Marvel Snap Gets Caught in The TikTok Ban - Kinda Funny Games Daily 01.20.25

Summary

Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast - Episode Summary

Episode Title: Marvel Snap Gets Caught in The TikTok Ban
Release Date: January 20, 2025
Hosts: Greg “GameOverGreggy” Miller, Tim Gettys, Blessing Adeoye Jr., Snowbike Mike, Andy Cortez, Barrett Courtney

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Introduction

In this episode of Kinda Funny Games Daily, hosts Snowbike Mike, Andy Cortez, and Barrett Courtney delve into the latest happenings in the gaming world. Skipping the usual advertisements and intros, the trio focuses on six major stories, ranging from app store bans to significant studio changes. The hosts also engage in lively banter and respond to audience super chats, making the episode both informative and entertaining.

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1. Marvel Snap and the TikTok Ban

Timestamp: [00:11] – [18:47]

Overview:
Marvel Snap, a popular digital card game developed by Second Dinner and published by Marvel, faced a sudden takedown from US App Stores due to the TikTok ban. The ban, initiated by the U.S. government against ByteDance (the parent company of TikTok and Marvel Snap), led to Marvel Snap being temporarily unavailable.

Key Points:

• Incident Details:
  Second Dinner issued a series of tweets explaining the unavailability of Marvel Snap, attributing it to the TikTok ban that began on January 18th. They assured players that the game would be restored within 12 hours.

• Host Reactions:
  Andy Cortez expressed surprise, noting, “Marvel Snap going down was not something that I kind of assumed would happen because I just kind of didn't really think that they were underneath ByteDance” ([13:26]).

• Community Impact:
  The sudden removal baffled both developers and players. Hosts discussed the implications for small businesses and creators reliant on platforms like TikTok for exposure and income.

Notable Quotes:

• Snowbike Mike:
  “Marvel Snap isn’t going anywhere. We’re actively working on getting it up as soon as possible” ([12:19]).

• Andy Cortez:
  “It was a weird kind of weekend” ([13:40]).

Conclusion:
Despite the initial chaos, Marvel Snap was reinstated swiftly, alleviating immediate concerns. The incident highlighted the fragile interplay between gaming apps and larger social media platforms, emphasizing the vulnerabilities developers face amidst geopolitical tensions.

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2. Cancellations at Bluepoint and Bend Studios

Timestamp: [18:52] – [36:07]

Overview:
Sony’s in-house studios, Bluepoint Games and Bend Studio, experienced unexpected cancellations of their live service projects. Reports initially suggested that these studios were blindsided by the decisions, causing uncertainty among the development teams.

Key Points:

• Initial Reports:
  Chris Scullion from VGC reported that Bluepoint and Bend Studios were informed simultaneously about the cancellation of their live service games, including a multiplayer God of War title.

• Host Discussion:
  Andy Cortez and Snowbike Mike debated whether the teams were truly caught off guard. Later, Jason Schreier clarifies that teams were informed before the public announcement, indicating better internal communication than initially thought.

• Future Implications:
  The cancellation forces studios to rethink their pitching strategies to Sony, moving away from live service models towards more traditional single-player experiences. Hosts speculate on potential new directions, such as hybrid models incorporating both single-player and multiplayer elements.

Notable Quotes:

• Andy Cortez:
  “If I want to be further in, you know, into the sort of co-development with you all, with giving you all notes and things like that. Even better” ([04:07]).

• Barrett Courtney:
  “We have all that and more on today's Kind of Funny Games Daily” ([02:10]).

Conclusion:
The episode sheds light on the shifting landscape of game development, emphasizing Sony’s retreat from live service models. This pivot urges studios to innovate within more stable and predictable frameworks, fostering environments where single-player narratives can thrive without the pressures of ongoing service maintenance.

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3. Dragon Age Director Departs BioWare

Timestamp: [45:57] – [48:27]

Overview:
Karine Bush, the game director of Dragon Age: The Veil Guard, announced her departure from BioWare and EA to pursue new opportunities in the RPG space. Her departure marks a significant shift within BioWare, signaling potential changes in future Dragon Age projects.

Key Points:

• Statement Highlights:
  Bush emphasized her desire for personal fulfillment and the opportunity to build a fresh RPG, stating, “At the heart of it, this was about my own fulfillment” ([47:08]).

• Host Reactions:
  Snowbike Mike and Andy Cortez congratulated Bush, expressing optimism about her future endeavors and the positive impact she could have on new projects.

• Industry Impact:
  Bush’s departure may influence BioWare’s future projects, potentially leading to a renewed focus on quality single-player RPGs, distancing from previous live service endeavors.

Notable Quotes:

• Karine Bush (via Eurogamer):
  “I love Dragon Age and BioWare, so the chance to return the game to proper quality single player RPG was the privilege of a lifetime” ([47:08]).

• Snowbike Mike:
  “Congratulations. That's really awesome” ([48:23]).

Conclusion:
Karine Bush’s exit from BioWare underscores the evolving priorities within game development studios. Her commitment to enhancing single-player experiences may inspire BioWare to refine its approach, ensuring that future releases resonate deeply with RPG enthusiasts.

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4. Team Cherry Updates on Hollow Knight: Silksong

Timestamp: [48:27] – [53:09]

Overview:
Team Cherry, developers of the acclaimed Hollow Knight, provided a rare update on their long-awaited sequel, Hollow Knight: Silksong. Amidst rumors and speculations, the team confirmed continued progress and an eventual release.

Key Points:

• Status Update:
  Matthew Griffin from Team Cherry clarified that Silksong is "real, progressing, and will release," countering prior delays and uncertainties ([48:27]).

• Community Anticipation:
  Hosts and listeners alike expressed excitement and encouragement, highlighting the community’s strong desire for the game's completion.

• Development Challenges:
  The discussion touched upon the challenges smaller studios face in maintaining momentum and visibility, especially in long development cycles.

Notable Quotes:

• Matthew Griffin:
  “We’re excited by how the game is shaping up and we’ve gotten quite big, so we want to take the time to make the game as good as we can” ([48:27]).

• Snowbike Mike:
  “We just need a little something” ([52:38]).

Conclusion:
Team Cherry’s affirmation provides a beacon of hope for fans eagerly awaiting Silksong. The update reinforces the importance of transparent communication between developers and their communities, fostering trust and sustained enthusiasm during prolonged development periods.

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5. Cancellation of an Unannounced Warhammer RPG by Thought Pennies

Timestamp: [54:30] – [57:35]

Overview:
An unannounced Warhammer RPG developed by Thought Pennies was reportedly canceled after funding was withdrawn by its publisher. The project’s termination affected a rapidly growing team, who had expanded from two to nearly sixty members.

Key Points:

• Cancellation Details:
  Daniel Erickson, Chief Creative Officer at Thought Pennies, announced the studio’s downsizing due to strategic shifts by their publisher, leading to the halt of the Warhammer project ([56:42]).

• Impact on Developers:
  The abrupt cancellation resulted in significant emotional and professional setbacks for the team, highlighting the volatility within game development.

• Future Prospects:
  Discussions ponder whether another publisher might rescue the project or if the game remains permanently shelved, underscoring the precarious nature of indie game financing.

Notable Quotes:

• Daniel Erickson:
  “Our publisher changed strategic direction, however, and our previous project is now without funding” ([56:42]).

• Snowbike Mike:
  “Thoughts out to Thought Pennies and let’s see where that goes” ([57:35]).

Conclusion:
The cancellation of the Warhammer RPG serves as a stark reminder of the uncertainties indie developers face. It emphasizes the need for robust financial strategies and the potential risks associated with relying heavily on single-publisher support. The gaming community extends sympathies to the affected developers, hoping for future opportunities to bring their creative visions to life.

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6. Additional News

Timestamp: [57:35] – [61:05]

Overview:
Beyond the primary stories, the hosts covered various smaller news items, including:

• Resident Evil 6 ESRB Rating:
  A new ESRB rating suggests a possible release or remaster of Resident Evil 6 on current-generation consoles, sparking excitement among longtime fans.

• PAL World Roadmap:
  Pocket Pair outlined its future updates for PAL World, focusing on co-op, crossplay, and content enhancements to keep the game engaging for players.

• Hellskate Release:
  Hellskate, a roguelite skateboarding game, officially left early access and launched on PC, receiving positive feedback from the hosts.

Notable Quotes:

• Andy Cortez on Resident Evil 6:
  “That’s awesome news. It doesn’t have to be a remaster or anything like that, but people will get to see the glory of that game” ([58:36]).

• Snowbike Mike on Hellskate:
  “Can we see Hell Skate?” ([60:03]).

Conclusion:
These additional updates provide a comprehensive view of ongoing developments in the gaming industry, from beloved franchises receiving new attention to indie titles achieving full releases. The hosts’ enthusiasm underscores the diverse and dynamic nature of the gaming landscape.

