Valve Won't Restrict AI Tools for Developers

Hey everybody, welcome to Game Mess Mornings with me, Jeff Grubb, your host from GiantBomb.com. Thank you for tuning in. In this episode, we're going to be talking about Valve's plan, or lack thereof, when it comes to dealing with the deluge of AI games, and Nintendo's latest showcase reveals 23 upcoming games. It's going to be a good one because we have Lex Luddy on the show. Lexi, how are you doing?

Well, I'm doing okay. There's a Quark Film Festival is starting in a few weeks, so that's going to be fun. uh, what's it called? Uh, you can see everything is coming out here on the 20th of November. So I just have to ignore all of the Americans talking about it until then. Um, and, uh, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm doing okay.

Mainly it's a, as you well know, it is a weird time of year. Uh, everyone just seems to be waiting for GTA now, like now that Phantom Blade is out. Um, there's kind of nothing on the upcoming slate. Um, apart from a couple of re-releases or HD ports, stuff like that. Um, and it's a very weird time to be a freelancer, be just kind of vying for any available scraps. So, uh, yeah, it's, it's weird out here. The whole year has been fucking weird. It's, it's felt off and it's felt rough, but, uh, we make do, we keep moving. Yeah.

It's, uh, a lot of uncertainty all around the industry of like how do how do we even do this anymore and what makes sense uh yeah no one's got any answers either and and gta6 is just this this.

But gta6 will will be the answer right club it will fix everything when everyone gets money right that's how this works.

I think so yeah the.

Money was yeah take two shares the money with everyone else that's how this.

Works that's what it means yeah we're investors just by being gamers that's i believe it's like uh it's like fig i think gt6 is the biggest fig game uh that's ever been released um.

It'd be really funny if rockstar funded gta6.

On fig that'd be very funny uh all right uh i i am like A tiny bit under the weather.

I just got a little bit of a sore throat.

I've gotten some ibuprofen in my system and a little bit of cold medicine, and that's helping. So I'm going to get through this. I'm going to be fine. That means let's get started. Let's get into it. Let's explain ourselves. I'm Jeff Gerdt from Giant Bomb. Giant Bomb is a website about video games. If you go to giantbomb.com slash join, you can support this website by becoming a premium member.

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Hello, YouTube. All right, we have a lot to get into, so let's start the morning mess with.

Valve won't restrict developers' AI tools despite complaints about clones and discoverability.

This is from Chris Scullion at VGC.

A significant number, that's a quote, of Valve staff are trying to figure out how to solve Steam's issues with new game visibility, but it doesn't plan to start gatekeeping games made with AI. During a Steam Indie Connect event held in South Korea on Tuesday, Steam business team member Tom Giardino and Mark Wilkinson held a Q & A session with Korean developers. As reported by Inven, some developers raised concerns about how increasingly hard it is to get their games noticed on Steam, given that there are even more games being added to the storefront these days, especially as AI use has grown. Giardino stated that the use of AI in game development was a decision to be made by each developer, adding, we don't want to be

gatekeepers telling developers which tools they should or shouldn't use. Responding to claims that some developers have been getting extortion emails from people threatening to use AI to release clones of their game first if they don't pay a ransom, Giardino said it would look into such cases if reported, but stressed extortion was more of an issue for law enforcement agencies. Regardless, he added that Steam generally focuses less on getting rid of copies and clones and more on placing weight and discoverability on the original version. Rather than relying on a single mechanic that someone can easily copy, you need to keep growing your game by adding features, personality, and creativity that stem from your own perspective, he advised.

Another developer then reportedly raised the issue of AI slop games, stating that they had participated in the most recent Next Fest but saw poor engagement results. while also noting people on social media complaining about the number of low-quality games dominating the event. Wilkinson replied by explaining the Steam Next Fest visibility structure, explaining that games are shown to players on a random basis for the first two days of the event, after which point personalized recommendations are activated, making games that the user is more interested in more likely to come to the surface. He suggested that many of the negative comments about low-quality games therefore likely came during the first two days, but stressed that one of the

reasons games are randomly shown during this period was to ensure a fair share of exposure to every developer and to prevent system abuse by developers entering early to gain immediate visibility.

So, okay.

I fully understand Steam's position on not wanting to be gatekeepers.

They are.

their biggest concern is not to be leveraging anything where they are, you know, it is a monopoly. It's a monopoly that was earned, I think in a lot of people's opinion, but they are a monopoly. And that comes with a lot of potential legal risk. If they were start to pick, to pick winners and losers. And if they were to say, Hey, you can use this tool, but you can't use that. I actually don't want steam to be the ones to decide that. Mostly because I think in the past when they've, moved away from that and gone towards tools that do lift other games. They found some stuff that has actually worked. I just, they need, they do definitely need to continue doing that. This is a problem that they actually do need to solve in

terms of, hey, okay, you want to emphasize the original games and make sure they rise to the surface, that really needs to happen because I can feel myself disengaging from Steam more frequently these days because it is such a mess of AI games. And I think that most recent Next Fest was an example of that. And I think that's only going to hurt everyone involved and Valve needs to take responsibility for that.

What do you think?

Yeah, this is a very Valve answer in a lot of ways. It kind of has all the hallmarks of a Valve thing, and I think that that's going to become a real problem over the next couple of months. Valve has been very laissez-faire in how it's run its store to a certain extent, be it content moderation, be it community moderation, which is one of the things.

In the forums, yeah, on Steam.

