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

Summary

Podcast Summary: Kinda Funny Games Daily – March 3, 2026

Episode Theme & Purpose

In this lively episode of Kinda Funny Games Daily, hosts Roger Pokorny, Gregory James Miller (Greg), and Mike (Snowbike Mike) tackle the day's hottest gaming news. Key topics include the shutdown of Highguard—a multiplayer shooter—remaster rumors swirling around Fallout: New Vegas, industry woes with the live service model, a look at the record-breaking reviews for Pokémon Pickopia, and a rapid-fire rundown of smaller gaming news, including a Scott Pilgrim EX review roundup. The hosts bring their trademark blend of humor, passion, and industry insight, offering analysis and raw takes aimed at both hardcore and casual gamers.

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Main Topics & Discussions

1. News Breakdown & Show Start (02:14–02:56)

• The hosts jump in after several ad reads and introduce the day's key topics, including Fallout: New Vegas remaster rumors, Pokémon Pickopia's critical success, and more. Roger kicks off as primary host with Greg as guest. (02:14–02:56)

Notable Quote

• Greg: “There’s too many games to play, which is always the problem… But you know, we saw this drop here, Mini Shoot adventures, Rotwood, all exciting stuff. I’m all about that.” (03:38)

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2. Fallout: New Vegas Remaster Rumors & Community Hype (10:10–21:37)

The Situation

• Social media fueled speculation after Iron Galaxy Studios posted an image featuring the iconic Fallout: New Vegas loading screen. Fans hoped for a remaster announcement.

• Mike reads a PC Gamer article detailing the hype and why it “might not be entirely coincidental” that Iron Galaxy—known for port work—featured the image. (10:10–11:37)

Real-Time Breaking News

• Greg interrupts with breaking news: Iron Galaxy officially denies working on a Fallout remaster, clarifying the image was a recurring, unrelated slide. (11:37)
• The hosts react with playful rage and disappointment, skewering both Iron Galaxy and Bethesda for disappointing Fallout fans.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Rants

• Greg (re: Iron Galaxy post): “Did I think it was real? Absolutely not. But I also said, how fucking stupid can you be, Iron Galaxy? … Do we not exist in the same fucking universe as you?” (12:21)
• “Fuck you, Oblivion fans. You didn’t deserve it. You didn’t need it. We needed a Fallout.” (13:05)
• Greg calls Dave Lang live on air for a response, humorously lambasts both Iron Galaxy for miscommunication and Bethesda for lack of remasters. (16:31–17:20)
• “We’re the starving dog. I need a new Fallout. Woof, woof. But stop fucking teasing me with screens.” (18:33)

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3. Pokémon Pickopia: Record-Breaking Reviews and Impact (23:14–30:19)

The Buzz

• Pokemon Pickopia reaches the highest-rated status on Metacritic for a Pokémon title, surpassing even heartthrobs like Heart Gold & Soul Silver.

• The hosts discuss why the game is resonating so strongly:

  • Innovative mix of Pokémon, Animal Crossing, Minecraft, Viva Piñata.
  • Players’ hunger for “something different” in the Pokémon franchise.
  • Praise for unique mechanics, character dynamics, and world-building.

Reflections and Concerns

• Greg reflects on what this means for the franchise: “People want something different…Pokopia is such an interesting take on the Pokémon world. I really hope [that] right as these Pokémon generations continue to go on, we see them do everything we like.” (25:49)

• Discussion about how not all Animal Crossing fans may be won over by Pickopia’s gamey, quest-driven structure. (29:45)

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4. BREAKING: Highguard Shutting Down (33:17–46:42)

The News

• Roger introduces breaking news: multiplayer shooter Highguard will be permanently shut down on March 12, barely two months after launch. (33:47)
  • Over 2 million players joined since launch.
  • Studio thanks the community, cites unsustainable player base.
  • Final update with new warden, weapons, progression planned before shutdown.

Analysis & Industry Context

• The hosts dissect why Highguard failed:
  • Poor initial marketing/announcement strategy hurt perception.
  • Free-to-play dependence with no strong player retention.
  • Comparisons to Concord (another live-service misfire), highlighting industry trend-chasing failures.
  • Studio laid off 80% of staff ahead of shutdown, underscoring human cost.

Notable Quotes

• Roger: “It is a good game, not a great game… Unfortunately, it was a mixed bag of all these different first-person shooter genres that just wasn’t the master of all.” (35:57)

• Greg: “Chasing trends… that’s just not the place to be. And that just doesn’t work. To see PlayStation chase that trend, miss it, and have this huge fuck foible… to see these folks doing the exact same thing?” (38:05)

Broader Discussion

• Free-to-play vs. live service as viable business models, with increasing investor reticence to fund anything not guaranteed to go viral.
• The struggle for indie/new studios to break into heavily saturated competitive shooter space.
• Importance of unique vision over monetization obsession.

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5. Industry Trends: Free-to-Play, Games-As-Service, and Suit-Driven Mistakes (46:42–63:11)

• Deep discussion on why live service and free-to-play titles are riskier than ever unless you’re Fortnite/Roblox:

  • Market oversaturation.
  • Investor impatience—backers only care about growth, not creative vision.

• Hosts bemoan the focus on trend-chasing, the cost of huge team sizes, and urge indie devs to target small, innovative projects rather than AAA competitor titles.

Notable Quotes

• Greg: “How do you make a successful game? You have a fucking vision that does not start with monetization.” (55:29)

• “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,’ it’s like, bro, no. That just isn’t a viable option.” (56:35)

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6. Community Q&A and Future of Shooter Market (63:11–69:46)

• Discussion on how “attention economy” is dominated by Fortnite/Roblox—hard for anything new to break through.

• Reflections on the cyclical nature of “everyone playing one or two big games”—same as kids prioritizing Madden, Halo, or sports games growing up.

• Hosts urge investors to fund weirder, more experimental ideas rather than chasing the next Fortnite or Call of Duty.

