The Inaugural KFGD Award Show! - Kinda Funny Games Daily 12.19.25

Summary

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Kinda Funny Games Daily: The Inaugural KFGD Award Show!

Date: December 20, 2025
Hosts: Greg Miller, Blessing Adeoye Jr.

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Overview

This special year-end episode of Kinda Funny Games Daily marks the very first KFGD Award Show, celebrating excellence in video game journalism and the stories that shaped 2025’s industry narrative. Greg Miller and Blessing Adeoye Jr. reflect on the biggest news stories, hand out awards to media outlets and reporters, and discuss hot topics such as Naughty Dog’s crunch culture and the canceled Perfect Dark game. The episode balances humor, candor, and genuine appreciation for the people who keep the world of gaming informed.

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Episode Theme & Purpose

• Celebrate the unsung heroes of video game news: journalists, outlets, and standout stories.
• Recognize the essential reporting that powers Kinda Funny Games Daily.
• Reflect on 2025’s industry highlights and controversies.
• Engage with the community through super chats and shoutouts.

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Key Segments & Discussion Points

1. Show Open: End-of-Year Vibes and Style

(03:16 – 06:41)

• Greg and Blessing open with holiday cheer, discussing festive attire and the hectic end-of-year energy at Kinda Funny.
• Reflections on the team’s programming schedule, including ongoing competitions and holiday party plans.
  • Notable Quote:
    “[My dad] was a man’s man. He’s doing…when Ben asks me to rub his back and my hands are like catching like velcro on his clothes…I got to do something. I have no excuse other than I don’t want to put on hand cream while I type my little paper.” — Greg Miller (04:03)
• Lighthearted banter about moisturization and merch.

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2. Housekeeping & Community Shoutouts

(07:46 – 09:45)

• Thanks to the audience for their engagement, votes, and support throughout the year.
• Super Chats and naming a Pokémon “Sal Romano” as an inside joke.
• Notable Quote:
  “You can just link it and then set a reminder and do it every 30 days because they don’t want you to remember that you could be giving away free money.” — Greg Miller (08:43)

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3. (News) Naughty Dog’s Mandatory Crunch Returns

(11:45 – 24:23)

• Discussion on Bloomberg’s report detailing Naughty Dog’s return to mandated overtime (“crunch”) for its upcoming title, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.
  • Minimum 8 hours/week overtime, 5 days/week in-office, ends before holidays but stirs controversy.
• Hosts debate whether Naughty Dog and PlayStation care about the critical coverage (“This is the cost of doing business…”, Greg, 15:14).
• Talk about repeated patterns: attempts to avoid crunch fell apart, and skepticism about meaningful corporate change.
• Industry-wide issues are examined: burnout, mismanagement, and the need for unionization.
  • Notable Quotes:
    • “Crunch is bad. Period, end of statement. … Do they care about this? I have to think no, you have to know that this is the cost of doing business.” — Greg Miller (15:14)
    • “You would hope that…there’s communication as far as… 'We fucked up and we need to do this, and this is why.' I know, sadly, that kind of ownership, that kind of responsibility, that kind of clarity is never in these corporate worlds…” — Greg Miller (17:23)
    • “For me…the words I read here as far as… seven weeks… can’t be here past 60 hours… I guess I worry less about that, more so about where we at a year from now…” — Blessing (22:13)

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4. The Inaugural KFGD AWARDS – Part 1

Site of the Year
(24:23 – 28:54)

• Awards announced for excellence in journalism, starting with “Site of the Year.”
• Nominees: Aftermath, Game Informer, Giant Bomb, This Week in Video Games, VGC.
• Discussion of each site's milestones and impact (e.g., Giant Bomb’s transition to independence, Aftermath’s rise, Game Informer’s print comeback).
• WINNER: Giant Bomb
  • Video acceptance featuring Dan Ryckert.
• Notable Quote:
  “Congratulations, Giant Bomb, on winning the inaugural Site of the Year… Of course, we still have 'Story of the Year' and 'Reporter of the Year.'” — Greg Miller (28:54)

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5. (News) The Canceled Perfect Dark Project

(29:02 – 37:18)

• IGN’s report on Perfect Dark’s cancellation and insights from Joanna Dark’s actress Alex Wilton Regan.
  • Multiple chapters of performance capture done; employees blindsided by Microsoft’s decision.
  • Crystal Dynamics attempted to save the project; Take-Two discussions failed over IP rights.
• Reflection on industry instability and empathy for affected creators.
  • Notable Quotes:
    • “I did not see it coming. I was absolutely blindsided…” — Alex Wilton Regan (via IGN, 31:20)
    • “I’m still sad about this… I actually believed what this game was going to be.” — Blessing (33:03)
    • “Imagine—you’re cast as Joanna Dark…you get the giant debut at Xbox. I would be so confident, like, this is happening…” — Greg Miller (35:06)

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6. KFGD AWARDS – Part 2

Story of the Year
(39:06 – 43:22)

• Clarification of category confusion among voters (“Story” meaning a reported article, not ongoing news).
• WINNER: "Why Silksong Took 7 Years to Make" by Jason Schreier, Bloomberg
  • Schreier accepts via video, explains simply: “I sent an email to Team Cherry and said, ‘Hey, do you want to talk about the making of Silksong?’ And they responded saying, ‘Sure.’” (40:44)
• Reflection on the value of straightforward journalism and the rarity of positive “good news” stories about prolonged development.
  • Notable Quote:
    “Great journalism asks and answers the obvious question.” — Greg Miller (42:07)

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7. (News) Larian Studios’ AI Controversy

(51:59 – 56:26)

• Backlash over Larian’s announced use of generative AI in development; plans for a public Q&A/AMA.
• Hosts discuss the line between productivity, creative ownership, and audience trust.
  • Notable Quotes:
    • “For Larian, like, this golden child off of Baldur’s Gate 3 with this amazing community…to come out and say this, just like, dude, read the room.” — Greg Miller (54:32)
    • “I think all people want is to hear that, like, you’re not using AI anymore…” — Blessing (53:53)
• How minor comments snowball due to the internet’s algorithmic amplification.

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8. KFGD AWARDS – Part 3

Reporter of the Year
(57:27 – 59:36)

• Final award celebrates the individual reporters Kinda Funny relies on for critical news.
• Nominees: Jason Schreier (Bloomberg), Jeff Grubb (Giant Bomb), Jordan Midler (VGC), Rebecca Valentine (IGN), Wesley Yin-Poole (IGN).
• WINNER: Rebecca Valentine (IGN)
  • Heartfelt acceptance speech highlighting the emotional impact of audience support amid industry uncertainty.
  • Notable Quote:
    “Knowing that people read my stuff and it resonated with them in some way is really, seriously, deeply meaningful to me.” — Rebecca Valentine (58:21)

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9. The Indie Game Awards Recap

(61:42 – 63:03)

• Indie achievements celebrated; diverse categories like Women-Led Indie Game and Africa/Australia/New Zealand Indie Awards.
• Appreciation for the expanded perspective that indie-specific awards provide.
  • Notable Quote:
    “Finding categories that feel a bit more curated to be able to celebrate a wider amount of games and also be able to celebrate games in a unique way...that’s more exciting for me than action adventure or whatever.” — Blessing (62:35)

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10. Wii News Rapid-Fire Segment

(63:08 – 64:15)

• Briefs on League of Legends overhaul, Patapon 1+2 Replay updates, and Godzilla in Sonic Rumble.
• Playful banter about why some news is “Wii News” versus headline news.

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11. Community Shoutouts and Super Chats

(65:29 – 74:05)

• Numerous community messages: birthday wishes, fan shoutouts, and heartfelt thanks.
• Hilarious story about accidentally streaming with Spotify music overlaying game audio.
• Final Q&A tangents and wrap-up.

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

• On Crunch:
  “Crunch is bad. Period, end of statement.” — Greg Miller (15:14)

• On Journalism:
  “Great journalism asks and answers the obvious question.” — Greg Miller (42:07)

• On Jason Schreier’s Process:
  “So what happened was I sent an email to Team Cherry and I said, hey, do you want to talk about the making of Silksong? And they responded saying, sure.” — Jason Schreier (40:44)

• Rebecca Valentine’s Acceptance:
  “Knowing that people read my stuff and it resonated with them in some way is really, seriously, deeply meaningful to me.” — Rebecca Valentine (58:21)

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Award Results (with Timestamps)

• Site of the Year: Giant Bomb (28:00)
• Story of the Year: “Why Silksong Took 7 Years to Make” by Jason Schreier (41:16)
• Reporter of the Year: Rebecca Valentine (58:16)

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Final Thoughts & Look-Ahead

• The KFGD team expresses gratitude to news outlets, reporters, and the Kinda Funny community.
• Next year’s award show promises to be even clearer and more inclusive—audience encouraged to save their favorite stories and reporters.
• Friendly reminder that the show returns January 5, 2026, with the annual marathon stream and more of the wild Kinda Funny energy fans love.

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Closing Note

(74:05)
“Thank you for hanging out. Thank you for voting the awards. Most importantly, thank you for supporting Kinda Funny through an entire year. Our tenth year of business. We can’t believe it either.” — Greg Miller

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Useful Timestamps

| Time | Segment | |-----------|--------------------------------------------------------| | 03:16 | Holiday attire, end-of-year energy | | 11:45 | Naughty Dog crunch news discussion | | 24:23 | KFGD Awards Introduction & Site of the Year | | 29:02 | Canceled Perfect Dark coverage | | 39:06 | Story of the Year Award | | 51:59 | Larian AI controversy | | 57:27 | Reporter of the Year Award | | 61:42 | Indie Game Awards segment | | 63:08 | Wii News rapid-fire | | 65:29 | Super chats, community shoutouts, show close |

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For fans, journalists, and anyone invested in gaming’s journalistic backbone, this is a rich, funny, and thoughtful episode that both celebrates and scrutinizes the state of the video game industry in 2025 — and sets the stage for an even bigger 2026.

