Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Are Video Games Done Evolving? - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: June 24, 2024

Run of Show - - Start - Housekeeping - What About Games TODAY Would Blow Our Minds in 2008? - Are Games Done Evolving? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up everybody? Welcome to the kind of funny games cast for Monday, June 24th, 2024. Roger, there's only six more times in your lifetime where the date will match the year of this year, 24 and 24. Is that true? Yeah, right? Because there's six more months that'll have, you know, there's a 24 and everyone. I always feel blessing. You're thinking about it. You'll see that I'm right when you do the math. I always feel bad when you get six. 26 more months. So you have six more 24ths of 2024.

Oh, you see what I'm saying? There's no way that's how he said it the first time. There's no way that's what you said. That's not. Barrett, I'm going to ask you stay out of this. I'm in it and I'm with less. I need chat to rewind.

We listen to it. I was like my life part of it. I thought I was like, wait, you see no one I'm going to die? I like to catch it. Like that one episode of weird science, remember? Sure. Is that a movie? Yeah, I thought that was a movie.

And a TV show. Really? Yeah, I like. But I think after this year, yeah, there are six more years. Yeah. Where, yeah, it's going to be like a 25, well, yeah, no, yeah, 25, 20, up until 31. Yeah, exactly, exactly. But I'm just saying this time around where it's 24, 24, 64, six more 24 24.

Of the year. Good show. It's just, and it's just the problem. Because there's 12 every year. Yeah, but next year will be 20. That's what? Yeah, but like it'll be 12-25s. Yeah, I know, but I'm saying 24.

He specifically focused on 24. What's so important about the 24? You want to know what's happening? A lot of times something like that'll happen where they were like, oh, it's all sequential or this, that, the other one. And I always don't catch it in time. So I'm making my own here, right? I want to entertain a bit, ladies and gentlemen.

You all laugh. Everybody, you guys can laugh. At home, you know that was a smart one. You're going to get home. You're going to stare across the table at mom and dad, have nothing to sit. here you go. Now you got a conversation starter. Now we're going to look back and we're going to be like,

you know, I really cherish that 24. No, the 24s I really cherish. It's like when you get sick, you get a cold. Yeah. And you start to cherish the times

where you didn't have a cold. Oh, you can breathe through your nose. Yeah. The amount of times. You know, you just miss breathing through your nose, you know, think about it.

Yeah. Right before this, I was talking about my knee hurts for no reason. Now you can't remember a time. Yeah, now I'm like, oh, man, I should cherish like before that yesterday.

So we don't know what's happened to the knee. No. It just, this just started, I guess, what, after KFCD?

Yeah, after KHD, I was started walking around like, oh, my knee. Yeah. Ooh, man, that hurts.

Have you been wearing a shoulder bag too low because that's how I hurt my knee years ago. Oh. That's the only way could die. No,

I threw off my gate. So then my thing was, I was walking weird and then like one time at a movie theater if I left my knee bent too long I felt like my knee was going to explode so I'd just stand up

and stretch my knee in the shot of movie theater. In the front of the movie theater. I've just been experiencing a lot of just random pains. Yeah. As I'm approaching 30. Oh, yes.

Yeah, everything is hurting. Of course. I will say time. Time. It does a lot to us. Yeah, it does do a lot to us. Into video games. What does it do to video games?

That's what we'll talk about today on the Kind of Funny Gamescast. But before I introduce your tots, I'll tell you, of course, this is the Kind of Funny Gamescast. Each and every weekday, we gather around this table to talk about reviews,

previews, and the biggest topics in video games live on YouTube, Twitch and podcast services around the globe. If you like, that please support us with the Kind of Funny membership of $10 on YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games or Patreon.com

slash Kind of Funny gets you good karma gets you the ability to watch all of our shows ad free and listen to them ad free and of course watch us record the afternoon podcast ad free and live as we record up. Plus you get the daily multimedia experience, a podcast and a video known as Greg Way.

It's always a banger. It's usually from my car and a lot of times it'll make you smile. Does it make you smile, Raj? All the time. Every day. You do a Greg way recently? Yeah, I did. How'd that go?

It was good. It's about me starting my game development journey. Oh. I'm making a game, so I just talked a little bit about that. So that was a fun time. It was like a conflict interest. Roger showed me the game he was working on, what, on Friday? Yeah.

It showed to me today. Two different, very different games. Two very different genres. Zig and Zach. You never know. You never know. You got to be on top of it. What's your goal?

You want to do this full time? You want to do this full time? It's a side thing. It was very much an idea that when Leanns and I were in Tahoe last weekend. We just were talking about like, oh, if we would make a game, what would it be like? And then I said, oh, I would make this type of game. And then she said, oh, and you should do this. I'm changing my life now. Like, this is something I have to do after work every day now because it is something that I want to see. It's the game. I've never, I've been looking for for so long

and now it's, I can make it. So that's cool. Did you get the Garfield license? You know, we're still in talks. Jim Davis. Don't talk on Jim Davis about it. Snoopy crossover as well. Of course, they keep him out of here, all right? The fight, cats and dogs. You don't follow with Snoopy? I don't fuck with the peanuts. They suck. Whoa. What the fuck out of this studio? Listen, I've said it before, right? You know, the Muppets,

overrated Muppet babies underrated. I agree with that. You know what I mean? Peanuts, the most overrated shit of all fucking time. You got this depressed guy, this annoying-ass dog that doesn't even like his owner.

Isn't that what Garfield is? This bitch name Lucy. I ain't got time for this. That is exactly what Garfield is. The Garfield's entirely different. You know, in his heart of hearts, he cares. You know, Snoopy, he cares. No, stupid doesn't give a shit.

It's the whole thing. How do you feel about Looney Tunes? Looney Tunes? I'm fine. I mean, I like Tiny Tunes better. Really? Yeah. Come on, that's got to be. For our generation or my generation and your generation.

But I remember, I think it's like one of those things like your parents say and then you just kind of like take on as your opinion. I remember my grandma. She would look at me and she's like, I don't like the baby thing. And I would just like, okay. You do definitely feel that. Yeah. And then I just started hating the baby thing.

So I think that like I need to like, it's some generational trauma. I tend to agree with that. Yeah. I think for the most part when we turn like normal age things into baby things. But I do think Tiny Tunes nailed it. Oh, and what's new Scooby-Doo? What's new Scooby-Doo? What's new Scooby-Doo?

Sorry, not what's new Scooby-Doo. Sorry, that's a pup named Scooby-Doo. Okay. What about Scrappy-Doo? I like Scrappy-Doo. You know what I mean? In the James Gunn movie, we repeat everywhere. No, I didn't watch that.

I watched it in theaters. They had a post-credit scene. What they teased? It was a cheat code for the video game when Game Boy Advance. Huh? Pretty cool. That was directed by James Gun?

Yeah. Or written by him? Or I don't know if you directed by him? I believe that one was directed by him because the thing was that he had that and then like, I'm gonna screw this up. Number one and number two, it was Scooby-Due,

and then the other one was Dawn of the Dead which he wrote, but Zach Snyder directed. And that was the thing where he was like, all of a sudden overnight, he was like cemented as like the guy. You fucked with Tom and Jerry?

I mean, I fucked with him in terms of like, they'd be on. Like you're a kid, you'll watch it. You know what I mean? What I fucked with when it's coming out of Tom and Jerry,

they had Tom and Jerry popsicles when I was growing up they were like awesome. I remember those. I like that. What about Coyote and the Roadrunner? Oh man See that whole era

They're on to something They were Yeah Well you're actually Maybe not entirely I was like they Really racist Aside from the racism

They were really Put that aside They were really good At the cartoons though Yeah Yeah they knew what they were doing Good for them I swear we'll talk about

Video games ladies and gentlemen And when we do If you want to be part of the show Of course YouTube Superchat and YouTube.com Slash kind of funny games Your super chats get read Right here to be part of the show

Some housekeeping for you Remember Kind of Funny Games is an 11 person small business. That's all about live talk shows. You've already gotten talk about the Eldon Ring DLC being too hard on Kind of Funny Games Daily. It's up on YouTube, Twitch and podcast services.

Up next, Nick is streaming by himself on YouTube and Twitch. That can't be good. And if you're a kind of funny member, today's Greg Way, is Greg trying not to start a fight with the rest of the country and you get the Kind of Funny podcast

this afternoon and live with your Kind of Funny membership this afternoon. Where it will be me, Tim, I'm sorry, me, Nick and Roger. We have a skeleton crew. Yeah. Tim's wedding approaching.

Tim needs to focus on that, I guess. I guess. Whatever. Andy and Mike, they're over there. You know, we'll skip to 3 a.m. playing Elvin ring, right? Can't come to work on Monday.

Suss. Come on. Yeah. What's the kids say? You know what I mean? Suh. Joey, no idea what she's doing,

but she's not here. Yeah. You know what I mean? So it's a whole thing. So originally we wanted to do on this gamescast, hey, let's go through and do the actual review numbers. Then we lost everybody.

