State of Gaming - "The Return of Turnip Boy"

00:00:00All righty then, it's State of Gaming and the year has been 2024. My god, it's something. Or, what does he have to do with it? She? Her? It? It, I think it's the best way. No, I'm old school. Odin doesn't, he's a man. Oh yeah, he is a man. He used to be? Well, I mean, I think he's... Is he still alive? He's around. He is, okay. Or you can believe, as they did in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, that God is a relative. Well, I think they said the greatest things that God made, and who is this God anyway, was the title of the book. And why they didn't need religion and things like that. It's a pretty good book, all things said. Not as good as... Well, the movie was so-so. The movie was definitely so-so. It had its good moments, but overall, could have been a little better. Could have been better. But yes, what could not have been better is 2024, because it's a year, well, that you can divide by two. So it's bound to be a great year. That's what we've gathered so far. But then we have our news, which might not be that good.

00:01:27Even if the new, I think I said this in the Swedish version, that even if the topic of the day is bad, it can only be so bad because we always have the year to fall back on. So it's always just a little sad instead of full on sad. Yeah. And we have actually, I think this is the first, might be the first time that we're back in January already. We usually miss like the first month every year with our state of gaming because we are still doing other shows like the best of last year or what we liked, what we didn't like. But this year we are here already in January with state of gaming. Yeah, on time with a few days to spare. So for those of you who are joining us for the very first time, this is our monthly recap of what's happened in the gaming space.

00:02:26And it's a list that we have made. So if you're missing something, then it's probably missing. And you know what? That's fine. Yeah. And this is also when we're up and running on all gears. We usually have our Swedish news shows spread out throughout the month. And this is also sort of a recap of things that we've said in those. But we haven't really done that for a month. So this is pure. as they say. The noose. I'm not sure if they say that anymore. But it's our recap of things that we haven't mentioned earlier. But before we get to that, we do have a silent. A silent. Hopefully not so silent. You know what? We heard when you were tapping on top of the can. The first little... So bring it down. Then it cut out.

00:03:26So what are we drinking? We're drinking a, I think, it's a glorious gorilla. You know that I don't like apes, right? Yeah, but this might be the one. And he looks scary and he wants to eat my face. He looks very angry. Gorillas can be really dangerous, you know that, right? Yeah. So you might be better off putting them in a can and drinking them. Oh yeah, that's my hope. I hope this will be a good one. I have to say though, the can itself, it looks pretty good. Because it has that black and pink, just like the good candy. Oh yeah, the raspberry licorice candy. Oh yeah, that's so good. So I think this is actually a Swedish brewery. I wouldn't be surprised. Pine Ridge Brewery from Falkenberg, Sweden.

00:04:26I thought this should be called monkey business, but no. No monkey business. I guess that was already taken. Dare I ask, is this supposed to taste like a monkey? What does a monkey taste like? Very rough and gruff. Oh, well, yeah, then, yes. Or banana. Or banana. Or banana, though. It does not taste like banana. No, it's actually very good. I just now realized this is double IPA, so it's 8%. Wow, you're into the heavy-hitting stuff to start off the year. It's a perfect Sunday beer. Yeah. When you want to end off the week with a little bit of a... You know what? Never mind. Anyway, it looked pretty good. And I am actually drinking what could have been water by... Society's standards. Well, if you look at it from a distance...

00:05:23And it looks like it. So let's say that I'm drinking water. Plus. Or pure vodka. Exactly. That would look the same. I think we're off the rails here a little bit. I think we all decided that's water. I'm turning a page. This is me now in 2024. Living my best life. Good. In theory. In theory. Yeah. So, Oskar, what are you sampling today? It's a cola plus with a twist. Oh, so you've taken over from me. But instead of ice cubes, it's a frozen pineapple. Okay, that sounds good. That sounds pretty good. That levels it up a bit. Do we have a name for that drink? No, probably not. Pineapple Crush, maybe, but it's not crushed. There's not enough ice. Frozen Pineapple. I suggest Fruit Bonanza. I think that sounds good. Because we don't use Bonanza nearly enough. We do not. But we do have Segway time. A Bonanza of news. We do. And it's a small list. And it's a 50-50 split between good stuff and bad stuff, I would say. So let's start with the red.

