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Episode 207 - Black Knights & Tears of the Gate

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·57m 12s·analyzed·Nov 26, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Holiday news roundup: Dutch Pinball ending Big Lebowski, TWIP acquired by Kineticist, Stern's new app and toppers.

Summary

Eclectic Gamers discusses light pinball and video game news during the holiday season. Key topics include Dutch Pinball announcement that 2024 will be the final year of Big Lebowski production, debate over licensing for potential Back to the Future pinball game, Stern's new Black Knight topper production, Stern's new Insider Connected app launch, and the acquisition of This Week in Pinball by Kineticist. Video game segment covers Game Awards nominees.

Key Claims

  • Dutch Pinball's 2024 will be the final year of building Big Lebowski machines

    high confidence · Dennis cites NAP Arcade article about Dutch Pinball announcement suggesting 2024 will be final year for Big Lebowski production

  • Stern Pinball acquired Planetary Pinball's Williams licenses, including Black Knight

    medium confidence · Dennis states 'Planetary Pinball controls the old Williams licenses when it comes to making games' and that Black Knight license would need renewal

  • Black Knight: Sword of Rage did not sell well and was poorly received by LE/Premium buyers

    medium confidence · Dennis expresses opinion that 'I don't think Black Knight sold well for Stern' and notes LE and Premium had frustration issues

  • Stern's Insider Connected app had a clunky launch with crashes but has since stabilized

    medium confidence · Dennis reports forum discussions indicate app had crashes on launch but 'has all smoothed out at this point'

  • Kineticist acquired This Week in Pinball

    high confidence · Dennis cites Kineticist announcement that TWIP 'is now joining the Kineticist team'

  • Starfield has lower concurrent Steam players than comparable narrative-based single-player games

    medium confidence · Dennis references article showing Starfield underperforming player count expectations vs similar games

  • Baldur's Gate 3 is likely to win Game Awards Game of the Year

    medium confidence · Tony states 'the right answer is going to be baldur's gate 3 given what we saw the golden joysticks'; Dennis agrees

Notable Quotes

  • “Do you think that this is more evidence that they are – obviously, it means they're moving on. Whether they're moving on to not doing anything, period, or moving on to a new game, they've been suggesting for a while that they are moving on to a new game.”

    Dennis @ ~6:45 — Discusses uncertainty about Dutch Pinball's future direction after ending Big Lebowski production

  • “Back to the Future, much more than Jurassic Park, is tied directly to the characters and the DeLorean as one of the primary characters, as opposed to Jurassic Park, where, let's be realistic, the only real characters in Jurassic Park were the dinosaurs.”

    Dennis @ ~9:30 — Core argument about why lacking character licenses matters more for character-driven properties

  • “The game's not very good. A lot of people were very frustrated with how the LE and premium play. I'd say the Pro was received a lot better, except all of the hardcore Black Knight fans get mad at the Pro because the Pro doesn't have the upper play field.”

    Dennis @ ~20:15 — Direct criticism of Black Knight: Sword of Rage reception and community divisions

  • “I was really only turning to This Week in Pinball anymore to see their deep dives on the new games because I really like the format that Twip takes with the photos and stuff.”

    Tony @ ~31:20 — Indicates TWIP had shifted focus and was viewed as less essential by regular readers

  • “Starfield...it's just not clicked with a lot of people. It's not really – I'd say it's mixed...because of how the travel system and working from system to system in space is, it loses the magic of exploration that we normally associate with a Bethesda game.”

    Tony @ ~51:15 — Analysis of why Starfield failed to resonate despite high expectations

Entities

Dutch PinballcompanyStern PinballcompanyPlanetary PinballcompanyKineticistorganizationThis Week in Pinball (TWIP)mediaNAP ArcademediaPinball NewsmediaDennispersonTonyperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Kineticist acquisition of This Week in Pinball consolidating major pinball media brands; unclear integration and future structure

    high · Dennis notes 'Kineticist, the news site for pinball...has basically acquired This Week in Pinball' with lengthy FAQ but unclear domain strategy and content unification plans

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: This Week in Pinball perceived as operating on autopilot prior to acquisition; declining as primary news source for established readers

    medium · Tony reports someone called TWIP 'last week on Nap Arcade'; Dennis notes 'it's felt a little bit like it's been on autopilot'; neither turned to site outside game deep dives in recent years

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Starfield criticized for losing Bethesda exploration magic through restrictive travel system design; fast-travel mandatory reduces organic discovery

    high · Tony: 'the travel system and working from system to system in space is, it loses the magic of exploration that we normally associate with a Bethesda game...you have to essentially fast travel to do a lot of stuff'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Back to the Future licensing limitations prevent access to Doc, Marty, and DeLorean characters; debate whether license is viable without core IP assets

    high · Sean L email: 'if a manufacturer doesn't have the rights to the main actors, Doc and Marty in this case, or the DeLorean, don't do it'; Dennis counters that character-driven themes suffer more from asset loss than world-based themes like Jurassic Park

  • $

    market_signal: Starfield underperforming concurrent player expectations vs comparable narrative-driven single-player games on Steam

