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Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
Marvel Rivals’ Shocking Layoffs, Netease Responds - Kinda Funny Games Daily 02.19.25
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- [00:00]
Snow Bike Mike
Today's stories include Marvel rivals, North American devs are hit with layoffs, why Dark Souls wasn't a PlayStation exclusive, and Xbox takes a large step into the world of AI. We'll have all this and more because this is Kind of Funny Games Daily. What's up, everybody? And welcome to Kind of Funny Games daily for Wednesday, February 19, 2025. I'm one of your show hosts, Snow Bike Mike, and I am joined by Aftermath's Nathan Grayson. Nathan, how are you today?
- [00:38]
Nathan Grayson
I'm doing well.
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Snow Bike Mike
Good. It's.
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Nathan Grayson
How about you?
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Snow Bike Mike
Fantastic to have you. Of course, we're very excited to talk some game news with you. But, Nathan, I have two books in front of me and you're here today to promote your book. This book right here, of course, Stream Big, the Triumphs and Turmoils of Twitch with the stars behind the screen. And you wrote this book?
- [00:59]
Nathan Grayson
Yeah, I very much did. Also, I like that you have two of them for, like, symmetry.
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Snow Bike Mike
You know that I wanted to go big for you because it's about Stream Big and it's about the behind the scenes of Twitch. And, you know, I love Twitch. I bleed purple as you talk about in this book. And so, yeah, I really wanted to go all out for you and kind of talk with you about it. And that's how we're going to kind of kick off today's show. We're gonna have a nice introduction of Nathan, then we're gonna talk about your book. So first off, Nathan, where are you from? Where do you write? What do you cover? Why do you love video games?
- [01:31]
Nathan Grayson
Yeah, so currently I write for a site called Aftermath. It's reader supported and worker owned. Me and a few other people founded it. But before that, I've been all over the place. I was at Kotaku for a long time and then after that I was at the Washington Post. And as for why I write about video games, I grew up playing them and knew that I loved them and always wanted to, like, get into doing something with them. And then like when I was in middle school and high school, I just read video game magazines all the time. That's like, all I did between classes and when I finished my homework and stuff. And so eventually I was just like, how do I do this? And then one thing led to another and I. I did it.
- [02:13]
Snow Bike Mike
That's awesome. Congratulations. That's incredible. You are doing it. And of course you've gone another step beyond that. You wrote a book about Twitch. So let's talk about this book. Can you give me a brief to you know, rundown of what the book is, what's it about? Let's dive a little bit deeper into what fans can expect if they want to jump in and read your book.
- [02:31]
Nathan Grayson
Yeah. So the way that I describe it is it's kind of the story of Twitch as viewed through the lens of nine different streamers. Some of them are really big names that you might have heard of, like Hassan Piker, Amaranth Dream, and then some of them are much smaller. And I definitely wanted to have, like, both ends of that spectrum because I think that, you know, content creation and streaming are very different experiences depending on how big you are. And so, yeah, I didn't want to just tell the story of, like, the platform itself because I think that a lot of people do that. There are books about YouTube and TikTok and, you know, things like that, and they tend to focus on, like, the companies and the people who, like, brought the platform itself to life. But while there's an audience for that, and while, like, some people definitely want to know the business side of things, I think that especially if we're talking about Twitch, people care more about the creators and the community, because that's what has always made Twitch, I think, special and different. And so I wanted to focus mostly on that.
- [03:33]
Snow Bike Mike
I really like that. Of course, we have an incredible community here with kind of funny games. I feel the sense of community when I think about Twitch whenever I livestream on Twitch, and that's what got me at the beginning. I started reading your book last night, and I love the deep dive into community and what that means with both back and forth between streamer and the chatters out there, how they feel that connection. And so, yeah, I guess my first question is, why Twitch? What interests you in Twitch? And then I want to talk about the creators that you spoke with about this book.
- [04:01]
Nathan Grayson
Yeah, Twitch, I. I chose to cover it in part, or I chose to write a book about it in part because I'd already been covering it for a while. And I started covering it, like, gosh, I don't know, in like, 2015, 2016, in part, because there just wasn't really. There weren't really that many people covering it. Seriously, like, if you talk about Twitch from a journalistic standpoint, you know, people would write articles about it from time to time, but way back then, it was mostly just the basics. It was like, whoa, people are playing video games live for money. That's crazy. And then beyond that, it was just like, look at this thing that somebody did in a game. Or, like, look at this ridiculous thing that happened to some guy. And, you know, I felt like people were missing what actually made Twitch interesting, which was all of the community building stuff and like all the ways that this generation of creators was like, reaching these new audiences and either getting them interested in games or other pursuits and so. And then also just like the ways that Twitch itself as a platform and increasingly Amazon was sort of, you know, finding ways to make money off of these creators. Not always such that they were taking good care of them. You know, there's. I, I think that there was a lot of talk of burnout even pretty early on, just given how much people were working and how long they were streaming, but not a ton of coverage of that until, you know, more recently. And so I wanted to, you know, I wanted to cover the kind of human side of all of this way back in the day. And that just sort of grew over time into me eventually writing a book.
