Yo, what's up? Welcome to kind of funny games, has for Tuesday, February 25th, 2025. When your host, Blessing, at Yale, Jr. Join me is the Nitro Rifle, Andy Cortez, hello, and we have WWE superstar, regular.
I just want to have a nice Tuesday. I just want to go play a video game, redacted. Actually, it's split fiction. We can say we're playing split fiction.
I just want to go play split fiction with them. And then I got to have one or brother games continuing to be the biggest doofuses fucking around. And that's saying something. And I'm actually probably not the biggest doofuses.
But there's still a bunch of fucking clowns out there who can't get a goddamn DC Comics video game out to save their life. Yeah, a lot to talk about. Of course, if you listen to KHD, me and Andy, we're supposed to go one on one episode. We're going to do a couple of shit lists.
We're going to talk about the best PC games of all time. Kick our feet out. Have a good time. You know what I mean?
Like, who for a, because me and Andy, I don't even know if we've done a one on one games cast before. I was going to ask you guys to talk to your office. I was excited to do a shit list. I was excited to have you on a shit list.
Yeah, I was going to be some bigger content. But yeah, 20 and a half. Now we got this trash. Now we got a horrible episode.
Trash, right to talk about, because toward the end of KHD, it was breaking news that WB had shut down monolith in some other studios as well, including player first game. So you know from multi-versus and their canceling Wonder Woman. So we had to pull Greg off of the thing he was doing, which I know is going to stretch his schedule. We don't care about that.
Because of course, we all want to hear Greg talk about all this. Live talk shows every day about video games. If the news happens, we don't sleep. We get in here and do it.
Exactly. Because remember, this is the kind of funny games cast. Each and every weekday, we get together and talk about the biggest reviews, previews, in topics in video games live on YouTube, Twitch, and on podcasts, there is around the globe. If you love what we do, support us with the kind of funny membership on Patreon, YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts to get all of our shows ad-free, watch the recording live, and get a daily exclusive show.
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WB closes monolith and a couple other studios. Of course, I want you guys to super chat in with your thoughts and questions, and we'll get into them. To set the stage, I want to hop into an article from Tom Ivan at Video Games Chronicle. Warner Brothers is reported.
Warner Brothers is reported closing. Three game studios and canceling Wonder Woman. That's the title of the article. Warner Brothers is reportedly closing three internal development studios and canceling the Wonder Woman game.
Middle Earth, Shadow of War Door, and Shadow of War Studio, Monolith Productions is shutting down, with its in-development Wonder Woman game being axed, according to Bloomberg reporter Jason Shrier. Warner Brothers games is reportedly closing three internal development studios. Oh yeah, I guess I must have copied that or faced that twice. Maybe it was like that one.
It's all happening pretty fast, so I think that actually that might have been on them. But the further this, I do have a screenshot from Blue Sky. This was via Ethan Gatch, who you know from Kotaku. Screenshoting WB's confirmation of it all.
They wrote, we have had to make some very difficult decisions to structure our development studios and investments around building the best games possible with our key franchises. Harry Potter, Mortal Kombat, DC, and Game of Thrones. After careful consideration, we are closing three of our development studios, Monolith Productions, Player First Games, and Warner Brothers games in Diego. This is a strategic change in direction and not a reflection of these teams or the talents that consist within them.
The development of Monolith's Wonder Woman game will not move forward. Our hope was to give players and fans the highest quality experience possible for the iconic character. And unfortunately, this is no longer possible within our strategic priorities. This is another tough decision.
As we recognize Monolith's story history of delivering epic fan experiences through amazing games, we greatly admire the passion of the three teams and thank every employee for their contributions. As difficult today is, we remain focused on and excited about getting back to producing high quality games for our passionate fans and developed by our world class studios and getting our game's business back to profitability and growth in 2025 and beyond. Beow-beow-beow-beow-beow-beow-beow-beow-beow-beow-beow. The fuck up, man.
Andy, do you want to take away? I mean, like, we're excited to get back to developing high quality. So what were you doing then? What was the problem?
Well, I mean, that's kind of, that's really the only take. We've heard these statements a million times. We've read statements like these a million times on these shows to maximize shareholder, blah, blah, blah, get the budget profits up and we want to concentrate on these certain IPs. It's just, I mean, the part that stood out to me was, this is a strategic change in direction and not a reflection of these teams or the talent that consists with them.
I'm glad that you're talented. Great. I'll leave you anything wrong. We're talking shit about these guys, we're firing them but you should still hire them.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, we're noting, too even the top of the statement that we're talking about, Play First Games, I believe was acquired this last year. They're the theme of July 22nd, 2024, Burbank, California, business wire, one of others games announces the acquisition of Play First Games, the developer of their recently launched multi-versus free to play platform fighter video game. Get fucked.
Yeah. Get fucked. You're the DC person. I am.
Which makes me the one other person. Yeah. I've been to the one other studio store many times growing up. I spent thousands of dollars there of my parents' money.
How does this take you? Man, there are so many different ways to come at this and be angry. First and foremost, you're completely disheartened and saddened for the developers who just lost their jobs. How, you know, these three game studios, did they know this was coming?
Was this writing on the wall type situation? Or was they came to work on Tuesday, you know, set to make their games and guess what? It's all gone. Player First, you bought less than a year ago from these people.
Imagine you were to get resources and time to make things. Multiversus has been a disaster in terms of how WBS handled this since then. So first and foremost, there's just that. Then there's the part of me that, again, looks at this statement from WBS and it's just get fucked.
You know what I mean? Again, this is it here talking about key franchises, Harry Potter, Mortal Kombat, DC, and Game of Thrones. Well, can't look at DC, Game of Wars. What are you talking about?
