Yeah, since People Make Games did an expose of Roblox, then did a follow up because Roblox tried to shut them down, I have forbidden my children to even think about Roblox and warn other families about how bad it is...
They're basically the same shitty ecosystem that Second Life had. And now VRChat. Where the baffling lack of competent competition means they can be just awful. Like this kind of platform is a tiny industry and every entry in the "genre" is scuffed at best. But they don't have competition that isn't also scuffed at best.
If you want to tip a developer, buy a gift copy of their game and give it to someone you know will either not buy it normally or who wants it but can't justify it financially right now.
Personally, I go for the "good enough to pre-order their next game" route. Paying launch price and accepting the uncertainty that the game might turn out shit, have awful DRM, or not run well enough (or at all) on your hardware *is* the tip the developer earned though an amazing prior game. All others get relegated to post-launch sales once they've had a few months or years to finish patching the major bugs.
Meanwhile me: buying Helldivers 2 warbonds and DRG cosmetic packs because they're dirt cheap, released spaced far part and the devs treat the players with respect.
This is my favorite way to tip devs, giving them extra sales of a game while also spreading the word about an awesome game goes so very far, particularly smaller games/studios where sales numbers could be the thing that gets their next work published or not
For those of you having trouble visualizing just how bad that exchange rate for the Robucks is. Hold up your index, middle and ring finger. Lower your index and ring. And that's how much you get back. (Please laugh I desperately need my life choice to feel validated)
And that's just the exchange rate. If you add in all the fees math talked about in the video, it's more like this: Hold up all ten of your fingers. now close one hand into a fist and close all but one finger on the other hand (which finger you choose is up to you, although I suggest the middle one.) That's how much money you made back selling an item on roblox.
I can't remember a time I've ever seen Graham so unironically upset over greedy business tactics in video games. You'd figure all the years he's been covering this wouldn't have gotten through his knowledge that these people will extract wealth at an alarming rate to an almost illegal degree. Bravo for still finding a deeper well of outrage, Graham.
I think Penelope is finally Roblox age. From what Graham and Kathleen have said, it doesn't sound like she'd be into it. BUT, she's got tons of friends who probably are. Graham has every right to be unironically pissed at this bit of blatant financial "bad touching".
The fact that mike ybarra wants us to be able to tip a really enjoyable game that doesn't try to scam more money out of us and couldn't name a single game that came out under him is fucking hilarious
I mean. It'd be tacky to name games you had a part in in that sort of example. The whole take is obviously tachy, but I think that's just him having some basic sense of rhetoric.
@@tomjackal5708 It's not a great way to live your life assuming everyone you disagree with lacks literally any basic human competencies. The man is an out of touch, rich executive with approximately the same shitty takes you'd expect on the matter. He's not an alien who grew up completely outside human society with no concept of the subtle and unwritten social rules everyone has driven into them from practically birth. People you disagree with are almost always still mostly normal human beings with their own complicated lives, and the minute you flatten them to something other than that you limit your own ability to honestly see the world.
How are the people behind Roblox not being investigated for this blatant exploitation? They're doing this shit to CHILDREN who are most definitely NOT doing the maths with Mummy's credit card.
I "tipped" Supergiant for Transistor by buying it again on the Switch. Because the game was good enough that it was worth buying it again. Sometimes I'll "tip" devs by buying a cosmetic dlc pack.
I bought Hades on the EGS because I didn't want to wait, I bought it on the switch because I wanted to play it at my partner's house, I bought it again on steam because I stopped using EGS and wanted the convenience. Pretty happy about all those purchases tbh, it was worth the price again every time.
Quick calculation based on current listed prices. You would have to spend at least US$290 in order to get the 30,000 robux mentioned to cash out for $100. If you can at all. While trying to verify the 30k number and cash out rate, I ran into a lot of listed restrictions on what "earned" means and how much of your robux balance you're allowed to cash out. I didn't look further as this was already absurd enough.
I did that with Monster Sanctuary. Saw Ben Ulmer play it on his home stream during the pandini and got it on Steam for $5. Ended up buying all sorts of merch and extra copies of the game (both for other consoles and for friends) because it was so worth it. That's how good game developers should get their money, and it's a travesty that we can't have more triple-A publishers understand that.
Most of the games where tipping the dev feels like something someone would want to do is for games already so cheap, buying the game as a gift for someone else to enjoy and spread the word is more of a tip than any monetary value ever would be
I bought the supporters upgrade for Deep Rock Galactic because I wanted to give the devs more money. Note that I still got some cosmetics out of that because they're not money sucking ghouls expecting tips.
Years ago when I was new to LRR content and I was sill evaluating if I was going to go down the Rabbit Hole as it were, there was an ENN stinger that had a One Million is Big One Billion Is Bigger reference, and that's when I knew that I had found my people.