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.172

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, November 26th. This is episode 207. I'm Tony. And I'm Dennis. And, you know, Tony, we don't really have a large episode. It's been Thanksgiving time. It's Black Friday time. We're coming up on Cyber Monday time. So there's not a lot of news other than a bunch of sales that we're not going to report on. So, yay? Yeah, it has been surprisingly light with everything going on compared to normal.
0:49
And because of weather, we took some snowfall. So we are recording separately. So if Tony and I speak over each other more than normal, that is because we don't actually see each other talking like we typically do. Right. I guess we could turn on video and we could. No, I didn't plug in my camera. Yeah, that's a whole other thing. But, yeah, no, it's just a little bit of snow. It wasn't a big deal, but it's supposed to be above freezing this afternoon. So I'll just wait until then to go out and clean the cars off for tomorrow. And I've been on vacation like this entire week. So I kind of hope my car will even start. So I'll probably start it and run it this evening. So what did you do on vacation?
1:32
I played some video games. I read a couple books, and I did some stuff around the house. Just nothing important. This was another one of those coming up on being maxed out on time. In this case, I wasn't actually coming close to being maxed out on time, But I'd done the math, and I realized that between my last time I maxed out and burned some time and TPF, I needed to use three days of vacation at some point in that, like, three- to six-month period. And if I burned three days this week, I got a total of nine days off. So that's why I did it. So I burned it now. So now I'll max my vacation time back out Well technically it would be I'd max back out the pay period after TPF Except for going to TPF obviously will burn some of that time Right Yeah, I need to take more vacations So that I'm not riding the upper edge of being maxed out on time But I so rarely actually go anywhere or do anything And I feel like if I'm not doing something special, taking the time for anything other than the fact that I have to is just kind of a waste. Yeah, I'm in a similar boat on that. So actually, I have tomorrow off because I got one floating holiday prorated to me from when I started my new job. So and they don't let you use it like around Christmas. So and they're use it or lose it. So I figured I'll do it on Cyber Monday because that's when I normally do most of my Christmas purchasing. and that way I could just stay home, take care of that, and then do nothing, which is my way. Speaking of the holidays, and you mentioned the cars starting, I actually went and changed my oil on Thanksgiving. And when we popped the hood open, apparently because I walk to work so much now, a squirrel or a mouse was trying to build a nest where the oil cap is. So it was just like this little nest that tore some of the insulation out of the car. From where the vents are. Had made this little nest. Oh, no. Hopefully they haven't chewed on any wires or anything. No, it didn't seem to. It was a very small amount. And we didn't see anything exposed. But anyway, I was just like, oh, my gosh, guys, come on. I usually only do that twice a week. But there weren't any little babies or anything in the nest either. So I don't know. It had been abandoned. But I hadn't popped the hood in quite a while because I hadn't needed to. So I hadn't thought about it. So anyway, I'm about 24 hours in on Starfield now. So that's the game I've been just playing over this holiday period. And then did a couple of wristwatch YouTube live streams for my other hobby. And so Tony actually participated with me a couple of days ago. We put a panel on and we ranked over 30 watch brands. It's over two hours long. But if you want to know about which watch brands you should care about, and we didn't rank them off of price. So you got top tier ratings for brands that are affordable, and you got top tier ratings for brands that are never at all affordable, and you should just buy a house. But that will be linked in the show notes. You also got bottom tier ratings off of some – not quite bottom tier, but second to the bottom tier ratings for some places that you should just go buy a house instead. Yes. and I think there was only one very bottom tier. People were too – we let the audience that was live participating, watching, actually vote. They were 25% of the vote. So they were far too merciful. I think that really leveled things out a lot more than if it had just been those of us on the panel. That's true because at various points, all three of us on the panel were – I think the word we would describe ourselves as is cruel. Yeah, that's a good word. We were kind of cruel with a couple of those groups.
Sean Lperson
Will O'Eddingperson
Colinperson
Big Lebowskigame
Black Knight: Sword of Ragegame
Jurassic Parkgame
Baldur's Gate 3game
Starfieldgame
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomgame
The Game Awardsevent

medium · Dennis cites article showing 'Starfield Actually has Lower concurrent players Than a lot of other Similar style games On Steam Than For the last month'

  • ?

    announcement: Stern Pinball announcing new Black Knight toppers production; ambiguous signal whether full game reprint planned

    medium · Dennis notes 'people are speculating. Is this a sign that they're going to make more Black Knights?' but concludes 'I don't think they're making more of these games'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Dutch Pinball Big Lebowski production ending in 2024 after years of backlog fulfillment suggests extended development/payment cycles

    high · Dennis notes announcement 'suggests that they're finally caught up or they're going to finish building the number that they need' and references multi-year payment-per-sale model

  • ?

    product_concern: Black Knight: Sword of Rage received poor LE/Premium reception with design compromises; Pro version controversial for missing upper playfield

    high · Dennis: 'A lot of people were very frustrated with how the LE and premium play...all of the hardcore Black Knight fans get mad at the Pro because the Pro doesn't have the upper play field'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Stern Pinball launching official Insider Connected mobile app after extended browser-only access period

    high · Dennis reports app had clunky launch with crashes but has stabilized; previously users worked around lack of app via QR code screenshots in Google Wallet