Yeah, people... That is something that, you know... is kind of indefensible um but their big go-to is always we're not going to be a kingmaker we're not going to be a kingmaker we're not going to be a kingmaker which i understand but also having someone get out here and giving responses where there isn't a clear-cut solution that's being worked on Like, the person in here never points to the personalized calendar, which is one of the things that they have tried to implement. But they need to be saying, and we're trying these other things as well.

We're doing other things along that exact line.

Like, they need to acknowledge that they are still a kingmaker, even though they are not personally going there and deciding that. They're just building tools that enable each person on Steam to build their own personalized profile that it's sort of invisible to us, and then these games are getting served to us. They are the ones building those tools, and they need to take responsibility for it. If developers are being lost in the wake of these tools, what are you doing to make sure that doesn't happen? Because as someone who uses Steam, I specifically do not want to be served AI copies over the original in any situation.

And the other part of this that leads... really poorly is the part where he's like well maybe you should have like more unique ideas.

That is rough because.

That should be enough if you have one great idea that came first that should be enough to rise to the surface.

And some of this could be down to the original report was mission translated into English from... the interview was probably had in English with these people, then translated into Korean, then translated back to English. But rereading back over that, I am sure that the guy who said it, whose name slips my mind now, uh, yeah. Um, that is the kind of thing of that makes you look like you don't know what the actual problem is. Cause the problem isn't, Oh, people are copying, you know, my idea, uh, The problem is it's so easy for them to copy the idea wholesale and get the game out the door and sell it as if it's their own unique idea that they originally created themselves. Games have always been an

iterative process where people have copied mechanics and ideas, but that's not this. This isn't people being like, hey, maybe we should have some variation on an ATB system in our RPGs to, like, make the combat feel more engaging. This is people being like, hey, what if we just, like, scraped your fucking code?

Would you shoot a video of your game to Claude and say, make me a version of this with the same kind of art?

Yeah.

Yeah. um and that's a very different prospect to the idea of people seeing something that you've done and going oh i'm inspired by that i'm gonna make my own version of that like that's the entire friend slop genre is people looking at the idea of okay what have you played with your friends how do we iterate on that And that's been awesome.

Having a new idea every day from friend slot games being like, all right, we have the general structure here. We're just going to remix some of these ideas and add our own flavor here and there. That is gaming development, you know, sort of copying at its best. We get a lot of cool stuff that way. But yes, this is the very specific thing that he's addressing here with come up with more ideas. That is not a solution to, you know, People just having their especially the extortion case here, which, yeah, they're probably right. That probably is a case for law enforcement.

But Valve could also step in and throw their weight around. This is a company that is afraid to throw its weight around, though, on that side of things there, even though they clearly constantly do in every decision that they make. I think they've convinced themselves in a lot of situations that they are. doing the right thing by standing back and letting the market figure it out. And if that leads you to ignoring situations where developers feel like they're being extorted because they put a game up on Steam Next Fest, I think that is ignoring a responsibility that Valve should not ignore.

Yeah, it's an unenviable position for them to be in, but also their answer needs to be better when they go out to something like this. Because if you go to an indie event and you're a Valve representative, this is the first question you should expect to be asked right now. Because this is what people are talking about inside the industry, is how do you deal with this?

How do you mitigate this? So yeah, it's one of those things where I am sure that they did not come off quite this dismissive. when they were in person and talking about it, but also the answer still needs to be better.

Yes.

And I, you know, I've been covering Valve's laissez-faire decisions for a long time now. And I think a lot of the criticisms lobbed during these, during these decisions they made previously, when it was like the floodgates have opened for the indie apocalypse, Valve should have some quality control.

And they're like, actually, we're going to let in everything.

And yeah, It's like there was a lot of questions at that time. And I think the history has shown that Valve actually kind of did mostly navigate that stuff pretty well. I think a lot of that was navigated pretty well because they did receive a lot of criticism and knew what to respond to. So people should continue to point out, Valve, here's where your weaknesses are. But it's like, okay, they mostly have used a light touch sort of solution across the board, and they have found a way to make that work for previous problems. So I think they're defaulting to that here. And so, okay, the proof is going to be in the pudding. You have to actually still do something here to address all of these problems that are arising because game development is changing.

And Tom Giardino has been in this role for a long time. I've talked to him before when I visited Valve a couple of times. And I think he's pretty sharp. I think he's got a team over there that works on the Steam store side of things that mostly knows what they're talking about. But I think people just want to see that, hey, Steam worked one way for a very long time where people worked really hard in a video game. And then it appeared on Steam and I found it that way. And that was good and should be preserved in some way. And AI games have the potential to truly disrupt that and ruin it like it has with the ROM hacking scene or all these other things where people who are running these things as a

community have packed up and gone home because they don't feel like the community is there for them anymore.

They have been supplanted.

By the AI bros just flooding the zone, and Valve could be seeing a similar situation here. And that would be a detriment for everyone involved, except for these people who are scamming and extorting people. All right, let's keep going here. Retailer claims Nintendo policy prevents game key card releases getting full cart reprints.

This is from Jim Norman at Nintendo Life.

After Nintendo seemingly introduced Smaller card size options earlier this year, many of us wondered whether our favorite game key card releases might get a proper full card physical.

Reprint down the line.

So basically, if a game at launch, when there was only a 64 gigabyte option for a physical card that had the game on it, well, the smaller games weren't going to pay for that because that was a really expensive option. The only other available option to them was the game key card that had no data on it except for a key that you would then download the game.

So a lot of those games were, you know, four gigabytes, five gigabytes. Now eight gigabyte options are available. 16 gigabyte option cards are an option. So maybe they should be able to reprint those games. Well, apparently Nintendo has a policy that says, no, you can't do that yet. If you put your game out as a game key card, you cannot then also have a version of that game on retail store shelves that is not a game key card that has the game on the physical cartridge itself.

