Highguard SHUTTING DOWN on March 12th - Kinda Funny Games Daily 03.03.26

Be like me and head to Factormeals.com slash KindaFunny50off and use code KindaFunny50off to get 50% off and free breakfast for a year. Eat like a pro this month with Factor. If you want to get our shows ad-free and our exclusive shows, go to Patreon.com slash KindaFunny. Today's stories include the Hopium that we might be getting a new Vegas remake, Pokemon Pocopia is the best Pokemon game ever, and we have a Scott Pilgrim EX review roundup. We'll have all this and more because this is Kinda Funny Games Daily. What is up everybody and welcome back to Kinda Funny Games Daily for Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026. I'm your host for today, Roger McCorney. Today I'm joined by my ceo gregory james miller what's up baby huh you saw that bro everyone saw that he hit me i'll do a lot more than that all right i just threatened to lay you off in the last show i don't need anywhere can we start in a nice place here yeah as i'm downloading rotwood can we start in a nice place please if you are tuning in just for kfgd uh before this uh we did our reactions and review of the nintendo indie world presentation so if you're looking for all that news go over there i gave you a little bit in here oh you did i gave you a little i just gave you a little bit oh there's a few bullet points in there so if people are like i hate the games cast and i don't want to listen to mike they could just get boom boom boom this is the big thing you need to know from the indie world yeah for sure greg how you feeling how are we doing today i'm feeling great there's too many games to play which is always the problem it's always the issue it's always the thing going on around here uh but you know we saw this drop here mini shoot adventures rotwood all exciting stuff i'm all about that somebody calling out that under this under the island game yeah yeah play too it's like fuck fuck fuck fuck so how do you deal with this immense first world problem right are you because i'm at the point now in my life where i was thinking of like what if i just have a board in my house where i just start moving around like with post-it notes yeah of like what i need to be playing because i like have that balance of like i want to play games for our top 100 eventually there's some there's some games out there wind waker there's games i want to play i appreciate but then i also have you know redacted all these big games that come out these shadow drops over here how are you dealing with this i mean it all comes down to the workload and what we're on and what i'm needed for for a review or preview today i'm previewing a redacted game we talked about in the last episode we can confirm we have crimson desert and we're working on a review for that uh for the day before release which i think it's the 17th don't quote me on that if that's right uh whatever mike said in the last show so like that kind of game is going to take priority right everyone wants to have an opinion on that i need to go play that and see if i should be on that review if somebody else should be a lot of codes are here obviously for it so this other stuff this smaller stuff falls by the wayside yeah one of the reasons I was giving you shit in the show of like, let's do Rotwood for party mode is like, that's my chance to play Rotwood. I don't know what repo is. I don't care. This is my shot to play a game. You know what I mean? That's the downside of the job in quotes is that I don't know how Mike and Andy do it and bless you but they go home and stream for hours and they don't stream the thing they're reviewing. Now granted they have lots of free time that I don't have both as CEO as husband as father right? There's just so much going on like yesterday Barrett was on the couch playing Pokemon on the big screen out there. And I walked over and just laid down and started Pocopi's like, given I'm like, I cannot look at my computer. Like I cannot like this close to GDC and everything else is going on in the schedule. I'm like, and they announced the indie world yesterday. Like the amount of planning it goes to run this ramshackle business. I was just like, I need to play Pocopia for 20 minutes and not worry about what's going on over there. But that's part of the problem is that I'd love to keep playing Pocopia. And that's no insult to any of these games to, to show my hand on Crimson Desert one way or the other. It's just like, man, I really want Pocopia. This is a problem that Jordan Miller spent 120 hours on this game. I'm 35 in. I'd like to keep going. Yeah. And do you ever have like the burnout of video games? I'm sure never. No, I'm starving all the time for video games. I talk about this all the time. You know, that's one of the differences between me and my wife, of course, is, you know, Jen works in the video game industry, the other side, helping people publish their games. And so she likes to have hobbies outside of games. Yeah. She likes to do pottery. She likes to go for hikes. Yeah. And it's like when her day ends, she's excited to do something that's not talk about video games and I just want to play video games. I just want to get back to video games. Does she hard stop you sometimes when you're talking about video games? No, never hard stop. I'll see her drift. I'll see her drift. You know what I mean? Because like when I'm into the, oh, in Pecopia last night this happens, I see her go off to wherever she needs to go in her head to do what she needs to do. She's like, that's nice, honey. That's nice. Same way she's trying to tell me about nature outside. I'm like, I just don't care. Yeah, I always talk to Lance about that, which I think is so interesting about you and it makes so much sense, right? It's the reason why you've built this business, why you are so still hungry about this. You've always told the stories of like oh like when we're going hiking like you just want to sit back and play video games she's cutting your hair you just want to play video games like you're not a disrespect to Jen or anything she does but it's just like that's just this is your life your life is video games I told her one day somewhat recently where she was like like how are you and I'm like I'm fine she's like no but how and I'm like Jen there's not that much interesting things going on up here like at some point in my life is all video games at some point in the last 13 minutes I've thought about Ghostbusters Superman everything else is video games like it's just whatever you You know what I mean? It's incredible. Yeah, I'd love to. Yeah, you know. But it's like, yeah, I think of, you know, Kumail and Emily are getting ready to do Sex Criminals, which is a Matt Fraction comic I really liked. They're getting ready to do, I think, a series of it, right? And they're in the writer's room, so they're posting a lot about it. And I think about it all the time, like, not to be too disgusting, but Sex Criminals is about these two characters who meet, and the deal is they've known for years independently that when they orgasm, time stops and they can exist in this space. Come World, one of them calls it. and it's like if I had that ability, I would just play games. If I could just stop time, man. Just play every video game. I'd be like, oh man, Rotwood sounds awesome and then just go into the subliminal space. I guess in this, I orgasm right here. Go to the bathroom, come back out. Guys, Rotwood was awesome. That's incredible. And we killed him, everybody. Well, Greg, we get to do your favorite thing, which is talk about video games. Love it. I know you want to play video games. I was going to say my favorite thing is playing it. I'll settle for talking about it. second favorite thing uh because of course this is kind of funny games daily if you're watching live be a part of the show by super chatting on youtube.com slash kind of funny games remember we couldn't do this without our producers on patreon.com slash kind of funny so thank you so much carl jacobs omega buster and delaney the psalm twining for now let's begin with what is and forever will be the roper reports it's time for some news story number one everybody fallout new vegas remastered hopium this is from andy chalk over at pc gamer we got a little tweet blue sky post over here we can look at while i'm reading this article. Fallout fans eagerly anticipating a new Vegas remaster got a big ol' snort of the good stuff over the weekend in the form of a social media post from Iron Galaxy Studios, which shared in a very subtle, nothing-to-see-here style, some idle, or perhaps not, musing about what it's getting up to. Quote, today's our February company meeting, the studio wrote via GamesRadar. It's time to catch up with what the company's been up to and what's coming up next for IG. Not the most rip-roaring bit of prose ever posted, but what caught eyes wasn't the words, but the image. That's not just some generic please stand by, my friends, but a Fallout New Vegas loading screen. Now, does this mean unequivocally that Iron Galaxy is working on a new Vegas do-over? Of course not. It's possible that whoever took the pic just happens to have that image as the desktop wallpaper. The fact that it's slide one of 72 as seen in the right-hand monitor? Possibly a mere wait for everyone else to join the meeting message selected entirely at random and with no greater meaning or intent. Hey, it happens. Still, it behooves me to point out that this might not be entirely coincidental too iron galaxy's best known recent work is probably uh tony hawk's pro skater 3 plus 4 but it's also worked on numerous numerous game ports over the years including fallout 76 and the vr versions of skyrim and fallout 4 so if someone was working on a new vegas remaster it's not entirely unreasonable to think that iron galaxy would be it uh greg do you want me to read the rest of this or go for finish it off before we to the breaking news and yes just in case you haven't been keeping up there is much interest in remastered new vegas and as bethesda learned with last year's oblivion remaster there's probably some bucks to be made on it too there have been a couple false starts in the past including a steam glitch and an ill-advised fallout tv show countdown and fellow pc gamer guy sean prescott told me that it'd be weird if bethesda went ahead with a