    • 5:35
    Not nice like how we are with pinball and video games. Speaking of which, that's my segue right into pinball. Not a lot of news. This will be a shorter episode today, folks, but you all are probably enjoying watching the clock to see when you can finally not be sitting around talking to your extended family. So we won't be the main excuse, but we'll give you a little bit something to listen to as you drive away back to freedom. So the first thing to note is this is per NAP Arcade. I do have a link in the show notes to this article for those that want to learn more. But Dutch Pinball apparently has made an announcement, and that announcement suggests – doesn't lock it in, but does suggest that 2024 will be the final year of them building the Big Lebowskis. Does that mean they're caught up with paying people back, or does that just mean that they're giving up? I do not know. I if it was in the article, I skimmed it too quickly to have caught that part. I'm assuming, though, that that would suggest that they're they're finally caught up or they're going to finish building the number that they need. And maybe if they're still doing the pay for thing, the thought would be my thought would be that they're going to move on to their next title to, you know, if they're still doing the every three or four that we sell, we send out a TBL. Maybe it's now every three or four of the new game that we sell, we send out a TBL. So I'm not certain on that. What I wanted to ask you, though, Tony, is do you think that this is more evidence that they are – obviously, it means they're moving on. Whether they're moving on to not doing anything, period, or moving on to a new game, they've been suggesting for a while that they are moving on to a new game. Do you think that they are moving on to Back to the Future, which we talked about on a prior episode? I mean, it's something that they could be moving on to, I guess. I am not sold that Back to the Future is the title that people necessarily want. But sure, why not? If they're moving on to something, that makes as much sense as anything else. Sure. And the reason I brought that up specifically, because it's not like you or me or anyone else has any new information from when we talked about that rumor, what I think on the last episode, but we did have a listener write in on that topic. So that's why I wanted to bring it up again. Sean L wrote in, and this is what his email said as follows, which incidentally, if you want to email us, you can always do that. EclecticGamersPodcast at gmail.com. Sean says, Hey, fellas, just listening to the latest podcast where you discuss back to the future. And if a manufacturer doesn't have the rights to the main actors, Doc and Marty in this case, or the DeLorean, don't do it. excuse me but ever heard of this fringe game called jurassic park let's see oh it only ranks second on the pin side top 100 too much sarcasm which if it is it is likely your fault for me listening to your podcast point is theme cells and lack of assets can be overcome by other factors granted the other factors have to be amazing sean well sean thank you very much for writing in we very much appreciate it. What do you think about Sean's point, which, if I may summarize it, though he was pretty succinct in his email, is it doesn't really matter what assets are there. Just being able to call the game back to the future is enough. If you don't believe me, look at Jurassic Park. I think Jurassic Park is a completely different animal for the simple fact that Back to the Future, much more than Jurassic Park, is tied directly to the characters. and the DeLorean as one of the primary characters, as opposed to Jurassic Park, where, let's be realistic, the only real characters in Jurassic Park were the dinosaurs. The other characters were incidental. There was other stuff going on on that island that I think is how that game makes sense. Though I'll admit, I think the theme doesn't matter. If the game is fun, the game will be good no matter what. but it just seems weird to have a game that's called back to the future and you don't have doc Marty or the DeLorean because at that point I can call a game star track and it's just some people running on a star shaped track.
    10:01
    And, and I, I mean, if the visuals don't matter, then the license shouldn't, there should be a free license at that point.
    10:12
    Uh, So, but I mean, Jurassic Park is a good game and it doesn't have any of the stars. But I think it's a variation because the dinosaurs were the stars of those movies. I mean, nobody cares that Chris Pratt is putting his hand in somebody's face all the time because it's really all about the dinosaurs. It's a good point. And I think Sean has a good point as well. Yes, the fact that I do believe that if Dutch does Back to the Future, regardless of the lack of assets that may be involved, that they will sell and that actually doing that versus an original theme, they would sell more of the Back to the Futures. I will grant that. I still would advise not to do Back to the Future simply because we do live in a world where they could probably – I'm not even going to say probably. They assuredly could afford another license that would give them more assets. And I think they could sell even more of a game if they've got an asset package to go along with it than going with a more popular theme where they have nothing to work with.
    11:28
    So that would be my first point. My second point would be Jurassic Park was not completely assetless. They, I believe, had the music. They obviously brought in Nedry. And you can criticize how limited his use was in the game and such, but they had those particular tie-ins. But my third point would be very much in line with what you've been saying, Tony. Here's the big difference to me. Jurassic Park isn't just the story of Jurassic Park, of which there are multiple stories. Crichton wrote two books in the world of Jurassic Park, but my point is it's a world of Jurassic Park, both Jurassic Park and Jurassic World. All those movies together have created – it's a world. It's a world where dinosaurs have been genetically brought back into being. What is the world of Back to the Future? It's just 1950s America. That's not a world. That's the real past. Or you want to go back to the Wild West. That's just the real past. It's without the cast that held that movie together of those particular characters interacting and doing the time travel thing. It's just America, the movie, or in this case, the pinball. Like, what is there? No one cares about the town. Was it at that point? Couldn't you just do a movie based off? What was that? Was it Pleasantville?
    12:52
    Where? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that was like, here, generic original, but thematically, it's Nickelodeon, right? It's the movies or the TV shows that we saw on Nickelodeon is kind of what that went with. But with lots of racism, with a thinly veiled metaphor, as it was. It was pretty heavy-handed in terms of what it was trying to convey.
    13:16
    Yeah, I mean, I guess. It's just I'm trying to think of anything ever having to do with Back to the Future that didn't involve Doc and Marty. and such in some capacity. And I just, I can't think of anything because that movie's strength is not the time travel, it's the characters.
    13:34
