I’m just gonna apologize right now for the majority of this episode. Well, the second hour anyway. I think I went on a little long with my rant on the future of free to play and games as a service type of stuff. I looked way ahead into a future I’m pretty sure is coming eventually, but went on WAY too long about it. Still, it’s bleak AF.

Epic did another thing to really ruffle the feathers of gamers this week. If you are a PC player of Rocket League, I’m really curious as to your thoughts on the matter. We had no one call in about it and I’ve really spoken to no one I know who plays it on PC that has an opinion on this issue, but I’m extremely curious of how you feel about the situation. For me, having no dog in the fight, it’s a pretty big business move and it makes me wonder what other moves Epic has in store for…their store.

As someone in my 80’s once said on Monday night…everybody’s got a price. If you’re someone against the Epic store, what’s your price? What game exclusive do they buy that makes you eventually give in and use their store?

Just so you know, we get it out of the way up front at the beginning of the episode but I’ll also say it here. We don’t talk about Avengers Endgame in this episode. We mention it in the beginning only to say nothing will be brought up. Even if we did, we wouldn’t spoil anything but just to be VERY clear, we don’t talk about it. At all. You’re safe.

What you aren’t safe from, apparently, is tuberculosis. We never played far enough in the game or did things right to have that happen to us. But, as our caller informs us, it can happen and even with tuberculosis, it’s still a great game. You may already know the game we’re talking about but we’ll leave it to you to find out.

While I know in this episode and previous I’ve only really ever had one game to mention that I’ve been playing, that changed after this episode and even today. So be prepared for something different next week when that topic comes up.

What’s old is new again. Actually what was dead is now alive. Fitting for Easter, I suppose. Even when talking about a video game. In case you weren’t aware, City Of Heroes was a BIG, and I cannot stress this enough, BIG impact on every one of us on IGC. Not just the current cast but from the past as well. We all played it. And we all played it together. For me, it was my first MMO. And it fit right into my wheelhouse of comic books and superheroes.

Earlier this week the world found out the game was still running for a small number of people. Then, the unthinkable happened, the people playing that game opened it up to anyone and everyone. And for the first time since 2012, I was playing City Of Heroes again. Only for maybe 5 minutes before the server shut down for a reboot, but I was there. And I can go back.

And I will go back. Not trying to capture the lightning once more, but just to visit an old friend and place we once called home.

We seem to be in a lull here with gaming news. It’s there, but less frequent as we’ve become accustomed to. Outside of anything unexpected breaking between now and E3, this seems to be the norm.

What we do have this week is the very little info we got on a new Star Wars game along with the seemingly never-ending talk of the Epic Games Store. It isn’t much and it isn’t territory we haven’t already covered, but there was an aspect of it I hadn’t explored before. And that’s the two way street of a business deal. Blame is put on Epic for these exclusives, but that’s just one side. They only make the offer. Someone else has to accept, and I see very little outrage towards those signing the deals. And to be clear, we don’t see outrage needed for either party. We’re perfectly fine with what Epic is doing, in some ways, at least. It’s all explained, we hope, in this week’s episode.

It’s always a great thrill to have Rand Miller on the show from Cyan Worlds. He’s enthusiastic to talk about the games he’s working on and working on games in general. It’s also fun that he isn’t tied to any sort of PR where he has to stick to the script.

That’s why I was eager to ask him about the whole Epic Games Store stuff and get his take on it. And his take is what I imagine a lot of indie devs feel about it too. It also gave me a perspective I’d not yet taken into account. While I’d spent most of my time trying to figure out why consumers has issue with it, I’d completely overlooked the developer aspect of why they are so excited about it. Long story short, it makes them excited because they can continue to make games when offers like these come their way.

But Rand is much better at telling that than I am, because you can hear it in his voice when talking about it.

This was Rand’s fourth visit to our show and we hope to have him on many more times. He is an absolute joy to speak with and we can’t wait to talk to him again soon.

I still, for the life of me, cannot figure out this whole hate against the Epic Games Store. It boggles my mind and I can’t find a single straight answer as to why some people hate it. No one can say, “Because it’s not Steam and I want Steam!”, or whatever seems to be the real reason.

Next week we welcome back to the show Rand Miller from Cyan. They’ve got a new game on Kickstarter and he’ll be on to tell us about it and answer our questions and YOUR questions. If you have any, by the way, tweet us, leave a comment, send an email and we’ll ask him!

As I sit here writing this, I’m using something Google based to post the video of the show and Google based to actually write this. At one point I used to use something Google based to compile video game news, but Google got rid of it. We also used to have a space on something Google based, but Google got rid of it. There’s been a few things we’ve had a presence on that was Google based.