- [05:35]
Snow Bike Mike
Amazing. Yeah, you talk about the creators in this and you cover a number of creators. You brought up a lot of big names, but you bring up smaller names or more lesser known names a lot. I think a lot of people might know or might not know DJ Wheat that you kind of start off with. And I really appreciated the early stories that you had going on in this book. I, I think that's so cool to see the creator side, where they start, what interests them, where, where their journey took them. I didn't know that he had such a background in kind of TV and then jumped over to live streaming as well. It was a cool mix. So when you talk about the creators, who did you talk to? What were some stories behind the scenes that really wowed you or interest you?
- [06:12]
Nathan Grayson
Yeah, I mean, we can start with the DJ Wheat stuff because. Yeah, so DJ Wheat is kind of one of the earliest employees of Twitch. And before that he was a very early kind of like live streamer, esports commentator. He exists in those communities and without those communities, I don't think Twitch would exist. And so, yeah, as you're saying, he like ended up going into kind of more traditional broadcast television because there's this period of time where all of these like, or where a few major like TV networks really wanted to get on in, on the ground floor of like esports and gaming and competitive gaming. And so they tried really hard to like pump money into esports competitions and whatnot. And they brought on people like DJ we to help with that, but it just, it didn't really work out. And so he ended up kind of having to go Back to square one. He went from like, you know, appearing on television, like direct TV and companies like that to being like, okay, well, I guess this isn't going to work. This is just like it was a pipe dream. It failed. And so he started streaming on his own. And then eventually these companies like Ustream got involved and started like courting these very early streamers. Because while on one hand some of these companies were trying to attract big names like Snoop Dogg, people like that. What they realized is that when you bring over an audience using like a celebrity, then that audience definitely shows up. You get numbers, but those people stick around for the duration that celebrity is on screen and then they leave forever. Or like maybe a few of them stick around longer than that, but you're barely gaining an audience from it. But what they found is that people who like video games and who like creators associated with games do stick around. They show up regularly. And those creators also, like, you know, maintain regular schedules. They're around all the time and so you can build an actual audience with that. And that happened time and time again. That's why Justin tv, which was the early iteration of Twitch, ultimately became Twitch, ultimately, ultimately became gaming focused. It always goes back to the creators in the community. And that's where you, that without that you wouldn't have a platform like Twitch or any of the other ones. You wouldn't have, you know, YouTube and TikTok and whatever either. But I think that Twitch especially is like, you know, it's all about. It's often about like bigger name streamers, collaborating with each other. It's about the collaboration between a streamer and their chat. Like that's what it always goes back to.
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Snow Bike Mike
Yeah, you talk about bigger streamers. There's so many things I want to ask you about, but yeah, I want to talk about some of the bigger streamers. You have Amaranth in the book here. You're going to talk with her about that. Can you tell me some stories about that? Because she has an incredible career here on Twitch. She has broadened that out to so much more. She has made an enterprise out of that business and beyond. What was it like speaking with her and what were some of the stories that you learned from.
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Nathan Grayson
Yeah, so that was a particularly interesting experience because, so basically I, for, for every chapter of the book, for the main interview, I was very intent on doing it in person, like going to where they were kind of seeing what their life looks like both on and off camera. Because I think that it's very easy to watch a streamer see them on screen for potentially, like, you know, several hours per day or more, depending on how much time you spend doing that, and think, okay, I know this person. Like, how could I not? I watch this person for more time than I spend with most people in my own life. And so I wanted to be able to really go behind the scenes to show, like, no, you kind of don't. Like, these people are still putting on a show for you. They're still only demonstrating one part of their personality and, like, the really. The boring parts of the hard parts of their life you're often not seeing. And so for Amaranth, I went to, like, her offices. She has an agency called Real Work, and, like, met her employees, talked to them, interviewed her for a really long time. All this stuff. It went well. I learned a lot about how our business works. And then, like, three weeks after that trip, the she. She basically accused her then husband of abuse of, like, pretty serious, you know, verbal and financial abuse. And they, like, had it out on stream. Like, she had him on the phone and they just, like, you know, it was. It was really ugly and nasty and terrible, and it was just like a very sad thing to witness. And also because of the extent to which it seemed like her husband was involved in kind of the business side of things, of her streaming enterprise and of her larger business enterprise. It completely reframed, like, the interview that I had with her. And so I had to then, like, for one, I had to interview her again months later to kind of clarify some things. And for two, like, I ended up going through the police records for, like, because they. They ended up, like, getting the cops involved when they were having their big argument on, like, the day of that stream. I ended up talking to other people, like, in her life who kind of knew about some of this and had maybe, you know, not talked about it publicly prior to then. All of this stuff, it completely recontextualized, like, her whole story. And I think it would be tempting to say, like, in this way where, you know, oh, actually it wasn't this woman being a business mogul. There was a man behind her and he knew what he was doing. And it's like, no, that's not really true. That wasn't really the case exactly. I think that the story there is more that if you are a big streamer, you cannot do it alone. There are no actual solo acts at that level of twitch. Just because you're juggling so many things, both in terms of being live for tons of hours every day, especially at the time Amorth was streaming crazy, like putting in 10 plus hour days regularly, but also in terms of running a business and like reaching out to people and, you know, doing deals to get sponsorships and expanding your business into other areas and all of this stuff, it simply. As much as people are tempted to look at a streamer on camera and be like, yeah, that's them. And this is their whole thing and they're doing it on their own. Amazing. It's like. No, they. They almost certainly aren't. If they're pulling like, you know, thousands of viewers per day, they're. They're probably not.