And people are like, wait, what the hell? Why would Nintendo do this?

The retailer, VGP, says the policy is in place for certain reasons that do make sense. Although I don't think they actually said themselves what that reason was. Nintendo is not intentionally stopping publishers just for the sake of it. There are legit reasons for this policy to be in place at the moment. Lexi, I mean, when I try to figure this out, my mind goes to, okay, marketplace confusion, where if there are two versions of the same game on the store shelves at the same time, and one of them is a game key card and one of them is not, okay, that could lead to weirdness in pricing, weirdness in demand.

Yeah, just general confusion.

That was my only real thought was if there's a version of, I don't know, what was the game key card? Bravely Default. If there was a version of Bravely Default that was $ 30 more expensive than the game key card version, that wouldn't be a great look, but also Nintendo shouldn't care. Like, that doesn't eat into their bottom lines. If anything, this is an excuse for them to refresh the coffers of stock with a higher-priced version a la PlayStation putting out, you know, it's complete editions of Ghost of Yotei that just reset the price back to 80. And Nintendo have done this themselves. They have, you know, re-released games in such ways that they get to reset the price.

Well, that'll probably be what happens here, right? Is like, if you have a new version of the game, I bet that Nintendo would be like, oh yeah, okay. So now you have a complete edition as DLC and it's a different version a skew than the original game that went on a game key card. I bet you could get around this. I think it's specifically about reprinting games that haven't, that don't have an update to them where it's just the same game again, that Nintendo is a little bit hesitant on.

And I would hope that this is just a time limited thing, right?

In a couple of years where the game key card is now completely out of circulation and or there hasn't been a print of the GameKey card in 24 months, well, maybe the developer can reissue it at that time.

You would just hope they're like, okay, can we actually get that.

Time scale down quite a bit more? Because a lot of these situations, how many of these GameKey cards are out there in the first place?

50,000, 100,000, maybe 500,000, maybe a million.

But at a certain point, okay, cut those off, give it 30%.

Three months to six months.

If you're still concerned about this and then let the publisher decide then to reprint it on a smaller card, because again, this is a situation where it seems like everyone would benefit in that, in, in, in that scenario where that's what consumer wants and the, and the developers and the publishers certainly know that a lot of consumers who left, who waited out on game key cards would show up if the game was reprinted on those on an actual card that contained the full game.

Yeah, it, it is a, it's a weird one. I, I, I kind of don't know what is stopping them in this case, other than Nintendo being Nintendo. um yeah and so and it you know what what we said there the the the somewhat solution of release a complete edition that's not realistic for a lot of indie games you know exactly especially especially the guys who are going to the boutique um physical distributors for.

A game that's been complete and finished for four years already or something like that yeah.

Um And so that's an onerous thing to push on a small team.

Nintendo doesn't care. Yeah.

So, yeah, again, it's another thing of, like, this seems like a bad solution to a self-imposed problem in some ways.

Yeah, it's... I think this is Nintendo being a little bit too precious. And the real answer here is the kinds of people that would really care to repurchase.

These games are savvy enough to know the difference.

And if, you know, if you have to, if you have to like include like some label at Walmart that says this game is like this, but I mean, most of the games at Walmart, when I, when I go there and I look at the Nintendo switch section, they do have a lot of games there, but it's mostly the bigger games. And I think when you're working with a boutique, a game card, like printer or whatever, one of these publishers that goes through Nintendo to get this stuff done, a lot of these indie games would be direct purchase. They would be purchased from the website. They would be pre-ordered and everyone in that situation that shows up to buy one of those games is going to know exactly what the scenario is and they will be

prepped for it. And they're not going to be shocked that there was also a game key card or they also already bought the game key card and So yes, I think Nintendo is being far too precious about this. And I don't expect this to last much longer. I bet this is a policy that changes in the near future.

And if not the near future, eventually it changes before the end of the Switch 2 generation and maybe long before.

VGP, this retailer....

Definitely sounds like Nintendo has their reasons. That sounds like, oh no, we kind of made, we sounded critical of Nintendo. We have to sort.

Of smooth it over. Fix this relationship, yeah.

Yes, make it sound like, no, no, of course they know what they're doing, but it's still Nintendo. All right, and some no-shit news before we take a quick break. GTA 6 sets Serkana's purchase intent record. 29% of U.S. console and PC gamers, even though it's not been announced for PC yet, say they intend to buy GTA 6 now before it's come out here. That is the highest figure in Serkana's tracking history for any game ever. Serkana expects the November 19 launch to stimulate console, accessory, and subscription spending.

Just a whole bunch of, yeah... No shit.

Matt Piscitella was out here talking to Rachel Kayser saying some people don't want to play GTA. So like, what's what's with the lies, Matt?

Yeah, I'm talking about both sides of his mouth. Can't trust this guy.

As per usual, Matt Piscitella of Zercana.com.

Who the fuck knows?

But yeah, this is.

Yeah, of course.

Of course!

Of course. I just... Yeah, I was on.

That's my industry analysis of this.

Sorry.

No, no.

I mean, it's not like they said it was no shit news. I added that here in my headline here where it's like, yeah, no shit.

I think.

people brought up last night on less than 10 dogs. Hey, why are they marketing this game? Everyone's going to buy it. And it's like, Oh no, you've got to look 29%. That's not a hundred. And that's people on console and PC. There are people on activated right now who have not played a game. Maybe since GTA five, maybe not played a game since GTA three, who will be reactivated by this game.

If the marketing works out, right. And I've experienced that.

