Gaming’s Weird Times: Price Hikes, Data Breaches, and Lawsuits Everywhere

And make sure if you're going to use AI, use it within the production cycle.

Your priority should always be the safety of kids.

I don't care if you like or hate kids.

If you are a company based around kids, your highest priority is making sure the kids are safe.

Most of Battlefield's campaigns were not that great.

I think the only one that was actually great was Battlefield Bad Company series Kalvi.

Black Ops 7 has favored AMD rDNA 4 GPUs over Nvidia Geoforce cards.

Mmm, that's good.

And welcome to a new episode of Digital Coffee Gaming Brew, Bethesda.

This week is gonna be the big thing.

Battlefield 6 is finally, finally coming out.

We also have Call of duty Black Ops 7.

I've been playing a little bit of that, because why not?

And then have you guys ever wondered about, like, what is really going on in the gaming industry?

I mean, we got the Xbox looks like it's implosion.

You EA looks like it's imploding.

So are we really into kind of a depression in gaming is going to be a thing?

And plus your other news.

So let's get on with the show.

So first off is, well, Roblox is going to be having lawsuits, a lot of lawsuits.

So specifically it's going to be lawsuits about being unsafe for kids and that basically Roblox is a playground for predators.

The Kentucky Attorney General, Russell Coleman, made statements about the dangers present present on the platform, asserting that child predators can operate with little oversight.

The lawsuit alleges that Roblox Corporation has misled parents and about the safety of the platform for minors, has failed to implement adequate safety measures.

A similar lawsuit was filed in Louisiana.

Who the AG expressed support for Kentucky's action, described the platform as dangerous for children.

Roblox has denied the allegations and stated that it has implemented over a hundred safety features in 2025, including plans for facial age estimation, technology, monitoring, communication to block harmful content.

The platform has faced increasing scrutiny over its safety measures in light of past incidents involving predators.

The advocacy group has raised concerns about some Roblox proposed policies, arguing that they may misrepresent sensitive issues.

So this is a very interesting thing because there have been like, terrible reports of child predators preying on children through Roblox.

And they kind of really been lax on this specifically.

And then all of a sudden the states are like.

Or some states, I should say, are like, we've had enough of this.

We're going to file lawsuits.

Looks like you guys aren't really doing what you should be doing.

And that is an issue.

Now, Roblox has said that, look, we've implemented all these things this year.

It's like, okay, what about the previous years?

It seems like you've been.

You actually have been very laxed about this specific issue.

And since you are a game platform specifically geared towards kids, you think you would have a lot more safety protocols because it's kids.

But until recently, you actually haven't done that, which begs to differ.

What have you been doing since 2025?

I mean, your priority should always be the safety of kids.

I don't care if you like or hate kids.

If you are a company based around kids, your highest priority is making sure the kids are safe.

Your highest priority is getting these weird, filthy individuals off your platform, making sure it doesn't happen again.

Being swift about it.

Yes, mistakes can be made, especially when you're swift, but at least you can reactivate it if it's proven that everything was wrong.

But yeah, I mean, I mean, if you aren't protecting the kids, then definitely you should have a lawsuit filed against you.

And it looks like that this has been going on until recently when they just decided to implement these types of technologies, which I know that some of it's newer, so may not have back then, but you could have had individuals, moderators around to monitor this situation specifically.

So I think the heat is coming.

And that's why Roblox has decided to actually implement a lot more safety and stringent protocols.

So more lawsuits won't be filed because that really is the only reason why you do it.

All right, moving on to Battlefield 6 and looks like the servers should be good.

Should be.

As reported by David Serland.

He's the lead producer at dice and he says that, yes, it stated that the open beta has helped them gauge interest in the game.

And the open beta achieved a peak of user count of 521,079 players on Steam.

We don't really know the numbers on the EA desktop or anything else.

We only know Steam numbers leading to lengthy queues for access, which really, I did not have any lengthy cues whatsoever.

It said that they would be lengthy and I got right in, which was really funny because I was like, all right, so I was quite surprised about that.

But at least they're making some implementations for this.

Of course, the official release of it is today, since it is Friday, and that there will be season one beginning October 28, including new weapons, guns, vehicles and updates scheduled for November 18 and December 9.

Now there will be a free to play battle Royale Mode.

It's expected to launch later in October.

Don't really know much about that, but all the streamers should be happy about it.

I don't really care.

Will I try it?

I'll probably try it out just to see how it is, but I'm not really that in favor of Battle Royale specifically.

I just liked really Battlefields Conquest mode for the most part.

I might play the other ones we'll see but and play the campaign if it's actually any good.

