the CEO money is so disproportionate, when will it be enough? when will it trickle down? when will their greed stop? you know the answer is NEVER

55:00 - During COVID people had to go into the Office way less and in some cases it was even forbidden to go to the office. Now that that's more or less over people are in the office way more (yes that's not the case for EVERY industry, but still). If a one way drive to the workplace is on average 1,5h, that's 3h lost to sitting in traffic which could, in a work from home setting, be spent gaming (and/or family time, cooking, cleaning and the whole 9 yards).

It's not surprising to hear that Zeke's chat was full of backseaters during HoMM3. Anyone uninitiated might not even know how large that community is still to this date. During prime time for Europe, you can find thousands of players online on the 3rd party lobby server that everyone uses for PvP + who knows how many playing offline. Legendary game for sure.

1:19:30 - Worth remembering that although Microsoft is worth $3tril, that's sharemarket value (how much investors think they're worth), which isn't indicative of the company's actual wealth. Per their 2023 annual report, they're worth $206bil of which $110bil is liquid capital. So were they to liquidate tomorrow, the shareholders probably wouldn't receive near the share value. (This is prior to the activision acquisition, so interesting to see how it looks in the June reports).

my head hurts after the first 10 minutes of the show... GOOD SHOW SIIRR

Cohh: Corpo-Capitalism. My dude that's just capitalism.

I think Cohh’s delay was pretty big today. He was constantly interrupting this episode. Idk what changed from last episode, but i just noticed it more this episode. Love the show!

i felll asleep watching this 3 times. So a 3h show tok me 12h to finish

1:44:0 no Cohh. Replacing creatives is only part of the discussion. Replacing entry level programmers is also an enormous problem for the longevity of game development. We're already seeing a huge brain drain in the industry, and this short sighted attempt to save money by having the lower level tasks automated by A.I. is going to make it much, much worse.

thanks for a chill discussion about games and stuff

Put it this way, if S Bond asks you to play Poker with her, agree. The amount of tells in that interview was remarkable. NLP bods would have a field day with the eye movement

Zeke's server emails were sent to his AOL account thats also still active. 😂

The golden moment of the Indie and Small Game Studio is upon us. Glory be to Gaben the Glorious of the Realm of Steam.

Thanks for the show.

I feel the same way Dread Delusion as Zelenograd feels about Hades 2. I want to play the game now but I’m choosing to wait for 1.0, which is fortunately in a few days.

A couple of my major thoughts from this episode: 1. There's no way that the people that drop into chats and say those jokes think that you are talking about them. Cause, of course they only do the funny jokes so they don't need to be offended. :P 2. Let's not pretend that the hand monster from Pan's Labyrinth doesn't look like Mitch McConnell.

Losing tango hurts so bad

Because of this video, I was able to cancel my 6mo WoW sub before it re-upped later this month.

I don't show my criticism for Coh often, but hearing him saying I googled it and gaming is growing and it's awesome and just accept that as an absolute constant reality is absurd.

AI will not necessarily only shorten the dev cycle. It WILL decrease the need for actual developers. I don't see AI(or whatever it actually is) as a benefit currently, because money incentivizes lowering cost, not necessarily making more product.

I fucking LOVE Zeke's excited rant about HOMM3. That was absolutely great.

This Marvel Overwatch clone is so bland and soulless. I'll be surprised if it survives even one year.

For people who want to have the correct information on the CM that was fired on HD2. He was the Owner of the original HD Discord, which was not affiliated with Arrowhead (given that the game was released on 2015). He deleted because people were using Helldivers 2 Discord for Helldivers 1 matters, and because he would not be able to be a moderator to HD1 Discord while being a CM on Arrowhead. He was not fired because he was an "Asshole" even though he would sometimes poke at the comunity, he was fired (Confirmed by him on Reddit) because he asked people on the Official Discord to Bomb the Steam so Arrowhead could use it as a bargain chip with Sony.

Cohh telling coal miners...just learn to code oh wait ai does that go learn to...

is there a new game without some form of controversy?

The fact that Sony as the publisher published the game on Steam in regions where it would not function, tells me Sony is a bad actor. It doesn't say anybody else is good or bad, but that tells me Sony was acting in bad faith from day 1.

