Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Games That Changed Our Lives and Speed Runs - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 30

Episode Date: August 7, 2015

We discuss game franchises that staryed a little bit too far from what gamers wanted, why are digital games just as expensive as physical games, the games that changed our lives, and our thoughts on speed runs and the speedrunning community. (Released 07.31.15) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up guys, welcome to the first ever, episode 30 of The Kind of Funny Games cast. As always, I'm Tim Geddes. Joined by the coolest dudes in video games, Colin Moriarty and Greg Miller. Greg, what was that face for? Which one? I don't know, you just gave me a face. I was just getting into the moment where I was like, I was into it.

I was doing, I was done, and then you had me send your thing to you. That's what I sent. I did that. I trapped you. Oh, he got trapped, Greg. Double jeopardy, starting Jennifer Lopez. So we've been doing a lot of stuff yesterday. recorded a Game Over Grady show with Gary Witta.

It was good. Brought a lot of British snacks. Couldn't stop thinking about him all night. Gary Witta? Yeah. I could stop thinking about Gary Wada. He didn't. I watched Columbo because of him.

I feel like everyone did, except for me. The one person that needed to. I'm going to use this piece of garbage, Greg. No, that's Kevin. Oh. Sorry, I'm taking your job, Kevin. Fuck you, Kevin. Now what are you going to do, Kevin?

So I feel like we have a lot of Patreon people to thank at some point. We're not doing that in this episode. Yeah, we already did this once. We're off to date on that. But I want to give a huge shout out to my boy Mike Bithel. What a Mike Bithel.

Coming through with his game volume. There it is. Right here. From the creator of Thomas was alone, Mike Bithel. Here is volume. His game's coming out. And he gave us the month of shout-ups thing on Patreon. Thank you so much.

Good dude. Patreon.com slash kind of funny games. So he's supporting us making this show happen. So we want to help support him make his game a success. Right. So volume. is a stealth game coming August 16th to PlayStation 4, PSVita, PC, and Mac. That's crazy.

From the creative, Thomas was alone, volume combines a core story starring Andy Circus and Danny Wallace with an editor that lets you make and play content as part of a community of stealth game fans. For more information, follow at volume game on Twitter. So you should definitely do that. Go follow them on Twitter, ask all the questions you want, tell them the kind of funny sent you. Specifically, Tim Geddes. Okay. Tim sent you.

It's one of the funny things. And I mean, you can't, I know that Mike Biffel can't predict. these kind of things, Colin. But he gave us the money. He's like, I want to do the sponsorship. I want to do this. I love you guys. Content.

But we took the money and then we played the game. And it's like, ah, man, you fucked up because the game's good. Like, we would have talked about the game for free, but now we got your money. But I like here that. I'm not sure, but I think in that sentence you were about to say, you know, I love you, I love you, Greg, is what I think you were about to say. And then you said guys instead there. You know, I love you guys.

I don't think I was, I wasn't close to that. I usually, when I'm about to make the mistake, I don't realize I'm about to make the mistake until I already made the mistake, as you always call out when I screw you out. Now, I will say something about this poster. I love this poster. Yeah. And the, what's interesting about the poster is I wish it said it, because it says from the creator of Thomas was alone. Yeah. And I like the way Tim said it,

where he's like the creator of Thomas was alone, Mike Bithel. So what the future posters should say, in fact, is from the creator of Thomas was alone, comma, Mike Bithel. And then it has the volume. You want to know why he left it off, I bet? He's trying to piggyback on the Kajima Konami thing. He's going to put out a story saying the publisher of this game,

himself, erased his name from the posters. God, he's such a jerk. He knows how to play this game all right, yeah. Now, he knows what he's doing. I do want to give a shout out to him, too, that he... You know, he only paid for the one shout-out. Don't be giving him a long. So many shots. Well, no, he paid for the shout-out. He asked for the shout-out

months ago. Yeah. Like, when we first launched. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like, he believed in us back when we were dumb little kids. He did that. A little slightly less dumb kids. Yeah, I did that. He's been timely with everything. He's kept us in the loop about everything. He shared information. with us. He wrote a blog post being like, hey, this, you know, some, I'm sure we think

was an ethical conundrum. These guys talk about games and critique them, but I'm going to do it, and here's why. And he explained the fact that we're competitively priced with ads on video game websites and that we reach an audience that is awesome and would actually go to it, which he already knew, of course, from GDC, because he came through GDC and he all followed him, and he was like, how to get all these followers? That's a lot of funny. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that is the Kind of Funny Gamescast. If you guys don't know what this is every week, we get together, we talk about video games,

we make videos of it, then it goes live on YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny games. If you want the whole thing early, you can go to Patreon.com slash kind of funny games. There's a whole smorgasbord of options. You get the audio. You can get the video. You get all the stuff. And the coolest part is, if you give just a dollar a month on Patreon.com slash kind of funny games, you get an

exclusive episode of this show. Somehow, those exclusive episodes are even more of a train wreck than these in a good way. It's because we let our guard down. It's like, I always like to think of this podcast right here, the Gamescast, the Game Over Geh Show. When we sit around this table, it's like when you show up,

up to Thanksgiving dinner and you're in your shirt, your tie, whatever, you're looking good, you want to say how to the family, actually you got your life together. The exclusive episodes are when your belt's undone, the shirt's unbuttoned, you're sprawled out on the couch with your closest family and friends. So it's like when after, after Thanksgiving, when you head to the 7-Eleven to get slurpees, even though you didn't need them. Is that what you did? I mean, I just every night probably ended there. Okay. I had an interesting life and I also live two blocks from seven-in-lawful. For Thanksgiving, you didn't have like a Thanksgiving thing. Oh, we did. Yeah, no, but yeah, no. Me, but, me,

Kevin would end up at 7-11 getting slavery at some point. See, it would always be that Po did Thanksgiving and his families, whatever they were, and then he'd come back to my house and play video games

and eat pumpkin pie. That's all good. All of that stuff. This is the whole thing. Don't need to go down this rabbit hole, but you're about to insult pumpkin pie. We're going to have problems. I love pumpkin pie.

Thank you. I always bring up the fact that I never really have a Thanksgiving because my best friend Curran's birthday is that weekend every year, and we always do a massive weekend long gaming sleepover.

Sure. So to me, Thanksgiving is not. I distinctly asked to be invited to that. You didn't. And you got uninvited, actually. It wasn't even that you weren't invited. Thank you.

You were like, get this guy. He's not allowed anywhere. Heard heard it on the podcast. Yeah, he's like, I want this guy to move. But, no, so what I was about to say is we just recorded, or last month's exclusive episode of the games cast just went live. The most recent gamescast exclusive is now on Patreon. It's on Patreon.com. And it was awesome.

And I really enjoyed it. And it was me, Nick and Greg driving back from VidCon. And so it's us in the car. And we were talking about road trip gaming memories and which included like, game. Boy stuff. It also included it arcade stuff. And then a lot of sidetrack stories about ridiculous things. But overall, I liked it and I enjoyed it. So

you should definitely check that out. In that video, you almost convinced me without you knowing, because I didn't bring it up, because we switched topics too quickly to play another Pokemon. What? We actually beat a Pokemon. Oh, my God. I've never done it. Let's make this a thing. At some point. You got to pick a good one for me that I can get on my nice 3DIS. Definitely, it'll be heart gold or soul silver. Okay.

Undeniable. It's going to be good. It's going to be fun. But that's not what we're talking about today. Today, we are talking about franchises that drastically changed for the worst. Bomberman. No, I never forget that bomber man reboot. So the reason this comes up is Dragon Quest. Dragon Quest 11 was announced to be coming out on all these new systems, and there was word of it being on the NX. X going to give it to you.

X going to give it to you. Mario, Zelda, Erx's going to give it to you, Star Fox, other Nintendo off X going to. I don't know Metroid The franchise I knew Oh they ain't gonna give you that They ain't gonna give you Metroid

X ain't gonna give you Metroid Yo X you're gonna give us Metro No With my dogs Yeah so So they're doing all They're doing that stuff

Now Colin Big fan of Dragon Quest Yeah You're really upset With Dragon Quest 10 Yes So you You suggested we have this

As a topic I'm gonna let you Kind of mouth off on this Yeah I I just wanted to bring this up Because I think that going back to early in gaming's history,

I would really say it started, you know, most prominently in the NES era, where series are established but then they change inexplicably inexplicably, and sometimes no one had asked them to inexplicably change. And so the

exit, so like... I like how you say this as the franchises or this dude that people walk out to say, hey dude, just don't change. Don't change. No one asked you for this. Mario, no one asked you to change. But the thing is is that it back in the day I felt like it worked out well for the most part right and I've talked about this many times So forgive me if I'm repeating it for some people, but Mario changed at least in the West with the second iteration Zelda changed drastically with a second iteration

Castellania changed drastically with the second iteration Megaman oh no no Megaman didn't change Mega man got better I think as well it changed in in its own ways But it was it was pretty much the same gameplay wise and what we learned from that was that these games no one wanted these changes but they were happening anyway and they were good. Zelda 2 is a fucking awesome and severely underrated game. Mario 2, Mario USA is a great game. It's not as good as Mario 3, but it's a, it's a fantastic game. I would say 9 out of 10. Oh, yeah, it's a great game. We just did a less play for it. That might be alive by the time you're listening to this, actually. Excuse me. And then Castlevania changed, and I think Simon's Quest is a super underrated game, too.

But then there are games that changed in that era that didn't work on Metal Gear is a good example. Act Razor 2 and Metal Gear 2 are probably good examples of games that didn't need to change, but did, and they didn't work out very well. And I felt that honestly, even though I know you love that game, when Super Mario World was very different with Yoshi's Island. I was like, yeah. I think that's even kind of different, though. That was so much more a name thing than it was an actual sequel.

Sure. Sure. But yeah, I was so happy to hear Dragon Quest 11 was a single player, expansive, role-playing game because for some reason, Square Inix decided to make Dragon Quest 10 an MMO. And I, this has always bothered me. I understand that Final Fantasy 11 and Final Fantasy 14 are very popular and very good games and people enjoy them. But they're MMOs. They're not really Final Fantasy games.

And I was always confused why you would take a series that is established for something or a series of things. Final Fantasy, maybe it's narrative or its characters or its gameplay. And then just totally change it but call it a core Final Fantasy game. In other words, why wasn't Final Fantasy 11 Final Fantasy Online? And that's the thing. That is the bigger question, I think, is that why didn't they just? go with Final Fantasy Online, why they have to call it 11, why they have to call it 14.

