Game Under Podcast 167

Stream below or right-click and download the mp3. You can also listen on iTunes. Why not subscribe to us on RSS ?

0:00:14 Intro

0:02:13 News - Steam Pricing Exploit

0:19:50 News - Spot the Scam

0:27:20 News - Valve Bans Ads

0:32:41 Hardware Review - Steamdeck

0:53:30 What Playing: Indiana Jones

1:07:53 What Playing Doki Doki Literature Club

Transcript:
Tom: Hello and welcome to episode of The Game Under Podcast.

Phil: You're a bit over modulated.

Tom: That should be the intro.

Tom: I'm very over modulated.

Phil: You are over modulated.

Tom: I'm the over modulated Tom Towers, joined by the comparatively docile and under modulated Phil Fogg.

Tom: Passive one might even say.

Phil: Did we mention the name of the show?

Tom: I think we did.

Tom: If not, it's The Game Under Podcast.

Phil: And we did mention the episode at least, episode

Phil: Thanks for joining me for today's episode.

Tom: Are you saying that to the audience or to me?

Phil: Well, I can't hear them.

Phil: I'm talking to you.

Phil: There's a conversation between me and you.

Phil: You would have thought you'd figure this out by now.

Phil:

Phil: That's a lot of episodes.

Phil: We need to do a five hour episode.

Phil: What about, you know, I've got time today.

Phil: How about you?

Tom: I don't have time, unfortunately.

Phil: Okay.

Tom: Well, it's our longest episode.

Phil: Our longest episode would have to have been just over five hours.

Phil: It was probably a very small file size because of the technology of the day.

Tom: I would have thought maybe over three hours.

Tom: I can't imagine five hours.

Phil: Well, I'll go back and find it.

Phil: I think over three used to be pretty much our baseline.

Phil: So anyway, this episode will not be five hours.

Phil: But we do have a lot to talk about.

Phil: We've got, I'm going to finally get around, because the Steam Deck is relatively new to Australia, I'm going to finally talk about my hardware review of the Steam Deck.

Phil: And then some games in our back catalog that I've been playing and you've been playing that we want to get into as well.

Phil: I want to catch up with you also about how you're going with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

Phil: Because I almost got the impression that you're going to either stay in the Vatican for your entire life or fall off that game.

Phil: So it'll be interesting to see where you're up to.

Tom: I'm now out of the Vatican and we'll see whether I am continuing or not in the upcoming impressions.

Phil: So there's lots of news, but I've done some self-reporting this week.

Phil: I've actually gone out and found some interesting things.

Phil: One of the games that I'm playing right now is called Spiritfarer, which is a game from, I think about two years ago now.

Phil: And that's neither here nor there.

Phil: We'll get to a review of that at some point.

Phil: But I was just reading an article and the thing that was coming up everywhere was that the price of the game had been put up %.

Phil: I'm sorry, the price of the game had been doubled in Argentina and Turkey.

Phil: And the people in Argentina and Turkey are going nuts.

Phil: They're like, this is ridiculous.

Phil: This is like, we can't afford this game anymore.

Phil: And the reason behind it is basically when you publish a game with Steam, Steam basically says, OK, well, you don't have to worry about exchange rates and quality of life and the cost of living in all of these countries around the world.

Phil: You tell us in US dollars what you think this experience should be charging.

Phil: And then we'll take care of it from there.

Phil: And so basically, the game is being...

Phil: The Spirit Fair people found out that % of their sales were coming from Argentina and Turkey.

Phil: But then when they looked at the regional IP addresses of people actually playing their game, like no one was playing the game in Argentina and Turkey.

Phil: So you probably know all about this, right?

Phil: This regional pricing.

Tom: I have heard of it, correct?

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: So basically, what people will do is they'll change their region on Steam so they can go out and get better prices.

Phil: So I'll just tell Steam them I'm in Argentina.

Phil: I see the Argentina store.

Phil: I get my VPN.

Phil: I presume a VPN is involved in making it look like I'm in Argentina.

Phil: And then I can go buy these games for, you know, we'll say pennies, you know, like peso, pesos in these underdeveloped countries because Steam has adjusted the price so that it's relevant to that marketplace.

Phil: And you'll hear this all the time.

Phil: Like there's a game called While Waiting that came out this week, an indie game on Steam.

Phil: And the person I was listening to said it's $

Phil: I went to look at it in Australia and it was $right?

Phil: Now, the Australian dollar right now is like $of American currency.

Phil: So it should really be a lot more than $but you can sort of see how it tracks.

Phil: $in the States is different from $here, in terms of the value of things you can get with it.

Phil: So this was pretty controversial, what the publisher did, because they basically said, well, we're not going to go with the Steam recommended price.

Phil: We are going to stop people from ripping us off and ripping off this game.

Phil: So yeah, that was a whole new, weird thing for me.

Phil: I'd never heard of this.

Tom: Are they ripping them off, though?

Tom: What if they had that many sales in Argentina and they were genuine?

Tom: Would they not be making money on their sales?

Tom: Yeah.

Tom: Or are they ripping off the rest of the world?

Phil: They're ripping off the rest of the world.

Tom: That would be my take on it.

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: Okay.

Phil: You explain it more fully again?

Tom: Well, they're essentially selling...

