The Besties - The Besties Podcast 51 - New rules

Episode Date: April 5, 2013

We've read your comments. You miss the original concept of four best friends battling to the death to decide the best game of the week. Or maybe you want less nitty-gritty mechanic talk. Or you're the one soul on Planet Earth that yearns to hear the squeaky pitches of a certain European independent game design counterfeiter. We understand. After 50 episodes, we've decided to fiddle with the rules one (possibly) last time. As of today, four best friends will battle to the death to decide the best game thing of the week. That's right. We're no longer limited to games. We can bring news, songs, artwork, European independent game design counterfeiters, anything! All that matters is we genuinely believe our submission is the best. That way, when the show concludes a battle can be waged to determine the week's winner. Is this the best Besties yet? We sure hope so. 06:30 - Best ATV stunting (Defiance) 16:30 - Best local adversarial game at GDC 2013 (Samurai Gunn) 23:30 - Half time - A very special guest 31:30 - Best rumor that is probably not a rumor, but maybe it is a rumor (Always online Xbox) 43:30 - Best awards show in video games (2013 Game Developers Choice Awards) 50:30 - The winner is... Theme song by Ian Dorsch Get the show: Download MP3" Subscribe to the podcast (RSS) Subscribe on iTunes Get the full list of games (and other stuff) discussed at www.besties.fan. Want more episodes? Join us at patreon.com/thebesties for three bonus episodes each month!

Did you guys see that trailer for The Great Gatsby? Yeah, that was pretty. I'm gonna watch the hell out of that movie. Is there another new one? There's another new one. It's by Boz Lerman. And Tobey Maguire's face is all over it. He is making some acting in that trailer, let me tell you. Guys, are we comfy going into actor gossip?

Because I don't want to brag, but I know a lot of actor gossip he does you know anything dirt juicy dirt about toby do you know anything about toby mcguire because i'm pretty sure he's a python because he has this way of unhinging his jaw and just letting the acting come out of his face yeah dude the dude loves oranges what's he do well he who toby toby toby mcguire have you have you heard of him? Chris Plant's on a first-name basis with him. You know, Tobes. Tobes. Vinicus.

So, Tobes. Tobes loves. Toto. He loves oranges. And he has, like, an assistant who would just go and get him oranges. Like, that was their job. Like, do you know how Lorne Michaels has a popcorn assistant? Yeah.

Right. Like, this was his, like, orange assistant. Okay. And that's pretty much all I got. Jesus, I wanted something juicy. No, it is juicy. It's OJ. Citrus.

Citrus jokes. I mean, here's the thing about it. I'm not that rich, but I could see a world in which I would get that rich and also get super into oranges, but like never know how to get oranges. I could see that. I thought it was going to be something like he has an assistant whose only job is every morning right when he wakes up is shoves three sweetheart tangellos right up his butthole. Just to get his day going. I totally forgot to mention that part. When the Citrus Assistant

brings the three sweetheart tangellos, they go up the Toby, not of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy, and I'm here to tell you about the games. My name is Chris Plant, and after a month of traveling, I'm ready to talk to you. Oh, my voice. You don't sound good. My name is Russ Frust, and I know the best game of the week.

Here on the Besties, we do some shit. There's always things that happen that happen in a quantifiable amount of time those things our podcast our podcast always has a beginning a middle and an end you know what that is not even always true that's true uh here on the besties we're just we're trying something new again come with us hanging out the four of us we like we like uh talking about games and we like the name the besties and that's about all we can agree on well we should mention i think there's been some desire for some level of uh well i wouldn't say competition if anything friendly competition uh so i think that our new goal is to introduce a new twist on that.

When you talk about fucking games, it's boring as shit. Because games are boring when you're not playing them or watching someone play them. They're mad boring, you guys. They're like super wicked boring. You guys don't want to hear us talk about the mechanics of, you know. Oh, really? Zelda has a new game plus where you can earn gems? Right. So that's like, fuck that shit is basically our new motto.

We're going at it from the side. And we're taking cross sections. Is that we're vivisecting games. Yeah. We're reaching in with a glove covered hand and we are extracting sweet nutrients. And we're laying that out in front of you. If you haven't figured it out by now, we're going to be talking about the CBS Monday lineup. Each of us has our own show.

I can't get enough of how to live with your parents for the rest of your life. I really like the Godwin games, a mid-series replacement coming later this year. I know two writers on the Godwin games. You're too deep in it. I know. too close i'm too close i'm actually i'm actually interested in it i'm i would set expectations to low oh man um so what what we're gonna do is we're gonna just talk about the cool shit that happens maybe it's in games maybe it's in an event that we went to maybe it's a piece of news but we should say it's not just the cool shit it's the best shit it's the best shit because that's the one thing the name of the

podcast yeah and we wanted to keep that positivity you know and also my voice yeah what the hell is going on what's happening um let's start off in a big, big way with Griffin McElroy. Hit me, Griffin. Should we also start from the top and say that we're going to talk about Bioshock next week? Because we need to just put some space between... I don't think any of the four of us know where we're at

with that game yet. It's the thousand people leaving us right now. They're like, oh, so you totally changed the show and you're not going to talk about the game? No, we're going to say some really interesting stuff so you totally changed the show and you're not going to talk about the game. No, no, no. We're going to say some really interesting stuff towards the end of the podcast. I'm actually going to talk about a game

that's even better than Bioshock. Whoa. I like this. These are some sneak previews. Sneaky previews, as we call them in the biz. So I have been playing Defiance. No, no, no. That's not how you start.

