Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Fair vs. Greedy Game Monetization - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: November 14, 2024

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What's up everybody? Welcome to the kind of funny games cast for Thursday, November 14th, 2024. I'm one of your host, Greg Miller, alongside Forbes 30 under 30, aka the second best baby blues, aka the married one at Tim Getty's. That's him host. How you doing? Good. You ready for your show? Oh yeah. It's not going to go off the rails. We're going to do the topic today. We're going to sit here enjoying my ice coffee. next to him in a different bomber jacket. It's Forbes 30 under 30, AKA New York Game Awards nominated,

AKA leftover poppy blessing at E. O. Ye Jr. Good day, Greg. Good day. How are you? I'm doing good. I hear what you said about me. What did I say? What are you?

We've talked about this in a safe space. You can say whatever you want out here. Nobody gets in trouble. I don't know what that's a podcast. I know. No one's ever gotten in trouble for a podcast. Nobody's ever got in trouble. for a podcast.

Listen, I don't really want to super kick you, all right? It's all for show. It's just how it was. One day I do want to be super kicked, but like not in a wrestling context, you know, not actual. Well, yeah, no.

But like, like, a real super kick you dodge pretty easily. Yeah, it takes a while for the foot. You gotta make sure they slap the legs. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Dude, I would pay for Sean Michaels that super kick,

me. You're kidding me? That'd be incredible. I'll be incredible. I thought I felt when Jeff Jared hit me with the guitar. You know what an honor. Cut my face, but it was worth it.

Oh, for sure. Yeah, man. Over there, of course, The Master of Hypes, No Bike, Mike. Hi, Greg. Thanks for having me on today. I'm happy to have you on. I love this sweatshirt.

Don't let anyone tell you you wasted your money on it. Thank you, Greg. $250 getting my money's worth. You know, Greg, it's a really good day today. Thanks for asking. You know, tomorrow I get to sit on a plane next to my best friend, Andy Cortez. Two bros, aisle and middle.

Oh, no, Christ. It's a great seat. He picked that on purpose, you know. He had no. option for a window. He went middle. Do you remember the one time that we were going to Austin and we all purposely put our seats in the back

of the plane and Kevin Quillo was at the front? One of the most heartbroken moments I've ever seen from Kevin. It was a conversation. It was Kevin afterwards to be like, I was really fucked up and I wasn't funny. But it was so funny, man. It was so funny. When he found out that it was booked that way

on purpose, you saw the light in his eyes die. That was one of those moments. moments where that was there. And of course, he's the Hispanic Harthrop, Texas Street, Latino heat, clicking heads and ripping him to shreds. The globe trotting, headshot, and three-point shooting, root and tootin.

Nitro rifle from Twitch.tv, Andy Cortez. Hello, Greg. I'm excited for Vegas my first time. No way. I'm... Really? So, I don't... What is the public messaging on Vegas? I'm not, I'm not sure, but I know that what I am allowed to say is that

me, Snowbike Mike, Andy Cortez, and Roger Percorney are headed to to Las Vegas, Nevada, tomorrow, and we will be playing Sonic the Headchog at Top Golf. That's what I know. That's all that I know. But we're going to have a good time. I know that we will be very social about it.

That is to say, follow us on Instagram and Twitter and the blue sky. Yeah, blue sky. I imagine we'll post some stuff there. Why not? Can you do one of those things where on Instagram? Can you leave like the little word bubble? You know, the little word bubble when you go to your messages and you got the little word bubble. But that's only for you'll that follow.

I just want to know where you guys are. I'll keep you up to day. I was going to Jake. I was going to the buffet and I'll know that's for me. Does Blue Sky have live streaming capabilities? I doubt it. But if they do, well, we're going to go to Game Over Gregi Blue Sky right now. We'll see if it does.

Stay tuned to us and we're just going to be having fun playing some top golf. I've never played top golf. Andy's never been to Vegas. Mike, I've been all over the place. I'm excited. I'm going to get us into the Omni. Okay, we're going to go into the big night club. We're going to the big night club.

I'm so jealous. God, God, God. I'm gonna dance, baby. There's no live stream. There's no live stream here for this one, so I can't do that. I'm just so, I'm so afraid for the city of Las Vegas. Like, I don't, they don't know what's about to be unleashed on them. Because what you guys are doing basically 24 hours, yeah?

Yeah. Yeah. Mike, I look to you because you'll be party leader. Yes. You're the alpha dog. I am team captain. Yeah, yeah. Now, of course, you also know Andy Cortez.

If he's out of town, he's down to clown. What is the itinerary here? Are you letting them sleep? Or is it? Oh, yeah, Greg. Thank you for letting me divulge what we're going to do. Of course, we were land. Listen up, take notes because you're going to know.

Take some notes just so you know. We're going to land. I'm going to allow everybody to go up to their hotel room. Oh, thank you for a line that. Fresh enough for a moment. And then we're going to go to nice little pre-dinner. And we're going to get a good sit down. Hey, everybody, let's laugh a little bit.

Of course, we're going to go to top. Can you too much, though? Are you too much? Are you staking? What are you doing? We're going to steak. We're going to steak. We've got to eat big.

You got to eat big, be big. Do you have reservations? I already talked to my main man, Gary Whittah. He runs Vegas. We're set. Oh, wow. That's good to know. Yes, he does.

He does. Oh, man. You're going to bankrupt the company with this one. Then we will go to Top Golf. We're going to have a blast. It's going to be a really awesome collaboration. And, of course, we get to be there for the fun. Cheese fries, bacon bits.

Just so everyone knows, when this ends will probably be around prime time of the Jake Paul Mike Tyson fight. So, no, whatever casino for. No, that's happening. It's not being in Dallas. It's not being in Dallas. No, I know, but we're going to be in Vegas, Andy. You have to be crazy. So whatever happens.

Vegas is crazy. I once went to a UFC thing with Chris Oster tag, and when we were coming down the escalator with our bags, as soon as we, I'm sorry, to get our bags, as soon as we hit the floor of baggage claim, a man in an affliction shirt walked past us and he just looked at Chris Oster's head and fuck your mother. And I was like, that guy just said, fuck your mom. He's like, was he talking to me? I'm like, yeah. So then we will probably hit the table.

hoping for a little blackjack, a little roulette, while watching the fight at the same time. The fight will conclude, that's when I'll look at everybody. I say, hope he brought your dancing shoes because we're going to the Omnia to dance. Who's there? Maybe Diplo, maybe Zed. Who knows? It's going to be a good time. Then when that ends, Greg?

What time, ballpark, what time we're at right now, you think? Oh, probably, I mean, when the end of the nightclub, probably 1 a.m. 2 a.m. Right there. And then I'll give you the option. You can tag out like a baby and go to sleep. Or we're going to walk the entire strip and see what shenanigans we can get in.

into at every single casino. We're going to get lime scooters. I'm going to lose an article of clothing in the streets of Vegas. So it's going to be a great time. I will say it's very scary that this is a Friday night event. We are going to be in Vegas. I think the event is around 8 p.m. or so, which to Mike's point, it's like, all right, when we're done with this thing, I don't know when it's going to be 10, 11, something like that.

Like our flight's not to like 4 p.m. the next day. I was going to say there's nothing the next day related to Talcolf. No, Saturday is just... Come home early and go to Indy, wrestling with me. They're doing Pacifica now with the gym. I love Topcombe. I'm excited, man.

This is going to be great. We're going to have some fun. I hope there's a lot of video of this. Are we bringing in the vlog cam? Are we in it? Okay, good, good, good, good. We're going to vlog. I'm going to need a whole breakdown of this when we get back next week, Mike.

All right? You got a deal, Greg. And if you want to invite me to that indie wrestling, shoot me the address because I'm near there. Let me know. Okay. Sounds good. I'm an address.

Ladies, gentlemen, and NBs, this, of course, is the kind of funny gamescast. each and every weekday, we run you through the biggest topics in a video game, whether they be reviews, previews, or just topics off the old dome. If you like that, why not pick up the Kind of Funny Membership, $10 supports our small 11-person business and gets you good karma and gets you the ability to watch all of our shows. That's 20 a week, ad-free. The ability, of course, to watch our afternoon podcast live as we record them like today's

Kind of Funny Podcast, and you'd get a daily dose of me in a series we call Greg Wein. However, I understand Not everybody has $10 to throw our way. No big deal. You can get the show for free with ads. YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games. Twitch.tv slash Kind of Funny Games. And of course, podcast services around

The Globe. If you are watching live, you have a special job, go to YouTube.com slash Kind Funny Games. Super chat to be part of the show and let us know what we're getting right and wrong because I have a feeling you're going to have opinions about our opinions today.

Some housekeeping for you. You've already got the announcement that we're all Xboxes on. Kind of Funny Games daily. The stream immediately following this will be Call of Duty War Zone with Mike, Nick, and Andy. Like I said, if you're a member, you can get a Greg way about social media in 2024 from me. And of course, the Kind of Funny podcast is live recording today. Why is today different for WarZone?

