Episode 139 - Extra Life with Jeff Montegut, Holiday Gift Ideas, and 2023's Place In Gaming History

This week, Jason is joined by Jeff Montegut, director of Extra Life for Children's Miracle Network Hospitals, to talk about this weekend's Extra Life 2023 Game Day events. After that, Jason offers a few holiday gift ideas for the geek culture enthusiast on your list, and then gives his thoughts on the "Is 2023 The Best Year In Video Games?" debate.

Episode Transcript

(00:26):
Hello, and welcome to episode numberone and thirty nine of The Chief Stakes
the Controllers podcast presented by Fox PHLThe Gambler, one of two point five
FM fourteen eighty AM in Philadelphia andiHeartRadio and other streaming platforms. Wherever you
get your podcasts is where you canlisten to this show. My name is
Jason Finelli. I am the videogame and esports guy at Fox PHL The

(00:49):
Gambler, and today we have avery very good show for you with three
very different facets of the video gameworld. Unfortunately none of them competitive gaming,
because who really, it's really onthe downturn and I need stuff to
talk about, so can't talk aboutcompetitive gaming. Hopefully it'll come back soon.
In Call of Duty League announced ourschedule for twenty twenty four. Overwatch

(01:10):
League might be hanging around, notsure about that. And the fighting game
community is always a beacon of hopefor competitive games, as I have said
numerous times, but we're not goingto focus on that. Today we have
an excellent interview with the director ofExtra Life for Children's Miracle Network of Hospitals,
Jeff Montague. Extra Life's game dayis tomorrow, November fourth, The

(01:32):
big marathon day where people play gamesfor twenty four hours, sometimes twenty five
hours in order to raise money forChildren's Miracle Network of hospitals. I am
not doing it this year. Didn'tsign up in time. At least I'm
not doing it for Game Day.There's a chance I might hang out with
some friends and do some things inDecember, but we'll talk about that later
on if it happens. And thenwe're going to move into a sort of

(01:53):
small gift guide coming into the holidayseason. There's a couple of things that
may not be on your radar thatI think you should. I'm not going
to get into like the obvious thingslike games you should buy in consoles and
stuff like that. This is moreoff the beaten path, and I think
it's stuff that you might want tohear about that I am using myself for
the most part. And then finallywe're going to get into the debate of

(02:15):
whether or not twenty twenty three isthe best year for video games as a
whole. We've got a whole abunch of different ways to look at this
problem, and I plan on doingthat or not problem. This plan on
this discussion, and I plan ondoing that in the last segment of our
show. All right, our firstsegment here on the show today, I

(02:36):
want to highlight a very worthy causethat I have participated in the past,
haven't been able to in the lastcouple of years, might get back into
it this year, and that isExtra Life. I know I've talked about
this on the show before in recentyears. This is the twenty four hour
video game marathon. Don't specifically designedto raise money for the Children's Miracle Network
of Hospitals. I personally have doneit for Children's Hospital of Philadelphi, being

(03:00):
from Philadelphia, but there's a wholenetwork of hospitals that benefit from this.
And right now we are speaking tothe director of Extra Life for Children's Miracle
Network of Hospitals CMNH, who hasgraciously agreed to join me here on the
show to talk about what's going onwith this year's event. His name is

(03:22):
Jeff Montague. Jeff, how arewe today? Pretty good? Thanks for
having me, Thanks for letting ustalk about Extra Life on your show.
Absolutely, it is a very worthycause. Happy to do so. Have
raised a decent amount of money inthe past for CHOPP. Want to get
back into it, but like Isaid before the show, it's kind of
hard to do that when you haveyour own kids. As strange as that

(03:42):
is, right, raising for otherkids or but your own kids getting the
way just a weird scene too.Dichonomy. So let's I did look real
quick. By the way, youare only about three thousand dollars away lifetime
from unlocking our commemorative ten thousand dollarslifetime coin. And it's a big coin

(04:04):
that you get. It's a metalcoin. It's got the extra Life logo
on one side, that choice anyside, Yeah, it's and we ship
that to you once you hit tenthousand dollars lifetime, So anytime you pick
it back up, you're pretty close. I'll have to get that exact number.
Maybe we maybe we fire up theold donation bin between now and the

(04:25):
end of the year. That friend, perfect way to get me to do
something. Look at the shiny thingyou almost half literally. So let's talk
about this year's events. Game BigGame Day, the Big twenty four hour
marathon is scheduled for this for tomorrow. If you're listening to this when the
podcast goes down, that is theI want to let me get my date

(04:46):
right, just to be the fourthof November normal hours. It's there like
a set time that you guys gois like eight to eight, nine to
nine. I know I used todo nine to nine. But is there
like a set designated these are thetwenty hour of game day that we're going
with. I think there used tobe before I started as the director.
I think it usually was like nineam Mountain time, so okay, ten

(05:13):
am, you know, yeah,ten nine to ten or something like that.
But right, because of time zones, and we really kind of have
started really referring to it as gameDay weekend because everybody activates at different times.
Back in the day, it wasa lot more hyper focus on the
challenge of gaming and streaming or fundraisingfor twenty four actually twenty five hours because
of daylight saving time. Yes,we get the two am hour twice.

(05:36):
Yeah, yes we do. I'veremembered that a couple of times in the
fast just being like it's two am. Oh it's two am again, we're
doing it. We take advantage oftime travel. Yeah. Yeah. So
now though, we look at itmore as you have the weekend to activate,
and so whether you do a fourhour stream or you do a twenty

(05:58):
five hour or you do seventy twoswith a group of people and you kind
of tag team it and things likethat. You know, we we don't.
We kind of leaned a little bitmore into kind of healthy choices.
Where as we get older, someof us can't stay up. That lady
that it's another challenge that man,you speak in my language. Yeah,
there have been some marathons where I'vejust had to take like one or two

(06:20):
hours and just you know, powerramp or whatever you want to call it,
because it's it's tough to do,especially by yourself. If you have
a group where you can split itfour hours at a time like that,
that that would be the way Iwould do it. Yeah, in the
in the in the future. Butso your mainstream this year, do you
have a schedule of what you'll bewhat you'll be doing or are you just

(06:40):
like highlighting other streamers? How's thatworking right? So that's another thing.
Back in the day, Extra Lifestarted where the team of extra Life staff
would stream on the extra Life twitchchannel their own stream, and then as
the community grew a couple of yearsago, we made the decision that it
shouldn't be about our staff stream.It should be about everybody else who streams,

(07:01):
so we scale back on what wepush live now this year, we're
not going to do any live onour channel. We're gonna pre record a
few videos that we'll post on socialand then the community when we do announcements
like every hour this is how muchwe've raised type stuff. But our main,
say live experience part is going tobe where we're scheduling our staff time
to visit other team or streamers ontheir stream, sool kind of like ten

(07:28):
or fifteen minutes we pop in,so we kind of preschedule that so they
can arrange it and set up theirscenes and all that, and then so
we know, like, oh,at ten thirty, we've got to be
on so and So's, you know, mister Taco's stream or something like that.
And so we because we all cometogether at the Salt Lake City Office
and so we have our own staff, we're all together at headquarters. We
set up that living room scene likewe always used to do kind of and
we have so we do play aswell. It is our game day as