new vegas remaster without doing fallout 3 first and yeah fair enough but maybe todd howard just really wants people to stop bugging him about it still this sure feels like something doesn't it's a little premature for full-on rejoicing but even i and in in in very veteran uh hater have to admit that it sure looks like new vegas fans are in for some good news hopefully very soon i have breaking news roger from iron galaxy's blue Sky. No, you are not. Kevin, there's a link. Nope. There is nothing to see here. Sorry to disturb the volcanoes, but that was just a BTS look at our company meeting. We use that slide every month and has nothing to do with anything Fallout being worked on. As you can imagine, we love Fallout. Now, pardon us as we retreat back into our vault. Okay. I thought this was going to be scarier breaking news, so I'm happy that it's just that. Did you expect anything that they were actually teasing it? Iron Galaxy does not feel like the company that would be teasing things like this. or they would have the ability to tease a remaster from their you know social accounts like when i saw this yeah did i think it was real absolutely not yeah but i also said how fucking stupid can you be iron galaxy iron galaxy do we not exist in the same fucking universe as you are you so head down on all your games that you don't understand how badly we as a society as a fucking gaming people want a new Fallout. I got to sit here, talk to fucking Todd Howard. No new Fallout. Show more successful than any Fallout. We can't get a new, we're going to remaster Oblivion. I say this loving Bethesda and loving my fellow gamers. Fuck you, Oblivion fans. You didn't deserve it. You didn't need it. You didn't deserve it. You're all playing Skyrim for like the 900th time on fucking any platform. You still love Skyrim. You didn't need Oblivion. We needed a Fallout. And I know Todd right now trying to rise up over in Bethesda. So don't forget about 76. It's not a Fallout, Todd. It's a fine experience. I put 90 some hours into it two summers ago. Fine. It was good. I liked it. I enjoyed it. It's not a fucking Fallout because I'm just wandering around West Virginia. and it's like there weren't even people originally give me a fucking fallout like I just want to fall out and so back to you Iron Galaxy you're not off the hook what the fuck's your problem it's not your first day on the internet Dave Lang runs the he's a founder he knows how the internet works he knows how people get excited that's just I knew it wasn't real because no you wouldn't announce that you wouldn't tease that it's too on the nose to be a tease but god damn it man god damn it you can't be like hey all you fucking dogs you're fucking really hungry and we can see your ribs use a steak but you can't we're not serving steak to the dogs today we need to fucking say because we're starving dogs iron galaxy don't get me started on you todd howard you're not off the hook either just fucking remaster let somebody remaster it and then oh my god okay it's never happened before there's a first for everything Asha Sharman this is your moment first order of business just announce it just announce it we hear you Xbox first console it can be exclusive I don't give a shit just fucking announce it say go over there and be like listen Todd for a while here the dog was walking the man but now the man is walking the dog and I'm telling you we're remastering the fucking games and I understand the whole thing now is we need to make the bottom lines good we need to fucking how much could these 70 people at Bluepoint cost get them get them Sharma bring them over Miss Sharma put them in a room and say you work here at Xbox now and your first order of business is fucking remaking Fallout 3 in New Vegas. That's all. They'll be like, oh, I'm so happy to have a job. Ms. Sharma, everyone will say to you, oh my God, she gave people jobs. That's great. That's amazing. That's good. She's fulfilling game requests. That'd be great. Will Todd be mad? Yeah, it will be. You say, Todd, you shut up. You go make the other fucking Elder Scrolls people want, all right? You get ready for the Starfield stuff. Fucking Starfield apparently getting content soon. Maybe April 7th we talked about yesterday. Come on. But then back to you, Iron Galaxy. what the fuck were you thinking? You know what? What the fuck were you thinking? Are we reaching out to somebody? Who? I'm... Are we going to get... Dave Lang still works there, right? That's my thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was waiting for it, yeah. Also, they should take blue point and call it green point. That's great. That's great. I thought about it before everyone else did. I was waiting. And put it in Brooklyn. This is a used to be CEO and now I'm not magic. I'm not sure. Hello, Dave Lang. You're live on kind of funny games daily. How are you? I'm fucking pissed off. What the fuck were you people thinking? Do you not, do you not know how much we want to fall out remaster and remake and all, and you're just putting up loading screens saying, ha ha. Yeah, that was an unfortunate miscommunication. Dave I've just ranted for like 15 minutes And that was the best response you could have given me I love you Alright have a good day bye Later Everybody put up the article I was going to say what you need to do is Go do the redo the thumbnail Put an unfortunate miscommunication Where you put fall at ease or whatever That's incredible I love that he re-answered like Two rings in He's the best he's awesome Well he's still in the doghouse Oh. I mean, because everything's happened. But I'm not letting him off the hook that quick. Asha Sharma can right the ship, though. This could be the chance. This could be the chance. I mean, I know this is a tale as old as time, but we are in a show where we have to talk. We do? We have to. When are we getting a Fallout remaster? When does Miss Sharma, who I'm appealing to again, Miss Sharma, when does she go, you know what? that Fallout fan London thing they made. They made Fallout London. Those kids, let's get them. Let's get that and put that out officially. This has to already be in the works, though. Right? Like the Fallout remaster, remake. It's just a matter of time. I mean, you hope so? On our show, Todd's like, oh yeah, you know, we love, we love surprise. I love Shadow Drop. It's like, great. But like, it's time to do it. Do you see what's happening, Todd? Do you see what's happening, Bethesda? You know what movie I'm about to quote? I don't. A fucking great one. Michael Douglas. Alright? Ant-Man? No. The American President. Oh yes! I do like that movie. He's got his little right hand man there, right? Michael J. Fox. And Michael J. Fox is urging him to swing back on Richard Dreyfuss because he keeps talking and the American people... And it actually was kind of scary because it was very much predicting the thing we're in now, right? where like this guy who doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about just keeps talking and the people keep believing him and and the president's like i believe in the intelligence of people and michael j fox didn't believe in the intelligence he's like he's like mr president the people are so thirsty that they'll listen to anyone talk and they'll drink the sand and this man is feeding you saying we want to eat sand right now we want the steak we're the starving dog i need a new fallout but just stop fucking teasing me with screens again dave lane you're not fully off the hook i I appreciate your response, but like, this is where we're at right now. Okay. Okay. Just Sati Nadella wants all this money. Yeah. Guess how you make the money. You fucking remaster the fallouts. You remake the fallouts. You put out the falls. You say oblivion. No obsidian. It's been nice. Oh man. A vow. You got a fish person in it. Delete everything from your computers. You're not making a vow too. You're making new Vegas to go. Just go. Or just import falloutnewvegas.exe into avowed.exe. It's that simple, Greg. That's what I've been saying for years. Just put it in the avowed. It's fine. I'm tired. Do you not think that we're going to get another remastered around April, which is when they did the Oblivion remaster? I feel like this might just be an annual thing. That was one of my predictions. I would like that, and I would hope that, and that'd be very cool. It's just the idea of, again, back to drinking the sand. Yeah. At what point have we just done the whole self rumor Sure Where like we thought they were going to remaster Fallout Somebody said they knew they were remastering Fallout Yeah and then it like okay well now they do Oblivion and it's like, oh shit, they must be doing Fallout. It's like, are they really doing it? Is that really along the way? I mean, yeah. It has to be. It has to be. It has to be. It's just a matter of time. It's a matter of when did this actually go? Did they, in the beginning of Fallout season one, be like, fuck, we should have done something. Fuck, we got to make this happen. We got to go. and maybe Oblivion was already going at that point, so this is a little later in development. But I still have hope, Greg. I hope you. When is Starfield Day? The alleged... Yesterday, the rumor was that we talked about from somebody's site, the Polish site, was April 4th. Or let's say April 7th. April 7th. April 7th. April 22nd was the initial release for Oblivion Remastered. Sure. So maybe by the end of April, we get a... Two? Two. Why not? Starfield's old game. You know what I mean? Like, how many people are actually going to buy it on? You know what I mean? Like, you go over here, I saw my no sodium Starfield subreddit yesterday. Somebody's like, once it releases on PlayStation 5, how quickly is it going to be? Man, this was a misgem that we all misread. I'm like, I don't know about that, man. I don't know about that. You guys need to get a little sodium in your life. It actually balances actually. It's good. Some constructive criticism isn't all that bad. That's incredible. I'm going to go to some Super Chats really quick. We got Hardle Find Super Chat says, birthday tax for me and the switch. Happy birthday. Alvaro CN says after COVID for a year, I had a cough and needed to clear my throat a lot. So hope you get better soon, Greg. Thank you. That means a lot to me. I'm struggling through every day. I wake up and