Phil: The publisher.

Phil: The publisher, yeah.

Tom: Yep.

Tom: The publisher is essentially selling a series of numbers that you input into Steam, which magically allows you to play the game.

Tom: Right.

Phil: They're selling a key code, basically, right?

Tom: A generator number.

Tom: And Steam, I suppose, has to pay for the servers on which they store the game that you download it from.

Tom: And if it's online, the servers that the game is played on, is it online or single player?

Phil: It's single player.

Phil: Well, I guess because it's got cloud saves, that's the reason why I make sure I've got the Internet on when I'm playing it, because I want to make sure I can go from one device to the other.

Tom: The cloud saves are operated by Steam, so that will be covered by %, whatever Steam's card is.

Phil: Yeah, you're right.

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: No, there's no...

Tom: They're essentially selling something that costs them absolutely nothing.

Phil: Other than their initial...

Tom: Obviously, they have to pay an initial investment.

Phil: Yes.

Tom: But they're not dealing with shipping it to various countries, navigating whatever the taxes on the game is, and the taxes on exporting it to that country, et cetera.

Tom: Right?

Tom: So I would definitely be of the mindset that rather than people ripping them off by switching their IP address to an Argentinian or Turkish one, ripping them off, they're ripping everyone except for the Argentines and the Turks off.

Phil: So does it change the moral question?

Phil: And I'm not saying it does or doesn't.

Phil: I'm just, I like poking your brain around.

Phil: What if people were going into, pretending to be from Argentina, as has been described, and they go and buy codes of this game, because it's essentially going to cost them, let's just say it costs them $per code.

Phil: And that this game sells in Australia, or in the UK and America, for $in our local currencies.

Phil: What if the party that bought the codes for $each, is now reselling those codes for $to $a piece?

Phil: I mean, should the publisher be trying to curb that?

Tom: Well, given that it's currently $for Australians, I would say they're morally better than the publisher is, but not morally good.

Phil: Yeah, okay.

Phil: So the party that's scalping would also be in the wrong, for the same reasons, arguably, that the original publisher would be.

Phil: So, if you were now the publisher, right?

Phil: You'd spent, say, $million developing this game, and you employ, say, people in your small studio.

Phil: And you need the money from Spiritfarer to fund development and keep those people employed while you make your next first-person shooter game, or whatever you're making, Untitled Chicken Game, or something like that.

Phil: Aren't you taking food out of the mouths of those people by defrauding them?

Tom: Well, that's what the question is.

Tom: It depends.

Tom: We don't know exactly what their sales expectations were, and what their requirements are.

Tom: Because the way it's presented is not that they necessarily were reliant on a higher number of international sales than sales in Argentina.

Tom: It sounds more like, because the fact that X number of people bought it at the Argentine or Turkish price doesn't mean they would necessarily have bought it at a higher price, even if they were not from those countries, right?

Phil: Right, right.

Tom: So you can't just assume that that's a mis-sale.

Phil: Exactly right.

Phil: Yeah, they're still getting money.

Phil: They're just getting less money.

Tom: But they may in fact have got more money than if that option was not available to the people who bought it at that price.

Phil: I guess it also too, there's a thing that we were talking about last time, is that it is a good game.

Phil: There's no question about that.

Phil: It's an enjoyable game and it's creative and all the rest of it.

Phil: And the game is being exposed to people that otherwise would have just probably paid nothing and stolen it through some other fashion.

Phil: And it's basically going to be promotion for the next thing that they do in some way.

Phil: I mean, at a certain point, you're going to run out of people to sell the game to.

Phil: And I guess that's why these games get so heavily discounted on Steam.

Phil: I disagree entirely with the ham-fisted way they've done it, because basically they're punishing the consumers in Argentina and Turkey who would have legitimately bought the game, but now it would be like us going to buy, I don't know, what's a, a cyberpunk.

Phil: And then because people were stealing them in Australia, not stealing, but because people were fraudulently buying them in Australia for $whereas they could get $in the States, if they just basically said, oh, well, cyberpunk for Australians is now $

Phil: Right?

Phil: Like, how is that help anyone?

Phil: That's just hurting you.

Phil: It's hurting your reputation as well.

Phil: And honestly, they would have been better off just discontinuing sales in Argentina and Turkey.

Tom: Would that also be punishing people who wanted to buy in those places though?

Phil: Potentially.

Phil: I mean, like, but see, this could be a steam problem.

Phil: But again, you know, and you'd say, oh, well, if you can also go get this on Gog, and they've got different systems, perhaps.

Phil: So I don't know.

Phil: I guess taking yourself off the steam is basically taking yourself off the Internet for because it's such a dominant marketplace.

Tom: Did they, if they're complaining about this, by the way, did they explain what their pricing differences are based on?

Tom: Were they basing it on currency exchange or what they expected people to be able to pay in the country?

Phil: They were basically saying, look, we didn't we don't even look at this stuff.

Phil: We put in on Steam that we wanted this game to sell for bucks.

Phil: And then we just let Steam do what they do.

Phil: And then we turned around and we say, hang on, our game is really popular in, we're selling a lot of copies in Argentina and Turkey, but no one in those countries are actually playing it.

Phil: What's going on here?

Phil: And so this was, I think, the ham-fisted response.