(07:51):
much as anything else, but wedo spend that twenty five hours. We're
visiting as many streams as possible,whether it's as you know, like a
live on camera experience with them,or a lot of times we'll pop into
chat. We can cover more groundwhere we pop into chat as extra life
for kids, and we'll so wehave staff across the country that are actually

(08:13):
going to participate in that our goal. I mean, because there's what twenty
thousand people that stream on game dayweekend, whether it's a your YouTube,
so we can't catch everybody, butwe go NonStop. Yeah. Yeah,
that's a lot of people to tryand catch them all. So the fact
that you're just dropping into chats oreven like will you raid? Is that
how you do your on your twitch? I think they didn't twitch get rid
of rating. I think you can'traid anymore. But yeah, so we

(08:37):
just ye unless while yeah, there'sa way I think that we're exploring on
how you can bring more traffic fromone to the other, but as of
right now, yeah, we justwe search. So we look at our
on the extra dash life dot orgwebsite. We look to see who's live
because there's an indicator if you're livethere and you've connected your Twitter YouTube to

(08:58):
that. And then once we catchall those then we I mean, we
just go to browse live streams.Anybody who's tagged extra life up on their
stream title. We pop in andyou're streaming, and all of a sudden,
you see extra life for Kids entersthe chat and that's amazing. Yeah,
that's so you're gonna hype it up. Yeah, So if you're listening

(09:18):
to this and you're doing extra lifeon Saturday, make sure you use that
tag. It's how they know thatyou're participating and they can jump in and
maybe, you know, amplify youa little bit, whether it's chat activity
or something like that. And that'sand I imagine you'll go, you're not
just limiting yourself to like the bigtime streams. You're looking for small streamers,

(09:39):
midstreamers, everything between. We don'tlook at fundraising total when we decide
who to visit. We look atwe I mean honestly literally, if I'm
sitting at the computer, I'll goto twitch, browse extra life, and
I'll click the first one and wetrack to get We have a shared spreadsheet,
of course, how we may ifyou want to get behind the scenes,
and so I'll look first to seehas somebody on the team already visited
that streamer. If they did,I'll move to somebody else and that way

(10:03):
we we don't. And then sometimesit'll double that's fine, Like you might
be like, oh so and soalready popped in. I'm like, absolutely
I did. They did, andI'm popping in again because we're we're also
talking as we're doing it, sowe're in the same room. So I
remember a couple of years ago,we had one person her name was Divatopia.
She was streaming and she's great name, yes, right, and she

(10:24):
had the beautiful set right, bigmakeup, and she was had a puppet.
She was a ventriloqust. She's singingthe song and she was only about
two hundred dollars from her goal.And in the middle we were all so
one of us is on as extralife for kids, chatting to her.
She's singing. We're all actually hoveredaround, we having on the big screen
in the office. We're all actuallyit's she was actually chatting to all of
us, not realizing because said,oh say this, oh say that,

(10:46):
and so we're interacting with her.We didn't know our boss at our vp
uh he goes on the side andmakes the two hundred dollars donation to Wow,
we're chatting. We don't know itshe does. So she's in the
middle of singing and then her littlealert comes up that says, you know,
Mike just donated two hundred dollars,you hit your goal. And she
just stopped mid singing and was justlike so cool, started crying and we

(11:11):
were like, yeah, we youknow. So it was a great moment.
So anything we catch like that weclip as well, and those are
the things we use and we wantto put that back out on social and
put them on like montage reels andthings like that. So we're also scouring
for good content. That's amazing.So when you're when someone's setting up an
extra life stream, it doesn't exactlymatter what they're doing as long as they're

(11:33):
doing some sort of streaming for thecause. Like you said, this was
a ventriloquist singing a song with apuppet. Other people will do traditional gaming
streams or even some tabletop stuff.Is it. It's up to the user's
discretion whatever they want to do tohelp the cause. You're okay with,
Yeah, we don't ask you tochange who you are, because the idea
is you've got you've built your community, yep, and so this is about
you and your community, supporting yourlocal hospital or Childre's Miracle Network hospitals in

(11:58):
general. Right, so yeah,we the main thing is kind of like
it's a fundraising thing, right,So it's whatever you can do to raise
money as long as it's legal.Yep. And and then also, I
mean we asked that it be childyou know, kid friendly or family friendly,
but we also know that some streamers, like if you're playing Call of
Duty, then just understand that wecan't necessarily clip that or use that.

(12:22):
Sure, so you can still fundraise, but we can't obviously pick that up.
And right because it's marketing materials thatwould not drive as much as much
surprising for children as popular as thosegames are, that there is an e
SRB to h to be wary of. And I do completely It does make
sense. So say someone can't makeNovember fourth, they have something going on

(12:43):
and they're they're they want but theywant to contribute some sort of way while
they may not be able to takeadvantage of the streaming stuff or working alongside
you guys during your official uh.They the donation period is the entire year,
correct, yep, yep. Sothe year starts January first, So

(13:05):
literally everybody's counting down three to twoone and partying as New Year starts,
and I'm at my house or wherever. I actually now have to be at
my house because it's happy New Year. And then by what twelve fifteen am,
I run to my office and Ihit publish on the new website.
There you go look at tho weare live. And we usually get about

(13:26):
a couple one hundred, if notone thousand or two thousand people sign up
within the first hour of the year. And so the registration opens and you
do have to reregister every year,right, so once you register for that
year, it only lasts until twelvethirty one, you know. Cool?
And then yeah, so you canyou can fundraise because yeah, some streamers
are like, I have plans everyNovember. I can't do it. So

(13:46):
yeah, no, you've undraised whenit makes sense for you. Game Day
is just when the majority of ourstreamers activate. But there's also in person
events, tabletop events, you know, gaming communities that actually the magic players
come together. Yeah. Perfect segueto my next question. This is not
the only event you do throughout theyear. Some folks may think you have

(14:07):
what I call the GDHU syndrome.Where you have your big event, but
then you also have other stuff thatonly the people who are really in the
know are familiar with. So talkto me about extra if you like United
and the tabletop event, the otherthings that you do throughout the year,
and how people might be able toget involved in something like that. Yeah,
So our other big tent we callthem tent pole moments, right because
it's the big rally points throughout theyear. So Tabletop Weekend we call it

(14:31):
is pretty much so if Game Dayis predominantly live streamers, and then the
add on in person events, TabletopWeekend is our tabletop board game, card
game, trivia night. I mean, you know, you think about it
as your bricks and mortar, yourin person type things and like not necessarily
video games right now. Of courseyou can play video games, especially if

(14:52):
you're playing tabletop games on like boardgamesArena dot Com or something, but the
and then we do have people whostream as well, but it is more
of an in person type experience.So that is gonna be in twenty twenty
four. That's going to be Aprilthe nineteenth, twentieth twenty first weekend,
Okay, because that aligns with NationalBoard Game Day, and then later in
the year. The next big eventis Extra Life United, which is going

