Hi, welcome back to Pods with Nick and James.
My name's Nick, and this is James. Hi there.
Today, I wanted to have more of a casual conversation,
less of a really heavy, fact -driven, research
-heavy conversation. We went on a topic that's
quite close to my heart, I'm pretty sure it's
close to James' heart, and that is gaming. More
specifically, I want to discuss how the industry
has changed over the years and whether it's changed
for the better. And I feel like that's a great
point of conversation for us to discuss. How
do you feel about that? Well, absolutely. I'd
say technology has definitely moved on. I remember
the early games. I remember when... Snake being
on a Nokia was impressive to me. I remember,
although they were older by the time I got one,
I remember being jealous of my friends who had
Game Boys. I remember a lot of games from the
90s, and I remember playing games from... that
at least were made in the 80s. But I also remember
the business practices being fixed then, and
then kind of slowly evolving into what they are
now. So I guess that's something that we'll chat
about. Yeah. Are you talking about the old -school
dot matrix, Game Boy? Yes. Yeah, I remember Super
Mario Bros. 2. My friend Lucy owned a Game Boy.
And honestly, yeah, I remember that game. I remember
a game version of Tron, which was fantastic.
I remember a Power Rangers game. It really is...
Yeah, it is fantastic. The stuff they made...
uh looking looking back it's incredibly um it's
incredibly interesting like just kind of how
little there needed to be um in order for it
to be entertaining yeah or for it in order to
in order for it to um just grab my attention
for hours like i love the fact that looking back
they made the games hard just because there wasn't
all that much there yeah yeah exactly at the
same time the fact that they made it hard also
increased the enjoyment because you genuinely
had a sense of satisfaction and achievement yeah
i don't think the kids i don't and i'm gonna
sound a bit like an old man here but i don't
think the kids of today would be able to game
in the way that we did the games that we used
to play um because it was it was a passion it
wasn't something that you just play this game
for a couple of hours it was dedication to complete
a game you know you had to you played each level
four or five times to learn how to complete that
level and then you were on a new level and you
had to do the same thing again and sometimes
you played games that had no save and you had
every time you played it you had to start from
the beginning and really slog through every single
one of the levels that you'd already done to
get back to the the new point in the game um
just to die four times and end up with a game
over yeah that's that's exactly it like i I can't
think the number of times I've played through
the first couple of levels of Sonic. Oh, absolutely.
Only to die on the fucking Waterfall level. Yeah,
like, it's... Edit that bit out, maybe. Sorry.
But you know what I mean. Because there would
always be that bit that you struggled with, and
either you'd... Different people had different
ways of doing it. I just ended up beefing it
and failing so hard so many times. Some people
would have an older brother that maybe they could
get them to do that bit or this was before the
time of the internet so you couldn't just...
Oh my god. It wasn't before the time of the internet.
It was before the time of YouTube. It was the
internet existed. But it wasn't nearly as helpful
as it is today. No, no, exactly. Arguably, it
wasn't nearly as perverse either, but that's
another kettle of fish and another discussion
for another time. Yeah, it just, it was, I mean,
I remember kids, I didn't own this game, but
I remember several of my friends really struggling
with the Lion King game. Oh my God, that game!
On the snares. It's not how difficult that game
was. It was the difficulty curve. Because you
went through the first few levels and it was
pretty easy going. And then all of a sudden you
hit the one with the funky music. That's the
wrong Disney film. But it's a really upbeat music.
I just can't wait to be king. That tune. And
it was that level. All of a sudden. it was insane
the kind of stuff like the the puzzles you had
to like the bloody monkey chucking the lion around
puzzles that you had to get through and oh my
god the hours and then after that it was just
downhill um like you're so short on health and
so short on lives and oh you just die it's such
an unfair game but you want unfair game There
was a game on the SNES which I absolutely loved
playing, but I'm telling you, it was cruel. It
was called Battletoads in Battle Maniacs. I don't
know if you ever played it. I'm not sure, but
I'm loving the title already. Anything that repeats
the word battle, you know you're on to a winner.
Well, for a start, you played as either a frog
or a toad that did martial arts. If it was two
-player, you had one person as the toad, one
person as the frog. The toad was called Pimple.
The frog was called Rash. That's how much I've
played this game. I still remember the characters'
names, for Christ's sake. No, that's fine. It
sounds like you're hopping mad about it. It was
insane. You went through the first level, and
you're fine. You're beating up these pigs that
are flying at you, trying to beat you up. You
get to the end, you have to fight this giant
concrete pig. and then you have to fly on hovercrafts
of course this is natural like game progression
you fly on hovercrafts through a tree fighting
bees um because that makes sense right um and
then you go through a bonus level and then you
hit the hover bike level and interesting the
hover bike level is just i mean you get three
lives in this game you get the bonus level so
you can maybe work up a couple more you get like
five lives and even muscle memory isn't enough
to beat the uh hover bike level because like
you can get through the entire run there's like
three sections of the hot or four sections of
the hover bike level um and each time you get
like a checkpoint and you can you if you die
you go back to that point but if you get a game
over you've got to go back to the beginning right
um and on the last run um essentially these hover
bikes there's like these walls that appear in
front of you and you've got to either jump over
them duck under them move up or move down to
like dodge them right when you get to the final
one it just puts a wall up and a wall down but
it progressively gets faster for about 40 seconds.
