Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - What Makes A Game Worth $60 and Dreamcast Memories - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 86

Episode Date: September 23, 2016

We discuss our back to school gaming memories, what makes a game worth $60, games set in specific time periods, and the Sega Dreamcast. (Released to Patreon Supporters 09.16.16) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, guys. This episode of The Kind of Funny Games cast is brought to you by Casper Mattresses. Casper is an online retailer of premium mattresses for a fraction of the cost. They're revolutionizing the mattress industry by cutting the cost of dealing with resellers and showrooms and passing that savings directly to the consumer. Casper combines two technologies, the springy latex foam and supportive memory foam, to create an award-winning sleep surface with just the right amount of sink and just the right amount of bounce. Get a Casper mattress for $500 for a twin or $950 for a king size, Comparing this to industry averages, that's an outstanding price point.

And you can save $50 towards a mattress purchase when you go to casper.com slash gamecast and entering the promo code Gamecast. That's Gamescast without the S. So G-A-M-E-C-A-S-T. Terms and conditions apply. It's free shipping and returns to US and Canada. Again, that's casper.com slash gamecast and promo code Gamecast. What's up, guys?

Welcome to the first ever, episode 86 of the kind of funny gamescast. as always, I'm Tim Gettys. Join by the coolest dudes in video games, Colin Moriarty and Greg Miller. Hi. How you guys doing? Good. Okay.

Colin's shirt always makes me think for a second. It's a red-ded-dead shirt. Because it's black and it says red. I'm like, oh, red-black. That's my Red Dead 3 shirt. Northeast. Northeastern.

They're going crazy. They have horses over there. We're done with Mexico. It's fine. They're riding in the tunnels underneath Northeastern. You guys playing any fun games lately? Ocean horn. I continue to play.

that what's up with that uh it's a zel that's that zel will knock off i think we were talking about on last week's games cast uh i played a little bit of it played a little bit more super simple super fun though in terms of all right it's just totally zelda on playstation four and it's not even for when i first started i was like oh it's zeld in the way of like i got my sword i got my shield you know isometric whatever top down or not top down you whatever out going through chopping up stuff getting pot smashing them i get the things go through and play it and then it was like oh now you got to go in this boat to another island i got in the boat i'm like well this fucking exactly like Winwaker.

Because they were a talking dragon. Not yet. I haven't had a talking dragon yet. Not yet. Not yet. No, no, no. But I haven't been shooting a whole bunch of the people. But there's like creatures that are like, totally like this guy pops out of the ground and shoots the pebble at me. And I'm like, oh, knock it right back at him. I'm like, all right, cool. But I'd be like, whatever.

It's fun. I didn't realize this was a mobile game. Me neither. No, because we talked about it before in the last games cast. And then somebody was like, yeah, this came out to Apple TV. It's been out for years or whatever and showed them playing with it. When playing it, I knew it seems simple. And it has that thing of like, you're in a new area. Here are the three challenges and stuff that's such a mobile trope or whatever.

But just like the Steam version that's super well rated, this one is fun. There's something about it. It's just, you know, that formula in this style. There's no like deep story to it obviously. Yeah, it's fun your father or whatever. But it's just fun going island to island, going through, doing these puzzles going, you know, having fun. Yeah. You been playing anything call? Not really. Before Pax, we worked that whole week and then Pax and then so I've not played anything except for the, I got most of the way through inside. I was getting the trophies. And then Aaron wanted to play it, so I started playing it with her or whatever and starting again. And I kind of really, so I don't know how the game ends.

I'm going to get there hopefully today after work, but I'm kind of super curious actually about what this game is all about. I got to give a shout to this game. This game is a masterclass of design. And it's a really happy you like it. It's an absolutely brilliant game. I wouldn't expect you to. It's awesome. I think it's different than Limbo in, I haven't played Limbo in years.

But when I played Limbo, I was like, this is fine. It's a good, good game. I don't understand. As we said before, why is this so acclaimed? Like, it's a fun, clever little game. I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that it was really one of the proving grounds of the viability of the downloadable platform. Inside is so clever. And you can tell why it took a long time to make because obviously they're a small team.

They have the money to take their time. Limbo's on everything and they made a fucking ton of money. But I like how nothing in the game happens by chance. And this is a, and nothing's coincidental. in the game, everything's there for a reason. And obviously, in a linear game like that, that's easy to do in premise, but designing an interesting feedback loop where you almost want to die to see what happens. And that that is one of the mechanics in the game is just figuring out what happens

if you pull the switch, just so you see, just so you know. And one of the cool things with Erin specifically is that she doesn't play games and she's learning, is that like, she's learning. It's fun watching someone learn what I would call gaming logic in this game. I'm like, well, just pull the box or like pull the switch and figure out what happens. Like the things we take for granted. But what the coolest thing in the, and I don't even want to talk about specific parts,

but there's a, there's a part in the game that I think is maybe the most clever, one of the most clever things I'd ever seen in the game before. It's specifically when you're like walking, um, with a bunch of people in a lot. Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, it's very simple and it's super fucking creepy and it opens,

that part of the game opens the story up in a very specific way, if you pay attention. But I'm like, this is so, this takes a high level of, like game know how to make a game like this. And nuance. It's all about nuance.

And I love how every death in the game is not, even in a AAA well-received game like Uncharted 4, Drake's falling off a cliff and he clips through the world and there's like a scream that you heard five times. That's it, right? Nate now, no. Or in Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid games, always the snake or whatever,

but it's like it just goes. And that's a, you know, like, you know, the game over thing, whatever. But in this, like, if you die on this screen, someone animated a way for you to die on this screen from this thing. And then you move out on the next screen. There's three ways to die here. And each of those is a very designed specific way to die.

And brutal, too. Yeah. And I'm like, it's so cool. This game is really cool. There's another part of the game where you pull a switch. And if you just wait for minutes, like there's no reason to wait. But if you just wait for a minute on end, you see these guys pull out a machine. And like it literally takes probably like two minutes.

They eventually wheel out this thing and then turn it on. And then it eventually just finds you. So you can leave the game just sitting there for like five minutes and then eventually it'll kill you. And so I was not knowing how it ends and all that kind of stuff. I think the story's super intriguing. I have no, she and I keep talking like, what do you think is happening? I really don't know.

Like, I really have no idea like what I have no. I have no assumption of what it even is. And I just think it's an absolute masterclass in game design. Like this is exactly what I'm talking about when I say like the answers to our problems in gaming do not come from necessarily. power of the machine, but from fucking clever minds that work within the confines of what we already have. And this game doesn't have to even need a PS4 at Xbox one to run. And they might have to draw back the graphics, whatever.

It wouldn't make the game any less, you know, any less awesome. So I just want to give a shout at the play deck. I think it's a really, really, really fucking cool game. Yes. This is the Kind of Funny Games cast every week we get together to talk about our love for video games and all things relating to them. You can get it on Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny Games or you can get it for free on YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny games as we break it out. If you want to do that, you should subscribe.

That'd be really appreciated. Or go to iTunes and search for us. We're also an audio podcast. You can subscribe there. That would help us out too. We'd like that. If you would like to adorn yourself with beautiful, beautiful kind of funny goods,

you can go to kind of funny. Where we have a new hoodie that I cannot wait to see everybody wearing. I know. I think that we might have invented the new Twitch hoodie. Everyone wants the purple Twitch hoodie. Now we got the blue kind of funny hood. Well, this has been the most annoying thing about, I mean,

there's many annoying, annoying things about Andy Cortez from Rooster Teeth. But one of the most one is that he, I feel like, remember when we were at Roosterty that one time and Emily showed us, hey, this is your blue hoodie. I'm like,

oh great, didn't have anything on it yet. It was just when they were prototyping it. Andy then just started wearing that blue hoodie. And I'm not sure if he found it in the trash out back or whatever, but he wears this blue hoodie that's clearly supposed to be a kind of funny hoodie, but wasn't. And now he's all around.

It's like, he's got to stop that shit now. Yeah. I'll buy you a fucking one, Andy, if you want. So you stop fucking wearing the knockoff version. But I want to go to conventions and I want to see a sea of blue.

And we'll know. We'll damn no. Well, damn now. Those are all peeps. Greg. Yeah. You brought up an interesting topic that I would like to talk about today on the Kind of Funny Gamescast, which is back to school gaming.

Sure. When you said that, I was out of the fuck you're talking about, but you have a very specific thing. Well, it's always, I mean, it's, you know, this is a conversational podcast. And I want you to run with the topic in any way you do. But what you think when I say back to school gaming, I think is the topic. For me, because, you know, now we're here. Of course, we're in San Francisco.

It doesn't make any goddamn sense. There's no real seasons or anything. So you don't get it. But when I think back to school gaming, right, I think of like that was always the, for me it was always NCAA football. At the end of July it would come out. And that was like the first thing of like, man,

I got this game and I only have three weeks left before school starts. So I'm going to pour all my time into this. Play it nonstop. You know, this is going to be my life once this game comes out. And that was always the thing of it was sad getting ready to go back to school in a way. You know, I think it was you. We were talking once about how you get excited. You see your friends.

You do all these different things. I get that part. But of course, then you also have to sit around with a bunch of shitty teachers telling you shit you don't care about. And you fucking hate them. But the good point, right, is that meant fall was starting. And when fall is starting, that means games are coming. You're getting into holiday rush.