Why are you excited about WarZone today? It's a brand new map. Brand new map. It's a big day. It's an important day. Season 1 of Call of Duty Blackop 6 is now here, which brings new maps to multiplayer, but most importantly, brings new maps to the Warzone. So we'll be jumping into Area 99.

Andy's excited, Nick is excited, I'm jazzed up, it's going to be a great day. I mean, it just feels like you're getting a brand new video. It's just like that morning of Christmas, you know what I mean? I don't know, just unwrapping this little gift and getting mad probably like 30 minutes later or something. Of course, yeah, yeah, yeah. Rage quick. 30 minutes max, honestly. Thank you to our Patreon producers Delaney Twining and Carl Jacobs.

Today we're brought to you by Sonic at Top Golf, Marvel Snap, and Shady Rays. We'll tell you about that later. For now, let's begin with what is and forever will be. of the show. We made it, everybody. I don't know how many weeks it's been since we tried to originally do this topic. But we're here, thank you very.

Really a month? Look at that, crushed it. No way, really? Mother go back quick. Yeah, it is. Month to go by quick. Chaddy Tadip's gambit. It's crazy. I'll get the exact date in the second.

No problem. We are here to talk about when it's okay for capitalism to ruin games, a.k.a. Fair versus greedy game monetization. You might remember we tried to do this weeks ago, but it turned to do a

kind of funny podcast, and we all had a great time. Plus, Mike wasn't here. And when you're talking about monetization and swiping the card, you need Snowbike Mike. Talk about Michael Transactions, baby. I'm so glad that people just think of Mike for the one who swipes a card. I am

so involved, but I'm like, yeah, Mike, you're the sucker. You're the sucker. The date was this was supposed to be a gamescast dash the Kind of Funny podcast was October 18th so almost a month God damn, look at that a month, I'll have him quick. I love that one.

So this topic springs from the audio feed notice Kind of Funny Games Daily were the one the only blessing at the OIA Jr. was talking to Roger, I believe. It doesn't matter who it was actually. But we were talking about Life is Strange and the fact that the two

episodes had been released and that this was a weird structure, does it ruin the game, etc., etc., and so forth. It was definitely my idea. But yeah, I was going to say, I don't get the problem there. Blessing. My favorite child.

Blessing. Okay. I heard what you said about me. I'm trying to hurt it back. Try to earn it back. All right. You know what I mean? Anyways, brought up, well, when is it okay for this?

What are the passes we give to gain monetization? Where is this episode one and two being released, you know, two weeks before the the rest of the thing, it's okay for on some people's scales, but not on everybody's scales. And so then it became, well, this would be a fun topic to run through and see what we like, what we don't like, where the line is for us, what we like. Am I nailing it, bless? Yeah, I think that's pretty much the heart of it too. And I'm glad, again, that we have this specific panel because I was taught in a mic right before the show. And I was like, Mike, you're on this, right?

And he was like, yeah, I was like, good, because I don't spend. And I think that's where I come into this where I won't say I won't spend because Pokemon TCG Pocket exists. But for the most part, I don't spend, right? Like when it comes to micro transactions, a lot of the time, honestly, when it comes to DLC, like, I'm somebody who I want the base thing. Give me that. Let me spend a specific amount of money and then just have what I have. I don't want to come back and feel like you're nickeling and diming me. And so like I feel like we have like opposite sides of the spectrums here and like everything in between represented. So I'm excited to talk about it because I feel like usually when I listen to podcasts or when I read Reddit or when I read like the timeline and I see people talking about. Oh man, this game is fucking, you know, they're, what's the word? Predatory. Oh, they're going after me. They're going after my wallet or whatever.

I'm on the other side of my computer. Like, oh, man, I just don't spend the money. And this is like not, and this isn't me just talking to somebody who is blessed and I get codes now that I work here and all this stuff. Right. Before I worked it kind of funny also didn't like buy micro transactions. Like it was such a like a, you know, bold wine for me. And so I'm excited for this conversation. Yeah, I think the thing that bums me out the most about it about, about,

just like I'd be way more okay with all of what these companies do if it was like, hey, this will keep people employed more. And that's what, that's where I feel bad about spending money. Because I'm like, I'm not ensuring that you're going to lengthen contracts or anything like. I know where the money's going. And so it's one thing to be like, well, I want to, it's one thing to say I want to support this smaller indie team or let me get my character up to an 82 overall on NBA 2K and spend $190 or whatever, you know.

But I got to compete. You got to compete, though, Mike. I got to compete in the neighborhood. How are you going to compete on the hard top? I can't be looking like a FedEx driver. No, a UPS driver in the All-Brown. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean?

Yeah, we can't be doing it. Nobody wants to look lame. So to compete in the neighborhood, you got to spend money? Yeah, so there's a big thing in the NBA 2K community, of course. Every single year the game comes out. And if you want to be able to compete day one, you have to put up $70 to $100, which you've already spent $70 in the game, but to get enough attribute points to even get you up to like 80.

84, 86, it's not even 90 or 99. You're still got to grind. But just to get up to that level where you can move fast enough, be agile enough, be able to shoot on the hardwood just to compete with others, you have to put that money down. And so the biggest problem with that game, if I'm going to go on the ramp

right off the bat. This is the conversation. It's freewheeling. Originally there's thoughts of what if we got this four and we ordered them, but then when we put them in a list, it was just like, well, there's like 19, so it's like whatever. So the issue with NBA 2K is you pay $70 for the game. You've gotten the game. Now, of course, one of the biggest modes in the game is my player,

which then takes you into the park, into the wreck, which is their big shared universe of we're all our own players playing in basketball together, which is the coolest thing. And so I've heard this, but I can't envision it. Are you doing one-on-one games? You're playing one-on-one, three-v-three, two v-five-five now as well. That's what they call it in the wreck. So it's your opportunity to essentially live out your basketball fantasy

with all of your friends, right? This is taking it from the play nows, which is just you, playing as Steph Curry and LeBron. This is taking you away from the ultimate teams, which we'll talk about later on. This is I get to be my character and we play together. Let's talk about like some of the most cherished multiplayer memories I've ever had. Some of the coolest moments.

With 2K12, maybe 2K13, having not only my player but my team. So we all created ourselves. We're all just super into this like, I don't know, just the way that this sort of system works. You're saying we all. This is what you have three friends. Me and two of my homies. And then we do the my team.

where you picked the little logo of your team, you pick the jersey colors, you make your arena look a certain way, and then you just play other squads online. And it was, it's some of the most memorable gaming stuff that I've had ever in my life, and it was so much fun,

but I also wasn't spending money back then. It was, I just got to grind my character until I could be. And I think that's also before they fully understood the way to really kind of hook you, you know? And I think that's the catch is like, I would go out to say that in NBA 2K, the biggest mode is my player,

where then you would play in the neighborhood, right? And so the catch is, is every year you will buy the game for $70. To create a my player, it is free. You will come out of that creation and you will be a 64 overall. Right then and there you have the moment. Do I go grind with single player games out in the neighborhood to earn points to then get attribute points for VC, which is the virtual currency to buy those attribute points?

Or do I just jump ahead of the line and pay an extra $100 to get up to $84? Absolutely not. 90% of the people will do that. Outrageous. If you step onto that 2 v2 courts, me and my homies have already done that. You at 64, it is going to take you hours

to get even close to being able to compete with us, which now we're at a gigantic level boost ahead of you. So do you not, like, is that not a line for you where you're like, oh, I'm just not going to do this then? No, because it's not fun. Yeah. Now that game mode becomes unplayable

because it is not fun being that bad. Right? Me and my homies have done it before where we've drawn the line and said, we'll not do it. And being a 64 overall sucks. Well, I guess my thing is more so even draw the line of, oh, I'm just not going to touch this mode. Yeah, that's what for me is. No, it's the close mode. That's the close mode. And I get, I understand what you're saying.

It's just for me so foreign to think of my obsession mainly back of the day, you could toss college football in there this year. But back in college when it was like, I'm doing NCAA football every July and then Maddening. every August and I'm taking my characters over and doing the dynasty and running. And it was always about me playing as Missouri and me playing as the Bears and building these dynasties and doing it. And then playing Po or playing my other friends in college or, you know, when online became a thing, playing people online and realizing even though I was the best person anybody had seen in Missouri, I was not great on the global stage.

But it was like, I never, these are different things. But my interpretation of NBA has always been through my keyhole view of. of my football games. So I'm always like, oh, well, if I was into NBA, I would buy it and do a dynasty as the Bulls. I would run and do this. I would create a character, sure, and put them on the team. But it wouldn't be this might.

