July 18, 2025 • 40 mins
This week we talk about Donkey Kong Bananza’s impressive release, rumors that Fallout 5 has been greenlit, Battlefield updates making influencers mad, Mass Effect fans being panicky, Sudden Strike 5 announced and much more. Click this link for my socials, all of my other content and ways to support: https://linktr.ee/baundiesel
00:00:00 | Intro
00:00:23 | Opening
00:07:44 | News
00:38:12 | Updates
00:39:07 | Wrap Up
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
This is the Bonfire Gaming Podcast episode 346.
I'm your host Morgan AKA Von Diesel, and this week we'll be
talking about Donkey Kong Bonanza entering the game of the
erase. Bethesda is full steam ahead on
Fallout 5. Mass Effect fans are freaking
out for no reason and much more.The small content creator
(00:26):
experiences is interesting and I've wanted to riff on for a
minute. I almost made a whole video
about it, but I realized I, you know, probably didn't really
have enough juice for it. But I think there's so much
focus and, and commentary on, you know, like big content
creators, right? People who are, are actually a a
bit more notable. And that leads to the situation
(00:47):
where I think, you know, most focus goes on the 1% or honestly
probably even less of content creators who have millions of
followers and subscribers who get millions of views on their
videos, hundreds of thousands oflistens on their podcasts and
stuff like that. But honestly, and I'm obviously
a little biased, I think it's kind of interesting to get some
(01:09):
thoughts from people who are much smaller people like myself.
And then honestly, maybe even more interestingly, the people
who are kind of in the middle, the people who get, you know,
5/10/20 thousand views on their videos, but not hundreds of
thousands or millions, right? You know, someone like me who's
even way smaller than that, who gets, you know, sometimes this
(01:29):
view as a couple, as dozens of views on the video or, you know,
maybe a couple, 100 on average, you know, or on podcasts.
Like for me, you know, for some full clarity, the most anyone
podcast of mine has ever gotten was like 2 or 3000 when The
Division 2 came out. And then it's been kind of
(01:50):
steady to clients since then. And then it kind of evened out
around it seems like it, it's settled in around 100 to 200
listens a week. I am OK with that.
I keep doing it because I'm not doing it to make money because I
can assure you a channel and youknow, a content creator of my
size is lucky if they don't, if they even break even and there's
(02:11):
a pretty good chance they're losing money by doing this
stuff. And and that's fine because
you're not doing it to get rich.I have a full time job.
This is my hobby, right? This is something I do for fun.
And, and honestly, I just kind of like it as as a creative
outlet more than anything. And I, I think that that doesn't
(02:35):
get a lot of attention. And I think that at least in
some capacity, that is a space and in a time where most big
creators seem so focused on clickbait and, you know, just,
you know, getting those ad, you know, those ads viewed and
getting ad revenue and, you know, you know, making sure that
they're safe and they don't get blacklisted by Nintendo.
(02:57):
And, you know, things like that,You know, the, the small medium
creator, you know, becomes, you know, kind of alluring in a way
where you have all the big ones.You know, people are either, you
know, influencers of some kind or journalists, but then they
leave and they start their own Patreon.
And we've seen that story 100 times.
You know, those people are so monetization focused that I
(03:19):
think you lose some honesty. I think you lose some
genuineness when it comes to, you know, the the kind of
content you're going to get frompeople like that.
I'm not necessarily saying the small creators are better.
You know, we're a dime a dozen and you know, if you think I
make good content, I appreciate that.
But there's people my size who make way better content and
(03:42):
there's also plenty who make wayworse content.
One thing that you'll know this is I think the most pathetic
thing that you can see is someone who's around my size
who's all in on clickbait. So they're trying to do the, the
full, gosh, I mean grums or whatever, you know, the full
toxic, anti woke blah, blah, blah way of making content and
(04:05):
still failing miserably at it. I, I, I find that to be one of
the more pathetic situations, which is fairly common if you
look around enough. But I, I think that there's
just, I, I wish there was just more focus and, and more
attention on the people who haveless invested, right?
This whole idea that you, you likely can get more genuine
(04:27):
thoughts and reviews and perspectives from people like me
who are doing this kind of for fun.
I, I don't really care if peopleagree with me about my thoughts
on Dragon Age, the Vale guard or, or, or whatever.
I, I don't need the, I, there's no reason for me to follow a,
you know, a, a, a common thread amongst, you know, all the big
(04:48):
people, all the big reviewers and stuff, because it doesn't
make any difference to me. It's the, it's the difference
between the video I make getting, you know, 100 and 200
views, right? Or if I hit the algorithm just
right or if I make enough peoplemad, maybe a couple 1000 views,
right. I, I, I just, I think it's
interesting to see people who dothis when there's no big future
(05:14):
in it for them. Because like for me, like I'm
never going to do this full time.
I don't want to and I don't havethe numbers to do it and I'd
likely never will. The the other part that's
interesting that I don't think it's a lot of attention is the,
the, the cooperative side of it.I've noticed that, you know,
obviously real big creators often collaborate and, and work
(05:35):
together. And there's always been this
thread among smaller content creators of like, yeah, we
should all band together and have our small, you know,
communities become bigger communities all together.
And, and while that's a nice idea, I've actually never found
it to really be true. If anything, I found that small
content creators, especially people who do intend on becoming
(05:57):
bigger and making this their full time gig and whatever are,
are often maybe not the, the, the most friendly folks and you
know, not the most genuinely willing to collaborate.
I've seen this. For me, it was the my
introduction to the Mass Effect community and, you know,
starting to make content about Mass Effect, starting to learn
(06:19):
about who the players were in the Mass Effect community when
it came to influencers and content creators and stuff.
And finding, you know, a handfulof people who are really great.
And then finding more than a handful of people who either
sucked from the first of moment or who kind of revealed
themselves over time to maybe not be the the best people on
(06:39):
earth. And that's been a learning
experience. Luckily, I knew to kind of keep
my guard up from the Division community back when I made
content for that. That was definitely a minefield
of humans where you had to be very careful about who you
trusted or didn't when you were trying to collaborate or just
who you associated with. But that's been another fun
(06:59):
lesson getting into Mass Effect content creation because it's
it's interesting to kind of sit back and look at the public
personas of people that you've kind of gotten to know, you
know, out outside of that realm,for better or worse.
(07:20):
And, you know, I've mostly been pretty diplomatic about that
stuff. But you know, once again, I find
myself as a content creator kindof doing my own thing.
Probably it's probably like 33% my fault, for better or worse.
But here we are. And that's why I wanted to talk
about to open up the show. So let's move on.
(07:44):
OK, let's get into the gaming news.
Honestly, a pretty light week this week.
This will probably be a fairly short episode.
First we have Donkey Kong. Bonanza has released and has
been reviewed. This is the second major Switch
to exclusive to come out after Mario Kart.
Mario Kart. Mario Kart was so funny that it
(08:05):
had it was scored so well by so many people and every time.
And this is actually kind of howI feel about Switch 2 as well.
Every time I would see people reviewing the Switch to or Mario
Kart, it just seemed like peoplewho knew the thing was just
fine, but knew that they, for various reasons, needed to kind
(08:28):
of hype it up. And I don't know, it's
definitely, you know, both the system, but especially Mario
Kart, the game is a situation where I know what the score is
of it. I've seen the scores and I don't
believe them, but maybe that's my own bias.
Donkey Kong has an open critic of 91.
The most of what I've seen from the reviews that I've caught is
(08:51):
that it's guy. It's kind of that level of, you
know, Mario Odyssey, you know, kind of that level of
platforming fun and mechanics and just kind of consistently
changing experience that is justreally, really, really great.
I mean, this game has essentially launched itself into
the game of the year conversation this year alongside
(09:13):
games like Death Stranding 2, Expedition 33, Kingdom Come,
Deliverance 2, and and so on. So it's going to be an
interesting game awards season this year.
I think probably very frustrating one for me because I
kind of see where the tides are changing.
You've got the the Sony game andthe Nintendo game are in the
(09:34):
talks now, which means that evenmy beloved Expedition 33 just
basically has no chance. The the games journalist who
vote on those awards, especiallyJeff Keeley's Tgas.
There is a very common thread amongst those folks.