I'm like, I feel so much better. And then somebody makes me laugh and it sets the whole thing off. Yeah. I got some idiot dress. Like he's going to the Olympic village and he says, Oh, you don't cough anymore. And then I fucking cough the entire show. That was making fun of Mike. Oh, I thought your cough's gone. I had a whole breakdown. I thought that was the urgent care person. I was like, that's a very specific person. Why is he dressed like a boy in this place? And then we had Mad Rocks, who super chats and says, you don't get to call them stupid when you spoiled Kevin Smith being on your podcast under no pressure. That's not what it was. Okay. That's what Mad Rocks said. Go read. You can go listen to me in the comments on yesterday's buzz. Great episode, everybody. Watch that one. Great editing, too. The editor. Great guy. Very talented. I'm checking right now to see if we can do this locally. Okay. We don't check if we can do this locally or what? Rotwood. Remember the dream is done. We're not playing fucking Rotwood. We can play Rotwood right after this. Rotwood happened. It's not happening. It's not happening today. Great. We have everything set up over there. We're not doing that. It's going to be just you guys going, you don't know that. I know. I know. I saw the absolute stream. Pokemon. Pokemon Pokecopia is currently the highest rated Pokemon game ever on Metacritic. This is from Chris Scullion over at VGC. This is the second news story for today. Pokemon Pokecopia, or as Mike would say, Poketopia. Yeah, what's up with that? I think it's just funny. That's just Mike doing his thing, honestly. But he says it so much that I honestly was calling it Poketopia in my personal life. I was not going to lean into it. She's like, what the fuck are you saying to me? I'm like, oh, Mike. It's currently the highest rated Pokemon game in Metacritic's history. The Life Sim, which many are describing as a cross between Pokemon, Animal Crossing, Minecraft, Viva Pinata, and Dragon Quest Builders, is set to release on March 5th as a Switch 2 exclusive. Pokemon Pocopia is currently the highest rated Pokemon game in Metacritic's history. The Life Sim, which, oh, sorry, I think I just went through twice there. According to Metacritic, the list of highest scoring Pokemon games is as follows. it was a Pokemon Pocopia, 88. Pokemon X and Y, 87.5. 87 for X and 88 for Y. Pokemon Black and White, which is 87. Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver, 87. Pokemon Sun and Moon, 87. Diamond and Pearl, 85. Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, didn't know that existed, 84. Platinum, 83. Thanks so much. Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, 82.5. And then Legends Arceus with an 83. Greg is the number one Pokemon fan. Somebody who loves Pokemon. Yeah. Loved Pocopia. And has played every single one of these games on this list that I just read. You nailed it. Does it deserve to be the highest ranking? You know, I think as time goes on, it'll be interesting to see. Because you're talking about games that have so many, you know, reviews slotted for them and where it goes on. Do I? I don't. Yeah, of course, the joke is I'm the Pokemon fan of the new generation. So am I going to go in here and tell you you should be above HeartGold, SoulSilver? No, because I know how much people adore those fucking games and whatever. But I do think what it speaks to is something I hope, even though this wasn't them, Game Freak and the Pokemon company in reality take to heart, which is people want something different. Not throw it all away in the Pokemon, fucking smoke cigarettes or whatever. but like Pocopia is such an interesting take on the Pokemon world that I really hope. And we pray that, right. As these Pokemon generations continue to go on, we see them do everything we'd like of voice acting online MMOs. Like maybe even like this doesn't affect gens, right? You, we still get the gen 10 and we still do have the as normal, whatever. But for as many people have been screaming everything. When power world hit so many people were like, this is the dream. I wish it was Pokemon. like why they should hopefully be working on a spinoff game that is that that is you running around playing with other people doing these things but then taking an idea that is fucking weird today's greg way which i still have not uploaded to cool greg uh just brings from a question of why in this tumultuous video game industry is nintendo the one that doesn't seem to be laying people off of her and closing studios left and right and really being affected by it and i think so much of it is nintendo's commitment to fun and making video games and making fun before profit. Luckily, they make a lot of profit, and they make a lot of money, and they have a war chest, and there's a bunch of, I go into a bunch of different things about it, right? But it is this idea that, like, cool, let's make a game where you're fucking Ditto. Which, when we first saw that trailer, I remember being horrified by it. It's disgusting. It's body horror, and now 35 hours into that game, I'm like, I fucking love Ditto, man. I fucking love Ditto, and I love this Ditto. What else can you turn into? I love this Ditto, and I love these Pokemon and what they're doing. They're such an, they do such a great job here of taking you know dragon quest builders minecraft animal crossing toss it in and giving that pokemon shine and doing something different with pokemon period that really and not only doing something different but pulling on the years and years and years and years of nostalgia and games in history to be like man yes this is a side step to the main generations but it doesn't feel like a side project and it's so smart because pokemon is so much bigger than the games right and i think the the pokemon company has not that they've gotten locked in because they have pokemon cafe they have you know mmo they have mobas uh they got they got a bunch of things that are outside of the traditional rpg but i do think that they forget sometimes how just cute and lovable these characters are so being able to take them and put them into a farming game that is all of these things that people enjoy uh is just such a smart idea and i yeah as soon as i saw this trailer i was like oh i can't believe this hasn't been done to this respect sooner and And I also think it's so smart that they collabed with a team that was already making games that were like this, right? That were already beloved. It's kind of a match made in heaven right there. Yeah, and I think, you know, even looking at what we just saw of DJ Rotom going and, you know, people, Jigglypuff dancing around, these guys popping out. Before I played it and I watched this kind of stuff, I was like, oof, this looks stiff. Like, you're going to pop out and stand there and be weird little animatronics. And, like, that's so not the experience. These Pokemon pop out. They have personalities. They talk to you. They wander around. when new Pokemon show up, they make relationships with them, talk about how much they like this Pokemon. It's like, there's a real world thing going on where it's like, I want to go check in on them and see what they're doing and talk to them and stuff. So like, you know, is it the best Pokemon game of all time? Probably not, no. I mean, people want a very specific thing from Pokemon. But in terms of, I think what everybody says they want from the gens of pushing it into a different direction, like this is so well done. It really does sit and go. I think, you know, ZA is a game that, got the amount of shit you'd expect of like, man, around the city's not that interesting. And oh, man, I don't know if I like this real-time battling and yada, yada, yada. Like, this one, I think, is in that side project vein, but is so committed to its vision that I think even if you played it and it's not your cup of tea, you'd still be like, I see why it's so many people's cup of tea. Yeah. So shout out to them actually doing this and it being as good as we want it to be. I'm very, very excited. very very excited to no uh thursday thursday thursday is the let's the gamescast play me and joey jumping into our world showing some stuff i'm excited to play it yeah yeah lians is all about it too right uh not as much not as much as i want because she's very particular about her animal she likes animal crossing yeah she has animal crossing she played what's the dreamlight valley she enjoyed that to a certain extent when she was starved for animal crossing content now she's in the place where it's like this must be one of the best games ever if i'm gonna play it so i'm gonna buy it i'm gonna play it and then i think it's gonna rub off and she's gonna look at me and be like i'm buying it i am so fascinated for getting the wild yeah because i i'm an animal crossing fan so many people are animal crossing fans and so many people are different kinds of animal crossing fans and i don't think this is one for one yeah where you oh you love animal crossing you'll love this i think there's so much gamey stuff going on in here and like quests and like you have to do this to unlock that kind of thing which is what i love yeah i'm gonna be interested to see how many people are like, man, too much busy work or too overwhelming or whatever. I just want to decorate the homes. Or how many people are going to get it, get in that first biome and just do that? Yeah. Because the professor is very clear of like, all right, cool. You've done this and you can run off and you should run off and check on the other thing over there. But you could also stay here if you want. And like, how many people are going to sit there and be like, I am making this world perfect before I go anywhere else? Oh, that's breaking news. You want to go to ads and we'll come back to the breaking news? Yeah, we will. We will go over and tell you about our advertisers, and we'll come back to some breaking, breaking news. This episode is brought to you by Factor, my go-to shortcut for great food fast. Cold days, big goals, and no time to cook? Factor makes healthy eating easy with fully prepared meals designed by dieticians and crafted by chefs. So eat well without the planning or cooking. I love Factor because I get to pick from 100 rotating meals, get them delivered to the studio, and then have a meal ready to eat. in those precious few