Ubisoft Shuts Down XDefiant, Closes Multiple Studios - Kinda Funny Games Daily 12.04.24

Summary

Detailed Summary of "Ubisoft Shuts Down XDefiant, Closes Multiple Studios" Episode of Kinda Funny Games Daily

Podcast Information:

• Title: Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
• Host(s): Greg “GameOverGreggy” Miller, Tim Gettys, Blessing Adeoye Jr., and Andy Cortez
• Episode Title: Ubisoft Shuts Down XDefiant, Closes Multiple Studios
• Release Date: December 4, 2024

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Introduction

In this episode of Kinda Funny Games Daily, hosts Blessing Adeoye Jr. and Andy Cortez dive into a series of impactful news stories shaping the gaming industry. From significant studio closures at Ubisoft to the cancellation of a long-anticipated Avatar: The Last Airbender game, the discussion is both comprehensive and insightful. The hosts also explore the latest nominees for The Game Awards' Players Voice Award, providing their predictions and analysis.

Story 0.5: Marvel Rivals Trailers – Cloak and Dagger / Wolverine

Before delving into the main stories, Blessing and Andy take a moment to discuss the newly released trailers for Marvel Rivals. They express excitement and curiosity about the character designs and abilities being showcased.

Notable Discussion Points:

• Character Identification: Blessing remarks, "I was trying to like, which one is Cloak and which one is Dagger?" ([14:20]).
• Ability Mechanics: Andy analyzes the gameplay mechanics, noting, "It's time for some News. We have 5.5 stories today, Baker's Dozen starting with 0.5." ([13:02]) and later discusses the ability cooldowns in the trailer.

The hosts highlight the need for clearer character designs and more engaging ability displays to attract players and fans of the Marvel universe.

Story 1: Ubisoft Shuts Down X Defiant and Closes Multiple Studios

The primary focus of the episode is Ubisoft's recent announcement to discontinue X Defiant, a free-to-play live-service shooter, and the simultaneous closure of three production studios in San Francisco, Osaka, and Sydney. This move affects 277 employees worldwide, marking over half of the X Defiant team.

Key Details:

• Official Statement: Ubisoft's Chief Studios and Portfolio Officer, Marie Sophie Dewbert, stated, “Despite an encouraging start, the team's passionate work and a committed fan base, we've not been able to attract and retain enough players in the long run to compete at the level we aim for in the very demanding free to play FPS market.” ([27:03])
• Impact on Employees: Dewbert added, “To those team members leaving Ubisoft, I want to express my deepest gratitude for your work and contributions. Please know that we are committed to supporting you during this transition.” ([27:03])

Hosts' Analysis:

• Industry Volatility: Andy comments, “This story is just so emblematic of everything happening right now.” ([28:53])
• Market Challenges: Blessing observes, “X Defiant seemed maybe at first like it was doing better than even what I expected it to be doing. That felt like a dead on arrival game.” ([30:01])

The hosts discuss the broader implications of Ubisoft's decision, emphasizing the precarious nature of the gaming industry's financial stability and the challenges faced by new entrants in crowded genres.

Notable Quotes:

• Andy Cortez: “This is just such a summary of everything. Like this one news story, this one event is such a microcosm of all of the industry.” ([27:03])
• Blessing Adeoye Jr.: “It's a lot about ecosystems and it's about people already not wanting to maybe go play this newer X Defiant game.” ([28:53])

Story 2: Cancellation of Avatar: The Last Airbender Game

Maximum Entertainment has canceled the Avatar: The Last Airbender multiplayer fighting game, disappointing fans who awaited its release. The game was intended to be a competitive title set in the beloved universe of the original series.

Key Details:

• Cancellation Announcement: Reported by Matthew Murphy at Comic Book Bear, the cancellation affects the AAA action RPG version developed by Saber Interactive remains in active development.
• Developer's Challenges: Blessing notes, “Saber Interactive's avatar game, described as a AAA action RPG, seemingly remains in active development.” ([44:15])

Hosts' Discussion:

• Genre Viability: Andy expresses skepticism, “How sad is it that you talk about this game and you say that it's a multiplayer fighting game and my immediate thought is that would never survive.” ([45:25])
• Fan Base Overlap: Blessing elaborates, “Those people are playing Tekken. Those people are playing Street Fighters.” ([51:32])

The conversation highlights the difficulty of merging a strong narrative-driven IP like Avatar with the competitive nature of fighting games, questioning whether the resultant game could sustain a dedicated player base.

Notable Quotes:

• Andy Cortez: “It just doesn't seem like a great decision. Like, I don't know what, it's such a splintered turtles reference.” ([49:18])
• Blessing Adeoye Jr.: “They let anybody. Like, it's... They just do a shotgun spread and just like, it goes everywhere.” ([48:49])

Story 3: The Game Awards Players Voice Award Nominees Revealed

The hosts shift focus to The Game Awards, discussing the newly revealed nominees for the Players Voice Award. This fan-selected category includes a diverse range of games, from blockbusters like Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree to ongoing favorites like Fortnite and Final Fantasy 14.

Nominees Include:

• Astrobot: Rescue Mission
• Black Myth: Wukong
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
• Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Hosts' Predictions:

• Blessing: "My prediction, Black Myth will come." ([56:23])
• Andy: "Stellar Blade will likely be there as well." ([57:07])

The discussion revolves around the popularity and impact of each nominee, with hosts debating which titles have the strongest support from the gaming community.

Notable Quotes:

• Greg Miller: “That's not a different player.” ([55:52])
• Blessing Adeoye Jr.: “It's a different player's voice. We're not a monolith, Barrett.” ([55:53])

Story 4: Dragon Age Day Celebrations

Blessing highlights BioWare's celebration of Dragon Age Day, offering a free character creator and announcing upcoming updates. The event commemorates the enduring legacy of the Dragon Age series and engages the fanbase with new content.

Key Details:

• Free Character Creator: Available to players, allowing creative engagement with the game’s universe.
• Upcoming Updates: Announced updates are expected to enhance gameplay, although specifics remain under wraps due to a downed update page.

Hosts' Discussion:

• Blessing: “Happy Dragon Age Day.” ([61:09])
• Andy: “What does D4 stand for? Chad? Is that, like, in the lore?” ([61:12])

The hosts express enthusiasm for the ongoing support and development of the Dragon Age series, acknowledging its strong and loyal community.

Additional News: Studio Name Changes and Releases

Beyond the main stories, the episode covers several other news items impacting the gaming landscape:

• Umami Rebranding: Noble, the studio behind Chained Echoes, has rebranded to Umami.
• Sweet Bandits Closure: Developer Sweet Bandits is shutting down.
• Donkey Kong Land 3 Release: Now available on Nintendo Switch Online, sparking nostalgic reactions from the hosts.

Notable Quotes:

• Blessing: “Barrett is just shaking his head. One day we'll get 64. Not today.” ([62:53])
• Andy: “I have a year wrong for myself. This was as of June, though.” ([63:00])

Super Chats and Fan Interactions

The episode also features a segment where the hosts read and react to Super Chats from listeners, showcasing fan engagement and adding a personal touch to the discussion.

Notable Fan Comments:

• Alex Frazier: “I need incest by Andy Cortez.” ([65:56])
• Madognick96: “Minor clarification. The version of Tetris coming to nso. Use it from yesterday.” ([66:09])
• Oscar Navarro: “Loving the Kingdom Hearts rep from Blessing.” ([68:38])

Hosts' Reactions:

• Greg Miller: “I need it.” ([65:10])
• Andy Cortez: “It looks like Wolverine's a duo.” ([17:22])

The exchanges highlight the community's diverse interests and the hosts' ability to engage humorously with their audience.

Conclusion

The episode wraps up with the hosts summarizing the discussions and encouraging listeners to support the podcast through memberships and social media engagement. They reflect on the volatility of the gaming industry, the challenges faced by developers and publishers, and the unwavering passion of the gaming community.

Final Remarks:

• Blessing: “I love you all so much. I made a shrine of your three heads.” ([66:26])
• Andy: “Thank you.” ([71:02])

The hosts sign off with a moment of Zen featuring the Stellar Blade soundtrack, leaving listeners with a sense of camaraderie and anticipation for future episodes.

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Notable Quotes Summary:

• Blessing Adeoye Jr.: “X Defiant seemed maybe at first like it was doing better than even what I expected it to be doing. That felt like a dead on arrival game.” ([30:01])
• Andy Cortez: “This is just such a summary of everything. Like this one news story, this one event is such a microcosm of all of the industry.” ([27:03])
• Greg Miller: “That's not a different player.” ([55:52])

This episode of Kinda Funny Games Daily offers a thorough exploration of recent significant events in the gaming world, underpinned by engaging discussions and insightful analysis from the hosts. Whether you're a dedicated gamer or someone interested in the industry's dynamics, this summary encapsulates the essence of the episode's content.

Transcript

[Greg Miller]

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[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Today's stories include Ubisoft is pulling the plug on X Defiant and Avatar. The last Airbender game has been canceled and the game Awards players voice award nominees have been revealed. We'll have all this and more because this is Kind of Funny Games Daily. Yo, what's up? Welcome to Kind of Funny Games daily for Wednesday, November 4, 2024. No, December 4, 2024. God, we're in December. I'm one of your hosts, BLESSING Addie Oye Jr joining me is the Nitro rifle, Andy Cortez.

[Andy Cortez]

Good morning. BlessingJr. Bisky Social Bisky.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

What's a bit Blue Sky? Oh, blue Sky.

[Andy Cortez]

Bsky.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I see. I see. Yeah. Bisky app. Did you. Did you wake up and post your raps today on Blue Sky?

[Andy Cortez]

No.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

The streets are doing.

[Andy Cortez]

No.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Your Spotify wrapped?

[Andy Cortez]

No. Oh, shoot. Yeah, I should check that. Yeah, I should check that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

What are your predictions? Who would be your top artist?

[Andy Cortez]

It's always Levitar. Oh, music wise, I don't listen to me. I don't do music that way anymore. Like, I just.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You don't listen to music?

[Andy Cortez]

I mean, like, oh, you do. When there's a new album, I will, like, you know, it's very rare that I'm like, I'll do the hyper fixation thing. You know, listen to Kendrick's album a bunch for like a 48 hour period and then moved back to my podcasts and then just do that. When Coheeding Cambria, my favorite band, releases their new song. I'll listen to that for a full day and then go back to podcasts.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Damn.

