The State of the Games Industry (Why So Many Layoffs?!) + The Finals

[00:00:00] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the Pre-Order Bonus podcast. I'm one of your hosts Cameron Warren and I'm joined as always by Jacob Price. Jake, it's February 1st, the first day of February, 2024. And we're here to talk about video games once again. Oh man, it's been a long week. It's tax season.

[00:00:34] Yeah, gotta get that stuff in. Yeah, dude. Made a crazy long week. Work is really, really picking up for me in a bad way. And dude, yeah, it's just been super stressful.

[00:00:50] We have a baby at home, which we don't talk about much. I don't talk about much on the podcast. Babies are hard, but babies are also really hard when they are starting to crawl, which means if your house, your house needs to be better baby proofed.

[00:01:09] Baby proofing the house. Dude, everything gets in a baby's mouth and that sucks. It's not a good combination, man. Job stress, heavy job stuff, grade and papers, baby at home. It's February, it's freezing outside, no sunshine.

[00:01:29] I mean there are some video games coming out, right? So that's cool. That's the only thing that keeps our spirits up. That is what gets us through the dark times. Yeah, dude, I have been all over the place with the games that I've been playing.

[00:01:45] I started like a bunch of games just to try to see what would stick because I'm trying to get as much done before February 29th. So I'm kind of digging stuff up out of my backlog trying to see is this a short game? Can I beat this month?

[00:02:06] Yeah, I think that's a good strategy. I have been playing almost exclusively Prince of Persia, which we can actually kind of trend this into a news topic,

[00:02:22] which is Insider Gaming just dropped an article inside Ubisoft to kind of give a state of Ubisoft and kind of how things are going over there.

[00:02:30] And it came out that this game looks like has only sold 300,000 copies, which man, that is a shame because I got to tell you, Jake,

[00:02:39] this is one of the best games I've played. Like this would have broken my top five last year. So it is really, really solid, just really good.

[00:02:52] I'm really surprised that this game hasn't hit a million copies sold just because of its quality, because I've been playing it as well. And it's a really fantastic metrovania. I loved Metroid Dread and I'm pretty sure like I haven't beat this game yet obviously.

[00:03:10] But to me so far it's on par with Metroid Dread. It feels so good. It plays so well. Bosses feel cool. So yeah, it's not for lack of quality.

[00:03:23] No, this is one of the best things that Ubisoft has put out in a while and honestly, like not shy about saying I think this is my favorite metroidvania maybe ever.

[00:03:34] And I'm not like a huge metroidvania fans to be honest. Like I bounced off Dread pretty hard, which I know a lot of people really like.

[00:03:43] Even Hollow Knight, I never finished it, but I'm going to finish this game. Like I'm deep in. It's got just the movement is so crisp and so good that I just can't get enough of it.

[00:03:56] And then as you go throughout the game, obviously you have this like in all metroidvanias you have this, you know, you're getting new abilities and the puzzles and like platforming puzzles just get harder and harder and harder and more interesting and like more creative as you go.

[00:04:12] Yeah. And so I've just been addicted to that plus the combat is just super fun. Like it's just they put a ton of work into just the little animations and how combat flows.

[00:04:25] I'm excited to do our episode on that one in a little bit, but yeah, man, I'm loving that game.

[00:04:31] Yeah, it's going. It's really, really awesome. And like I want to highlight something that you said is that the platforming sections are quite creative, which I think is really hard to pull off in a genre that's been around forever.

[00:04:47] A lot of times with metroidvanias, the creativity sort of comes from the types of abilities that you get. But I feel like the creativity here is just in good old fashioned strong level design.

[00:05:01] Not so much because of what abilities you have and how that's going to change how you navigate through different sort of sections of the game.

[00:05:08] Yeah, I've been I've been really impressed. I thought it's been that to me, I think it's kind of been the highlight outside of combat is just that level design. It's done really well.

[00:05:19] It makes you feel like you have really mastered the movement as you get from place to place.

[00:05:25] Well, let's let's dive into a couple news topics. There's a lot going on. I want to start us off with Suicide Squad Suicide Squad came out, I believe Wednesday, I want to say I went like public February 1 or maybe today.

[00:05:42] Maybe today was the first day of I think, or maybe January 31. I think it was Tuesday, actually. I think that's when that's when people who purchased the early access were able to get into it. Is that right?

[00:05:54] I mean, it's definitely open to the public now. Seeing a ton of impressions and reviews. I've listened to a lot of breakdowns of this game because I'm obviously I'm a rocksteady fan.

[00:06:07] Obviously played all the Batman games. Really love the enjoy the DC Universe and all that stuff has to offer and yeah, I mean it looks like unsurprisingly this is going to be a critical flop when review scores actually do come out.

[00:06:24] They did not give out review codes. I think for, you know, I don't know probably obvious reasons this is the live service game. So I think you could debate like hey, you kind of this game has to have time for people to play it like a week or two.

[00:06:36] Right. But what I'm hearing is like the biggest sort of thing that I'm hearing and the vibes that I'm getting is it's there's just a lack of soul to it.

[00:06:47] Like it just and that. Yeah, there's some really interesting like cool story stuff in there, which is really unsurprising given if you played the Batman games like you can you know that Rocksteady knows how to do that stuff really well insane like motion capture facial graphic technology like it looks really good.

[00:07:08] Yeah, movement is supposed to be fun. But what I'm hearing is basically like repeated over and over again essentially the same encounter with purple dudes blow them up, get the points, get the loot and then it's just like that over and over again.

[00:07:25] Which just sucks man, it just sucks. I think it just is I just I rack my brain. So first off, I do think that this my thoughts on this game or two fold number one. I think the idea that like executives push this on Arkham, I think is actually false.

[00:07:45] I genuinely think that Rocksteady was like hey I think we can make a game like this and we're going to do it with Suicide Squad. And I think their rationale was hey let's do this because we need a cash cow and if we do this and think about all these other projects that we're going to be able to do.

[00:08:01] And then I think they ended up just not you know being able to like every every company who's tried to do this pretty much nine out of 10 of them right.

[00:08:10] They just weren't able to pull it off like couldn't figure out the life service and obviously look we're early so I don't know how this is going to be financially to be honest, it could still sell super well I don't know.

[00:08:21] But my second thought is just it is wild to me seeing what I have seen of this game, seeing all of the really sick looking Justice League stuff, seeing all of like metropolis.

[00:08:36] And I am just, I cannot I am so flabbergasted that they just sat back and said you know what would be really cool. Instead of playing as Superman and the flash we should play as King Shark and boomerang.

[00:08:51] Like, and I get that there's a scope issue there right there's an issue with sure you're going to have the Avengers problem of you've got these characters and how do you scope that out and that's, I'm sure insanely hard right.

[00:09:08] But man it is just you see that stuff in the game, and it just boggles your mind I'm sitting there thinking about they have these skins that you can buy you could buy cosmetics in the cosmetic shop.

[00:09:19] How awesome would be if I was buying cool cosmetics for Superman or Green Lantern, or the flash or Batman and said I'm doing it for King Shark and Harley Quinn you know I just like, it's just crazy.

[00:09:31] It's just crazy. It's crazy that they sat in the room and decided you know what people want to do. They don't want to play as the good guys they want to play as a Suicide Squad. So this game has been in development for nearly a decade right?

[00:09:45] Yeah like pre-production basically seven years plus yeah. Okay. Was there at any point of time in this during the production cycle that the bad guys were in and I feel like the answer is yes, like when we think about different movies that did well.

[00:10:03] Didn't Birds of Prey do pretty alright? Joker did okay. Joker did really well right? And so I kind of feel like, I guess I don't really know my question is did this game miss a cultural beat?

[00:10:17] Like if it had been able to release several years ago when these films were featuring villains over Justice League characters could have it done or could have it been like received a little better.

[00:10:31] I think WB, I don't again this is where it's so hard to tell but I just I don't believe and I don't actually believe.

[00:10:40] I used to actually think that this was more true than I think it is but I don't think WB strong-handed rocksteady into making a live service Suicide Squad game.

[00:10:51] But so to your point though, I do think that Guardians of the Galaxy has had such a vast influence on the direction of maybe WB like the franchise as a whole. Interesting.