- [12:28]
Snow Bike Mike
Nathan, a lot of interesting and really insightful stories here. What's the book? Where can people get it? Is it out now? Tell us all the information we need to know about so we can get the kind of funny best friends behind you and checking out your work.
- [12:40]
Nathan Grayson
Yeah, yeah. So it's called Stream Big the triumph, the triumphs and turmoils of Twitch and the Stars behind the Screen. It is out now. It came out yesterday and you can buy it pretty much wherever books are sold. So Amazon, places like that. Let's see. Do y'all have a link in chat? If not, I can drop it.
- [12:58]
Snow Bike Mike
Put that link in the chat. Let's let the kids know. Of course, the book is now out. You guys can go support it. You guys can learn more about the book. Some really interesting stories in here about the creators that you see all up on the screen, which is great stuff.
- [13:10]
Nathan Grayson
There we go. Okay, y'all dropped it in. Good. Yeah, yeah. And then, yeah, go ahead and check it out if you want to. If not. Actually there, there are a few excerpts up on various sites. This one on Polygon and there's one on my own site, Aftermath, if you want to read some of it for free and make up your own mind.
- [13:29]
Snow Bike Mike
Great job. Congratulations, Nathan. Well, of course you're here as well to join me on Games Daily. So let's jump into it because this is kind of funny. Games Daily. Each and every weekday we run you through the nerdy news you need to know about live on Twitch, on YouTube, and of course on podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, please consider supporting us with that kind of funny membership available on patreon and on YouTube and now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts to get all of our shows ad free. Watch them as we record them live and get your daily exclusive show, Greg Way for a chance to be part of the show. Don't forget to submit your thoughts and opinions as super chats as we go over on the YouTube side of things. Of course some housekeeping news for you. We are an 11 person small business all about live talk shows today after Kind of Funny Games Daily you will get a Kind of Funny Games cast about what we want From Zelda on Switch 2. The stream after that will be Mike and Greg playing Scaravan for a fun sponsored stream. And this afternoon you can get Cobra Kai series finale review screencast. This afternoon you can watch that live with that Kind of Funny membership. Don't forget if you're a Kind of Funny member, you can get today's Greg Way which is him talking in his car in the parking lot. What is he talking about? I don't know quite yet, but you'll learn all about it. We want to thank those who support us over on Patreon, like our Patreon producers Delaney Twining, Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster and Karen Lindener. Thank you for your support. Thanks to our sponsors for this week Built Rewards factor and Stash, but I'll tell you all about that later. Let's jump into what is and forever will be the Roper Report. It's time for some news. We have six stories today, a baker's dozen. Nathan, let's have some fun. Let's talk some video game news. Story number one Marvel Rivals Director and entire Seattle Design Team Laid off Netease tells Fans not to worry about the Game Wesley Yinpool at IGN reports Marvel Rivals developer NetEase has confirmed cuts to its Seattle based design team for, quote, organizational reasons, end quote Overnight, Marvel Rivals game director Thaddeus Sasser took to LinkedIn to announce that he and his team were were laid off. Quote this is such a weird industry, sasser began. My stellar talented team just helped deliver an incredibly successful new franchise in Marvel Rivals for NET east games and we're just laid off. Oh well, times are tough all over. Let's find these incredible people new jobs because we all need to eat right, end quote the video game development community reacted with a mix of shock and anger to the cuts given Marvel Rivals explosive success. The free to play Hero shooter has seen over 20 million downloads since the launch in December and a huge peak in concurrent players numbers on stream. According to Sasser's LinkedIn profile, his team focused on the game and level design work for Marvel Rivals, quote offering guidance, strategy and design direction over the last couple of years, end quote netEase issued issued IGN a statement confirming the layoffs, but failed to specify how many people will cut Quote we recently made the difficult decision to adjust Marvel Rivals development team structure for organizational reasons and to optimize development efficiency for the game. Nettie said this resulted in a reduction of a design team based in Seattle that is part of a larger global design function in support of Marvel Rivals. We appreciate the hard work and dedication of those affected and will be treating them confidentially and respectfully with recognition for their individual contribute. Contribute, Contributes, contributions. Thank you. I gotta get some water now. But Net east was keen to stress that the layoffs won't impact ongoing support for Marvel Rivals, whose primary development team is based in China. Quote, we want to reassure our fan base that the core development team for Marvel Rivals, which continues to be led by our lead producer and game director in China, remains fully committed to delivering an exceptional experience. That east said. Nathan, we've seen a lot of layoffs all over the place. We have a big one in a free to play game that has taken over the globe. What do you think about this right here with laying off their Seattle side team?