We got these three minds together. and I bet you're excited to find out what we did, just like our Patreon producer's are excited. Karen Hovesapien, Carl Jacobs, and Fargo, Brady, and Delaney Twining. Today were brought to you by the kind of funny Pride merch. We'll tell you about that later. For now, let's begin the show with topic of the show.

So everybody calls in sick, you know what I mean? Nobody wants to come in. They're all playing hooky. We're going to get a photo. They're all at the Giants game. You know what I mean? I don't know if the Giants are playing today. And I put out of voice memo to you gentlemen,

And I was like, it's us, just us. Inarguably the best looking and smartest people are kind of funny. Barrett, you're included in this. That way, Bear it doesn't get mad. Oh, now, now he would have tried me. You know, he's a fucking I'll go, but. I think he looks great. Look at that sweet face.

Oh, thanks grandma. Thanks grandma Courtney. I got to go. Sorry, I'm sorry. Oh, no, no, no, he's going to try. It's kidding. Oh, no, Bear, you're not on go. I love you.

Um, anyways. put it together. And of course, one of the jokes that's become, I think, played out here. But of course, is the idea that I'm so much older than you guys. And I don't think about it often, but it does come up. You know what I mean? But this weekend I had the incredible pleasure of seeing my wife get re-addicted to Diablo 4 alongside of me. Except this time we were able to play correctly. Which means rather than doing the shared screen, split screen, we're all playing together. Not split screen, but, you know, seamless co-op, drop and drop out. That fucks it up. For me, trying to power. level. Where what would happen, of course, is that all the enemies would match my level, but Jen would join my game, so then they'd be lower level. They'd be, they'd be too high for her and there'd be a whole thing, right? So instead, what I did, because I used the PlayStation 5 and the big TV, sacrificed it, I'm a gentleman, gave it to Jen. She plays that, right? She sits on the couch. I sit next her on the couch. I use my portal, but I dial into my PlayStation 5 Slim that's over on the computer monitor, right? And suddenly, bam, we're in there,

we're doing the thing, every scene, the right levels. We're all leveling up and having a great time. And as I'm going, I'm like, damn, this is so cool that this just fucking works. Like, that's all I ever want. You know, my pet peeve, you guys have heard it a million times on podcast throughout the years is like my number one pet peeve is when technology just doesn't do what it's supposed to do. And as someone who has lived through remote play supposedly working on a PSP at a PS3, right? Like, I know what it is when this shit does not really work. But it got me thinking about like how far video games have come in my lifetime, let alone how far they've come in recent years. And then I was like, well, how do we play with the age

difference between us? So, Roger, by my count, you're 25. Correct. I have this because we have all your information for booking flights. I thought about asking you, but it was a weekend, I didn't want to bug you. So I went to the Google doc where we have all your information. I like that. Okay, good. Is that legal? Can you do that? Announced to the world? I'm not going to, I was keeping it hidden. I was keeping it until now. I wanted to your documents. Something revealed to the world. I went into your W-2. I called their accountant to figure out. So that makes 16 years between you and I'm sorry, I just love that

you're like, it's a week I didn't want to bother you. Here's a voice memo really quick. Like that was not too far, but it's like, you know, I can't ask. If you remember at the end of the voicemail, I sent both of you, a voice memo, I was like, I'm sorry, you shouldn't listen to this now. I didn't want to immediately interrupt your Sundays. That's true. But it happened.

And so then it was like, I was like, all right, pump the brakes and asking any other follow questions. Let's just be done with this. Because you guys are too good. I'm 25. You weren't 25. Thank you. Correct.

I got that now. That's young, you know. anyways that's 16 years between me and 41. Blessing. You're about to turn 30. I am. I am screwing out of the final days of 20s, but you're about to be 30. I got eight days left.

Are you excited to turn 30? Are you scared? It doesn't matter. It's a little bit of it doesn't matter because I've, I think I have already pronounced myself as 30 in the last couple of years. And so it's like, all right, cool. Finally is actually happening officially. but I think I am a bit like

having an existential crisis am I where I'm at or where I want to be at oh yeah for the age of 30 which might be a whole other conversation maybe put me on kind of funny podcast and have that whole conversation okay do you think professionally

you're where you want to be for 30 yeah I think so okay good I think so too I just want to you know I'm always like very self-judgmental so there's always like I could be more oh sure yeah who couldn't be yeah I think about it

if I dropped the dead way to you guys just me Shoot the star Rickman. Rock for the races, you know what I mean? Let's do it. Sten him off.

Oh, Kevin's got a baby and he's going to take time off. Did you take time off? Did you take time off? I don't want to hear from you. Let me, Bear it. Barrett. I'm sorry. He's a cutey buttootty. I'm so small. Look at him. Dejected and sad.

Anyway, oh, there he's getting tiny. There he is. A small man. Yeah. Put yourself in my cup. Put yourself in my cup.

He's so small. Oh, man. This is what happens when Tim doesn't come to work. Yeah. We have fun. Anyway. Anyways,

uh, I propose to you guys talking about if you could go back 16 years. Yeah. For all of us here, of course, that would put, you know, back to nine and 14 for you guys.

Jesus. Yeah. I know, right. Outrageous to say that out loud. And then, did I even write mine down? I don't want to do the math. No, I already did. That put me at 25 as well then, right? Oh, wow. God damn. Sorry. Yeah. No, that's outrageous, right? A hundred percent. No, that's not right. Yeah, it is. I don't know. Let me do the math. Forty-one minus 16, you get back to me. That's right. Basically, 2008, what would blow your mind about right now? If you could go back and talk to yourself in 2008 about video games, what would blow your mind right now?

And then also, I think there's a second half of the conversation that Blessing brought up of like, do you think we see those same leaps going forward from here? If we were to go 16 years in the future from here, our video game is done evolving. Roger, as soon as I presented this topic, you said, I have so many things to say. Oh, I love this topic. Yeah, because I'm very much like you, Greg, where I always annoy Leanza with my, isn't this amazing that we're able to do this? Like, every single day, there's something with gaming that I just can't believe.

And there's so many ways that I can take this, but I think the main thing that I would have blown my mind back then specifically would have been crossplay and also being able to talk with my friends on Discord, right? Like, of course we had Skype, but that was more for PC games and that was a little bit later, maybe when I was like 13, 14 around there. But the idea of not being console stranded with all my friends that had PS3s and being able to talk with them was always the dream. And I remember even having long conversations with them of like, oh my God, like, imagine if we can do this and like maybe if we hook up like the Skype on our laptops and next to each other and we can talk to each other. And I just never thought that would get to the point where

we can have a ubiquitous platform that was third party that was connected to all of the consoles essentially. And then also just being able to play, yeah, with all of my friends on any platform, doesn't matter where they are. Like the fact that we have crossplay and I remember, I don't remember one of the first crossplay game was, but I remember Rocket League was one of like the earliest ones. where like, hey, they open it up and you can play anywhere. I, this has to be illegal. Like, this has to be something that I don't know why they're doing it, but I'm happy they're doing it.

Because it was an accident with Rocket League. Was it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, you know, what's funny is to jump back 16 years and think about that stuff, but to jump back just to like, Gary Whittah, for real, talks out of his ass all the time

and does know a goddamn thing most of the time. But he was so vocal for a crossplay. Yeah. So early. And like, not even early. Well, yeah, early in the way that. It was, he was doing it in the old studio on Games Daily. And I remember being like, oh, we're still so far away.

We're still so far away. And then really, what, the success of Fortnite seemed to force so many people's hand, right? And it was when PlayStation wouldn't bend the knee to get on board with it because of the children, that then once it started falling and then once Rocket League accidentally flipped the switch and had everybody playing together and showed how easy it would be, it became ubiquitous. And it became expected, right? Like, it's ridiculous to launch a game now and not have it be crossplay, let alone, you know, again, when you think of time and how relative it all is,

to have this conversation with Todd Howard when we launched Daily Gamescast and have it be like, yeah, Fallout 76 just wasn't built for that and we can't go back and re-engineering. It's like, it doesn't seem like that old of a game, even though it is an old game, but the fact that even that, you're like, wow,

like you miss the boat there and like you've missed this huge generational shift in a way. And I think that's what's so interesting to talk about when we get to the future of will we still see those shifts anymore? Because what is a 2008, game versus a, you know, a 2024 game, right? You've Google 2008 games, right? You're talking about Grand Theft Auto 4. You're talking about Fallout 3. Left for dead. Left for dead period.

Metal Gear Solid 4. Dead space, right? Fable 2 is a 2008 game. Braid is on here. Spider-Man Web of Shadows, of course. Like, resistance to, like, games I have such a clear memory of because I was at IGN and I was reviewing these and I was a part of this. And even that, to toss solve that out and talk about these changes. I think you bring up Discord, you bring up crossplay. It is the barriers falling down to all of this. And I think such a great example from this would be trying to go back and explain to 2008, Greg, where we're at in the way their ubiquitous experiences from your console to your PC to your phone even, right? And like the phone is still such a window into those things or can be on its own,

whether it's Xbox Cloud or whether it's remote play or something to that effect. Because I remember so much of this conversation, and I remember one of my first meetings at IGN in 2007, and maybe I'm playing a little fast and loosely

if it was 2007 or 2008. But I remember when Levi Buchanan, who was running IGN mobile at the time, it was such a afterthought, joke to an extent of the phone games. He was over there, like, you know, doing this and reviewing.