00:06:44red line theme that we have in very quite a few shows last year and unfortunately that theme has continued over the annual break into 2024 and it has to do with the hardships in the gaming space right meow and one of the biggest things of last year's was of course the merger between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard and that I think it was closed in late November or something like that Yes, very recently. Yeah. And I know that I said, and I think you all agreed with me when I said like, well, hopefully this is a good thing for the company at large. But I think that when they have merged together, they will cut some jobs away. Because they usually trim the fat when they do mergers of very big companies. And of course, they said that they wouldn't do that. And then they did that.

00:07:42And not only did they do that, they trimmed quite a lot of bacon off that pig. It was not some people that were laid off. 1,500 peeps were laid off. Plus, I think. Yeah. And a third was like QA testers or no? No, I think they're probably already gone. One of them were for sure, because he had posted that he had applied for his dream job at Activision Blizzard for years. And only last year, he was finally allowed to start. And two months later, he was laid off. That's rough. But is it really? This is me being cynical, but you know, whatever. Would you really go there now? I mean, if this had been like 15 years ago, then I could understand the dream. Maybe not now, but give Microsoft like a year or so. Maybe even 10 years. Then, sure, I think. But yeah, the biggest thing about this, aside from the big number, of course, was that they had caught a lot of veterans. A lot of people that have been there for a very long time and that have contributed quite a bit to a lot of classic games were laid off without any...

00:08:58Ceremony. A lot of them didn't even know that they were laid off. They had to find out through journalists that were writing about this. Twitter or X. As it's now known on the streets. They didn't handle it that well. They did not. Even though we were expecting some layoffs, of course, because that has been the trend for the past or half a year at least. This was big. This was huge. It was, yeah, one of the bigger layoffs, for sure. But I think the manner in which they did it, and also, I don't remember the name, but one of the upper management people took this time to leave the business for a while, to recoup with family and friends. But he looked forward to being back in the game with some great people, and I hope he gets stuffed.

00:09:58He's one of those assholes that basically ran Activision Blizzard into the ground. So I hope he leaves and just hangs out with his family for the rest of his career, never to return, at least not to the gaming space, because we don't need those people we don't need. I know a place he could go to the mobile gaming space. Yeah, preferably in China. Oh, but aren't those games very successful? Nowadays. Yeah, but they're also crap. And so does... Well, true that. But he will still... I hope he goes to somewhere where he doesn't earn as much money as he used to. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. That's tough. Because I think mobile games are raking it in big time. They are, I think, yeah. Anyway, that's... Aside from Activision Blizzard not being what they were...

00:10:52Hopefully all of these good people will land on their feet and hopefully some of them will start new indie studios along the line that we can enjoy. 1500 people, they could probably start a new Blizzard. They could definitely do that because they are a lot of people and they're very... I wouldn't want that though. I think I'd rather have like 10 smaller studios. Maybe just start Sandstorm instead. I'm more for indie studios these days. Gargantuan studios usually only have one project. So I hope they all land in cool projects that can give us some sweet games. Yeah, I think there is an opportunity now for new games. For sure, for sure. So yeah, kudos to all of the ex-activism blizzard. Microsoft, we have to get that in there as well. Exactly. We have, unfortunately, another big player in the dark side of gaming corner, and that's Embracer. Our Swedish... Our proud Swedish. What we used to look on with some pride, and now not as much. So Embracer is still in trouble.

00:12:18The latest studio to be in the red is the German one, Piranha Bytes. And we talked about them in a couple of shows pretty recently when we thought that they were definitely destined to be closed. But last week they said that we shouldn't write them off just yet. They didn't want to say exactly why. We did mention that they have some state funding from the German state. So maybe that was enough to keep them running. All right. But yeah, Embracer is trying to get rid of them. And we talked a little bit about this. We have had issues with a lot of things that Embracer has done. But Piranha Bytes haven't really been releasing the best games that they've ever done recently. In fact, it could be argued that they have released some of their worst games.

00:13:14the past couple of years but it is a classic studio and they have at least three series that a lot of gamers out there at least know about and it's gothic risen and elix so they have a certain degree of pedigree but um their best games are like 15 to 20 years past at this point so yep that's that's where we are maybe it's time to go on and do something else maybe So either they're doing that because we shouldn't count them out yet. So either they are creating something new or they're just trying to, you know. I mean, either the good people of Germany is bailing them out or they're down for the chow. I guess we'll find out soon enough. They are close to the red. We can at least be certain of that.