So we'll see if that thread getscut, but I'm I'm guessing it
will not. We'll see as things get closer
(09:56):
though. One of the interesting things
about the Donkey Kong game though, is a lot of commentary
from the less fanboy reviewers and Digital Foundry being one of
the big ones, is that the performance is pretty terrible
on it. It's not great in handheld or
docked mode. It's got a lot of frame drops
(10:17):
and things like that. It's it's very playable.
From what I've seen. The critiques and stuff I've
seen of it is it's not like you can't play it.
It's obviously you find the play, but it's not great.
And that is strange for a game that doesn't seem all that
demanding. One of the big things that got
pointed out is that there's a lot of destruction and world
manipulation in the game. But none of it, it's all none of
(10:41):
its procedural, like none of it is physics based.
It's all just like if there's anenemy, a boss that you fight
that breaks apart throughout thefight, pieces of that boss
aren't flying off. They have just made like 8
different versions of that boss.And when you hit them in a
certain spot or hit them enough,they, you know, with, you know,
(11:02):
some shaders or however it works, transition to a different
model. You know, the, the model isn't
being deformed, right? Because that is extremely
expensive hardware wise. And, you know, I, I think this
is a conversation that's going to have to happen more as time
goes on. The Switch to isn't very
powerful and it's definitely more powerful than Switch one,
(11:24):
but the Switch 1 wasn't very powerful when it came out, you
know, eight years ago. And so we're running into that
same situation. And, and I've seen people really
trying to kind of ignore this orpretend like it's not an issue.
But the switch to is, is underpowered from launch.
And the big push with the switchto has been third party games.
You know, the the the biggest game to come out and the switch
(11:45):
to arguably is Cyberpunk and even it you know, runs it pretty
mediocre performance levels despite it being a 5 year old
game on quote UN quote brand newhardware.
That's a whole different conversation.
But for me, I think that there has to be at least some
conversation around that the that only the second first party
(12:05):
game to come out for the Switch to is already struggling to even
come to this. I don't want to call it a
promise, but this idea that the Switch to was at least going to
be powerful enough to make all its games 10AP60FPS And that
looks like that's not going to be a guarantee in the first year
of the system and almost certainly not as the as the
(12:28):
years go on. I've seen people push back on
this and be like, well, as the developers learn about the
system and figure out how to optimize it, it'll be better and
it will be because they're just going to make the games look
awful, just like they did with the switch 1, even though even
the switch one couldn't run its bad looking games that well
either. Obviously the switch to having
some form of DLSS having actually a pretty respectable
(12:51):
about of RAM in it having it it's it's processor and GPU are
going to be a big issue because they're very outdated.
They're they're old tech to say the least.
I I understand that most Nintendo gamers are going to say
they don't care about this, but it's just one of those things to
me where like the that one of the next big games for first
(13:14):
party for them is going to be the Pokémon ZA or whatever it's
called. I can't remember.
That's a game where if you look at the previews of it playing on
a switch to, you know, like it'san, it's a game that's based in
like a city. It's a Pokémon game that looks
like it's mostly based on a cityand the buildings are just big
(13:34):
cubes with flat textures attached to them that are
blurry. They look awful.
Like I just, I don't know. I, I don't know what it would
take. It's kind of like it with
PlayStation, Like I don't know how how few game, how many years
we they we can go where they release one game a year, shut
(13:56):
down studios, cancel games before anyone says like, hey,
maybe Sony's, you know, yeah, they sold a lot of PlayStation
fives. Maybe there are some issues here
though. You know, that conversation
doesn't happen. Nintendo has a brand new system
come out that already is struggling with its new games
and the games coming out soon look OK.
(14:17):
Even the Metroid game that they've shown off like, I mean,
it looks OK for like an old game, but it's not an old game.
It's going to be a new game on anew system.
And it, you know, looks pretty mid when it comes to the
technology and the and the graphics and stuff.
So, and, and even the performance, which is supposedly
going to be 120 FPS, but you know, we'll see.
So regardless, this Donkey Kong game is going to get a lot of
(14:41):
game of the year attention as itseems like it deserves, despite
any other issues with the hardware or with the
performance. People don't care about that.
If it's fun, that's what they should be.
That's what they should care about.
And that honestly, that's fine with me.
I just hope we don't completely lose any criticism in the in the
fandom. Bethesda has reportedly been
(15:04):
given the full green light for Fallout 5.
Who knows what that means for actual development that's
ongoing. We know that the bulk of that
Bethesda team is likely focused on the next Elder Scrolls game,
which is anticipated maybe in the next year or two.
And it's it got revealed like 5 or 6 years ago and we haven't
(15:24):
really heard much since. My guess is that we hear we'll
hear something fairly soon, but who knows.
I would say there's a pretty good chance there's at least a
team doing pre production on Fallout 5, if not maybe
extremely early stages of full production, but I can't imagine
that's really going to get goinguntil the next Elder Scrolls
game comes out. To be fair, there was no, you
(15:46):
know, real proof of this so far,but it does just kind of
logically make sense now. Something that came from this
conversation was accusations that the Zenimax MMO that was
cancelled was cancelled so that they could work on this.
There's been no proof of that orto to open up funding.
Actually, that seems to be not true, at least for the time
(16:08):
being. One of the main reasons is that
as far as we know and from what people can tell right now, the
Zenimax Online team that was working on that MMO thing was
called Blackbird, that no one was laid off from that team in
the recent layoffs despite theirgame being cancelled.
And then I'm under the impression it's a huge studio,
like 500 to 1000 people. And so that they, they have to
(16:31):
be working on something. Is there a chance they're
working, you know, going to be doing support or Co dev on the
next Fallout? Maybe they're already getting
that going. I could very well see a team at
Bethesda with Todd Howard kind of being the leads on that, but
letting another studio and theirown kind of circle actually do a
lot of the handwork. We'll have to wait and find out.
(16:54):
But I, you know, this was definitely one of those
situations of, you know, people trying to take some good news.
Hey, cool, Fallout 5 has been greenlit and try to, you know,
make it dour by throwing out thethe whole Zinemax thing.
It's very similar to something that actually just dropped
today. I'm recording this on July 18th
where Xbox is cutting off. They, they have a music and,
(17:18):
and, or ATV show and, and movie purchasing service that you can
buy through the Xbox game store.They're shutting that down and
they're doing it fairly abruptly.
And I saw like, oh, oh, the poorpeople who did this, you know,
they're only doing that because no one's using it.
Like I I've been on the Xbox since the 360.
(17:39):
I don't I'm not under the impression I've ever purchased a
single TV show or a single moviethrough that.
They've already assured people that, at least for the time
being, that you can still accessthat content, they just won't be
able to buy new. I I would be surprised if the
numbers of people actively engaging in in this in that
service is even in the multiple dozens out of millions of users.
(18:05):
I would be surprised if the number is even in the hundreds.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if it's in the dozens or less be
in. That would make sense that they
would shut it down. Like, you know, if no one's
using it, if that's not a service that people are, you
know, interacting with, then they don't need to keep it
because I have to assume they'repaying insane licensing fees and
(18:26):
all that kind of stuff for everything that's on there, even
if people aren't buying it, right?
So it kind of makes it not there.
There's no point in having that service if people aren't using
it. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe there's
millions of people using that service that I'm not aware of.
If that's the case, then Boo Xbox, you know, Boo hiss, right?
But my guess is that if that wasthe case, they wouldn't be
(18:47):
shutting it down because they'd be making tons of money off of
it. So again, just another one of
those things, and that's OK. We got a Battlefield Labs post
talking about the classes and how they're going to handle that
in the next game. Basically they're giving kind of
you can make choices as you progress and then use the
(19:10):
different classes in the game. So there's like the sniper class
or the Recon class. There's as you level it up,
there's perks and bonuses and stuff you get for, you know,
using certain weapons or certainequipment or, or gameplay
mechanics. And it looks like that once you
progress a class to a certain point, you can kind of pick a
fork in the road. And if you go one way, you know,
(19:31):
certain equipment or certain mechanics get boosted, or if you
go the other way, other ones do.And it, it's going to kind of
let you customize your, you know, your class to the way that
you prefer the play. I think that's really cool.