And I remember him being like, you guys don't understand. Like in Japan right now, mobile, like, it's going to inevitably happen here. Like mocking this or not giving you the time of day or actually thinking it through, you'll never understand what's about to happen, right? And you look at 2007, 2008. And what happens there in America is the iPhone debuts, right, and changes everything. And then the app store. And then people are buying for $99 of the ability to make games on the iPhone,

which blows up independent, it blows up this independent game scene. scene, which leaks over to obviously Steam, also consoles, Xbox jumping on that. And like, you're off to the races in this way that like everything dominoes out and gets crazy to the fact that now you are playing these things, whether it is something like Resident Evil being on your phone, sure, or just a really quality mobile game that you want to invest all that time. Yeah. Call the Duty, Genschen Impact.

Yeah. Like things that feel like full-fledged games. And also, like, going back to that, also, I think, changes the trajectory of the handheld market where the PlayStation Vita, comes out and it's like the conversation around it is what purpose does it serve when handheld when the mobile gaming market is taken over gaming on the go right like is there even a place still for handheld things

and even like you know Nintendo felt like the last bastion of what that could be and then we'll get to where that has gone now to where the handheld market looks completely different now where it is you're playing triple A games on your handheld device but I think part of why we get here is due to what mobile game mobile game did in 2008 100% I think that's why so much of it favors You know what I mean? I think as we sit here and we look at make jokes but also are very serious about why PlayStation VR2 isn't succeeding the way people want it to or I'm sure PlayStation some people there would have wanted it to right

You're looking at trend chasing you look at it here with Suicide Squad. We look at it here with all you know all these other games that people are trying to get to and it's like oh you missed the mark you lost that fight that that that boat passed while you were there right Remember the Vita such a great example of a 2011 handheld that launches after the iPhone. And so what do they do? Rather than double down and say, we are a games machine, this is going to be for serious gamers. There's going to be awesome games on here.

They go the opposite. They try to chase the cellular market. They try to chase like, oh, it's got a touchscreen and a back touch, and it's got 3G and it's got near. And it's like, nobody wants that shit who's going to buy this, right? Again, the success of the PlayStation 4 was very simple of them coming out.

And be like, it's a machine for games. You like PC games, this is a PC We're done with the cell, this is what it is. The reason Xbox fails is because they muddled their message and wanted to be Call of Duty, Call of Duty, TV, TV, TV, right? They weren't about games at that generation. And I think more and more you've seen the success stories in the hardcore gaming space be

we are trying to do something specific. And blessing, that's where then the Switch and Steam Deck enter the picture, right? Yeah, I mean, that's where you see that market start to hone in and start to take over what things can be, right? Because 2017, the Switch comes out and it is, oh, snap, like they're doing it, like they're going all in on it, and we're playing AAA first party Nintendo games that aren't just like, you know, link between worlds. No shade to link between worlds, obviously.

No shade to any handheld game. But it goes from that to playing Breath of the Wild on Switch. You know, it goes into playing Mario Odyssey and then third party AAA games on Switch. And you see that get adopted with the PC handheld stuff too with Steam Deck and the other ones that have come through with the Legion, Lenovo Legion and all this stuff. The Rog ally. The Rog ally. But yeah, like that has now, we're in a place now where you look at what that handheld market was in 2008, even going

before 2008, to where it is in 2024. And it feels like we're on the precipice of like possibly everybody getting into it as we're talking about Xbox, maybe having a handheld device and like people asking PlayStation to make one again, right? And I was having the PlayStation portal, which is like a whole different conversation as far as how cloud fits to all this. But yeah, like that's all my list of things of how far handhelds have come. That would have blown my mind as a kid as somebody.

who, you know, it is the dream. And I remember like, I think the first instance of, oh, wow, like we've come a long way was honestly, I think might have been around 2008. I might have been like 2010 where I had my first Android phone. And it was the Samsung moment that had like a slide out keyboard. And I had a SNES emulator and an NES emulator. And I was in class, and a GBA emulator. I was in class in high school. in the back of the English class playing Earthbound with the slide out keyboard I was playing

like Pokemon Emerald and Fire Red and like all these different games just on my Android phone and for me I was like oh this is the peak of where we can go with this like I can't believe I'm playing you know S&ES games on the go like this is absolutely crazy and you fast forward to where we're at now and this would have blown my mind the fact that

oh not only can I play these classic games on the go I can play Eldon Ring right now on my Steam deck or inscription or like whatever maybe not whatever modern game, but many modern games, pretty much any modern game that wants to be optimized for a Steam deck or a handheld device, I can play, and that's absolutely wild. Yeah, for me, it was, I remember the PSP

was now I think what kind of, I don't know if it's like, this generation still does this, maybe they just get phones, but like, the iPod touch was for a certain, like, younger crowd where it was like, oh, this is like you're in between of like, here's a device that's not a phone, but you can, you know, play and touch thing and, you know, play your games on it.

But the PSP was that for me, where I would, like, I use an abuse. use that thing. Like I try to put, I put so many games, games, music, movies, like, things on this thing that should not have been on there in terms of like, this is like, I'm watching full movies on here, watching Spider-Man 2. Like, that was my media device. And I was like trying to figure out how to go on the internet on it, on the worst web browser humanly possible. So like to see the connection where it's like, oh yeah, PS4, PS5 have a web browser built into it. Like, that was mind-blowing to me when Xbox towards the end of the 360 cycle inevitably

got like internet explorer edge or whatever it was like they it took a long time to get there to connect the internet like fully a web browser on these devices and to go off to what you're saying like yeah i remember playing the PSP and playing like i think it was like a random nlb game and i'm not an lb person i'm not a sports person but that to me was the first time i was like oh shit like i'm playing like a console game on the go and of course it wasn't it was half-baked it didn't look as good yada yada yada yada it's missing features but it still felt like that and to now that we're there we're able to actually play these games natively. And the fucking fact that we're potentially getting an Xbox that's on the go, that's portable.

I mean, even playing like in 20, this would have been 2012 or 2013 where I was playing, oh no, I'm not 20. Oh, I was playing Skyrim on my laptop. And like when I was going to community college before I transferred to U of I, right? And I'm like, in the between classes on my laptop playing Skyrim. And like, I think I did have a moment where I'm like, it's pretty crazy. You know, going on about it. But yeah, like, I think it's just.

it's been like those small steps that you don't notice as like the like the steps are taking place when you get to the destination of yeah us talking about oh yeah i can play i might have an xbox handheld or like the switch two is coming out and it might have invidia in it and like all these things i'm going to play you know um the next like metroid prime on it and all this stuff right like it is such a it like you look you take a step back and you look at all of it and you're like oh yeah like these are all the steps took to get there but as a kid it would have blown my mind to see yeah and talking about the steps to get there I had the, I guess, the fortunate ability to be one of, like, the first, like, early adopters in cloud gaming.

I remember I was, like, I was playing on live all the time. Like, I got my mom to, like, sign up for, like, the on live subscription, and she was like, I guess, whatever. And I was playing almost all my games for, like, a year and a half on on live, on my laptop. And that was, like, that to me was like, dad, the save goes everywhere. Yeah, exactly. No, for real. But then I remember I had this weird one where I was trying to play Batman Arkham on it. and it would like full on like hard crash at a certain point

and there would be a Windows thing that would be like this game crash and I can't click on it because it's only with the controller so it was just like you just crashed the server on live every single time but whatever I remember loving on live so much and it of course looking back I'm sure it did not run well I'm sure it looked like shit but in that moment it was like oh this is this is one to one I remember playing Saints 303 in my Facebook browser because like for like a quick second Facebook had like Guy Kai integration before they were acquired by PlayStation

and I was just like scrolling on Facebook one time and it was like oh play games on Facebook and I was like no way and I did it and I was just playing Saints Row 3 and I'm like whoa this is this seems impossible and then it just went away and I was like oh what's going on here and then PlayStation bottom it was interesting like playing on live

and like I knew the future was going there but honestly kind of surprised it took this long right because I feel like it had its moment it went away with Guykei getting a purchase and then on live inevitably going out within a year whatever and then we just kind of had like that kind of in between we're like we're trying but it wasn't really a thing necessarily and then xbox of course brings it up where it's like now it's easy i think i'm so surprised on the cloud side how much cloud hasn't taken over as much as i expected it to

because when i was playing stang throw through on my facebook browser i was like oh we got video games like this is about to bust everything wide open and you know like Xbox's adopted cloud is like a strong thing right and they're trying to push that and there are ways in which we've seen cloud like through the playstation portal or like the same son smart tv stuff with Xbox and like we there are the there are those functionalities to it but I thought it was going to be oh everybody's going to play games this way like you don't have to download games anymore you can just play games on your laptop or however and