So every time it's come up as being greedy and horrible, I'm always like, well, why? Just don't play it. But you're saying that's what you buy the game for. It's funny because you and I, Greg, are very similar in that of back in the day with college football and madden and stuff, you would just play the GM mode or your seasons, right?

It has evolved past that where we all want to play together. And when you think of these sports games, the next level is similar. to FIFA with you and I have seen is playing together, making your own squad with your friends. So now NBA 2K has allowed you to play five-on-five basketball with five other human beings versus five other human beings. And it's really awesome.

Just like FIFA now is 11-on-11. It is so cool of going from a single-player game where I'm just playing you one-on-one or I'm controlling the whole team to, wow, we're all in this together. Andy's the point card. You're the center. I'm the shooting guard. This is really cool, right?

And so that is the game mode that's driving this game, right? There's a large audience that probably doesn't play this game mode, but I would go to bat and say this is the largest game mode in 2K because everybody wants to live about that fantasy. You're probably going to say the same thing about FIFA Ultimate Team as well, right? Of like, this is the most popular mode in this game, but it's also most predatory as far as what it asks of your wallet or what it asks of even like the way you think about playing that mode

because it is, oh, I want to have the best team. The whole point of this mode is to get the best stats and put together the best squad and collected best players. So many of our people aren't sports people. I know it, but what explained FIFA? Ultimate team. I feel like Mike, you can probably play a better than I can. Yeah, Ultimate team is a really cool thing that a lot of sports games have now hopped on.

But FIFA and Matt were kind of the first four runners into that. And it was the blending of card collecting that you grew up with with sports card memorabilia and now into the game. So instead of just playing as the Chicago Bears and having that 11-person unit or, you know, 22, whatever, now you get to collect cards out of card packs, open them up and have the big wow factor of, oh my God, it just got the rookie card of Justin Herbert.

That's so cool. Now you collect cards and then put them into your ultimate team, meaning all 11 players can be from different teams, different eras. They all have their special attributes, depending on what kind of card and rarity style they are, and then you build it out. And so the cool one on FIFA is they have cards from around the globe

because FIFA is a gigantic global sport now, and they even play into how those players will align with each other. Players from certain countries or certain leagues will play better together. And if you want to, you can really double dip into it of like, I have to have every card from this certain section of the globe because they play better together. Or you might be like me and it's like, I'm going to collect every of my favorite card, right? I'm going to put Rinaldo and Messi and Mbapé over here.

And it doesn't matter if they don't, if they clash. I'm playing with my favorites. And that's a really cool blending of what we've grown up with with. card collecting and video games. So now, hard stop. Thank you for explaining for people who don't understand. Now bring in the predatory nature of it and how this is happening, how it's going for your pocketbook.

Yeah, let's talk about the monetization of those. So I'll start off with 2K and then I'll go into Ultimate Team. So on 2K, we're talking about creating that character, right? And so with that character, you create one character and you have to pay to get those attributes up. You will also pay for clothing in the world, right? Or you could grind for about, 30 hours to even get up a minuscule amount, you know.

And so the problem with NBA 2K is, and what we're going to talk about with the microtransactions and all these sports games is it never carries with you. It never goes from year to year. So every year you have to restart. Almost like these things should be a live service. A hit blessing show about WWE2K. Every meta change, it affects your player, right?

So if Tim somehow creates the demigod starting five that everybody wanted and they affect him by the next update, changing those stats, that means Tim's character that he put hundreds of dollars into, wasted. And guess what? You can't just revert those. You have to make a new character and spend more money on that. So you never get the, oh, I get the refund and get to do this again. You just have to keep buying and buying.

I think in some 2Ks, I've probably created three to four characters with hundreds of dollars tied to each one. And so that's how it goes. And with 2K, it's very difficult because you have to do the wingspan. You have to do the height. you have to do the weight and all of these affect different attribute points and how they play. And it's like you have to go to the pros and deepen to Reddit to find that. And then the next update, all that is thrown out the window. So like that's a very difficult thing to find the perfect character build and have that.

Or you become you become Mike and I create myself and it's like 510 jabroony who's a slashing point guard isn't the meta and I suck and all my money is wasted. So it's like what was the point of that just to have fun? being me. And so that's 2K. Then on Ultimate Team, the cards, the issue with the cards is is it is a randomized loopbox. We see it with Pokemon cards now. You're tearing open packs. And you're at the will of the

random number generator. You are hoping that you will get this. It's not guaranteed. Of course, they've done a good job. Just like Pokemon and all these things that you've done cards before. Like, here's the statistics. Here's the numbers. You know what you're getting into before you buy. If you buy the deluxe pack, you get a better chance. There's better odds at getting this. So as much as you want to, you know, moan about it, you know what you're jumping into here. And so you play the game of here's $100, give me a hundred packs.

And I just hope that out of that hundred I get 11 great cards. In reality, you don't, right? You're going to get a lot of duplicates. You'll get a lot of copper cards, a lot of silver cards, hoping to get up to gold. And then, you know, purple amethysts. It depends on what game you're playing. But you hope. And now, of course, every single season or every single year in a game, if you think

about it, it's a 12, nine-month cycle on these sports games, right? You're going to have season one of these cards than season two. We have more cards. Those cards that you had aren't good anymore because these cards are good. So now I've got to get back on the cycle and we do this every year. And then at the end of the year, when you might have spent hundreds upon hundreds of dollars, we say, guess what? FIFA 26 is coming out by that. And guess what? All of this, it's gone. And then you have the issue with, oh, well, blessing out a great deck in FIFA 23. Seven years from now, they're going to turn off those servers.

And everything that blessing had, even if he wants to go back there all the time and hope to play somebody to play the computer, boom, that's gone. That's off. And so we're seeing that now as well in the video game world of like we're starting to turn things off and all that money spent is like really, really gone. Is that why the FTC recently, everybody woke up that one day, a couple, like a month ago or so and had every app update and every website was like new T. terms of conditions agreements or whatever,

and like Steam had this as well where you are essentially agreeing that you don't own this game, you own the license to the game. And I feel like that's happening a lot with video games where people are kind of bringing up the point that you're not carrying all this over. I'm looking at just different kind of Reddit post,

talking about NBA 2K-24 is my career, and this is sort of like an average cost of what you could kind of put into it. So $70 for the base game, $60. for Xbox or PSN online or whatever in order to even play online. About $100 on average for the My Career build, and you can't reassign your skill points,

which is fucking crazy. And $240 if you're paying for a full year of the season pass. There are two different season passes for NBA 2K, right? I guess it's their version of like a battle pass or whatever. The most expensive one is $20 a month. It's a Hall of Fame pass. you get everything in the ProPass which is access to 40 earnable premium rewards

in addition to 80 earnerable premium rewards four additional automatic season pass rewards 45KVC that are virtual currency 45,000 virtual currencies and you have 10 level skips an additional 15,000 virtual currencies so not only can you pay a lot up front to just kind of get your player up there

but then they have that sort of monthly payment, which is like their subscription model. So now I have a question, Infinite corpse in the chat said, I fail to see why anyone would want to do this. Before we jump to that, I want to jump from my

perspective, right? Because I'm a WWE guy. And so 2K, of course, has my faction, which is their version of the it's 2K, but you know what I mean? WWV's version of the NBA thing, right, and ultimate team thing. And I

enjoy my faction a lot. I've put money into my faction, yes, but never anything outrageous, like in terms of what we're talking about. Literally like, oh, there's an ECW pack or whatever throughout the years I've bought or whatever. And of course, you earn a lot of, I think that for WWW, if you haven't played it, and as I introduce it to this concept, I think it's not nearly as bad as what you guys are talking about. It exists and you could do it that way if you want and go buy the gajillion cards and tear them open and blah, blah. But if you're getting the DLC, you're getting the packs for free of them. They're usually really, I just opened up, you know, Mr. Perfect and Lex Lugar and all

these guys last night. They were like 90s. So it's like they're getting great people in there and yada yada yada. But the my faction in WWE for me seems like the less predatory version of this where it is the fact of, okay, cool, I'm going through and sure, they give me a bunch of cars to start. And maybe I, if I'm a big Roman reins fan, I don't have Roman rains or I don't have the Roman reigns that I, the most crazy version of them I do. But what they've introduced this year with faction wars and then the rewards at the end, you can go get the ball. with the in-game. Like, I feel like that's a non-broken version of it.

I don't know if anybody's had enough experience with it to agree with me, because I don't have enough experience with your version. Yeah, I think for me playing a little bit of my factions, I think the thing I would bring into it comparing it to what FIFA does with their stuff or what NBA does with their stuff is using the FIFA as an example. I think FIFA is just on a way bigger scale, and they've had way more time to dial that stuff in in a way that is, oh, this is now an industry.