[Andy Cortez]

I just don't really listen to music like that anymore. Once, once, podcasts became the sort of main thing in my life where that's taken up all my free time.

[Greg Miller]

See, I will say, like, on the drive home, every once in a while I'll get a ride home from Andy. And now that I'm thinking about it, yeah, like 1 out of 10 times we're listening to music.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Wow.

[Greg Miller]

Other 9 out of 10 times, it's Levitard show.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

For me, it's the. It's. You'll just drop your phone for me. It's like the Depending on what I'm doing, I have to. I have to either listen to music or listen to podcasts. Like, if I'm prepping khd, it's music. Because I'm listening to podcasts, I can't read and listen to the podcast at the same time. If I'm like cleaning an apartment, I feel like. Or if I'm doing laundry or something, I feel like then podcasts help the time move faster. Like if I'm doing grocery shopping or something, I'll bear if you embarrass right now. Showing off my Spotify rap for artists, of course I got number one is Childish Gambino for me. Of course he dropped two albums, so it has to be number one. Kendrick Lamar is my number two. I feel like he would be number one if Spotify counted more of the November numbers, but I think they drop off after October.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, really?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. My number three is Serena Carpenter, of course. Man, that album, short and sweet. Great album.

[Andy Cortez]

Sure.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, it's right there. It says right there, Sabrina Carpenter. Number four, J. Cole. And number five. Number five, Nas. I don't remember listening to that much Nas this year, but he made my number five. But, yeah, but it was very strong.

[Andy Cortez]

I feel like I remember you listening to Nas. A decent. You talking to Roger about, like, man, Nas never lost it. Like, yeah, he's the old guy that everybody assumes. He's always going to fall off and he just like, I didn't feel like that was this.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That was like last year. Like late last year, pal.

[Andy Cortez]

World was this year too, man. You know, that's crazy. You know what I mean? That's nuts podcast for me. Number one, Dan Levitar show. Number two, Pablo Pablo Tory finds out. Number three, the Mina Kime show featuring Lenny. Number four, the Besties. And number five, the Greg Cody show with Greg Cody.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

The thing with my Spotify wrapped is like, music is usually where I have to hide certain things you can see, right? But, like, it's been a tradition every year where there's one artist where I'm like, damn, I can't show this artist anymore. Something happened in the middle of the year where I can't show them off anymore. I didn't post my podcast this year because my podcast also got hit with like the just. The weird, just shit happening where this is podcast shits and gigs that I'm like, I listened to so much this year and they had a whole controversy going on. I'm not going to get into the controversy, but it's like them. It's Like Joe Button Podcast, it's like. And then like other podcasts I probably shouldn't be listening to, but I listen to. You know what I mean? Not Joe Rogan. I'm not listening to Joe Rogan.

[Greg Miller]

I don't do Spotify, so I do the Apple Replay. And the one thing I realized this year, I was like, oh, they don't have like a podcast replay. It's just like the music. So it's like, damn, I don't know who I've listened to the most. It's probably Giant Bum, if I had to guess. Yeah, Besties is probably up there as well.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, I saw a lot of people posting the besties. I saw. I mean, of course, a lot of people been posting kind of funny content.

[Andy Cortez]

Thank you, everybody, for tagging us and all your posts.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, make sure to tag us. Instagram. Blue Sky. Definitely tag me on Blue Sky.

[Andy Cortez]

Andy Cortez. Cool on Blue Sky.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I love that you got that.

[Andy Cortez]

I also own Andy Cortez Dot rocks. How does.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So how do you do that? Do you just buy the URL?

[Andy Cortez]

I have the donate the domain, but also Squarespace is doing a weird thing where I can't Forward it to nitro rifle.com so I don't know what's going on there because I would love it if andycortez Cool. Also just forwarded to the website. But whatever.

[Greg Miller]

What's the other URL that we have for you?

[Andy Cortez]

It was bonermonger.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Bonermonger.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, we still have that.

[Andy Cortez]

No, Greg stopped paying for that, unfortunately. Yeah, we hit some financial. Hard financial times out.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That's huge.

[Andy Cortez]

Thank you everybody for tagging us in all your posts. Really appreciate it. Keep on doing that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, I'm going to get him. Get them next year. My Spotify. Right? My goal for next year with Spotify wrapped is to be able to post both my. My music and my podcast fully uncensored. I made it this year. I made it. I did a clean year.

[Andy Cortez]

Look, the thing is, a lot of people tagging us are now going to have to sort of censor their stuff because, like, because of the big betrayal you had with me where I was trying to buy you a souvenir and then you made me get rid of my jacket in order to make space.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I made you do that.

[Andy Cortez]

And it's just such a really fucked up thing to happen at the. At a company.

[Greg Miller]

Like, honestly. Yeah, like, that was the first thing Andy talked about when he got home, where, like, we were very excited. Lulu missed Andy and the first thing he was like, dude, I had to get rid of a hoodie because of blessing. And I like, I can't believe he made me do that.

[Andy Cortez]

Stupid ass.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Just so y'all know, I have nothing. I have nothing to show for anything. This man went to Japan and abandoned his sweatshirt for no reason. Is blaming me.

[Andy Cortez]

Unbelievable.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, I gotta make room for some little charms. I gotta throw away a whole sweatshirt for some little charms.

[Greg Miller]

Speaking of giant bomb, I was listening to Jan's side of the the trip and he told. He was telling a story about how you tried some Japanese curry over in Japan. And you're like, this is so much better than volcano curry that we have here.

[Andy Cortez]

It truly. It truly was. Truly was.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. Go listen to yesterday's games cast. It is like, it's a fantastic games cast. Andy went to Japan, talked about all of his Japan adventures, and, yeah, that did include him going to get the curry. It made me very jealous because this last week, I don't think I mentioned this on the podcast, that I was kind of craving Japanese curry to the point where I was just looking at on doordash and I was like, it's not going to hit the same.

[Andy Cortez]

Well, they mentioned about this. They were talking about this Coco Ichibania also being in LA or in somewhere in the LA area. There's a lot of weird cities in la. You know what I mean? It's like, what's part of la?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

They got Burbank, Anaheim, like, condense into one.

[Andy Cortez]

Exactly.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

San Diego.

[Greg Miller]

Figure it out.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Figure it out. All right. We don't need LA and San Diego city.

[Andy Cortez]

It's like, you know, Mike surprising me about Disneyland having LA and Disney World having orl Orlando.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Wait, what's Mike surprised about?

[Andy Cortez]

Mike showed. I mean, it was a big thing on the Internet yesterday because, like, the word Disneyland has LA in it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Shit.

[Andy Cortez]

I'm just not realizing that Disney World has ORL for Orlando and then Paris is called Disney something else. You know, Disney parents, you know, I.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Was gonna say, isn't there other Disneylands and other countries? I don't think that's how it works. Isn't like. Isn't Osaka but Disneyland or like Tokyo or somewhere have a Disneyland?

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, they have a Disney Town. Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That's crazy.

[Andy Cortez]

Don't look into the details there. Yeah. Disney Paradise. Thank you, Colin.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Wait, is that for ar?

[Andy Cortez]

No, it's not.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Okay. I was like, disney paradise sounds fucking awesome.

[Andy Cortez]

That would be amazing.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You know what else sounds awesome? Video game news. Let's get into it. Remember, this is kind of funny. Games Daily. Each and every weekday we run you through the nerdy news you need to know about.

[Andy Cortez]

Even Tokyo has Tokyo in it. That was a good comment, Mason.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Dude live on YouTube, Twitch and on podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, support us with the kind of funny membership on patreon or on YouTube to get all of our shows ad free, watch us record them live and get a daily exclusive show for a chance to be a part of the show. Some of your thoughts and opinions as YouTube super chats as we go. Housekeeping for you. We're reviewing Indiana Jones and the Great Circle this Thursday at 4pm Pacific Time as a YouTube premiere. That's right. No Twitch. It's on YouTube.com kind of funny games at 4pm Pacific time Thursday and on podcast services right after. It's because of that embargo. Just know Games Cast isn't happening right after KFD on Thursday. All right, we're moving it forward. So you're going to get KD the stream and then later on in the day you're going to get the games cast. Of course, remember we're an 11 person business all about live talk shows. So today after kfgd you're going to get Games cast, which is our discussion about GTA 6 one year after its reveal. I believe we're going to do predictions, talk about where we're at with GTA 6, all that good stuff. And then after that is the stream where the boys are playing. Some of that Call of Duty War Zone for Warzone Wednesdays. How long is that going to last? War Zone Wednesdays?

[Andy Cortez]

As long as, you know, until Mike gets tired of it pretty much. Because Nick can do it his whole life.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, this is one of those ones where I like, you know, I'm like, listen, I'm, I'm not going to question anything, but I did during the meeting yesterday, wanted to be like, why are we doing War Zone on Wednesdays? It's, it's not like it's a fucking view generator here for Warzone. There's so many other games coming out. Marvel, Rivals Fridays, you know what I mean? Because Rivals has a Friday. Has a Friday. We'll have our.

[Greg Miller]

It's, it's purely the alliteration and Nick's addiction to it. And I, I guess after next week it'll be over.

[Andy Cortez]

Probably. Yeah. How long can Al's in rival Alabama?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

How long are we gonna let like the addiction go for though? Because like Nick, I mean, and you and Mike have been playing Warzone for what feels Like a decade.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, a very long time. Yeah. I mean this is the newer season. This is the newer rebirth map, right? It's. It's only two weeks old at this point. It started two days before I went to Japan, which sucked because I had to miss a lot of time with Warzone. But you know, it's still kind of brand new there. I did see say the other day on my stream, like God forbid anything ever happens to the company. Need your support. So please keep supporting with your Patreon dollars and your eyes and your ears on YouTube and all that Twitch sub stuff because if this company ever goes down, I don't know what Nick's going to do because like I have like, I can envision him writing into a, like a newspaper, a traditional newspaper of like a little out or like looking for work, Call of Duty playing, you know, like. And it's like, Nick, there's. There's other games out that we need you.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

He's like, he needs a career that involves playing Call of Duty, but he can't. He' not good enough at Call of Duty to like be an esports.