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7. Rapid-Fire News (“We News Channel”) (70:17–76:37)

• Scott Pilgrim EX Review Roundup: Metacritic 77; open world structure is a surprise for many.
• New Bandai Namco RPG teased for reveal March 5th.
• Big Game Pass Updates—Final Fantasy 3, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, Cyberpunk 2077.
• Warzone getting Blackout-inspired “Back to Basics” battle royale mode, March 12th.
• Capcom Spotlight stream announced, plus new Persona composer concert tour, Life is Strange TV series casting updates.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Greg on live service fatigue:
  “You got to be making this content while you’re building the game… Too many things [are] trying to get at my attention and my wallet and my gameplay time." (50:42)

• Greg, calling out business priorities: "These people don’t care about art. They care about the bottom fucking line." (49:39)

• Roger on shooting the moon as an indie: "In this day and age, your path to security in the video game industry … is paved by independence." (55:29)

• On Pokémon Pickopia’s surprise success: "I hope ... Game Freak and the Pokémon Company … take to heart, which is people want something different." (24:46)

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Highlights & Timestamps

• (10:10–21:37) Fallout: New Vegas Remaster speculation/rant, Iron Galaxy’s response, community disappointment
• (23:14–30:19) Pokémon Pickopia breaks franchise review records; industry and fan reactions
• (33:17–46:42) Highguard shutdown – news break, analysis, and genre-wide implications
• (46:42–63:11) State of live service/free-to-play industry, suit-driven mistakes, indie market challenges
• (63:11–69:46) Q&A on shooter market trends and the “attention economy”
• (70:17–76:37) Rapid-fire news: Scott Pilgrim EX, Game Pass drops, Capcom announcements, Life is Strange TV series

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Tone & Closing Thoughts

The episode mixes Kinda Funny's signature sharpness, humor, and no-BS candor with passionate concern for the games industry. The hosts lament failures of leadership and vision, while celebrating creative successes like Pokémon Pickopia. Through deep dives and spontaneous reactions (including live call-ins!), they offer both catharsis for burned-out gamers and sober reminders for industry watchers.

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This summary covers all major discussion points, key quotes, and poignant moments from the episode, organized for listeners who want the big picture without missing the flavor or substance of Kinda Funny’s unfiltered perspective.

Transcript

[Roger Pokorny]

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[Gregory James Miller]

Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body relax. And let go of whatever you're carrying today. Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class.

[Mike]

I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh, my gosh, they're so fast.

[Gregory James Miller]

And breathe. Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry.

[Mike]

Namaste. Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order. 1-800-contacts.

[Roger Pokorny]

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[Mike]

This episode is brought to you by White Claw Surge. Nice choice hitting up this podcast. No surprises. You're all about diving into tastes everyone in the room can enjoy. Just like White Claw Surge. It's for celebrating those moments when connections

[Roger Pokorny]

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[Mike]

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[Roger Pokorny]

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[Mike]

Unleash White Claw Surge. Please drink responsibly. Hard seltzer with flavors, 8% alcohol by volume. White Claw Seltzer works Chicago, Illinois.

[Gregory James Miller]

Be like me and head to FactorMeals.com KindaFunny50 off and use code KindaFunny50OFF to get 50% off and free breakfast for a year. Eat like a pro this month with Factor.

[Roger Pokorny]

If you want to get our shows ad free and our exclusive shows, go

[Mike]

to patreon.com kindafunny Today's stories include the Hopium that we might be getting a new Vegas remake. Pokemon Pickopia 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 kind of Funny Games Daily. What is up everybody? And welcome back to Kinda Funny Games Daily 4 Tuesday, March 3, 2026 I'm your host for today, Roger Pokorny. Today I'm joined by my CEO Gregory James Miller.

[Gregory James Miller]

What's up baby? Huh?

[Mike]

You saw that, bro. Everyone saw that. He hit me.

[Gregory James Miller]

I'll do a lot more. All right. I just threatened to lay you off for the last show. I don't think you need. Where can we start in a nice place here?

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Gregory James Miller]

As everyone downloading Rotwood. Can we start in a nice place, please?

[Mike]

If you are tuning in just for kfgd. Before this we did our reactions and review of the Nintendo Indie World presentation. So if you're looking for all that news, go over there.

[Gregory James Miller]

I gave you a little bit in here.

[Mike]

Oh, you.

[Gregory James Miller]

I gave you a little. I just gave you a little bit. Oh, just a few bullet points in there. So if you're like, I hate the Gamescast 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.

[Mike]

Yeah, for sure. Greg, how you feeling? How we. How we doing today?

[Gregory James Miller]

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. But you know, we saw this drop here, Mini Shoot adventures, Rottwood, all exciting stuff. I'm all about that. Somebody calling out that under the. Under the island game play too. It's like fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

[Mike]

So how do you deal with this immense first world problem?

[Roger Pokorny]

Right.

[Mike]

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 of like what I need to be playing. Because I like have that balance of like I want to play games for our top hundred eventually. There's some, there's some games out there. Win waker. There's games I want to play, I appreciate. But then I also have, you know, redacted. All these big games are coming out. These shadow drops over here. How are you dealing with this?

[Gregory James Miller]

I mean it all comes down to the workload and what we're on and what I'm needed for for a review, a 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 for the day before release, which I think is the 17th. Don't quote me on that, if that's right. 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 other stuff, that smaller stuff falls by the wayside.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Gregory James Miller]

One of the reasons I was giving you 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. I want. 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 let's do the thing. 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 Pokobi'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 and 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 Pickopia for 20 minutes and not worry about what's going on over there. But that's part of the problem is that I love to keep playing pickopia. And that's no insult. Any of these games to. To show my hand on crazy desert one way or the other. It's just like, man, I really want Kobe. There's a problem that Jordan. Jordan Miller spent 120 hours on this game. I'm 35 in. I'd like to keep going.

[Mike]

Yeah. And do you ever have, like, the burnout of video games? I'm sure never.

[Gregory James Miller]

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. As 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.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Gregory James Miller]

She likes to do pottery. She likes to go for hikes.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Gregory James Miller]

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 wanted to get back to video games.

[Mike]

Does she hard stop you sometimes when you're talking about video games? Like, do you.

[Gregory James Miller]

No hard stop. I'll see her drift. I'll see her drift of like, you know what I mean? Because like when I'm into the. Oh, and Inopia last night, this happens just. I see her go off to wherever she needs to go in her head to do what she needs to do.

[Mike]

Like, that's nice, honey. That's nice. That's nice.

[Gregory James Miller]

Same way she's trying to tell me about nature outside. I'm like, I just don't care.

[Mike]

Yeah. I always, I always talk to lands 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. Of like, 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.

[Gregory James Miller]

Like, you're not disrespect to generator. She does. Like, that's just.

[Mike]

This is your life. Your life is video games.

[Gregory James Miller]

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, my life is all video games. At some point in the last 15 minutes, I've thought about Ghostbusters, Superman. Everything else is video games. Like, it's just whatever. You know what? I.