    And as you noted, Tony, Jurassic Park's strength isn't the characters, it's the dinosaurs. And dinosaurs are public domain. So I think the analogy collapses under that. It would be better to try and run with a, in my view, it would have been better if you could point to another license where they basically just had the name and didn't have anything else, and it did well. And it was something character-driven that did well still. And I'm not sure if that exists or doesn't exist. But I do agree with Sean that if the game has like if it plays well if it got other things going for it it can overcome the lack of assets absolutely Because at the end of the day most collectors who buy pinball machines buy them because they enjoy playing them So it can be overcome. I just don't know why you go with a license where you couldn't get the stuff that's core to it. And this hasn't been the same. This isn't just a Dutch thing either. The public's had the same debate with Jaws. The rumor is Stern Pinball has Jaws. And the rumor for a long time has been you can't get the rights to Richard Dreyfuss or anyone else who is key to that film franchise in terms of the original movie in particular. So basically all you can get is a killer shark, which is the video game Maneater, which is a fun game. And if the pinball game comes out and they let you as the ball be the shark, that could be fun. Now, if you don't have any assets, I just don't know why you do Jaws other than maybe you get some cheap, easy sales because the movie poster is your back loss. And okay, more power to them. I still don't think it's the right answer. I'd rather see something where you could get the – there's plenty of good stuff out there where you could go and get the rights to.
    15:26
    Though that does remind me, Tony. We did have someone – I think it was on Facebook post. No, maybe it was on Pinside. They basically hated all of our theme ideas. We were like when we were doing the Schwarzenegger and the Stallone verse. They didn't like those. They hated all those ideas. And I think the reason I can see that. No, the only reason they could hate those ideas is they haven't actually seen Oscar to know how good it would have been. Oscar is so good. They don't understand. All right. Moving on to the next topic. We've got back to Storm Pinball. Black Knight, Sword of Rage. You remember it had the coolest topper ever?
    16:07
    They're making more of them. More of the toppers. They're not making more Black Knights. Well, people are speculating. Is this a sign that they're going to make more Black Knights? What do you think, Tony? I mean, I could see that. I could definitely see that game is still one that could have some desire and end up going out on the list.
    16:27
    But the fact that they're just making more of the toppers, I find really interesting because I would not have expected that at this point. Because how long has that topper been out for years now? I mean, it's been years. And I didn't research it ahead of time because I'm very lazy after doing this for as many years as we have. But it's like a thousand dollars more than when they last had it. Right. It's not it's not that affordable topper anymore. I don't think they're making more of these games. I don't think there's the demand. I don't think Black Knight sold well for Stern. I think they just figure that anyone who did buy one, there's a high percentage of that populace that would want to convert into actually having the topper because the topper is so awesome. It is an awesome topper. So I don't think they're going to go back and do – I don't think it's because Steve Ritchie isn't there anymore either. I do think it would probably be an easy license to renew. They would have to renew a license, I believe. Planetary Pinball controls the old Williams licenses when it comes to making games. So even though it was once an original theme, it is actually owned by another entity that isn't Stern at this point. However, the game isn't – let me – this is – people are going to disagree with this, and that's fine. The game's not very good. A lot of people were very frustrated with how the LE and premium play. I'd say the Pro was received a lot better, except all of the hardcore Black Knight fans get mad at the Pro because the Pro doesn't have the upper play field, and they feel like that's a requirement for a Black Knight game because they just made that up after seeing two games. So I just don't think that there's enough interest in this title to do that. And they probably, I think, at their new space, have the ability to run an accessory line and keep it actually operating smoothly. and so maybe they're going back and trying to kind of take care of some of this pent-up demand. Maybe they have a lot of orders from their distributor network that they're just sort of pending. That would make sense that they're just sitting on and they know that people want it. It is a cool topper though. It is a pretty cool topper. I don't usually praise toppers very much, but I will praise that one. It is very cool. Speaking of cool, Stern has also finally launched an actual phone app for Insider Connected. so i think a lot of people have been wanting that i know i got annoyed going through firefox or chrome or whatever on my phone to load it actually what i did is i took a i took a screenshot of my qr code you know and kept it in my phone directory see what i ended up doing is uh that qr code i was able to put it into my google wallet just like you do like your hyvee or or or henhouse or price shopper or whatever scan cards so that I can just call up my Google wallet right there. The thing is to blip it. That's what I've always done. Okay. Yeah. I saved it in the, uh, in the phone directory for photos. So I had like, I just saved a screenshot and then I just, I just go to the little, little file directory for it and load it up was what I was doing. Anyway, they have an app. Uh, the launch was a bit clunky, uh, not too surprising. A lot of crashes apparently because so many people were trying to get on, but it does sound like from what I've read on the forums that that has all smoothed out at this point. So people are able to use that app if you're holding off because you heard about the crashes. I would say go ahead at this point and download it and see if you can get in. It sounds like it's going to be okay. I have not done it myself, though, so I cannot confirm whether or not it's working. But that's what I heard. So I'm sharing that with you all.
    20:08
    Speaking of heard, this is something that I heard about. I think over a week ago, and I thought it was pretty interesting. So Kineticist, the news site for pinball, which I have a link to this in the show notes, they have basically acquired This Week in Pinball. It's now joining the Kineticist team. Well, that's an interesting connection.
    20:34
