Welcome to another episode of Digital Coffee: Gaming Brew! This week, Brett Deister dives headfirst into gaming’s hottest topics and controversies. From the ongoing debates around LGBTQ representation in titles like Baldur’s Gate 3 and Dragon Age: Veilguard, to Ubisoft’s latest missteps with Assassin’s Creed and the changing face of Battlefield with its map and vehicle updates, nothing is off the table. Brett Deister also takes a critical look at the rise—and possible ruin—of AI in game development and moderation, calling out how automation and censorship might be stifling both creativity and in-game banter. Plus, he shares his honest takes on standout titles like Arc Raiders and The Outer Worlds 2, all while encouraging gamers to keep their sense of humor (and salty language) alive. Grab your favorite drink, settle in, and get ready for a candid roundup of what’s brewing in the gaming world this week!
3 Fun Facts:
- The only good Conquest map in Battlefield is Firestorm, which is actually a remastered Battlefield 3 map—not a new creation.
- Arc Raiders, created by former Battlefield developers, is currently one of the highest-rated multiplayer shooters on Open Critic, outperforming big names like Counter-Strike and Overwatch.
- Assassin's Creed Mirage was originally supposed to be DLC for Valhalla, but ended up becoming its own smaller standalone game.
Key Themes:
- Map design issues in Battlefield series
- LGBTQ representation in video games
- Political agendas impacting game development
- Assassin's Creed Mirage and Shadows controversies
- AI's role and misuse in gaming
- Chat moderation and bans in multiplayer games
- Arc Raiders' successful launch and gameplay
The only good map in Conquest is Firestorm. And that's not
Speaker:even a new map. That's a map from Battlefield 3, which
Speaker:goes to show you, they hemorrhaged too much talent that they
Speaker:don't know how to make maps right now. They need to get away from
Speaker:the three lane approach of Call of Duty. Because this is
Speaker:Battlefield. You flank, you outmaneuver. That's how you do it. You can't
Speaker:outmaneuver and flank when you know the routes. That's the thing. You will
Speaker:always create a message within a game.
Speaker:There's no way around it. You are delivering morals.
Speaker:You are delivering what is right and wrong in a game.
Speaker:Every game has a message. You can't get around it. And
Speaker:so Ubisoft, you focus on the wrong message and
Speaker:you've lost the plot. AI is great
Speaker:for specific tasks and is not great for other
Speaker:specific tasks. Use the tool wisely.
Speaker:I know it is such a
Speaker:temptation to use it for everything, but
Speaker:don't do will ruin you.
Speaker:Mmm, that's good. Hey, welcome back to Digital Coffee
Speaker:Gaming Brew. Today I'm diving into all the spicy drama from
Speaker:LGBTQ representation differences in
Speaker:Dragon Age, Veilguard and Boulders Gate 3, to
Speaker:Ubisoft's latest Assassin's Creed controversies, Battlefield
Speaker:6 updates, and why AI might be ruining gaming. So
Speaker:grab your favorite drink, settle in, let's catch up on what's been
Speaker:brewing in gaming this week. All right,
Speaker:I hope you're having a fantastic weekend, but
Speaker:first off, there was an article basically from
Speaker:the perspective of former EA designer Alex Hutchinson,
Speaker:regarding the LGBTQ representation in
Speaker:two video games, Baldur's Gate 3 and Dragon Age the Veil Guard. Hutchinson
Speaker:states that both games are very
Speaker:LGBTQ friendly. He claims that Baldur's Gate 3
Speaker:handled the representation better than Dragon Age the Veil
Speaker:Guard. He speculates that the recent acquisition of
Speaker:BioWare by a group that includes the Saudi Arabia's public
Speaker:investment fund could negatively impact BioWare's history of
Speaker:including queer options in the games. He
Speaker:mentions that the new owners of EA may adopt a sales driven approach
Speaker:to LGBTQ content, allowing it only to be possible
Speaker:because it's profitable. Well, first of all,
Speaker:duh, yeah, businesses only allow it when it's
Speaker:actually profitable. If it's not profitable, they don't allow it because it
Speaker:doesn't move the needle. You are there to make
Speaker:money, you're not there to be an activist.
Speaker:The problem with activists is is that they don't make money, they cause
Speaker:controversy and they ruin businesses.
Speaker:So, yes. Second of all, borders, Gate three
Speaker:basically Allowed you to do whatever you wanted, even having
Speaker:sex with a bear, which very weird, but hey,
Speaker:more power to you that you could do that.
Speaker:So they allowed for a lot of nuance and
Speaker:they didn't say, you have to choose this specific
Speaker:thing in Dragon Age, the veil guard or Fail guard.