Like the rumor has been on the streets forever that Warner Brothers has been trying to sell the gaming division, granted Warner Brothers goes through leadership over there like nobody's goddamn business. So who knows if that's still the thing? But you'd imagine they're still trying to slim this down, trim this down. The rumor I'd always heard about this was that we're trying to sell the WB Interactive Studios, but obviously the IP wouldn't go with them.
So Warner Brothers would still own DC, Warner Brothers would still own Harry Potter, Warner Brothers would still own Mortal Kombat. So we would sell you blessing, Netherrealm, but then you'd pay us to still make Mortal Kombat, yes. Which is what the fuck? Terrible, no, terrible, awful.
Nobody's gonna wanna be a part of that. This is like, right? No, if I'm a company and I'm looking to buy Netherrealm, right, I'm buying Netherrealm, to make those games. If you're telling me that, I'm perching the studio, then we lease it, we lose it.
But then I have to pay royalties on top of that, just so I can have the Mortal Kombat, such a bad deal for me. It's that thing for me personally as a WB fan, and really as a DC fan, right? I feel the writing's been on the wall for a while, and this has been a tailspin, right? Of the leadership there clearly doesn't know what they're doing.
And so to see them come out and do this, cut and run on all these developers today, right? We're, to exactly what we've seen throughout the industry. What me and Matt has to tell I talked about last week in the game's cast. You are in an industry right now of fucking suits at the top.
We're trying to maximize shareholder value, and do not care about people's lives or the arts and video games. They got into this thinking, holy shit, wait a second. I'm seeing the success this Fortnite games having, we have a catalog of IP. Can you guys please make a free to play game for us?
And they're like, sure, here's what they're versus. Which doesn't hit because it was just too saturated. There's just, you don't have that room to grow. And maybe even if it doesn't hit, it doesn't hit Fortnite hit, and that's what these people wanted.
That's what they, the people who greenlit a Wonder Woman game. Like, what were you expecting? Wonder Woman 1984 when we started down this to be this giant hit, and then to continue on, and the Snyderverse would roll forever, and there'd be gal movie after gal movie, making Wonder Woman a bigger thing. So you bet on that to do that thing.
You stayed away from Superman because of the Henry Cavill back and forth. Yeah, yeah. So this is the conversation that we need to be having a little bit on K2D with James Gunn's story of him talking to the studios for Warner Brothers, right? Where I have faith in James Gunn's DC stuff because I like James Gunn.
I think he does good work. But when it is the thing of, hey, we're communicating with these studios to try and loop them into the universe or creating with the DCU, I can sort of, well, then how about holding other is the success of these studios to the success of the DCU? Right, if we get to a place where, ah shit, this actually didn't pay not the way that we were going to get there. They're dead water.
Yeah, then that reflects back on the game studios. We've seen this happen before where, you know, there was a time, in an earlier time of, you know, video games where movie tie-ins were attempted to be a thing and it was consistent that movie tie-ins were often timed, not every time, right, but often times bad because, oh, I mean, we're trying to align with the release of this movie, which means that our dev time might be lower or the budget we have might not match what we needed to make a, make this kind of game. Like they would get shit out real quick. Yeah, real quick.
And that stuff is just really hard to align, especially when you're talking about, I'm talking about games during the PS2 era. When you're talking about games today and how tough video game development is and how long video game development takes compared to something. And how expensive it is. How expensive it is, right?
I'm talking about movies as far as how you can align that stuff, make that stuff play together. I'm not saying it's impossible. You know, Andy brought up the X-Sand which idea of like, oh yeah, if Peacemaker loves X-Sand, which is maybe your Peacemaker in your game could like X-Sand which is too or something, right? Like maybe you can do Easter eggs or something.
Or maybe you can have it be an injustice thing of, no, we have this game, we have this movie coming up. Maybe this character would fit in injustice. Real quick, let me just hop in. Cause I, bless and I would have this conversation, just really only based on, it would be an impossible task to try to align these universes because of Canon.
And I hadn't even considered Greg bringing up the Wonder Woman fucking 99 movie sucks or whatever, and I didn't even consider that like, what are the movie sucks? Yeah, the Wonder Woman movie came out and just sucked, you know? And I mean, the way more relevant examples to why you don't want to tie a video game universe to an MCU is the whole King stuff, right? Like what, I keep a thing on a game.
I'm making a King game. I'm making a King game. I don't know what I mean. And you're three years into development.
And it's like, oh, I'm accidentally from all of that. Oh, fucking Jesus. You know what I mean? Like that's what it is.
So my hope with the rumors of James Gunn wanting to talk to this and DCU it up was always that, well, he's establishing a very comic bookie world, right? So hopefully we're talking about this, talking about multiple versions, talking about whatever, it can all exist in there and do whatever, not have to be like your main game, and it's gonna be David Corin's sweat Superman, you're doing that thing. And this talk is back to you just a couple weeks ago when I made that rant video on James Daly calling out, hey, James Gunn, like let's do lunch, let me talk. It was before this, it was before, it was when I think Jason Shire's February report, Kevin, if you wanna play the video, not with sound, but went up of like, hey, it's trouble over there.
Wonder Woman's already cost $100 million, right? They're trying to pivot back to a Batman Arkham single-player game like until someone grabs the fucking wheel of what's going on over there and knows what video game people want, you're not gonna turn a profit on it, you're gonna have it continue cancellations. And that's the problem I have with this thing. You're talking about back in the day, the tie-ins to movies and tie-ins to all this stuff, and like we'd get a Batman begins game, and it was dog shit, you know what I mean?
EA put out this thing where it was a fear meter, and it's like, no one thought about that. And it's why Arkham Asylum caught everyone off guard. Because it was a Batman game, okay, another licensed superhero game, this week's garbage. And we got it, oh shit, it's amazing, right?
