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Episode 160 - Bungie Jumping the PIAs

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·50m 39s·analyzed·Feb 6, 2022
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Godzilla sweeps 2022 PIA awards with historic dominance; Toy Story JJP rumored for March.

Summary

Dennis and Tony discuss the 2022 Pinball Industry Awards (PIAs), where Godzilla dominated nearly every category while Led Zeppelin won only Best Lighting Effects and Best Music. They cover Hall of Fame selections, excellence awards across multiple categories, and note the dominance was so overwhelming it made for a less competitive awards show. They also discuss a rumor about Jersey Jack Pinball's Toy Story game coming in March with triple-digit unit production planned.

Key Claims

  • Godzilla won all but two PIA categories; Led Zeppelin won Best Lighting Effects and Best Music

    high confidence · Dennis: 'Godzilla won all but two of the categories, and most of the time it wasn't even close.' Specific category wins documented throughout discussion.

  • Playfield Layout category had 92% vote margin for Godzilla (Mandalorian 2 votes, Zeppelin 1)

    high confidence · Dennis: 'Playfield layout, Godzilla, 92% of the vote. This is not the biggest vote margin, by the way.'

  • Jersey Jack Pinball's Toy Story game reveal expected in March 2022 with 100+ units planned for pre-build

    medium confidence · Dennis: 'I'm hearing march I'm hearing the reveal will be in march' and 'I'm hearing triple digit number of them out. So a hundred plus.'

  • PIA governance committee is experiencing burnout and potential significant volunteer turnover

    high confidence · Dennis: 'everyone's just too burned out to really focus on what's going to happen next year' and 'There were only three of us who served last year and this year'

  • 2000-2009 PIA era has only ~25 eligible Stern games when excluding LEs and reskins

    high confidence · Chris Doyle email: 'I count 25 eligible games from the 2000-2009 era. They are all sterns.'

  • Insider Connected Kit by Stern won Best Accessory with 75% of judges' votes

    high confidence · Dennis: 'the Insider Connected Kit by Stern. That was three-fourths of the vote.'

  • About 150 people watched the PIA ceremony live on YouTube premiere (Jan 28, 2022)

    high confidence · Dennis: 'There was very little notice, so most people didn't see it live. I think there were about 150 people that were in.'

  • Judge participation increased ~25% this year with expanded categories

    high confidence · Dennis: 'we did see about a 25% increase in judges this time. We did expand the categories a bit, so that helped with getting that.'

Notable Quotes

  • “Godzilla won all but two of the categories, and most of the time it wasn't even close. Yeah, it's almost embarrassing.”

    Dennis @ ~34:00 — Emphasizes the historic dominance of Godzilla at the awards ceremony

  • “I do not think that in my lifetime I will ever see in this or any other award ever on pinball such a shellacking again. I just can't fathom it.”

    Dennis @ ~1:06:00 — Expresses amazement at the unprecedented margin of victory for Godzilla

  • “I want to know who hurt you. Here I have a pinhead doll. Where did they touch you on this pinhead doll that made you vote for them?”

    Dennis @ ~1:05:00 — Humorous response to the single vote for Godzilla over Led Zeppelin in Best Pinball Sound Effects category

  • “Grand Prix is the pick that non-EM people pick to act like they like EMs... It's like spinner all day, so people get it. People like spinners.”

    Tony @ ~17:00 — Commentary on casual player preferences in Hall of Fame voting for EM category

  • “There's one very good, very valid use for NFTs in gaming... use them on the individual games so that you can now create a used game market.”

    Dennis @ ~1:25:00 — Identifies practical application for NFT technology in video gaming

  • “I capping the amount of games that can be voted in by a percentage of the eligible games from that era, say 10%, you will truly be looking at the cream of the crop from each era”

    Chris Doyle (via email) @ ~7:00 — Proposes solution to PIA Hall of Fame voting issue that addresses era imbalance problem

  • “It's like Godzilla's gonna win and no it didn't quite win everything but if it didn't so it made for a boring award show”

    Dennis @ ~1:12:00 — Acknowledges the entertainment challenge of such overwhelming dominance in awards ceremony

Entities

GodzillagameLed ZeppelingameThe MandaloriangameHalloweengameUltramangameLegends of ValhallagameSorcerer's Apprenticegame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: PIA governance committee experiencing significant burnout and expecting volunteer turnover for next year

    high · Dennis notes only 3 volunteers served both years, everyone is 'too burned out,' and 'significant turnover' expected

  • ?

    community_signal: PIA implementing new awards categories and increasing judge participation (25% increase) to improve judging diversity

    high · Dennis: '25% increase in judges this time. We did expand the categories a bit' including new 'Excellence in Pinball Social Media' and 'Harry Williams Legacy Award'

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball enthusiasts and judges recognize Spooky Pinball and Multimorphic P3 platform have capacity to compete with Stern in future awards

    medium · P3 games (Sorcerer's Apprentice) placing top 3 in multiple categories despite lack of new physical layouts; Spooky games noted as having strong art design

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Godzilla's Newton Ball Magnet mechanism cited as key innovation reason for winning Best Innovation category

    medium · Dennis: 'Newton Ball Magnet, I think is why... because a lot of the other stuff was a rehash, but that was new.'