You're always looking for that, you know, that first major break with Thanksgiving, all this different stuff. But then even October with Halloween being great, the best holidays we've covered before. There's all these different games coming on. October. That's gaming in like big releases go hand in hand with school I think starting back up. And so that's where I'm coming from in terms of what games you associate with going back to school. Yeah. Because like I said, for me, it's NCAA football. It was at one month to it. I've told the story before of like when I had an internship out in DC and then when I was even like a, uh,

you know, getting ready in between high school. In D.C. just to be clear. Not an internship, but D.C. Comics. No, God. Can you fucking imagine my life would be so much different. I guarantee you someone out there thinks you out of the internship. No, that'd be amazing. Thanks, Jim Lee for nothing, as always. Tweeted Jim Lee, everybody and tell them, thanks for nothing. Greg Miller. Don't say the fucking part. Just thanks for nothing. Always. But being out there, getting so ready, you know, I remember working in the place my mom works, which was like this paper company or whatever, and like being on game facts all the time waiting and getting it. And then when they got that game, you know, I've told the story before of Po and I bring his PlayStation

two over, I was till six in the morning playing in the basement, switching TVs when somebody got a big game. But then I think about like, I'll never forget, going, it was my sophomore year moving into the antler house and bringing the PlayStation 2 down with me. And I was sitting there playing NCAA and my friend, uh, Reese and Pratt came in. And they were, they were all going out to lunch or something. And I was like, well, let me, well, we wait for somebody to shower or whatever. They came in and were like, oh, cool. And I play sure and I handed it over. And I played, this is when you had profiles on your memory cards. And it was a big deal. You know, kept all your stats, huge deal. And so like we're setting up, you know,

we get the line of scrimmage, hike the ball and whatever, blah. And then it was like, the stats faded up. And it was, you know, my Greggie profile. And it was something. And it was something like, and I'm not, I'm not shitting you. It was something like, 326 wins, you know, 167 losses. And Pratt's like, you've played this game more than 500 times. And it's been out three weeks. And I'm like, yeah, well, I sat there and I played it nonstop. And I play every game in every season. You know what I mean? Like I'm not skipping anything. And it was like so ludicrous to him. But for me, it was like such a thing of like, oh, I'm cut from a different cloth than the rest of the people. Even people who casually play this game

are not playing it the way I do or not consuming it the way I do. And so that was a big part of like, you know, bringing these experiences back to school and then having to interweave them, right? And I was talking about high school, you know, while not back to the school in the first few weeks game, the wrestling games, right? Always October-ish, early November. And so that's still a huge thing for me of like that was, you know, the, look at no mercy over there, wrestling made at 2000. Like those are the games that my mom let me have a day off from school to play and be crazy

about. And so that's what I think about in terms of like, fuck, sitting in class, like, Jonesing being ready to go, you know, so fucking ready for, or like behind the PlayStation two on October 26th, 2000, like, you know, having to go from school to Meyer, Adam Brown's house, back to school, and then taking the next day off just to fucking play that thing all the time. But that's back to school gaming for me. I mean, yeah, you saying that kind of does jot a lot of things in my mind where I definitely was not a sports game player at all. So NCAA, none of that meant anything to me. And so I was

kind of in the back to school gaming is kind of like the not fun part of gaming because it's E3, everything's announced, but nothing's coming out until November, December. Some of the things would trickle out in October or whatever, but those August games were key because there would always be like one of them. I remember one year, it was Soul Caliper 2 was the big

one that everyone was super stuff. That was 2003? 2004? It was either, it was always, it was, it might have been I think it was two, but two or three. I remember that summer. That was such a huge deal because So Calibur 1 was so amazing.

But So Caliper 2, the three different versions, either getting Hayachi on PS2, which no one gave a shit about, spawn on Xbox, which was random. Link, homie? Or Link in the GameCube version, which obviously was superior. That was so fucking awesome.

So cool. So fucking cool. But yeah, that game was so necessary at the time because we'd kind of had a drought for a while. And we'd been playing melee forever. But like having a new kind of fighting game, especially one with Link and one that felt like that. That was a fun,

multiplayer experience. You know, that was something where for at least a couple months, like all my friends were coming over and we were taking turns facing off against each other. And then it was out of that same year, the year after that, there was F0 GX that came out. And man, that might be one of the most underrated games of last two generations. It's the last FZero game, right? Of like, uh, the last, yeah, on the console. Yeah, I mean, there was one after that on GBA, maximum velocity, I think. But the, I mean, the GBA games are great. But, but I mean, the GBA games are great. But GX was like such a good game and like it definitely pushed the GameCube in a ridiculous way in terms of speed in terms of like colors and lights and everything and like the controls. And that game was just ahead of its time.

And I wish it would come out on a modern system. If that was on PS4, that would just be mind blowing. Because the it was so hard. Like the career mode in that game is like just fucked up how hard it is. But it was fun. And whenever you accomplish something, it. felt good. But the multiplayer was like once you, it's different than Mario Car in the Mario

cut. There's all these items, all these ways to fuck around. But NF Zero, if you're, it's skill-based. Yeah. You playing through, you mastering the drift system and that, like the moment that you and your friend are both equal in drifting, that's when she just gets real because it's just like it's anyone's match every single time. Who's going to make the one mistake?

Who's going to make the one mistake? You have to have that perfect, perfect thing. And I think it was Porttown is the map where it's like this giant. drift around the thing and if you mess that up if you didn't do it perfectly you lost and to me that is kind of the back to school what are you doing how is he getting worse in switching the camera Tim was in the middle of a monologue and he switched to me and Colin don't fear the wide Kevin don't fear the wide overuse the wide shot always yeah only switch when we're like going on at the monologue it's the monologues it's not true I didn't give the look

until I saw that it was on us for no fucking reason Anyway, so besides I have zero, like it was also the September and October games and getting excited for those. Because even though I wasn't playing the games, like that was where my mind was at. That was the thing with like NCAA and Madden, Tunexon. I rarely played Madden, right? But that was the first, like, you're what you're talking about of the domino of like, okay, the games people care about are starting to come. Like it's going to be a thing now. From here on out, it's just going to speed up, speed up, speed up.

And that was back when I was super into Dance Dance Revolution. So those were September games. So DDR Max 1, DDR Max 1, DDR Max 2, DDR. extreme. Bless you. Thank you. The VR bless you. These are the year after year and those were September games and I was so excited for

those and like the new like what new song is going to be in it and like all that stuff. Where's butterfly and it never came? But then Tony Hoc. Crazy Towns Butterfly? No, no, no. Come my lady. Come my lady. You're my volfly.

But then the Tony Hawks Pro Skater games eventually thug games. Those were also those were early October games. And I was all every year. That was like my number one thing I was most anticipating. And so eventually we'd get. that. Once you get to November, it's just like November, December, we're just too good to us. It was just raining on you. Raining games on you.

Yeah. What are you call? So early on, I don't really remember because I feel like back in the NES and S-NES day, I wasn't really getting games when they came out necessarily. So I get random games at random times. During the PS1 era and N64 era, I guess like

Okerina of Time reminds me back to school. Like, because I'm basically tethering after this fall gaming. Because I kind of agree. It just reminds me of the fall. So not necessarily August or September, but really something like November or October. That game reminds me of just,

that game reminds me of like the holiday season kind of generally in 1998. I love the shit out of that game. And played it with Mike Pope. Mike Pope what up? Mega Man Legends reminds me of that time. Tales of Destiny reminds me of that time. Let's see.

What else? What else? What else? I guess like the, I mean, the year after I graduated, right when I was going to Northeastern, in back to school. It was Ani Musha 2 and Mara, Maro Sunshine, which we've talked about in the past. Oh, you're right.

Yeah, that was August. I got both those the same day. And so I feel like yeah, so I have these like little touchstones. I mean, even Symphony the Night, Final Fantasy 7. So like games that I played, like I played Final Fantasy 7 in I guess eighth grade while going back to school. That's when I got my PS1 around then. I'm a little earlier. So

it's kind of hard to think back. It's like 20 years ago. So yeah, those kind of games. Mega Man Legend specifically reminds me that era because I got it for my birthday, which in October and my brother came home from Philadelphia and gave it to me. So, yeah, and Tales of Destiny, same thing. I got it for my birthday. Like, birthday games, I guess generally will remind me that, too.

Same thing with records and stuff like that that that I listened to. So yeah, and then, of course, the touchdowns every year were, I used to play Madden every year, so Madden was that and NHL games, which typically come out in September. So that's an August game and a September game. So, yeah, I think those are the games that remind me of that, but more, and I loved that feeling of like bringing an instruction manual or a

strategy guide to school and like pouring over it and just being so excited to get home to play and get your homework done. Tales of Destiny specifically, I was just, I was obsessed with that game and and then it's kind of like end of school kind of games too. Like on the other end of that, that was like a Lunar Silver Star story or something like that.

That was like a game that reminds me of like finishing a grade. Yeah, I remember for you bringing strategy guides and are being so obsessed to get home. I remember the buildup to, I want to say, Somebody can correct me if I'm, no, that wouldn't make sense. Rocket robot on wheels? No, I'm thinking maybe it was Smackdown 2.

Maybe it was just bring it. But wherever they introduced, like, create a pay-per-view and all that stuff when they really went crazy with the credit. I remember having these loose-leaf sheets I would do where I was like booking this entire thing, this entire fucking run of how I wanted this to go. And then I was going to go home and create those pay-per-views and then create those matches and have them play out the way I wanted them to play out to proliferate these feuds between going heart and whoever.