Like it's very fascinating going to, you know, visiting my nephews, my oldest nephew, he's 10 years old, and he's obsessed with soccer and he's obsessed with FIFA content creators or EA Sports FC content creators. And it's fascinating hearing how he talks about soccer players, like hearing how he talks about Messi or Mbapap or Ronaldino or I knew I started to get dialed into what was going on when he started talking about soccer players aren't even active anymore, right? He is talking about like older soccer players in a way where I'm like, how do you know this guy? I'm like, how do you know these guys? And he's talking about like, oh, yeah, like I watch this guy who plays FIFA and he pulls the pack. And like he's, he's playing with Rodol Dino or he's playing with Maradano or like, you know, these classic players. And I think with FIFA, you have such a wide amount of things that you can do as far as like, you know, how deep the soccer culture runs throughout the world. How deep the soccer history runs throughout the world, right? Obviously, WWE has the stuff. But, you know, soccer obviously. I'm not a fan dead at all. I'm not trying to die on that hill.

And I also, a big part of this, I think, is if WWE, my faction, was more successful, I definitely think it would be more like this. I think right now, WWI faction is still in like the building blocks mode of, all right, how do we get there? And what they introduced this year is not maybe the canary in the coal mine, maybe not or whatever, but it is that idea that now when you go in and you play and you get your cards, you can unlock persona cards.

And when you unlock a persona card, that is an alt-a-tire that then works in the real game. So it is the idea that if you want, you know, Seth Rollins, whatever look, or I'm just pulling it. doesn't matter anybody. They have a million CM punks, right? Like you pull that and you can have it and they have the also tire in the game, which I don't struggle with, but hear me out of like,

I think that's cool. I like playing my faction. So I like the idea of getting a random reward, but I'm also not so obsessive that I need a CM Punk. I can say like, oh, that's a really cool gear in no world. Would I be like, oh, man, I really want that CM punk gear. So I'm going to spend $49.99 to get 10 packs to tear up and hope I get it. that isn't me.

I wish I could just buy it if I wanted, sure. I think the thing to bring into this conversation that I think all of us having common currently is Pokemon TCG Pocket. We're getting Tim off the bench. Yeah, to get Tim off the bench. Because, like, you know, at the top of this, I mentioned that I'm not somebody who spends.

I'm not somebody who wants to get the micro transactions. I'm a one and done person. And that has been true for a FIFA. Even I'm just on, when I'm playing EA Sports FC online, I'm just playing like the ranked like, we're just using whatever teams, right? I'm picking a team and I'm playing. I'm not messing around with a team,

none of that stuff. because the idea of opening packs and randomization, that stuff, it hasn't appealed to me. Playing Pokemon TCG Pocket has infiltrated my mind and heart in a way where I'm like, shoot, all right, they got me. I'm spending $10. I am, you know, playing versus Tim to compete for the $100 thing that Greg pulled last week, right? And I'm waiting for the whole weekend for the DM from Greg. For the $100 code.

That way I can tear open these packs because there are a few cards. that I really want. I really want the Al-Qazam full art. I really want any of like those like yellow like, you know, Pikachu Charzard like Mew too, like the cool yellow cards that they have in there. I need one of those. I am on a different level as far as like how engaged I am and how like I am waiting for the timer to go to go down. And I think I think most of us probably have that in common currently where we are locked in like Tim's collected everything right. Tim got the mew. I have spent $60. Yes. And like I the question I want to bring into this is and this is, and this is with FIFA, this is with NBA,

and this is with Pokemon, and this is with any of these randomization, like, you know, these types of games that we're talking about, what is the line, and is there a line? Or do we all just, are we all just resolved with, it's predatory, but we're fine with it, right?

Like, is there a place where it goes from greedy to this is okay, or are we just all okay with us gambling? And that is a great question that we'll tackle after I tell you about the fact that this is kind of funny games cast each and every weekday. We're here. Hell, we're here all day long

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Try for yourself the shades rated five stars by over 300,000 people. ShadierRase.com, code, kind of funny. So, Tim, blessings question is what is the line? It's a great question. I feel like there needs to be a line, but unfortunately, I think the line is different for every single person. I think there's a lot of context involved in defining where that line is. Having said that, I do think that it is the responsibility of developers to fight to make sure that there is a line that they have when they're creating to make sure that there is value to what they are asking for. To me, that is always how I feel like these things need to be thought of from the starting place.

How much money we can get needs to be questioned too. And I know that's often not how things are designed, right? So I feel like as somebody that runs a company that to some extent has similar things to this, when you think about our offering for the kind of funny membership and on Patreon and YouTube and stuff, Like I always start with what is the value of what we're doing and what we actually want to do. And then we start to think of, okay, what's the right way to figure this out? But I always want to make sure that we are providing value for what we are asking for in terms of price and in terms of not taking advantage of people. There's such a balance to that.

It's such a delicate dance. But I feel like when it comes to the mobile game specifically is where I feel like I actually can say for sure. I have spent the most money when it comes to microtransactions. I'm not playing sports games, so that's never affected me. I'm not playing first-person shooters in a modern era that I'm buying all the cosmetics for guns and all that stuff. You were really shocked with the Fortnite prices. Blown the fuck away. And I do think that something that I think is absolutely unacceptable,

but it's just something we need to deal with is when they use different currencies to represent money. Because that inherently, no matter how responsible you are as a person, throws off your understanding of Oh yeah, of what you're doing. I'm not spending $30. I'm paying 30 mumbo jumbulls. Yeah. It's like, cool.

Like, uh, I, that sucks. And I feel like that is everywhere, uh, in all of the games that I have spent money in, whether it's, um, Piggle Blast back in the day, um, uh, Pokemon Go, Pokemon trading card game, Marvel Snap. I, but here's the thing, right? If all those unique currencies instead were straight up $5 dollar, like $5, $30, like the actual like currency that you're spending, I think sales would go down. Absolutely.

A hundred percent. And I think that that's, that's not cool. Like, I feel like you should know what you're doing and it should be worth that dollar amount. And if it is, then you've done this right. You've solved the problem. And I truly believe that's how things should be. It's like they should be offering something that if Mike's looking at it and it's like, it's worth $70 to me to do this thing and he believes it.

And like, then cool, the value is there. We are introducing funny money. year though so keep that up for everybody all of our page 10th anniversary we get your kind of funny bucks i love that but uh berrit uh yeah uh yeah the one point that i would kind of disagree with you there um or i i get where you're coming from in like it's on the developers to try to find the limit themselves like i think morality wise yes realistically wise i think it's more so on regulations and government and actually looking at these type of things and trying to protect consumers from these things.

People were bringing up in chat earlier of like that's why this is why EA is like always battling with the EU and all this stuff because over there there are much more tighter regulations around things like gambling. Granted, we live in America where capitalism is going to run rampant it much worse over the next 40 years. So I doubt that'll ever happen, but in terms of what should be happening to,

kind of help consumers, that is, I think, where it needs to start. Because devs and companies and corporations are going to always have people at the top who are always going to try to get the most out of their consumers, and they're going to try to get away with as much as they possibly can. And so regulation is where that needs to put a cap on that. Yeah, I do you think, like, where the goal of a company oftentimes is to, you know, generate as much revenue as possible, right, make as much money as possible. The goal when it comes to then the monetization is like, all right, how do we squeeze as much money as possible out of this? Right. And like it's, it sucks and it's fucked up, right, that we had to kind of take the morality conversation out of it. Like we can try to,

we can try to be moral, right? We can look to other companies to try and be moral in those scenarios. But I think when we try to make that happen, usually the outcome is going to be, I don't know, like we got to get as much money. Like that is the whole point of this whole system that we're in. I think another interesting talking point, I think the comparison kind of funny, I think, you know, is interesting as far as the way we monetize

and the way other companies monetize, right? I think with the examples we've given so far, as far as, you know, Pokemon or MBA or FIFA and stuff, is at least for our Patreon or for a kind of funny membership, there is a defined, you know what you're getting.

You know you're getting ad-free. You know that I'm not trying to advertise. I guess I'll advertise, right? This is a show. You're getting ad-free, you know, you're going to get the Greg way. you're going to get specific things that are defined in a way. If you're instead, we're like, you give us the membership and then every week you get 10 episodes at random.

Yeah, it's like, good luck. Like you might get, you know, KFD ad free or you might get like a unique regway or something, right? Like the randomization aspect in video games then turns it into, I think, gambling adjacent, right? Casino adjacent in a way that I'm not, like, in a way that I think can be very predatory and very problematic in a lot of ways. But also in a way that I like, I'm not totally against in all. always, right? Like, I think there's a large gray area when it comes to it, right? Because then, like, for Pokemon TCG, for example, that works basically the way that opening Pokemon card packs work, right? Or we're opening packs in general for Yu-Gi-o Magic, whatever the trading card. Baseball cards, right? And

you know what you're getting into, and it's a tough thing of people, that's kind of what you're paying for. That's kind of what you want. Like, the whole point of a trading card game is to have the bragging rights of, oh, I pulled this thing, and I got the golden card. And there's a conversation there that I think is so tough because inherently, I think you can make the argument that that does something to people's brains. You can make the argument that, especially for somebody who is susceptible to gambling addiction, for example, right? Like, that is a very shout out to the Pikachu X card that Andy got yesterday.