  • ?

    event_signal: 2022 Pinball Industry Awards ceremony held January 28, 2022 with ~150 live YouTube viewers; primarily Stern-dominated results

    high · Dennis confirms ceremony date, viewer count, and provides detailed category results

  • $

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.152

0:00
Hey everybody, welcome to the Eclectic Gamers podcast. Today is February 6th, 2022, and this is episode 160. I am Dennis. Tony was here. We were recording, and as I was editing, I realized that approximately eight minutes of his audio became really digitized. It must have been a software issue, probably with a computer, because it resolved after that point. And we had had some initial startup issues, but we thought we had those fixed. So I'm just going to cover the sort of introduction portion here real quick, and then I'll note when we drop back into your regularly scheduled episode. So for intros, Tony just noted he's really been busy working and has been playing his SnowRunner game. I noted that I'm still working on Yakuza Like a Dragon. We both also went yesterday to the monthly pinball tournament at the 403 Club. Tony won a t-shirt. We did not last all that long, and then we went and ate. And so anyway, now I'll move into the portion of the pinball section that was too garbled to include. We actually really only focused on talking about the Pinball Industry Awards. But before going into that, I wanted to read an email that we received about the PIAs from Chris Doyle. His email says, I believe the question of how many games get into the Hall of Fame for a specific period is a very valid problem, for which I may have a solution that not only fixes it for the 2000 to 2009 era, but also all other eras as well. I believe that by capping the amount of games that can be voted in by a percentage of the eligible games from that era, say 10%, you will truly be looking at the cream of the crop from each era while allowing flexibility based on a number of eligible games from each era. For example, I count 25 eligible games from the 2000-2009 era. They are all sterns. I did not count limited editions, such as Lord of the Rings LE, Spider-Man Black, etc., or reskins, Family Guy and Shrek, NASCAR and Grand Prix, etc., more than once. Opinions may vary on that point. That means, rounding up, that only three games would be eligible for induction for the 2000-2009 period. That, to me, satisfies the cream-of-the-crop designation without putting a hard limit on the amount of games eligible from the other eras. For example, I quickly counted roughly 50 games from the 2010 to 2019 period. This would allow for a total of five games to make the Hall of Fame using the 10% criteria. Anyway, that's just my two cents. Hopefully someone from the PIA committee agrees and may use that suggestion. Love your show and look forward to it every two weeks. The first half, anyways. Sorry, I'm not a gamer, just a pinballer. Thank you both. So thank you, Chris, for the email. When we discussed it, Tony and I noted that we agreed this does seem like an ideal solution. This style of solution, I can confirm, has been briefly discussed by the PIA Governance Committee. The challenge right now is since we're at the end of this award cycle, everyone's just too burned out to really focus on what's going to happen next year. Not to mention that if it happens like this year, we may see significant turnover on the number of volunteers to serve on the governance committee. There were only three of us who served last year and this year, and I have no idea what it's going to look like. But everyone agrees in particular that this is ultimately something that's going to have to be resolved, especially with the 2000 to 2009 era going to basically force our hand before any other era would, just because there's so few games that came out. And the quality arguably falls off a cliff in terms of like top tier or, as Chris phrased it, cream of the crop. So after that, we were ready to go into discussing the Pinball Industry Awards results, and I will drop that portion in at this point.
Toy Story
game
Guns N' Rosesgame
Dennisperson
Tonyperson
Chris Doyleperson
Zach Minneyperson
Greg Boneperson
David Dennisperson
Chris Chandlerperson
Dwight Sullivanperson
Carl D'Angeloperson
Steve Bowdenperson
Jason Knappperson
Pinball Industry Awardsevent
Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
Stern Pinballcompany
Spooky Pinballcompany
American Pinballcompany

market_signal: Godzilla pinball achieved unprecedented market dominance in 2022 with overwhelming judge preference across 18+ PIA categories

high · Godzilla won 18+ of 20 categories with margins exceeding 50-92%; only Led Zeppelin won 2 categories (Music, Lighting)

  • ?

    announcement: Jersey Jack Pinball planning Toy Story game reveal in March 2022 with 100+ units pre-built for shipping

    medium · Dennis: 'I'm hearing march I'm hearing the reveal will be in march' and 'I'm hearing triple digit number of them out. So a hundred plus.'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community sentiment regarding PIA voting methodology shifting toward percentage-based caps per era to ensure 'cream of the crop' selections

    medium · Chris Doyle email proposes 10% cap solution; Dennis notes PIA governance committee has 'briefly discussed' similar approaches