I was saying, Stephanie, who has played a lot of games in the past has not played a lot of games recently was saying, Hey, when's Grand Theft Auto six coming out? I would like to play that. And it's like, Oh yeah, for sure. I was going to make, I was going to show it to you for sure. And see if you were interested. I know you really had a good time goofing off in GTA five. That's how she plays. That's how I play it. And so it was like, Oh, this is, this is already happening. And the marketing is going to be aimed directly at getting that, that broad audience as expanded as possible. And that's why they, despite this setting a record, They tend to spend a lot of money trying to advertise this game.

The thing that I come back to with Rockstar a lot of the time, and it's a part of their company ethos that has remained true for a long time, is that you have to remember that before GTA 3 came out, before that game shipped, they changed their name from DMA Design to Rockstar. Like, they very much... Yeah, they very much so dress for the job they want, and that's always been the case. And ultimately, that's part of the brand. That is part of the aura of GGA, is that it's a big event. And if you don't market it, it doesn't feel like a big event. And so if GGA 6 feels like a record-breaking event and everyone hears constantly how it's a record-breaking event, then GGA 7 is probably going to be a bigger record-breaking event.

Mm-hmm. It's, yeah, it's set up to do all the things everyone said it was going to do.

There seems to be no indication that this game is not going to be the biggest entertainment launch of all time.

And it's sort of charging right ahead to be exactly that. I'm getting excited. I want to play it.

I'm like, you know, I currently have a website that wants me to review it. I'm academically interested in playing it, especially because I loaded up GTA V the other night and played the first few missions. And as someone who put upwards of a thousand hours into GTA 5 and GTA Online when I was, let's say, 12 to 15, you know, I was the perfect age. But going back to that game now, I was like, huh, this writing sure is something.

Oh, yeah.

And I don't expect the writing, the tenor of the writing to change all that much. They will keep that for sure.

Yeah, it's... I don't know.

People were talking about the 210 gigabyte install size, which I didn't include here in the news. But it's 210 gigabytes, according to, I don't know, some leak or something.

The other thing worth noting with this is the Rockstar Union Vosch at Rockstar North is finally going ahead.

Yeah, we're talking about that right after the break. So, yeah, we'll look at that next. Chris Kerr has a good report on that. Yeah, that 210 gigabyte install size, it's like, yeah, that sounds about right for this game, for what they're talking about, the ambition, and still to see people talking about, oh, that is... They're just inefficient. It's like, man, I don't think that's it. I think it's just a really big fucking game.

I will say Borderlands 4 is 180 gigs.

Yes.

At the moment, after all of its updates. That is... That's a game that I look at and I go... Buddy, you haven't justified this to me. That's a game which I have beaten several times because it's kind of a comfort game for me. But I look at how much space it takes up on different platforms and I'm like, I should probably delete this. Yep. This space is too valuable now.

I'm almost surprised that Grand Theft Auto 6, with all of its music, that they will not want, that they probably are contractually unable to squish down so that it sounds compressed. All that stuff on there, the 500 to 1,000 songs are going to be on there. That's going to take up a lot of space on its own, and that's before you even get into the massive, massive space that they've built into that game.

Yeah, I'm getting excited. It feels real.

Definitely going to be happy to play Ocarina of Time first. That's really where my heart is at at the moment, but I'll be done with that by the time.

GTA 6 is out for sure, and I'll be ready for it. All right, we are going to take that break.

When we come back, we'll talk about the Rockstar workers voting to unionize right as the game comes out. Very interesting timing. We have plenty of other headlines to get into as well. If you want to skip out on these ad messages, you can do so. Giantbomb.com has the ad-free versions of the audio and the video show.

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All right, we are back. It's game mass mornings. That's Lexi. I'm Grubb.

Let's continue on here. Rockstar workers secure potentially historic union recognition vote. This is from Chris Kerr at Vertical Slice News. Rockstar Games workers in the UK will take part in a potentially historic union vote in just a few weeks. The vote will run from November 12th through November 26th.

And that does include the date where GTA 6 is coming out. This vote will determine whether the IWGB union at Rockstar is officially recognized. allowing a bargaining unit to formally negotiate with Rockstar on key workplace issues. The recognition deal agreed upon by workers and management officials. would give employees more influence over pay and bonuses, overtime, redundancies, flexible working arrangements, and generative AI policies. Staff belonging to the IWGB Rockstar Game Workers Union have been meeting with Rockstar bosses since July to ratify the terms of that recognition deal.

If the IWGB Rockstar Game Workers Union wins the vote, they will succeed in forming the largest recognized union in the UK games industry. The vote will coincide with the conclusion of a high-profile union-busting dispute between Rockstar and 31 fired UK union workers who allege they were ousted for engaging in trade union activity. The Grand Theft Auto maker claims they were fired for leaking confidential information.

My personal opinion on that is, yeah, right, Rockstar, come on. Like, yeah, right.

Closing submissions from both parties will be put before an employment tribunal in Glasgow on November 17th and November 18th, just one day before Grand Theft Auto 6 launches on November 19th. Rockstar Game Workers Union Committee member Shanti Easton Steele said the vote is about ensuring employees at Rockstar get honesty and openness surrounding that decisions that will affect them.

When the management choices are kept hidden, we can't properly properly address issues like the gender pay gap, the uneven and ever changing policies on overtime pay or the concerns many coworkers hold around job security and job security post release, which is a growing concern across the industry. This is our moment to secure a window onto the decisions that shape our lives and a seat at the table to improve them. I'm immensely proud of the games Rockstar gives its fans. I want to be equally proud of the voice Rockstar gives its staff.

Look, I mean, Rockstar's.