00:14:12And I think that the founders, or a lot of the founders, have already moved on. I think the main founder is still there, but everyone else has already moved on. I wonder how close Embracer overall is to... I think it's really very close. They're probably in the red, but they are so big that it's almost hard to go bankrupt. So they have not passed the point of no return. No, I think what happened was that they blew their entire investment capital because they spent the money before they acquired the $2 billion that they lost. And also, as we all know... Money has gotten a lot more expensive now that inflation is up. So you could just borrow, like, basically almost limitless just a couple of years ago. And that changed very sudden. And I think Embracer were basically caught with their hand in all the cookie jars, not just one. Yeah, just the thing with interest that has moved up that much also. Interest for 2 billion, that is... We don't know how much they actually loaned.

00:15:26Or how much they had. We only know that they've spent a lot of money. That they didn't have. I think Embracer is going to be in trouble. For some years. Definitely. But yeah. That's what happens when you spend money. That you don't really have. Which is a lesson to all of you kids out there. All of you CEOs out there. Don't do that. Those were the ones I meant by kids. Fair enough. So aside from that, we also have some other studios that are laying off people. And it's People Can Fly. And they are known for the Painkiller series, the Bulletstorm, and Outriders most recently that me and Oscar played. And it was pretty good. Yeah, it was decent. It was pretty good. So I wonder if, yeah, I think they laid off, as they said, according to plan, which

00:16:25Yeah, I mean, it sounds a little weird. Do you plan to lay off people in advance, like next year? I think we're going to lay off about 60. Maybe if you have decided on a whole new strategy or something, but otherwise, no. I mean, to be fair, a lot of people perhaps don't know this, but it's very according to the standard that you lay off people between game projects, because you usually staff up. Especially in AAA studios, you can maybe hire 100 people on contracts. And when the game's done, you scale back before starting up again. So that's nothing new. And that's never going to change. Yeah, and that's not a proper layoff. That is just you have people. You mostly contracted for the project. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, that's them. And then we also had two other studios that I weren't...

00:17:22I mean, they're slightly familiar names, but I, yeah. If someone had asked me what they had done, I wouldn't have been as sure. So Black Forest Games, and they're working on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Shredder's Revenge, or no? No, I think this was actually a game that hasn't been released yet. Oh, that's sad. So I'm not sure. I thought, I mean, Shredder's Revenge was pretty awesome. But that was not them, were you? No, and it sold really well, so I was like, it can't be them, because that game actually was a success. But this is a game that hasn't been released yet, so that's always a bit iffy. And then we also had Raycon games, and they did the Ruiner game. So even if you're doing good stuff, you're not in a safe position.

00:18:16Maybe they just ruined it for themselves. Ruined themselves, yeah. So if you have cash on hand now, it's a good time if you want to start a new indie studio. Yeah. It definitely is. Although nobody really has cash on hand at the moment. Someone must have it. It just disappeared. I mean, I think to go back to what we were talking about, the problem was that people spent money that they didn't have. I don't think there's more cash around than previously or even less, but it's just people just spent because they knew that no one's really caring about it. No. And also the, everything was going so well, like everything was getting like bigger and bigger, but now we've just come to a halt where you have to like, if this doesn't work, then we're going to have to cut back. They have to act.

00:19:12With a bit more responsibility. It's like with gold. That they have oversold. Four times the amount of the physical gold. Yeah. I wish I had some of that. Give me all your gold. That can happen. So if everyone wanted to cash in. And turn their. Yeah that wouldn't work. So this is the same as like. Money was for. Like 15 years ago or something. I mean. That's a whole nother thing. But I mean, today we don't, at least in Sweden, we have almost stopped using fiscal money. So if people actually wanted those money on hand, it would never work. That would never work. But it may be coming back now with all the crisis and stuff. Yeah, because you're supposed to have cash. I'm actually printing my own money just in the next room. So I'm good. I think that's the only way to go from here.