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Nathan Grayson
Yeah, I mean it's super weird for one, I mean just to, to start like Marvel Rivals is one of the biggest breakout hits that we have seen in video games in like a hot minute. Especially if you consider that like there's this sort of live service firewall we've seen where like, if you try to enter that space, you're probably not going to succeed. You're probably just going to bounce off of it and fail pretty hard. I mean, games like Concord, but Marvel Rivals broke through and became this like phenomena or phenomenon. And so it's weird to lay off anyone at this stage when you would expect them to be like, okay, we have this game that's a bigger success than we expected. We need to be growing to, you know, add more content to this game to keep it moving so that people don't, so it doesn't like grow stale and you know, people move on in that whole cycle. And I guess it's especially weird because like this was, you know, a North America focused team and like Marvel and that whole brand is kind of focused like NetEase is a Chinese company, but you would kind of expect them to keep, you know, a fairly large North American team around just because like that's, that's where Marvel's from. But at the same time it does seem like they're not going like the main development team is safe. I think that initially when this news broke, people were like, wait, they laid off the whole Marvel Rivals team? That's insane. It's like, no, they laid off like six people. That's not A huge portion of the team. It's just like those satellite teams do help with, you know, important areas of game development. It's not like, not like they can just cut them without there being an effect.
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Snow Bike Mike
Yes.
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Nathan Grayson
So we'll see what happens down the line.
- [19:37]
Snow Bike Mike
Yeah, well said there, Nathan. It's very interesting to see because. Yeah, you think, well, we build a game, it becomes super successful. There's no way we'd be laying people off. This is probably the time you'd be adding on more and making sure the content is right. But as you said, right. It's maybe a smaller team. You probably use that team to where you needed to get for launch and then right afterwards. And to me, it feels like Marvel Rivals has. Is now passing that honeymoon phase of where, hey, you captured everybody at launch, you've got them for the first three months. Now we get in kind of the weeds of three to six months. Can you continue to hold on to people? And it seems like the team out in China probably already has that down. Right. We got through the first initial hump. I think the team probably has enough to sustain and move forward. So it is unfortunate to hear. But I'm sure the restructure, the look probably has them in the right place for what the future is. It will be interesting to see.
- [20:29]
Nathan Grayson
There was also a note from, from Daniel Ahmad, who's an analyst, and he was saying that this is also part of a broader reconsideration of neteases overseas investments in studios. So they've been like pulling support from a number of overseas teams over the past year, meaning that they maybe had been planning this the whole time, that they sort of have this broader system or this broader plan in motion and this is just part of that. So it doesn't look good, but it's also one of those things where it's like the endless machinations of business that we don't really see until they suddenly affect people and we're like, what's going on? But, you know, while I don't want to give people in charge too much credit because they often make very bad decisions, it does seem like there's a method to the madness here, at least in their minds. Again, we'll see how it plays out.
- [21:15]
Snow Bike Mike
We'll see how it plays out. Have you been playing some Marvel Rivals? What do you think of the game so far?
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Nathan Grayson
I have not played a ton of it, unfortunately, if only because I was a big time Overwatch person back in the day.
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Snow Bike Mike
Okay.
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Nathan Grayson
And I burnt out on that pretty hard. And so any game that looks even kind of like Overwatch, because I know, I know that Marvel Rivals is a is a different game and it definitely has its own personality and it seems really cool. But I'm like, do I want to go back to that place? Do I want to return to that headspace? Maybe not yet, but I'm going to check it out eventually. Right now, right now I'm playing a ton of Avowed and I just, I can't stop playing that. So there you go.