So you're just going up, down, up, down, up,
down. 40 seconds of progressively getting faster.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's it. And at what
level did you start struggling? Well, I could
quite happily... Was it like 20 seconds in? Yeah,
I mean... you tend to either get it wrong straight
away so you just hit like the first or second
wall or you get into a flow and then you're like
yes i'm doing it i'm doing it and you hit a wall
oh i've got to do it again and then every time
you get onto your last life your heart's racing
you're like oh if i die now i've got to start
it all over again and nope nope you're dead and
even if you get past that level then you've got
this really nice like puzzle level of like trying
to jump across snakes you have to cling on to
these snakes as they go through these mazes and
like hop onto other snakes as they like glide
past spikes and stuff to stay alive and that's
fine that's doable that's technical but it's
doable it's absolutely fine and then you get
onto this roller coaster level where you have
to push in the direction that you're uh that
the path is you're basically holding on to a
um thing that's attached to the center rail of
a roller coaster and you have to push it along
so if it changes direction you have to push down
and then left and then up and then down and if
you don't change direct if you don't push in
the direction you go slow and behind you is a
rocket propelled rat with a massive chainsaw
on the front of it of course of course of course
of course it is yeah because this is the 90s
yeah so not only did you have to get through
the hover bike level right to get to where you
are already you do one more level and then all
of a sudden you're running away from some rocket
propelled chainsaw wielding rat man it's insane
and i swear to god it's so unfair you go through
one more bonus level and then you're on the final
level so it wasn't too many levels but if you
genuinely made it to the end of the game oh you
were sweating you were um so cross at the game
at how many how many hours it took you to get
to the end and it was such a crawl game such
a crawl game but so much fun i played that game
for hours just as things have become easier um
like a number of other things have changed in
the game since our since our well possibly we're
looking at these things with uh rose tinted spectacles
but Yeah, a number of other things have changed
as well. I don't want to step too much on your
toes here, but I remember when you used to be
able to buy a game and you owned a physical copy
of it. And in some ways it was sad because that
was it. You owned the game and until they made
a new one, that was what there was. But in some
ways it was fantastic because you owned that
game and the content wasn't going to change and
your access to it was permanent. Yeah. I think
it was the Dreamcast, wasn't it? The first console
that had any kind of expandable content. They
had the little plug -in thing that you could
put in your controller on the Dreamcast and play
ahead of its time. um but people weren't ready
for it people weren't ready for it um i loved
power stone but sorry go ahead no absolutely
but um sega also were the first company to do
any kind of like game streaming um jobby i'd
lost all terms of english there completely um
they had the sega channel when i was a kid i
can remember my dad had the sega channel and
like every week you got a different set of games
and you but you subscribe to it and like as i
said every week you got another set of games
you had all the golden axe games and and games
some some sega classics like all the hot all
the chronic the hedgehog you had kirby and but
it was something for everybody on all um kirby
what i say kirby kirby's a nintendo classic and
but you get the idea all these games like 10
or 12 games every week that were updated um and
you could play your heart play them to your heart's
content and then the next week they'd roll over
like sega was so ahead of their curve and yet
they were if you think of the three game superpowers
um when i was growing up it was only really two
no it was three if from when i first started
gaming it was nintendo atari and sega they were
the three main consoles tari were limited by
their their power in their market share nintendo
lost the market sega were the intuitive ones
the the ones that kind of tried to play a long
game get in there early with this these new developments
for the first console to develop a disc console
with the sega saturn um they brought that out
at the same time that the intent you had to make
a cd at the same time didn't you make a mega
cd so mega drive and sega saturn at the same
time like all in one console and so that would
have been about that yeah man it was insane um
and that was around about the same time that
they had the n6 or which would have been just
before the release of the playstation and they
i mean originally this is me going down history
lane here originally um playstation was going
to be the next nintendo i did not know that sony
approached nintendo and they started uh collaborating
on a new games console and the play system or
something like that it was supposed to be and
um yeah it it broke down i think because um nintendo
preferred the stability of console of not console
um of cartridge driven games um and wanted to
go along that route sony wanted to go disc because
of the space like the media space um because
it allowed for more um game data um and that
relationship fell apart so they ended up with
nintendo and sony it's only of course then completely
cornered the market for the next generations
and generations with their their playstation
and playstation 2 and whatnot it's only really
when uh like microsoft came on the scene that
there was any um like any akin competitor um
nintendo though they were really smart about
it and the reason they've managed to last a lot
longer than sega is that they went okay we're
not going to be able to beat you with gaming
power so what we're going to do is we're going
to provide more um usability in different platforms
they had their they led the market in handheld
And that held them over for so long. And then
they released the Wii, and that was a game changer.