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Audience Interactions and Super Chats

Throughout the episode, hosts engaged with their audience through super chats, responding to comments and providing personalized feedback. Highlights include:

• Support for Host Actions:
  JJ Baseball praised Mike for stepping up as host, while AK commended Andy for recommending Windblown, a top roguelike game ([61:05]).

• Suggestions and Corrections:
  Listeners suggested bringing back classic games like Socom and Fortnite Ballistic. Additionally, corrections were made regarding Bluepoint’s acquisition date ([62:07], [63:14]).

Notable Quotes:

• User "Bear":
  “You’re wrong, but I can pull it up now since…” ([62:40]).

• User "Marcus Aurelius":
  “SOCOM but closer to PUBG probably would be more serviceable than what we knew of it in the early 2000s.” ([61:46]).

Conclusion:
The interactive segment reinforces the podcast’s community-driven approach, allowing listeners to actively participate and influence the conversation. This engagement fosters a sense of belonging and investment among the audience.

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Final Thoughts and Upcoming Segments

As the episode drew to a close, hosts hinted at upcoming segments, including:

• Gamescast:
  A special segment featuring predictions for the Nintendo Switch 2 by Blessing Adeoye Jr.

• Waymo Adventure:
  A playful segment where hosts embark on a journey with a driverless Waymo vehicle, exploring the city.

Final Quotes:

• Snowbike Mike:
  “We have Flying Penguins and Smoking Joe” ([36:21]).

• Andy Cortez:
  “It just feels like they realize that they’re at fault for kind of green lighting all this stuff” ([35:29]).

Conclusion:
The episode concluded on a high note, teasing future content that promises to blend gaming insights with entertaining adventures. Listeners are encouraged to stay tuned for more engaging discussions and unique segments in upcoming episodes.

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Overall Summary:
This episode of Kinda Funny Games Daily provided a thorough overview of significant developments in the gaming industry, from app store bans affecting popular games like Marvel Snap to major studio cancellations and leadership changes. The hosts balanced detailed news coverage with personable interactions and community engagement, offering listeners both information and entertainment. With a blend of industry analysis and light-hearted chatter, the podcast remains a go-to source for gaming enthusiasts seeking comprehensive and engaging content.

Transcript

[Snowbike Mike]

Everybody, these are violent criminals, so they're not gonna go down easy. ABC Tuesdays cops.

[Andy Cortez]

Let's get this done.

[Snowbike Mike]

Let's do it. The rookie is back.

[Barrett Courtney]

We have two new rookies starting today.

[Andy Cortez]

Howdy.

[Snowbike Mike]

Being a cop is stressful 24. 7. Every year on the job is different. And training day, we have a serial killer at large. Never ends. We need an ambulance. The rookie. All new Tuesdays on ABC and stream on Hulu. Today's stories include Marvel, Snap got banned, but it's on its way back. Bluepoint and Bend. Employees didn't know their games were canceled and Dragon Age's director is leaving Bioware. We have all that and more on today's Kind of Funny Games Daily. Good morning and welcome to Kind of Funny Games daily for Monday, January 20, 2025. I'm one of your hosts, Snowbike Mike, joined alongside the nitro rifle Andy Cortez. Andy, happy Monday.

[Andy Cortez]

It's great to see you, Mikey.

[Snowbike Mike]

We're back together after a weekend away. Okay, like we didn't spend any time this weekend.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay.

[Snowbike Mike]

Not happy about that.

[Andy Cortez]

I had stuff I was doing, you know you can't just buy a game for me and expect that all of my friends are going to be there at the same time to play this game that I bought for all of my friends.

[Snowbike Mike]

Well, six out of the seven were there and only one was missing.

[Andy Cortez]

I'm sitting on my PC, I'm doing work and then I hear the little notification from Steam and I'm like. And I saw you have received a gift and I immediately knew this is going to be some bullshit.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And it was. It was received a fast food simulator or something from Snow. Mike.

[Snowbike Mike]

Mike, it was fantastic.

[Andy Cortez]

How much money did you spend buying that game for everybody?

[Snowbike Mike]

Bear, look it up. On steam it's either 12 or 22 times that by six.

[Andy Cortez]

This is why you never have money near the end of a paycheck.

[Snowbike Mike]

Well, it's just like you have to do it for your friends, you know what I mean? I want everybody to be together.

[Andy Cortez]

You bought six?

[Barrett Courtney]

Six copies.

[Snowbike Mike]

Six copies.

[Barrett Courtney]

Okay, hold on.

[Snowbike Mike]

I'm supporting the devs team.

[Andy Cortez]

You are.

[Snowbike Mike]

I'm supporting games industry.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, you are.

[Barrett Courtney]

You spent $90 on this.

[Snowbike Mike]

90 bucks for four and a half hours of fun. It was worth it.

[Andy Cortez]

You can't put a price on friendship.

[Snowbike Mike]

Price on good times with your friends. You know what I mean? Andy, it's been a big weekend. We didn't spend any time together. So tell me about yours. How was it?

[Andy Cortez]

My weekend was good. My Weekend was good. Yeah. You know, put in some work on this little. On this Nick Lock 2.0.

[Snowbike Mike]

Nick Lock Pokemon Nuzlocke.

[Andy Cortez]

I love that Nick Lock 2.0. It's in the. It's in development. You know, a good game is Cat is never canceled, it's only delayed. So I've been working on that. And then. And then I tested out some multi streaming. Doing the Twitch and YouTube simultaneous thing.

[Snowbike Mike]

I watched.

[Andy Cortez]

I played so much Hyper Light Breaker over. I have 36 hours in this game already. It's like not. It's. It's wild that I've put that much time in it because it's like it's a game that I. I'm obviously really, really enjoying. While I can see all the faults and not even faults. It's just like this game's early, right. I think Hyper Light breakers unfortunately being released in a time where Baldur's Gate 3 was in Early Access and so is Hades 2. And. And you have all of these big massive games being released that feel very, very complete and kind of like feature ready, even though there's some content that isn't quite there.

[Snowbike Mike]

Of course.

[Andy Cortez]

Hyperlight Breaker I think is. I think it's a lot of freaking fun. And it's so early in development that I'm so happy that I'm still finding the fun. Even though there's a lot of stuff that still needs to be developed for it.

[Snowbike Mike]

So will that turn people away? So let's break it down right now. It's in Early Access. Was there a price tag to that Early Access? And then on top of that, we. When you say it's like lacking features and you can see some of the, you know, the issues here is that going to turn people away. You know, we talk about first impressions mattering here and this kind of being the welcome to the world. Should this have just stayed in the studio and just gone with some small game tests to try to elevate it? What's going on here?

[Andy Cortez]

Well, I mean, the point of Early Access is to put out a game in hopes that your fan base trusts you and you say, hey, here, have this early money for a game that is still in development that I know still needs time. A year and a half, maybe two years of development. I'm going to give you all money. I'm kind of like mortgaging this, right? Here's some money. Because I believe in what you can make. I am investing in this product right now. And if I want to be further in, you know, into the sort of co development with you all, with giving you all notes and things like that. Even better. And yeah, it will turn some fans away. I think the Steam reviews were mixed at some point because, you know, I think there's a lot of good feedback. There's a lot of good constructive feedback that I've seen on the Steam pages that I'm like, yeah, that would be great. That would be great. And it's a lot of people that are just totally rational. And then there's some people that may have bought the game and are like, hey, you know, why. Why doesn't it have this feature? Why doesn't it. It's like, well, it's. It's early access for a reason. You're not. You're not buying a demo of the game. You're not, you know, you are sort of investing in the development of this game with us. And you know, that could turn some people off. That's not for everybody. I get it. I understand not wanting to give money to a game that is not complete yet. But I am having a lot of fun with the runs and the builds and finding that a couple of awesome power ups that go, oh shit, this turns the run around. This could be really awesome if I and able to succeed here. I'm having a lot of fun with it and I am. I. I think I'm just really happy that I enjoy the game where it's at right now.

[Snowbike Mike]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

Knowing that this thing is maybe halfway done development.

[Snowbike Mike]

So we don't get it. We don't get 1.0 this year.

[Andy Cortez]

I don't think so.

[Snowbike Mike]

Because now I'm getting a fantasy critic mode. Because Andy made me.

[Andy Cortez]

Of course. I didn't make. You made me. No, I didn't.

[Barrett Courtney]

The team name, Andy.

[Andy Cortez]

Andy made me pick this.

[Snowbike Mike]

I picked this game and I, you know, here it is.

[Andy Cortez]

You switched the team name during the draft.

[Snowbike Mike]

Here it is. I need points for this. Am I going to get points or not?

[Andy Cortez]

I didn't make you pick a goddamn thing. Don't. Don't shift blame this to me.