To have that experience, to know what that was, I don't understand, and I know it's crazy, it's not crazy to say, I don't understand how one of others in DC didn't get this in line, because of course, look at their fucking movies, that have also been a train wreck of not knowing how to handle this stuff. The fact that you are the ones who did this, you put out Arkham Asylum, you redesigned a superhero division, and you haven't been able to say here we go, and then to hear the games that have been canceled. The fucking bodies along this trail, right? Remember that Batman Gotham by Gas Land before it came out?
Like that was like, why not? The rumors of a Damien Wayne Batman game? Why not? The Superman game that I know existed, that they were working on, that was canceled.
What the fuck, like, why? What is this, it's publisher parish, and now it's just even if you're working on it, you're going to perish, like what is going on? We talked about this a few weeks ago, and like, detailed a fuzzy, because there's so many of them of what all the different Warner Brothers studios were doing, and one of the studios that was trying to work on a Constantine thing, because we knew that they should have been working on something within that IP, because that's what Warner Brothers wanted, and at a certain point they're like, ah, Constantine not big enough, let's maybe do Flash. Okay, we can get that to work, okay, let's do this thing instead then, right?
Like it feels like Warner Brothers is in a place of, all right, we gotta do what makes the most sense IP-wise first, and I guess like a game archetype-wise first. We gotta make money, so we're gonna have this multiplayer fighting game that's gonna be way more like Smash Brothers, that's gonna have so much crossover, but then also we'll make it free to play in live service and all this stuff. Okay, cool, that didn't work. All right, suicide squad, we're trying to make the suicide squad happen for a bunch of different movies.
Let's make a suicide squad game, that's gonna be a live service thing. Ah shit, that didn't work, right? I think to have that stuff happen, and not come to fruition in terms of success, and be in a place where monolith, a studio that's a very talented studio, is working on an IP that, I don't know if I wouldn't call one woman necessarily like a top tier IP, but it's not, it's a good IP to be working on, I would say. For DC, like, and I know this is a comic nerd, but I remember she's part of the Trinity.
It is Superman, it is Batman, it is Wonder Woman. So even if she's not the highest stock right now, the thought understandably behind it would be, we can make this game with lower expectations, exceed those expectations, make Wonder Woman matter more than ever, and back to it, like, they're making more movies for it, right, so clearly we can be in line with that, we can ride that tail. And of course, there's conversations that we're not pretty to, I'm sure that our, oh man, this game's not panning out, oh, this is gonna take way longer. Oh, this is the budget for this, it's gonna have to get even higher, you talk about the 100, was it 100 million already?
Yeah, like, I think if you're in a place of turmoil, then that is what it is, but if model, if model if the studio that gave us Shadow of Mordor, which we haven't even talked about yet, right, like, this is a fucking talented studio, and when you talk about what Batman Arkham did, I think you also just talk about what WB was doing at that time of that injustice, obviously Mortal Kombat's always more combat, but more combat, and then yeah, Shadow of Mordor, that's such a key example of, oh yeah, when you don't allow other things to get in the way, when you don't allow Italian movie to get in the way of a licensed game, guess what, you can create gold and create something like the nemesis system, which really allows that universe to shine, and that studio making a Wonder Woman game should have been such a slant dunk, as far as what that is. You know, you're saying it in so many words, not being privy to this, just going off of Jason's reporting, both today and the February, earlier, February report that I haven't pulled up in front of you, right? It sounds like WB's entire problem is not being able to get out of the suits out of the way of the creators, period, right? You're reading Jason's thing here, right?
It's not been more than seven years since the studio's last game. An initial version of Wonder Woman tried reimagining the nemesis system with the game's namesake, Erwin, but friending enemies, but that idea has since been tossed out in more favor of a traditional action-adventure game. Period, stop right there, right? Bloody patented that.
Why did you, the nemesis system is awesome. You fucking patented that, you fucking brainless hacks at WB, but you just said there sounds interesting from Wonder Woman, right? But friending enemies and then you're working on the nemesis system. Then, oh, let's do it for a more traditional action-adventure game, right?
I assume that someone's stepping into the top, or a board of people stepping in the top, being like, well, let's not take a chance on that. Let's do what's going on over here, right? In the same way, oh, hey, Roxette, well, Suicide Squad, let's do that. Let's have the dollar signs in our eyes.
And I know there was leadership at Roxette, I want to do that, but this is back to the conversation you and I have all the time, bless about like, well, when the parent company is saying, we need hitters, we need winners, but we want a Fortnite, we want a Fortnite. Leadership's going to be incentivized, and we can do this, we can do this, right? We could be the Fortnite, no, you don't want to go do that. And it's the same thing to look at the WB Montreal section, right, of them talking about Gotham Knights, right?
Even so, based on the hard-earned lessons from the previous development cycle and equipped with new proven technology, the Montreal studio leaders wanted to make another iteration of Gotham Knights, a 1.5 version that would fix some of the predecessor's flaws, but their bosses nixed the idea, who are the people familiar with the plans, and instead assigned the bulk of Montreal staff to help out with other projects across Warner Brothers. And the month that followed, the Montreal studio continued trying to get a new project off the ground, first they pick a game based on comic book hero, anti-heroes, sorry, John Constantine, who was played by Keanu Reeves, of course, in the 2005 thing, Hadad's team led by Vice President, and production Brian Bell initially said they were excited about the idea, but when they asked for a budget and timeline approvals, they remained non-committal according to people from the other plans. After month of waffling, after months of waffling, Bell suggested they should work instead on a game starring a more recognizable character, like the Joker, or Flash. They chose to go with the superhero speedster, but in 2023, Warner Brothers released Flash, a lavish movie starring Ezra Miller, which bombed at the box office.
The video game has since been scrapped. Get the fuck out of these people's way, like what do you want from them? Just make four Batman games, if that's what you want. Could you imagine if like, I don't know, if Rocksteady was making a Batman Arkham game, and the Batman these two men came out, and they were like, oh, it's Batman Arkham, we're not doing that because it's unrelated Batman movie, it's not great, right?