The whole family element, the group gaming element,
they absolutely cornered that market. And they
have done since. Yeah. Like, I mean, the Nintendo
Wii really was something that we could literally
have a whole thing. on that like just nintendo
they've been inventive they've taken risks there's
been a couple of times where they've not quite
got it right but like they've they've really
they've really put themselves out there like
i mean you know we we fit did not create a global
um fitness revolution but it could have yeah
you know in that capacity you see the thing about
nintendo that i really like is when they've made
these intuitive decisions they've read the market
really well because if you think about it alongside
sega sega probably were more intuitive in their
own right in nintendo because first color um
handheld gaming system was sega they had the
sega game gear really yeah they had uh oh my
god did not know about that the sega game gear
was out the same time as the dot matrix um game
boy and really yet the dot matrix game boy called
it the market because it was easier to hold the
batteries like the battery life lasted longer
um yeah but the game gear essentially gave you
that mega drive feel in your hand way before
anything else could even come close to it even
when they bought out the game boy color it wasn't
a game boy color it had colored pixels that's
all it was um and the pixel it was still dot
matrix style you know but it wasn't it wasn't
anything like um what you could get on the game
gear um that the game gear wasn't as resilient
as those handhelds um and fancy accompanied releasing
game streaming 25 years before years before it
became a thing before it came having yeah literally
having a specialist channel downloadable downloadable
gaming channel oh it was a downloadable well
no it wasn't i don't even know how it worked
like it was insane i know i think it was like
internet based i mean i was really bloody young
at the time um i think it was internet based
i think you had to connect it somehow connect
to a network um and then it would like if you
like a lot of games to go through you could play
any one of them um i don't know how it works
specifically but um it was way ahead of its time
um the game gear was a great idea about trying
to incorporate um the whole cartridge thing that
you could plug in that gave you the ability for
downloadable content so gave you the ability
to like carry bits of your game around in your
pocket like tamagotchis kind of thing um and
that was insane but it never caught on in the
way that like nintendo's intuition did you know
yeah that's it like they yeah they were more
forward thinking but it just it didn't pan out
no yeah no i think i think there were so many
things that went wrong for sega and they they
fizzled out in their own time um but what as
i said before one thing that i did love about
nintendo is they didn't try to compete with um
the likes of nintendo with the likes of uh sony
or xbox they went okay you can have that market
we will find a different one yeah yeah uh that's
something of oh sorry they cornered the japanese
market which is huge for gaming has been for
has been for longer than the west and because
they cornered the japanese market that managed
to keep them in the gaming industry as well as
having the massive the massive market share in
handheld i mean nobody ever had a handheld that
didn't have a game boy you know yeah yeah that's
entire that's entirely true Yeah, and then they
obviously incorporated the two with the Switch,
and that was a game changer. I mean, I love what
they've done with the Switch, and I do regret
not anteing up the money and getting one, but
it is what it is. There's only so many consoles
you can really justify owning, especially when
you don't... As you get older, your time becomes
more precious and more... It becomes a commodity
that you have less of. Yeah. I don't know. One
thing... So you said that the first streaming
thing was the Sega... Sega Channel. Was the Sega
Channel. And you were saying that the first downloadable
content... was the sega dreamcast um do you remember
when dl when did what was the first game that
you played that had like clear dlc like downloadable
content that was extra to the game uh and i don't
mean like fan like fan fan made mods are fantastic
But I mean like official, releasable, chargeable
content. You do know this. No, no, no. It's whichever
one was for you first. I don't know which game
did it first. I mean, the first game I ever played,
I ended up buying Chelsea. to play was probably
call of duty black ops one because i wanted the
other zombies map yeah fair enough huge zombies
fan even now i still play well it's it's a fun
it's a fun thing isn't it yeah yeah absolutely
it's fun game mode um so much fun with that even
now i can still go back to black ops one and
play original um the original zombies um what
about you what about what was your first okay
so the first one the first one i was like fully
aware of um that my brother did bought by sorry
was for fable 2 oh yeah oh yeah in it you could
get a number of different armor sets you could
get a couple of like it was it was small but
it was still something that you could download
and add to the game. So my brother paid for that,
and he could dress his character as the Master
Chief from Halo, but in the Fable universe. And
he had a rifle which shot multiple shots. It
wasn't full auto, but it could fire multiple
shots, which a lot of other rifles couldn't do
in that game at that point. And it looked like
the assault rifle from Halo. So that was my first
little bit of that. And then it's interesting
how DLC has changed over time. And then it was
DLC was used. So the first time I noticed a game
cutting content, but then including it in a DLC.
um was the original dragon age game oh yeah which
in which really uh which really i don't know
which if i'm honest with you i i was okay with
to begin with um but looking back i realize how
ridiculous it is because that game in itself
spent a good 10 12 years in development I remember
seeing early screenshots of that game when I
was in secondary school, and it wasn't until
after sixth form, after a foundation degree,
and after uni, that that game did eventually
come out. And the fact that they had... written
these characters which then just weren't in the
base game um is a little is a little bit silly
yeah a little bit you know because like just
i will say that the the additional characters
that they had there was like a golem character
that you could meet in the dwarven um uh city
and Yeah, I don't know. I was fine with that
to begin with. And then there have been some
examples where I feel that it's started to backfire.