No, no. You gotta start properly. Start with your superlative. The best? The best thing. Well, okay, but okay. The best thing this week for me, for this guy. No, the best, and then say your thing. This is the best part about the new show.

Yeah, the best show on the internet is this one because of this fluid discourse um fix it in post you'll fix it in post we'll fix it in post the best atv stunting in the yeah oh there it is the best atv stunting in the verse is in defiance the new jam from try on world now i've played new online shooter from Tryon Worlds. Dirt is bullshit. MX versus ATV unleashed? More like MX versus ATV uninstalled. No, still on the leash.

Still on the leash. Okay. It's, let me tell you guys. Defiance is an MMO shooter, right? It is, my review is pending. I still need to put a lot more hours into it to like really find where i am with the game short version it's way more fun than i thought it was going to be and i don't know why they were burying this thing i don't know either but it's

basically borderlands borderlands mmorpg yeah and it has a tv show don't forget the and it has a tv show it's about as far from being buried as you can possibly get i just mean that they i'm sorry i should be more clear they didn't send any no review code no i haven't read a single preview of it not for us bros not for us i wrote a preview wait no i didn't yeah see they're sort of a preview sorry because they were defying convention with this game it is the like the the gun collecting and progression and all that stuff is surprisingly fun it has so far like a lot of blemishes when it comes to like its online functionality but fuck all that because it has the dopest atv stunting this side of the of of any game ever can you do heel taps let me let me set the scene for you griffin and i were in a

mission together i had i joined i have no idea like how levels work or anything or if there even are levels there are there's a thing called ego rating which is your level but it doesn't go one two three four five it starts off going 10 20 30 40 50 and then it starts going like 78 and then 92 and then 131 it's like no fucking way can i keep track i have no idea what it all relates to. That ego was tripping out, essentially. But I joined a game and became friends with Griffin, and I just basically warped myself to where he was with an option in the game.

And then I had to join. We had a little bit of trouble at first because he was like sort of mid-mission. We were assaulting some base, whatever, you know, typical MMO bullshit. But we were assaulting some base, whatever, you know, typical MMO bullshit. But we were assaulting some base and Griffin kept disappearing, and it turned out we were in different phases of the mission. What? Well, no, there's an easy fix for this

though, because you actually just need to, there's a quick menu. I'm playing completely with the controller. Yeah, me too, which is, like, fucking great. Like, it's so much better than mouse and keyboard. We're both playing on PC, by the way. The Xbox 360 version apparently is unplayable. But I think that's just because of server issues.

So I join Griffin's phase, and then the mission's going fine. And then literally in the middle of the mission, Griffin pushes a button to summon his ATV. And just guns it and hits a ramp and goes flying over a wall there's this part of the mission is you're supposed to rescue these miners and the miners unlock this gate and then you move on to the next part of the mission i said fuck that press the instant summon your atv button it's not like every other mmo where like you have to channel your spell for 10 seconds to summon your mount or whatever you press it it literally appears right in front of you if it like explodes you can just summon it right away right again it appears right in front

of you you instantly just run up and hop onto it and then you're off to the fucking races and then griffin flies over this wall i hit the jet for the miners i hit the jet boosters i break the mission i go sailing over the fence and just start fucking shit up on the other side griffin actually stops fucking shit up long enough to im me on uh on the other computer and say yeah son did you see that stunt with like three n's and three t's i think that's what it's like i told him i did and then i asked him to please come back and help me kill all these guys yeah i couldn't i could have to find some boxes to climb to jump over the fence and help dustin out on the other side but like that's so many parts of the game are streamlined and the best part about the game

that is streamlined is that you can instantly summon a an atv with fucking jet boosts attached to it that you can use to like there are these missions where a bunch of bug monsters will come out of the ground, and you have to, like, destroy their nest, and it takes, like, 20 people, and it takes, like, five minutes of just, like, just holding off this assault of bugs. And you can, sure, you can, you know, get out your guns, and you can very slowly blow them away. Or you can do what I do, which is just get on your ATV and just drive in a circle around their nest, just fucking plowing through them like almost like they didn't anticipate anyone actually using the atvs i think they did i'm no they did

like they had to i don't think they meant it's and it's awesome we were in the one of those the one of those they call them arc falls it's like basically events that takes a group of people to finish it's like a live dynamic event which is like the hot buzzword for MMOs, like Rift and Guild Wars 2. So Griffin and me and one other Ham and Egger are like blasting at this nest, and we're all almost dead. And then when we got it down to like a third health,