    Yeah, I'm very curious. Listen, again, the article is very, very long, and I go read it. I'm not going to summarize it well. I don't have it memorized. I mostly just knew about the acquisition and a few little pieces about it. I'm not quite sure how it all plays out. There is a frequently asked questions section at the bottom of the article, though, covering some of the main things. Now, one of the things, because of the season that it is, that some people, I guess, care about is about the TWIPPYs, the awards that are tied to TWIP. those as near as I can tell are basically operating as they have been like Will O'Edding who has been running This Week in Pinball ever since Jeff quit running This Week in Pinball I believe he is still in charge of the Twippies and so this is probably not completely accurate because I think Colin with Kineticist is on the committee but the way I would summarize it is Twippy is almost its own standalone thing now and not really tied to Twip But that's not 100% accurate. So essentially it's being run the same way it has been run is my understanding. I'm not quite sure, though, what all this will ultimately mean with the sites. So, I mean, there's some discussion about what perks are owed for Patreon subscribers to Twip and things like that. I'm just kind of curious because are we going to see two different domains with two different styles of content? Are they all ultimately going to unify into one domain with one set of content? I'm curious, so we'll have to see how it plays out. But it's pretty big news in the sense that this week in pinball is kind of the – to a lot of people, especially people who got into the hobby more recently, I think it's sort of the go-to site that a lot of people think about. Again, it gets weird. pinball news the website which has been around a lot longer but also was a lot less frequent in terms of posting i know a lot of the old school people really think of that as a as a primary news site i definitely like the journalism approach that pinball news has done and more recently uh this week in pinball has felt uh i you know not to i don't i don't think this is a controversial take but um it's felt a little bit like it's been on autopilot so yeah i think that's That's a pretty fair take. Okay. Well, I actually had someone, not either of us, and I won't share who it was. I actually had someone say they started referring to This Week in Pinball as last week on Nap Arcade.
    23:04
    So basically, so maybe under the kineticist banner, it can kind of shake things up and be a go-to. I have to admit, I was really only turning to This Week in Pinball anymore to see their deep dives on the new games because I really like the format that Twip takes with the photos and stuff. It's just – you know what I mean when we would do episodes. We'd usually go to that site to load it up because it's just – the summary of the information and stuff was very, very well done. Like there was a section to know who all the design team was. The photos are well laid out. They're good quality. so but outside of that i wasn't going to the site anymore for years now right anyway so anyway congratulations uh to both uh those involved with this week in pinball and those involved with the kineticist and we look forward to seeing what happens with all of that the final item i have tony in pinball is also uh kineticist and i do have a link in the show notes to this as well but as you recall tony a few episodes ago we talked about why we like pinball, our five favorite pinball games. We did that because Kineticist reached out to a bunch of content creators asking if we would do this because they wanted to kind of put together a sort of pinball media content creation list of what we like about pinball. Well, that's now out. That article is up. There are lots and lots and lots of content creators that are listed. If you need ideas on content creators that you want to start consuming, I'd say start with this list and look and see which ones you don't know. And you probably get a whole bunch of ideas. It's not just podcasts. It's very broad. So anyway, there's the link. And our statements were in there. But of course, if you're a regular listener, you already know what our answers were. So I would say go and read that to find out about the answers of the others.
    24:56
    Everybody's answers are so different. You know what? Maybe. But maybe not. There's a lot of Attack from Mars love out there. I'm just saying. There is a lot of Attack from Mars love out there. There's also a lot of Godzilla love out there. And I wasn't the only person who had Adam's family on their list. Thank you very much. You know what? All of y'all are wrong.
    25:21
    But what isn't wrong is our video game segment. It's not wrong, and it's not long. But what's going on with it? It is not long at all. But we are at that time of year Where It's getting to be awards season We already talked about the Golden Joysticks last episode And how Baldur's Gate 3 Took home a record Number of awards And coming up on the 7th Of December Is the Game Awards Which I personally think Is probably the slightly larger Of those award shows at this point And I just thought I would do a quick run through just of their Game of the Year nominees, because like everybody, they have a huge list of everything. You can go to their website and see what they have and vote on what you think is best. But I find it interesting, their Game of the Year nominees are almost exclusively very late in the year releases.
    26:24
    So there's Alan Wake 2, which came out last month. Baldur's Gate 3 which has been out for a while now Spider-Man 2 which came out in October as I recall Resident Evil 4 remake I'm not sold on if I feel like a remake should be allowed to be a game of the year but okay why not well I will go ahead without having played this newest remake I played a restored or an enhanced or whatever updated edition. Capcom used to do this all the time, every generation. However, what they have been doing more recently is basically almost reimagining the games. So I finished up their remake of Resident Evil 3 a couple months ago. And I don't even think the encounters are entirely the same. The plot is still the same. Some of the basics are the same. But they have been basically going in and redoing the game not just like here's a new skin with new graphics so it is more than what we normally think of when we hear about a remake where it's like oh okay you're going in and you're going to throw in some shadows and some like ray tracing and stuff but but it's still a fair question because many of the mechanics are all different uh on most of them but with resident evil 4 it already had fairly mobile mechanics i'm going to guess that you can actually walk in it's not turret mode like it used to be would be my guess because they haven't done that on any of the other remakes they've been doing is sticking you into turret mode but um yeah i don't know it's an interesting question but i i will say there is more work to it than what one might normally think when we hear the word remake or at least what i think when i hear it so it's more there's more to it than just a graphics upgrade or converting it to a new engine without making any major adjustments right my understanding is is built from the ground up okay well i can see that then uh The other two are Super Mario Bros. Wonder And Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom Where is Starfield? Starfield didn make the cut Though I believe it did make the cut for PC only What didn make the cut for anything and I heard a little backlash about Golem. No, actually, Hogwarts Legacy, the Harry Potter game. Oh, that was this year. That was real early in the year. Only stuff late in the year gets to come into this. That game was like February or March, and it was huge at the time. It did, yeah. It did. It did huge business. But it has definitely dropped way off I did notice An article The other day that was pointing out That Starfield Actually has Lower concurrent players Than a lot of other Similar style games On Steam Than For the last month Than you would think Compared to other narrative based Single player games It's not – I don't know if you follow what a lot of people say on it, but it's just not clicked with a lot of people. It's not really – I'd say it's mixed, and I've given my kind of extensive thoughts on it a couple episodes ago. But if I were to summarize the public writ large when I see them talk about it on the gaming subreddits, it's basically because of how the travel system and working from system to system in space is, it loses the magic of exploration that we normally associate with a Bethesda game like Skyrim or any of the Elder Scrolls games of recent memory and, of course, Fallout. Right. So and that is the magic that most people really wanted. And I have to admit, it's just it doesn't in some ways it's a Bethesda game. And in some ways it doesn't feel like a Bethesda game. And as I've remarked before, I mean, it's so you have to essentially fast travel to do a lot of stuff. So it's just not, you know, one of your favorite things to do in Fallout. Hey, look, what's that in the distance? Let's go off and do that. It just doesn't it just doesn't have that to it. And that's what people wanted. They wanted to somehow see that in space, and the way Bethesda executed on Starfield, it's not there. That's not the approach they took. So that's what has annoyed some people. But, I mean, it's got some good quest lines and such. It just depends what you're after. You know, it's also kind of interesting that Diablo 4 is not on this list. That's not interesting. That is easy to tell because it is Diablo 4. And that game is not great. Case in point, this week the game is free, like all week on Steam.