Speaker:They basically made you agree with
Speaker:pronouns and all that stuff. There was no
Speaker:disagreement. You could not disagree. You had to be like,
Speaker:yes, it's wonderful. Yes, it's great. I'm glad you have a
Speaker:mental illness that you can actually, I don't know, fix yourself.
Speaker:So that was the problem. The problem was the bad writing and
Speaker:the political agenda behind it.
Speaker:Nobody likes political agendas in the game.
Speaker:Nobody. Well, except for those that actually, like, do
Speaker:it. Second of all, BioWare was not LGBTQ friendly
Speaker:until later on. You didn't start seeing it until, like, Mass Effect
Speaker:2. Anyways. Like, seriously, can we stop with it?
Speaker:We've always been friend. No, you haven't. I played both Baldur's Gate and
Speaker:Baldur's Gate 2. It didn't have that much in it. It's
Speaker:a recent phenomenon and I like how they're like, we've always been
Speaker:this way. It's like, no, because society
Speaker:eventually move that way. You weren't that way in the
Speaker:beginning and then you went a little too far. Now, do I care
Speaker:if they're whatever, representation friendly? No, I don't really care,
Speaker:but just don't hit me over the head with it or I just won't buy
Speaker:your games. Which I did not buy Dragon Age, Vale Guard or Fail Guard. I
Speaker:did play it for free on PlayStation and it probably got to that point until
Speaker:the pull of Bravo thing happened and I was like, I really don't want to
Speaker:play this game anymore. Really wasn't that great. Anyways,
Speaker:the writing was laughable, the story was abysmal, and it
Speaker:just kind of felt like a lesser version of Mass Effect,
Speaker:not Dragon Age, because Dragon Age is more akin
Speaker:to, funnily enough, boulders gate, because BioWare actually
Speaker:made boulders gate 1 and 2 little gaming history for
Speaker:you. They are actually the developers that make Boulders Gate one and two. And then
Speaker:they moved on to their own stuff. Well, then they moved on to Neverwinter Nights,
Speaker:and then they went to, I think it was
Speaker:that Jade Empire, and then they went to
Speaker:Star wars and then they eventually came back to
Speaker:Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and then Anthem. So that's where
Speaker:we're at. So, yes, Mr.
Speaker:Hutchinson, it did negatively impact. Yes, businesses
Speaker:should be aware if your political agenda does not make them
Speaker:money because if it doesn't make them money, there's no point to
Speaker:do it. That's how businesses run. You run a successful business
Speaker:by making a profit. If it doesn't make you a profit, you don't do it
Speaker:anymore. This isn't the government. You don't get to do
Speaker:programs that are money sucks and you just throw
Speaker:more money at it. Because more money throwing at it will make it eventually
Speaker:successful. It won't at all.
Speaker:So yes, as every company should be, if
Speaker:you're writing something that is not very successful and not making you
Speaker:money, you don't do said thing. It's a very simple
Speaker:thing. All right, moving on to the new update of Assassin's
Speaker:Creed Mirage. Yes, you know the one before Assassin's Creed Shadows that was
Speaker:was supposed to be a DLC of Valhalla, but then was it and it became
Speaker:its own game and it was a really smaller version of it and probably it
Speaker:was better than Shadows anyways. But now they're doing
Speaker:a whole a free expansion on November 18th
Speaker:and this update will be available on all formats. It will actually have an
Speaker:upgraded Parkour system as well and
Speaker:it will allow players to replay all Black Box missions and
Speaker:contracts after they have completed them once.
Speaker:Each replayable mission will have unique challenges such as avoiding the
Speaker:use of Eagle Vision and targeting only the main
Speaker:enemy. Similar to like the previous ones where you kind of had those
Speaker:types of missions. I think what was it
Speaker:Assassin's Creed Syndicate had like similar ones
Speaker:for that one where you had a mission and you had
Speaker:specific things to get more experience from. I remember
Speaker:playing some of that was like well you could only kidnap
Speaker:the one suspect and you couldn't kill
Speaker:anybody else type of a thing. So it's similar to that.
Speaker:Completing these missions reward players with exclusive in game content.
Speaker:Now I like I said, if you already have Assassin's Creed Mirage, you might
Speaker:as well just play it because it's a free update anyways. And I'm glad that
Speaker:they actually updated the Parkour system so maybe it'll be actually a little bit better.
Speaker:But I'm actually quite surprised that Ubisoft is actually doing anything with this game because
Speaker:it didn't actually do that well. But
Speaker:it's not a terrible game. I finished. It wasn't incredibly hard to
Speaker:finish and it was way shorter than I would like.