[Andy Cortez]

Exactly, exactly.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

He needs a career being able to be a casual Call of Duty.

[Andy Cortez]

He's gonna show up to a Staples.

[Greg Miller]

Cameron Kennedy in the chat earlier said Marvel fr.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, I like that I said that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I like see.

[Greg Miller]

Great job, Cameron. Great, great show.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Thank you, Cameron Kennedy. Jesus. Appreciate that. But yeah, that's my thing. I'm. I'm like, there's so many other games that are coming out that I feel like would get more me and. Me and Mike spent three hours reacting to an IGN article the other day and that's like, that. That's doing great on views.

[Andy Cortez]

Doing great. Yeah, yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like Warzone. We put out so much War Zone content that like, I don't know if it's as exciting anymore.

[Andy Cortez]

Take it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We're going to do our Wednesdays as War Zone.

[Andy Cortez]

I think the hope is maybe we get in a. You know, we try to bring in a big celebrity voice in gaming every week. Oh, maybe that's their hope. I also noticed that I wasn't invited and I'm not mad about it, you know.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You know, it is just Mike and Nick.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, it is just Mike and Nick. But you know, I. For the next couple weeks, Daddy's got a lot of stuff to work on. Oh yeah, he's got a lot of assets.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

The end of the year, we got big things coming. We got a lot to do.

[Andy Cortez]

Poppy's gonna be in premiere and Photoshop for the next Several weeks.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

They call him Premiere Poppy. Premiere Pro. Premiere Pro. Premiere Pro. Poppy. If you're a kind of funny member, you can get today's Greg Way. Of course, thank you to our Patreon producers Delaney Twining and Carl Jacobs. Today we're brought to you by Shady Rays and Aura Frames. But we'll tell you about that later. For now, let's begin with what is and forever will be the Roper Report.

[Andy Cortez]

Did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's time for some News. We have 5.5 stories today, Baker's Dozen starting with 0.5. Now, before the show, of course, I had my five stories here. Of course, the big story here is Ubisoft and what's going on there. But right before the show, you mentioned that there's a cloak and dagger trailer for Marvel Rivals. And then as we were talking a little bit about it, we realized that there's also a Wolverine trailer for Marvel Rivals, and neither of us have seen them. And we're very excited for Marvel Rivals, and we want to check out what these trailers look like. So let's talk about this real quick before we get into our actual news stories here. So this is story point five. Barrett, if you can bring up. Let's bring up the Cloak and Dagger trailer first.

[Andy Cortez]

The excitement's palpable blessing.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm really excited about it because also I was mentioning this to you. I have no idea. I don't know anything about Cloak and Dagger.

[Andy Cortez]

Well, we talked about they had a TV show on Noggin in 1997.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Is that accurate?

[Andy Cortez]

They had a TV show on what I learned to be called Freeform, which we didn't understand what freeform was, but it's like a kids network or something like that. It's for teens. Teens kind of figuring out who they are. But Cloak and Dagger was a show there, and they are a support character in Marvel Rivals. And it, you know, you were asking who's Cloak and whose dagger? And I think that's. I think it's a great question because it's hard to figure out.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, I was trying. I was like, which one is Cloak and which one is Dagger?

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, they didn't make it obvious enough. I think they maybe need to go back to the drawing board of their designs.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Bear, do you know? Is this a real question? No, I'm joking. But legitimately, I mean, I like knowing you.

[Greg Miller]

I could have been like you.

[Andy Cortez]

Do you don't see the guy with the big cloak and the lady with the daggers?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I was thinking about the lady with the daggers, that was my first giveaway.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay. She looks like she's shooting some. Some. Some jet daggers or whatever. So with these character reveals, I did a bunch of reactions to all of the other ones, and we saw Black Widow and freaking Squirrel Girl and all that stuff. And so with these reveals, I kind of wished that they did what I think Valorant does it or maybe Overwatch does it, where it's like, hey, what you're seeing, here's what this. Here's what this ability is. And it's maybe a narrator going, use this ability to ward off your enemies. And it's a little wall that gets shot out.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, I was gonna say, I wish that, like, these trailers are watching. Were a bit more involved, because just watching, just straight up gameplay for two minutes.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. And, like, if you. What I was doing on myself was, you know, on the bottom right of the screen where I'm covering up, you'll see the abilities and their. The cooldowns down there. And so I was like, frame by frame going like, oh, this ability just got triggered. That's what that icon is. So that means that that ability is this ultimate, or the E button. Does this move? The right click? Does this wall or teleports or whatever. So the right click, you could tell you switch from character to character. I can tell right there already. Okay. Looks like there's a heel power again. This is a. They call their support characters strategists.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I like that.

[Andy Cortez]

And then the DPS characters are called duelists. I'm not sure what the tankers are called. They're not called Tanks. I don't believe Hulks. Yeah, all Hulks. They're all banners. But yeah, this looks interesting. I don't really know exactly what it. Whether this is the type of character you're going to want to be healing with a whole lot.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, show me Wolverine.

[Andy Cortez]

Let's bring up.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I want to see Wolverine.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, they call tanks Vanguards. Okay. Sick.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

He's making up words. So Wolverine's a duo.

[Andy Cortez]

Berserker barrage.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

God, Wolverine's such a cool character, man.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, he grows. He super sains. His hair. His hair grew when he got mad.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Super Saiyan.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, his hair grows. Okay, let's go.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Just give me some Marvel vs. Capcom vibes. Come on.

[Andy Cortez]

When they dived at you, did he absorb some health? Because he's got to have, like, a.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Health regeneration, healing factor.

[Andy Cortez]

Berserker barrage. He did it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, come on.

[Andy Cortez]

He did an MVC move right there.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I like this. Is it Logan Howlett.

[Andy Cortez]

I don't like that. That's a Pokemon sound. Oh, yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

There'S a wolverine. Hell. Oh, they must.

[Andy Cortez]

Right Little rat, aren't they, or something?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Wolverines. No, they're like vicious. I mean, they're little, but they're like vicious little creatures. They must howl.

[Andy Cortez]

Told you I was the best.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No, dude, Wolverines. Okay, Chad is saying Wolverines do not howl. Bring up a picture of an actual Wolverine really quick.

[Greg Miller]

I just want to hear the voice acting because I told you I was the best. I think that's Steve Bloom. Bloom.

[Andy Cortez]

Do it again. I don't know if that is.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Told you I was the best.

[Andy Cortez]

Maybe. Damn. So if that is Steve Bloom, then he's also in. Oh, it is Steve Bloom. Holy shit. So he's. Man, nailed it. Steve Bloom's also in Valorant too. That's crazy. He's in all the hero founders, man.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

How do we feel about this Wolverine design?

[Andy Cortez]

I mean, I said on my stream when I reacted to it that he looks like an NFL blitz player.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

He looks like he was pulling out of NFL street.

[Greg Miller]

I love it because, you know, we've gotten decades of people thinking Wolverine just looks like Hugh Jackman when in reality he is a short, thick king, you know? And I love that they're just like, you know what? We haven't gotten enough short enough, thick enough king in Wolverine. Let's just lean into it.

[Andy Cortez]

I love the hairy arms, the forearm larger than the skull, shoulders. Like, man, I cannot imagine this dude having to go to customer service because Black Tux online doesn't have the right customizations for the suit he's trying to order. Like, I don't have a 67 shoulder.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

He's like, I got this tailored like this shit. This should fit me in the right.

[Andy Cortez]

My waist is a 50 and my length is a 22.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No way. This is what Wolverines look like.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. I thought it was a rat. Isn't that like a rat?

[Greg Miller]

They're so cute.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Wait, how? Like, how big is. No way they're that small.

[Andy Cortez]

It's like a little bear. They look like a little. Yeah, they're like.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

They're like mini bears.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I don't know if Wolverine is not.

[Greg Miller]

That much bigger than a honey badger.

[Andy Cortez]

Wow. Wow.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I don't know if Wolverine child.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, damn, dude.

[Greg Miller]

They're tiny.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I guess Wolverine is short, so that makes sense. Like, as a character, he's a short, ferocious thing.

[Andy Cortez]

Do you think? Okay, so, like, you made a great point about Howlet, like, and the word howl being in the name.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Do you like, that had to have been intentional, right?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm sure they were on the same wavelength as I was where, like, they're like, oh, what do we name them? They're like, well, Wolverine's Howl, right? And the other guy in the room was like, sure. Because I can.

[Andy Cortez]

I can picture the last second somebody walking in like, hey, fucking John, a. A wolf isn't a Wolverine.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like, different thing.

[Andy Cortez]

I just figured this out, you know.

[Greg Miller]

I was like, I definite believed y'all when y'all were like, that's a Pokemon, isn't it? It's like I was trying to look up Howlet. Pokemon. But no.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, I'm thinking Rowlet.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Rowlett and Halucha.

[Greg Miller]

I don't know how Lucha.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Somebody in chat is.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, no, it's Hawlucha.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Somebody says, James Howlett is like, a twist. So is there a different Howlet in the Marvel universe? Like, what's the. Like, who's Howlett? Why? What's the twist there? He's related to, like, somebody.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, so they're saying. They said his name isn't Logan. It just showed.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It just showed now. Okay, well, his.

[Greg Miller]

His real name is James.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

James Hallett. Let's go on a journey here.

[Andy Cortez]

We need a 23.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Let's go on a journey here.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Because I always get this confused. Him and Sabretooth, the actual brothers. Or is it like the Brothers of Destruction in the WWE where Kane and Undertaker aren't actually brothers, but they have the spirit of brothers.

[Andy Cortez]

Well, in the lore, they were brothers.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So is Sabertooth's last name Howlet? Maybe. And maybe it's like a. Oh, Saber Tooth Tigers, they. They might howl.

[Andy Cortez]

They're brothers. Depends on the storyline. Okay. Comics, not brothers.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Not brothers.

[Andy Cortez]

Movies, not brothers, for sure.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Well, okay, so it's like the Brothers.

[Greg Miller]

Of Destruction you're watching because origins, Wolverine, they were brothers.

[Andy Cortez]

We don't count that one.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Now, Chad, what is. What is Saber Tooth's actual name? I guess I could Google this because his last name. How it. Because then I could see the connection there. Saber Tooth.