That Roblox story is so completely batshit, it's right on par for a square in the 2024 bingo card. It's the sort of thing you would naturally assume is satire (or I would have, if the last decade hadn't happened). Great episode this week!
How is capitalist even an insult. You'd be hard pressed to find a single human being on earth who's not participating in capitalism. Like there's uncontacted tribes in the amazon somewhere maybe and some islands somewhere, and some saharan tribes, tho even they trade...
After all the great work they put into writing the stories, it's incredible that a plug to the lrr store at the end of a mini anti captitalism rant is the funniest thing in the episode
So... you pay $30 to roblox, then other people pay $5 per hat (you made) to roblox, after they've paid about $200 to roblox, you've got $30 of robux back - but you can't get any of it out yet. You then need people to pay another $2000 to roblox. And then you can finally get $100 back. Minus the $30 you already paid. So Roblox gets $1,930. And you get $70. If 200 other people think your hat is worth $5. If not, you get nothing and Roblox gets up to $2,029 off of your creative work.
Nine, nine, nine 🎶 Times any number that you find It all adds up to nine🎵 Fundamental math concepts shared in an educational song. What happened to educational TV for it to rot into today's low low standards?
I bought Stardew Valley on PC, Switch, and Xbox because that game is worth way more than the 15 bucks the dude charges for it most AAA titles aren't even worth that anymore
... I've actually tipped a game dev before. I beat Orcs Must Die Unchained without spending a single penny, so I bought $20 worth of the in-game currency as a thank you before uninstalling the game.
Cool sentiment, just if companies exploit this like the restaurant business is then we need regulation. Best thing would be for them to make a go fund me or patreon instead or something. Or just buy their dlc, merch... whatever.
@@adderous Funny you should say that. I've got a spare bedroom FULL of merch that I have to go through and decide what I can sell, what I can give away, and what is obviously trash. Buying the in-game currency meant the devs got the vast majority of that money and I didn't add to my clutter.
They have done the franchise a service staying more faithful to the lore of Fallout than other shows have been. And Walton Goggins is awesome as the Ghoul. Total scene stealer in every scene he's in. Big thumbs up.
Omg The Descent! I remeber being like... 5 years old and watching my brother or sister play. All three of us would crowd around the CRT monitor that made mom's office room unbearably hot, and tell whomever was playing if we saw ammo or other important things at the edge of the screen. Since I was Small and Didn't Word So Good, when I saw hostages that needed to be rescued I started shouting out "THE SAUSAGES" instead and both my siblings bust out laughing so hard we had to pause. I remember the music being really good. Imma go look up the OSTs
Can confirm, the soundtrack is really good, and that includes the MIDI music of the first two installments, the intro and CD music tracks of the second part, and also all the music in the third part. (Never played Freespace, so I have no idea how that was for music, or anything, really.)
I bought Divinity Original Sin 2 3 times (PC, PS4, Switch) because I fucking like it and wanted to support Larian for being an awesome studio. Plan to BG3 a second time when I get it on PS5 even though my wife and I have SO MANY hours in the PC version.
I did the thing where I'm pausing the video and commenting, because I can't let "Let's bust out our chalkboard and break this down, Mathnet style." pass unaddressed. LRR has the _best_ deep cut references. Now resuming the video.
It's kind of sad that the only way that executive can think to appreciate a work of art is by increasing how much money he spent on it. They really can't see art through any lens beside profit. Plus he doesn't even wanna tip the people who made it... Or, worse, he sees the executives profiting off others hard work as the ones responsible for quality
Graham's politely-understated outrage is always delightful to hear. Incidently, I discovered while going around my local musuem that pretend currency isn't a new idea - apparently it started at the dawn of the industrial age. Richard Arkwright (one of the first people to make an actual factory in the 1700s) apparently minted his own "Arkwright dollars[1]" which were paid to employes and were worth four shillings and whatever pence, but could only be spent on facitilies in his factories. So, there's a cheery thought. Also, do you want to feel old? Tough - in the same room in the same museum was a copy of Tomb Raider (which is of course nearly 30 thirty years old now). [1]Why dollars as this was in the UK? No idea.)
Maybe it's because I've been playing Pentiment lately (thanks, Talking Simulator!), but the whole Roblox pricing scheme kind of sounds like how a medieval landlord would tax his peasants more than anything else.
J*****! Never mind Mathnet, that's Dirk Niblic level stuff! Even Mathnet would wince at something that over the top, Square One saved that level of exploitation for their ACTUAL cartoon villains!
OK, that Descent 3 news has me excited... I've played plenty of the first two games through D1X/D2X, but never got around to checking out the third (and I hear it's a nightmare to get working these days) so very interested to check out the eventual source port that'll come out of this...