Transcript

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[Greg Miller]

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[Blessing]

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[Greg Miller]

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[Greg Miller]

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[Rebecca Valentine]

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[Greg Miller]

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[Sponsor Voice]

But again, it's not a competition.

[Greg Miller]

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[Greg Miller]

Episode is sponsored by Arc Raiders, where you and your squad can explore future Earth and brave killer robots to secure the best loot on the planet. Arc Raiders is available now for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X S, and PC. Today in the nerdy news, you need to know about Naughty Dog is still out here crunching what could have been with perfect dark. And it's our inaugural KFGD awards show. We'll have all this and more because this is Kinda Funny Games Daily. What's up everybody? Welcome to Kinda Funny Games Daily for Friday. Can you believe it? December 19th, 2025. The final kinda funny games daily of 2025. I'm one of your host, Greg Miller alongside Forbes 30 under 30 aka New York Game Awards. Nominated aka Drip. Poppy Blessing, Eddie Ohye Jr.

[Blessing]

I like your Christmas sweater.

[Greg Miller]

Thank you. Yeah, you know, I, if you're, if you've been around a long time, you've seen the Ghostbusters Christmas sweater before, but I hadn't worn it on content this year nor had I worn it period. I, we, I, you know, we don the Christmas sweater to go get the Christmas tree. I knocked my hand cream off the table. I didn't even use it yet. Hold on.

[Blessing]

Hand cream.

[Greg Miller]

I got.

[Blessing]

Dude, I mean it's a good idea.

[Greg Miller]

I mean bad my hands look like they're. I have the craggliest like.

[Blessing]

No, I feel you. Because I get that sometimes too. Like specifically around like my cuticles.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing]

Start to get dry.

[Greg Miller]

My problem of course is in our life as amazing video game fans just like you, I'm always picking up controls. I'm always typing something at my desk. But games daily in the shows, I really do just sit here and talk and scroll. So I was like, you know what? This might be the new move. Put it on at the start of a show. That way I can do it because I got bad.

[Blessing]

It's like always keep that lotion on you.

[Greg Miller]

You never know what you're never knowing. But it's like I. My father, number one crane operator, Greg Miller. All right. Local 150, a construction worker out in the elements of Chicago. Up in the crane, he had these just gigantic. So it does. Gigantic arthritic hands, you know. But he like fucking hammered thing. Like it made sense when he came home and like, you know, I don't know how it was for you, but like mom was always the one who'd give you like back scratches or you know, like rub your back or whatever. When I'd asked dad to do it in bed and his hand was like sandpaper on my clothes. That made sense. Yeah. My dad was a man's man. He's doing when I, when Ben asked me to rub his back and my hands are like catching like velcro on his clothes. Like I got to do something. I have no excuse Other than I don't want to put on hand cream while I type my little paper.

[Blessing]

I respect that. You got to moisturize. Moisturization is important.

[Greg Miller]

You got to. For you, anyways. Yeah. This is the debut of this year for this Christmas sweater. But look at you. You're dripped out for this Christmas party. For this award show.

[Blessing]

For the award show. I, I. It's one of those things where we've had multiple occasions to dress up in the last couple of weeks, and for some reason I thought that we had an exchange that was like, oh, let's dress up for this. But I think maybe it was that we're going to drink champagne or something for this.

[Greg Miller]

We did say that.

[Blessing]

Maybe that's what I was thinking.

[Greg Miller]

Hey, Cool Greg. Oh, Kevin, can you leave it on the one? Ask Cool Greg to take my wallet. I guess Joey might have my card. Kevin, can you ask Cool Greg to get a bottle?

[Blessing]

I think you meant the wide.

[Greg Miller]

I forgot about that. Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, so you can walk away. I meant thanks, Kev. Yeah, you do look great. And I, I figured that, but it was also like, there's multiple things happening.

[Blessing]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

So from here we go into gamescast to crown Fantasy Critic Champion for who's going to be.

[Blessing]

Who knows?

[Greg Miller]

Nobody knows. Aren't public. From there we go to kind of funny game showdown, the finale. And I thought I might dress up for that as I am inevitably going to win. I have the most stars anyone's ever seen. There's never been a larger gap between Tim and me.

[Blessing]

And we never pull shenanigans in the finale. Don't give me that look.

[Greg Miller]

Don't do it.

[Blessing]

Listen, we do it. We never pull shenanigans in the finale.

[Greg Miller]

Gave you a PlayStation 5 Pro, and all I'm asking is there isn't some Mario party. I mean, I know there'll be the kdg. Oh, it's fuck over, Greg. It's fun, it's. Pick all these categories, Greg. We could have won, but we didn't get. I understand that's going to happen, but I don't want it to be some stupid. I don't want it to be something dumb. I don't mind the KDG stuff, but the rest of the shenanigans should be kept afoot.

[Blessing]

I cannot.

[Greg Miller]

You said no more collusion. That was what you said, no more collusion. So I feel like I'm dressing up for that because, again, I want to look good when I win. That's a big deal for me. And then I wanted to be, you know, so it's. I understand. But I still think this works.

[Blessing]

No, it works really well.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Blessing]

Yeah. Because you said you never wore this on content.

[Greg Miller]

This year.

[Blessing]

This year, this year. Okay. Yeah. Because this is. I'm sure I've seen this before, but it seems, looking at you now, I'm like, oh, this feels fresh.

[Greg Miller]

Okay, I like that. I like that. Thank you very much. Yes, yes, yes. You know what else feels fresh? This episode of Kinda Funny Games Daily. Because each and every weekday here on Twitch TV, kind of funnygames. YouTube.com kindafunnygames Podcast services around the globe. We run you through the nerdy video game news you need to know about live. If you love that, we'd love you to pick up a kinda funny membership. Patreon.com kindafunny YouTube.com kindafunnygames Apple or Spotify to get all of our programming ad free to get your daily dose of me, Greg Miller in a series we call Greg Way. And of course to get good karma for supporting an 11 person small business in an ever shifting media landscape. Of course, if you want to go that extra mile and you're watching live YouTube super chat to be part of the show and the conversations, you of course can do that and be part of the show just like so many other people are probably. Preston H says Happy KFGD Awards. Unrelated, I'm shiny hunting Pokemon today during streams. What should I name the shiny Salamence I get. I just caught Salamance.

[Blessing]

I need to look that one up.

[Greg Miller]

I mean, he's gonna look like Salamander. He's gonna look like a salamander. You know what I mean? Oh man, I would name him Sal. Sal Romano.

[Blessing]

Sally.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, Romano.

[Blessing]

These are all good. Yeah, I'll roll with Sal Romano.

[Greg Miller]

Okay, cool. Yeah, I don't remember who Sal Romano is, by the way.

[Blessing]

Kamatsu.

[Greg Miller]

There it is. I was so hung up on an actor. I was like, I'm saying a name. I know that. I know why, but I'm so funny. I'm like, it's got to be so.

[Blessing]

That's so funny because I also.

[Greg Miller]

Sal Romano from Gavatsi did great work this year. You know that you're in here. You're just so funny.

[Blessing]

Because I was also thinking of an actor and I'm like, wait, no, I know this person. I hung out with Sal Romano. I don't know if I ever told you this when I went to New York a year ago. Hung out with Sal.

[Greg Miller]

Oh yeah, you did. I think because it came up. It was. We had the big reveal accidentally that Sal Romano is not old.

[Blessing]

Yeah, no, Sal Romano. I don't know how old he is but like he's probably my age.

[Greg Miller]

I feel like Sal Romano has been doing Gamatsu forever. So I always just assume he was an old man and then. Yeah, whatever happened on the shows one day a very normal like what the hell.

[Blessing]

Very normal kind of young, like Brooklyn dude is who Samano is. You would never pick him out in the crowd.

[Greg Miller]

Good for him. Of course, no bucks tossed away. No big deal. Like subscribe, share, ring the bell. Of course if you have Amazon prime, you have Twitch Prime. It gives you a free 30 day subscription that we'd love for you to kick to us. Even if you don't use Twitch, you can just link it and then set a reminder and do it every 30 days because they don't want you to remember that you could be giving away free money.

[Blessing]

Salamance is not a salamander, by the way.

[Greg Miller]

Oh yeah, they pulled it up. But I was so hung up on Sal Romano.

[Blessing]

That's.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, no, he did.

[Blessing]

That's cool.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing]

What gen is this chat?

[Guest or Additional Host]

Huh?

[Blessing]

Let me know what gen this is from. It was post 3rd gen. Then there's no reason I would know this.

[Greg Miller]

But this is cool housekeeping for you. Of course. We're an 11 person business. All about live talk shows today after kind of funny games Daily. It is a jam packed final day of content. Of course you are going to get gamescast. It will be our fun finale. Our fun finale for Fantasy Critic. It's a. It's a battle that's been raging all year long. We'll see about it. Now here. Are we also talking about next year's rules? Is that the plan?

[Blessing]

I think we'll talk about rules. I did a. I did a in office poll to see where people were at as far as what they wanted the rules to be. So I'll reveal the results of that poll.

[Greg Miller]

I love that. I love that after gamescast is game showdown it is the season finale. I am going to. When we started just hey, we could save everybody a lot of time. We could go straight to the holiday party. If Tim just gives me the title, there's no way he can beat me. There are too many stars between us.

[Blessing]

You know there's another team. Team Purple. They're.

[Greg Miller]

How many times has Team Purple won the. The championship?

[Blessing]

Oh okay. But like how many times Team Orange won?

[Greg Miller]

That's. I don't think when I was coaching Team Blue we won. So there you go. So like we already know I can get it done.

[Blessing]

Like who's we?

[Greg Miller]

I get blue so I can get it done. Well, it doesn't matter. You know what I mean? When I retire and I go into the Game Showdown hall of Fame, it's not going to be like, well, he didn't win this because team blue. No, it's that you're not going to retire Team Blue. You're going to retire Greg Miller. And then of course, after finale, it's going to be the stream of the Kind of Funny White Elephant gift exchange. If you've never come to our holiday party before, Nick goes off and buys gifts and then we all White elephant gift exchange. This year he split it with Joey for some reason. So there actually probably be some good stuff in there.