I'm very jealous of. During our meeting, it was so sick. I'm so excited. Nick didn't get it. Nick was mid making a point. Which is so rare. And it is yes. And then it shows all.

I think you could make the argument that for kids, giving them the option of, oh, spend the $5 and then you get the random thing. And then maybe you'll get the cool random thing and show it to your friends. Oh, you didn't get it. Maybe spend five more dollars, right?

Like, that is kind of a gateway into gambling and like casinos and all this shit, right? And it's... But it was that way of card packs back in the day, right? When I needed one more Terminator 2 card to have my set complete. Like, yeah, it would be tear the pack at the baseball card store. Shit. Give me another pack. Tear, you know what I mean? Like, and I'm not justifying it. But it's, it's such an interesting conversation to go back to Tim saying the line is different for everybody.

Where it really is that thing, again, like, and I'm not, there's no right or wrong answers, I think, to this. But there is so much that blows back and I do wonder how much of it is on the consumer. Where it is, like, everything Mike said about NBA, never in a fucking million years would I do that. even like just let's say it was reversed and it was WWE we're doing make your own character and go brawl in the backyard federations and build yourself up to be a wrestling mate superstar and it was like while you got to do this or you're not going to be competitive I'm never going to play that mode right yeah a line for me where I would never go do that

and even with me like for the games I love I love battle passes like when there's a fortnight battle pass with a bunch of Marvel shit let's fucking go Diablo every season yeah and let's go I want to do that I want to run with that when Avengers was doing it for the individual characters. They did it differently, but similarly enough for this conversation. Yes, I'm in on those things. But all that said, Diablo, season pass

every time. Diablo, the store, fucking $20 for a suit armor? Get the fuck out of here, Blizzard? No, I'm not paying. I played once. But not most of the time, no, right? But it's like that that gets into that usual conversation of, man, I've played 100 X hours or whatever, X

hours of this game. I've had such a good time. And again, for us, a lot of times, I got the game for free. So, yeah, buy this suit that I think looks cool for a rogue, right? I think I was on the Diablo podcast when I did it. Like they guilt, not guilt, hype me up. They juice me up to do it.

So I did it, right? I don't regret it, but it's like, those are one-offs for me. And so my hope has always been when I'm talking about Diablo outfits or when I was talking about Avenger outfits where, you know how much I loved Avengers and those outfits for 20 bucks I think as well. And it was like, it has to be a very special Captain America suit for me to go get that one,

rather than all the ones I would have bought if they were cheaper, right? The hope for me always is that, well, the free market will speak people won't buy those and then those prices will come down right and then the fact that Diablo's been out for over a year now and those prices haven't come down say nope there are enough whales or normal people out there who are buying

it which then gets back to the 2K thing where I assume this mode is very popular with the people who play it but then it's turn off to everybody else who would never go to it and then it's like this weird scale of now to jump to WWE and me worry about these alt alt-at tires what does that look like next year

when clearly people have been running and doing this is it going to be that there's a gajillion of them at launch because WWE is another one where I like personally as a player the DLC batches they put out throughout the year. There's the argument to be made of all those guys should be free. You should

be able to pay. They should be included with the game at the base. I don't always fully buy that because it's a sports game. It's an annual thing. You get nine months to work on it. CM Punk comes back in November. Your game shipping in March. He's not going to be ready for prime time. Right. So I like the drops to get them later and come back to it. But if

is going to get into a weird monetization thing or this, that the other in terms of the outfits, then it starts to get it and what will be successful and when, how much do you get nickel and dime for it? For me, the pay to win stuff is kind of where I would say is likely my line. Have I paid for stuff to have an advantage in the past? Of course. Do you feel like we've won that battle though? I feel like it's very rare that I hear like, oh, this is actually, it's usually, oh, it is a cosmetic. It's only going to do cosmetics. I mean, well, the NBA one is like the main one that I think of where I, you can't put that genie back in the bottle. They're already at that point where they have set the precedent for this and that's what's expected of them.

And this is such an important mode to so many people. And people now know that if I want to have fun with this game mode on day one, I am putting in a certain amount of money already. And they'll always say, oh, it's just an option. You can play for free. Like, they'll always say that. You can, that's just an option to fast track it if you want. A hundred percent, yeah. For me, the cosmetic stuff, like, I, I love buying cosmetic stuff.

I'm part of the problem. I love this character to look cooler, this gun to look cooler. I buy stuff on the right store all the damn time. Like, I am such a sucker for that shit. And I'd say, like, the cosmetic stuff is mainly where I'm drawn to. I want my dude to look awesome. I want my gun to have a cool little effect. If I get the final kill of a round, it makes me sparkle and I get all happy or whatever.

and a lot of it comes down to something I always bring up. I don't got no girlfriend bless. I don't got no kids. No kids. I got a car payment. I got disposable income. That's where my disposable income is like I'll buy a little skin here or there. Or like in Tim's case,

in Tim's case, whenever there's a free to play game that, hey, I've been playing this for seven hours. Yeah, I'll buy a little $10 thing, whatever. I may never ever play from here on out, but. Here's $10. I played your game for seven hours. I feel like I owe you that as a consumer or whatever. Not saying that everybody should feel that way. But it was so fascinating working at when I was in my time in game development

and working at the studio Portolarium where we were working with Richard Garriott, who's like the father of the Ultimate series and like just one of the OG game developers and one of his former colleagues, Chris Roberts, who was working on Star Citizen and is like the lead of Star Citizen. And both of our teams each had kickstarters with crazy goals, right? And like, we have that here.

We have the producer tier. We have all sorts of levels where people can support more. That's not being. Largely, it's a lot of people that just say, hey, I just love the stuff you do. I got money to spend. Here's money.

And keep on doing what you're doing, right? But early on, we would have visits in from really, really, really big fans that were paying that had, already put down $10,000 because they wanted to tour the studio and get to hang out and see what we're working on and be more involved in the process or whatever. And, you know, this story from

January 5th, 2024 from Ryan Dinsdale, talking about Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium and their $48,000 spaceship, which is a spaceship that costs $48,000 real $1,000 that you can also buy insurance for in case it ever gets destroyed. And that's where the cosmetic stuff, then turns into, you know, you're hoping this is a forever game. I don't know how many units they've sold on that. But Starz's Hidden is the type of game that you see somebody with a cool space. You're like, oh, shit. How much you spend on that space?

I spent 120 bucks. Oh, cool. I could start off with that. And then the 120 things can then turn into. But this has more room for your whatever activities on your ship. And you can fucking play basketball on this ship. And it's $20,000. And then that's where the sort of prices keep on going,

because they saw the opportunities there. They saw what the market was able to do and how people have continued to spend money on that franchise. And that's the stuff that really, really gets murky for me where I'm like, okay, first off, this game is still in early development and there's a lot of people.

We know what Star Citizen's been through, but holy shit, they are still bringing in a lot of money from really, really hardcore fans. So, if I can give my line, at least, Please. The line that I, you know, I don't have a hard rule for it because this is still like an ongoing thought process that I'm always wrestling with when it comes to game design and like the healthiness of like how you go about monetizing a thing, right?

Because I think for me, there's the reality of video games need to find ways to monetize. Video games need to make sure that like developers and studios can stay in business. There's a reality to being able to fund your next game and fund the people that work on your title and all these things, right? I think for me, it does... Just double down on this because I know

it's always a contentious point, right? People are buying fewer games than playing the games they have longer. So it is an industry that while there's plenty of scummy decisions here, the idea I don't think is scummy because it is,

well, how do we keep this going? Yeah. So for me, I think the line is, is the game design good? Like, is the way that a game is designed around us monetization, fun and frictionless,

in a way that makes you not feel like you are being nickeled and dimed. I think the example I'll give is when we talk about pay to win, I think pay to win often comes up when the pay to win is more egregious. I feel like people don't really think about pay to win when the pay to win is like, you know, doesn't feel like a, oh man, that's the only way I can win this thing. That's the only way. So like the example I'll give is I remember playing last of us in 2013, right?