Notorious for its Rockstar-like behavior, like lowercase r, Rockstar-like behavior, where they do.

Throw their weight around. They can be intimidating.

Uh, they believe that they should be treated, uh, sort of above the way above the treatment that a lot of other studios get. They should be kind of above criticism in a lot of cases. And that's just my experience with them. Um, I can't imagine that that sense of, of how they treat people ends once you're an employee for them. In fact, I would imagine if you are an employee for rockstar in a lot of situations, uh, it could probably be worse and more intimidating. So the people who work there trying to get a seat at the table, God, that feels like the least they could do, the least they should get. And so the fact that they have pushed forward with this in the face of alleged retaliation from Rockstar against other people who were trying

to unionize is brave and worth calling out. And it does feel potentially historic as this game is about to launch.

What do you think, Lexi?

Yeah, and I also think that doing it in the light of the most pressed attention being on it. I think that this is something I've pushed for with... As someone who studied journalism at a university and now knows people at traditional outlets, I'm pointing out to them and saying, like, hey, I know that GCA is going to be a big enough thing that you're going to wind up covering it.

You should also be talking about these parts of it. You should also be talking about... There is this union effort. There is an ongoing employment tribunal. There are all these complicating factors that make the release of this game kind of a powder keg in a lot of ways.

It's an inflection point, for sure.

Yeah, an inflection point for both the industry and for the workers at Rockstar. I mean... they had it back with Red Dead Redemption 2 in one sense of this come to God moment of the Jason Schreier report and how we've heard that that shaped the company to a certain extent. But it also seems like post those big leaks during the pandemic that they took steps backwards again towards being much more controlling and towards being much more, we'll call it hands-on with how they, you know, go about security and things like that. And, like, you know, the thing is, it ultimately didn't work. So I understand why these employees feel so hard done by. Like, there's still that fucking weirdo guy selling his cryptocurrency, maybe trying

to leak the ending of the game or whatever. Like, yeah, if I was working there, I would feel very frustrated that all of these concessions had to be made in the name of security, in the name of... Just not talking about the game until a company was ready to be it to friends, family, to anyone. And having to hide away 12 hours of your life from everyone every day and not being able to talk about when you get home. That wears on people. And then having it leak anyway, like, yeah, that that has to be soul destroying.

And having no guarantee on the other side of it that like when you have a job that you'll have a job.

Right.

Or, you know, you've done all that work to create this thing. And this thing is going to still be making money 10, 15 years from now. It's going to be making a lot of money, probably 10, 15 years from now, if everything goes according to plan.

And you're not entitled to any of that.

And that will be a battle, a fight, a conversation, a debate and a negotiation that will have to happen. uh, like for them to be like, Oh, do we get entitlement to, uh, like pay ongoing for our work done here?

Probably not.

The video game industry is going to fight that tooth and nail, but you could still get something that that could be a token in the negotiations.

To be like, all right, fine.

We don't get that, but therefore we do get some guarantees up through the years following the release of some sort of recompense.

And, uh, and.

That's only feeling more and more fair, uh, when we kind of like to hear the stories of what it takes to make a game like this and how it would not be possible with the people who make up this union. And it would be possible without the people who make up the leadership at Rockstar.

Always. That's always worth remembering.

You saw with the EA sale, the thing that struck me about that, and it's been rattling around in my head ever since, is that when the sale went through to the consortium, the uh, Andrew Wilson got out there and he was like, this is a testament to the hard work of all developers. That was more or less verbatim.

One of the lines in his statement.

And we'll talk about that here pretty soon. Yeah.

And like, that's not actually rewards enough. Like you just sold a company for $ 55 billion. The employees saw none of that. The employees got a kick in the ass and were booted out the door. Um, and were laid off and were separated from something that they poured years of work into in many cases. I, yeah, like, there's a reason why these union efforts feel so vital right now.

It's because the people who run these companies view the workers not as people creating an art form that they have an attachment to and that they should be proud of but as a piece of commerce that is owned by the ceo um and just while the employee should you know get a good pat on the back and you know uh thanks for all your work it's like the millhouse millhouse's dad thing it's you know so long and thanks for all the hard work i don't remember saying thanks like that's that's That's what it feels like with so many of these companies, is, like, they just kind of, you know, the hard work is expected because they know it's such a rat race, and then they think that they can treat people like trash at the

end of it. And I'm not saying Rockstar does, but I am saying that if you're one of the biggest companies in the world working on one of the biggest products in the world, there should be safeguards in place to protect the employees.

There's still an option to treat them like trash.

Rockstar still has that full option to exercise where they could treat these people like trash. And I think the union would just argue, let's just take that off the table. Let's get to a point where they have to be treated with some dignity. And in this industry where it continues to be You know, you get.

Hired up in the good times.

And then as soon as the game is out, you're laid off so that these companies can maximize the profit they make from it. You are now just a liability to them, even though they would not be able to make that money in the first place without you.

That feels like it feels unfair.

And it feels like the kind of thing that a union would point out is unfair and that these people should not have to do that work in the first place unless they are guaranteed some protections in that moment when they are most vulnerable to you. because they've already done the work and they were never contracted in a lot of these situations. And then maybe there should be union rules about how you're treating contractors as well.

That stuff would be litigated in this situation. It's yes.

Uh, it, it seems overdue and long overdue for this industry that is shaping itself very much in the looks of the gig economy. That is Hollywood without any of the union protections. Uh, this will have to change that. And you would hope like, okay, yeah. So rockstar maybe unions up, uh, That needs to be parlayed into an industry-wide union here pretty soon.

All right.