Speaker:But it's way better than Assassin's Creed Shadows, which I
Speaker:still haven't played because I'll just wait for a heavily
Speaker:discounted sale on that one because no need to
Speaker:really reinforce their ability to
Speaker:make terrible games. All right, moving on to Battlefield six
Speaker:and they are disabling the homing missiles from the
Speaker:infantry fighting vehicles, the Bradleys, those. Those type of things in Battlefield
Speaker:6 have been temporarily disabled. The decision was made following
Speaker:constant complaints from players about difficulty avoiding these missiles
Speaker:after being fired. The official Battlefield 6 Twitter account
Speaker:announced the update on October6,
Speaker:stating they are addressing inconsistencies with the vehicle
Speaker:countermeasures. The changes is expected to be alive
Speaker:immediately with further adjustments planned for the following week. The
Speaker:IV is designed to transport soldiers and is equipped with a
Speaker:lock on rocket for both offensive and defensive use.
Speaker:Players have noted that the lock on feature is too quick, has a large
Speaker:radius of effectiveness and allows for rapid firing with a short
Speaker:cooldown. Flares are the primary defense for pilots against these missiles, but
Speaker:they all. They are not always effective. Yes, this is actually
Speaker:the common complaint from people that fly jets and fly
Speaker:helicopters is that these missiles
Speaker:are broken. They basically you flare and they still will go through
Speaker:your flares. You try to go around mountains and stuff if you can find some
Speaker:because most of the maps don't have any and you still get shot down.
Speaker:So the issue is, is that the IFV is actually the real Mobile
Speaker:AA and the mobile AA that is supp to be the real threat is not
Speaker:a real threat. It's still a threat, but it's not as big of a threat.
Speaker:It's actually the. The worst vehicle in the game. Which is funny because
Speaker:the Mobile AA should be the biggest threat for any air vehicle and it's
Speaker:not. It's RPGs, it's Stingers and it's
Speaker:IFV and maybe the tanks too because they. You can do the.
Speaker:The. The I guess aimable missile as well,
Speaker:which I don't think they should have as tank. I think tank they should do
Speaker:another one. But I digress. This is actually a good thing. The.
Speaker:I call them Mr. Missiles but the Mr. Missiles are an issue
Speaker:now for those that hate flying and hate the
Speaker:air vehicles. Look it you have plenty
Speaker:of ways of dealing with these. You have the mobile AA if you can
Speaker:upgrade it and make it at least worthwhile. You also
Speaker:have stationary a turns throughout the map and usually there's at least
Speaker:one in every map. You also have very
Speaker:little cover for these air vehicles. Look at the Blackwell
Speaker:Fields map. That one is so terrible.
Speaker:In flying like you're out of bounds nine times out of 10 and they
Speaker:can still lock on you. You're at your base and they still can lock on
Speaker:you. It's Actually the worst map they probably ever
Speaker:made. It's a joke. I was gonna be nicer, but they decided
Speaker:to ban me for seven days. So I'm not gonna be too nice to them
Speaker:right now. It's a joke. They need to learn actually how to
Speaker:make good maps and they're not. Funny part is, is that the battle
Speaker:royale map is the best biggest map. I don't know
Speaker:how they figured out how to make a really good battle royale map and they
Speaker:screw up the rest of the maps. The only good map in
Speaker:Conquest is Firestorm. And that's not even a new map.
Speaker:That's a map from Battlefield 3, which goes to show you
Speaker:they hemorrhaged too many, too much talent that they don't know how to make
Speaker:maps right now. Blackwell is not a good map. It needs to,
Speaker:it needs a heavy adjustment in where
Speaker:the points are because it's
Speaker:basically in the middle, which is basically every
Speaker:new multiplayer match is there's the
Speaker:middle two or three points and those are the ones that are
Speaker:mainly attacked on. And then the rest of the points, yeah,
Speaker:you back cap or you go around and you cap it,
Speaker:but you don't really fight on that. Like Firestorm kind of sort of
Speaker:has it. But they have two different route. They have several different routes to go,
Speaker:but you have, you have E and D
Speaker:and then you have that hill, which I think that hill needs to be not
Speaker:out of bounds as much and they need to readjust that one as well because
Speaker:then snipers just camp there and it's very annoying to try to deal
Speaker:with. But you have E and
Speaker:D, so you have it for the Russian side and it's very flat and very
Speaker:long sight lines. And then you have D with some buildings and stuff. Then you
Speaker:have C, B and A. And those are a little bit more cloistered
Speaker:together and they're still far enough apart where
Speaker:you still have to run to it. And there's still
Speaker:some areas, but there's rocks, there's buildings, there's ways for cover.
