Video Gamers Podcast - Games That Took Over the World – Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: August 10, 2026

Gaming hosts Josh, Ryan, and Ace are breaking down the gaming phenomena that completely took over the world. From overnight sensations to cultural juggernauts, we’re diving into the video games that... dominated conversations, shattered records, and kept millions of players hooked. Which titles earned their legendary status, and which were simply impossible to escape? Join us for a fun look back at some of the biggest moments in gaming, the unforgettable impact these video games had, and why they became worldwide obsessions. It’s another can’t-miss episode packed with gaming nostalgia on the Video Gamers Podcast!   Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, Gaius, Jigglepuf, Phelps, Bobby S, NorwegianGreaser, Dettmarp and NightWizard63   Thanks to our Legendary Supporters: Milkman, Drewsky, Jigglepuf and BadGam3rDad   Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: ⁠patreon.com/videogamerspod⁠ Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/h2cHKAvSmu Follow us on Instagram:⁠ https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/⁠  Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@videogamerspod Follow us on X:⁠ https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod⁠  Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@VideoGamersPod     Visit us on the web:⁠https://videogamerspod.com/⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify.
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Starting point is 00:01:22 when a game becomes something so special, it literally takes over the gaming world. Well, on today's episode, we're breaking down a few games that became global phenomenon and not only took over the lives of gamers, but the planet as a whole. Before we get to some of the most insane games to ever hit planet Earth, some introductions are in order. I am your host, Josh, and joining me, he's the next up-and-coming global superstar host of a globally beloved gaming podcast. It's Ryan.
Starting point is 00:01:58 I'm not sure how to respond to that. I don't even... That's where you go, it's me. It's me, Ryan? You don't know how to respond to that. You were nice to me. I just don't know what to do. This is an unusual feeling is all.
Starting point is 00:02:19 I'm just saying. This was your red carpet moment, Ryan. You blew it. One shiny moment. And joining us. He once tried to take over the world and came close to succeeding before he realized being a villain was a bit too mainstream. So we called it off to go play that new indie Metroidvania that he supported during its Kickstarter phase. It's Ace.
Starting point is 00:02:41 Guilty as charged. Absolutely. The number of games and Ace is like, oh yeah, I supported that Kickstarter. I'm just like, A's is single-handedly keeping Kickstarter games live. I was like,
Starting point is 00:02:54 yeah, you'll see my name of the credits and you finish the game. I have never kickstarted anything in my life, guys. You have no belief. I think it's a great idea. No belief. I just like to get something for when I spend my money.
Starting point is 00:03:07 Like, I believe in the I give you money. order happiness. It's not, I'm not happy at the time. I'm just giving my money away. I'm just pre-ordering the happiness that will show up later and you're helping someone else. I can buy the happiness later, Ace, when it's available. Then I can get instant happiness.
Starting point is 00:03:23 I can go like, oh, look, this game is for sale. I can buy it. You can start a business. You know, thank me later. You pre-order something and then you thank yourself later because now you're happy later when you might have needed it and you didn't have something. I think I think that Josh doesn't care if he's in the credits. So he's just like all late.
Starting point is 00:03:38 He doesn't want to He doesn't want a plushy He doesn't want mailed anything He doesn't want anything like that If you had to guess Ace How many Kickstarter Things have you signed up for Five or six
Starting point is 00:03:52 No It's more than that No it's five or six Because I really Yeah Some didn't Some didn't succeed Some don't succeed
Starting point is 00:03:59 Some don't succeed Crosworn Mariacci legends Inari I don't remember Didn't you support Lika the weird excite bike game?
Starting point is 00:04:10 I didn't support it a high enough tier to get my name in it, but I did support it at like the $20. Right, but you still kickstarted it. Yeah, yeah. What do you mean some don't succeed? Are you not counting the ones that you contributed to that didn't? Because they fail. If they don't hit a goal.
Starting point is 00:04:22 If they don't hit a goal, they don't make it. If they, whatever arbitrary goal is set. So you're not including those. Yeah, layers deep. So what would it be with those? Oh, layers deep. I forgot about that. They don't keep those logged. So I don't know.
Starting point is 00:04:35 Yeah. And then Batara Fade Unbound was the newest one. I did, which is the sort of, you know. That's a convenient answer. I don't know. Is it a Metroid Rania? It's a Metroidvania.
Starting point is 00:04:45 You can parry the death screen. Every game I'm supported is a Metroidvania. Is it really? People think I'll pick it on Ace, but this intro is as true as it could get, man. This is. And even more so, hold on,
Starting point is 00:04:58 you guys are going to have to bear with me for two seconds. Oh my gosh. Where is it? It's under, what did, okay. Okay, this is Ace's latest content. idea that we have a thread for.
Starting point is 00:05:11 Oh, oh, I saw this. This is, this slides up perfectly. What we got going on? It's the Metroidvania misconception. The genre, no one understands. Yeah. This is, Ace wants to do this for an episode, by the way. And I will. I have it all
Starting point is 00:05:27 notes. I'm pretty sure. I have it planned out. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Yeah, the only thing he got was a laughing emoji. I got no response. I got laughed at. I and I basically both just ghosted Ace as a response to this idea. Ignore the idea where I was going to have. I was going to have to do all the work on that episode and everything too, so whatever.
Starting point is 00:05:47 I don't care. Ace, I wish I loved anything as much as you love indie Metroidvenians, man. Like, honestly, like, it's another. I'm a little, I'm jealous. It's all jealousy is what it is. I don't even love my kids as much as you love those things, man. I know, that's what I'm saying. It's like, I do have one.
Starting point is 00:06:03 I want somebody to look at me. I want somebody to look at me. the way Ace looks at an Indian Metrovania dude. Hey, guess what guys? Kickstarter shirt. There it is. He's got it. Layers Deep. Yes.
Starting point is 00:06:18 That's the onion game. Did that come out? It's not out yet. No, I've been played the build for it. Dude, it looks really good. It is. It's quite good. Shout out to Layers Deep. It's a hand-drawn indie Metroidvania, guys. Hand-drawn indie Metroidvania. Inspired by Over the Garden Wall.
Starting point is 00:06:38 curious, we're talking about global phenomenon games. I regret my choices. I have one, Ryan. Without spoiling anything, Ace, what genre is your global phenomenon game you picked? It might be, you know, an action platformer, you know, maybe a Metroidvania.
Starting point is 00:06:54 There's maybe a Metroidvania. One day, one day somebody will look at me like Ace looks at Metroidvenous. For real. 100%. Oh, man. This is, this is going to be a green. I think everyone threw in my face too, when I said that Friendslaw was like oversaturated.
Starting point is 00:07:11 They were like, think of all the Metroving. That's, that's fair. Gosh, darn everything. We don't want to bring this up. We don't want to bring this up. You're going to, you're going to brow me up. Oh, boy. Oh, boy.
Starting point is 00:07:22 Don't get out of here. Get out of here. All right. Well, let's settle Ryan down. Ryan. I believe you got a review for us to read. I do. I do.