[Barrett Courtney]

I will say, Mike, even if it doesn't hit 1.0, people could still weirdly review it in early access.

[Snowbike Mike]

That's what I'm hoping.

[Barrett Courtney]

Because you got some points last year because Hades two people reviewed an incomplete.

[Andy Cortez]

Game, even though quick to review that game. Yeah. Very interesting. Well, yeah, and I also just think it's. It's on a different level, right? Hades 2 comes out, you experience it, you put 30 hours, 40 hours in and go. This feels reviewable in its State where the main things that were missing was, you know, some, some art that isn't fully there. You might talk to somebody that has a temp art pop up, whatever. But so much of it felt like it was ready to rock.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And it could have been ready to rock. I do think this is a different level of, of development. I think you hop into here. I wouldn't be surprised if this didn't get any review scores.

[Snowbike Mike]

No review scores. No 1.0 this year. We just rock.

[Andy Cortez]

I mean, that's me. I'm predicting stuff. I don't feel like it'll hit 1.0 this year.

[Snowbike Mike]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

That's me. Just, you know, after playing the game and kind of feeling it out. Yeah, that's where I'm at right now. But I had a good time with it.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, I love that, Andy. I'm glad that you're playing a good game.

[Andy Cortez]

Watch a lot of football. Mike's Bill's looking good.

[Snowbike Mike]

Big deal, man. We shut down. We shut him down, bro. We shut him down. The good time.

[Andy Cortez]

It's a really good game.

[Snowbike Mike]

Thank you all so much for tuning in. Of course. 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 YouTube and on Twitch and of course on podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, consider supporting us with that brand new kind of funny membership available on YouTube, Patreon and now Spotify and Apple Podcasts to get all of our shows ad free. Watch us as we record them live and get your daily exclusive show, Greg Way, which was taken over today by you, Andy Cortez. Sure was.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. Greg Ways today it was a little behind the scenes peak of making the Nuzlocke 2.0.

[Snowbike Mike]

Oh snap.

[Andy Cortez]

That's showing off. Just kind of where I'm at in the process and how I'm, you know, having to kind of be really. Just having to be really responsible with all the files and file structures and folders. I'm like, I'm. I'm having to really turn it on. You know, it's. It's not, it's not something I'm used to. I'm really turning. I'm a pretty messy dude.

[Snowbike Mike]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

And so I'm like having a. Let me get some folders down. Let me name everything correctly.

[Snowbike Mike]

And is that because of the game making process of you modding it or is that just because this time you wanted to turn it on, unlike last time? Like, what's the difference from the last time? You made it to this time.

[Andy Cortez]

The difference is that the program I was using last time for the Game Boy advance sort of ROM thing, Hexmania Red Hex Maniac advance was a lot easier. And now I have a bunch of different programs with folder structures that I need to know where everything goes. And it's a, it's a whole thing, right? Like if you see the main character in Pokemon Soul Silver, you're not just replacing one instance of him or her. They're kind of everywhere in a bunch of different spots. So you have to kind of understand and know. All right, I replaced this sprite because it look it, it's, it's in this folder but that same sprite also exists in this other folder. Even though they're kind of identical. It's the needs to be kind of put into the right spot. So just kind of learning all that showing off the different pixel art configurations and you know, getting ready for what could be Nick Lock 2.0 in the, you know, in the in the future.

[Snowbike Mike]

Great way to check it out over on today's Greg Way. So if you support us on Patreon, YouTube and of course now Spotify and Apple podcasts, you can go behind the scenes with Andy and see how he works. He's working real tight this time with a lot of folders. Very tight of course. For a chance to be part of the show, submit your thoughts, opinions and questions as YouTube super chats as we go, which we've already gotten one of. Captain Coots wrote in with a five dollar super chat and says watching live from home while I work and finish Super Mario Odyssey for the first time, it doesn't get better than this.

[Andy Cortez]

What a good time.

[Snowbike Mike]

Good game.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, it's a good game, Good game. Deserve to lose to Breath of the wild though. I like that little go.

[Snowbike Mike]

Christian also became a kind of funny member over on YouTube for 27 months and says the best friend duo. The best.

[Andy Cortez]

Thank you.

[Snowbike Mike]

We're happy to be together.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay.

[Snowbike Mike]

Been a long weekend.

[Andy Cortez]

Sure.

[Snowbike Mike]

Happy to be back. Housekeeping news for you. We are an 11 person small business all about live talk shows. So today after kind of Funny Games daily you'll get a very special gamescast all about blessings Nintendo Switch to predictions. I think he's going to go month by month and give you all the predictions for the Nintendo Switch 2. So keep an eye out for that one. It's going to be a whole lot of fun. And then the stream following the Gamescast will be Mike, Nick and Andy inside of a Waymo. Yes that is a robot. That's no driver in a car. And we're going to see how far this thing will take us around city. We're just going. It's going to be a great time. Three bros and a wayo. Let's see where it goes. Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

It's going be a great time way, bro.

[Snowbike Mike]

If you're a kind of funny member, you can catch today's Greg Way, which is about Andy Cortez, which we just talked about. And of course, we'd like to thank those who support us over on Patreon as our Patreon producers for the month, Delaney Twining and Carl Jacobs, thank you so much for your support today. We are brought to you by Shady Rays and Rocket Money. But we'll tell you all about that later. Let's get into it with what is and forever will be the Roper Report. It's time for some news. We have six stories today, a baker's dozen. Wonderful stuff. Barrett's, of course, shout out to bear. Courtney running the ones and twos on this lovely Monday. Story number one, Marvel Snap went away this weekend, but it's on its way back.

[Andy Cortez]

Ah.

[Snowbike Mike]

I'm gonna give you a series of tweets starting on Friday night. Second dinner tweets out. Unfortunately, Marvel Snap is temporarily unavailable in the US App stores and is unavailable to play in the US In a surprise to second Dinner and our publishers and our publisher, New Verse, Marvel Snap H was affected by the takedown of Tik Tok late on Saturday, January 18th. Marvel Snap isn't going anywhere. We're actively working on getting it, getting the game up as soon as possible and we'll update you once we have more to share from second dinner this morning. Monday, January 20th, Marvel snap tweets out. We're actively working on getting our service back up in the US and expect everything to be fully restored within the next 12 hours. Strong arm emoji.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. Muscle. Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

Thanks for your patience and understanding as we work through, as we work through this. We appreciate your support as always. Salute Emoji. Stay tuned. We'll be back with updates shortly. All right, that's your update.

[Andy Cortez]

All right. Well, you know, I'm surprised they didn't think Supreme Emperor Leader Trump. Surprised they didn't. They didn't praise him and thank him in that. What a just a weird, awkward weekend it was. What a weird weekend.

[Snowbike Mike]

What a weird week it's been with everybody on TikTok, saying goodbye to TikTok, getting emotional about it.

[Andy Cortez]

You know, it was like a vibe, right?

[Snowbike Mike]

It Was a weird vibe.

[Andy Cortez]

Honestly, I wish. I wish it still. I wish it stayed down for a while.

[Snowbike Mike]

Couple of days.

[Andy Cortez]

Because I was already drafting up a tweet that said, Mike, you know what? I'm kind of in the mood to check out Tik Tok. Send me all those videos you've been sending me for the last three years that I've never. That I've been ignoring the whole time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just, you know, PR stunt for sure. Absolutely. Tik Tok with Bite Dance. You know, Bite Dance being. I think Imran Khan had a great post on Blue sky the other day that was like, hey, it's kind of on us, on journalists, and I get it. But when we noticed that ByteDance, we didn't really ask ourselves, what else does ByteDance own? It's like, oh, Marvel Snap is one of the things under their umbrella along with the app TikTok. But, yeah, just a. Just a weird kind of weekend made. Didn't make a whole lot of sense with what was going on. It felt like it was going to go down for a while. And you're right, I hadn't really opened TikTok in a while. But when it did come back up, suddenly my whole for you page is a bunch of people going, well, it's been a great time seeing y'all. Yeah, follow us over here. We, you know, thank you so much for this community. It was very odd.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, it was an unfortunate one because, of course, you know, we are thankful to be creators that are supported by an incredible audience. And there are so many creators and small businesses that rely on Tick Tock, that have built their brands and their names and have lived off of Tick Tock in that, you know, income they can create. And it was a tough couple of weeks there of people coming to the realization of, like, oh, snap. Everything that I've worked so hard to create, my livelihood that has been kind of dependent on TikTok and what I've done off of that is now going to be kind of swept away out of nowhere. Right. And so it was a long week to watch. And then of course, to lead up to it, when you open up your phone, of course, as you know, Snow, like, Mike loves to get on TikTok and then say, hey, TikTok is out here in the U.S. but President Trump is working really hard to get it back. It was like, oh, it's the end of it all.