It's like fucking crazy. Kids are weird, man. Like I remember when Pokemon Gold and Silver was looming and it wasn't going to come out in America. If I remember correctly until like March or so, it was late in the year or the year before. And it was out in Japan. I had no understanding of how that all worked.

I was like a second grader. But then my friend told me where I can buy Pokemon Golden Silver. So I'm like, yeah, I'm doing this. So my dad brought me to this place. We bought it. I had no idea it was Japanese. boot it up and I'm like what the hell there's no like I can barely read English like how

the hell am I going to do this but then I remember my friend was like don't worry I'll get you a strategy guide from Game Fax but I didn't have a computer then yeah definitely didn't have a printer couldn't figure it in that out so I had to wait for going back to school I don't think it was in the fall but I think it was like maybe like coming back from Thanksgiving break or something and I was so excited because I was trying my best to figure it out and eventually I learned what symbols meant poker ball and what symbols meant fights and what symbols meant what I assumed was tackle and bubble beam and whatever. But then I got to school and this kid gave me this like printed out.

That's awesome. He came through. 200 pieces of paper walking through the entire game. And I would just refer to that and I try to figure out what meant what, which I'm pretty impressed with myself. I beat that game. Wow. I completely beat that game, which I'm an idiot and I'm even more of an idiot back then.

Yeah. You're one of them dumb kids. I'm one of them dumb kids. No, that was a similar thing for me where I, yeah, I forget. I can never remember. It wasn't FirePro, but there was an N64 wrestling game in Japan that was supposed to be the most amazing thing ever where, like, you know, you could reverse out of finishers and, like, spit the green mist into people's faces and land and had these entrances and all the stuff. And I remember being like, all right, fine, I'm in. I'm getting it.

And I sent away for it. And it came. I got it and it wouldn't fit in the N64. And I was like, oh, I vaguely, I looked on like the shitty ass, slow ass internet, 28K PBS or whatever. I'm looking in that and get on there. And I, you know, it was like, okay, cool. Oh, right. Like, I do remember that EGM had written an article about how to mod your N64 take off the shell,

go in there and remove this thing and you could play cards from around the world. But so then I went back. I'm like, I think it's in this issue, EGM. No, this issue. No. And I took every EGM off the shelf and went cover to cover to cover. Couldn't find this article, had to email EGM who responded back to me that it was like a one-up. Like when they just started one-up or maybe not even just started one-up.

They were doing something else. Oh, yeah. Maybe it was like that sister, that gamer thing, that gamer mag they had. I don't know. It was something weird that they hit me up and like, this is a weird. find it. So I, you know, I finally at this point just bought the adapter to put that in there. And then, yeah, went to school and printed the game facts giant fucking strategy guy. It came back. I'm like, what the fuck am I doing?

Such different times, you know. Again, I'm so lucky that Pokemon Gold, it was gold, worked on my game board. I didn't know about region locking at all. Like, I would have been so heartbroken if I pop that game in and it wouldn't even work. Yeah. It's good time. What store did you go to? Was it like some weird bootlegger?

I have no idea what the name of the story was. We referred to it as the Beanie Baby Story. not to be confused with Cards and Comics Central. Okay. So Cards of Comic Central was where we bought our Pokemon cards. Yeah. Then there was this kind of like real shady place across the street that sold Beanie babies and Pokemon cards

and a bunch of other things that I don't like swords and shit. And it's like, eh, all right. So my mom and dad were just bringing me in and just be like, don't look at all the other stuff. Just look at the, you know, you look through that glass thing. You're just looking at all the cards. And each card's ridiculously expensive. And I'm like, I know.

I've read Wizards. the Coast magazine. I know the shit ain't worth that. Yeah. But anyways. The Pokemon was cheap, though. I remember I got it for like $25. Damn. Yeah. So shout out to you, Beanie Baby Store. Shout out to you. Rest in peace.

Oh, yeah. Topic two. This topic comes from our friend Will Powers over at Deep Silver. Yeah. He says, or he tweeted. Yeah. You're just stealing his tweet. I'm just stealing his tweet.

Which I told him I was gun it. Yeah. It's, I thought it was a very interesting question. He says, what makes a game worth $60 to you? replayability, fun factor, hours of gameplay, multiplayer, graphics, each one of those has a question mark. I thought it was a good discussion because looking through those things, I think all of those can justify the $60, except for the graphics. Graphics is the one that I was like, I don't know that, that makes it. The order wasn't justified being a $60 game to you.

Oh yeah, no, no, no. Yeah. But then I thought about it a bit more and I'm like, well, if a game is kind of a, a graphical showpiece, I don't want to hate on it. If that was the design of it, like something like a Grand Turismo 3, for example, I would have bought that game back in the day more as a show-off piece than as me being interested in the gameplay. Yeah.

So I don't know. What do you guys think? I think it's a mix of everything, right? I think it's like a skill tree or whatever, you know, like when you look at the RPG and you see it all pulled out in the different ways, like in persona. I don't know if one of them justifies it alone. You know what I mean? I guess fun factor sure could.

I feel like for us. Us or me, I should speak for myself. Multiplayer is the super rare one, but it's worked before. Like I thought, well, it didn't, I guess. I was going to say Titanfall, but Titanfall was fun as well, right? And it was pretty. Like, there's different things there. I mean, it was a multiplayer-only game, but it wasn't just that.

It didn't fail. It's not like, I don't know if I can think of a game that succeeds at one of those and fails at everything else. And you're like, well, whatever. I mean, maybe for me personally, like, no, I mean, I would say DC Universe Online. right, but that was, it had the fun that I liked. It wasn't graphic. It wasn't pretty graphically, but it had multiplayer that I like to and didn't shove it down my throat for the most part until you got to rating at the end. But I think that's the thing is I think it's a mix,

right? This is like a recipe where you're putting different things in. But so okay, that that's very accurate. But what if you take each part of it, right? And look at it. Are those parts worth the $60? Because I think that it is the combination of all the things. But I think that the replayability of something like Overwatch makes it worth $60. Sure. You know? Or if you look at at the fun factor. I agree with there too. I was a gameplay. Yes. Multiplayer for that game, sure. All those fit into it. But any single one of those, I'd say make that game worth it. I could, so a fun factor for me, everything we just went through, I think would be paramount in terms of like what I'm going to like what I think my money's worth, right? Repalability is great.

Don't me wrong. That's on there. It's on the list. But for me, I want to have fun every moment I'm playing it. Length of time, I don't think matters to me. We talk about this with a journey all the time. Not the journey was fun, but Journey is an amazing game. That is short. Gone Home is an amazing game. That is short. I would have paid more for gone home. I mean, that's the whole thing. I got my press review code for gone home and liked it so much. I bought it for multiple people online because I wanted everyone to play it and I wanted them to get money. And that's the thing where it's like, so I think for me it's fun factors, one I'm going to put above everything else. Yeah. I agree. I think fun factors is the most important.

Then hours of gameplay and replayability, I think, are almost interchangeable. in the sense that like they, they go hand in hand of how much you're playing the game. Sure, but it's, replaying can be taken multiple ways. And that's the thing where I think hours of gameplay. All right,

it's a, it's a 90 hour RPG, right? It's different than it's Overwatch where you're going to play it over and over and over again. Or there's a reason or even if it's a uncharted that I know I'm going to go back three times to platinum or whatever. Yeah. That's replayability versus hours of how long a game is.

Yeah. Ooh. In that case, I might take the hours of gameplay out of my, like that's necessary. Like that makes it worth $60. Sure. I think that the more like your enjoyment out of how long you play it, the replayability is the more important thing.

Yeah, what about you call? I don't know. I think there are things that are relevant that are on this list. I think the two that come to mind is like the stickiness of the game and the resonance of the game. So like how long does the game stay with you? And that might correlate with replayability. That might correlate with hours played. But it's more along the lines of like how much do you want to play it as opposed to how much are you going to or can you play it.

I think that that's a relevant point. And then the residents, like, like, how much does it stay with you and stick with you and like, and occupy your mind share? Journey, journey's worth way more than we paid for it. And I really believe that because I think it's such a resident experience that if you told someone to check boxes on the back of a box, should have Journey been retail release, which it was. And it was like 90 minutes long and you really don't have to play it again, all that kind of stuff. That would turn people off. But the resonance of that is eclipses all of those. those things that we might look at the shortcomings in the game. So, and this is what I've

gone into in the past where I think we have to, there needs to be a more exploratory nature in terms of, uh, pricing of games. I do think games can and should probably cost more than $60 sometimes. And I think that games often need to not cost $60. I think games that are being, that people are paying $6 dollars for, uh, sometimes are not $60 games. So I think it can go both ways. Like I then I've used the Witcher 3 as an example of a game that probably because of its, because of its sheer amount of content and because of the thought of put into it and because of its pretty graphics and because of its voice acting and its story, That's like that, why isn't that an $80 or $100 game?

