Giant Bombcast 632: A Place for Hair

TEST LOL

TEST LOL

TEST LOL

Does anybody know how to view the podcast image on mobile?

TEST LOL

TEST LOL

TEST LOL

TEST LOL

Pssh, never been so excited for video game rain, Ben? Play Stardew and you will truly know the euphoria of a rainy day!

TEST LOL

but actually, for a moment there I wondered if "The Last of Us" could have leaked from a rating application... because cutscenes and plot bullet points is what we submit to many rating agencies around the world (maybe not ESRB), and with them now working from home, the security was an issue... but oh well. Maybe it's just a shitty employee.

Not sure if Jeff heard, but he needs to cancel his plane ticket for the gathering of the juggalos. It's not happening this year.

They already said Gears Tactics is on Xbox by years end. That was stated on one of those major nelson youtube things.

TEST LOL

LOL TEST

Mixed Reality is not a MS invented term - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_reality

Also- I don't understand the "MS thought that Hololens would be a thing" statement when they are very much still working on it and they have massive contracts with multiple large organizations.

I was definitely not prepared for watching that WWE Battlegrounds teaser, and specifically the women, no matter how adamant Jeff and Jan were about how disturbing and bad it is.

Man Jeff sounds really depressed. I don’t mean that in a „he sucks“ way, more in a „is he okay?“ way. Stay safe people, hope you’re all well and get through this quarantine stuff.

@sethmode: I think I've realized the heart of the issue. They've made all the wrestlers look like little people. Given the history of "midget wrestling" that's a somewhat troubling direction to take.

The 2K games are very much about putting on a good match if you have them set at higher difficulties and find the sweet spot on reversal settings. Also, New Japan is the best wrestling promotion on the planet primarily because they treat their product as a sport, so taking that approach isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Oh, and is Jeff not aware of Retromania coming in July? We ARE getting a Superstars/Wrestlefest update...not with current WWE Superstars, but it's got the blessing of the original developers as the spiritual successor to the old games, and looks pretty god dang cool. It actually started out as a fan modded update of Wrestlefest on the Wrestling Legends Forum and eventually transitioned into something legit.

They'll definitely have to downscale Gears Tactics for Xbox, that game looks incredible in 4K on PC. Especially the ingame cutscenes are very impressive.

Hearing Brad's comments--one in particular actually--about TLoU 2's story regarding the big Metal Gear Solid 2 switcheroo and not thinking there will be anything like that...

Oh Brad. Please stay away from the leak. :P

So are these Giant Bomb Gaming Minute clips still happening?
I liked when they were uploaded here too.

I was listening to another podcast where someone mentioned reporting an island resident to Isabelle repeatedly to make them miserable as well. Where did the idea that reporting was some sort of grand mood setter or roster option come from? It’s been their cute, “in-universe” way to reset a villager to their default state. You’re supposed to use it when, say, one of your residents is wearing obscene custom shirts or someone made them say slurs as their catchphrase.

@undeadkink: +1 I was screaming at home when Brad said that...

I listened to the Twitch archive to hear their take on the Last of Us news, and considering the rampant worker abuse that the leak has spotlighted (and by which it may well have been prompted), having the most objectionable thing about the situation - the thing that sparks a Jeff rant - be "Hey, the greeting used in this PR statement to consumers was less than optimal" is headache-inducing.

Listening to people talk about Animal Crossing nonstop for over a month is kryptonite if you don’t care about Animal Crossing.

I just wanted to get it out there that my Nintendo account was breached, and I use a password manager very aggressively. There is no way my account could have been breached without Nintendo severs being compromised. That said, 2FA setup was surprisingly easy.

@indigozeal: Well Jeff did explicitly state at the start of that segment that the 'disgruntled worker' part is unsubstantiated at this point. So he avoided confirming that till there's a confirmation of it being the reason, which is pretty fair.

One thing Jan didn't get into with XCOM that I felt was that having a constant, small stable of characters meant all of the available characters were "viable", and I was much more willing (and frequently forced) to experiment with my team comp than in XCOM 2, where I had an A-Team and was terrified to swap in a Squaddie to level them up for fear they'd get themselves or the team killed

Maybe I'm an outlier and a heartless bastard, but the lockdown situation hasn't affected my mental state in the least and a statement like Naughty Dog's doesn't even register as off-base. I think people, particularly those with public-facing jobs, could help each other by lightening up a bit. Hope the GB Universe is well.