[Andy Cortez]

That's what we're doing. That's how we're doing this.

[Snowbike Mike]

And then, of course, I wake up the next morning, my friend's like, oh, no, it's back on. Like you could just watch again. I was like, oh, well, that didn't matter.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, the homie Ray Apollo had another great Blue sky post talking about, you know, how the heroes in the boys TV show set up the saves. You know, they. They put somebody in danger and they come in to kind of save the world and show everybody how awesome they are so they can get all the praise. Just a. Just a weird, awkward thing along. Along with Cap Cut. Like some people in our chatter mentioning Capcut as somebody. Another app that is in the ByteDance umbrella.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

But, yeah, Marvel Snap going down was not something that I kind of assumed would happen because I just kind of didn't really think that they were underneath ByteDance. So when that goes down, that was like, whoa, this as well. Like, I. I understand. And I think it's. I. I don't know if ByteDance was even forced to do any of that. I don't think they were. I think it all just is sort of publicity and them. Them taking down Marvel Snap, I guess they were like, well, we have to make this look real, so we have to take down everything else that, you know. Yeah, we sort of run very awkward, very weird, obviously very staged, and it'll be back soon. But, you know, our hearts go out to Gia Gettys.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, Gia, we're sorry that you had to put up with 24. I mean, your heart should also go out to me. Well, oh, I had to come up with a new sleep schedule. I couldn't scroll. What was I supposed to do? I'd scroll endlessly for hours. I say only five minutes, then it's two hours later. It's 2am in the morning. What happened?

[Andy Cortez]

Did you get your rest? Did you catch up on your sleep? That.

[Snowbike Mike]

No, I just scrolled Twitter instead and it was awful.

[Andy Cortez]

What? That's. Even.

[Snowbike Mike]

Videos aren't even as fun.

[Andy Cortez]

That's even worse.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. You're just watching murders in the timeline. Only murders on the timeline.

[Snowbike Mike]

You know, of course, to bring it back to the story to end this. I mean, we're happy that it's coming back. Right. It is interesting when you think about, like, the business side of it.

[Andy Cortez]

Right.

[Snowbike Mike]

Of like, how much did Marvel Snap lose during this downtime of 24 hours? Right. Was it huge? I have to assume that a game on its standards right now is, sure, it's making money, but like 24 hours, one day off of not making money. Three years into Marvel Snap or however long it's been can't be making that much money. Right.

[Andy Cortez]

I don't know if they're necessarily worried about the financial impact of that one day. If anything, this is good publicity to kind of remind a lot of other people. Marvel Snap is still a. An active platform and we still have like a lot of daily players or whatever. Yeah, I'm not really. I guess I'm not really thinking about the financial logistics of it. Yeah, it's just more of the. More the fact that the people that work there for second. What do they call second dinner. Not being aware that this is even going to happen either, then just sort of being caught up, caught off guard with it. But it's back. Tick Tock is back.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah. You can't download them yet though. I deleted Tick Tock. I can't redownload Tick.

[Andy Cortez]

Really?

[Snowbike Mike]

And you can't download. I looked up today before the story, I looked if I could download Marvel Snap because I haven't had that on my phone a long time. I can't find it on the App Store right now. So hopefully. Okay, get back there. You know what I mean?

[Andy Cortez]

Back to it should be back available pretty soon, I'm. I'm guessing.

[Snowbike Mike]

Let's move on to story number two.

[Andy Cortez]

Story number two, doing a little swap right here. We're doing a little swift swap. Bluepoint and Bend staff learned their live services. Their live service PS5 games were canceled at the same time as everybody else. This comes from Chris Scullion at vgc. This is like when athletes find out they got get released on Twitter. You know what I mean?

[Snowbike Mike]

Yes.

[Andy Cortez]

The development teams working on Sony's two most recently canceled live service games weren't aware of the news in advance, it's claimed. Last week it was reported to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier and subsequently confirmed by a spokesperson that Sony had canceled live service games in development at Bend Studio and Bluepoint Games. While Shrier's article didn't describe the games in detail, he then took to Blue sky to confirm that the blue that Blue Point was working on a live service God of War title. Now, according to journalist Jeff Grubb in his latest game Mess Mornings video show. And I heard Jeff Grubb actually won leaker of the year on on Gaming Leaks, a rumor subreddit. One of the best leakers of all time. Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

Congratulations. Is that, is that a positive? You want that?

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, it's great. Yeah. Yeah, we love Jeff. Nobody's doing it like him. I looked into this a little bit. Grub explained. Yes, all this is true. The two studios found out at the same time as everyone else. So people will be going into work today wondering, hey, okay, what are we doing next? End quote. And here's a new quote that says, and what are they? And what they're going to have to do next very likely is pitch something to Sony. And the landscape of that has changed pretty drastically, end quote. Grub suggested that both studios will have a harder time proposing a new idea to Sony because its closure of numerous live service games means it's not currently clear what types of new games it's looking to greenlight. He explained, a couple of years ago, you'd bring your PlayStation pitch. You'd bring. A couple years ago you'd bring to PlayStation your pitch. That is, it's a live service game. We know you want to hear that. And can we use the God of War ip? We know you want to hear that. And then they get the green light and then they get a budget, then they get funding and they can grow their studio, hire more people. The people working there are safe. And now they have to go back to the drawing board, come up with a pitch that PlayStation wants to hear and which no one really knows what they want to hear. So it's a rough situation. And that's the end of the story from Chris Scullion right here. Very. Another kind of weird situation we're dealing with, Mike. Yeah, for all of them to be caught off guard, for them to come into work on this Monday wondering what is next? What are the things that we may have pitched that got sort of shut down? Can we revisit any of those old pitches? Or are a lot of those pitches similar to a lot of these live service games that were kind of being made? Are all of those also trapped in the past, in a different era of successful video game thinking, you know, yeah, that sucks, Andy.

[Snowbike Mike]

That's some weird stuff going on there. Of course, now manager whoever's got to come out on a Monday morning meeting and say, okay, well, all the projects canceled. Who's got ideas? And now we got to reset. What is the idea? What's the pitch here? Because live service games clearly aren't the pitch, but it's got to be some sort of blend of live service, I would assume in the future, right? It's not live service, but it's live service. It's got to have something like that. I bet in this pitch pitch, I.

[Andy Cortez]

Would assume that two studios known for making single player games at this point, right? With a studio like Bend and Days Gone and Bluepoint who originally just works on a lot of ports and made the Demon Souls port, made the Shadow.

[Barrett Courtney]

Of the Colossus port Uncharted back in the day.

[Andy Cortez]

The Uncharted, the trilogy. Right. I believe. And Drake Trilogy, the Nathan Drake trilogy. So I got to assume that a studio like, well, honestly either of them have a lot of pitches that have been, you know, that they've gone through in the past that are single player focused. I don't, I would disagree with you that I don't think that they pitch anything live servicy anymore.

[Snowbike Mike]

And yeah, I think it's a blend though. I think it's not like a hardcore live service like we're thinking of when we use that term. I think it's a loaded term. People go right to it. But like I think there is a different blend of live service that you can find the happy medium on. Right. But because like yeah, of course my mind goes to.

[Andy Cortez]

Give me an example what you think.

[Snowbike Mike]

Like, well, let's start. You just pitched the, the, the layup Sony, right? Third person action narrative adventure game. Like that's what everyone would say. Oh, just pitch that. Right. But there's something else there that I think the corporate overlords want you to say. That's not that. And it's not just live service that clearly just failed. It's something in the middle. And we've seen those happen before. That is that blend. Right? Like I don't know what they could.

[Andy Cortez]

Pitch but like are you thinking like a single player campaign that maybe has co op attacks?

[Snowbike Mike]

It's got to be multiplayer. It's got to be something like a destiny or division, a twisted metal like game that has legs to go on for more than one year. I'm looking for a game that if I was the corporate overlords and what they've clearly have been swaying towards is I'm looking at you to pitch me something that's more than one year and more than six months of profits. Are you looking like I need you to give me something that's going to be around for a while, longer than.

[Barrett Courtney]

A year is if you're the corporate overlord and you've seen several projects like that fail under you. Is that really what you're still wondering and asking for though?

[Andy Cortez]

That's where I'm at mentally that, that's where I'm at where I, I know what, I understand what you're saying. That the pitches cannot be, hey, give us bleeding edge. Give us like some don't get. Give us a title that requires a player Base. I don't think that's a thing anymore. I don't think anybody at Sony is looking for unless it's like the most God tier of pitches. Which God of War? Massive, massively popular ip. It's hard to think of a game or a, or a pitch that kind of fits into what they're looking for.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Where it's not like to me, you don't pitch a multiplayer game that requires an active player base. To me you pitch something like Helldivers.