    • 4:05
    So I will note, we do have a link in the show notes to the YouTube video of the ceremony that was YouTube premiered on January 28th on a Friday. There was very little notice, so most people didn't see it live. I think there were about 150 people that were in. So if you want to watch it, Zach Minney and Greg Bone did end up posting. We did not originally have that arrangement. However, they became willing to do it. And so we were not planning to do a ceremony at all because we didn't feel we could live up to what Zach and Greg had done. So we're going to do a very different sort of social media approach. But we weren't really happy with how well that might go. So this seemed like a better idea.
    4:45
    It's about an hour and 45 minutes. There's been a lot of praise for the Lyman Sheets tribute that's at the start of it. So you might want to just go and check that out. Even if you don't want to watch the rest of the awards, that's pretty close to the beginning. But we'll start with the Hall of Fame. Okay. So EM, that's a write-in category for us. And the winner there was... Campus Queen.
    5:07
    Almost. Actually, I don't remember how many votes Campus Queen had. Jungle Princess, Jungle Queen. That's partially. Yeah. So that's the winner. Well, Grand Prix was the whiff, but the instructions said Grand Prix had already won, so you couldn't vote for it again. But because there was a write-in, people did it anyway. People don't listen. People's Choice, people don't listen. The first five slots of the honor roll of EM People's Choice would probably be Grand Prix. I mean, Grand Prix is good enough. It deserves. It deserves the first five slots. Grand Prix, yes, but look. And you EM people, like real EM people, write in at Collecting Games Podcasts and gmail.com and confirm this. But, like, Grand Prix is the pick that non-EM people pick to act like they like EMs.
    5:58
    Okay. It's like, it's spinner all day, so people get it. People like spinners. See, that's it. That's it. So we're back to this plead. So this is back to the plead people. They don't understand the joy and the beauty in a machine. Why didn't they vote for centigrade? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not. One could take that approach. But you see, that's the opposite end. Then there's the EM snobs that are out there acting like the Pachinko-style waterfall stuff is in any way fun. It's like, it was not. Quit acting like every design that came out of the EM era was genius. There was a lot of rehash and a lot of trash. It just is. In fact, there was more trash back then than there is now because they were turning out so many games. Yeah, nowadays we have a cup of fat. You can definitely see not only were they highly experimental in ways that in no way worked, they were turning out so much at the point that things were selling themselves that quality did not need to be there. So, no. Games are better now than they were then. that said Grand Prix is a pick of a solid stater you're trying to fit a round peg in a square hole that's what you're doing you're just having fun and you're picking a game that's fun please don't do that you need to have higher quality I like Grand Prix too the real answer is Jitterbug it needs to be Jitterbug you know the bugs, the jitters and the doodles I kind of thought it would have won but it didn't. It didn't. Grand Prix won it. So anyways, Jungle Queen, Jungle Princess. That's okay. That's cool. I don't have a problem with that. So 70s, Solid State was a tie.
    7:47
    Harlem and Gorgar. Okay. Sure. I mean, Harlem's okay-ish. A lot of people love Harlem. That's a tournament, darling. And then Gorgar's, oh yeah, it's the first game with speech. Yeah, it, it has like the best musical soundtrack of any game from that entire decade. It's just amazing 80s was Centaur It is a beloved Class of 81 game I really thought Something from the late 80s I figured I was surprised I was expecting A System Alone Yeah So It didn't 90s This one surprised me Twilight Zone Tony That's not very nice I'm sorry Bull cocky Too late I have to write this down And put it in a beat So The But yes, I do agree. Because Attack from Mars is still not in the Hall of Fame. Medieval Madness won last year, and here's Twilight Zone. That stuck every toy in the world in it instead of having a layout. It's not just that I am upset. Tell me about the fleas, Tony, that went on the floor. I'm not... Tell me about the fleas that picked Twilight Zone. It's not just that I'm upset that Twilight Zone beat Attack from Mars. I think there's like four games that should be in there before Twilight Zone. But Twilight Zone is beloved. A lot of people like it. It wasn't beloved when it came out. Maybe they had better taste back then. I don't know. But I'm glad you're happy with your choice. It's just wrong. The plebes. The plebes choice Twilight Zone. 2000-2009, Simpsons Pinball Party. Not a surprise. What choice did they have? Spider-Man. I mean. Spider-Man.
    9:38
    And then this was a surprise, though I think a pretty welcome one. 2010 and 2019 was Total Nuclear Annihilation. I am surprised that that one went so early. Very, very. I mean, as fun as that game is, I honestly never would have thought that out of the first five picks, a game without ramps. Yes. That is shocking. That's the thing. I have no problem with it being a Hall of Fame. I love that. No, well, I have one. I just am shocked because I expected other items first. So the plebs have good taste. Sometimes.
    10:14
    Sometimes. So let's go to the actual qualified judging categories. So this year. So now you plebs can sit down. The qualified judges have stepped forward. So this time, rather than the pinball network having a group of people arguing and nominating and choosing excellence award winners, this time just the judges that picked the category awards, they were told, write in what you want on the excellence awards. And then we just tallied those up. And so, of course, there were ties in various levels in terms of first place. We did have one tie situation with that, of course. A bit frustrating to compile, but this kept it neutral because the majority of the judges were not in the pinball network, which was nice to have again. And we did see about a 25% increase in judges this time. We did expand the categories a bit, so that helped with getting that. So we'll go through the winners on this really quick. So pinball streaming, i.e. pinball, that's Carl D'Angelo. That won that 34% of the write-in votes. Pinball Podcasting, the pinball show, won on that with 27.5% of the votes. Excellence in Pinball Writing, This Week in Pinball won with 38% of the vote. Excellence in Pinball Social Media, that was a new category. That was a tie. Fun with Bonus, that's Steve Bowden's social media. And then Nap Arcade, which is Jason Knapp's social media. They both won. Each of them got 18.75% of the vote. Pinball Photography, Nap Arcade won that one. with over 30% of the vote. Pinball Videography was straight down the middle, which won with 30% of the vote. And then we added in another new award, the Harry Williams Legacy Award to sort of celebrate contributions on pinball. And with a little over 14% of the vote, Dwight Sullivan won that. Okay. So, those are the Excellence Awards. I didn't actually vote in the vast majority of those because... I skipped a number. I mean, I skipped podcasts as I knew I was... I mean, I didn't, well, anything that I could see myself having been involved with, I did not vote in. Right. And then the other stuff. If I didn't know, I. Yeah. And then the other stuff is like, like photography. It like I don follow that kind of stuff Yeah I hadn I mean it hadn crossed my mind actually about Nat Barker I mean he does post a ton of photos So after I thought about it I was like well that does make a lot of sense Yeah I just never thought about it But, I mean, I voted for him in social media. Because that immediately, like, oh, yeah, I read that stuff all the time. So I sort of like how that went. So category.