The Roblox robucks thing is actually even more interesting, because they differentiate how you made the robux. I used to play when I was younger (2008) and had some pretty valuable items that I was looking to sell to cash out. Turns out: that isn't permitted. It's gotta be earned through game experiences and sales. (Roblox has allowed creator sold items even way back then). They also used to have a freemium currency called Tix but that was axed a while ago. Like a decade ago probably. It's a shame honestly. I loved it back in the day, when I was like 11, it was what I did basically (I'm 27 this year). I learned how to programming on Roblox, and I credit them with being why I went into computer science at all!
Thor from Pirate software's story about how a mount made more money than wings of liberty makes me sad and reminds us that microtransactions are the consumers fault because we keep falling for it.
There is some truth to that, but the devs are hiring teams trained in exploitative psychology and manipulation to figure out how to part you from your money. They have seminars and PowerPoints on how best to overcome people's resistance to spending money on crap they know they don't want. They have research figuring out which players are most vulnerable to being turned into whales and wrung for thousands of dollars each. (And it's not the rich. It's people with disabilities and children mostly) They have taken over such a large portion of the games market that not only is it hard to find a game that doesn't have exploitative monetization, but games which don't have it can ADD IT after you purchase. It's not a fair fight between the consumer and the publisher here, it's no surprise they're winning.
No. Its the publishers fault. Microtransactions are designed to target vulnerable demographics. Generally children, but the really big money is from neurodivergent people. Those with ADHD in particular. In a just world, the psychological tricks game devs pull to swindle people out of their money would be a fucking hate crime. To give you an example, Destiny 2's FOMO practices gave me ulcers. Because I have ADHD and the tactics they use to encourage people to keep playing are designed specifically to make you stressed and are disproportionately effective on people like me. It should not be legal to make your product worse by twisting psychology to make more money from disabled people, but thats what game devs are doing. And they know full well that this disproportinately targets the disabled. Thats where they get their whale money from.
I’ve tipped game creators before, specifically the developers of Deep Rock Galactic. It’s not even really buying DLC, I think you get one hat for supporting them IIRC. They also have been making free content since the release of the game, and are the direct developers of it. They’ve dedicated so much time to making DRG an even better game that I will happily say that they deserve extra money above and beyond the sale price. Rock and Stone, brothers.
17:04 the high level VGC match in question wasnt a couple months ago, the loser got beat on Saturday. Like the 14th of April 2024. By a fantastic and hilarious pokemon youtuber and 2016 VGC World Champion Wolfe Glick.
Guess it's time to get knuckle deep with Knuckles. No idea there was a new show, but I played Sonic a lot as a child and that's launched me into an entire adulthood of Stockholm Syndrome with a blue rodent, and I guess I'm not about to break my secondhand embarrassment addiction cold turkey.
Okay, the Dreamcast VMU has a port on top designed to be connected to itself for data transfer, and does allow for "programs" to be run on it, that have historically been able to start competitions with other VMU games through the data transfer ability, so this is theoretically doable.
Ok i was curious since i hover around the VGC spaces, and have heard nothing of this Drama. So of course I go to the reddit, and really appreciate that the info was 1: easy enough to find in a non inflammatory manner, not making a big drama stink over it. And 2. The question was asked in one thread, with one comment giving the answer, with a note at the end saying "and were now not going to talk about this anymore, and any further discussion would be against the rules." Its honestly refreshingly professional for a gaming community to not tolerate inflammatory behavior, and also not milk the response, knowing it just leads to more.
You're right, Graham. It would be funny to control a PS5 with a Dreamcast VMU. Nothing like reminding that Sony console that its great grandfather should have lost against the Dreamcast. I still have mine. Shame I lost the PS2 conversion disk that let me play Playstation games on it though.
If I was able to "tip" specific people and teams, I would consider giving a tip. Like, if I hear a voice line that cracks me up, I would love to tip the voice actor directly. Or if a song was a banger, tip the music creators specifically. Since any "tip" would just go to whatever CEO profits off of the hard work of others, I'll pass.
Overheard a child talking to their parent in London this weekend "A Roblox isn't game..." is the snippet I heard. Hopefully the rest of the sentence was something along the lines of "...it's a cautionary tale of the danger of unregulated capitalism and it's exploitative nature". Or ".. it's a scam" which might be more in-line with a child's vocabulary.
"This place wasn't bombed in New Vegas!" I feel those people do not remember the endings to New Vegas, one of the endings DEFINITELY involves that place getting bombed BASICALLY because of the actions in New Vegas, I think they just thought the "unabtrusive" ending was the canon one, when it's DEFINITELY one of the obtrusive endings.
Roblox is a actual Diablo level buying trick in real life... In game you would buy a weapon for 150,000 coins then try sell it back even if unused and they would give you 3000 as the actual item is trash.