[00:11:09] That what they wanted to do is like hey look we can do Guardians of the Galaxy. We have the Suicide Squad it's perfect right? Just line it up and we're good to go like just put these guys in there we got these crazy dudes.

[00:11:21] And funny enough you know James Gunn obviously made a Suicide Squad movie and it was pretty good. Oh yeah that's right. I forgot of the movies I mentioned I did not mention the Suicide Squad movie.

[00:11:32] And I came out I think two years ago three years ago and so I'm thinking to myself maybe I mean it's obvious from the cinematics and how the production design was for this that this is very very much.

[00:11:43] Guardians of the Galaxy style you know banter and you know sort of emrated slapstick type stuff and that's what they're going for and that's very much like I think the vibe they're shooting for.

[00:11:59] But yeah I don't know if they missed it or if it was even ever there. I'm not sure. I don't know how much money that Suicide Squad movie made. I assume it did fine because they gave James Gunn the keys to the DC Kingdom so.

[00:12:12] Right right. Yeah I don't know. I guess just I don't have any real desire to play this game and just to be totally frank with listeners I haven't like if you're a long time listener of the podcast you know that I'm not like a super big fan of superhero things

[00:12:29] like I'm relatively lukewarm like I don't dislike them. I'll go watch them and I enjoy them. Don't get me wrong right but I'm not seeking after it like something's really got to grab my attention.

[00:12:40] Something's really got to call out to me something like like a Spider-Man for example Spider-Man is the superhero that I do really like and I think is super cool.

[00:12:48] And what I've been seeing floating around social media is a pretty lukewarm right people some people saying combat is like a lot of fun.

[00:12:59] Traversal is surprisingly intuitive and feels good same thing about the visuals I'm seeing a ton of people praise the visuals people without spoiling or having some reactions to the story that are extremely positive like well that was a cool moment

[00:13:14] like I just had a cool moment in Suicide Squad and other people saying like wait wait what this was the decision that the story decided to sort of go in.

[00:13:24] And so it's a lot of people I think are saying once they beat the game they're kind of ready to be done or they're like yeah I don't know how I feel about the live service sort of component to this game.

[00:13:39] So it's I mean that's not looking good if your game was live service and that's where you want to be your cash cow people be the campaign and they're kind of ready to turn it off and go on to the next thing.

[00:13:52] So yeah I don't know like you said I think this is an interesting hunch and I think it's I like this I don't want to think that executives are always pushing like hey you have to make a live service game.

[00:14:01] And in that way this isn't like a red fall scenario was Zenimax pushing Arcane Austin to to make like a live service multiplayer game which we saw how that turned out right.

[00:14:14] So yeah I'm seeing a whole lot of like mixed or even lukewarm responses to the game and nothing is really pushing me to buy it. Yeah no I'm the same way. I think when this game drops to like $10 I'll jump in and play through the campaign.

[00:14:34] I would definitely I could definitely see myself doing that but yeah I could do that.

[00:14:38] I mean just some weird decisions you know we don't need to go all the way into it but just just strange decisions just really strange and you don't know always the reasons for everything.

[00:14:49] You don't know if it's like a scoping issue or you don't know if they like drastically change the direction halfway through. You don't know you assume it's probably a combination of all of those things. Is it is it an engine problem. Is it a scoping problem.

[00:15:05] Is it a staffing problem. Is it a budget problem. Like it's probably all those we don't really know hopefully at some point we find out but I don't know it's it sucks.

[00:15:15] I think the saddest thing like the suckiest thing is that the potential that the studio had to make a super sick dope thing in that universe whether it was Wonder Woman Superman Green Lantern whatever it was in a super cool metropolis with deep story beats and fun action

[00:15:34] gameplay.

[00:15:36] That's just sad that we are missing out on that and I get why I get the reasons why because you got to make money right you got to make money and the best path not necessarily the best path but what seemed to be the path to make the most money is live service as evidence by news this week we see the E.A.

[00:15:57] I mean this is just a clear data point in this is that you came out this week it was like 75% of our revenue is life service. So like so at that point you're like what's paying for Dragon Age Dread Wolf. It's life service.

[00:16:13] Yeah it's apex and FIFA and FIFA is paying for Dragon Age and don't the Sims also has like paid little bundles that you can get isn't that right.

[00:16:26] Yeah I'm sure the Sims does well I mean those are the cash cows apex is a billion dollar game FIFA is a billion dollar game.

[00:16:32] I guess it's E.A. F.C. now I remember that's right but yeah I mean FIFA especially I feel like that's one that drives in so much money and apex legends right and I mean I get it.

[00:16:45] We're going to go into a whole conversation here cameras laid out a bunch of amazing bullet points talking about the layoffs and we're going to get into that a second before we get to our game on the finals which will kind of be the capstone of this episode.

[00:16:59] But I mean I mean I get it I get why E.A. has this model right if 75% of your revenue is coming from live service games then keep making them right because they're paying for all the other games and it just makes me think about like E.A.

[00:17:16] is sort of I think they're starting to come around and they're starting to get a little more positive public opinion and I don't know man if whoever whoever those whales are buying apex skins is making it possible for more games to be made like Jedi survivor then the models fine right.

[00:17:41] But the real problem is that this model is not easy to achieve and it's not viable in every single case scenario right I mean I think that's the biggest problem is so many people want to piece of this pie and they simply can't get it.

[00:17:56] Two prominent examples that have it's kind of this is kind of beating a dead horse at this point but Anthem right and that Marvel's Avengers game that was what crystal dynamics. Yeah crystal I just want.

[00:18:10] No was that crystal and makes ideas now I'm pretty sure it's crystal dynamics we're doing some self fact checking it was crystal dynamics was it ideas Montreal did the Guardians of the Galaxy single player.

[00:18:24] That's right yeah yeah but those just being two examples of this didn't pan out for those companies.

[00:18:31] No and I see suicide squad being compared to Marvel's Avengers actually a lot and actually Avengers getting the benefit of hey actually the characters and Avengers were actually distinct like they had distinct kind whereas in suicide squad one of the biggest

[00:18:45] criticism I'm hearing is it's all just shooting guns for every single. Interesting yeah.

[00:18:53] Dang which look again if you stop and I think about a little bit like yeah that makes sense like you've got four characters that you have to figure out how do you manage and how do you balance and how do you do all that stuff and live service and you've got loot

[00:19:05] and you have builds and how do you do all that stuff that is privy to a live service experience.

[00:19:12] Oh and you have four characters that need to feel distinct it's like how do you balance that I don't think you can I don't think you can right like you.

[00:19:21] I mean that's the beauty of a single player experiences you could do whatever the heck you want doesn't have to be balanced you can just do crazy stuff that's fun it just is fun right.

[00:19:30] Yeah and I think that's probably the advantage also of believe it or not I've actually played a bit of Fortnite the past two weeks.

[00:19:38] A game that I've hardly touched but zero build mode I know it's been around for a long time is actually way fun because yeah building in fortnight was the biggest turn off for me but same sort of thing like in apex sure there's some variance between characters

[00:19:53] but they're relatively minimal and like in fortnight literally it does not matter who your character is there all the exact same it comes down to what game what guns you know chance upon as you're playing the game right and so the balance there comes down to something that shared between all characters which I imagine

[00:20:12] it's got to be a lot easier to manage right same with like halo infinite right it really comes down to guns not individual characters and so I feel like adding that extra bit of abilities in classes and distinction between characters and live service just is going to make things

[00:20:32] difficult especially and maybe only really for PVP scenarios.

[00:20:37] Yeah I think this leads us into we can break down and I kind of want to let's start off this conversation about lay out I want we thought we want to address layoffs in the industry so since we last talked Microsoft laid off 1900 1900 employees as part of their merger with

[00:21:00] Activision Blizzard King super super just sucky situation and I think there was sort of an expectation that there was going to be layoffs because that's just what happens in a merger.