Phil: So the publisher does have the ability to override the Steam price.

Phil: And I think, again, this is just a ham-fisted, without too much thought.

Phil: They've just gone, oh, well, we'll just push up the price, and it'll stop people from, it'll close this exploit, which is, I guess, what a developer would think of it.

Tom: The way that it's described, though, if they just discovered it as a strange thing happening, doesn't seem to suggest that it was causing their business plans any issues.

Phil: Maybe.

Phil: They didn't really provide much detail on that.

Phil: But one thing I did want to talk about this, and this is kind of screwed up.

Phil: I was reading, there's a consumer that was saying the following, I live in Myanmar, a third world country in Southeast Asia.

Phil: We have no regional pricing.

Phil: If a game is $USD in the United States, it's also $USD here.

Phil: It's a bit weird with all the things that Steam and GOG do correctly.

Phil: They don't, but they don't have regional pricing for my country, whereas Epic does, so credits where credit do, thank you, Epic.

Phil: So there's other whole countries caught up in this stupid thing where just for whatever reason, someone at Steam hasn't bothered to think about the market realities in say, Myanmar, for example.

Phil: And that's basically this guy, he was saying, hey, I'm one of these gamers who have switched to other regions because to get cheaper games, because I can't, $USD is, I'm just obviously exaggerating here, is like a year's income for me.

Phil: I can't possibly pay $USD for a game experience.

Phil: And so he's found his own exploit around this by switching to other regions to price shop basically.

Phil: But yeah, I wonder if what you were talking about last time with Steam totally, and this has been so misreported, with Steam totally killing game library sharing.

Phil: Everyone has, well, not everyone, you've probably found other reporting, but all the mainstream outlets have basically said, oh yeah, this is really good.

Phil: Steam's allowing five people in your family to play.

Phil: And it's like, well, yeah, okay.

Phil: But it's not really, that's not what this is about.

Phil: And that's not the impact that it's having.

Tom: Exactly.

Tom: And this is a thing that, this is a change I've noticed in among gamers, if you want to call them that.

Tom: When I was reading on Reddit about this, there were so many people who were defending Steam.

Tom: And anyone who was pointing out that this is a massive step backwards in many ways, there'd be like comments complaining, shitting on them.

Tom: Over the years, when we were at GameSpot years ago, or however long ago it was now, there was a lot of bullshit, people complaining about meaningless bullshit there, of course.

Tom: But if Steam or someone did something like this, which was totally anti-consumer, they would get attacked and there would be no one, if maybe a couple of people defending companies, who have made these decisions.

Phil: They would be happy at that point to get away with a rhetorical attack because you'd also have people like Geohot decide that if Steam did something slightly against Linux, they were going to DDoS you or burn your servers into the ground.

Phil: I know.

Phil: Exactly.

Tom: Whereas now, the majority opinion apparently is boot licking while the boot is on your face.

Phil: I think the common expression these days is ball washing.

Phil: These people are ball washing for Gabe Newell.

Phil: But yeah, but you know, it is funny because I remember when Steam first came out and the world was emphatic.

Phil: We will not know.

Phil: Well, if you want to play Half-Life then you've got to be connected to the Internet, and you've got to get a membership on Steam, our new store.

Phil: And that's the way it was.

Phil: And everyone was protesting it forever and ever.

Phil: And then, but yeah, over the years, everyone is now just a blind adherent to Steam, just as we saw in the Console War years.

Tom: But it's not even in the context of the Console Wars, because within that context, it will be contrasted against whoever you supported supposedly doing something better.

Tom: Whereas here, there's no expectation that anyone would be attempting to do something better.

Tom: It's merely, we should defend bad decisions for some reason, and not expect anyone else to do anything better either.

Phil: I'm not the first one to say this, but the other perspective on the Console Wars was not a matter of this one's merit over that one's merit.

Phil: It was basically, because as you saw, people who had all the consoles or multiple consoles were less involved in Console Wars because they had less invested in an ecosystem.

Phil: So I think that, so basically, if I've gone out and spent $for a PlayStation and I've got $worth of games, I am now fiscally and emotionally invested in this console.

Phil: And if you say something bad about it, then you're saying something bad about me.

Phil: And I think that what's happened with Steam is, we've all invested thousands of dollars into our libraries.

Phil: We're trapped with these libraries.

Phil: It's like a Stockholm syndrome, where it's the exact same thing.

Phil: At this point, everyone's spent so much money, that those who want to defend Steam, will just keep doing it because they want to believe that Steam will be around forever, and they'll have these libraries forever, and that they've made a good choice and a good investment.

Phil: But I don't see this game-sharing thing changing or going away.

Phil: I don't see it.

Phil: And it's sad.

Phil: It's really sad because there's some games that I've been playing recently that I know that you won't buy, but I just would like you to try just to wet your beak on it, and then hopefully you would go and buy it.

Phil: But it's just not doable.

Phil: And with the games that they're playing with VPN detection and all of that to prevent family sharing, I'm wondering how they're not getting on top of this other stuff where people are using VPNs to say, I'm in Argentina, give me the Argentina store.

Phil: Because obviously, it's got to be the same sort of technology being used, right?

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: If they know you're using a VPN to share a game, they've got to know that you're using a VPN to back door your way into a third world country's store.