This episode had me genuinely burst out laughing so many times I nearly choked on the pizza I was eating while watching it nearly did a spit-take in the same episode. This show is already one of my favourites of all the great stuff you do, but this episode was fantastic even compared to the usually high standard. Also, goddamn Roblox is scammy -- they're as bad as LiveNation / Ticket Master.
![Chino Pacas - Modo Capone (with Drake & Fuerza Regida) [Video Oficial]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/zjv8TQ0gBkg/mqdefault.jpg)
Yeah, since People Make Games did an expose of Roblox, then did a follow up because Roblox tried to shut them down, I have forbidden my children to even think about Roblox and warn other families about how bad it is...
Those videos should be essential viewing for anyone with a kid who is old enough to get into Roblox
When my daughter was of "Roblox Age", they didn't have all this crap. That was ten years ago. Hell, even Overwatch wasn't that egregious back then.
The fact that Roblox is significantly older than their target audience is fucking wild. I played Roblox when I was a kid. I'm nearly 30.
They're basically the same shitty ecosystem that Second Life had. And now VRChat. Where the baffling lack of competent competition means they can be just awful. Like this kind of platform is a tiny industry and every entry in the "genre" is scuffed at best. But they don't have competition that isn't also scuffed at best.
Also, Quinns has started up an RPG channel in addition to People Make Games and Shut Up & Sit Down, so watch more of his stuff.
If you want to tip a developer, buy a gift copy of their game and give it to someone you know will either not buy it normally or who wants it but can't justify it financially right now.
So ignoring the fees, just based on the exchange rates in and out and the 70% in-game cut, Roblox is taking a 91.7% cut!
"Tippable" games? I've bought Celeste for like eight people because it fucking rules! There's the tip!
Yeah, I've gifted Stardew Valley to, I think, four of my friends just because I sank so much time into it myself.
It's amazing how much time I've put into a game I got for $5. Yeah 100% I'd tip celeste devs
Personally, I go for the "good enough to pre-order their next game" route. Paying launch price and accepting the uncertainty that the game might turn out shit, have awful DRM, or not run well enough (or at all) on your hardware *is* the tip the developer earned though an amazing prior game. All others get relegated to post-launch sales once they've had a few months or years to finish patching the major bugs.
Meanwhile me: buying Helldivers 2 warbonds and DRG cosmetic packs because they're dirt cheap, released spaced far part and the devs treat the players with respect.
This is my favorite way to tip devs, giving them extra sales of a game while also spreading the word about an awesome game goes so very far, particularly smaller games/studios where sales numbers could be the thing that gets their next work published or not
For those of you having trouble visualizing just how bad that exchange rate for the Robucks is.
Hold up your index, middle and ring finger.
Lower your index and ring.
And that's how much you get back.
(Please laugh I desperately need my life choice to feel validated)
And that's just the exchange rate. If you add in all the fees math talked about in the video, it's more like this:
Hold up all ten of your fingers. now close one hand into a fist and close all but one finger on the other hand (which finger you choose is up to you, although I suggest the middle one.)
That's how much money you made back selling an item on roblox.
"Oh cool, it gets worse."
I actually had to ask myself "Blohai? What gen pokemon is that, i must be out of practice" before i realized he just pronounced blåhaj correctly
I can't remember a time I've ever seen Graham so unironically upset over greedy business tactics in video games. You'd figure all the years he's been covering this wouldn't have gotten through his knowledge that these people will extract wealth at an alarming rate to an almost illegal degree. Bravo for still finding a deeper well of outrage, Graham.
And he still got the math wrong, it's even worse than he said.
Roblox really should be illegal with how it exploits child labour.
It's not just the numbers, it's also how Roblox incentivizes other people (often, other children) to exploit child labour
I mean. No one does it like roblox. It is honestly staggering how wildly unethical everything about roblox is, even by industry standards.
I think Penelope is finally Roblox age. From what Graham and Kathleen have said, it doesn't sound like she'd be into it. BUT, she's got tons of friends who probably are. Graham has every right to be unironically pissed at this bit of blatant financial "bad touching".
The fact that mike ybarra wants us to be able to tip a really enjoyable game that doesn't try to scam more money out of us and couldn't name a single game that came out under him is fucking hilarious
I mean. It'd be tacky to name games you had a part in in that sort of example. The whole take is obviously tachy, but I think that's just him having some basic sense of rhetoric.
@@irreleverent i dont think he has that tbh
I mean, it would be kind of reasonable if game dev’s could make their own patreon’s and not have the money stolen by publishers
@@tomjackal5708 It's not a great way to live your life assuming everyone you disagree with lacks literally any basic human competencies. The man is an out of touch, rich executive with approximately the same shitty takes you'd expect on the matter. He's not an alien who grew up completely outside human society with no concept of the subtle and unwritten social rules everyone has driven into them from practically birth.