    31:22
    There's a free trial for like the entire week. So that will probably be almost over by the time most people listen to this episode. But it's out there if you want to try it. it is definitely not the most great game it's just not so the I have no surprise that it has such a major drop off I know I regret the purchase of Diablo and I've not played it since like June and I have been extremely happy with my purchase of Baldur's Gate 3. I've played a fair chunk of it during this whole time on vacation. And then I also played some of my old standby games this time as well. Well, that's because the EGP Discord pressured you into getting Baldur's Gate. And I thank them for that pressure because I made the right choice. so now the question is which of these titles do you think is the most likely to hit the top well the i mean the right answer is going to be baldur's gate 3 given what we saw the golden joysticks so that's that's the one that i think ends up taking it i think you're right i definitely think you're right but i if you want my second pick it would be tears of the kingdom yeah i the surprise on this list for me is alan wake 2 being on this list uh i really enjoyed the first alan wake game i just didn't expect alan wake 2 to be so high on the list i'm a little surprised as well because it's not like i can't order it for console yet so i don't think it wins i don't think enough people have played it yeah I mean the top three in my view would be Baldur's Gate 3 Tears of the Kingdom and then Spider-Man 2 I think those are the three that are in true contention I think a lot of people won't vote Resident Evil 4 not so much because it's a remake but rather I just don't think it has the player base Mario Brothers Wonder I've heard very good things about but I think next to Zelda I don't think it's going to hold up in terms of the voting we know Spider-Man when it first came out for Sony it did very very well so Spider-Man 2 again the response has been great to it I just normally I would think Tears of the Kingdom wins the only reason I don't pick it is because of what we saw Baldur's Gate do at the prior awards and it's just it's resonating so well normally I think this is Nintendo's to lose but I do think Baldur's Gate will continue its streak of winning all the important stuff I think you're right. I think it is a fight between Tears of the Kingdom and Baldur's Gate. I don't think anything else on this list comes near the top as those two.
    34:33
    We'll find out on the 7th if the people agree with us. Yes, the Game Awards is interesting. Not really for the awards, but rather all the – in fact, it's just a big trailer show. Yeah, it's a bunch of trailers. And, I mean, for the last couple of years, they've had some serious drama. yes yes pinball doesn't have a monopoly on drama folks no it does not while we're speaking about Baldur's Gate 3 is getting a deluxe physical edition for $80 that is already being scalped for $200 plus on eBay but Laren went ahead and put out a notification that the physical edition is not a limited edition, and they've got a whole bunch of ship dates coming quarter one of next year, so don't pay scalper prices for it. There's more coming. Well, I'm glad they got the announcement out. Yeah, so that's good. The game I've been heavily looking forward to, Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2, has been delayed to the second half of next year to properly polish the game. So we're looking a full year pushback on that game because that game was due out in December originally of this year.
    36:01
    Will there be blood for the blood god? There may be. There might even be skulls for the skull throne. We'll just have to see how it turns out for them. I liked the first one. It was fun. I did too. I really enjoyed it.
    36:15
    I thought it was a lot of fun. in the making me feel older than i already feel category half-life turned 25 this year yeah you can rent a car you can but what's interesting is valve put out a special anniversary update adding new content um restoring some old content and actually doing bug fixes in the game.
    36:47
    I didn't know they remembered how to program. I didn't either. I was kind of shocked. I'm figuring they probably outsourced it to another company to do it. But yeah, no, I was surprised when I saw that they'd actually done updates to it.
    37:06
    But Half-Life was, I mean, that game was amazing at the time. And while we're talking about Valve, the head of Valve, Gabe Newell,
    37:21
    there's been an ongoing class action lawsuit against Valve, an antitrust suit claiming that their 30% commission is bad for the industry and bad for players and they're just bad and they're a monopoly.
    37:41
    And Gabe Newell has been ordered to attend a disposition in person. He was trying to get a waiver to attend it virtually, and the court has denied that. I find this one interesting. I've not paid a lot of attention to this ongoing lawsuit because it seems like it's one of those suits that is going to be quickly removed because there's just so many places online like Steam that you can get games. It seems weird to call them a monopoly.
    38:20
    It would be like saying Pizza Hut's a monopoly. Yeah, I mean, I guess I sort of get where they would be coming from in that it is a huge share of the PC purchasing market, but it's not the only option out there. People have turned to it for convenience sake, but Epic Game Store obviously has tried to cut into that space. So I just don't see how, unless there's price fixing or something, which I don't believe is part of the lawsuit. No. I just don't. I don't really see how it could be won. But I'm not a lawyer. Right. No, I think the big target of their suit is, I mean, They made special mention about Valve's 30% commission, and Epic has a lower commission. That's part of their deal. But, I mean, there's GOG, there's IO Games, there's a bunch of other sites out there, and most of them pull the same 30% commission.
    39:24
    Yeah, it's not like Apple not letting you get a phone game other than through the Apple iPhone store. It's not like you. There's nothing that limits you that says you have to install games through Steam. So that's where I just don't think it can. I just don't see how it holds up. But we'll find out. Yeah, we'll see how that goes.
    39:47
    Also, a couple other little things. The Overwatch League is dead and gone. that was voted on to withdraw from its existence in its current form.
    40:05