Starting point is 00:07:29 I have another one where we're trying to get to everything we can. I know there's been a lot coming in recently, which is amazing. Please leave us reviews. We appreciate it so much. It helps us more than you can imagine. And we're on the road to 1,000 on Apple. We got over 2,000 on Spotify, but Apple, we're getting there. We're close like 20 more, something like that, 1920 more.
Starting point is 00:07:51 So please, if you can, yeah, do it. We're getting really, really close. But this one comes in from I bet the big one titled Gaming Perfection. Like, B, there's no T in there. I bet the big one, boys Oh, I be the big one This is why you can't have me My brain just like
Starting point is 00:08:12 Put stuff in We started having you read reviews for a reason, Ryan And it was for sure just enjoyment That works for me too Yeah So I am new to the show And I will say so far You guys rock
Starting point is 00:08:27 Oh you meant I'd be the big one, sorry Oh yeah, well Listen This is a reviewer that that spent their time giving us five stars and you're going to interrupt this. I was trying to give him the right credit. You changed his name to betting. I'm sure they're enjoying watching gambling.
Starting point is 00:08:45 I like to gamble, okay, all right? Sorry. We can tell. I be the big one. I'm going to read your review here if they let me. Conceded much. Gaming perfection is what it's titled. So I am new to the show and I will say so far you guys rock.
Starting point is 00:09:04 you are the Nebes gaming crew of podcasting for me. I wish I could join in and play with y'all. I am a survival crafting fan and I love when you all talk about the genre. We keep coming back for sure. Thanks, y'all. Up, up, down, down, left right, left right, be a select start. You just got 30 lives.
Starting point is 00:09:26 Congratulations. Yeah. And a big shout out on the show for your review. Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. love survival crafting games and we'll absolutely be covering those in the future because enshrouded one-quarter release is coming up and I plan on diving back into and shrouded.
Starting point is 00:09:44 I'm going back to enthrouded. Yeah. A.C. and I made it a good ways in the game, but I was still pretty gung-ho, but we had to abandon it to play something. I feel like that early access has been like three years. Yes, but this is. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:09:57 I will say this is the case where like early access really works for this genre specifically. And I'm all for it. I excuse it for the survival crafting sort of genre for sure. And I love that genre. Love survival crafting. So all right. Well, guys, we are going to be breaking down three games that took over the world. And when we say took over the world, we mean it.
Starting point is 00:10:21 We mean there is not a gamer out there that didn't know about these games, whether you were playing them or not. But these were games that literally everybody in the world knew about. We're going to be talking about what major. that happen. We've each actually done some research on these. We'll talk about why they hit so well. What made them the global phenomenon that they are? Why
Starting point is 00:10:43 gamers responded to these games and we'll cover all of that information. We each picked out a game. We're not going to spoil the list for you. We like a little bit of a cliffhanger here, people. So we'll talk about them as we get to them. Who wants to go first? Either one of you or you guys want me to jump in first.
Starting point is 00:11:00 They want you to lead the way on this? I'm definitely not more first after that riving. Uh-uh. All right, that's fine. Well, they know what you're going to come out with. Yeah, I know. I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, all right.
Starting point is 00:11:12 Well, my game, the one that I picked as a global phenomenon is the one and only Hell Divers 2. Guys, we still have people in our Discord server playing Hell Divers almost nightly. Yep. This game is alive and well to this day. Two years later. Now, you know, we're not going to get. I mean, we will get into player counts a little bit.
Starting point is 00:11:36 I don't know what Hell Divers 2 player count is currently, but it doesn't matter. Here is a little bit of a primer for Hell Divers 2 and the phenomenon that it became. It's 30,000. It's sold. Real quick. How many? 30,000. That's not, that's not bad for a game to spend out.
Starting point is 00:11:52 That's not bad at all for a game that came out. Yeah. A few years back. When Hell Divers 2 launched, which we were there for, because we were super excited for Hell Divers 2, I remember the hype leading up to this game. game. It sold roughly 1 million copies in its first few days. It released February 8th, by the way, because I'm going to throw out another date here. It reached 8 million sales by mid-March. So a little over a month later, it hit 8 million sales. And it hit 12 million within 12 weeks.
Starting point is 00:12:26 So a million sales a week in the gaming world is insane. That made it the fastest sales. selling PlayStation game of all time at that point. Dang, man. I believe it. Those servers. Those services game. Now, PlayStation's a new company, right? They've only been around like a couple years, right?
Starting point is 00:12:49 Yeah, yeah. To be the fastest selling PlayStation game of all time? Newcomers to the indie scene. Do you know what, do you know what tiny little game, it blew past? Ooh, I'm interested to hear this. Oh, I am interested to hear this. that's just one of the greatest franchises ever. God of War Ragnarok.
Starting point is 00:13:11 Really? God of War 2018 comes out. God of War Ragnarok smashes sales records, rightfully so. And then a little game called Hell Divers 2 comes along a little bit later and just blows past God of War Ragnarok is the fastest selling PlayStation game of all time at that point. All right. Fast forward to early 2026. Estimates put the lifetime sales. for Hell Divers 2 above 20 million copies across all platforms, guys.
Starting point is 00:13:41 Steam dominates that at 13.1 million. PlayStation 5 around 5.6 million. And I don't know if you guys remember, but about a year after the release, it came to Xbox where it sold 1.6 million. It came to Xbox in August of 2025. Jeez, dang. At its peak, Hell Divers 2 had more concurrent players than GTA 5
Starting point is 00:14:01 or Destiny 2 ever managed. Whoa. Really? It had that many concurrent players. Yes. Yep. And at its peak, it had more people playing it than Fortnite or Call of Duty. So some of the biggest franchises to ever exist, Hell Divers 2 at its peak was bigger than those.
Starting point is 00:14:24 That's just insane. That alone tells you something. All right. If I had to throw it to you guys real quick, Ace, you played Hell Divers 2 with us. What is your just general opinion of Hell Divers too? If you had to just quantify it and say, no, this is what I think about this game. It's just a good time, man.
Starting point is 00:14:42 Like, it's great solo. It's great with friends. It's well put together game. It looks beautiful. It plays great. The devs kind of screw things over every now and then. But other than that, it's a great game. Yep.
Starting point is 00:14:53 Brian, what about you? Straight up. Anyone born, like, gosh, before, like, 1995, you probably know a lot of really awesome 80s and 90s action movies. Hell Divers 2 is just playing the sickest action movie every time you drop in. And it's so much fun. It is chaotic. It is wild.
Starting point is 00:15:19 It is crazy. It is tense. Everything about it is everything you ever want with like an action world. And that's what you get. And that's why this took off so well. That's why it did the numbers that it did. It obviously hasn't had the longevity of like Call of Duty or Fortnite or anything like that. But there's still a very, very strong base that play this game and love this game.
Starting point is 00:15:41 And I'm sure it's still fantastic. I haven't played it in a while. But I know that if I dropped in, I would have as much fun now as I had before. It is, it is an all-timer. I freaking love helldivers. I just love how- I'm kind of getting the itch. I'm in. I'm down.
Starting point is 00:15:57 If I knew that you and Ace would be down, like I would actually not mind playing. dude, to be honest. There's a bunch of people in our server that play. I know. I know. We could easily find more. We could find a group pretty easy. Okay.