People you disagree with are almost always still mostly normal human beings with their own complicated lives, and the minute you flatten them to something other than that you limit your own ability to honestly see the world.
How are the people behind Roblox not being investigated for this blatant exploitation? They're doing this shit to CHILDREN who are most definitely NOT doing the maths with Mummy's credit card.
“Then good news; there’s a fee for that.” What a line.
"Let's break out our chalkboard and break this down, MathNet style."
Core memory unlocked. I loved that show
The Fallout show won't be good until they figure out some way to reference Agatha Fisty.
Norwegian Kroner is truly the base math on which all economies runs.
I "tipped" Supergiant for Transistor by buying it again on the Switch. Because the game was good enough that it was worth buying it again. Sometimes I'll "tip" devs by buying a cosmetic dlc pack.
I bought Hades on the EGS because I didn't want to wait, I bought it on the switch because I wanted to play it at my partner's house, I bought it again on steam because I stopped using EGS and wanted the convenience. Pretty happy about all those purchases tbh, it was worth the price again every time.
I was not expecting the Lex Luther "and that's terrible", it killed me XD
Graham's Roblox breakdown reminded me of Austin Powers' "Oh no. I've gone cross eyed" bit when learning about time travel.
Quick calculation based on current listed prices. You would have to spend at least US$290 in order to get the 30,000 robux mentioned to cash out for $100.
If you can at all.
While trying to verify the 30k number and cash out rate, I ran into a lot of listed restrictions on what "earned" means and how much of your robux balance you're allowed to cash out. I didn't look further as this was already absurd enough.
It just keeps getting worse and worse.
That store plug was seamless and perfect.
Congrats on mixing the standard Norwegian Krone joke with 40 cakes.
I think by the time I do finally get a passport and wander into Europe, I'll have a handle on the USD to Kroner exchange rate.
2:35 Overwatch on launch was an awesome experience. Seeing where it's been taken now by management is just heartbreaking
Big overwatch player here, the skins is just a dumb wallet measuring contest. The actual gameplay is quite good ATM at-least:
Well let's not get carried away, it was still a lootbox microtransaction riddled game that you had to pay for.
The only time I felt I needed to give a dev more money was Vampire Survivors because I felt like I ripped them off only paying 3$
I did that with Monster Sanctuary. Saw Ben Ulmer play it on his home stream during the pandini and got it on Steam for $5. Ended up buying all sorts of merch and extra copies of the game (both for other consoles and for friends) because it was so worth it. That's how good game developers should get their money, and it's a travesty that we can't have more triple-A publishers understand that.
Most of the games where tipping the dev feels like something someone would want to do is for games already so cheap, buying the game as a gift for someone else to enjoy and spread the word is more of a tip than any monetary value ever would be
@@icedemon2769Yeah hey wait a second. Big games have merch! If you like a game you buy merch! That's what tipping is!
I bought the supporters upgrade for Deep Rock Galactic because I wanted to give the devs more money. Note that I still got some cosmetics out of that because they're not money sucking ghouls expecting tips.
@@ToxicAtomyeah, I’ve bought the game 4 more times to gift to people
16:10 the single best store pitch that has ever been made, bar none
I'm still laughing. The delivery was just perfect.
I agree. That was pure gold for the ears.
5:15 I completely lost it at 'Mathnet style'. Oh gods, someone else grew up with Square One TV! :D
HELL YEAH MATHNET
Deepest of deep cuts, that.
Graham's commented that they've been rewatching it with their kid so the references are semi-current. Still holds up.
Years ago when I was new to LRR content and I was sill evaluating if I was going to go down the Rabbit Hole as it were, there was an ENN stinger that had a One Million is Big One Billion Is Bigger reference, and that's when I knew that I had found my people.
Engagement for the MathNet reference alone! Now all I need is a Ghostwriter reference and my 10yr old self can die happy!
That Roblox story is so completely batshit, it's right on par for a square in the 2024 bingo card. It's the sort of thing you would naturally assume is satire (or I would have, if the last decade hadn't happened). Great episode this week!
Damn, Graham, That Roblox piece is dangerously close to real journalism! I kinda LIKE IT
"Someone's getting rich off the roblox marketplace. Can you guess who?"
Is it greedy capitalists? Show me greedy capitalists!
It is _most definitely_ not the children!
We would but they bought the curtain rights and we can't open them
@@gamefreak3072Not without a season pass, anyway.
How is capitalist even an insult. You'd be hard pressed to find a single human being on earth who's not participating in capitalism.
Like there's uncontacted tribes in the amazon somewhere maybe and some islands somewhere, and some saharan tribes, tho even they trade...