    12:55
    Now, I'm not going to run through all of these. Tony in the internal notes sees my, I just cut and paste all the results. But that's my Godzilla because Godzilla dominated. Oh, yeah. Dominated.
    13:13
    If you want to say the always a bridesmaid, never a bride, it had to be Mandalorian. Poor Mandalorian came in second on so many of these categories. But the thing is, Godzilla won all but two of the categories, and most of the time it wasn't even close. Yeah, it's almost embarrassing. Right. So let's talk the two categories that Godzilla did not win were won by Led Zeppelin. So Stern won everything. Well, that's no surprise. Nobody else put out anything that was worth it. That's kind of true. Yes. So in terms of the ones that Led Zeppelin did win, it won Best Lighting Effects with just over half of the vote. Okay. And it also won Best Music with over 53% of the vote. So pretty dominant wins in those two categories. And I agreed with those. I know people will debate best music because is it fair that a rock band's rock tracks are... But, hey, it's up to the judges. Like, I'm not... And I've mentioned this before. I am not... And to be fair, I did vote for Zeppelin for music. So, obviously... I voted for Godzilla. So... Exactly. I thought about it, but I actually like a number of Zeppelin songs. And that's, like, the only Godzilla song I really like. I don't care for the Blue Coaster Cult song. I don't hate it but you know my thought is it doesn't make any sense to put in like I'd say tell judges you're restricted like I don't like telling people like you need to think about this or I want them to think carefully but saying you're restricted from doing this like how do you enforce that no you don't it's up to the judges so actually I won't list all the breakouts but we can go through the categories really really quick so here's all the stuff Godzilla won Best Art, Cabinet and Backglass 52 plus percent of the vote Obviously Playfield Art, 62 percent of the vote I disagreed with both of these I was Mandalorian on both of those I was Godzilla on both of those Well, most people clearly were Godzilla But I did not agree with that Theme Integration, Godzilla 71 percent of the vote I mean, come on, the building collapse alone Yeah Best Innovation, Godzilla Just under 70 percent of the vote Newton Ball Magnet, I think is why. Probably. Because a lot of the other stuff was a rehash, but that was new. Yeah.
    15:34
    No, that was interesting just because the second place was Sorcerer's Apprentice. See? I mean, the judges do put in logic because P3 performs better on Pinball Industry Awards than in any other award ceremony I've ever seen. Well, yeah, because it requires somebody to have actually played one. And that's part of the judging criteria. People's Choice Awards. Yeah, it helps grab people that try and play everything, or at least read up on everything.
    15:59
    Playfield layout, Godzilla, 92% of the vote. This is not the biggest vote margin, by the way. We will touch on that, but that is a huge vote margin.
    16:10
    Because Mando had two votes and Zeppelin had one. Best rules, Godzilla, just under 60%. Not too surprised. The only thing that surprised me about that is I do hear a lot of praise for Zeppelin's rules, but it came in third to Mando, which I know some people are frustrated with the rules on, but it had almost 12%. Oh, here's one, the best accessory, big shock here, the Insider Connected Kit by Stern. That was three-fourths of the vote. Well, that, which just, it totally makes sense. I was the one person who argued to drop this category. I continue to lose that argument every time. I think it's a terrible category. I agree with you. I still lose that. I can't convince the other judges. I'm sorry. We skipped Best Toys. 88% for Godzilla. The toys are awesome.
    17:02
    The Best Sound Effects, Godzilla. This one was a closer one, Godzilla. Yes. It's still not that close. Godzilla had about 52% of the vote. I think I did vote Godzilla for Best Sound Effects. However, I did not for Best Callouts. I voted Carl Weathers' Mandalorian call-outs. But Godzilla won best call-outs. This is the one thing it won with less than half of the vote. So we had a – this was the only – no, there were two really competitive categories. This was one of them where Godzilla was 44% of the vote. Mandalorian was about 35% of the vote. And then animation, display, and effects, Godzilla was 40% of the vote. Mandalorian was about 29%. Right. Those are the only two close categories at all. What was Best in Show, Tony? Oh, it's obviously... I already said who won. It was Godzilla, but... Right, right. No, Best in Show is obviously Ultraman.
    17:57
    Poor Ultraman. It actually... Ultraman did come in... I mean, it was sixth in sound effects. I remember that. I mean, there was... Actually, Ultraman... I'm trying to remember. Ultraman did come in third on art for Cabinet and Backglass. Oh, that's good. Which surprised me. I thought that Halloween looked better. See, I actually thought Ultraman looked better. A lot of people, apparently most people did, but I really liked the Halloween art. I thought the Halloween art was very much blasé. So, this, though, it is so funny during the ceremony. Well, obviously I've already spoiled that. Other than the two things Led Zeppelin won, it was all Godzilla. but it's so funny watching the ceremony because they show you Godzilla and they show you Led Zeppelin and then they go to open the card those were the only two games that got votes Zeppelin had one vote it's 98% to 1.9% whoever you are I did not go and look because I do have access to the individual votes whoever you are who voted for Zeppelin or for Godzilla I think they misclicked I want to know who hurt you.
    19:12
    Here I have a pinhead doll. Where did they touch you? Where did Zeppelin touch you on this pinhead doll that made you vote for them? I just look like, I don't care. I have in my head canon, they slipped. They spilled their tea like in Red October and slipped. He's lifted accidentally. Accidentally submitted a vote for Let's Not Win.