(15:16):
to be this in twenty twenty four. It's gonna be in Kansas City.
It's an in person tournament type eventwhere people come in, you register,
you sign up. Obviously, youtravel to the event, and you play.
We usually would do about five videogames and three tabletop games, and
you're competing to win. And whatwe've done in the past doesn't always mean
we're going to do it exactly thesame way in the future. But the

(15:37):
top sixteen finishers in each of thosegame brackets are gonna win money. That
money goes to your fundraising page,which ultimately goes to your hospital. So
you're playing for fundraising dollars to goto your hospital. That's cool, right,
So you don't take the money home, your hospital does. That's it.
Honestly, if I was playing inyour tournament and I want some money,

(15:58):
I would probably just put it onan active extra page anyway. So
it's good that you kind of cutout the middleman and even the temptation and
just donate it for me. Ido appreciate that. Speaking of funds raised,
my friend, we are one youknow, twenty four hours away when
this episode goes up or whatever itis from twenty twenty three's game Day.
Where are we at so far?How are things going? We have we

(16:22):
reached any certain particular plateaus before thingseven start. Yeah, so we're already
passed, probably past four and ahalf million dollars for the year. This
goes back to you don't have toonly fundraise on game day, you get
guess, so this is all thepeople who are fundraised up until this point
have already raised four and a halfmillion dollars. That's we Usually Game day
usually raises another four million dollars,anywhere between three and a half to four

(16:45):
and a half million dollars on gameday weekend, So we should be we
should finish this year around ten milliondollars raised by extra lifers. And that's
you know, anywhere between twenty andthirty thousand people, you know, around
the world. Really, that's fantastic. So I think we have a few
game activations. Like some games,game developers get involved and they do some
in game items that players can buy, and it's pretty good. I've already

(17:08):
seen some advertising. I think PlayStationhad some stuff. They're doing stuff all
week and then a couple of bigoutlets. I think Giant Bomb was doing
something and a couple others. Veryvery cool that people get involved in.
Oh, kind of funny versus ignthat was another thing that's a huge And
we have another thing with kind offunny coming up in December with wild Card
Alliance. So that's the new gamethat's coming out, and so we're working

(17:30):
on having them play. Wild CardAlliance's part of a stream as part of
their launch to raise to raise extraawesome synergy. Baby, you gotta love
it. So my last question toyou, then, Jeff, is there's
someone who is brand new. Theygo to extra dashlife dot org for the
first time, they see what you'reabout, they see what you're doing,
and they want to what do youthink is the best entry point for a

(17:52):
brand new whether they're streaming or tabletopor what it is the best foot in
the door for someone who wants todo this for the first time. I
think, first and foremost, don'tforget the dash. It's a good da
So thank you for remembering that.The other one isn't us. So the
first I would say, if somebody'sbrand new, the first thing isn't a

(18:15):
right it's not about whether you're astreamer, whether you're a video gamer,
whether you're a tabletop gamer. Thateverybody's welcome, right. The first thing
is you're coming here because you wantto support your local children's Brookleal Network Hospital.
It's it's mission first. So areyou doing this because you want to
help the kids? Because if you'redoing it for any other reason, then
it is going to be something that'seasy to I signed up, but then

(18:37):
I don't come back and really doanything. So we look for we want
that kind of motivation. I tellour staff all the time, like we're
not trying to recruit every gamer.We're here to find the gamers who want
to support children's health issues like children'shealth, and then offer them Extra Life
as a way to do that.I think that's first and foremost. And
then, like I said, it'sfundraise however you want, like a lot
of people, if you stream,you have access to community and so you

(19:00):
can ask people to donate that way. If it's in person, you can
plan events. We have resources tohelp people do that is on extra dash
life dot org as well. Butthen it's I mean Facebook fundraisers. Yeah,
Facebook still exists, and so Ilook at it, it's like Facebook
is where like that's where my parentsand my aunts and uncles, like the
people with disposable income. So Ido a Facebook fundraiser. I actually get

(19:22):
more donations that way than any otherway. The last time I did it
was through I used Facebook fundraiser.I want to say twenty eighteen, I
think twenty seventeen, something like that, and I was amazed at how much
that drove to my overall total.So yes, I one one hundred percent
agree that Facebook fundraising is definitely avaluable option. And that's that's a button

(19:42):
in your dashboard. So when yousign up, you have a dashboard and
by now everybody should understand peer topeer fundraising pages. Every organization has one.
So yeah, you sign up,you have a page that's where you
collect your donations, and your dashboardis a button that says start a Facebook
fundraiser. I think it's three likedo that. You're probably already logged,
you know cash stand so you justauthorize and you're set up and then you

(20:03):
tag people. So I would startwith that, I mean, do the
simple stuff first. Just ask peopleto give money because you're doing it,
and because you're supporting that cause.Cool. And then if you if you
have a personal story, you know, if either you have a kid who's
been treated at the hospital that you'resupporting, or you yourself or somebody a
family member, always being able toconnect that with you know, connect that
story when you're asking for donations,so people understand, like, this isn't

(20:26):
just I'm not just doing this becauseI like games. I'm doing this because
I have a personal reason interest.Yeah. By my story is my kids
have both been treated for not luckilyfortunately for me, the reasons we have
been there have not been for anylong term serious diseases. They've been for
you know, clumsy falls or youknow, like really bad like temporary sickness

(20:49):
and stuff like that. But thatdoesn't mean I want to But it's still
there. Yeah, right, it'sstill there, and I and they're now
opening up urgent cares around me inthe Network and the Chop Network Children's Hospital
of Philadelphia, and I want tokeep supporting that if I can. So
I'm right there with you. Thatmakes perfect perfect sense to me. Which
topicle do you sports specifically? SoI support It's Saint Francis Cabrini because I

(21:10):
live in Central Louisiana, OK.And we have a small community. It's
not a big city like Philadelphia,so we have a few gamers, few
of us that fundraise. That's myhospital. And yet similarly my story.
So my kid was treated there,actually went there. This is years and
years ago when he was four yearsold, was choking on peanuts because I

(21:30):
gave him trail mixed and shouldn't havedone that with a four year old.
So when we brought him in,they couldn't do a broncoscopy on him because
they only had adult sized bronchoscopes,so they had to helicopter him up to
Shreveport, Louisiana, which is ohand they had to do it. A
week and a half after that event, the people from Cabrini contacted us and

(21:53):
told us that because of this experience, we just got authorized to purchase two
child side broncos scopes so that wenever have to airlift someone away again.
And that's kind of a situation.Extra life money goes to stuff like that
like that. Yeah, So andthat's like when you sign up and you
select your you do select your ownhospital that you want to support everything you

(22:15):
raise. That's the big I thinkThe biggest thing that our actual lifers tell
us that is the most support tothem is that National doesn't take a cut,
right that we we get our fundingfrom corporate partnership underwriting type things like
that. All of the fundraising dollarsthat you raise goes to your hospital,
and then we don't tell those hospitalshow to spend it. So how Chop
is going to spend that fundraising moneyis maybe different than how Cabrini is.