[Snowbike Mike]

2, but that's a multiplayer game with an active player base.

[Andy Cortez]

But it's also, but it's not dependent on, I guess when I'm looking at game. But I meant Warhammer Space Marine 2. I'm sorry, I meant Warhammer Space Marine 2 where it's a game with a. You have your sort of, your vertical of this is the campaign and you go through a story that we are very proud of and you're going to enjoy it. And there may be a multiplayer aspect that's part of it. There may be some sort of live servicing thing like Ghosts of Sushima Legends, like go to Tsushima Legends that also has a multiplayer facet to it. That is not the main reason why you are purchasing this product. You are buying this game to experience an awesome story. And we are known for our amazing narratives. That's what we're pushing forward. And sure, there's this little multiplayer thing on the side that might make us some extra bucks, but I, I don't know that if you like Barrett was just mentioning if you are these corporate overlords. I don't know if you're really looking to listen about more multiplayer pitches that will likely fail and you're already cutting off before it's even given the opportunity to fail.

[Snowbike Mike]

I just don't think they've wiped their hands of that. They're not like, oh, it failed, we're done. There's no way that the corporate overlords are going, oh well those failed. Like we're done forever. They're, they have a big profile or portfolio already of single player games. They're looking for the money makers.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, but I, I, I see where.

[Barrett Courtney]

You'Re coming from though. Because yes, as this year sound, yes, Concord was like a huge oh in the bed type of thing. But at the same time you did have Helldivers too. So I think I, I do see where Mike's coming from. Where the, the people who just want to see number go up constantly, constantly, constantly. They're probably asking, well, why can't you just do another Helldivers. Yeah, you know, I, I do get that.

[Andy Cortez]

And, and I think the Destiny 2 thing makes a lot of sense. I think the Destiny 2 Division 2 sort of style of this is still a, this is still a campaign. There's still levels and progression and it's not necessarily just 5v5 whatever. It's not necessarily extraction with PvE elements. No, we, we're still going to pitch a game that the single player audience will still love and enjoy. And the single player audience isn't dependent on having three of their friends being online to join their lobby. They can still play alone if they want to or whatever. I, I definitely see that as more of a possibility as opposed to, hey, we got this great idea. But on the flip side of what I just said and what we're talking about, this God of War thing already got canceled.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

This other thing by Sony Ben already got canceled. So they're already at a point where you have this gigantic moment with Concord getting canceled mid development. Halfway, you know, the game gets released, the game gets shut down immediately with these games not even coming out with Sony, Ben's game not even coming out and getting canceled. With Blue Points game not even coming out and getting canceled. That signals to me that they, they have sounded the klaxons. There's like, hey, no more of this. This is a, we are not going to make money on this. And maybe Helldivers is the safe spot where they realize, let's take care of this baby. Yeah, let's keep nurturing this little baby. And so it can keep on making money and maybe not try to take massive risks anymore.

[Snowbike Mike]

It's an interesting spot to be in. Right. Because you have to first look at the two studios, like you said, who are the teams that are about to pitch you? Right. They're known for single player games. They were working on live service games. So maybe they have a little talent in both. Right. But like what are they going to pitch you? Clearly, what does the market say? Where do we want to be? Am I really doubling down and saying, yeah, here's all the budget in the world. Take five to seven years to create the ultimate third person action adventure single player game like we're known for. Or is it, hey, you have two to three years, make some smaller project and let's hit this thing going right now? Because it's very interesting of like you said, right. They've been shell shocked by Concord. Where are they going to go? Clearly they don't want to go fully into live service because the audience doesn't want that, but the global audience clearly shows that Fortnite is still dominant and we want a piece of that pie. But we're known for this. Do we just double down on the giant blockbuster single player games that we're known for? But is that making enough money? We constantly see all these stories of it was a big time game. It didn't technically make enough money or it made just enough. They want more than that.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, I, I think that I, if I were them, you would be looking at the sort of double a lower budget space. Can we put out a 15 hour campaign that does not have to bloat our budget like crazy? Can we make something that isn't going to be $300 million down the drain and it comes out and it sells 6 million copies or whatever, 4 million copies. Because that's, that's not enough for them. They definitely are going to want a lot more than that. Understandably. Because you put that much money into a game, you expect this thing to, you know, make a shitload of money. And when that doesn't happen, they see that as a failure. I think, I think they're in a scramble right now. Of course, I don't really know. I mean, all these Chris Culling and Jeff Grubb and Jason Schreiber, they're all sort of nailing it. When they say, what do you do now? What is the next step? Because we thought we had an avenue of how to make money. And now you're canceling stuff before it even comes out. You're canceling three, four years of work. And I know they said that the God of War multiplayer title was only in development for two years, but when they get, when Bluepoint gets acquired in 2020, I believe, right before the Pandemic hit, they already put out that tweet that, hey, we're working on something new, we're working on new content. And they put out that really cryptic tweet that had all these different, like mentions of Metal Gear and Castlevania. It was like an odd sort of tweet. It's clear that it was. There was at least some pre production done even way back then. Maybe that thing got completely scrapped and then the mad dash for God of War multiplayer happens. But yeah, I, I saw Skill up posts on, On Blue sky the other day about like, why would you have, why would you have Sony Santa Monica or why would you have, Sorry, Blue Point work on a multiplayer God of War game? Like that sounds just so odd. And then I replied something sarcastically like create your own Kratos and get your Destiny 2 pre order bonus whenever you with your Destiny 2 skins. And then Alana replied to that and said the fact that I have to bite my tongue, Andy, that is and cannot reply.

[Snowbike Mike]

You know and I know and Bear and everyone knows that has been said in offices around the globe many of times. How do we just do that? We can do that. Okay, well how do we make it good? We'll figure it out. Go make it like that's clearly how that pitch wins.

[Barrett Courtney]

Really quick chat reminded me some context of what they were doing from 2020 to 2022. They were support on God of War Ragnarok for those first couple of years that they were owned by Sony.

[Andy Cortez]

Gotcha.

[Snowbike Mike]

Okay, we got some fun ones coming in here with the super chat, so let's keep this conversation going because this is definitely one of those bigger ones here Buses and Bridges writes in and says I think with Herman Holst at the the head of a, at the head a single player experience would get the green light at Bender Blue point now.

[Andy Cortez]

I think, I think so as well. Yeah. I, I, I think that that's, I think that they know where their wins are and they know where their Risk game. Yeah, everybody works on a Horizon game. No, I think they know where the risks are.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And what risks not to take now. Hopefully. But yeah, I mean it's, it's so odd to me that even back when me and Blessing play Horizon Forbidden west and go, man, it would be really cool to have a Horizon Monster Hunter style game. I remember like texting that to bless and now that you know that thing has been in development apparently where we're like, wow, we kind of like would we kind of wanted this video game to exist and it seems like something like that is being made.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

But back in the day I don't think anybody would have said, man, I wish they made a God of War multiplayer. You know, like that just doesn't. That seems like such a weird. I, I want to see what that game looks like. I hope that there's a sequel to Blood, Sweat and Pixels from Jason Schreier. I hope that there's some sort of deep dive into it in the future because I can't even imagine what that game would be.

[Snowbike Mike]

It looks like Godfall, but Godfall 23 Kratos is running around just smacking, hacking, slashing. You've seen it before. They weren't going to do anything out of the box that you haven't seen.

[Andy Cortez]

So bizarre.

[Snowbike Mike]

You have seen this game before. I promise you on that one Jam Van writes in and says, if I'm Sony, it's way more important to have a fast turnaround than a live service game that could flop. Remakes and remasters of known quantities. But you've already been known for making too many remakes. Which ones do you really need remakes of? Sly Early Uncharted? Are you really going back to that's not already been remade?

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, of course, Bloodborne. But I think that. I think all the criticism they get for the remakes and stuff is really only having to do with the games that just came out a decade ago. The fact that God of or Last of Us has the remaster that then works on PS4 and then it gets remade for PS5. That's where a lot of the criticism lies. There's plenty of dormant IP that can be revisited and that can be remade. And I don't necessarily know. I think that they're looking at their catalog right now and wondering what. What are our weaknesses and how can we kind of. What sort of niches can we fill? What voids can we fill here with these two developers? Or it could just be, do we make more single player stuff? And I think that's probably the most logical choice. That's also. It's also wild that you're losing so many years of development. Can you. Can you get any of that development back? Can you use any of that for another project? My gosh. I just like, I don't envy them for the spot that they're in right now.

[Snowbike Mike]

What a tough week. It's got to be coming back to work and going, okay, back to the drawing board.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. Pitching this and it's hard. And you obviously feel extremely bad for everybody at Bend and Blue Point, but I also, I. I try to see the glass half full side of things where in this case it does feel like Sony saying, hey, we know Concord massively up. We're gonna cancel your. And in a way I'm like, oh, that means that they realize that they're at fault for kind of green lighting all this stuff. Great.