I like it a lot. From what I've seen, they have
pushed back on the idea that people have been kind of
(19:52):
freaking out about of wanting class restrictions for guns
again. In the old Battlefield games,
only certain classes could use assault rifles, only certain
ones could use submachine guns, only certain ones could use
sniper rifles and things like that.
And then they would always have like 1 category of like kind of
special or unique weapons that could be used by everyone.
And that was kind of cool. And they basically seem like
(20:14):
they're not going to do that this time.
That they are just going to let all the weapons be available for
everyone. It does look like that each
class is going to give fairly substantial bonuses to having
that class use certain weapons. So that they, they will be kind
of encouraging people to use, you know, the assault, you know,
to use assault rifles, the support class to use LMGS, the
(20:38):
Recon class to sniper rifles andso on.
But they, they aren't going to force it.
I'm kind of mixed on it. I I've liked the old system
because it did kind of define each of the classes a little bit
more. But I've also enjoyed
Battlefield 2042 using whatever I want.
And I'll tell you that even though the bonuses in that game
(20:59):
for sticking to certain gun types for certain classes,
they're actually pretty weak. I tend to do it anyways.
So I, I don't think it's that big of a deal.
One of the big things I will know about all of these updates
that Battlefield Labs has been posting is that a bunch of
influencers hate the things they're doing.
And I suspect that's a good thing.
Something I have felt even back to my days of, of the Division
(21:23):
and, and even before that, but especially since then, I have
seen so many games, or at least some games try to cater to their
hardcore content creation, influencer, PvP, whatever
people. And, and the problem with that
is, at least in my opinion, is that a content creator does not
(21:44):
care at all about the health of a game, about the fun of a game
for its community. All they care about is that they
can have clippable moments whilethey're making content.
It's a good example is in the division.
You know, the Division One, its PvP is awful.
It's so bad the the dark zone inthat game that it's a it's,
(22:06):
that's the main PvP place is so easily exploitable for various
reasons that you know, one person by using exploits and,
and you know, overtuned gear andthings like that.
You can have like one person whocan take down a whole server of
people who can go like 1 V 20, right?
And that is great for that one person, for that content
(22:28):
creator. That is great content, but it's
bad for the game and it always has been and always will be.
And so honestly, I have to, you know, maybe I'm being a bit edgy
here or whatever, but you know, seeing a bunch of Battlefield
influencers be mad about a bunchof these things who seemingly,
you know, they claim like they want, you know, to for the good
(22:49):
of the game and stuff like that.I am always going to be
suspicious of that. You know, these people want the
experience to be that they can dominate everyone else again, to
get clippable moments, to get highlight reels, to get this and
that for AD revenue and clicks and monetization and everything
and just attention in general. If those people are mad, it
(23:11):
means that they're probably doing good things for the
general player. And even though I am technically
a content creator or whatever, I'm also not one that cares
about that stuff because this isn't my livelihood.
I want it to be a good game for as many people as possible,
especially if the rumors that EAwants Battlefield to hit 100
million players or unique individuals is true, They they
(23:35):
can't just be catering the gamesto the top 1% players.
So we'll see what happens. Speaking of freaky now, we had
Mass Effect fans having a a fit in the last week.
Mike Gamble, who's the lead on the next Mass Effect game at
BioWare, retweeted the fan post about an old John Cena Instagram
(23:55):
post where he posted just a generic picture of the whole,
you know, of some of the crew ofMass Effect.
And back when that happened. And then now with this post, it
turned into a big thing of people being like, oh, is, is
Cena saying that he is going to be in the in the Amazon show or
in the movie or in the next gameor whatever.
(24:16):
And a bunch of people freaking out about it, like way too much.
Like how like making way too bigof a deal out of this being
like, oh, this isn't looking good for the future of Mass
Effect. And oh, this next the Amazon
show is cooked if he's involved in it.
And that's just, it's so silly for so many reasons.
And, and I will clarify that. I think even Gamble came out and
basically just said like, hey, like, I just thought this was
(24:39):
funny and I wanted to retweet it.
Like, don't look, you know, don't look too much into it or
whatever. And which is, you know,
obviously the truth. What is what should happen?
People shouldn't freak out either way.
But like, you know, I, I made a whole video about this, but the
summarise, the summary of it is 1.
John Cena is actually pretty good, especially he's like a bit
roll guy. If you've seen Peacemaker or
(25:01):
some of the other stuff he's been in.
I don't want him to be the main character in anything Mass
Effect really did, but as like asupporting cast guy or
something, that'd be dope. Have him play Grunt or
something. I don't know to the next Mass
Effect. Game needs Mass Effect to be put
on the map again first, whether it's the show or whether it's
(25:24):
other things. They, they, we can't do what we
did with Dragon Age The Vale Guard, not have a game for a
decade. Put the game out with very, you
know, with some marketing, but not a ton of IP building before
you put it out and then have it fall flat on its face for lots
of reasons and not sell as well as it should have.
Dragon Age the Vale Guard is a flawed game, but it's a really
(25:45):
good game that I think should have sold at least 345 million
copies at the very least. And, you know, maybe it will one
day, but it seems like it hasn'tso far.
And I think there's various reasons why it struggled sales
wise, but one of the big ones isthat the franchise disappeared
for 10 years and it just wasn't relevant anymore.
(26:05):
And, you know, whether it's JohnCena or other people and you
know, them, they're doing this show, they're probably going to
do more transmedia stuff with books and comics and maybe even
TV series and things like that. We're probably going to see
Shepherd in Fortnite at some point, right?
That stuff's OK because the whole point is to raise the
profile of the IP again. Maybe you don't like it.
(26:28):
Maybe the Amazon show is going to retell the story of the first
game and it's going to do it in live action and, and, and long
time hardcore fans are going to hate it.
But if it's even just decent, it's going to bring a bunch of
new people to the franchise. And then when the game comes
out, it's going to make it easier for them to sell the game
and to sell the world and to sell the IP and the franchise
(26:49):
and everything. So I, you know, if, if you're
truly a fan of Mass Effect and BioWare or whatever, I really
think you should try to at leastkeep an open mind about this
stuff because it's almost certainly coming.
And it's pretty necessary. If we, if you want more Dragon
Age games, maybe in the future, if you want more Mass Effect
games, if you want BioWare to continue to exist, you should
(27:13):
probably at least have somewhat of an open mind about this
stuff. I, I worry and I've seen it as a
pattern, but at least some of the content creators and
influencers and the BioWare MassEffect sphere.
I, I worry that, you know, whether it's genuine or not, I
can't really judge that there, there is definitely a, you know,
(27:34):
BioWare bad attitude and that nomatter what they do, these
people are going to tee off on them.
And I unfortunately believe it'smostly for clicks and for, you
know, to, to get attention and, and, and things like that,
because it's easy, because it's a, it's popular, right?
And I, I, I really worry that that's going to make the, the
(27:58):
next game a struggle to find success, even if it ends up
being really, really good. But maybe that's just me being a
worry wart. We'll have to wait and find out.
Sudden Strike 5A World War 2 RTShas been announced.
This made me so happy. Sudden Strike is a franchise I
have been playing since the veryfirst game.
(28:20):
It's a Age of Empires kind of more Company of Heroes style
World War 2A real time strategy game.
And even back in the day it was really cool because it had a.
Company of Heroes is a little more arcade.
Sudden Strike was much more likesimulation based and even back
in the day it was super cool. The first game came out in 2000
(28:41):
and I I had it I I remember having the disc and then the
second game came out a few yearslater.
The 4th game came out as recently as 2017, which I only I
discovered, you know, in the last couple of years and it's
fine. It's not the best game I've ever
played, but I've played the crapout of it.
I've played every single mission, every single campaign.
I've messed with these skirmishes and stuff where you
(29:03):
can do like, you know, procedural fights against AI.
It's that's not very it's not a strong point, unfortunately, but
it's still really cool and I honestly never thought of five
would ever happen. I kind of looked into the
developers and IP and stuff and it looked like it was kind of
dormant. But there's a new game coming
next year and I'm genuinely super pumped about that.