all of a sudden my screen is like filled with hot rods and ATVs and cars just filling the screen where like all of a sudden 20 people appeared i think they were traveling in a pack or something yeah because they're they're like nomads that just move from these arcfall missions like one to the next and so you'll just get like 30 people and then all of a sudden it's like a scene from fast and the furious before one of the races whenever it's like check my style out check out they leave their cars parked for a while and like hang and then they all drive off to the next thing it's bizarre i'm buying this game right now it's seriously like it has its fair share of of problems and shooting is not i think the shooting's just fine i i good

for an mmo it's not like it's not like it would not be acceptable in a third-person shooter. The progression and the... Even I think the controls and the mechanics are all incredibly... Like, to the point of Derivision, it's derivative of Borderlands. But the thing is, those Borderlands design cues work so much better as an MMO. Like, you are so much more willing to forgive the fetch and hunt quest tropes when it's when it's an mmorpg when like a lot of the missions like almost all of the story missions are dynamic so you'll go to like a farm and you have to rescue

five farmers but it's not like a private instance like there are other people other people that can help you complete the mission like joining a group i was curious so you said that there's very good stunting so far we've discovered that you can jump things like walls in your atv yeah can you do like rodeos and heel taps and all the other i did a 360 in the air i did you have you have outrageous control over your over your rig wait does the game reward you for any of these yeah i did a 360 and i got an achievement and that actually gave me enough experience to make it to the next level why is there even guns in this game it's a better question right exactly um and the guns are pretty cool like it's sort of that borderlands

aesthetic of like there are billions and billions of guns and you can customize the guns as you see fit and what and you actually you actually have a you have a power uh uh therefore there are four main powers that lives yeah in your body basically i have a question i'm sorry i don't i don't want to interrupt you but i feel like there's a big problem with this game you want to i do that's like exactly it's just there's a big problem with this game and i feel like the longer we don't address it the bigger it gets like so this game takes place after like a fallout right like aliens have come and bad shit's gone down and now like the earth is overpopulated sure but everyone owns a car that has the power to teleport so who knows how much energy that has the power to teleport,

so who knows how much energy that takes. And then to drive around, that's a lot of gasoline. Where's all this fuel coming from? They're hybrids. Have you ever driven a hybrid? They're Nissan Leafs. So everybody's tripping on their Prius? It's a Leaf, actually. The cars run on bullets, which are in fact.

You just throw a few bullets in the tank. I'm having a lot of fun with it. My review is probably not going to be up for a week and a half. And really, getting into a group with Justin and getting us together to play was kind of a frustrating process. I think the stuff like that is what is going to hamper the game. Also, the servers are fucking up and down constantly it's frustrating there are race missions they're like time trial race missions where you can earn experience and money and stuff for you know driving your atv or your car through checkpoints and shit like that um and like some of them are like kind of long like three or four minutes to complete and And, like, there's nothing more frustrating than, like, seeing the finish line after a really long race and then the server crashes.

Yeah, but you've just spent the last three or four minutes racing around on your ATV. So what's the complaint about? I guess that's true. Yeah, damn straight. I just, like, I like experiencing money. But I'm having fun with it more than I thought, which was, I thought, zero fun. So. What else we got going on this week?

I'd like to hear about Justin's thing. Oh, yeah. Justin, you have some thoughts. I just want to make sure the plant's not going to die. Justin! How many minutes do I have? He's so sensitive. If you just set me a timer so I know when you're going to interrupt me in that sentence.

Because you know what's good for flow? You know what makes a great podcast? No, what? Nice flowing. Guys, I went to this Vietnamese restaurant yesterday. There. See, Griffin is just perfectly demonstrated. Go ahead, Russ.

What's your thing, Russ? Okay, I'll go ahead. Plant won't interrupt you. He actually does all the time. So I would like to talk about the very best, world's best, world-renowned local co-op experience, local adversarial experience, I should say, that I experienced while at GDC 2013. And if that was the best pitch I've ever made, you should all be very happy. That's a back of the box. Are you working for them?

Where's your money at? I'm not. So here's the deal. back of the box or if i heard are you working for them uh are you where's your money i'm not so so here so here's the deal i was walking around gdc with uh i'm gonna butcher his name but his name is jw i can't say his last name uh but he works for lambir and he made a game that you might know called ridiculous fishing and we were following around for this video thing but he's like hey in his awesome netherlandish accent he's like yo can you do that for me no i'm not really good at accents so he's bullshit so he's like yo uh you got to check this game out

this is the best game here at gdc i'm like oh really so he leads me over to this small crowd of scrawny indie developers as they tend to be kind of scrawny and as i am and they are all like off the walls crazy over one game and that game is called samurai gun um for spelling purposes if you're looking to google it it is samurai like the samurai and then there's a space and then there's the word gun but the word gun has two ends in it like which is not the traditional spelling like james gun or sure is tim is is it the game just about tim gun with a with a wazakishi well it's funny that you should mention that because fashion plays a big part in this game uh the best way i can describe it is it is a local co-op uh adversarial game i'm sorry i keep saying co-op but it's really not co-op it's adversarial um it's an adversarial local game where uh four ninjas well they're really samurais i'm doing a