And again, you wanna talk about just like not learning the lessons from the past. Yeah. There was a Dark Knight game in development, when they were working on the Dark Knight movie. And, I believe so, yeah.
But the leadership was basically, I said like we can't have another bad Batman game, and that's when Rocksteady was working on our kind of asylum. And suddenly it was that Dark Knight came out, and then whatever, how many years later, months later, whatever, it was announced, it was like, oh, he's aren't connected. And everybody was fine. Yeah.
Suddenly it was like, we don't need to worry about this shit, right? Like we can keep pushing in the same way of like, did you, like why, the Flash, like, it could be a cool game without this, again, we're talking about Scopes, we're talking about budgets, we're talking about whatever. When you're fucking Warner Brothers interactive entertainment, and you need everything to sell 16 million units to justify this, the whole thing here is, it strikes me a lot to a degree of, you go and you buy this thing, and then it comes with a bunch of stuff you don't want. This is a big conversation we had right with Phil, and Xbox, around Phil and Xbox, I should say.
Oh hey, we bought Bethesda, of course we won't fall out, we want Wolfenstein, but we're also getting Tango, and we're also getting, we don't even know that stuff, but they're coming with it, so we do it, we can cut it off and go. The problem here is, it's not even new owners, it's just new leadership, but like, we don't want all these studios, and we have all these studios, so keep making them make games and burn money and then we never put out the games, and I'm finally close with the studios. What are we doing? I think a lot of it is misplaced expectations, obviously.
That's like one of the most obvious points you can make, because I really think that Hogwarts legacy ruined any of their expectations for what a video game can be, and can sell for. And I think maybe that's the golden goose that they're going for, because I think after shutting down multiverses and shutting down that studio, they are no longer going for the games as a service, sort of thing, knowing that, wow, we lost a lot of money there, we lost a lot of budget and time, that's not the thing we're gonna go for anymore, but, remember we put out that game Hogwarts legacy? As of October of 2024, that sucker sold 30 million copies, $2.1 billion in profit, we're not probably, but just revenue. And that is such a unrealistic expectation, not only because 30 million copies is so goddamn much, in today's day and age for a single player, sort of IP based video game, right?
It's something that you know already, but Harry Potter is just a rare ass fandom that you have so many non-gamers playing that game. And I don't know if maybe they were just too deep into Wonder Woman development where they're just like, it's not worth the cost, it's a sunken thing. Wonder Woman's not Harry Potter. We can't bring it back, yeah.
But I just think that if there were any other IP that sold, you look at the arcing games, they sell around $10 million, $8 million, $7 million, whatever, that's such a more realistic thing to look at as opposed to 30 damn million, as of October. Who knows where it's at now? That's such a weird fandom that non-gamers were buying that game, and that's not the general game or buying a video. To me, the people playing Fortnite for free that aren't paying for PS Plus membership, that aren't paying for Xbox Live, whatever the fuck to play online, the people playing the free to play games are the people buying Hogwarts legacy.
But I do think there's something to be said of what can we learn from Hogwarts like I see as far as why it did so well, because I think you're right that it is, that's such a special occasion of a video game. But I do think that one, Harry Potter has such a big fan base and like a story to fan base, right? It goes back to early 2000s and people fucking lived dying with Harry Potter, even with all the controversy around it, people still fucking ride or die for Harry Potter. It was the fantasy, it was the power fantasy of it.
You've always wanted to be a part of it. Yeah, it's everybody who has grown up Harry Potter fan being, I want to get sort into that house, and not only does it look really damn good and impressive, but it reviewed really well. And I think it fulfills that fantasy to the point you're making, and I think the big thing with Hogwarts legacy is that it fed the fan base. It fed a group of people that were waiting to be fed.
That game made sense, that game, like you know, is speaking to people who haven't had, like they've been Harry Potter games in the past, it's not like Hogwarts legacy is the first time, but it has been a minute. I don't even think we've gotten that kind of Harry Potter game where you create your own wizard, you can be yourself at Hogwarts and all this shit, right? Like that fed an audience, and I think WB is an organization that has a lot of IPs, I don't think any of them are as replicable as Harry Potter because Harry Potter is his own piece, but you do have a lot of different IPs that I think you can do that with, not on that level, but you have all the DC stuff, right? That a person like Greg is gonna go crazy for, you guys are gonna have to back me up as far as IPs because WB is not my forte, but like Game of Thrones, seems like it's prime for a big release.
I'm surprised, I haven't done the Hogwarts, I'm surprised that Hogwarts like a CS game isn't necessarily in development right now, and I know there's that one here, you're a wide walker. There's that Game of Thrones game that was revealed though, like games, conference, some shit. Where it had all of the actual voice actors in it, and I don't even know who's developing, that was like a weird one, but I would put that in the mobile game category. It gave mobile game vibes.
I guess the point I'm making is that, I think there are lessons to be learned from Hogwarts, like I see as far as how to make a successful game, right? You did it with Hogwarts like a C, so it was an IP that you owned, so a bunch of copies, all right, what makes sense for your studios to then try and, I guess make something special that people are going, how do you feed that audience? I just think they were too deep into it with one Roman, to have a success like Hogwarts legacy happen while Wonder Woman is just eating through money and budget and costs, and to them they're like, this ain't gonna do what that did. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I think it's like the best and worst thing that could have happened to them, because not only did it sell a shitload, but now that's gonna be the goal, and of course why wouldn't that be the goal, but now that to me is their expectation of like, why can't all of our single player games do this? And that's just such a lofty thing. I look fucking way. Yeah.
Again, I can probably kick my head in a second, but it's like everything you said, the Harry Potter game works, if Hogwarts legacy works because it's the fantasy of being Harry Potter or living in Hogwarts, right? Like, that's such a simple pitch. Who's fantasy ever was a fucking be the suicide squad hopping around rooftop shooting guns? Oh, Captain Boomerig, I got a cool Boomerig, now you got a gun.