(22:38):
So Cabrini had a need for equipment, but then say next year, we
might have a need or y'all,you hospital might have a need you want
to offset patient medical bills, orthey're investing in game therapy or a new
you know, whole new wing likethe Seattle Children's builds giant wing, rooster
teeth money for Dell Children's has builthealing gardens. I mean. So there's

(23:00):
one hundred and seventy hospitals and thenetwork, So there's so many different ways
that people are supporting. And it'sthe local impact. It's the kids in
their community. Cool. That's awesomeand see, and that's why Extra Life
is great. And if you're thinkingabout it, you should sign up.
You still can sign up for thisyear, but you should definitely sign up
on January first at twelve fifteen ambecause that's when the website goes live.

(23:21):
As we've found out, you couldsign up immediately be one of that first
rush and raise all throughout the year, and then you'll be helping out your
local children's hospitals at the same time. Jeff, thank you so much for
your time here today, looking forwardto hearing the great plateaus that you hit
this year, hit those milestones,and I look forward to talking to you
again very very soon about Extra Lifein the future. Thank you for your

(23:44):
time. Thank you. Coming upafter the break, we will talk about
five things that should be on yourgift guide list for friends who may be
into video games, tabletop card games, or everything in between. That We've
got some pretty good stuff to talkabout and I'm to do that with you
on the other side. Stick around, all right. Welcome back to Cheese,
Steaks and Controllers, episode number onehundred and thirty nine. My thanks

(24:07):
once again to Jeff Montague from Children'sMiracle Network of Hospitals talking about Extra Life.
Their big game day is tomorrow,November the fourth, and you can
check out a whole bunch of differentstreams on their website. I've seen a
couple of promotions that companies are doingaround this. Butterfinger it has partnered with
Square Innix of all People to giveaway free item DLC for the upcoming Final

(24:30):
Fantasy vin Rebirth. Very interesting collaborationthere, so you can check that out
over on the Butterfinger website. There'sall kinds of places that are celebrating extra
life. I am not. Unfortunatelythis year, I didn't get it around
to it in time, but Iwould like to because that because Jeff had
to dangle that that ten thousand dollarscoin in front of my face and now
we'll try and figure out how Ican get that. But let's move on

(24:53):
to our second segment of the showhere. Let's talk about the holiday season,
shall we. It is all thattime again, and you're probably looking
for some gifts to give to you, the gamer or the geek culture officionado
in your life. I have acouple of ideas here that maybe not your
first thought or even your second thought, the things that you should probably focus

(25:14):
on or think about when trying todecide the best gift for the geek culture
enthusiast in your house or on yourlist this holiday season. And the first
one comes from the card game Realm. As you know, as I've talked
about many times on this show,this year, Tabletop has really taken hold

(25:36):
or taken my life by storm inthe past year, particularly in the magic
the Gathering sector, and this year'sactually today, this episode goes out November.
Today released the next installment of theLord of the Rings collaboration. So
back in June they released a fulltent pole set themed around the Lord of

(25:56):
the Rings books specifically, so therewas art and references to things that were
in the books, did not referencethe movies. This really got into the
deep lore of Tolkien's saga, andthis holiday release is doing the same.
So there are four different scenes thatyou can purchase. Each one has six
unique, mechanically unique cards that makeup a paint a single painting in a

(26:21):
big scene. There's a Gandolf atthe Pelenor Fields. There's Ara Gorn at
Helms Deep. There's the Ride ofthe Witch King I think it's called,
and then the fourth one is Gladriel, but the nature name of it elluse
me at the moment. And eachof these six cards work in Commander or
Legacy or Vintage if you play thoseformats. They also each come with three
set booster packs, so you're gettingcards that are legal for modern as well.

(26:45):
There are cool packages. I wrotea little thing for MMO rpg dot
com about them with pictures that'll begoing up later today. I really like
the presentation, but there's a coupleof things for the card the buyer.
Beware of things. I did wantto mention. The easel in which you

(27:06):
place the cards to make this displayisn't the most isn't the easiest one to
work with. It's hard to getthe separation open to put the cards in,
and sometimes the easel folds up whenyou want it to. It is
just made a cardboard. But luckilyfor us, the the the powers that
be who are making this packaging madethe wise decision to not only include the

(27:27):
mechanic the actual cards, but alsofull art versions where it's just the picture
on the card and not like theframe and the wording and all that.
So if you just want to usethe art cards in your display and keep
the actual mechanical mechanics cards like foryour decks and stuff in your binder,

(27:48):
you can do that, which ispretty cool. I appreciate that they did
that. It's probably what I'm goingto do with the displays that I have,
So those are really cool. Ithink they're retailing for forty dollars each,
so you have a big Lord ofthe Rings fan, that's a decent
price to pay for one of thoseboxes, and especially if you're trying to
go for all four. But theyare worth it for Lord of the Rings

(28:10):
fans, Magic Gathering fans, andespecially for someone who is a fan of
both, so I do recommend that, and also too, they have released
new Collectors Boosters Special Additions. Theseare special packs with special treatments of cards,
like some cards get a scroll treatmentso they look like they're on old
parchment. Some cards have this weirdretro sixties rock poster design which I don't

(28:33):
quite understand how it fits with Lordof the Rings, but they look kind
of cool. And then there arecards that feature the art of the Hildebrand
Brothers, who have been known todo Lord of the Rings art for many
many years. These are cool too, but these are more for the card
players than the Lord of the Ringsfans that aren't Magic the Gathering players.
Because they won't get as much outof it as someone who's actually going to

(28:53):
use these cards in their decks,particularly the Hildebrand cards, which are reprints
of older Magic the Gathering cards fromyou know it's from thirty year history.
So those the collector boosters are morefor those who play the card game two.
But the scenes the scene packages aregood for both, just because they
could sit and make a nice littlepiece on your Lord of the Rings display.

(29:17):
So I do recommend you check thoseout for the Lord of the Rings
fan, Magic fan, or someonewho was a fan of both on your
list. Second up, I havesomething I was recently given a sample.
I'm not sure where they are here. They are from Gunner Optics, so
if you're not familiar with Gunner Optics, they make glasses that protect your eyes

(29:37):
from blue light, which is theharmful light from staring at screens all day,
creates fatigue and messes with your eyesthings like that. They have prescription
and non prescription versions, so ifyou don't have a glass's prescription like myself,
you can basically just wear them assunglasses while you're working at your desk
all day. That's how I usethe ones that I was fortunate to receive
here, but they've recently started dabblingin partnerships, so they have glasses that

(30:02):
are themed on Marvel properties or thingslike that. And the pair that I
was given here to where are theTony Stark Stark Industry versions. So they
look like Tony Stark's sunglasses from theIron Man and Avengers movies, but they
instead of having the sunglass frame,they have the blue light protector frame.