When do you feel that DLC started to be an excuse
for game developers to remove content from a
game? at launch at least so that you don't have
to have a whole unfinished product at launch
i mean just the whole concept of day one updates
broke my love for gaming in many respects like
i don't know if you ever played uh i think it
was unity assassin's creed unity the day it came
out i have played that one it was so broken they
had to release like a 30 gigabyte update or something
like fix it you think back to cyberpunk as well
when that first came out counted to be um the
next great game um and it with all due respect
is now exactly what it should have been on release
but the fact is many bridges do you remember
what it was like when it was released it made
the news and everything it was horrible to watch
horrible to play it was disgusting like you had
people that paid like 75 quid for that game you
know yeah ridiculous um but there's the whole
idea of like digital content has like broken
a lot of that quality assurance that you had
with uh with games oh because yeah before they
could release that sort of stuff they the released
game if it was a broken game it just wouldn't
sell well and it would end up getting recalled
yeah yeah yeah exactly um and it wasn't like
don't get me wrong it's not i'm not saying that
games when i was growing up games didn't have
bugs games had bugs um but by the time a game
was released most of the big bugs the game breaking
bugs were worked out um and anything that wasn't
game breaking was left in and ended up becoming
a feature of the game you know like uh yeah pokemon
red the missing no the pokemon you could catch
off sea foam island that gave you gave your gave
the item you had in your third slot in your inventory
99 you could put master ball in that slot and
then go catch the missing though and it would
like up your master balls from 1 to 99. you go
around and catch anybody when you want it completely
game breaking bug but it became a feature it
became something that by the time you got to
seafoam island you went and like cranked up your
supplies of rare candies and stuff like that
because you had that ability but you still played
the rest of the game and it wasn't something
that made you dislike playing the game because
you could use it to your advantage it became
like a feature as i said um but i don't see how
like three frames per second at the lowest graphic
setting is really a feature of a game falling
out of the world and falling through the map
in the middle of a boss fight is really a feature
of the game um and they're definitely things
that should be out of the game before it's even
close to being released And that comes to another
point, really. The delay on game releases are
so frustrating at times. It is. I will admit,
I'd rather a game was delayed than it be terrible.
I didn't play Cyberpunk, although I was beginning
to get pulled into the hype. like massively um
but just it didn't i don't know it didn't grab
me quite enough for me to make that jump and
i was so glad i didn't the game that kind of
really sort of disappointed me um to begin with
was yeah was uh the sky skyrim the dawn guard
yeah and dragonborn expansion where yeah there
were just so many little bugs in it that something
which was already building upon an incredibly
successful groundbreaking groundbreaking at the
time game literally just fizzled overnight and
i think that's something that um you know when
a game's done it wrong when you you have something
amazing something incredibly popular and then
the yeah just the hype fizzles the moment it
hits the market you know yeah or the moment it
uh i'm trying to think of the right wording here
yeah the the moment it the moment it's done or
the moment the reality hits in If it doesn't
kind of add up at that point, I find it crazy
just how quickly hype can die away. And I think
that it not just happens in games, it also happens
in TV shows, like Game of Thrones was incredibly
popular for an extended period of time, and there
was hype, hype, hype, hype, hype, hype, hype,
hype, hype. And then the final season came out
and just... Killed it. Yeah. And just everyone
immediately was just happy to forget. Happy to
forget that ending. You know, I've rewatched
series after series of good shows. And Game of
Thrones could have quite easily been another
one of those that I would rewatch. like attack
on titan i don't know if you've ever seen it
i i got to the and i think near the end of season
two i need it is another one that it's it's another
one of those things that i need i do need to
uh yeah you know what long story short i haven't
finished it would you recommend finishing oh
yeah absolutely absolutely it's one of the best
shows i've ever watched um I managed to watch
all like 600 odd episodes of Dragon Ball, including
Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z and then Dragon
Ball GT and Dragon Ball Super and all of it from
beginning to end. And I've done it twice. Watched
all of them from beginning to end because for
some reason they're actually quite enjoyable
to watch. It wouldn't be such a big thing if
it wasn't. Oh, exactly. And yet Game of Thrones,
I watched. first four seasons and then um met
my now wife and then we watched re -watched so
to bring her up to speed we re -watched the first
four seasons or i watched re -watched the first
four seasons and then we stayed on top of it
all the way through we were so excited for every
season that came out and then it hit the last
one and we were like and i've never touched it
again yeah And it's the same with games. Think
about Call of Duty, for example. Call of Duty
Black Ops, for me, was fantastic. I played World
at War first, really got hooked into the franchise.
Then I played Black Ops, and the fact they had
the Zombies game mode as well, I was right there.