very poor job you're doing awful i'm sorry do you want me to help no no no shut up shut up so there's four samurais in this field and the screen essentially looks like um like an eight bit uh super smash brothers like picture that sort of layout of the map and essentially each of the samurais has a samurai sword which is pretty natural for a samurai to have and a gun and each of the guns has three bullets and essentially what it comes down to is this insane um super super high paced uh super tactical action game where one hit from a sword will kill you but if you're swiping the sword while they're swiping at you you can reflect their sword ditto on the bullets when they like shoot bullets at you you can like cut their

bullets in half and it essentially becomes this super strategic game where everyone's like dodging for position and slicing through walls Bomberman style. And the best part of it, my favorite part, is when you get a kill. So there's still four people on the screen. But anytime anyone gets a kill, the action freezes for like a half second. And it does this like crazy kung fu style vignette. Sort of like a letterbox style where the kill happened. And it gives you like a zoomed in look of someone getting their gut slashed in half. And it suddenly makes every moment, every kill,

like suddenly everyone in the field is like looking, oh shit, I can't believe that just happened. And it also adds some strategy because as someone's getting a kill, you're like, oh, where am I on the screen? And what can I do once the action picks up again so you're kind of giving yourself away whenever you get a kill like yeah oh yeah absolutely everyone suddenly starts going to you because this this whole delay mechanism where you can only swipe your sword like once every second or so and you've only got three bullets uh it's on pc it's uh it's not out yet actually but it's um it's an indie

game uh i'm sure it'll come to like mac and hopefully uh like consoles it it would make a really good fit on uh 360 or ps3 i've been wanting a new bushido blade for a while and this feels like 2d bushido blade yeah well it's nothing like bushido because that was a 3d game wasn't it yeah but but the whole point is it's free roam like Bushido Blade. It's one-hit kills with your blades. You can basically catch each other. I guess I never played Bushido Blade. Instead of throwing your weapon, you have the limited throws of the bullets.

Was Bushido Blade the one where all the Star Wars characters were in a fighting game? No, that's Knights of the Karasai, I believe. Masters of Terakai? Okay. Yeah, and really good pixel art i know justin hates pixel art because he thinks it's lazy but like super super cool pixel art um very detailed despite the fact that it's like relatively low resolution um i would just say like it's one of those games that i picked up and in one round i was like this is the fucking jam it took about 30 seconds sorry you're kind of bad at it okay so here so me and plant played and you could actually set it up yeah so you can

set it up so it's uh two versus two or one versus three depending on like what clans you select versus three depending on like what clans you select and plant ended up going solo against me and two other random dudes at gdc and admittedly sort of tore us up but he had the benefit of playing as a space mouse in a gi so i don't think we had much of a shot true sounds too indie for me uh it's pretty damn indie it is really i mean it's not indie in the way that like i'm gonna make a game about sleep and the economy and dreams and so i love that shit though like that's indie as shit this game is like you could pick this game up in three seconds and like be having fun um but is it cerebral uh yeah so what it has is there's this whole element where you're slicing guys with swords. I don't, I forget if I mentioned it, but that's where it gets really cerebral is with the sword slicing aspect. When can I buy it?

Sorry? I want to consume. When can I buy it? You, I don't, I think it's still a little ways from being out. I'm working on trying to. Hey, I have an important note for indies. Yeah. If you're going to have a game

anywhere, ever, you've got to start saying where the stuff is going to be. I watched the... We have this great new video, Human Angle. It's a new video series we're doing where we talk about

the people behind the games. And our first episode is about the indie megabooth. And I watched the guys from Octodad and I love those guys, Young Horses guys they were talking about, you know we've got Octodad, Dadley's Catch, if it doesn't perform well at launch

we're gonna be sunk cause we need that money to keep going and I'm like, oh I'm sorry guys, but then they didn't say like I don't know where it's going to they say you gotta slip it in catch it at best buy you gotta go to fry's hardware yeah i don't fucking love it like what platform is that gonna be indies are not super uh great about vocalizing certain aspects a little bit yeah just a little bit better it's on steam green

it made the steam green light cut so it'll be on Steam. Yeah, and Frush can tell you when they actually filmed it, almost every sentence ended with, and it's coming out on PC in Steam Greenlight. It's on Steam, please! And Tom and Jimmy were just like, sorry. Sorry, bros. It's on Steam, please.

The hyperlink will be www. www. Guys, can I tell you about something that happened at GDC for halftime? Yeah, what happened? Well, I guess it's not really something that happened because I brought somebody back with me.

One of my favorite indie game designers. You've actually met him in previous episodes. I'll fucking leave. Do you want to come in? Sure. I think you can introduce yourself. I mean, the man, the myth, the legend.

Everybody already knows him. I am very thanking back because Chris Pan did not let me know that I would be on the show today until about three seconds ago when he introduced me. So I have nothing prepared. I, you know, I was just so overwhelmed. But it is I, Jean-Baptiste. I am an indie developer. It really could have been anyone, though, of all the characters. it is I, Jean-Baptiste. I am an indie developer. It really could have been anyone, though, of all the characters. No. It is I.

It is I, Jean-Baptiste. I would like to say I am working on the game. It is about ninjas and they have guns and they slice other people. You have a working title for this, right? Yes, it is called ATV Racing Defiance.