Speaker:And so it's a good balance and, and it allows for jets
Speaker:and helicopters to basically get away from lock ons
Speaker:like through buildings and stuff. So it's, it's a good, good
Speaker:balance. Now the rest of the maps, not so good.
Speaker:Liberation Peak is probably one of the better maps and
Speaker:I'm saying that as better meaning it's still not good
Speaker:because of the three lane approach from Call of Duty. You, you can
Speaker:see that that is like the prevalent map design thing
Speaker:for them. They need to get away from the
Speaker:three lane approach of Call of Duty. Because this is Battlefield,
Speaker:you flank, you outmaneuver. That's how you do it. You can't outmaneuver
Speaker:and flank when you know the routes. It's really easy.
Speaker:As I said, Liberation Peak is the quote unquote better map. But it doesn't
Speaker:mean it's a great map. It just means that it's better because at least
Speaker:for helicopters, you can go down that ravine and hopefully not
Speaker:get shot down by RPGs. But there are a lot
Speaker:of issues and one of the issues is map design.
Speaker:And it's very prevalent throughout
Speaker:most of the maps. Map design
Speaker:is a huge issue now. I'm hoping that they fix this
Speaker:with newer maps or just remake older maps to probably a
Speaker:mixture of both to kind of give a balance and really
Speaker:figure out like what made good maps. Like, heck, I love to see Caspian
Speaker:Border again because that's still a really good map. I know some of you like
Speaker:Metro. I hate Metro for what it is,
Speaker:just a cluster, but you all love it because
Speaker:you get a lot of XP from it. I don't like Locker because it's the
Speaker:same thing. Now, Metro in Battlefield 5 was
Speaker:better than the original Metro in Battlefield 3, that was the
Speaker:biggest cluster of all. But
Speaker:some of the older maps are good because of the ways you
Speaker:can navigate the map. You can't do that as much
Speaker:in these newer ones. There are some you can do better than others.
Speaker:Liberation you can't really do as well. There is some
Speaker:maneuvering you can do way back on the left
Speaker:or right side, depending on which way you're coming from. But
Speaker:by point D and point B, there is more room for you to
Speaker:maneuver around, but you really have to go around to do
Speaker:that. And you can get picked off by snipers pretty quickly.
Speaker:C is the biggest cluster because it's
Speaker:way too enclosed and it's annoying to try
Speaker:to capture or actually more. It's more annoying to
Speaker:recapture than capture the first time because usually capture the first time,
Speaker:but the other team goes and captures everything else. So I have a lot of
Speaker:issues with it. I'm glad that they've disabled this and they're looking
Speaker:to adjust this. I do think basically.
Speaker:So flames need to be readjusted. I don't think you should be able to lock
Speaker:on once and it stays locked on for a while. I do think it needs
Speaker:to be a constant lock on because that makes it a
Speaker:lot harder for you to kill the jets
Speaker:and specifically the helicopters, because the helicopters are way more
Speaker:sitting ducks than the jets. Jets you can speed out.
Speaker:We are after burners, helicopters. You don't really have
Speaker:that. Maybe it's going to be better with the mini birds or the little birds
Speaker:whenever they come out. I don't know when they're going to come out, but this
Speaker:is a good step in the right direction. They do need to fix it. They
Speaker:do need to address a lot of things, but this is one of them. They
Speaker:definitely need to address. The other address is
Speaker:going to be out of bounds markers for helicopters
Speaker:and for jets. There needs. It needs to be bigger. It needs
Speaker:to allow for more space to get away from all
Speaker:the designations. All the lock on missiles,
Speaker:all the all that fire needs to be way farther away for
Speaker:them to maneuver around. But anyways, moving on to
Speaker:Arc Raiders now. Arc Raiders was released last week
Speaker:to, well, pretty good fanfare. It's one of the highest rated
Speaker:multiplayer shooters on Open Critic with a score of
Speaker:93 from 21 reviews, which is pretty good.
Speaker:This surpass other notable games like Counter Strike and Overwatch
Speaker:in ratings in the all time ranking. Arc Raiders is the highest rated
Speaker:multiplayer shooter with no similar game having a higher rating.
Speaker:Competing games in the shooter category include Half Life,
Speaker:Alyx, Vampire Survivors, Ode to Castlevania,
Speaker:and the Last of Us Remastered. The game feature features maps
Speaker:properly with enemy robots. If you don't know, it's basically enemy robots and
Speaker:you have other arcs and you're trying to get materials
Speaker:and complete missions and extract
Speaker:and if you don't extract you lose everything. So I usually just go
Speaker:on more of a quote unquote scav run. That's more of a
Speaker:Tarov terminology, but that type of a thing.