The electrical whine noise is unfortunately still present on this Bombcast from @brad. I mentioned it in the comments of the previous bombcast, but funnily enough you can't hear it on his solo vid Brad Does a Good Job. Hope it gets fixed as it is really jarring to listen to.

@jedikv: Yeah, but it doesn't exactly take Scotland Yard to consider: "hmmm, these employees are working 16-hour days, are getting hospitalized from overwork, and aren't being paid as promised - could this be a factor in this massive leak of info to which only those employees have access?". No, it's not confirmed - but it's probable, and even if the primary cause is a different source of employee dissatisfaction (like the story that alleged an amount of internal dissent about a certain plotline), you can't tell me severe habitual mistreatment isn't gonna be a factor at all in lashing out to such a degree against your employer.

An employee leaking game info represents the next, significant step in this huge ongoing story about crunch and the awful work culture in gaming. Before, the companies held all the cards - yeah, unionization efforts are out there, but they're slow going. This is a tactic that one disgruntled worker could employ that could be significantly damaging to companies. There's a whole conversation that could be had here: Is using such a tactic appropriate, given the larger picture? Is it understandable? You could at least note that it's a bellwether of how far relations between management and labor have deteriorated. The crew seemed completely disinterested, though, and it's tough not to extrapolate that a lack of interest in the crunch story as a whole. Handwaving employee working conditions with a "yeah, what an asshole, how could they do that to the team?", then moving on to complain at length about a line in an email that possibly may be a little tone-deaf is just a bad call and completely missing the significance of the story here.

@mistercoke: I really think that's just exhaustion. He's stuck at home trying to work and raise a 9-month-old baby at the same time.

Hey y'all if anyone wants my Villager named Audie (aka #5 most popular villager), hit me up baby.

I would argue the opposite in a sense shify. In that like, New Japan is one of if not the best wrestling promotion because it does its particular style of pro-wrestling (in this case as you say treating it like a sport) extremely well. It's not that "pro-wrestling that is sports-like is immediately superior to all other forms" its more like "No other style of pro-wrestling has been presented with the same creative skill, talent level and long-term mindset/market share".

Its a long held belief of mine, at least, that the WWE "Sports Entertainment" style can be just as impressive and entertaining as the New Japan style. It's much more about doing it well, then the styles themselves. Those two aren't even the only styles of pro-wrestling to exist and be wildly successful/popular/good. The Mexican Lucha style draws big crowds (or at least pre-covid it did) to the same arena for decades, say. The entire concept of Lucha Underground was enjoyed by a whole lot of people back when it still had money, talent and decent stories, and it was nothing like the other three styles in terms of "Its shot like a movie, the magic and monsters are real" and all of that.

Just pressing the point that like, pro-wrestling as a genre/concept can be great regardless of style. That WWE has provided/produced a shitty product for decades and been the only game in town for decades until very recently doesn't mean "treated like a sport"> "sports entertainment" or anything else. All forms of pro-wrestling 'can' be good/great. It really comes down to tastes in terms of what you like, more than one being actually superior to the other.

@bladededge: Lucha Underground isn't around anymore unfortunately, WWE has and continues to pull the curtain back too far on its product where it can never be consistent as it's at odds with itself being reality driven while still trying to pull off ultra cheesy crap that feels halfassed because they can't fully commit like they did in the Golden Era, and AEW still feels like they're trying to find their groove in many respects. It was never meant to be a statement that their brand of wrestling was the most enjoyable style because I too love and miss the circus like antics of yesteryear, it's just the approach New Japan takes is working out the best for them as a company, because of yes...consistancy, and the fact it's such a breath of fresh air when compared to what we're normally served up in the States, and treating it like a sport plays a big role in that.

@indigozeal: Probable is not certainty. That being said, I am (as a non influencing individual) do believe it was probably in part motivated by the past (or current) issues of working conditions. But given Jeff isn't on the scene and not close to the facts of the matter, clearly he doesn't want to speak authoritatively on it. Which is the responsible thing to do, and expected given his time in industry. I trust his judgment.

There's plenty of past segments in GB history where they've been very vocal about speaking out against worker abuses. So I don't assert that they don't care or just 'hand-waving it)

FYI, the movie where Rusev branded a gun was called Countdown. It starred Dolph Ziggler as a cop, Kane as his lieutenant, and a slew of WWE wrestlers as themselves, as part of the plot took place at a WWE event.