00:20:10I'm calling them gamer bucks. Yeah. Yeah. Why not? Space bucks was already taken. So, you know. Oh, damn. Yeah. P bucks. No. Buckets of P. Nope. No, that's. I'm passing on that one. Yeah. Actually, now we are out of the negative Nancy area. Let's go. That's good. All right. We passed that. Well, not really. You know what? We're not even. But we're kind of. You'll see. Prince of Persia Lost Crown is out. People hate it and love it in equal measures. Because it's 2D and it looks like a mobile game, but it's quite a sweet game. What are they expecting? They're expecting a 3D game in the style of the modern Prince of Persia games. Why? Because people apparently like those. I didn't think they did. Sands of Time was pretty good, but... Sands of Time was pretty good, but I thought that was the only one. But a lot of people apparently liked the 3D era games. So the 2D game was like, what's this and why? They must be new people.

00:21:30Yeah, they're new people. But just for the reason that it is a 2D new Metroidvania game, I have it for the next upcoming thing, at least, to dive into. It's good. I mean, I do agree that the graphics are a bit mobile-ish. But that's what happens when you want to have it on the Switch, you know what I'm saying? Oh, oh. Yeah, it might be underwhelming, but it's still kind of, you know. Like it used to be back in the day. And it plays well, and it's a big game. It would have been really bad if it didn't play well, because then they would be in trouble. Well, that is true. But yeah, aside from the old graphics that might have been jarring to some, it's a pretty decent game overall. I'm not sure if it's challenging, but I heard people say that it was challenging enough.

00:22:27Yeah, there are a couple of difficult levels, of course, if you crank it all the way to the top. Probably crank it to the maximum. The only way to be a true gamer out there. Of course. So yeah, I'm all for it. And for those of you who enjoy the 3D games, they're still there. You can go and play those again. Next on our new games, we have Like a Dragon, Infinite Wealth. So at least someone has money. But yeah. He is hanging out in Hawaii. Yeah. And we talked about this, but this game is huge. Huge. It's very much the quirky Japanese twist on, well, the Kusa games, which this is a spin-off series of, were always a mix of high drama. darkness and weird quirky japanese humor and this is the same but more of the weird quirky japanese humor so uh first time though outside of japan and uh it's the spin-off series where they have gone almost jrpg when it comes to the combat system so it's uh yeah for those of you who like the first one this one is probably even better and for those of you who didn't like the first one

00:23:54this one won't solve that problem. And for those of you who haven't played any of them, is this a good one to start with? No. I really don't think it is. I'm not sure which... I mean, maybe you could start with the first Like a Dragon, because then at least you would be in the first game with this main character. And that's probably good enough. But if you want to be a part of the... jacuzzi series as well then you have to go all the way back to uh jacuzzi zero which is a game that was released fairly recently like four or five years ago and then you have six more i guess four five i think it's seven more yeah it's it's quite a few For those of you who have a lot of time on your hands. Yeah, definitely. Because I think there's six main games and then there's Yakuza 0. So then it's about like 1,200, 1,300 hours of gameplay until you reach this one. Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure if the older ones were as long, but I mean, they're basically RPG in length.

00:25:11The shorter ones, maybe 40 to 50 hours, and the longer ones, like 80 to 90. So 800 hours plus, at least. Around 1,000. Many hours. Many hours of goodness hanging out in Japan, beating people in the face. It's just another Tuesday for some, I guess. I guess. Great game, all the same, even though it's quite a lot to bite off if you want to be on top of that. these days. On top of something else was Palware this last month. The not-Pokemon-Pokemon game that was a big success, and people hate it. Like, really, really hate it. For no good reason. Yeah, they had a few reasons, and none of them were good. So a lot of people hated it because it was Pokemon, but it wasn't Pokemon, because they're pals.

00:26:06And a lot of other people hated it because they thought it was AI created. And some people hated it because it was cruelty to animals. Yeah. Well, we can count out those people immediately. Those peoples are idiots. So let's not even mention those again. Because, come on, even gremlins were animals. And we killed them back in the 80s. Oh, yeah, we did. And let's not even mention the lemmings. Oh, yeah. They died by the hundreds. No one had a problem with that. They just went straight into... If one started, they all just followed. Yeah. They all looked the same to me. But I guess they were the same. They kind of were. They were kind of cute looking, though, when you looked at the drawings. Although they must have been pretty stupid. Oh, yeah. That's another thing.