[Blessing]

Yeah, Joey seems very excited about it.

[Greg Miller]

That's scary. If you're a Kind of Funny member, Today you're getting two Greg Ways, a 25 minute one about Portillo and Cole and a 19 minute one including a preview of Kind of Funny Day 2020. Thank you to our Patreon producers. And by the way, like I said, final day of programming here, we will be back on January 5, 2026 for the 11th anniversary of Kinda Funny. And of course will be a gigantic mega marathon stream where we'll hang out, play games and have fun. But you can find out January 5th when we do it. Thank you to our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster and Delaney. The som Twining for now, let's begin with what is and forever will be the Rope Report. Time for some News 5 item the Rope Report Baker's do we start at Bloomberg with the shy guy? Jason Sh. Naughty Dog Studio Founders no, sorry. You start typing, it covers it up.

[Blessing]

Oh yeah, I forget.

[Greg Miller]

Naughty Dog Studio orders employee overtime for Intergalactic. Employees at Naughty Dog are working mandatory overtime to finish a demo for their next video game, Intergalactic the Heretic Prophet, reviving an infamous workplace tradition that is increasingly frowned upon across the industry. For the past seven weeks, the Santa Monica Bay studio behind the Last of Us has been pushing its staff to work long hours to get ready for an upcoming review of the demo by its parent company. According to people familiar with the situation, starting in late October, staff were asked to begin working a minimum of eight extra hours a week after logging their overtime in an internal spreadsheet, said the people who asked not to be identified because they weren't authorized to speak publicly. This overtime period was an attempt to get the production back on track after several missed deadlines, the employees were instructed not to work more than 60 hours a week. Staff were also told to return to the office five days a week for this period, up from three previously, sending some employees scrambling to find alternative care arrangements for children and pets. Representatives for Sony and Naughty Dog declined to comment. Excessive overtime, also called crunch, has long been commonplace in the video game industry thanks to the unpredictability of game development. But in recent years, following blowback from workers and in the media, many companies have tried to mitigate such practices. Naughty Dog, one of the most respected game makers thanks to its hit franchises like Uncharted and the Last of Us, has earned a reputation over the years for its binge working culture. In 2021, after facing burnout and some attrition among its workers following the release of the Last of Us, Part ii, Naughty Dog began building a new team of producers charged in part with alleviating the overload of work on upcoming projects. But many of those producers have since left the company, according to people familiar with the situation. Some teams at Naughty Dog worked long hours to finish the game's debut trailer, which was released last December. But this is the first time in recent years that overtime has been mandated across the bulk of the studio. The game is slated to release in mid-2027, according to People familiar with the schedule, leaving some employees wondering if the overtime requirements will get worse later in the development cycle. For most staff, the recent period of mandated overtime ended this week as Naughty Dog finalized the demo. Management told employees that the company will return to its standard requirement of three days in the office each week through the end of January, according to people familiar with the communications. The company said it plans to provide a more detailed schedule for 2026 after the holiday break. Earlier this year, members of the production team were each given customized metal coins that seem to capture, purposefully or not, the current state of the studio's workplace attitude. On one side was the company's paw print logo. On the other, a quote from the trailer for Intergalactic the Heretic Prophet quote, the suffering of generations must be endured to achieve our divine end.

[Blessing]

That's funny. That's dark.

[Greg Miller]

Oof.

[Blessing]

Ah.

[Greg Miller]

Oof.

[Blessing]

What do you think? I guess a better question actually. Do you think PlayStation and or naughty Dog care enough about articles like this coming out? The fact that we're back here again after what feels like a repeated trend at Naughty Dog of mandatory overtime and crunch, do you think this is just something where they like, they're like, chalk it up to the game. Like Jason Strive is going to have an article push through it. We want to be able to meet this deadline so we can have the game for PlayStation.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, I do. I don't, I don't. It's so tough to be in that headspace and to be in that boardroom and Wonder about what PlayStation, what Naughty Dog thinks of any of this hullabaloo you'd get out there and then it's also this interesting thing of crunch is bad. Period, end of statement. You know what I mean? It comes down to mismanagement, it comes down to not planning for something, blah, blah. Why are we trying to get this before the holidays? What we don't know whether I'm not and I'm not trying to justify it, but it's one of those of like there's so many moving parts to this that do they care about this? I have to think. No, you have to know that this is the cost of doing business. Again, I'm talking as the corporation, as both of these companies, right? Where it's like, yeah, this article is going to come out. You hope, hope, hope, hope, hope that the we it's gonna happen. It's gonna come out. We're gonna ask these people to do it. We don't care because we know this is temporary. That would be the hope. The, the only like seven weeks.

[Blessing]

Hey, after that we'll, you know, get back to normal hours or whatever which.

[Greg Miller]

They say they're doing until there's an.

[Blessing]

Until inevitably like 2027. Okay, well now it's gonna be six months of crime.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's hilarious. Gondor's Condor with a super chat says it's a quote, don't forget you're here forever type of. But yeah, it's like you would hope that. But again then it comes down to how do you want to package that and what do you want to say about that? And you know what I mean, like there's so many. Even, even if this was the plan, you would come down to the mismanagement of it. Of like why didn't you. Because especially when they bring up kids and pets. Like, right, like people if you're only. I have to be there three days a week. Got it. I can plan my life around that. For them to throw a wrench in the works, however many weeks before, days before they told him this was the switch. That sucks. If you could give them a three month heads up, which I know is not what this was probably you hope you would be that. But again, three months, you'd Hope you know, you're behind on the down. Like, there's so many moving, shifting things of, like, I don't know. What you always want is the humanity of the people running the company to come through. So I. I always come to, like, if I needed you guys to do something like that, it would be like a, hey, everybody, this fucking sucks. This is what I need y' all to do here. And then it would be the. So that's why when we come back, you're all getting three days off a week or what? You know what I mean? To try to balance it, have a. Like, we fucked up and we need to do this. And this is why. I know, sadly, that kind of ownership, that kind of responsibility, that kind of clarity is never in these corporate worlds what you're getting, because they know what's. What's better. Is it better to have Shrier's article come out at the start of this problem or at the end of it? Because right now, Naughty Dog can be like, I'm sure you all saw the article. We didn't understand or we didn't talk to you or whatever. You know, like, you know, some of you are upset. Will be better from here on out. Will they be later on? Who knows? And because you say all that, and then there is the dark side of it, right? Where it's like, we're Naughty Dog. Do you want to come work on the best games in video games? Do you want to come work on guaranteed Game of the year contenders, Generation Definers? You got to come here and this is what it's going to be like.

[Blessing]

And that's where I get very fascinated about the inner workings, the inner politics of this when it comes to the Naughty Dog part of it, when it comes to the PlayStation part of it, and when it comes to the industry part of it, right? Like, we're here talking about their crunching so they can get this demo in for PlayStation, because they want to. They want to be able to say, hey, this is where we're at with the game. Okay, cool, you're greenlit to keep going forward or whatever. Like, this is how we're adjusting what our outlook is for the next year and a half as we. As we barrel towards 2027. When you're talking about Naughty Dog, who in the article they say have missed multiple deadlines, right? Like, what is. What are those conversations like with PlayStation? Because from what I hear about Naughty Dog and PlayStation, Naughty Dog is so much of a golden child that it is like, take however long you want. It's the opposite of Insomniac, where Insomniac also a golden child, but they're the golden child because they get games out, they release games, and they release successful games that people want to play.

[Greg Miller]

Right.

[Blessing]

And they're able to get you away.

[Greg Miller]

Spider Man.

[Blessing]

Miles Morales a Spider man two a Ratchet and Grit to Park. We've already announced Wolverine. That's coming out next year. Right. Like, we know where Insomniac is going. Naughty Dog. It's like, okay, well, you're putting out 10 out of 10 games every five years, but now it's getting longer and longer because you guys are artists.

[Greg Miller]

You guys are, you know, pushing video games forward.

[Blessing]

We're pushing video games forward, but for PlayStation, which we know they care about the critical side, but they must also care about the business side and actually getting games out.

[Greg Miller]

Publicly traded company. Of course they are. Sony.

[Blessing]

Yeah. Like, what is that conversation with Naughty Dog to then go, hey, we need this by January. Like, you guys have missed deadline after deadline after deadline. We're like, we're putting our foot down. Get us. Get us this by January. And when an article like this comes out, what does that do to the conversations that PlayStation and Naughty Dog have with each other?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, yeah. I don't know. It's back to your question at the top of Does Herman and PlayStation want bad news like this out there that they had to crunch and they had to do this whole thing, or do they want an incomplete demo that isn't showing? You wonder are what system are they trying to show? What vertical slice are they trying to do what? What is the thing that we couldn't see with temporary assets and temporary or whatever. Or is it just not even running? And I'm not a video game developer. I'm speaking outside of turn on what they'd have and how they're showing it kind of thing of like, but where are we at that you can't see where they're at to see? Like, okay, cool. And again, you know, it's Jason reporting on a mid-2027 release date, right? Yeah. Not confirmed. That's not. Whatever. Yada. I bet we were going to slide on that and if we haven't already slid.

[Blessing]

And that's what I wonder, right? Like, what is the questions here? But that's all.

[Greg Miller]

And that's what it is, right? Yeah.

[Blessing]

You know, like, for this deadline that you're trying to hit, is it a thing of, hey, if we don't hit this, then we get pushed to later than mid-2027. Right. We're talking about late 2027 or even 2028. Does that get us in trouble with PlayStation or we're missing out on bonuses because we're not hitting our deadlines. Right? Like, I'm sure all that comes into play when you're Naughty Dog and trying to figure out when to put out your next game. But, like, yeah, it's such a weird thing to balance because we are talking about putting out something that the artists believe in is a 10 out of 10 and critically and everybody satisfied and all that stuff versus, like, waiting forever for it.