The 12 Rounds series of films (only three of those) started with Cena, continued with Randy Orton, and ended with Dean Jon Moxley Ambrose.

Test LOL

@bebpack You're a monster, Shari is the best.

@jedikv: I stand by what I said: worker abuse is so probable a motive that if you don't discuss it, you're sticking your head in the sand. Listen to almost any other discussion of industry news on the Bombcast, and you'll hear plenty of speculation, proposed scenarios, and assertions regarding industry decisions and behavior that are Omigod Not Absolutely 100% Video-Evidence Certain!. (Why aren't you protesting, for example, the speculation over the reasons for the WWE's decisions regarding the 2K franchise in the previous segment?) That's why you have analysts in the first place - their experience and insight allows them to explain and provide educated speculation about industry trends and events where the circumstances and rationale for decisions may not be 100% clear. I don't buy your case for not discussing the angle at all.

Yeah, they've discussed worker abuse in the past - but stories develop, and this is a hell of a huge development. If stuff keeps happening, you have to keep talking about it. Them's the news. Plus: this decision looks particularly bad after the much-discussed omission of the numerous worker rights issues that happened in 2019 from GotY. Limiting your discussion of the worker-rights angle to "wow, what a nasty thing to do to the team!", then going on to latch onto one line in some who-cares PR statement - taking that as the focus of the entire story - is a really bad call.

(ETA: I understand that we're all running low over the quarantine, doubly so in California. That said: I don't understand this attitude of "don't ask questions; just consume product" that seems to taking roost in areas of the gaming community that consider themselves progressive, apparently based on the rationale that to express doubts about corporate decisions regarding content or labor isn't "positive." "I care about consuming the product and deference to the consumer; I don't care about the human cost" is an attitude that's been the province of...well, the worst in the gaming community. I shouldn't have to name names by now.)

@indigozeal: I absolutely agree with you. It's very probable the leak was motivated by poor working conditions and, even if it wasn't (which I doubt), it has made people discuss the working conditions at ND and it's now attached to the story. Even if there isn't enough proof of connections between leaks and unhappy employees, there's already various sources of information about what's going on at ND, including articles from Kotaku (which is often the main source of news on the Bombcast) and, more importantly, tweets from former ND members including a long thread by a veteran lead animator.

@brainscratch: @indigozeal:

According to Jason Schrier, he's sceptical of the 'disgruntled employee' story so far given the sources he's talked to at Naughty Dog. So yes, I will hold off (as did Jeff) in making that assertion. Again, it's not a zero sum game, one can criticise widespread abuse of workers in the industry (As GB has done on multiple occasions) and still practise good journalism not jump to immediate conclusions. Jeff, Jason et al are far more versed in that than us random internet commenters.

Also who's saying don't critique the products we buy? This is literally what the site does, for years. Feels like we're going off track here.

I always thought Itagaki was douchey until I learned he was actually a giant weeb who was so awkward he couldn't talk to people, so one day he decided to wear shades and a jacket; faking it until he made it and he kind of did. I think that's pretty cool and endearing. I think you can still find some early interviews or at least photos of when he had a really bad pizza face and couldn't talk much.

I thought Brad was extremely reductive on FF7's fan reception on release. You can be cynical and say the same thing about any plot. I mean Last of Us is held up as a masterpiece but that story is the same thing we've seen on TV every week since Breaking Bad. Some stories/characters just land differently. I also thought it was pretty smart in FF7 how Aerith is the best healer, saving your ass in hard fights and when she's gone it's just like, uh, what now?

In regards to the new premium streams and the talk about watching old E3 press conferences, I would absolutely renew my membership just to watch a series of "Giant Bomb watches Giant Bomb watching E3"

I had the exact same reaction as Jeff when I saw that tweet from Naughty Dog, it’s absurd how to e-deaf their phrasing was. Hearing Jeff rant about it felt extremely cathartic.

Love the show as always! Just one small rant...

Please, for the love of god, mention the name of the game you are discussing! It feels like Beastcast is super aware to always mention the title of the game in discussion at least once or twice, while Brad love setups like "they also announced another game, thoughts?" and i'm here on my podcast app with no insight into 2K games and have no idea wtf they are talking about.

ben is right shari is the worst. i can't get her to leave either.