way to do a "year-in-review" episode and would welcome it becoming an annual thing.

What a cool idea to cover the slow news weeks that are the end of December. Thanks, team.

21.45 Reminds me of a famous curse: "May you have so much money that you can build a house with a hundred bedrooms, and may you be unable to get a good night's sleep in any of them.

"Does anyone actually remember what happened this year?" No, and I kinda feel happy about that?

Dark Forces Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight - Mysteries of the sith Dark Forces III: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast Dark Forces IV: Jedi Knight III: Jedi Outcast II: Jedi Academy (and I guess you could add "Star Wars: " in front of each of those)

The whole daedalic deasaster is pretty heartbreaking to me and many others. It was one of the few German studios that showed quite some promise. As mentioned „GameTwo“ devoted an entire episode of their weekly show to give context how this happened and I got the impression that they didn‘t fail because they didn’t try hard enough but rather that the project was just way too ambitious.

Damn, that Daedalic story is a real bummer. I remember playing their point and click games when I was like 12, and having the time of my life

Dang, never knew that Sonic fact, good find Paul! Also, thank you Kathleen for using this year in review/quiz to highlight and discuss the massively effed up state of the game’s industry right now thanks to corporate greed, and the desire to appease executives and shareholders with the myth of perpetual growth. It sucks to think how many talented people in game development are hurting right now, but we need to keep talking about it and supporting the people who actually make the games we love, otherwise the industry will be worse for it.

A couple interesting notes on the game sales number talk: historically numbers couldn't be published because for at least the first several months publishers only know how many units were shipped to stores, not how many were actually sold. NPD was the most accurate sales data for at least 6-10 months, and part of NPD's agreement when you buy the reports from them are restrictions on sharing the data. Also, as a developer, some publishers like Activision will often refuse to share detailed sales info, as they believe withholding that information allows them better position when negotiating contracts (yes, very scummy).

I'm digging Beej and Graham's shoe and sports coat look. I want a show where they vlog around Victoria in matching outfits.

The whole thing about layoffs is a morbid reality, everyone wants so much more, proof that even when you're succeeding someone else is failing even more.. all we can hope is 2024 doesnt deal more in that and we can hope for a better 2024 for everyone else. This was a load of fun otherwise though! cant wait for the clip show

i love this - as a trivia fan im always up for Kathleen donning the trivia hostess hat and giving us some quality factoids

Graham @19:13 "This is why I love this woman!"

Graham's reaction at 14:15 lmao

OMG Beej! I too immediately was like "The game from Encino Man?" when Radmobile was mentioned.

Always such a pleasure to see Cathleen get her chance at doing Have I Got News For You. Loved the show ;)

Circana is a merger between IRI and NPD Group. Amongst other things, IRI provided CPG and retail data. Amongst other things, NPD Group did a lot of media sales. Neither business was doing really well, but the hope is together they can somehow do better together? Get used to Circana. It is and will be everywhere.

In the Kathleen apes a British panel show format for a video this year it's something like have I got news for you but gaming

SO first of all I loved the segment a lot ty

This was great and love Kathleen's fully justified mini-rant at the end of the quiz. Good stuff all and thank you for all the great vids you all do.

Sonic 1 came out on my 11th birthday. So I will never, sadly, forget it.

You mean almost 40 minutes of basically ONLY the after credits talkies? OK, I'm in.

this is a really cool and fun idea. I feel bad that I missed it when it was uploaded. I hope yall do it again next year!

This was great! Looking forward to the same next year.

I like this gaming version of Big Fat Quiz of the Year.

Couldn't remember the "Unity Runtime Fee" because it was overlapping where my brain stored Google's "Web Integrity API," which was somehow significantly worse and also probably for ads.

Whee, engagement. The only thing I could think about in that last bit is this quote from The Prisoner (1967): "Questions are a burden to others; answers a prison for oneself" -- because yeeeeeesh. Also, thank you all for putting on this show -- it is enjoyable punctuation to the week.

I love the would I like to you odd one out round, if you ever do a British panel show segment on a Live it needs to be included

That was fun. I wouldn't object to seeing this kind of thing again.

30:53 - Hyper Light Breaker as it is not out yet.

Regarding sports games hitting top ranks, I remember reading that some EA or Activision exec was *livid* that World of Goo made it onto a top 100 list where his annual shovelware went without mention. Hilarious.

It's a Paulpoint!

Oh! Oh! Circana is big for the U.S. publishing industry! The numbers tend to be kinda fucky, but are really the only metric we have to check the sales track of a book

Timestamp 30:55: I think it's Hyper Light Breaker, because the other games still have been published and Breaker isn't out yet

Hey, yeah, that was really fun! +1 to the voices saying to do this again next year!

30:50 , odd one out, windmill slam diablo, no idea what the pattern is

This was really fun to watch and think about with my spouse while we cuddled on a snowy sunday with our kitty

30:55 Hyper light Breaker isn't out yet

I remember hearing some murmurings about issues at Daedalic a year or two ago about conditions there but I didn't realize they were behind the Gollum game. Quelle surprise.

The part about Adobe charging per video view is a blatant impingement on their morale character. If Adobe was going to go that route they would claim copyright ownership of any video edited.

I love it anytime LRR does quiz shows.

Always enjoy a trivia quiz, and Kathleen is so good at writing them!