Phil: And I do apologize to the implication of that statement, to the listeners in Turkey and Argentina.

Phil: I know that you're not third world countries, and it's nothing wrong with being a third world country, except for the pollution.

Tom: It used to be with the original usage of the term, depending on your political persuasion, a compliment.

Phil: Well, there you go.

Tom: So we'll just pretend you're using that term.

Phil: Speaking of scams, I'm going to tell you a story.

Phil: And this is, again, my own reportage.

Phil: And you see if you can spot the scam, okay?

Phil: So I buy a gaming PC, extremely happy with it, hook it up to my TV.

Phil: Absolutely love it.

Phil: Changes the way I play video games.

Phil: And then after about a year, maybe not quite a year, after Windows Update, there's now a tattoo on my screen that says, your Windows isn't activated, activate Windows.

Phil: And it doesn't matter what you're doing.

Phil: It's like a watermark that's on your screen, it says activate Windows.

Phil: So I'm like, oh yeah, well, I got Windows with the device, no problem.

Phil: I'll just go in and activate it.

Phil: And oh yeah, where's the sticker?

Phil: Where's the, you know, usually you get a little sticker with the Windows key on it.

Phil: And so I go back, I look through the box, there's nothing in the box, just some rando stickers.

Phil: I don't even know why I kept it.

Phil: And there's nothing there documentation-wise.

Phil: So then I have to figure out where I bought it.

Phil: And I go through this whole thing, I find a thousand emails from me and you, with you telling me what to buy.

Tom: Can I just make an alternative suggestion to solve your problem?

Tom: Take the Windows stickers and stick them on the screen where the watermark is.

Phil: Yeah, yeah.

Phil: There's no...

Phil: Well, I don't have the Windows stickers.

Phil: There's no Windows stickers, right?

Tom: I thought you said there were stickers in the box.

Phil: No, there were none.

Phil: Just stickers.

Phil: Oh, yeah, there were stickers, but they're not Windows, like random stickers, like, you know, blue dog gaming, you know?

Tom: Okay, so unrelated to Windows.

Tom: You were using the box to store random stickers.

Phil: Yes, and then I threw away the box.

Phil: I went, this is madness.

Phil: Get rid of the box.

Phil: So the box is gone.

Phil: Just to put everyone, everyone can keep up with the story.

Phil: The box is now gone.

Phil: And I found out where I bought the thing from.

Tom: Well, my third solution won't work, which was to cut out Windows from the box and sellotape it to the screen.

Phil: No, not going to work.

Phil: Okay, so I contact them.

Phil: Again, you're trying to spot the scam.

Phil: First of all, I go into Windows support and everything, and they tell you how to open up your activation code thing.

Phil: And I open it all up.

Tom: It's the scam that you bought Windows.

Phil: Almost.

Phil: So basically, they identified that I had an OEM, it was an OEM activation.

Phil: And that under the terms of Microsoft licensing, if you have this sort of activation, they must, as a part of the requirement, put a sticker with your activation key somewhere on the PC.

Phil: No problem.

Phil: So it's a beautiful PC.

Phil: Obviously, they're not going to slap it somewhere.

Phil: I'm going to see it.

Phil: So I look at all six sides of it.

Phil: Rectangular cubes have six sides.

Phil: Yeah, that's right.

Phil: Yep.

Phil: And nothing.

Phil: So I e-mail the people.

Tom: All sides, technically.

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: Yes, internal.

Phil: And you guys are great.

Phil: I tell everyone about you guys who is relevant, even though I only just now remember who they are.

Phil: I think this weird thing happened after a Windows update.

Phil: They're saying that I don't have it activated.

Tom: We're currently telling all our listeners about them when a problem has occurred.

Tom: So yeah, technically true.

Phil: Yeah, and that's true.

Phil: Except I'm not mentioning the name of the company because I don't want to yet.

Phil: But so.

Tom: So it's the scam that they gave you a trial version of Windows.

Phil: Well, who knows?

Tom: So with no activation code.

Phil: So I ask them and I say, hey, this is what Microsoft says.

Phil: It says there should be a sticker.

Phil: There's no sticker.

Phil: They come back to me and they go, oh, yeah, Windows is weird, hey.

Phil: There should be a JP number on the back of your PC.

Phil: Give me that number and I'll give you an activation code.

Phil: So I go on the back of my PC, there's a quote JP number.

Phil: I give it to them.

Phil: They go, hey, great, Phil, no problem.

Phil: Here's your activation key.

Phil: See you later.

Phil: And I use the activation key and it's fine.

Phil: So what is the scam?

Tom: I think the scam is purchasing Windows.

Phil: Purchasing Windows.

Phil: Okay.

Tom: Not on the PC, but you had a box from when you had bought a physical version of Windows.

Tom: I think that's the scam.

Phil: Well, here's the scam.

Phil: I think that this OEM, right?

Tom: Yep.

Phil: I think they put a temporary activation code in that basically gets you through for a year.

Phil: They've got basically these keys that are like, hey, we need to get onto the computer to set it up.

Phil: They put in this temporary activation code.

Phil: Now, when the activation code runs out, they know that out of customers, most people are just going to go, well, Microsoft says to activate here, click Microsoft Store, buy a copy of Windows, and move on with their lives.