And that's the thing, when you get to 11 and 14, it's a little ridiculous. I think if you look at sales, and Colin will back me up here time over time, every Final Fantasy is bigger than last. That's not true, Greg. I know. Yeah, there's reasons for it. There's certainly marketing reasons for it. And there's also them saying, well, with Final Fantasy

specifically, and I think some of our viewers might feel this way, is that, well, Final Fantasy 1 was very class-based, didn't really have much of a story. Final Fantasy 5 was very class-based. It's a game that's very different. While Final Fantasy 4 had established classes and established characters that grew in certain ways. So the games are already different from each other. While you have active battle and one thing, you have materia and Esper systems, you have all these kinds of things. And so they're like, well, what's the difference? You know, you're at the... We're now going to make it an MMO and change the mechanics, just like we've changed the mechanics in the other games. But I think that there's a situation where it goes a little too far and confuses the audience.

And also frustrates me as someone who wanted Final Fantasy 11 to be a, core Final Fantasy game, especially after the way I felt about Final Fantasy 10, which was not positive. So I just wanted to throw that out there that it's cool that they're, they were always going to make Dragon Quest 11, I think, a single player game regardless, but it was so weird to me that Dragon Quest, which is so sacred to a lot of people as being this very grindy, very traditional Japanese role-playing game, suddenly making an MMO. Yeah. As opposed to just calling it Dragon Quest online, just like they were Dragon Quest Heroes, which is a

like a Muso from Omega Force. It's like they didn't call that Dragon Quest 11. Why would you call this other thing Dragon Quest 11? So I don't, I just wanted to discuss if there are any other series that you guys feel like changed radically or were known for something and then changed and try to do something else. Because I don't always think it works out like it did during the NES era. Yeah. I mean, I think that more often than not it doesn't, especially nowadays. But Final Fantasy, I think, is the key one.

Because when you look at 12, 12 kind of played a little bit more like an MMO, but it wasn't an MMO. It still was a Final Fantasy core game. And it felt right. So even though the class systems are different And the battle systems different or whatever I feel you in that it's still the same thing It's once you go into the MMO territory It is a different genre

It is a different completely different style of game Whether the gameplay is different or not That doesn't matter It's more about the style of the game itself You know I can't really think of too many other franchises That did this That's my question

So are you talking about gameplay shifts Or it has to be completely from the ground up Like does Jack and Daxters move I think it does three and from one to two to three. Yeah. I think that's the thing. It's not so much just the gameplay.

Every game's different. It's more about changing what the game is. Sure. You know, because Final Fantasy. Like Jack and Dax, you pick up, oh, it's a platformer. I'm here to play a platform. Jack 2 is. Now you have all these guns and open world, the GTA in this Jack universe.

Like, what the hell are you talking about? Yeah. And that worked out for it, I think, in a lot of ways. I know, I enjoyed that. I think when you start talking about these, and even with the Final Fantasy example, you're talking about things that are, I hit at one point, but what's going on in that genre anymore?

What's the next step? Where is the future going, right? And Nottie Dog puts out Jack and Daxter, Precursors Legacy. It's fun. I rented it during my unlimited Blockbuster Summer Rental when that was a thing or whatever in play. I was like, oh, that's good. But it was like just as like that 3D platformer's thing was starting to burn out, right?

So they make that jump to go like to salvage it, right? Because you can't have the exact same thing. Now, the, you know, another example of that putting a change out that way, I think maybe to its detriment is Prince of Persia. Prince of Persia Sanza Time, amazing game. Just give me that again. And instead they start going down this whole path that leads to Warrior Within

and all this other stuff. It's like, eh. Well, I mean, see, that was one of the first franchises that came to mind when you were talking about this. But I don't think that they necessarily... It doesn't count. I don't know if it does, because what changed in that game? Emo rock music?

They added emo rock music and they made it a little bit darker and more. Was Santa Time Rated M? I don't think it was. No, I can't imagine it was. So I guess that, I mean, that is a pretty, pretty significant. can shift then going from being open to pretty much anyone to play to just people above 17. But the gameplay was still the same and the game was still the same with Warrior Within and Twin Thrones or whatever the last one was called.

Because I still loved those games all the way through. Sansa time is definitely my favorite. But I don't think that the game shifted enough for it to be radically different. Whereas Jack 2. Right at 3. Yeah. I'm almost positive Warrior Within was rated at M. I remember I couldn't buy it when it first came out

and Kevin's sister had to buy it for me. Did she make funny guys the whole time? Was she like chewing gum? Did she have a big 80s hair? Yeah, she did. I'm assuming this happened in the 80s, right? She was dressed like Jubilee. It was weird.

It was 90s. Oh, I think there's a, I'm thinking about it. And I think there's a more concise way we can put this because the question is still undefined and I think the answers are undefined too, and that's fine. Where it's... Because you brought Grand The Thought on Grand The Thought is a great example of a series that changed, right?

And it changed. for the better, right? It doesn't always have to change for the worse. I guess the question is, should consumers and fans expect something similar to what they've already experienced within the IP, the established IP?

And is it show that, you know, obviously there's a marketing and financial reason, economic reason for publishers and developers to want to develop new kinds of games under-established franchises. But does it also, is some of the blame on the consumer as well for being usually wary of something

that they don't know about? So in other words, like granted the thought of changed Red Dead changed you know we talk about Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest in these other games that have changed I also think Fallout is a great example

of that fallout most people a vast majority of people that have played Fallout 3 and New Vegas the other fallout games are radically different their role playing games but they're not

Final Fallout 3 but then you see something I see something like Wolfenstein which is you know also a Bethesda property now and I'm like this has always been

just kind of there's spinoffs I guess, but it's always been kind of true to what it was. Wolfenstein is a World War II-based alternate history shooter, right? And that's always been what it is. And so we know what we get a Wolfenstein game. That's what we should and could expect. And it goes back to what Mercury seemed to seem to the Casillvania,

which at first seemed really good and then ended up being really bad at the end, where they took something that was established and tried to do something different and it worked out, but then they made it too different and it didn't work out. So I guess what I'm saying is, should we have an expectation of some sort of continuity, whether it's in gameplay or whether it's in style or theme or setting because, for instance, Final Fantasy Tactics is a radically different Final Fantasy game. It's one of the great Final Fantasy games. But it came out between 7 and 8. Why didn't they just call that Final Fantasy 8?

You know what I mean? Because it really is the same thing as an MMO being Final Fantasy 11. So I was always kind of confused by that. No, you're definitely identifying the problems of this constantly swirling thing. Whereas if they kept making Prince of Persia the way I wanted Prince of Persia with no emo music or whatever. I'm just using this example, right? sure you're running this into the ground stop doing that eventually the tide's turn

right if they want to go make a new IP nobody gets on board and buys it so if they put a new Prince of Persia IP on it suddenly I'm like well this isn't the Prince of Persian game I want to play I think a really good example of this is rationing clank right rationing clank is ration clank and it's ration clank and everybody's like fucking we hate nobody hates we stop making the same old ratchet

and clank and they're like all for one here's this tower defense here's and we're like no that is not ration clank what are you doing and they're like well what the we wanted to make something different because you said you wanted something different, but this is too different, so would you rather us go off and make fuse? And then nobody cares about, you know what I mean? Like, nobody's happy.

We're all Goldilocks. I think Kingdom Hearts is another perfect example of that, where, you know, everyone's like, oh, not everyone. I say everyone, but I mean me. And there's a bunch of other people out there that are like, I want... Every Tim. The numbered sequel, because I know what that means. That means it's going to be mainline.

That means it's going to have a certain level of production value and influence on the story. And the gameplay is going to be up to here. all these different things. Now, people have been getting at me a lot recently about my kingdom hearts comments because they say that whenever

I talk about the spin-offs I kind of write them off and I'm like, I don't want this shit and they're not good. I'm not saying they're not good at all. I'm saying I haven't played them and I do know the people

that have played them they range from loving them to some of them not being that good. There's a wide gamut of all that stuff. But also I understand that the story does matter in some of them. Like specifically a dream drop distance

and birth by sleep. But those are perfect examples. of kind of what we're talking about where because they're not mainline numbered sequels, there is this perception that they're not as valued and that they're not as big of a deal. Whereas like with Final Fantasy, adding that number means it's a big deal. It means that it's going to be, there's a promise there, you know? And so being an MMO, you're going off that promise. Like you're messing with things.

And that's when the hardcore people like latch out and then it just turns into it. You splintered to stuff. Whereas Final Fantasy tactics, no one's splintered. The people that like it, they like it. They can like Final Fantasy, then the numbered ones as well, and there's not really an issue. Whereas the moment that you start doing this

is just weird divide between the purists, not purists, and all this stuff. Right. And it's not even, to me, it's not so much a judgment call because if they called Final Fantasy 16, or if they made Final Fantasy tactics too, like a real one, not the GBA and DS ones, which are fine. And I enjoyed those.

Which are fine, but less than. No, I mean, they're not as good as the original Final Fantasy tactics by any stretch of the imagination. But if they made Final Fantasy tactics to a real one, but they're like, it's Final Fantasy 16, I'd be like, whatever. like just give me the fucking game already So I think I think that we like

That's what I'm saying that there's a looser Maybe even undefined definition of what we're talking about yet I feel like there's blame to be laid on all sides And because of the like Greg was saying the roving expectations Because we as gamers like Castlevania is a great example Like we I had expectations of continuing to get the EGivania Castlevania game And I got it over and over and over again I was like it's just it's awesome like when people like what's your favorite one

I'm like I'm not even sure like they're all awesome right Because I was looking for that formula but then when they take ego off of Castlevania and give it to Mercury's team the game comes very different and so what does that mean to a Castlevania fan does what does Castlevania mean at that point? And I think that that's what

the real question is like should we have an expectation that Castlevania means Gothic. Yeah. Belmont's fighting fucking Dracula and all these kinds of things because we did not get that with Mercurystein we got a modern game really with them not to spoil it because it doesn't seem modern at the beginning but you had your chance. Oh god. And so

but at the same time it's a conundrum between the publishers and the developers because we always want new ideas. At least I do. I always want new ideas, new games, new IP. But publishers won't sign off on them. So they pigeonhole the new idea into something that already exists to get your attention. And that to me is somewhat of a destructive idea, but it's also the climate of buying and making games, unfortunately, because, you know, vanquished, for instance, Platinum's Vanquish, which is a fucking awesome, awesome, awesome game. if that was, I mean, not the planetam had any established franchise really that time, if that was, um, call of duty future warfare or whatever. Right, right.

That would have been fucking huge. You know what I mean? But because it was vanquished, no one played it. They're like, what the hell is vanquish? Well, I mean, I'm not going to think with this conversation here. Like going back to like Mario 2, dokie dokey, dokey panic originally in Japan. If that was in America, would that have been a hit? But now that we know what is Mario 2, huge make a blockbuster, you know?