have it just work but I don't I think that's one of those things where we did get to the Truman Show hitting like the the side of the wall spoilers for Truman Show where it is oh I feel like this can only go so far like this is just an additional way you're back to you know something completely out of the control of these companies doing this right and that's just the infrastructure of the internet in America, right? Where it is, like, that's just, I, I'm always,

back to this question, I guess, right? I remember bringing my PlayStation 3 from home to the office to use IGN's internet to download games, both because of data caps, just because of speeds. And so it is that idea that now I never think about it, right? Like, I'm, you know, I turn on, oh, Fallout needs a 147 gigabyte update. I go and I make a cup of coffee or whatever, and I come back, it's fine, it's done. Whereas that's us in San Francisco with us paying a premium for the internet whereas like so many people I talked to, that's such a backbreaker of like, oh, the update

dropped and you leave it overnight or you leave it while you go to work and you come back to this. They're not living that life. And so that's back to why all it takes is one bad experience with cloud gaming for you to be like, I'm never doing this again. And I think, you know, my example, which was mind blowing, but then I was like, cool, not touching this again is remote play where I remember when PlayStation 4 launched and it had remote play and Vita was all set to go and being in Seattle

and remote playing back to the PlayStation 4 to do Black Flag. And it was one of those things of, it works. And then it'd be like, you know, you turn and then slowly turn and then it would crash. And it was like,

this is still cool, you know, but it was like that thing of like, this also sucks and shut it down and I would bring the PlayStation with me rather than do that. Yeah. And so then you get to where we are now where I think PlayStation launches the portal

and so many people are like didn't even know that's there or that sounds like shit. And it might be for you, right? And I'm still shocked among us how different the reactions to portal are. Where I'm, every time I use it, I'm so in love with it. It's so perfect. It doesn't crash. It is bam, bam.

And then I'll talk to Tim and he's like, oh, I'm getting a better steam deck reaction. I'm like, oh, wow. Like, I'm not having that issue, but that's just what you're talking about with something that not the Greg character is akin to PC gaming, where there's just so many variables to what your rig is or your internet is that there's going to be these things. Yeah, going back really quick to internet of it all, right, talking about that. And like, I think my, honestly, the real thing that I would just be blown away by is just the wireless internet of it all, right?

Like, I remember, like, I had to, my dad didn't want to spend 60 bucks on, like, the Xbox 360 adapter. So he literally drilled holes in the ceiling and, like, bought, like, a 300-foot Ethernet cable that went through the... God bless your father. And, like, I think we still have it there. Like, it's, it's, it's, it's, that was the way that I was able to play video games with my friends. and like the idea that now it is everything is just wireless you don't have to think about that's Wi-Fi yeah and it's just it's when I say that out loud I know I'm very young but it is if I sold that to like a zoomer zoomer like I think their head would just explode like that is just not something

again not even to jump that far back right but you figure when I move in with calling which would have been what 2011 yeah like we still the the Wi-Fi was so not poor because it was what the speeds of Wi-Fi were so bad we had the Ethernets running from the motor him in the living room back to our bedroom playstations. And it was, he had a duct tape down. I spent finally a day like putting in our baseball. Me and Michael Hyam's apartment looks like currently. Yeah, I have like the little cables running into our rooms and it looks,

doesn't look great, but it's like, it's got to do it. Got to get it done. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Like it's, it's crazy of that jumping through those hoops and what it was and how it still exists for some, doesn't for other, right?

Where it's like, this just the insanity of how fast this is all moved and what it's become and what still needs to be done. Yeah. Which is why I think it's an interesting one. I still want to hang out here because I think there's still more for us talk about. But to talk about and put a pin in for the evolution of gaming,

I do wonder if the evolution is just on the tech side. You know, we've talked about this of what games can be and what they won't be or this. But like it is about when is Apple or Google or whoever launching the satellites that is, hey, it's a streaming Wi-Fi service that's as good as the current wired internet you have

and you sign up for it and you have a gig up, gig down wherever you are. Yeah. Like that's got to be coming. right? Yeah, with the Space Link or whatever at Elon's thing, right? Like, we're getting closer and closer to that every day. And that is the turning point of like, if it's able to, every single person, no matter

where you are, can just play on their Xbox cloud streaming. I wonder if. I wonder if that's even possible, right? Like, I know one of the things Creed calls out is that that's a fighting game house will get called out for being wireless. Like that's, if I wanted to play without having, being wired in, I could. But like, for playing either, yeah, like a fighting game or playing even. like a Valorant or just downloading things fast, right?

Like there is a desire to want to have that connection as split seconds as possible. And even for us, like, I think our building for some reason just cuts off a good Wi-Fi connection. Lead, lead paint. Yeah, whatever, like, material is in the walls, like, it's stopping the Wi-Fi signal. So now I have a Google home that's in my room that Kevin gave me that helps with that. But, yeah, like, I mean, even if they launch something, it's like, I sound like a crazy person, but is it going to penetrate the walls?

Is that going to fix everything for every single person? It's interesting, right? Because it's like I even saw someone in chat being like, it'll never be as good. And it's like, I get that right now. But I also like, we said that about so many things in this world. Like I have a feeling we'll get to that point eventually. Of course, it's me knowing nothing about any of this.

But you have to believe that. Tell us your secrets. Yeah. I got all the secrets. I know everything about it. Once the AI takes over. Yeah. It'll definitely be building a better Wi-Fi network for everybody.

I'm sure. But I think we have to get there. I think we will get there when when it's just a matter of when, right? Is this the next 10 years? It's 20 years. And this is the whole thing of like playing, I'm playing with it a bit, right, of like talking about 2008,

but 2007, 2006, right, when I accidentally tricked the newspaper into buying me a 360, right? And like when the PlayStation 3 and the Wii come out on the same weekend, I was so infinitely more excited for the Wii than the PS3. And yeah,

there was obviously the game libraries and stuff like that. But I remember being like, I don't have the internet by my, I don't have great internet. I don't, I think I even, I think one, I got him. I didn't have internet at the house actually yet. And I, and it was that and I didn't have a 4K. I didn't have an HD TV. So it was like, everything the PlayStation 3 is trying to sell me on just isn't a thing for me. And it was also, I'm not going to play online shooters. That's not what I'm going to do. Right. It was really trying to wrap your head around again to go back and talk to a 2008, Greg, about how online is so ubiquitous and a part of everything and, you know, the games you're playing. Even if it's so akin to, I know I've told the story on content before, but.

being there in those early days of my IGN career and people coming back and be like, oh, well, somebody asked me like, what was the game like? Oh, interesting, they're using RPG elements. That was something that was a big thing that got talked about in a lot of previews for a lot of different games.

Like, oh, yeah, they're putting a skill tree in this. Wasn't it an action adventure? It was like, yeah, but there's this and you're online. Like, it was for so long talked about, oh, it's RPG light, it's this, that, and the other before we as an industry, stop saying that because games just have that and that's what it is now, right? And it's the same idea now of,

Yeah, you're not, this isn't an online mode. Online is just online. It's there. It's influencing everything if you want it to be for the most part. Yeah, absolutely. What's funny is that like, that's not a thing that surprises me, like the online element of games nowadays. See, for me it would just be that the walls fell down.

We're so used to turning on the game into being single player or multiplayer, right? And that being the thing of not the fact that it's all. But I might even put this as like an age thing for me where if you, like, you asked me in 2008. I think online was such a part of my life, not just, not video games, but like the idea of like connectivity, right? Like most of my, club penguin. You know, neo pets honestly for me playing a runescape, right? Like was such a thing in elementary school for me. And like, I think the, like learning, I guess later on in the PS2 era, the amount of games that started to have online modes.

I think somehow in my mind, I just put it together of like, oh, this is going to be everywhere. Yeah. Like even leading into the PS3 is like. I think my thing was like, you know, my major jump off is, you know, convincing Po to buy the modem for his PS2. And we got Socom and we invested so much money in that. We played it one night. We're like, this sucked. And we're done.

So it was like, oh, well, online gaming, whatever. Yeah. And that's the thing for me. It was a more ubiquitous experience because it was Xbox 360 party chat, right? So that was when I started playing games with friends. And it was a necessity for me because I didn't live in the same area that my elementary school friends were. so I would go to Queens for school, come back home in Long Island, and I couldn't see my friends on the weekends, which sucked,

but we all looked to each other and said, hey, you have an Xbox? Okay, let's figure it out. Let's plug in the thing. And we were, we probably talked more than we played video games, right? So it was, oh. These kids in Fortnite today? Yeah, exactly. It's true. So it's like, yeah, I'm with blessing of like, it was never a thing of like, oh, is this going to happen?

Like, oh, it was always video games and connectivity was always there. It was just how easy is it going to get, right? I think for me it was the wishes I had while playing PS2 games. right of like playing GTA San Andreas and being like man I wish I could play most player online and like I wish I could like just have a bunch of people in the same world and you fast forward to now and like it always felt like the natural evolution of things once you realize that like things were just building there right like you know again seeing online like putting up Burnout 3 and seeing an online mode option I'm like oh this is going to be in every single video game and I'm glad that like I feel it feels almost dialed back in a way where PS3 era it felt like every game had to have like some kind of multiple player mode. Argymoregence, never forget. Yeah.