Let's keep going here. Some other stuff to get into. Families demand removal of real disaster footage from Modern Warfare 4. This is a rough one. This comes from Park Jae-yeon at SBS News. The opening cinematic from the game uses footage from the 2022 Itaewon crowd crush to depict casualties.

In a fictional war. Let's see here.

The people said the Itaewon tragedy was a tragic disaster that resulted in hundreds of casualties and citizens who participated in rescue efforts or witnessed the event at the time are still suffering through trauma. If the game developer has even a minimum of courtesy and empathy toward the victims, it should take prompt corrective action basically to remove it.

The Korean Game Users Association also echoed that statement. I believe that Activision acknowledged using the real news footage and said it did not intend to trivialize the tragedy, but nowhere so far, at least that I've seen, have they said that means they have a commitment to remove it in place.

Yeah, and the timing on this couldn't have been worse. It happened on the 29th of October. Yes. Like, this is, if you're someone who was involved in that, and like, Jesus, 159 people died in it.

God.

I mean, Colton just doesn't earn this.

This is not, like.

Yeah, that's the thing, is like. you don't, you have people working on movies and working on games and working on things to vet stock footage. That is, that is a job. You have people who are in the same way that there's music supervisors, there is footage and B-roll supervisors. And like, yeah, you, you have to, how this falls through the cracks is pretty awful. And yeah, like.

I mean, it's dehumanizing. It feels like, it's awful.

Feels like uh tokenized the the people of of the korean peninsula to a point where uh we're using your your country as a setting and a set dressing and as a way to add flavor to our game and that's where our thinking about you stops uh yeah some people died in this tragedy that.

Make for a cool thing in our opening cinematic.

It's very it's very it's beyond soulless it's it is offensive and yeah.

You know this is as someone who has played a lot of the call of duties for the of I should be aware of what the biggest franchise in games is about. A thing that these games love is they love the aura or they love the imagery of politically charged moments. They do not... like the text of politically charged moments or divulging those things and dealing with that and setting the game and careers yes just another in a long line of like what's like a hot button issue we can tackle and by tackle they mean paint over the call of duty shaped game that they have this year um as kind of you know decorations and side things and yeah i mean It just feels fucking gross.

And you've been doing this for long enough that you should be better. Like, if you're able to release a game every single year, you should be able to make sure that stuff like this doesn't slip through. And ultimately, like, the quality of the game doesn't even go near to justifying the quality of what the game is tackling. Like, that game is a... I think Jeff Gerstmann described it as, like, a near-movie-style movie. Yes.

It's a grocery store checkout novel.

Yeah, it's a James Patterson novel. It's all those different things.

A co-written James Patterson novel, yeah.

Yeah, it doesn't have any interest in engaging in any of these topics and things like that. And I think that then when you take things from real life, we saw this when they, you know, the Highway of Death stuff back a few years ago, where they just flipped what country did that. They were like, actually, Russia did this, not America. Don't worry about it. I was like, fucking what?

What?

It's like, actually, I'm quite worried about it. That kind of stuff is exactly what I'm worried about. Your inability to deal with these topics in any sort of deft way. Do you know who James Patterson's most recent co-author was?

Mr. Beast!

Jimmy Donaldson himself.

Very good friend, Jay Costello, who does copy editing for some video games, just worked on Virtua's The Sledgehammer. uh incredibly talented person one of my favorite people um jay did a video where they read the entire book and then broke it down um and i highly recommend checking it out because it's it's real good stuff uh jay is jay is wonderful it's.

Just in the book is of course the most dangerous games just a yep yeah what what if mr beast was mr beast that's like oh man okay All right, let's keep going here. EA workers decry mismanagement and corporate greed after mass layoffs. This is from Chris Kerr again at Vertical Slice. People should go check out Vertical Slice.

Chris Kerr, what's that, game dev, I think, for a while?

He was a game developer, yes, and he's been doing the work of three people on this solo project. It's been nuts.

It's been great. Go check out Chris's stuff at Vertical Slice. Current and former workers told Vertical Slice that colleagues and sometimes managers aren't clearly informed about Who has been cut disrupting work and prolonging uncertainty? That's like sort of the big takeaway here is these layoffs have been a complete mess.

And then, of course, there's a lot of other highlights from this. One employee whose role was eliminated said there is an air of secrecy around the process and explained some of her direct colleagues only reached out with farewells after seeing their layoffs post on LinkedIn. It's an approach that has become the norm at EA, which purportedly tells workers it must protect the privacy of anyone impacted.

Those we spoke with doubt that is the case.

My suspicion is that it is done to isolate the people laid off, says one source, who notes it's a policy that's incredibly disorienting both emotionally and practically.

Depending on how.

Large the layoff is, it could take us a week or two or more to get our bearings back under us and figure out what we're doing, they added. They explained that when people are jettisoned without clear communication, in progress work is left in limbo. Who has been cut from a particular workflow? What have they completed? How do their peers now rebalance and adapt? Those are just a handful of questions they need untangling before work can continue.

Then there is the human element. Emotionally, it's weird, says one source who explains they often have to use whisper networks to make contact with colleagues at other EA studios just to ascertain whether a co-worker has been let go. Instead of ripping the band-aid off in one clean motion, EA forces staff to endure weeks of turmoil. Part of the devastating emotional impact is basically finding out your friend and coworker has been let go again and again and again over.

The course of weeks, they added. This story also.

Talks about how employees, like when they confront EA management about, okay, so first of all, is this person gone?

Maybe, maybe not. We're going to figure it out over the next couple of weeks.