and then black ops 2 played through that black
ops 3 started to lose a little bit of a feel
because it felt very samey and one thing that
they started to do more and more of was payable
content or pay to win kind of things you know
nowadays i don't even go near playing call of
duty online i play call of duty um with my friends
and that's it i will try my damnedest i mean
i do play the odd bit of multiplayer but it's
not very long before i find myself frustrated
at how um how over overdone it is how how like
no life um you know when you're up against people
that literally just sit in one corner because
they found the perfect place where nobody can
see them and they cap everybody from there's
no sense of joy with it anymore um did you ever
play um unreal tournament yes i played i played
it a little bit um on the pc yeah uh loved the
secret level um video to do with that but uh
sorry it's a good game yeah yeah so unreal tournament
was just um it was so much it was so fun playing
that and i would play that online um and it wasn't
like gamers weren't i mean you had professional
gamers back then even then they had esports um
but it was so many more people that were just
casual and it was so much more enjoyable to get
on there and play um and especially for me when
i was younger my reflexes were better i could
probably do a better job of gaming then and nowadays
i have slowed down a lot and when i go into these
lobbies with people that are literally ripping
up the lobbies like 30 to none like kill death
ratios you're like this is painful man i don't
enjoy this anymore is there no way for me to
just sit in a lobby with a bunch of people that
are actually to the game and just us have fun
can we just do that yeah i love it because there
are um you're totally right there are uh there
are communities which do that and i love that
there are servers nowadays for a number of games
like uh uh team fortress and team fortress 2
oh yeah those are those are old games at this
point yeah i don't like getting this old but
uh still um we're good games back in the day
though good games back in the day and additionally
like i i remember um yeah i i remember i've got
a friend dan and he like would show me these
games and i loved the fact that there were places
in the community where there were there were
totally casual servers and then more serious
servers and there were casual clans and there
were serious clans and it all depended entirely
on the individual to what they liked what they
felt like doing you know what how they felt like
going yeah i mean i love i've always loved gaming
but i find myself enjoying single player games
now more than i ever enjoyed playing them before
and i think that's sad um and i think there does
need to be a little bit more work done um by
developers make it a bit more casual friendly
and like at the same time not detract from those
people who want that hardcore experience um because
it's a difficult thing to balance i know i know
but you should almost put i mean it's it's almost
like a gentleman's agreement you know you could
almost do like a gentleman's agreement but people
would exploit it but you go like i am at the
game and i want to play in the lobbies um and
then um you expect the pros to go no i'm a pro
i'd like to tick the box that says i'm a pro
um and then they go into their own like technical
lobbies but it doesn't work like that because
you'd end up with like it's the no life coming
into the casual lobbies and destroying everybody
like 100 to none kill death ratios you know wouldn't
be fun and so you can't like you said it's a
very difficult thing to manage but um i know
they've tried to introduce like ranked gameplay
and stuff like that um where like your kill deaths
and your game your multiplayer wins and things
taken into consideration um before you put into
lobbies but it still doesn't quite hit the mark
because they need to fill the lobbies so they
just end up filling the lobbies with higher and
higher ranked players you know um i'll tell you
one game that really really annoyed me recently
um i was a motorsport came out in 2023 right
i just started uh cloud streaming it um because
i can cloud streaming has come on so much um
and big credit to xbox for getting it to a point
where i can comfortably play forza motorsport
and by on my phone with a controller insane um
however forza motorsport think back i don't know
if you were ever a racing game player um but
if i go back to when i was playing like uh gran
turismo one and the original forza um there's
hours and hours and hours of content within that
game but within forza motorsport get like the
introduction lobby and then a list of races and
then everything's updated on a week by week basis
so essentially if you dig into the game you've
got a few hours of content and then you have
to wait for it to update before you get the next
bit just painful okay That was a tangent and
a half. Weren't we talking about DLC? Yeah, so
no, no, no, that's it. So originally we were
going to talk about kind of certain... What's
the word for it? Hmm. So we were looking at the
changes in the game industry originally between...
what it was like when we were younger, what it's
like now, what the industry standards are now,
and then also how are games, how has it become
normal that when a game is made now, it's quite
often not necessarily finished? So just to go,
I guess, back on track is the wrong word. There's
too many negative connotations with that. When
it comes to... Like... When it comes to this
sort of thing, and when it comes to these sorts
of games, I guess... It's interesting that a
number of companies will do the same thing, and
then it just becomes the industry standard. So...
The idea of releasing a game before it was finished,
like back in the 90s, would not be considered
practical or doable because you'd literally ruin
your reputation. Absolutely. You would do damage
to the company and it would be right hell. The
game that I'm going to bring up here is a game
that I watch my brother play a lot. I've played...
the second in this game franchise, and it's a
game which had a lot of love put into it. And
the game I'm going to talk about for just a couple
of minutes here is Destiny. Okay. Destiny 1 was
released in... 2013. 2013, wow. And... What's
interesting about it is that they'd been working
on it for a while. They had written a number
of the story arcs, but they hadn't figured out
whether it was solely going to be a fantasy or
whether it was going to... They settled on sci
-fi, but there's concept art where it is clearly
a fantasy game. Yeah. And they'd put... You know
what? They'd put a huge amount of work in. I'm
not going to pretend that they haven't. But the
thing that frustrates me is that game, when it
was released, wasn't finished. Now what had happened
was the new CEO had said, like they were working
on it, and all of the content was supposed to
be, the expansion, the Taken King, was supposed
to be included. The storyline for The Taken King
was supposed to be included in the original release
of that game. So when the game came out, loads
of people were like, oh, well, the campaign's
really short. And it was really short. Because
it wasn't finished. Yet there was so much hype
around the game that it just seemed like... the
company thought that they couldn't lose, that
they couldn't get it wrong. And I hate to admit
it, this is one of the few times where there
was so much backing the game that they were totally
able to get away with it. It's not something...