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Snow Bike Mike
Okay, let's move on to story number two. Oh, before that, we have a quick super chat coming in from Kevin Rodriguez writes in Birthday Tax. Not for me, but for my best bud Wendell. He turns 30 today. He's also our group's 2024 Fantasy Critic winner. Well, of course. Happy birthday, Wendell. Shout out for the Birthday Tax super chat. Appreciate you writing in on that. Let's get to story number two. Xbox's AI era starts with a model that can generate gameplay. This coming from Tom Warren at the Verge. Today, Microsoft's Microsoft's Xbox is unveiling what it's calling a breakthrough in AI for gaming. Microsoft's new Muse AI model could help Xbox developers create parts of games in the future, and the company says it's even exploring the potential of using it to preserve classic games and optimize them for modern hardware. Microsoft's Research has created Muse, a first of its kind generative AI model that can generate a game environment based on visuals or players control controller actions. It understands a 3D game world and game physics, and can and can recreate or react to how players interact with the game, quote this allows the model to create consistent and diverse gameplay rendered by AI, demonstrating a major step towards generative AI models that can empower game creators, explains Fatima Kadar, corporate vice president of AI at Microsoft. The Muse model was trained on a large amount of human gameplay data from the Xbox game Bleeding Edge, thanks to the collaboration between Microsoft Research and Xbox Studio Ninja Theory, both of which are based in Cambridge in the uk. This partnership allowed us to closely collaborate with the game studio to understand what needs to be in place and how we can responsibly unlock access to a large amount of gameplay data, says Katya Hoffman, head of Microsoft's Research Game Intelligence team. This allowed Muse to access the equivalent of seven years of human gameplay, resulting in the model being trained on a billion image actions, action pairs in total. Microsoft has released a number of examples of Muse model in action, generating gameplay and even allowing players to load visual elements into the game to prompt the model this could be used for the early iteration stages of a game, but Microsoft is stressing this isn't designed to generate an entire game and replace creators. Microsoft is now exploring how Muse could help improve classic games and bring them to modern hardware. Quote. You could imagine a world where from gameplay data and video that a model could learn old games and really make them portable to any platform where these models could run, says Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer. We've talked about game preservation as an activity for us and these models and their ability to learn completely how a game plays without the necessity of the original engine running on the original hardware opens up a ton of opportunity, end quote. The micro. Microsoft is also exploring how Muse can help game developers prototype games or how teams could add new AI powered experiences to existing titles. Nathan, that is a lot of AI tar. First off, I'll tell people out there that are interested or want to learn more. Go check out the Xbox blog where you can read the full blog post. Go watch the YouTube video that has Phil and the team at Ninja Theory talking about all this so you can learn more. But Nathan, from that, what are some of your thoughts when we talk about generative AI? Microsoft taking steps into this lane to learn more and maybe produce and create more?
- [25:39]
Nathan Grayson
Yeah, I agree with most people in chat. It's, it's garbage. It's not. I mean half the stuff that he talked about is there like the Phil Spencer talked about. It's totally hypothetical. And like how will this aid in game preservation? I mean for one, if you want to preserve a game, you need to actually like there's so much to a game's like original platform and original code and all of this stuff and like replicating it in this really half back baked way where I gets all this stuff wrong because it always gets things wrong is a terrible way to approach preservation. That's not preservation, it's making a new worse version of something. And then beyond that, you know what makes games interesting and good is that they're made by people, not by machines that are analyzing games that already exist. To again make something that's like new and worse and doesn't even understand the point of the original thing that it's copying because AI can't understand anything, it just copies. I just like, I, I think that a lot of these companies are doing this right now because investors like the word AI and so then they'll put more money into various companies. But AI is just not really proven to be useful in these contexts beyond like very narrow applications behind the scenes in game Development and even then more for organizational purposes than like generating a world so that you can then build on that to create a larger game. It just, I mean, if you want like a demonstration of this, by the way of other companies trying to do something similar to what Microsoft is talking about here, EA put out a tech demo like last year where they were using their own version of an engine like this. And it's in this setting full of like boxes, like cardboard boxes make up their proposed game world. And then they like, you know, make the box level more complex. They're like, make it bigger, bigger. And I like. Anyway, it looks very bad. I just, I think this is a dead end for companies and I think they'll realize it in a few years. But until then we just have to ride this out.
- [27:43]
Snow Bike Mike
Yeah, Nathan, hard not to disagree with you on that one. When we hear the term AI in gaming, it just never feels right. It doesn't seem like it's going to look right. And it is the creators that we come for, we want to see them create that and make these worlds. And AI just doesn't seem to have that. Of course, I think like you said, it's the big buzzword. We will see these tech companies try to research and look into the future. And it feels like we're on the ground level still of AI. We're not anywhere near what I think they imagine in their heads what's going to happen. We're still at step one and we are not seeing that yet. And so if it's a positive, it feels like it will take a long time to get there. And that right now, seeing all these layoffs, it just feels like a negative of, well, we're laying off a bunch of human beings who are creating all the things that we like and love and are buying from your company to then hope that 15 years from now this can even resemble what we're currently wanting and needing. So yeah, it's an interesting place here.
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Nathan Grayson
They, they're showing their hands too. Because a lot of these companies, we use that language of don't worry, we're not going to replace people with this. Yes. And it's like, okay, but you probably are. You wouldn't need to say that if you weren't thinking about it. For one thing and for two, invariably, if you're creating a tool that you suggest will allow people to do less work to achieve like this big thing, a big portion of a game, you know, creating an entire level or an entire tech demo or whatever, then you will look at your balance books and say, okay, then we don't need people X, Y and Z because that's always what it comes down to in the games industry. And so of course you're going to use it to replace people, even if it's not like one to one. Even if you don't say, oh yeah, we laid off these people because of AI. AI, as you're suggesting you plan to use it, will play a role in future layoffs. Like it's just going to be one of the considerations. You're just not going to talk about it.