@@Broockle don't confuse commerce with capitalism
After all the great work they put into writing the stories, it's incredible that a plug to the lrr store at the end of a mini anti captitalism rant is the funniest thing in the episode
So... you pay $30 to roblox, then other people pay $5 per hat (you made) to roblox, after they've paid about $200 to roblox, you've got $30 of robux back - but you can't get any of it out yet.
You then need people to pay another $2000 to roblox. And then you can finally get $100 back. Minus the $30 you already paid.
So Roblox gets $1,930. And you get $70. If 200 other people think your hat is worth $5. If not, you get nothing and Roblox gets up to $2,029 off of your creative work.
Holy shit, another human being who remembers Square One. Go off, Mathman.
Nine, nine, nine 🎶
Times any number that you find
It all adds up to nine🎵
Fundamental math concepts shared in an educational song. What happened to educational TV for it to rot into today's low low standards?
*brain collapses, crying in agony during the Roblox story*
Just another person happily enjoying that Mathnet reference. Another great episode all around.
If there was ever a ranking of LRR segues to the store, that would be up there.
I saw you were covering Roblox's exploitative practices and I came as soon as I could!
Bej's throw to the store was amazing
8:58 I did not expect to see a joke from Dave the Barbarian today but I tell you what, I’m here for it!
My guess is "Not Me"
I bought Stardew Valley on PC, Switch, and Xbox because that game is worth way more than the 15 bucks the dude charges for it
most AAA titles aren't even worth that anymore
Mathnet callback! I loved that show!
Hey congrats to the RUclips members keeping the lights on!
"It's Sonic's 30th Shadowversary" I had to replay this line because I knew something was wrong with it, but it went right over my head.
Love the subtle Lex Luthor joke XD
"And that's terrible!"
... I've actually tipped a game dev before. I beat Orcs Must Die Unchained without spending a single penny, so I bought $20 worth of the in-game currency as a thank you before uninstalling the game.
I mean I’d say that’s pretty fair
Cool sentiment, just if companies exploit this like the restaurant business is then we need regulation.
Best thing would be for them to make a go fund me or patreon instead or something. Or just buy their dlc, merch... whatever.
I spent about 2000 hours on Champions Online about a decade back, so when I came into some money I bought a lifetime subscription.
Yep, that's what merch is for.
@@adderous Funny you should say that. I've got a spare bedroom FULL of merch that I have to go through and decide what I can sell, what I can give away, and what is obviously trash. Buying the in-game currency meant the devs got the vast majority of that money and I didn't add to my clutter.
Props on the Mathnet joke. PBS woooo!
They have done the franchise a service staying more faithful to the lore of Fallout than other shows have been. And Walton Goggins is awesome as the Ghoul. Total scene stealer in every scene he's in. Big thumbs up.
meme of Simpsons teenager with The Ghoul's head shoving Simpsons kid with a Spartan helmet saying "See, *that's* how you [MAKE A GAME ADAPTATION]."
Ahh Mathnet… I miss Square One TV.
Beej: "Why?" Alex, thinking of the next Watch+Play: Yeah, why?!?!?"
Omg The Descent! I remeber being like... 5 years old and watching my brother or sister play. All three of us would crowd around the CRT monitor that made mom's office room unbearably hot, and tell whomever was playing if we saw ammo or other important things at the edge of the screen.
Since I was Small and Didn't Word So Good, when I saw hostages that needed to be rescued I started shouting out "THE SAUSAGES" instead and both my siblings bust out laughing so hard we had to pause.
I remember the music being really good. Imma go look up the OSTs
That's some old school couch co-op, there. Sounds like a hoot.
Can confirm, the soundtrack is really good, and that includes the MIDI music of the first two installments, the intro and CD music tracks of the second part, and also all the music in the third part. (Never played Freespace, so I have no idea how that was for music, or anything, really.)
A+ Graham Face™ in the thumbnail, well chosen and appreciated.
Honestly $89 for the Bluetooth GBA cart isn’t that bad when you consider an official pro controller is $70.
You know what Roblox marketplace reminds me of? The AB hazing scene from The Revenge of the Nerds. "(SMACK!) Thank you, sir. May I have another one."
I bought Divinity Original Sin 2 3 times (PC, PS4, Switch) because I fucking like it and wanted to support Larian for being an awesome studio. Plan to BG3 a second time when I get it on PS5 even though my wife and I have SO MANY hours in the PC version.
Btw, love hearing more of the checkpoint theme in these videos. Bradley Rains made a bop (do the youth still say that?)
I did the thing where I'm pausing the video and commenting, because I can't let "Let's bust out our chalkboard and break this down, Mathnet style." pass unaddressed.