Now, that's not the game you showed me at GDC. I mean, I was really impressed. I think you got robbed at the IGF Awards. I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about it. Yes, yes, okay. So this is another game that I was showing at the IGF Awards. So here is another game that I was showing at the IGF Awards. So here is the idea. You are a man in the desert, but you have a scarf.

And there is another man, and he cannot talk to you. But the best part of it is you can be friends with each other. It is called... I don't have a name i haven't come up with couldn't hop on thesaurus.com generally when people are introduced on a podcast they are giving prior warning to inform them that they will be coming on i i thought this is your life this is your fucking life's work though is the problem like i am an unprepared and i bought you the plane ticket to new york i flew you here you've been in my house for about two weeks i was in

cargo with the dogs it was not a true ticket why did you put him in there why were you allowed to fly in there yeah that's it's very indie you know like it's very indie i am if you fly coach if you fly anything except under or on top of the plane you're not indie i am used to uh flying scrimping and saving but Why is that? Because my games are always stolen by large developers and publishers. Like, for example, this other game that I have been making for several years, wherein I am a soldier, and I have a gun, and I am in war, and shooting other guys who are also in war. and shooting other guys who are also in war. I have been making this game for at least 6 or 17 years, and they keep stealing this idea,

and my motivation is shot. Yeah. It is called Game Gun War Game. Gun War Game. Game Gun War Game. Can I... Game Gun War Game game do you keep is it inception is that the problem is it because it sounds like things are getting pre-stolen from you like they're they're pre-stealing i think maybe they are uh using north korean hackers

to access my account right my dropbox they're doing it before your account exists six years before then maybe saying there is it i think it's a looper thing that oh so you think maybe is there it's trying to time travel involved it could be this this could be because literally the only other option literally the only other option is that you're a fucking hack and a thief. And I know that's not true. I am making a game about a hack and a thief. You rob banks in Monaco. Okay. You got a working title for that one,

or do you need another episode? It's Monaco. That's the full title. It's not just Monaco. It's Monaco. Oh, it's Monaco. It's Monaco That's the full title It's not just Monaco It's Monaco Oh it's Monaco It's like it's Chinatown Yeah sure He has to get back to the airport

He has a plane to catch I've actually put him back in his dog kettle I'm shipping him Away right now Goodbye arf arf I am a dog Do not interrupt me, TSA. He's doing method for his next game, which is Nintendogs, but with a fun name. Thank you, Jean-Baptiste, Indie Game Developer Jean-Baptiste, for joining us.

I want to talk about my, as Russ makes his way back into the studio. Wait, sorry. i do want to share one before we go on i do want to share one moment that i personally had this is an unexaggerated moment from gdc and it was probably my favorite moment um so i was standing uh at the end of a panel waiting to interview someone and a gentleman walks up to me and because it'll be offensive so i'm not going to do the accent but a gentleman walks up to me and because it'll be offensive, so I'm not going to do the accent. But a gentleman walks up to me and hands me a postcard. And on the postcard is a video game. It looks like a video game.

It's just a screenshot of a video game. And I don't know this guy. And he's like, OK, he he had some he was very friendly, but he had an accent that I'm not going to try to attempt. And he was like, OK, so he gives a region uh if i would somewhere in europe would be my guess okay and so uh so so he hands me this card and it's a postcard with a screenshot on it but the postcard has been like it honestly looks like it was jammed in 16 different pockets and like ripped and it's like degraded damp Was it damp? It was a little damp and it almost looked

like it was part of an ARG and I was like looking around for like cameras and shit because like it honestly I thought like he was messing with me and I'm like oh what's this and he's like this is my game and I'm like oh very cool so what's it called and he's like

no no this is just a screenshot and I'm like right right for cool uh so what's it called and he's like no no this is just a screenshot and i'm like right right for your game but what's it called and he's like i don't name my screenshots jesus pleases and then we looked at each other for a while and then i looked at the game and here's the fucking thing here's the thing though yeah we're fucking talking about it yeah but i still don't know what the game is called. So I don't know how to matter. It doesn't matter. It's out there now.

OK. All you can think about anymore. It's all you can think about is this mystery that this man put in your mind. And now you plan in my mind to plan in Chris's mind. You plan in Justin's mind and the minds of all of our listeners. Well, I still I actually still have the photo because he gave it to me. So I'm going to take a picture of it and we'll put it in the post because it's pretty much as described. Somewhere there's a guy in Europe somewhere listening to this who just audibly shouted, God damn it.

God damn it. Okay. All right. I get what he was saying now. Okay. Yeah. The name of the game. God damn it.

God damn it. John Ralphio. You always, the name of the game. God damn it. God damn it, John Ralphio. You always mess this kind of stuff up. God damn it, Philippe. Justin. I'm guessing about regions. Yeah, sure. Zeke. How about just like Michael? That might be it. Michelle? Justin, what's your best?