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Snow Bike Mike
Very true on that one, Nathan. Yeah, very interesting one. Feels like we're so far away from that, but it's happening right now. We're seeing this and they're taking steps towards that. Let's see if it continues to develop or if this is something that will die on the vine later on. But Nathan, I'm having a lot of fun with you. We got to talk about your book. We're jumping into today's game news stories and we have so much more. But you know what, let's get a word from our sponsor and we'll be right back.
- [29:56]
C
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- [33:14]
Snow Bike Mike
Welcome back Nathan. Let's jump into story number three here on the back half of our show from Software didn't want Sony to publish Dark Souls as it was disappointed by how Demon Souls was treated. This coming from Jordan Midler at VGC. FromSoftware didn't want to work on Demon's Soul sequel with Sony because it was disappointed with the way the game was handled. Former PlayStation exec Shuhei Yoshida claims Demon's Souls was developed by FromSoftware in collaboration with Sony Japan studio. During the game's development, it was planned that the game would be published globally by Sony, but this didn't come to be. Although these days Demon's Souls is considered the first entry and FromSoftware's popular souls like series of games, it said at the time that Sony couldn't see the game's global appeal due to the game's high difficulty and negative early play tests. Sony decided to not localize Demon Souls for an English language release instead. In the US the game was published by Atlas and in Europe, publishing was handled by Bandai Namco. Speaking to the Sacred Symbols podcast, former SIE president Shuhei Yoshida explained that Sony wanted to work on a sequel to demon's souls with FromSoftware, but the developer turned down and instead decided to work with Bandai Namco on what would become Dark Souls. Quote From Software was already working on the sequel, but they were so disappointed with how PlayStation treated them. We wanted to work or we wanted to work with them again, but they passed on it. Yoshida claimed Sony would eventually work with From Software again some years later with the PS4 exclusive Bloodborne something. Yoshida said he was happy to see interesting stuff there. Nathan, what do you think about that? How do you think that was handled?
- [35:04]
Nathan Grayson
Yeah, I mean it's interesting because like we, we think about the Souls games now and they're this like phenomenon, you know, they, they have reshaped a lot of video games in general. Like it's an entire genre that's the Souls. Like, and even games that aren't Souls, like incorporate souls adjacent mechanics. But there was a time when that wasn't the case, when like, you know, I mean Demon Souls was a fairly niche game and like there was that time, I think that before it came out, around the time that it came out, like a lot of AAA games were moving in this direction of being very on rails and very like, you know, as easy to complete as possible essentially. Like they were in some cases glorified, I don't want to say movies, but like they were very set piece oriented. They were very much like, you know, the challenge wasn't the point. The point was to see a bunch of cool stuff and then be done. So I can kind of understand why a company like Sony, which is big and risk averse naturally would be like, I don't know about this guys. Like this seems like a little, it seems like it might put off audiences and so we're gonna, we're gonna wash our hands of this for now. Was it the correct decision. Obviously not, because the Souls games are huge. And I'm sure that whichever Sony executives made that call have been kicking themselves ever since, which probably led to Bloodborne. But you know, you got to consider the time and place where these things happen.
- [36:27]
Snow Bike Mike
Yeah, I mean, Nathan, I'm right there with you. Of course. I don't think you could possibly see the future of this game when you probably first looked at Demon Souls of Man. Super difficult, probably hard to master. I don't know if this game is going to be it. But yeah, when you look at it, I'm sure you're probably a little upset that you fumbled the bag. But in all honesty, I'm sure From Software is very happy with how that went because it went multiplatform. It went everywhere. More gamers got to play the games. I think it's even more beloved now that it's not stuck on one console being exclusive. But it's fantastic that gamers got to play everything. It is wild that Sony couldn't mend that or fix that and make it right in the way to get that sequel and keep it going with the exclusivity.
- [37:09]
Nathan Grayson
Yeah. You also like never know how these things might have turned out, you know, if they went differently. But I mean, consider what might have happened to Demon Souls if it was more of a Sony production. Like would Sony have sanded some of the rougher edges off of it? Would Sony have said like, hey, a few of these mechanics that ended up making the game so special are just like, they're too much. You got to like dial those back a little bit. You've got to make the game a little less weird for a more mainstream audience. Like what from software been able to grow and do their own thing in the ways that they have that have made these games so special. If Sony was initially sort of more in charge of everything, like we may have gotten the best outcome possible and just not known about it.