[00:21:12] Nobody really knew how many or maybe like it wouldn't happen because Microsoft was just like the shining beacon on a hill and it was going to be way better and they got rid of Bobby Kodak right right and so right after they do that then Microsoft comes in and swings the axe and cuts 1900 employees

[00:21:28] cancels that survival game that we were talking about you know we've been like bringing that up for a while now that would be the so cool yeah right wasn't it two weeks ago like in the power world episode yeah we're talking about

[00:21:42] how cool is it going to be to see this triple a survival game and now it's not happening.

[00:21:47] But yeah so there's this article from insider gaming on Ubisoft I don't know how much of this is 100% accurate but Ubisoft is like this leads into this conversation around why are there so many layoffs happening in the industry and it's not it's

[00:22:03] not just in gaming but we're going to talk specific to gaming like why this is happening and comment on it right give a perspective I've done a little bit of research and have been digging around on what's the exact reason for this happening it's pretty complex

[00:22:20] but we have a few data points that we're going to hit on but there's this article that came out that I thought was really interesting on Ubisoft couple points from this article I thought were really interesting leading in this conversation.

[00:22:32] One point late in 2021 early 2020 the company had around a dozen battle Royale games and development sources set. Whoa.

[00:22:42] And now I imagine these were like internal pre production testing not like 100% green lit right yeah obviously right but you just goes to show you that man there's this trend chasing and it's like once you decide in gaming to chase the trend you are too late.

[00:23:00] You cannot do it. You are too late you're five years out right yeah you're five years out and so Ubisoft you know they're trying to just make it work. And if you scroll down here's the funny thing you scroll down and it goes.

[00:23:18] I don't know if I could find the exact spot but basically now they have for extraction shooters currently in development.

[00:23:26] So they've basically turned off a battle Royale and they're now going after extraction shooter the biggest one that we know of being the division heartland which we have no idea when that's coming out.

[00:23:38] I think I've seen man I forgot about that one that slipped out of everyone's radar right.

[00:23:44] Yeah and so you be soft just an interesting article and then you turn around and then you look and this is just another data point in this whole conversation we just talked about it.

[00:23:54] We talked about the 300,000 players for Prince of Persia the Lost Crown which is sort of a double A is $50 super duper high quality experience that nobody bought.

[00:24:10] And so gaming Twitter and the gaming sphere is like well why don't these companies make these single player experiences and they just really scope them down and just focus on gameplay what there it is right there and nobody bought it. And so what are executives going to do.

[00:24:26] Yeah not make them not fund them it which for the most part right I gotta say about the Prince of Persia game. You know there's got to be obviously there's gonna be various factors into why I didn't sell as much as we hoped or expect.

[00:24:41] I think part of that is you're releasing in the middle of the power world discourse right.

[00:24:49] And I think that's going to hamper any game that comes out in that window even though they're entirely different games and they're trying to accomplish different things but you know you want that free word of mouth marketing right.

[00:25:03] And if that is being completely asphyxiated by this discourse surrounding power all the want power all this I think that has got to hurt a little bit.

[00:25:13] And but even still this game has been on the radar for a long time this game has been kind of known in the public public consciousness and so is this partly a marketing thing.

[00:25:25] I feel like Prince of Persia the Lost Crown has also been in development for a really long time it'd be interesting to know if I think at one point it wasn't even a 2D side scroller right so maybe some significant change in what the game was supposed to be and how it's supposed to be designed might slow it down

[00:25:44] and then which makes it more costly in the long run I'm just just a little curious because you're totally right a lot of people at least on social media right are saying that they want experiences which is exactly what Prince of Persia the Lost Crown delivers but what are all the factors impeding that those numbers from going up I'd like to know maybe

[00:26:02] the price point of 50 bucks is also something to consider. Yeah I don't know like in my intuition and I could be 100% wrong on this my intuition tells me that the fidelity combined with the price point that and I saw somebody posted on Twitter.

[00:26:22] They said this is basically an indie game and I was super offended by that and I was like if this isn't any game like we've lost the plot on any games yeah yeah and I think his post actually went viral.

[00:26:33] So a few people liked my comment because it's like this is in no way shape or form an indie game if this is what we consider an indie game like we've we've lost it like we're crazy.

[00:26:45] This is way beyond the Dave the diver discourse from last year if Prince of Persia the Lost Crown right. I do think the average buyer does look at we have to be honest with ourselves they do look at the fidelity up to a point.

[00:26:59] I don't think like ray tracing and path traced lighting and Jake's joke is always about like path traced puddles and yeah like 4k puddles and Spider-Man.

[00:27:13] Yeah but that being said I think the the average the casual consumer does make an association with 50 you know $50 and above like well like what does this game look like and I want a screenshot.

[00:27:26] Then again you have power with 19 million players so who knows I have no idea nobody knows anything about anything right.

[00:27:34] That's kind of the funny thing and I think it's interesting to bring power world actually into this conversation about Prince of Persia because power world is constantly being compared to Pokemon Scarlet and Violet.

[00:27:46] And let's be honest if you're looking at graphics power world is 50 times better looking than Pokemon Scarlet and Violet right. Right true it does actually visually play pretty well actually to that point on like social media and like it's very tick-tock friendly you know yes yeah.

[00:28:05] Prince of Persia the Lost Crown to be totally frank I don't really love the art direction I think it's good and I think it's fine I'm not totally in love with it and now I don't always associate art direction with quality and power.

[00:28:23] I think it's fine I'm not in in price right I think I think that's you know that's a whole other conversation but I do wonder if the average gamer is looking at something to buy in January to play on their you know fancy console or whatever it is.

[00:28:39] I don't know if you guys are in and how big of a deal graphics and graphical fidelity is to them and art direction because you have like let's be honest like the Prince of Persia looks fantastic like it is extremely well done but I just wonder if people associate that type of art direction with lesser quality.

[00:29:00] And I wonder if that's where that comment about it being an indie game comes from which I agree is super off base and doesn't make it's not applicable and it's bringing something into a conversation that doesn't really belong but you know what I mean like.

[00:29:13] No yeah perception is everything unfortunately so I mean this is like a 30 hour Metroidvania with you know deep mechanics and all this stuff right. And you know what maybe 300,000 copies is fine but at a company like Ubisoft I doubt it looking at some of their other games.

[00:29:34] Insider games that sort of revealed that. Avatar Frontiers of Pandora accumulated 1.9 million players estimate 133 million in revenue. The division division to did 330 million and 264 million respectively and an assassin's Creed mirage was said to have done.

[00:29:55] Stands of 5 million players estimated 250 million revenue which is I imagine decent right like they probably had a relatively strapped in budget for mirage because it started out as like a DLC so that's probably a nice little bit of cash there for a game like mirage you know.

[00:30:17] That's awesome but it is interesting going back to this idea of art direction and whether or not there's some sort of perception or even prejudice against non you know games that don't go for photo realism and like hyper.

[00:30:31] What's what I'm looking for just like what we would call colloquially like insane graphics right assassin's Creed mirage and avatar frontiers of Pandora graphically are top tier looking games right in an assassin's Creed mirage I think it's a great example of something that's striving for photo realism in its art direction.

[00:30:57] The Prince you know Prince of Persia the lost crown is not right and it's and metroidvania maybe at this point in the gaming industry despite it coming from Metroid and Castlevania which during when they first came out were probably you know those are the top tier whatever that time periods equivalent at AAA is.

[00:31:18] Metroidvania now I think is highly associated with not AAA.

[00:31:22] I cannot think of another massive major studio that's making metroidvania like Prince of Persia that follows sort of the traditional outline of 2D platforming side scroller unlock new abilities to unlock new spaces in old areas type of metroidvania right so yeah interesting to sort of see those three.

[00:31:47] Coming to comparison because they all launched recently but because two of those follow one art direction and one is quite different.

[00:31:56] Let's take that into Jake talking about I've put together this analysis talking about layoffs and I just I want to address this because I see a lot of people going like what is going on right and getting mad getting upset which they rightfully should right I do think.

[00:32:09] I do think at the end of the day no matter what. These companies are in it for the shareholders and that's it right there's right the work the worker is expendable is 100% expendable so it's important to maintain that context when you break things down but.

[00:32:28] So it's easy to be pro worker and make everyone happy and excited when things are going well but when things are looking like they're not. They might even might not go well which is like the case of Microsoft.