(30:25):
And I do wear these often whileI'm working. Now. I've started wearing
them ever since they were sent tome a couple of weeks ago, and
I have to say I have noticeda bit of a difference in how fatigued
I am at the end of theday. I used to get really tired
around four thirty or so. Thathas relented a bit. I'm not getting
as many headaches as I used toafter long writing sessions or long working sessions,

(30:49):
which is also very very cool.I am a believer. I've always
wanted to try Gunner Optics, neverhad the chance until these recently came to
my door step, and I amit was worth the wait. It was.
It is doing what I hoped itwould do for me, so I
would recommend Gunner Optics, whether it'sthe Marvel specific glasses or just a generic

(31:17):
pair that they have. And likeI said, if you have a prescription,
they can work with you there toget that going. You just send
them your prescription and they'll send itto you and they'll send you the glasses.
And yeah, I'm with them,I'm on it, I am.
I'm a fan. So if youwant to check those out for yourself,
that's Gunner Optics. You can googlethat it's g U N n A R
not E R, and you'll beable to find the glasses that are good

(31:38):
for you. Like I said,they work for me. The blue light
protection has been has been beneficial,and I would recommend a pair to anyone
who might be experiencing headaches or fatiguewhile they're working. I'm not saying this
is like a medical professional. I'mnot sure what the medical community says about
this, but for me personally,placebo effect perhaps, but I don't I
wouldn't say that they are working.So I do, and I do uh,

(32:01):
I do like what they have donefor me so far. Next up,
we have a lineup. There's acontroller maker that I want to highlight
here. One that I have hadthe chance to try a lot of their
stuff is particularly with a the FightingGame UH section of their whares and that's
PDP. So PDP this year cameout with a line of controllers cold I

(32:23):
think the real M Let's see ifI have one RD here it's real it's
real M Z and they're wireless controllersfor the switch. They have a Sonic
the Hedgehog line where on one sideit's pictures from like a Sonic the headshalk
stage, and then inside the leftgrip is a little figurine of a of
a Sonic character. So Sonic Tailsknuckles I believe are the ones that are

(32:45):
featured right now. These are verycomfortable in my hand. I opened up
the Sonic One and was playing someSuper Mario Brothers Wonder Yeah I know with
it and it felt really good.Had the wireless. The fact that it
was wireless was very intriguing to me. I appreciated that I was able to
take it wherever whoever I wanted towi Ever since the WaveBird on the GameCube,

(33:06):
I have been spoiled by wireless controllers. Going wired is very hard,
even though I'm sitting at a deskwhere all of my consoles are right near
me, so these being wireless washuge and so that those are for the
switch and they also have a lineof Xbox after Glow controllers. I believe
they haven't opened this one yet,but these are. This one is wired

(33:27):
after Glow Wave does come with amonth of Ultimate Game Pass Ultimate, so
you can try that out for yourselfas well. It is. This one
is actually for PC two so ifyou do a lot of PC gaming you're
looking for a controller, that's onethat will be able to help you out.
We also have other uh. Thisis the Rematch Glow. This one
is a wired controller as well,also for PC glows in the dark UH,

(33:51):
so if you're playing in the dark, you'll be able to add a
little a little bit of extra ambianceto your gaming. This one is Joel
Green. My favorite color is green. Go birds. So this is this
one. I did open up andit's very very comfortable in my hands.
Again, the wire I wish itwas wireless, but for what I'm trying

(34:13):
to do, and thankfully due tothe proximity to my consoles, I am
able to make the wired console work. And then finally PDP. My favorite
thing about them is that they alsoown and operate the Victrix brand of fight
fighting controllers, specifically the pro FSfight stick and the the BFG Pro controller.

(34:38):
I have held the BFG Pro.I don't own the BFG Pro.
I have held it a few times, and my goodness, that thing is
wonderful. And I'm not the onlyone that thinks this because it was originally
released for fighting games, but thenthis year they released a Call of Duty
version for the Bodom Warfare three players. So the other genres are beginning to
pick up on fighting game controllers andthis one is a doozy. So if
you play either of those games orboth, I would recommend the BFG Pro

(35:01):
and if you're just a fighting gamefan, the Vitrick's FS Pro fight Stick.
I reviewed it last year for GameSpot, still using it to this
day. I am using the onewith the joystick. There is the joystickless
one where it's just the buttons,the lunchbox version. Have not had a
chance to check that one out yet, but I do want to play with
that very soon. And then alsotoo, on the fighting game stick side,

(35:24):
there's the Razor Kitsune, the smallcompact leverless controller where it's just buttons
instead of having a stick. Igot a chance to play with a prototype
at Summer Games Fast back in June, and I've been thinking about it ever
since. I haven't been able topick one up for myself yet working on
that, but apparently it has launchedjust as well as it felt back in

(35:45):
June when I got to mess aroundwith the test version. So PDP back
to what I was talking about.Sorry about the razor cut off there,
but PDP is making some very goodthird party controllers. A lot of fun
stuff going on here. The Soniccontroller in particular for the switch, the
real MZ with a little figure ininside. The kids love that one when

(36:07):
we're playing games. I like ittoo. I think it feels pretty good.
I wouldn't say it feels as goodas the official Nintendo Pro controller,
but it gets the job done forwhat you're trying to do. So if
you're looking for a new controller andyou're not trying to spend the first party
rates, PDP has you covered ata more affordable price line, particularly on
the switch. If you're looking forthe wireless stuff, though the wired Xbox

(36:28):
controllers aren't bad either. Next up, I want to talk about your lighting,
so in your room, in yourgame room, if you're trying to
create that ambiance I talked about earlier. I am a believer in nano leaf.
Nano leafs they have different shapes thatyou stick to the wall. They're
led lights. You can program thecolors that you prefer. I have the

(36:51):
Eagles theme because of course I dogo birds once again. I have a
Phillies theme that I refuse to useuntil April of next year for obvious reasons.
And then there's all different there's presets, there's people who upload their favorites
and everything like that. In myroom, I have the hexagons in front
of me, the lines behind me, and I did have the black triangles

(37:12):
on a wall to my left,but they have since fallen off. The
adhesive they give you does not stickvery well to wood paneling. I am
learning, so I'll have to figureout another place for those. And I
recently also picked up the four DNano Leaf lighting kit, which is a
screen mirror and light strip kit.So you put the strips around the edges
of your screen, and it readswhat's going on on the screen in your

(37:36):
game, and it puts that colorout and so it goes a little further
makes things more immersive as you're playinggames. This is a very cool They're
not the first company to do this. I have seen this before and it
has fascinated me, so to haveit now on my screen while I'm playing
games, I'll tell you what,scary games like Alan Wake two look way

(37:59):
more intimidated with these extra lights,and then like Spider Man two looks that
much more vibrant and stuff like that. It's a nice little addition to your
gaming area. If it's something youwanted to do, I do highly recommend
it. Nan Onlyaf in general too, if you're looking for the shape lights
or anything like that for your gameroom or for your kids room. Whatever.
They do make a good product thatI do endorse. There has been

(38:22):
a couple of times where I've hadto replace a power cord, a power
the power button, like the piecethat powers the whole thing when I'm not
using my phone. I've ha hadto do that a couple of times,
but customer services it's been a knownissue. I've never had to pay extra
and they have been very good inthat regard helping me out there. So