Speaker:So it's good. Now Arc Raiders has achieved over
Speaker:350,000 players. The game developers are
Speaker:former Battlefield devs, which is ironic.
Speaker:Their previous game, the finals was also RA2. Still great game. The Finals is a
Speaker:free to play game and Arc Raiders is not. It's a premium game that you
Speaker:have to pay for, but it's actually not that expensive. And they do have a
Speaker:they said that they have a 10 year plan for this which is amazing.
Speaker:Also it's using Unreal Engine 5 and they seem to do a pretty good
Speaker:job of, well, optimizing it. I hate to say it, but the two most
Speaker:optimized games right now that I've seen is arc Raiders
Speaker:and Battlefield 6. I gotta give credit for dice on that one.
Speaker:I may be mad at them for what they've done to me, but I gotta
Speaker:give them credit for the optimization of it because for the
Speaker:most part, it is really well optimized. I have
Speaker:not run into too many bugs. I've run into some. With the battle royale,
Speaker:it was just a black screen. I couldn't see anything, so I had to get
Speaker:out of it. I also lost server connection a couple times, which was
Speaker:weird. And then during the actual multiplayer, multiplayer, I'll
Speaker:go black screen, then back to it again, which is weird, but there
Speaker:are some issues. But a lot of it is not that game breaking.
Speaker:There are exploits which are annoying, but that's another issue. But
Speaker:for arc raiders, yeah, I mean, they had server issues
Speaker:when it hit the 300,000 mark, but they seem to fix that
Speaker:issue. And all in all, it's a great game. I have not run to any
Speaker:bugs, really. I run into interesting people through
Speaker:there and you can talk to them if you want to or don't want to,
Speaker:whatever. People can shoot you if they think
Speaker:you have stuff they want. And you could be nice and not
Speaker:shoot people if you want as well. I've killed a few. I
Speaker:don't really try to kill. I try to avoid. But sometimes
Speaker:you can't really avoid those people. So it's just. It's a good
Speaker:game. You could still. You could play with people. One person you could
Speaker:do with duo teams. But I heard that's actually really a pain in the
Speaker:butt because people will actually target you. So
Speaker:doing it solo might be the best play for now, but we'll see
Speaker:once everybody starts to do endgame content and then they start to
Speaker:really, really annoy you. All right, moving on to
Speaker:Assassin's Creed Shadows. And it's described as one of the most
Speaker:controversial entries in the Assassin's Creed series.
Speaker:The game received significant backlash, which affected Ubisoft and the
Speaker:game's development. Well, yeah, because
Speaker:you, you made like a samurai
Speaker:black and you tried to play it off as this historical
Speaker:thing that it wasn't. And you. I. I think you made
Speaker:him, or at least one of the characters gay,
Speaker:trans or what, I don't really know. But you may made weird decisions that you
Speaker:shouldn't have made. But it's funny because Ubisoft
Speaker:addressed the controversy during a meeting at Video Game Industry
Speaker:Insiders at Paris Game Week. And the video was shown
Speaker:that recap the game's evolution, the backlash it faced. The video concluded that with
Speaker:Ubisoft decision to shift its focus from the controversy to emphasizing the game
Speaker:was meant to be a game, not a message. Yeah, but
Speaker:you made the message front and center. You can't say,
Speaker:well, it was just. It was Just a game. And then your message
Speaker:is, look how woke we are. And then people are like, yeah, I really
Speaker:don't like this. You probably should just made, like,
Speaker:the samurais, like, Japanese. That
Speaker:probably wouldn't have been a good idea. Everybody's like, but there
Speaker:was one black one. And it's like, well, no, not really.
Speaker:I mean, there was a black guy in Japan, but he wasn't a
Speaker:samurai. So you're now, like,
Speaker:making up history at the same time. And it
Speaker:just. It just did not seem like a good game. And I know
Speaker:they've updated it and made the parkour system better, but I was like,
Speaker:I'm good. I don't need to buy this game. I got
Speaker:Mirage. I can replay Origins. I can replay
Speaker:Odyssey. I can replay Valhalla.
Speaker:Valhalla was just a very long game. It became a little too long of a
Speaker:game where it's like, oh, I got to do this again. But
Speaker:my. My point is, is that if you just made the game about
Speaker:samurai specifically, and you made it about Japanese people, instead of,
Speaker:like, highlighting the one black person in
Speaker:Japan during that time, probably would have been a very successful game.