(29:23):
So I from what they've shown that it looks a lot like 4, I'm
going to bet that this is basically four with a bunch of
new missions and campaigns and stuff and with updated graphics
and all that stuff. Playing the game from 2017 even,
you'll notice that the settings and stuff like that are, you
know, it feels old, even though it doesn't seem like it really
(29:43):
should. But yeah, so I'm excited about a
new RTS. A investment group claims that
they think Grand Theft Auto 6 will sell 100 million copies in
the first year after release. That's insane.
It's not going to happen. But now, could it sell 203040
million? That wouldn't surprise me at
(30:04):
all. And just to be clear, most
games, if they sell 3 to 5 million, that's a huge success.
If they hit 10 million, that's an insanely big deal.
And if they go beyond that, you know, you're just getting crazy
numbers. So the fact that like I'm, I'm
being like no, they aren't goingto sell 100 million in a year,
but they could sell 30 is insane.
And I don't think it's in, I actually don't think it's
(30:26):
insane. For reference, Grand Theft Auto
5, which came out in like so like 2008 or something whenever
it came out has sold over, I believe it's around 215,000,000
copies, which is insane. It has spanned, I believe, 3
generations of consoles at this point, and I just that it's just
(30:49):
been such a cash cow for them. So for better or worse, I guess
congratulations. But could those numbers
eventually get hit for six? Maybe. 5 has been such a unique
situation that Grand Theft Auto 6 will probably only sell 100
million copies in its lifetime, as if that's a bad thing.
(31:10):
We'll see Nintendo. This is kind of the the more
quick hits here. Nintendo is banning consoles if
you insert second hand cartridges.
Comes from a story where someonebought a used cartridge for a
game not knowing that that cartridge was actually like
cloned and was not a legit copy of the game.
And they had their their consolelocked up and is banned
(31:33):
permanently. That is super interesting as the
one of the few pieces of hardware, one of the platforms
it's still very dedicated to, you know, keeping physical
media. These kind of issues are going
to be there and Nintendo is going to be the least forgiving
and the least flexible of all ofthese companies when it comes to
(31:55):
this kind of stuff. I suspect you could have, you
know, notarized proof that you didn't know this was a bad
cartridge. You literally just thought you
were buying a second hand cartridge from someone and it
looks legit. It has all the right stuff on it
and Nintendo will not care. You will never be unbanned from
that. Now will they be happy for you
to buy another console and set up a new account?
(32:17):
I suspect they'll be OK with that.
But yeah, good luck with all that.
Cyberpunk 2077 had patch 2.3 getannounced and then revealed
What's in it. I think that like they made like
an event out of this like they did a live stream and they kind
of teased it for a minute and all that.
It's the most quality of life update ever.
(32:41):
There is nothing substantial in this upgrade in this in this
patch. And this really should have just
been a we heard nothing and thenthey released like, hey, here's
patch 2.3, here's some things init.
Enjoy tunes and moved on, but them kind of hyping it up a
little bit. There were definitely people who
thought there was going to be atleast some kind of new content.
(33:03):
I think that was kind of dirty business.
And I really think CDPR needs tobe careful with even the the
hint of promising and then underdelivering because while
everyone else has forgiven them for Cyberpunk 2077, I have not.
And even though I really like the game, I think it's a, it's
(33:25):
an incredible game. It's still like 1/4 the game
that they claimed it was going to be, even after all these
years and all these fixes and everything.
But you know, it's still a good game.
It's just not the game that theysaid they were making, in my
opinion. And I suspect it's going to
happen again with Witcher 4, butwe'll see.
The Crafton Subnautica founder situation has gotten even
(33:48):
murkier. First some leaked documents came
out supporting Crafton, and thenCrafton conveniently almost
immediately confirmed they were actually real documents.
There's a lot of kind of side eye about whether or not that
was a intentional leak of info that was then followed up by the
the the remove Subnautica dev founders claiming that Crafton
(34:09):
intentionally Hanford the game'sdevelopment to prevent them from
hitting markers in the development that would have
given the founders these huge bonus payouts.
In the light in the, you know, in the aftermath of all this, it
seems like Crafton's basically saying that the the developers
who were also supposed to get a part of these bonuses will get
(34:30):
those bonuses. But the the fight here is
obviously with the founders who are no longer there, who were
likely going to get like, you know, double, if not triple
digit $1,000,000, you know, bonus part of that bonus.
That's obviously the rub here. So I'm curious how this plays
out. I still think that, you know, I,
(34:51):
I wish for the best. I I hope I'm wrong.
But when everyone was celebrating Craft and buying
Tango Gameworks and the Hi-fi Rush IP as if they were some
kind of saviors, I think we needto be careful about ever
thinking that a billion dollar corporation is doing things for
good reason. And the people, you know, maybe
didn't pay much attention to theprevious issues Crafton has had
(35:15):
and how they aren't. They don't seem to manage things
very well. And I will still argue to this
day that if Xbox didn't think itcould make Tango Gameworks A
viable developer studio, I don'tknow what crafting can do that
Microsoft couldn't other than just get some good vibes off of
(35:36):
spending some money on them. I still to this day don't think
we'll ever see High Fi Rush 2 Void, the studio that makes Dead
or Alive that is not ready or not is what I was supposed to
type there. Whoops has removed some
controversial elements of their SWAT based game, including
things like some extreme elements of violence, nudity and
(36:01):
other graphic contents. Some of that involves like
violence towards children and things like that.
Whether you're not is if you ever played the old SWAT games
where it was a first person game, where it was very
tactical, slow base, like very realistic SWAT game where you
had to like arrest people or shoot people if they were a
threat and try to save hostages and do all this stuff.
Whether you're not is the spiritual successor of that.
(36:23):
And it's a very modern version of it.
So it has, you know, tons of mechanics and, and all kinds of,
you know, has a dismemberment of, of, of people you're
shooting at. And it's, it's insane.
From what I've seen of it, it's a very gritty, rough game.
People are mad that it basicallythey, you know, the consoles are
pretty open to violence, all that stuff, but they have their
(36:46):
limitations. And it seems like that the Void
studio basically, you know, agreed to some of these
limitations to to censor some ofthis stuff to get the game onto
the console platforms. And a bunch of their players are
mad. Some of them are mad just
because of censorship in generaland others are mad because the
experience is just going to be different on PC and console,
(37:07):
which could lead to issues with multiplayer and things like
that. I'm curious to check the game
out. I don't really know how big of a
deal it is. What got removed?
I I understand some people are like absolutist about
censorship. I'm a little more lenient but
that's a whole different conversation.
The Zelda movie has cast a Link in Zelda.
They are too, from what I can tell, fairly unknown actors.
(37:29):
The the Link actor I believe is 16 or 17 years old.
The actress for Zelda is in her early 20s or mid 20s I think.
I'm curious to how this plays out.
I don't know if I need to see a live action Zelda game movie,
but we'll have to wait and see. And then finally, this isn't
(37:50):
really even game related, but HBOHBO's Harry Potter show has
revealed their Harry Potter actor and it's a child, so I'm
not being serious about what I'mabout to say, but he looks like
someone that you would push intoa locker and call a nerd and so
that makes him perfect for the role.
Congratulations to that show. OK with content updates, nothing
(38:15):
real big. I don't think I have anything
major coming up or to announce. I do want to double down on
making videos here and as as time comes up, the summer is
kind of wrapping up and I shouldhave a little more free time to
do that kind of stuff. So look out for that.
I say it every week, but I'm trying to finish my stupid Mass
Effect modded playthrough. We're past Rannok now.
(38:36):
We're in the final kind of finalthird of the game it seems like,
so we'll see if I ever get back to that.
I'm sure I will finish it soonerand later.
My goal, unfortunately is to finish the playthrough before in
seven day and that seems like itshould be easy, but that's less
than four months away and at my current pace, it's not a
guarantee. So make sure to follow me over
(38:58):
on Twitch and and check me out there when I randomly get on on
a random like Tuesday. And that is we're going to wrap
this one up. Thank you so much for listening
to this episode. Subscribe to the show on your
favorite podcast app, leave a review on Spotify or iTunes and
subscribe to the Von Diesel YouTube channel to get all of my
(39:19):
videos, including this podcast. Thank you to everyone who
supports as YouTube members and or Twitch subscribers.