1:06:00 Marvel Rivals is basically doing what other companies sometimes does but upfront. If you get in Nintendo's good graces to review their games and they send you games in advance...then completely shit on Zelda and Mario because you genuinely didn't like those games. Nintendo will sever their relationship and privileges with you. Other companies do similar things as we've seen as you'll probably hear youtubers talk about when X or Y company didn't send them an advanced copy so the review they post will be later than others. Given that I've known this for a long time...its not exactly an industry secret...the assumption that streamers AND reviewers will be nicer than they need to be about games they cover is already factored in.

The amount of times jp gets interrupted on his own show is actually crazy. I know it's sometimes delay but damn let the man talk.

Ads in games aren't inherently evil. The vending goodies and sega arcades in Yakuza, the Coleman camping crap & Cup Noodle in FF15. Those are diegetic to the games, the issue is the loading screens of Dark Souls being replaced with 2 minites of youtube ads for fake mobiles & scam sites

Its good to know even high end corporations have trouble explaining their job to the public

Thank you for the reminder to go an unsub from FF14, I resubbed 3 months ago but never got around to playing it >

It's weird too since Jp said he never even got that marvels rival contract. which is weird since he either got one and he just skipped it and wanted to play the game right away.

Maybe some of these execs aren't qualified for their positions?

my head is spinning...😖

We are living on a game crash basically, every crash or crisis is gradual and it erodes to the point of a big crash. Indies are the way forward for all gamers

I think JP might be overstating at how bad Overwatch 2 is doing. It’s still consistently in the Top 10-15 most played on Xbox and I assume it’s similar on PlayStation. Its reputation may be soiled somewhat by streamers and the hardcore community but it’s still being played.

I'm probably one of the 7 people who did buy Hi Fi Rush outright and not on gamepass :/

Worst thing about GOT is that steam or at least sony is removing GOT from steam in 170+ regions even THOUGH the PSN account is ONLY for the MP in GOT, not the single player. which means I guess sony is just going well if this game needs PSN account then were just going to remove it completely even IF the single player doesn't need a PSN account to play it.

saying game pass is "viable" isnt exactly the same as saying "profitable".. just saying

Streamers rise up? More like streamers read what you sign

To be clear arcane austin was slated to be shuttered it was postponed when the zenimax ceo died...Todd took over and was making zenimax eat the losses

Regarding the possible success of Marvel Rivals, people are missing a massive distinction when it comes to the Marvel IP: MCU is dying/in decline. It's old news. It feels like homework. It's lame. It's culturally becoming irrelevant. MARVEL itself isn't. There are millions of former MCU fans who DO wish to engage with the Marvel characters/universe they used to care about, but the MCU has fumbled so much, that they're done with it. For them, a game like this is perfect. They can enjoy Marvel without MCU.

Game pass just needs to get revamped. With the cost of making Triple A games, or any game for that matter, being so high, it kind of just cuts out a lot of the ROI when a game releases and is instantly placed into game pass. We see and hear about games being played by millions of people just after launch, but with services like game pass, the amount of people that have purchased said game is probably about half that. They should roll it back a bit. Give a time window until a game can be added onto it so that there can be a true showing of how financially profitable or not a game is/can be. Maybe like 6 months to a year after full release. You obviously are not going to see a game become a financial success if you are offering the consumer a way to play the game “for free” through your own subscription service.

Cohh sounds so disgustingly corpo with this helldivers thing

On the Rivas contrat, they are just like " Don't compare us with Overwatch, and only sing praises on our game" Gosh I still have to play Hades 1 lol

Remember when some people were actually hyped and happy that Xbox is buying Bethesda or Activision? :P Now we will see more studio closures, because Xbox has to cut costs after spending tons of money on this shopping spree. I seriously think no studio that isn't "core" Xbox studio (Rare, 343 etc) is at risk. It will be no surprise if Ninja Theory or Double Fine will get shut down. And yes, indie games will be fine. From a player perspective - there will ALWAYS be indie studios and at least couple of good/great indie games every month. Yes, from devs perspective indie market is risky of course, and very crowded. But for players? We're eating.

Someone should ask PS to change their slogan from play has no limits to play has limits to 69 countries.

About gaming slowing down, it is in alteast the US if you check the money spent by year for gaming, it's down since Covid so there is some truth to that.

It always comes back to enshittification and broken capitalism.

Remember folks "canceling" is another term for "the consequences of your own actions" :)

Indie game Pog

JP and Erin not living in same location? is this a Riot California house thing?