Phil: I think that they think that they can save more money rather than paying for a full license of the activation for every PC that they sell, they'll actually only give an activation key out to people who call in to complain or ask for their activation key, which is why they have that JP number on the back, or PJ number, so that people don't just randomly contact them and say, give me my activation key.

Phil: So they're at least tying it down.

Phil: Okay, this dude here has asked for his activation key.

Phil: We've given him his activation key.

Phil: If someone else calls trying to get an activation key with this PJ number, we won't give it to him.

Phil: That is what I think is what's happening.

Tom: I want to point out, I did identify that as one of the potential scams involved.

Phil: Did you?

Tom: I said they sold it to you with a trial version of Windows.

Phil: Yes, exactly right.

Phil: And I think they were pretty cool about it in terms of at least not being smart enough not to argue with us.

Phil: Because if they argued with me, then I could possibly turn around and go to Microsoft and go, hey, these people, here's my receipt, here's da da da da da da, and then get them in trouble that way.

Phil: But you would agree that I have identified what they're doing.

Phil: I can't see any other reason around it.

Tom: I think that is probably the likely explanation, but I will say you failed to identify the scam of the physical Windows you bought, when you could have merely bought an activation code from eBay for perhaps % or less of the price of officially buying Windows.

Phil: Yeah, well, I mean, for me, it was quite included in the product itself.

Tom: So this Windows box you had was from when you bought the PC?

Phil: Yeah, yeah.

Phil: Well, no, there's no Windows.

Phil: There's no quote Windows box.

Phil: There's no box.

Phil: The box I'm talking about is the actual computer.

Tom: I thought you had a Windows box that you were storing unrelated stickers in.

Tom: So this was just some random cardboard box in the house that you were storing stickers in, that due to perhaps early onset dementia, you thought was somehow related to your PC purchase.

Phil: For the sake of our listeners, I'll say yes.

Phil: Since we can't stop talking about Valve, here's another one.

Phil: Valve Bands Ads Showing Games.

Phil: Now, does Sky Children of Light have ads in it?

Tom: No, it doesn't.

Phil: It doesn't.

Phil: Any games that you play have ads in it?

Tom: I don't think so.

Phil: Credit for this one.

Phil: This is not my own reportage.

Phil: Credit for this one goes to Eurogamer.

Phil: Valve has emphasized its rules around advertising, explicitly prohibiting games that force players to watch in-game ads.

Phil: The new rules from Valve confirm that while cross-promotion and product placement are permitted, games that force players to watch or engage with advertising in order to play are not, nor should developers use advertising as a way to provide value to players, such as giving players a reward for watching or engaging with advertising in their game.

Phil: Developers should not utilize paid advertising as a business model, such as requiring players to watch or otherwise engage with advertising in order to play or gating gameplay behind advertising.

Phil: This is where they get a bit catty.

Phil: If your game's business model relies on advertising on other platforms, you will need to remove those elements before shipping on Steam.

Phil: Some options you could consider include switching to a single purchase paid app, in quotes, or making your game free to play.

Phil: So, yeah, I mean, why, why, why, why is this?

Phil: What are they doing?

Phil: Is it, is it?

Phil: I will just ask the question.

Tom: I think maybe as some form of quality control, or I think perhaps potentially more likely, they can't get a % cut of ads outside of the platform.

Tom: That might just potentially be the reason, I think.

Phil: I guess we're still playing spot the scam.

Phil: My thought was that this isn't to protect consumers.

Phil: Consumers can do whatever consumers want to do.

Phil: So like-

Tom: If they're suggesting go to a free to play model, which means in reality, go to a micro transaction or gambling model.

Phil: Yeah, yeah.

Tom: Then very obviously, they're not protecting consumers, are they?

Phil: No, they're not.

Phil: Yeah, they're basically saying, sell your game, because we'll get % that way.

Phil: We'll make your game free to play, because then we'll get % off your micro transactions and DLC.

Tom: Exactly.

Phil: But, you know, I guess the ball wash is for Gabe Newell.

Phil: We'll think this is fantastic as well, right?

Tom: You think so.

Phil: With games like, I guess there must be games, like idle games, where you have to sit and watch an ad, and then before you can upgrade your character, or go to a loot box, every time you open a loot box, maybe you've got to watch your ad, and they're getting revenue that way.

Phil: I don't know.

Tom: I presume there must be.

Phil: Now, this comes on the back of last week, Valve quietly implemented a useful new Steam feature, not Mike Woods, warning users and potential purchases how long it's been since an early access game last received an update.

Phil: Now, on the face of it, I can't spot the scam there.

Phil: It seems like it'd be useful if you're making a decision to buy an early access game, and they're like, they haven't actually done anything on this for like months.

Phil: They're not preventing you.

Phil: They're just providing an advisory that, hey, just so you know, this isn't like an active game.

Tom: I don't see a scam in it either, but it is potentially redundant, given that Steam reviews and forum posts will usually give you pretty good information on those sorts of things.

Phil: Yeah, I don't know how people come across early access games except through word of mouth.

Phil: I mean, I think of when people get into early access games, they're typically pretty sophisticated users.

Phil: And by sophisticated users, I mean, you know, people who are paying attention know what's going on.