LRR has the _best_ deep cut references. Now resuming the video.
Jesus f-ing Christ, Graham. I thought I was the only person in the world who remembered MathNet. I had to pause the video for a laugh break.
The thing I remember most from Mathnet is "ATM, or, automatic teller machine."
@@Alakaizer My two favorite memories of MathNet are “One, one, two, three, five, EUREKA!” and “It ain’t necessary, Li So!”
Many of us are big fans of Square One at the moonbase.
It's kind of sad that the only way that executive can think to appreciate a work of art is by increasing how much money he spent on it. They really can't see art through any lens beside profit.
Plus he doesn't even wanna tip the people who made it... Or, worse, he sees the executives profiting off others hard work as the ones responsible for quality
You earned a new subscription for remembering Mathnet and Square One TV. So, tell me…Kate Monday or Pat Tuesday?
(Graham here) Easily Kate Monday, but they’re both great.
Graham's politely-understated outrage is always delightful to hear.
Incidently, I discovered while going around my local musuem that pretend currency isn't a new idea - apparently it started at the dawn of the industrial age. Richard Arkwright (one of the first people to make an actual factory in the 1700s) apparently minted his own "Arkwright dollars[1]" which were paid to employes and were worth four shillings and whatever pence, but could only be spent on facitilies in his factories.
So, there's a cheery thought.
Also, do you want to feel old? Tough - in the same room in the same museum was a copy of Tomb Raider (which is of course nearly 30 thirty years old now).
[1]Why dollars as this was in the UK? No idea.)
Graham's 'I am done with capitalism' voice is delightful.
I was not expecting amoongus, but rather sylveon, however that is funnier
Honestly not posting has been the best step for my life since, well ever. Use the screentime settings on your apps people! Fantastic setting.
That may very well be the best merch pitch I have ever seen. 16:20
It was surreal hearing them accidentally say my last name so many times. Usually I only hear my first name on this channel...
Maybe it's because I've been playing Pentiment lately (thanks, Talking Simulator!), but the whole Roblox pricing scheme kind of sounds like how a medieval landlord would tax his peasants more than anything else.
Graham using the correct Swedish pronunciation of "Blåhaj" threw me off for a second
Always appreciate a good Square One reference.
of all the things i expected to see on checkpoint today, a Dave the barbarian meme was not one of them xD
...Paul's not wrong, since both of the Lyons die within a year after Fallout 3's ending.
J*****! Never mind Mathnet, that's Dirk Niblic level stuff! Even Mathnet would wince at something that over the top, Square One saved that level of exploitation for their ACTUAL cartoon villains!
OK, that Descent 3 news has me excited... I've played plenty of the first two games through D1X/D2X, but never got around to checking out the third (and I hear it's a nightmare to get working these days) so very interested to check out the eventual source port that'll come out of this...
Cmon Graham, we don't even have a 3rd party wireless Dreamcast controller yet.
The Roblox robucks thing is actually even more interesting, because they differentiate how you made the robux. I used to play when I was younger (2008) and had some pretty valuable items that I was looking to sell to cash out. Turns out: that isn't permitted. It's gotta be earned through game experiences and sales. (Roblox has allowed creator sold items even way back then). They also used to have a freemium currency called Tix but that was axed a while ago. Like a decade ago probably.
It's a shame honestly. I loved it back in the day, when I was like 11, it was what I did basically (I'm 27 this year). I learned how to programming on Roblox, and I credit them with being why I went into computer science at all!
I see you, forty pies reference
Re: Fallout -- Maybe the Bloodlust runs where the protag kills all the named NPCs and the game glitches to the best possible ending is the true canon.
Totally popped on the "Mathnet" callout.
Thor from Pirate software's story about how a mount made more money than wings of liberty makes me sad and reminds us that microtransactions are the consumers fault because we keep falling for it.
"Money talks, and boy are we ****-ing LOUD." - Noodle, Why Games Are Too Big, 2023.
There is some truth to that, but the devs are hiring teams trained in exploitative psychology and manipulation to figure out how to part you from your money.
They have seminars and PowerPoints on how best to overcome people's resistance to spending money on crap they know they don't want.
They have research figuring out which players are most vulnerable to being turned into whales and wrung for thousands of dollars each. (And it's not the rich. It's people with disabilities and children mostly)
They have taken over such a large portion of the games market that not only is it hard to find a game that doesn't have exploitative monetization, but games which don't have it can ADD IT after you purchase.
It's not a fair fight between the consumer and the publisher here, it's no surprise they're winning.