[Mike]

It's incredible.

[Gregory James Miller]

Yeah, I'd love to. Yeah. You know, but it's like, yeah. I think of. You know, the Kumail and Emily are getting ready to do Sex Criminals, which is a matte fraction comic I really like. They're getting ready to do, I think a series of it, right? And they're in the writers room, so they're posting a lot about it. And I think about all the time. Like, not to be too disgusting, but Sex Criminals about 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. I could just stop time, man, like play every video and be like, oh man, Rotwood sounds awesome. And then just go and like go into the the subliminal space. I guess in this I orgasm right here.

[Roger Pokorny]

But like, you know, go to the

[Mike]

bathroom, come back out.

[Gregory James Miller]

Rottwood was awesome.

[Mike]

That's incredible. And we killed him everybody. Well, Greg, we get to do your favorite thing which is talk about video games. I know you want to play video games.

[Gregory James Miller]

I was gonna say my favorite things playing it, but I'll settle.

[Mike]

Second favorite, second favorite thing 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 kindafunny games remember, we couldn't do this without our producers on patreon.com kindafunny 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 Report. It's time for some news. Okay, six. Okay, gotcha. Story number one, everybody. Fallout New Vegas Remastered Hopium 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 old 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 1 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 Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3. 4, but it's also worked on 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. Greg, do you want me to read the rest of this or.

[Gregory James Miller]

Yeah, go for it. Finish it off before we get to the breaking news.

[Mike]

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? It's a little premature for full on rejoicing, but even I, an inveterate hater, have to admit that it sure looks like new Vegas fans are in for some good news. Hopefully very soon.

[Gregory James Miller]

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.

[Mike]

Okay, I thought this is gonna be scary or breaking news, so I'm happy that that's just that I. 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.

[Gregory James Miller]

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 gotta sit here, talk to fucking Todd Howard. No new Fallouts show more successful than any Fallout. We can't get a new we're gonna 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 Star Sky 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. Well, 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. Cause I'm just wandering around West Virginia and it's like, there weren't even people originally.

[Roger Pokorny]

So.

[Gregory James Miller]

And I'm not gonna fuckin shoot. Give me a fucking fallout. Like I just wanna fall out. And so back to you, Iron Galaxy. You're not off the hook. 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. That's just. That's just. I knew it wasn't real because. No, you wouldn't announce that. Well, 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

[Roger Pokorny]

ribs use a steak.

[Gregory James Miller]

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, all right? 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 Blue Point cost? Get him. Get him. Sharma. Bring them over. Ms. Sharma. Put him in a room. And say you work here at Xbox now, and your first order of business is fucking remake and Fallout 3 in New Vegas. That's all you can. 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. She's fulfilling game requests. That'd be great. Will Todd be mad? Yeah, he will be. You say Todd, you shut up. You go make the other fucking Elder Scrolls people want. All right, you get ready for that Starfield stuff. That fucking Starfield. Apparently getting content soon. Maybe April 7th we talked about yesterday.

[Roger Pokorny]

Fudge.

[Gregory James Miller]

Come on. But then back to you, Iron Galaxy. What the fuck were you thinking? You know what? All right. What the fuck were you thinking?

[Mike]

Are we reaching out to somebody? Who I'm.

[Gregory James Miller]

Are we gonna get Dave Link still works there, right? That's my thing.

[Mike]

Yeah. Yeah, I was gonna. I was waiting for it.

[Gregory James Miller]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Also, they should take Blue Point and call it Greenpoint.

[Gregory James Miller]

That's great.

[Mike]

That's great. I thought of it before everyone else did. Chat. I was waiting and put it in.

[Gregory James Miller]

Brooklyn says, I 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? Hello, best friends. How are you doing today? I'm fucking pissed off. What the fuck were you people thinking? Do you not. Do you not know how much we want to fallout, remaster and remake and all? And you're just putting up loading screens saying, haha, 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. Hello. You too. All right, have a good day.

[Mike]

Bye.

[Gregory James Miller]

Later, Everybody.

[Mike]

Put up the article.

[Gregory James Miller]

I was gonna say, what you need to do is go do the redo the thumbnail. An unfortunate miscommunication in where you put Fallout Tease or whatever.

[Mike]

That's incredible. I love that. He answered, like, two rings.

[Gregory James Miller]

Dave. Link's the homie.

[Mike]

He's the best. He's the awesome.

[Gregory James Miller]

Well, he's still in the doghouse.

[Mike]

Oh.

[Gregory James Miller]

I mean, because everything's happened, but, like, I'm not letting him off the hook that quick.

[Mike]

Asha Sharma can right the ship, though.

[Gregory James Miller]

This would be the chance.

[Mike]

This could be the chance.

[Gregory James Miller]

What? 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 have to. When are we getting a Fallout remaster. When does Ms. Sharma, who I'm appealing to again? Ms. Sharma.

[Mike]

Yes.

[Gregory James Miller]

When does she go? You know what that Fallout Fan London thing they made. They made Fallout London. Those kids get them. Let's get that and put that out officially.

[Mike]

This has to already be works, though, right? Like the Fallout remaster remake. It's just a matter of time.

[Gregory James Miller]

You hope so. On our show, Todd's like, oh, yeah. You know, we love. We love Surprise. We love.

[Mike]

I love shadow drops.

[Gregory James Miller]

Your shadow job. It's like, great, but, like, it's time to do it. I mean, do you see what's happening, Todd?

[Mike]

Well, I think that.

[Gregory James Miller]

Do you see what's happening, Bethesda, where it's. You know what? You know what movie I'm about to quote?

[Mike]

I don't.

[Gregory James Miller]

A fucking great one. Michael Douglas. All right.

[Mike]

Okay. Ant Man.

[Gregory James Miller]

No.

[Roger Pokorny]

What?

[Gregory James Miller]

No. The American President. Oh, yes. He's got the. He's got his little right hand man there, right? Michael J. Fox.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Gregory James Miller]

And Michael J. Fox is urging him to swing back on Richard Dreyfuss because he keeps talking in the American people. And it actually was kind of scary because it was very much predicting where 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 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 sand. We want to eat sand right now. We want the steak. We're the starving dog. I need a new fallout. Woof, woof. But stop fucking teasing me with screens again, Dave Lane. You're not fully off the hook. I appreciate your response, but, like, this is where we're at right now. Okay.