I don't think it's not like the worst thing that's
ever happened, but I find it incredibly sad and
incredibly frustrating that... somebody would
sit down think about what their options are think
about the amount of work that's gone into a project
and completely undermine everyone's work and
credibility by choosing to release it before
it's finished yeah maybe that's just me being
incredibly naive and it probably is like i'm
not no i don't think it's i don't think it's
really unreasonable for us to get upset that
too many aiming uh aiming what are they called
studios um developer studios are fine thinking
it's okay more and more frequently to um just
dispose of the whole concept of um completing
like finishing a game for day one release and
i mean the fact that they sold resold a portion
of the story mode in um dlc format disgusting
that's an insult you essentially paid full ticket
price for two -thirds of a game yeah that's it
and but this is the thing the fact that that's
now standard that's the thing that gets me like
just the fact that if a company did that now
no one would bat an eyelid and it's also interesting
i so just to give credit where it's due i watched
an episode by uh stephanie sterling um like they
were talking about how the new tactic that they're
going for so loot boxes are something which doesn't
happen anymore luckily well they do happen but
it's not it's not as much of a no it's not that
it's not a problem it's just not it just doesn't
happen quite as much nowadays But like what they've
started doing is early access to a game. Yeah.
And the idea is that, oh, well, you know, what
you're paying for is you get a few little bits
in here, but you're paying for, you are paying
for that early access. And sometimes it's literally
days. You're paying £20 in order to play a game
early. There's no improvement in that game, you
know? And, like, just the fact that there's literally
no content there, or very, very little content
for the money that you're paying. Like, when
you buy a physical copy of a game... Early access,
from my understanding, is just paying for the
liberty. of quality assurance their game because
in those few days before main release what the
game studio has a stress test on their servers
and then reporting of every unfound bug on the
system didn't have to pay developers to or game
testers to find and then developers um obviously
developers have to develop the bugs out of it
and if they can be bothered um but they get paid
they don't have to pay game testers they are
being paid by um by consumers but then being
allowed to quality test the new title it's incredibly
it's incredible marketing but it's also a scam
that's the way it can feel anyway yeah you know
and you were right with uh like bethesda are
probably um one of the worst for not releasing
a fixed game um in a finished state yeah in a
finished state and then relying on um patches
after the fact now now you'll understand if you
played much of like oblivion or morrowind um
they weren't games that could be hatched they
were console games so um what you got was what
you got you probably just dealt with it because
the games were good skyrim a pc was patched um
if you were unlucky enough to have it on xbox
360 it wasn't patched but it was but um i think
too many studios like bethesda now rely on modders
as well to fix their games i i have to say skyrim
as great a game as it is wouldn't be anywhere
near as good if the modding community wasn't
as good that's entirely true yeah and it's the
same with starfield starfield was hyped to be
the the next great title out of bethesda and
yeah what happened what happened with that game
i remember there being a load of hype about it
it was deflated what was it one year ago or two
now they had it was the first bethesda game to
ever have like a new game plus um and i mean
there was no reason for you to do the game again
after you got after you completed the game there
was absolutely no reason why you would want to
go sure let's do that again it was deflating
it wasn't as exciting as it should have been
it was just the normal like a normal um story
mode on a mid developers roster it lacked so
much quality i think it felt almost fortnite
almost fallout ish almost um like elder scrolls
ish but fell massively under par um the only
thing i think that was a redeeming feature about
it was the ship building i loved building my
own ships in that game built a giant flying donut
because the game's um targeting engine so stupid
If you built a ship with no central hull, then
they couldn't hit you. So I was flying around
this massive fucking donut. That's amazing. Wait,
and you're telling me also that there wasn't
inaccuracy. You'd take the odd knock, but your
shields would take it, right? It certainly wouldn't
end up dying. They were targeting the centre
mass and there was no centre mass. That's crazy.
It's never the fastest ship, but it was certainly
invincible. That's another thing, right? How
could you not... Why would you not see that exploit?
And then either... There are games where they
would see that kind of exploit coming and they
would either accept the fact that that's an exploit
that's going to happen and make a joke out of
it by adding a line into text somewhere where
a character says something stupid just to kind
of say, we know what you've done here, well done,
that kind of thing. To be fair, that's something
that they wrote into... uh fable too yeah is
they had a number of books and they even had
some voice lines of a couple of people saying
has has anyone noticed that several people sound
exactly the same yeah yeah that's what i liked
about the fable games they were they were never
in cheek yeah they they were tongue in cheek
they never took themselves too seriously but
that's what made them such good games um but
yeah i mean they shouldn't be able to really
rely on um like day one releases and patches
to fix their games there should be more especially
when you think um think about um think about
how long it's taken for some games to be developed
right let's look at gta 6 for example imagine
in in years time when gta 6 is eventually released
and yeah imagine it gets released in the state
that cyberpunk came out in i'll destroy the franchise
well at the very least it would be a massive
hiccup and it would really unsettle yeah yeah
especially because Like, people already feel
like they've waited long enough for a new GTA
6. And I get the studio, it's almost like a musician,
right? When a musician's being pressured by the
fans to write a new album, you're like, yeah,
yeah, I will in my own time when I feel it. It's
got to be right. It's got to be correct. Which
would be fine if what you actually got out of
that artist after the 52 years that you've waited
for a new album was actually... exactly what
they wanted it to be fact is from these game
studios it's not yeah you know releasing content
just for the sake of releasing content but you
look at the fifa franchise right or what it is
now the uh free afc um as it's turned into now
a new title every year and all it is based on
is micro transactions the same generic end -to
-end game like football game it has been for
generations the only thing they're bothered about
is getting you to buy packs like your pokemon
card packs and stuff but in digital format and
they release a new game every year so that all
the money you spent on the last con last uh last
title is irrelevant let's do it all over again
for people that literally spend thousands and
thousands of pounds on fifa and every year they
release a new game and like a little chipmunk
on their hamster wheel off they go again I don't
care about the content. I used to love playing
career mode on FIFA, and yet now it's just boring.