minutes I get between shows. Factor uses quality, functional ingredients, including lean proteins, colorful veggies, whole food ingredients, and healthy fats. Always fresh, never frozen, ready in about two minutes. No prep, no stress. What's not to love? Be like me. Head to factormeals.com slash kindoffunny50off and use code kindoffunny50off to get 50% off and free breakfast for a year. Eat like a pro this month with Factor. New subscribers only. Varies by plan. One free breakfast item per box for one year while subscription is active. And we are back with some breaking news. And before then to set it up, yeah. We yelled for Mike. He's come here. He does not know what he's about to see. What do you think is going to happen? Tell me what you think he's going to say. Well, I mean, like I said, my mind goes to Baseball Baby. So maybe you got a cameo from Baseball Baby. And he's talking to me about getting better. Is he like Baby Gronk? We talked about him yesterday. to the podcast. Don't worry about it. We'll talk about it a little bit. Video game breaking news right now that we would call you out here for. Halo 7 is announced. Oh my god, so close. Roger, go. Okay, I'm just gonna I'm not even, okay. Today, we're sharing difficult news. We have made the decision to permanently shut down High Guard on March 12th. That's nine days from now. Okay, wow. Since launch, more than two million players stepped into High Guard's world. You shared feedback, created content, and many believed in what we were building for that we are deeply grateful despite the passion and hard work of our team we have not been able to build a sustainable player base in to support the game long term servers will remain online until march 12th we hope you'll jump in which us one more time to show your support and get those final great matches in while you still can the team is excited to release one final game update to enjoy the remaining life of the game game we will be adding a new warden new weapon account level progression and skill trees full patch notes are coming and we're targeting tonight or tomorrow morning for patch release from all of us on wildlife thank you for playing for supporting us and for being a part of high guard story oof okay well a lot to break down a lot to talk about i mean the simple part is okay high uh high guard is going to be shut down in nine days from now that was very short-lived. Of course, this is the game of the year when we talk about just kind of unfortunate situation, fumbling the bag and the opportunity to just a really, you know, I don't know how to describe it, but an unfortunate bad situation for all these people losing their jobs. Another Games as a Service that comes out, doesn't find an audience that closes down. And this one was very swift and quick. Concord-esque, of course, we can talk about that. But I mean, we saw the writing on the wall since day one, really since the gamers got against it during Game Awards, right? That was a tough kind of hill to get over and win that sentiment back after the Game Awards. Of course, if you don't know the story, it closed Jeff Keighley's Game Awards last year. It's one of the better Game Awards with announcements. When he did have that as the final announcement of the show, people did not like seeing kind of a generic-looking shooter. The team didn't do a good job at describing what a raid-based shooter is at the same time. They had better trailers they showed later on in its life cycle. But that first one, the initial, hey, this is us in the world, did not go well. Of course, the big story was the team over at Wildland Entertainment wanted it to be a stealth job. They wanted to capture what they did with Apex Legends. There's a lot of members from Respawn that went off and did this, right? 100 to 200, I thought, was the number back then. And so then we go for a full month long. Nobody's talking about this game. Everybody on the internet's talking about this game and dogging on this game. The team from Wild Light is not answering questions. They've gone radio silent because their plan was to stealth drop this. So there was no lead up to this, unfortunately. And they didn't switch gears to answer that. Then we get to day one. It comes out. It is a good game, not a great game, right? It is a game that you can find fun in. But unfortunately, it's a mixed bag of all these different first-person shooter genres that just wasn't the master of all of them, right? They were just good and adequate at all these different genres for the raid-based shooting right there. And so it went from 190,000 peak concurrence on day one to quickly far less than that. By, I think, week one, it was less than 90% of the player count stuck around. And so, yeah, this is a game that was going to live or die by the free-to-play model of monetization, where it needed a player base to buy cosmetics, to stay involved in the game, to try to keep this thing alive. Unfortunately, the players did not stick around. High Guard, to their credit, and Wildlight did try to pivot. They came out with a 5v5 mode. They talked with the audience. They tried to adjust as fast as they could. Unfortunately, it wasn't fast enough. They laid off 80% of their studio. They laid off like 80 out of the 100 people. There was 20 people left, and that clearly wasn't going to be enough to get them there, even though they said they had a year's worth of content ready to rock and roll. But we all know as the needle goes into the red, you can only drag it for so long. I mean, that is the story of High Guard. It just wasn't great. It was good. It needed to be great. The fact that there's another Concord. Yeah. That's what's crazy is Concord happened. And I know we talk about, I talk about on the shows all the time, chasing trends and how that's just not the place to be, right? And that just doesn't work. to see PlayStation chase that trend, miss it, have this huge, fuck, foible, Concord, everything that happens, right? And to see these folks doing the exact same thing and not learning from that. And even to the point of, we have a year's worth of content. Remember, that was fucking Concord. We're going to drop a new story segment every week. We have them locked. And it's interesting, Greg, I would push back on that, right? Like learning from that. This is a talented team that was coming from Respawn and Apex Legends, right? Like their goal was to split off and make a first person shooter. Right. We heard the early stories was, Hey, we were playing rust. We really liked this raid mechanic that it had in rust where you invade each other's bases. And we try to build off of that. So it's like, I don't feel like this team was chasing trends as in like my mind of like, that's a first person shooter team. They were going to make this right. But I do think of like looking at the marketplace and going, we're going to live or breathe and die on free to play model right here. Maybe that's not the way. And most importantly, hey when we announce this game we should probably have answers for people we should probably follow this up i don't like the excuse of well we were going to stealth drop but that's why we went quiet for a month but you you changed your mind exactly so you have to be ready you you jeff keely said i want to show this off and of course we all go that's an opportunity of a lifetime to have a closing spot at the biggest award show slash gaming presentation you have to then adjust your plan and go you know what like if we're going to do this then let's roll out the marketing immediately. I don't care what it is. We've got to figure it out. And they didn't do that. They kind of dug their heels in and said, this is us. And they just let the gamers kind of dictate what this game was going to be before that. But the problem is, is the gamers dictated it, but you didn't answer. You answered with a good to fair game and it wasn't great. And unfortunately they had their answers right away when it was like, ah, that's fine. Skippable. They could have controlled the narrative here. I think that's, as I look back on all of this, I think about if they shadow dropped it not shot if they uh put out their trailer with keely right and then they were like hey we don't really have a plan right now but we're just gonna put on fucking live stream we're just gonna talk to the audience we're gonna be in our discord we're gonna be responding to people doing voice memos whatever we need to do to be out there and show our faces and show what this game is and explain it and you don't have to explain it into the detail that you were you know when you did the preview event right but you can still be answering questions and be there and showing them what this game is a little bit more having drops there it it it really unfortunate how they had a game that was good enough that I think could have succeeded in the right light, but they were unable to, in the biggest stage of the world, capitalize off of a massive audience of people that were watching and that were hungry for a game that was coming out in the next. I don't know if it would have succeeded. I don't know if it would have found an audience. If it was shadow dropped. If it was shadow dropped. Like, I think there's just so much going on in this market space right now. Overwatch dropping the two, coming back with their 10th anniversary with so much energy. Ark Raiders being on top of the world, just dominating the shooter market. Marathon just weeks away from you and having the title of Bungie, right? Like, there was just so much going on in this pot that, like, even if this game came out as a stealth drop, I will still stand on the hill that, like, it was good. It was not great. And that's the issue is like good enough isn't good enough in this market. And the problem is we would have seen this come out high numbers, sponsorship streams, whatever. And it would have just slowly ticked away. Maybe it lasted another couple months, but like this was not going to make it no matter what. Yeah, no. And it's, it's also so interesting, right? Because you have this, this game that, sorry, I lost it. You go. Oh, okay. Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's all right. It'll come back to you. Right. And so, yeah, it's interesting of like, when we talk about, Hey, We had a year's worth of content, right? Different than Concord that was like, hey, we have story content. This team seemed like, hey, we have heroes week two. We got ranked mode week two. We want to come out every other month with a new hero. We want, they had this big plan. And it was interesting of like, this is a veteran team in my eyes, right? This is an indie studio, but like, this is a team of veterans who, this is their second go. They did Apex Legends. They learned from that. They should, they were ready for that. And I think it's just clearly the market was not ready for that. I don't think the gamers wanted this at this moment, a hero raid shooter that was just looking generic, right? Like too many people pointing. It's like, we got a hero shooter, like never before seen. It's like, well, that character looks like hella from Marvel rivals. That character looks like the guy from overwatch. Like you're not bringing anything truly interesting besides this riding mechanic that Fran and I talk about a lot. It's like, this was kind of, this was kind of the defining factor of like, There was a moment in between the game where you get on these mounts and the speed picks up and you shoot people off. And it says capture the flag cat and mouse game. That was like more of the most interesting stuff to this game. And unfortunately, it was also mixed with like a very boring mid game where you would just kind of either loot or you would scavenge for supplies and there would be minimal gunfights. And they changed all that with 5v5 and try to do adjusting to that. but like there wasn't much to hang your hat on in this game that would stop the world to play this. What I was going to say was that I don't think it's also impactful enough to say, Hey, we're the team. Some of the people that used to work on at this studio now, right? Because we're in this. Exactly. Everyone says that now. I think if this was actually for, you know, respawn proper, Oh, big difference, right? Then you can do the shadow drop. Right. But I, as we're, you know, Monday, Monday morning quarterbacking this, right. Looking back on what this could have been. I just don't think that this was the right call to be like, hey, we're the people that made Apex. Remember, that worked for that. It worked because it was Respawn, right? It worked because it was the Titanfall people. And that was such a- Well, it was a different age back then as well. It was for multiple reasons, but it also had the caliber of like, hey, this team works on amazing things and it's out now and we're connected to the Super Bowl and we're doing this. It had so much going for it. I just don't think them being like, hey, we're the people that, some of the people that worked on a game that you liked back in the day, that's not going to work out or be the thing that's going to drive people to download it and spend money. such a competitive market space period let alone in this very specific genre right and i think that's what's i think even to what i was speaking about a little bit more than uh you know bandwidth or quality or what you've done before i'm talking about like seeing this concord again right is the idea that i know how hard games are to make and i think it's so crazy that you could launch a game and be closed this quickly. That you just don't have, like they rode this thing on empty, right? Across the finish line and then needed such a huge return on players jumping in and buying stuff and doing things to justify keeping it around and keeping everything going. And that was that back-end stuff that we heard from either Jason Schreier or Paul Tassi. Somebody reported that NetEase was involved in this. Tencent, one of those two, was involved in the early backing of this and then pulled the backing as well, right? And so, like you said, Greg, this game, if this game is released under EA, right, if they all stay at Respawn, could they not have the conversation with EA and say, hey, we want to make a different kind of shooter under the umbrella. Maybe you can back us more. But, like, this was a team when we went down, me, Andy, and Blessing, they were just like, no, we're funding this, right? They did not talk about Tencent. And then it came out with that. But, like, it was very much we're going to ride this lightning bolt and hope that it pays off. Free to play is the way to go. We don't want to have that upfront cost, which now we're seeing right now. Gamers are willing to pay the upfront cost of $20, $40, $60 if you have a great game. Let's see what they do about Marathon. Exactly. So, like, Arc Raiders is the perfect example. Arc Raiders and tell me who makes the finals in Arc Raiders. That group, Embark Studios, is on a tear right now, right? Like, that team has two back-to-back hits that cost money that people were able to buy and say, I'm in on this. And, like, there we are now, right? So like the gamers are willing to spend money. If you have a good game, free to play is great. So people can come in and try, but if it's not great to good, they're not going to buy micro transactions for a game that they're going to play for a week or two months. It's interesting. There's no refunds wrote. Yeah. I was going to mention that. I was like, I, I do think that they should be free. Thank you. Yeah. They should absolutely be refunding people. I don't know if they have the, the, the money to back it. You would assume not, but if somebody's playing this game and, you know, playing it for a month or so and putting in money to it and the game is dropping, you know, going away completely. Yeah, you got to be getting refunds. Crazy that we're having this conversation now. And five days ago, Bloomberg published a story that is the story behind High Guard's failure, right? Let me give you a few graphs from there. It's what we're talking about in getting into this, right? When High Guard came out on January 26th, and of course, this is the Shry guy, Jason Shryer, the player count was impressive, peaking at nearly 100,000 concurrence on PC platforms, Steam, with similar numbers across PS5 and Xbox. But early impressions proved negative. and because the game was free to play, it only generated revenue from in-game payments that would require players to stick around. Reviewers criticized a number of elements, including the large map sizes and tedious mechanics such as mining, many of which were vestiges of early versions of High Guard. Critics also pointed out that the game was so complicated that it was much less fun if you were playing with strangers and the mics weren't on, a problem that Wildlight might have identified earlier by letting the public try out the game before release. In the days that followed, High Guard's biggest problem became player retention, a challenge that wildlife management emphasized to the staff multiple times a week after the game's launch they'd lost roughly 90 of their players which was a scary number a hastily released 5v5 mode was praised but didn't bring people back still wildlife staff were under the impression that they had enough financial runway to keep working on the game and addressing issues for at least the next few months but at an all hands on and an all hands meeting on february 11th Just two weeks after the game's release, the company told its employees the studio was out of money and most of their 100-person team would be laid off. They would stay employees for another week and then receive a small severance. During the meeting, management said that Tencent had pulled the studio's funding, according to people familiar with the events. Although the company didn't spell it out, staff were left with the impression that their financing was contingent upon hitting certain metrics, such as retention rate, which they'd fail to even come close to achieving. Yeah, that's it's I want to can I switch over the to the marathon conversation really quick or we want to come on a conversation. I mean, we saw the writing on the wall for this. This was unfortunate, right? The layoffs of 80 percent of your 100 person staff was clearly the we're not long for this world. Right. And this shows you video games are extremely hard to make. The costs are ballooning, right, like through the roof. And you look at that of like 100 person studio was banking it all on free to play and hoping microtransactions would come in. loses 80 to 90 percent of the player base add up all those salaries there's not enough snowbike mics to give you 20 plus a day to keep that funding right and like that's where we were two weeks ago when it was like the website's down right the discord's not leading to the real discord right then we go on it's like well there's 20 people left is 20 people really going to run this video game for a full year and hopefully as we know these games are extremely hard to just change course on, right? They came out with a 5v5 mode, but there's not much more you can really course correct on with 20 people in the studio and money dwindling here, so it's an unfortunate situation. And again, I hate to bang the old drum that I do all the time, but I think you turn to Tencent, and it's, I mean, don't get me wrong, every sign of the contract here, player retention rates, this, that, blah, blah, blah, but we're just talking about companies that are coming in just looking for a buck. You know what I mean? Nobody giving, and I'm not saying this is the example that it should have been, but like nobody coming in and be like i believe in this vision and we're gonna we're committed and we're gonna do this and make it right by the players and make something great and make cool art we're gonna come in and get a high player attention rate and get you to fucking buy the battle pass and all the little oh you're not fucking plug pulled you're done like it's over that quickly a few super chats i want to get to uh we have we have simple super chatting oh my gosh why the hell am i computer doing this uh with all of the negative combos high guard should have put it all on the table shouldn't plan for seasons because the studio might not even make it to season one uh so i guess they're mentioning the fact that they were like hey we have seasons of content that we're building towards but at the base level it was all crumbling right so oh so they're saying like yeah hey just put all the seasons out day one because you're not going to make or no or like even planning for it because like the base level of it is just well you have to