[Greg Miller]

And then there's this big. You know, I think the question here of the man, not question, but the scary thing if you're working at Naughty Dog, is that fear of what happens from here on out. You know what I mean? Because it is this idea of, you don't want to throw the baby out with bathwater. And so, like, in 2021, after facing burnout, they, you know, the release, they began building a new team. I remember that being a thing, right, where there were the headlines of, like, they crunched on the Last of Us, Part two, and they're not going to crunch going forward. And so you can sit here and say, like, oh, well, it's 2025. They've had four years of not doing that. Everybody makes mistakes, everybody gets off schedule, yada, yada, yada. But it's like, well, sure, but this is the next game. It's. You know what I mean? Like, you're not. You don't crunch in pre production. You're not. Like, this is when you're trying to hit these deadlines and make these moves and try to have it all happen, that you actually get there. So has anything really changed? I mean, the team sounds like it doesn't even exist anymore. At least the way we had originally understood it.

[Blessing]

Yeah, yeah. You would hope that, like, to your point, there's communication as far as, hey, like, we're gonna give you time off or, like, we're gonna pay you a bonus on top of your bonus, right? Like, money speaks. If you want me to be here that late, like, fucking pay me. Maybe there's something like that. But again, who knows? I think for me, the words I read here as far as, like, the details of this, right, it being seven weeks, it being, you know, you can't be here past 60 hours, but we're still asking you to be here a certain amount of time past the 40 we expect of you. Yeah, Like, I don't. I guess I worry less about that, more so about where we at a year from now when the game is about to release. Hopefully about to release. And it is. All right, two years from now, right? Yeah, two. And I'm thinking a year and a half when you say, okay, sorry, but like I. And I, I guess I say a year from now because that's when I would imagine it starts. As far as, hey, we're crunching Crunch. Yeah. It's not seven weeks now. It's six months toward the end. Like toward trying to barrel toward the mid of 2027. I think that's where the fear starts to pop up. As far as the culture, Naughty Dog and in crunch culture and all that.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Omega Buster is talking about. I. I want to make sure he didn't. Or Omega Buster didn't miss my point of like, that's what I'm saying is like now the rubber meets the road and if you're doing the same thing you said you weren't going to do after 2021, that the, the time between that doesn't matter anymore. Yeah, we're talking about. This is the example right here where you need to be. You know, it sucks. This is why we're always talking about unionizing. You know, have people there to fight for you to have. You know, it's the power of everyone working as one. That collective arguing for better rights, better management, better whatever. And you hope for the best. But this sucks is always. You never want. I never want to hear the. I hate when we get to that finish line and you see people who are like, I'm dead. This. This killed me.

[Blessing]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

My relationships and the years and the missed birthday parties and especially right now. It's seven weeks and it ends right now. So, okay, we're talking about Christmas parties for your partners. You're talking about just in general, friends stuff. You're talking about Thanksgiving. Like we're seeing this swash swath of the holidays when it's supposed to wind down and get quiet, getting ramped up and really cranking it. Yeah, sucks. Super sucks. But you know what doesn't suck? Blessing.

[Blessing]

What's that, Greg?

[Greg Miller]

The kind of Funny Games Daily Awards. That's right, everybody, if you haven't been paying attention over the past couple of weeks, we've been planning the inaugural kind of Funny Games Daily Awards. What's the purpose? Well, as you know, each and every day on this show, YouTube, Twitch, podcast services, we run you through the nerdy video game news you need to know about. But guess what? We don't generate that news. We read from people like Jason Schreier over at Bloomberg. We read sites like ign, vgc, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And as you know, we think those people deserve credit, Those sites deserve credit, those stories deserve credit. And so since, you know, we're not seeing that, and not that I'm saying it's anybody else's place to do so, we thought this year we'd do our own little award show. Just three awards onto the people who make this show possible. We asked you, of course, to write in initially with your nominations. You did. So many of you did. We then took those down to the top five, put them onto a voting thing, and more than 1300 of you showed up to come vote on what you thought were the best site, the best reporter and the best story of the year. And we can't thank you enough. So it is time for our first award. All right. It is Site of the Year. And the nominees are for Site of the Year for the inaugural kind of Funny Games Daily Awards. Aftermath, Game Informer, Giant Bomb. This week in video games and vgc. Not to pick favorites because we're not going to do that, but what a great loadout of sites here.

[Blessing]

Yeah. Like as you read, as you read through these, I think something individually that each of these sites do that I would highlight is fantastic this year. Whether it's Aftermath and how they continue to operate as an independent journalistic outlet that provides unique perspective and really good op eds. Whether it's Game Informer. That was this year.

[Greg Miller]

The year that they came back from the dead.

[Blessing]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

And now a magazine again. Yeah. Game.

[Blessing]

Yeah. Doing big things. Yeah. And being able to. Was there. They just made an announcement for December. I think that they're partnering with getting.

[Greg Miller]

Their magazine Barnes and Noble. They're back in Barnes and Noble. Yeah.

[Blessing]

Thank you. So that's fucking awesome. Giant Bomb. Similar thing. Right. Turmoil there. Now they're independent and doing their own things.

[Greg Miller]

Yes. They did the impossible right of everybody who made up Giant Bomb for this iteration. Leaving Right. There's all this chaos. Then a PAX panel and guess what? Yeah, they've bought the site. They own Giant Bomb independently.

[Blessing]

I was in Tokyo doing the death rating to preview event with Dan Riker as this always going down. And like I'm not talking about the fact that like he was briefing me on things where I was like, yo, this is fucking crazy what's going on with Giant Bomb. And so like to see where it ended up because, like it seemed like it could have gone way worse as far as how These deals go and like when things are going down like this, I'm so happy for them. They landed in a place that is ideal for everybody involved. And then you talk about this week in video games, the Skillet Ralph, Shout out to Ralph, right? Launching a brand new site, looking at the, looking at the ecosystem of games media and seeing a need and trying to fulfill that need. And when I go to that site every single time I'm like, I love the design of it. I love to see them grow. I love to see Edmond Tran doing his thing, right, leading the site.

[Greg Miller]

And it's what you talk about too of like what you love to see where skill ups. YouTube is so popular, right? He's able to do so well that he's like, I just missed the written word. So I'm making this site and it doesn't need to do great for me. This is, you know, just the benefit of having the channels we have and.

[Blessing]

Then Video Games Chronicle, of course, like that's my old reliable.

[Greg Miller]

How many times on Games Daily has it been vgc, vgc, VIGC and the Robinson, Jordan Midler, Andy Robinson.

[Blessing]

And the reason for that is like, they are my number one news source, right? They are my favorite site to go to because the. They're so good at compiling all the headlines that I need to see. They write things in such a concise and straightforward manner. Like they are, I think the quintessential prototypical games media site in how they operate. And they're a small team and I love them for that.

[Greg Miller]

Well, again, your nominees are Aftermath, Game Informer, Giant Bomb. This week in video games and vgc. And the winner is Giant Bomb. Kevin, go ahead and roll their video. I'm Rick.

[Blessing]

Recording.

[Greg Miller]

All right.

[Sponsor Voice]

Hey, Kind of funny best friends, we're.

[Greg Miller]

Giant Bomb and once again we are on. Kinda funny winning something just like we.

[Blessing]

Do in every one of those gaming competitions.

[Greg Miller]

We do.

[Blessing]

All right, thank you so much. Kinda Funny. Thank you to all of the people who voted, all the kind of funny best friends. We really support it. We'll see you next year when we win this award again. And we're back. That's awesome.

[Greg Miller]

Nah, man, you know you want to be, you want to be, you want to be excited for him. But then Dan, we just see so much Dan.

[Blessing]

I love Dan and I love seeing Suit.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, God. Congratulations, Giant Bomb on winning the inaugural site of the year here at the KFGD awards. Of course, we still have story of the year and reporter of the year. We'll get to that later. For now we'll move on to story number two. Xbox's canceled Perfect Dark game had entire chapters of motion capture recorded and a doomed rescue plan to salvage a slimmed down version this is Tom Phillips [e-mail] Doomed Xbox blockbuster Perfect Dark had, quote unquote entire chapters of performance capture work in the can before its shock cancellation this summer, according to Joanna Dark actress Alex Wilton Reagan, in an interview with the Gamer, the voice behind Dragon Age's Inquisitor and Cyberpunk 2077's Alt Cunningham, says she recorded scenes for the Initiative Perfect Art reboot over the course of several years beginning in 2023. Lots was done in 2024, with work continuing in early 2025. To my knowledge, we were pretty far along. I'd done entire chapters of this universe, reagan said, adding that she was shocked to learn that Microsoft was pulling the plug, with the initiative itself also set to be closed down as part of the wave of funding cuts and layoffs. Quote I was shocked, surprised and devastated as everyone else was when the funding was pulled and the studio was closed, wilton Reagan continued, saying she learned the studio's fate at the same time as it was publicly announced. I did not see it coming. I was absolutely blindsided when the project was defunded. It was devastating. So many people lost their jobs, an entire workforce was disbanded. A further blow would come as a as last ditch efforts to last ditch talks to salvage the project also fell through a process Wilton Reagan admits she had insider knowledge of Increasingly, the actress mentioned that Perfect Dark may have changed the scope had it been saved with a slimmed down version, ultimately seeing the light of day instead. I couldn't say much about it because I knew the Initiative was in talks to keep Perfect Dark up and running in some shape or form, possibly a slimmed down version, possibly something slightly different, but certainly everyone was working really hard behind the scenes to bring Perfect Dark back. And then one day I heard from the creative director that the deal hadn't gone through and that really everything had fallen apart and production was fully stopping. A report from Bloomberg, which IGN.com corroborated from its own sources previously revealed that there had been a plan to keep Perfect Dark alive via the team working on the project at Tomb Raider studio Crystal Dynamics, which had been serving as co developer. Leadership from both Crystal and the Initiative, reportedly spent two months looking for a new publisher and a funding source, while multiple parties expressed interest. The most likely candidate turned out to be Take two Interactive. However, the two groups couldn't come to an agreement, at least in Part due to disagreements over long term ownership of the property. As a result, the deal fell through resulting in layoffs at Crystal Dynamics as well as, as all hope of the project being reinstated vanished. Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn.