Until Google got rid of it.

Google does this. A lot. And they easily have data to show that people use the thing so I’m not sure why they suddenly shut it down and for what reason, but it happens. And it is still happening (goodbye g-chat). Now Google has a new thing, or at least probably will be the end of the year.

Game streaming isn’t a particularly new thing, but it’s never been implemented very well. Google’s trying to change that and from my time with Project Stream, I’d say they succeeded. But only that they can pull it off and if your connection is good enough, it works beyond what you might think. But not everyone’s connection it good enough and not everyone has an unlimited cap on bandwidth. Google’s venture into gaming doesn’t feel revolutionary or awe-inspiring or whatever. There’s no sense of “breakthrough” here, but there’s also a slew of questions left to be answered and even then, how will the public embrace it?

And for those that do, how long will you be able to embrace it before Google decides to get rid of it.

We’ve discussed pricing of video games before. And I’m not talking about the current pricing of newly released titles where you expect the usual sixty bucks. We’re talking about older games and what you feel something is worth. And really, that’s the end of the argument, right there.

What do you feel a game is worth to you?

There’s no rules in that question or that answer. Well, aside from the fact that you have to pay something for it – you can’t say free. Given that, every single answer anyone gives is pretty much the right one…for them. It doesn’t matter the length of the game or the age or how it looks or anything like that at all, unless those factor into your answer and that’s perfectly fine if they do.

This whole point comes up again as we see the Halo series getting a PC release. It doesn’t seem like it’ll come in the form of a collection – pay one price and get it all. No, they look to be serving it piecemeal. But they’ve given no word on what it’ll cost us. Will they all be the same price or go up and down depending on the age of the title? Will they offer it in some bundle where you pay a price now and get all of them as they release? We don’t know. At least not yet.

It feels a bit like an infomercial cliche, but looking back over the Halo series and now getting them on PC…what would you pay for this lovely collection of games?

But wait, there’s more…

I’m going to talk about a game I haven’t played outside of two different beta sessions. It’s also a game I certainly have no intention of playing anytime soon, as well.

Anthem is having issues. Lots of them. The game cannot catch a break in the gaming press. Every single article posted is another strike against it and it’s hard to find anything good to say about it. And it’s also kind of sad too given the long, and nearly spotless, history of the developers. Yeah, they’ve stumbled, but here it is, round 2, and they’ve stumbled again.

I don’t blame EA, but I could. As we’ve learned from interviews with Amy Hennig, EA pretty much forces the developers they own to run the same engine with everything they do (the Frostbite engine). It was one created for FPS, and Anthem is a 3rd person shooter. So there’s an excuse there. Sort of. Other problems with the game have absolutely nothing to do with the engine and just the overall design choices. Then there’s bugs, loot issues, lack of eng game, and everything else that plagues what games like Anthem are trying to do.

Almost everything that’s broken in the game can be fixed and things that aren’t broken but otherwise just…odd choices, can be changed. We know this. We’ve been through it with Destiny. What’s out there now doesn’t have to be and probably won’t be what’s out there a year from now for Anthem. But EA isn’t known for being patient. If they can hold, I honestly feel that Bioware can right the ship. At least I want them to.

Still, it was good to hear from at least one person enjoying the game despite its faults.

Have I talked about Spider-Man? Let’s talk a little about Spider-Man. I say this in the show and I’ll say it here as well: the game deserves every bit of praise it’s gotten over the 7 or so months it’s been out. Yes, it’s taken me that long to get around to not only playing it but finishing the main story. However, I have a few nitpicks but they really get on my nerves when developers do this.

There’s a lot of “padding the story” in this game. There’s honestly a lot of that in almost every game, but one of the ways done in Spider-Man really got on my nerves. The secondary stuff is…whatever. It’s an open world game, you’re going to have side tasks and challenges. They annoy me (especially Taskmaster and, now, Screwball), but whatever. No, my biggest gripe for the game is the times when you AREN’T playing as Spider-Man. And, to be clear, the Peter Parker aspects of the game are fine, but any time you aren’t playing as Parker/Spider-Man are just plain annoying. I’ll give a bit of a break for the Miles segments, at least one in particular, because it feels like a bit of character development and you’ve got to go through this event with him and put yourself in his shoes. But the rest of it is just fluff.

Again, I know WHY they do this in games, but man I can’t stand it in some cases. Even now, while working on the DLC stuff, they keep throwing in fluff and it gets to the point I stop playing and come back later. It’s the kind of annoying that actually makes me turn off the game.

Stop doing that. Please.

P.S. Everyone else, please stop timed missions, escort missions, and everything else I personally don’t like.