If you're interested in supporting this podcast and all
of my other content, please check out the links in the show
description. If you have any questions or
feedback, hit me up on social media at Von Diesel or at the
Bonfire. Check out my Discord, which you
can see in the link tree link and all of my content, or leave
(39:42):
a comment on Spotify or YouTube.That is all I have for this
episode of the Bonfire Gaming Podcast, so until next time.
This is the Bonfire Gaming Podcast episode 346.
I'm your host Morgan AKA Von Diesel, and this week we'll be
talking about Donkey Kong Bonanza entering the game of the
erase. Bethesda is full steam ahead on
Fallout 5. Mass Effect fans are freaking
out for no reason and much more.The small content creator
(00:26):
experiences is interesting and I've wanted to riff on for a
minute. I almost made a whole video
about it, but I realized I, you know, probably didn't really
have enough juice for it. But I think there's so much
focus and, and commentary on, you know, like big content
creators, right? People who are, are actually a a
bit more notable. And that leads to the situation
(00:47):
where I think, you know, most focus goes on the 1% or honestly
probably even less of content creators who have millions of
followers and subscribers who get millions of views on their
videos, hundreds of thousands oflistens on their podcasts and
stuff like that. But honestly, and I'm obviously
a little biased, I think it's kind of interesting to get some
(01:09):
thoughts from people who are much smaller people like myself.
And then honestly, maybe even more interestingly, the people
who are kind of in the middle, the people who get, you know,
5/10/20 thousand views on their videos, but not hundreds of
thousands or millions, right? You know, someone like me who's
even way smaller than that, who gets, you know, sometimes this
(01:29):
view as a couple, as dozens of views on the video or, you know,
maybe a couple, 100 on average, you know, or on podcasts.
Like for me, you know, for some full clarity, the most anyone
podcast of mine has ever gotten was like 2 or 3000 when The
Division 2 came out. And then it's been kind of
(01:50):
steady to clients since then. And then it kind of evened out
around it seems like it, it's settled in around 100 to 200
listens a week. I am OK with that.
I keep doing it because I'm not doing it to make money because I
can assure you a channel and youknow, a content creator of my
size is lucky if they don't, if they even break even and there's
(02:11):
a pretty good chance they're losing money by doing this
stuff. And and that's fine because
you're not doing it to get rich.I have a full time job.
This is my hobby, right? This is something I do for fun.
And, and honestly, I just kind of like it as as a creative
outlet more than anything. And I, I think that that doesn't
(02:35):
get a lot of attention. And I think that at least in
some capacity, that is a space and in a time where most big
creators seem so focused on clickbait and, you know, just,
you know, getting those ad, you know, those ads viewed and
getting ad revenue and, you know, you know, making sure that
they're safe and they don't get blacklisted by Nintendo.
(02:57):
And, you know, things like that,You know, the, the small medium
creator, you know, becomes, you know, kind of alluring in a way
where you have all the big ones.You know, people are either, you
know, influencers of some kind or journalists, but then they
leave and they start their own Patreon.
And we've seen that story 100 times.
You know, those people are so monetization focused that I
(03:19):
think you lose some honesty. I think you lose some
genuineness when it comes to, you know, the the kind of
content you're going to get frompeople like that.
I'm not necessarily saying the small creators are better.
You know, we're a dime a dozen and you know, if you think I
make good content, I appreciate that.
But there's people my size who make way better content and
(03:42):
there's also plenty who make wayworse content.
One thing that you'll know this is I think the most pathetic
thing that you can see is someone who's around my size
who's all in on clickbait. So they're trying to do the, the
full, gosh, I mean grums or whatever, you know, the full
toxic, anti woke blah, blah, blah way of making content and
(04:05):
still failing miserably at it. I, I, I find that to be one of
the more pathetic situations, which is fairly common if you
look around enough. But I, I think that there's
just, I, I wish there was just more focus and, and more
attention on the people who haveless invested, right?
This whole idea that you, you likely can get more genuine
(04:27):
thoughts and reviews and perspectives from people like me
who are doing this kind of for fun.
I, I don't really care if peopleagree with me about my thoughts
on Dragon Age, the Vale guard or, or, or whatever.
I, I don't need the, I, there's no reason for me to follow a,
you know, a, a, a common thread amongst, you know, all the big
(04:48):
people, all the big reviewers and stuff, because it doesn't
make any difference to me. It's the, it's the difference
between the video I make getting, you know, 100 and 200
views, right? Or if I hit the algorithm just
right or if I make enough peoplemad, maybe a couple 1000 views,
right. I, I, I just, I think it's
interesting to see people who dothis when there's no big future
(05:14):
in it for them. Because like for me, like I'm
never going to do this full time.
I don't want to and I don't havethe numbers to do it and I'd
likely never will. The the other part that's
interesting that I don't think it's a lot of attention is the,
the, the cooperative side of it.I've noticed that, you know,
obviously real big creators often collaborate and, and work
(05:35):
together. And there's always been this
thread among smaller content creators of like, yeah, we
should all band together and have our small, you know,
communities become bigger communities all together.
And, and while that's a nice idea, I've actually never found
it to really be true. If anything, I found that small
content creators, especially people who do intend on becoming
(05:57):
bigger and making this their full time gig and whatever are,
are often maybe not the, the, the most friendly folks and you
know, not the most genuinely willing to collaborate.
I've seen this. For me, it was the my
introduction to the Mass Effect community and, you know,
starting to make content about Mass Effect, starting to learn
(06:19):
about who the players were in the Mass Effect community when
it came to influencers and content creators and stuff.
And finding, you know, a handfulof people who are really great.
And then finding more than a handful of people who either
sucked from the first of moment or who kind of revealed
themselves over time to maybe not be the the best people on
(06:39):
earth. And that's been a learning
experience. Luckily, I knew to kind of keep
my guard up from the Division community back when I made
content for that. That was definitely a minefield
of humans where you had to be very careful about who you
trusted or didn't when you were trying to collaborate or just
who you associated with. But that's been another fun
(06:59):
lesson getting into Mass Effect content creation because it's
it's interesting to kind of sit back and look at the public
personas of people that you've kind of gotten to know, you
know, out outside of that realm,for better or worse.
(07:20):
And, you know, I've mostly been pretty diplomatic about that
stuff. But you know, once again, I find
myself as a content creator kindof doing my own thing.
Probably it's probably like 33% my fault, for better or worse.
But here we are. And that's why I wanted to talk
about to open up the show. So let's move on.
(07:44):
OK, let's get into the gaming news.
Honestly, a pretty light week this week.
This will probably be a fairly short episode.
First we have Donkey Kong. Bonanza has released and has
been reviewed. This is the second major Switch
to exclusive to come out after Mario Kart.
Mario Kart. Mario Kart was so funny that it
(08:05):
had it was scored so well by so many people and every time.
And this is actually kind of howI feel about Switch 2 as well.
Every time I would see people reviewing the Switch to or Mario
Kart, it just seemed like peoplewho knew the thing was just
fine, but knew that they, for various reasons, needed to kind
(08:28):
of hype it up. And I don't know, it's
definitely, you know, both the system, but especially Mario
Kart, the game is a situation where I know what the score is
of it. I've seen the scores and I don't
believe them, but maybe that's my own bias.
Donkey Kong has an open critic of 91.
The most of what I've seen from the reviews that I've caught is
(08:51):
that it's guy. It's kind of that level of, you
know, Mario Odyssey, you know, kind of that level of
platforming fun and mechanics and just kind of consistently
changing experience that is justreally, really, really great.
I mean, this game has essentially launched itself into
the game of the year conversation this year alongside
(09:13):
games like Death Stranding 2, Expedition 33, Kingdom Come,
Deliverance 2, and and so on. So it's going to be an
interesting game awards season this year.
I think probably very frustrating one for me because I
kind of see where the tides are changing.
You've got the the Sony game andthe Nintendo game are in the
(09:34):
talks now, which means that evenmy beloved Expedition 33 just
basically has no chance. The the games journalist who
vote on those awards, especiallyJeff Keeley's Tgas.
There is a very common thread amongst those folks.
So we'll see if that thread getscut, but I'm I'm guessing it
will not. We'll see as things get closer
(09:56):
though. One of the interesting things
about the Donkey Kong game though, is a lot of commentary
from the less fanboy reviewers and Digital Foundry being one of
the big ones, is that the performance is pretty terrible
on it. It's not great in handheld or
docked mode. It's got a lot of frame drops
(10:17):
and things like that. It's it's very playable.