But to be honest, most of Battlefield's campaigns were not that great.

I think the only one that was actually great was Battlefield Bad Company series.

I mean Bad Company one, Bad Company two.

It seems like they had the best campaigns in both of them, which is funny because that's when they introduced Frostbite Engine to us, first with the consoles and then with battlefield Bad Company 2 it was to PC and consoles.

So should be interesting to see how well the campaign actually does and if it actually is any good.

All right, have you played Expedition 33 and are looking for something new?

Well, there's a new update.

The the game, which developed by Center Active, has decided to do an anniversary update on this one.

It has sold 5 million copies, so it did a really, really, really, really good job of, well, making a compelling game.

It's a short game, but it's a compelling game.

So this update will include new locations, costumes and challenges.

Although the release date has not been confirmed, it's probably going to be a little while since this is going to be a different change but or a pretty significant update, I should say.

But it did come out in April of 2025, so maybe this will come out in April 2026.

That probably is the best timeline for this.

But if you haven't picked it up, I highly recommend you pick that one up.

This kind of brings back the old school turn based RPGs that well, final Fantasy made pretty popular back in the late 90s, early 2000s and now this just comes back full circle and kind of brings back some new mechanics.

But it really does expand upon the old school way of doing turn based RPGs which there was nothing wrong with.

It's just companies moved on because of new things.

But I mean Baldur's Gate 3 and Expedition 33 has kind of solidified that the old school way of RPGs are still really fun and developers shouldn't just abandon it altogether.

All right, so Creative assembly has always been interested in making Alien Isolation for years before, but the issue was, well, it didn't sell Very well, which is weird because it actually is a really, really good game.

If you have not played Alien Isolation yet, you should play Alien Isolation.

It's a really good game.

Second, it was because of Fox.

Now it's owned by Disney.

It's a little bit more of a, hey, we want to get more Aliens games.

Alien shows out because it is a good ip.

So what?

Basically what they stated is that even though the original Alien Isolation was released in 2014, it received critical claim, but sales were underwhelming.

Disney acquired 20 the Fox in 2019, which led to significant shift in intellectual property management.

Basically meaning is that Disney wants to use the IPs, which is a good thing.

And Fox kind of sort of want to use it, but didn't really care as much about it.

Since the acquisition from Disney, they actually have had made several games, including Firestorm Elite, which I think they're making a second one on that one.

Dark Descent, good one.

Rogue Incursion, never played it.

And then also the movies and TV shows, which is Alien Romulus and Alien Earth.

So this is a good thing because.

Because Alien Isolation's Alien Isolation was an amazing game that was hard as hell because of the alien and the alien.

Eventually figured out if you stayed in one spot for too long, it figured out where you were.

It was very scary.

I was scared of my Android phone for a while because the androids were trying to kill me in Alien isolation.

And you never know with Android phone what it will do to you sometimes.

So I was scared.

But I still was very intrigued about this game.

I did beat it and it was a very good game.

Alien was always a threat, but then the humans were a threat, Androids were a threat.

Everything was a threat in this game.

Like you only had to rely on yourself and using weapons was not encouraged because you had a limited amount of supplies for that.

So it really was a hide go, Relocate if you need to hide again, relocate if you need to.

Type of a game where it was difficult at times.

There was times where I was like, how did it find me?

And Alien did find me eventually.

Maybe it took a little bit, but it figured out where I was.

And you could hide underneath desk, you could hide in lockers.

Like this game could freak you out because of that alien.

Like they made that alien really good for that.

So if you haven't played it, I strongly recommend you pick it up.

It's pretty cheap now to get it, but I strongly recommend it.

I hope Creative assembly is making a set a sequel to this one because it does Need a sequel?

Highly recommend SQL for that one.

All right, moving on to Discord and it's well, data breach.

So Discord reported that approximately 70,000 age verification ID photos have been leaked in a recent security breach.

It's not may, it has been.

The breach was not due to Discord's own security being compromised, but rather a third party customer support supplier.

Great.

It's always the third parties, always the third parties that will get you on this one.

It's not your actually own software, it's the third parties that don't do good management of this one.

The compromised data included government photo IDs used for review, age related appeals as well as names, usernames, emails, last four digits of credit cards.

Awesome.

And IP addresses.

Even better.

Discord stated that it will not reward those responsible for the legal actions related to the breach.

To Discord has contacted all affected users and is working with law enforcement, data protection authorities and external security experts.

Discord has secured the affected systems and terminated its relationship with a compromised vendor as it should because that's not a good thing and that vendor is probably never going to.