The multiplayer mode factions. after a while they had added a gun that you had to pay for it was like a shotgun and it ruined my experience with the game right i think it probably they must have released it like maybe a year in or something and um i remember running into somebody with that shotgun they killed me in like a one or two shots and i was like damn what was that and i looked up that gun i was like oh i got to pay ten dollars or whatever it is for that gun and i kept playing and after a while i was just like i can't play this anymore because now i feel like the obstacle i need to get over is paying the $10 to get that gun that way I can stay in the game. I think that is an example of, you know, a bad game design decision of a point of friction,

a point of awkwardness, a point of like, oh, this is sticking out like a sore thumb to me. I think you fast forward today and bringing us back into the Pokemon TCG Pocket conversation. I think you maybe make the argument that Pokemon TC Pocket is paid a win in a way, right? Like there's a meta around specific cards, right? It is Me Too EX and Gartervore. it is maybe Charz RDX There are like a small group of cards That if you want a winning deck

Like these are the ones These are the ones that people are going with And if you want to have those cards Right you either go with their randomization Or you fork up the money I'll make the argument Maybe correct me if I'm wrong right I would say that's like an element of pay to win right there

Right or that's an example of like a pay to win Sort of structure But yeah the more cards you're buying The more chances you have to get them But I think it would be More obvious and something that you could point to more if it wasn't randomized. I think if you could just look at a list of cards and say, I want that for $20 or for $30.30 poke bucks.

That thing is like you get the pack points for like everything, every pack you open. So theoretically, if you spend money, you can get the pack points and then you go through the list and you can buy the Maltris X or whatever it is it is you want. But that doesn't feel as awkward and as janky as like that gun that was demolishing me. I think the difference is. And because like obviously it to an extent is paid a win because of all the points that you're making there of like if you don't have these cars. cards you are as a disadvantage so you need to yeah if you paid more money you could get those cards

quicker like that exists but i think the focus in pokemon trading card game in particular isn't just on the battling it's also on the collecting and i feel like that the the battles and winning pvp isn't necessarily the main point of the game um it is a point of the game so i feel like because of that it paying to win there's the other side of the collecting right that there is also yes like you're paying to to get the collection quicker, so that works there too. But I just feel like whereas in Last of Us, like, having a better gun

defeats the entire purpose of the game. Like you, you were like, you cannot play the game at the level that you should be able to because of that. How many times Mike have we seen a gun in the Cod battle pass that's that kind of becomes the meta? It doesn't feel like it's too rare, right? Where they're like,

you know, maybe level up to get that gun quicker or double XP and all sorts of stuff. I'm just so glad that at the height of me playing a game like Apex or Warzone that I was never enticed by their cosmetics or whatever because I just generally don't like

the look of those games I've never been enticed about but Overwatch like I would buy loot boxes back in the day because I wanted that one cool skin for my character because I and a lot of it comes down to personal preference of I just I love the watch the boxes I'm I never liked the way Apex's stuff looked so I wasn't enticed to look

cooler because I just always thought it was kind of ugly anyway and I feel the same with war zone. But sometimes you see that that weed flag on your gun, Mike. And you got to pop up. Am I about to buy some Air Jordans and Fortnite when they start releasing shoes into Fortnite? Yes, Tim. Like that's crazy behavior that we've got to the point. I find it fascinating as someone who is really deep into micro transactions. Because they won't regulate themselves and they design everything to make Mike and others not regulate themselves.

Well, let Mike buy the shoes. I'm interested in this business. side of things. Like, I would love to be in the room. I'm fascinated by that. This is a area in video games I would love to learn more about because there's someone in a room that was like, yo, let's put shoes on these characters. They already have shoes.

They already have a full character model. But what more could we stretch out of this? Because we're now clearly seeing we are maxing out on cosmetics of weapon skins, vehicle skins, weapon charms, new character models. We are backpacks. They are, they have gone to the

tippy top of what we could expect on this. to then go, what more could we do? And someone said, let's build shoes. And I'm fascinated by that. It's wild that we're in a room going, yes, let's do that. It really is the next evolution of the NFT having a digital good that could theoretically just exist forever, right?

But in this case, feels more, I don't know, realistic in a way to where you are watching your character in Fortnite seems to be like a forever type game. that feels like a bit more secure of a purchase as opposed to buying something in 2K 21 and that character's gone and that's the thing too where I think you know you talk about

Fortnite purchases right and every time I engage with the young, the youth right? And it's oh you play video games let's play Fortnite and I'll whip out of switch or my phone or whatever right? They get so stoked to see like how much VC all they want to do is go into my skins.

What skins do you have? Yeah. You go through all their skins and like, oh my God, you have so many or you don't have that many? And it's the thing of like all... They break out theirs and they're showing you off with it. And it is a crazy thing of like, wow, like this is the Pokemon card. This is the collectible.

This is the baseball card right of what one. This is you go into your rich friend's house and be like, oh my God. Look at all these goods you have. You have that one. You have that one skin. That's incredible. You know, like yeah, there's that rarity and there is that excitement to, uh, to kind of make people want to spend more and more.

And I, it's, it's a poison and I'm part of the problem. I fully admit it. I think Fortnite does help. I bought that arcane, that arcane gunskin. Don't ask me how much was.

But I mean, it's like such a baby bathwater argument that I don't, like you're part of the problem. It's like, well, are you? Like, because are you a part of the problem for buying your cheebe statues or

me buying the latest Ghostbuster toy? Like, it's like, these are real good, sure. But if it's, it's the endorphin rush of getting that collectible and doing that thing where it's like in real life,

or I'm sorry, in the video game world, buying it and getting it is that way too, right? So it is, I'm still such, I'm a cheap skate period, let alone in video games where it has to be against that edge of like, oh, I'm going to buy this Fortnite's skin because I love Captain America

or I love Ghostbusters when they did it. But like, even then I was like, I'm buying this Ghostbuster pack, not the one with all four or whatever it was. I don't need everybody. I just need it. I do think I am part of the problem. I do think it is all a big problem

in the grand scheme of things because it is teaching lessons to all these executives, and people in corporate worlds that say, you need that game to be like this. Hey, what if, hey, what if PlayStation you made a games as a service game? What if Dragon Age was also a games as a service game? And it teaches the lessons that can essentially make a game worse in some aspects.

But my problem with it is that I feel more connected to it because I'm in the games industry and we hear so many stories about layoffs. And we hear all these awful stories. about saw on LinkedIn the other day that a woman at riot was on her maternity leave and got laid off. And yet, like, all of these macro transactions could not keep these people employed. Of course. And it'd be one thing if I saw the one-to-one effect of I'm buying a game from, I'm buying a micro-transaction in a game made by 20 people, or I'm giving money to a gigantic corporation that does not give a fuck about any sort of, like,

let's try to keep this games industry rolling and rocking with employees and constantly being employed. The one thing to I'd push back on and it's from the what 18 years of me doing this is like I feel like I've been there when it was egregious and games

were launching horrible and Prince of Persia 2008 launches without an ending because the ending was DLC you need it. It has snapped back to where I do feel more than ever. It is the Battle Pass. Everything's cosmetic. this thing, everything's cosmetic. Or like, and granted that's because of lawsuits

and everything else and consumers, like there's a million things going on. There's, you know, we've lost the ground on NBA 2K. I don't think there's any way to get the genie back on that one, right? But it's like,

I do think for the overall thing, microtransactions are still a bad word, but I think it always comes back to that Batman Arkham Knight one I did, right? Where if you remember, when we were out on our own, it's kind of funny, one of the first things that got announced

that we were big on was Batman Arkham Night. happens and they announced a season pass and it's going to have bat girl dlc and then it was like it's also going to have some other shit basically they didn't get they didn't go into the specifics and so many people were up in arms that they didn't go into specifics and then my argument that i took away from it was well i'm a batman fan and a rock steady fan and not i'm excited i maybe this is a loot box if i don't know what i'm about to get but i bat girl dLC i'm in for the whatever else they were just talking vaguelyalities about i was like i'm in for and then it was this like so is every

else who's just mad about it, not actually into it? Are they, were they ever going to play Batman? Were they ever going to play this DLC? Where they, like, and that's fine to have an opinion about it, obviously, but I think so much of this stuff has to speak to your core audience. And I think then, where we are now, so many people do

it correctly, but then there are these egregious examples where you look at it and go, oh my God, this fucking thing. I don't love the, I mean, this whole conversation spurred from, like, we were talking about the life has changed things where I don't think I've ever loved the whole whole buy the collections edition, get

early access and you get in three days early or whatever. Like I think that's not awesome, but it's way worse when the point we were making was you can get this. It's a five-part series, you can get episode one and two weeks. Yeah, two weeks before everybody else. In a game that's so spoiler heavy, yeah.

In a game that really, really matters for what you're experiencing story-wise. And that's like a quick way I think to alienate that audience. And I guess I'm more okay with it, though I don't love it of, hey, get into call of duty early. Sure. Like, I still don't love it, but I feel like we, again, we can't put that toothpaste back in the tube.