[Greg Miller]

Victor Creed.

[Andy Cortez]

Sick ass name.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I think I did know that, actually. I did know that.

[Andy Cortez]

Victor Creed. Yeah, Victor. Brothers from another mother. They're half brothers. We're learning a lot of stuff right.

[Greg Miller]

Now, but sometimes your brothers, sometimes you're not.

[Andy Cortez]

You know, either way, I liked the move set for Wolverine.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, that looks in Marvel Rivals much better than Iron Fist's move set.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You're not fucking with Iron Fist.

[Andy Cortez]

Iron Fist move set, I thought looked extremely lame and kind of Uninspired, mainly because it's just. It's a dude punching a whole lot in a way that doesn't look like it kind of fits this world. And maybe that's good because it is different and you're not having what seems to be, like, how every character in this game just has a projectile that they shoot out. But in this case, I kind of wish he had some sort of, like, kick that shot out, like a wave of. Of.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, that'd be cool.

[Andy Cortez]

Energy or something like that. Because he's just as Iron Fist. You just run up. If.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, in the trailer, he runs.

[Andy Cortez]

Up, he just goes. And he just punches really fast.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And maybe this is the Iron Fist TV show ruining me because I did watch both. Both seasons and Defenders, but, like, I was. I was locked into the Netflix Marvel stuff. But, like, doesn't his fist, like, light up? Couldn't they have done a thing where, like, they light up his fist, he punches and like a wave comes out kind of like what you're talking about?

[Andy Cortez]

I mean.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Or is that not. Not canon to the comics?

[Andy Cortez]

That could be cool. He does have a little self heal, though. Iron Fist, I think is pretty neat.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, that's nice.

[Andy Cortez]

As his own self heal. But he just kind of. And then the ultimate at the very, very end kind of is just buck wild. I'm gonna go buck wild on dudes.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

This is the type of character where, to your point, right. Like, people are gonna look at him, be like, oh, it's kind of whack. He's gonna end up being a top tier character, probably. He's gonna be the character where it's like, if you want to win, you have to have Iron Fist on your team.

[Andy Cortez]

You got the Genji Wall run as well. Looks pretty neat.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, that's pretty cool.

[Andy Cortez]

But I don't know, there's something about the way the. The way his body looks when he's punching, where it just looks like he's standing stationary and doing this. Yeah, it just doesn't look as cool and as stylish as everything else in the game does.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

All right, well, that's story 0.5 for you.

[Andy Cortez]

Cool.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Andy, let's talk about some sad news with story number one. Ubisoft is pulling the plug on X Defiant and shutting down studios. This is Matt Wales at Eurogamer. A month and a half after denying reports it was poised to pull the plug on its free to play live service shooter, X Defiant, which launched back in May, Ubisoft has confirmed it's doing just that, resulting in the closure of three production studios and 277 employees losing their jobs. Ubisoft's Chief Studios and Portfolio officer Marie Sophie Dewbert, announced the end of Ex Defiance development in a post on the company's website. Quote, despite an encouraging start, the team's passionate work and a committed fan base, we've not been able to attract and retain enough players in the long run to compete at the level we aim aim for in the very demanding free to play FPS market. The game is too far away from reaching the results required to enable further significant investment, and we are announcing that we will be sunsetting it as such. New downloads, player registrations and purchases will no longer be available from today, but season three will launch as planned and servers will remain online until June 3, 2025. And the quote ended there. Unfortunately, the news doesn't end with X Defiance cancellation. Ubisoft has also confirmed its closing in San Francisco and Osaka production studios and will ramp down its Sydney production site. As a result, 277 employees across all three units will lose their jobs. This equates to a little over half of the X Defiant team worldwide, with Ubisoft noting other employees working on the project will transition elsewhere within the company. Quote to those team members leaving Ubisoft, Dobert continued in her statement, I want to express my deepest gratitude for your work and contributions. Please know that we are committed to supporting you during this transition. End quote In a message to the X Defiant community, executive producer Mark Rubin, who in October insisted there were no plans to shut down the game, wrote quote, free to play in particular is a long journey. Many free to play games take a long time to find their footing and become profitable. It's a long journey that Ubisoft and the teams working on the game were prepared to make until very recently. But unfortunately the journey became too much to sensibly continue. End quote. Andy, there's a lot here to talk about. This is kind of another one in our ongoing conversation about multiple things. It's our ongoing conversation about Ubisoft and where Ubisoft's at. It's our ongoing conversation about the industry and where we're at in terms of all these layoffs and studio closures and the volatility of being financially stable currently in the industry. Things are really rough right now and it's just a conversation about like everything, right? Like where does this go from here? I feel like there's a Upon reading this, right, I guess going back to the Ubisoft conversation of it, one of the in our meeting yesterday we're trying to figure out what today's gamescast was going to be. One of the ideas we had was Ubisoft. Where did it go wrong? And that ended up turning into the GTA thing because it's the GTA one year anniversary, so it felt a bit more relevant. But in that conversation, that idea came from weeks ago, having a. Having either KFC or gamescast where he talked about like Ubisoft and how it almost feels like at any point shit can go down as far as Ubisoft's completely closing. Ubisoft's been bought by whoever. Right. Like all these things are closing down. Or like it feels like we're at the point where things need to happen with Ubisoft, like something major needs to happen with Ubisoft. Where are you at with all this?

[Andy Cortez]

This is just such a summary of everything. Yeah, like this one news story, this one event is such a microcosm of all of the industry. It's like you mentioning the volatility of working in game development, the unstable nature of, you know, having a job, the unstable nature of being able to be comfortably employed in this industry and hopping into a genre that is extremely crowded and is extremely crowded with games that are already, that already have their like crazy dedicated fan bases. And it's about ecosystems and it's about people already not wanting to maybe go play this newer X Defiant game, even though they, you know, kind of reminds you a lot of Concord, where the Concord release happens and they say, hey, we thought you all wanted a free to play. Or we thought we all wanted to buy a game that just sort of had everything already instead of nickel and dime you every couple of months for a new battle pass or whatever. So this was the thing we did. Is this not what you want? And kind of a similar story with X Defiant where they say, well, we were the. We heard you all complaining all the time about skill based matchmaking and Call of Duty. Like that's kind of what we're going for over here. And they just never quite met the moment. And I think a lot of it has to do with just people stuck to their ecosystems. Also, why the fuck was this game never put on steam? Another massive question. Yeah, that certainly could have given it more life or given it more of a chance. It's never the. The end all be all, but it certainly would have helped quite a bit. This story is just so emblematic of everything happening right now.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

The thing that I think surprises me, well, there's quite a few things that surprised me here. One the fact that they're not shutting it down fully until June, it's kind of weird to announce it now that this is happening and then be like, yeah, but it's still going for the next next six months. I would have expected it to be like, all right, in the next one or two months. Right. The next few weeks we're shutting this thing down.

[Andy Cortez]

We made a joke that the guy who has the password is on sabbatical until.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, they're like, oh, the guy who pushes the button, isn't it?

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But like, that's a surprising thing. And I think I was also a little bit surprised just for the fact that X Defiant seemed maybe at first like it was doing better than even what I expected it to be doing. That felt like a dead on arrival game, I think, leading into it, like from an announcement, because I forget when exactly they announced it, but I think it was in the hyperscape era of. Oh, yeah, Ubisoft is trying shit. And none of this shit's going to see the light of day. None of this shit's going to actually last. You play Hyperscape and you play it for that one week or that first couple of days, and then after that it kind of just came and went and then got shut down. Right. Like that became my expectation for this kind of Ubisoft release. Especially with the premise of this being. Oh, thank you, Barrett. Yeah. Xdefine was announced by Ubisoft in July 2021. So I believe that was post. Post Hyperscape.

[Andy Cortez]

Definitely post Hyperscape, yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Because Hyperscape came out, I think, in 2020.

[Andy Cortez]

There was a weird sort of lead into Hyperscape or to Exifying, because it was this sort of rumored thing that Ubisoft is working on. A Call of Duty competitor.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And we knew that, you know, it had either former devs or people that wanted to kind of go for that crown, but had their own version of. We want to make the better version of Call of Duty. This the. The version that everybody's been sort of asking for.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. And it seemed like at launch, the numbers, the engagement felt there, at least more than what I expected. Because I was expecting this to be just dead on arrival. I was expecting this to do nothing. And it came out and like we played it and the transparency was great.

[Andy Cortez]

From the dev.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

The transparency was great. They were very talkative. They were very much like, hey, this is what we're doing. This is what this is like. You know, I think the premise there is a tough one, especially if you're trying to be a Call of Duty Competitor 1. Nobody can be a Call of Duty competitor. It's Call of Duty. But if you want to try and enter the space of having a free to play first person shooter, go for it. But you got to understand what you're working with. You know, Ubisoft IP sure are, I think strong to some respect, but they're not going to. It's not Smash Brothers, right? It is Watch Dogs and Far Cry and a bunch of Tom Clancy stuff. You got to understand what that is. And I think for what that is playing it, I was like, all right, this is fun. It's not, it's not a 10 out of 10 shooter. It's not like it's not shooter of the year. It's not, I don't think game awards nomination type type of game. But I think for what it was, I was like, all right, cool, they made it. They made a game here that is fun to hop into every now and then. But then as time went on, it felt like there was kind of at least for me, it was a pretty quick drop off and maybe for everybody. I don't know. I would love to like see what that chart looks like as far as the X Defiant player base and how many of those people stuck to it and then how many those people dropped off because. Because I think post that launch season I can't even recall like what those updates looked like, what that, what that roadmap looked like, what the periodic updates were. It felt like that was one. It reminds me of Multiverses a little bit in the fact that Multiverses first dropped in that early Access thing and felt so strong at launch, but then they just didn't follow up in ways that were worthwhile to people. That would be my bet on like what happened here of you dropped had like, like a good drop and then a drop off from the audience that was playing it.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, a thousand percent. And I, I know some people will point to some issues within the community regarding anti cheat and balancing. I. Any good game can, you know, live long and sort of fight against balancing issues. I don't think this is, I don't think balancing is a reason why this game didn't succeed. I think it's a lot of it is just people go back to the thing they know and love.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yes.