- [37:47]
Snow Bike Mike
I feel like this is the best one is right. Let's jump into story number four. Pokemon Go developer Niantic reportedly in talks to sell video game business to Saudi owned company Behind Stumble Guys. This coming from Vicky Blake at ign. Pokemon Go developer Niantic is reportedly in talks to Stella's video game division to Saudi owned Scopely for 3.5 billion. As first reported by Bloomberg, the sale would likely include Pokemon Go, the hit augmented reality mobile game that sends players out into the real world to collect Pokemon. A source talking with Bloomberg said that while the deal was by no means complete, if approved, it could be confirmed in a matter of weeks. Neither Niantic, Scope or nor its owners, Savvy Games Group, were prepared to comment publicly on the reported acquisition. Savvy Games Group acquired scopely back in April 2023 in a deal worth 4.9 billion. That came after the Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia government said it wanted to buy, quote, a leading game publisher, end quote. Scopely publishes a range of hit mobile titles, most notably the Walking Dead, Road to Survival, Stumble Guys, Marvel, Marvel, Strike Force and Monopoly. Go. Savage Games Group also purchased two of the world's biggest esports companies, ESL and FACEIT, for a total of 1.5 billion in 2022. Nathan Niantic Selling its game group right here. How do you feel about that one?
- [39:23]
Nathan Grayson
I mean, broadly speaking, with anything involving Saudi Arabia, you kind of hate to see it in part because, like, you know, Saudi Arabia is a place accused of numerous human rights abuses. And all of this in conjunction with everything else that their wealth fund has been doing. A lot of sports initiatives and boxing, mma, I think even other sports that I don't follow as closely are all, you know, an attempt to rehabilitate its image while not necessarily changing much of how it actually operates and, you know, the values that it holds. And so this is just another part of that. Like, I mean, they've been trying to get into games and esports for a minute. They have the esports World cup, which has not been very successful in terms of viewership, but they've definitely put a lot of money into it. And so, yeah, I mean, something as big as Pokemon Go, like, I don't think that you want to see that particular country be in charge of it, but, you know, money talks, unfortunately, especially like in our current hyper capitalistic setting. Like, and I was thinking about it last night, actually, like, what the Saudi Arabian government has done is kind of, you know, to borrow the title of their development studio, Savvy, like, it worked really well in boxing to the point where when they first started bankrolling all of these really big fights, no, like, a lot of articles talked about it, they were like, you know, Saudi Arabia is doing this. The reasons, the reason why is clear. They're doing it in order to, again, kind of, you know, distract or sports wash away from these human rights abuses. And like, we should be skeptical of this now, years down the line, it's just accepted. Everyone's like, yep, Saudi Arabia is doing it. Cool. We can we get another big fight. Amazing, wonderful. And like, that's how it works. They just keep doing it until it's normalized and then people just turn a blind eye, like. And I, I imagine this will just be more of that.
- [41:20]
Snow Bike Mike
You know, the chat says it so well. You are speaking the truth. Right there is right. That is how I think we all feel. And it is an eye roll. It sucks. That is the feeling when you read about this group continuing to buy up more and more game publishers and game developers that you might know about. And yeah, on the opposite side, when I think about Pokemon go nearing 10 years, right, Nathan, it is almost 10 years old now and it's probably got the fullest out of its audience. It might be on more of the decline than the rise. I think after looking back on its history, maybe it's had its fill. Niantic probably couldn't make another Pokemon Go. I think we saw them try to make a number of augmented reality games where you go out there and they just didn't hit as big as Pokemon Go. So it might be time to get that money and kind of run and, you know, get out of there when you have it. They also have all of our data, right. Like, I think Pokemon Go in the antic nowhere. I've walked amongst all the streets and cities that I've lived in and the entire world. So I think they are very well aware of. They could have that data and use it now in other areas to go make a bunch of money. So I don't just wanted to recreate the world using, you know, all of our pictures, Mike. It's, you know, it's nothing nefarious, you.
- [42:32]
Nathan Grayson
Know, I know it's a fun little. It's a fun little hard problem.
- [42:34]
Snow Bike Mike
Yeah, it's exactly. I don't. Yeah, I don't think they need Pokemon Go anymore because they're going to sell that data somewhere else. So I'm sure they're probably looking at it as, hey, the game had a great rise. It's been a strong 10 years. We couldn't replicate that with others. I don't think it's still there. So let's take this money and run. And yeah, it's sad to see where it's going to, but yeah, I think as a business side, that's it.
- [42:56]
Nathan Grayson
Yeah. Speaking of the data stuff, just a couple headlines from the past handful of months. Pokemon Go players have unwittingly trained AI to navigate the world. And let's see, Pokemon Go data. Adding amplitude to war is obviously an issue. Neanderthal executive says. Yeah, so, yeah, yeah, that's, that's not amazing. And the AI just wants to know.
- [43:18]
Snow Bike Mike
What the world looks like. It's not. It's nothing bad, you know?
- [43:24]
Nathan Grayson
Yeah, no. No militaries or governments would ever use that data. I mean, crazy. We're so.
- [43:32]
Snow Bike Mike
Nathan. I mean, to Tim Getty's out there. Hope you hit hit level 50 as soon as possible, my man. To the players out there, it'll be interesting to see what this kind of. If this goes down, the handoff, do people still stick around? Where's Pokemon Go in the future? But, you know, that was big news, Nathan. Let's say I wanted something a little bit smaller. Where would I go?