plan for right we saw this with halo infinite halo infinite comes out with a great multiplayer are sweet. People are excited to be back in the Halo universe and they start yelling give me more. And Halo Infinite in particular was built on a 10 year plan, right? That was a big pipe dream that we're all going to live. This is going to last for 10 years. We're going to make this a live service. And when we said this is great, give me more, they said, oh shit, we weren't ready for that, right? Like now we're behind the eight ball. When you talked with this team, when I say like veterans, this is their sophomore experience. They've been here before. They knew exactly what the answers were hey you can't just start making content after you release the game and think you're going to catch up with the players you got to be making this content while you're building the game so it's ready to roll out month by month season by season and if you don't people are going to leave there's too many things trying to get up my attention and my wallet and my gameplay time and so yeah like i don't agree with that i think if they were meaning like hey if you had season one through four planned and it was ready just drop it all like yeah i get that but They are still also fine-tuning all of that, adjusting. When you only have 20 people, it's hard to drop probably three new heroes and be like, all right, we got to balance that with the 20 people we got live and in person. I don't think that's how it goes. Abud Superchat says, in terms of market failings for HG, do you think there are parallels for the future of Skate? Sorry to switch topics, but it feels like a correlation. So in terms of marketing, just in general. I mean, is Skate written for the wall for this? Yes. Yeah. I talked about this at Game of the Year. When I gave Skate my Game of the Year, right, my number one vote, right, where it's like I adore Skate. It feels so good to play Skate. I like coming back to Skate. I realize that they've made all the wrong choices and had the wrong messaging. And I think we talk about early access as a viable model. We just had a whole conversation. I think when you're EA, early access doesn't help you and do things. I don't think it's so much the marketing failings of Skate. I mean, the problem with Skate for so many people are the core values of Skate. Yes. where it is like, it's not what people wanted. They wanted skate for, they didn't want a cartoony skate world. They want to be counterculture. They want to be rallying against it. And then of course, to have people in the depth early on, say stuff like you'll never have to pay for new maps. And then here we are season three launches next week. And guess what? You got to pay to get to the Island one way or the other. And of course, reason being behind that. Well, I mean, it doesn't take a rocket science of like, I'm sure skate isn't doing well. I do have, you know, the steam DB for high guard, right? right now there's 242 players playing the peak was 460 right skate to right now there's a little over 2000 playing 24-hour peak was a little bit above that by like 40 people yeah so more people but again not great numbers right you look at a chart all the way down it'll be interesting with season three next week do we see a spike or is it down but like even if season three spikes it next week guess what we're talking about 10 cent looks at high guard and goes nobody's fucking playing it you're done you're telling me electronic arts isn't going to look at skate and be like no one is playing this you're done yeah especially with their new owners coming in eventually here from saudi arabia they're not here for art they're not here to make like oh man people really wanted a skate game we can turn this around full circle just laid people off as well but they also do love american culture and they love like putting their tentacles into all of it right so i could see them being like hey this is our in right like the fighting game was that king of fighting king of Fury, would they put so much energy and marketing into that game? Oh, the word of Cristiano Ronaldo? Yeah, dude, Cristiano Ronaldo, we're in UFC matches. We're everywhere with this fucking game. And like in the grand scheme of fighting games, no one's playing this, right? So I agree with you, but also at that point specifically, I mean, I can see them being like, we like skate, we skate in culture. Here's my thing is I don't think you'll get to it. Like, that's the interesting thing with this buyout or whatever. Like, I don't know where that falls of. Like, are you trying to clean it up for the new owners? You're just going to let them come in and do it and whatever. but it falls in this question, right? Of like a super chat here from Jay for Ellie, who says what's, what's more debt free to play or games of service. Yeah. That's what I was going to get to. Well, here we are. We're there. Thank you, Greg. Yeah. That's the fun conversation. I mean, what do you take from all of these lessons that you have seen, right? Like we've talked about this for years. You've talked about this since you started this company and back at IGN, right? It's like, you're learning from all these different lessons and we see the trend happening, but you can't predict five years from now. You can't predict 10 years from now. Also, So all the money and opportunities are like quickly tightening up. They're not giving it out as much as they were. So you really got to pick and choose your battles here, right? And you are going to start questioning, like, should I be leaving Halo Studios to make my own studio right now and like possibly risk it all? Or should I be at my stable job here where it's like, yeah, at any moment we could all be laid off, but at least we're making Halo 7 where I go off here and it's like, we just did four years. You know you can get laid off making Halo 7. Of course, but it's tough. Here's the deal. is I don't, I'm not super briefed on high guard. So I feel, I don't want to throw shade at anything like that. I still think in this day and age, your path to security in the video game industry, or at least success is paved by independence. I don't think being at a big corporation with a big thing, like, you know, what are we at right now? And where are we at with video games and et cetera, and so on and so forth. Like where we are at is that you need to get these fucking business suits out of video games. How do you make a successful game? You have a fucking vision that does not start with monetization. You have a vision that does not start with how are we going to, what is the business model for this game, right? Like that is what people are saying when they are trying to mimic Fortnite, when they are trying to figure that out. Those are not the conversations that should be happening at a pre-pro level. It should be that you are setting off to make a really cool game, which means you will make a much smaller game. We are now back to the conversation that is always like nails on a chalkboard of High Moon Studios, Ascension Studios, right? The people who did the one that I always forget, the fucking one just up the road of like, we are, we have a pedigree in AAA games and we're going to make a quadruple A game with that. Like you've never made a game as a studio. You do not know how each other work. You do not know the workflow. Start with something fucking small. Do a 2D Metroidvania with three of you and make money off of that. When you, when you come out and you're like, we are going to come out and compete on the grandest stage of them all with free to play is like, bro, no, that just isn't a viable option. It's a possible option, but look at this again. The days of, I have a great idea and I'm going to partner with a big fucking firm company, venture capitalist, whatever that leads to this. These people don't care about art. They care about the bottom fucking line. And so we need to stop hitching our wagons to them thinking that, well, this I'll be the difference. I'll do the thing and I know that like I'm so privileged I'm talking I've never made shit in my life except this company right but not a video game yeah so I'm not I totally get like leaving and then you find a thing but then they want a thing so then you do and suddenly you look back like oh this isn't really the vision but at least we're employed and at least we're doing this thing blah blah but then we get here and it's like what was it all for I mean I like that Greg and like that's such a right nail you're hammering the nail on the head like that is exactly where we are and that's what it is I guess like when I look at the first person shooter genre, how many indie first person shooters are blowing up the market, right? Like it is a difficult, it's a different world over here on this side. What's like you're competing with Call of Duties, Fortnites, Halos, Counter-Strikes. Like it's not, oh, we're making an indie game anymore. It's like we are competing against the top dogs in the world. And if you don't have that industry backing, if you don't have that stability, you're not going to be long for this, right? Like there's like a. But here, I just tell me. name me five indie first person shooter games that look indie that like are withstanding the test of time, you know, drop rogue. What was the one we just did? No, I'm serious. I'm serious. Whatever the one was just the indirect that looks like not great on switch. Yeah. But we went and looked at the, the, the steam page where you're like, Dave, that whatever dead shot rogue, someone in the chat out me. Like I look at that and I go there, but it's also the idea of like as a developer, right? Again, I'm not a developer. I'm speaking out of my ass to some degree. I understand. It's what I was talking about. we make carburetors here. Don't try to make a fucking window. But if I was like, I'm so fed up in my job and I'm going to leave, I better leave and have, and I'm going to make a first person shooter. I better leave and know what that market wants and what that audience wants and what will separate us It sounds like high guard did not have that vision correct Or at least that vision got so watered down by the time they got out that you aren there Like that the thing Like if the market is saturated go to a different market which I know is very easy to say impossible. Right. Again, I