[Mike]

Okay.

[Gregory James Miller]

Just Satya. Nadella wants all this money.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Gregory James Miller]

Guess how you make the money? You fucking remaster the fallouts. You remake the fallouts. You put out the fallouts. You say oblivion. No. Obsidian. It's been nice. Oh, man. Avowed. You got a fish person in it. Delete everything from your computers. You're not making about two. You're making New Vegas to go.

[Roger Pokorny]

Just.

[Mike]

Or just import fallout New Vegas Exe. Into a vow. Exe. It's that simple, Greg, that's what I've been saying for years. Just put it in the vow that it's fine.

[Gregory James Miller]

I'm tired.

[Mike]

Do you not think that we're going to get another Remastered around April, which is when they did the Oblivion remaster? Like I feel like this might just be an annual thing. That was one of my predictions.

[Gregory James Miller]

I would like that and I would hope that. And that'd be very cool. It's just the idea of like again, back to drinking the sand.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Gregory James Miller]

At what point have we just done the whole self fulfilling rumor?

[Roger Pokorny]

Sure.

[Gregory James Miller]

Where like they may. We thought they were going to remaster Fallout. Somebody said they knew they were remastering Fallout in or. Yeah. And then it's like, okay, well now they. They do Oblivion and it's like, oh shit, they must be doing. It's like, are they really doing it? Is that really along the way?

[Mike]

I mean, yeah. Right.

[Gregory James Miller]

It has to be.

[Mike]

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, we should have done something. We gotta. We gotta make this happen. We gotta go. And maybe Oblivion was already going at that point. So this is a little later in. But I still have hope, Greg, that when we start feel the alleged.

[Gregory James Miller]

Yesterday the rumor was that we talked about from somebody site. The Polish site was April 4 or April 7. April 7.

[Mike]

April 7. April 22 was the initial release for Oblivion Remastered. Sure. So maybe by the end of April we get. We get two.

[Gregory James Miller]

Two.

[Mike]

Why not Starfield's old game, you know, I mean like how many people are actually going to buy it on, you know? I mean like you go over here,

[Gregory James Miller]

Starfield no stony note my no sodium Starfield sub. Somebody's like, once they release it on PlayStation 5, how quickly is it going to be? Man, this was a misjam that we all misread. And I'm like, I don't know about that, man. I don't know.

[Mike]

You guys need to get a little sodium in your life.

[Gregory James Miller]

It's good.

[Mike]

It actually balances actually. It's good.

[Gregory James Miller]

Some constructive criticism isn't all that bad.

[Mike]

That's incredible. I'm going to go to some super chats really quick. We got hard Hard will 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. Hope you get better soon, Greg.

[Gregory James Miller]

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.

[Mike]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Gregory James Miller]

I got some idiot dressed 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.

[Mike]

Oh, okay, got.

[Gregory James Miller]

Your cough's gone. And then I was your dog. I had a whole breakdown.

[Mike]

That was the urgent care person you went to. I was like, that's a very specific.

[Gregory James Miller]

Why is he dressed? Why are you?

[Mike]

And then we Mad rocks. Who? Super Jetson. Says you. You don't get to call them stupid. When you spoiled Kevin Smith. Being on your podcast under no pressure.

[Gregory James Miller]

That's not what it was, okay?

[Mike]

That's what Mad Rock said.

[Gregory James Miller]

Go read. You can go listen to me in the comments on yesterday's buzz.

[Mike]

Great episode. Everybody watch the editor. Great guy, very talented.

[Gregory James Miller]

I'm checking right now to see if we can do this locally. Okay, we doing. Checking if we can do this locally for what? Rottwood.

[Mike]

Remember, the dream is done. We're not playing fucking Rottwood.

[Gregory James Miller]

We play Rottwood right after this.

[Mike]

Wouldn't it be a great streaming Rottweiler happen? It's not happening. It's not happening today, Greg. We have everything set up over there.

[Roger Pokorny]

We're not doing that.

[Mike]

It's gonna. It would be just you guys going,

[Gregory James Miller]

you don't know that.

[Mike]

I know.

[Gregory James Miller]

You don't know that.

[Mike]

I know. I know. I saw the absolute stream. Pokemon Pokepopia is currently the highest rated Pokemon game ever.

[Gregory James Miller]

Wow.

[Mike]

Metacritic. This is from Chris Scullion over at vgc. This is the second news story for today. Pokemon Pokopia, or as Mike would say, Poketopia.

[Gregory James Miller]

Yeah, what's up with that?

[Mike]

I think it's just funny. That's just Mike's doing his thing, honestly, but he says it so much that I honestly was calling it Poketopia, like, in my personal life and was talking to Leans. She's like, what the fuck are you saying to me? I'm like, oh. Mike. Is 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 5 as a switch to exclusive Pokemon Pickopia, is currently the highest rated Pokemon game in Metacritic's history. The Life Sim, which. Oh, sorry, I think it just went through twice there. According to Metacritic, the list of highest scoring Pokemon games is as follows. Pokemon 88, Pokemon X and Y, 87.5. 87. 7 for X and 88. For Y Pokemon Black and White for which is 87 Pokemon Heart Gold and Soul Silver. 87 Pokemon sun and Moon. 87 diamond and Pearl. 85 Ultra sun and Ultra Moon. Didn't know that existed. 84 Platinum. 83 Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. 82.5 and then Legends Arceus with an 83 Craig as the number one Pokemon fan. Somebody who loves Pokemon.

[Gregory James Miller]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Loved book Opia and has played every single one of these games. On this list that I spread.

[Gregory James Miller]

You nailed it.

[Mike]

Does it deserve to be the highest ranking?

[Gregory James Miller]

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 should be above Heart Gold Soul Silver? 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 like of voice acting online MMOs. Like maybe even like this doesn't affect gens right. You we still get the Gen 10. We still do have the as normal whatever. But for as many people have been screaming everything when Pal World hit, so many people are like this is the dream. I wish it was Pokemon.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Gregory James Miller]

Like why they should hopefully be working on a spin off 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 springs from a question of why in this tumultuous video game industry is Nintendo the one that doesn't seem to be laying people off the right 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,

[Mike]

I remember being horrified by it.

[Gregory James Miller]

It's disgusting. It's body horror. And now, 35 hours into that game, like, I fucking love Ditto. I fucking love Ditto. And I love.

[Mike]

What else can you turn into?