[Andy Cortez]

And people may have been playing this game and then guess what? Call of Duty drops a new thing and it's a new battle pass a new season and a new map or whatever. And then people will flock back over there and that's just kind of the way things go and that's the way things have been going for the last several years. And I think more than anything, obviously extremely sad that that many people have to get laid off in, in addition to this whole, like, production suite in San Francisco and in Osaka, I believe.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yep.

[Andy Cortez]

The. I think more than anything they need to look at what they have with Rainbow six Siege and just triple, quadruple, quintuple down on it and go, hey, we still have a game here that people are playing and we have a dedicated fan base here. With Siege, it's somehow still very, very alive. It's been alive for a very long time and more and more people are playing it. And you know, there's even a lot of very popular streamers still into the Siege ecosystem. We need to understand that we kind of have a miracle little baby right here and we need to just really feed it as much as possible. How do you, for the foreseeable future.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Do you do a Rainbow Six Siege 2 or do you like, continue to try and support Rainbow six Siege as a live thing?

[Andy Cortez]

I don't think so. I think the messaging from here on out should be, hey, you all of Rainbow six Siege. We love making it. We are going to make it the most. I think what they have to do with it is without maybe adding the two on it is doing what Counter Strike did. You know, even though Counter Strike did add the number two to it as.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Well, but almost like a 2.0, it's.

[Andy Cortez]

Still a bit of a dated looking game now. Right? I would say maybe updated visually and say like, hey, it's a brand new refresh or whatever, but it's the same apps, it's the same characters. We are really, really going to double and triple down on new agents, new whatever the hell, new gadgets and gizmos, because they still have a product there that is still like thriving, I would say. And it's. That's so hard to come by nowadays to, to have a multiplayer game that people are still flocking towards.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Well, I mean, I think that's another thing that surprises me a little bit about how this has gone because X Defiant is one that it's a weird one because part of me is like, yeah, this is the one that's worth abandoning because, like it didn't interest me as much as I would have liked it to. Right. Like, I think there's an idea there. But in the, to your point, there are so many other games right now. There's like, there's a Good handful of games that people spend all their time playing that people spend their. All their time time in. There was that. I think it was gamesindustry Biz article that was talking about how it was like a high percentage of people that were playing games that had come out before, like the last few years. Right. It was like people, people are playing Fortnite, people are playing like Call of Duty, Apex. Like they're the games that people keep going back to that aren't part of, like, the new yearly releases. So I think that's a big part of it. But yeah, like, X Defined is one that part of me is like, maybe worth abandoning. But another part of me is like, well, Siege came out in what, 2015, 2016 or somewhere. 2015. And it's not like it came out the hottest game of all time. No, but they were able to build it into something that became way bigger than what it was at launch. Right? Like it had like a decent launch came out, you know, built, built, built. Now Siege is like a contender. Siege is something that matters. I would have thought that if you're trying to recreate that magic, if you're trying to make something into a live service that's going to be lucrative for you, you look at Siege as the example of, hey, we did it here, let's give X Defiant more time. That then comes into the conversation, I'll ask you, do you think if given more time, X Defiant could become. Could have become something special?

[Andy Cortez]

I don't think so. And I think it comes down to. It just comes down to the same argument that I've just been having for the last four years of people know where they want to be and they're comfortable where they're. It's the same reason why it's. It's so hard to convince someone on Android to go to Apple or vice versa. People are where they're at, they're where their store is, they're where their, their money is, they're where their purchased items are, and they're where their friends are as well. And it's so hard to get somebody to just sort of move over and say, hey, that game that you play with all of your group of friends from college or high school or whatever, you know, try to move over here and. And also, again, not being on Steam is crazy. I wish we could check the Steam numbers on X Defined, but it's not on Steam, which, you know, is still massively unfortunate that, that they still missed out on a big chunk of players there, because I am of the mind that when it's wintertime or summertime and there's that big Steam sale, that there are adults like us with disposable income, income that go, I got a spare 20 bucks. Let me buy that one game that's on sale right now. We hear about Steam backlogs all the time. Like there's. So it reminds me of all the people that don't cancel AO AOL who like have still had America Online that are still paying from decades and decades ago. I'm checking right Now Siege has 61,000 on Steam only playing right now, which.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Is like crazy wild.

[Andy Cortez]

Only on Steam. We're not talking about PlayStation or Xbox. And now you got to realize you have a golden goose. I hope this is a big lesson for a big company like Ubisoft to and for other large companies of similar sizes to go, we gotta quit trying to go for that market. And it sucks. But all that happens is layoffs. And we've seen the story repeated so.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Many times just this year. Right. We've seen it happen with Concord. Baird's pulled up. Oh, are these the Siege numbers?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, and like all time peak being 200,000 stuff. And yeah, just kind of backing up Andy's point here of like, why are they, you know, they had this weird couple years where they were refusing to launch on Steam and trying to make everybody use their launcher and all this stuff and then also trying to, you know, chase this free to play trend and all of this stuff that I think, you know, a lot of people are looking back at Siege and I think it's also, we have to remember that it was such a different time even when Siege started to rise up in 2018 than it is now and all this stuff and, and it's not the same type of soil that companies can, you know, plant the same type of seeds with. And yeah, it's just a. It's a weird time all around.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, we got to move on from this conversation. But one thing is I do we. I want to do the, you know, where did Ubisoft go wrong conversation. As part of that, I do want to like put on our CEO caps and like do the scenario of, you know, Yves, come on. He put us in his will. He didn't pass away in this case. He just, I don't know. Can you activate a will before you die? Because I don't want to put death on Y's Gamble.

[Andy Cortez]

I mean, but like, you try it out.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, we're going to say in this scenario where Yuzu puts it, puts It.

[Greg Miller]

It's his career, Will. Where he retires. And there you go. His career.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

He puts in his career.

[Andy Cortez]

Where the children in succession.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Exactly. Exactly. Where the succession children. I'm not seeing succession. Where the secession children. He's retired. He has handed you over Ubisoft. How do we restructure how? Like, what is the CEO cap version of you doing? But I want you to think about that because, like, I want to do that.

[Andy Cortez]

My name is Tom Wambscams. I think we should bring back possibly Splinter Cell. That may be a great idea, Eve. That's my Tom.

[Greg Miller]

That was the character. I thought I knew you were gonna go for somebody, but that's not the.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

One that I got. I didn't know they're French over there. What is that from? I just know they're French.

[Andy Cortez]

He just said soccer blue.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That was like my friends. Whoever. Shiv.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, Shiv.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Do I gotta watch? Is that a succession character?

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. Tom.

[Andy Cortez]

Mom's game.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I probably gotta watch that.

[Greg Miller]

You should watch it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, I know people talked about it.

[Greg Miller]

I. I binged it all off. Three weeks. That's crazy.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Three weeks. Okay, I can probably do that. Christmas break is coming up. We'll see. We're gonna move on, Eve.

[Andy Cortez]

Here's the thing, you know, we gotta get on social media. You know, Blue sky's, you know, blowing the up, it's popping the off. You know, that's where everybody is right now, Eve. So that's where we got to be.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You know, Bonjour, au revoir.

[Andy Cortez]

That was the other guy.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That was the other son on Let du Fromage.

[Andy Cortez]

We're not a lot of friends, dude.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Hey, I took classes, you know.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, good.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We're gonna move on to story number two. But before we do, I wanted to tell you about patreon.com kindofunny and YouTube.com kinda funny games where you can get the Kinda Funny membership which allows you to watch shows ad free. And speaking of ads, let us tell you about our sponsors.

[D]

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[E]

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[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And we're back with story number two, new avatar. The last Airbender game reportedly canceled. This is Matthew Murphy at Comic Book Bear. You can't boo when it gets announced and boo when it gets canceled. You know, you gotta pick a side.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Did I boo when this got announced?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Probably. I don't know. I don't remember. I feel like you did.

[Greg Miller]

No. I see when we. What was it? The triple A game or whatever that got announced?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, yeah.

[Greg Miller]

It was like a weird, like studio that was picked and it felt like they're trying to punch above their weight and it was like, it was like.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

The Garfield cart studio. I feel like.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, something weird. And that. That's where I was like, I don't know if this is the call, y'all. I don't even remember this ever being announced?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Well, that's the thing is, you know, chat and for people watching and listening, this might not be the Avatar game that you thought it was. When the world needed an Avatar the last Airbender game the most, it vanished. Fans have been awaiting the news on the next generation of Avatar Games for a long time and will unfortunately have to wait longer, according to Maximum Entertainment's Q3 2024 earnings report. And Avatar the Last Airbender game was one of three titles the company canceled. It seems likely that the title in question is the fighting game announced back in February. However, this was not explicitly confirmed by the developer. Saber Interactive's avatar game, described as a AAA action rpg, or, sorry, a triple A rpg, seemingly remains in active development. So the AAA RPG is safe, everybody. In partnership with Paramount Studios, Maximum Entertainment's Avatar the Last Airbender title was described as a competitive multiplayer fighting game set in the universe of the original series. Although the project wasn't confirmed for any specific platforms, it was announced that the game would launch in early access in 2025. The company never disclosed the developer for the title, so it's unclear how far along the project was in development cycle before its cancellation.

[Andy Cortez]

How sad is it that you talk about this game and you say that it's a multiplayer fighting game and my immediate thought is that would never survive.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, I mean, yeah, it would be. You would have to.

[Andy Cortez]

I don't know what you could do. I'm so just distraught.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It would.

[Andy Cortez]

Nothing. Nothing will last. Well, everything's going to end.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It would have to be what the Hunter Hunter game is about to be. And even the 100 game. I don't know if like busy. Well, that's the thing is it wouldn't get the budget of dbz. Like you tell me that Saber Interactive is working on like an avatar fighting game. No, that's not. Like it's not going to be a good game.

[Andy Cortez]

Sabre's been Saber fighting game.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

What was the Sabers thing? Were they Warhammer? Warhammer 40.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. Space Marine.

[Greg Miller]

Like how many like Warhammers are there under Save Saber versus how many? You know, Tomb Raider one through three, remastered and a quiet place, the Road Ahead and my thing. Snow Runner and Evil Dead. The game.

