Some Patches Required

This week, Zak and Aaron take some time to discuss Grand Theft Auto VI, but not in the "WHEN FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WILL IT FINALLY RELEASE" way to which you may be accustomed on the internet. Instead, they dig into the industry-wide perception that Rockstar's newest will be some sort of savior for the whole business of games.

Between driving the adoption of current-gen hardware and giving the industry at large a billion-plus dollar shot in the arm, the hopes for GTA VI are sky-high. But how did we end up relying on one title to pull the whole medium out of the doldrums? And is it a good idea to do so in the first place?

Please, enjoy.

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This week, Zak and Aaron take some time to discuss the newly renamed Halo Studios (so long, 343! We're sure Xbox didn't rename you because of all that bad press you've accumulated!) and chat about some of the big changes coming down the pipe for future titles. The most notable of these is the sunsetting of the Slipspace engine in favor of the shiny and ever-so-popular Unreal Engine 5, which will power all new Halo installments for the foreseeable future. 

But will this fresh direction be enough to shake off the franchise's funk? Only time will tell.

Please, enjoy.

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Brace yourselves for a shocking revelation: Ubisoft is in serious trouble again. Or still... or, maybe, both.

This week, Zak and Aaron sit down to discuss the newest plan to wrest control of the storied French studio/publisher away from the Guillemot family — this time at the hands of activist-investor group AJ Investments — and what that all-too-possible future may look like. They also discuss Ubisoft's many failures, a few of its more telling strategy shifts, and just how we got here in the first place.

Please, enjoy.

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This week, Zak and Aaron sit down with notable Austinite John Henderson, who has shipped numerous games and made a name for himself in the local development community for hosting Game Dev Beer Night and supporting aspiring professionals as they try to make sense of their careers.

John was kind enough to share his insights on a wide range of topics from advice on finding fulfillment in your job to maintaining motivation to the state of the industry at large. A few technical difficulties during the recording may have changed the shape of this episode a bit, but John's perspective and honest opinions are well worth the listen.

Also, apparently Aaron doesn't know what the word "erstwhile" means, and he deserves your scorn and derision.

Please, enjoy.

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Alas, poor Concord, we hardly knew thee.

That's right, Sony's next big foray into the wild world of live service shooters, is no more. And the real kicker? It barely lasted two weeks.

This week, Zak and Aaron sit down to discuss the unprecedented failure of Concord. In addition to enumerating some of the factors that led to the AAA game's unceremonious sunsetting (namely questionable character design and a general lack of innovation in a decade-old genre), our intrepid hosts also speculate on the title's tentative future.

Just for good measure, they also spend some time dunking on internet imbeciles who blame this mess on Concord being "too woke."

Please, enjoy.

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When you look at a game like Monopoly Go!, your first thought is probably not that its marketing budget was nearly twice the annual GDP of the Marshall Islands. That's right, Hasbro and Scopley spent a borderline-obscene $500 million to get their new mobile title in front of as many eyes as possible... and it seems to have worked. 

This week, Zak and Aaron sit down to talk about the cost of marketing games both huge and humble, and why the mobile sector tends to see such enormous price tags when compared to their AAA counterparts.

Please, enjoy.

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Xbox Game Pass has been called the best deal in gaming, and for a while that was hard to dispute. But the times are changing, and with it comes a new era for Microsoft's subscription service - one that costs considerably more than it used to.

This week, Zak and Aaron sit down to discuss the Xbox Game Pass price hike, and why it's far more significant than it may seem at face value. Between the impact of Call of Duty, flagging growth numbers, freefalling console sales, and the full weight of the Activision Blizzard merger all in play at once, there's a lot to unpack here.

Please, enjoy.

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Every few years, notoriously sadistic game studio From Software releases a new title, and with it comes a heated debate about game difficulty. Well, that time has come again with the launch of Shadow of the Erdtree, the one and only (massive) expansion for auteur director Hidetaka Miyazaki's magnum opus, Elden Ring.

So, with some people conflating the DLC's brutal skill requirements with a legitimate accessibility issue, Zak and Aaron sat down to discuss game difficulty, easy modes, artistic integrity, and the difference between impairments and impediments. Aaron also complains a lot about the Tree Sentinal. So there's that.

Please, enjoy.

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Among the bombastic trailers showcased in the Xbox showcase at Not E3™ — er, I mean Summer Game Fest™ — was one particular reveal that some fans have been waiting for for the better part of a decade: Dragon Age: The Veilguard. And boy oh boy, was it ever a bewildering first look.

This week, Zak and Aaron sit down to discuss their impressions of the newest iteration of Dragon Age 4, and why it seems to feel so little like the beloved games that came before it. They also discuss what's lost when IPs that used to have a strong identity throw what made them unique by the wayside in favor of mass appeal.

Please, enjoy.

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Hello, everybody, and welcome to the latest episode of Consolidation Watch - a show where we puff out our proverbial chests and celebrate all of the excellent acquisitions that mega-corporations have completed recently! This week, we've got a doozy for ya' from the world of games media, where IGN successfully ate up the Gamer Network, home of mainstays like GamesIndustry.biz and Rock Paper Shotgun!

Clearly this is all for the best, and won't in any way damage the media landscape at large by winnowing down the diversity of content on the internet until we're left with one voice and one opinion, communicated through the broken language of AI and overseen by the editorial integrity of shareholders. So join us as we celebrate this milestone and don't think or talk critically about what it means at all.

Please, enjoy.

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