And I know that some people like scoff and are drawn back by that, but I'm like, are you not getting your money's worth? You know, like, so, so I think it has to go both ways and I would explore that. So I think that the $60, first of all, the $60 game model, I think is kind of, that, that model will only persist as long as retail stores exist. Once that, and we might end up paying $70 just like we used to. I mean, a lot of people don't even know probably because a lot of people are newer to games or they're younger. Like, we used to pay $50 for games. Before that, we would often.

and pay between $40 and $80 or $100 for games, depending on cartridge, depending on how big the chips wear. So we're in a good spot with $60 games now because $6 games are extremely cheap compared to the games we grew up with, like extremely cheap, the cheapest that they've been ever. In fact, I did a piece on IGN a long time ago called The Real Cost of Gaming. People can go check that out where I did all the math on how much games actually cost, and that games today are actually cheaper than they've ever been. But I feel like games could get even cheaper, and I think games can get even more expensive. But I think the thing that it's the intangibles that matter the most. I don't think you can look into and be like our graphics moment. No, graphics are definitely not most important.

Our gameplay, very important. But I think that goes to the stickiness. Hours play and replayability. Show that's important. I think that goes to the resonance. So I think it's these more intangible terms that you have to use. And I think it's going to change because if you say, well, the 20 hour point of this game is a reason why this is worth $60.

And then I can just push you another game. Then I'm like, well, this game's 20 hours. Why does it matter here? You have to use more vague language, I guess is what I'm saying. in terms of like what strikes you, then these kind of like PR-ish, you know, bullet points of like, you know, does multiplayer matter?

I'm like, yeah, multiplayer matters, but that doesn't make the $60 game worth $6,000. That makes maybe one $60 game worth $60. But I think you have to find out how a game speaks to you on a deeper level and then you'll find commonality. It's the combination of the parts, right? That's the whole thing.

Yeah, you'll find common. I really do believe, like, our tastes are, if you look at the games you play, there is a commonality between, the taste that everyone has. I really love first-person shooters, right? But I also really, really love side-scrollers. The commonality is mechanics.

That's the commonality between those two genres. That's the only thing the Venn diagram really is over is that, and both of those mechanics are what's most important. And so that I know that that's probably what I'm looking for in a game. But if a person will sit through a subpar or a mediocre Japanese role-playing game and then also enjoy a good Japanese role-playing game and they're both 50 hours, then it actually might be length of game that's the most important of that person or bang for their buck, whatever. And that's totally valid.

Yeah. That's just that and that was important to me when I was younger. But it's not important to me anymore now that you have like, once you have disposable income and no more time, you have the inverse problem. Exactly. Everything gets flipped on its head in terms of what you wanted and what you cared about with a game, right? And that's so weird of like, yeah, I remember being that kid of like you'd get a first person or I'm sorry, you'd get a single player game and you'd sit there and be like, oh man, I hope this never ends. And it goes on, oh my God, it's two discs. How great. And now it is that thing of like, oh, fuck.

Somebody's like, oh, it's going to be, you know, it's a 50-hour RPG. I'm like, ah, fuck. Yeah. And, you know, so if someone, if a developer's like, I'll give you a game, like, if Square Linux was like, I'll give you a new Final Fantasy Tactics, new full Final Fantasy tactics, drawn, pick beautiful pixels and sprites, exactly the way you remember it. Totally new story, 50 hours. I'd be like, I'll give you $500 for that.

Like, and they were like, but you have to pay $500. Fine, fine, fine. So like, that's, like, you know, a site unseen. Yeah. So I think you just, like, it's a kind of a vagueness of the question. Isn't that kind of the crowdfunding model in a way where these games are kind of like, it's more of the pay what you want and they're going to make that money for the people that would pay that much? That's a situation.

They can't actually charge $500 for a game specifically like that. No, no, no. I'm just using an example that the prices, the $60 price was arbitrary. It's, as games become more and more, and the game's industry becomes more and more like the movie industry, It's interesting to see the pricing of movies and how it hasn't changed much. Like, yeah, movies, the pricing goes up, but it's all still standardized. Like, it doesn't matter if it's a one-hour movie or a three-hour movie, if it's rated R or rated PG, the content of it, how long it took to make. None of that matters.

It is still going to cost you $17 to see that movie. You know, there's not cheaper movies. I mean, I guess there's, like, matinee and stuff like that, but that's more based on. Yeah, like the secondary theaters I get like the shit that's kicked out, you know. Theaters and something. That's, those are different. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are sales compared to like actual.

Yeah, I agree. Uh, pricing. So we're in video games. We're seeing this where, you know, you can buy a journey for $20 or $15 or whatever it is. And there is, the 60s just kind of the standard that people can go to. Like what? I wonder which one of those is more effective, like when it comes to gaming. Like, what if all games were just $60, you know?

Or is it's, should we just totally get rid of the $60 thing completely? and kind of really run the gamut of how much games. No, they should. That's what should happen. I think. You think? Yeah, blow that up totally. Because that would be the thing of like, I feel like if the order would have had

different expectations put on it, if it was $30 at launch. And they were saying, we understand it short. It's a technical thing. And it's the same thing where I think now is like, we're still hung up on the fact, you know, we always talk about it. Colin and I about this digital future, right? And the fact that we're there and so much of the audience isn't there yet. And if everybody was, it would be that.

thing of like, oh, sure, I'll take a chance on this game for $5. I'll do 15 here. I'll do that. And then that would, like, I think if you, once somebody gets there and the internet infrastructure gets there and that ball starts rolling and they see how much people are willing to take a shot on a game, you do see people will get clever with what they're doing. They will start breaking up single player and multiplayer campaigns and putting them up, which has already started to happen, but I mean more to an extent. You know what I mean? Like, the $60 model will fall away and you will see people try different things. Yeah, it just, it worries me because this sounds like the mobile space with stuff where they are

doing that, breaking things up in different ways. And that's where the free-to-play microtransactions and all that stuff comes in. Because once the people have to be creative with how they're selling the product because they're not banking on that big number going in, I think that creates a lot of issues potentially for being able to make the order. Right. Like that is an expensive game. Yeah. So even charging $30, like then that game all of a sudden becomes not even worth making, which some would argue. Well, I mean, that's the thing, right? It's like it does become the risk and reward now of like, okay, cool. like we believe in our game enough to put it out of $60 because we are saying something about it.

And the moment we fuck you over on that decision as in the gamers as a whole look at it and say, no, that was not worth $6. Then they start to question every other game we put out and every other thing we produce. And what, you know, ready at dawn in the scenario would do next. Yeah. How that does get reflected. I mean, we've seen that even last year with Star Wars Battlefront where the big calamity was that like this game's not worth $60. And it's up to people to put the money where the mouth is when it comes to the sequels.

the future of the franchise or whatever, or EA games in general. But the reason they're saying that game's not worth $60 is because they're not getting everything they expect from games in the past. Like when you start looking at all these things, it's like, oh, it's just multiplayer. The flip side of this is there's no single player.

There isn't that the hours of gameplay or whatever and all that. So it's like, it just gets hard because we don't exist in ecosystem where Battlefront could have been or I think even should have been $30, you know? Yeah, I think that like we, The point that's lost at the top end of the AAA sphere is that there's no competition.

There's no market competition there. Like everyone, they compete with each other for the same price. They're not allowed to, so they're competing for each other's. They're competing for mind share and market share based on artistic merit or the quality of the game, which is great, and that makes sense. But there could be another front of the war, which is to compete on a market level, which is to say like, and I've said this before, EA or Ubisoft saying, like, our games are $49.99 now. Like, then does Activision stay at $5999?

then? Like, there's, there's no, there's no room for that. The digital space allows room for that. As long as they have to placate their market overlords and brick and mortar stores, they're not going to do it. But the second that they can do it, someone's going to undercut someone in a major way and it's going to cause a drop in prices. And that's the thing that I don't, that's the thing I don't understand. Like, there's no example of a market being, like, being totally, let's say, kind of uncontrolled from any point of view where things are like are coming of quality, not quality. You can kind of choose like a car market kind of where like, you know, we know that you can maybe expect quality from Honda or something like that.

You're going to get kind of a shittier car from Hyundai or something like that. But they do compete with each other because like they're like some people just want the Hyundai and some people want the Honda. But when there's no choice, when like the choice is literally a disparity between $60 and $20. And I know that wasn't very eloquently put, but when there's only a choice between $60 and $20, and maybe a $30 game. I think that's destructive towards the flexibility of game pricing.

And so $60 is the mark right now because everyone has to charge that or feels like they have to charge it or might be compelled to charge it because that's what the competitor's charge. You don't want to fucking mess up with GameStop and all those kinds of things. But the second that those reins are put off

and the market's allowed to flex like any market, competition will make prices go down. That's the way it always happens. Competition doesn't make prices go up? That's not a thing. You know, like in a real competitive market, where there's a bunch of different people throwing all sorts of shift your attention, prices go down. So if everyone thinks that, if everyone thinks that the games are too expensive, which I disagree with,

I think games are not expensive at all. But if games are too expensive, then you would want that digital future and you'd want that exploratory kind of thing to go also up to say like, you know, the Witcher or Cyberpunk, right, which is the next CD project game, which is supposed to be bigger than The Witcher 3, which is fucking unfathomable to me. That sounds like a game that's worth way more than $60. And in fact that that studio is probably making it in the United States or in one of those places where Western Europe where they'd have to pay their people way more. I don't know if they could even afford to have developed a game that big for that long and not charge more for it. But I'd love someone to come out with the balls to say, hey, our game's worth $80.