[Gregory James Miller]

I love this Ditto. And I love these Pokemon and what they're doing. Like, there's 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 not only doing something different, but pulling on the years and years and years and years of nostalgia in games in history to be like, man, yes, this is a sidestep to the main generations, but it doesn't feel like a side project.

[Mike]

And it's so smart because Pokemon is so much bigger than the games. Right? And I think the Pokemon company has. Not that they've gotten locked in because they have Pokemon Cafe. They have, you know, MMO, their MOBAs. 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 is just such a smart idea. And, 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 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.

[Gregory James Miller]

Yeah. And I think, you know, even looking at what we just saw of DJ Rotom going in the, you know, people Jigglypuff dancing around these guys popping out. Before I played it and I watched this kind of stuff, I was like, o, 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 poke. It's like. 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 stuff. So, like, you know, is it the best Pokemon game of all time? Probably not, no. I mean, people want a very Specific Pokemon.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Gregory James Miller]

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 weren't it's not your cup of tea, you'd still be like, I see why it's so many people's cup of tea.

[Mike]

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.

[Gregory James Miller]

Very, very excited to know Thursday. Thursday. Thursday is the let's the gamescast play with me and Joey jumping into our world, showing some stuff.

[Mike]

I'm excited to play it.

[Gregory James Miller]

Yeah. Yeah. Leanne's is all about it too, right?

[Mike]

Not as much. Not as much as I want. Very particular about her Animal Cross. She likes Animal Crossing.

[Gregory James Miller]

Right.

[Mike]

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 going to play it. So I'm going to buy it, I'm going to play it and then I think it's going to rub off and she's going to look at me and be like, I'm buying it.

[Gregory James Miller]

I am so fascinated for get in the Wild 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

[Mike]

is what I love. Yeah.

[Gregory James Miller]

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 gonna get it. Get in that first biome and just do that.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Gregory James Miller]

Because like they're, you know, 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, yeah, how many people are gonna sit there and be like, I am making this world perfect before I go anywhere else?

[Mike]

Oh, that's a breaking news.

[Gregory James Miller]

You wanna go to ads and we'll come back to the breaking news.

[Mike]

Yeah, we will. We will go over and tell you about our advertisers and we'll come back to some breaking breaking news.

[Gregory James Miller]

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[Mike]

Your little one grew 3 inches overnight.

[Roger Pokorny]

Adorable.

[Mike]

Also expensive. Sell their pint sized pieces on Depop and list them in minutes with no selling fees because somewhere a dad refuses

[Roger Pokorny]

to pay full price for the clothes

[Mike]

his kids will outgrow tomorrow.

[Roger Pokorny]

And he's ready to buy your son's

[Mike]

entire wardrobe right now. Consider your future growth.

[Roger Pokorny]

Bird.

[Mike]

Budget secured. Start selling on Depop where taste recognizes taste. Payment processing fees and boosting fees still apply.

[Gregory James Miller]

See website for details.

[Roger Pokorny]

Reggie, I just sold my car online.

[Mike]

Let's go, grandpa.

[Gregory James Miller]

Wait, you did?

[Mike]

Yep.

[Roger Pokorny]

On Carvana. Just put in the license plate, answered a few questions, got an offer in minutes. Easier than setting up that new digital picture frame.

[Gregory James Miller]

You don't say.

[Roger Pokorny]

Yeah, they're even picking it up tomorrow. Talk about fast.

[Gregory James Miller]

Wow. Way to go.

[Mike]

So about that picture frame.

[Roger Pokorny]

Ah, forget about it. Until Carvana makes one, I'm not interested.

[Mike]

Car selling made easy on Carvana. Pick up fees may apply.

[Roger Pokorny]

Marvel Television's Wonder man, an eight episode

[Gregory James Miller]

series now streaming on Disney. A superhero remake.

[Mike]

Not exactly what we'd expect from an Oscar winning director.

[Roger Pokorny]

Excellent.

[Gregory James Miller]

Simon Williams auditioned for Wonder Man.

[Mike]

I'm gonna need you to sign this,

[Gregory James Miller]

assuming you don't have superpowers. I'll never work again. If anyone found out.

[Roger Pokorny]

My lips are sealed. Marvel Television's Wonder Man. All eight episodes now streaming only on Disney plus.

[Mike]

And we are back with some breaking news.

[Gregory James Miller]

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. I know you think's gonna happen. Tell me what you think he's gonna say.

[Roger Pokorny]

Well, I mean like my set. Like I said, my mind goes to baseball baby. So maybe you got a cameo from bas baby. And he's talking to me about.

[Mike]

Is he like baby Gronk?

[Gregory James Miller]

We talk about.

[Roger Pokorny]

Don't worry about it.

[Mike]

Okay.

[Roger Pokorny]

We'll talk about a little okay.

[Gregory James Miller]

Video game right now that we would call you out here for.

[Roger Pokorny]

Halo 7 is announced.

[Gregory James Miller]

Oh my God. So close. Roger, go.

[Roger Pokorny]

Okay.

[Mike]

I'm just going to. I'm not even. Yeah. Today we're sharing difficult news. We have made the decision to permanently shut down high guard on March 12th.

[Roger Pokorny]

That's nine days from now. Okay.

[Gregory James Miller]

Wow.

[Mike]

Since launch, more than 2 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'll 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 highguard story.

[Gregory James Miller]

Oof.

[Roger Pokorny]

Okay, well, lot to break down, a lot to talk about. I mean the simple part is okay, High Guard is going to be shut down in nine days from now. That 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. A really, you know, I don't know how to describe it but a. An 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 could 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 Wildlight 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. 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 a hundred and ninety zero zero zero peak concurrence on day one to quickly far less than that by I think week one. It was less than 90 last time we checked.

[Mike]

Yeah, the player 300 stuck around or something like that.

[Roger Pokorny]

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 Wildlife 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 hundred 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 years 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.

[Gregory James Miller]

The fact that is 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.

[Roger Pokorny]

Right.

[Gregory James Miller]

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. Yeah, remember, that was fucking Concord. We have, we're going to drop a new story trailer every week or new story segment every week. We have them locked.

[Roger Pokorny]

And it's interesting, like 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 off and make a first person shooter, right. We heard the early stories was, hey, we were playing Rust. We really like this raid mechanic that it had in Russ 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 gonna make this. Right? But I do think of like looking at the marketplace and going, we're gonna liver 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 it. That's why we went quiet for a month.

[Gregory James Miller]

But you, you changed your mind.