[00:32:44] Just hitting a $3 trillion market cap they have plenty of money in the bank they have plenty of cash but they look to the future and go we don't know how this is going to go so what's the easiest thing that they can do to sort of quote unquote whether the storm.

[00:32:57] It's cut staff right and so we know they cut 1900 employees since January 1st 2023 there have been 15,000 layoffs and gaming. Epic games cut its staff 16% unity laid off 15% CD project read shed 10% riot dropped 11% EA 6% so these are all like successful gaming especially you think about epic games.

[00:33:23] Right biggest beast cutting 1516% of its staff and then divesting additional companies that they just got rid of so that's hundreds more.

[00:33:33] So massive massive layoffs so why is this happening right so there's a few things and I'm going to give credit where credit is due I pulled this from a blog and I recommend you can read the entire article because we're not going to go over every point there but it is a deep deep dive into the state of the industry like yes extremely deep.

[00:33:51] It's Matthew ball dot vc slash all slash gaming 2020 2024 I'll put the link in the podcast description give credit to this guy.

[00:34:01] He's a venture capitalist in the gaming space so admittedly you know this is not like a gaming journey this is guy who's invested in the finances of gaming 100% yeah so anyway couple reasons that come out to me like going through this article.

[00:34:16] First off gaming cost couple things I actually pulled this from the hack and this isn't this thing isn't in his article but I just want to bring this up and some the experiment to with a budget of 350 million versus Spider-Man one with about 100 million.

[00:34:33] Yeah, and then from an internal and some you know insomniac slide deck where they presented like the financials the game is three X the investment in Spider-Man two evident to anyone who plays a game.

[00:34:44] Dude what a brutal question I mean a fantastic question to ask I think in that type of a meeting right and I will be totally honest with you where was the extra 250 million spent in this game now marketing for Spider-Man two was pretty outrageous right so I want to I want to say these budgets are including marketing right is that fair assumption or do you think they're not.

[00:35:14] That comes off to me as well I cannot confirm that but it seemed like that that was just the development budget that's insane that's crazy right because but I think in the case of insomniac and I can't say too much about this because Sony is my parent company of where I work but I think Sony and I think this is all conjectured this is not confirmed.

[00:35:40] The Sony handles the marketing for that so. Gotcha. But I mean this this question. We know you and I we both played Spider-Man one from insomniac and Spider-Man two we have episodes on them and me reflecting back on the experience of both games. Where did I see.

[00:35:58] I don't know if I can see 250 million dollars worth of difference.

[00:36:01] Now the opening tutorial like mission in that cut scene in Spider-Man two to me was an absolutely like you know the PS5 generation Wow moment right the cinematics I would say especially that opening one with Sandman right just yeah OK I'm seeing a budget increase absolutely right there.

[00:36:26] When it comes to the moment to moment gliding and fighting I'm not seeing it in the fast travel and loading times maybe I'm seeing some of that budget but otherwise. I don't know man I don't know where I see that 250 million do you have any idea.

[00:36:45] So I honestly don't. But like you can sort of read the tea leaves a little bit he talks about a couple of those things in the article he's he just mentioned there's these are like death by a thousand cuts type things so it's not right.

[00:37:00] I actually honestly don't think there's some obvious. Oh they added you know they upgraded the engine and that added like so many more hours of you know visual cinematics which by the way we know that the we know that those cinematics cost a crap ton of money.

[00:37:18] I think they said that they're like the Spider-Man two visuals.

[00:37:24] I forget what they exactly they call them but Bouldersgate three had the same thing like a huge portion of the budget goes to the mo cap and then yeah the design and like visualization of the mo cap cost millions upon millions of dollars and I don't know if that's just because like.

[00:37:42] I assume reading into it. It's the talent because that talent is super expensive right it's you know 2019 to 2022 huge amount of venture capital floods in the video game startups into all these small companies.

[00:37:59] Compensation goes up because there's a demand for developers artists technical artists that like they can't be met right they can't meet the demand for these during during that time.

[00:38:09] Salaries all go up because they're trying to compete with tech because a really good developer could go work in tech and make two to three times what they're making in a game company right so they have to they have to sort of match that.

[00:38:23] And so you have this sort of death by a thousand cuts where all that stuff and then there's this focus on you know we want to improve the lives of the developer which is that's a really good thing right.

[00:38:33] Improve employee benefits reduce crunch all that stuff increases cost.

[00:38:41] And so when you add all that together and then you're like hey we need to have more better visual fidelity better cinematics and then you combine all those things I just think your cost are it seems like it's pretty easy.

[00:38:53] I could actually easily see why spider-man to went to three times because they're like hey we need more people to work less hours to make a better higher visual fidelity game. Yeah that sounds like a good equation for more money.

[00:39:08] So you have all those things so that's cost right so gaming costs are going up and revenues are flat right so 2019 to 2022 you saw and I can't find the exact stat but it's in the article.

[00:39:22] Nine that you saw like 120% growth in the gaming sector and then 2023 only grew by 1%.

[00:39:33] So if you think about you're looking at a chart and you're an executive in the meeting and you have this direct line basically going vertical and then your forecast suddenly like plummets it plummets basically it gets cut in half because if you grow if you have net zero growth.

[00:39:51] Then you know every capitalist publicly owned company in the world is like if we're for forecast suck then and we're not growing then we're dying right because there's no focus on sustainability that's like the thing that you have to always remember.

[00:40:06] They've already made all this money so it's like why can't they sustain it they can but that's not what it's about it's about increasing shareholder value. So that comes in where you talk about forecasts.

[00:40:19] I won't go into all this data we can kind of skip through most of it but basically.

[00:40:25] He points to something called he's gone at post covid stagnation so you have you know 70 in 2019 70 of every 100 Americans played games and they did that an average of 12.7 hours a week 2020 gaming penetration search to 79 of every 100 Americans with average hours jumping to 14 eight hours.

[00:40:46] And then you go 2022 partition participation rates fall basically 12 points and hours plummet to 30 so all this stuff is like trending back down post covid right and so companies like don't have an answer to that they see all this growth.

[00:41:02] And then they make these massive forecast and then everything falls flat right and so then you have a huge cost forecast aren't meeting it.

[00:41:11] And so what do you do at that point you're basically your best option you with your best option is cut labor costs and that's like the best resource that these companies have to make themselves look better.

[00:41:25] There's a key metric on Wall Street called revenue per head and when you fire a whole bunch of people that number goes way up and then your stock price goes way up as evidenced by right after Microsoft fired those 2000 people the stock price went up and broke three trillion.

[00:41:40] And market cap. Well as bleak as heck man. That's bleak.

[00:41:46] I mean obviously we can leverage all sorts of complaints and when it comes to financial predictions and models and forecasting I'm definitely you know sitting in my armchair giving advice but what kind of just blows my mind about looking at all these stats and of course vision is 2020 but

[00:42:04] No pun intended because we're talking about COVID in 2020. I mean this is this is to me it reads about a short term game right you want it to in 2020 2021 you're seeing these numbers jump up like the stat that you shared here was

[00:42:22] 79 out of 100 Americans were playing video games with average numbers to 14.8 hours per week right. And if you have that many playing a game I can absolutely see where the live service model is going to meet that demand right.

[00:42:39] It's going to meet the demand of those people playing games who are going to be playing them a lot and frequently you know probably daily if you know at minimum multiple times a week because you don't play 15 hours in one day once a week you know that just simply doesn't

[00:42:55] happen. And so this is where I'm going to start to do a little armchair businessman. How can you not forecast that this bubble is going to break at some point right and how do you not forecast.

[00:43:10] I guess you can't really forecast when because as business you're sort of waiting on politicians to decide when quarantine is going to be lifted and when different restrictions are going to come in and out of place right.

[00:43:23] But maybe to your point right that's not the point the point is not to guess when the bubbles going to break and make something sustainable.

[00:43:30] The point is to ride the wave of the short term rake in a ton of cash 100% and then just deal with the with the blow when when everything starts plummeting again right. Yeah these companies are not for the most part.

[00:43:45] It's not about sustainability right it's just really not right it's about what can we do to boost shareholder value because here's the thing this is all short term because in two to five years this stuff is all cyclical.