[Blessing]

I didn't know that. That last part about Take Two possibly being a contender to help continue to keep the Perfect Dark project alive. Yeah, like I, I'm, I'm so fascinated by what that timeline looks like. If Perfect Dark continued and finally got to that end spot, would we have a game that is something that we're all blown away by or would have just like landed with a thought? You don't think so?

[Greg Miller]

No, I don't think they would have and it's not a knock. I think, you know, when she's talking about a slimmed down version or this, that the other version, I think it would have been cool. We are bringing, we're taking this on, we're working with Crystal or maybe bringing different people and what, and it's like salvage from what you have already. Make a game, you know, finish a game, do that thing. And I just don't think that would have worked. And I imagine that's why hopefully the deal didn't go through is the idea of like, listen, we can either spend X amount of dollars cheaply and get a shitty version of this out, or put this much in, bring all these people and get the full thing out. But we don't believe in that vision of that game because we weren't here from the beginning and it's not the kind of game we want for our portfolio and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

[Blessing]

I'm still sad about this.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, 1000%. Oh my God. No, I'm not. Don't get me wrong, I'm not like, thank God this didn't happen.

[Blessing]

Oh, for sure. Yeah, I guess more so I'm me speaking from. I actually believed what this game was going to be. You know, like, I think I've talked to you and even Mike, right, who's like, no, this game, this game didn't have the legs. Like, but I, when I look at that trailer, even though I think so much of that felt a bit too curated as far as, okay, this isn't real gameplay, right. This is like such a guided thing. I love a good immersive sim. I love a good, you do like first person. Here's a bunch of gadgets, here's some stealth elements, here's this, here's that. And like being able to tackle a level with all these different options. At your disposal. I miss a deus ex. I miss even, like, going back to the age of, like, a 007. Like, for N64 with my analog 3D, I've been playing a lot of the World is Not Enough. And even as I've been playing that game, which I know isn't as good as Golden Eye, but that was my 007 game. Even as I'm playing that, I'm like, oh, yeah, they give me, like, really cool options to kind of, like, be able to do things in, like, different orders or have these different gadgets to mess around with the world in different ways. That shit is a. Is a level of game design that I really appreciate that I. I feel like nowadays you don't see on that triple A level anymore. I feel like a lot of these games, the Dishonored of the World, kind of faded away, and I'd like to see that come back. I think there's value there. And so I get sad when I remember Perfect Dark, I think could have been that, but Rip.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, exactly. And, you know, it's always crazy to think about. I, you know, can't imagine the developers for sure. And don't get me wrong, they have their hearts, souls, and years of their lives planned in. But by the time a game gets to Mo Cap and all this stuff, and how I would be, I would be so confident, and I mean, obviously now you would know not to be. And there's other examples, too, but so confident that this is happening. And especially I think all the time of like, you know, you hear the story of somebody goes to the movie premiere and they, oh, their scene got cut out. They're not actually in it, or there's a deleted scene of this one the other, and it's like, oh, that sucks for them, but, you know, whatever. Like, I'm assuming maybe, and I'm not misreading this, right, that Alex was Joanna Dark. I'm not even. Is that confirmed?

[Blessing]

Joanna Dark, actress Alex. Yes.

[Greg Miller]

So, I mean, like, imagine your cast is Joanna Dark. You're like, cool. You do the rehearsals, you do the thing, but then you're on set and you're seeing them working on the game, and you get the giant debut at Xbox. Like, I would be so confident, like, this is happening. Like, though, whoever. I don't know if they ever announced it. I think there was rumors, right? But whoever would have been voicing Wonder Woman in the monolith. Wonder Woman, Right. Like, that one I totally get, like, I mean, I would have been confident in it making the game. But, like, I never had a trailer where I voiced stuff. I never, you know, didn't. I never had to have that. I never got that game awards moment or this reveal or whatever. Like, it would be. That would be like, oh, that sucked. But I kind of get it. Whereas this one, I'd be like, I was publicly Joanna Dark. The world knew to some degree, and then it's all gone, ripped away. And I think it's just, for me, so much easier to wrap my head around a performer than obviously the developers. Because sadly, I think every developer, you know, has a game they were working on, whether it be pre pro or deep into it like this, that got canceled along the way.

[Blessing]

Super tough.

[Greg Miller]

Super tough.

[Blessing]

I hope Crystal Dynamics holds it down. Like, I hope they give her, like, a role in the next Tomb Raider or something, right? Oh, they did.

[Greg Miller]

She's Barbara Crofton Raider.

[Blessing]

You know what's funny?

[Greg Miller]

She landed on her feet.

[Blessing]

That was why I was like, hold it down.

[Greg Miller]

I was like, oh. I started following her on Instagram after the Tomb Raider announcement. And so then when I saw this and I breezed through it there, I was like, wait, is she actually. Was she Joanna or was she. You know what's funny? Was she doing a Tomb Raider interview where she mentioned all this?

[Blessing]

Because as I read the story, I could have sworn I read that. But then I tried to Google it to make sure, and I didn't see anything about her being Tomb Raider. And so I was like, oh, maybe she's not. I hope she's in the next two.

[Greg Miller]

She had a fun. Or not a fun exchange, but a very sweet exchange with Camilla Ludington. Camilla Luddington, the Tomb Raider from the previous trilogy.

[Blessing]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

In the wake of all the announcements that we're all celebrating Tomb Raider coming back. Camilla. Lenny put up a post one day on Instagram that was like, to all my fans, you're asking. It was such an honor to do this. Like, the women who came before me and the women will come after me. And I think she tagged Alex in there. And Alex had a little response, though, you know, thanking her for all her service and stuff. It's like, oh, that's. I like the baton passing. Yeah, Jeff should have done it on stage, but that's just me complaining.

[Blessing]

I mean, that would have been sick to do on stage.

[Greg Miller]

I'm sure there's some reason he couldn't. But, yeah, at least she landed on her feet. I hope Crystal lands on their feet. Yeah, I mean, they Avengers fucking Chris. Perfect Dark.

[Blessing]

Two games coming out in the Next two years.

[Greg Miller]

So fuck them up.

[Blessing]

That builds.

[Greg Miller]

Don't fuck them up. And I'm. I am still fucking confused.

[Blessing]

Uh huh.

[Greg Miller]

The Tomb Raider rights are now with Amazon or are they with Crystal and then Amazon's publishing it's Crystal has Tomb Raider rights. Right. Don't you wrong me. Just tell me in the chat. Crystal making Tomb Raider but Amazon has the Tomb Raider rights. Yeah, Filos is Amazon. I think we're, I think we're good. I think we're good. Yeah.

[Blessing]

I lost track because what didn't.

[Greg Miller]

Because you know we're in a square at it. At it and then square offloaded Crystal and then this happened and then all the West Bracer had it and this and then it's Amazon and once Embracers gets in there, you know, there's a fly in the ointment I can't deal with. Yeah, Blessing, you know what I can deal with?

[Blessing]

What's that?

[Greg Miller]

More KFGD awards. Remember this is our inaugural KFGD award show honoring the best in games journalism and writing and stuff like that. Uh, this next one is an interesting one. We asked you for your nominations for story of the year and as you know, while we've done many a game showcase bringing the video games to you, we've never done a real award show where we've put it out there and done the whole thing. And it turns out we need to explain the categories better story of the year, I thought and Blessing thought in our mind's eye. You're not wrong. People got it wrong. Our thought was oh because I said give me a link too. So I thought you understood like this was the best story we read. I want a headline, an author, a site, I want a thing. So many of you understandably interpreted it as, as the biggest story of the year. Like we were going to give award to Xbox keeps fucking up or hey, here's like the ongoing saga of Grand Theft Auto delays or ongoing saga of Grand Theft Auto and this union thing. There was a lot of, a lot of people just tossing stuff ideas out there rather than here's people riding in.

[Blessing]

With their favorite video game story. Go see Yote.

[Greg Miller]

That did happen as well. That did. And again that's on us. That's on us. That's on us. Sorry everybody. If we when we come back for the second annual, we'll make a more clear that. So what we did for this one was we went through all your nominations. We saw what got nominated the most and then we went through and said okay, well what we'll we'll pick this one from what we did. We'll be the votes that matter. And so we're proud to announce that the winner of the Story of the year KFGD award goes to. Why Silksong took 7 years to make by Jason Schreier at Bloomberg. Kevin, roll the clip.

[H]

Hello. Kind of Funny. I got a text message from Greg Miller saying that I have won an award for my story about the making of Silk song. And I just wanted to say thank you to all of you who voted for me or nominated me who gave me this award. I really appreciate it and thank you to the people at Kind of Funny Greg and crew for making a kickass video company, content creation company, whatever you want to call it. And thank you for all the support over the years. I hope to come on the show many, many more times in the months and years to come. And I always enjoy seeing you guys talk about the stories that I write and the news that we break over here at Bloomberg News, the big B. A lot of people have asked me how I wound up getting the scoop and getting the big story that a whole lot of people wanted to know about why Silksong took seven years to make. So I thought I'd give you guys the inside track. My own little scoop here about how it all came to together. So what happened was I sent an email to Team Cherry and I said, hey, do you want to talk about the making of Silksong? And they responded saying, sure. Big thank you to Kind of Funny, all you kind of funny best friends out there. I really appreciate you for the support over the years. I hope you have an excellent holiday and I will see you many more times in the months and years to come.

[Blessing]

We don't give enough credit to how funny Jason Schreier is.

[Greg Miller]

It's fucking that easy. It's that easy. How many times on this show I can't wait for Shrier to break that. I can just call him. I can just email these people and say, hey, do you want to talk about it? To be fair, he's journalism.

[Blessing]

His name is Jason Schreier. So, you know, I think, well, so your name is Greg Miller. So I feel like, I feel like, yeah, you should text people more.

[Greg Miller]

What's the story we need to know about? See, and not only that, like, that's actually a good, like I was gonna say a good story. That would be insulting. That's a good news story.

[Blessing]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Lots of times you're like, how did this game collapse? Where was the mismanagement? Jason Will get to it.