Did the Arkham Orges have a multiple player mode? Yeah, I didn't know that. God of War, what was it, Ascension had one too. But yeah, like it feels like now it is,

all right, we know how to apply this to the games that need to have it, or like, if we're going to make an online game, just make it an online game. It doesn't have to be every single player thing.

Like God of War, Ragnor Rock doesn't need to have an online thing. Or does it? Or does it? I mean, listen. If I can see the conversation a little bit.

a little bit. One thing that I saw as being an Xbox gamer that I saw the rise of and then the explosion of... Racism. As a kid that grew up in Model Over 2 and GTA 4, yeah, absolutely. But I saw the indie game explosion, like seeing that, like, growing up with that essentially and, like, of course, indie game, the movie, right? That was, like, kind of the big cementing point.

But, like, seeing, like, oh, randomly, there's regular games, and then now there's Xbox Indies. Oh, okay, now there's Xbox arcade games. shit, like seeing, being able to, like, play games with my friends that were not just the AAA games. And also, like, it was this weird thing where it was like, oh, this is affordable for us. Like, I mean, of course, we weren't paying for it, but our parents were able to, hey, it's a $10, $15 game. We could not play this game together. That someone, like, two people made. Like, there's so many random indie games that I became obsessed with that would never

hit now, but it was like, I made a game with zombies in it was, like, I remember that one. game ruled. Like, we would just go on the leaderboards and talk about it all the time. And, like, I remember even, like, waiting for Minecraft

to come out on the Xbox, which is wild, because now Xbox, of course, owns Minecraft. But, like, there were, like, knock off Minecrafts on the indie game store

that we would just obsessed over. So to see that go from there to now where it's like, oh, indie games can look as good as AAA games sometimes. Like, we're in this place where we don't, we're debating what is even is an indie game.

It's wild. I'll do you one further. And, like, I think, for me, it goes back to playing, like, Flash games on new grounds and on like

just on browsers in general Like I remember when portal Portal came out somebody had made a 2D portal clone essentially It was just like a 2D platform I loved it I loved it That in the Mirazge one? Did you play that one? Oh yeah I played the Mirzedge one too And like I got obsessed with those games And even before that right like there are so many different like

I'll play just random flash soccer games I was on Cartier Network.com playing teen titans battleblitz And playing like the Ed and NETI game and playing I played like 10 different Samurai Jack games on Cartier Network.com You gotta play them all. Manly do. And I like, for me, that was the natural progression that like I could never have seen coming.

Like as a kid of, oh yeah, these are games. These are small games that are being made by people just because they have the passion for it. And they have the tools to do so. That I think then gets turned into things like Xbox Arcade, right? Like, I think Beat Boy was a flash game before it got like turned into like a console thing. And like, yeah, you see it progress. And one of the things that I've written down here is just like the types of games that go viral nowadays. And that spawns from a lot of the indie conversation as far as like, you know, you look at the stream games that Mike, Andy, and Nick are playing.

And it's like only up or chained together. And like these, the lineage of these things come from like those new ground. Like, hey, let's make something janky, but something that gets the job done because it's going to be fun for people. People aren't looking for this to be GTA vice city or they're not looking for it to be like God of Or Ragnarok, which is this my example today. Like we're not needing to make these things. We can just make things that are fun for us and then see people take. take to it. And like among us 20 years ago, definitely like just an online browser game that we have fun with. Right. But now these things have found a market to where you could actually be successful

making these types of games that are, you know, smaller, more specific, but still have relevance and still have a purpose in the ecosystem. Well, that's think of 2008, right, when you'd talk about a game on Game Scoop or whatever, you say, yeah, it's really good for a downloadable game. You know what's downloadable game of the year, right? Because you needed to put them into different categories. Otherwise, you would never talk about those, right? And I think it's similar to what you're seeing to a degree and then obviously the annual arguing about definitions of like indie games now being in those nominees

for overall game of the year, but then still having an indie game category because you want to do the indies that are small. But what about a Baldr's Gate then? Is that go in the indie category? Or is that going, can it be in both? And like you're trying to make room for this, but as games continue to tumble down the hill

and get bigger and better and people learn more and not even get bigger, I guess. Indies just be better experiences. And you see the, I would say, I don't know, general public wake up to the fact of what that means. I think that's always it. You're talking about, Raj, for what you're seeing when Xbox puts up back in the day, in 2008,

what you would see when they put these into new categories, right? Like trying to explain to a mass audience that this game is different than this, but not lesser than is so hard. Yeah, no, absolutely. I remember the arcade of it all. Like, it was, it was so strange because they had the Xbox Indies

and then they had the arcade but then the arcade was like oh this is the more premium things like the Walking Dead was there but then they also had like Castle Crashers was part of the arcades and then they had the lower rung which was like hey this is just one guy made this and it might be shit but it might be really good it might be I made a game with zombies in it so once

they just finally just made that just hey this is video game so I think we lost something but we also gained a lot but yeah the fact that we've gone far enough to where like you don't even need to give the describer or like you don't need to give like the thing of oh yeah no but this is an indie game, right? Yeah, yeah.

The fact that, what, in 2015, Rocket League and Undertale come out, and those could stand toe to toe with Arkham Knight and, like, Mel your Solid 5 and the Witcher in, like, Game of the Year conversations. Sure. The fact that today, you know, again, like to the whole, like, streaming game thing, right, they're playing, you know, only up and chain together and stuff. But, you know, I think what, V Rising is like an indie thing as well, if I remember correctly. And, yeah, like, last game we had last week, last year, we had Balders Gate 3 and, like,

you know, indie games, like, the indie thing is meaning less. and less. I think that's why it's almost like the definition just needs to change to like just be smaller games because on the AAA side

like AAA publishers put out games like Child of Light or put out games like pentament or like games that you could look at and be like oh this is a smaller thing or this has a smaller team or whatever but at the end of the day

like there's way more crossover than there has been ever before and like the scope of games and what you can do with a team of a few people or with just not being owned by a bigger publisher or bigger corporation.

Hell yeah. Well I want to talk about the future in what we think's happening. But first I'll talk about the future of Kind of Funny because it's in your hands. Ladies, gentlemen and NBs. Of course, you should get that kind of funny membership. With the kind of funny membership, you get each one of our shows ad-free. You get the ability to watch the afternoon podcast like today's Kind of Funny podcast live

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So whether you're going to the beach or the mountains this summer, we've got you covered. And we're donating a portion of sales to two incredible organizations, queer life space and Denver-based center on Colfax. Head over to Kindofuny.com slash store before the month ends. And we're back. Blessing, when I talked about wanting to look at the past, you talked about wanting to look at the future yeah why are you concerned

well like the question that I wanted to pose was are video games done evolving because you know you talk about the what games were 16 years ago and you started to list off some of those games from 2008 which include games like you had a metal gear solid four guns of the Patriots

you had grand theft auto four Fallout three left for dead gears of war two dead space far or devil may cry for yeah able to super smash brothers bro and you know that's 2008. You fast forward to 2018 games. You have games like Red Dead Red Dead Redemption 2,

Marvel Spider-Man, God of War, Monster Hunter World, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Sassas Creed Odyssey, et cetera, et cetera, right? And like, you can see the jump forward there, but when I compare that to, if I pull up a list of 1998 games, right, I go 10 years prior to 2008. We're talking about Banjo Cazui,

Meliger Solid, Half-Life 1, Resonie Evil 2, Spyro the Dragon, the first Mario Party game. And as we get further and into the span of video games, it feels like that, like, I guess explosion of innovation, innovation is getting smaller and smaller, right? To where again, you list 2008 games,

and 2018 games, there's like, there's an improvement, but it's like way smaller than when I talk about the 1998 games versus 2008. You jump forward from 2018 to now, and honestly, I'm like, for me, the improvement of games is like, okay, well, there's ray tracing now. Like, there's the technical side of it. There's like small technical things, and then there's just trends, right?

Like battle royale has become more of a thing, right? There are genres that become more of a thing, right? The content creation games, all that. But I do wonder if we are hitting a, like diminishing returns as far as those big jumps in video games. Like I wonder if like what those changes might be going forward might be just more in terms of trends, like the kind of games that people like to play or like the genre stuff as opposed to, oh yeah, we're jumping from PS5 to PS6. now we can do this thing. Like it doesn't,

I guess I'm not feeling that as much this generation of games. Okay. Roger. I think I feel that more in the consoles of it all, right? Like, I just don't see right now

going from PS, going from PS3 to PS4. I was like, oh shit, there's a lot we can do here. Like, we kind of hit the, especially with internet connectivity. We're like, oh, okay, that's easy.

PS4 to PS5. I was like, okay, we have some things. I mean, the game's trying to get dated. PS5 going as PS6. I don't, I don't really see it. And I, and I, I, I think that that's

where my hangups are is what is the big thing that we can go towards. And I don't think it's necessarily going to be something that is going to be outward, right? I think it's just going to be internal stuff. I think it's going to be better for worse. It's going to be AI, right? It's going to be the things that help make these games run at a better frame rate. But having like the selling point of like this console does this thing, I think is going to be get smaller and smaller every single year.