[Andy Cortez]

My thing is that Bella has a word to say about Snow Runner. He loves.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh yeah, don't throw. My thing is more so just that it's a fighting game.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like it is. I don't. Saber Interactive, I don't know if they would be able to pull off a fighting game, especially on the level of, like, a DB, like the dragon ball sparking zero. Right. Like, that is a Bay 9. Namco has to do that. If you're gonna make an Avatar game, ARC System Works would have to be the ones to make it right. Or if you're gonna make an arena thing, you would have to give it a Bandai. I feel like a Saber Interactive avatar fighting game is not the one.

[Greg Miller]

Wait, it's not gonna be. Hold on. Is Maximum Entertainment under Saber Interactive? Do we know?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. So Saber wasn't working on the fighting game. They were working on the AAA RPG Maximum games, which I just learned is a neighbor of ours in Walnut Creek. They were working on the fighting game.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yes, you're right. Sorry, I got that mixed up.

[Greg Miller]

And, like, they're a subsidiary of Zordix.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

AB and Maximum Entertainment, I believe, is publishing the game. Like, we don't know the developer of it. And so, like, when you're talking about stuff that they've published, right. They did Squirrel with a Gun, Spirit of the North 2, a bunch of games I've not heard of. How'd they get that IP until then? Well, this is, I think, think this goes back to the conversation we're having earlier in the year where I'm like, Nickelodeon does not give a About, like, who they give their games to.

[Greg Miller]

Exactly.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

They let anybody. Like, it's.

[Greg Miller]

And with Avatar, they're just. They're so. It's like a shot. They just, like, do a shotgun spread and just like, it goes everywhere.

[Andy Cortez]

It's like, it's the Tolkien estate. It's just Lord of the Rings Star Wars.

[Greg Miller]

Like, here's a trailer for an Avatar 4X strategy game that was announced four months ago. Did we know that there was going to be an Avatar Forex strategy game coming out? No.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

They just greenlight everything. And it's because they have, like, the.

[Greg Miller]

Mid 2000 Star wars mindset where they're like, oh, this IP is so powerful and strong enough. We can put it in any, like, kind of game genre and it'll just, like, work and be great. But it's not the same. You know, I would say the. The same, like, tier of teams that they're selling or workshopping these ideas to. And then also, nine out of ten times these games get canceled. And it's like, why. Why don't you try just focusing on one project and seeing where that goes, you know?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. And so, again, to Annie's point, right, I think in Avatar, the last Airbender fighting game in general, even if we're giving it to like a high quality team that knows how to make a fighting game. Still, I would be in the place of. All right, let's see how this does. Like, I know the Avatar fan base is strong and like, like in large and very supportive, but also is that the fighting game fan base at the same time. Right. Like, what does that crossover look like?

[Andy Cortez]

Feels like you're just taking advantage of a fan base that is just thirsty and hungry for crumbs, you know? Yeah, it feels kind of toxic making.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

An avatar fighting game or what they're doing what Nickelodeon is doing here, like.

[Andy Cortez]

Like just making an avatar fighting game. It's, you know, I'm sure these developers may have been passionate in some way or another, but it really does seem like, like, oh, these poor avatar fans. They'll take anything at this point.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

See, for this developer, I think it's more so the thing of, hey, we want to make a game, what IP can we work with? Oh, we can get avatar. Wait, why? Oh, Nickelodeon doesn't give a fuck. They'll just let us use the avatar IP for a low cost.

[Greg Miller]

And sometimes they make great decisions. Like the fucking turtles game. The Turtles game. The fucking that Tim liked. And like, they'll beat them up. Yeah, the like side scrolling beat them up. Like they do make good decisions once out of every 20 decisions that they make when it comes to licensing out their IP to video games.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Because I don't even blame the developer. Right. Because like as a developer, no matter who I am, if you're telling me that Nickelodeon will give me whatever I.

[Andy Cortez]

Want, oh, it's got to be so exciting. There had to have been so many moments of them looking at each other. I can't believe we're making an avatar.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We're making an avatar. And then you realize that making a fighting game is really, really, really tough.

[Andy Cortez]

That just doesn't seem like a great decision. Like, I don't know what, it's such a splintered turtles reference. Such a splintered world right now with games and with audiences and just fan bases that you had to have asked yourself. I mean, I got to assume the big reason this got canceled was like, who the fuck is this for? Yeah, this is such a 90, 1993, 1997 product of just a random IP getting a fighting game. Because kids like me would go to the store and go, oh, they made a fighting game about whatever this is about. Sure, I guess. Like, and as a kid I played a lot of fighting games because it was just a video game. And now it feels like fighting Games are for fighting fans primarily. And that just seems like such a.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's like fighting fans or anime fans. That's the thing is, I think when you're talking about crossover Dragon Ball Fighters was able to make it happen. One because it's arcsys, but then also because guess what? The people that watch Dragon Ball Z and that fucking love Dragon Ball Z. Those are the people that play fighting games. Those people are playing Tekken. Those people are playing Street Fighters.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Avatar. Some of those people are playing. I listen, I love Avatar and I play fighting games and I know we, like plenty of us exist. I don't know if we exist on the level of a Dragon Ball Fighters type.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, we're showing up for a fighting game and I think like that audience would show up for like the game I pitched years ago, where it, it's in the universe, it's different characters. It's either way, way back before the show or something that is more like story driven and story heavy. That can appeal to more general audience. Like a general audience that may not be super in tune with video games, but really love Avatar and would show up for like, oh, there's a new story in the Avatar universe that I get to play.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Hell yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Dude, was Sony Santa Monica making an Earthbender video game?

[Andy Cortez]

Do that would be incredible. Do what Harry Potter did for their game. Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Hogwarts Legacy.

[Andy Cortez]

For Hogwarts Legacy.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean that's what, that's what I hope Saber Interactive is doing here because they describe it as a AAA rpg. I think a AAA avatar. The last Airbender RPG is taking what.

[Andy Cortez]

Path you're going down. Are you going to be Earth that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Has, that has success potential right there.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And Save Interactive. You're right. Like, like they're a team that I think has the potential to do it. I don't think it's a surefire bet, but they have the potential. They have. They like have the budget. They have quality games. Like they, they do this.

[Greg Miller]

I think they also do Kotor, apparently.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean the one that's coming up, the Aspire one. Well, remember Aspire, like was doing it originally and then they dropped it. I believe Sabre picked it up. So, like, I don't know, maybe. I mean that. We don't know what that Kotor game looks like because it probably got started over when Aspire had to drop it.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. Like, let me team up with the Forest tribe and the Water tribe. We take on the Fire tribe.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And we're meeting up with Jake Sully and we're Saving, you know, earthbenders, you know, Suddenly, you know, AWA is speaking to us, the spirit, and we're trying to save the planet of Pandora, you know.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, I see what you did there.

[Andy Cortez]

Good movie, man.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Show.

[Greg Miller]

I know you started it.

[Andy Cortez]

At one point I got to Episode two, Season two. I was like, man, just fucking. I need someone to get killed.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like, it happened. We still talk about the last Airbender.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, you'll get there. Nickelodeon, man, I feel like somebody dies at something.

[Andy Cortez]

Like, I need incest or something, you know, like, give me some Game of Thrones type, you know.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, you don't know. Get to season two, Episode three.

[Andy Cortez]

I mean, you don't know.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You don't know. You know, I get there. Story number three. The Game Awards Players Voice Award nominees have been revealed. I'm pulling from Kat Bailey at IGN. The Game Awards has revealed 30 games nominated by fans as part of the Player's Voice Award, a fan award that is selected through the official website. As expected, the selections include many of the most popular games released in 2024, including Game of the Year nominees. Astrobot Balacho and Black Myth. Dragon Ace. The Veilguard also makes the cut. The cut, as does Elden Ring, Shadow of the Erdtree, and ongoing games such as Fortnite and Final Fantasy 14. I got the full list. Originally I was going to read the full list. I'm still going to read the full list. Do it. The complete list goes like this. You got Astrobot Balatro, Black Myth, COD, Black Ops 6, Dragon Age, the Veilgard, Dragon Ball, Sparking Zero, Elden Ring Shadow, the Erdtree, Final Fantasy 7, Rebirth, FF14, Fortnite, Genshin Held, Iris 2, League of Legends, League of Legends the Legend of Zelda Echoes a wisdom like a dragon. Infinite Wealth Metaphor Fantasio, Mobile Legends, Bang Bang.

[Greg Miller]

That's not real.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No Man's Sky. Oh, you haven't. You didn't play Mobile Legends? Bang Bang. No, that's not real.

[Andy Cortez]

I'm at level 37. Oh, damn.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You're at level 37 already. Damn, I'm still at level 25. No. Man's Sky Power World, Persona 3, Reload, Senua Saga, Hellblade 2, Silent Hill 2, Sonic X, Shadow Generations, Stellar Blade, Wuthering Waves, valorant, Warframe, Warhammer 40K, Space Marine 2, and Zenless Zone 0.

[Greg Miller]

So you're saying that the Player's Voice who is really upset that Shadow of the Year tree got nominated for Game of the Year was still like, you know what? It is still good enough to, you know, have it be nominated for our voice award.

[Andy Cortez]

It's a different player.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, that's my thing. It's a different, you know, it's a different voice.

[Andy Cortez]

Voice.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's a different player's voice. We're not a monolith, Barrett. Yeah, you know what I mean? Some of us. Some of us, you know, play good games. I don't know where I was going with that. Yeah, I was gonna take it somewhere and I was like, I don't want to go there today. Yeah, I don't want to go there.

[Andy Cortez]

You don't want that heat?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I don't want that heat. It's a Wednesday. We got two more days to get through.

[Andy Cortez]

Come find me on Blue sky and get banned.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Cool. I wonder what the fans are going to vote here. My prediction, Black Myth will come.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I think Black will get the win for sure.

[Andy Cortez]

The numbers were just insane that those. Those first couple of days, you know, the concurrent players just on Steam alone.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, ridiculous. Is power on this list? I don't know. I don't think power is gonna get it. But I think if you're talking about popularity power, World's probably going to be top five in the conversation.

[Andy Cortez]

I could see that Genshin would be really high up there as well.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Gentle is a weird one, though, because, like, I get that there's. I mean, there's for sure an audience retention, but to vote it in 2024, I feel like. I feel like Zenless should get. Should get the energy there.