Speaker:But, no, you had to do it. Lo look at us.
Speaker:We found this one anomaly in Japan at the time, and
Speaker:we're going to highlight him, and we're going to fudge history just a little bit
Speaker:with a controversial historian that may or may not have actually
Speaker:been accurate about it, but we're going to make it controversial
Speaker:because, well, reasons.
Speaker:Everybody's like, we don't want that. You might want to
Speaker:just redo the game, maybe take him out and put a Japanese
Speaker:character instead. They're like, no, we're good. This game will sell
Speaker:well. And then when it released, they couldn't
Speaker:even give you the sales numbers. They were like, 3 million
Speaker:people played this game. I'm like, that is what.
Speaker:Yeah, great, because you have your own subscription service. It's
Speaker:on Xbox Game Pass. So I don't know
Speaker:how many of those were sales and how many were those? Just part of the
Speaker:subscription. And to this day, we still don't know the numbers. We
Speaker:kind of know now that it didn't sell as well as it
Speaker:should have, as we were all thinking it wouldn't. But Ubisoft
Speaker:finally was like, yeah, I didn't do as well as we said it did. But
Speaker:we didn't really want to tell you at the time because we want to make
Speaker:sure that the game sold well, which it didn't because he had too much
Speaker:controversy. So that's the thing the message. You will always
Speaker:create a message within a game. There's no way around it. You are
Speaker:delivering morals. You are delivering what is right
Speaker:and wrong in a game. Even if you portray as
Speaker:a bad person, you're still. You're. You're tooling around with
Speaker:it. You're kind of skirting that line. But every game has a
Speaker:message. You can't get around it. And so
Speaker:Ubisoft, you focus on the wrong message and
Speaker:you've lost the plot. And now the gamers are like, we
Speaker:don't like this. Please fix it. Then you're like no,
Speaker:we're good. And was like, yeah, this isn't gonna do very well.
Speaker:And it didn't anyways. Moving on to The Outer Worlds 2.
Speaker:It also did come out the same week of Arc
Speaker:Raiders and boy did it not do very well, unfortunately.
Speaker:So it did come out. The game is described as
Speaker:providing a sense of escapism. Escapism allowing players to explore
Speaker:new world and shape their own stories. The game is set on a
Speaker:colony called Arcadia, which features various outpost settlements and
Speaker:alien landscapes. The outer world 2
Speaker:seems to feel alive with elements like overheard conversations and missions
Speaker:contributing to immersive experiences.
Speaker:The game encourages players to explore and take their time rather than rush through
Speaker:objectives. But here's the thing. At the time of this
Speaker:recording, The Outer Worlds 2 is. Has over 7,000
Speaker:people playing this game on Steam. Steam DB, the
Speaker:original one that came out I think in 2019
Speaker:has over 1,000 people playing. It's a much older game
Speaker:and it has. And it's roughly within
Speaker:margin. I mean 6,000 different
Speaker:difference in the players playing the game. That's not a good.
Speaker:I know this is going to be more off peak hours,
Speaker:but still, I mean if you look at like Battlefield has thousands of players
Speaker:playing. If you look at Arc Raider, that has thousands of players playing
Speaker:and those two are still new games. Arc Raider and
Speaker:Worlds 2 came out roughly the same time and
Speaker:Outer Worlds 2 is way, way behind Arc Raiders.
Speaker:Now there's a lot of controversy with the Obsidian now because the art director hates
Speaker:white people for some odd reason and that has carried over a little bit too
Speaker:much. Also valid. Wasn't that great? So that was
Speaker:another issue with it. And so there are a lot
Speaker:of issues within the developer that needs to be
Speaker:addressed. And I'm. And I think our
Speaker:World's original was actually a pretty good game. The problem is
Speaker:is that too many controversies for a developer and
Speaker:most people just will ignore your game. It's why being in the middle is
Speaker:probably the best spot for businesses in
Speaker:general. You want to be too far on the right and you want to be
Speaker:too far on the left. You just want to be in that middle spot where
Speaker:you're like, you know what, I don't really care about either way. We're
Speaker:just trying to make a business just like Michael
Speaker:Jordan. Conservatives buy shoes too. And then
Speaker:you could say liberals buy shoes too. Everybody buys shoes.
Speaker:Everybody buys commodities, Everybody buys forms of entertainment.
Speaker:If you heavily go to one direction or
Speaker:the other, you will alienate the other one. Unless you're an opinion,
Speaker:like opinion stuff, fine. You usually
Speaker:tailor to one side or the other. You kind of are in the middle a
Speaker:lot of times. But that's, that's the issue right now
Speaker:is that we're picking sides because we're so divided
Speaker:because of. It's mainly because our, our
Speaker:lack of community now. Because online has become our community centers
Speaker:and those community centers are not healthy at
Speaker:all. But moving on to my main thing about AI slop and chat.