    19:40
    I just, I just, I was like, I do not think that in my lifetime I will ever see in this or any other award ever on pinball such a shellacking again. I just can't fathom it. I don't see how. Honestly, I didn't think it would be this way as is. Well, as you noted, like no one else, and that's obviously not completely true, but there was no Jersey Jack game. Right. There was no Chicago Gaming game up for, you know, Cactus Canyon remake came out too late. They shipped it too late to count. Right. So all we had in competition was American Pinball's Legends of Valhalla, which got creamed. Like, no, none of the judges cared for it for anything.
    20:35
    Halloween and Ultraman, which, art aside, did not do very well. And then it's the Stern Show. Oh, and there were three games from P3, two of which were third-party developed, but all three of which didn't come with a new module. So you're using rehashed playfield layouts. But a lot of them still scored better than Halloween.
    20:58
    Halloween was hated in this. I mean, it's outside of like art. I mean, Halloween was fourth in cabinet back glass art, as we noted. Ultraman was third. It was the same third and fourth for Clayfield art. And then, yeah, I mean, P3 stuff, Best Innovation, Sorcerer's Apprentice was second on that. And they were fifth in rules. I mean, like Halloween and Ultraman didn't get any judge votes for rules. So it's noteworthy to say Sorcerer's Apprentice made a showing there and nothing from Spooky did.
    21:34
    It's just, it's, yeah. Animation, animation, display and effects, Sorcerer's Apprentice placed above Valhalla, Halloween and Ultraman and Zeppelin for that matter, coming in third. So P3 had a couple top three showings. so yeah it's just and that's the sort of thing i wanted to see out of where i think if you involve judges you see a difference normally you'd see a difference in winning too but to be fair i don't think it matters what award type you do what style of judging godzilla's gonna clean up this year right there was just no way and when the ceremony was being live streamed dude on the youtube premiere there were people in the comments that were joking it's like like best ashtray godzilla best best comforter godzilla uh because it's like it's like godzilla's gonna win and no it didn't quite win everything but if it didn't so it made for a boring award show actually zach in his editing uh and scripting the show did a nice job of spacing the excellence awards and the category awards to give you a break from all the all the zilla madness but what would people think of your award show if Godzilla didn't win. No one would believe you. Yeah. If Godzilla didn't get, not just best in show, but almost all of these categories. It would be very sus. It would be very sus. There would be some serious shenanigans. You'd be like, someone put their thumbs on the scale. Someone bought votes. Someone created a bunch of, well, I mean, obviously that doesn't affect this style of judging. Right. But everyone would be like, you would be super suspect if Halloween won all this stuff. Right. Even if Zeppelin had won all If anything but Godzilla Had taken Game of the Year Or Best of Show There's no way You'd be golden globed You'd be like oh you have Your judges were the design team of Zeppelin Yeah That's what it would be It's like okay How did that No that's just that's yeah yeah well before leaving pinball gotta do rumor corner rumor corner so um this is not new rumor toy story jjp the last of the games that were revealed from the disgruntled employee all other games have come to pass very close is what i am hearing i'm hearing march i'm hearing the reveal will be in march i'm hearing that uh they are just busy trying to build a certain number of them ahead of time so that they will actually be able to ship a number of them. And I'm hearing triple digit number of them out. So a hundred plus. So that's what's going on. Good for them. If it's true. But I would love for them to go, here's our game and we're ready to ship now instead of here's our game. The first one will be shipped in six months and the second one will be ship three weeks after that and then we'll start picking speed up a little bit and you guys should have your games by five years from now yeah i mean you know it's uh i agree it with the with the shipping you know all the stuff pandemic still related it's i mean i've been i'm not i put it as a news item but there's been a lot of discussion like what's going on with the fathom revisited out of haggis in australia because you know they were saying they were starting to build in January and then others were like there weren't any photos and they're getting suspicious and it like well I mean there are delays just beyond what we normally see from pinball which you know typically is outside of Stern we see a lot of delays So you know anyway we see But are you not room retained at least We see what happens Good for JJP getting a game out. It's only been two years. Yeah. So. I think that's good. That is an inherent increase in ability. Sure. And, hey, it means that we will see something competing with Stern. Yes. because there are some JGP fanboys who will vote for them no matter I mean there are people out there who are the same way with Stern every single group has people out there who will vote for their thing even if it kicks them in the nuts every time they hit the start button but Guns N' Roses won a number of awards it did and it's I didn't agree with all of those awards but some of them made total sense totally we will go to the video game segment, but I get to keep talking for a little bit. We got a few more emails to get through. So let's start with a couple of video game related emails. We got one related to Microsoft in our discussion on the last episode. This is from David Dennis, host of Silverball Chronicles.
    26:33
    He says, hey guys, really enjoyed the Microsoft chat this week. It's not this week anymore, but anyway. My thoughts on the Microsoft model going forward would be based on the MLB The Show experience last year. For those that don't know, MLB is Major League Baseball. MLB worked out a new deal with PlayStation, who is the production and publisher of MLB The Show. That deal would allow Microsoft access the massive MLB franchise. On launch day for the new MLB The Show, all PlayStation owners had to buy the game at retail, where Game Pass subscribers could play it for their monthly subscription fee cost. Essentially, Microsoft pulled one over on PlayStation. This will be the model for Call of Duty, etc. Why would you buy a PlayStation and buy a game for $79.99 when you could buy an Xbox or PC and have it included in your monthly subscription? I'm sure all DLC and timed exclusive content will be first on Microsoft platforms and follow up PlayStation. So thank you, David, for writing in. I do think that that's going to be the model for Call of Duty. I do not think that's going to be the model for everything under Activision Blizzard.