[Andy Cortez]

Like, they have their fans, though. Like, their fans are hardcore. Stellar Blade will likely be there as well. All the goons, though. Yeah, I'll represent the Gooners.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But, like, I mean, I know Stellar.

[Greg Miller]

Blade and Black Myth Wukong are gonna be the top two.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No. Yeah, I don't think. I don't think Stellar Blades on the level of popularity. I don't think it's on that level, but.

[Greg Miller]

And this was kind of a conversation we were talking about a week or two ago of like. Like, some of the people who are very online, you know, how many times are they limited to vote for this thing? Can they vote once a day? You know, are. I don't know. There's interesting things there.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I still stand by. I think you're overrating, like, the, like, that audience's support, like, their mobilization for getting Stellar Blade up there. I think they'll do it for Black Myth. I think Stellar Blade, like, Stellar Blade was horny. Yes. But also I feel like even those people would be like, oh, yeah, eight out of ten. Like, I Don't think those people are like, it's a masterpiece. I think they feel that way about Blackmith, though.

[Greg Miller]

I mean, Alex brings up a great point. Remember the Zack Snyder Gooners?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. But they also had. It's like you can't. I don't think you can be like, oh, it's only the Gooners that are supporting this thing. Because he had Greg Miller up here and sure. Is he part Gooner. Yes. But like Greg Miller's up here preaching the gospel of Zack Snyder.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You know you have normies also that like these things.

[Andy Cortez]

God. I beat a recent boss of Stellar Blade. I got back to it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

I beat it before like end of the year game. So do me a favor, game, listen.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

To the soundtrack of Stellar Blade. Just think about Best os.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Because the music in that game is off the cha.

[Andy Cortez]

The most recent boss fight I did, it was just like some crazy shit. Also I set my. My little chill out music when you get to your little bonfires. I set that music to this one song that's like.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And it's just like, oh man, it's such a good bop. But the music during this boss fight was just like some screamo shit. Dude, this rocks, man. This game rocks.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Hell yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

It's such a good ass game.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And that's the thing is I'm not. When we talk about quality, I'm also. That's not the argument I'm making here about Stellar Blade for the chat. Right. Like, I really dig Stellar Blade. I think it does actually deserve to be on this list.

[Andy Cortez]

Better combat than Wukong. Yeah, Easily not even close.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Better game than Wukong is what I'll say. But I think when you're talking about the audience and like where their votes are going to go, I think Black Myth is like on another level. And like, my thing is this. If this was completely determined by the Gooners, Dragon age would not be here. Like, I feel like there's a.

[Andy Cortez]

You're 100% right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

There's a mix of people that are voting here and I don't know, I could see. I think other things are going to rise to the top. I think Astrobot, of course, is going to get higher than a Stellar Blade.

[Greg Miller]

Really?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

With. Even with how little in sales it has being a PS5 exclusive compared to a lot of these that are on multiple platforms and people are actually like talking about and playing more.

[Andy Cortez]

I'm with Barrett on this one. Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

People are not talking about Astrobot outside of our circles.

[Andy Cortez]

I don't Think Astrobots got the juice.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But I do think the people that played Astrobot, like, are passionate about it, more so than the people that played Celiblade. And also, how much is it's all about?

[Andy Cortez]

Will you get out to vote? You know?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Celebrate. Sold. I think it's, like, over 3 million right now.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That's not like.

[Andy Cortez]

That's not too much.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That's not too much more than that's. My thing is, I think if you played both Stellar Blade and Astrobot, I feel like more people would probably be like, oh, man, Astrobot is probably better. But maybe I'm just speaking out of turn. Maybe I'm speaking out of turn. Andy. Hey, the voting turnout for this is gonna be big. It's gonna be so big.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Gonna be humongous. But if I wanted something smaller, say the tiniest news I need to know about, where would I go?

[Andy Cortez]

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

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That's right. It's WE News. I had a story number four that I'm demoting now to Wii News because we're far into the show. BioWare is celebrating Dragon Age Day, which I didn't know was a thing. Did you know? Did you know Dragon Age Day was a thing?

[Andy Cortez]

I had no idea. It's not N7 day, you know, that's pretty easy.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

What's December 4th?

[Andy Cortez]

D4? Dragon.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Dragon 4.

[Andy Cortez]

Maybe it's Veilguard Day.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, Dragon. It says Dragon Age Day here.

[Andy Cortez]

What does D4 stand for? Chad? Is that, like, in the lore?

[Greg Miller]

Like, how people use 4 to make an A?

[Andy Cortez]

I don't like that. Feels pretty forced.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, yeah, that does feel forced.

[Andy Cortez]

Most video game days, like, N7 day works so great for me, you know, that works well.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

They're celebrating the day with a free veilguard character creator and some updates. I love the article that I pulled from. I pulled from, like, a Tech Raptor article written by Joseph Allen, and I love it because they're like, hey, there's an update that they announced. The page is down, so I can't tell you what's in the update, but, like, it's coming later today. Like, they then go through a bunch of stuff that they talk about, but they're like, yeah, but, like, we don't know much about it because it's supposed to be in the update, and the update page won't load. So there's the Dragon Age Day. Happy Dragon Age Day.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But we do know that the character Creator is being released for free. So there you go.

[Andy Cortez]

I was every day. I'm still shocked that, you know, the homie Chris Anka is on his second playthrough already for.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Wow.

[Andy Cortez]

It takes a lot to pull away Chris Anka from Cyberpunk because he's always constantly playing cyberpunk. He replays, I mean, when he's not.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Playing Chris Ankle, when he's not playing.

[Andy Cortez]

Call of Duty with us or whatever multiplayer game with us. He's played through Cyberpunk like six or seven times.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I didn't realize Chris Ankle was gonna get a taste like this. Oh, oh, Chris, salute to you.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, he's on his second. Second playthrough of Dragon Age and he's like, I'm doing everything the same. I'm just playing a different class. Good for you, man.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Holy shit. Let's go.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

From Noble. The studio behind Chained Echoes has a new name and is now called Umami. Tiger Deceive Inc. Developer Sweet Bandits is shutting down sadly. Donkey Kong Land 3 is now available on Nintendo Switch Online. Barrett is just shaking his head. One day we'll get 64. Not today. One day.

[Andy Cortez]

I have a year wrong for myself. This was as of June, though. We're shift up 3 million.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Sales for sale.

[Andy Cortez]

Estimated that Celibate has sold over 1 million. What did I read 3 million? I read 3 million somewhere recently, but maybe. Maybe I was completely wrong. But it is coming into PC very soon.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, that's gonna do. That's gonna do a lot for. I wouldn't be surprised if by now, if I had a guest. Lublade sells by now. I'd guess 4 million.

[Andy Cortez]

I'd say close to 2 million.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

2 million or maybe over 2.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, because I assumed it was already on PC. I didn't realize it wasn't over there yet.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, man, Modding. That's going to go out. You don't even need modding.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Jesus.

[Andy Cortez]

The newest jiggling crazy.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Dude, it's 4 million crazy. After five, six months, I think 4 million is crazy.

[Andy Cortez]

It's still an exclusive. It's a PS5 exclusive.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, yeah, you're right. Yeah, I guess less. But my first Grand Turismo launches December 6th for free on PS4 and 5. Kingdom come. Deliverance 2 launches one week earlier on February 4th on Xbox Series, PS5 and PC.

[Greg Miller]

Just for my birthday.

[Andy Cortez]

What's it jumping out of the way.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Of about one week earlier? I mean, everything's coming out of that second week of February. Assassin's Creed Shadows. That's like the Valentine's day Game Bleach Rebirth of Souls launches March 21 on Xbox Series PS4, PS5 and PC. Fast Penguin for Xbox Series X launches December 11. This is one that came in during the show. Ilfonic is cutting staff. They put up a statement saying today we had to accept the harsh reality that the state of the industry has impacted us here at Ilfonik. It is with the heaviest of hearts that cuts to our teams had to be made today as we realigned will refined strategy. There's a lot of talent in this group and if you or your team is hiring, please reach out so people can be connected to open roles. Thank you. And that was written by Charles, the CEO and co founder over there at Ilfoni. Like, yeesh, I know.

[Andy Cortez]

Two in one day.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It keeps hitting.

[Andy Cortez]

That's crazy.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And then lastly, this is one that Barrett added. Balatro is getting an official playing card deck. Oh, that's cool. Oh, this is from fan the Fangamer. That's awesome.

[Andy Cortez]

Gamer rocks. I love Fangamer.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, isn't. Is it not just a standard 52 deck? Cards?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, I need it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Fair enough.

[Greg Miller]

Fucking sick.

[Andy Cortez]

You said this looks so bad.

[Greg Miller]

No, no, I need it, so.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, I need it.

[Greg Miller]

I. I used to collect different themed playing cards. I don't do it as much.

[Andy Cortez]

I picture you do some magic. Like, I picture you as a magic guy.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. Like doing like, like, like actual man. Like actual magic.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Like, yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

You had like an E3 parties being like fucking.

[Greg Miller]

No, I like to collect them more so because, you know, we played a lot of card games in like high school and shit.

[Andy Cortez]

You're the slide.

[Greg Miller]

Definitely not like gambling or anything.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, sure.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That's it for we news, right when the song ends too. Look at that. Look at that.

[Greg Miller]

That was great.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Let's pull in some super chats for you before we get out of here. We had a lot that came in. Yeah. Alex Frazier writes in just with quote, I need incest by Andy Cortez.

[Andy Cortez]

The Game of Thrones incest, it's a different type.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Madognick96 says don't forget me is the Stellar Blade Bop DJ. Kento says, do you remember when Nick gave TMNT to Platinum Games for mutants in Manhattan? And even that was a bomb. How did that happen? Oh, I'll do you one better.

[Andy Cortez]

I think about Nick Scarpino.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Remember when Nick Scarpino gave it? No, I mean, Nick also gave Avatar Legend of Korra to platinum and that shit bombed. It happens. It's the Nickelodeon curse. What they need is a games team. They need a Marvel Games team. Right. Somebody who's like. Or a group of people that are like, hey, we're going to be the shepherds of this.