Starting point is 00:16:08 So I'm going to run down some of the things that made Hell Divers 2 successful and great at the same time. Ryan, you touched on this. Ace, you touched on this. The gameplay for Hell Divers 2 was honestly just peak gameplay. It was fun. It was funny. It was co-op. You had friendly fire, which led to some hilarious moments.
Starting point is 00:16:30 You know, if you're trying to break down, the actual gameplay portion. We could spend an entire episode. Oh, that would take it. Oh, yeah. Right. But between the loadout, your air strikes, your artillery, your Ryan's stupid mortar, the turrets, the heavy machine guns, all these things that you could bring in and use during
Starting point is 00:16:46 a mission, the variety of gameplay and the choices that you got to say, hey, I want to play this way. I want to play that way. Led to a lot of variety in the gameplay. You could tackle things in any number of ways that you wanted. Progression. Gameplay is great. But if you can't, if you can't keep people.
Starting point is 00:17:02 people hooked, then what good is a game, right, if it's only going to fall off four days later. So progression, the challenge, the various levels and the difficulties that you could spike that thing up to, continue to increase to match the stratagem. So they had this beautiful, you would unlock things, which made you stronger, but then you could up your difficulty level to match that. And it was this perfect ladder of just step after step of leading to, hey, we're playing suicide level. We can barely escape. but there was always that challenge so that the gameplay never felt stale at that point.
Starting point is 00:17:36 I mean, that's not even to mention the enemy variety. There was so much enemy variety. Yes. Do you remember the first times you met the automaton's? Remember the first time we saw a Bile Titan? Yeah. Or the whole? And we were just like, oh, no.
Starting point is 00:17:50 Yeah. Yep. So gameplay was absolutely ridiculous. It was so much fun. So you have gameplay that kept people going, okay, this game's actually a lot of fun. you had replayability. Every mission felt different.
Starting point is 00:18:03 The choice of missions and the gear and the options and the evolving enemy types. You had all of that that kept things feeling fresh for you. Ace, you mentioned it all the different enemy factions and enemy types and stuff like that, whether you were going after the Terminids or the automaton's. Wait, is it Terminids? Is that right? I think it's Terminids. I think it's Terminids, but that might not be Warhammer.
Starting point is 00:18:23 Terminids, I think, are the bug ones, right? Yeah, yeah. I prefer the bugs. You know, the automaton's were really cool and it was a neat like Terminator type thing, but the bugs were always my favorite. Terminants too. Yeah, Terminids, okay.
Starting point is 00:18:38 Here's where things really start to catch on, the memes. Okay, if you start thinking, and we're going to see this, Ryan, with your game that you're going to talk about because this played a huge part in the game that you are going to talk about here in a little bit. But when you talk about a global phenomenon, social media comes into play on these.
Starting point is 00:18:55 We see this with a lot of friend-slop games lately, right? with, you know, mecha chameleon and it takes over your algorithm and the reels and you start seeing these games online, no matter where you are. Hell Divers 2 was one of the most memeable social media games ever. Between the friendly fire moments, the epic last second escapes onto the drop ship where all of your teammates were dead and you had no revived stratagems left. I mean, you know, you had these absolutely insane moments that were happening that people were sharing.
Starting point is 00:19:26 you know, you had just funny things that would happen, whether it was somebody just exploding and getting thrown five miles up into the air or something stupid like that happening. All of these made Hell Divers 2 insanely shareable online. That's not even counting the entire like super earth propaganda thing that was happening online at the same time. Oh, it was so good. it.
Starting point is 00:19:54 Dude, like, when Hell Divers too, when this took over the world, you could salute people out in public.
Starting point is 00:20:01 Like, you know, or you could like yell out sweet liberty my leg and somebody would salute you. You know,
Starting point is 00:20:08 right. Yeah, I mean, everybody knew about this game, dude. And the fact that it was shared so much online is absolutely
Starting point is 00:20:15 part of what led it to be the global phenomenon that it is. Nobody likes hearing about live service, right? But Hell Divers Two was built to be a live service game.
Starting point is 00:20:27 However, they did it in a different way that actually resonated with people that was not the pushback against live service games like we have seen a lot, especially in recent times. So the live service model for Hell Divers 2 wasn't just about a battle pass. It was more about the evolving world, the evolving enemies, the new orders that were coming through the pipe, right? Like, hey, the automaton's are pushing for this planet. we have to go stop them, right?
Starting point is 00:20:54 And then everybody would go and like, when you get in there, yeah. It was all very in universe. It was like, oh, we got to go do this now. Yep. The, you know, the game director, they were big on this guy that was the game director. It was kind of planning, coordinating this whole, like,
Starting point is 00:21:08 you know, thing that was going on. This is the kind of live service model that gamers enjoyed because it kept things fresh and it wasn't simply pleased by our battle pass and then work your way up the battle pass. Yeah. You know, it was a different type of model that they leaned into, and it worked really, really well. And people resonated with that
Starting point is 00:21:25 and kind of helped kind of self-perpetuate that at that point. gamers felt like they were actually participants in this in this live service model rather than just people that were experiencing like predetermined content. Like, hey, I made it to chapter two. Ryan, if you made it to chapter two, oh no, I'm only on chapter one.
Starting point is 00:21:44 Okay, well, when you hit chapter two, you're going to, you know what I mean? Like people felt like they were participating versus just experiencing something that was already set to happen. And that made a big difference for people. It was very dynamic. Yeah, exactly.
Starting point is 00:21:57 And this is the kind of model where they hit it off. This live service thing that they went for, they absolutely knocked out of the ballpark. Accessibility helps a lot when you're trying to be a global phenomenon. The game launched with crossplay between PC and PlayStation at the time. It was a difficult game and it was a chaotic game, but it was not a sweaty game. Right? And I think this really helped a lot of people.
Starting point is 00:22:20 It caught on for. a lot of people because unless you were at the highest difficulty levels, it wasn't even about success at that point. It was more just about the mission and playing with your friends. And if you died and you wiped, it didn't matter. It didn't matter, right? You still had a good time.
Starting point is 00:22:35 Yeah. And so, you know, that was something that resonated with gamers that may not have been hardcore gamers. And Ryan, we're going to see this with your game that you're going to talk about, something very similar in that respect where it actually catered to a wide audience of people. here's where it gets interesting to me.
Starting point is 00:22:54 The genre. Do you guys know what games released, even remotely close to Hell Divers 2 that were in that third person co-op shooter genre? No. I don't think I was looking at anything else with Hell Divers 2 at that time. Let me break it down for you guys
Starting point is 00:23:12 because, you know, we talk about releasing the right game at the right time. Hell Divers 2, here's the games that came out that are in the same genre. roughly as Hell Divers 2. Payday 3. That was a bomb. That tanked.
Starting point is 00:23:24 That came out in 2020. Reminder. Hell Divers launched February 8th, 2024. Remnant 2. Phenomenal game, but it launched in 20203. Starship Troopers, probably the closest actual competitor to Hell Divers. That launched into early access in 2023. Warhammer Dark Tide, 2022.