Phil: And yeah, it is a bit redundant, I think, because people wouldn't be recommending you go and try an early access game if it had been dormant.

Phil: But, yeah, I guess.

Phil: What's the downside for Steam?

Phil: I guess maybe they're sick of processing refund requests, where people get into a game, realize that it's dormant, and then complain to Steam about it.

Phil: It's pretty much the only thing I can think of.

Tom: It could be.

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: Now...

Tom: You know, here's the other question on that is, should people not in fact be entitled to a refund, regardless of how much time they've played, if they buy a game that is supposed to be completed, and then it is not completed?

Phil: Well, like you're talking like Cyberpunk, like a game that launches and it's not finished.

Tom: In that case, they did finish it, though.

Phil: Yeah, eventually.

Tom: But I think early on, with Cyberpunk as well, you should probably have been entitled to a refund if you want to want.

Phil: Absolutely.

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: And in fact, you'll remember that Sony, by their standards, they kicked it off of their store.

Phil: I don't think it was on Steam.

Phil: I think maybe...

Phil: Does GOG do that?

Phil: Do they put Witcher and Cyberpunk on their platforms exclusively for a while?

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: So Steam wouldn't have had to deal with something like that.

Tom: Did it make its way onto Steam at some point?

Tom: If not, early on?

Phil: Well, talking about things that make their way onto Steam, I, as I said, bought a Steam Deck.

Phil: They've finally been released in Australia.

Phil: And I'd always said if they bring them out in Australia, I actually even thought about importing one.

Phil: But then you've got to have different power cables and all the rest of it.

Phil: It was just not going to be something that I did.

Phil: So when they did announce it, I went, well, you've been talking the big game about how you're going to buy this if it comes out in Australia.

Phil: At bucks, it wasn't cheap.

Phil: And when you can look at all the other things that you can get for that.

Phil: But at the same time, you know, it comes with your Steam library.

Phil: So it's not like I went out and bought a $PlayStation and then had to start building a library for it.

Phil: And, you know, you always worry.

Phil: Probably my biggest concerns going into it was how many games are going to be compatible?

Phil: Will I have to re-download all my games?

Phil: Because you know, I'm on limited bandwidth.

Phil: And the other concern was, well, you're really buying a controller with a screen and controllers don't really last that long.

Phil: Like what if what if the device is great, but you end up with a wonky left analog stick?

Phil: You know, and I haven't so I haven't resolved that problem yet.

Phil: But yeah, so I went ahead and got it.

Phil: And yeah, for bucks, it comes with a very robust Australian USB-C charger.

Phil: And it comes with a really nice, like firm case for it as well, which is fantastic because any other solution for this, you would not want to be carrying this thing around without a case.

Tom: So you went for the gigabyte version, is that correct?

Phil: That's right.

Phil: I had the OLED.

Phil: So I went, I said, well, I'm not going to pay for memory, for storage because I can always add my own storage later.

Tom: So you can add an SD card to it.

Tom: What sort of extra storage can you add?

Phil: I have no idea.

Phil: I'm sorry to say that I haven't looked into that.

Phil: It's not a proprietary system.

Phil: So you don't have to buy Valve SD cards or anything like that.

Phil: But in terms of what's the maximum size you can increase it to, I'm sorry, I don't know.

Phil: But one thing I did get was the OLED screen because that's something that I just felt like, you know, I've got an LCD switch, and I figured I want this thing to look as good as it possibly can.

Phil: And so that's why I went with that one.

Tom: It sounds like you can add an SSD even, micro SD or play games on an external hard drive.

Tom: But for the external hard drive option, it has to be docked.

Phil: Yeah, and now, so my experience with pulling it out of the box was that I was first put off by its size.

Phil: It looks big.

Phil: Like, so in gaming world, if you're really old, you think of the Atari Lynx as being the biggest handheld console.

Phil: And it's bigger than that by about half an inch.

Phil: So, well, probably about centimeters.

Phil: millimeters, rather.

Phil: So I was, without picking it up, I was like, okay, this is as big as people say.

Phil: But once you actually pick it up, it's really comfortable.

Phil: It's light without feeling cheap, but it's comfortably light and it fits in your hands quite well.

Phil: If you're looking at a picture of it, you might, you know, one of the other things I was worried about was they've got all of the buttons and the cross pad.

Phil: So they've got the four buttons on the right hand side and the cross pad on the left, positioned all the way up into the top corners.

Phil: And then the analog sticks are right there with them.

Phil: And then there's two touch screens, sort of, yeah, touch screens, not touch screens, touch pads, like on a laptop.

Tom: Is it not awkward having the buttons so close to the edges of the controller?

Phil: That's what I thought.

Phil: I thought that that is going to be really uncomfortable.

Phil: But again, once I used them, they were comfortable.

Phil: And I didn't give it a second of thought after hours of play.

Phil: Like, once you start using it, you just, you don't even think about it.

Phil: And I guess it's just probably because that's where your hands, because of the way that you're gripping it, because it's got a formed back to it, or a scalloped back to it, because you're, the way that you're holding it, your thumbs are at the top corners of the device, because that's how you're holding it comfortably.

Phil: So you're not kinking your thumbs down like you would with a switch to get to those buttons.

Phil: So your thumbs naturally lay flat exactly where you want them for those buttons.