Also go look through the credit info about hifi rush it only sold 300k copies all engagement with that game was on gamepass which was flat in New subs

Aware Hi fi rush devs Aware

Cohh cheering on Nintendo is kinda hypocritical

jp you got a beuty filter on or something? You look stunning! slay

Wow I’m first! Hi mom!!

Metacritic score does not pay the bills. If a studio isn't making money they get shut down. This isn't a new thing.

and now Square Enix is stopping being a Playstation exclusive which can be the beginning of the end for Playstation's exclusive IPs.

of course cohh would defend capitalism, he's like profiting from the system on crack

Idk where Cohh got his info but gamepass was never not profitable.

I'm sorry but gamepass was never profitable. lol, what because xshit actually said it? lol, a 5 year old coudl tell they don't make money due to the amount of people that are subbed and the amount of money they shell out to put games on ther.e it's not like they put games on game pass for free. it's the same for Epic games where they don;'t turn a profit for the free games you get for free every thursday.

That's hilarious that you can't say that overwatch was a clone of something our other considering it is just a skin of Team fortress classic 2. with some different maps.

Boycott triple A games for a couple years and watch them squirm.

If you're curious about what's happening with the economy, look up "Peter Zeihan population pyramid." His theory makes a lot of sense to me, and even if you disagree with his conclusions, you can't ignore his facts. I just feel we like to forget that all we're talking about here are just silly entertainment jobs and not the real issues coming for all of us. Sure, it's why we follow people like this, but the perspective seems very narrow and myopic, fundamentally lacking proper insight into the real reasons beyond just "greed and capitalism bad bruh!".

57:20 there are 2billions playing on mobile and 1billion consol/pc gamer

I hate the Helldivers 2 discourse, because the HD2 subreddit has been toxic AF ever since the first balance match a month (two months?) ago and the latest PSN thing didn't make things better. There were people being toxic to the Discord community managers, being toxic on Twitter, being toxic on Reddit, the whole gamut. So the community managers reflected that toxicity back, and then the community is like, "Wow, that's unprofessional. Arrowhead should fire that guy", as if they are completely blameless and innocent in the entire thing. The discussion well is completely poisoned by the community. I love the game, and I'm willing to give the developer company the benefit of the doubt. I have no trust whatsoever in Sony and no good faith for the community either.

what you are missing about the phone versus console conversation is that controllers are not gonna be around for long. a whole new generation does not know how to use a controller or a keyboard and only think of technology in terms of touch controls.

i really hope IA takes cohh job next year ;/

First

This is going to be a ramblerant on business from someone not in business, but with some familiarity of the system. Capitalism isn't inherently bad; Cohh was right to distinguish it from corporate capitalism. One focuses on value, the other focuses on money. The issue with the modern video game industry is the lack of oversight on what is and isn't allowed. The reason AAA is moving to mobile is because regulations are catching onto the current video game market, and they want to run there to hide their unethical practices where it's still allowed. Everything is on fire right now because for the last decade the AAA industry was catching the market on fire with maximizing profits using practices that were eventually caught and regulated, mixed with Covid making people paranoid about their dollar. To simplify the timeline, games find an infinite font of money from lootboxes, overpriced DLC, half finished products being sold full price and licenses, they dig as deep and as hard as they possibly can into it, it lights up some sirens, it gets regulated in some areas, investors see a drop in profits that's impossible to match because it came from an unethical root that's losing viability, Covid hits on top of that and adds to the popularity followed immediately by the decline of the market, market destabilizes and the moneymakers start pointing fingers at everyone but themselves for past mistakes, then people get fired in an attempt to stabilize.

If I was CEO of microsoft I would create a new covid virus to create a new pandemic and profit from people staying inside.

In response to Cohh about not liking to play on a small screen and wanting to play games on PC or console… I don’t even own a PC or console. If there is a game coming out for PC or console, I watch a streamer play it on my TV, while I play a mobile game on my phone.

The games can be used in those countries, they quite literally just set their country to one that PSN is in. It's in the PlayStation FAQ.... That's not true about Ghosts either, the main game works without a PSN account, the online won't but yet again, you have your account linked to a country that does. I wish people would research before spreading this nonsense, it's been like this for years with zero issues, no issues until the pc crowd start crying ofc...

god i wish obsidian is closed for ever