[00:44:01] The question is going to get asked probably even in less than that in like 18 months. Okay okay guys like it's going to be Phil Spencer in a meeting with my booty and Sarah Bond they're gonna be like all right.

[00:44:13] Sweet gaming is turning back up like how do we grow well we need to make more games.

[00:44:22] Okay well what are all our studios working on oh man like well we've got these 16 titles like all are they're in the production pipeline but like these eight they're like six years out with based on current headcount.

[00:44:35] Okay well how can we shorten the the headcount well the answer is like either reduce the scope and you cut the scope in half or you hire more people so you can make more bigger better games and guess what there's going to be a huge

[00:44:50] hiring spree they're going to hire everything back because Wall Street is happy Wall Street satisfied for the short term then they're going to quickly hire all these people back in scope up make all these games and then and then things are going to

[00:45:03] even off again and then it's just yeah and that's just how it goes so.

[00:45:08] And that's part of the problem of well one game development cycle right teams don't need to be big for pre production during production teams need to be really big and then after the game launches.

[00:45:19] You got to move a bunch of those workers to a different game right or you lay them off right like and that's kind of I just feel like is what's interesting about the games industry in the game as a product right is especially for game that's not live service for a single player

[00:45:38] game you have a workforce that you need to constantly be keeping busy and you want your games to sell well enough to maintain that workforce to keep producing games right so you're just doing you know one after another.

[00:45:50] And Jason Shryer's book Bloods What in Pixels talks about this model quite a lot right having two greenly greenlit teams in production that are staggered so that one of the teams releases a game and then a bunch of those devs go and they work on team you know team be until.

[00:46:08] You know game C is in production and the teams kind of get shuffled back and forth.

[00:46:13] But it's just it's just kind of wild to me right just because you're I think you're totally right there's going to be a hiring spree again and I think from the Wall Street side it is very easy to think well.

[00:46:27] There are a bunch of people who need these jobs who want these jobs who want to work in the game industry and we'll just be able to hire them back on.

[00:46:33] But the biggest problem and a lot of people on social media have pointed out that this is a problem is you know these people who are laid off now they're not twiddling their thumbs waiting.

[00:46:47] 18 months to get rehired back into the game industry they've got mouths to feed they've got bills to pay and who's paying better for people their skill set.

[00:46:58] These super boring tech companies you know that are infinitely more sustainable however maybe I need to retract that because companies like Google and Apple and the non gaming divisions of Microsoft they're laying people off all the time as well right.

[00:47:14] But even just like your vanilla software company right they can hire these people they can get them trained and they can pay them better.

[00:47:23] And so the real problem here is that while this saves face I think from a money perspective you're just in completely exhausting your talent pool right.

[00:47:35] Can you really expect that there's just an infinite amount of devs or like juniors graduating from school like I'd love to know what that pipeline is exactly from from like people who graduate with degrees who are interested with developing skills

[00:47:53] in the gaming industry like how established really is that pipeline and if every three to five years you're laying off a bunch of those devs do they get to develop their talent do they get to reach senior level status in these positions it doesn't really feel like it.

[00:48:11] The next there are several great video games that because of these layoffs of 15,000 devs that will never be made.

[00:48:20] Because these because a lot of these people who were laid off to your point will never come back to gaming because they're like I got at the end of the day they have to feed their families or feed themselves and that's going to take precedence over what industry they work in even if they're really talented and really smart.

[00:48:38] Yeah, so in summary companies don't really these companies don't have many answers this is sort of the summary of all this that we've talked about hopefully not too boring hopefully this data was intriguing and kind of gives you some interesting you know not some knowledge of kind of why this is happening.

[00:48:56] I encourage you to go read the full article if you want an even deeper dive but basically these companies don't really have answers for the problems they don't know what the future is going to look like.

[00:49:07] The market is being consolidated into like a few huge games that seem to continue to maintain the market share they're not sure how to kind of break into it and so what's the answer cut labor costs.

[00:49:19] And at the end of the day like games are taking too long to make their costing too much and revenues are flat Wall Street demands never ending growth.

[00:49:27] And so because that you always have to show upper momentum even if over the long term as we have talked about that's going to weaken you over the long horizon so yeah yeah it just feels like to me it's stupid and nobody really likes it who's paying attention to what's happening with these layoffs.

[00:49:46] But yeah what do companies actually have control over when it comes to budget and spending. It's the labor force right because they can they can lay people off and we're seeing that happening that the most staggering stat I think that you shared is that since you know January

[00:50:02] January 2023 that's 15,000 people who've been laid off right because these companies they know that's where they can impact their budget most quickly right let's lay off a ton of people right now.

[00:50:19] And even if even if you are an empathetic executive which I do think they exist right we like to malign every single one of these people and I honestly think I honestly think Phil Spencer is not a bad guy.

[00:50:30] I think he's a nice guy. I think he's actually genuinely I just like I don't know him I don't you know there's not much like people have interacted with him seem to think he's a solid dude who truly loves gaming.

[00:50:43] I'm not I don't think that he was super happy about this but at the end of the day if he doesn't make this decision he gets fired and then the next guy does right so that's just the reality of like there's no other way you get in the position that he's in.

[00:50:57] You have to make this is Satya Nadella same thing. If he goes to fill in he's like oh you know what just go and keep him on like we'll just pay him will figure it out.

[00:51:06] They probably could have figured it out they have enough cash but the board would have fired Satya and then that guy would have fired Phil so like that's just how it works and it sucks and we're going to lose good games because of it but you know.

[00:51:22] Yeah so the two major problems that I'm getting in some is one just the focus of these companies on continual upward trend you must grow capitalism.

[00:51:33] Yeah just capitalism and initial good old fashioned you got to keep making more money that is the end goal of capitalism right that is the number one problem because then as we've sort of discussed you don't have financial sustainability you don't have talent retention

[00:51:50] right those are the two biggest consequences of that problem right and then the other problem would be these companies being able to see employees as quite expendable right and think this is my first line of defense when it comes to meeting these budget goals keeping you know the revenue per head really high is let's get rid of a bunch of employees

[00:52:13] and so are there good solutions I've seen a lot of solutions being floated about this probably the number one that I'm seeing is unions right because unions are essentially a way to impede companies from seeing laborers as purely expendable.

[00:52:31] I personally believe that you know you simply need sustainable economics right and so I listen I'm not saying that I'm against unions necessarily or anything don't get don't get don't misconstrued this but to me it's it's the root of the problem is unsustainable growth at all costs right.

[00:52:53] I feel like if you could if you could ditch that attitude right of late stage capitalism or growth at all costs means more than anything appeasing the shareholders means anything and you had a sustainable model and you made better forecast that incorporated okay how do we retain our talent.

[00:53:14] Then you can keep your employees happier and you could keep them on board longer and then just a longer a company can maintain an employee.

[00:53:23] I personally feel like if those employees they get to know the systems the way things work incredibly well they become much more efficient you can create employee loyalty as well and then on top of that you can allow space for your employees to actually innovate change and make your company function better.

[00:53:43] If you give them a sustainable environment from in which they can work right so I think that would be in the perfect world you know Jacob as dictator of how business operates that would be the number one change and then I appoint you dictator thank you right yes.

[00:53:59] But then yeah I don't know. I don't have thought other than those two big problems. The last thing I'll say is like when you have triple digit growth.

[00:54:09] It's like we got to ride the wave and you would think that these guys would be smart enough to know no. Don't ride the wave like right away a little bit. But they're not because I ride the wave.

[00:54:26] Yeah and they don't and to be honest with you I don't have a good analysis for that.

[00:54:31] Why not ride the wave like a teeny bit instead of just going absolutely wild because the thing is it's not that hard to think that in this weird environment and this is just one of the underlying problems of this thing called forecasting that businesses literally rest their entire lives and futures on forecasting is 100% a lie and fake.

[00:54:56] It is based off historical data that is not that is not a reflection of the current reality. And so when you're making a forecast in the middle of coven when nobody can go outside and everyone's playing video games and you're forecasting double digit growth for the next 10 years.

[00:55:14] That is a bad forecast but what did every company do they all made that forecast. They all did the same thing and now they're seeing oh that forecast wasn't correct. Well done.