I think it's for the longest time, the way you market it a system. was, well, look at the S&ES compared to the NES. It's so much better. Look at the N64 to the S&S. It's so much better. You're doing, like, there were those visual things, whereas I'm with you of, I do think PS4 to PS5, you're like, okay. Visually it's not popping, even though it is, but it's not like crazy.

Most of these games, most of the PS5 games, exclusively are on PS4. Yeah, yeah. But it's more the idea of like, okay, well, there's instantaneous loads and you're through this thing. And like, you know, it's crazy now to boot up a third party game. and I have to sit through every logo and everything. I'm like, fucking come on.

You know what I mean? Why'd even restart this game? Oh, there was an update. Yada yada yada. I get that. I don't buy the argument that video games are done evolving. I think because I think I, me specifically, and every kid probably was so short-sighted, right?

You know, of course I put up on Twitter the idea that we were doing this podcast, you know, sound off with ideas. And there was one I liked here from hip lumberjack who tweeted and said, I got in 19, whatever, I got Legend of Elie's Elf. the Majores mask for the N64 at launch. I remember thinking there's no possible way graphics could look better than this. And that's like, we've all had that moment of,

I mean, I remember for me it was, I would say, what, at 2001 on PS2, the launch game. Where you're watching it and they're doing cuts. And like, this looks like the real game. You know what I mean? I have a question for you. And maybe this is, this is, I'm just a young, young little kid.

But when you were playing like the 2D games, did you have the moment where you're like, they need to go 3D? Or was that not even a thought? I thought, right? Especially as a kid you're playing it. I think the idea of what Mario 64 does and flips around, that's why that game is like obviously sort of here.

and it's so good. But it was that like, for me personally no, but I think that was one of those things of, especially as a young kid who, you know, I've always had the drive to talk about games, right? And I've talked about the fourth grade and all the jazz.

And you know, this is what I wanted to do with my life. I never had the desire to make games. So I don't think I ever sat sat there and reverse engineered it and thought about really what they were doing and why they were doing it. I think that's such a trademark for somebody who wants to go make those games

that they sit there and go, oh, well, what if we did X, Y, and Z? That makes sense. And even for us and what we do now in our job and career, right, the way we analyze games and the way we'll sit there and why I want a Superman game

and I think it should be like this. Or this game does this, but it doesn't do this and why not? Like, I think that's so much more thinking about the games and what we're consuming than the general consumer does, right? You're back to the letterbox, review of, oh, critics hated it, but I loved it.

And it's like, not that I'm talking shit about that, but you're not into the weeds of what this is and how it plays into genre and what its contemporaries are doing. Yeah. Where I think that's such a different thing, where I think, again, that's where the evolution of games is happening now, where it is everybody learning from each other, taking these different things at work, chasing trends, which is always a problem. But I think we're so inclined to jump to, well, PS5 to PS6, what's that going to look like? Xbox just gets rid of all the serieses, right?

It does this thing. But that is where you're talking about AAA video games. And you're talking about a business model that is so risk-averse, where it can't be that you're taking the big swings there and changing everything you know about everything because you see the fan backlash of this, right? Fucking, God forbid, Dragon Age changed their art style for what their artistic vision is.

It's going to be a huge deal. So you have to take little bits and pieces that are more the behind-the-scenes of how the game is working. and how it's telling you its story or how it's giving you its mission quests. And then I think you look to the Indies. And you double A's too, like not just Indies,

the smallest person, like Critmaster, which is a great game. It does a lot of cool things. But the ones above it that are Hades and Super Giant, right? And like what are they changing and what are they finding success in?

And I feel like you see that level of innovation, especially Hades 1, right, that hits so big and go so much beyond, uh, any super giant game before and really makes people, oh shit, we need a roguelike mode. And everybody has that.

suddenly. I wonder if it's going to AAA development unless AI fixes it all and makes it super fast is just only going to get longer and longer and longer right. Like right now it's very apparent when things blow up in the indie scene or smaller games and then slowly but surely five years later you get

okay that's chasing the trend from all the way back then like I only see that getting bigger and like that entire gap growing right? Yeah. I think that's the thing for me is like the things that we've listed as far as what the indie space is doing. For me that's going on for a decade, if not maybe two decades, right? And like, I think there are going to be

so many ideas that are taken from the into space that, like, affect things and grow things and push things forward. But when I'm talking about, like, evolution of video games, I do think that there's, like, a certain, I guess, like, even on the AAA side, right? Where I guess when I think of the last game, I was truly blown away by as far as, like, oh, shit, video games can be this. It's not, I don't get that from the technological side a lot of time. For me, it's like a surprising mechanic that is like, oh, man, Haiti's, man, I didn't expect. this game to like go hard in this way right or like like a balatro where I'm like oh snap they really did something smart

here with poker and I get to say last year you weren't blown away by the legend of Zelda I was but it wasn't I mean that was also for me I was as blown away from by Tears the Kingdom as I was by Breathful Wild right like I think for me that was more so I don't expect Legend Zelda Tears of the Kingdom to end up changing the standard going forward for what a lot of open world video games are I think that happened years prior with Breath of the Wild, right? We saw that in Tourism Kingdom and we saw that in Eldon Ring, and I think we're going to get more of those.

But I guess, like, when I compare it to innovations of past, like that wasn't GTA3. Okay, yeah, totally. And I think that's, I hear you, and I understand that argument. I think it's not short-sighted, but maybe unfair, because I think, you know, GTA-3 defines a sandbox video game, right?

And, like, I think, like, we have to come up with new genres. Can things define things like that anymore? I think we have we've had it in spurts, right? We've had things like, again, PubG, which I know Battle Royals was around before PubG, but PubG put it on the map. Exactly. I was going to say, I think that's a great example of

defining what a battle royale is. Yeah, but I think that is happening less and less and less and less. I don't think that's a bad thing, right? Like I think at some point we have to hit a point where it's like damn, video games are just video games now, right? Like we've figured this out and a lot of those innovations are going to be smaller. But I think we've hit that point where like I think the innovations that are

happening in video games are on the smaller scale, which is okay, right? But I don't, I'm not feeling, I'm not in a place in terms of how video games shift and change now, where I'm waiting for the next PlayStation game or even like just the next big game of the year to go, this is going to change everything, this is going to change review video games. Star Wars Outlaws is not going to redefine how we think of an open world adventure. Yeah. But then I also will say that I feel like we're having those in smaller scales, right? like with indies,

but they are having huge impacts. Like, I look at an undertale. Like, that changed a lot. Like, that changed, like,

fundamentally what some RPGs are, how they're being made and how they, people can look at those games. So, I don't know. I think, for me,

I agree, but for me, that's also 2015. I got that. No, but I'm saying, like, it's happening,

right? Like, it's not, like, it's not, like, it's not like, it's not like, I think indies are going to be the, the objects of change.

Because I look at, like, 1990, right? trying, making a huge swing that didn't really have anything other than to lose, right? Metal Gear solid, like, it's the first real, like, 3D Metal Gear, right? Like, once we start going down that path, it's like, oh, we can't look at these triple A's to do that anymore. It's always going to be the Indies. And I, yeah, I don't know. I get what you're saying. Totally get what I'm saying. I'm not

disagree with. I guess more so, like, when we talk about the indie side of it, I think, for me, we've gotten so many creative, different indie games that is, it's not like a thing of, I don't expect that, right? Like, for me, that's just part of the norm now that we get these cool creative, like innovative indie games. It's not necessarily a thing of, oh, this game's going to come out

that's going to change everything. That's going to like, even I guess push things forward in a way that every company is like, ah shit. So here is, do you think in, and this might be making your own argument,

do you think that in modern day, 2024, you can have a game that changes everything? Because that would be my, my, because back to it of like, well, Zelda didn't change everything.

It influenced a lot, right? Like, Balders Gate 3, is amazing, but I don't know if BioWare and Bethes to look at it and go, throw everything out the... I guess that is my argument, is that, like, I think we've hit such a point in video games where

so many ideas have been explored in such great ways that it's like, there's so few ground left to cover in terms of what can we do with this thing. That sounds like I'm like, nobody can do anything new, which is not my argument. Yeah, totally. I guess my thing is more so 10 years from now, how different are video games going to be than they are currently?

Right? Like, have we reached the point? Like, are we in the future? Like, 20 years from now, right? Like, how different are video games going to be today or then than they are today? Is it going to be as big of a jump as it was from 20 years ago? I don't think so. And I'm okay with that, right? I think video games have reached such a special place where you can have so many different creative ideas.

But if I go, if I scroll through the indie side of Steam right now, there's going to be so many different types of video games. And I guess that's my, that's more so my thing as far as, like, video games evolving, which is, like, I don't know, I feel like we've hit the, we've hit the point where anything is possible now. And you expect that. Yeah. Exactly.