And this is why. And list off why. And I think you can make a compelling case for that. People would probably buy it because they love The Witcher. So I'd like a situation where we explore these things more on a market basis because it reminds me. and I know people hate when I get political, but it reminds me of like, like the Obamacare exchanges

or reminds me of like student loans where it's like the reason that these things are expensive or not working is because there's not real competition there. Student loans are, college is so expensive in the United States because there's no competition for student loans. Like the government just gives them away to everybody. So there's no competition for your money.

So things go up. You can just get them for free. If there's competition for that and colleges didn't know money was free, then everyone would lower their prices because they wouldn't be able to charge you $40,000. a year to go to college anymore. It's the same thing with Obamacare exchanges where it's like you can only buy California insurance in California. But if you could buy it in New York,

if I could go to New York and be like, hey, I want to buy insurance in New York and it's $10 cheaper a month. Then it'd be like, oh, well, we'll charge you $15 cheaper here. And then they'd be like, well, New York guys are going to be like, well, we want your business still. So $25 cheaper. And back and forth. But as long as there's no, there's artificial constraints in those markets on competition. And I feel the same way here where I feel like the $60 price point is just untenable, not because they're not making enough money, but because I really want people to be comfortable saying like our game is 3999 our game's 49 99. Well gamers have to get comfortable in buying those and not expecting a lesser experience.

That's the other thing we've talked about right, that budget title, that budget price. And that was, I think you're the greatest example of somebody overcoming that hurdle, right, in the past calendar years has been Ratching Clank where that came out and everybody's like, ooh, they're not charging $60 for it. Maybe it's not going to be what it is. Maybe it's going to be super short. Maybe it's going to be a cash and it came out. It was a fucking awesome.

And it was a great Rashing Clank game. And like that's those are the success stories you need because right now it is. you see a game come out at 4999, 3599, and it's in a case, it's on a shelf. You're like, what's wrong with it? What is that? That's usually relegated to the bargain bit at GameStop. Yeah, and what's funny about this is this kind of goes back to the point

we're making a couple weeks ago about PSN and Xbox Live and kind of the, and you were talking about mobile game and kind of the, the unfettered nature of these markets where there's a bunch of, there's a flood of shitty games, and then someone had sent me a story with mobile specifically where, like, you could cut out 50% of mobile apps and games from a marketplace and not affect the bottom line at all. That's how much shit is on these stores.

And so like you definitely have that some sort of control on on quality because some people were saying, well, it's strange that I'm a more libertarian free market person like me would want to limit a person's ability to appear in a market. And I'm like, no, the person's ability to appear on the market. They are allowed to make their game. They don't have the right to be on a private market, which is like the PSN or Xbox Live. So there has to be some sort of control of quality. And then if so people knew that the games were of a higher general quality, you're not going to like everything that's released, but of a higher general quality with a more exploratory nature in terms of pricing. I think you're going to get a better marketplace with better games. Devs are going to make more money.

You're going to be comfortable spending your money more, and you're probably going to be spending less, which is the ironic thing. And you're probably buying more games. That's the other ironic thing. But as long as this price point remains, and that's the only stagnant AAA price point. There are people that will refuse to play anything but those games,

and that's sad to me. So I think that, like, there has to be more competition in terms of pricing. And I gave a couple of political examples of why that doesn't work. You're going to look at market examples of why or why that doesn't work as well. But I think that that's a really important, kind of component to this is pricing as well. I know the original question was about like

what's worth a $60 game. My argument is like why is a game $60. Do you have any insight into why a couple generations go Nintendo games were so much cheaper than everyone else's? Like when it was a Nintendo first party game, it was $40, but everyone else's games were $50, even on Nintendo consoles? My assumption is that they're able to get away with that with retailers and people might know more. It's the same thing with the Brazil. Remember you guys watch it all the time? I'm talking about the Brazil. Why things are so expensive in Brazil? And I asked you guys to tell me wine. I was right. I might not be right about this one, but let me know in the comments. My assumption is that they're able to eat that because the like basically, what is it,

like 70 to 30 split or whatever between the licensee and the licensor on consoles. So Nintendo just keeps all that money. So basically they're just making a little bit less. Like they don't have to take a rip from themselves. So I think they're able to charge less for themselves. I just think that Microsoft and Sony were like, we don't have to do that. But it makes their game, they want to sell their games because they're making all of the money. you know so I think that that was just a way for the deal to appeal to a person to say like well you buy call of duty at $60 the game stop gets their little rip and then 30% goes to Sony and then Activision gets the rest of the money to pay everyone if you buy the Nintendo first party game

game stop gets their money and then Nintendo just gets everything so I think that it was just there's no split there and so they're probably making it as much if not more on you buy that that's my assumption Nintendo could do it but like EA can't do that that's my assumption because EA like EA has to pay Sony got Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah.

And obviously the game's, game stop, I think all the truckers and the manufacturer and some sort of it's a little more, not that Nintendo can avoid that, but that is my assumption. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. I'm interested in what you guys think. Let us know in the comments below about what makes a game worth $60 or what games should be worth. Third topic of the day, brought to you by Patreon. You go to patreon.com slash kind of funny games and support us just like my boy Mike Lynch did.

Mike Lynch has a question for us. Okay. He says, I was wondering if you guys could think, of a genre of game and a time period, you would like the game to take place, and what studio you would like to make it. For me, I would like a first person

open world RPG in the vein of Fallout 3 made by Bethesda during the Revolutionary War. Thanks, guys. Keep up the good work. The one game that I, I thought deeply about making, and I wouldn't make it, but I mean, like, if I were to make a game, this was what we were at IGN was a strategy role-playing game slash economic

game set in the revolution that was on, that I wanted on DS. And I think it's funny because there was a, I don't know if it ever came out. I don't know what happened to it. I remember being at IGN and reaching out to these guys. There was a kickstarted game that was like a Japanese role playing game style title set in the American Revolution. And it looked fucking awesome. And they would not return my emails.

Like I like, I don't know if it's because I worked at IGN or what it was. But I wanted to like talk to them about their game. I think the American Revolution, I agree with them is a place right for good storytelling. We got a little bit of an Assassin's Creed 3, which I think that from a presentational standpoint, they fucking nailed it. but I always thought a mildly supernatural so not quite final fantasy tactics not overt magic use and crazy creatures and stuff but like some sort of like kind of supernatural

grid based turn base strategy role-playing games set in the Revolutionary War with the Patriots and the rebels or the Patriots rather in the Redcoats I think would be fucking awesome. It would be totally awesome but like some weird mysticism in there that would allow it to be more fun than shooting

just a musket you have to reload for 45 seconds, which would, you know, was the reason why you can't have a first-person shooter in that era, for instance. So I agree with them. I think that that would be a great time to explore. I think that would be a compelling time to explore, especially now. And, you know, it's probably done on PC a little bit, but, you know, but we don't see that in the console space at all.

I can't think of one game that took place in the American Revolution other than Assassin's Creed 3 on console. I could be wrong, but I'm sure maybe it exists, but I can't think of it. Third person, action adventure. I'm giving this to sucker punch. I'm giving sucker punch. It's, I think, infamous, right? I'm going to stick with superheroes.

I'd want it to be in the 30s, 40s, New York slash metropolis, whatever, but that style of superhero game in that genre, and we'll just say Superman. It's golden age Superman, right? So you can't fly, he's just leaping over to all buildings in a single bound, but the buildings look awesome. It's in New York. We've got those fucking suits with the huge shoulder pads and the press hat and all this other stuff, and it was like, ha, ha, ha, the talkies like that, you know, the dateline,

New York, blah, blah, blah, blah, like that kind of shit going on. But like, a throwback to, like, yeah, the, 30s, 40s, we're even roaring 20s if we want to get weird with it and go, you know what I mean? But like that kind of world do exist. And like, you see it. I like period pieces in Americana. And that's one of the things where I was excited for Assassin's Creed 3 being in the, you know, over here. And this is this cool part of history.

But it didn't work in terms of where I wanted. I'd rather see Assassin's Creed do something like that in the booming city. This is what's happening. We're going down. You know what I mean? Like Model T kind of cars going. You need to get that, if you're doing the Superman one, right? Him from Action Comics number one or whatever smash in that car.

You know what I mean? Like having it. out there and having that be the stylized world you're in. And have it be like a Max Flesher cartoon or whatever. Have that be the art style. Have that be the characters and have that, you know, girls in those pencil skirts and that kind of outfit. And being in that version of America,

which I don't think has been explored long enough or well enough in games. Like, you know, our mafia games will take us back closer to that time, not in that time, but close to that time and have us exist. But to be able to be around that and have like exist in New York and tell, maybe, you know, don't even do Superman,

just do a superhero, period piece in that kind of world and what that would look like and what's going on and dealing with corruption and the mob and that kind of thing. I think that'd be cool. Yeah.

This is like the most cop-out answer ever because I'm using an already established franchise and people have talked about this specific thing for so long but I would absolutely love a Romeo and Juliet-esque Zelda where it's Zelda future stuff. I want an opponent to be a motorcycle him using guns instead of a sort of like that type of stuff.

I couldn't even imagine the fucking kiddicker sorry I can't imagine I couldn't I couldn't imagine the

the fucking furor if they ever did the online I would I would be awesome that sounds awesome

but man people would lose it if they did that to Zelda they would lose their minds whatever

I think it would be super I think it would be cool too and I think that it would allow them to really update things

and give us the same thing that we know and love the same type of gameplay and the same type of adventure

and feel but kind of just give it a different tone. And I think that Zelda with a different tone could go a very long way. I don't want futuristic shit. I want it to be kind of set in present. Okay.