(38:43):
I do want to say that Nanoleafdoes a good job. If you're looking
for three D lighting, they area premium. You are going to pay
a little more than you would forother brands, but it's worth it.
I've had these Hexagons now for almostI think two years I'm going on now,
and the Lines for just about thata year and a half and they've
been great, So I do recommendthose for the gamer in your life who's

(39:05):
looking to make a put a littlemore zazz in their gamroom. And then,
finally, along with the card games, I have got a little more
into tabletop this year, and thereare a couple of board games in particular
that I have hooked me. WhitehallMystery, where one player plays as Jack
the Ripper and the other three playas cops who are trying to capture them
put him to justice is a fascinatinggame of cat and mouse for one player

(39:29):
is basically moving invisibly and the otherthe three cop players have to figure out
where he is based on searching forclues and stuff like that. Very very
cool game there, and The Betrayala House on the Hill, which is
another sort of horror spooky board gamewhere people you're going into this house and

(39:49):
it's different every time. There's likefifty different stories that could happen. Some
are better than others, but everyone of them is thrilling as you're playing
them. There's now a couple ofexpansions. There's a Christmas based expansion that
is coming out soon or is alreadyout now, I don't remember the release
date off the top of my head. But it turns Santa Claus into this
big, creepy monsters trying to getyou, because that's what the kids need.

(40:10):
They need Santa Claus to be amonster. But this game is for
adults. It's not for kids.Not something I would play with my girls
because it would scare the crap outof them. Very very cool for your
board game night. Both of thoseare ones that I would be into.
And also Ravensburger, who is ohI am focused on lately because of Disney
Lorcana the card game, which Iwould love to recommend to you on this

(40:31):
gift guide, but their product isunfortunately so scarce right now. They did
not expect the kind of popularity thatthey got and they're still suffering for it.
So hopefully they figure that out soonand people could start playing their great
game. What I've played of itI really enjoy. They just got to
get more cards out there. Theygot to get those printers moving, and
until they do that, they're goingto be in the spot that they're in

(40:52):
right now. They also have likeDisney puzzles. We have a one thousand
piece Disney puzzle from Ravensburger that weput together that's really nice, and a
couple other games for children and adultsalike. So all of those things are
things I would recommend for your holidayshopping this year for the geek culture enthusiast
on your list. The Gunner Opticsin particular for those who are experiencing eye

(41:14):
problems while steering at screens, theyare awesome. They have helped me,
and I would recommend that you checkthose out when you get the time.
If you have any other gift ideas, feel free to tweet the Matt me
big Man Fineli. I might doanother gift guide segment like this leading up
to the holidays, and I wouldlove to hear what you're looking forward to
or what you're checking out coming upthis year. After the break, I

(41:35):
dip my toe into the is twentytwenty three the best year for video games
ever? Discussion and I don't know. The jury might still be out,
and there's a couple of reasons whystick around. All right, Welcome back
to Cheese, Takes and Controllers,Episode number one, one hundred and thirty
nine. Getting into a recent discussionthat has taken over the gaming industry in

(41:58):
light of what has been quite ayear for it, and that is is
this the best year for video gamereleases of all time? And honestly,
the jury for me is still out, And there's a couple of reasons why
I say this. We're gonna gothrough the list of games that have come

(42:19):
out, We're gonna compare them totwo of what are considered to be the
biggest years in gaming histories past,and we'll see where things rank as far
as you know popularity and you knowquality of games and things like that.
So let's start with twenty twenty three. Let's look at consider the evidence here

(42:42):
and the argument for the current yearthat we are in. Now. I'm
using open Critic to look at theirhighest ranked games from twenty twenty three so
far. Granted I am recording thison November third. There are a few
games that have yet to come outbetween now and the end of the year,
super Mario or Avatar Frontiers of Pandoracome to mind, but as quality

(43:06):
as they could be, I don'texpect them to ascend to godhood as far
as the year is concerned. Butthe games we want to mention here really
round out the entire year I thinkpretty well. Baldersgate three and Legend of
Zelda Tiers of the Kingdom seemed tobe the one two punch for game of
the Year this year, and thenyou have Street Fighter six, Super Mario,

(43:29):
Wonder, Marvel Spider Man two.See of Stars was a great indie
RPG. Indies in general actually hada strong year. Dave the Diverse,
Lay the Princess, and I couldgo on and on. Cyberpunk twenty seventy
seven, Phantom Liberty was huge,Alan Wake to High Fire Rush was one

(43:49):
of the biggest surprises of the year, Diablo for Pickman for Final Fantasy sixteen,
a recent entry in The Tallows Principaltwo, and so on and so
forth. There are more that Icould get into, but those are probably
the biggest original games. And thenthere were plenty of remasters and remakes to
speak of as well. Metroig PrimeRemastered, Believe It or not was this

(44:09):
year, it was only back inFebruary. Resident Evil four remake was huge,
plus the Separate Ways DLC that thoseare both big time releases from this
year as well. And then DeadSpace was January that was also this year
too, I know right. Andthen also Dead Sales which is not a
remake, it's an expansion returned toCastlevania that was huge back in March.

(44:31):
Ghost Trick also impressed a lot ofpeople. Believe it or not, it's
been a good year. It hasbeen a very very good year. There
have been a lot of excellent,excellent titles from tripa A to Indy Cassette.
Beasts and Cocoon were two games thatI forgot there were definitely were on
my radar, very very good stuffthere. So yeah, so the argument

(44:52):
can be made that we have hadone of the at least one of the
highest quality years in recent memory.And that's without getting into games that I
am now realizing I never even talkedabout. Starfield came out this year,
Humanity, Armored Core six, OctopathTraveler two another recent entry, and stars
in the second story blasphemous too.The making Karatica or character or whatever it

(45:14):
is. Chris Kuller was on thisshow earlier this year. Jedi Survivor,
Hogwarts, Legacy, Mortal Kombat one, War Groove two, The Fours that
the latest four of the game wassupposedly was very very good. The list
goes on and on Viewfinder it wasa solid indie title Football Manager twenty twenty
four. According to Open critic it, I have to scroll to page up,

(45:36):
still going not quite there yet.Holy moly, Wowie, we're still
going there, we go. Ihave to scroll to page eight and these
have twenty entries per page. Onehundred and forty seven releases this year averaged
an eighty. That's pretty nuts,right, That's a that's a very that's

(46:00):
a signal of very high quality.Now does that make it one of the
best overall years for games? Sure? It definitely is up there, and
it is also top heavy, aswe talked about with like balders Gate Legend
of Zelda Meside before. But let'slook at a couple of years that also

(46:21):
had some really huge gear releases,particularly in certain sections of the year.
Two thousand and seven is one thatI go back to personally because I was
working for a particular gaming focused retailer. If you know, wink wink,
nudge nudge. At the time,I had actually gotten a job with them

(46:45):
in May of that year, soI was right in to the huge release
launch period from like August until theend of the year. And in that
time, and not just that timealone, we had Super Mario Galaxy,
the Orange Box, BioShock, Callof Duty four, Halo three, Team

(47:07):
Fortress two, Rock Band was abig one that year. The original Mass
Effect Crisis was out in that timeperiod. Half Life two episode two in
the Orange Box specifically, so itcame to consoles for the first time.
That was a huge seller that year, the first Uncharted portal, and the