From what I've seen. The critiques and stuff I've
seen of it is it's not like you can't play it.
It's obviously you find the play, but it's not great.
And that is strange for a game that doesn't seem all that
demanding. One of the big things that got
pointed out is that there's a lot of destruction and world
manipulation in the game. But none of it, it's all none of
(10:41):
its procedural, like none of it is physics based.
It's all just like if there's anenemy, a boss that you fight
that breaks apart throughout thefight, pieces of that boss
aren't flying off. They have just made like 8
different versions of that boss.And when you hit them in a
certain spot or hit them enough,they, you know, with, you know,
(11:02):
some shaders or however it works, transition to a different
model. You know, the, the model isn't
being deformed, right? Because that is extremely
expensive hardware wise. And, you know, I, I think this
is a conversation that's going to have to happen more as time
goes on. The Switch to isn't very
powerful and it's definitely more powerful than Switch one,
(11:24):
but the Switch 1 wasn't very powerful when it came out, you
know, eight years ago. And so we're running into that
same situation. And, and I've seen people really
trying to kind of ignore this orpretend like it's not an issue.
But the switch to is, is underpowered from launch.
And the big push with the switchto has been third party games.
You know, the the the biggest game to come out and the switch
(11:45):
to arguably is Cyberpunk and even it you know, runs it pretty
mediocre performance levels despite it being a 5 year old
game on quote UN quote brand newhardware.
That's a whole different conversation.
But for me, I think that there has to be at least some
conversation around that the that only the second first party
(12:05):
game to come out for the Switch to is already struggling to even
come to this. I don't want to call it a
promise, but this idea that the Switch to was at least going to
be powerful enough to make all its games 10AP60FPS And that
looks like that's not going to be a guarantee in the first year
of the system and almost certainly not as the as the
(12:28):
years go on. I've seen people push back on
this and be like, well, as the developers learn about the
system and figure out how to optimize it, it'll be better and
it will be because they're just going to make the games look
awful, just like they did with the switch 1, even though even
the switch one couldn't run its bad looking games that well
either. Obviously the switch to having
some form of DLSS having actually a pretty respectable
(12:51):
about of RAM in it having it it's it's processor and GPU are
going to be a big issue because they're very outdated.
They're they're old tech to say the least.
I I understand that most Nintendo gamers are going to say
they don't care about this, but it's just one of those things to
me where like the that one of the next big games for first
(13:14):
party for them is going to be the Pokémon ZA or whatever it's
called. I can't remember.
That's a game where if you look at the previews of it playing on
a switch to, you know, like it'san, it's a game that's based in
like a city. It's a Pokémon game that looks
like it's mostly based on a cityand the buildings are just big
(13:34):
cubes with flat textures attached to them that are
blurry. They look awful.
Like I just, I don't know. I, I don't know what it would
take. It's kind of like it with
PlayStation, Like I don't know how how few game, how many years
we they we can go where they release one game a year, shut
(13:56):
down studios, cancel games before anyone says like, hey,
maybe Sony's, you know, yeah, they sold a lot of PlayStation
fives. Maybe there are some issues here
though. You know, that conversation
doesn't happen. Nintendo has a brand new system
come out that already is struggling with its new games
and the games coming out soon look OK.
(14:17):
Even the Metroid game that they've shown off like, I mean,
it looks OK for like an old game, but it's not an old game.
It's going to be a new game on anew system.
And it, you know, looks pretty mid when it comes to the
technology and the and the graphics and stuff.
So, and, and even the performance, which is supposedly
going to be 120 FPS, but you know, we'll see.
So regardless, this Donkey Kong game is going to get a lot of
(14:41):
game of the year attention as itseems like it deserves, despite
any other issues with the hardware or with the
performance. People don't care about that.
If it's fun, that's what they should be.
That's what they should care about.
And that honestly, that's fine with me.
I just hope we don't completely lose any criticism in the in the
fandom. Bethesda has reportedly been
(15:04):
given the full green light for Fallout 5.
Who knows what that means for actual development that's
ongoing. We know that the bulk of that
Bethesda team is likely focused on the next Elder Scrolls game,
which is anticipated maybe in the next year or two.
And it's it got revealed like 5 or 6 years ago and we haven't
(15:24):
really heard much since. My guess is that we hear we'll
hear something fairly soon, but who knows.
I would say there's a pretty good chance there's at least a
team doing pre production on Fallout 5, if not maybe
extremely early stages of full production, but I can't imagine
that's really going to get goinguntil the next Elder Scrolls
game comes out. To be fair, there was no, you
(15:46):
know, real proof of this so far,but it does just kind of
logically make sense now. Something that came from this
conversation was accusations that the Zenimax MMO that was
cancelled was cancelled so that they could work on this.
There's been no proof of that orto to open up funding.
Actually, that seems to be not true, at least for the time
(16:08):
being. One of the main reasons is that
as far as we know and from what people can tell right now, the
Zenimax Online team that was working on that MMO thing was
called Blackbird, that no one was laid off from that team in
the recent layoffs despite theirgame being cancelled.
And then I'm under the impression it's a huge studio,
like 500 to 1000 people. And so that they, they have to
(16:31):
be working on something. Is there a chance they're
working, you know, going to be doing support or Co dev on the
next Fallout? Maybe they're already getting
that going. I could very well see a team at
Bethesda with Todd Howard kind of being the leads on that, but
letting another studio and theirown kind of circle actually do a
lot of the handwork. We'll have to wait and find out.
(16:54):
But I, you know, this was definitely one of those
situations of, you know, people trying to take some good news.
Hey, cool, Fallout 5 has been greenlit and try to, you know,
make it dour by throwing out thethe whole Zinemax thing.
It's very similar to something that actually just dropped
today. I'm recording this on July 18th
where Xbox is cutting off. They, they have a music and,
(17:18):
and, or ATV show and, and movie purchasing service that you can
buy through the Xbox game store.They're shutting that down and
they're doing it fairly abruptly.
And I saw like, oh, oh, the poorpeople who did this, you know,
they're only doing that because no one's using it.
Like I I've been on the Xbox since the 360.
(17:39):
I don't I'm not under the impression I've ever purchased a
single TV show or a single moviethrough that.
They've already assured people that, at least for the time
being, that you can still accessthat content, they just won't be
able to buy new. I I would be surprised if the
numbers of people actively engaging in in this in that
service is even in the multiple dozens out of millions of users.
(18:05):
I would be surprised if the number is even in the hundreds.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if it's in the dozens or less be
in. That would make sense that they
would shut it down. Like, you know, if no one's
using it, if that's not a service that people are, you
know, interacting with, then they don't need to keep it
because I have to assume they'repaying insane licensing fees and
(18:26):
all that kind of stuff for everything that's on there, even
if people aren't buying it, right?
So it kind of makes it not there.
There's no point in having that service if people aren't using
it. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe there's
millions of people using that service that I'm not aware of.
If that's the case, then Boo Xbox, you know, Boo hiss, right?
But my guess is that if that wasthe case, they wouldn't be
(18:47):
shutting it down because they'd be making tons of money off of
it. So again, just another one of
those things, and that's OK. We got a Battlefield Labs post
talking about the classes and how they're going to handle that
in the next game. Basically they're giving kind of
you can make choices as you progress and then use the
(19:10):
different classes in the game. So there's like the sniper class
or the Recon class. There's as you level it up,
there's perks and bonuses and stuff you get for, you know,
using certain weapons or certainequipment or, or gameplay
mechanics. And it looks like that once you
progress a class to a certain point, you can kind of pick a
fork in the road. And if you go one way, you know,
(19:31):
certain equipment or certain mechanics get boosted, or if you
go the other way, other ones do.And it, it's going to kind of
let you customize your, you know, your class to the way that
you prefer the play. I think that's really cool.
I like it a lot. From what I've seen, they have
pushed back on the idea that people have been kind of
(19:52):
freaking out about of wanting class restrictions for guns
again. In the old Battlefield games,
only certain classes could use assault rifles, only certain
ones could use submachine guns, only certain ones could use
sniper rifles and things like that.