Well it's probably going to die because that is one thing you just never do have a compromised system that will allow hackers to steal this amount of data.

Now it sucks that if they stole especially credit card numbers it's only it's the last four digits the credit cards which is in the whole one.

But I'm pretty sure they could figure it out.

And since most places only really use last four digits a lot of times it's probably easier to figure out.

So what I would say is change your password, make sure no sketchy business has been happening with your credit card.

Put on two factor authentication which is passkeys and everything else involved with that because that's really the only way you're going to beat them.

And make sure if you get weird emails about changing your password, you ignore those.

Making sure your email addresses are not compromised as well.

Pass keys to that authentic two AF or authentication for that one.

Yeah, it sucks.

I've had it happen.

Not fun.

Last pass screwed me over.

I had to change over to Proton Pass.

Good, good password management by the way allows for pass keys and saving pass keys on there.

So I highly recommend that one.

All right, so I have been playing Call of duty Black Ops 7 because I decided to for two months to have game pass for the PC one.

I'm not doing that one and I'm just going to be done with it.

So there is a skill based matchmaking and there's a non skill based matchmaking.

Well apparently the non one is going to be confirmed to be the default for Black Ops 7 which I'm fine with that launch it will be with minimal skill consideration, which I think is a better way of playing it.

I think it'll be less sweaty but it could be more frustrating for a lot of people.

We'll see.

The decision follows community feedback during the Black Ops 7 beta where a new play playlist without SBMM was introduced and received positive responses, activism, responding to competitive pressure from Battlefield 6 and has introduced a free trial of Black Ops 6 alongside its release.

The announcement was made via Twitter when tech rear express commitment to providing a varied experience and acknowledge the beta as a valuable testing point.

So for all this it seems like we're going back to more of just play with people with different skill base.

Figure out where you are basically on that one, try to improve or just say that they're cheating or hacking because that's the other way of doing it.

Or like I say, touch grass because a lot of you sometimes just need to touch grass.

It's not even like a little bit, it's a lot sometimes.

Like I'm all for playing video games, but sometimes you just need to touch grass.

It really is a thing.

Also with this beta has revealed early tests have indicated that Kalvi Black Ops 7 has favored AMD rDNA 4 GPUs only over Nvidia GeForce cards.

The Radeon RX 9070 XT outperforms the GeForce RTX 5007 Ti in Call of Duty Black Ops 7 across all resolutions, which is a pretty significant test.

The performance difference is reported to be 31% higher for RX9070XT at 2K or 1440p.

So that's actually a huge win for AMD because right now a lot of us are just upset at Nvidia.

It just seems like prices are going up.

There's lack of stock for their 5000 series card.

Their 5000 series card was not as good as their 4000 series card.

It was kind of a middling upgrade.

If you have the 4000 series card, I would never recommend upgrading it.

If you have more like me, the 3000 series card, it could be a good update.

But I just wait for the next round of AMD cards because it's looking like they're finally, finally bringing competition to Nvidia.

I just disregard intel because well, it's intel now and they're kind of the laughing stock of gaming, which is kind of bad because for a while their CPUs were the best you could get in gaming until AMD came out with Ryzen processors.

And it seems like intel has never been able to catch up.

It's weird because usually if they do catch up, their CPUs run way hot, which is never a good thing.

Just Ryzen, just AMD or Ryzen just do a better job.

It for now, everything can change.

Sometimes when you get to the top, you get a little too comfortable at the top and then somebody comes out.

But the performance gap is described as significant, particularly in competitive context where such differences are rare.

So even this is a rarity to see such a huge performance.

And since Call of Duty is a quote unquote competitive game, unless you're playing on controller, then it's a little bit more easy mode, but it's still a competitive game when you're playing this.

So it's quite significant that this has actually happened.

And kudos to AMD for keep on pounding the pavement and making sure you make better and better graphics cards because it's not an easy thing to go up against behemoth like Nvidia and hope to be as good as Nvidia when you've been not great.

So like I said, keep going.

AMD gamers are going to love this because we just need more competition.

All right, moving on to what the heck is going on in the gaming industry.

It's just.

There's just so much going on that's just very questionable.

Like, for example, Microsoft just completely up, like upping the prices mostly in the United States, 50% on their game Pass.

When Game Pass was considered a good deal, it's not a good deal anymore.

And it really has just become a more greedy aspect of Microsoft.

And you never really trust Microsoft, to be honest with you.

They're kind of the company that you always have to keep your eye on, because if you don't keep your eye on them, they just get weirder and weirder and weirder.

It's just one of those things where you just cannot let up on these companies.