(47:28):
list goes on. It was ahuge year four releases, and there were
all midnight releases and I remember themfondly. Guitar Hero two for the three
sixty was big. Earlier in theyear. God of War two came out.
Earlier in the year, Elder Scrollscame to PS three, which got
rave reviews. It was a veryvery big year four games, one that

(47:51):
I particularly remember finally as one ofthe strongest in recent history. Is it
as strong as this year? Iwould say yes. This list right here
that I'm looking at right now hasabout thirty to thirty five titles that ranked
at least an eighty eight on Metacriticor an eighty seven and a half on

(48:14):
Game Rankings. That's pretty big,right, That's a lot of games that
were at least there. Now.I know, I said one hundred and
forty eight games that went to eightybut if we cut that down to eighty
eight, we're only at twenty ninegames this year. So there are a
couple of more in two thousand andseven that averaged higher eighty eight or higher

(48:39):
that are on this list in frontof me. And if we want to
drop that down to eighty seven fortwenty twenty three, there's thirty three games
that averaged eighty seven or higher intwenty twenty three, so it's comparable.
I would say personally that maybe twentytwenty three edges it out a little more
based on overall different games, becausethis list does have the two thousand and

(49:04):
seven lists that I'm looking at,does have a couple of repeats, like
the orange boxes on here twice becausedifferent consoles. Modern Warfare is on here
for different consoles, so on andso forth. But I might lean towards
twenty twenty three now over two thousandand seven, just because the different titles
that came out, and not onlyare they they not only are they all
high quality, but they're also vastlydifferent from one another. Alan Wake does

(49:29):
not play like Balder Skate, doesnot play like Street Fighter, does not
play like Pickman. Right, It'sa fully varied, full scope of experiences.
The two thousand and seven, whilethey had some great games, did
not have as varied of choices,even though some of them are the best

(49:49):
games I've ever played. Now,if we go back a little bit further,
this is one that I think isgonna be really hard to top,
and that's nineteen ninety eight. Goback to nineteen ninety eight. We are
looking at games like the first MiddleGear, Solid Resident Evil two, StarCraft
Banjo Kazooi, the first Bowlders game, Zelda, Ocarina of Time, Crash

(50:12):
Bandicoot three, Xena Gears, NFLBlitz, Tarrok II, to a lester
extent, some of the best sportsgame ever ever made in the ninety nine
series NBA, NHL, Madden,Fifis, I Want, and so forth.
F zero X was that year Tannegysnowboarding for the Nintendo sixty four fans
out there, Panzer Dragoon, Sagafor those who owned a Sega Saturn,

(50:34):
Treat Fighter Alpha three for the fightinggame fans, the original Half Life for
the PC players. It was ahuge year for games. I might because
of the influence that these games have. I may lean towards nineteen ninety eight,
but twenty twenty three definitely made ahuge you know what, I might

(50:54):
actually go. It's funny how manytitles are on both of these lists.
Zelda is on both lists. Baldersgateis on both these lists, street Fighter
is on both these lists. ResidentEvil is on both of these lists.
Not here Solid could have been,but that was more of a remake compilation
in twenty twenty three, not aoriginal full on game, which is interesting

(51:19):
and so I might still like asfar as overall quality of game, might
lean towards twenty twenty three over nineteenninety eight, but you know, both
nineteen ninety eight and two thousand andseven have major, major arguments for being
the best year in gaming, Sodoes twenty twenty three win? Is this
year the best year ever in videogames? Maybe for releases, but no,

(51:47):
No, twenty twenty three is notthe best year in video game history,
industry history, and in order tomake this point, I'm going to
read you a list. Okay,here we go. See if you can
find the theme on this list.Bungee, Telltale, Twitch, Doughty Dog

(52:10):
Team Seventeen, Creative Assembly, EpicGames Media, Tonic, Blizzard, Crystal
Dynamics, Ascendant Studios, Visual Concepts, Gearbox, Romino, east Side,
BioWare, Blackbird, Ceedy Project,Red Data, Lik Niantic, Wild Seed,
Scavenger Studios, The Game Band,Embracer Group, Inverse, Kabam,

(52:36):
Deck nine, The Molasses Flood,Ubisoft, play On Unity, Waypoint,
Ready at Dawn, Downpour, TakeTwo, Game Loft Servios, Nixon,
EA, High Res, Ryot threefour three, Fandom, Slash Game Spot,
Giant Bomb, Net, EA's VentureBeat, Raindow Studios, the Coalition.

(53:00):
I could go on. Have youfigured out what this list is yet?
This is a list of every gamestudio, and I missed a healthy
amount. I skipped around every gamestudio where employees were laid off this year,
and that to me is unacceptable.I understand that you know this is

(53:22):
a weird time for multiple industries.The pandemic really threw things through a loop.
Particularly in what we do because duringthe pandemic, people stayed home and
played video games, so projections werethrough the roof or the industry went through
a roof in twenty twenty and twentytwenty one, and nobody apparently seemed to

(53:43):
account for that when making projections andstuff like that, so they hired like
crazy, and now thousands, literalthousands of people six thousand I think at
last count are out of jobs becausepeople with an Excel sheet and a pen
are don't know how to do mathor didn't math right, and instead of

(54:07):
making changes at the top, theyelected to make changes down below, and
that sucks. I've seen good people, friends basically pouring their souls into social
media posts talking about how they lostjobs that they loved, jobs that in
some cases people moved across the countryfor and were only there for a year

(54:28):
before getting the acts. This isthe worst fears of many people in this
industry, laid bare for all tosee because people at the top, like
I said, would rather sacrifice goodpeople, whether it's community management, actual
developers. Sorry community, I shouldn'tsay actual developers. You know what I'm

(54:51):
saying, coders, programmers, Thingslike that were expendable, but they couldn't
be touched at the top, theirsalaries couldn't be messed with, their way
of life didn't have to change.It's it's the classic principal Skinner meme.
Am I so out of touch?No, it's the children who are wrong.
But in this case, the childrenare good working people who have to

(55:15):
be sacrificed because numbers don't add upthe way that the people think they should.
And that's bull crap. It's absolutebull crap. It's completely unnecessary.
I don't care what anybody says.No one needed to be laid off this
year. What had to happen wasthings had to happen at the executive level,
less bonuses, cut salaries temporarily orwhat have you to retain those people.

(55:39):
The most egregious one is the mostrecent one Bungie who said that there
when they were bought by Sony,that Sony was their biggest focuses were retention
and and all this other things.No one's gonna get fired at A year
and a half later, there wego a bunch of layoffs. Everybody hit
the road. Sorry, we don'tcare. Awful and it's unnecessary. And

(56:02):
people will say well, the executivesshouldn't have to do that. Why do
they have to because people like tokiss ass or whatever. But the reason
that they have to do that isthey're the ones that made the wrong projections
in the first place. They're theones that signed off on it. They
were trying to reach unreachable goals basedon a one off situation in the pandemic.