So I think it's harder to look at something and see like, oh man, you're doing something crazy when you're just like, oh man, that's awesome. It's crazy. I think it's a desensitation, right? Of like, when we were younger,

and I saw indie games, like, oh shit, this is the craziest thing in the world. Now we expect everything, right? I think it's just kind of internet culture that's content creation, that's movies,

that's everything. We expect everything to be at such a high level and we expect it all the time. And also with the way that our culture is breaking up, right? not to go all heady and, you know, with everything, but it's true. Like, we're all kind of breaking off into, you know, Greg has his own algorithm that he's obsessed with.

And I've never heard of any of these fucking people. And then I'm obsessed with this thing. You haven't heard of the Hawk, too, girl? Yeah. And then we're, like, not connecting at all. But in my world, this is the craziest thing in the universe. And this has changed my mind about something. But for you, it's not something you're even on your radar.

Like, we're just going to get more and more, like, fragmented. And I think that that is where kind of culture in general is moving, but also just video games as well. like AAA games are going to constantly be trying to find that monoculture, but then indie games are going to serve those massive audiences that are now broken off and splintered. And it's going to feel looking back at everything like, oh, video games aren't moving forward because when we look at these games, it's only showing like the big games that are succeeding that have hundreds of million dollars behind it.

But I could see in the future where, you know, 2028 or whatever it is, it's going to look a lot more of indie games and games that we've never, you wouldn't necessarily have in these top 100 games of that year. I don't know. Interesting. We're in a weird place, man. We're in a weird place, especially with AI.

Like, I know we kind of roll our eyes at it because it is true. Yeah. But it is... But I think AI is the answer to my question, right? Like, I do think that there is a space

for AI to come through and totally change how shit... For better or for worse. We're going to have a moment in the next few years where a huge AAA game is going to have generative AI inside of it. We're going to have to kind of figure out

how we feel about that, but also how it's implemented, right? And like... I mean, we've had that already. No, I'm saying like, as a core. Like, as like the core of how it's built. Like, hey, from the day one, we use generative AI, whatever it is. But it's going to have happened more and more.

It's going to happen more and more in indie games specifically. And it's going to help a lot of people. It's going to also cause a lot of issues. But I think that that is the future of where gaming is going. My one pushback on that is, I think when we're talking about like the core of this game is generative AI. I think it's going to be a conversation of all this shit sucks. No, no, no, I mean, in the sense that like, of course, we're going to have that. We're definitely going to have the ones where we don't go.

is bad. Oh man, this game is badly put together. Look at all these mistakes. I know AI is still in a place where it's getting better and improving and all that stuff. No, we're definitely going to have that. We're going to have those moments we're going to dunk in them. But there's going to be also a moment where a team of people, five, six artists that are like, hey, we made a game that's ten times bigger than we could have ever made before. We only used

our art to train this AI model and we are able to grow in and making something that we look at it like, oh wow, this is really cool. And that's going to be the moment where it's like, okay, well, it's ethical because we are using our own art. We are using the thing. It's not being trained off of anything else. And We're able to build something that's way bigger.

For me, that is the next step of procedural generation. Yeah. Right? Like it is, hey, we fed this thing a bunch of stuff and we are using this to just output a bunch of different variables so that we can make a game that is, we can, it is like, I'm almost so fascinated to see what that looks like if you tried that with like a new Hades game. Maybe not do, not super giant don't do it, right?

But like somebody who wants to make a similar sort of thing, right? Like, I do think that there is space for that and that you're right in that. But yeah, I think where I think that is, by the time we get there, I also think that the technology might have to be in a place where it's already convinced people, right? Like, I think we were, by that point, the proof has already been in the pudding, and we are already living in AI world.

Yeah, no, I think it's going to happen to indie first. I think we're going to have it. And, like, it's going to be a small team like, a small team that does the thing and makes the GTA that they've always wanted to make. And then we're going to look around and be like, fuck, like anyone could do this. And hopefully that maybe, if it's ethical,

can speed up AAA game development, but it's definitely going to help indie developers. So in terms of what you're saying, I totally get it right now. But five years from now, I think, I think we're going to some things that are just going to are going to blow our minds in a way that we can't even expect. And it might take some suffering to get there.

Oh, it's going to take a lot of stuff. Oh, for sure. A lot of people fuck it up to get there. Absolutely. Yeah, I don't think it's going away, right? And I do think there's a way to ethically do it like you're talking about. Yeah. Let's go to the chats, of course.

If you want to be part of the show, superchat, YouTube.com slash kind of funny games while we're live, just like CJ did. C.J says, we get new stuff, but they don't working. I think he said, but they aren't working. The example, for Spoken had a lot of innovative. innovative mechanics, original new IP are struggling. And I hate that one. I hate that argument because did Forspoken have a lot of innovative mechanics? Did it?

I don't think, I played it and reviewed it and rolled credits on it. I don't think it was innovative. I think it was a shooter where I ran around and shot like this. I had a shotgun blast and I had a sniper blast and I had a machine gun blast, right? And there was other ones to unlock. But that's not innovative in my opinion, right? That was very much like, we are a AA studio trying to make a AAA game. we're going to go in and rather than give her a gun,

we're going to go do this. Zach Johnson, all caps, yes, it did great combat system. Yes, it did. I disagree, but I appreciate. Was it innovative or a great combat system? Two different things. Yeah, I mean, I'll put in the nemesis system

from Shadow Mortar in the conversation of, like, innovative, I think implies that it had an effect on things or it's going to have an effect on things. The nemesis system, I think, should have been innovative, but, like, I'm not. not seeing the nemesis system since the last shadow of Mordor game. Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman will eventually have it probably. They put that patent on it. And it's also like in a similar vein, it's like neon white.

It's like your weapons are cards, but I wouldn't call that innovative, you know? It's just like a different way of presenting a shooter. There's a difference between like just unique and innovative. That's a great good point. Yeah, 100%. And yeah, original new IP are struggling. I mean, to say, I think that's such a blanket statement. Yeah.

I think not everything is going to be a success. That's always been the case, right? So, like, again, forespoken didn't work for me. I understand it worked for a lot of you, but, like, it didn't work for enough of you because that didn't take off, right? And again, like, then you're into,

what is the success on Netflix? What is the success for a podcast? What is this, like, all of these are different things where it's just like, yeah, I think it's easier to get an established IP off the ground, but it's also interesting to do something new with an established IP. Yeah, but it's also like new, on top of the new IP, right?

Like, it can't just be, like, because you see a lot of new IPs right now that are like, oh, it's new IP, but it's pretty much just this type of game that's just, you know, kind of cloned or whatever. Like, it needs to feel completely and utterly fresh. And when we look back on a lot of these games as we're talking about, like, those games felt new.

They felt unique. I feel like now it's just like, oh, we'll just make a new IP that will be this type of game that we can just sell and slot into this kind of bucket. You know what I mean? Like, it needs to feel completely fresh. And we're, I totally, I think first focus is this bad example of like new IP not doing well, right?

I think you also have to put out a good game. And when you look at like the successors. Because I mean, oh, let's show a protocol. It's like, well, again, what is Avium? But like if I go through the, again, the steam charts, right? And we talk about Power World. Now Power World, original, I don't know if that's like the thing. But like Power World's a new IP and it's fucking is one of the best selling things of the year so far.

You look at Bellatro. You look at like V rising. You look at Among Us. You look at so many of the things that are charting on the indie side. And then you, I think you talk about the AAA side. And like, it is things like returnal. It is things like Eldon Ring, people were mentioning, which I know Eldon Ring goes to like the Walt's Dark Souls thing.

But still a new IP, right? I don't think that new IP is struggling, I think. Mediocre new IP. Yeah, exactly. Like, if you're a new IP, you kind of have to hit or else you're going to get lost in the sauce. Yeah. Gary the 3rd is a member on YouTube for nine months and uses a super chat to say,

live service games are stifling innovation. Teams on the same game for five to 10 years without evolving their craft. That's not including original debit cycle. Yeah. You agree? Yeah. I mean, I don't disagree. I mean, especially when you see the PlayStation of it all, like kind of trying to shift all of their studios into live services.

Like, that is a hard boat to correct, like, as it's moving. As a big ship. Exactly. It is, that is a rough one, especially if you're going to be dedicating as much money and time. And also player expectation, right? Like, you can't just be like, ah, this one fucking failed, but, you know, we'll just stop production of this one. Because, like, no, you have thousands and maybe hundreds of thousand people that are playing this game. that want to play this game.

So that ruins entire reputations. And that's a tough one. I think, again, talking about the long life cycle of game development right now, you have Fortnite pops off and then you have all these games trying to make Fortnite five, six years later, and we're seeing the fruits of that.

Yeah, it's tough. And I agree with that. It's a one where, yes, in a very specific context, I think, right? We're talking about PlayStation. You're talking about these big studios that get caught up in it, Whereas I don't think blanket across the industry.

Maybe that wasn't even Gary's argument. That stifling creativity. At these companies, sure, but then again, back to it, also is the fact that a PlayStation and Xbox, they're risk averse. Like, you just don't want to take a gamble on something that's going to take seven years because then you end up with Suicide Squad.