Right? But like a dark present. So, or a dark present and a light present. Like the, the thing is Zelda gives you the room to, you know, most of the best Zelda's have the kind of dichotomy

between the same world and whether it's the past and future or dark side, light side, whatever it is. I think that if you ran with that, that. There's so much things you can update in in cool little clever ways that most are just you know, stupid little nods and like, oh, I see what you did. Yeah, yeah. But I think that

that would kind of shift everything enough to really get me super interested. I think that the Zelda that we're getting now is a really good kind of step back to move forward. Like it's kind of going back to the beginning to then push ahead. But I think something like I'm talking about would just be more of like an alternate universe thing. And this doesn't need to be, like I'd like it to be mainline in the sense of it's, this is a real Zelda, whatever, but it doesn't need to be like,

in the storyline or whatever. It can be completely non-canon. When you started in, I thought you're going to say, feudal Japan, Assassin's Creed. The only people have been banging the drum for forever Assassin's Creed with Samarize and stuff. Yeah, that's good too.

Or an Ane Musha game in Paris would be cool. A new Ane Mushuji game generally would be nice. They can put it on the fucking moon for all I care at this point. I just, Jen Reno in there. I can't believe. I don't even want to get down this road again. It's so annoying to me. We haven't had a game.

It's been 10 years. Yeah. It's upsetting. Dawn and Dreams came out, right? That was what was called in 2006, I remember. It might even been 2005. I think it was five. Yeah, fall 2005.

I think you're right. So it's been over 10 years. I don't know the fuck they're thinking with that. The new, the new Zelda game, it sounds cool. I mean, just speaking generally on the NX Zelda, too. Like, I was thinking about it recently. I'm like, you know, I'm kind of. stoked about this game. Like it's, it's, uh, it's strange. Like, I remember when we

I played it at E3, I'm like, this is strange. It doesn't even feel like Zelda at all. It's way more mechanically complicated than any Zelda ever played in my life, which is cool. Like, it just, it looks fun. You know, like, I, I was like, yeah, I'm going to, I mean, I'm going to buy an NX. As long as they don't, as long as they don't fuck it up, you know, I'm going to put that analog stick below the face buttons where it belongs. Then other than that, um, yeah, I'm stoked about it. So just as an aside, since you brought up Zelda, I was, I was thinking about that recently. I was, I was, I was, Game looks fucking cool.

No, that's what I keep going back to in the fact that we have a flight on Sunday and fuck to be nice to play Zelda on that flight. Just sit there and have a real, have a full-fledged game that isn't, you know, my visual novels

that I'm getting on my Vito over and over again. Well, speaking to that, though, another game that I thought would be really cool would be an RPG set in American high school. We get a lot of Japanese high school and stuff, but I would love a real RPG set in America

early 2000. So when I was in high school, sure, you know, that's what I want. I just want. That's why you're excited for Y2K. Playing Emily is, yeah, I mean, that looks awesome. But playing Emily is away. Like I love that idea. Yeah. If they took that but actually flesh it out and made RPG out of it, I think that there's so, so

much you can do there. Gameplay mechanics involving downloading music and making mixtapes for girls and like really get it into it. That does sound good. You gotta play Saturday morning RPG. Like that game is on Vita way. It's unbeated way. It's on Vita.

It's on PS4. You should, that's, it's exactly what you're describing. All right. And you get in that. Like you, it takes place in school,

but like you're, it's more 80s-ish. So it's not quite like the error you want. I like the gameplay of making mixtapes. But the mechanics are cool. Like you, like you have a bunch of different weapons that are like based, like you can have a ruler or like a compass that you would draw circles with.

And like they all have different rules and stuff attached to them. A compass. A compass. A compass. A compass. A compass. A compass. You know, like a computer.

Remember. So, so, so, you should look at, that game's really cool. You should look into that game. Huh. Yeah, it's really, it's a really, really, really neat game. I think it's five episodes. You can beat each one in like a few hours. Not even.

It's really cool. Very cool. That's both playing on our flight. I'm down. The other, another idea I've had for a long time. And it's just Transformers, but if you took the Transformers IP out of it, I don't feel like we've ever gotten a really, really good. fun mech game that's not overly complicated.

Zone of the Enders is close for what I'm talking about. But even that, it ended up being either a bit too convoluted in the controls or in like number two. It went a little too far down the anime hole, which is the other thing of like, we haven't got into a met game that I feel like doesn't either do that as well. I would want a game that is based in like steampunk era times, like when, like the trains and all that stuff. but it's it's transformers but they're not transformers there's robots that turn into the things the robots in disguise but actually really sticking to the robots in disguise part of it so it is a stealth game but you're this giant ass mek but you have to get places without people seeing you so you have to be really

careful about people finding you but because it's like back then information doesn't travel that fast so if people find you in the woods and you're a train you're okay you got a while to get out of that area and like then those people would be like oh we saw this like giant robot thing and then people wouldn't believe them and stuff. Sure. I haven't thought too much about this. You know, there's trains going through the woods, no tracks.

But like with the trains or cars are like planes, what they were back then and all that stuff. So I think that it could be cool. But it's, it's stealth based. And it's more about like these alien creatures that transform into things. But like they're trying to escape. I don't know what. But I think it'd be fun.

I think that there's, there's a lot to be had there. And like we never, we don't get too many games in that world recently on the, what was the game you were playing? The dig? the Steamworld dig Oh Steam World dig And then there was the other one Steam World Heist or whatever

Yeah Those are cool but I'm talking a bit more I have not played ice yet It's supposed to be excellent I have not played it yet Any other ideas I'm all out No

Do you have any ideas Big Cove dog No No no no Never get enough 80s games Always a fan of 80s games Yeah neon What was it the Blood Dragon

Far Cry? Oh yeah Far Cod Blot Blot Dragon That's a stuff's awesome. Yeah. It'll be interesting to see with like the success of stranger, stranger things. I'm not going to say the stupid one or make fun of stranger things. And then oxen free. If you'll see more games coming up that are akin to goonies, akin to, hey, here are normal kids in this situation. How do we, that's popular right now, the callback to the 80s or

just being younger and being in high school. How do we take that and put that into a video game and make it different and not have it be, you know, it's no offense to ox free, but how simplistic that is. What if you did do it and you did an RPG about it? You. You know, you did an RPG about it. you did do a class-based thing where you're moving around and doing this. I think Life is Strange also kind of falls into that category. Cool. The final topic of the day, as always, brought to you by you over on the Kind of Funny forums.

You go to Kind of Funny.com slash gamescast topic. Is this not your topic? Is there a Stephen Insler a shout-out on this one? No, it wasn't on the calendar. Is it just because we haven't updated the Patreon page? We might have updated. Shout out to Stephen Insler for once again. I'll go check the page.

I'll go check the page right now. I'm sure he did. I'll give him a bonus one if he didn't. He deserves it. He deserves it. You get a shout out for free. Unless his wife finally went in and canceled the credit cards now that he died 14 months ago. Shout to Stephen Inslee for supporting us so much here on the Kind of Funny Games cast.

You are the coolest dude in the entire world. If you want to be a cool dude, you can go to Patreon.com slash kind of funny games, blah, blah, blah. Metroid. Nice. There you go. There you go. It took you a while to, like, warm up to this thing because I was like waiting for the like, oh, this is kind of cool. No, it is great. Well, I try not to stare at the camera too much, or the screen rather,

and then when I see something, like the, I saw the enemy from Kidikers. I was like, oh, what is that? Really cool. Definitely check out Orioto's work. It is fantastic. I feel so bad because we share so, we hide so much of it, I should say. This just looks like a cliff. But I know, but like if you want to go see more, you can go check out the link in the description. It's great time. There it is everybody. There is. Sammas himself. Metroid himself. Samis himself. All right. First question.

I'm fingering metric. Because from Justin, Justin G. What are your best Sega Dreamcast memories and stories? Because on the day that we're recording this, it's the 17th birthday. Oh, wow. Of the Dreamcast, 999, never forget. Fucking Dreamcast, man. I loved it the Dreamcast.

So my brother's best friend, PJ, had a Dreamcast from Japan before it came out in the States. And so I messed around a lot with it with him and then it compelled me to get one of my own. 999. I remember that day very well. it was the same day as the VMAs that year, I remember, because that was also like a $9.99 like advertisement for it or whatever. The Dreamcast

was special and I think like really ahead of its time. I'm not, I'm no Sega fan, but that console gave me a couple solid years of a lot of entertainment. I bought a lot of Dreamcast games and I played it a lot. It was the first console I went online with and played with people online and I played NBA2K

pretty much exclusively online. Crazy Taxi and Soul Calibur and, you know, a few others Power Stone. These were like, these were pivotal, like seminal games of their time. And the Dreamcast just came out at a strange time. The PS1 was still going very strong. N64 still had games coming out for it. This was, you know, Dreamcast came out in between Okerina time and Majoris Mask. It came out before or right around Final Fantasy, no, before Final Fantasy 9 came out. So this was this was around a time when like these other consoles were still going strong and we already knew PS2.

was coming. So it was doomed to fail. I kind of feel like everyone knew that. We knew PS2 was coming 2000. We knew that it's going to have a DVD player in it. We knew all these things. I think that PS2 was clearly going to murder it. I just didn't think that it was going to be as bad and as bloody as it was.