And then they would always have like 1 category of like kind of
special or unique weapons that could be used by everyone.
And that was kind of cool. And they basically seem like
(20:14):
they're not going to do that this time.
That they are just going to let all the weapons be available for
everyone. It does look like that each
class is going to give fairly substantial bonuses to having
that class use certain weapons. So that they, they will be kind
of encouraging people to use, you know, the assault, you know,
to use assault rifles, the support class to use LMGS, the
(20:38):
Recon class to sniper rifles andso on.
But they, they aren't going to force it.
I'm kind of mixed on it. I I've liked the old system
because it did kind of define each of the classes a little bit
more. But I've also enjoyed
Battlefield 2042 using whatever I want.
And I'll tell you that even though the bonuses in that game
(20:59):
for sticking to certain gun types for certain classes,
they're actually pretty weak. I tend to do it anyways.
So I, I don't think it's that big of a deal.
One of the big things I will know about all of these updates
that Battlefield Labs has been posting is that a bunch of
influencers hate the things they're doing.
And I suspect that's a good thing.
Something I have felt even back to my days of, of the Division
(21:23):
and, and even before that, but especially since then, I have
seen so many games, or at least some games try to cater to their
hardcore content creation, influencer, PvP, whatever
people. And, and the problem with that
is, at least in my opinion, is that a content creator does not
(21:44):
care at all about the health of a game, about the fun of a game
for its community. All they care about is that they
can have clippable moments whilethey're making content.
It's a good example is in the division.
You know, the Division One, its PvP is awful.
It's so bad the the dark zone inthat game that it's a it's,
(22:06):
that's the main PvP place is so easily exploitable for various
reasons that you know, one person by using exploits and,
and you know, overtuned gear andthings like that.
You can have like one person whocan take down a whole server of
people who can go like 1 V 20, right?
And that is great for that one person, for that content
(22:28):
creator. That is great content, but it's
bad for the game and it always has been and always will be.
And so honestly, I have to, you know, maybe I'm being a bit edgy
here or whatever, but you know, seeing a bunch of Battlefield
influencers be mad about a bunchof these things who seemingly,
you know, they claim like they want, you know, to for the good
(22:49):
of the game and stuff like that.I am always going to be
suspicious of that. You know, these people want the
experience to be that they can dominate everyone else again, to
get clippable moments, to get highlight reels, to get this and
that for AD revenue and clicks and monetization and everything
and just attention in general. If those people are mad, it
(23:11):
means that they're probably doing good things for the
general player. And even though I am technically
a content creator or whatever, I'm also not one that cares
about that stuff because this isn't my livelihood.
I want it to be a good game for as many people as possible,
especially if the rumors that EAwants Battlefield to hit 100
million players or unique individuals is true, They they
(23:35):
can't just be catering the gamesto the top 1% players.
So we'll see what happens. Speaking of freaky now, we had
Mass Effect fans having a a fit in the last week.
Mike Gamble, who's the lead on the next Mass Effect game at
BioWare, retweeted the fan post about an old John Cena Instagram
(23:55):
post where he posted just a generic picture of the whole,
you know, of some of the crew ofMass Effect.
And back when that happened. And then now with this post, it
turned into a big thing of people being like, oh, is, is
Cena saying that he is going to be in the in the Amazon show or
in the movie or in the next gameor whatever.
(24:16):
And a bunch of people freaking out about it, like way too much.
Like how like making way too bigof a deal out of this being
like, oh, this isn't looking good for the future of Mass
Effect. And oh, this next the Amazon
show is cooked if he's involved in it.
And that's just, it's so silly for so many reasons.
And, and I will clarify that. I think even Gamble came out and
basically just said like, hey, like, I just thought this was
(24:39):
funny and I wanted to retweet it.
Like, don't look, you know, don't look too much into it or
whatever. And which is, you know,
obviously the truth. What is what should happen?
People shouldn't freak out either way.
But like, you know, I, I made a whole video about this, but the
summarise, the summary of it is 1.
John Cena is actually pretty good, especially he's like a bit
roll guy. If you've seen Peacemaker or
(25:01):
some of the other stuff he's been in.
I don't want him to be the main character in anything Mass
Effect really did, but as like asupporting cast guy or
something, that'd be dope. Have him play Grunt or
something. I don't know to the next Mass
Effect. Game needs Mass Effect to be put
on the map again first, whether it's the show or whether it's
(25:24):
other things. They, they, we can't do what we
did with Dragon Age The Vale Guard, not have a game for a
decade. Put the game out with very, you
know, with some marketing, but not a ton of IP building before
you put it out and then have it fall flat on its face for lots
of reasons and not sell as well as it should have.
Dragon Age the Vale Guard is a flawed game, but it's a really
(25:45):
good game that I think should have sold at least 345 million
copies at the very least. And, you know, maybe it will one
day, but it seems like it hasn'tso far.
And I think there's various reasons why it struggled sales
wise, but one of the big ones isthat the franchise disappeared
for 10 years and it just wasn't relevant anymore.
(26:05):
And, you know, whether it's JohnCena or other people and you
know, them, they're doing this show, they're probably going to
do more transmedia stuff with books and comics and maybe even
TV series and things like that. We're probably going to see
Shepherd in Fortnite at some point, right?
That stuff's OK because the whole point is to raise the
profile of the IP again. Maybe you don't like it.
(26:28):
Maybe the Amazon show is going to retell the story of the first
game and it's going to do it in live action and, and, and long
time hardcore fans are going to hate it.
But if it's even just decent, it's going to bring a bunch of
new people to the franchise. And then when the game comes
out, it's going to make it easier for them to sell the game
and to sell the world and to sell the IP and the franchise
(26:49):
and everything. So I, you know, if, if you're
truly a fan of Mass Effect and BioWare or whatever, I really
think you should try to at leastkeep an open mind about this
stuff because it's almost certainly coming.
And it's pretty necessary. If we, if you want more Dragon
Age games, maybe in the future, if you want more Mass Effect
games, if you want BioWare to continue to exist, you should
(27:13):
probably at least have somewhat of an open mind about this
stuff. I, I worry and I've seen it as a
pattern, but at least some of the content creators and
influencers and the BioWare MassEffect sphere.
I, I worry that, you know, whether it's genuine or not, I
can't really judge that there, there is definitely a, you know,
(27:34):
BioWare bad attitude and that nomatter what they do, these
people are going to tee off on them.
And I unfortunately believe it'smostly for clicks and for, you
know, to, to get attention and, and, and things like that,
because it's easy, because it's a, it's popular, right?
And I, I, I really worry that that's going to make the, the
(27:58):
next game a struggle to find success, even if it ends up
being really, really good. But maybe that's just me being a
worry wart. We'll have to wait and find out.
Sudden Strike 5A World War 2 RTShas been announced.
This made me so happy. Sudden Strike is a franchise I
have been playing since the veryfirst game.
(28:20):
It's a Age of Empires kind of more Company of Heroes style
World War 2A real time strategy game.
And even back in the day it was really cool because it had a.
Company of Heroes is a little more arcade.
Sudden Strike was much more likesimulation based and even back
in the day it was super cool. The first game came out in 2000
(28:41):
and I I had it I I remember having the disc and then the
second game came out a few yearslater.
The 4th game came out as recently as 2017, which I only I
discovered, you know, in the last couple of years and it's
fine. It's not the best game I've ever
played, but I've played the crapout of it.
I've played every single mission, every single campaign.
I've messed with these skirmishes and stuff where you
(29:03):
can do like, you know, procedural fights against AI.
It's that's not very it's not a strong point, unfortunately, but
it's still really cool and I honestly never thought of five
would ever happen. I kind of looked into the
developers and IP and stuff and it looked like it was kind of
dormant. But there's a new game coming
next year and I'm genuinely super pumped about that.
(29:23):
So I from what they've shown that it looks a lot like 4, I'm
going to bet that this is basically four with a bunch of
new missions and campaigns and stuff and with updated graphics
and all that stuff. Playing the game from 2017 even,
you'll notice that the settings and stuff like that are, you
know, it feels old, even though it doesn't seem like it really
(29:43):
should. But yeah, so I'm excited about a
new RTS. A investment group claims that
they think Grand Theft Auto 6 will sell 100 million copies in
the first year after release. That's insane.