Starting point is 00:23:48 Deep Rock Galactic. 2020, so that's not even a real competitor at that point. No, really. Aliens Fire Team Elite, 2021. And GTFO, which I think was a really fun game in 2021, there was nothing. There was nothing to compete with Lhyrists do in this genre. You know, we troll the Friends Lobb genre and the open world genre
Starting point is 00:24:09 and the Metroidvania genre with Ace and all these things. And it's like, but they had nothing. There was no competition at all. Okay. And then you go, yeah, but there's a, other games out there, Josh. I did my research on this one. Do you know what games released within a two-week window either way?
Starting point is 00:24:26 Either way, right? Because gamers only have so much money, right? Here's the competition for other games that released within two weeks in either direction of Hell Divers 2. Like a Dragon, Infinite Wealth. That was a fairly popular game, right? For a group of people. Not even the same genre at all.
Starting point is 00:24:42 Tekken 8, Persona 3 reload, suicide squad, kill the Justice League. That was a gigantic flaw. What a banger. Talk about a live service game that didn't work out. Banishers, Ghost of New Eden. That did not catch on. Ultros, which I've heard great things about. Pacific Drive.
Starting point is 00:24:59 Skull and Bones, that was something to be a lot. Gruple A, baby. Glepool A. And a little game that flopped called Nightingale that was supposed to be the next best greatest survival crafting game. Oh, that game flopped too. So when you look at gamers attention, right, they weren't split. It released at the perfect time.
Starting point is 00:25:19 all you games that are coming out in October, stop it. Stop it, September and October releases. You don't have to do this. You know what I mean? Quit fighting for our attention. So everything just landed, guys, between the gameplay, the price and also launched at $39.99. This was an affordable game when everybody was starting to push the $70 price tag. Yeah, no, exactly.
Starting point is 00:25:41 And I think one of the biggest things that you mentioned too in early on was like the progression in the latter. I loved that. Like I got the incendiary shotgun and I'm like, I'm mowing down all these bugs. Everybody's burning at my shots and they are all in flames. And then we step it up and I'm like, oh no.
Starting point is 00:26:02 It's not doing it anymore. I'm like, oh no, what am I going to do? And I'm running away and I'm like, ah, and I'm diving and I'm like, Josh, Josh, save me, save me. So like there's, it keeps you on your toes every second. No matter what you do and how many times you've played
Starting point is 00:26:17 it, which is awesome. And that's what you want. Like, you want unexpected reality, like, within these games. So, um, it's, there's, there's, uh, there's a reason that it did what it did. Yeah. And there's your reasons. I mean, perfect, perfect launch window, perfect timing, great gameplay. Mimable, like, that helps when people are sharing your game all across the internet and
Starting point is 00:26:39 everybody's going, what's this game? I want to be a part of that because people get FOMO then. You know, having cross pay at launch, I think was genius, uh, because you, you need to capture that release window. The fact that this genre was not super saturated and people were hungry for a game like this definitely helped out a lot as well. I didn't even get into the fact that the devs were very open about things. They actually communicated as if they were real people, not PR departments that were constantly
Starting point is 00:27:03 trying to pacify gamers and give, you know, these PR responses that we all find very annoying. The CEO was very open and honest about everything. Even when it came to the the hiccups that they had, like the PlayStation Network thing where they, that was bad. She stepped in and tried to make people sign up for PlayStation accounts and things like that. It did have a little bit of a rocky launch, but they were very quick to acknowledge it and then move to fix the server issues and things like that as well. Dude, I miss Hell Divers 2.
Starting point is 00:27:31 Like, there's a part of me that wants to get back into it because it was just a plain good time. But if you talk about a game that was a global phenomenon, Hell Divers 2 absolutely needs to be in that conversation. So, all right, listen, we're going to take a quick break. and then we will hear about Aces game. We're going to save Ryan's for last because it is a more recent global phenomenon that absolutely took over the world. We'll be right back after this break.
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Starting point is 00:29:00 We're back. I got the itch for Hell divers now, guys. I know. I didn't even play the first Hell divers. I know nothing about the first Hell divers other than that it was like a top-down perspective. It was top-down. It's kind of like I don't know anything about the first risk of rain. but I know everything about Risk Great too.
Starting point is 00:29:15 Yeah, and that's all that matters because I just need to know about the phenomenal game. All right, Ace, speaking of phenomenal games, what global phenomenon are you going to be talking about? Well, boys, it's time to talk about the Metroidvania that put Metroidvania's back in the public eye, the one, the only hollow night. I know, everyone is a good...
Starting point is 00:29:35 No, that is a good Metroidvania, Ace. Absolutely is. And somebody that doesn't love the genre, but can sometimes be blown away by a... really quality game in that genre. Hollow Knight is absolutely freaking incredible. Well, we can't talk about Hollinate without talking about some of its humble beginnings, starting with the fact that it was a Kickstarter game that raised around.
Starting point is 00:29:57 Really? Did you support it? No, I was not. Oh. I was only 17. What are you doing? I was 17. You're not a real fan. Get out of here.
Starting point is 00:30:07 You were playing games at 17, Ace. I didn't have money at 17. All right. That's fair. No 17-year-old has money. I was working for like $12 an hour at Target. Like, what do you? You don't want to know how much I was making at 17.
Starting point is 00:30:21 Oh, man, 725, baby. No, it wasn't even that, dude. Minimum wage. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. But it started off as a Kickstarter game, and it raised about $57,000 Australian, which is roughly about $40,000 USD,
Starting point is 00:30:36 which is above their Kickstarter goal. Oh, wow. Yeah, they only wanted like $35,000, which pretty, pretty dang good. Yeah. And this Kickstarter was in 2014. It would not release
Starting point is 00:30:51 until 2017 on PC. And it would sell like over a million copies within the year. It took a while for Hollow Knight to kind of gain steam. Then they would release it
Starting point is 00:31:03 onto consoles by 2023. Nintendo Switch PlayStation Xbox. They'll have sold over three million copies worldwide. How many copies of Hollow Night do you think have been sold up to like right now, 20, do you.
Starting point is 00:31:17 See, this is a good question because when a game becomes iconic like Hollow Night, people recommend it like even decades later. You know what I mean? I'm gonna say, seven.
Starting point is 00:31:27 Oh, dang it, I was gonna say seven. I'm gonna say eight then. 15 million. What? I meet you, Ryan. Closest, closest. Without going over. Dang it.
Starting point is 00:31:38 Hollinine has sold almost, or over over 15 million copies to this day. Oh, my goodness. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And that just kind of shows it became one of the defining examples of how indie games can compete with triple-a titles and quality. And do you know how much Holo Night cost when it released?
Starting point is 00:31:56 What was it, 15, 20? 15 bucks. Guess how much Hollenite still cost. No. 15 bucks. Oh, my God. Hey, just real quick, because I got curious about this, not to cut you off, Ace, but, you know, Silk Song, one of the most wishlisted games of all time. How many copies of Silk Song do you think of Soul?
Starting point is 00:32:13 Oh, probably more than 15 million, I would think. It sold so many. It broke steam. It did, but it is not. It's only 7 million. Seven million. That's only one year. That's one year.