[Roger Pokorny]

Exactly.

[Gregory James Miller]

So you have to be ready.

[Roger Pokorny]

You, you, Jeff Keighley said, I want to show this off. And of course we all go. That's an opportunity of a lifetime. To have the closing spot at the biggest award show slash gaming presentation. You have to then adjust your plan and go, you know what? Like, like if we're gonna do this Then let's roll out the marketing immediately. I don't care what it is, we 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.

[Mike]

They could have controlled the narrative here. I think that's. As I look back on all this, I think about if they Shadow dropped it, not shopped, if they 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 going to put on fucking live stream. Let's go and talk to the audience. We're going to be in our discord. We're going to 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.

[Gregory James Miller]

Right.

[Mike]

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's, it's, it's. It's really unfortunate how they, they had a, 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 they were hungry for a game that was coming out in the next.

[Roger Pokorny]

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 Drop. Like I think there's just so much going on in this market space right now. Overwatch dropping the two coming back with their 10 with so much energy. Arc Raiders being on top of the world, just dominating the shooter market marathon just weeks away from you and having the title of Bungee, right. Like there's 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. It's 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.

[Mike]

Yeah, no. And it's. It's also so interesting, right, because you have this. This game that. Sorry, I lost it.

[Roger Pokorny]

You go, oh, okay. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's all right. You'll come back to.

[Gregory James Miller]

Right.

[Roger Pokorny]

And so, yeah, it's interesting of like when we talk about, hey, we had a year's worth of content, right?

[Gregory James Miller]

Yeah.

[Roger Pokorny]

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. It's like, well, that character looks like hella from Marvel Rival. 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 check that frame. 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 it would be minimal gunfights. And they changed all that with 5v5.

[Mike]

Sure.

[Roger Pokorny]

And try to do adjusting to that. But like, like there wasn't much to hang your hat on in this game that would stop the world to play this.

[Mike]

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.

[Gregory James Miller]

Right, because everybody says it.

[Mike]

Exactly. Everyone says that. Now. I think if this was actually for, you know, respawn proper oh, big difference, right? Then you, 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.

[Roger Pokorny]

Well, it was a different age back then.

[Mike]

It was for multiple reasons. But it also had had the caliber of like, hey, this team works on amazing things and it's out now and it's. 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 they them being like, hey, where are 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 get drive people to download such a

[Gregory James Miller]

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, 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 to 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.

[Roger Pokorny]

And that was that back end stuff that we heard from either Jason Schreier or Paul Tassey. Somebody reported that Net east was involved in this. 10 cent, one of those two was involved in the early backing of this and then pulled the backing as well. Right. And so like, 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 promoted. It's like, no, we're funding this, right? They did not talk about 10 cent 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. Yeah, 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 marathon.

[Gregory James Miller]

Let's see about marathon.

[Roger Pokorny]

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, 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 microtransactions for a game that they're going to play for a week or two months. It's interesting there's no refunds.

[Mike]

Wrote yeah, I was going to mention that. I was like, I, I, I do think it's free.

[Roger Pokorny]

Thank you.

[Mike]

Yeah, they should absolutely be refunding people. I don't know if they have 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 in refunds.

[Gregory James Miller]

Crazy that we're having this conversation now. And five days ago Bloomberg published a story that is the story behind highguard's failure. Right?

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Gregory James Miller]

Let me give you a few graphs from there. It's what we're talking about in getting into this right when Highguard came out on January 26th. Of course, this is the shry guy, Jason Schreier. The player count was impressive, peaking at nearly 100,000 concurrents on PC platform 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 highguard. 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, highguard's biggest problem became player retention, a challenge that Wildlife's 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 meeting on February 11, 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.

[Mike]

Yeah, that's. It's. I want to. Can I switch over the. To the marathon conversation really quick or we can come.

[Roger Pokorny]

I mean we saw the writing on the wall for this. This was unfortunate, right? The layoffs of 80% of your hundred person staff. 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% 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, 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, it's an unfortunate scenario.

[Gregory James Miller]

And again, I, I hate to bang the old drum that I do all the time, but I think you turn to 10 cent and it's, I mean don't get me wrong, every sign the contract here, player retention rates, this that they blah, blah, blah. But we're just talking about companies that are coming in just looking for a buck. Yeah, 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 to come in and get high player attention rate and get you to fucking buy the battle pass and I'll be able to, oh, you're not fucking plug pulled. You're done. Like it's over that quickly.

[Mike]

A few super chats I want to get to. We have, we have simple super chatting. Oh my gosh, why the hell is my computer doing this 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. 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.

[Roger Pokorny]

Oh, so they're saying like, yeah, hey, just put all the seasons out day one. Because you're not gonna make or no.

[Mike]

Or like even planning for it because like the base level of it is

[Roger Pokorny]

just, well, you have to plan for. Right. We saw this with Halo Infinite. Halo Infinite comes out with a great multiplayer suite. 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 ten 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, we weren't ready for that. Right. Like we. 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 at my attention and my wallet and my gameplay time. And so yeah, like, 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 like, 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 gotta balance that with the 20 people we got live and in person. I don't think that that's how it goes.

[Mike]

A Bud Super Chat says in terms of marketing 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.

[Gregory James Miller]

So in terms of market, just in

[Roger Pokorny]

general, I mean there's written for the wall for this.

[Gregory James Miller]

Yes. Yeah, we talk. 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 realized that they've made all the wrong choices and had the wrong messaging and. 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 these things. I don't think it's so much the marketing failings of Skate that I think the problem with Skate for so many people are the core values of skate.

[Roger Pokorny]

Yes.

[Gregory James Miller]

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 and the dev teams 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 right now there's a little over 2000 playing. 24 hour peak was a little bit above that BY like, like 40 people.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Gregory James Miller]

So more people. But again, not great numbers. Right. And you look at the chart all the way down. It'll be interesting with season three next week. Do we see a spiker? Is it down? 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?

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Gregory James Miller]

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.

[Mike]

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. But they put so much energy and marketing into that game. Yeah, dude, Cristiano Ronaldo, we're in UFC matches. We're everywhere with this game. And, like, in the grand scheme of fighting games, no one's playing. Playing this, right? So I agree with you. But also at that point specifically, I could see them being like, we like skate. We skating culture.

[Gregory James Miller]

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 gonna let them come in and do it and whatever. But it falls in this question, right? Of like, super chat here from Jay Fur Ellis, who says, what's. What's more, dead, Free to play or games of service.