I can be dead shot. What are you talking about? What are you talking about? I think I should have won best art direction though.
Does he like the big weak points on enemies? They cut out into this. They cut out into this. They're the game looked unbelievable on PC, man.
Those cut teams looked fantastic. Yeah, great job artists over there. Well, there's a lot more to talk about, and there's a lot of super chats again too, but before we do, I want to tell you about patreon.com slash kindoffunny. YouTube.com slash kindoffunny games, where you can go and get the kind of funny membership which allows you to get shows ad-free speaking of ads.
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Betterhelp.com slash kindoffunny. And we're back. You guys have been running in with a lot of super chats. Quiet people wanna know about the Nemesis system.
C.S.Litson writes in and says, is Nemesis system dead and dusted? And the buses and bridges writes in and says, does the Nemesis system patent? They held it dissolved? I doubt it's the one or the other.
Hold it, right? Yeah, even if I forget, I know I wonder what it's done away, because they have to let it begin with. So no, they still have that. And talk about what I just fucking, what a wasted goddamn thing.
One of the best systems in a video game in the last 15 years. Explain it, because I don't, again, they haven't made a fucking video. People were talking about the Nemesis, probably don't know what it was. They don't remember this.
We're talking about a system that came out 11 years ago. So I'm a little dusty as well. But like, you know, it was basically a system to where enemies would remember you. And like, there would be persistent story lines that would happen as far as like.
You'd lop off an orc's arm and then hours later that orc would return to the metal arm. And be like, I remember you, you bagged. And like if a orc killed you, it would then rise in the ranks. Like you would go to a screen, I'll show you all the rankings of the orcs and kind of like who's king, who's leader, who's this, who's that, right?
And like the higher they rank up, the more powerful they are. And like you could convince one of them to. To fight another one. Yeah, to kind of infiltrate and become kind of your homey or whatever.
And all of it just having that sort of remembrance. And they would pop up later on and yeah, try to fight you later on. And maybe they are doing real bad because the last time you fucked them up, they're just super depressed and they're just crashing out. Sometimes they rise up anymore.
Yeah, it was awesome. It worked really, really great for that game. Do I think it would have been the perfect match for Wonder Woman? I don't think so.
But the fact that that was the, that we know of the only game using it, the only game that had tried to use it. And the only game, I guess we haven't seen this since 2017 since Shadow of War. Yeah, fuck. Insane.
I don't know if it was completely true but somebody said in the chat that, yeah, Spam says the nemesis patent expires in 2036. I don't know how true that is. I don't know patent law like that. We'll be underwater by then, so who cares?
But you can always renew a patent, can't you? I think it's important. Can you imagine? I mean, I could because business, right?
But like if I see a website in 2036, when I am. I live in a 41 years old. I live under a bridge. I check my phone and I see it's from Wario 64.
That is, WB renews the dev system. I'm gonna war. I'm picking up a pig act. That's what it is.
I'm not doing this. I'm still working out. You did what? I'm just gonna wrinkle here that I just saw on blue skies.
I'm watching people react to all this stuff, right? Nick Vurch, of course, just a Papa Genica, my wife, a response to Jason Shrier. WB Montreal escaped this question mark question mark. How?
That's another good point of it. When's the other shoe drop? Are they gonna be rid of Montreal as well? Does the other idea?
I'll never get close. When all the room you can't close another room. I mean, can you not? If you're closing another realm and you're WB and you're out of the gaming business.
But this feels like the transition, right? This feels like them trying to maybe lean up to either sell these things off or go. We just can't support these things anymore. And we're too stubborn to allow somebody to buy another realm and also buy the world combat IP from us.
Because we wanna keep the IP. Maybe we can do merch, we can do movies. If they wanna keep that IP, then I think another realm is at risk. I don't think you are buying another realm without more combat.
I guess when I think of W Montreal, I don't, you go with your point. It's real quick. If that's happening and they're selling it without and it's all gonna close up, epic buys them. Epic buys them.
You get a fighter inside Fortnite. Not fatalities, obviously, but take all that. Jonesy verse fucking every other skin they got out there in the same way. Sounds disgusting.
I'll just say can they make a fucking sickle planet and join that Evo. Here's the thing, the 41 Evo planned. I think the realm was Fortnite. My thing with another realm is another realm is so talented in the studio, right?
Obviously they can make great fighting games. However, moral combat, half the appeal to moral combat is the violence, right? Like moral combat is usually, I think, the better selling fighting game because of like the gimmick of tearing things apart, the blood, the fatalities, the rich crime. That's what moral combat is.
Of course, they made injustice isn't as violent as moral combat. But I think moral combat is the thing that allows another realm to live and breathe in the way they do. Even if they make a Fortnite fighting game, I think I just don't see it like taking them that far. I think they get it out the door, but I think it falls in line of rocket racing and the guitar hero thing that they did in Fortnite.
I think it ends up being one of those, and then eventually another realm is not to be coming up. You said if they were getting rid of these three studios, it seems like they're getting out of it anyway, right? I'm on the Wikipedia, you're looking at subsidiaries, right? Avalanche software, number one.
Model with production is number two dead, right? So let's strike it. Another realm, number two. Player first games, dead, strike it from the worker.
So Avalanche, nether realm. Please order it in a specific way. Just down the computer page. So active, Avalanche, nether realm, port key games, rock steady studios, TT games.
Then we get into the WB games of cities, right? I'm not super familiar with where you got WB games, Montreal, the synopsis says known for its massive online. They're Batman, right? Multiple other nights.
No, Montreal. Yeah, that's what you just said. Oh, I'm sorry, Boston, I'm sorry. I'm not going to be being Boston, I apologize.