No. Its the publishers fault. Microtransactions are designed to target vulnerable demographics. Generally children, but the really big money is from neurodivergent people. Those with ADHD in particular. In a just world, the psychological tricks game devs pull to swindle people out of their money would be a fucking hate crime. To give you an example, Destiny 2's FOMO practices gave me ulcers. Because I have ADHD and the tactics they use to encourage people to keep playing are designed specifically to make you stressed and are disproportionately effective on people like me. It should not be legal to make your product worse by twisting psychology to make more money from disabled people, but thats what game devs are doing. And they know full well that this disproportinately targets the disabled. Thats where they get their whale money from.
Thor from pirate software also said Roblox monetization is ok. I don't really care for some of his opinions to say the least.
@@raymondhorn1052 I haven't heard that sound bite if that's a short
I’ve tipped game creators before, specifically the developers of Deep Rock Galactic. It’s not even really buying DLC, I think you get one hat for supporting them IIRC.
They also have been making free content since the release of the game, and are the direct developers of it. They’ve dedicated so much time to making DRG an even better game that I will happily say that they deserve extra money above and beyond the sale price. Rock and Stone, brothers.
I simply long for a world where being nickeled and dimed only cost nickels and dimes.
We have to get the kids off Roblox, no matter what it takes. This shit is unconscionable
5:14 MATHNET! Well that was a joke made for 1, and I was the 1 this time.
17:04 the high level VGC match in question wasnt a couple months ago, the loser got beat on Saturday. Like the 14th of April 2024. By a fantastic and hilarious pokemon youtuber and 2016 VGC World Champion Wolfe Glick.
My word! A Dave the Barbarian reference!!
Guess it's time to get knuckle deep with Knuckles.
No idea there was a new show, but I played Sonic a lot as a child and that's launched me into an entire adulthood of Stockholm Syndrome with a blue rodent, and I guess I'm not about to break my secondhand embarrassment addiction cold turkey.
_comrade,_
Fuck yeah the Descent games where my childhood.
Okay, the Dreamcast VMU has a port on top designed to be connected to itself for data transfer, and does allow for "programs" to be run on it, that have historically been able to start competitions with other VMU games through the data transfer ability, so this is theoretically doable.
Ok i was curious since i hover around the VGC spaces, and have heard nothing of this Drama. So of course I go to the reddit, and really appreciate that the info was 1: easy enough to find in a non inflammatory manner, not making a big drama stink over it. And 2. The question was asked in one thread, with one comment giving the answer, with a note at the end saying "and were now not going to talk about this anymore, and any further discussion would be against the rules."
Its honestly refreshingly professional for a gaming community to not tolerate inflammatory behavior, and also not milk the response, knowing it just leads to more.
You're right, Graham. It would be funny to control a PS5 with a Dreamcast VMU. Nothing like reminding that Sony console that its great grandfather should have lost against the Dreamcast. I still have mine. Shame I lost the PS2 conversion disk that let me play Playstation games on it though.
If I was able to "tip" specific people and teams, I would consider giving a tip. Like, if I hear a voice line that cracks me up, I would love to tip the voice actor directly. Or if a song was a banger, tip the music creators specifically. Since any "tip" would just go to whatever CEO profits off of the hard work of others, I'll pass.
expertly timed store plug lmao
I'm glad amazon dumped it all at once. If they'd done the weekly thing I probably wouldn't have watched it until months later.
See, I just assume everywhere in a Fallout game gets destroyed immediately after the game ends. At least when Agatha is involved it does.
Overheard a child talking to their parent in London this weekend "A Roblox isn't game..." is the snippet I heard. Hopefully the rest of the sentence was something along the lines of "...it's a cautionary tale of the danger of unregulated capitalism and it's exploitative nature". Or ".. it's a scam" which might be more in-line with a child's vocabulary.
"This place wasn't bombed in New Vegas!" I feel those people do not remember the endings to New Vegas, one of the endings DEFINITELY involves that place getting bombed BASICALLY because of the actions in New Vegas, I think they just thought the "unabtrusive" ending was the canon one, when it's DEFINITELY one of the obtrusive endings.
Roblox is a actual Diablo level buying trick in real life... In game you would buy a weapon for 150,000 coins then try sell it back even if unused and they would give you 3000 as the actual item is trash.
This episode had me genuinely burst out laughing so many times I nearly choked on the pizza I was eating while watching it nearly did a spit-take in the same episode. This show is already one of my favourites of all the great stuff you do, but this episode was fantastic even compared to the usually high standard. Also, goddamn Roblox is scammy -- they're as bad as LiveNation / Ticket Master.
Thank you for making this weeks news, however depressing.. still very entertaining XD
When I enjoy a game, I'll recommend it to friends or even just buy it for them. Ones I really enjoy, I'll buy it on multiple platforms.
Roblox really did look at Second Life and then said "Hold my beer."
Algorithmic punch
I strongly appreciate the large breakdown on Roblox. I'd always heard it was trash, and it's good to be able to quantify that in hats.