My best rumor this week. My best rumor, not this week, ever. Best rumor that is probably not a rumor, but maybe it's a rumor, is that the Xbox is going to be always online. And I know this has been sort of circulating for a while. It's back up to like sort of fever pitch egged on by a very unfortunate Microsoft employee who's sort of fan of those

particular well i wouldn't say microsoft employee anymore maybe yeah it's friday they're just waiting for friday i don't know man he had a rough time of it they gotta get some boxes together yeah now i'm sure he'll stay around i feel i really do feel for the dude he was having sort of like a a delightful uh back and forth with man veer air from uh where is he now is he's at uh bioware bioware right okay he was having a very delightful and private you know very private very private grid thing uh a tete-a-tete with him on fucking twitter but the first tweet was not private it was a public tweet the first one they're all they're all public they're all

fucking public it's twitter no but i'm saying the first tweet wasn't like at replying to man veer it was like to the world at large essentially yeah basically dude said i don't get why everyone's so upset about always online um because i think the latest i think the catalyst for this was kataki ran a post saying you know we have sources saying it's always online and and had some quotes um from unnamed people um and so he said i don't get you know what the big deal is isn't you know basically his gist was doesn't everybody have internet uh and menveri said you know yeah but what if you live in you know bumfuck virginia or you know such and such and the dude was like why would anyone want to live there which is like pretty good pretty good so far and then he said i live in a place that has shitty cell reception so

should i not have a cell phone or i live in a place that doesn't i forget what is it oh i don't get electricity so should i buy a vacuum cleaner like it's so fucking it's fucking crazy to me it was smart that you can be so like you can have whatever opinion i know there are people on both sides of the fence there are people who like yeah i have internet i don't see what the big deal is but to be so fucking tone deaf like to not did you not pay attention to what happened literally last month with simcity where like the only thing people hate more than always on drm is when people are fucking this dismissive and shitty about online drm first off i would i would like to point out as someone who has lived uh in a not rural area it's still an urban area it's a very small city. But has worked in remote offices for the past five years of his life.

Big cities do not have the patent on good internet. From my experience, the internet in bumfuck wherever is probably more stable and reliable than the internet in safe places. Also known as Kansas City. New York or Philadelphia, where apparently it's always broken and always no work. Kansas City is the best internet in the United States right now. True. See? There you go. But I don't want to

like... I've been where this guy's been where you hear so many people grousing about it and I know it's hard to not go into a defensive posture. What I'm curious about from you guys is do you – I mean do you think it is a bad idea? Yes. Yes.

It's the worst idea. It's a bad idea. This is the scenario. Having a requirement of always online gives users no, zero added benefit there is no reason why anyone would want an always online console because even if it adds features like hey leaderboards or hey you know what your friends are doing all the time even if my shit's already got that my shit's already got a it already has that and b in the scenario where it's not up you're fucked and the 60 dollars or the hundreds of dollars

that you spent on video games over the last two years are worthless. They might as well be coasters. If you look at it from a literal standpoint, seriously, if the 720 is always online, whenever there's an option for a cross-platform game, I'm going to buy PS4. Unless the PS4 is online, it's as shitty.

But even then, it's still optional. I am, take my word for it, I am a huge, if I have to choose right now, 360 all the way. I like the controller better, I like the interface better, there's not even a question. This will sway me to the other side. And the fact that it was ever even considered is a total, it blows my mind like

the logic from a literal standpoint the idea of not being able to play my games when the internet is down which is like not a frequent thing but when it happens i don't want to be like well now i have this thing i can't use and philosophically just having this thing that i fucking paid for that is is conditionally functional do you know what i mean like it's it's on their turn but you can you can only have it when we are able to observe what you're doing and it's not even that noise it's like what let's say their system works 100 of the time and it's always up that doesn't mean time water is going to work 100 of the time or your whatever comcast but to that point yeah you're talking about two gates right you're talking about if the internet is working and if xbox live is working which let's not fucking forget there have been some

two week long stints around the holidays where like it just fucking doesn't work i guess i guess my my problem i don't want to get off on a tirade about it because like what's been so frustrating about this is that people are having these discussions – and I did set this one up. But to illustrate the point that people are having these discussions all over the internet, and it's really not based on anything that Microsoft has officially said other than if you want to take this Adam Orth – is that correct? But he didn't confirm anything. He didn't confirm anything. If you want to take his... Yeah, except...

Pass it. If he didn't confirm it, he's a dude who works, he's a creative director at Microsoft Game Studios who's been with the company for a year and a half, which according to his LinkedIn profile, has been developing an unannounced project. Dude is making an Xbox 720 game. Okay, but this is my theory, is that it xbox 720 game okay but here this is my theory

is that it's possible i'm not saying this is likely but it's possible that there won't necessarily be online requirement for every game but i can guarantee there will be some games like like whatever bungie's game is and stuff like that that will require an always on connection which is i can deal with that like if it's game to game, that's fine, because you can just choose to not get those games. But for the console to be basically a brick if the internet goes down, that's a disaster. Or if Xbox Live goes down.

What's fucking crazy, Tal? Justin, to your point, I think the reason why people are so up in arms about it now before everything is official is that, like that this would be the time to do it while there's still a chance for... There's not. I mean, let's... We are eight weeks from E3. There's not

a chance. They can take it out. If it's in, they can take it out. But there's no way they don't... There's no way they don't know. I guess what's killing me about this is they obviously have some sort of reveal, right? Yeah. Where they want to.