- [43:55]
Nathan Grayson
You'd go to our last story, the WE News Channel, where we cover all the small news items you need to know about.
- [44:02]
Snow Bike Mike
Hit the music. Welcome to the WE News Report. Annapurna Showcase is happening February 24, 2025 at 9:00am Pacific Standard Time. Mark your calendars for a fun one from VGC. Limited run games has told customers that it doesn't recommend they play two of its most recent NES releases in case the the console or cartridge are damaged. Last year, the manufact manufacturer released physical versions of Rugrats, Adventure in Gameland, and Powpow, both of which arrives as a NES cartridge designed to be played on an actual NES hardware. So they're telling them not to play. It doesn't re. Doesn't recommend that they play the two of the most recent NES releases in case the console cartridge are damaged. Okay, we'll keep an eye out on that one. Nathan, what do you think? What do you think about that one?
- [45:03]
Nathan Grayson
I mean, so to be clear, are these like, Are they. Are they bringing back cartridges of older games or are these. Oh, also, I wanted to stay at the Wii News desk for a moment because I, I. Oh, yeah, bring back.
- [45:14]
Snow Bike Mike
The Wii News desk.
- [45:15]
Nathan Grayson
Yeah, bring it back for just a second.
- [45:17]
Snow Bike Mike
Yeah.
- [45:18]
Nathan Grayson
Because I have a very small cop.
- [45:22]
Snow Bike Mike
Oh, my God. That's crazy. That's crazy.
- [45:25]
Nathan Grayson
Perfect for the Wii News.
- [45:26]
Snow Bike Mike
That's awesome.
- [45:28]
Nathan Grayson
Yeah. It even has a back cover and everything. It's crazy.
- [45:33]
Snow Bike Mike
We're celebrating the book launch here, y'all. We're celebrating the book, Nathan. As we start to ramp down the show again, let's talk about Stream Big one more time. Of course, you're on the big book tour. You're going around to different podcasts, you're hanging out with different streamers, showcasing the book for maybe some of the audience that didn't catch the first part of the show. What is the book? What's it all about?
- [45:54]
Nathan Grayson
Yeah, so it's about Twitch, but It's viewed through the lens of nine, nine creators on the platform, nine streamers, some of whom are bigger, some of whom are smaller, as a way to sort of understand how Twitch as a platform impacts the people on it and how those people in turn are able to shape that platform via, you know, their words and their actions. And also just platforms, you know, needing to cater to the people on them to succeed. And so, yeah, it's about, you know, it's very community and creator focused. It's about how I think the sort of, what I'm going, what I try to say in it is that like Twitch, you know, has obviously over the years changed a lot. It's gone from being this little kind of up and coming thing to an Amazon owned platform that has millions and millions of users and like that has made some pretty unpopular decisions in the past handful of years. But that, you know, Twitch will always be first and foremost the people who are on it. If those people left tomorrow, Twitch would be nothing. And so it will always be a platform by the creators, even if it's not one for them.
- [46:58]
Snow Bike Mike
Book is out now. You can go purchase it, you can go support, you can learn more. You said some excerpts are out on some different websites so people can read a little bit about it as well.
- [47:07]
Nathan Grayson
Yeah, you can read pieces of it at Polygon and Aftermath.
- [47:11]
Snow Bike Mike
Very exciting stuff. Nathan, I had a blast with you today. Thank you for allowing me to get to know you, talk about the book with you and talk some game news. Where can everybody find you if they want to keep up with you? Of course we talked about the book being out now they can go buy it, but where can they find you? Keep up with your work and have some fun with you.
- [47:28]
Nathan Grayson
Yeah, yeah. So I mean, first and foremost you can find me at Aftermath site. That is the video game news site that me and some other folks run together. Just Aftermath site. We're fully subscription based and so if you like what you see, like what you read, please consider subscribing because that's, that's our entire lifeblood. We have no ads, we have no anything else. We have no sponsors. We want to be completely free of all of those, like, potential conflicts of interest. So we're only subscriber based and then beyond that, I'm on Blue sky at Nathan Grayson and I'm on Twitter @vah n16.
- [48:02]
Snow Bike Mike
Love that.
- [48:02]
Nathan Grayson
And I agree, Chad, it is a cool lighthouse.
- [48:05]
Snow Bike Mike
It's a cool lighthouse, y'all. They got a cool lighthouse in the game. You can go read that and more with Nathan. Of course. Today this has been Kind of Funny. Games Daily each and every weekday rerun you through the nerdy news you need to know about live on Twitch, on YouTube, and of course on podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, consider supporting us with that kind of funny membership available on Patreon or YouTube to get all of our shows ad free. Watch us as we record them live and get your daily exclusive show. Enjoy the games cast after this and then of course the stream and beyond with Cobra Kai in review for a fun screencast. We'll catch you all later. That's Nathan. Go buy his book, go support him and I'll catch you guys on the next one. Goodbye everyone.
- [48:47]
Nathan Grayson
Later.