Sure. I mean, it's a little different back then without things. It's like how they were. Well, they also thought we just weren't capable of playing that game. The other one, yeah. But, I mean, still, but, like, that was taking this random franchise that America had no, you know, nothing for, and then now tomorrow. It's smart. It's smart.

The economic imperative is on them to do these things, and it's smart. I'd be interested to see what the audience thinks of this particular question. There should be expectations. Like, when Dragon Quest 10 was announced and it was an MMO, I was like, I was a gas. I was like, I can't believe. I understand. You did it with Final Fantasy. All right.

Like, I don't really feel like Final Fantasy, frankly, it's as sacred as Dragon Quest in terms of, like, what it is. There would be no Final Fantasy without Dragon Quest. And they've always been the same. You know what I mean? It's just very grindy, very hardcore, very long, very fucking super deep, super meaty games. But they're all single player and they're unabashedly single player games and then you suddenly just take a left turn. And then you're surprised when no one really cares about the game. I mean, the thing I was thinking about a good example of this of I think doing it right, even though we've talked a great deal about Sega's, you know, what they don't do right.

The one thing they did do right, well, they've done a lot of things right. But the one thing that I'm identifying here that did it right was with Fantasy Star because fantasy star, the four Fantasy Star game, are sci-fi-based Japanese role-playing games and they're really good games. People really, really love those games and they've not gone back for 20 years to make a new fantasy star game

in the core series, which fucking is shocking to me that they haven't made Fantasy Star 5 yet. But when they made an MMO out of it, they called it Fantasy Star Online. And Fantasy Star Online was fucking huge. And they didn't burn any bridges by saying like, this is Fantasy Star 5

and disappointing people. It was just, it was its own thing in that same universe. So I often think back about that game and the popularity of that game on PC and on Dreamcasts and its sequel, which is also very popular, although I don't think we even got it here. Here's a question for you.

The online business, because you're saying, why don't they call a Final Fantasy Online? Is that just a term now so anchored in the past? Like for Fantasy Star Online, it's coming out when America Online is still a thing, when it's still a fucking feature that this thing connects to the Internet

and does all of this. You expect any game now to come out and connect to the internet and do something. So is that you think there's some, lineage that were that they're dropping it from and they're saying no no it's it's a final fantasy numbered game because final fantasy online would say that this isn't online when in reality there's leaderboards or whatever connections for you sure i i i know it's an interesting question i think with fantasy star online having come out when it did which is a turn of the century kind of game it

it yeah that made sense and i think but here's the thing is that if the precedent was set by square anx to name final fantasy 11 final fantasy online when it came out 12 years ago um or whatever it was then final fantasy 14 would have been final fantasy online too or some has some other name, and the Final Fantasy game we've been waiting for forever would be Final Fantasy 13. And that's, that's, I don't know, it's just interesting to think about it. I don't really have an answer or a direction to go in this conversation.

weren't the games actually title Final Fantasy 11 online? It was called Final Fantasy 11, yeah, colon online, I think, yeah. Yeah, so, I mean, it still did the online. But that was old as hell too, is what I'm saying. Yeah, well, I mean, even 14, isn't, isn't it Final Fantasy 14 online? Maybe not. A Realm Reborn is the one. Well, that was the remake of it.

The remake of 14. Yeah. Also, Fantasy Star Online, too. I remember a lot of people I keep seeing tweets about it. I think it did recently come out in America. Okay, cool. Because it was on Vita. And people, they announced that I think that, because Fantasy Star, on the line two, and Fantasy Star Nova

were announced in Japan on Vita, but never came here. And people were upset about it because I think the game's in English. Like, I think the game's localized for Southeast Asian countries that, you know, like we, that happens every once in a while. That happened with PlayStation All-Stars when the beta was up. And it was in, like, Hong Kong. Yeah. So, yeah, I don't, I just, I'm more curious to see what you guys

guys think of one of our audience things about that because I just feel like we've lost sight of the expectations and one of the things that I was surprised you to bring up is Tony Hawk you know oh my God yeah no you're right that's it where it started at crap and then got really good with thug yeah exactly god I hate you if that was backwards I mean again I don't want to hate on thug because I love thug and even thug too has a lot of things that I really care about there but the moment that you can get off your board that was the moment when it was like all right they've ran out of core gameplay ideas to add that make this more fluid and more fun and better.

And Doug was when it got all storied. Thug was a product of the time in the sense of they just were trying to match the Granth of Dotto feel and all of these different things. And that's when it just turned away from the Arcady skateboarding game into this more open world thing. And then American Wasteland comes out. It's like, it's all one world. There's no loading.

It's like, well, man, driving or like skating through this tunnel that's freaking three minutes long to get to the next section. It's not loading, but it ain't fun. You know? And it's like all those things. and damn Tony Hawk's a good example of that. I mean, that was one of the ones I thought of, I mean, because I've thought of series that have been really consistent too

and if they weren't consistent, they made it clear that this was a spin-off. I think Halo is a good example of that. I think Uncharted. Uncharted is a good example. That Gears is a good example of that. You know, so I feel like there's exceptions in all of those where there's like, Halo Wars, whatever, what was that? What was that? Not Halo Wars. What was that?

No, I know you're talking about the one that. The strategy game? Yeah, Clayman and Colman's got all. It was, it was. But it wasn't like that wasn't Halo 4. You know what I mean? So it was like... Well, there's also REACH and ODST and all those other ones. It seems like it's somewhat sacred to them, the continuity. Yeah.

And they know what's up. They understand what people are looking for and they know that they name it's something different. Like, that's a different game. It's not going to have Chief or it's not going to have this or whatever. Exactly. Coming back to it, right? And a modern example is Metal Gear in their number of series, right?

Peace Walker is a portable experience. Portal is something different. Revengeance is something different. Now, arguably, obviously, Metal Gear has changed, evolved over time. Yeah. But you're not making the jump from Metal Gear Solid to Metal Gear Solid 4. You know what I mean? Like there's incremental changes to get you there.

And I would go even further than that, though, with Metal Gear. Metal Gear 2, Metal Gear 2, not Metal Gear Solid 2. It's not really a Metal Gear game. But the original Metal Gear is a perfect evolution. And you're talking to Metal Gear like MSX-X-META. And the Metal Gear Solid makes perfect sense. Right, right. You know, like that's a evolution of the tech.

To Mario 64. Exactly. The tech makes sense there at that point, right? But I don't know. Maybe a lot of people disagree with me. I think we just have to be bolder by supporting new ideas so that maybe publishers and developers don't feel like they need the pigeonholings and the things that already exist,

but to give us new things that we love. Well, that's why you see the Indies doing this, right, where they get to come out with a crazy idea, a crazy name, whatever, and make their stance and their thing. And then meanwhile, it is all sequels from AAA people. Yeah.

Yeah, well, yeah. It's definitely interesting. I mean, the last thing I want to talk about is Pokemon, where I feel like they do a good job of the spinoff thing where if it's the mystery dungeon and all that stuff, those are not mainline Pokemon games. There's a color after the title. You know, that's essentially their number system.

And we're not going to see a Pokemon MMO called Pokemon Rainbow or whatever the hell. You know, actually, that'd be totally in. We should see a Pokemon MMO. That would be, that makes too much sense. If NX comes out and they're just like, if DMX, DMX walks out, he's like, Pokemon MMO. Dog. They won. Yeah, that's it.

They fucking win, Greg. All right. That would be huge. Second topic of the day is digital game pricing. So, Colin, once again, we have a lot of talks about video games. even when we're not on camera. It's shocking, I know. But we were talking about the pricing of digital games,

and I was telling you that we get a lot of messages from users that they want us to talk about how come digital games are priced at the same price point as retail games. Retail games drop their price, digital games, usually don't unless they're on flash sales or, you know, PS Plus and all that stuff. What are your thoughts on this? The simplest answer, I mean, Greg and I haven't talked about this for a long time.

The simplest answer and the answer is that they have to play nice with their retail partners. GameStop. Walmart. You can't, they understand the publishers and the first parties understand that they could cut $15 or $20 off of a AAA game and make the same amount of money in terms

of like their own rip on it because they don't have to manufacture the disc, they don't have to have a factory to do that, they don't have to ship it, they don't have to share the money with GameStop. The reason they don't do that is because if they fuck the retailers, then there is no way to sell the hardware, which cannot be available digitally. In other words,

they don't want to make Walmart angry at them. They don't want to make GameStop angry at them. That is certainly, although they wouldn't come out and say that, that has to be the answer. Yeah, 100%. And it's,

and it's, you can't go, you know, hat and hand to GameStop if you're Sony, for instance, be like, we need you to sell PlayStation 4s. And it's really important. We need PlayStation's. Exactly.

And we need shelf states. We need this amount of space. And you can have all these games too. And they're like, but your games are cheaper by 20% on your console. I'm like, oh, that's just the way this. You know, then they're going to be like,

well, we don't really need. We don't really need. of the store, you go to the back, if that even, if we even cover you, it carry you. Yeah, so it's, it's, it seems weird to a lot of people, but that is certainly part of the calculus. Until they get to a position where they're totally comfortable and maybe even comfortable with their retail partners also being comfortable in the digital space, they can't undercut them.

I think the only main handheld or system that did make their digital game cheaper was Vita. Yep, and that worked out well. So, yeah, I mean, it's certainly, you know, it was interesting. I was excited to see that because I thought maybe it was a sign of what was to come with PlayStation 4. but it's just it's not time yet. The brilliance of it though is that you know, there is a middle ground

to be explored with the games that are not at retail where they're cheaper. And also, games don't go on sale maybe necessarily very often if they're new on PSN or Xbox Live, but a lot of these games are significantly discounted later on more significant than you would find them in a store. So if you're patient,

the digital storefront's where you need to be, but I don't think that they want to, they don't want to fuck around with their retail partners because it hurts the hardware business and without the hardware, there are no games. I mean, it's no mystery as to why you see these summer sales pop up and have all these games that are old, right? Because there is the graph of like, you know, three months into you being a game stop, your game drops off. No one's coming in to buy this game that was really, really hot in October of last year right now.

You know what I mean? Like, so once that's out the door and done, then yeah, nobody's caring that you put it on sale for 80% off or whatever. They wish not's the PlayStation Summer Sale today, all these insane discounts, right? Oh, I didn't check that out. Yeah, and then it is the fact of, yeah, Indies can get out there and do whatever they want. sell them super cheap, super expensive, whatever, get in this space, inhabit it, and go. And then, of course, you see, but yeah, what you're talking about is, is the answer. Whether someone will admit it or not, right?