It'll probably be, I don't know, May, later this month or early May, where they come out and roll the thing out. I get that. they come out and roll the thing out. Like, I get that. But the fact that they're clinging to that schedule and not getting out in front of this thing is like, yeah. So this is my theory. I've got a theory. So you may remember when Jed Bartlett was running for reelection and he was running

up against Josh Brolin or Josh Brolin's father. I forget his name from Florida. Right. And while that was happening, there was a lot of talk about the fact that, oh, Josh Brolin's father is not very good at debating, and all they were doing was lowering expectations. It's the lowering expectations game. So when Microsoft comes out in a month,

and they're like, oh, no, no, no, no, you don't need a connection all the time. You only need a connection 98% of the time. Suddenly everyone's thrilled because in comparison to all the time, it's actually an improvement. Thrilled. Here's my problem with the always-on

that I think gets kind of ignored is they're charging you to use your device because as the internet goes on, we use it more and more, bandwidth is going to get more costly. The free ride we've had with bandwidth is probably not going to keep lasting forever, and we'll start recharging by how much we use the internet. And at that point, I mean, some people already have that.

They have caps. And at that point, you're paying to use your device because it's using up your allowance of bandwidth each month. That is what really freaks me out. I don't know if these two things are connected. I feel like they have actually gotten in front of this and pretty well squashed it, but if that

online feature is somehow tied to prohibiting the use of used games, like, no. They're not going to do that, right, guys? Here's the thing about it and then i would ask everybody to like try to keep this in your mind as these things happen the only thing that corporations understand is money they don't understand any they don't understand

emotions or upsetting people and that's fine i mean they're not designed to be ethical entities they're designed to make as much money for their shareholders as possible. The only response to this thing that makes any sort of logical sense is, well, I'm not going to buy that. When you get angry about a product, what you're basically saying, I mean, you're casting yourself

as a victim. When you get angry about what the Xbox 720 will have, you are turning yourself into the victim of this thing because what you're saying is i have to buy it i'm i mean i'm powerless not to please be gentle like that's the message of anger but i think you're i think you're able i think you're allowed to feel anger as a consumer of video games and as a proponent for a proponent for the medium and the industry itself and when you start seeing what is now the big console player and go have a who though like who

are you angry for angry on behalf of me like i don't want fucking every experience in the future to be always on i am resistant don't but but this is what i'm saying though this is the point don't that's that that's fine that would be fine in tech that would be fine in basically any other entertainment medium but when you're talking about there are three fucking consoles in the game and one third of them is like something that i'm philosophically opposed to like 33 percent of the shit that i care about now is is moving in a direction that i dislike like i think that's where the anger stems from and again but that but that's like but exactly but if people don't buy it as a result of that it it gets fixed okay i don't buy it okay the ship writes itself people getting angry about it and

then still doing it is why we have as much shitty consumer hostile practices in this industry as we do is because of anger but people get angry and then they still pat you should do money over and nothing gets fixed do both don't buy it and get angry yeah then they still push their money over and nothing gets fixed. Do both. Don't buy it and get angry. That's what you do. Because the anger will result in the sort of attention and media attention that SimCity got. And that, you know, obviously hasn't changed necessarily. But at least, like, they, you know, fucking ousted people.

And, I mean, it made an impact. So the anger. That's fair. But like anger without action. If you're just angry. Anger without that action is hollow. Yeah, I completely agree. Plant, what are you evangelizing?

I'm evangelizing the best award show in video games. Spike PGA's. It's a little late, but okay, we can talk about it. I loved. So Samuel L. Jackson came out. A lot of blunt goofs. And then I peed next to Adam Scott. It was a great moment.

Jamie Kennedy defecated on the stage. When I'm smoking eight blunts at once, I like it when I watch an award show where they talk about weed and jokes. Jokes. So I'm talking about the Game Developers Awards at GDC and kind of the IGF Awards too, but mostly the Game Developer Awards.

Are they not the same? They're back-to-back, but they are separate. They have different hosts. They're technically different awards. They're called the Game Developers Choice Awards, to be honest okay thank you choice awards yeah there's a lot of slime awards point is they're hosted by tim schafer who hosts every two or three years and is totally delightful and was on the right side of bitter about where the game where the major games industry is this year. Taking some pretty sharp jabs at THQ

and a few other major publishers. SimCity. SimCity, yeah. And that was great. I enjoyed that. What was wrong with SimCity? He didn't like the buildings, how the buildings looked. Yeah, otherwise he said it looked great. Not super cool. I don't like how I have three fucking dumps

in my city and still nobody's picking up trash. Maybe you shouldn't take three fucking dumps in my city and still nobody's picking up trash maybe you shouldn't take so many dumps in your city yeah yeah but what was the most interesting part about the show was indie games won every single award except for the first person shooter award which is technically called the technical award but that's the award for like look how much money we dumped into this engine and it's always that first person is that like did you think did it was there a single point in the in the proceedings where you were like come on guys oh yes there actually was yeah yes with journey journey won a lot of those awards