00:27:04But yeah, Palworld, for those of you who have been looking at other things the last month, is a new game that has copied a lot of other games and then bundled it together and created something that a lot of people apparently like. So we have pals instead of Pokemons, and I think we have a couple of hundreds. And you go about catching them, but you, instead of throwing balls at them, well, you do throw balls at them, but you first shoot them with guns. To bring down the health. And then you throw balls at them. And then you put them to work, like your personal servant, and you work them into the ground. It's very dark. But then again, Pokemon also captured animals and then had them beat each other up. But it was just cuter, I guess. Maybe cuter, but... Still a little dark. Yeah, but this is kind of cute.

00:28:01I mean, when they lose, they usually have the cross-eyed and they're knocked out. So they are unconscious. So it's not like good times. Yeah, they're not feeling good. They have to perform for their trainer, for their master, their trainer. And this is kind of the same. So this is more of an honest thing. Even though this is a more dark twist because the backstories and the information cards on a lot of these are kind of dark. So for a hot minute there, we had a meme about Depresso, for instance. Which is super cute. It's pretty cute, yeah. And one of the bigger differences, though, between these two franchises is that you have quite an extensive base building in Palware that they copied from other games. So yeah, aside from a lot of people being upset about a lot of weird stuff.

00:28:57Many people have enjoyed this because it sold over 4 million copies. And at one point, it was the sixth most played game concurrently on Steam ever. So that means someone made a dollar or two. That means someone did something right, I guess, also. Possibly very right. Yeah. Yeah. So you know what? I haven't played it. But for all of those who, I mean, apparently did, I mean, good for them. It's kind of weird that... A lot of people thought that Nintendo had cornered the entire let's collect animals things because we're the only ones who's ever done that. That's weird. I mean, Monster Hunter has been around for, Oscar, do you know how long has that series been around? 15, 20-ish? Yeah, it's like a long time. And you go around and you beat the crap out of a lot of animals in that one too. You actually kill them. Kill them dead.

00:29:56Yeah. And also all the fishing games, I guess, and the hunter games. Oh, yeah, definitely. Every game. Yeah, there's so many games. So, I don't know. People are weird. We already knew that, but it's now once again apparently a thing. People get upset over weird stuff. But I think it's very cool, though, that Nintendo did not get upset over this game because it so obviously copied the character or the pals. They look a lot like Pokemon. They kind of knew that they themselves have copied a lot of stuff. We're out. Let's not mention that. They didn't want to open that can of worms. As long as Bulbasaur isn't in there, we're cool with it. Oh, he isn't? No. I did see a turtle, though. Yeah. He wasn't called Bulbasaur. So, yeah. I don't know. I myself haven't looked into the next one that much. And Shrouded is out. And it's early access. And people are enjoying that ish as well. Yeah, that was expected, right? That they were going to enjoy this? I think so. I saw a video of someone going like...

00:31:1512 stories up a building and then jumping. Oh, wow. And they had like a little, I'm not sure, like a little glider suit on. So they floated down and that looked pretty fun. It sounds pretty fun. That's my entire impression of that game. This is something that I would want to do in real life, although I'm too scared of heights, so I would never. And also because I wouldn't trust my equipment. Yeah, that would be the only way. That probably works out, right? Yeah. And other news. We have Stardew Valley. Oh, yeah. And they are about to hit that delicious 1.6 version this year, for sure. This time, Eric Barone has promised. And this is a very, very big update for those of you who aren't on top of things there.

00:32:10I think that will be the point where I return to Stardew Valley to check it out, because it's been a few years. Yeah. He doesn't take his promises lightly. No, he usually delivers. He delivers on his things, yeah. You know what? I think you can, I mean, play that game in co-op, right? Maybe it's time for us to have a farm. Yeah, of course. It is. And I will be singing all the time. Oh, yeah. As long as I can pet the kitty. Sure thing. And the hats. I want to have the hats on cats. Hats on cats, definitely. And maybe, just maybe, we'll run into the next dude on our list. Mr. Turnip. Oh, he's back again? Doing bad things? You know, I never thought that that would turn into a thing. But for those of you who don't remember, a couple of years ago, I think maybe three years ago now, they had a game, an indie game, obviously.