And by April 2001, it was discontinued. So it didn't have this long life in the States, but I bought the shit out of, like, I had a lot of Dreamcast games. I really liked that console. And I think the controller was great. I think the, because I love the VMU. I thought it was a lot of clever shit going on in that console that was maybe not ergonomic, but super ahead of its time.

And, you know, it just came out so quickly after Saturn. People didn't believe in Sega anymore. Sega kind of started to suck. It had Seaman, though. At C-Man, which my friend Cody was, like, obsessed with. I mean, my memory right is that I was a Sega kid. I was Master System Genesis, Game Gear, Saturn. And Saturn is the one that broke me.

And where I was like, I fucking burn that place down and salt. the earth, I'll never support them again. And so when Dreamcast came out, my Dreamcast memory is our high school was across the street from Target. And so like when I had time to kill after classes or whatever, I'd go across to Target and play fucking crazy taxi demo there. And I remember talking to Mike O'Brien and study hall. I'm like, I'm thinking about getting a Dreamcast. He's like, dude, the PlayStation 2 is out and it was like 99 days or whatever. And he's like, you're going to get that. Just wait. Just get that. You're going to be fine. Just get that. And he was right. And so like, I never bought a Dreamcast. None of my friends bought Dreamcasts. I didn't even see a

dreamcast somebody playing it in reality. until freshman year of college when my friend Nick Reese was sitting there and he was playing, I think NBA 2K, whatever it had been. He was still playing that over and over and over and playing online against somebody. I was like, oh, cool. Like somebody's playing this fucking thing. You know what I mean? And that was it. That was it until I got to IGN. And they had those CD books that were just filled with Dreamcast games. And everybody always wanted to play Choo Choo Choo Rocket at lunch. Yeah. Oh, Choo Choo Rocket. That was a, that was a game. I'm trying to just find the infringe because I don't want to misspeak, but I think it's true. Let me see. Let me see.

it's, yeah. So fewer than 10 million units sold, which I knew. I thought it was more closer to 10 million units, but actually closer to 9 million units. So a commercial, complete commercial failure. For context, we used sold more, Envita sold more than your gas. So not a well, but also not on the market for a very long time. Came out in 1998, I want to say, in Japan, and then 99, obviously, in the West. I feel like they just, it was just too soon. I feel like if Dreamcast was a little more, marinated a little bit more, spaced a little bit more from Saturn, which wasn't alive anymore really, but people remembered it still and its failure and the reek of its failure. It might have had a better chance of success of it actually came out closer to what

game cube and Xbox came out. I wonder, man. I still, I think it was doomed from the start just based on its library and what it, the direction that it went. Like they're kind of doing what Sony is doing now in the sense of like they really focus on the more obscure games, like the RPGs and the really Japanese. stuff and people love those games, but not enough people buy those games. Yeah, what was the, what was the game that Jared Petty loves? Sega, Sega, Sega. Which was like that weird

role-playing game about Sega. Yeah. The, yeah, it was a, I don't know that it was, it was going to do any better. Remember that PS2 sold 150 million units at GameCube and Xbox combined for like not even 50 million. So it's, it's, you know, they got slaughtered. Dreamcast might have been in, in, in, in that race as well. I just wonder, living in PlayStation 2's shadow before the PS2 came out, I think it was a really bad way to be

as opposed to living in its shadow after it came out because what I really think what happened, and this is my honest opinion about PS2 is that like, that thing came out and it was cool and it had cool games. The launch library sucked. We didn't get a good game,

like a really must have game until the next year. Ani Mushu was really the first major AAA game of worth anything on that console. And I think that if it came out in that window where people were like, it's a good DVD player. And that's why it's so,

sold so many copies because it wasn't selling 150 million units around the world for its games. I just feel like PS2, I don't know. It's my least favorite PlayStation console. So I just, so I just feel like I think PS1 and PS3 and PS4 are all better than it. Like the GameCube dominated that generation from a quality standpoint in my mind and like not even close. And so I feel like Dreamcast could have fit in that niche where maybe it wouldn't have done 30 million, but it could have done it could have done way better than 9 million. I really do feel like it just came out at a time when, when, um, and six, there was no reason to move on from PS1 and N64.

You know, I feel like it only succeeded as much as it did because it came out when it did. And it was this new fresh thing. And it was the first next gen system. So like that gave it that kind of boost. Like I remember being super bummed that I couldn't get one. I never owned one. I only played at other people's houses. And I was so upset because I wanted to play Sonic Adventure.

Like when looking at the previews of that, then I played Sonic Adventure and realized I didn't want that. But my problem with the Dreamcast is I, I, I am one of the, what now feels like minority, but I'm definitely not, where I don't care for the Dreamcasts at all. I don't have these fond memories about it. And I think that in a lot of, I hate the controller. I think it was trash. I think a lot of, like, they ruined a lot of franchises on that system. But looking back now that there's such a zeitgeist of people that, like, are so vocal about loving the Dreamcast, I think in a couple years, the Wii is going to be the same way.

Where it's like, I'm one of the few guys, like, standing up for that library. But, like, I understand that the system sucks. Yeah, I don't know that I would. necessarily stand up for the Dreamcast. I liked the controller because I thought the controller's construction was really cheap. They were actually really easy to break. Crazy Taxi was a game, especially using the triggers. You can break the shit of that controller.

And I knew people that did broke a lot of them. But I liked that it was, that controller was ahead of its time. And I think that that's, I think that that's a really, just like putting a fucking phone port in the back of your console was ahead of its time. I think it came out too soon. I don't think the market was ready for it.

Like I don't think that the market knew what to make of this device. And I really do, like, PS1 was still murdering at that when it came out. N64 was dying, but there were still games coming out for it that were of relevance. And we didn't quite know about Project Dolphin yet

and what Microsoft was really doing at that time. We knew about PS2. So, I just think about that. Remember that the dominance of PS1 was the reason everyone was anticipating PS2. So it's really a terrible choice either way, but I really do feel like if they just, if they just

didn't half bake it the way they did because they did half bake it. If you read about it, I mean, it's like a total fucking mess. I mean, they had a different console in between those two consoles. They never released to the Pluto, which people can, which is some sort of fucking Frankenstein console. You guys can read about it's like a, it's a weird thing. But they were, they were desperate.

And if they showed a little less desperation and a little more quality control, I think, what killed the Dreamcast too is that like, you could flagrantly fucking pirate games. Like it was a, it was a, not even with Bleemcast, all that kind of stuff. Like, you could just do whatever the fuck you want.

Yeah. It was, it was like an incredible, there was nothing on that machine that was stopping people from doing it. And I think that was another. PS1 was also extremely easy to. You still use a spring and put something in the fucking parallel port and all that kind of stuff.

It was a little, it was a little harder. Some obstacles. And you had to do a thing with the PSI remember where it was like a, you put a spring in the circular thing so that it thought the case was shut. Then you took a real disc and you put a thing in that. You put it in a little bit. And then you took it out while spinning and put the other disc in.

Yeah. It's like this is so, it doesn't seem right. For all the shit that I've talked about Dreamcast in the last couple years, like, I obviously have seen a lot of people like push back on that and tell me why they love it. I feel like I finally am starting to understand. And like, I finally am looking at the library and so they're talking about. I'm like, you got, you have a point. You do have a point. And I think that Dreamcast did a great job of replicating the arcade experience at home.

And that's something that the, like, the super Nintendo was, like, that's why it won. Yeah. Because you could play Street Fighter at home. and things just changed in the late 90s where arcades were slowly being beaten by console games and with the Dreamcast having Soul Calibur, having Marvel versus Capcom 2 and having them played just like they did in arcades

was such like using the, I forgot, it was called the Naomi Board, I think it was that the system used. I don't know. And it was the same system they used in the arcade so it was like, it was... Oh, M-A-M-E, is that what you're in? No, but it doesn't matter. It used the same board.

And so then being able to have those experiences at home, I remember being super jealous that I couldn't play. Like, I loved Marvel versus Capcom too, but I couldn't play it at home. Years later came out on Xbox and PS2, but the Dreamcast, they had it. You know, Crazy Taxi is another thing. Hell yeah.

Yeah, Crazy Taxi was fantastic. These are all arcade games that they translated perfectly to the console. And so when you look at it under, I'm looking at having had a PS2, having been able to play those games later, playing those games in arcades, whatever. But it's like if you, if I had a Dreamcast since day one,

and I had all those games as they were coming out, I think I'd look back at it a little bit differently. More fondly. I judge it mainly on the Sonic Adventure games, which to me are an insult to Sonic. A spat in your face. And then a lot of other games that I like just, I didn't get into or play.

Like Shenmu does nothing for me. But I respected. It does a lot for a lot of other people. Yeah, Shemu was an important game to a lot of people. There was a lot of Skies of Arcadia. Oh, Skies of Arcadia. But then again, I see that to me is a lot of other people. GameCube game. Yeah, I came to GameCube and the, so it's, there's a, there's a, it does have a good, it has a very overblown library games. Like people make it out to be way more than it is. I don't agree that it's like this incredible fucking, just like they will with the Wii U. Just to this incredible category. I'm the Vita. Thank you. But I think that, I think the Dreamcast, uh, I think the Dreamcast deserves a second look from a lot of people. I think it's a really great console. Jake at Hoy Hoy Hoy Jake says Colin. What do you want to see from Matterfall?