Starting point is 00:32:27 Well, that's fair. That's fair. That's one year sales compared to... Because Silk Song sucks. That's what it is. My point being is that we're talking about global phenomenon and Hollow Night is a global phenomenon. And while Silk Song was... the most anticipated game for a while,
Starting point is 00:32:45 it's not, it's not the same. It's not the same as what Hollenite was. It's not the same as what Hollenite had going for it, which is, yeah, we're talking about global phenomenon. That doesn't always mean that like,
Starting point is 00:32:55 you were hot out the gate. That means sometimes it took a while for you to build up steam where people realized how solid and how good a game you made and just kept recommending it over the years. So what do you think is the number one thing that really Hollenite has going for it, that makes it stand out from other Metroidvanians?
Starting point is 00:33:13 I'm going to cheat because this kind of lumps everything together. I'm going to say atmosphere. Atmospheric is absolutely the answer. You've got the different environments. It's all hand drawn. It's all beautiful and stunning. On top of the different environments, you also have the different noises and sound design. Sound design coupled with their graphic design is top freaking notch, dude.
Starting point is 00:33:34 The pair of it was perfect. And I'll just lump it in there too, the music. The music from Hollow Night is. Oh, so good. otherworldly. Which also with paired with like a Metroidvania, those are something that are kind of necessity
Starting point is 00:33:51 like together. Like you have to have really good music. You have to have good music if you're playing in Metroidvania. For sure. And it makes sense because you're running around a massive open world. You need to be able to like enjoy. And you don't know where the hell you're going.
Starting point is 00:34:05 Yeah, you need to be able to enjoy the music. Oh no. I've been here four times already. I'm not looking for this area. This spot again. the forest. I need to find the forest. I don't have the grapple hook yet. How do I get up? I found the desert 17 times and I can't find this stupid forest, man.
Starting point is 00:34:25 Yeah. But that is the biggest thing, Hollow Night obviously had going for it was the atmosphere. But the gameplay was no slouch either. Yeah. It had tight controls. They were responsive, precise, and the combat was fair and rewarding, but also challenging as heck, which I think. think is what really appealed to a lot of people when we're talking about a holiday. Like having that challenge in a game like this where you wouldn't really expect it. It has that like Dark Souls-esque challenge to it. Which, yeah, we want to say everything that's hard is Dark Souls, but I feel like, oh, it is hard. It's just
Starting point is 00:34:58 hard. Yeah. I still remember fighting those stupid, what is it, the Mantis trio. Oh, the Mantis Lord is so good. It's such a good fight. And they're not like the hardest fight in the game, but it definitely, like, that's one that I remember having to tackle like multiple, multiple times to finally get through. And when I did, it was. that fist pump moment of like, heck yeah, finally beat these suckers.
Starting point is 00:35:16 It's those certain combat modes or battles or things that you like that stick with you. And that's what, you know, a lot of times it makes a good game or helps you remember it and recommend it to somebody else, which is why they probably have the numbers they had. And Hollenai gives you like so many options
Starting point is 00:35:30 and ways you can tackle things. Like it gives you the charms, which you'll totally, you know, change how you do combat or to let you just pogo enemies. So you don't even have to worry about hitting the ground. You just stay above them the whole time. you'll eventually be able to dash through enemies,
Starting point is 00:35:44 double jump. Like, there's so many ways you can tackle the combat in Hollow Night where it's like it's not all black and white and straightforward. You could do this game however you want, which is awesome. And it's one of the other things we're talking about, which is the exploration. The exploration in Hollenight, well, I know some of you guys got lost. You didn't know where to go. You can't say that there wasn't something to find everywhere you went. Oh. Oh, for sure. One of the beautiful things of Hollow Night was the different
Starting point is 00:36:12 zones that you would wander into and they were each gorgeous they each had their own soundtrack their own sound design i mean it was like i don't know where the heck i am i just know that this place looks awesome yeah and then you would get there and you'd hear like humming and you'd be like oh my gosh it's corner for he's got the map yeah oh my gosh find the map i'm gonna learn where i'm gonna go finally yeah i didn't always i didn't always want to find what i found but uh but yeah sometimes you would find things you didn't want But for the most part, like the exploration and you wanted to look around and kind of go this way. You're like, I have a feeling I'm supposed to go this way, but I'm going to check out this side, you know, and you kind of search another area to look for more.
Starting point is 00:36:57 You know, I'll give credit to Soxon for that too. I think Soxon's exploration wasn't bad at all. I think it's no. Yeah, I agree. It's really, really good. The exploration was good. Silk Song just had some issues that I think held it back a little bit. So I think one of the strongest things Holo Night had was its community.
Starting point is 00:37:14 When it came out, it had difficult bosses. It had, you know, interesting runbacks and, you know, shortcuts that you kind of lock. And it built a very strong community around beating this super hard game as well as the speed running community. Oh my gosh. I don't know if you guys have ever watched a Holo Night Speed Run. One of the most entertaining things to see how much better someone is in the game you've played. Speed runners are a weird bunch to me, man. I got, it's insane what they do,
Starting point is 00:37:43 but I could never, I could never do what they do, man. To sit there and, like, repeatedly try the same thing over and over and over again, it would just be... Frame perfect skips. Yeah, yeah. They do some crazy stuff, man.
Starting point is 00:37:58 I mean, then you have challenge runs where people would limit themselves to only using certain items and beating the entire game. Like, I can never leave the ground and I can only slash this way or something. It's like, you're crazy. You're just nuts.
Starting point is 00:38:09 Yep. And then, of course, there was the lore. The lore enthusiast who, like, really got into Hollow Night and its lore and what it has hidden. Kind of like the Dark Souls people again, which is another thing it shares. But the community is so tight around Hollow Night. And it's a huge reason for its growth. Like, we don't give, I don't say, it's going to sound stupid. We don't give YouTubers and people like media influencers enough credit for how much work they do for these games.
Starting point is 00:38:35 Just spreading the word. and then obviously Holo Night's art style is like incredible it stands out among a sea of games. You know when a game is made by Team Cherry because it looks like Hollenite and you're like
Starting point is 00:38:50 nothing looks like Hollenite. I can't think of anything that looks like Hollenite that isn't Hollenite or Silk Song. Yeah, it definitely stands alone for sure. Yeah. Take a guess as to what the rating of Hollow Knight is on Steam. 98%.
Starting point is 00:39:04 98. There's hardly any games that are that high. 96.5. 96.5. Ace was close. It's 97% out of 181,000 Ace went over. I win.
Starting point is 00:39:21 You can't get 181,000 people to agree on anything other than Hollow Night is a phenomenal game. Jeez. Yeah, that's a good stat for sure. Yeah. And the game has been 15 bucks. It's stayed. 15 bucks and that was before they added a ton of free DLC which you just get for purchasing the game.