We're known for their MMO, assurance call, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Lord of the Rings Online. Then Montreal, of course, New York, or WB New York, which is, looks like it's helping them with web based communities, not a real thing. Avalanche, nether realm, port key, rock steady, TT games, Boston, Montreal. Oh, they're done.
That's seven more studios. And if I'm a betting man, TT games is done. Like, their whole leadership team left. And I've heard, I'm going to right click on this.
I don't even know what TT games is doing. Because the leadership left, and they went and made that a domination Funko game. I'm not going to make a Feral Lego game. I would play the Funko.
I would love a game. You run into the clips. But you drop something on this track, Drake. What is all referencing, Legos?
For the reason why I am not surprised that, or I guess for me, I would think that you drop all of the news today. I don't think that Montreal gets another news drop in a week and a half or two weeks from now. But my thing is this, as we've seen time and time again with these kind of stories, these kind of financial things is, no one ever just gives up. No one ever just says it's over.
They say, oh fuck, we're continuing to lose money. And so we are going to knock out these three studios to get back this amount of budget and this, whatever. And then it'll be another six months, nine months of. TT games, according to Wikipedia, hasn't published anything since 2022.
So it's like, where are they with this? Montreal, obviously Gotham Knights. And then this weird, we try to make a flash, we try to make a constant. Or you get what those studios that you just mentioned.
How far do you get with them? Like, as WB games, right? Like, I think you're trying to sell. And so I think, I don't, I understand we're not there, right?
So who knows? But I think when you're like, if you're trying to sell this, we have TT games, they made those lego games. We have WB Montreal, they made Batman, Arkham Origins, and Gotham Knights, but you don't remember what's got Gotham in the title. It sounds like you know what I mean?
Like, I feel like there's that thing to it. Where eventually you pay it down to where, I would say probably it would end up at the very last thing you have, I guess Portkey based on what they've done with the other one, Rocksteady and my, yeah, I watch. Yeah, I watch. Yeah, I'll say, because Rocksteady, I don't think as long for this world to space off of Switch.
Oh, I think they're there to the bitter bitter. You think so? Yeah, no, no, no, no. Suicide Squad, I think you're able to go, especially trying to sell.
Suicide Squad, you look at it, you go, well that was a dumb decision. Why did they do this live service pass? Again, so many studios have died because they're trying to ban on live service. But I think Rocksteady, we talk about it all the time, whatever it is, Rocksteady's the rumors of a new Batman single player.
People get excited. Whether it's people are there, it's a different thing. Because my thing is anybody can make a Batman, right? I know that's a bit of a bam.
Exactly, let's just say, but when we're talking about Rocksteady, we're talking about a studio that before they made a Suicide Squad, their last game was, well, we just corrected this. It was 2016 with the VR Batman, right? When we were talking about their last flat screen game, as the streets call it, you're talking about Batman, Arkham Knight, they came out in 2015. So we're talking about a studio that hasn't put out a successful, I don't say normal, because normal sounds mean to VR, but a successful normal game, since the 20th of a decade.
And they're right now, probably on the what, the price of starting their next project? That's how long? Four years away, five years away. So we're talking about 15 years before the studio makes up and that's successful for us again.
No, get them out of here. Like that's what I'm about. See, I'm trying to hold on to Cell. If I'm trying to hold on to Cell, it's about Cashe.
Yeah. You're getting headlines off Flappy Bird coming back. With nobody originally connected to it, it's just some Ponzi scheme, but it's like people love Flappy Bird. Rocksteady's making a single player Batman game, people would pop.
Rocksteady to the roots. We've sold them to whoever, and Rocksteady's making a single player TMNT, single player, you know, whatever, Daredevil game, which, come on, you know what I mean? I'm like, come the fuck on. If I was Marvel games and this happened, they don't own studios, so it doesn't really work, but convince somebody to buy Rocksteady and then make a bad Daredevil game.
I get Colin Farrell to play Bullseye. Oh man. Oh, Bullseye. Jesus.
We haven't quite watched it. It's a good one. I told you that he's on an airplane, right? And he's on an airplane flag, so we're Bullseye Colin Farrell.
He's a bald psycho guy. There's an old lady next to him who keeps on the app and talking to his ear off on his airplane. A lot of grandkids, you know, she's nice. Yeah, he's really, really good at aiming instead of playing Bullseye.
He's so annoyed by her. He's holding a little peanut from the airline snack and he holds it when you flick a football, but he flicks the peanut off of the front screen or off the chair in front of her on the airplane and it goes into her throat. She chokes as she dies. He feels her.
And then he just like, no, she's asleep. He's like, that's a good one. Yeah, watch that Daredevil season three. Yeah, long time ago though, yeah.
Yeah, that's the one where I learned about Bullseye. Oh, the fucking sick ass character. I love that. I mean, I can't fail the definitive.
Yeah, that's my version. That's my bull's definitive. Jambain writes in with Super10. It's really cool that there are so many people formerly at Monolith who now have seven to eight year holes in the resume because the Wonder Woman game is never going to see the light of day.
And the second thing is this is part of what game development is nowadays as well. As far as long projects I take forever to get out and a lot of them just don't come out. Now we've gone this far in the show. We've gone through the ad break.
You're in a super chat. I still haven't gotten it. Oh, Greg was right, everybody. Can I get my pad on the back?
Greg was right, you know what I mean? I'm not the rumor monger. I'm not the guy who goes out there and says all this stuff, but SGF this year, my hand was forced in 2024, and I have to time to announce, or we show Wonder Woman. Remember what I worked to show something?
Yeah, show signs of life. Here you go, you want it? You want the exclusive? I'll give you my Jeff Grob information, all right?
Oh! In the past year, because I'll leave it at big goes. I have talked to an insider who was like, this game's trouble. That's it, that's all I'll say.