Because, again, you can't piss them off in public, say, this is what's happening. Well, Walmart's got us by the balls. You know what I mean? You look at Steam, right? Like, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo must look at Valve and steam be like, fuck. They are just making money hand over fist. You know what I mean? If Nintendo could be like, yeah, we should do that and just be done with it.

That'd be a game changer for them and how much money they have and what people expect from them. But right now, everybody's still in this archaic system of how this all goes and where it goes from here. Yeah, and there's certain things that need to be kept in mind. I think internet infrastructure is still a really big thing. PC gamers are typically very core, hardcore gamers. They buy lots of games. They have a good rig. They have good connections.

But if you have a cap on your downloads or you have poor Internet speeds you're on DSL, so it's all like that. And the digital ecosystem is just not applicable to you yet. And so you still have to go into the store and buy these games. And that's the unfortunate truth for these people, although I think it's going to get better every day. getting better every day. But I do think people sometimes look at, you know, Sony charging $60 for Game X, the order 1886

on PSN, and then it's $60 in a store. And their math in their heads is correct, which is like, well, Sony should technically be making way more money on games that are sold digitally. Obviously they are. But I don't think they're, I don't, that's what I'm saying, is I don't think it's a greed move. It's much as much as it's malicious. No, it's like an economic imperative move

where they're like, we can't fuck with the people that are buttering our bread, basically, which are these fucking stores that proliferate millions and millions millions of these consoles to people. It's that thing mom and dad still go into brick and mortar to buy things and have the kids are still there in front of the game's case like talking about what they want, right? It's a harder sell of like, well, I made an Amazon wish list, mom.

Like go look for it there. Yeah. We'll get to that point. Sure. I'm personally having talked about this for years now, surprise we're not there yet, but we're not. I don't think anything's really changed in a significant matter. It's a more glacial process. In 2007, if you were like, oh, will there be games on shelves and stores still?

I mean, no. Oh. You know? So like, but like, it's still not coming to pass. But I mean, yeah, I think what you're saying earlier is a big point with that where we're, you know, in San Francisco and we're used to how things work here. And we are in the class that we're at where our internet is the speeds that it is and all this stuff. But yeah, like people from where you grew up probably don't have. Well, that was the, you know, like that, we lose sight of what real life is like, right? Where I was at Comic Con. I was doing that Justice League Lego panel, right?

And I watched the movie. I'm like, this movie is great for kids and parents. And so I was like, I'm going to buy all my friends. that back home and I was like because they have kids. I'm like wait and I text them on like do you guys have a Blu-ray player like and they're like no DVDs are good for us I'm like oh okay I'll buy DVDs you know what I mean but like the real like the Trojan horse for all of this and digital is Netflix is Amazon like you know what I mean those like mind-blowing experiences when I talk to my mom she's like oh we're watching Netflix through I think it started with her

with the Wii and I was like wow you knew to download you know how to download an app on you're, you know what I mean? Like, there's little movements that get you to the point of like, well, why would I ever buy anything like this again? Why wouldn't I buy everything? Yeah, everyone has that come to, that come to Jesus moment, too. My dad has come, had that come to Jesus moment now where he's buying things, like movies digitally on Amazon and shows digitally.

Well, you've been, not even just digitally. I think Amazon itself is another huge push with that where people understand, like, because for the longest time, it was, oh, I'm not putting my credit card in the line. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's going to get stolen. What are you talking about it? Yeah, but now it happens all the time, but now the bank's not, I mean, it happens all the time now in the same way that happens all the time in real. life. You know what I mean?

Yeah. My credit card gets stolen way more now than when it was real life. Oh, I don't know. I mean, for me, it's been about the same. Okay. But you're a punk-ass kid. I am a punk-ass kid.

I do a lot of punk-ass kid things, but anyway, I think between Amazon and Netflix, there is a bit of an education going on. So these people are understanding at least what everyone else is doing and they can do it as well. And eventually, I think the internet will all catch up. And that's the thing when you look at, like, even cable

companies, right, in the X-Finity box that we have, right, the X-entertainment system. I mean like on-demand programming DVR. X is going to give it to you. God, he is. We got to get him on this. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing of like breaking down those barriers and making people understand

really what they can do. Yeah, it's been fun to watch with my own father where it's just like, you know, my mom's still a little wary of, no, she uses the computer every day and stuff, but she doesn't like do her shopping online or anything. She shows a lot of questions, which is shocking to me, but because we've been using the internet for like,

ever. For a really long time now, like 20 years. But she is not as far my dad where my dad's like, oh, there's an Amazon app. I remember having this conversation with him, and he's like, you're just buying shit on Amazon all the time. Yeah. You know, and I'm like, you know, a 65-year-old man, and so I agree that the education's coming. But Amazon is a half step because in terms of its retail kind of thing, because again, games on Amazon are the same price as the games and GameStop.

And it's the same, and they don't want to fuck it with Amazon either. That might be the retailer they want to fuck with the least, you know? Good point. Because Amazon's been smart enough as has Netflix and other companies to become a more digital storefront in addition to, being a brick and mortar storefront. They're always going to have a brick and mortar presence, but you don't want to fuck with them either. I bought my PS4 off of Amazon when it came out.

I bought everything off Amazon. Yeah, me too. So it's a tricky kind of dance that these publishers and these hardware manufacturers have to do with these companies. Eventually, they won't have to do it. But I think the imperative is on the, again, on the consumer to show those trends if that's what they want to go more in that direction. I think I do believe games will be cheaper.

First of all, games are cheaper than they've ever been, as I've said many times in the past. And that's just a fact. and I love seeing these these these these these circulars everyone puts up every once in a while like I found the circular in a box from 1992 and the games are like $80 in 1992 and I'm like see games are way cheaper $60 today and $60 in 1990 or drastically different sums of money so I think that we're going to go in that direction but when you see study after studies we talked about on Colin Greig Live a week or two ago people still love themselves those fucking retail games man and we are in the minority yeah no well that's the thing like when I learned that a long time ago with like when we do the the inboxings and I tear the box apart. People are you doing? I'm like, who saves the boxes?

In the dozens of photos that were sent of people who had walls. Just have all of them piled on top of each other, their collector's editions boxed up. I mean, that's the thing. Like, it's hard for me. I am a physical guy. I like physical things.

You are physical. I am so physical. But yeah, I love, I love Blu-Rays. I love having the game cases and stuff. And it's like, whenever I get, like, in the random times where I have to get free digital downloads of games, it kind of hurts my soul. Damn.

Because I'm just like, you're crazy. but I'm not going to have the box, you know? And there's been times where I bought the game again, because I wanted it, because I'm crazy and I'm stupid, fucking stupid, and I know that. And it excites me, like, shovel night. It's a perfect example. It's being released physically, and I'm stoked.

I am going to buy that. I want it. Why? I already beat it. I, you know, I'm enjoying it on my Vita, but I want it. And it's just, like, I understand that, and there's a lot of people out there that do that. And when it comes to the boxes and stuff,

like, oh, my God, up until it comes. couple years ago. I had all my console boxes I ever had, like the S&S, N64, PS2, all that stuff, just that, oh, that beautiful blue box. But then eventually I'm like, okay, I'm drawing the line here. Like when I moved, I was like, I'm going to throw these away. Yeah. I have to.

Yeah. And then I did. And I'm okay with that. I'm like, yeah. And thanks to eBay and stuff, if I ever, for some reason need it again, I can get it. Yeah. And I'll be okay. Another big question that I get a lot is, all right, if digital games aren't going to be cheaper than physical games, How come I don't get the digital game when I buy the physical game?

It's a great question. What are your thoughts on that? That's a great question. There's no excuse for that. I think it's starting to happen somewhat. I feel like there are games out there that you do get a digital code or something. Cross play, cross-by. Well, I mean, Vita games, you buy the empty box.

Yeah, and you get a code. Fucking awesome. Yes. That's so awesome. Yeah. And by awesome, I mean, stupid. You figure, I mean, right now it's got to be a scam thing, right? Like, right now there is, I mean, I don't know anybody who's, you know.

made a disc that you put into your system that takes the digital and burns it to your hard drive, if that makes sense. You know what I mean? Like, oh, hey, I just bought the new Call of Duty and I have an extra code, so I'm going to keep the disc, and Kevin here's your code. You know what I mean? Like, I would imagine that's the trouble. Yeah, that is a good point. Although, that's a great point.

Xbox One, now that has backwards compatibility, is reading discs and then giving you the digital version of those games based on the disc in your hard drive. But again, yeah, you would have to be able to identify. Yeah, that would be bad news. So that actually answers itself, doesn't it? I'm sure someone's trying to figure that out. I'm sure, like, if they see it, like you see with the, you get the

Blu-ray combo pack and you get all, you get the Blu-ray, the DVD and the, you know, the code for digital. So like, they have it somewhat figured out. God only knows, because I never redeem any of that crap, but. Yeah. That's really interesting. I remember, the moment I realized that I was crazy was when Fire and Blum Awakening came out

and it was available digitally, but it was so rare in stores the first, like, three weeks it was available that you just couldn't find the physical. And I just was like, as much as I bought my 3DS for that game. Yeah. I didn't even have one until then. Before then, for all the other games, I'm playing like Mario 3D land and all that.

I borrowed people's Ds and just played that way. But then I remember me, Kevin, we're going to like every different best buy. And they're like, oh, yeah, we only got like one copy. And it's like, I swear to God that Nintendo, like, limited the amount that they shipped out to get more people to push to push. Yeah. Because that's when they first were doing that day one digital, like huge push. And it seems like it worked out for them. because everyone jumped on that.

I feel like those are those going to be those moments where you stop and you're like, why would I have ever, you know what I mean? Like when I, like the for Batman and then for WWE last year, right, where I bought them and I pre-ordered them on PlayStation and you just saw the clock's counting down. I'm like, oh, okay, you know, fix it a drink, come back, sit down. Nine o'clock, bam, I'm playing the game. You know what I mean? Whereas before like in your time zone, staying up till midnight to go to the store, to wait in

line, to get it, to play for an hour, be blurry eyed, go to bed, wake up, think about it all day. It's like, the future is now, everybody. Embrace it. Fuck your boxes. The future is really, really, really promising. Because there's things like Leaping Tiger out there. So, once again, Leaving Tiger is a location-based friend-finding app

which provides gamers a way to instantly find and connect with each other regardless of the game or platform. Utilizing a database of games as well as your smartphone's location services, Leaping Tiger enables easy discovery and new friends you can message and arrange to team up and play with. Almost one breath, nice job. Yes. So Leaping-Tiger.com. There's an iOS

app. Otherwise, you have to go to the mobile thing on your Android or Windows phone. Right. They're still leaping dash tiger.com. They're working out the kinks. We've been helping obviously. They sponsored us on Patreon. Thank you so much. And you can win a PlayStation Vita. There's the gaming nights this week, every week we've been

doing it on Wednesday. Wednesday nights. And this is a free, free game, free play week. So you can play whatever you want. It's been Rocket League. You can still play Rocket League if you want. There's a whole bunch of other games, though. Literally any game. So download the app or go to the website. Jump on Wednesday. 7 o'clock Pacific time.