(56:23):
They should have known that those thingsweren't going to be possible, and
they should have planned ahead. Butno, the investors only want to see
infinite growth. They only want tosee the chart going up and up and
up. They don't care what's goingon. They just want to see that
their return on their investment is whatit should be, if not more,

(56:43):
And that is bull crap. Myonly wish for this industry in twenty twenty
four. I don't ask for much, despite having played games for thirty three
years. I'm not the kind ofguy who's, like, you know,
comic book guy. As a fan, I think they owe me. I
know I'm not entirely to anything,but every once in a while I like
to make a request of my gamingindustry, the one that I've written about

(57:05):
for fifteen years and followed for manymore than that. In twenty twenty four,
I don't want to write an articleabout layoffs anymore. Now. I
know that's a lofty goal and probablyimpossible because some C suite idiot is already
salivating at the idea of ruining people'slives. But I don't want to write
an article about layoffs anymore. Iwant to write an article about an executive

(57:28):
who took it upon himself to cuthis own benefits or salary or what have
you, in order to retain thepeople that made his or her game great.
That's what I want. Before anybodysays to me, well, that's
impossible, it's never going to happen. That doesn't work. It's never happened
in the history of video games.You're wrong. It has happened, and
unfortunately the beacon of hope that didthis, one that could give us the

(57:53):
information on how they made that workand what have you, is no longer
with us, and that man's nameis Satoru Iwata. Back in, let
me look up the uh let melook up the article here before anybody tries
to tell me that I don't havethe exact facts. Back in two thousand

(58:13):
and where's the date? Fourteen?A dive Nintendo experience at dive in profits
following disappointing sales of WU the projectionor sorry, the net income. I'm
reading an article from the BBC atthe time. Net income fell four billion

(58:36):
yen from one fourteen point five tofive billion in twenty thirteen to ten point
two billion in twenty fourteen, fromApril to December. Sorry twenty twelve to
twenty thirteen to twenty you know,so this is January twenty fourteen. What
did they do? Did they laypeople off? Did they cut the workforce,

(58:57):
did they take away benefits? Didthey anything like that? No,
mister Awada elected to cut his payin half for at least five months and
potentially more. I believe he endedup doing more. Miyamoto took a pay
cut. A lot of executives tooka pay cut. They were temporary,

(59:20):
but they made up for the lossand they were able to recover from that.
They made it work in order tokeep their people, and that's why
Nintendo has one of the highest retentionrates in the industry. Somewhere in the
ballpark I understand of ninety eight percentretention rate because when things like this happen

(59:45):
at that company. The executives dowhat they have to do to keep people
working but also keep the company going. They knew what had to be done.
But ten years later, that's nothow it works anymore. When things
aren't going the way they should be. And in an industry which experienced an
unprecedented boom thanks to people being stuckinside the house with nothing to do but

(01:00:07):
play their games, has anyone elsetaken this step? Has anyone else stepped
up and said, you know what, we'll take a bit of a cut
for a little while we can certainlyafford it. Let's keep these people working,
and because the quality of the gamethat we make may suffer in the
long run. Nope, six thousandpeople across different facets of the industry,

(01:00:30):
development, community, management, journalism, all of it gone in an instant
because some guy thought they were justnumbers on a page that could be deleted
at their whim. And don't thinkit's just new people either. Don't think
it's people that I have only beenyou know, writing about that only been

(01:00:52):
working in games for a couple ofyears. One of the layoffs at Bungee,
the most egregious one, the onethat's been used as an example of
just pure cold greed. At thecenter of these cuts is a guy named
Michael Salvatore. Now, for Halofans, that's your ring of Bell Destiny
fans, it definitely does. Thatman wrote the music for both of those

(01:01:14):
games, Halo and Bungee. Theiconic songs that you have listened to for
over twenty years, that man wasresponsible for along with Michael, along with
O'Donnell, Michael Salvatore was a drivingmusical force at Bungee. Going without a
second thought boggles the mind that theywould just let him go. There was

(01:01:35):
another name whose name I don't remember, Rebecca or Becky something, who was
a developer for twenty years, alsocut one of their best developers. Going
numbers on a page, that's allthese people are, and it's crap.
It's absolute crap. And I wouldhope that with a major platform coming up
a month from now, a certainJeff Keilly, who has spoken out against

(01:02:00):
companies in the past, Let's notforget when he'd stuck up for his boy
Hideo Kajima against Kanami on his ownstage at the Game Awards that year.
Let's hope he would make a commentthis year again, but based on the
tweets he's put out, based onthings that he has said, I don't
know that that's gonna happen. Irespect Jeff and what he does for this

(01:02:21):
industry, but sometimes he does notuse the platform in the way that he
should, and I hope in thiscase that he does because it needs it
needs to be said, It needsto be put out there. That dirty
laundry needs to be aired. Sothe people who make the decisions don't think
they can continue to get away withthis forever, because eventually the quality of
the games will come down and theindustry will nuts. I wouldn't call it

(01:02:44):
a bubble. I don't think theindustry's ever going to hit a bubble,
but there is going to be adownturn if the games aren't good. Now
they were able to do this ina year with a record number of quality
games, as we've talked about onehundred and forty seven games averaging over eighty
or eighty or over on open credit. Fine, that's not gonna happen every
year. Does the twenty twenty fourslate look thet some in presses of twenty

(01:03:05):
twenty three, No, So whensales are down and things are down,
what are they gonna do. Theygotta lay off more, but they're gonna
take responsibility and start at the topas they should have. I'm gonna ask
you for everybody to get fired.But you know, maybe you don't have
to buy that third yacht. Maybetwo will do. Yeah, let's be
a little more humane about this inthe future, because Lord knows the world

(01:03:29):
is not humane at all at themoment, and any opportunity we can take
to be that way I would verymuch appreciate. So on that note,
this is episode number one thirty nineof the Chief Stakes and Controllers podcast,
presented as always by Fox PHL TheGambler one A two point nine five on
a two point five FM. Weare not a Classic CROC station fourteen eighty

(01:03:49):
AM. I Heart radio streaming platformswherever you get your podcasts is where you
can listen to this show. Ifyou're listening to these words right now,
as I say at the end ofevery episode, that means you are at
the end of this episode. AndI appreciate you for getting here very much.
Love that you were taking a timeto listen to me. Hope you
were educated. Hope you were entertained, and I hope that you come back
for more episodes in the future.I'm in a good groove now between last

(01:04:13):
week and this week. I thinkwe can keep that going for the versteeable
future. Let's hope. A bigthank you to Jeff Montagu from Extra Life
at Community sorry from Children's Miracle Networksdirecting Extra Life coming on talking about game
days. Go and support whatever streamersare supporting the Children's Miracle Network Hospital near
you, Go and donate to them. CMN does great work for the kids,

(01:04:36):
both terminally ill and the emergency room. Kids are bump their head and
need some stitches. They do greatwork across the board, as Jeff was
saying, and this is a greatway to give them extra funds to be
able to help the kids in thefuture. So I hope you have a
great weekend. I hope you havean even better week right behind it,

(01:04:56):
and we will be back with moreof the latest and greatest in video games
right here on Chief Stakes and Controllers. Goodbye, everybody,