Starting point is 00:39:41 There's never been a micro transaction in Holo Night and there never will be a micro transaction in Holla Night. And it's the same for Sok Song. They're doing the same thing. They're dropping free DLC. $15 for a game like Hollow Knight is a no brainer, dude. Like legitimately is a no brainer. Like I said, and for anybody that might be on the fence for anybody that may not have played
Starting point is 00:40:01 Hollenite at this point, I'm not the biggest fan of Metroidvania. Like I occasionally one hits for me like legitimately like occasionally but I'm not I'm not like ace. I'm not the biggest fan of the genre. I don't instantly get excited when I see a game that comes out as a Metroidvania. But like Hollow Knight is legendary. It's 1499 on Steam. It's 97% overwhelmingly positive. And here's the other thing.
Starting point is 00:40:27 The game came out in 2017. You would never know it. You would never know it. There is not a single thing about Hollow Night that feels dated. At all. Like, at all to me. I mean, for a game that. Looks good.
Starting point is 00:40:39 Control's good. Sounds good. Right. Yeah. Can't ask for much more. It's an all time. That's what. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:40:44 It is an all time. Timeless. That's where timeless design kind of sits in where anybody from any time can play it. And it feels just like kind of mostly when the day it drops. You know. So yeah. So yeah. That's, gosh, I didn't realize it was that long ago.
Starting point is 00:41:00 I know. I didn't realize it. It was almost a decade old either. So. All right. Ryan, we've made people wait. And your game, there is no debating that your game took over the world. Oh, oh, without a doubt.
Starting point is 00:41:16 This is one where I know that a lot of people have their opinions on it, their thoughts on it. We as well have ours, and we went through them quite significantly throughout the years on this podcast, because this game has been out for a little bit now. This one is the one, the only, our creators. Of course. Yeah. What's this game? I've never heard of this game, right?
Starting point is 00:41:44 So this is a game that Josh, you actually played. Was it a beta test or? It was a, yeah, it was a closed beta. I got to find it to a closed beta. You got into closed? They did say that you could share gameplay. You did, and you streamed it live toward Discord. I remember this because I was working outside,
Starting point is 00:42:00 and I think I was grilling on the barbecue or something and I couldn't get on and you were playing and you were in the close bait and I remember watching it thinking oh this looks kind of cool like I mean I'm not like super into it
Starting point is 00:42:12 but it looks like a neat game and you were having a good time you said afterwards after you got off that it was a lot of fun you're interested interested to see what else you know it entailed and man did that game pop off to something different
Starting point is 00:42:25 what are you guys doing we got applause for just a second Because Ace, so when I, when I segue to you, like, we know Ace really well around here. Okay. So when I said Ryan, I had left. I know this is that point. So listen, listen, listen. We got to give people, this is a little peek behind the curtain here.
Starting point is 00:42:46 We know Ace. And we know that if we let Ace talk, Ace will talk about a game that he loves for an hour and a half straight. Yeah. And I segue to you, Ryan. And Ace put a gift, put a gift of me slamming the door. like somebody slaving the door in front of somebody else's. And I responded.
Starting point is 00:43:03 I said, dude, we're just, this is going really long. Like, I thought you had conveyed the information. And then Ace is giggling. And then he goes, that's okay, because here's what I had left. And paste a 50 lines of text where this is stuff he still had to talk about, about Hollow Night. And then I went from feeling bad to being so glad that I moved away from all night because we would have been here for another hour.
Starting point is 00:43:31 Oh my gosh. We would have been here. Our is lucky. You asked me to do my research. I do my research. I didn't. Yeah. Okay.
Starting point is 00:43:40 Dude, this is, okay. I'm also very glad that I cut you all this. This is why listeners to the podcast, you need to watch the video version of the podcast. This is what they sent. So this is what he had love.
Starting point is 00:43:51 So this is a lot more than 50 lines, if you can tell. That's what was left. Oh my goodness. You maniac. It's still going. That's all of those. That was like seven swipes I did on my phone.
Starting point is 00:44:04 Anyway, I didn't mean to do. No, Arc Raiders doesn't matter at all. I felt a little bad that I was like, oh, did I cut Ace off? No, I don't feel bad at all. I'm so glad that we moved to Ryan. Okay. All right. So Ryan, Art Raiders, you saw, we talked, I don't know if people remember, but we covered
Starting point is 00:44:23 Arc Raiders multiple times before it ever even came out into a closed beta and we were very excited for this game because of the way it looked in the premise behind this game. No, absolutely. I think it was it was a genre where I mean, you have Tarkov, you have all these other ones. Extraction shooters are not something that the average Joe wants to get into and wants to mess around with. And arc Raiders was something where people who were not in that world could experience it.
Starting point is 00:44:57 It could experience it an extraction shooter and kind of hop in and see what it was all about. You guys want to guess what the first week of our creators sold? The first week? The first week. See, I feel like it took a little bit longer to blow up. I'm going to say 300,000 in the first week. I was going to see like 250,000. 2.5 million.
Starting point is 00:45:20 What? The first week? Holy moly. By October 30. We did a really good job of telling people about this game. apparently. Yeah, geez. So, so, and then it continued on.
Starting point is 00:45:31 So, like, I think it was one of those where it built up. And, and, uh, Josh, you mentioned this earlier with, um, with, with, with streamers and other people, uh, it really started to be memeable with, with, like, the interactions because, because this is one of those games where once you get people that aren't all. Friendly, friendly, friendly. Yeah. Friendly, friendly, friendly, friendly. You know, with rats and stuff. This isn't a game. It's a game where you can be.
Starting point is 00:45:55 it's almost it's almost like the real world it's like life you can choose to be a horrible horrible person and just kill everyone you run into or you can work with other people or you can just be by yourself and experience the world so you had people who weren't sweaty extraction shooters paired up with people that were sweaty extraction shooters and they all melded together in this big kind of land um that that sometimes it would be insane Sometimes it wouldn't be. You would have really sweet chill matches, and sometimes it would be just death on site.
Starting point is 00:46:33 There was something different in the beginning of this. And I know that I say quite often, and I know I'm monologuing because this is one of my favorite games of all time for sure. But like the first like two months maybe of Arc Raiders was some of the best gaming I've ever experienced in my life. Because it was a true test of human nature. to where you had people that were just a-holes that wanted to watch the world burn and kill everyone on site and betray you or kill you in a queen monarch fight or any of the
Starting point is 00:47:08 like or they would wait and in rat by the extraction. Like all kinds of people exist in this world. And to see what happened for the most part, people explaining where to go to get this mission done or that mission done and to see people completing tasks together and unlocking stuff and beating stuff and working together when they didn't have to where you could literally turn to the guy next to you and kill them all and they didn't it was it was a different it was almost like a global kind of human experiment experiment that was awesome for a while eventually a lot a lot of people got in and it changed a little
Starting point is 00:47:50 bit, but it was something that I've never experienced and I've never really seen the first few months the way that this game was. Was it, was it the same way for you guys, like, experiencing that and seeing that? Dude, for me, the, there's a few things that really stood out to me for Rarters. Number one, the presentation of this game was second to none. Between the world, the audio design, the, the arc, you know, and how they behaved. Like, we had not seen a game where you were terrified of the enemy. The PVE was bigger than the PVP. And that's exactly my point is that most games,
Starting point is 00:48:26 if you have PVE, it's like, oh, it's an afterthought. With the arc, they were so deadly. And things could go south so fast that you were actually scared of these guys, which would make you want to team up with other players, but then there's the world that you mentioned where you can't trust everybody. And it's like, so if you could, you would start to go, like this is crazy. Like, what is happening? Like, I'm teaming up with people against these arc to kill these big guys or something like that.