Find other people who are, again, still one of those things where this is like what alpha, beta somewhere in there kind of thing. It's not like being publicized yet other than our stuff. So you're going to find other kind of funny fans to play with. You play with them. You're all best friends unite. You do that. One of you wins a Vito.

Right now is it still everyone playing is a kind of funny person? I don't know. I think it is. I like to imagine we're sending so much traffic that it's 90% kind of funny. Yeah. So say what's up to some other best friends. You're going to play Sean Pitts. It's going to be good.

It's going to be good. Sean play. All right. Topic number three comes from the kind of funny. forums from our friend SF underscore likes hiking if I wanted to get to the kind of funny forums where would I go you go to kind of funny.com slash forums

or kind of funny forums.com it's really your choice both work same place what's happening to you I'm being sexy if that's the definition of sexy got some issues yeah so I also like that this guy's name is sf underscore likes hiking because obviously that's Sean Finnegan

I'm gonna assume that this is Sean Finnegan himself bro It's definitely not. But I hope. Greetings and salutations, everybody. It might be Colin. Moonlighting is Sean Finnegan. This is somebody who is just literally a blank slate

before he ran into kind of funny content. Now he just made himself out of it. A while ago, Greg did the video. Persona 4 changed my life. So I was wondering if Colin and Tim had a game they felt that way about. Also, if Greg had another game like that, I wouldn't leave him out of a question.

His ego would get mad at me. Fuck you, Sean Finnegan. Can't believe you're getting this ego thing to take. It took a long time, but the ego thing's finally taken. Oh, yeah. It happened. You guys want to go? I got plenty to say.

Go. I mean, so for me, there's, I, Persona 4 would be the most recent game that changed my life. It's from the Aaron Fitzgerald interview where we talked about it and yada, yada, yeah, yeah. Going back then chronologically. Game before that, well, you know, I'll start at the very beginning and I'll go forward, all right, to catch you up to persona. Number one, and it's funny, but it's Ghostbusters Sega Master System, because it was the first time I ever was cognizant of video games being walked around toys, are us, big Ghostbusters fan, going to buy real Ghostbusters toys with Mom, probably a new

Proton Pack, or my third. And she took me down the video game aisle and I caught the logo on the box, turned, put my finger on the glass, and I was like, what is that? And she's like, that's a video game, and I'm like, I want that. I want that. I want that for my birthday. I need that. I want that for my birthday. And they, you know, for my birthday, then later on, Uncle Mike gave me, Uncle Mike gave me

the master system and Mom and Dad gave me the game or vice versa. I forget. I hope it's vice versa. Yeah, right. My parents are like, you buy them the expensive system. We'll buy the expensive game. You're probably right. That makes more sense. So that set me on this chorus, right?

And granted, I'm sure eventually I would have run into Mario. And then maybe it would have been a different course. So, Mario. Hey, and he's like, oh, mama me. I try it as a video game. I climb in your bed. I touch a joystick. Anyways.

Damn. Mario. And then number two would be Metal Gear Solid. And I've told that story a bunch, too. So I don't know I mean to say the same things over and over again. But it came around when I was getting. that point with my N64 where it's like games are great

and I like this but is this all they are is this all it's ever going to be you know what I mean? Like I'm shooting stuff and it's like it's just gameplay you know what I mean which is great but like I didn't even know what I wanted you know what I mean and then when I traded in the N64 and bought the PlayStation that night Po and I went out to Blockbuster

and got Army Men's Sarge's heroes or whichever PlayStation 1 it was and Metal Gear's like oh right I remember EGM talking about this one and we played Army Men for 30 minutes like this sucks and put in Metal and played it for the next six hours. And that was the moment of like, I will be with this forever.

This is growing up with me. This is like a movie. This is giving me emotions and feels and telling me a story. Like, this is a hobby or whatever you want to call. And again, like I've had years now to put those emotions I didn't understand at the time into words. Right. But this is something that is growing with me and will be with me the rest of my life. It's not always just going to be Mario hitting a question mark block.

Not that I hate that. But you know what I mean? Like there's more to it than just shallow gameplay. I mean, obviously, like, the seminal franchises were really important to me, Mario, Mega Man, Castlevania, Zelda, all that kind of stuff. But the games that actually stick out to me as being like life-changing kind of events for me, Kid Icarus is probably the first one. I remember Kid Icarus being unlike anything I'd ever seen before in my young age at that time.

I was used to playing Mario and games like that. and I remember when we got Kid Icarus, I was like, this is, I was, I understood this game was hard, this game was unique, it was fun,

it was deep. I love the dungeons at the end of it. When you do four, you know, stages, you go to like this dungeon where you, you know,

we were basically like making maps for them and stuff like that. And it was, it was a memorable and fascinating game for me because I was always surprised that it never really was revisited

with the exception of the Game Boy sequel until, you know, a few years ago. And then, Super Mario World and The Link to the Past were really, really, really important games as I grew up because that's when, you know,

I was already in love with the NES and in love with the games at that time, but that was when I became an independent gamer as opposed to being like kind of my brother playing games and him introducing me to them where I was like, this is what I'm going to do, this is what I want. And that's when he and I kind of splintered off and he was playing Street Fighter 2 and he was playing Ron Mahath and all these kinds of games.

And I was playing, you know, Zelda and not that he didn't play those either, but Mario and those kinds of games. So those were like really, really super important games to me. And I'll say too, Final Fantasy 7 was a really huge game for me. Because as a role-playing game nerd growing up and being young and being even young for some of these games, Final Fantasy 7 was the moment when I realized a role-playing games were going mainstream. And that was a good thing. And I'm happy that it happened.

And it also was the game that made me get a system like PS-1. I wasn't going to go to PS1. I was going to be an N64 person and continue my Nintendo fandom. And that was such a blessing because the PS1 was so, so, so superior to the N64. And I would have never known

if some of these games didn't hit. And then I would have never been introduced to Wild Arms and I would have never introduced to Tales of Destiny and Thousand Arms and all these games that I really loved growing up. So I would consider those

the really seminal games. And then I would say most recently, like a game that really blew my mind that I didn't expect that I was going to love was Grand The World Three. um that was unlike anything i'd ever played before or since and uh was really a profoundly special game that showed me that proved to me real like there were games that i would take a break from the role playing

game kind of shit from the strategy and tactics kind of games from so like metal gear solid is a good example i'd play that or parasite eve um which i really loved but grand the total three was the game that showed me i'm like you don't really only love role playing games after all you know you really love this other shit too. And it exposed me to playing games like like shooters, which I really wasn't playing and exposed me to some just more

third person kind of platformers, which I fucking definitely didn't like, you know, at the time. My whole world was role-playing games and side-scrollers. And that is still much of my world today. But there was more to it than that. GTA3 really showed me

that you don't have to just step away from these genres you like when a Zelda game comes out or when a great new side scroller comes out that you like or you're fucking impatiently waiting from new Mega Man games like there's other shit out there too that isn't so neatly defined by these few genres you've spent so much time with and so those games are really those are the games that that that hit me as as super super important I and maybe maybe more recently Bioshock but that just showed me that a game can be so much more than a game and Bioshock's a really really special so

I would draw the line there. Those aren't necessarily my favorite games. Yeah. But if that's not the question. You know, which ones change your life? Because some of the ones on my list are definitely not the best games. But I feel like no one's going to be surprised by anything that I have to say about this.

Pokemon. Yeah, but yeah, obviously, it's like Mario, Pokemon, duh. Those are the things that changed my life when I was a little kid. Like this, they made me realize why I love video. That I love video games. Not why, but that I do. Really kind of thinking back to the key moments, though, like, obviously, Smash Brothers.

is, no matter which game it is, I've told the story a bunch of times, but that game kind of represents to me like who my friends are throughout my life. Because I grew, whether it's 64, melee, uh, brawl or the one on Wii you now,

it's like, whoever my closest friends are at that time, those are the people that I'm playing that with. And there's been like a core group of those guys that have been through all of them. And they'll just stick with me. And it's been really cool to see that game franchise grow as I grow. And see,

you know, just the, only the game's getting bigger and better and all those other stuff, but just like the fact that I still have just as much fun playing it. And a lot of times, let's do with the game and more to do with, we're all together having a lot of fun together. And that changed my life in that way. And that it made, it made me who I am based on who I hang out with and all that stuff. The game that changed my life the most has to be Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, because that game influenced who I am. When I first played it, I must have been 11.

and it's like that was, you know, puberty was happening. There's all this like weird ball for stuff happening. And I'm like, what's going on? Ball first stuff. But Tony Hawk's Pro Skater came at the perfect time for me where I was like, this is cool. I want to be cool. I want to be like that.

And the music in that game and the way that they dressed and all of that stuff, it changed me. Like I went from being this like little kid into, you know, a punk-ass little preteen. Skater boy. And, yeah, I thought it was so cool. Avril Avivine wrote a song about me. I know, it's weird.

But yeah, I feel like that game, more so than any, changed my life in the sense that I had this life and now it was different. You know, all these other things, it's like changed my life as a video game fan or whatever. An example, that would be Crash Team Racing.

Now, the reason that changed my life is I feel like that was the first time that I really played a game that I realized that I didn't just love video games. Like, thinking back to the old games, the Mario's, the crashes, the Sonics. I loved them all equally growing up.

Yeah. But it wasn't until Crash Team Racing that I played it. I'm like, I like this better than Mario Card 64. And I love Mario Card 64. You're like, I'm a traitor. What do I do?

But it was a moment when I realized that I can actually discern between these. And granted, I was really young at this time, so I know I sound stupid right now. But there was that moment where it's like, I don't just blindly love all these things equally. I can look back and actually tell you

which Mario games I like better than the other ones. Right, right. Compare them to Crash or Sonic and be like, All right, Mario is much better than these series. But when I was really little playing through them for the first time, they're all the same to me.

They're all things that I loved. I love these characters. I love the games. But it wasn't until Crash Team Racing that I was like, oh, my God. Like, I think this is the better cart racer. I think Mario 64 is better than Crash Bandicoot. I think that Mario World is slightly better than Mario 3. And like I could have these, like, deep thoughts about video games, not just, oh, I like video games.

I like these specific video games and here's why. And I think that was a big. turning point in my life in terms of the way I think about stuff. I must be missing a whole bunch of them. But that's the thing about games. Britney's Dance Beat. Brinney's Dance Beat, definitely. That really helps your balls. I did.