I know it sounds like I'm being a moany little
shberg, but it's so disappointing that there's
not that thought on good quality content, you
know? Yeah. Yeah, and it is... It is worrying.
Like, it is... And, like, that means that that
franchise will probably die. And FIFA... Like,
I remember when there were two major football...
Okay. Like, football manager aside, there were
two major football games. PES and FIFA. Yeah.
Yeah. Pro Evolution Soccer and FIFA. And that
was... And that was it. But the very fact that
that was even... I don't know. The fact that
those two games had cornered the market and you
had major soundtracks and major... I'm trying
to think of the right word here. You had major
artists on soundtracks. You could... play FIFA
and genuinely just enjoy the game and enjoy like
the listening and the experience. And that was,
that was really, you know, that's something just
the sheer amount of effort that has gone into
building that franchise and building the games
over the years to just sell out completely. Like
I get it. Like, you know, there's sell out in
a minor way. But what you've just described there
is a major way. You're saying that playing the
game itself, or at least playing story mode,
like when you're not playing against other players,
just isn't fun? Yeah. That's terrible. That's
literally ripping the soul out of a game. And
I'll tell you another franchise that's done exactly
the same, and that's Call of Duty. all the jury
yeah story mode used to be what they go yeah
they do in all of their um headline uh titles
they have a career mode or or a um story mode
um and but the if you look at like the last couple
of titles their um story mode has been like ai
generated like procedurally generated maps with
no real soul no real element of fun and the whole
focus of the game has been getting you into multiplayer
and getting you to buy skins and and whatnot
else because that's where they make their money
delta force right a new game that was released
and delta force has made so much money off of
its multiplayer format they're giving away its
career mode for free they were going to sell
it as a add -on to their um to their game but
they were like we've we've already made loads
of money we're not going to sell this we're going
to give it away because we want you to enjoy
the game And as much of a grumble fest as this
has been, I do want to remind people that gaming
is fun. So let's end with a little bit of nostalgia
and a little bit of enjoyment. What's your three
favorite games of all time and why? Okay, so
the game that got me through a number of my teenage
years was Baldur's Gate 2. So Baldur's Gate is
an incredibly popular franchise at the moment
due to the creation of Baldur's Gate 3 and the
amazing work of the voice actors who play a number
of... Oh, and the amazing work of the writers
who... It all comes together and is incredibly
well done. I could not hope for a better sequel
to that franchise. But Baldur's Gate 2... Battlescape
1 came out when I'd just gone to secondary school
and was really struggling with the transition
of going from a small village school which had
80 people in it to a school which had over a
thousand pupils in it. I was not coping well
and that game franchise... specifically the second
one um really kind of helped me out uh let me
think of so yeah battlescape 2. um oh okay the
one which i really enjoyed uh as a free team
uh would be the original um come on and conquer
oh such a good genre 1995 yeah like it's um i
mean the the franchise is somewhat spent now
and it's come and gone and it was it was interesting
that it started slightly sci -fi and then went
incredibly sci -fi and then like there's a mobile
game that a friend of mine very kindly pointed
out to me and you know the mobile game is fairly
fun And, you know, like the theme is there and
it's still there, but they've tried to kind of
bring it back to something set in the modern
era. But, you know, and the Red Alert games were
fantastic as well. Like I'm going to say I really
loved Tim Curry's performance right before his
stroke. Tim Curry starred, in fact, a number
of big actors were involved with. the later games
of the come on and conquer series uh you can
all tell they were at the height of their careers
uh when they did this particular bit but it like
it was just it was a fun game franchise um so
battle's gate come on and conquer i would include
uh come on and conquer generals um like it unfortunately
come on and conquer generals has aged much like
little britain um but yeah i think you know exactly
where i'm coming from with that but uh it's still
it was a fun game yeah i think yeah so i want
to conquer i had so much fun with red light red
alert too um oh absolutely yeah yeah damn straight
like you got the tesla troopers yeah the fact
that gi's you know you you deploy them and all
of a sudden they're a mini base defense and if
you got really bored you could just input a few
codes and then just use the iron curtain yeah
destroy everything and go with one of mine and
then as well but we'll go back to you we'll come
back right okay sorry so those you know what
actually we should have done one and one one
and one one and one do you want to do your free
whilst i think of the third and final game sure
so i can say my i've had my friends know that
i'm gonna play a game online it's gonna be this
and i've mentioned it a few times about this
throughout this podcast but it's got to be call
of duty zombies and specifically zombies just
because i hate multiplayer elements to games
where it's me against someone else and that i
prefer the co -op element of multiplayer um where
you have to work together um and you can have
a little bit of competition like we have been
to have like headshot competitions and stuff
like that when you're playing um and it is it
is great fun to pick apart um like each other's
gameplay and try and i used to really enjoy figure
out things yeah i used to uh tactic i used to
figure out a tactic like i mean for example when
um this new uh version of call of duty came out
i would sit in the bowling alley and just like
run laps and train up the zombies and then just
take them out and let everybody else have the
entire rest of the map but what i used to what
i enjoy doing more than anything is when one
of my teammates goes down it's that exhilaration
you get from going on a hero mission from wherever
you are on the map it's okay bud i got you i'm
coming and you literally run to anywhere else
in the map taking out zombies as you go like