[Snowbike Mike]

Well, as long as we don't see layoffs come from it or studio closures.

[Andy Cortez]

And it's also extremely naive for me to assume that that won't lead to layoffs. But I hope it doesn't.

[Snowbike Mike]

You know, let's of course keep it going. We have Flying Penguins and Smoking Joe. Smoking Joe Both 1. Blue Point should remake Ben's Uncharted games or they should be making Bloodborne Remake.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, I mean we know that. We know the story there. Yeah, we've, we've kind of assumed that. I've, you know, we've heard in back channels for why the bloodborne thing was never happening. And that's what I always assume when Shu talked about that I was like, yeah, we've kind of been hearing that.

[Snowbike Mike]

Of course. Right. Yeah, yeah. Buses and Bridges with our final super chat right here says I think a SOBE and Astrobot doing so well. Bend in Blue Point could maybe revive an old franchise like socom, Ape Escape, etc as Herman said, Sony is looking at avenues to revive old franchises.

[Andy Cortez]

I don't, I don't need Gabe Logan. I don't want to be Gabe Logan, you know?

[Snowbike Mike]

No, no Gabe Logan.

[Barrett Courtney]

But what if you played as someone else in that series?

[Snowbike Mike]

I would love to see socom. I would really like to see if SOCOM could go up against the test of time with the Call of Duty and all the first person shooters in the shooter genre right now. Cuz SOCOM is beloved by a lot of old heads like myself. Cuz we remember those days but like it's a different market now and I don't know if SOCOM has got the juice like a lot of us think it does. I think it's wishful thinking because like when we look around Halo's not right here right now and Battlefields isn't here either. It's just Call of Duty. And I don't know if SOCOM's got the juice like that.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, I think you are. You're making a dead on arrival product if you try to rebuild a game like SOCOM with multiplayer being your main focus. Yeah, you have to make something that is single player, something that doesn't require an active player base. Because as we've said, like I, it takes a company like NetEase to have a developer publish Marvel or make Marvel Rivals. And it requires a massive, it not only requires a massive IP like Marvel, but it requires a really, really good game alongside of it. And even then you're not guaranteed to succeed there. Marvel Rivals is somehow proving a lot of people wrong right now, which is great. But I always, we always kind of knew something will kind of break through this. And we've seen so many other multiplayer games already just come kind of come and go. What was the last time we thought about Fortnite Ballistic?

[Snowbike Mike]

Fortnite Ballistic, I mean these are the small projects that they want to try to try to continue to evolve that. And I think Fortnite Ballistic worked in my opinion. Now people might say I'm wrong on that. But like Fortnite is at a point now where they're trying to create a lot of user generated content and they're trying to show that the inside of the Fortnite world, you can create things like this because they want an Andy Cortez to come in and create games for them that will keep people in the ecosystem. So games like Fortnite Ballistic, the Rocket League, or the Rocket Racing, the. The Band one that they have. And the more things they do are just reasons to keep you locked into Fortnite. They don't have to be stellar successes. It's just now you're just here longer when you possibly would have gone, man, I don't really care for Fortnite right now. I would love to try a 5v5 tactical game. Maybe I should go play Counter Strike. And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we got that for you right here. And you can even use your skins. And you're like, ah, yeah, why not?

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, I just saw that when I look at Fortnite Ballistic, I saw it as more of a push to do more along with all the other little side projects that they've been mentioning. And I just. I don't know, maybe I'm just not in the universe enough, but I don't really hear a whole lot of people talking about that stuff anymore. Like, I. People know what they want. People know the. We see it every year where people are spending all their time in games that are five years and older, eight years and older. And so something like Fortnite, I think, or Call of Duty, I think if you're Sony and you're trying to remake socom, I think an IP like socom is just something that is, that's not coming back.

[Snowbike Mike]

No, I agree with you.

[Andy Cortez]

It has to be a single player thing.

[Snowbike Mike]

Well, socom, you could have single player, right? And then have the multiplayer on the side, but multiplayer would be the bread and butter. I think it is more of like a kill zone or resistance, which is, hey, here's Your Space Marine 2 killer single player campaign. Hey, we've tacked on a small multiplayer. Let's see if it hits or not.

[Andy Cortez]

Weird situation.

[Snowbike Mike]

But I, I'm telling you, Andy and Barrett and the audience out there, there's no way that the corporate overlords at Sony are, are not still on the live service trend. They might not be going 100% for that, but they're looking for a blend on this pitch that is still, hey, we can make money six months to a year. A year to two years still off of this product that isn't just the single player only here's the experience that makes a big push the first three months, and then we have sales throughout the year and it dies off. I'm telling you, they're still looking for that pitch. Well, they want the blend.

[Andy Cortez]

I mean, the reason why I disagree is the fact that these two things just got canceled. Like, I think if you. I think if this God of War live service game comes out and it is Diablo, where you could play solo player, it is not saying that it would be top down, but it is a. It is a brawler where you have your. Like, if you told me that this God of Oral live service game got canceled because it was 4v4 gods going against each other and it's, you know, payload, capture the flower, capture the point. Or I could totally understand, I'd be like, oh, yeah, that does sound like a recipe for disaster and a recipe for people going, well, I already have Call of Duty. I have Overwatch, I have Marvel Rivals, I have Apex, whatever. You know, we have all these multiplayer games. No, thanks. But the idea that whatever this God of War live service thing sounds like there was, just based on what the product is, it seems like there. It seems like an outrider situation. You can have your friends play with you multiplayer wise. And in that case, the fact that it got canceled just makes me completely believe that these corporate overlords are not wanting to hear these pitches anymore. Because if they did want more of that, I don't think that thing gets canceled. Unless the game was just completely shit in development and they were like, this isn't working out.

[Snowbike Mike]

Or maybe didn't have the money. Money making tactic that it needed. Maybe just didn't have the money.

[Andy Cortez]

But if it's a live service, and that's, you know, I think monetary. I think monetary research is something that can always be added later. I think obviously it takes more development time, but if for me, I just got to assume that whatever they were working on was like, all right, you showed us this thing a year and a half ago or a year ago, and now we're here and we're still not seeing the spark. Cancel it. Cut it off.

[Snowbike Mike]

Interesting.

[Andy Cortez]

It's just, man, I just wish I was a fly on the wall one day.

[Snowbike Mike]

We'll learn more. Yeah, of course. Kind of funny. Best friends in the audience out there watching live on YouTube and on Twitch or if you're listening later on podcast services around the globe. Thank you so much for tuning in. We're halfway through the show. Let's take a quick word from our sponsors and we'll be right back.

[D]

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[Snowbike Mike]

Let me take you into my pitch room.

[Andy Cortez]

I think you're right.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, yeah. Let me take you into My pitch room. Hey, Mr. Sony, aka Andy Cortez. I have a pitch for you.

[Andy Cortez]

Go ahead.

[Snowbike Mike]

Okay. You know what's hot right now?

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

Football. Oh, you know what's even hotter right now? The love of Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift.

[Andy Cortez]

All right.

[Snowbike Mike]

Global phenomenon. Okay. Playoffs are happening right now, so I'm high on football. You're high on football?

[Andy Cortez]

I'm high on it.

[Snowbike Mike]

What if I brought back NFL Blitz? Nothing bigger than big hits.

[Andy Cortez]

Security, can you get this? I don't know who this guy is.

[Snowbike Mike]

We got to call up the NFL. Call up Roger. Let's link it up right now.

[Andy Cortez]

Get this guy out of my office.

[Snowbike Mike]

Take us to story number three.

[Andy Cortez]

Story number three. Dragon Age. The Veil Guard's game director is leaving BioWare. This comes from Tom Phillips at Eurogamer. Dragon Age game game director Karine Bush has now confirmed her departure from BioWare and EA in a statement to Eurogamer. In it, Bush said that she left the studio for a new post elsewhere after being offered an opportunity to build a fresh RPG that, quote, she couldn't turn down. At the heart, quote, at the heart of it, this was about my own fulfillment, Bush told Eurogamer. I did what I set out to do at BioWare, that is to come in and help write the ship. I love Dragon Age and bioware, so the chance to return the game to proper quality single player RPG was the privilege of a lifetime. It was hard fought as such. Games with such tumultuous dev cycles rarely end up shipping and even more rarely turn out great. We as a team did it and it was hard and it took a toll on me. BioWare still has a lot of work to do culturally, but I do believe that they are on the right footing now. As for me, my departure was voluntary and I. And as I have presented, as I have been presented with an opportunity I couldn't turn down. I don't want to say much more right now, but you can count on it. Being in the CRPG space and upholding the traditions of great characters. Very cool.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, congratulations. That's really awesome.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, really cool. She got a new opportunity, wherever it may be.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Good for my, my. I mean, if I were to put a guess on it, she's going to Larry into Bill bottles Gate four. Probably. Maybe not. No, that's. But the CRPG space, that's awesome. That sounds great. I got to speak with Cory when I went to go do the preview for Dragon Age and she told me she gave me her journey about how she was working at Maxis EA Maxis working on Sims type of stuff.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And then one day it was just like, hey, here's my pitch for like Dragon Age. And then they were like, cool, when can you start? Like that sounds. All of that sounds great. Get in here. We need that. And so to help sort of write the ship where at one point Dragon Age was going to be a games as a service video game where Dragon Age was a live service thing. And then it really took the success of Jedi Fallen Order for EA to go, actually, no, let's, let's just focus on good single player shit. And yeah, I think she, she helped to make an incredible game. I really love the Dragon Age the Veil Guard. I know it's, you know, pretty divisive in some spots, but I had a great time with it. And yeah, shout out to her for going to a new place and a new developer to help kind of go guide them as well. That sounds awesome as hell.