All right, how are we supposed to continue on with this work? They have almost invariably been met with pressure to be like, replace them with AI. just automate, automate their workflow through the use of AI tools. And yeah, that's starting to be like, Oh, so the, this is all still part of, we could save money through using AI, but yeah, The people on the ground are going to have to figure out what that looks like, and it's probably going to continue to be very messy. There was some other, what was the other thing, Lexi, that's coming out of EA?

Just being reported on by Polygon, as per French Outlish BFM TV, apparently anonymous workers were telling them that Bioware was asked by EA management to remove LGBT flag from cancelled Mass Effect game. Former Bioware's employees spoke with a journalist from the French outlet, revealing many interesting details about the development of the game. One employee speaking anonymously reported that the new managers were not too convinced by Mass Effect Universe. I think that the video proposals presented to the new management weren't convincing, the employee explained. especially since Bioware is known for inclusive storytelling, which didn't help dispel the skepticism. The anonymous employee mentioned a specific case where

the developers were asked to remove a specific flag from a presentation video for looking too much like an LGBTQAI plus flag in order to, quote, not offend. The interview does not specify who requested the removal of the flag, nor whether the developers complied with the request.

So all of the worst case scenarios that we all speculate about about EA under new ownership of Saudi Arabia and Jared Kushner and and his cohorts. Yeah, I think we were right, first of all, to jump to those conclusions, I think. And I think we're going to get keep getting stories. that backup, yes, it is as bad as you would imagine it would be. That is what these secret layoffs make it sound like.

The, hey, go use AI instead.

That's something people are like, yeah, they're just gonna keep saying that's the answer to all this.

That's exactly what they're doing. And then the.

Pussyfooting around of inclusivity because it's like, oh, the new owners might not like that. Of course that's happening as well. ea is is just a husk it is dead and it's gonna and the only thing we're going to get out of it are these horror stories it feels.

Like yeah um imagine fucking morale there now at the moment imagine waking up and being like well this is the place where i work and i can't quit because where the fuck else am i going to work right now?

Right.

I mean, especially if you're a North American developer who bought a house, moved across the country to work at some studio at EA in like Los Angeles, you got.

Nowhere else to go or you got nowhere else to go. And yeah.

And you see you're stuck with this and kind of hoping that you are working on one of the very few projects that this company is going to continue to support. And then they explicitly said they're going to support fewer and fewer projects. So yeah, it's got to feel like these handcuffs in a lot of ways. And I definitely sympathize with anyone who is still stuck at one of these companies. And, you know, and the reality is, I like how long do we really think this Saudi project lasts? Like, like we haven't really talked about that side of it.

How long did live golf last?

How long did live golf last? Right? Exactly. This is not going to be something in.

10 years as the reality shifts under our feet about energy use. And, and they see that this effort to diversify their, their economy and to sports wash their, their, public image either worked in some ways or didn't work in all these other ways they're going to lose interest and by 10 years from now are they still concerned about the the ea that they bought no they'll probably sell it to private equity at some point.

Yeah yeah the thing that um the way that i had to explain to me when it comes to the saudis is they have this thing called project 2030 which is their ongoing effort to diversify the economy before um before 2030 uh and a lot of economists who track saudi investment in saudi arabia um are of the growing opinion that hey um the saudi central bank whatever that's called i can't remember um is controlled by the saudi government it's it's a government-run institution um the Saudi mining operations for oil are also all controlled by the Saudi government.

All of the numbers that come out of them of how much oil they have, not exactly a given that they are 100% accurate. And so this big push to diversify could be because the reserves are not as high as they might imply. And... At some point, that bill comes due and these projects do have to make money for Saudi Arabia. And right now, EA is a project with 18 going on $ 20 billion a dash and growing.

Um....

I don't know how this ever becomes a profitable endeavor for them, other than they gut the studios entirely, retain the IP, shift them over to a more central Saudi company, like the Middle East Broadcast Company, which is currently working on 1001 Threads of Muzan. And then they own things like Madden and EA Sports FC and have the deals for Battlefront and things like that. I do not think that the corporate entity of EA is long for this world.

Their Dash is increasing by $ 1. 8 billion a year. That's not something you can get rid of with a couple of good games. That is Death Spiral levels of Dash.

Yep. Yeah.

As VoxBox points out here, peak oil is going to come before the end of Saudi oil fields or whatever. And that's the idea of how much it costs to get a barrel of oil out of the ground. If it costs a barrel of oil to get a barrel of oil, that could be that that's peak oil. And it's like, oh, no, that that destroys their economy long before they run out of oil. And it turns and it destabilizes them and turns them into a battlefield. No, you know, not upon not intended or whatever. It's going to be. messy and um they're concerned for whatever the fuck ea looks like when when that starts becoming their primary concern.

Maybe blow down the piracy list it'll.

Evaporate yeah uh and so yeah this is a temporary sort of thing of like all right what is.

Hey in the meantime we might get ronaldo in battlefront.

3 okay never mind it's worth it we figured.

Out yeah or whatever his name salvatore in uh in the sims won't that be fun won't that be real cool that would be so cool grub video games are great So just.

A nonstop parade over here. Pocket Pair wants conversations about Powell World on Switch, too. I want a lot of.

Things, too. There's no indication here that those conversations are happening.

I want a fucking job, so I say it on Blue Sky sometimes. It hasn't worked yet, but I keep trying.

It's nice to want things if you're Pocket Pair. This is very funny because they do have ongoing litigation. And the story points out that that would have to be solved probably before they get their game that Nintendo sued them over onto Nintendo's platform.

But Pocket Bear's like, man, that Switch 2 looks real nice.

That's basically what he said. So, yeah, we'll see if anything ever does happen there. But that would be a very funny end to that saga.

Excuse me.