    We used to talk about Overwatch League all the time. We used to watch Overwatch League all the time back pre-COVID.
    40:12
    But they have definitely fallen off since COVID and especially since the switched Overwatch 2. I don't think I've actually watched it a single time since the switched Overwatch 2.
    40:25
    But they have voted the teams to disband and end, which is interesting because each team is going to receive a termination fee of $6 million.
    40:40
    So congratulations? Yeah, this is probably for the best. Obviously, it's for the best for the teams. They just were not making money. and it's a I would say it's a mix of things yeah I haven't really paid attention the last couple of seasons I put it on in the background on my computer just to earn Overwatch coins but I wouldn't actually watch it so I didn't watch the tournaments so it's just my theory you know there is and there's so many different things you can blame the pandemic obviously threw a huge curveball at what they wanted to do. It did. What's very bold, and that was to basically set up esports like the NFL or the NBA, actually having cities with teams.
    41:36
    And the idea was for there to be home games and do all that. Because I remember when it was early on, we were looking like, hey, is there going to be one of those, like as Dallas had a team, is there going to be one like during TPF that one could go and watch and participating because it could be a lot of fun.
    41:54
    And the first couple of years when we watched was they had it live. They were almost always out in California, but they had them live. They had a live audience. People would bring signs. There was a lot of energy and a lot of atmosphere to it, which just made it a really fun viewing experience. You had a desk. You had commentary. You had all that sort of stuff. so the plan to do the live home team stuff fell apart because of the pandemic so that was one curveball another curveball was because of the decision to do overwatch 2 they quit putting out content for overwatch 1 and the game stagnated and that meant the leak stagnated and the turning point i still watch during this was goats the goats met oh yeah it was so bad three tank three support no bone plane damage dealers that's what goats was and it went on almost the entire season because ostensibly the programmers at blizzard were busy working on overwatch 2 not coming up with new content and balance and taking care of stuff in overwatch 1 so the game stagnated and basically the regular players like tony and me were experiencing not to the same degree because we weren't at the same level but that stagnation was true for the regular players too so the game started to stagnate stagnate this was a game that like one after its first year best like it wasn't no man's sky this was best living game and then they quit letting it live and it just sort of languished and so it bled it bled audiences and um so that was a problem and then by the time they made the jump to overwatch 2 not enough stuff like they do a lot better about balancing. They do a lot better about keeping it updated. It's now a living game again. But while this wasn't any fault of the League, they launched Overwatch 2 and the whole point we were told about Overwatch 2 was for PvE. And then they never did player versus enemy. They never turned out the single player campaigns that were, in theory, the whole reason why we needed to do this upgrade. Now, the problem with that wasn't that it directly impacted the League per se. other than when they changed Overwatch 2, they went down from six-person games to five persons per team. And that dramatically shook up how the teams were balanced. But long story short, there was this huge surge in interest in Overwatch 2. People came back into the game. New players started playing the game. And then a lot of people, when they saw there wasn't PvE, quickly left because that's what they wanted to do. They didn't want to deal with a bunch of sweaty try-hards. And then they decided that that stuff wasn't coming out at all. So that just really upset a lot of people. I think the game is in a lot better place than it was in the latter half of the Overwatch 1 era, but that wasn't going to save the league. And they never could establish that home game presence, and the interest was no longer hot anymore because the game languished when they were making the transition from Overwatch 1 to Overwatch 2. I mean, folks that didn't play Overwatch don't know this necessarily. It took years. It was years later than it was supposed to to jump to Overwatch 2. So they just mismanaged the game, and the league paid the price. That's why I think. So those are all the curveballs. Yeah, and I think you're right. I think that's exactly what ended up happening. I think it was a great idea or an interesting idea at the bare minimum that had some chances to succeed, and then with everything that happened, as you said, it failed ultimately. And in truth, I don't know that we see another attempt to do something with a physical basis like this again. I'm assuming most games going forward are going to continue with their current setup where there's eSports teams, but they're not geographically tied and people just have their favorite team. and there will be occasional in-person tournaments that people can attend or stream as that works for them.
    46:08
    Yeah, I think you're right. I do think it may be possible if they do what was meant to just be sort of the transitory early period, the first two-year period, but do that as the model where it's like, okay, there's a league. we're going to take a big place like texas or california and there'll be the blizzard arena or whatever the game is you know maybe the you know the ea arena and all the stuff takes place there and so you can have a live audience you bring the people in you you know you have the merch and all of that you have the teams they're not oriented by cities they're just this is the place and and there are there it will be live venue for land purposes and all the rest that might work coupled with when teams are established you don't say oh it's 10 million dollars to buy in oh and except after the first year then it's 20 right they just they charged a whole ton of money because they thought there was going to be all this money made on ticket sales and stuff for these teams and it just never worked out but had they kept it in one location yes the pandemic still would have been a problem in the case of of overwatch but had they just kept the one arena and kept doing it like that, that I think they could have done and kept going, and it would have made a lot of sense. But once it went online to play during the pandemic, the entire crowd spirit is gone because now it's just like watching Twitch. So that sucked. And then the teams that they made, because of this desperation to get the stuff just going, they started doing things that made no sense. They put New York in the Pacific region. They're playing the Koreans. and in a time like i that's that's probably the turning point where i quit actively watching because i followed the new york excelsior that was the team i i followed and once they put them in the pacific region and they're playing like at 6 p.m south korean time i could no longer watch well and it wasn't even just that i mean because they eventually ended up with pretty much the majority of the teams were based in south korea uh so almost all of the play times ended up being at weird times.
    48:20