Starting point is 00:48:53 I'll never forget the first time we took down a leaper or a bastion or something like that. It was a glorious moment. The thing to me where this game became a global phenomenon was the fact that in a game that's all about murdering people and taking their gear, that people decided to work together. And I don't know that anybody expected that, like, ever, like ever. I'm a sweaty gamer and I'm Listen, if you put me in a PVP game I'm on a PVP because that's the point of the game But even I in Arc Raiders was like
Starting point is 00:49:26 Oh no dude I'm just running quest you need help I got a rusty gear man I know you need a rusty gear And he's like and the guy be like bro you have one And I'll be like yeah man I just chucked it on the ground He's like I've been looking for one of these for hours man I freaking love you dude And then you just you bro hung it out And then you just extract together
Starting point is 00:49:43 And that's the last you'll ever see of each other You know? Here, take three lemons. Here you go. Yeah. It was so organic, too. Like, there was no, like, hard movement push to be like, be friendly in our creators. Everyone wants to hang out.
Starting point is 00:49:56 It just happened so naturally. Like, I didn't play arc graders. I saw it through a third eyes lens of watching other YouTubers, watching you guys play it. It became so big you couldn't get it off anyone's feed. Like, it was everywhere. But, like, just seeing how people built a community around Arc Raiders just hanging out, helping each other on quest, taking out big bonn. It was cool. It was a really cool thing to see. Almost gave me FOMO, although I really don't like extraction shooters. Dude, I know, but like even still, it was one of those where just the experience of playing, it was something different. And you would run into, like I said, you'd run into the jerks, but like it was, it was so rare in those beginning days. But even still afterwards, like, you know, you just learn to be a little more cautious and you learn to be careful running around corners and not everybody may be so friendly because you can't die it anymore.
Starting point is 00:50:46 and lose your loop. But the one thing that made it so nice is that even when you would do runs, like if you got killed, some stuff you would do would still kind of help give you a little bit of progression with different tasks. You can unlock things. You can get materials. So some of the things that I think made Arc Raiders so great was like,
Starting point is 00:51:07 I mean, the looting of the gear, getting those amazing, awesome items that are worth a ton of money or something that you needed for crafting, it really meant a lot. And it was something that you would see those people that are extracting. You know, you've dropped in and it's two minutes in and somebody's extracting. You're like, oh, oh, they got something good. You know, and you're close.
Starting point is 00:51:30 You're kind of tempted. Or like, oh, maybe I should go see what he's got. You know, maybe I can go fight him and take it. But I think the gear you were looking for, the items you would extract with, I think they did such a good job on creating a desire for things. things that would make you want to drop in and then make you try to survive and extract. So being able to get in the world, like experience all this and then try to get out, it's like covers kind of every part of the gambit.
Starting point is 00:51:59 And you wanted to do that every time. Like did you, Josh, I know AC you didn't really play much, but you watch and stuff, but like Josh, did you feel every time you loaded in, like, if you died, it's not the end of the world, but you wanted to get some sweet stuff and get out of there? I always had something to work for. Yeah, exactly. That was the beauty of this game. And you're a progression guy.
Starting point is 00:52:20 If we had a squad on. If we had a squad on, great. We squat up. We can go PVP. We can go do whatever. We can try to take out a bastion. You know, like you could, there was absolutely content that was geared towards if you had a squad of your buddies on,
Starting point is 00:52:31 you could do. But I'm off of work. You know, it's early. I'm going to hop in and I'm going to run some missions solo. And I could do that waiting for my friends to get on. And I could absolutely progress things, working on the workbench upgrades was huge.
Starting point is 00:52:45 Finding that weapon that's like, oh my gosh, this was my first purple weapon. I need to extract and save this thing. And then I'm never going to take it into a match because I'm a loot goblin and I hoard everything. You know what I mean? Like that kind of stuff. Yeah, I mean, I think the fact that it catered to solo play really well, it catered to squad play really well. If you wanted to PVP, it was absolutely there. And the PVP was great.
Starting point is 00:53:08 Like, it was really good, solid PVP. You had traps. You had guns. long range, you had short range. I mean, there was any number of ways to do that. You could sick the arc on people, which I thought was great. You know, the fact that even during PVP, if you agroed the arc, like, everybody scrambled at that point. Like, it's like you just run for your life at that point. Like, the world felt alive. And I think that that is absolutely something that lent itself to this game being a global phenomenon was when you were in arc Raiders, you felt
Starting point is 00:53:40 like you were in Ark Raiders, you know, and between the different maps that they had, the different quest lines, the different upgrade pass that they had, the unlockables and the, the things that you would get as far as that goes, like this game had it all. And, and, you know, I mentioned a couple of these things to you where, you know, there's some similarities with Hell divers, right? With like you said, the memeable, shareable content. The world was sharing Arc Raiders just like the world was sharing hell divers, you know, like, you couldn't go online and not see a reel from somebody or a funny moment from somebody. And it made you just want to play the game more. Yeah. You know, like, Arc Raiders was the game. When I was at work, I was thinking about going like, dude, if I leave
Starting point is 00:54:23 five minutes early, I won't get in trouble and I can beat traffic just five more minutes so that I can get home, say hi to my wife and kids, and then play Arc Raiders for the entire rest of the day, you know? And that's what people were doing, man. And you just keep running. Because you're Like, I mean, and it wasn't only one thing. It was, you were either looking for the next, like, three apricots, or you had to go get two cat beds or, you know, the most ridiculous things for that. Or you wanted to go and just explore this area to try to unlock these deeper parts because you had a card. You had, you had, you had, you had, you had, you had, you had, you had, you had, you had, you had, you had, you had, you had, you had, you had, the, like, the, like, you, that, you said the PVE was, like, the main part of it. So, so you could play it solo.
Starting point is 00:55:04 This game was not bad at all solo. but it was so amazing as well, you know, with friends and doing PVP and just doing PVE with friends. So it covered this wide range of people that could play this game. You know, and like you said, coming so rare. Yeah. That's so rare. Exactly. Like coming home from work and you want to play some.
Starting point is 00:55:25 You don't have time to like coordinate with all your buddies, but you want to play some matches. You could hop on. You could play an hour of Arc Raiders. Play solo and have a blast. You don't how many times I met up with dudes and it was like, oh, hey, dude, you know there's like blueprints that they usually drop over here. Here I'll show you where and he's like, oh, I never seen that before.
Starting point is 00:55:42 And you show him some secret spot. He's like, oh, that's cool. All right, see you man. And then you just wander off and you go do something else. But you were always worried he was going to shoot you in the back. Which absolutely had happened. I saw it happen a lot on TikTok. Absolutely.