and then like quickly get them up and then run
you know i mean like run because you know like
you've got an entire horde behind you so much
fun absolutely love call of duty zombies um this
new uh new set of maps have really done really
well and one thing that i think microsoft do
need a massive shout out for after acquiring
activision they've made the dlc completely part
of game pass so all of the new maps they're releasing
i have access to without having to spend any
more money and i have to give them such a good
shout like such a big shout out for that oh good
um but let's go with so i have to give second
place i have to give an honorable mention because
i do have to i do want to give some credit to
this game um but it's definitely not my top three
so i do just want to mention minecraft yeah i
played minecraft for about 10 years solid and
there is no other game i've ever played i have
played that long and that consistently and watched
more content it's unreal it's such a good game
um for i've massively outgrown it now and i don't
think i can go back to it but when i was in the
height of my gaming it was all i did um but i
think um number two for me so i know what my
number one is hands down and i think if i'm gonna
go with number two i'm gonna go with the tomb
raider series but the new stuff just because
the new uh the new trilogy of tomb raider has
been so much fun to play and i don't think i've
had that good that much enjoyment out of a set
of games where it's consistent across all three
titles it's really well built it's really well
designed the story is great and it was really
good fun to play really good puzzles and so enjoyable
i could quite happily go back and play them again
it's got that replayability um so i think i would
definitely put them in my top three um And I'm
going to bounce it back over to you for your
number one. I can't believe I'd even forgotten
about the Tomb Raider franchise. Like, I played
two and three, and then Chronicles, but I sort
of lost it after that. Have you played any of
the Tomb Raider, the Rise of the Tomb Raider,
or the Shadow of the Tomb Raider? No. do it no
would you you would recommend those absolutely
no it's been reborn a couple of times no this
is this definitely go start with tomb raider
just see if it's your feel it is completely different
to what you had from the old school tomb raiders
but they've done it really well they've done
it really well that's fantastic um okay so you
know what i'm not sure i'm even building up here
i so i have i'm gonna say probably my favorite
one of my favorite games is uh destiny 2 and
that's just because um like i i played it with
my brother for um a good couple of years now
and you know it doesn't always go uh like perfectly
and it's definitely it really does annoy me that
with the season pass like so at the moment what
they've done is like with the the story and stuff
uh they have one of the characters hit you with
a really emotional um kind of monologue yeah
which i hate to admit it just gets annoying the
second time you hear it yet it pops up on every
single loading screen until you go and do what
that character is telling you to do. The problem
is, of course, that you can't do what that character
is telling you to do until you've physically
bought the next season pass so that going there
does something and that that for me it really
undermines things but i would say i still love
that game simply because i've spent loads of
time building my warlock up and i i think about
the times that i've gone up and visited my brother
and with um I've brought a TV with me, which
is a ridiculous thing to do. I wouldn't recommend
it. The more I think about it, the more stupid
it seems. I've taken up my PS4 and a TV. A shout
out to the friends who bought me that PS4. I
really do appreciate it. I've done that and then
I've sat down and we've played together. i remember
the time i went up there and like we we spent
hours and hours so that i could get this rocket
launch called the galahorn that was uh that was
an amazing time yeah talking about um taking
your tv uh to go play video games one of my greatest
memories of playing black ops 1 zombies was the
old system link i took the xbox 360 and my tv
to my friend's house we system linked to xbox
360 played four player call of duty zombies uh
hours one one game lasted about four and a half
five hours because there were four of us and
all of us were pretty good at the game right
and i mean the hero missions that we went on
during that game was insane um we had so much
fun yeah i can remember like you just pitch up
with having an extra tv in your friend's friend's
bedroom or something like that being able to
put your console up next to them um that's it
that's exactly it i suppose it speaks volumes
to my um flavor of play but my favorite game
of all time actually a single player game we'll
talk about mr billing no mates um but my favorite
game of all time final fantasy 7 and loads of
people love that game and love that franchise
i am embarrassed that i've never never truly
played that game all the way through like i've
never sort of owned the right thing or just been
into it but that game is iconic like i've been
to orchestra events where they play the final
fantasy um music yeah yeah i know that that game
has had such an effect on such a large number
of people i can remember playing it in 1996 when
it came out and is it really that old yeah man
i can remember playing it in 1990 came out i
can eating it for the first time in about i learned
how to play properly um and learned what a save
point was um and i have since completed that
game 15 20 25 times i can't even think and i've
done it vanilla i've done it modded more recently
i've done it where they've got the mod for there's
a whole bunch of fans that have voice acted the
entirety of the original game and there's a so
there's a mod for that um and i'm currently playing
through the second installment of um the remaster
rebirth reconstructed re -galvanized final fantasy
7. fantastic that's amazing to hear buddy yeah
so much fun i think that rounds us off doesn't
it for the end of this podcast it does it does
for today So I will say a massive thank you for
everybody who has hung on to this slightly extended
version of a podcast, but excuse two old men
as we take a trip down memory lane and have a
rant on our soapboxes about the state of the
gaming industry. Thank you all very much for
listening. I'm going to say goodnight. So is
James. Goodnight, everyone.