was just reading. Did it come by? What was it? Dead zone. Fuck. Yeah. I was reading Shryer's book again. You know, any blood, sweat, and pixels and the destiny chapter talks about like them wanting to go over here and make something that wasn't a halo. and then they merge the ideas and suddenly they're just making Halo again because that's what everybody knows how to make. There's very few that I can go back to. The most recent one that I can go back to and they fell apart when they were getting towards the finish line was Splitgate. That is one of the few games where it's like we're an indie team and we're making something so good that people are stopping playing their Call of Duty to come here. And there's no way we could fuck up all that goodwill, is there guys? That team lost the plot, of course, but there's very few where you're like, oh shit, because we're not talking about a PVE here, right? There's a whole different, there's so many markets here. We're talking about a PVP, competitive first-person shooter genre, that like that's the big dog table where you better come correct because you're not going to last. And we've seen too many of these games try to step up there and it's like, hey, you were good, but you weren't great. Or like you just weren't there. You never were there. And it's an intimidating market to try to step into. It isn't like, hey, I'm just making an indie game and like we're going to have some fun. and it's going to be peak. It's going to be tome. It's going to be something like that. It's like, no, this is over here. You got to come correct here. But couldn't, and I know we're going long. Yeah. But the question there I would offer back to you as a fan of the genre is, couldn't there be a peak? Isn't the idea in this first-person shooter genre you're talking about just that too many people aren't doing the small, fun, different thing. They're just going and making the same fucking shit? I mean, when I go to, I think of like Team Fortress, something like that's like a little wacky and different right but like the problem is but that also isn't wacky and different because that's a hero ship exactly like we've seen so many of them littered with games like ubisoft where they just made x defiance right yeah i'm littered with games that are like oh we're just stepping into a hero arena or whatever and it's uh oh my god there was so many of them competing with overwatch battleborn remember that game there was another one as well paladins it's like there's just too many games stepping into that that just can't compete and like that's the one where it's like maybe you do need the backing maybe it is too difficult to step in and do that because not many teams make a splash can do that well let's go to something i think a general conversation is and then i will eventually end on the marathon conversation right there uh snaggletooth production says a snap super chat says games as a service have proven to be company killers no one will be fortnight and then i want to bring in this one which is a larger conversation but i do think it's it is what we're talking about here to a certain degree aaron lime super chats and says the attention economy is about being it is also being dominated by fortnite and roblox that's where kids who would otherwise be playing games like high guard high guard are now it's where their friends are and we have to we have to see it as a new null experience i don't know what i'm gonna say there but yeah you get the point thank you for bringing that up because when we were talking about free to play versus live service and are those long for this world it's like unfortunately we at this table are not the people that really talk about roblox we're not in tune with that market but it is everything but that is everything everything right like roblox is everything this mobile market now clash of clans that's what the younger generation is playing right now right and so like will free to play stick around hell yeah will roblox is getting like 20 million daily players right there's like a freak amount of The games inside of it have millions of players. Exactly. So it's like, yeah, of course they're going to be alive and well in five years from now, because it is still that of like, that kid that's 12 to 20 is not spending their mom's credit card or swiping the card. They can jump into a free game at any moment, play where their friends are at, and their friends are playing. They're going to be there. It's also the willingness to jump into this community, as Aaron was talking about, right? Because for me, when I was a kid, I had, of course, had Call of Duty at Halo, but I was more interested in trying to find those new communities, trying to figure out, maybe I can try this free to play game. Maybe there is this world. Now we're just, we are so oversaturated that getting your friends to fucking go from counter-strike to a free to play video game. That in and of itself is an impressive feat. If you're able to get five of your friends for a night, when video, as we get older, video game time is getting harder and harder and harder. Connection time is getting harder and harder to get, Hey, download this new game and try it out with me. That's crazy. But are we not also, and stick with me because I sound dismissive and everything, making a mountain out of a molehill is this not a problem we've had that's as old as video games period because stick with me we're back to roblox fortnite minecraft all the kids are playing if that's what they play yada blah blah blah yes i agree but when i was a kid and i was playing video games and i would try to get poe to play spider-man on ps1 or genesis or whatever couldn't fucking do it but he would play madden with me yeah he would there's people who only own these seems for call of duty are we not again giving into the fucking suits here who saw the success of fortnite roblox minecraft and said video games are bigger than ever everyone wants to play video games when in reality take all three of those games and say playing outside playing the violin sports what like kids have always been attracted to a game and then oh did you buy a console do I'd never buy a console. I would never do this thing. It's just there. I still, I would hazard the guest that if you were to go back and compare my generation to me being a super video game fan and none of my close friends being a huge video game fan, reading EGM, consuming all the stuff, wanting to buy the latest thing, yada, yada, yada. I would imagine that's still what it's like for so many of these kids that are playing Roblox, Minecraft Fortnite with their friends, but then are listening to probably not us, but IGN or whatever and looking around and being like excited for the next insomniac game, even though they're not saying it's Omniac, like they're into video games in a way they aren't the mass of people aren't, but the market read the wrong fucking lesson there. They looked at that and said, kids are playing video games more than ever. And they always will. And we can convert those kids to buy a switch to a whatever XY. And you can't because that's just not how they're built. Yeah, no, I think you're right in terms of, I was reminded by the chat, but also just like thinking through it. It's like, we forget that Minecraft, I mean, not Minecraft, Fortnite and also Minecraft are just happy acts. right like fortnight did not was never a battle royale originally it was dead on arrival it was fortnight was dead quite literally it was their moment of like fuck we are fucking up right now what do we do right now we did this thing and that was a happy accident right there so i if i'm an investor right if i'm one of the big suits and i'm trying to find a game out there and then people are pitching me games and i am gravitating towards the games that are comparing themselves to call of duties fortnights overwatches and not comparing themselves to weirder, niche-er ideas, I think that that is, that's the wrong direction, right? If you are focusing on the Call of Duties, the Overwatches, because you're never going to be able to do that in a way that isn't organic, right? You have to make something new. You have to go for indie ideas, weird ideas, out there, things that are, that is what we're looking for right now. It's the attention economy. We need the hooks. And High Guard doesn't have the hooks, right? You look at it and it's like, okay, it's all these things I like, but at the end of the day, it is just this mash of everything, so it doesn't look like anything new, right? There isn't one thing that I can grab onto, oh my God, the character design is so fucking incredible, so unique. Oh my God. It has this mechanic that I can, I run to my friends and say, hey, you can do gobbledygook with this thing. Oh, gobbledygook? Oh my gobbledygook. I love gobbledygook. I wouldn't think that that would exist in a first person shooter, right? We just don't have those anymore. That's sadly the original idea that, sadly, not sadly, that is the original ideas that are going to make the future of gaming, but sadly the suits don't see it. So I totally get your point there. Yeah. I mean, everything that you just say, said Roger is right. Right. And like back in the day when video games were in their early development and infancy, yeah, that was an exciting time. It was all new and fresh. Now, how many investors are really out there clamoring for a new game to be the back? And then on top of that, right, it's like when you said all that, Roger, that's great. But the people who have the money probably don't even care about this, nor do they know. They just say, get where the money's at. Give me a call of duty. Go to call of duty. That's why they're all believing. They're all believing. Because they're bad at investing. They hear that. They don't understand it. Their eyes glaze over and they say, just get the Fortnite, Roger. I don't want to hear this. I don't care about that. I want money now. Get the money is right. Money now. Yeah, unfortunately, that's where you're at. And yeah, high guard will be another giant lesson that we will point to. And unfortunately, in this day and age, there will be a lot of negativity, a lot of name calling, a lot of finger pointing, when it should just be like, this is a lesson. Learn from this and try to be better. And man, oh man, it's unfortunate because