    27:41
    I mean, I do think it'll all be on Game Pass. But the thing is, we've already seen things like early on, I thought Microsoft was a little coy when they got Bethesda about what would still be multi-plat. And then it seems like other than already committed games, things ain't going to be multi-plat. is going to be PC and Xbox.
    28:03
    So, you know, it's a question of... I think for Call of Duty, it makes a lot of sense because there are so many... I mean, PS5 has been outselling worldwide the Xbox series, not nearly like it was last year, but... or last gen. Right. But that's a lot of... It's like with Minecraft. There's a lot of other devices that you would like to make money on, and Call of Duty is a great way to do it. But others... Like... Overwatch 2? I mean, most of the players of Overwatch are PC anyway. I could definitely see them saying, okay, this is going to be on PC and Xbox. We ain't putting it on PS5. Right. Well, and I think just overall, their whole Game Pass thing is going to give them a large advantage going forward. Oh, sure. What David wrote here, I agree. That's the strategy. That's Phil Spencer's fingerprints everywhere. is Game Pass will be what crushes everything else because it's such a good deal that if you want to play a variety of games, no other option is... The only reason I don't have Game Pass is I play games so slowly that I can get enough games on birthday and Christmas lists on sale from people that that keeps me busy. That's the only reason I don't do Game Pass. Does it last you until the next round? Yes, because I play so slow. Yeah. so but for people with more play time and people who put more energy into it it's definitely the way to go yes yes yes especially people who want big name release right and especially i think it's a huge uh advantage for people that are like younger uh players who are on a budget a severe budget because we all know people that could only like they buy their own games and they work a part-time job you know growing up and it wouldn't be unusual for someone to buy two games a year and maybe that's Call of Duty and Madden. Right. But with Game Pass, you're like, maybe you're spending that same amount of money, and now all of a sudden you've opened yourself up to a much bigger library. So that's the attraction. We did get another video game-oriented email. This one is from Chris Chandler, and it was about Ubisoft. He linked an Ubisoft executive interview where that executive was talking about how users don't understand NFTs. And so I do have a link to the article in the show notes. I'm not going to read his entire email, but I'll read the relevant part of the email that was after that link. Yep. And Chris said, We apparently just don't get it, gents. Apparently, after spending weeks grinding for that weapon skin and then abandoning the game, we can cash out and live like kings. After they take their cut, of course. It's like an NFT version of Superman 3, I suppose. Well, I can see that there's definitely a market for boosted characters and the like. Didn't D3's marketplace show the market for in-game items simply isn't there? Slash me cries in CryptoPro. And, you know, I read this article when it had first come out. And, yeah, it's very much a, this whole NFT thing, I saw somebody else post it. And I agree with them. There's one very good, very valid use for NFTs in gaming. use them on the individual games so that you can now create a used game market. So when you're done with your game, you can sell it. Hmm.
    31:25
    That's the only about everything else is just the whole NFT thing. It's money laundering. That's the only thing that makes sense.
    31:35
    There's just no way. I don't understand. That's right. That's what the executive said. You don't, I don't understand. I don't, I'm too dumb. You dumb. I don't know. I'm too dumb. I mean, I can't tell you the last time I played an Ubisoft game, but.
    31:50
    Assassin's Creed, whatever the assassins are. I haven't played an Assassin's Creed since Assassin's Creed 1. Whoa, that one was not very good either. Why do you think I never played another Assassin's Creed?
    32:04
    All right. Well, anyway. So thank you for the email, Chris. Tony, you've got some news. The world of video games has not been stagnant. Nope, it never is. Sony is countering the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft. They are picking up Bungie. Bungie, the town bicycle of video game production companies. Poor Bungie. They just want to be independent. Well, yeah. They did.
    32:37
    Twice. Well, I mean, yeah, because Bungie started off independent, obviously. They made some good games. They made Marathon. They made Myth. Then they started making Halo, and Microsoft purchased them. And they spent a good seven years making Halo games for Microsoft. And then, you know, they were tired. I heard Microsoft didn't manage that one as well as they should have. Yes. And that's generally, it wasn't managed well, and there were issues like creative control and stuff like that. That sort of style. So they split off.
    33:16
    And they still made like two more Halo games, including my personal favorite Halo game, ODST. But that's when they started making Destiny. Then they cut a deal with Activision Blizzard. Like you do when you're independent. Right. To work with Activision Blizzard for 10 years. to publish their games, and that's where they published Destiny, and that was purely because they needed money. So they cut a deal with Activision Blizzard and got money. Didn't they like that deal? Well, no, because after eight years they left because there were creative control problems with them. And now, after being independent for like four years with Destiny 2 out and doing what they can, they're being purchased by Sony. So we'll see how many years they stay with Sony Before creative control problems Make them break off on their own Until they can find somebody else To give them money To take creative control It's a vicious cycle Poor Bungie It is I mean It's been a long road for them But we'll see I mean a lot of people like Destiny I haven't heard nearly as much like it for Destiny But it's popular enough. But hasn't Sony said that Destiny is staying multi-plat? Yes. So I'm not quite sure what they're getting, other than future stuff down the lines. Yeah. I guess they're hoping. I mean, there have been arguments that Sony is weak on the FPS slate. So this would help. And Sony is purchasing for them for $3.6 billion. $1.2 billion of that has been set aside specifically as incentives for retention of employees. Right. So that's smart. But, you know, overall, other than Bungie's constant, in my view, as you sort of highlight, constant dissatisfaction with being under anyone's thumb, this isn't a bad move. I don't think so. I don't think it's a bad move at all. I think it's something that shows a lot of progress, or it has the chance to give them a lot of progress, especially if they get a chance to work on something not Destiny. Maybe they can start opening their sites back up.