Starting point is 00:55:58 And that's the risk you run and stuff. And then like, you know, people even now are like, you know, I'm not going to, I'm not going to shoot anyone. Because I think they have like more. kind of like lobby-based stuff based on your aggression aggression-based lobby matchmaking and stuff like that. But yeah, that was the biggest thing that reached out to me is that this game was accessible and enjoyable by so many different types of game players. Like what they were looking for within this world, especially an extraction shooter. Like it was something different
Starting point is 00:56:31 that we'd never seen before. It's not Tarkov. It's not any of these other ones that are just endlessly sweaty. So it was, yeah, see, A-S Senate right now, I was, I had one earlier, but yeah, it's about 30,000 people in Arc Raiders right now. Still playing. Still playing this game. I'm sure it'll be, it's a, we're Sunday afternoon.
Starting point is 00:56:50 It'll probably raise a little bit tonight, and then maybe, you know, on the weekends, it gets a little bit higher. I'm sure on the weekends, it gets really high. Well, what do you guys think that Arc Raiders is currently at their total sales? Total sales? Oh, man.
Starting point is 00:57:03 Total sales. It's got a huge, dude. It's got to be massive. It hasn't been out as long as helldivers, but it took over the world. I'm going to say, I'm going to say 12 million. I'm going to go with 9 million. 9. 16 million copies.
Starting point is 00:57:19 Oh my gosh. That's a lot, dude. Do you know how much money that is, dude? It's a lot of money. And this game also one of the, probably the big reasons that it sold so much other than just how amazing and memeable and all the other stuff. But you got everything that we described and everything we talked to. about and how amazing this game was and all the experiences you can have all time in my book for $40.
Starting point is 00:57:42 Yeah, $40. $49.99. It's so good. The Helldivers was $40. Yep. You know, uh, this game was, wasn't Expedition 33, $40? I think so. It was $40 or $50.
Starting point is 00:57:54 I'm pretty sure it was $40. I could be wrong. So, all right, quick trivia question for you guys. Which game had the highest concurrent player count out of the three games that we covered? Okay. It's got to be our creators. I remember seeing headlines about how many concurrent players it had. I feel like it may be hell divers.
Starting point is 00:58:15 I have a feeling it's hell divers. Do hell divers for me. It's really close between two of these games. Ace, unfortunately, Hollow Night. It's not Holo Night. No, I didn't think it would be Hollow Night. Hollow Night peaked at 95,655 concurrent players on Steam. That's a lot for a single-player game.
Starting point is 00:58:31 Because we don't get player counts on consoles. So this is all, you know. Um, the hell divers too, highest peak concurrent player count on Steam, 458,000, 709. Arc Raiders, 481,96. So it beat helldivers two by, uh, 30,000, not even 30,000, like 25,000. Dang, props to them. So, and both of these like, very, very close. I mean, these, I mean, these, I mean, who had heard of hell divers won, you know? And then Arc Raiders is a new IP. Like so,
Starting point is 00:59:12 so these things coming out of nowhere and doing what they did in, in not only their respective genres, but in just gaming industry as a whole. I mean, it's crazy. It's astronomical. It's what every studio dreams of. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like legitimately, this is what every studio dreams of.
Starting point is 00:59:29 And to be fair, they're both examples of live service games, you know, with the exception of Hollow Night. You know, and this is why people chase this, right? Is you want that success of Hell divers, too. You want the success of Arc Raiders. You know, and I think there's something to be learned here where, you know, if you go, look, you know, we're going to have progression. We're going to have fun game play.
Starting point is 00:59:52 We're going to have this option for people to work together, right? We're going to offer solo play and cooperative play and competitive play, you know, and there's these, there's kind of these trends, right, where it's like crossplay at launch, let give more people access to your game so that they can play together. Yep. You know, especially if you're an online game. You know, you want more people playing so that you can do that kind of thing. You know, the genre does matter.
Starting point is 01:00:17 There were no, there were no like good extraction shooters. This is where Marathon botched, like I think they dropped the ball is. You don't come out after Arc Raiders. No, that was a dumb idea. You know what I mean? At that point, you know, with Helldivers releasing at a time where there was not many games in the genre, that was not many games that people were clamoring to spend their money on at the time,
Starting point is 01:00:38 you know, and you let people play together and you let them have fun and you were just transparent with people. Arc Raiders, they weren't as transparent. I will say the devs weren't quite as open, but they gave gamers a way to play their game no matter what. If I wanted to play solo, I could do that and have a great time. If I wanted to be sweaty with the boys
Starting point is 01:00:55 and go just murking everybody that we could find, we could do that too. Go to Selimontas, yeah. If we wanted to rat, if we wanted to rat, if we wanted to be sweating, to sit at the extract and rat, not that we would ever do that. We've never done that. We would never do that ever.
Starting point is 01:01:10 But I'm just saying if we wanted to, we could go, hey, guys, let's try this out for a night and see how this goes. Not that we would do that, but I'm just saying. And if you were to ever to do that, people don't say the nicest things to you ever, but not that we would know at all. If we don't know, but people get really, really mad at you if you keep the extra. So. You guys know a lot about this hypothetical.
Starting point is 01:01:33 Yeah, I mean, we're just saying if it was to be, if it was to be done. Well, there you go. Hell divers to arc raiders, hollow night, all global phenomenons in their own right, all share some, some common things that help to set them apart. We want to know what game is a global phenomenon that you think we should cover in a future episode. There's a lot of them. We actually had a big discussion on what games that we should talk about, you know, we wanted to talk about games that were near and dear to our hearts, which is why we covered these.
Starting point is 01:02:07 But let us know what games you think are global phenomenons took over the world. Maybe we'll do another episode like this. Break down what made them successful. Just to be fair, Ace initially was going to talk about Minecraft until Ryan and I trolled him just a little bit and said everybody knows everything. I was bullied out of that. He was not. No, no, no. You were.
Starting point is 01:02:23 Absolutely bullied off of that topic. Yeah, you were because it's Minecraft and everybody knows everything. I think my response is, oh, okay, I guess I'll talk about Tetris then. which version which version of yeah yeah right I know all of them ace they're all one
Starting point is 01:02:38 amorphous blob apparently yeah but we hope you enjoyed this episode let us know if there's a global phenomenon that you loved
Starting point is 01:02:47 or that you'd like us to cover in a future episode leave us a comment we see all the comments that everybody leaves if you like talking about these episodes or just games in general
Starting point is 01:02:58 come join our Discord server there's a link in the episode description every time we drop an episode, there's a lot of conversation that happens around that episode topic. This one, again, I think will be a lot of fun for people to talk about and talk about other games that were global phenomenon and things like that. Like at one point, I thought about talking about Golden Eye because we referenced that. That was another one where it's like, dude, everybody in the world was playing Golden Eye at one point with their friends way too late into the night, things like that. So, all right, that's going to do it for this one.
Starting point is 01:03:27 Everybody, we are out. Until next time. happy gaming. See ya. So anyway, where was I? So, you know. Ryan, I don't know what the character count is for an episode description,
Starting point is 01:03:42 but you should put Ace's outline in there if there's enough room. Oh, that's not my full outline. If you want to see what Ace did get to talk about, here you go. So, oh my goodness. All right. See you.
Starting point is 01:03:54 Bye, bye. Hey, y'all's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't, hold up. That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca.

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