Speaker:Moderation is ruining gaming. And I firmly believe that.
Speaker:Amazon, as we all know, laid off 14,000 people.
Speaker:They are not making games anymore. New World is basically
Speaker:done for unless Pal World developer Buy can buy it out, which I really
Speaker:hope they do. And the Lord of the Rings MMO is
Speaker:gone. You still have the old Lord of the Rings MMO that's been going, I
Speaker:think for 10 years, something like that. It's been going for a while. But no,
Speaker:instead they're going to be focusing on, was it
Speaker:Luma, their, their cloud based one that's now part of the
Speaker:prime subscription, which was a smart move because no one was
Speaker:buying that even when it first launched. I'm like, yeah, I
Speaker:don't need that. But the other issue is they're going to be focusing on
Speaker:AI games or as I call it, AI Slop because it's slop. Because
Speaker:you shouldn't allow AI to just create your game. I'm a firm
Speaker:believer that AI is a great tool as long as you keep it a
Speaker:tool. The problem is that looks like AI,
Speaker:AI and Amazon specifically. Amazon is going to be
Speaker:heavily using AI to just create games. I
Speaker:think a Snoop Dogg game, which if you have like the
Speaker:Fire Cube or the Fire Stick and you use Amazon to watch stuff,
Speaker:they are heavily promoting it. And I'm like, this game looks awful.
Speaker:No, hate to the Snoop. He's doing what he's doing. He is in
Speaker:every partnership he can imagine. But man, does that look,
Speaker:that game look awful. Like really, really bad. And
Speaker:so when you don't use it as a tool and you use it for
Speaker:a means to an end. You're going to get slop if you
Speaker:use it for a tool like I've said before previously, for
Speaker:like using it to Q and A test
Speaker:before you have humans Q and A tested, looking for it to help
Speaker:you make better designs on maps and making sure
Speaker:it runs smoothly and well. If you help it with like
Speaker:making checking over the code and making sure it's well optimized for your game.
Speaker:Those are great ways of using AI. But do you use it for a creative
Speaker:asset? No, no, no, no. Because a lot of people will figure it out and
Speaker:be like, this is slop. And then you ruin your reputation.
Speaker:Amazon's already ruined its reputation, at least in the gaming
Speaker:area. They tried to quote unquote, compete with Steam and
Speaker:everybody's like, what? Because
Speaker:that was never happening. I mean, they were ambitious, I give them that.
Speaker:But I was like, yeah, that's not happening at all.
Speaker:So your ambition got the best of you, unfortunately. But here's the thing.
Speaker:AI is great for specific tasks.
Speaker:AI is not great for other specific tasks. Use the
Speaker:tool wisely. I know it is such
Speaker:a temptation to use it
Speaker:for everything, but don't do
Speaker:will ruin you and people will not trust you.
Speaker:We're already questioning just about every video
Speaker:now if it's AI or not, because it's getting really good to not tell if
Speaker:it's real or not. But a lot of times you can still tell. Use it
Speaker:as a tool, not for a means to an end. But now let's get to
Speaker:chat moderation because Blizzard is doing it,
Speaker:Dice is doing it. Apparently I got banned for seven.
Speaker:For seven days for a minor offense.
Speaker:But EA and Dice, you should stick to combating cheaters,
Speaker:not moderating chats if you're gonna make
Speaker:a competitive game. The whole point of committed game from a guy's
Speaker:perspective is that rerazing each in each insulting each other.
Speaker:A because it's competitive and we're getting frustrated that we're losing. B, because
Speaker:that's what guys do. And the fact is that you, you're
Speaker:like, nope, guys can't be guys because
Speaker:heaven forbid, that's a terrible thing for society to have. Or
Speaker:boys can be boys or guys can be guys. Nope, can't have
Speaker:that. That's terrible. That's
Speaker:toxic for whatever. Because feminism.
Speaker:Because feminism is not toxic at all. No,
Speaker:we can't do that because words are harm.
Speaker:Like what? Look it, if you keep
Speaker:doing this, nobody's going to talk in a competitive
Speaker:Game, VR games, Conquest games. Communication
Speaker:is key, but if you don't allow it, then nobody's going to talk. Because no
Speaker:one wants to get banned. Because it's a very annoying thing to get banned for.