The ball fur thing was huge. I actually did read that game for a ball. I think you said balls first. I was like, I don't know what the hell that. Oh, no, no, no. A colloquialism here for San Francisco. Now I'm with you. The peach fuzz. Yeah. The old walnuts getting a bit shaggy. Good Lord.

But yeah. But yeah. I mean, that's pretty much it. Do you guys have any other ones you want to add to that? I mean, yeah, I was talking about games that have like, see, I mean, like, you know, it's one of those. I think that it's so recent as hard, but I mean, like, gone home was like, you know, really made me feel things in a very specific way. You know, probably the most guttural emotion reaction for me recently. You know what I mean? I feel Journey is a good one.

Yeah, Journey is a great example. I'm just trying to think more about the games that shifted by thinking about games. Final Fantasy Four is a good example. you know watching my brother play that when I was young we bought it and I didn't know that games were capable of that much storytelling and that much depth and that was really really maybe that was even though we were playing dragon quest at the time like that was really the thing where I was like this is more than just grinding and finding shit and going to the next dungeon this is a story with fucking death in it

and all sorts of fucked up shit and I mean that's a that's a real like the beginning of the Final Fantasy 4 you're like fucking you're terrorists you know like and you don't even know that until you do the deed already. You basically blow up a fucking whole town and kill everyone in it. Sorry, the game came out of 1991. You had 24 years. You know, and that was, I remember being a kid being like,

Jesus Christ. You know what I mean? And that was the game I've told many times a story about how my brother used to wake me up after everyone hit the bed. And I'd sneak into his room and we'd play it together. You know, and I would just watch and play. And I was like, this is,

there's betrayal in that game. And, you know, Kane betrays Cecil twice. I mean, there's, you know, like, tell his death and the, and the twins fucking committing suicide to save the rest of the fucking the rest of the party

and so like that way there's like I'm like I didn't know I thought we were just going to play Mario for the rest of the rest of the and this game was being like no we have bold things to say

and and fucked up shit to say you know and you're going to be mad at the game for killing these characters although some of them didn't end up really dying

but at the time it's like it's very it's very emotional and I remember I remember being like wow that that I didn't know that that was cable was the same thing

I was talking about about a Bioshock I didn't know that we could tell a story like this. You know, I didn't know what's still, like, Bioshop's still arguably the greatest story of any game, I think, and, and just the environment and the environmental storytelling and how bold it was that it didn't really want you to fight and so like that.

That's why Biococicin Infinite was so disappointing to me. So there's games like that that don't necessarily aren't congruent and necessarily with my favorite games of all time, although I've named a few games that are probably. Yeah, and it goes hand in hand when talking about something so big like that. Yeah. One that I left down, I can't believe, is Halo, the first one.

Like that game, when I think back on what are my favorite video game moments and memories, I always go back to Halo and I earlier mentioned my little Thanksgiving

weekend long things. That's Halo. You know, it's me and my friends playing these games and that influenced who I was at that time in a lot of ways.

But that really was my first multiplayer first person shooter experience. So to me, I'll always have those memories time of that game. But the whole shooter thing

that's been going on for years before that, I think the game that changed my life more than almost any of these games is CounterStrike. And I don't even play CounterStrike. But CounterStrike stole Alfredo Diaz away from me for an entire year. Like, we had been best friends for the first, like, two years of high school, and then all of a sudden he got addicted to this game. And I just stopped seeing him. Like, and it's like, it's not even a joke.

Like, it changed our friendship. It changed our dynamic. And it was really interesting that a game literally changed my life in a bad way. Yeah. You know, and then it was, Halo kind of. brought it back for us. So thank you Halo. Thank you. You saved our relationship. Thank you, Mr. Chips. Yeah. So this topic has been sponsored by Audible. Do you love books but find that you never have time to read them? Well, Audible.com has the perfect solution. Get audiobooks and listen to

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you can exchange it at any time, no questions asked. So, go to Audible.com slash KF Games today to get a free audiobook of your choice and a free 30-day trial membership. Again, show some support and get a free audiobook and 30-day trial at audible.com slash KF Games. nailed it knocked out of the park team good job thanks Greg final topic for the day right now there's this little thing going on called

summer games done quick 2015 speed might know it as SGDQ oh yeah of course yeah so it's where it's a speed running thing and uh they've been doing this the whole thing for charity for a couple years now and it started out really small now it's this thing where

the week it's going on every major outlets covering it and talking about it Twitter is a blaze with all this this stuff. My question... The fire department just rolled by? Yeah, man, they're like, they're on the way.

Twitter's on fire, go! Too many people are talking about games done quick. So lit. With you guys, what are your thoughts in speed runs? And have you ever speed run anything? They're abominations. My God, great. Speed runs are cool.

I've never had a mind for games that way. Like when you and I did the God of Warstream where we went down there and the Speed Runners came through, the guys who do games done quick, came through and did the God of War games. I thought that, Like, I, when I think speed runs, I think, oh, man, you're really good at a game and you're going. And they're just breaking the shit out of games and, you know, glitching through walls and

flying all over places they shouldn't even be able to fly. It's like, damn. You know what I mean? Like, it's one of those skills that is so crazy. I think about the time and dedication put into that than to get your, to get down and get down and get down. Like, that's insane to drive your time down that way. It's interesting because, I mean, I'm not a pro when it comes to this stuff and I don't

really know. I'm not the hugest fan of this. So there's a whole. group of things that I just don't understand when it comes to speed runs, because there's different types, there's the 100% runs, then there's the just finish the game, like get to the credits, then there's

no glitch, yes glitch, like all these different like parameters you can kind of put around it, and one game can be speed ran 10 different ways. And there can be 10 different communities for that game within that because the people that glitch aren't the same guys that just do the 100% or just the credits

and all that stuff. And so we were talking we watched these God of War guys, and the way they were doing it was just total glitch. It's just get to the end as fast as possible, and you're not really playing the game. You were playing a completely different game at that point. I enjoy watching the ones that are actually

just more, like, don't break the game, just play normally. And man, there's something really bad going on. Kevin, just leave the window open, it's fine. People have, the jigs up, everybody. We live in a crack den. The police and fire department are outside. We've been found. But I'm always interested in seeing games

that I've beaten a ton of times. to see how people play it differently than I do. Yeah. And I'm just not good at games that way. Like I could never, never play. But I love watching the YouTube videos. Like recently, I just did a run of Crash Bandicoot 1. Definitely no speed involved.

Sure. Just want to play through it. But the Crash Bandicoot speed run just happened a couple days ago. And I started watching them like, good Lord. Like, these guys are good. But then it's weird because if you saw them just play, they're not that good. They're good at doing one very specific thing.

Like they know the route and they practice that route. Yeah, yeah. And it's crazy. It's just fucking nuts. Do you have anything, Colin? Yeah, I mean, I've always really been interested in speed running. It's the same thing I always say, like with the same admiration I show towards the fighting game community. I kind of show towards the speed running community because I think it's a great discipline when you kind of jump into a game and learn how to just fucking destroy it.

That said, it's not for me necessarily. There are games I think that I play very expertly. I think I play, you know, Mega Man games and Castlevaney games with like, expert. but I'm not necessarily trying to get through the quickest way. What's more important to me when I'm playing a game is to play it elegantly and I think I play Mega Man really elegantly and I think I play Castlevania elegantly

and with that to me that definition means killing all the enemies, going fast but not being a hasty, not trying not to get hit when I can. Sometimes you do and you just keep going. It's not a huge deal but especially some of the Mega Man games like some of them I just get hit intentionally so I can keep going because that is more of an elegant way to play the game as opposed

of just like bogging it down for a while. But I've never been super interested in it. I had the I had, I was on the world leaderboard for Mega Man 10. I might probably still am actually. I mean that game very quickly. I obsessed over getting on them, because there was a leaderboard. I'm like, well, I'm going to have to do it now.

And, but I'm not trying to like break the game or whatever. I have a lot, you know, you guys talk about your experience of the god of war stream when I did the bloodstained stream at Twitch. They brought in a bunch of speed runners for various Metroidvania games. So we saw like, even new games like Orion the Blind Forest just getting fucking broken. And it's super interesting to watch the way that they play it so surgically. And the way that they get mad at themselves when they don't hit a benchmark or a milestone or whatever, you know, and they feel like they're behind or whatever.

Or the adulation, the excitement when they are beating their time. I sit down and watch these things when they're going on sometimes, just random games. And I would, it's not something that's not the way I want to play a game. I consider myself a completionist. I want to do everything in a game. To get through these games, you do as little as possible. Typically, unless you're doing 100% runs, which aren't as common, it seems like, in what I'm seeing as opposed to just how fast can you beat the fucking game.

So a great deal of respect for that community. That community is growing. That's one of the things I was talking to those guys about. It's like, how do you find each other? How do you identify games that you want to play? There's a lot of interesting questions. Same questions. There is a lot of overlap, I think, with the fighting community in terms of the questions you ask

and the community and how some of these people really latch on in these games for years and years and records that are set 10 or 15 years ago that seem like they're untouchable suddenly just get broken. Yeah. In very organic ways when people figure out games anew

if they do ROM dumps and kind of really study the shit out of them. One game, we were just talking about Kidachris in the last topic and I watched the guy just break Kid Icarus. You know what I mean?

I was like, Jesus, that's a fucking hard game, you know? And the way he was playing and the little things they were doing to just cheat the system, I was like, this is really pretty remarkable stuff.

So it's from a technical level, from a systems level, it's fun to watch. It's not for me. It's not something I'm really interested in doing. I'm more interested in like, if I'm going to be, if I'm going to claim I'm good at a game,

it's because I think I play it in a very comprehensive and elegant way, which again is undefined. And I don't play all games that way at all. Most of the games I play, I don't play that way, but I think I'm a very competent gamer overall. But I feel like I'd be crushed by the pressure of sitting down and being like,

well, I'm great at Mega Man 3, so let's just speed run it and see what I can do because I can't beat the game nearly as fast as these other guys can. But I can play it. You know, so it's all about speed running to me is all about like the, the endth degree of not necessarily, not necessarily skill, which I think is what you're saying, but skill in a different way that no one, which is like, how do you break it? How do you, how do you cut and shave seconds, milliseconds, and how do they combine to make your time shorter? And one of the cool things when I was talking to those speed runners that had a lot of respect for at Twitch was like, what is the community like? For instance, if you learn how to break Orie in the Blind Fars,

which is a new game in a different way, do you keep that to yourself? Well, so that was interesting with us with the God of War guys, is they were telling us that there's all these different separate communities within the speed running. So there's people that, I think they're called like glitchers. Yeah. So there's people that they don't even speed run themselves.