00:33:10called Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion. Yeah. And it was actually really, really good. And I thought that would be the end of it. But for some reason... He wanted more money. Yeah. So now Turnip Boy is back, but this time he's a little bit more hardcore, so he robs a bank. Turnip Boy robs a bank. Does people drop banks nowadays? Well, just Turnip Boy, I think. I think Tax Evasion is much more. He is amping up his game, and I don't know. I haven't played it yet, but I saw some people who did, and they really liked it. Yeah. The first one was good. It had a lot of humor. Yeah. So, I don't know. Maybe Turnip Boy lives in an alternate reality where the 80s is still a thing, and where there's actual money in the bank.

00:34:10No, yeah, I think so, because he's going back to the roots. Like, robbing a bank is something that we can't do today. But I also wonder, what happened to Turnip Boy? He was just a little economical criminal, and now he's robbing banks. Like, what happened? Yeah. What happened, man? He's a full-blown... He's a full-blown criminal now. Yeah. And he had so much promise. I think it's a bit resembles to Master Ondjon from Papa the Rapper. Yeah, it might be. So I think this one is on you, Linda, because that's an indie game and someone needs to play it. Yeah, I'll do it. I'll rob a bank. Yeah. Maybe not, though. No, because what would that give me? Well, you can get a free TV for a long, long time. True. Oh, and meals on the hour. Yeah, meals. And fun work that is not changing ever. It could be a little bit on the boring side, I guess, but you know what? You can make some wonderful friends also. It keeps you out of the rain and snow. I'll do it for the social aspects. Hanging out with some new people is always fun. They seem fun. Yeah.

00:35:31You know what? Let's not be judgy. They might be the best. Yeah, they might be. I would still say that maybe not. We don't have much more on this week's list, but we do have a classic game. We talked about this also a little bit back, but Taken 8 is out. Oh, yeah. And people like it. I heard that the most anticipated... character that they want to join is Tifa at the moment. They usually have guest characters when they release a new Tekken. Yeah. I don't know why, though. Why Tifa? People like her, and she's a pretty good fighter with her fists, so probably that. That's true. That is true. I thought they would have a bunch of them. Maybe they will though. Maybe she's just the first. There would be more than one, but this was the number one choice. The first one on the wish list, yeah. So I'm not sure if that's a big enough draw to pull people in that aren't fans of the series, though. But maybe Tifa is, along with every other character from Final Fantasy VII, pretty well beloved.

00:36:48But just to have some closure on it, and I won't try to, or I'll give it a try. It's Katsuhuru, or something like that, the boss. He answered the fans with, well, all know she's attractive, and I understand that. But as yet, we have not decided anything about the guest characters, etc. I know that this, it wasn't taken, but I think Soul Calibur at one point had Darth Vader as an extra character. Yeah. And I know Smash has Cloud Strife. Yeah. It's weird. They're everywhere. Yeah. Maybe Turnip Boy even shows up. I hope so. That would be something. Throwing bags of money at people. Come on. Yeah. I have all of this. I have nothing to do with all of my money that I've gotten from tax evasion and bank robbing. I mean, if we wanted money back, then maybe Scrooge McDuck would be a better choice. I think it would be a bit hilarious if Kong from Scouts Rising would enter and he can't go forward. He can just sidestep all the time. He would be so glitchy. His super attacks that he glitches straight through you.

00:38:02And on that bombshell, we have actually reached the end of our State of Gaming January edition list. So we are actually up and running, which is pretty good. And as always, if you are bilingual and you want to hang out in Swedish style, we do have those shows. And we do that every other week or almost every week. And we have some longer episodes with certain specific topics as well. So, yeah. If you are into the English, though, we will probably say hi to you about once a month. We still love you, but, you know, can't be everywhere. But if you are not bilingual and only speaks or understands, I guess, English... uh then we have our youtube of course we yeah our youtube i shouldn't say but your youtube well i mean you you you're definitely a collab partner and so is oscar but yes we do have quite a few videos on the youtube's channel as well so with that backlog mentioned i'll push um i don't know turn it turn it yeah

00:39:20A massive turnip over to Oscar. Why not? So slice it and dice it and 11 more shows to go. Let's go, 24. See you later, folks. See ya. Bye-bye.