[00:55:29] You know like it's it's really not that hard but at the same time it is this is just a business operate.

[00:55:34] I don't really have a good answer for that exactly why but hope you know we've given you a bunch of data here and hopefully that gives you some some now you can form your own. Your own opinion but yeah lay off suck at the end of the day.

[00:55:47] The one positive thing that I will say is that both Activision and Microsoft pointed out that specific example I don't know about these other companies. They're still operating larger than they were in 2019. Okay. Yeah so there is still technically like more opportunity at those companies than there was.

[00:56:08] It's just they f'd up hired way too many people tried to grow way too fast and that cost a lot of people their livelihoods and that's on them and they suck but yeah. So it's bad but maybe could have been worse.

[00:56:24] I mean maybe yeah it's just forecasting we could have a whole podcast it was on a forecasting but let's get off this data topic. Let's this is this is sort of depressing.

[00:56:34] We've already spent an hour on this but I thought I really did think this was like a there's a lot of conversation going on and so I thought if we gave like a good deep analysis of it that would be valuable to a lot of you.

[00:56:45] I hope it was valuable. If it wasn't hopefully you just skipped to where we are right now where we'll actually talk about a video game for 20 or 30 minutes on should be a quick one on the finals. Jake how are we going to break the finals down.

[00:57:00] Hi we are going to talk about a video game specifically finally no pun intended there.

[00:57:06] We are talking about the finals we will be talking about this in our classic four categories that we use to dissect games and the first one is narrative so story themes that are presented and how they're presented and how they're understood right.

[00:57:24] Next is mechanics so here we're talking about just essentially player interaction with the game what the player is doing why that is fun why not obviously the finals is a FPS arena shooter so we'll be talking a lot about those mechanics.

[00:57:38] Third gameplay loop so this would be like the kind of circuits that are in place of the game the links of a chain that sort of move you from beginning to finish of a game.

[00:57:48] And then finally we've kind of done this already for an hour but our fourth category is impact on the industry and there I will kind of come full circle a little bit there are a few things about the finals that are worth mentioning sort of in the context of labor in video games.

[00:58:10] And so we'll come back to this conversation we won't spend a whole other hour doing our fourth category impact on the industry but. That we kind of had this conversation coincide with this game purposefully I think that's all say for now.

[00:58:26] So yeah first category is narrative and let me start here this game had a golden opportunity to do something really fascinating I think with the narrative and they really just botched it.

[00:58:43] And it's a shame because this game it's it feel like at first I was like oh wait is the finals kind of a parody of eSports is it kind of a parody of Squid Game and hunger games where you have these teams competing in a virtual arena for cash and so much of the game is about

[00:59:06] cashing out and getting more cash and it very much feels like a game show. And so the first few times playing this game I was like ooh this could be interesting like they could have a lot to say and this could be a really wonderful game to sort of have some self reflection on the state of these types of games

[00:59:24] and there is nothing else there's nothing really to support any any kind of that reading in that way not in a strong way. Man I really wish that this game did something and maybe this is future plans and I would love this but I really wish the finals had something along the lines of like those little

[00:59:47] overwatch characters story beats or whatever and apex legends does this as well too if they would just inject some narrative into this game and kind of made it coincide with really popular dystopia like you know these types of competing for games

[01:00:07] and money and people risking their lives or whatever for it this the finals could have something really fascinating to say but it doesn't it just kind of uses that as a really strange scenario this sort of game show theme and yeah I guess that makes it

[01:00:26] different than everybody else that uses like a military theme so it stands out but it doesn't do anything with it. It's a disappointment in my opinion.

[01:00:38] I just don't think I don't know how big this team is it's a bunch of former battlefield battlefield devs and you can definitely feel that but I just don't I mean it's it's not what they were trying to do. I think they were just they have obviously some game show

[01:00:53] building type stuff here right that I think is a cool idea and like an interesting concept that hasn't been done before but beyond that there's nothing really to be said right about about that and I don't know if there needs to be and I don't think that that was their goal

[01:01:08] and probably outside of the scope of what they were trying to do right but yeah I mean it would have been cool you know it kind of reminds me of Titanfall the first one.

[01:01:21] Oh I never played the first one so the first one it was 100% multiplayer but it had sort of like this world building and you basically had to just take cues from like the world on what was happening and kind of what the world

[01:01:34] consisted of but at the end of the day that's not what it's trying to do it's a game show thing and that's about as far as it takes it. I mean the most similar comparison would potentially be apex but yeah and apex has done a lot to kind of build that

[01:01:50] world because they have like the shorts and the animation you know the cartoons that they do and stuff to kind of build out but that's technically a game show as well so if the finals starts making a lot of money I could totally see them doing something

[01:02:04] like that where they spin off but the finals also doesn't have specific characters you just have sort of vanilla characters and so there really is no sort of narrative base to speak of there which I think is fine it's not what it's trying to do.

[01:02:17] I mean I agree it's not what it's trying to do and this is really the main criticism you're going to hear from me about this game is the lack of narrative and the real golden opportunity they have to make a really interesting narrative

[01:02:30] because man the game however can hold water like when it comes to mechanics and gameplay and sort of when you're actually playing it like it is a ton of fun like this is the most fun I've had in this type of a game in a really long time

[01:02:46] but yeah I just want to just vent on my soapbox and kind of lament this opportunity that feels like it's being wasted even though I do understand and I agree with you that's not the main point in this game right.

[01:02:59] Essentially I really do think that these themes in this sort of setting of a game show all this is sort of present just because it makes it interesting to look at it makes for some interesting animations too like you know when you

[01:03:13] defeat an enemy they explode and there's a shower of gold coins for example it also kind of for people who are conscious about like hyper violence in video games it's all set in a virtual reality world no one's actually dying you know those types of things.

[01:03:31] So I think it's very safe and for somebody like me it's too safe but I agree with you Cameron for like the general public it's just fine and it's just it's just needs to be there the way that it is so that you can focus on the other aspects of the game.

[01:03:47] Let's talk about mechanics so. This is a shooter. And it does a few things that are very cool I think right off the bat I can say that this is the most interesting and good feeling new shooter that's entered the market I think in a long time. Yeah.

[01:04:12] The movement is very fluid the gun play is snappy it's got a long time to kill like I think a lot longer than maybe other games like other first person shooters out there.

[01:04:24] And it so you basically have three classes you have a medium light heavy they all have different types of guns that they can access and then different types of grenades and then they each have sort of an ability and they all place a lot differently right there's different strategies I think with all three

[01:04:46] that you have to use but overall it just it feels right in my opinion like the speed of the game the time to kill the way that the weapons feel like everything feels very tuned and

[01:05:02] and polished and like very triple A in that sense of just like how a shooter you could tell these are battlefield devs and they really took the lessons from like some of the better battlefield games like battlefield you see DNA from

[01:05:16] battlefield bad company in the destructive environments which is just super cool right being able to build a building that someone standing on and just completely wreck the environment is so much fun.

[01:05:26] The gun play feels very much like those battlefield games and you see a lot of that DNA but in sort of this arena space that I think just really works well.

[01:05:34] Yeah, I think in terms of arena shooters it is top notch and like you said it's been an extremely long time since we felt a new game has really been able to break into the scene in this way.

[01:05:45] The last game is a game that I'll champion until I die and it's a game called split gate which had the unfortunate release of two months before Halo Infinite's multiplayer came out.

[01:05:56] So I loved split gate I thought it was a really great game but Halo Infinite multiplayer came out and even came out early if you remember and you know it Halo Infinite at launch was amazing and it's since then has I think surpassed but this isn't an episode about that this is about the finals right.

[01:06:14] So the finals mechanics like you mentioned I feel like at first it's easy to be deceived to think that the three different classes like medium and heavy play similarly but once you actually spend several games in each class and you see what weapons they have access to

[01:06:29] and each class has different abilities as well so like the medium class you can equip like a healing sort of ray or beam as the heavy you can kind of charge and bust through walls.

[01:06:41] I haven't really played in the light but it's the light that gets the grapple hook if I'm not mistaken. And so they each have things that either manipulate the environment or help your team or manipulate your movement.