and it won best uh gameplay game design i don't want to sound like i don't want to sound like a dick but like that sounds like crazy journey like i would say i don't think it's crazy to say that journey was one of the best if not the best game that came out last year definitely uh and in terms of the categories it's one we're talking about sound design we're talking about visual art stuff like that no question about it like absolutely 100 i'm with them um the category that it won game design i really did take issue with just because it was up against two games that are game designed out their asses one of which is spelunky and one of them which is uh uh mark of the ninja uh and those two games also indies for what it's worth are like built from their core as game design games whereas journey doesn't totally i mean the only really cool game design

thing in journey which is quite cool is the multiplayer but the rest of the game isn't really about game design per se it's about a curated experience it's like guiding you through um but i think plan's point is just to say like it's super cool to see you know a couple years ago probably last year if you look at the categories and the award winners it's all triple a games and just to see indies move in there and not only is like a pity, fucking crush it. I just said all that shit, but, like, yeah, I think about last year and, like, my favorite games were, like, yeah, they were, like, Journey and Spelunky. You know how we were talking about anger without action? This felt like the first year at GDC where there was, like, action behind it. GDC can get very angry for a good reason.

I think it's very it's very forward looking they're always trying to see how they can improve the industry but a lot of that is like white men sitting at panels telling us you know how we're doing it wrong and this year it felt like that was starting to change there was it was more inclusive there was more diversity uh there were people there was showcasing games that weren't made just by white men. The guy who won the IGF award basically gave up his booth on the IGF show floor for games to get other voices out there. I don't know.

I felt like people were actually doing things. And I think voting for these games, I don't know. Are they the best or not? I mean, that's what they decided is a step forward but i mean that like the fact that like call of duty wasn't in there anywhere it actually was it was in there for technical it was it really yeah man that's all technical is like it was like far cry halo Call of Duty in Far Cry 1, which is the closest to an indie shooter. I don't know. Is Walking Dead, was that up there? It was, yeah.

It won for narrative. Yeah. I would say, so I was in this panel called the Game Design Challenge, where a bunch of awesome developers sort of make up their own. You probably heard about it, where Jason Rohr buried a game in the desert for it anyway the panel started uh it's supposed to be the last

game design challenge they're doing and the reasoning they said that was because when they started the game design challenge in 2004 um they put up a list of like the top 10 best-selling games of 2004 and it was like madden maddenden, Halo, Pokemon, Pokemon, Madden, Halo was essentially the list. So what they said was essentially like the industry has changed so dramatically since then that like back then, like none of this crazy stuff was like even close to happening. And obviously you're still getting sequels and stuff like that. But so much of the industry is now all about these indies

and all about these creative ideas that like having a challenge dedicated to creative ideas is almost unnecessary. Because, like, we could easily see any of those Game Design Challenge games actually come out. Right. We are in, like, an ecosystem of game jams. Right. Exactly. And it's not just game jams as a futile, you know, diversion. It's like these are becoming the source of where most major developers, especially major indie developers, are getting their ideas for the games that they're actually making.

Like, Tearaway was a Game Jam, and now it's a full PS Vita release. It's super cool. and now it's a full ps vita yeah release it's super cool i'm gdc is by far my favorite show of the year and uh it's just so reinvigorating like just see people's heart and soul like put out there and such creativity and not only creativity but creativity that's rewarded like seeing a game like ftl that sells tons and tons of copies because it's original and it has a great game design and two guys made that essentially. So it's just, it's awesome. Yay.

Video games. Yay. Video games. Um, Oh, who won? Who won? Okay.

Um, let me, let me go, let me hit you guys with this. Okay. Okay. Hot stunts. None of you guys had icy hot stunts.

My thing had a lot of good discussion. That was so sweet. It did. No, it was erudite. Okay, here's how we do it. You can't vote for your topic. Vote for someone else's topic. Here's how we do it.

You can't vote for your topic. Vote for someone else's topic. I would vote for Russ Freshdick's topic because it represents something really hopeful and positive. Not to say that ATV stunts aren't hopeful because they are, obviously. If you get one, it's like, oh my god, my faith is renewed. My topic was Samurai Gun, by the way. Yeah, my topic was GDC Awards. Hey, awards hey russell do yours if you do mine deal uh i'm gonna vote for justin's because i feel so bad about interrupting him yeah i'm gonna see i gotta send my vote for gdc awards

because i forgot that was plants so i'm gonna go to go with ATV stunts. Stunting tonight. That's two votes taking home the stunt award. I'm going to put that trophy on my shelf. Thank you for joining us for the besties. If you want more great content, you want to see that human angle video we talked about, you want to see GDC awards cover, whatever you want, it's all at Polygon.com. So go there and find it. Definitely watch that human angle video. I think you're really going to enjoy that series.

And follow us on Twitter at Polygon, YouTube slash Polygon, Facebook slash Polygon, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And thank you so much for hanging in there with us. We hope you enjoyed this format. If you liked it, if you didn't like it, hop onto the threads on this post

and let us know what you thought because we will almost certainly change it again. Bioshock next week. Catch it. because we will almost certainly change it. Bioshock next week. Catch it. I've got some thoughts on it. That's going to do it for us with the besties because shouldn't the world's best friends play the world's best stuff?

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