[Mike]

Yeah, that's what I was gonna get to.

[Gregory James Miller]

Well, here we are. We're there.

[Mike]

Thank you, Greg.

[Roger Pokorny]

Yeah, that's the fun conversation. I mean, how. 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 ten years from now. Also, 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

[Gregory James Miller]

like, we just know you can get rid of making Halo, of course, but I mean it's tough. I, I, here's the deal is I don't, I'm not super briefed on High Guard, so I, 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, 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 gonna 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 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.

[Roger Pokorny]

Yeah.

[Gregory James Miller]

So I'm not. I. 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. At least we're doing this thing. Blah, blah. But then we get here and it's like, what was it all for?

[Roger Pokorny]

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.

[Mike]

Like you.

[Roger Pokorny]

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 where it's like you're competing with Call of Duty's Fortnite's, 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, like there's like a but here. Tell me. Name me five indie first person shooter games that look indie, that like, are withstanding the test of time, you know?

[Gregory James Miller]

Dead Drop Rogue. What was the one we just did? No, I'm serious, I'm serious. Whatever. The one was just in the indie direct. That looks like not great on Switch. Yeah, but we went and looked at the. This, the Steam page for it and you're like, damn that whatever. Deadshot Rogue. Someone in the chat help me. Like, I look at that, 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 always talk about. We make carburetors here. Don't try to make a window. But if I was like, I'm so fed up in my job and I'm gonna leave. I better leave and have. And I'm gonna 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 highguard did not have that vision.

[Roger Pokorny]

Correct.

[Gregory James Miller]

Or at least that vision got so watered down by the time they got out that you aren't there. Like, that's the thing. Like, if the market is saturated, go to a different market. Which I know is very easy to say. Yeah, impossible, right? Again, I was just reading. Did it come by. What was it? Dead Zone Broke? I was reading Shrier's book again. You know, Blood so Wet and Pixels and the Destiny chapter talks about, like them wanting to go over here and make something that wasn't Halo. And then they merged the ideas and then they get. Suddenly they're just making Halo again. Because that's what everybody knows how to make.

[Roger Pokorny]

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 split. 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.

[Gregory James Miller]

And there's no way we could up all that goodwill, is there?

[Roger Pokorny]

Guys lost the plot, of course, but like, 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. A PvP competitive first person shooter genre that like, that's the big dog table where you better come correct because you're not gonna last. And we've seen too many of these games try to step up there. 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 gonna have some fun. And it's gonna. It's gonna be peak, it's gonna be tome, it's gonna be something like that. It's like, like, no, this is, this is over here. This is. You got to come correct.

[Gregory James Miller]

But couldn't. And I know we're going long, but the question there I would offer back to you as a fan of the genres, couldn't there be a peak? Isn't the idea what 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.

[Roger Pokorny]

I mean, that the. When I go to, I think of like Team Fortress, something like that. Like a little wacky and different, right? But like, like the problem is.

[Mike]

But that also isn't Wacky and different. Because that's a hero show.

[Roger Pokorny]

Exactly right.

[Mike]

Like, and we've seen so many of them.

[Roger Pokorny]

I'm littered with games like Ubisoft, but they just made X Defiance, right?

[Gregory James Miller]

Yeah.

[Roger Pokorny]

I'm littered with games that are like, oh, we're just stepping into a hero arena or whatever. And it's, oh, my God, there was so many of them competing with Overwatch battleborn. Remember that game? There was another one as well. 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.

[Mike]

Well, let's go to something that I think a general conversation is. And then I will eventually end on the marathon conversation right there. Snaggletooth Production says Super Chats and says games as a service have proven to be company killers. No one will be Fortnite. 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. 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 they meant to say there, but, yeah, you get the point.

[Roger Pokorny]

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, like, unfortunately, we at this table are not the people that really talk about Roblox. We're not in tune with that market.

[Mike]

But it is everything.

[Roger Pokorny]

But that is.

[Gregory James Miller]

It's everything.

[Roger Pokorny]

Everything. Right. Like Roblox is everything. This mobile market now, Clash of clans, that's what the younger generation is playing right now.

[Gregory James Miller]

Right.

[Roger Pokorny]

And so like, will free to play stick around? Hell yeah. Well, Roblox is getting like 20 million daily players. Right. There's like a freak amount of players inside of it.

[Mike]

Have millions of players.

[Roger Pokorny]

Exactly. So it's like, 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, but 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.

[Mike]

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 a Call of Duty at Halo, but I was more interested in trying to find those new communities, trying to figure out maybe I could 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 times getting hard and harder to get, hey, download this new game and try it out with me. That's crazy.

[Gregory James Miller]

But are we not also. And stick with me because I sound dismissive to 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 dada, 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 things 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 would you buy a console? Do you own. I'd never buy a console. I would never do this thing. It's just there. I still, I would. 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 Insomniac 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, X, Y. And you can't because that's just not how they're built.

[Mike]

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 is. I mean, not Minecraft. Fortnite and also Minecraft are just happy accidents, right? Like, Fortnite did not was never a battle royale originally.

[Gregory James Miller]

It was dead on arrival.

[Mike]

It was.

[Gregory James Miller]

Fortnite was dead.

[Mike]

Literally. It was their moment of like, we are 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 am 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 Duty's Fortnite's overwatches, and not comparing themselves to weirder nicher 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, 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 friend, say, hey, you can do gobbledygoop with this thing. Like, oh, God. Oh, my gobbledygook. I love gobbledygoop. I wouldn't think that that would exist in a first person shooter, right? We just don't have those anymore. And that's sadly the original ideas. 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 point there.

[Roger Pokorny]

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 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 Call of Duty, go to call, dude. Like that's why they're all like, they're

[Gregory James Miller]

all leaving the stuff.

[Mike]

They're bad at investing. They don't understand it.

[Roger Pokorny]

Their eyes glaze over and they say, just get the Fortnite, Roger. I don't want to hear this. I don't, I don't care about that.

[Mike]

I want money now.

[Roger Pokorny]

The money is right.

[Gregory James Miller]

Money.

[Roger Pokorny]

Yeah, unfortunately that's where you're at. And yeah, it's 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, like this is a lesson. Learn from this and try to be better. And like, man, oh man, it's unfortunate because that game just came with and hundreds of lives have now been affected.

[Mike]

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, bounce rate is very concerning. And that's talking about the Slam server server slam that happened this weekend and people where, you know, 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 Chat says 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.