You post, what was a $200 million loss or whatever? And it's like, fuck, a Batman game would have done better and maybe done a bit faster and yeah. I think that comes back to like also where some of my argument comes from as far as like the evolution of it, right, where video game death cycles, including like the live service stuff, but even on just the single player

AAA stuff, right, has gotten so long. And like, when you're putting out a game a decade or a game every five years, it's like, how different am I going to make this game than the last thing? Like, I don't expect Ghost of Sushima 2 to come out and totally redefine the, like, samurai genre because guess what, they're just

going to make a second version of the thing that they made before. And one of the things I listed here was like, as far as something that surprised me is that the amount of studios that aren't around anymore, when I look and I'm like, oh, Volition's gone. THQ, the publisher is gone. Japan Studio's gone. Like things like E3 is gone, right?

And like, you know, I think the G4, G4. A few times. A few times, yeah. The business of video games is so volatile that like I don't know, at least on the AAA side, how you can continue to like put out stuff that is creatively refreshing and creatively innovative while also being like we have to make something that's going to sell 10 million copies or else you might go out of business. in that case, we're going to make something that's already established and not try to take risks.

I want to do more super chats, but before then, Barrett, we're running a skeleton crew. Can you please go let Ryan McCaffrey in? He's outside. I misread it. It's like, do I need someone to open the door? And I was like, no. He's like, oh, so close. And I read it.

He's like, oh, no, I'm outside. No, someone needs to open the door. Scoopy 5 says the last time my mind was blown was how return will use the adaptive triggers. but it feels likely no one has used the capability since. Again, mind-blown or very unique, right? Like we made so much fun of all that with, you'll feel the bow tension and the triggers. And then, like, yeah, the raindrops on it for Returnal are super cool,

but not like innovative to a way where I feel like that's going to change how people use it because clearly it didn't. Yeah. To the innovative conversation, too, I was going to add this on to my last thing. Please do. I got lost.

One of the things that I want to point out in terms like the elongated dev cycle and how how the volatility of the games industry has affected things. I am fascinated by how Nintendo seems to

still just be putting out hella games and like continues to seem to operate in a healthy way and I think a lot of that just goes to like the chase toward creativity over just the technology side of it

right? Like Nintendo doesn't have to worry about putting out games in 4K with ray tracing and like fucking ginormous budgets and all these things. They're putting out a Mario and Luigi game this year. Yeah.

Alongside a Zelda game that is like this top down cute art style thing alongside a Mario party. And that's going to sell more than most of these other games that are coming out that are fucking AAA. And I think that kind of pipeline, right? Like that kind of cycle lends itself a bit more to, hey, let's find new creative ideas. Let's find things that are going to push things forward. Let's like, let's make a game where you can literally stick any item together to solve puzzles. Yeah. Put everything in your mouth.

And I think that's something special. And I think that's also, I think that side of the industry makes me look and go, oh, we can still find ways to evolve. Whereas I think the other side of the industry that is right now just struggling over the weight of how expensive video games are makes me worry about it. And that's one of the things too with what Nintendo's so good with their IP,

right? Where it's like you can look at me, oh, it's another peach game. Oh, it's another Mario game. It's another whatever. But they are taking drastic different challenges, right? Like Mario 64 is a far different game than new Super Mario's is a new different game than Mario Galaxy, which is a different game than Mario 3D World.

Yeah. Yeah, and they've created an entire brand. The brand of Nintendo, I would argue, is creativity and fun. Like, if you can't put that on PlayStation or Xbox, I would never be like, Xbox's brand is creativity and fun. Like, that's not what they are. Nintendo, that is their core being. Once they stop innovating, they die.

So, like, yeah, it makes sense. And I wish that there were more companies like Nintendo that were that big. A comment here from Zach on the YouTube, Chad. There's been a ton of innovation in games, but people just only play Fortnite now. It's, you know, I think for so many years, the, you know, I have a friend who bought the console and just plays Madden and Assassin's Creed, right? Like, the Fortnite thing is a real thing where I remember when Jack was here, uh, posed 10 year old son and played all that hell divers with us and

loved it and was so into it. And we're like, and his final day, we're like, you're going to go home and play with all your friends? He's like, oh, my friends will never play this. Yeah, no. It's like, no, my friends won't play this. You're like, what? It's like, this and it's like, nah, no, that'll just keep playing Fortnite. Jump into the free thing, go for it. Don't have to buy this game. That's outrageous. Which leads to it to it. I think our, final question. CJ Super chats again.

It says, does the audience truly want innovation? And I think that's a great question. Because does the mainstream, I think really want innovation, which is what you said, ask. And I think the answer is no, right?

You want proven fun. You don't want to take a chance. The mainstream doesn't want to buy VR on the off chance. It's going to be great. They don't want to buy move. They don't want to buy this Vita. They don't like these things that are investment and might work out might not know they want to buy it and have it be well fortnight's huge it has everybody i love it

and let's do that madden's great it's every assassin's creeds on its 19th assassin's creed like there's that that that that idea that so many of us you listener you viewer us kind of funny flock to games as the entertainment medium this is what i want to do with my free time which means i want to explore and i want to do this and i want to try that whereas so many other people are i want to watch movies i want to go play sports i want to do whatever the hell it is that normal people do right accounting, I don't know. And then they come to video games for that hit of nostalgia.

They want college football. They want to live the Hogwarts dream in Hogwarts legacy. They don't want to put on VR and be a baby that's dead. Cry, you know what I mean? Yeah. Great game before your eyes.

I get what you're saying and I think that a lot of companies and CEOs feel the same way. I don't necessarily think so. I think that the audience and players want fun and they want to have a good time they're not thinking about innovation of it all, but they just want, they want fun. And I understand it is an easier sell to be like, hey, here's another Indiana Jones game or whatever

it is, but I think if a huge, if huge companies take huge swings with fun, new original ideas, they hit. And I think sometimes they don't, because they don't know, they don't know how to market that, but I think Nintendo is a great example of that, where they're able to focus an entire business model on innovation and fun and it's successful. but it's just the easier approach to just be like, you know, fuck it, we're just going to do Fortnite again. So I think the audience wants it,

but it's just a matter of, are the corporate overloads going to be able to do that. Yeah, I think something's that the audience doesn't need it, especially now, right? This goes, again, back to my original argument of where we're at in video games, where, you know, we know what an open world game looks like. Of course, they can always be better,

but like, we know what that is, we know what a sports game is. I feel like, and maybe I'm wrong about this, I feel like football games are all figured out. I feel like, basketball. Of course, basketball can be better,

make the online better, give better features all the shit. Sometimes, like, they've got the sports games figured out, and then they make it worse than next year. Yeah, and then sometimes

it's like, what the fuck happened? You had it figured out. Talk to Nintendo about if they got any other sports games figured out. Yeah, but I think to some extent, right, like,

you don't need the innovation, but I do think that there's excitement and innovation, and I think that's to what we're just what we're talking about as far as, like, you know, I really like Nintendo games

because they're like a box of chocolate where I never know what I'm going to get. when you're playing in Zaldon. I'm like, oh, shit. Like, you have to be Mario Party. I'm like, all right, cool. Let's see what many games are in this thing.

But like, there is a, I think for me, and this might go back to even how I review video games and like how I find video games that I fall in love with. It's like I, anytime I feel like I'm experiencing something new and fresh, that excites me. That is the thing that makes me go, oh, wait, no, this is worth my time. Like, I want to explore more of this. And I think that goes to why we, this is why we see trends, right?

I think this is why you're having a boom. with games that look like only up and like chain together and like the surmount and stuff like that is because that hit and then people are like oh man this is a new way to play this is fresh and then like people go okay let's keep making games like this eventually somebody's going to make a new version of that or like some kind

of different trend that hits and I think people want innovation but I don't even think we look at it as innovation right I think we just look at something we look at something new and fresh so yeah I think I mean I think that's there for people okay gentlemen

discussion. Great time. We can go all day with it. But we won't. Of course, kind of funny is all about live talk shows. So there's plenty more to see.

Nick's about to play some video games if you didn't know. But this is another game's cast in the books and I enjoyed this conversation. I'm glad we're finally getting to do some of the essay stuff and actually talk out topics. Yeah. But I'm interested in what you know,

ladies and gentlemen. Make sure you leave a comment on the YouTube video. What would blow your mind from 2008 if you were able to go back and talk to yourself? And then, of course, what do you think the future of video games looks like? Will there still be evolution? Or is it just iteration? I love it. Let me know. Of course, ladies gentlemen, this has been the kind of funny games cast each and every week, day, four, sometimes three. Best friends gather on this table coming to talk about the hottest topics in video games, whether they be reviews, previews, or just things that are happening like this. From here on out, I think we got three embargoed games casts in a row. So lots of stuff coming your way this week. I didn't get the graphic up. It's very busy, very busy times right now. But of course, like I said, we're all about live talk shows. Nick's about to go. Of course, kind of funny podcast this afternoon. If you have that membership, please get that member.

because it makes all of this possible. And until next time, no, been our pleasure to serve you.