So right now it just seems like there's an actual implosion on Xbox.

Like Xbox is imploding, like the rises, the price has increased on their consoles and then their price increased on their Game Pass.

They lost reportedly $300 million on the last Call of Duty because of Game Pass.

When Phil Spencer has said that Game Pass would increase sales, that's not.

And I don't know where he gets his ideas about this because even I knew, I'm like, this is not going to increase Sal.

This is going to increase the subscription rate of Game Pass because it's a good deal and I don't have to buy the game because I don't want to buy the game if I already have this.

I'm not going to buy the game unless it's really, really good or unless I'm canceling Game Pass.

So what this has all said is that basically he was wrong.

Dead wrong, very wrong, weirdly wrong.

And now we're here where it's becoming more expensive.

Luckily the PC Pass is not that bad for now.

That's why I'm only doing a couple months, so I can play games that I don't really want to buy anyways, which is basically Call of Duty in particular.

So there we have it.

If you're specific, on PC, it's still a reasonably good price, 1650amonth or which is not bad, but everything else, yeah, it's not great.

No.

I feel sorry for console players, to be honest with you, because you're getting them.

You're getting screwed over the most by Xbox.

So if you're Xbox, like game fan, like, man, is it bad to be you right now.

I mean, yeah, you got Auto Worlds 2 coming out, which I don't really know for sure if I'm gonna get or.

But there we have it.

It's a weird time where I don't think Xbox is really going to survive.

What I really think might actually happen is Microsoft's going to be like, we're just all in on AI and we'll just spin off Xbox to be its own company, which wouldn't be a bad idea for them in general.

It'll help keep their bottom line.

Gaming in general has been layoffs, layoffs, layoffs, price hikes, layoffs, layoffs, layoffs, price hikes.

It's like a never ending of layoffs and price hikes to not as much value getting out of this.

So gaming's gonna have to figure it out.

What unfortunately is probably going to happen is an over reliance on AI, which is not a good thing.

I use AI for like podcast production, but I use it as a tool.

I don't use it for like replacing my voice, but they want to replace it for like skins and a bunch of different stuff.

Which I think if you're smart about this, you'd use it as a QA tester, like have the game run simulations throughout your designs.

Like, could probably do it like a million times within like an hour.

Or less.

And so you would know like where the issues were within the game design of maps.

Let's say it's a competitive shooter and you could figure out like, okay, this is where we want to have the most fights.

Is this the best way to have the most fights?

Is this the best design?

Can we actually do this and maybe ask some, like, following up questions for the AI to help facilitate faster game production?

I would not have it do writing.

I would still have a human do writing.

I would really not have it do skins, to be honest with you.

But this is where we're at.

Even EA's acquisition is basically, they're all saying this, which leads me to the next one.

What the heck is going on with ea?

Now, I did say last week that I do think, I do suspect BioWare will be sold off and it's looking to be that way as well.

So it is reported that a lot of analysts believe that BioWare may be sold off due to its troubled history and the potential liabilities associated with its focus on LGBTQ characters.

Which is true, even though Mark Dura said that if they do this, there will be backlash.

And I'm like, excuse me, there is backlash because you guys did this.

Now another one that could be on the chopping block if it doesn't perform well, which I don't see it not performing well is Dice, because DICE has not been great.

Like I said, look at Battlefield 2042.

It really did not do well.

Battlefield 5 recovered for the most part.

The last, like really good selling Battlefield was Battlefield 1.

So you have two misses.

Battlefield 1 did really well.

Battlefield 4 did really well.

But it, man, was the first year terrible.

Battlefield 3 did well and the Bad Company series did well.

As.

As well.

Well, well, well.

Anyways, EA is incurring 20 billion in junk debt, which basically is probably their own debt that they've incurred because of just misfires in the gaming profile, the gaming space.

And a lot of it's due to trying to rush some games out the door.

2042 and Dragon Age Vale Guard is two of the ones that they try to rush out the door.

They changed.

They kept on changing their direction and they didn't just scrap it and say, if we're going to change direction, we need to change the complete game.

We can't just try to make it work.

Because even when I was pitching things, sometimes the pitch does not go very well and you have to change course.

So what does this all mean?

It basically means that more than likely BioWare will be sold off.

Yes, There's a small team making Mass Effect 5, but that's the only thing going on in BioWare.

Dragon Age is done, even though it shouldn't be.

What should actually happen.

And what I said last week is it should be rebooted.

Go back to Origins, just remake it.

Do not change a thing in it.

Make sure it's less about lgbtq, because that doesn't sell.

I don't know why the weird, I guess fixation on this does not translate to good games, if that were it.