How long was this? That was SGF. Well, believe Greg. Believe me, that's the thing.
Sometimes I'm wrong. You're like this one. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I don't say something that I'm incredibly confident about it.
Yeah, and I was incredibly confident based off that conversation I had that, oh no, this isn't good. And I think it was more in line. My conversation was more in line with the, and I'm feeling, I did not know the specifics. I think it's in line with, they were doing the nemesis thing, got pulled off, just doing action RPG, or action game, this isn't working.
I think that's where I was getting information. Speaking of Wonder Woman, there was a super chat. Oh, that I lost that I was gonna bring about. Oh, here we go.
Dan, V900, I think it says, W.B. has no faith in Wonder Woman as a character. The Jessica Cruz and Starfire animated series were disannounced. The fact that those characters get serious before Wonder Woman, and there's never been a Wonder Woman series, it's insane.
First of all, you don't know Shada Starfire. Don't you? And Jessica Cruz? Yeah, like, come on, the Teen Titans?
We fuck with the Teen Titans over here. But I mean, how do you feel about how W.B. feels about Wonder Woman as a character? Do you think that those are running the wall partly because of that?
I thought it was an interesting choice for sure. When they announced, we're doing a Wonder Woman game. Like when we got this Teaser Shaler game awards, right? I was like, oh, wow, I didn't see that coming.
I would have thought for sure we would get a Superman game before a Wonder Woman game based on Superman. Big deal and Wonder Woman being part of the training. I'm not it, but like Wonder Woman is a DC fanboy, right? Is a fucking ride or die.
Wonder Woman is such an interesting character. Such an interesting Trinity member. She moves merch. I see the backpacks, I see the water bottles, but I don't feel like Wonder Woman.
I don't feel like Wonder Woman has the fan base that's like, I'm about the lore. You know what I mean? Like I know all the way, you know, you sit down and talk to me about Superman's fucking 30 hour conversation. I'm asking you know, Batman's the same way.
Wonder Woman, I feel like, I don't know any of the other side. Like I don't think of Commissioner Gordon, you know. Exactly, right. And I feel like even with the compare Wonder Woman to Commissioner Gordon.
Oh, no, no, no, I'm saying like, when I think of Wonder Woman, this is me very limited knowledge from comic books. But when I think of Batman, I can name you a million side characters and even the same for kind of Superman. But with Wonder Woman, I don't really know who else exists there. Did you know she had a pet kangaroo?
No. I mean, that's cool. That's exciting. Your life's good.
You're life's good. It could be better. And that's the thing where it's like, I think there was a lot of hope that movies would really become that definitive. This is what people didn't, people enjoyed those movies, but I still don't think people based their entire interpretation of who she is off of that.
I still think the card is probably a bigger Wonder Woman than Gala is in terms of pop culture. And so it's a weird push and pull of it where that on one side of things exciting of, if I'm monolith and I'm gonna sit down and make a Wonder Woman game, it really is to a degree. Car blanche. There isn't a sacred thing here, right?
Where it's like Superman is to me like, well, this is Jonathon Kent alive. Are we doing this? Batman? Are we gonna use a gun?
Are we gonna flip the fuck up? He just fly everywhere you want. Wait, so of course, Wonder Woman also wins. So it's like, we're all, I was very excited about a Wonder Woman game because whatever, but it's the same argument people have against Superman.
Wonder Woman is a weird one for me. Because I think I'm with you as far as, yeah, I don't really know people who are deep in the doffy of Wonder Woman's character. And this is all her stories and all this stuff, right? I watched Arrow, like the fuck, like a fuckload of Arrow, right?
And like, I can tell you a bunch of Wonder Woman. I can't tell what a woman is. And let's just kick it off, we can just expand this from fuck Warner Brothers Interactive and Entertainment to fuck Warner Brothers. You know what I mean?
These motherfuckers who are like, oh, well, we can't have a Batman show on TV because we're making Batman movies. Oh, fucking Tom Willing can't be put the Superman suit on because we're making Superman movies. All those movies fucking sucked. You had fucked it up for an entire goddamn generation not to have your marquee heroes.
Instead, you got little fucks like Blackzick. Who know everything about Arrow? I know you're doing Jackson with that information. I know so much about Arrow.
Like, I wanna fucking blow back. I'll blow back. You are stupid. Let's observe this.
Put the dunce cap on and go sit in the corner. And I wish that's how it worked. I wish the people who deserved this had to deal with the ramifications. But as usual, the people on the top with these fucking golden parachutes and getting a gajillion dollars.
And it's not the people who are like, all right, oh man, Steven a male, how much can you do this? You know what I mean? Can you make this happen? Fucking Grant Gustin.
Like he had a great conversation with Michael Rosenbaum on inside of you the other day about like talking about, like, he was the name of the father of Michael Rosenbaum. Michael Rosenbaum is a big goof. That's why it fits in so with us. I just showed it's called Inside of You.
I don't think ever thought it would be gonna spot it as it is. Because it is, but it's also that's Mike. Anyway, so a great conversation about, like, look at this guy. I'm gonna call him right now.
I'll call him right now. It's a great conversation about like, were you over, you know, what was your contract? Were you over being on this? Like of course, like 22 episodes.
We gotta paddle this stuff. He's like, it's all science. Like there's so much gobbledygook, you know, like, like scientific conversations that you're having. It's like, it's a lot to wrap your head around to memorize do let alone the hours.
Like, you know, it's like, like, the Flash TV show is such a better version of the Flash than the fucking movies. You know what I mean? And like, again, I have no choice. But of course, to be super excited for the Super Man movie, I believe in James Gunn, I think it's in Brother Fresh Air.
Yeah, yeah, but the whole thing there is also, that's what kills Superman Lois, right? Same fucking decision of what, it's gonna be confusing. Well, if this movie fucking sucks, you just fucked up a TV show that people really liked. And I don't know how financially successful it was for you, but it's like, it was like, how do you put Superman on TV?