Tom: Yeah.

Tom: That's certainly surprising when you look at it.

Phil: Yeah, for sure.

Phil: Yeah, I was really concerned with that before I purchased it.

Phil: But then I watched enough videos of people handling it, and I was like, okay, we'll just see how it goes.

Phil: The two touchpads that they have under the analog sticks, the one on the right has haptic reaction, haptic vibration, which is really cool.

Phil: Because depending on the game or what you're doing, you're not just sliding it on a flat surface, you're feeling that resistance as you move it around.

Phil: And then the one on the left doesn't have that for all whatever reasons.

Phil: And also on the front, there's a Steam button, which is fantastic because if you don't remember how to get to navigate, that's basically you press that and it pulls up the normal Steam big picture menu, which I should say, I think Steam has done, Valve has done this very intelligently because they've basically perfected big screen mode over the course of the last few years.

Phil: And they're just using that exact same interface here, which is more of a console like point and click sort of environment, where you're used to using your analog stick to move around and then your trigger buttons or your face buttons for accessing things.

Phil: And so yeah, in terms of the actual GUI, the graphical user interface, it is exactly the same as what you would see if you were playing or using Steam on a big picture mode.

Phil: The cross pads and the analog sticks, in my opinion, were both top of class.

Phil: And like I said, I hope they have a long life because you can't just dispose of them and get new ones if they wear out.

Phil: I presume, I'm sure there's ways to open this thing up and replace those as you can in a regular controller as well.

Phil: But it's not easy.

Phil: And I should say also the screen is inch diagonally.

Phil: So, and it's very, it's as responsive to touch as any modern smartphone.

Phil: So there's no lag, there's no missing, there's no tracking issues there whatsoever.

Phil: I typically try not to touch the screen because I don't want to put my fingers on the screen.

Phil: And you can navigate however you want.

Phil: You can navigate pretty easily.

Phil: On the back, they've also got...

Tom: So you're mainly using the touchscreen to navigate menus?

Phil: If you must.

Phil: You really don't need to.

Phil: I find that in some games that you can use the touch screen as well.

Phil: But because these games are typically built for a PC environment and touch screens are not...

Phil: Touch screen monitors are not very widely used, most games don't support it.

Phil: Speaking of things like that, I was really surprised at how many games work in on the Steam Deck.

Phil: And even games that Valve hasn't certified as being compatible typically work.

Phil: And...

Phil: But yeah, I have also, I think in days, it wasn't very responsive.

Phil: Because, you know, and the easiest way to play that was with the actual touch screen, because I think it was originally a smartphone game.

Phil: But that's quite an old game.

Phil: That's like from I think.

Phil: So, you know, that's perhaps to be expected that the developers are not honing it, especially for Valve.

Phil: But, you know, for all the talk about it not running Windows, it runs something called Proton, which is a layer.

Phil: It's a Linux computer that has a layer, as I understand it, that enables you to play Windows games on the device.

Phil: From my concerns about having to download games, they have a brilliant system where, if your PC is on the same network as the Steam Deck, and you have Steam open in both of them, they basically see each other.

Phil: There's no indication that they see each other.

Phil: But when you go into your library and you click on download, it will immediately put up a blue bar on the screen that says that it's transferring it from your other device, which is very classy.

Phil: Another very slick thing that I personally have to look out for, though, is if there is any disruption to your network, like your daughter coming into the room and hitting the kill switch and turning off the Wi-Fi router, it will immediately just start downloading it from the...

Phil: downloading it itself.

Phil: You'll go, oh, that PC is not here anymore.

Phil: I'll just keep downloading it from our servers.

Phil: Thanks.

Phil: And so, yeah, if there's like lots of network activity, it'll go, I can't see that computer, so I'll just download it from the web.

Phil: So for people like me who are becoming few and far between, who have limited internet, you know, you can have it all set up, and if you're not paying attention, you walk away, you can come back and find that it's downloaded gigs and you thought it was transferring it from the PC.

Phil: And it's quite speedy too, of course, you know, depending on what network hardware you've got, your results will differ.

Phil: The buttons on the back, it's got two triggers.

Phil: They're fantastic, you know.

Phil: And what's the definition of fantastic control or trigger?

Phil: You basically don't think about it when you're playing the game.

Phil: And then they've got Rand Rand Land Lwhich are two sort of paddle buttons that are positioned on the grip at the back as well.

Phil: I thought those were going to be really annoying because it's right where you grip.

Phil: So obviously, if you're playing a game and you're getting into it and you're squeezing hard on the grip, if you accidentally hit those buttons in there, actually mapped to do something, that could be very annoying.

Phil: It hasn't come up yet.

Phil: I don't know that many people use them.

Phil: I have never really been...

Phil: I have to say, I am not a fan of back buttons on controllers, but I'm sure there's use cases for it.

Phil: The only one I could tolerate was the Vita, which you remember on the back of the Sony Vita.

Phil: That whole back panel was its own touch pad, which practically no one supported.

Phil: But it was interesting when they did use it.

Phil: Problems I've had, not really, it's not really the Steam Deck's problem, but what I've been disappointed with is some games don't have, don't support cloud saves.

Phil: And so, you know, there were some games that I was pretty deep into in my PC, and I thought, oh, this is great.