[01:06:55] And so they do play quite differently and as you play with other people and let me tell you the finals is infinitely more enjoyable in a squad like playing this game solo is really hard just to get that out there.

[01:07:09] But as you play in a squad and you get to you kind of get to know how your friends are playing and how you playing you each sort of adopt roles.

[01:07:17] The game just really grows from there and I feel like there's a lot of opportunity to experiment but also to create different types of team combinations that make sense right so in our friend group.

[01:07:30] A lot of times we're playing medium medium heavy and I feel like we've sort of been able to figure out how to make that work even though we don't have you know a light class on our team.

[01:07:42] And so I think the best mechanic is just the division abilities across different classes to make for interesting in a big variety of team composition as you're playing the game.

[01:07:52] And then like you said Cameron combine that with guns that feel really good a longer time to kill so it feels like that you have plenty of opportunity to make a big difference when your squad shows up to a fight.

[01:08:05] Those things I think make it so the player constantly feels engaged and also that the players contributing to the team and towards a victory. Yeah.

[01:08:19] Trying to think other mechanic there's I think a couple things that I really like is the use of so if we move into the gameplay loop I think that'll help like round this conversation but so the the gameplay can so it's got this interesting game modes around basically going and grabbing like a money box.

[01:08:45] I can't remember what it's called what is it called Jake the vault the vault so grabbing a vault and then taking it to a point and then you have to defend that point while other people try and convert it and so that they can get the cash and then whoever gets the most cash.

[01:08:59] Then they win the match right. And so based around that you have obviously the combination of the destructive environments and then you have different types of grenades or you have like a poison grenade.

[01:09:11] You have a fire grenade and then you have like a goo grenade that you can use to basically you know throw walls down. Yeah. Although people can set those on fire and then that causes problems. But I just think the combination of like the abilities.

[01:09:27] I mean and there's a vast array of abilities here right like you can. There's a zipline or not a zipline there's a grappling hook that the light person has the heavy guy can have a heavy machine gun. The medium person can drop a like a turret.

[01:09:43] So there's all these things around like defending a point that just make that moment to moment moment like point defense super super fun and dynamic and then you throw in the destructive environments on top of that and the chaos.

[01:09:58] And that's what elevates it to me to the next level is just that chaos that you saw in games like Battlefield bad company to which I played a ton of back in the day that chaos just made it fun. Right.

[01:10:12] It just made it fun now and maybe it's not the most tactically sound or just you know perfectly balanced situation when it comes to like a competitive shooter in this space but it's just fun.

[01:10:24] And I think that screams to me it's just going match to match and having those those sort of chaos chaotic encounters over these vaults is just super fun. I just I don't know any other way to describe it.

[01:10:36] It's just fun to blow stuff up and this game kind of gives you that. Yeah, I 100% agree to me that's the hallmark of this game is the destructible environments. It never gets old for me. Never. Right.

[01:10:50] And what I love about this is obviously the arenas when you load into them.

[01:10:55] There's a whole lot of level design that goes into them where the vaults are where the cash out boxes are and essentially how players are going to be moving around the map and how they're going to use cover, etc.

[01:11:06] But what I love about this game is that let's say a cash out box is on a roof and the team that is defending it is camping the roof really hard. But you have a heavy player on your team that one of their special weapons is an RPG.

[01:11:21] And so a lot of times it is tactically sound to be like, All right, there's no way we're going to get on top because they got a really good sniper.

[01:11:28] Let's get underneath them and just blow a couple holes behind underneath the cash box and drop it down two floors. And so you go on there you drop it down two floors and then suddenly the entire match has changed.

[01:11:39] And I think that one of the biggest complaints I hear about this games is about campers and the environmental destruction in this game makes camping extremely difficult in this game because you do not have control over the environment that you are camping.

[01:11:57] Somebody could come in and blow a hole in the wall. So I was actually playing the other day and there's a cash out on the I think I can't remember one of the Monaco levels. It's like in this little shed. It's not that big.

[01:12:10] And so there's a team two of them I think were inside the building and then one was outside kind of patrolling and they had set up, you know, a bunch of goo walls to try to prevent people from getting in here.

[01:12:23] And I was playing with the team and I was playing as the heavy and I was like guys, I'm going to blow a hole in the wall real fast, you know, and you just blow a hole in the wall and then goo walls are flammable.

[01:12:36] So if you have people chucking, you know, pyro grenades at those walls, you blow a hole right behind the cash out.

[01:12:42] Suddenly that team that's trying to camp is in a full blown panic because they're on fire and one of the walls that they were using as defense is gone.

[01:12:52] And so just to just to kind of elaborate the point that you're getting out here is that you can think about this game in such creative ways and that maps really don't get stale.

[01:13:03] And so this isn't like, you know, I'm thinking of like the Halo two days where you played online a lot and everybody had those maps entirely memorized and you could easily predict movement and where people were going to be and who was probably going to pick up the sniper when it's bonded and where they were going to take it.

[01:13:22] And in the finals, that predictability is gone. Yeah, I present you can you can mess with pretty much anything that's happening. And so what it comes down to is how good are you in in a confrontation if you're in a shootout?

[01:13:38] How are you going to handle your gun and how are you going to defend your box? And how are you going to adapt on the fly to a brand new environmental situation?

[01:13:48] Yeah, super tightly designed in the sense that they have a couple of things right where if you're in tournament mode and your whole squad gets wiped, you get a penalty and you have to wait like 15 seconds. And that's forever.

[01:14:07] But I actually really like it because it incentive it deeply deeply incentivizes team play and it deeply incentivizes like stay live.

[01:14:16] Right. Don't make stupid plays like don't come a causey be smart about how you're going to approach the objective stay with your team because if you go in and you try and solo like no you're going to die like you're you just you're not going to make it.

[01:14:29] And so that the game beats it into you super hard. Hey, stay with your team like synergize with your team. Try not to die if you're outmatched like retreat.

[01:14:42] And I just love that right that's that just screams like really tight first but these are very experienced like first person shooter designers obviously and it just it really comes through in the game.

[01:14:54] Yeah, I love that you brought that up especially that specific penalty in that mode right and and I just want to say this is why it's extremely hard to play this game solo and match make with people because you're going to have people with different play styles who want to play super aggressively.

[01:15:11] And then if you get matched make with somebody who's playing passively and you just have conflicting styles your team gets spread out and you all just get absolutely demolished right.

[01:15:20] It is extremely difficult in this game to come back in like a one V three scenario right like if your two teammates are downed and you've still got a full team to fight against or that team realizes hey we've knocked out to these guys most times that team is just going to hunt down the third

[01:15:38] and force that penalty on you for team wiping you know because it is so you know powerful to be able to inflict that upon your opponents.

[01:15:48] And so I like this game and I guess maybe the skill floors a little higher because that because you can't just leave or Jenkins your way through the game. You have to be patient and you have to compromise with your team members.

[01:16:01] So highly highly recommend that you team up with some friends when you're hopping into this game and that you just play as a unit. And that's where the game really really shines.

[01:16:12] Yeah I guess you know gameplay loop the game is it was an early access for a long time there are really just a few game modes and they're all essentially variations on several teams are in arena you pick up a ball you put it in a cash out

[01:16:27] box and if you can defend the cash out for however long it needs to be in there then you get money team with the most money wins right.

[01:16:36] So they're all variations on that but it is very much an objective based arena shooter and I would say matches last about 15 minutes 20 minutes maybe if you go into overtime which they feel speedy and it feels like you

[01:16:51] can get a lot of a lot of gaming in during any gaming session. Let's talk about the impact on the industry of the finals. This game is free to play it's on steam it's on consoles. It's got a battle pass. I think the battle passes weird.

[01:17:16] Like to say the least this is a bizarre battle pass apparently it's also very very grindy and just takes, you know a long time to get through it. Which isn't fun. I still don't understand.

[01:17:29] I still don't get why these companies can't just copy fortnight because I feel like fortnight has a nice clip in their leveling right where most people get through that pass and it's like yeah and then that makes it addicting because then you want to go in and you want to finish it.

[01:17:45] But if you make it like so hard to do where you have to put so many hours it just doesn't make it I don't understand that decision. But anyway talking about like the industry impact.