It's not going to happen. But now, could it sell 203040
million? That wouldn't surprise me at
(30:04):
all. And just to be clear, most
games, if they sell 3 to 5 million, that's a huge success.
If they hit 10 million, that's an insanely big deal.
And if they go beyond that, you know, you're just getting crazy
numbers. So the fact that like I'm, I'm
being like no, they aren't goingto sell 100 million in a year,
but they could sell 30 is insane.
And I don't think it's in, I actually don't think it's
(30:26):
insane. For reference, Grand Theft Auto
5, which came out in like so like 2008 or something whenever
it came out has sold over, I believe it's around 215,000,000
copies, which is insane. It has spanned, I believe, 3
generations of consoles at this point, and I just that it's just
(30:49):
been such a cash cow for them. So for better or worse, I guess
congratulations. But could those numbers
eventually get hit for six? Maybe. 5 has been such a unique
situation that Grand Theft Auto 6 will probably only sell 100
million copies in its lifetime, as if that's a bad thing.
(31:10):
We'll see Nintendo. This is kind of the the more
quick hits here. Nintendo is banning consoles if
you insert second hand cartridges.
Comes from a story where someonebought a used cartridge for a
game not knowing that that cartridge was actually like
cloned and was not a legit copy of the game.
And they had their their consolelocked up and is banned
(31:33):
permanently. That is super interesting as the
one of the few pieces of hardware, one of the platforms
it's still very dedicated to, you know, keeping physical
media. These kind of issues are going
to be there and Nintendo is going to be the least forgiving
and the least flexible of all ofthese companies when it comes to
(31:55):
this kind of stuff. I suspect you could have, you
know, notarized proof that you didn't know this was a bad
cartridge. You literally just thought you
were buying a second hand cartridge from someone and it
looks legit. It has all the right stuff on it
and Nintendo will not care. You will never be unbanned from
that. Now will they be happy for you
to buy another console and set up a new account?
(32:17):
I suspect they'll be OK with that.
But yeah, good luck with all that.
Cyberpunk 2077 had patch 2.3 getannounced and then revealed
What's in it. I think that like they made like
an event out of this like they did a live stream and they kind
of teased it for a minute and all that.
It's the most quality of life update ever.
(32:41):
There is nothing substantial in this upgrade in this in this
patch. And this really should have just
been a we heard nothing and thenthey released like, hey, here's
patch 2.3, here's some things init.
Enjoy tunes and moved on, but them kind of hyping it up a
little bit. There were definitely people who
thought there was going to be atleast some kind of new content.
(33:03):
I think that was kind of dirty business.
And I really think CDPR needs tobe careful with even the the
hint of promising and then underdelivering because while
everyone else has forgiven them for Cyberpunk 2077, I have not.
And even though I really like the game, I think it's a, it's
(33:25):
an incredible game. It's still like 1/4 the game
that they claimed it was going to be, even after all these
years and all these fixes and everything.
But you know, it's still a good game.
It's just not the game that theysaid they were making, in my
opinion. And I suspect it's going to
happen again with Witcher 4, butwe'll see.
The Crafton Subnautica founder situation has gotten even
(33:48):
murkier. First some leaked documents came
out supporting Crafton, and thenCrafton conveniently almost
immediately confirmed they were actually real documents.
There's a lot of kind of side eye about whether or not that
was a intentional leak of info that was then followed up by the
the the remove Subnautica dev founders claiming that Crafton
(34:09):
intentionally Hanford the game'sdevelopment to prevent them from
hitting markers in the development that would have
given the founders these huge bonus payouts.
In the light in the, you know, in the aftermath of all this, it
seems like Crafton's basically saying that the the developers
who were also supposed to get a part of these bonuses will get
(34:30):
those bonuses. But the the fight here is
obviously with the founders who are no longer there, who were
likely going to get like, you know, double, if not triple
digit $1,000,000, you know, bonus part of that bonus.
That's obviously the rub here. So I'm curious how this plays
out. I still think that, you know, I,
(34:51):
I wish for the best. I I hope I'm wrong.
But when everyone was celebrating Craft and buying
Tango Gameworks and the Hi-fi Rush IP as if they were some
kind of saviors, I think we needto be careful about ever
thinking that a billion dollar corporation is doing things for
good reason. And the people, you know, maybe
didn't pay much attention to theprevious issues Crafton has had
(35:15):
and how they aren't. They don't seem to manage things
very well. And I will still argue to this
day that if Xbox didn't think itcould make Tango Gameworks A
viable developer studio, I don'tknow what crafting can do that
Microsoft couldn't other than just get some good vibes off of
(35:36):
spending some money on them. I still to this day don't think
we'll ever see High Fi Rush 2 Void, the studio that makes Dead
or Alive that is not ready or not is what I was supposed to
type there. Whoops has removed some
controversial elements of their SWAT based game, including
things like some extreme elements of violence, nudity and
(36:01):
other graphic contents. Some of that involves like
violence towards children and things like that.
Whether you're not is if you ever played the old SWAT games
where it was a first person game, where it was very
tactical, slow base, like very realistic SWAT game where you
had to like arrest people or shoot people if they were a
threat and try to save hostages and do all this stuff.
Whether you're not is the spiritual successor of that.
(36:23):
And it's a very modern version of it.
So it has, you know, tons of mechanics and, and all kinds of,
you know, has a dismemberment of, of, of people you're
shooting at. And it's, it's insane.
From what I've seen of it, it's a very gritty, rough game.
People are mad that it basicallythey, you know, the consoles are
pretty open to violence, all that stuff, but they have their
(36:46):
limitations. And it seems like that the Void
studio basically, you know, agreed to some of these
limitations to to censor some ofthis stuff to get the game onto
the console platforms. And a bunch of their players are
mad. Some of them are mad just
because of censorship in generaland others are mad because the
experience is just going to be different on PC and console,
(37:07):
which could lead to issues with multiplayer and things like
that. I'm curious to check the game
out. I don't really know how big of a
deal it is. What got removed?
I I understand some people are like absolutist about
censorship. I'm a little more lenient but
that's a whole different conversation.
The Zelda movie has cast a Link in Zelda.
They are too, from what I can tell, fairly unknown actors.
(37:29):
The the Link actor I believe is 16 or 17 years old.
The actress for Zelda is in her early 20s or mid 20s I think.
I'm curious to how this plays out.
I don't know if I need to see a live action Zelda game movie,
but we'll have to wait and see. And then finally, this isn't
(37:50):
really even game related, but HBOHBO's Harry Potter show has
revealed their Harry Potter actor and it's a child, so I'm
not being serious about what I'mabout to say, but he looks like
someone that you would push intoa locker and call a nerd and so
that makes him perfect for the role.
Congratulations to that show. OK with content updates, nothing
(38:15):
real big. I don't think I have anything
major coming up or to announce. I do want to double down on
making videos here and as as time comes up, the summer is
kind of wrapping up and I shouldhave a little more free time to
do that kind of stuff. So look out for that.
I say it every week, but I'm trying to finish my stupid Mass
Effect modded playthrough. We're past Rannok now.
(38:36):
We're in the final kind of finalthird of the game it seems like,
so we'll see if I ever get back to that.
I'm sure I will finish it soonerand later.
My goal, unfortunately is to finish the playthrough before in
seven day and that seems like itshould be easy, but that's less
than four months away and at my current pace, it's not a
guarantee. So make sure to follow me over
(38:58):
on Twitch and and check me out there when I randomly get on on
a random like Tuesday. And that is we're going to wrap
this one up. Thank you so much for listening
to this episode. Subscribe to the show on your
favorite podcast app, leave a review on Spotify or iTunes and
subscribe to the Von Diesel YouTube channel to get all of my
(39:19):
videos, including this podcast. Thank you to everyone who
supports as YouTube members and or Twitch subscribers.
If you're interested in supporting this podcast and all
of my other content, please check out the links in the show
description. If you have any questions or
feedback, hit me up on social media at Von Diesel or at the
Bonfire. Check out my Discord, which you
can see in the link tree link and all of my content, or leave
(39:42):
a comment on Spotify or YouTube.That is all I have for this
episode of the Bonfire Gaming Podcast, so until next time.
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