    And another curveball I didn't mention but probably deserves it is China made some changes, which basically took out their teams. Yeah, China has made some major adjustments to what's allowed. So that really, I mean, that caused a lot of disruption because there was a balance that relied on, and there were two, no, three, I think, Chinese teams, right? Right. Or were there four? There's at least three. teams, American on paper, that built their entire squad out of Koreans. So, because you had to address language issues if you started to mix, because some would try. And they, I mean, it was interesting to see in the early years, because there were teams where they're just like, we have a lot of trouble communicating because we don't speak the same language. It's like, yeah, that would be a problem.
    49:39
    But anyway, gone, but not forgotten until next year, and then maybe forgotten. Well, I mean, I still have some of my Spitfire stuff. I know my daughter still has her Valiant stuff. The first two years were really fun. They were a lot of fun. I mean, I quite enjoyed the first two years.
    50:02
    But the only other things I have is we mentioned a number of episodes ago that the creator of Bayonetta, Hideki Kamiya, had left the publishing studio and had started a YouTube channel where he put up a question and Q&A videos, and he put up a new one that had some interesting things come out of it. Specifically, he said that in his mind, Bayonetta would have been a total of nine games to have the whole saga, Uh, that was in his head, but that's not going to happen obviously, cause he doesn't know the Bayonetta IP. So, uh, he, it's not going to end up the way he had it envisioned in his head. And he also got a lot of questions about working with some of the other big name, uh, personalities, uh, in gaming. And his answer was that it doesn't work like in Dragon Ball where Goku fuses with other characters, two people with completely different personalities and ideas would clash. There's no way you'd get a decent game out of that.
    51:17
    He's probably right about that. I think he's right. There's no way. I have a hard time seeing Kojima working as an equal with anybody no matter how good they are.
    51:35
    To see somebody like Kamiya and Kojima working together, I think it would just be the most terrible game because I don't think either of them would be able to work together.
    51:49
    Yeah, it reminds me of – and it's real. I get it because people will be like, wow, let's – like building a dream team and people think about the dream team and they'll be like, you're going to put all this together with actors. Wouldn't it be great to have an action movie with all the top action stars and all that sort of stuff? And it's just like the thing that people forget about and probably even more so in video games than they would in something like acting is that the issue of ego and where that actually comes into play. And sometimes maybe people don't think it's an issue because they don't – on whatever they're talking about, they don't have ego coming into play. But what this reminds me of is on one of the Fast and the Furious movies. I don't know which because there are more of those than there are planned Bayonetta games. So apparently. But reading about one of the challenges they had with Dwayne the Rock Johnson being in with Vin Diesel. And they were – their people, their reps were going in. And when they have fight scenes and stuff, they throw and land the same number of punches and everything because they worry about damaging each other's brand. So one can't be better than the other on screen.
    53:02
    And, yeah, it's just you run into those issues. It's like, oh, well, he can't lose a fight. Yeah. So then you get those fun, oh, look, it's a draw. Yay! And everyone's like, no one's actually excited about seeing what they thought they would see. Right. So it's like if you do Alien versus Predator and they both are like even. It's like, no, that's not what people want. We want to see one crush the other one. We want to see the complete destruction. Well, I think one of those that actually has worked out okay-ish has been like the Expendables movies.
    53:42
    But at the same time, when you look at those movies, a lot of those characters get very little screen time.
    53:49
    Right. Yeah, it's a big ensemble cast and which film it is, they have to mix things up on. But again, even with Expendables and Expendables 3, the reason why Harrison Ford is in that and not Bruce Willis is, if I remember correctly, Sylvester Stallone offered Bruce Willis $3 million to do two days of filming, and Bruce demanded five. And Sly said, you're going way too far. This is basically no work for you. And Bruce is like, it's five. And then he's like, you're out. I'm bringing Harrison. of course i was also probably around when he even came in then yeah that was probably around when willis was starting to just gather up as much money as possible because he knew sure no i i mean especially on retrospect we we we may understand his motivation but his logic was still grounded in ego of i'm bruce willis i get five million and stallone's like you're not like this is like an adam sandler movie for you you're basically we're all just going on vacation and And I'm overpaying all of you because you're my friends sort of thing.
    54:57
    Adam Sandler makes a new movie every time a friend needs money. Sure. But then – and even looking at the – as fun as the Expendables are, you notice like there's never a ton of screen time with Stallone and Schwarzenegger together. They don't – Schwarzenegger is barely in those movies. Right. Again, maybe that's a money thing. Maybe it's an ego thing. They obviously had a very famous feud in the 80s in particular.
    55:23
    over the roles they would get and such, whereas Stallone and Jason Statham never had that sort of conflict. So they may just get along better because they weren't really – like their Venn diagram didn't cross each other's line very much.
    55:38
    The same with Jet Li. Jet Li and Stallone weren't going for the same roles. Right. They're just – or Antonio Banderas, totally different style of movie when he even did an action movie. So, yeah, it's interesting, But it's fun when it can work out. And I think what people think of is like, remember, even if you don't remember, you and your subconscious remember the quote-unquote dream team basketball for the Olympics and how that kind of worked. And so everyone's just kind of like, that's what we'll just put the best of the best on everything and it will work.
    56:09
    And we even saw it in Overwatch League. They would gather up. There were teams that would use their money and they would gather up all these top players. And these players were hot dog and solo folks. And they did not do teamwork. and when they started to lose, they would be like, I got to clutch and put the team on my back. And so you had six people all trying to put the team on their back doing their own thing. And it worked as great as it just sounded.
    56:32
    That's very true. But that's what I've done. Okay. Well, folks, again, I've mentioned it before, but if you want to reach out to us, you can email us at CollectedGamersPodcast at gmail.com. We're also available at Facebook.com slash CollectedGamersPodcast. If you want to support the show even further than listening, you can join our patreon we have a tier as low as a dollar a month and that is at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers we're available on twitch and instagram as eclectic underscore gamers and we'll be back in a couple of weeks with all the latest in video games and pinball but until then my name is dennis and i'm tony goodbye everybody see ya