[Blessing]

That's definitely what I think I wanted to compliment about this pick is, yeah, like 99% of Jason's stories are naughty.

[Greg Miller]

Dogs crunching out here.

[Blessing]

Right. Like the fact that the story that I think a lot of people took to this year that they really like that came from him was, hey, this is why Hollow Knight Silk song took so long. And it's all good news.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, right.

[Blessing]

Is they wanted to take their time, they had ideas, they wanted to see those ideas come through. That's a story you don't get as often. Which is why I think that one stood out to people. Like, of course we picked it. But I think that was also the most.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, dude, this one by a. By a landslide was the most nominated one for the audience. So it stood out to you as well. And then, yeah, when we look through the other ones that were there, great writing, great reporting. But this was such a. Again, I think I've talked about this before as a, you know, journalist, journalism degree person. I have a journalism degree, even though I'm not journalist anymore. Great journalism. Answers and asks the obvious question. Yeah. And so for years I've used that example of Aaron Andrews After a 49ers Seahawks game, he's talking to Richard Sherman. I was on a plane and Richard Sherman, she goes up and you know how post games interviews are always garbage?

[Blessing]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

She asked him some question and Richard Sherman just started, you want to cover my legs? I'm going to do. And I remember watching it on the plane and I go, who is he talking about? And Aaron takes the mic back, goes, who are you talking about? Crabtree? And it was like such a. And it sounds so simple but so many other people go, all right, But I had a question in mind about what you did on the third. You know, like, no, no, you have to ask the question. And like Jason went ask the question. Why the did this game take so long? And they're like, yeah, we'll tell you the whole thing, you know, here it is. So great work, Jason.

[Blessing]

Great work.

[Greg Miller]

Congratulations again. We move on. We have an ad break yet, have we?

[Blessing]

No, we've done it.

[Greg Miller]

We move on to ads. Remember, if you want to support us to keep us here each and every weekday, we'd love you to pick up a membership. Patreon.com kindafunny YouTube.com kindafunnygames Apple Spotify, get all of our shows ad free. Get your daily dose of Greg Miller. Get good karma for supporting 11 person business. And hey, why not stuff a stocking with a gifted membership. I'm sure one of these platforms allows that. I don't know. For now though, you're not using your benefits, so here's a word from our sponsors guys.

[Sponsor Voice]

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[Greg Miller]

If you live for high stakes runs, tight teamwork, and that rush when the extraction timer is ticking down, this might be your next obsession. You've already seen us obsessing over Arc Raiders, the multiplayer extraction adventure set on a lethal future Earth where mechanized killing machines rule the surface and humanity hides below. As a raider, you brave topside to loot, complete quests, fight ark robots, and extract safely if you can, underground. In Speranza, you'll upgrade your den, boost your abilities, and gear up for raids. On the surface, there are no rules. Swarms of drones, massive robots, and rival raiders make every trip unique. Choose solo, duo or squad of three, but rival players are never far away. Team up or take their loot. What kind of raider will you be in the Rust Belt? Arc Raiders is available now for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X S and PC.

[Guest or Additional Host]

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[Greg Miller]

So good, so good. So good.

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[Greg Miller]

And we're back.

[Blessing]

We're back.

[Greg Miller]

I'm gonna open the bubbly, but guess what's working against me?

[Blessing]

What's that?

[Greg Miller]

I greased up my hands.

[Blessing]

No.

[Greg Miller]

What's the point?

[Blessing]

The.

[Greg Miller]

Why am I why? You know what I mean? Why even try? I went off of my shirt. I'm kidding. Every. That's how it's supposed to go. Don't worry about it.

[Blessing]

Nice.

[Greg Miller]

Once shot my friend with a champagne bottle of cork. I mean, it hurt him, you know what I mean? He wanted it. He wanted it.

[Blessing]

He wanted to get shot with the champagne quarter.

[Sponsor Voice]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Where'd you aim?

[Blessing]

His chest or is like his face?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. I believe he put his shirt over his head. It was like some New Year's Eve party we were doing.

[Blessing]

Oh, interesting. Interesting.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, it's. It's rose too in the cana cup.

[Blessing]

Fancy.

[Greg Miller]

You know, we're only the finest here.

[Blessing]

Shout out.

[Greg Miller]

My favorite was when first off. Shout out. Yeah. To Kevin and cool Greg for Making this happen. When Kevin gave us the glasses, it was like, oh, you might want to wipe them down. They've been sitting a while. Congratulations to a great year. Bless. Yeah, congratulations to everybody out there. And congratulations to all the winners today and nominees on the KFCD Awards.

[Blessing]

Hell yeah. While we're here, I want to give a shout out to People make games. I know you guys talked about them yesterday, but I've been going through more of their channel. I forget what the.

[Greg Miller]

Were you familiar with them?

[Blessing]

Yeah, but like only recently, like maybe a couple months ago, whatever last video they did about Rockstar.

[Greg Miller]

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Blessing]

Maybe even a bit before that, but only recently familiar with them. I like, I started going through more of their stuff and since we're just shouting out, you know, creators and stuff, like, shout out, shout out. They have a channel that is so well organized and well made and well edited and like, you talk about journalism and how, like, you know, you having this journalistic background, right? Like, shit like this inspires me.

[Greg Miller]

100 people see people on the street.

[Blessing]

Like, making the story, like, well, yeah. So well done.

[Greg Miller]

Really great stuff. Everybody go subscribe. Number three on the rope report. Baldur's Gate 3 developer will hold a fan Q and A about Dev processes following AI backlash. This is the one, the only Rev [e-mail] following multiple days of criticism from fans and fellow game developers over the studio's use of generative AI, Baldur's Gate 3 and divinity maker Larian Studio CEO Sven Vinicki. That's how I say it.

[Blessing]

How do you say it, Sven?

[Greg Miller]

Vink. Vink. Once I say it, I just start.

[Blessing]

Saying I like that though.

[Greg Miller]

I don't know.

[Blessing]

It's creative.

[Greg Miller]

Thank you. I like to compose at the keyboard. Has announced an AMA Ask Me anything, typically on Reddit in the new year, inviting people to ask members of different laryng departments quote any questions you may have about Divinity and our dev process directly. In a post on Twitter, Sven said, since the announcement of the studio's next game, Divinity, at the Game Awards last week, a lot has become lost in translation. It's been a week since we announced Divinity, our next rpg, and a lot has become lost in translation. Larian's DNA is agency. Everything we work towards is to the benefit of our teams, games and players. A better workday and a better game. Our successes come from empowering people to work in their own way and bring the best out of their skill and craft so that we can make the best RPGs we can possibly make. In that context, it would be irresponsible for us not to evaluate new technologies. However, our processes are always evolving, and where they are not efficient or fail to align with who we are, we will make changes. To give you more insight, we'll do an AMA featuring our different departments after the holiday break, in which you'll get the opportunity to ask any questions. Questions you have about divinity and our dev process directly, we'll announce the new date or that's the date in the new year. In the meantime, I wish you all happy holidays. End quote.

[Blessing]

The saga continues.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, right.

[Blessing]

Yeah. This is like giving me the whole. Like, when Subnautica was having the whole controversy around the owners. I think Crafton not wanting to pay the leads or whatever. Right. Like, this is one of those ones where it's a story that has now lingered because the updates have been so interesting and so for us to be here where they're not now, like, all right, hey, we're doing a Q A. We want to be open and honest. That's the thing you want to be. You want to be open and honest. And so I think. I think that's a good idea. But also, I think all people want is to hear that, like, you're not using AI anymore. But also I. It's that thing where it's so messy and weird, and I don't. I, like, I don't really know what to make of any of this.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I can. I mean, it's such a weird, complicated, divisive. We can go back to Bruce Straley talking about it on Tuesday's Games Daily, right? Where it's like, clearly AI when it's not killing the planet, even though it is right now, and even though the worst people are promoting it, there's gonna be a use for it some way that can help game. It can help everybody. But it's when it's taking the fun stuff and plagiarizing everybody and making everything horrible. And so for Larion, like, this golden child off of Baldur's Gate 3 with this amazing community, and they keep winning community support, and they, you know, like to come out and say this. Like, it's just like, dude, read the room. Like, no, you know. You know, come on. Like, we didn't need to get into this. And it's interesting because, like, the reaction since then has been so. Or not reaction, but I guess reverberation, right. Of a throwaway line that then caught so much juice and to the point that Jason on bs, That's Blue Sky Tim put up the transcript of the article, even said like, if I knew this quote would have gotten that much traction, I would have done more with it, to me. Which to me means like, Jason didn't even think it was a story the way it was. And so here it is, blah, blah. And then on top of that, then it did the thing, like I said, where they were riding high, I think off of Baldur's Gate 3 and can do no wrong. And this then got. I saw a reset era thread that I have pulled up, right? That was Zoe Quinn and then multiple other game writers bagging on the larian process of like, of course the devs say they're okay with it because you make them move to your country and then if you could, their whole lives are torn up so they don't want lose their job. And it's like now there's so much going on that isn't even just about the AI, where it's just like, woof. Yeah.

[Blessing]

Why did you.

[Greg Miller]

Shut up, Sven? You know what I mean? You didn't need to do this. But here we are.

[Blessing]

Yeah, I'm. I'm fascinated by the Q and A. I want to hear more, like, I want to hear more about like the exact ways they're using it and all that stuff. Right? Like, but it's not like that's going to fix it or anything, but I think more context is better for people to make their decisions on how they feel about this.

[Greg Miller]

I talked about this on whatever the episode of this originally debuted or whatever the update was. Yeah, I was just like somebody pointed out on Twitter, may. It was in our chat, right. Of just like, hey, what. Inevitably they're going to. They're going to use this stuff and then something they're going to miss and it's going to get into the game and it's going to be a thing.

[Blessing]

Oh yeah.

[Greg Miller]

You know what I mean? So it's like, why even bother. Why even open that door?