Oh, you put him in small, then really focused on him being a dad. It make it really compelling content. It looses, it's got cancer, this is happening here, and this is like, we're gonna do like actual emotional shit with it, rather than be about punching everything. I don't fucking mean it.
I mean, right now you're making me think of like a Superman tale game, right? Or like, what if we went to full Marvel games, rather than licensed? And this is the thing, dude. And this is, I was always Greg's bitch.
Like, you always bring him down to Earth and like, not have this free, open world, go every once in a while. It doesn't need to be an action game. It's like, no, go away from me. It's the emotional story.
This is what could do and be if someone could grab the wheel over there. And I just don't know if that's possible, where the problem is X, Y, and Z. And that's why the joke video that I put up of like, get me in James, I'm not gonna tell James, I think he doesn't know except maybe these are good developers and be cool if you work with them here's how I can see it. You know what I mean?
Like, whatever. It would just be the idea though of like, Marvel games, it's interesting. There's a great way I'm sitting on because I need to think about it more. But it was a question of like, how do you feel about Marvel games right now?
Like, you know what I mean? Like, because I've said for years, they've got the right idea. Like, rather than like, you know, hey, we're Sega, we're a licensing Iron Man and we're making these people, like we're Marvel games. We will work with people for a game-by-game basis, maybe multiple games on a contract, but we will find talents and creators and give them the IP to go play with, rather than us do this WB thing and own and operate a studio where suddenly it is, it's 15 years, it's you made a fucking game.
What the hell? You can't run or you can't, but you lose, you fuck up, you know, 500 people's lives. You know what I mean? Like, there's the output in what Marvel games it's been doing lately is a conversation.
I think there's a lot of, again, where is Marvel Ultimate Alliance 4? Why not do this that? Like, whatever. And Wolverine and Spider-Man about it.
I think they could be doing more, but maybe they don't over saturate. You gotta get it. Long and short of it. That's what DC should be doing as well.
DC should just be saying, hey, you make great stuff, pitch us, your ideas for fucking DC games. And at the very least, with Marvel, you get things out the door, right? Like, I look at the Guardians of the Galaxy's video game. And like, that game came out, I'll probably say it's a solid, depending on who you are, like a seven out of 10 or an eight out of 10 game, but at the very least, it's our Guardians of the Galaxy.
I don't want to throw it. I don't want to throw it. I don't want to throw it. At the very least, I came out the door and guess what?
I like that game, and it worked for it. All right, you right, DC was doing the DC, like the Marvel games thing of hey, let's license things out, let's listen, ideas, let's do all that stuff. Like, I think you could get so many different interesting ideas to the point you're making. And in fact, I'll pitch a game's cash for whenever this is maybe not as insensitive to do.
I don't really do it this week. But like, games should've died. No, but we're still like, all right, you are taking WB games and you're doing the Marvel games thing. What are the eight games you're greenlighting for?
I don't think that's too quick. Like I think that should be a, you know, people need to be vocal. Like you're the one's fucking this up. Like you know, I mean, for reflection on the developers, obviously.
It isn't, we're not talking about them every the problem, we know that there's a million things going on in it, but it's just like, it's just the whole thing isn't saying that like you had, there's so many examples of this, but it all goes back to your fucking, who owns, what is the WB thing now? It's WB, discovery, whatever they're like, there's so much more per goddamn bullshit in there that again, you're a line item on a thing, and guess what, when the film division under performs and you under performs, somebody's gotta go, and it's not, it's like, this is the whole fucking problem with these corporations owning everything, and everybody getting squeezed and squeezed and squeezed. Of course, we have so many super chats, so I wanna read some of these, Joe Ferelli writes and says, Justin for Coyote V. Acme, the world should know.
Yes. Which I'm with you, I'm a Looney Tunes fan, a lot of people don't know that, I'm big, they call us, Toonies. All right, so how can I go in, is that actually an offensive turn on my turn? Can I say that?
Deshawn Fortune writes and it says, I'm beyond hurt, one woman is the most iconic female hero on the face of the planet, yet, she had two tuners. No, that sounds bad. That's not bad. She's the most iconic female hero of the fucking Tooner face of the planet, yeah, she gets less than crumbs.
She could easily be one of the biggest comic characters on the planet, and this one thing I was gonna bring up even though, I think we're at the place of, what a woman don't really hear about her that much from the fans as far as the deep lore and being super fans and all that shit. But I think Wonder Woman is one of those things where she has such icon status because she's just been around forever, I think Wonder Woman in the same vein of Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny. That's just somebody who I was born and she was there. And so I think she was at Six Flags.
Yeah, honestly, I went to Six Flags so much. But I think if you were to get a competent Wonder Woman thing out the door, I think you have big potential for it to do very well because people just know Wonder Woman. And I think that's the biggest thing, like when we're talking about this, is the untapped potential of IP. And I think that's why Wonder Woman game gets green lit, right?
Is it is this idea of like, all right, well, if the movie's do a little bit well and get her there, we can take it the rest of the way and really have this thing. And again, like as a comic book fan, when I say, oh, there's no definitive Wonder Woman thing, I can obviously pull from how much I love Tom Taylor's run. I know people have absolutely Wonder Woman. I personally really liked as much as I didn't like, New 52 Superman.
I loved New 52 Superman and Wonder Woman and what they did. Like there's a bunch of cool shit happening there, but none of it I feel as like, etched in stone, this is canon, like you can't fuck with it. And I think if you were able to come in and do something, I think the nemesis system could've been cool for that, right? Yeah, you'd be off the races.
I was throwing your sword, sticking a dude in the wall with a sword and punching other dudes. I was the fucking one that guy. I was coming in, yeah, coming out. Boom, shieldcraft, you gotta go.