31:31 I think the odd one out is Diablo, as there is only a single character shown on the key art used while all the others have more that 1.

This was a really fun watch and would love to see it make a comeback.

Okay I can't fathom that Graham has been on as much Crossing the Streams and other shows to have not played Overcooked or its sequel enough to know it is a hectic action game. :)

Quiz format good! Also getting some feed dump vibes

Little deep dive on Daedalic (the Gollum devs) - they're a staple of the German games industry. (Which in itself is a fitting representation on the bad state of the German games industry.) They've been around for 15 years and have consistently produced really good Point&Click games (which have always been a relatively big thing in Germany). They've also developed at least two games in other genres - Blackguards 1&2: a turn-based RPG series based on THE big German Pen&Paper system: The Dark Eye. In my opinion they were really good games, though they were probably a lot better for Dark Eye players like me, than the general public. Though they have decent meta scores and again: Big thing in Germany by a company that's well established in German games culture. Good fit. (They've also done a few point&click games in that universe before.) With their relative success, they also started to establish themselves as a publisher for smaller studios. And with the German industry being what it is (not healthy), they've quickly made it to the short-list of publishers to contact for most small German studios. Their biggest titles as publishers probably being Shadow Tactics and Barotrauma. BUT. They've always been a bit of a questionable company. As far as I heard, for the first years their development practice was basically "get a lot of unpaid interns, have a few paid workers to organize that output into a game". There's been a time in the German industry when basically everybody knew somebody who had been an intern at Daedalic at some point. Though that changed over time with success (and legal reforms forcing them to at least pay their interns - but they also hired more people). ... and their boss, who's a bit of a... character. Regularly going on long rants and fighting with people in industry social groups. (At least as of a few years ago, not sure if that changed.) Not surprised at all to learn there was a toxic work environment. I kinda feel their managers are happy to close down the development studio. The core of what they're good at (German niche stuff) is too small for their international ambitions, so they'd rather attach as a publisher to people who haven't lost their creative vision yet. Kinda sad for the Point&Click community.

This felt like part trivia, part Kathleen's Soapbox Against Corporations and their CEOs. I, for one, am here for both parts!

Great ens of the year episode! I hope you do it again next year!

Your quiz was wonderful, and Richard Osman would be proud. (or Jimmy Car? Or Mike Trapp? There are actually a lot of great quiz shows out there who would be proud.)

This was a lot of fun!

That was a great show! I'd definitely watch more like this

Love this quiz, looking forward to it already for next year

Yah new checkpoint!!

This was an amazingly entertaining watch, great show.

This was fun. I kinda want to see this as a quarterly addition to checkpoint.

Today I learned that I'm about three weeks older than Sonic the Hedgehog.

Great quiz!

very fun format of review, even when covering some grim and depressing circumstances

I'll bet that Bobby Kotick will make so much money that Microsoft will close a studio.

I love LRR talkshow style content

This is a comment to show I like this content and would like for KZfaq to also like this content and show everyone this content so more people can like this content 👍

With everybody doing their year in review stuff. I really wonder what the old Escapist crew is going to do for their year in review

This is great. A good mix up for a good show.

This quiz was really fun. The world is falling apart.

30:50 my guess is that the odd one out is diablo immortal for being banned in a few countries for how their economy works. Edit: Got the right answer with the wrong reasoning.

It's like it's their JOB!!!!!!

As someone who got 3 free copies of Starfield because I bought a new CPU, a new-ish GPU, and pre-ordered a laptop... I am not surprised it is on the list.

is that a phelddagrif i see

Love this. So fun.

whoa! festive set dressing

Good quiz. Kathleen should get a cookie.

Engagement!

This was so much fun

I like how Kathleen said "RANK LIST" because it is rank. BG3 was a game of the millennium tbh. It was the best made game, with no hooks no nothing. Hogwarts? I mean, sure. I was into HP when I was a kid, but honestly that game started out okay, then it became "here's bunch of copypaste, enjoy".

The sales figures for Modern Warfare 3-2 make the 'only CoD' defence against Microsoft's purchase of ABK slightly more understandable. Still stupid, though.

I enjoyed this a lot!

This was great and also very sad! classic LRR content

very good episode

I love Kathleen and her scathing sarcams towards capitalism

Did you take the format of that last round from Have I Got News For You?

I love Kathleen Quiz Time!

Love a good solemn JPG.

Diablo immortal is the only game without E in the title

I FUCKIN SHARE A BIRTHDAY WITH SONIC?! I don't know if I'm excited or mad.

Dang man, just looking at the sales, you could assume this was a terrible year for gaming.

I miss LRR quiz games....

Jordan Hopkins is a gender neutral name

Unity can't do much worse than John Riccitielo... except then there's Bobby.

microtransactions?

30:50 Hmm... I'm guessing Diablo Immoral as the odd one out, because the other three are real games, and DI was just a scam designed to appear like a game.

Watching 3 days later and Netease lost 25% market share since then =/

All I'm saying is: if an algorithm were to register this comment, it would see that I am engaged.

I am begging FPS gamers to play other kinds of games.

NPD Group ?.. thats not a great name in Germany ....

All that terrible info about Daedelic's work culture doesn't surprise me after having played the misanthropic mess that is the Deponia series.

Ah yes, monke dot exe