[Blessing]

That like we've had multiple games that have come out in the last few years have that. And I mean, that also happens with other placeholder art, right? Like, we've seen Assassin's Creed do that in trailers where it's like, this isn't your art. And they're like, ah, our bad. Take this out.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, we shouldn't. We should have done that. You know what I mean? Always terrifying in the middle of the day when I get the little notification that Ben's school has sent you a message. So I gotta open the sneeze in the Coffin. Oh, no. He's had big emotions and tears.

[Blessing]

Oh.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. He's just. He's over it. He's just over. He's just already.

[Blessing]

Celebrate Christmas.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Can I just go home, please? Yeah. He was in a mood when we left the house today too. Oh, you know what I mean. Put on your shoes. What's your problem?

[Blessing]

Go learn.

[Greg Miller]

Believe it or not, everybody, we've come to our final award of the inaugural Kind of Funny Games Daily Awards. It's Reporter of the Year. Like I said, we asked you to nominate your favorite reporters and so many of you did. Your nominees are. Jason Schreier from Bloomberg, Jeff Grubb from Giant Bomb, Jordan Midler from vgc, Rebecca Valentine from ign, and Wesley Yin Pool, that's WYP from Ignorance. And the winner is. I mean, again, great work from everybody. Of course these are names you should all know because we talk about them on the thing all the time. I guess I should have made it. I should have stopped. We talked about the other nominees.

[Blessing]

I'm shouting out to the other nominees.

[Greg Miller]

You all know, you know all these names because we talk about them all the time. They're amazing.

[Blessing]

Yes.

[Greg Miller]

Great work from all of you. And the winner is. Rebecca [e-mail] Kevin, roll the clip.

[Rebecca Valentine]

Hi. Kind of funny. Hey.

[Sponsor Voice]

Wow.

[Rebecca Valentine]

Thank you so much for honoring me, apparently by voting for me for Reporter of the Year and also for just reading my work in the first place. I don't want to get too mushy in this, but I said on social media too that this has been kind of a really weird year for me personally. And I was ending 2026 feeling just kind of low about myself and my work, you know, that good old imposter syndrome demon. So just like knowing that people read my stuff and it resonated with them in some way is really seriously, deeply meaningful to me. So thank you so much, Games Daily, and you all have been really incredible supporters of my work ever since I started years ago. And journalism, you guys just like do a really good job of supporting the work that we're all doing. Journalism is just in a really weird place right now. And so even having this community where you all get together every single day and read the news together and cite your sources well and talk about what it all means for you, that's really, really important. So please keep reading, keep talking, keep telling all the other incredible games journalists out there that you love their work because it really means a lot more than you know. Thanks, best friends. Have a good new year.

[Greg Miller]

Congratulations to Rebecca Valentine. What A reporter.

[Blessing]

She's amazing.

[Greg Miller]

She is amazing. She is great. And thank you all for participating. Whether you nominated folks, voted for folks, or just watching right now, obviously we love to, in a small way, give back. Maybe when next year we'll be doing it a bigger deal. Yeah.

[Blessing]

I think now that we, that we've established this inaugural version of this, I'm excited to go into next year knowing that we have an award show and.

[Greg Miller]

Now we can think about it too. Think about it, everybody.

[Sponsor Voice]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

You know what I mean? Think about what? Start saving stories. Start thinking about, you know, who's the largest reporter you've seen or heard from?

[Blessing]

Largest.

[Greg Miller]

Just the tallest. Looks like Shrek. Think about that.

[Blessing]

Big proportions.

[Greg Miller]

Hold on. I gotta. Hold on. Let me bust out where I was on fucking BS2. Ah, shit, forget it. But like on the nominations, when you could just freeform, write in names, people would write in Jordan Midler, obviously. But so many people were like, the big man, the biggest man. It was so bad that even though I don't want it, I can't stop it. Google's AI summary at the top was like, you know, Rebecca Valentine got nominated a whole bunch and they're like, Jordan Midler was nominated. Often referred to as the biggest man or the big man.

[Blessing]

Good lord.

[Greg Miller]

Ah, good stuff out there. Congratulations to Rev and all the winners and all the nominees. A great year for games journalism in a place where it's terrifying to be a games journalist. So awesome to see all that happen. And thank you for helping us make this show happen. We couldn't do without you. Let's keep rolling with awards. Number four. The Indie Game Awards have happened and we have the winners. From the press release, the Indie Game Awards awards lit up the indie scene last night. Honoring developers and teams whose games exemplify creativity, innovation and emotional impact. The awards only ceremony recognized standout achievements across a wide range of categories, spotlighting the independent creators from around the globe who are shaping the industry. Of course, you could go watch the Indie Game Awards on any of your platforms. Probably YouTube the best. What I liked about it, of course is that game of the year, Claire Obscure Expedition 33, an independent game from Saints Fall Interactive. But what I liked so much is we always talk about the game awards and the categories. They had such a diverse run of categories here, right? You have women led Indie Game award, right? Which went to Urban Myth Dissolution Center. Dissolution center, sorry, narrative Citizen Sleeper 2. Then they get into like they really started drilling down industry impact goes to games, game devs of color, emotional impact for and Roger. Fuck yeah. I love that game. What stood out to you?

[Blessing]

I mean African Indie Game award. Right. Being given to stick it to the stick man. And also Australia New Zealand Indie game award being the Drifter. Like these are I think categories I wouldn't. I would never even have thought about.

[Greg Miller]

Right.

[Blessing]

And even stick to the stick man. I know that game. I didn't know it was from an African developer. That's fucking awesome.

[Greg Miller]

Right.

[Blessing]

I think that sort of. That sort of visibility is very important and I echo everything you just said. Right. I think finding categories that feel a bit more curated to be able to celebrate a wider amount of games and also be able to celebrate games in a unique way. I think that's. That's more exciting for me than action adventure or whatever. Obviously not hating on the game awards.

[Greg Miller]

Right.

[Blessing]

That's a different type of.

[Greg Miller]

Well, I mean that's the awesome part of having different award shows.

[Blessing]

Yes.

[Greg Miller]

Is that you can do it and not feel like to have a solo development one it went to tall trails. Right. Is great to have a bite sized game. Goes to time flies like. Yes. Thank you. Surface stuff. So it isn't just Claire Obscure is the best game of the year. So here's a million things for it.

[Blessing]

Exactly.

[Greg Miller]

But the next year's Indie Game awards. Next year, KFGD's awards. These are big news stories. If I wanted something small, say the tiniest news. Night of Mighty. The champagne's hitting.

[Blessing]

Oh no.

[Greg Miller]

I'm hungry and it's happening. I can't talk anymore. I'm gonna throw my cork at Bear. But tell me about WE News.

[Blessing]

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

[Greg Miller]

Number five, the Wii News from Cecilia over at Bloomberg. Riot Games is working on a major overhaul of its flagship game, League of Legends, a title played by more than 100 million people every month. The upcoming version, internally called League Next is slated to be the biggest update to the title's history according to five current and former employees. It's planned to be released in 2027 from Wario 64 Patapon 12 replay. Brand new game mode is coming out on December 22nd via free update. Oh shit. Come on now. I won't lie to you. Didn't even touch the replay because I just had the re releases in the grand scheme of things. Things. You are on the mission accomplished episode of getting Patapon 1 released in Patapon 2. But like a brand new game mode. Tell me more. You know what I mean, I'm excited to see what that's all about on that. And then Godzilla is coming to sonic rumble on December 22nd. What?

[Blessing]

I'm just laughing at the fact that, like, our first Wii News story is such, like a monumental thing. Like League of Legends getting a big overhaul. Like ginormous. Nothing to say about it. Patapon one plus two replay gets a new. Gets a new mode. Greg has so much to say.

[Greg Miller]

I want. Well, I mean, I don't care about league. You're dumb for playing Patapon. You should play. And pat upon 12 you should replay. But like, what I loved about it is. I forget if it was on BS or the subreddit or whatever, but when this news got posted somewhere, somebody put in there and it was, this is any other. This is for a normal show, this is Wii News. But for Greg, it's going to be story number two. You know what I mean? Like, we're going to elevate it out of Wii News or whatever for this. And that's it for WE News. Your final WE News of 2025. We got a whole bunch of super chats to get through before we get out of here. The hip albatross, that's 10 says birthday tax. 40 today. Happy birthday. I couldn't think of a better way to spend it. Thanks KF team for playing all the games I didn't have time for this year. Anytime. The Yoohoo dude super chats says early birthday tax for tomorrow. Turning 42. Happy birthday. Longtime fan since 2017. You're all amazing and thanks for everything you do. Dave, bro says it's my first time. Oh, I'm sorry. My first time listening to kfgd. No, let me. I'm trying to go fast. I'm fucking all up. My first time listening to KF Day 2025. Can't wait. KF Day 2026. I see what you're saying. My first time listening was kf day 2025. Can't wait for day 27. Happy holidays. All the way from Kansas from the guy who didn't marry a family member. Wow. I don't believe it. You're from Kansas.

[Blessing]

That's a feat in Kansas.

[Greg Miller]

You come out making eyes at your sister is what I hear in Kansas. Jordan Vickers Super Chats. Anyone seen the Missions and Rewards page on nso? Someone needs to report Luigi to hr.

[Blessing]

I'm not.

[Greg Miller]

I'll check it out. I don't know what he's up to. What's going on? Really? Yeah. Exactly. When you Turn in your little silver coins for a bunch of things now. I want my me to be my icon now. Will I keep buying Samus ones? Of course. Animal Crossing?

[Blessing]

Sure. Metroid Prime 4 last night went through the vault Forge.

[Guest or Additional Host]

That's a good.

[Greg Miller]

Forge is good.

[Blessing]

That's a good level right there for you guys.

[Greg Miller]

Good for you. Retro Sphero 64 birthday tax to my oldest kiddo, James. He turns the Big Ten to 10 today. Happy birthday James. Happy birthday James.

[Blessing]

My birthday.

[Greg Miller]

Ventura writes in and says thank you guys for another great year of content. Thank you. We couldn't do it without you. Mob. Mob Orna because it's Xu Xu. I can't started watching you guys in the summer of this year. You guys are amazing and make my love for games so much stronger even when the industry struggles. Thank you so much Mob.