We talked about this recently, right? I already have a theory about how the game works, and I don't have any inside information. Because I do, you know, candidly, I do know the guys at Housemark and friends with a couple of them. My assumption, this is one of I assume Matterfall is. And I think we talked about it on a Connergrague live

or somewhere. For a quick recap, Matterfall, the game coming from Housemark, the people who did Resolgun, Dead Nation, etc. Right. This is their game they announced, I don't know one last year at PSX? No, I don't remember where they announced it. We got like a pre-rendered like trailer Showing a guy with a gun

Like running as things are like happening around him Whatever my assumption is that it's true to house marks name It's gonna be an arcade experience Cylindrical like Resilgun so like a defender inspired game Instead of using a ship To shoot things and go whatever like platforms are appearing and disappearing And it's a platformer And you're shooting and whatever and things are matterful

So it's like things are coming and going around you and you have to keep moving. That's what my assumption of the game. That's what the game is. That sounds fucking cool. They're masters. They know what they're doing. I think alienation was a miss.

And I think, but by their standards, that just means it's a good game. Exactly. Yeah, not broken. Just not. So I think that this,

they need something like this. And I think that this is probably the natural continuation of ResoGon. I think we'll figure that out when, and they're probably connected in some way. All their games are connected because of the woman's voice. SMG. Yeah.

So that's what I hope Matterfall is. I'm stoked about it. I'm surprised at, They've been holding it close to their chest. My hope is that they announced it and release it very quickly. But we'll see. Luma Dream wants to know. What do we think the most played genre in video games is?

Moba. You'd have to think Mova or first person shooter, like, between the two of those. See, that's the thing I was going to say first person shooter because first person shooter just has more legs in terms of years on mobile. Yeah. Mobas are huge right now. And people think of like a Bobby Amos or, you know, Alfredo going home and playing Call of Duty over and over and over and over and over and over.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, Counter Strike Go, by the way, 23 million copies. I couldn't believe it when I saw that number. And they think that it can pass or that it has a possibility of passing Minecraft's PC numbers. So I think there's more first-person shooter people playing more hours than their... Maybe your average mobile player plays more than your average first-person shooter player, but I think when you talk about the quantity of FPS players. With the Counter-Strike Go, does that include PC?

That's what I was saying. That was, I think, only PC sales. Oh. Hmm. And that's what they were saying, like, PC. pound for pound, they might outsell Minecraft on PC. Damn. That's what they're saying.

That's what their hope is, because that game has lags. I mean, just like Minecraft, but it seems like Minecraft's kind of, I don't want to say sputtering because that's not true, but not quite as prolific as it's selling eighth best in the United States every month instead of, you know, fourth. So, but those are console sales. Yeah. So, yeah, I don't, I don't know. I would say it's got to be MoBA.

Like right now, not historically, but like right now, I bet you the pronounce. dominance of people play Mobus. Luma Dream says, what Sony franchises should get the Pokemon Go treatment? My pick would be ape escape. Jesus. Invisible is not. Invisimals is already there. It was, you know, and yet you all slept on invisibles.

You didn't help it on the PSP or the Vita. That's what so funny is that Invisible is actually is literally doing what Pokemon Go does now, but I'd never give a flying fuck about Invisable. So I didn't even know that. It was because it wasn't easy, right? It was booted up, do this by the camera. Have your little fucking card to throw down so you can do that shit or whatever. Yeah.

Yeah, I didn't even, when people were sending those screenshots around, I'm like, I didn't even know that the Invisible was doing this. I didn't even know this. Oh, really? I was like, I don't know. I remember being so stoked not for Invisible. Jack DeRis. The Yu-Gio game that was going to bring us and then it never brought us in it. I kept, I kept assigning Jack DeRise, uh, Invisibles reviews for IG and PlayStation. That's hilarious. Because he loved it. Yeah, I don't know. Sony is going to aggressively, apparently, get involved in mobile gaming.

Now, no, they've released mobile games. We had an Uncharted game and a Sly game. The Uncharted game was awesome, by the way. It was in between travel and Gamescast, so we, like, doubled up on it. But it was fantastic. It was essentially Squirionix Montreal games. So it was like Deus X. Oh, nice.

Deis X-Go and Lara Crofto, but with Uncharted, which is like, all right, cool, even better. Yeah, yeah. I bet there's got to be something highly recommended for a mobile game there's got to be some sackboy thing you can do if sackboy again we talk about has relevance outside of little big planet people do care about him as a little character mascot and toys and toys of us like there's got to be something he had a mobile game too right wasn't it run sackboy run or something yeah sack boy run yeah he bringing up ape escape I feel like that could be fun not necessary but fun not necessary for sure do you guys like a apiscape yeah abyscape was fine The, I mean, I think it got a little long in the tooth, you know, but I like Spike and in All-Stars especially, so.

Oh, okay. He was my dude. He was awesome. He was great. Another one that, I mean, for real, for a mobile game for them to make, not in the Pokemon Go thing, but Buzz. Oh, yeah. That studio shut down.

Yeah, but I don't think it is not a, I don't think it needs to be as nearly as complicated, right? It's just a trivia game you play and you sync up with your friends there and stuff. Because think about it every time where I don't, not every time, but how many times I've been at a bar. bar or whatever and you see people playing that thing where they put that the card against their heads. Yeah. Just make it super simple trivia where you all Bluetooth in and you're all playing and buzzes there doing his

little shit. Doing his little shit. Hey, I'm buzz. Final question comes from KBW AK-47. Do the game awards really matter at the end of the day? Do you guys think that it doesn't need to exist? No and yes, but I think that obviously it has a audience or it wouldn't. That answers that question for me.

I wouldn't care if it existed or not. but people clearly do. Yeah, that's the thing is I think, yeah, I think do they have, is there a point to them existing? Yeah, I mean, I think it is that we, you know,

we are an industry that doesn't talk to each other enough and doesn't celebrate the good enough and it does appear to be negative all the time. So to have one place that is the show for the most part because there's GDC Awards and there's E3 stuff and there's Judges Week and then there's every site doing their own little thing. To have one place that is,

hey, everybody come together for one night and watch this because even if you're going to watch it and fucking hate talk about it, you're watching it and you're communicating and to Jeff Keeley's credit you know and again full disclosure like we're friends with Jeffrey you know what I mean whatever like I think every year it gets better I think every I think he does I think he does care I think you know Jeff is a legit gamer and a legit dude and I think he does take it every year of like they didn't like this they didn't like this I think getting away from Spike was a huge move of okay cool now I can make the show I want to make

yeah year after what two years now in a row of doing it on his own getting to see what it looks like and how it goes I think it is a good thing does it matter no it could get blinked away tomorrow and like industry wouldn't be rocked to its core or something. But it is a cool place to debut a cool trailer and talk about an announcement and then sit here and go, hey, we like these people and we're going to honor them. And it still is too that the board is made up of people from IGN and GameStop and all the Earth GameSpot and all these different, you know, sites that have an editorial voice. That's cool. Yeah, exactly. I don't think it needs to happen. I don't think a lot of things need to happen. But I think that it should. This show doesn't need to happen. Definitely.

But I think that it's very good to have. And I think that it gives video games a level of credibility. not in the like journalistic way, but just in the sense of like these matters. Like we can talk about these in the same way. We can talk about music and movies. To mainstream people like the Game Awards last year, when you won, I showed a lot of my friends that video and they were blown away.

They're like, whoa, that stage. That looks like a real thing. People talk about video games on this, you know, like that's people are talking about people talking about video games on this. Like Greg Miller's winning award for being the trending gamer, which means what, you know? Don't know. But when you think about it, though,

it's like that it's explaining that type of stuff that it's teaching people that oh story in a game is something that deserves an award oh soundtrack is something that video games have you know and it's like feel like we all know that right but it's about the people that don't and i think that for the us is out there they give us trailers like game awards has been fantastic about debuting stuff last of us yeah debuted there and it's like where else is it going to that batman tell tell tell you that's like game awards now are like that's something i'm looking forward to at the end of the year because we get a announcements out of that. Yeah. There's very few things every year now that we get a whole bunch of announcements and where you're expecting surprises. The only other thing is E3. Yeah.

Besides that, it's like Gamescom, TGS, PSX, all the conferences of which now there's won every single month, you can kind of expect what we're going to get from all of this. But the game awards, you're expecting some big reveal, you're expecting Nintendo to be there, you're expecting Kojima to do something. That's awesome. And you figure it's exposure to, right? I mean, for as many people of us doing a let's play of Emily's away or her story or something, there's millions that have no idea what the fuck that thing is.

So they're there to watch and see the next giant AAA trailer, but they get to see her story win best acting. And I'm like, all right, cool. What's that about? No, man, I think it's very, very good. And I think that the direction, like you said, every year, it gets better and better. Like, you got to work out the Kings. Things are never perfect the first round.

And, you know, especially with Jeff Keely, he gets so much hate for being this kind of over-produ. guy, but I think that he is really guiding the ship when it comes to overproduce stuff in our industry, which allows us to do this shit and like have it be the weird mix of production mixed with shenanigans. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that it's cool that there's someone else that's thinking the way we think. I think it's really important that people, at least given the time to pave this path because I think in a decade we're going to look back at it and it's going to be so clearly

drawn where you can look back to the game boards and be like, that was the template that's where we started from the template yeah ladies and gentlemen thank you very much for joining us again on this beautiful episode 86 the kind of funny games cast thank you guys i felt good about this one until next time