That model is here to stay, I feel, because they are seeing numbers every time you see like a Steam post of, wow, this multiplayer game has this many numbers of people on Steam right now. And it's only early access. These aren't even people that are playing on Game Pass or whatever. You know, this Call of Duty on the early access thing, having $40,000 or whatever on Steam right now or 130,000? It's insane. Yeah. So like, I

feel like that is here to stay Spam 5-9-1 Superchat and said, I got to say I really hate the recent trend I'm seeing from Xbox have paid early access to single-player games. Feels scummy creating spoiler-centric, uh, fomo. Yeah, that's the mix of GamePass and of course the early access

additions right there, right? That's what we're seeing here. And we've seen it with a number of Xbox first-party titles up. Of course, you are subscribing to GamePass. So are you excited to get your first-party titles in that subscription service, but that is coming out the day of. That is not the, hey, I see early access

as like, that is a way to try to push the pre-orders because we've hit this wall on pre-orders of like, what's the best way to really sell you on pre-orders? Clearly, cosmetic skins aren't enough, so we have to give you the day, the game, three days early, right? And so the thing is maybe it is enough, but they just want more. That's usually what it is.

Yeah, well, I don't know about that. I think a number of, like, skins aren't going to push you to pay that extra $20, right? Like if, let's just say, we'll use Prince of Persia, right? If he was like, hey, here's three cool skins for 20 bucks. You'd be like, I don't know if I want to pre-order that. Like, it's fine. And if they were like, yo, you can play the game seven days early plus those three skins.

I think that pushes it a little bit more. And so we're seeing that with Xbox of, well, you're going to get the game in your subscription service, but day of. Or if you pay the $30 or whatever it may be for just the gold edition, you'll be able to play those games the three days ahead of time with what the other people are doing when they're paying for their gold edition. I think I'm more mad at the people that are paying for it than like the companies that do it though for like the three day early access because I do I look at that and I'm like, oh, like who would do you're paying 30 extra bucks or whatever to play this game a few days

early like who's doing it. The fact that it keeps happening makes me think that people are doing it. And I'm like, if that's the case, I'm, I'm of the mind of like, do y'all. Like I don't really, I don't, for me, it's not a thing that I guess affects how I look at like the early access. For me, that's a very easy thing to skip. Like an easy thing not to pay for it. And that's the whole argument here again with what's your line, right?

Where it is so easy for me to be like, well, I would never do this NBA thing, but I'll do this thing. But then it's this concern that if enough people did the bad thing, the thing you don't like, that's your line, right? Then it fucks it up for everybody. There's 100% like I would, if we didn't get the call of duty, whatever early access thing for free, I would likely be watching somebody on stream playing and being like, damn. Got to do it. I might have to dive in. Like I want to. I have that phone.

right now. And that sucks. Like I, I, if we didn't get that sort of early access for free, that's one of those benefits of being in those jobs that we have. But otherwise, I don't know if I would hop in unless I saw maybe like, Mike streaming it or something, I'd be like, oh, I want to get in there, you know. Yeah, I really, I'm, I'm more interested in like the pointing fingers because it, it gets me down seeing our audience get like really mad at me bringing up anything or like blessing talking about like, oh, I'm mad at those other people. It's like, it's very odd that we now look at each other and go, I'm mad at you for buying this. I'm mad at you for doing that, right?

And it's like, hey, we're not pocket watching. We're not, we're not talking about, like, what you do on your own time, you do your thing. Of course. I've never been mad at, like, what other people do with their own time and private time. It's very odd that we've now gone to like, yo, you just bought that $20 skin in war zone. What the fuck? I guess for me, for the early access thing specifically, right? For me, it's not like a, how dare you buy this?

Like, you know, you're ruining this. It's more so like, listen, I don't get it. I am very much, though, though. Well, yeah, it's like the Pokemon thing, right? like you're into Pokemon right now. So you're like, I'm willing to buy it. If Tim was like, I'm so into Metal Gear Solid. They're giving me seven days early access.

And they want to buy it. It's like, oh, yeah, that's going to happen. I don't know. I mean, and I can't talk to every example. But I know on this one, people are like, oh, my God, Mike, when you're talking about NBA, that's not, at least that. And then, because I say the same thing.

I'm not mad at you. I'm more like mad at them, I feel taking advantage of you. I like, I wish you weren't. I just want you to be taken care of. I want you to find the fun over. I just find it like that. I just find it odd that like we quickly come as like everyone on earth becomes more like pointing fingers as opposed to like it's clearly the company's creating this to sell it to people that want this. And you can get mad at them for maybe being greedy or or coming up with those tactics.

But to be mad at like your fellow coworker or just a friend or just some random gibrony for being a whale, it's like how can you be mad at that? The guy's just spending his own money and living his own life. Don't worry about that. Yeah. I think the when I often think about the price that I'll pay for. for like a game or like if I won extra stuff out of the game or like what was the game you wanted to pay a lot you were what was weird or tears of the kingdom tears of the kingdom yeah oh yeah when I was like I'll pay a thousand dollars

listen if they put out mill your solid six tomorrow and they're like you gotta pay a thousand dollars we're paying that did you mark up to you was like you yeah yeah yeah yeah but I think I often take like the video game price of admission thing and I and maybe this is a bad way to do it but like I think about like theme parks for example, right? I think about six flags and I'm paying, I'll pay, what, $80 to go to six flags for for maybe what, seven hours of enjoyment?

And I'm like, man, I could get way more enjoyment, way more hours of enjoyment out of a video game for that same amount of money, right? And like I kind of use that as like a value determiner for me where, you know, I, the one time we went to six flags back in like July, 2021 or whatever it was, right? Like we got there.

But where's the capes you got? Thank you so much. We got there. We were like, man, these lines are too long. What if we paid the extra money? Just skip the line and get the lighting pass. And I guess for me, when I think of like the three-day early thing, when I think of honestly, like any scenario where people are wanted to spend a little

extra money to get a little bit more enjoyment out of the thing they like, I think of like the time we get the lightning pass, right? Or people who will get like the fucking Mickey Mouse shirt at Six Flags or whatever. And like that's their version of a cosmetic right there, right? Like I... We're seeing in every industry. People are playing to get on planes early. We're seeing it everywhere now.

Yeah, the only reason I feel personally bad about it, like I'm not saying anybody else's feel. I'm the one that's like, I think I am part of this problem because I'm so close to the industry. Because I know people that are affected that, that I know that no matter how, if I spend $9,000 on Valor, that doesn't mean that you may keep your job or not.

Like, it's just going to go to the richest people and whatever, you know, corporate people in the latter, you know. And when it comes to, yeah, the different things that people will spend money on, I think the way, the place I come down on it is that, you know, people are just into different things. If Mike really loves NBA 2K and he wants to spend more money on NBA 2K, like, all power to you, right? If I'm really enjoying Pokemon TCG and I want to spend 10 or $100 on Pokemon TCG, like, if that's what I'm spending my money on, I think the only places where I'm like, ooh, are when it comes to Wales and when it comes to maybe like stuff that's getting into more of a gambly side of things that could have negative effects just on people in general, right? Like I think that's where I start to get a bit more

Judgy might not be the word but a bit more I guess like I we should talk about this and figure out if this is the right way to go But like if somebody wants to spend 30 bucks on a skin Yeah do you do like look like Luke Skywalker and whatever fucking Hell yeah I feel like from every perspective like there is a line I think that just because there's a line doesn't mean that we're not willing to cross it And that they're not trying to pull us across it

And I just feel like that's life in so many different ways of like we know something's wrong But we still partake in it and like It's not like we sometimes we have a choice. Sometimes we don't, but it's just that this is the way that things are. But I do feel like there is, things are at their best when there is a moral responsibility of people putting out a product, no matter what the product is,

whether it's a video game or a merchandise or music, literally anything that you're putting out and asking people to pay for. I do feel like the, to me there is a line of those people should have a responsibility to care about this stuff and make sure that there's appropriate value. added to the product they're putting out. I don't think that the majority of people function that way. That bothers me.

It doesn't stop me from buying things. But I think that that's, to me, the biggest problem. And I think that you can reflect that on individuals making purchases. Like, do you have the means to be able to buy this? What does it mean when you support these things and support, like, the amount of money I put into Pokemon Go is offensive, honestly, for what I've gotten out of it from an actual digital perspective of my collection and stuff? The gameplay, me walking around having fun playing Pokemon Go,

I would say is probably worth the money that I've spent. So like there is something there. Is it predatory as fuck? It is. It's very problematic. I am not okay with the way they do things. I'm still doing it though, even though I'm not okay with it.

I think that's that weird balance that makes it hard where I know where my line is. I am also willing to cross it every soft. Which is I think scary, but I also have a internal reflection point whenever I am purchasing these things for the games where I do question, am I getting what I want out of this? Is what they're offering me for this amount? Yeah.

Is this okay or not? I feel like the majority of us are overpaying for something out there. I buy so much DoorDash, dude. Oh, I shouldn't. But like, like, I spend an offensive amount of money on DoorDash. And it's just the thing of like, yeah, man, that's something I should fix. But I think that goes for every person. But it makes me happy.