And then there was the Nintendo Indie World Showcase this morning. There was a whole bunch of stuff shown off there. A lot of dates for games that you have seen previously or have already come out. But they also showed stuff like, oh, more details on My Arms Are Longer Now, that Australian comedy game. That's coming to Switch 2 March 11th.

Slime Rancher 2 is coming November 16th. Kitsune, The Journey of Adeshino. That is coming Spring 2027 to Switch and Switch 2. Has these really cool-looking pre-rendered backgrounds. Looks a bit like Spirited Away. Got some details about Dumpster Gang. That's going to be coming to Switch after it hits Steam this December. It's going to be coming to Switch in March. That's a friend-slop game with raccoons. There was a lot of cool stuff in there.

And City of None from Jim Lee OK Games, the Celeste folks, Liam and Noel. That looks real good.

It looks very good. That's out.

Let's see here. City of None. Did I get a date on this one? Yes, that's in 2027. That's the only date we got there. And then Tenjutsu from one of the people that worked on Dead Cells. That's coming summer 2027 to Switch and Switch 2. Oh, I'm sorry. That's Threads of Time. And that's the dates on that.

2027 for Tenjutsu. We talked over that. So if you want to see everything there, you can go to GiantBomb.com and watch us talk over it.

It was a lot of fun. Okay, let's see.

You can no longer say if you want to see everything there. I can't hear that without being like, oh, Nathan Field was on.

You could see it all, everybody. You're going to see it.

All right, that does it for the headlines. Let's get to the poll question from Monday. I am going to get the most recent up-to-date stuff here, and that means going to YouTube's channel or my channel on YouTube, and I don't have.

That ready to go. So YouTube.com.

Oh, that's that's a bomb slash post.

That'll take you there. Are you getting Phantom Blade Zero? Reviews came out.

They were very positive. Twenty nine percent said yes. Seventy one percent said no. That's a pretty high number. And I think that number could go higher as word of mouth spreads on whether or not people are super into that game. once everyone starts playing it, but critically very, it's doing very, very well.

Uh, I'm gonna spend some more time with it.

I've enjoyed what I've gotten into very far, which is not much, but, uh, kind of talking to all the guys around here, everyone seems to be liking it.

So pretty cool. Uh, all right.

Uh, remind me to ask you something about that when we get off the, the, I will remind you.

All right. Excellent. Uh, Let's see, new poll question here in a second before we do that.

Lexi, tell people where they can find you on the internet, what you have going on, all that good stuff.

Yes, you can find me on bluesky at lexluddy.xyz. I am currently a relatively free agent. There's not much coming out, but I'm looking for any work if people need support on anything. I am working on a lot of stuff with my website Start Menu, which is a place for people breaking in to games media. We're starting our end of the year winter spectacular planning, which is kind of was inspired by giant bombs guest lists but it's a more fluid open uh we get just people to write about whatever they feel like writing about um we are i'm gonna i'll tease it here we're we're experimenting with a with a mild rebrand uh everything will still be on the same website you'll still be able to get everything everywhere uh but maybe just leaning a bit in

lean a bit more into uh specific regional things that make us interesting compared to other outlets that usp so i've heard um and yeah then yeah working working on some other stuff in the background uh and we'll see how that goes.

Excellent.

Everyone go track that, that down, uh, start menu.co.uk. Uh, and yeah, let's see your new poll question. Uh, let's, I actually, I'm curious in this moment, um, after that Sir Canna story, uh, are you getting GTA six? Uh, just, you know, let's, let's find out people, uh, said no disc, no buy for phantom blade zero. I think a physical version of that is coming out next year, early next year, I believe, uh, no such thing planned for GTA six.

So I bet a lot of the comments will be similar there, but let's see, let's see what the split is.

We'll get the results of this poll on tomorrow's show here on Giant Bomb. Speaking of Giant Bomb, it's Wednesday. So Duke Mikem returns. Duke Nukem forever. Boy, we had a real low point with that game last week. Let's see if it goes even lower this week.

You know what? I think I've said this on this very show before on a Wednesday of, you know, a blight club is going really well when it feels like both the people who inflicted the blight and all also the audience are also being blighted like no one's coming out of this ahead And I think when I said it, it was for Leisure Suit Larry.

Yeah, we make Mike play those ones. Yes, for some reason, Mike gets all of them. That's exactly what has happened here. So see if that continues. Look, it's been a lot of fun, actually. And I don't think we have much left of that game. So he could wrap it up this episode or next episode, probably next episode, but we'll see.

Tune in for that later today, everybody. Uh, lots of other fun stuff happening on giant bomb all the time. Uh, we'll have some quick looks going up later this week. Uh, so just check out giant bomb.com for all of that information. And then, you know, tomorrow we're going to have voicemail dump truck. Uh, we're going to do the GB 100, uh, just for fun. We wanted to see what it'd be like if we did our top 100 exactly the same way as kind of funny dead, because if.

We we're going to do a real one will be number one, right?

Yes. We're going to justice for Greg Miller.

Absolutely. So look out for that. Make your bets right now for what you think is going to be in the top 10.

I'll be curious.

I think we're going to do something similar where we're going to write down what we think will be in like the top five and we'll compare notes when we're all said and done. So looking forward to that, that'll be tomorrow afternoon. And then, you know, UPF later this week, all that fun stuff.

All right.

I think with all that out of the way, Lexi, thank you so much for hanging out with me today and talking about video games.

I really appreciate it.

Always a pleasure. Happy to be on here. And one of these days we'll have some good news.

We'll see.

Thank you all for watching and listening and always sticking with us.

We appreciate it. Have a good one. Take care of yourselves and goodbye.

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