Speaker:Second of all, I shouldn't be banned for playing Battlefield 1,
Speaker:Battlefield 5, Battlefield 4. If I got banned on one of them, I shouldn't be
Speaker:banned on all of them. That's stupid. That's ridiculous.
Speaker:That is. Once the government opens again, I'm going to the
Speaker:ftc. I'm filing a complaint on you guys. Second of
Speaker:all, you should only care if it's an actual threat
Speaker:to violence. Like I'm gonna come over your house and kill you should never be
Speaker:okay calling someone a faggot or retard. Really,
Speaker:it's a word. It's not going to cause harm. I don't
Speaker:care about your emotional harm. That's if you're an
Speaker:adult. Deal with it. If you're not an adult. Well, still
Speaker:deal with it, but figure out how to be an adult. Look, if you're going
Speaker:to make adult games, you're going to have to deal with adults being
Speaker:adults. If you can't do that, then stick to Sims
Speaker:4. But don't tell me that I can't say things that aren't
Speaker:even remotely harmful and remotely even
Speaker:further from the truth of being actually
Speaker:harmful in a way of violence is not
Speaker:violent. I'm going to now start to find creative ways of saying
Speaker:the word without saying the word. I think we're going to start using
Speaker:frack now from Battlestar Galactica.
Speaker:Call it instead of faggot, call it frack it. F R A
Speaker:K K I T. Yeah, I'll get around it somehow.
Speaker:And if you ban me, I'll be like, I didn't use the word. I use
Speaker:something else. Also, grow. Grow some thick skin. Like,
Speaker:seriously, I don't understand why
Speaker:it's harmful harm. Actually, you have to show
Speaker:the harm. You can't just be it's harmful.
Speaker:Okay? Like legally, you have to show harm.
Speaker:I know, I know. Private business, whatever. Actually, eventually, private business.
Speaker:Technically it's a publicly traded company, but it still applies
Speaker:because Overwatch was very ban
Speaker:hammer happy. And people stop actually
Speaker:communicating on Overwatch too. It will eventually happen with this game.
Speaker:I mean, this game. A lot of people talk anyways, but it's
Speaker:going to be more incentive to never say anything.
Speaker:Why? Because what's. What's the point?
Speaker:I could somehow upset somebody that they
Speaker:banned or they report me and then I get banned
Speaker:for seven days for a Word, which really is
Speaker:a ridiculous amount of time for a word. So
Speaker:the end result apparently for gaming is going to be ruined
Speaker:by creating AI games with AI and then just
Speaker:basically using AI to chat. Moderate. Because, well,
Speaker:why not? Let's keep it friendly.
Speaker:I guess you could still be friends and still say terrible things to each other.
Speaker:All people do it to each other. If you're best friends and you are
Speaker:extremely sarcastic with each other, you say the
Speaker:most crazy crap and it's still fine.
Speaker:But no, we have to make sure that we mom our chats.
Speaker:Now don't say that. That's, that's hurtful. No,
Speaker:I mean don't make a competitive game if you don't want
Speaker:colorful language to be said.
Speaker:Now do I agree that everything should be said? No, but you want. We're
Speaker:adults. It's words, it's not going to harm you. You go
Speaker:back and forth, you get frustrated, you say some salty
Speaker:language, you go back and forth. That's, that's how these types of games
Speaker:are made are done. But you just can't keep on being the same
Speaker:way and being like, no, you're not allowed to say that
Speaker:that's harmful and then aren't really show any
Speaker:harm. Harm actually, actually has to have
Speaker:some type of way of showing it.
Speaker:I'm not talking about emotional harm. That's fictitious and made up and you
Speaker:can lie about that all you want. Talking about actual physical harm,
Speaker:which should be a legal thing, I know, not really
Speaker:legally, but I mean they use lawyers to make their own terms of services anyways
Speaker:that they don't even follow. So my point is, is that chat
Speaker:moderation from the developer and the developer making games
Speaker:with AI will ruin a game, will make sure
Speaker:that no one plays it and we'll make sure no one talks to each other
Speaker:because I don't want to get banned again. Why take the risk? Might as well
Speaker:just be silent and let not say
Speaker:anything. That's the best way of doing it, apparently. I don't know. What do you
Speaker:think? Do you think I'm crazy about all this stuff or you think of. Right
Speaker:on. Let me know in the comments below. But once again, thank you for listening
Speaker:to Digital Coffee. I really do appreciate it and as always
Speaker:be subscribed, you know all the places and join me next week
Speaker:as I talk about what's going on in the gaming industry. All right guys, stay
Speaker:safe. Get to saying those salty languages that you love to say
Speaker:and screw the developers that want to mom you.
Speaker:See you next week. Later.