    35:32
    Since we already have talked a little bit about Activision Blizzard, we'll continue the Activision Blizzard stuff. No surprise, the FTC is going to be looking into the purchase deal for Microsoft.
    35:43
    Microsoft is downplaying the chances of anything being blocked because even post-acquisition, they're still only going to be in the number three slot. Honestly, I think this deal is going to go through. I don't see how it won't go through. I don't see how they could shut this deal down saying it would make them too big when it would only put them in the number three slot without also coming forward and deciding they have to break up Sony and Tencent. Right. It's like, to me, this is like the merger of Sprint and T-Mobile. Right. Yeah, I get it. There's diminished competition. We had someone, I don't think it was on our Facebook necessarily, someone tagged me, though, with that concern about the loss of independence. You know, it's complicated, though, because they're actually, because you can have one-person studios, is there actually are a ton of independents out there. Right. So it's just not the same landscape as it is, because things are distributed digitally. It's actually relatively easy to get your own video game studio up if you wanted to. You don't have to be like Bungie, begging for money all the time. That may mean you can't be as ambitious. But you don't have to be huge and special and triple A to have a good... Look at, like, Among Us. That's independent, and it's still huge.
    36:59
    It's one of those things. Independents can get out there and put their own stuff out. So I don't think it'll destroy anything. I don't think it'll be blocked.
    37:11
    Activision Blizzard did release their next round of data on their player base. Their player base has dropped by another 14 million since September of active monthly users. that is in my notes I put it as active monthly losers they've lost that and considering the numbers of losses they've been taking it's just been a continuing downward trend on that at the same time Square has been climbing Final Fantasy 14 numbers are higher now than they've ever been so there's definitely been some stuff going there and because like we talked about this opening up of the union at Raven which is part of Activision Blizzard has continued sending out more union messages to their people
    38:08
    So we'll see how well that goes. I'm just going to read a selection from some of these ones. Just basically it's the same comments they made on the last one, where when it comes out, oh, it'll affect your direct relationship to the company, and, oh, we won't be able to make as good of games if you're under union control. And, yeah, it's not surprising, but it's – It's pretty common for companies when they announce, yeah, this is your right, and then they always have a, but you'll – Yeah, we totally support your right to do this, but don't do it. Yeah, but vote no. But vote no. So let's see what else we got going on. Stadia. Oh, we haven't talked about Stadia in a while. We haven't.
    38:55
    Stadia has been reportedly deprioritized. What? By Google? Yes. What? I know. I, too, am in absolutely zero shock.
    39:10
    They are no longer pushing to make the deals for the games. they are instead shopping out the software and the back end stuff to sell to other third party companies who want to have their own thing yeah I saw Peloton listed and I was like well Peloton's not their financials aren't doing great right now either they did great during the pandemic and now it's like well they can't maintain that growth level because people are not staying at home anymore yeah I mean I know we have a few listeners that are I'll brand them as Stadia fanboys. Yeah. Honestly, based off of the sales numbers, this was inevitable. I think it was inevitable. It was definitely, as you noted, in no way a surprise. Google does this. Yes. A lot.
    39:58
    And it's frustrating, but as someone who, like, you know, I've been in the Android phone infrastructure. Obviously, that software, that operating system is very, very successful. But, I mean, I've been constantly – we use FeedBurner for our thing. And thankfully, they just don't – like, they don't work on it anymore. But I'm always wondering, are they going to pull the plug? And millions of people use it. But this is what Google does. They're often with very little – actually, this is more notice than I thought, honestly. Normally, yeah. They kill the service and say, oh, yeah, we just – you know, here, look at this. Here's a new phone. Yeah, there's been several things that I've used over the years that Google was in, and Google's just like, we're shutting it down. It's like they throw – someone described it as Google seems to throw everything at the wall to see what sticks. And when things start to fall off the wall, they just kind of don't seem to care very much about what happens to the people who adopted them. Right. So my favorite thing, though, was the long – and they worked it for a while, but Google+, which was a dumb idea to begin with. They came into, maybe now with Zuckerberg being seen as a vicious robot, they could have, but at the time it was like, you're entering the wrong type of social media space at the very wrong time. And it didn't work. And I knew people that tried to make Google Plus, like they were like, we should use Google Plus. I'm like, I'm not a Facebook fan, but why? Yeah. Why would I do this? And then, in fact, when we first started doing the podcast, I used to promote it on Google Plus. that got one like. Ooh. It was a waste. Yeah. There was never anybody there. I had very limited things. They only stayed with that as long as they did because the sheer amount of money they poured into it was high by even Google standards. That's the only thing. Oh, what a mess. Anyway. So much for that. So much for Stadia. Now, in a similar vein, Valve's Steam Deck is going to start shipping on the 28th of February for those people who got their reservations in early enough last year when it was first announced.
    42:10