They just like breaking the game and finding out all the different things you can do. And they'll come up with things and, like, name them, like, whether after themselves or after something, and it'd be like the jury method or whatever it is. And then they'll give them to the speed runners. And they'll link these different methods and things together to kind of create their own thing. But then there is like secrets and there is stuff that's like they don't tell people how they do it. But it's like obviously that they can because you can see them play the game.

And what was also really cool is they'd be played through the game and they have it so unlocked that they're just kind of like talking to us and like totally not caring. But there'd be certain parts where it's like, all right, guys, serious time. Serious time. It's serious time. And that's kind of like a well-known thing within the community where it's like if it's serious time, everyone shuts the fuck. up like this is a challenging section that they need to get through and it was awesome when things were just break down everyone would be like oh crap so you knew that like this was like steak the stakes were high there and you'd watch and then if he'd fail it was such a big the whole room would be

like ah but if he made it it was like fuck yeah you were this shit yeah and like that's cool and you see it in all these awesome games done quick or yeah videos where the whole room is just like the entire video is the most awkward thing in the world to watch because it's one guy playing a game super serious he's not talking he's not doing like all the kind of funny nimbly bimbly crazy shit we were screaming and stuff they're just sitting there playing and there's a room full of people like this i like sometimes there's commentators and it's just like they'll just sit there you know yeah but then all of a sudden something happens they're all like those are the cool moments and like that's it's very exciting to see i never had the mind to speed

run i never really thought about i think the closest i ever came was in tony hawk three to unlawful lock the characters and lock all the, like, Darth Mall and all the crazy stuff, you'd have to beat the game with each character. So there's a lot of games, like fighting games are that way and a lot of the arcadey stuff. So I did find myself trying to find ways to shave off time and beat the game as quick as possible. And I got it down that I could beat it,

now that this is like a crazy time, but like, I remember being able to beat it in 50 minutes. So every day I was like, all right, I'm going to beat it with three more characters. Yeah, yeah. I know how long that's going to take me. And I would just kind of cycle it all through. But besides that, the only other challenge,

I've ever given myself like that would be smash Bros. Melee, which wasn't a time thing. It was more like, I was like, I'm going to beat classic mode on very hard. And I did eventually, but I remember having to play like every night, like trying to finally do it. And Super Mario Bros. won, which is the thing that we need, we need to do this. Me versus you, race to beat it. Because there's the thing. Do you want to do it organically? We'll play all the stages.

Organically. Yeah? So no, no warping? Wait, wait. Hold on. No. We warp. We have to work.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that's the thing. is like I just I feel like I'm pretty good at that game just beating it. I'm not good at the game. I'm good at beating the game. There's a difference there.

I mean, I'm rusty at it. I know you're better than me at Morrow. I'm rusty at it, so we'll see. I haven't played the original Morrow in a while. But that is like muscle memory. I will say that I learned similar things

that you guys were learning from from sogging the speed runners that it seems like it's a very collaborative and friendly community. Yeah. And yeah, they were saying to me that, yeah,

sometimes they'll learn, they'll figure out a secret and they'll, they won't tell anyone about it until it is an inevitably revealed in a video and then I'm like, well, this is what I figured out to cut my time down, and then everyone emulates it. And I think it's, it's cool. It seems like a very positive community. I think it's really, really neat. It's not the way I play games. I'm more, again, more into the comprehensive kind of style of, like, platinum and gamer doing, I like 100% of it. I like, I don't get involved in almost any game without the intention of doing that.

And it doesn't always work out that way or even usually work out that way, but that is always the intent to do every side quest, to find every item, to find every heartpiece, all those kinds of things. That's more the way I play. That's the antithesis of speed running a game. All right. As always, this last topic is going to be a bunch of random questions from the community. If you want to leave your topic, go to the Kind of Funny forums at kindof funny.com slash forums. A girl Lindsay over there. See, wait, that confused you, right? Yeah. Because Greg does that all the time, and I don't know exactly what if he's about, it seems like he's going to say something. I was stressing the point you were making.

Oh, no, I get that. The problem is that I stressed the point while you were talking. So you looked up and it looked like I was about to say something. You're going to go back and watch it. I'm totally your white man. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. It scares me sometimes.

Everybody gets used to. I'm throwing new things in. A girl Lindsay over there on the forums. Reorganized the whole thread. So it's really nice. There's a new system where people can once a month submit a question. So it's their question of the month. So it's not just saying people all the time.

And it's been really good. They've thought more about their questions. They've put out nice, detailed questions. And I appreciate that. A couple of the topics from this show, last topic, the Sean Fitting likes hiking one, that was our first ever topic from the community that we use it as a full topic.

Okay. Not just these little ones. So I like this. to you guys. Dave Martinson, aka Martin Swagger. Yeah, nice name. With fewer developers

using resources on this feature, is split screen dead? Does it really matter it was split screen a product of the times? This is probably based off the whole Halo 5 not having...

I don't think split screen's dead. A lot of people still put split screen in the games and do things with it. But the problem is that as we demand prettier games with better frame rates and better graphics, that's when it gets to the point where we can't split that

and have it look good and do that. Also, how many people are actually using it? Yeah, you can't render in the game twice like that. very intensive. It could be very intensive. Yeah,

I mean, I personally think split screen should be dead. I don't, I don't see how in this robust world of online gaming, where everyone wants to be

interconnected where, like playing with your buddy on the couch is really as important as the online infrastructure of a game. So I think Halo is doing doing the world of service by getting rid of that stuff

because it's like, well, we're moving on now and you're going to play with your buddies, you're just going to play on your own TVs, you know?

Nothing wrong with that. Then you have a full screen and the full processing power of the system to run the game. technically this is embargoed but I won't say anything about the game but you already said that me and alfredo went and played gears of world in addition right and so like that's a game where I'd want to play side by side TVs and such you know what I mean there's split screen in it sure and there was interesting about it is I remember thinking about this while I was watching you play is the way that the screen was split is it's still like him on top you on bottom but like there's like letter boxes on the side yeah they did it where they didn't like crop and zoom and make it ugly yeah Yeah, and it's interesting seeing the evolution of split screen, because, you know, back in the day, it was a 4x4 screen or 4x3 screen,

so just the square, the crosshair square, didn't really, like, change things too much. You just have four squares. Then once things moved over to a widescreen, like, I guess last gen was when it was fully a thing. Sure. Before then it was, like, a, you know, premium thing. Right.

We kind of saw more of a split down the middle thing where it would, like, like, Mario Kart, you see this, where before it was, like, top and bottom, then it kind of turned into left and right. Right. Now I liked what they were doing. It robs you of real estate the other way. They talked about the fact that, yeah, you know, split it and zoom in, but then you lose what's happening. And like, Borderlands splits it and zooms in.

And it's fucking impossible to read, like, what's happening in your inventory on these pop-ups, right? So that was the thing. Christine and I were playing Borderlands, right? But we both wanted the best experience. So we just played on TV side by side. You know what I mean? Like, I like that. If I want that local co-op experience, I'd rather go that way.

Worked great in gears. Like me, Alfred and I had a great time. Let's play at YouTube.com slash kind of funny games on Monday. But yeah, it's like, okay, if I was, if we were, if Alfredo and I were going to play in the same house, I would just say, let's move two TVs and together. But I mean, him asking if it's a sign of the times. I think that that's, it's a sign of the times in terms of what we can do. Because, yeah, back in high school, I would have loved to be able to just be like, I would just play on on several TVs. That's cool. Yeah.

But that wasn't the case. When you're a little kid, you don't have access to all that stuff. And they were also giant tube TVs. Exactly. So it's like, it's a little bit different. But I remember when CounterStrike came out on Xbox and there wasn't split screen. And I was like, what? Like the hell?

Yeah, yeah. It doesn't even make sense. And I was so pissed at that that I'm like, no, I don't want to just play on line. I don't want to play with you guys and like all this stuff. I don't want to buy two copies. Sure. That's the other thing. You need two copies if you're going to play in the same house.

I think that's a bigger deal than the whole real estate or like different TVs. Great point. I hope it never goes away, but I mean, that's a novelty. I just don't know how many people use it. You know what I don't even know. And I can't speak to what's happening with these goddamn kids anymore. Yeah. Finished basements.

Doing all their damn things. All right, Dan Phillips. season passes. How bad do they suck? They don't. You're stupid. I don't think they suck at all. You're not stupid, damn. I don't think, no, I don't think they suck. I mean, it is a wait and see approach.

Wait and see what they announced for it and then go from there. Like, I don't, that's the thing. For me, like, Witcher 3's out, right? Right. And I'm saying when it came out, right? I bought the season pass because I was so blown away with the game as is that I'm going to chip away at it for years, probably. So yeah, even if I never touched the season pass, I want you to have that money so,

you know, you did a good job. And the same thing with Batman, right? Batman Arkham Night comes out. Everybody flips out that it's a $40, $50 a season pass, whatever it was. And then they're like, all right, here's what we're doing. Batgirl, a couple things. More villains. I'm like, Don, sure.

Again, your game's awesome. Take the money. I don't mind. You know what I mean? Like, the season passes content I want to get to, but more than likely it's content I don't get to, but I want to tip my hat to the developers. I did the same thing with Borderlands, too. Borderlands, too.

I bought that season pass because there was some, there was bonuses up front I wanted, and then there was going to be all these expansion packs down the line, and I never even touched them. But I like knowing. It's like Colin always talking about with cable. I like knowing it's there. I like knowing that I saved a buck or two on something I may or may not play. But it's also really honestly just that I love your game so much right now.

Love it so much that I want to give it to you. Now, I don't buy season passes if I don't know what's going to be in them. And I think, ooh, like, WW2K had a season pass, right? I didn't like rush out to buy that. I'm like, what's this game? It's your option to buy it or not. If you just want to buy one piece, wait and buy that one piece. But I like the idea, you're kind of getting at this,

that it makes you buy the stuff. that you weren't necessarily going to buy, but now you can play it because you have it. And I think for me, I wish that Smash Bros. had a season pass. I know I'm going to buy everything they put out for it. Sure.

So to me, it sucks having to go in and buy it each time. Minor complaint, I know. But what does cause an issue for me is I don't need the Me Fighter costumes. I'm not going to use them. I never use that character.

That's not my thing. But I still want to have them because they're available. So it's like, that's the thing of, now I'm questioning buying these little things don't need. Whereas if it was a season pass, it'd be like, whatever.