[Roger Pokorny]

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, 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 Arc Raiders, but I am the outlier. I'm hearing so much positive buzz about marathon from others that I'm like, like, oh man, I'm on the opposite side because I, 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 Bungee? 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.

[Mike]

Yeah, we will see. And then final super chat here from

[Roger Pokorny]

Paris wants to call in Paris you can tell me about marathon.

[Gregory James Miller]

No, no Paris.

[Mike]

We're an hour into the podcast says you guys always smash it out the park with these breaking stories. And I want to thank Snowbike Mike for coming on here.

[Roger Pokorny]

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 gotta talk about this. Okay. We got a baseball phenom here.

[Mike]

Okay.

[Roger Pokorny]

We gotta be ready for it and then.

[Mike]

But Mike, before you leave.

[Roger Pokorny]

Oh, okay.

[Mike]

High guard going out of business. Huge news. Yeah, I was looking for something smaller. Where would I go?

[Roger Pokorny]

Roger, I take you to our last news story, the WE News channel where we cover all the small news items.

[Gregory James Miller]

Is it always this bright?

[Roger Pokorny]

Always. My skin reflects it.

[Mike]

I'm oh, but light seem a little brighter today.

[Roger Pokorny]

I don't know if that's just my.

[Mike]

I haven't been here a while but

[Gregory James Miller]

because you've been looking at so many great indie games.

[Mike]

Support Indie games Indie games story number six. We knew there's 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 open 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.

[Gregory James Miller]

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.

[Mike]

Oh, wow.

[Gregory James Miller]

I was like, all right, Ben, go to the right. And we're just beating the shit out of everything. Then we just. I got to the end and I looked at the map. I was like, oh, this is open world.

[Mike]

Big deal.

[Gregory James Miller]

Very interesting. Yeah. I gameplay, 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.

[Mike]

Hell Yeah. A new RPG from Bandai Namco. There is a YouTube thing that is.

[Gregory James Miller]

Yeah, there was a YouTube post up that 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.

[Mike]

Yeah, do your math on that one, everybody.

[Gregory James Miller]

It's three o'.

[Mike]

Clock. What? Xbox game pass update today. Xbox game pass update today. Final Fantasy 3, that's gonna be on the cloud. Xbox Series X and S&PC. Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. Cloud, Xbox Series X&S&PC coming soon to A T is also coming to cloud X and. And PC. Love to A T play that game. It's a fun little time. EA Sports F125 also coming. Planet of Lana 2. Yeah, that's coming out. Yeah, soon. Construction simulator.

[Roger Pokorny]

Yeah, we talked about that. And then the big one. People are excited.

[Mike]

Cyberpunk 2077, that's cloud. And consoles. Hollow Knight, Silk Song, Cloud, console, handheld and PC. Was that not already there? That's weird. And DreamWorks, Gabby's dollhouse ready to party. Cloud, Xbox.

[Gregory James Miller]

I build games daily at the kitchen table today. And Ben was looking at my shirt and he goes, there's a Gabby's Dollhouse game. Like, you want to play that? He's like, yeah, like a March 17th buddy.

[Roger Pokorny]

Big dog.

[Mike]

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 12 at 9pm PT.

[Roger Pokorny]

Yes. A lot of people were down on me. I said it's back. I'm so excited down on you. It's just human beings 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 garden 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 no now and like 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 to grind the meta.

[Mike]

Grind it.

[Roger Pokorny]

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.

[Mike]

What you want?

[Roger Pokorny]

Fuck yeah.

[Mike]

I want the gulag.

[Roger Pokorny]

No, Roger. I haven't played Call of Duty Warzone in a year.

[Gregory James Miller]

You know what you want.

[Roger Pokorny]

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. I want that battle royale experience and I need something fresh. Warzone has had its time. It is time to build something new. It's time.

[Mike]

Is this new? This is just on Avalon.

[Roger Pokorny]

Yeah. But we're going back out to the Blackout. Did you play Blackout?

[Mike]

No.

[Roger Pokorny]

Yeah, so Blackout was like the earliest battle royale. It was much different than what Warzone came. And so yeah, if you've had a taste of that, you're gonna want to try this.

[Mike]

Okay. Mike's very excited about it. Tune in on Thursday March 5th at 2pm PT for a 30 minute Capcom Spotlight live stream. 30 minutes. Featuring games such as Monster Hunter Stories 3, Twisted Reflection, Pragmata Mega Man, Star Force Legacy Collection and Street Fighter 6. Following the success of the sold out 2025 premiere in Japan, the official concert tour of Metaphor Refantagio 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 Meguro, renowned for his work on the Fursona series. So it's coming to Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles, Kaohsiung, Singapore, Bangkok, London and Paris. Boo. Boo. Boo. No, San Francisco.

[Roger Pokorny]

You think that one's making the distance ones? What do you mean? What was the last big big one that didn't make the distance and it canceled halfway through the PlayStation 1.

[Mike]

Oh, that's the PlayStation 1.

[Roger Pokorny]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And then we have the first poster for Life is Strange, the TV series showing off who's playing Chloe Price and Max Caulfield.

[Gregory James Miller]

Uh, and who is it?

[Mike]

Uh, Tatum Grace Hopkins. Sorry, they write it in the. In the text there. And then Maisie Stella from the hit TV show Nashville.

[Roger Pokorny]

That's right.

[Gregory James Miller]

Daphne herself playing Chloe Price. I don't know if the show will be good, but we got one of the Stella sisters. And that means I'll be watching. Woo.

[Mike]

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 your wrong. I don't think there's anything wrong there. Don't worry about that. A. Oh, Jesus Christ. People are talking about that. No release date for marathon. That's not true. Oh, this is from yesterday, so I think we did everything. No. Yeah. No, you're wrong.

[Roger Pokorny]

Nice job.

[Mike]

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 we're after this and you're gonna learn all about baseball boy.

[Roger Pokorny]

Gonna 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.

[Gregory James Miller]

What?

[Roger Pokorny]

Yeah.

[Gregory James Miller]

Wow. You guys have a good show.

[Roger Pokorny]

Yeah, we got some stuff going on.

[Gregory James Miller]

It's too bad Kevin Smith can't be there.

[Mike]

Well, it's crazy that you broken Bargo,

[Gregory James Miller]

but until next time, you forced me

[Mike]

to pleasure to serve you. Yeah, you.

[Roger Pokorny]

You have. You came with the wrong hand.