    Will Steam Deck do any better than Stadia? Yes. Because Steam is successful. Right. You don't have to rebuy the games. Yeah. And for me, that's the most interesting part of it, is because with Stadia, when you bought into the Stadia system, you had to buy into their whole thing. to get, so you gotta buy games there or buy into their stuff to get games. Steam Deck, well, I already own Steam Games, so I can play all my Steam Games on Steam Deck. It's just like for those people with the Game Pass on Xbox. It just gives you another way to enjoy what you already have. Right. I'm not planning on getting a Steam Deck, but the ability to have access to the Steam Library is the only reason I would consider it. I don't travel with games. I don't either. I've tried it before, and then I just don't end up playing them. But I know some other people that travel constantly do because they're used to it. Yeah. I mean, because I've got a laptop that can play games. So if I really wanted it, I would just take my laptop and play Steam games on that. But every time I've done that, I've never actually played any games because I'm always doing other stuff. I've found that other than taking, like, my work laptop for work-related stuff, I'll just take a tablet and watch movies or something when I have some downtime. Yeah. Or something like that. Yeah.
    43:33
    Just a few more quick little things. Pokemon Legends Arceus sold 6.5 million copies in seven days, outselling the last several Pokemon mainstream releases, and it is the highest rated Pokemon game since HeartGold and SoulSilver came out. Oh. Yeah. I haven't seen a lot of posts about Pokemon. A lot of people are enjoying it And the graphics are terrible Yeah, see, most of them have been critical of the graphics Everything I've heard is The gameplay is amazing, the graphics are crap Star Citizen Is Reducing their progress Roadmaps that they're putting out Why? Because apparently They're putting out roadmaps So far, they're showing things Coming up so far in advance that when things are slipping, players are getting upset. So instead of releasing a roadmap that shows, you know, what's going to come out like the next three patches, they're going to cut down and just say, hey, well, here's the next patch, what we're working on. Because then when things slip off the roadmap or get delayed or have, it doesn't matter. The scheme's never going to come out. My kids are going to inherit this game and have a chance to play it. Maybe. Maybe their grandkids will. Maybe. It's been 84 years. Sega Has pulled completely out of the arcade market I forgot they were in the arcade market still That's not been doing well with them No Exactly Because of the pandemic They had sold off three quarters of their arcades I think we covered that Yeah They've sold the rest off Okay To the same company they sold the others to So They sold it all to Genda Incorporated Which runs games or their game centers are like GG something or another. Sega is completely out of the arcade market for the first time in 50 years. So that's big.
    45:35
    There was an NFT Minecraft project that raised 1.2 million tokens for a private server with all sorts of special stuff and all this. And they raised it in eight hours. And they promptly shut everything down and vanished. where it gets interesting. Because people found them. Like people literally started finding, they left traces so the developers and the people behind it could be tracked back. So suddenly they made a giant resurgence where they're like, no, no, no, no, we didn't leave and run off. We got overwhelmed and there were issues and we panicked and we shut everything down to try and fix things. And that's why we went utterly silent and completely banished and deleted everything. But we're going to come back. We're talking to some people to help fix the problems that we had. And we want to give control to the community.
    46:36
    I mean, they're not going to give any of the money to the community, but they're going to give control to the community as they got Trek down.
    46:45
    NFTs, we just don't understand. We dumb. We too dumb. We too dumb to understand NFTs. And EA and their shareholder meeting admitted that Battlefield 2042 crashed and burned.
    46:59
    I saw one where apparently a shareholder asked them to tell them, like, how much they made in sales or something. And EA wouldn't. They said something like, well, Battlefield's less than 10% of our portfolio. So you wouldn't understand. Right. It wouldn't help you. And then it's just like, oh, it's that bad? Okay, out. It sounds like it cost EA about $100 million. Yeah, I got it when it came out because I've been a pretty big Battlefield fan out of DICE. I was really excited for them to have another Modern Era one.
    47:35
    There were elements of it that were cool. There were elements of it that I could live with but I didn't love. But the map design is not great. It's really, really barren. I mean, the way the vehicles are in the game is odd. They're, like, all at the base. You can occasionally do these call-in drops.
    47:55
    A lot of the game, it feels like you are sprinting for five minutes to be headshot by a sniper. And then you will spawn out in the middle of nowhere again and try again. And try again. And it's just, it was just like, it was, like, they have too many specialists. They changed the formula an awful lot. and I don't think necessarily for the better. Some of the mechanics in it were pretty cool, but there was only one game mode that was popular, and everything else died out really quick. I think a big thing some of these big groups that put out a new game in the same franchise every year need to remember is that people are buying your game and your franchise because they like how it is. You need to keep your changes to a minimum. in my business when we make adjustments we never change anything more than 10% at a time so maybe don't change 90% of the gameplay loop of your game and then sit there with a shocked Pikachu face when it crashes and burns yeah it was just I mean disappointed I mean comparably I had my frustrations with like Battlefield 1 and stuff, but they were such better games to this. Yes. Even with the limitations, you know, because of the arrows they went with. And so I was just like, this was just almost shocking. It was like they took ideas from Rainbow Six Siege and blended it into this and it's like, this isn't Siege though. Where's Rush Mode? There's no Rush Mode. Conquest was the only carryover mode. It's just, I don't know. It was weird. Well, we're looking at the statistics and this is the most played mode and this is the second most played mode. Well, let's get rid of those. And then it didn't help that cross play mode, as I noted, cross play mode put the console people against PC so we were farmed like innocent babes in boxes. We were bunnies in boxes being farmed by these PC people and it was like, you never mix those two groups. What is this? Well, the thing is, that was a lesson that was learned during Halo 2.
    50:08
    You don't mix the groups. Mess. It was a mess. So, I'm not surprised. But that's what I've got for the news for video games.
    50:19
    I think that's everything, then. Alright. Well, if people want to reach out to us, you can always email the Collected Gamers Podcast at gmail.com or go to facebook.com slash Collected Gamers Podcast and you can shoot us a message from there. We're available on Twitch, Twitter, and Instagram as Collected underscore Gamers. And we'll be back in a couple weeks. So, until then, I am Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye, everybody. Two weeks.