It makes me happy. Yeah. It gives me satisfaction because I can get that, um, that sandwich. I just, I truly try to get that buckhorn sandwich. I really take it one step further, though. It's like the, like, is it making me happy? Like, that can't be. the only part. Like, and we can for you

if that's where your line is. But personally speaking, I just feel like there should be on the other side, on each side, there needs to be that reflection point of, do I feel okay about selling a Starship for $48,000? Do I actually feel okay that somebody's going to do that for what I am

providing them? And it might not be just the ship. The ship might be a representation of, hey, you're really just going above and beyond because you love this game and you want this game to go bigger. We get that. There's that understanding there. In the same way, again, going back to kind of funny, like when we think about the platinum items that we put out and it's $50 a month for that kind of funny membership, we know that that product is not worth $50. We understand that the $10 a month thing we offer, I would stand by to the day I die.

It is worth the $10 because of the amount of work we put in and what needs to happen in order for that to exist. And what we expect, the audience is able to actually contribute in a way that we don't feel like we're just ripping money out of their pockets. right? And I feel like having those options and making that clear, it requires reflection on both sides from us, which I know we do very often of looking at things, looking at the economy, looking at where everything's at. And I feel like every other company should do that and they don't. And I think that's fucked up. But I also think that consumers need to look at what they're doing and look at what's being offered and call that shit out and understand what's okay and what's not. And also understand that to Mike's point, it's okay. if you have the money and the means to buy stuff that you know isn't fucking worth it, but you don't care because it brings you joy, that is okay too. Pretty fucked up that you would say that about the Stoneback Mike movie and all the printing he did with all the...

It does work another way though there too. Thank you for bringing that up, honestly, where it's like to be completely frank and transparent with people, I'm not sure that that was worth it financially because that $50 then all of a sudden with the man hours put in with all the stuff, we're not making money from that, but it's a goodwill thing. You get them saying?

Yeah. But I just feel like that's important. It's like we, we as a group talk and think about all these things. And I feel like if Pokemon trading card company and call of duty and all these people, if they did that, things could work out in a different way that people are a lot happier for appropriate amounts of money and money would be going in ways to fund the industry.

But that's not what these executives are doing. And I think time and time again, like to imagine and think that these people would ever do that, it's insanity. And I get that. But that's not how things should be, in my opinion. Speaking of Kind of Funny

Micro transactions We have a bunch of super chats I want to get in here Of course You can be part of a conversation with us each and every

day by YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Game Super chats Can I correct something that's going to Hombie? You can't get a

Mickey Mouse shirt at six lights I didn't want to call you out on that But I was like Yeah, but funny You got one of spray paint

guys you could do I'm a dog Nick 96 Superchat instead of predatory tactic I don't like is in Street Fighter 6 where the lowest

tier option for the in game currency is not enough to buy one costume but the next tier you get will get you too. That's that funny money.

They love that. That funny money they do so good at like making it just perfect. That $5 is not enough. You gotta have $7. Which means you either need to buy the 10 or you need to buy double five. It's always. DoorDash is definitely my version of NBA 2K. Because like I got the dash pass,

which means if I get over 12, if I buy something over $12, I get the free delivery. Yeah. But so many restaurants, I swear to God, they do this on purpose. 1150. Yeah, 1199. Great. Now I got to get aside. Like, fuck you guys.

I don't want this steam rice. It's always steam rice, too. Zeke speaks, Super Chats, and says for me, the most problematic are games warped entirely around microtransactions, forcing players who refused to pay to deal with the forced wait, times, grind, etc. First Descendant is a great example. Warframe less so. Yeah, we don't talk a lot about mobile games here as a group, but I feel like I find a lot

more of that on like the time to grind in mobile games where it's like, oh, that's great. you got this upgrade on your small Sims city house. You need to wait 12 hours or if you give us a dollar, that becomes faster and you can just keep going. We don't really talk that much about those kind of games. Mani Bigel Boy Sanchez, Super Chat, and says the only plus side to ultimate team is that the better cards don't really cripple you.

I only get the weekly reward packs and can be competitive, but I have friends who get obsessed and it's crazy. I mean, we'll always say it's like with you with WWE, Greg, It's like they will always look at you and say you can earn all of this for free. You can just play and have fun and you don't ever have to buy. And that's the truth is you don't have to buy any of these. And so yeah, it's really up to the person. Melodic Quest says personal story.

I got super addicted to Overwatch's loot boxes. To the extent I couldn't pay my bills. Those predatory tactics can affect you without you even realizing it. That's crazy. Before I, yeah, before I joined kind of funny, I think I was still at Best Buy at this point. Turn on the fun. I had accidentally, I wanted to buy loot boxes and I did the purchase but like I didn't see them pop up in the game. I was like man, where are those loot boxes in?

And I did it again. I was like maybe you didn't go through. I ended up buying like, I don't know, $150. Oh my God. And I did. Of course, I'm too lazy to return it. So I just like probably didn't get food that week. But you like you open all those looph boxes though, right?

Oh, I popped. That must have felt great. You got those voice lines, those sprays. Still have all those skins? It's wild. Yeah. I forget who was the name of that person? The person I wrote in the...

Oh, I was like, I don't wonder what story you're telling. Oh, that was a melodic quest. Yeah, that's fucking that that happened to you. But man, I missed those loopbox. Oh, man. Oh, man. The sound you get when it was gold. The way it would shake up.

Oh, man. That shit would land and it was golden. It's probably good that they took him out because now that I have more disposable income. Oh, yeah, to be bad news bears. Speaking of... Barrett? Just, you know, again, the way that

they're designed, it is very much, yes, there is personal responsibility and personal choice with the way that they're designed. Just think about you guys talking about how the ways those fucking boxes would pop. But like the colors. Oh yeah, exactly. Go smoke another cigarette, yeah. And the reason why those don't exist anymore is because of EU regulation. Yeah, shut that down.

They're coming for cigarettes next. Hey, how about you go fucking live in Europe then, Barrett? If you don't want to live, this is America. Have you ever opened a gold loophobox? Don't fucking tempt me with a good time, man. Next persona gonna have lewd boxes left and right in it. legendary soldier 76 skin. To get you out of here, let's do

two super chats. There's one more that popped in here. Zeke Speak says, folks are like, quote, just don't pay for it. But that's the thing. These directly mess with people who have gambling addictions and might not know it. Which I think is doubling off of the problematic one, but then also jumping into

Melodic Quest's personal story. I'm glad I don't. I'm really happy I don't got that in my DNA, the gambling stuff. Sure. I mean, the other day on Pokemon, I was like, should I do another 10 bucks? bucks. That'll take me to 70.

I was like, no, no, don't need it. I'll get that. I'll earn it. I mean, I will say with Pokemon and obviously like Pokemon and trading cards and all that, it's very, a quick way to my wallet, right? Tim Getty's me in particular. I'm happy that like I, you know, I did the big purchase on stream for the fun of the game and

like all of us doing it together or whatever and I got the cards. I'm good now. Like, I don't need to put any more money into this at the very least for this season. Right. Like, there's always going to be more and somebody's going to come around. But like, I have not for a second been tempted since the stream to put any more money into Pokemon trading card game. And I think that's good because I'm still playing it every day and getting a lot out of it.

Two off topic ones to get you through here. Memo writes and it says, hey, kind of funny. Just wanted to let you all know that my senior recital coming up on December 7th at San Jose State University. I already reached out before, but I wanted to tell you, I love you and support you with the super chat too. We are, Mike. We know, Memo. We're excited. You want to go December 7th?

go down to San Jose State? Take a little drive? I'd love to see the campus. Yeah, I'd like to take a walk down the campus. You got to... Let me think about it. I put it into Slack, Memo.

I was like, if I wasn't just getting back me and Jen from a trip without Benny, it'd be a different story. Memo, you got your boy, stomach might get about 80% to come surprising. We're looking at it. If you're a kind of funny best friend in the Bay Area, go see Memo's senior recital

December 7th, San Jose University. I'm just out a lot in the next couple weeks. He's out a lot. And I'm like, that would be, that would be like, my first weekend. That'd be great. To sit in your room. Yeah, but then we go right back.

And the final super chats are a back-to-back pair from Guzzling King David's Glizzy. Her super chat has said, Greg, why is Paris a Lily so much cooler than you? And then Greg, on the kind of funny scale, why is Paris to 10 and you're a gollum? Oh, man. King David. No. King David got to be cold for Paris Lily.

Guzzlin's got it right. Paris is cooler than me. And, of course, I would chalk it up to the fact that Paris is conservatively 30. years older than me. Wow. So in 30 years checking with me and I'll probably

use the coolest past night. You know what I mean? Oh, dirk. Everybody, this is but another episode of the

Kind of funny games cast each and every week day we come to you with the biggest topics in video games. After you get the daily news from Kind of Funny Games Daily and before you go over

to another stream which today is Call of Duty Warzone's latest map with Mike, Andy and Nick. Let us know what you think of monetization in 2024 in the comments

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