But I do highly suspect that BioWare will be sold off because it's just basically a.

A very.

Not the.

The trust and the pedigree of BioWare is gone.

You would either have to find new talent in a new leadership that has the direction and foresight to understand how to make good RPGs, or you have to sell it off to somebody else that could actually do this, or you have to close the studio.

I don't think they're going to close it because they need to.

They need some money out of this and that's the only way this is going to work.

Now, could they sell off the Sims?

Maybe, but that's still making them money.

Do I think they need to make a new game of the Sims in five or whatever number they're on?

Yeah, they do need to make a new game.

But make no mistake, BioWare is more than likely going to be sold because it started with Mass Effect.

Andromeda did not do very well, then went to Anthem.

Did not do very well, then went to Dragon Age.

Vale Guard did not do very well.

You could either throw.

You could also throw in the Old Republic.

The Star Wars MMO did not do very well.

So that's four misses and they're quite significant misses, Especially Veil Guard, especially Anthem, and especially Mass Effect and Drama.

Old Republic basically restabilizes a free to play option with subscription based only because of that.

But the other three did not.

Do not Stabilize.

Did not go into positive.

Especially Fail Guard or Veil Guard.

Veilguard did not do very well.

When I had my PlayStation subscription, it said free game.

I'm like, all right.

And I was about to get to that brava person, the.

The.

The trans person.

I'm like, I'm like, I don't want to play this anymore.

And I just never finished it.

I. I didn't care for it.

I'd rather go play inquisition Dragon Age 2 or Dragon Age Origins.

I'd rather play those three games over that one.

That's.

That's how bad it is.

Like at least the last three had good writing for the most part.

I think the first one had the best writing out of all of them.

The two had great writing and Inquisition had pretty good writing.

I think it was the best.

But four was just a complete and utter mess.

So it's a really weird time because we're seeing like all the developers going, oh, we're going to increase prices, we're going to increase prices.

And all the gamers are like, all right, you can, but that means I'm not going to spend as much.

I'm probably going to really be picky and choosy on which games I'm going to actually buy.

I'm going to look at Steam reviews and if it's anything, if it's not very good, if it's mixed and below, I not buying.

So you have to understand, you.

You increase prices and it may not be an increase in quality either.

And so you're basically telling us to pick and choose even more now, because I guarantee you, people are picking and choosing between Call of Duty or Battlefield 6, because why not?

I want to play the game that I want to play for a while.

I don't want to play the game that I'm going to kind of play for.

And then I'm just going to get the Xbox game, PC game, pass, get it for a few months, kind of play around with it and go, okay, well, I saw everything I wanted to see.

We're in an interesting time.

Like, really interesting.

I never thought EA would be bought out, but here we are because of all the misses they've done.

And to go on that.

I mean, Ubisoft and canceling an Assassin's Creed game that was based in the Civil War because of the political.

And they're blaming on the Black Samurai.

But I'm like, dude, it was like, yeah, it was a Black Samurai, because you really took one Black Samurai in the history of Japan.

Been like, yep, that's our guy.

I mean, come on.

You.

You had to think that this was not going to go very well.

But like I said, here we are again.

So publishers, developers, I implore you, make better decisions on your game.

Be picky about your games.

Make sure your writers are normal, not insane normal.

And make sure if you're going to use AI, use it within the production cycle.

Like I said, have AI be your Q and A tester.

Pretty sure you could figure out a way for it to run civilizations within your games and make your games better that way, because really, that's the best way of cost cutting.

Maybe figure out a way of making your NPCs a little bit more human.

Like that's fine.

But again, nothing in the creative space.

It just does not create as well as you think.

Nothing in writing, unless you wanted to like again, help you with your writing.

Be like, does this sound good?

Does this make sense?

That's a good use of it.

Like I said, it's a tool.

Tools are great to use, but do not rely on it.

Even though that a lot of these venture capitalists and whatever are thinking, yeah, we should just 100% go with AI.

Don't do it.

Don't, don't, do not do it.

Anyways, what do you think?

Are you going to play Battlefield 6 and or are you going to play Call of duty Black Ops 7?

Do you like all the choice changes that are happening with the gaming street?

Let me know in the comments below.

But as always, thank you for listening to Digital Coffee Gaming Brew.

I really do appreciate it.

Please subscribe to this podcast and all your favorite podcasting apps.

Leave a five star review.

Really this help with the rankings?

Let me know how I'm doing and join me next week as I talk about what's going on in the gaming industry.

All right guys, stay safe.

Get to playing the games that you really want to play.

See you next week.

Later.