Cool. It's like, it's like, it's like what happens with our Patreon folks, or it's like people on, like on Kickstarter, when I back at a tier, not necessarily because I want that goodie or whatever, because I want to support them at that tier. And then I get a whole bunch of stuff. I was like, oh, I didn't even know I was going to get that. Whatever, that's cool. You know what I mean? Like, I like supporting the games and developers I love, like Mario Golf World Tour, right? They're like season past. I was already like 50 hours in. I'm like, yep, thank you. Thank you for this amazing game. You know what I mean? And I love the courses and I love the characters. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I mean, I don't know. I

I don't necessarily agree. Jim Sterling when I interviewed and brought a good example about and I don't know, we were talking online passes actually, I think we're totally different, but we were saying like when something's introduced it's all,

it doesn't take long for it to be totally fucking bastardized. The Batman example is a fucking complete bastardization of the online pass. You have to have some fucking balls to charge people $40, 50 dollars for an online pass or for a season pass for a DLC and I don't even really care like what's in it.

If you're like, if you're justifying its price as being almost as much as a full game that make a fucking full game. You know what I mean? At that point, but it's not going to be the full game. It's certainly not going to be the density of content that you would get

in the $60 game that you just bought. That is now 70% the price of what you're paying for it again. In other words, to get the full Batman experience, you're going to pay $100. You know? Like, to me, I'm like, I don't know about that. Like, I think that that's weird.

I understand the money savings and you can, no one's forcing you to buy this shit. Yeah. People clearly are buying them because they're continuing to be evolved and available for, people as they exist, but I'm not, I'm not so sure that, listen, like, I, I mean, let me back up, I don't really agree with what Greg saying, because it's like, you're not rewarding the

developer, you're recording the publisher, you know, and the developer is going to get some trickle down, but like, if you're paying, buying all this stuff for Witcher or whatever, like, that's, which is a bad example, that really kind of sell publishing that game, but if, if, like, Batman, for instance, it's not really going to, to Rock City, it's going to WB, you know, for content that they already paid for. And, you know, I'm sure that there's some sort of profit sharing model. It's just to me, I think that I understand why people are upset about this and why a lot of people don't like it. Because it's like, WB came out with the Batman thing.

I was like, oh, we're charged. How much was it? No, it's $40. So $40 and no one even knew. Oh, excuse me, $40. And everyone's like, you fucking kidding me? You know? And I think that that's a rational, totally rational thing.

Because at the end of the day, then your Batman Arkham Knight experience was $100. $100. This is something that we didn't get to in topic two of this show. We were talking about the digital pricing and stuff. But originally when you were talking about it, that was going to be the point of the topic, which was, do you think we'll see a lot more $25 digital games? And also, could we see $100 digital games?

And, like, because digitally you can kind of put whatever price you want. And I think in terms of this, it's like, the Batman thing, is Batman with all the stuff worth $100? That's the question, right? Yeah, no, it's a great question because that's what I was talking about. We talked about it on Colin and Greg as well, where I'm like, people are excited about digital. pricing because, and rightfully so, because it's going to make games cheaper because there's

going to be fewer middlemen. So you don't have to pay GameStop and the fucking, you have to pay the gas and the trucker and all this kind of shit in the factory. And that's fucking trucker. And so it's all, it's all those things that really need to take into account in the economic model of how we digest our retail games. And I'm like, okay, so that's great. I'm excited to see the return of the $30 and $40 game. I really want to see what that looks like. And I said, I'm like, I want to see what a $100 game looks like? Like, what is your game that it's going to be $100? What does that mean? And knowing what's in this Arkham Night thing

and having played almost to the very end of Arkham Night, I have no desire to really beat it at this point. I don't know why. Because that's how you're with AAA games. It's, yeah, yeah, generally. It's, is that $100 game? I don't think so. See, for me it is, and that's why, like,

I bought my Arkham Knight. I didn't get it for free. Like, W.B couldn't get us codes in time. So I was like, oh, thanks, no big deal. And I bought the premium edition, PlayStation, whatever, the $90 ahead of time one, which is all of it bundled together. And for sure, I'm talking, you're talking about how much could you charge a game without other stuff.

The 50 hours I put into Batman Arkham Night, I mean, before the DLC, totally worth my $100. Right, but you're putting, not that I'm disputing the amount of time you put it in the game, but most of that time was finding Riddler trophies

and getting three stars on AR challenges now, because there's no way you spend more than 15 or 20 hours at the most on that game. Yeah, I mean, like, it's two runs. It's two runs of this story. Oh, a new game plus, so you're playing the game again.

So, yeah, so to me, it's like, I'm not necessarily disputing the way you feel in terms of like, that's your prerogia. I mean, whatever you pay is what it's worth. Sure.

And that's exactly right, because I was going to say, if they released a Mega Man 11 and it was an 8-Bicane, I paid fucking $200 at that game at this point. Like, I don't even care. Just take whatever you want. Yeah. You know, so, but that game to a lot of people is $10. Even though that game back in the day was $60, $70 on NES, and that was in 1980, $19.89 money. So again, we have to have some context.

But, yeah, I get why he feels this way. And I think that's a common theme. You know, it definitely is. And because, and I'm not mad at DLC. I'm not mad at a fucking day one. D.L. I've never been mad at that. I'm not mad at how much people might be paying for these things. Because, like, for instance, if you're paying for like a new set of missions that take an hour and the game is 20 hours long, then doesn't that mean the piece of content theoretically is worth like three bucks, you know, but you're charging $9.99 or something like that for it. I get it. I get why people are upset about it. Totally. You know? And as I've gone on, I don't typically buy DLC. The last time I bought like all of the DLC for a game was like fallout in New Vegas. So that was. five years ago. I'm not like really much

of a DLC guy. But as I've thought about it and kind of changed my own opinions on these things, I'm like, yeah, I get it. I think that we're getting a little too bold with the pricing.

Don't you think it's dialed it back though? I feel like we were bold in the beginning when it was or you're getting a skin, you're getting like the dumb shit you didn't want horse armor. You know what I mean? I feel like now more than ever

there is an argument to be made that no, no, this stuff's worth the money. And I'm talking broad. We'll see. That's why I like the idea of expansion packs. Oh yeah,

expansion passenger. Like, as opposed to DLC, like, but, like, it seems like a lot of the DLC, which I can't play because I didn't pre-order the fucking game on Batman,

uh, is, which is another stupid, yeah, I mean, the assonine thing, uh, is,

like, I've been hearing like, you can get through this in like an hour, you know, like, yeah, back girl story,

yeah, like, it's like, okay. I mean, I still need to go back to get all the other stuff I need. I still need to pop balloons

and get teeth and do all this other shit. Sure, but it reminds me, reminds me of my complaints with infamous what was it? No, no, no. Because first light was awesome. Second son. No, no, infamous

Festival of Blood. Oh, thank you. And Infamous Festival of Blood was an expansion pack, but it was like an hour and a half long. And I remember we had, you know, I, like, I said in my real one, you can be this like 90 minutes, you know? Yeah, I love that, though. I remember Ratcheting Clank, the Quest for Booty came out, and I was all about that. It's like, here's, this was like, at the tail end of the Ratchet and Clank, like, oh my God, you

doing way too much. Like, I get it. I get it. This is like, here's just a little more. Yeah. Here's enough that's not gonna be over done. We're tying you over to the real game.

Yeah. And I enjoyed that. I was pissed about that with Fesola Blood because it was fun. It was the last time we ever saw Cole, but it was like 90 minutes long. And I'm like, this is,

this is. I don't remember. It was like maybe 1499 or something like that I want to say. I remember you and I had not had a fight about it, but I remember I disagreed the review. That was my thing when we were talking about it

and we were going back forth. I mean that I would have gone higher on it. Like I loved that. I loved episodic. And I guess that's what I'm talking about too. When you're saying the money's going to the publisher, not the developer, that's fine for me. I want them to see how much I want this content. I mean, if they would have just kept making 90-minute coal missions or first lights or whatever, I'm like, yep, here you go.

Here you go. Sure. And I want to be clear that there's probably deals where the money goes to both. And when you buy a game, the money's going to the publisher too. So it's not necessarily that there's any sort of money being shared. Sometimes the games are paid for ahead of time. But I am just saying that, like, yeah, it's just a strange. The way we've parsed out content is strange and unpredictable and inconsistent.

And so I get really excited about something like what Phala, like what Bethesda with Fall where they're like, especially Point Lookout on Fall 3, which I think was fucking awesome. I thought Point Lookout was even arguably better than the regular game. Because it was a whole new map and it was the one where you got in VR, right? No, no, VR was Operation Anchorage. The Point Lookout was the one where you went to Maryland in like the swamps. And it was like a whole new map. And I was like, this is fucking rad.

This is like, I'd rather, instead of having. this piecemeal bullshit, just give me something fucking new. That's like a half step towards the next game. And so that's even what the witcher's really doing. Your D.L.C. is free and then you're getting expansions with your season past. Exactly. Dyn likes doing the same thing and I think that that's a more positive way because at least you're getting some meat on the fucking bone.

And when I look at like WB stuff with Batman, we haven't seen it all, obviously. But when I'm reading about like well the Red Hood DLC or whatever the fuck it is, I don't even know what all of it is. Scarecrow. It's like it is nothing. You know? And people are paying good money for this stuff. Sure. So they better have way more, you know, or people are going to be pissed.

And the thing that's important, I think, is we always say, speak with your wallet. It's an important thing to do. But also remember who treated you good and who treated you bad. As a lot of that, that was all I was saying, you know, during the Mass Effect 3 kerfuffle, which, you know, as we talked about with the Jim Strolling video, I definitely was inelquent and wish I could have done that differently. But the one thing that I wanted to really tell people was, like, if you hated this so much, you better remember the next time EA tries to release a game that you want because that's the only, that's the only thing. that's the only way to make them pain and fucking as sure is shit you're all going to buy

Mass Effect Andromeda. You know? So it's It's We also as consumers I think need to be More principled If we really find something that's fucked up If we don't like the online pass

We don't like the deal see if you don't like the season pass And you gotta fucking hit it hit him where it hurts But we don't have the fortitude I think generally to do that I don't sometimes I get mad at about a game I'm mad at Nintendo for the Not speaking to me I'll give them fucking hand over fist money if the annex is something I want. It's just the way it is.

Yeah. Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, that's the Kind of Funny Games cast. If you want your questions answered, go to kindof funny.com slash forums. Fill out a topic. Let us know what your questions are.

We'll answer them on the show. Until next week, I love you all. I love your bodies. I love the things you do with them. I love your minds. I love those even more. Keep doing those things you're doing.

I like that. I see that wink you're giving me through the computer right now. It's making me feel good. It's making it feel good in all the right places. Kevin, you can cut this whenever you want. Don't cut it, Kevin. You don't need to. You don't need to at all.

We have a conference call right after. Let's let it roll into that.