[Greg Miller]

People who are in the know of what the industry is.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. People who are going to be like, hey, we're going to get these games or get these IPS into the right hands to actually make good games. Now for them to actually want to do that, like they gotta also have to like want to make video games. And I'm. I don't think Nickelodeon cares that much. I don't think they care about the like the game side of things. I don't think they want. I don't think they give a fuck about that market really.

[Andy Cortez]

I feel like they're war. I. I don't know. I think about like what's the current state of Nickelodeon? That's a whole different discussion.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. I've not looked at Nickelodeon a long time. What are the modern Nickelodeon shows? Are there any.

[Andy Cortez]

I just feel like it's.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Like you know, kids are just hopping on YouTube now, you know. Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

And the animation, like a dire. Say it right now. Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I was gonna say. I can't remember the last time I heard of a Nickelodeon show. We're.

[Andy Cortez]

I think we're kind of in the worst of times.

[Greg Miller]

Like, you know, everything's falling apart.

[Andy Cortez]

Everything sucks, man. I'm really sad.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

CJ Splitson says Hell Libraries 2 is back to overwhelmingly positive. Sick. Adam2Time says Rainbow Six with OG and multiplayer mode combined. Question mark, question mark. Zeke Speak says also games that chase the moment but also have cool ideas slash concepts like wildstar which felt so fresh but chased the MMO trend too late and folded.

[Andy Cortez]

Remember wildstar, man? No, it was a long time ago. Yeah, Mike knows what's up.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. Mike in the background said good game.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. Wildstar was kind of when we were looking for something kind of after wow. And it was a sort of sci fi MMO and it was just a little too late for them. Everybody was just stuck on wow.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I know. Fantasy Star.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. Wild Star was a very, very small sort of stylized looking mmo.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oscar Navarro says loving the kingdom hearts rep from blessing. I saw some people asking where I got this shirt. I got this shirt in high school from a friend. Oh yeah, this is the old ass shirt.

[Andy Cortez]

I would have guessed you got algorithmed.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No, no, this is just a shirt.

[Andy Cortez]

I think it algorithm a lot lately.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I've had this shirt for legitimately maybe. God, how old am I? 15 years.

[Greg Miller]

It's probably from Hot Topic.

[Andy Cortez]

I've been buying those 90 shirts that Mike's been buying. The vintage ones. No, they're actually. No, I'm kidding. They're like 25. They're just normal shirts, but like very. You know, I got like an old. A Dark Souls one photo shirt where it's just like the. The dude in the center and then.

[Greg Miller]

It like washes out after, like once, probably.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, I mean, it really looks like that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I did a lot of Tick Tock shopping. Oh, what's this? Oh, this is a Stellar Blade.

[Andy Cortez]

This is the Stellar Blade song. God, yeah, it's a good song.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Me and you got a lobby for this for best soundtrack. Also, we gotta talk about the Smile is what we're doing, because I don't think we discussed that at all.

[Andy Cortez]

God damn, dog.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's an insane soundtrack. And, oh, I was gonna say I've been doing a lot. I was doing a lot of Tick Tock shopping on Black Friday, getting some deals and so they've not come in yet. But one of these days I'm going to come in with a new jacket and this shit might hit. We'll see. I don't know how fully I trust the TikTok Shop.

[Andy Cortez]

You can't prep us like this.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, listen.

[Andy Cortez]

Because everybody's going to like, wait with bated breath and either shit on you or praise it. And that's like a big risk. You got to just walk in. Non. Scrub this from the footage. You can't do this to bless.

[Greg Miller]

I'm live editing it now.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

There's no. Here's the thing. I'm going to say it. All right? There's no way this jacket isn't fine. Whoa. All right. Ok. You know, I have to say.

[Greg Miller]

Bless anytime that that said on content for kind of funny. It always goes bad.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

There's no way this jacket isn't fire. Because the guy on Tick Tock was rocking it. You know, he was like, yo, they did a skit too. They were like, oh, where'd you get that jacket? Oh, you know, I got it on the Tick Top shop for, you know, $40. Oh, usually it costs 200 bucks, but, you know, I got it on a deal on the Tick Tock shop. And I was like, let me click this real quick.

[Andy Cortez]

If they made a short for it, I don't trust it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It looked real good on the guy in the video. Hopefully it's the same jacket.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, man, I'm worried now.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Not chat. It's gonna be fire. I bought two different jackets, too. Oh, I Bought two different jackets.

[Andy Cortez]

Two variants. You got color variants?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No, two, like, literally different. Yeah, but they're both of them in the same day on the Tick Tock shop. And I spent like, a hundred bucks. I also bought Majin Buu shorts. You know how Majin Buu has, like, the M, like, logo?

[Andy Cortez]

He wears, like, a diaper, doesn't he?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But it has, like, a mud. I mean. No, like, it's like white shorts.

[Andy Cortez]

He looks like he wears an adult diaper.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's, like, baggy, so it kind of looks like that.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, it looks like he's shitting diapers, is telling himself.

[Greg Miller]

So when he comes in wearing a diaper, he doesn't feel bad about it?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No, it's not a. Look up a picture of Majin Buu. He has some shorts. I bought it. I bought. I bought it.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

He wears a diaper. Well, it's shorts that I bought. It wasn't. Maybe. Maybe he wears a diaper.

[Andy Cortez]

Boo Boo.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But it was shorts that I bought. Okay. No, this. Well, I guess I can see how that looks like a diaper, but basically I bought, like, what Kid Boo has on. But they're short.

[Andy Cortez]

They look different than what I was imagining in my mind. I don't know why I thought that they, like, ended at his upper thigh.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like a diaper would stay on the back.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Emory Games writes in and says, andy, you've got a little over a week until VGAs and 15 hours left of rebirth. When's the next marathon stream?

[Andy Cortez]

It's. I mean, it's up to Mikey, who's back there listening in. I. I said. I said I was hoping Saturday and then Sunday, a little. A little golf outing. Ooh, might do an IRL stream.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I saw on Instagram stories that. I think Roger went back to topgolf. He did Sonic topgolf.

[Andy Cortez]

He sent me a T. Well, yeah, I guess in New York, he sent me a little text and he was like, fuck with me. And I was like, oh, shit. He got a high score. The Sonic game.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Good for him.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Wow. And then last one I'm pulling from now.

[Andy Cortez]

Weird, though, he didn't send me clips of his swing.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So that somebody else took it for him.

[Andy Cortez]

Well, no, the post he put up.

[Greg Miller]

Publicly was Lianza beating him. So did he actually get a high score?

[Andy Cortez]

Well, like, I mean, it was so much better than what he was, but he. Here's the thing with topgolf Bless, like, you could. You could underhand it, and it may roll into one of the targets to get you points, you know, What? I mean, so, like, what I want to see, I want to see a developed swing, you know, like, he took.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That shit and just threw it.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. I mean, it could have just looked like how Tim did his little Mighty Duck slap shot with the golf club, you know, who knows?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We got one more from Zeke. Speak. Who says? Andy Blessing and Barrett, the dream team. I love you all so much. I made a shrine of your three. I got. I should have fucking read this before, man. I made a shrine of your three heads. Helga Pataki style. In my closet. It's made of. Is made of chewing gum, ramen packets, and leftover PC thermal paste.

[Andy Cortez]

I didn't think I was going to get a Helga Pataki reference today.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I forgot her last name was Pataki. Why do you just know Elka's last name? Off rip. That's crazy.

[Greg Miller]

That's wild.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, okay. That's it for Super Chat Hats.

[Andy Cortez]

Thank you.

[Greg Miller]

I gotta protect my hat because that was an episode where I think she had, like, got his hat.

[Andy Cortez]

Put the hat on top of it. Yeah, yeah. Hair. Arnold rocked, man. I loved hair.

[Greg Miller]

Such a good show.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Remember the movie?

[Greg Miller]

Which one?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Were there multiple?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, they did. You know, back in, like, 2018 that, like, actually wrapped up the story.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Sorry. No, I mean, like the movie from, like, back in the day.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, back in the day. Vaguely. The one in 2018 plus. Fucking great.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. Was that, like, spoilers?

[Greg Miller]

It's about the parents.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, was that was like the same time where they made the Rocko's Modern Life revival?

[Greg Miller]

Are you thinking about the Invader Zim movie? Because that was also really good.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Was there. We'll get into this later. We're late. You're wrong. People wrote in. A lot of you guys wrote in. Kebab says. Minor clarification. The Tetris. The version of Tetris coming to nso. Use it from yesterday. I'm now realizing what's happened.

[Andy Cortez]

The Gooners turn on Celebrate because of perceived censorship and woke. Oh, that is kind of true, Mara. Yeah, that's a good point.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. That's my thing is, like, the Gooners very much stopped talking about Solo Blade.

[Andy Cortez]

They also just don't. Like, they don't know. I feel like they often disagree with each other. It's like at one point, like, when. When Biden won in 2020, there was some. Some side of the fighting. There was some side of the Trumpers that were like. Like, we. We know that Trump's still really president. You all just haven't opened your eyes yet. Like, you all need to understand that. And then there was the other side that was like, you know, stop the steal. And then those, the other side were like, those are. That's antifa storming the Capitol. And those yellow side was like, oh, you gotta free those guys. They're not breaking the law. Like, you know, like they got. They're not on the same page is what I'm saying. Yeah, Gooners got to get together.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, yeah, clarification, clarification, clarification. Hey, you guys missed the last bit with the team up ability in the Wolverine trailer says zero pulse.

[Andy Cortez]

I saw that in the first one where Hulk was able to throw. Was able to throw Wolverine at people as like a team.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, that's cool. Yeah, that's it for your wrong. That's it for your wrong, Andy. That brings us to the end of this episode of kind of Funny Games. Oh God. Oh, Jesus. Greg's really fast. Guys. This man can not as fast as.

[D]

Andy when Hulk throws Wolverine his cannonball special.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Cannonball special.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, nice.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And on that note, we're going to end this episode of KHD with your moment of Zen being the stellar blade soundtrack. Of course. Each and every weekday, we run you through the nerdy news you need to know about live on YouTube, Twitch and on podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, support us with the kind of funny membership on patreon or on YouTube. Get all of our shows ad free. Watch, record them live and get a daily exclusive show. It's the Fastball special. Greg, what's wrong? Enjoy. He yelled in the background. Enjoy the games pass next and the stream after. But until next time, game daily.