[Blessing]

Thank you.

[Greg Miller]

I talked about this in today's Greg way. It was so heartening to see so many a lot subreddits getting a lot of like thanks kind of funny for the year posts.

[Blessing]

Oh yeah.

[Greg Miller]

And so many people are like oh I just found them this year and it's like oh that's so cool. That's so cool. Cool rocks. 96 says hey, kind of funny. BFS wanted to share a personal project I've been working on inspired by Fantasy League but for Drag Race. Drag League. It's free and I hope my fellow LGBTQIA plus use it and enjoy the new season.

[Blessing]

That's awesome.

[Greg Miller]

So there's drag leagues and we didn't put a link so. Or they didn't put a link so search for Drag League a fantasy league for Drag Race. That's awesome.

[Blessing]

That's really fun.

[Greg Miller]

Krabby Patty says early birthday tax. Happy birthday. Never looked forward to my birthday January 5th. Ah but since it's kind of funny started now. I always look forward to it. Cheers for another year and thanks for everything Counterfunny does. Thank you. Alex Foley Super Chats Wanted to super chat in and give blessing a shout out for cluing me into backlogged. I've been using it to manage stuff I've been meaning to play. Recently struck Half Life 2 and Metal Gear Solid 1 off that list.

[Blessing]

Oh yeah, Shout out Backlogged.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. San says blessing has really been dripped out lately. Love the style man.

[Blessing]

Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

[Greg Miller]

Inter Jetstream says what a fantastic introductory year. Damn it. Kind of funny. I started listening in February and you've been my ride or die ever since. Since going to miss you the next few weeks. Cheers to many more years of kind of funny. Cheers to you. Remember while we are gone, I think this is public, right?

[Blessing]

I don't give a shit Now I.

[Greg Miller]

Don'T give a shit. Twitch is we're going to do the thing like we did at Thanksgiving and roll a playlist of stuff so you can still come. I think it's after is it's either starting on Monday or it's right after your thing on Saturday. Here comes Barry reminder we're doing the.

[Blessing]

My Hero watch party tomorrow night. After that ends.

[Greg Miller]

We're starting at 5pm tomorrow night.

[Blessing]

That'll go to roughly 9 right after that ends we will kick it into.

[Greg Miller]

The a repl of a bunch of.

[Blessing]

Stuff that Joey and Tim have put together in a playlist.

[Greg Miller]

Love that. So you can still come hang out with kind of funny best friends and have a great time. Peaceful Warhead said. I want to dedicate this to my dog who passed away earlier this month. It's been hard, especially trying to get into the holiday spirit, but you guys have been making it feel a little less lonely. Thank you. Thank you. Peaceful Warhead. I know very well that pain and you have made me tear up already just talking about it there. Greg way about the Cole Portillo one is all about that too. But yeah, that sucks. But remember, of course you know the pain you feel is just your love for them and that means how important they were to you. I fucking miss my dog, Mr. Hawks. I hate him. He writes in and says thanks for a great 2025. Kind of funny. More fallout talk is coming from me on Story modders weekly season 2 recap series with awesome guests. Each Tuesday I subscribe to Story Modders and you should too. Go check it out, I think.

[Blessing]

Story Motors.

[Greg Miller]

God damn it, you're right. That was a joke I made on the fucking stream and now I'm saying Story Mode. There's not two Ds just just one story motors. It's a bad name if we're honest, but as you will move on, it's fine. Jay Super Chat, but didn't say anything. Jack Super Chatted. Oh God. Oh God. I scroll and said you guys should have an award for best streamer that accidentally has Spotify on in the background. I don't understand that joke.

[Blessing]

Best streamer that Mike.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, Mike does that. Okay.

[Blessing]

Oh no, that's me. That's me. I was streaming Lies of P the other day.

[Greg Miller]

Oh my God. You're like, man, this soundtrack's hitting.

[Blessing]

No, I was doing Lies of P and like I had my headphones connected to the the to like my monitor and not my computer. So like I'm not hearing computer sound, I'm just hearing the game. And somebody in my chat comes up and is like bless you. Like to listen to music while playing games. And I'm like, oh yeah. Sometimes not realizing my Spotify is playing. And so it turns into a thing. I get into an argument with this guy cuz he kept pushing the issue and I'm like, hey man, what the. Why can't I just listen to music sometimes? And then I listen to the VOD later on I was like, you didn't.

[Greg Miller]

Even know the moment.

[Blessing]

No, I only till the next day I listen to watch the VOD and there are comments that are like like hey, you should really listen to like what's going on Eliza P. And I'm like, oh fuck Chance. The rappers playing in the background. Everybody.

[Greg Miller]

That is amazing. Claw master says sorry Greg, you're the closest person to being from Chicago need to say this. Go Pack. Go packers will win tomorrow night in Soldier Field. First off, fuck the Packers.

[Blessing]

Damn.

[Greg Miller]

Go Bears. All right. Bear down. Secondly, I didn't even know that game's happening. I'm so disconnected from the NFL. El Captain. Eight hours isn't crunch, it's just regular overtime. Movie productions often have staff working 12 to 20 hour days and no one says anything because they want their next summer blockbuster to be all right, cool this people are starving in other countries. We can still talk about how bad this is in ours. Like again. And it's the mandatory forceness of it. It's the fact it doesn't sound like there was a Runway up to it. Like this isn't just like don't get me wrong, that fucking sucks for movie people. But you're also part of a union. So I imagine there's some collective bargaining agreement there. I don't know. I don't know.

[Blessing]

I also think there's like the history of Naughty Dog, right? And like coming off of how there have been big complaints about how they've had crunch culture. I think that inching towards back it it's kind of like a thing of that people will read alarm about all those.

[Greg Miller]

There's a difference between overtime on top of a regular 9 to 5.

[Blessing]

Whereas like movie production site. That is your schedule for the day.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Ambrosia Jam says Laran pissed away all their goodwill. They work so hard to build Woof. They got a lot of ground to cover to earn back that trust. I love you and I understand that. Absolutely not absolutely. The not everyone will pop for divinity. And balder not bald 4. But you know what I mean. They're fine. This is a bump in the road that we will not even be talk. I mean, if during the AMA they're like, you know what? We fired the writing team. Everything's AI different story. But like if it's. They write the ship and it's like we're just using it for ideation and we're not doing stuff with it, it'll be fine. This is not like when CD Projekt Red had to fall on the sword for cyberpunk. Animotion says Laran's story feels like it simply got picked up by the algorithmic gods. Feels overblown when other devs have said similar things. Things for their processes. Yeah, you're not wrong about that. That is the another refrain we see in common.

[Blessing]

I guess it's the fact that it's Larry and so we.

[Greg Miller]

You were this.

[Blessing]

We have positive things.

[Greg Miller]

You're amazing. All these choices. And then you say the one thing everybody is worried about and hating.

[Blessing]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Anthro Metal birthday tax for December 30th. I turn 39. Oh my God, my bones. Happy birthday. He'll be fine. Captain Coots says birthday tax. Share a birthday with Joey Noel. Love you guys. Happy birthday on December 25. Then mobs back and says it's pronounced like the Pokemon spelled wrong. So it's again. Have you ever heard me pronounce a Pokemon name right? Put fucking voice acting in the game. But they say in the cartoon. I'm not watching the fucking cartoon. I mean, I am, but I'm not. I haven't watched it all. It's a good cartoon. All of them. Mibs. My New Year's mission is to chat with you a lot about my passion using video games in education. Oh, yeah, Keep trying. You know what I mean? I don't know how. Good for you. And then the final one is Cozy Bear Live. Thanks again for the happy hour shenanigans. Thank you, you Cozy Bear, for all of your support on that. Jesus Christ.

[Blessing]

Thanks for the trivia, Cozy Bear.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, this is interesting, actually. That's King Boo to you. Says next year would be the second annual Awards. That's not right. The first year is the inaugural. Next year would be the first annual.

[Blessing]

Is that true?

[Greg Miller]

Well, that's why I know to say inaugural rather than first annual. But yeah, I guess that would be correct. But I think I feel like that's confusing. We'll call them the 20th. It doesn't matter. Oh, Here we go. And then Eric Allen actually has something in the top. Helpful. Sven. Vic's name is pronounced Sven. Vicar. Vicar. Like kitchen sinka. Oh, Vinca. Vinca. Sven Vinca. According to interviews he's done and events that have introduced him by name, like the Game Awards. Thank you very much, Eric Allen. That's a great one.

[Blessing]

Are you the Eric Allen or you just. Are you an Eric Allen?

[Greg Miller]

Who's the Eric? Don't act like there's champagne to hit you too. You're laughing at your own jokes way too much.

[Blessing]

Because Eric Allen works for his sites. He's a right.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, fair.

[Blessing]

Yeah. So are you like, are you just a dude who happens to be named Eric Allen or are you the Eric Allen I know? Let me know.

[Greg Miller]

Are you related to Josh Allen, everybody? This has been Kind of Funny Games Daily. Your final episode for 2025. Thank you for hanging out. Thank you for voting the awards. Most importantly, thank you for supporting Kinda Funny through an entire year. Our tenth year of business. We can't believe it either. Remember, of course, there's more coming today. We're rolling into the Gamescast where we'll crown the the Fantasy Critic champion. And talk about rules. We're rolling in to the one, the only game showdown where we'll crown me the champion because there's no way I lose with the lead I have. Then we roll into the White Elephant holiday gift exchange Kind of Funny podcast party. It'll be great. You'll have a great time. But most importantly, if you're not gonna check out any of that, if you're listening or watching On Demand later, remember, we are back January 5, 2026 for Kinda Funny's 11th birthday. We hope you'll be here for a mega stream. Of course. Don't forget Barrett and Mike and Alyssa doing the My Hero Academia stream, 5pm PA Pacific on Twitch TV. Kind of funny Games Saturday. That'll be great. You can come hang out with Chat and the Twitch and do other stuff. We got a whole bunch of shows to do today. From the bottom of our hearts, happy holidays and no until next time.

[Blessing]

It's been our pleasure to serve you, Eric Van Allen.