[Snowbike Mike]

Congratulations. Best of luck to you and I really hope to see you project in the future.

[Andy Cortez]

That's absolutely stuff.

[Snowbike Mike]

We enjoyed that. Let's move on to team number four. Team Cherry Breaks Hollow Knight Silk Song Radio Silence this coming from Tom Ivan at vgc. Team Cherry has provided a rare status update on Hollow Knight Silk Song. Quote yes, the game is real progressing and will release end quote. Matthew Griffin said, who handles PR and marketing for the title, wrote On X in a response to a plea for information about the highly anticipated sequel. The most significant update about the game in recent years came in May 2023 when Team Cherry confirmed it had been delayed. Quote we had planned to release the first in the first half of 2023, but development is still continuing, Griffin said at the time. We're excited by how the game is shaping up and we've gotten quite big, so we want to take the time to make the game as good as we can, end quote.

[Andy Cortez]

How big?

[Snowbike Mike]

Andy Cortez Silk Song Big update.

[Andy Cortez]

What was that chocolate cake about?

[Snowbike Mike]

What was that cake about? Was it a birthday that maybe that Gibroni was celebrating? Or was it the cake to say that the game's gone gold secretly?

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, maybe they're celebrating it. Maybe a shoot. That's a great call right there.

[Snowbike Mike]

Got him.

[Andy Cortez]

This guy's an insider. I mean, you know, it's. To me, I am constantly, you know, given like a. It's like getting a nice little massage mic. It's like somebody being like, you know what, the game's fine. We're working on. Don't worry, you know, don't worry about it and I just need little. I just need a little massage like that sometimes on the shoulders for the these devs. Devs to be like, yes, it is happening.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Yes, we are working on it. No word. Sure. We might be radio silent and maybe it takes the PR to kind of pop come out and say, yes, the thing is real, it's progressing. We're they're working on it. Don't worry about it. Yeah, maybe, you know, you could read into it to like, why is the PR responding to this and not the game devs themselves?

[Snowbike Mike]

Well, like, you know, but it's. The Gibroni changed his game or his Twitter icon to a cake. We all lost our marbles and PR had to come out with a statement of like, everybody chill. Yeah, okay. It was just his birthday. Let's all calm down for a second.

[Andy Cortez]

We weren't eating chocolate cake at the funeral for Hollow night Silk Song, you know.

[Snowbike Mike]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean this does kind of, you know, put your mind at ease if you're somebody like me who's just been a Silk song, you know, just massive amounts of cope. Anytime we have one of these big presentations, is it going to be here? If it's got to be at the new Keely thing, it's got to be at Summer Games as Games Awards is definitely the place it's going to be. Why wouldn't it be at the Nintendo thing? I mean, all signs point to the Nintendo presentation in April. The direct.

[Snowbike Mike]

All signs are pointing to that now. Wow. Okay, Very exciting. You know, maybe they can learn from you on today's Greg Way. And if they just wanted to put up like a small dev diary once every six months of like, hey, here's some files. You see, I'm organizing this on my PC. It's going so swells are real. We're working hard. Like that's all you got to do.

[Andy Cortez]

Maybe a little, just maybe a little selfie during a meeting you have a little. You have your, your Monday morning stand up, you just take a little selfie and be like talking Silk song right now.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah. Do you think maybe like it's interesting because we always talk about these games and like developers, we want to know more but then at the same time we don't need you to show more. But like maybe a team like this just occasionally tweet of like, hey, we're out to lunch. We're having a great time.

[Andy Cortez]

Well, for. Well, more than anything, I feel like we only think that way when it comes to developers showing games too early. And obviously this is one of those examples.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yes.

[Andy Cortez]

But I think it's also a bit different because it is a much smaller team. And when they first show off silksong, many, many moons ago, it's originally supposed to be a dlc. And then the project gets, you know, it starts really ramping up. They go, oh, wow, this is going to be actually a lot bigger than a dlc.

[Snowbike Mike]

We're cooking here. We're really making something.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, yeah. For me, more than anything, it's. It's really just. We're looking for signs of life for.

[Snowbike Mike]

You as the audience member. Just, I need a little. Little something.

[Andy Cortez]

You have your one friend you're kind of worried about. You know, he's going through his second divorce. You know, his kids hate him.

[Snowbike Mike]

12 kids.

[Andy Cortez]

His 12 kids hate him. You know, he's going through a lot of. And every once you just want to check in and be like, are you. Are you still alive? You know what I mean? Like, give me that little text I need.

[Snowbike Mike]

What up?

[Andy Cortez]

Exactly. Have the police walk over to your house and be like, hello, we're just checking in. Wellness check. You know, that's kind of what we need from Hollow Knight, Silk Song and the devs at Team Cherry. Just a wellness check every now and then so that we know things are actually okay. I can sleep well tonight.

[Snowbike Mike]

That's all we want. You know, we want to hear from this game.

[Andy Cortez]

It's a little selfie.

[Snowbike Mike]

I agree with you. A selfie at the team meeting once every six months would go a long way. We're still here. We're working hard.

[Andy Cortez]

Peace signs be like, hey, here we are. People smiling, dinner. Yeah, we just, you know, had a big milestone or whatever, you know.

[Snowbike Mike]

Bear, will you look on Blue sky on Jason Shrier. Someone put in the chat. He was tweeting about the recent story. We read. Maybe we'll get a live update, but who knows? Take a look.

[Andy Cortez]

As a.

[Barrett Courtney]

You're wrong, but I can pull it up now since.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, if you can, Bear, let me know. What's up with that. I just saw it pass by my eye. Andy read it.

[Andy Cortez]

Jason Trier, who is looking at this, it reposting the story by Chris Golen with the title saying that Blue Point and Ben staff learned their live service PS5 game was canceled.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yes.

[Andy Cortez]

Jason Schreier has a quote tweet there that says, I've seen the story getting a lot of traction on Reddit today, but it's not true. People across the organization were informed before my article went out last week.

[Snowbike Mike]

Okay, so he's saying, hey, the. The teams are. The teams knew about it. It wasn't a. Oh, we hit you on a Monday morning like everybody else.

[Andy Cortez]

On you open up Twitter in the morning. You're like, wait, what our got Cancel. So, Jason T.R. refuting the. The report from Chris Scullion. Sounds like a lot of people were already informed before Jason Tri put out that article.

[Snowbike Mike]

That's wonderful. Okay, well, okay, okay. Well, thank you for the update on that one.

[Andy Cortez]

Thank you. Jason Tri. Thank you.

[Snowbike Mike]

We still wonder what will happen for the future of these studios. What's the pitch? What's the game? But now we know they weren't kind of blindsided.

[Andy Cortez]

Maybe it's NFL Blitz.

[Snowbike Mike]

That would be fantastic.

[Andy Cortez]

Remember when they brought it back and it was. It was like everybody were doing steroids.

[Snowbike Mike]

Blitz the league, bro. We were shooting each. Remember? That was like so crazy that they weren't allowed to use the NFL names or the. And then like, LT. What was his name?

[Andy Cortez]

Thomas.

[Snowbike Mike]

No, not that.

[Andy Cortez]

LTayor.

[Snowbike Mike]

Lawrence Taylor was on the COVID He was like, I'll shoot up.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

[Snowbike Mike]

And we were just. And they had the cool Mortal Kombat when, like, you know, you snap somebody into fatality. They're doing that, but with ankles and legs. Bring back Blitz the league. That was sick, man.

[Andy Cortez]

I want to see that CTE in real time.

[Snowbike Mike]

I want to rock somebody.

[Andy Cortez]

Just have somebody's brain chemistry being knocked completely off.