[01:17:54] I don't know many active players this game has I think it's a small ish team and so the issues they're going to have like all these games have is no matter how good it is out of the gate. If it can't keep the content momentum.

[01:18:09] It won't survive unfortunately even though it's really great and it's super fun. And I'm enjoying playing it and I'll continue to like hop in and play rounds and stuff.

[01:18:19] It's always the issue of content to keep games like this alive nowadays because the attention for these types of games that used to be.

[01:18:29] Oh I'm going to go in and play my arena shooter now it's I'm going to go in and play fortnight apex war zone and those just have eaten so much of the market that these little arcade shooters like arena shooters just can't survive because they're just not getting them.

[01:18:46] They're not getting sufficient attention to survive.

[01:18:51] Which I think is unfortunate because the game is super solid and it's the same thing with Halo and I think Halo sort of figuring it out and finally sort of has enough clip of content that they're able to keep the momentum going at least enough to kind of survive.

[01:19:03] And I hope this game can find that same cadence. I don't think it's going to blow up the world it's not going to eat any market share probably, but it's really good and really solid and I hope it stays alive and find success.

[01:19:15] Yeah I would say I totally agree this battle pass is awful it is super grindy and the rewards are frankly I don't care. These are yeah just weird yeah. I mean obviously rewards in a battle pass are more than anything going to focus on different cosmetics.

[01:19:33] The cosmetics in this game is like you can change your fanny pack color from black and gray to gray and black you know like. I don't care.

[01:19:44] I mean there's so little incentive here and this is I think the big problem if you want to be a brand new like arena shooter or battle royale is that you're competing with Fortnite.

[01:19:55] Fortnite has so much money and like I mentioned the past two weeks I played a few times and it is absolutely insane the amount of licensing deals that Fortnite has made.

[01:20:07] You're in a match and it is the most bizarre thing to be killed by Goku wearing the pickle Rick backpack who's holding like I don't know something from Marvel you know as their pickaxe or whatever it is.

[01:20:23] It is super bizarre to see but it's also really fun to see right and it's in you know Fortnite does an incredible job of self marketing in that way was like oh dude that guy has the coolest.

[01:20:36] They have they have that TMNT skin that looks amazing is that in the shop do I have enough V bucks from that.

[01:20:43] Oh if I grind out a few more levels in the battle pass I might have enough V bucks to buy that skin right like it just feeds into itself incredibly well with a really solid hyper rewarding battle pass but also all these licensing deals that these other shooters are not getting

[01:20:59] a licensing deal with TMNT with Spider-Man with Marvel with Dragon Ball Z you know.

[01:21:07] And so when it comes to the cosmetics it's a shame you have to make yourself stand out when it comes to those cosmetics in a different way and like you said I think Halo Infinite has kind of figured that out with just better you know Spartan customization

[01:21:24] but also they've made that battle pass way less grindy and those battle passes don't expire right. And I think that's one of the chief characteristics about Halo Infinite battle passes that makes them interesting maybe you're not interested in all the rewards that you're going to get

[01:21:39] and sometimes the cosmetic rewards in Halo Infinite feel so trivial but there is an assurance I feel like for somebody like me who's pretty you know inconsistent playing Halo Infinite that you know what though I can hop back into my battle pass at any time.

[01:21:55] Where was I oh I had made it to you know out of level 50 I made it to level 27 great I'll just pick that back up where I was and then I'll finish that out.

[01:22:04] And so I think I agree with you Cameron a game like the Finals has got to steal the battle pass model from Fortnite and you've got to let your battle passes stay relevant. This game desperately needs a license to deal with like Nike or Adidas. Yes.

[01:22:24] Like if you just look at the look at like the aesthetic of it where it's all you know it's like sports teams and you're wearing like sweats and shorts and stuff they need like you know they need like Nike or Adidas license.

[01:22:39] Yeah like think NFL you know something like that where you think about having a battle pass where you could get like I don't know cool Nike gear that's going to drive crazy attachment rates versus a

[01:22:51] rando just the most bizarre things you can think of I don't know if they're this isn't meant to be offensive but I curious if they're going like after the Chinese crowd. This is just like with the nature of the battle pass.

[01:23:04] It's it's very it's just yeah not my taste but maybe some people like it I don't know it's far too grindy which is a shame because games.

[01:23:12] It's too grand anyways yeah yeah it's just yeah the last thing I want to say really about impact on the industry here is coming back to the conversation that we had for an hour about layoffs.

[01:23:27] One of the strategies that these companies is trying to use to cheapen labor costs and is to replace a lot of work with AI and the finals uses AI for their commentators right.

[01:23:42] And so you probably noticed every now and then that the commentators will say something or they pronounce something in a really strange way or you're like wait what do they say or like wow that joke was super bad or whatever.

[01:23:54] They use text to speech with their voice models that are based off of real voices and so this is an example this is a big fear that's happening in the voice acting community in particular right.

[01:24:06] Where it's like hey we we could do this job so much better but yeah we want you to pay us but a company like this is like OK how can we save money and like.

[01:24:18] Like we've already talked about this game doesn't really have a focus on narrative right and so they're saving costs right by not investing in a narrative team to make something interesting.

[01:24:30] And to them that's like OK this is how we're keeping our game afloat we're focusing on mechanics we're focusing on gunplay etc.

[01:24:37] And to me it's like oh my gosh like the commentators if they weren't AI I think they would be a little a little better and it's a shame because they become background noise and it just kind of becomes static while you're playing.

[01:24:52] And I just to me this is like another opportunity where there's a golden opportunity for this game to say something meaningful and interesting in its narrative.

[01:25:02] And not only could they write that in but I think with voice actors they could really bring that to life in a really fascinating way. But that's simply not the focus of this game. So is it like excusable listen I'm all about people getting paid to do work.

[01:25:18] And so I would love to see them. I would love to see them invest in like a super cool important narrative and voice actors but I know that when it comes to their audience and who's playing this game.

[01:25:32] I am one in 1000 you know who is interested in that kind of thing from the studio and they know that. I agree well Jake any other thoughts on the finals before we close it out. It is crazy fun.

[01:25:47] It has cross play so this is I think the easiest game to get your friends to play. Be like oh hey the finals is free you know you want to try it out. Sure.

[01:26:01] And so you just hop in a discord party and you play across several platforms and I'm just so glad that cross platform for games like this is becoming the norm. Right.

[01:26:11] And so I think that's the conversation with somebody how like 20 years ago you cannot have convinced me that cross platform would be a thing.

[01:26:17] But here we are living in an age of cross platform play and games like the finals benefit immensely their player bases benefit so much from having it. Go play the finals with your friends cross play. It's hitting with the youths as well. My nephew is digging into it.

[01:26:34] So yeah you know I've actually seen streamers who formerly played other PVP games play the finals quite consistently.

[01:26:43] So I do have hope that it'll pick up and it'll make a dent in sort of the FPS scene which is kind of an impossible task but I don't know people like it. It's a good game. It has some traction.

[01:27:00] Well ladies and gentlemen this has been another episode of the pre-autonomous podcast talking. The gaming industry the state of the gaming industry today. Long conversation and data on the layoffs and why they're happening and reasons behind that. Hopefully that was an interesting conversation.

[01:27:17] This is a little bit more longer winded on that stuff type of episode. If you liked it let us know sound off in the discord sound off on Twitter.

[01:27:26] Let us know if you like that kind of stuff because we can always dig deeper into topics like that obviously not just about the game. Not a fun topic but nevertheless an important one I think to talk about and understand.

[01:27:37] But we also paired that with the finals and had a good time doing it. If you like the show please leave a review on your podcast platform of choice that helps people find the show. Follow us on Twitter at pre-order cast.

[01:27:52] That's where you can find CS talking about games and commenting on the news and stuff on X slash Twitter. You can also join us join in on the conversation in our discord channel linked to that is in the podcast description.

[01:28:06] Also finally if you want to support us you can go to patreon.com slash pre-order cast you can sign up for the digital deluxe edition of the show. Which gets you early access up to a couple days early to our regular episodes plus additional content.

[01:28:22] Jake's indie impressions other special episodes that we do we put up on there quite often. Thank you so much for joining us today to talk video games and have a great night.