that game just came with and hundreds of lives have now been affected. Yep. And now I want to have the larger conversation that I saw some super chats about. JBC super chat says, I don't think Marathon is Concord 2, let alone High Guard 2, but its bounce rate is very concerning. And that's talking about the server slam that happened this weekend. And people were showing like all that graph is going down pretty heavy. And yeah, I think that is it when it comes to Marathon Turner super chat. What do we feel? Oh, sorry. Sandy Crane super chats. How are we feeling about Marathon now with mixed review shooters on the brain? IMO, I think Marathon was good based on server slam. Thanks, guys. What are you feeling about Marathon? Mike, you played some of it. I played Marathon for one night, and I was a mixed bag of emotions. I really enjoyed the shooting. I enjoyed the world. I enjoyed the vibe of it all. But there was just something about the moment-to-moment gameplay. There was a lack of gunfights. There was a lot of, like, man, this is just an empty, boring experience for 15 minutes before we extract that I don't want to spend a bunch of time in. It did not have the wow factor like I experienced in our graders, but I am the outlier. I am hearing so much positive buzz about Marathon from others that I'm like, oh, man, I'm on the opposite side because I did not like this experience. I liked some of the experience. I did not like a lot of the experience. And so for me, I am very interested in this Marathon lead up to launch and afterwards of like, will this stick? Will this happen? what is up with Bungie? Most people will tell you if they listen in, they'll say no, Mike. Marathon's got the juice and it's going to be here. I'm on the other side of going, I did not like that marathon experience. I will be keeping eyes on that one to see if Bungie has it in them. Yeah, we will see. And then final super chat here from... Paris wants to call in. Paris, you can tell me about Marathon. No, no, Paris. Don't call in. We're an hour into the podcast. Kalzer says, you guys always smash it out the park with these breaking stories and I want to thank Snowbike Mike. for coming on here. Yeah, thanks for calling me. I was just getting ready for the Kind of Funny podcast. A lot of baseball kid clips that I was gathering for Nick. We got to talk about this, okay? We got a baseball phenom here. We got to be ready for it. And then, but Mike, before you leave. Oh, okay. High guard going out of business. Huge news. I was looking for something smaller. Where would I go? Roger, I take you to our last news story, the We News channel, where we cover all the small news items you need to know about. Is it always this bright? Always right. Always right. My skin reflects it. Oh, my light seemed a little brighter today. I don't know if that's just my eyes or something. I haven't been here in a while. Because you've been looking at so many great indie games. If this story didn't teach you anything, support indie games. Support indie games, everybody. Buy games. Story number six, we knew there was a lot of stuff to go through really quick. Scott Pilgrim EX review roundup. Metacritic is at a 77. VGC's Chris Scullion gave it a four out of five stars. Scott Pilgrim EX takes everything that was great about the first game, the combat, the music, the beautiful pixel art, and throws it into an all-new adventure rammed with great game references. The open-world structure and relatively short length won't be to everyone's taste, but if those aren't a problem to you, it's a must-have. Did not know about the open-world structure. I didn't either. Me and Ben started it over the weekend, the review code. Didn't get super deep into it, but I was incredibly thrown by the open-world. I was like, all right, Ben, go to the right. We're just beating the shit out of everything. Then we just got to the end, and I looked at the map. I was like, oh, this is open-world. Oh, this is a big deal. Very interesting, yeah. Gameplays, it's tribute games. It's, you know, Cosmic Invasion devs. They know what they're doing. If you like the Scott Pilgrim world, what I played, I can see you getting into it. Hell yeah. A new RPG from Bandai Namco. There is a YouTube thing that is- Yeah, there was a YouTube post up about this new thing they're revealing. The description reads, a serenity soon to be disturbed. More to come March 5th at 1500 Pacific Standard Time. Yeah, do your math on that one, everybody. It's three o'clock. What? Xbox Game Pass update today. Xbox Game Pass update today. Final Fantasy 3. That's going to be on the cloud. Xbox Series X and S and PC. Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. Cloud. Xbox Series X and S and PC. Coming soon. Tua T is also coming to cloud. X and PC. Love Tua T. Play that game. It's a fun little time. EA Sports F125. Also coming. Planet of Lana 2 that's coming out soon Construction Simulator yeah we talked about that and then the big one people are excited Cyberpunk 2077 that's Cloud and Consoles Hollow Knight Silksong Cloud, Console, Handheld and PC was that already there that's weird and DreamWorks Gabby's Dollhouse Ready to Party I built games daily at the kitchen table today and Ben was looking at my shirt and he goes there's a Gabby's Dollhouse game You want to play that? He's like, yeah, I'm like March 17th. Okay, big dog. Hell yeah. Mike, you're here, so I'm glad we could talk about it. Charlie Intel reports. We met Charlie Intel. That's pretty cool. New Black Ops Royale is coming to Warzone. Blackout inspired. No loadouts. Drop in and loot up. Start with pistol and wingsuit. No buy station. No gulag. Redeploy is available. Tiered armor vests played on Avalon. 100 players. March 12th at 9 p.m. PT. Yes. A lot of people were down on me. I said, it's back. I'm so excited. You're down on you. It's just crazy. It's a human being. Just crazy. You know what I mean? I'm so excited for this, right? This was the dream of as we continue on with Warzone, what is next? How do you keep that fresh? How do you get the player base back in? We knew with the changing of the guard and going back to Black Ops that Avalon was out there, that a blackout was rumored of like, hey, how do you go back to blackout now and bring in something new? And I'm very excited to try this. I mean, come on. No loadouts that I got to worry about. Just drop in, loot out, have fun. That's the dream, right? It's like, let's get back to basics. We have gone five plus years since COVID of like, hey, you got to know the meta. You got to have the meta. You got to grind the meta. Grind it. You know what I'd like to do? I'd just like to drop in and show you how nasty I am. And that's all that matters. Is this what you want? Fuck yeah. I want the gulag. No, Roger. I haven't played Call of Duty Warzone in a year now. You don't know what you want. We haven't played Warzone since Call of Duty next. I need a breath of fresh air in the Call of Duty Battle Royale space because Call of Duty is still one of the top dogs in the first-person shooter market. It's so much fun to play. It is a blast. Multiplayer is good. But I want that Battle Royale experience, and I need something fresh. Warzone has had its time. It is time to build something new. It is time to try something new. This is just on Avalon. Yeah, but we're going back out to the Blackout. Did you play Blackout? No. Yeah, so Blackout was like the earliest Battle Royale. It was much different than what Warzone became. And so, yeah, if you've had a taste of that, you're going to want to try this. Mike's very excited about it. Tune in on Thursday, March 5th at 2 p.m. PT for a 30-minute Capcom Spotlight livestream. 30 minutes featuring games such as Monster Hunter Stories 3, Twisted Reflection, Pragmata, Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection, and Street Fighter VI. following the success of the sold out 2025 premiere in japan the official concert tour of metaphor re-fantaggio embarks on a world tour spanning three continents six countries and eight cities across the globe the concert presents a carefully curated selection of pieces that bring the game's epic fantasy world to life all composed by shoji maguro renowned for his work on the Persona series. So it's coming to Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles, Kaohsiung, Singapore, Bangkok, London, and Paris. Boo, boo, boo. No San Francisco. You think that one's making the distance? What do you mean? What was the last big one that didn't make the distance and it canceled halfway through? The PlayStation one. Oh, that's the PlayStation one. Yeah. And then we have the first poster for Life is Strange, the TV series showing off who's playing chloe price and max call field person uh and who is it uh tatum grace upkins sorry they read it in the in the text there and then mazy stella from the hit tv show nashville that's right daphne herself playing chloe price i don't know the show will be good but we got one of the stella sisters and that means i'll be watching woo and everybody that is it for we news we killed it everybody I think we looked through all the super chats right there I'm gonna go to you're wrong I don't think there's anything wrong there don't worry about that oh Jesus Christ people talk about that no release date for marathon that's not true oh this is from yesterday so I don't think we did everything no yeah no you're wrong nice job we killed it everybody yeah great job everybody this has been kind of funny games daily where each and every weekday we run you through the news you need to know about live on YouTube Twitch and podcast services around the globe if you love what we do Support us with The Kind of Funny membership on Patreon or YouTube to get all of our shows ad-free. Watch us record them live and get a daily exclusive show. Enjoy The Kind of Funny podcast right after this. And you're going to learn all about baseball, boy. Yeah, it's going to be an Internet Explorers episode. We're all bringing different things from the Internet together to share with one another. So, yes, I have Nick will also choose his starter Pokemon for winds and waves. What? Yeah. Wow, you guys have a good show, boy. Yeah, we got some stuff going on. Too bad Kevin Smith can't be there. well it's crazy that you broke in bargo but until next time it's been a pleasure to serve you you came with the wrong hand