[Snowbike Mike]

Story number five, an unannounced Warhammer RPG has reportedly been cancelled. This coming from Tom Ivan at vgc. An unannounced Warhammer RPG was seemingly cancelled last year after funding for the project was withdrawn from its publisher. According to MP first, the title had had been in development at Thought Pennies, which describes itself as, quote, a fully remote role playing game studio creating games with social storytelling, end quote. Last November, Thought Penny's Chief Creative officer, Daniel Erickson, said the company had been forced, quote, shrink the size of the studio, end quote, after funding was pulled for an unannounced project. Quote. Over the last three years at Thought Pennies, we built something amazing. We never missed a milestone. Our feedback was great, our partnerships strong, he wrote. We went from two people and a PowerPoint to a team of almost 60 heavily vetted, incredibly independent, passionate professionals. Our publisher changed strategic direction, however, and our previous project is now without funding, end quote. According to the newly uncovered LinkedIn profiles of two developers who left the studio no November thought pennies had been making an unannounced Warhammer game.

[Andy Cortez]

I think it was Blessing who kind of informed us that Warhammer, the ip, very similar to Nickelodeon games in the sense that, like, a lot of people just make Nickelodeon games. Obviously you still need the ip they.

[Snowbike Mike]

Let a lot of people play in the sandbox.

[Andy Cortez]

But that Warhammer is a very similar thing where the. The IP just kind of gets given out fairly easily. Okay, this is obviously still a big bummer, especially after hearing a little glimpse into the studio culture.

[Snowbike Mike]

The fact that 60 people. Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

The fact that they went from two people to a much more massive team, a passionate team that then eventually gets canceled, that's always sad. You know, you're seeing a lot of work go down the drain, and that work that you really poured your heart and blood and sweat and tears into is not going to get shown unless things get leaked or whatever. But yeah, that's. That's. That's a pretty massive bummer right there, Mike.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, that's too bad. Thoughts out to thought pennies and let's see where that goes. Can somebody else pick them up and help with the publishing and give them the funding to finish and get to the finish line? Or is that dead in the water? We won't see that. We'll. We'll see. But yeah, a lot of Warhammer titles. Some good, some fine. We'll see maybe one day if that ever comes out. We'll see if that's in there. Andy, that was big news. And that was unfortunately big news. But if I wanted some small news, where would I go?

[Andy Cortez]

You would go to our last story, the WE News channel, where we cover all the small news items you need to know about.

[Snowbike Mike]

Read it for me.

[Andy Cortez]

You read. You host, you read. From pt.

[Snowbike Mike]

We were switching off every story. It's your turn.

[Andy Cortez]

No, don't play that. A new rating. This is from BGC. A new rating on the ESRB website suggests that Resident Evil 6 may be coming to current gen consoles. Hell yeah, dude.

[Snowbike Mike]

Resident Evil 6, you played that one.

[Andy Cortez]

I mean, I would, with all the confidence in the world, you know, if there was a Mount Rushmore of the most important let's plays of all time.

[Snowbike Mike]

Okay. Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

The most culturally vital time. Yeah. I would put not only our playthrough of Super Super Mario 3D world.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

I would put the Me and Raynarvez Resident Evil 6 playthrough.

[Snowbike Mike]

It was very good.

[Andy Cortez]

This is. I mean, that's awesome news. I don't know if it's. I don't know if it's a remaster or anything like that, but people will get to see the glory of that game. It's it is hilarious. It is such a funny game.

[Snowbike Mike]

Let's put that in the box.

[Andy Cortez]

A search on the US Games rating board website shows that one of its latest ratings decisions is an M for Resident Evil 6 on Xbox Series from VGC. Pocket Pair has marked the one year anniversary of PAL World by detailing its future roadmap for updates. There are no specific time frames for the updates, but Pocket Pair says it's currently working on the following Co op Crossplay world transfers for pals final boss ending scenario Further ways to strengthen and improve pals Various new content such as new PALS and technologies Game collaborations including Terraria improvements to world object placement improvement to base, PALS optimization and ux, which is user experience. Mike. And the final bit of Wii news is Hell Skate has left early access and is now available on PC.

[Snowbike Mike]

Can we see Hell Skate?

[Andy Cortez]

Hellskate is a. It's a Tony Hawk roguelite. Oh, so you get. You know, we played a demo of it. Me and Tim played a demo back in the day, I believe sometime last year. And there's different bosses in the game and different moves that you can do that are powered up. And it's a very interesting, neat concept and it works. I thought it worked a lot better than I assumed it was going to because just saying that concept to somebody sounded odd and no, like this would never work. Yeah, I did find it to be a bit awkward when you are skating and you're having to also attack people by swinging something as you go by them. That felt a little hard to do, but the rest of it kind of. It worked out for me shockingly. And I'm not really big into, you know, Tony Hawk. I was back in the day, obviously, but I'm not somebody like Tim.

[Barrett Courtney]

Tim was, yeah, really hot on this one.

[Snowbike Mike]

We're just waiting for Skate.

[Barrett Courtney]

The demo like originally came out, but yeah, the combat mixed with the skating definitely felt weird to me.

[Andy Cortez]

A little bit awkward. Yeah. Okay.

[Snowbike Mike]

All right, well, give it a shot.

[Andy Cortez]

It hit 1.0.

[Snowbike Mike]

There you go, 1.0.

[Andy Cortez]

That's the deal.

[Snowbike Mike]

Let's jump into some super chats as we round out today's show. JJ Baseball writes in, says, can't believe Mike pulled a hear you play with hosting today. I know, it's pretty great. It's Monday. We're back. AK wrote in, says, hey Andy, how was Windblown? This damn good. It's a top 10 roguelike for me already. The music in the first area is unbelievable. Thanks for the recommendation.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, Windblown kicks ass, dude. Everybody give it a Shot. It's something I want to get back to you to playing with you and.

[Snowbike Mike]

Bless and the other shooter one that we played. I really like to RoboQuest.

[Andy Cortez]

RoboQuest is fun.

[Snowbike Mike]

That was too good.

[Andy Cortez]

That's a fun one. But Windblown's in early access still from the devs that made dead cells. Very fun.

[Snowbike Mike]

Marcus Aurelius writes in and says socom but closer to pubg probably would be more serviceable than what we knew of it in the early 2000s. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

I like that Battle royale, Sal.

[Snowbike Mike]

Or yeah, that's what my mind goes to is like a hardcore battle royale. Yeah. Pubg. Stop, man. Remember getting pubg.

[Andy Cortez]

What's the most amount of players socom.

[Snowbike Mike]

Had way back in the day?

[Andy Cortez]

I would love to know what their. What their peak concurrence were because you needed a lot of stuff to make that game where you needed a little modem and all this weird.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah. You needed a strap on the back of it. It was the coolest times, man.

[Andy Cortez]

And not only that, you have to convince your parents that this is all worth it. You know, like that's a hard sell.

[Snowbike Mike]

I need mom. I need you to understand that you cannot use the home phone.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

For the hours of 6 to 9pm for the rest of your life. That's what we told my mom and she never spoke to her family again because of us.

[Andy Cortez]

What's the ping looking like?

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah, I do see here, just from a quick google search, game developer.com Sony of America represent representatives are claiming that SOCOM2 US Navy SEALs has clocked up a record breaking 22k simultaneous players within its first 48 hours.

[Andy Cortez]

Really good.

[Snowbike Mike]

That's big deal. Big deal connects right in and says, hey Mike, do you ever think we could see a Balatro stream? Maybe a race to anti 8? I recently got hooked on the game again. Love you both. Keep it up, you guys. Great idea. We'll see if last year's game though.

[Barrett Courtney]

You know, old game.

[Snowbike Mike]

Old game. Old. Well, you talk about an old game. Average John says. How about that? Silent Hill. Mikey. Andy, what are you doing for the rest of your life? Let's play Silent Hill together, you and I. It's good. Let's just drop in and play it together.

[Andy Cortez]

You have fun with it. Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

No. You'd like this?

[Andy Cortez]

I don't think I would. No. I've seen clips real good.

[Snowbike Mike]

Let's go to. You're wrong. Of course you can keep us honest and right. At any time we have a correction or an incorrection you can fix that for us. Racer writes in it says minor correction. Blue Point was acquired by Sony in 2021 not 2020.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay, good to know.

[Snowbike Mike]

And that's all Andy. We had a great day today. That's your Monday Games Daily. A lot of thoughts there, a lot of good stories there and of course a great kickoff to the week but we are far from done. If you're watching live on twitch and on YouTube right now you will catch kind of funny games cast coming up next which is Tim and Bless talking all things to Nintendo Switch 2 and their predictions for the console. And then after that me and Andy and Nick going to jump in a wayo and see how far it will take us. It's going to be a great day everybody stay tuned if you're watching later on podcast services and YouTube. Thank you so much for your support. We'll catch you on the next one. Goodbye.