Phil: I'll just pick them up on the Steam Deck, and then you start from the very beginning.

Phil: It doesn't acknowledge your save on the other computer at all.

Phil: I'm sure there's a way to...

Tom: So not being Windows, you can't manually transfer the save over.

Phil: Yeah, no.

Phil: I'm sure there's someone who's come up with a tweak for this.

Phil: But, you know, I don't...

Phil: It's not something I'm going to do.

Phil: I just started one of the games over again.

Phil: And just to give people an idea in terms of compatibility, out of the games in my Steam library at the time I got the Steam Deck, of them were compatible with the Steam Deck.

Phil: And I played everything from small indie games to a AAA game from a major publisher.

Phil: And yeah, I was really surprised.

Phil: Like, I played Titanfall

Phil: I played Sirius Sam...

Phil: Is it or ?

Phil: The most recent one.

Phil: So games that I thought would be very demanding.

Phil: And they look fantastic.

Phil: They look responsive.

Phil: I don't feel like I'm getting a cheapened experience.

Phil: If you don't have a dock, you can buy a dock for this and just do what you do with the switch and it'll come up on your TV.

Phil: But the other thing you can do is stream from the Steam Deck.

Phil: So if you've downloaded...

Phil: If you're in the middle of a game on the Steam Deck and you haven't installed it on your PC, you can use the Steam Deck to stream it to your other PC and play it on that screen.

Phil: I did that for a small indie title.

Phil: I haven't tried it with a bigger game.

Phil: I don't really see the use case for it, because if you're sitting in front of a PC with, you know, like, why would you do that?

Phil: But, you know, I came up with a use case for it.

Phil: I didn't particularly want to go through transferring that game from the Steam Deck to the PC.

Tom: I can't imagine playing it docked, that games would run as well.

Tom: Giving them a screen is around p, which would be why demanding games run pretty well.

Phil: Yeah, okay.

Phil: I was, hey, I was really happy.

Phil: I was, for whatever random reason, playing the latest series, Sam, the other night, which, by the way, I think you've got it as well, is a fantastic game.

Phil: It's just fun.

Phil: It's just fun.

Phil: Yeah, the one thing I didn't explore with this is it is an open system, so you can use it as an emulation box, and you can install alternate operating systems, including Windows.

Phil: I am not going to muck around with that at all.

Phil: I'm completely happy using this as a Steam device.

Phil: I've got enough games to play on it, and I've got other ways to explore other platforms from prior times.

Phil: So, you know, I really can't fault it.

Phil: The hardware has a high quality feel, and it's comfortable.

Phil: The number of input options are generous, like, you know, how you want to interact with the game or with the menu, and it's equally comfortable.

Phil: The interface, big picture mode is the best interface of any of the current consoles.

Phil: But the Switch one is not bad.

Phil: And the games play well.

Phil: I haven't found a game other than days that had snags in it.

Phil: And the display, the iLED display is flawless.

Phil: So it's, yeah, is it good value for money?

Phil: Depends on your lifestyle, really.

Phil: So buying the gaming PC and hooking it up to a TV, like I said, changed my life.

Phil: It made me play more games, but having the Steam Deck enables me to play more often in places that I ordinarily wouldn't.

Phil: And it also allows me to play games content that I might not want to put on the big screen and have my wife or my daughter walk in.

Phil: Now, I'm not playing adult games on it.

Tom: You've not been tempted by the myriad of Steam porn games on the front page.

Phil: I have those options turned off.

Phil: Well, because kid walks in the room and I go into the store and it's there, I can't have that.

Phil: But for example, I think you gave me a key for Hyperdimension Neptunia for example.

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: And that's a game that I would not play on a shared TV, even though there's nothing wrong with it.

Phil: Just obviously, if someone walks in like, what the hell?

Phil: Even like Doki Doki Literature Club.

Phil: There's nothing scandalous about it.

Phil: But I mean, it's an anime game sort of thing.

Phil: So again, if someone came in the room, they'd be like, what are you doing?

Phil: Why are you watching that?

Phil: It's like, well, it's Doki Doki Literature Club and then I'd have to explain it all and all the rest of it.

Phil: So, and yeah, and the other thing too is bite-sized gaming.

Phil: Like it just enables me to just play five minutes here, minutes there.

Phil: I don't have to sit down in front of a computer, turn it on and wait and all the rest of it.

Phil: So, and I've got to say that since I got the Steam Deck, my gaming time on the actual PC has dropped to almost nothing.

Phil: So I'm not saying that's going to stay that way, but yeah, I mean, to me, it's been a really good value.

Tom: Excellent.

Tom: And I think it is possible to install Windows on it.

Phil: Oh yeah.

Phil: Yeah.

Tom: The only way I would find a use to it would definitely require Windows to be installed on it, I think.

Tom: And you can get a Trilobyte SD card for under $

Tom: So getting the Gigabyte version.

Phil: Do you say Trilobyte?

Tom: Sorry, ..

Phil: Terabyte?

Tom: Terabyte.

Phil: Trilobyte.

Phil: Trilobytes are like those little fossils.

Phil: I think anyway, how many Gigawatts does it have?

Tom: Are they Troglodytes?

Phil: No, Troglodytes are cavemen.

Phil: They're like...

Phil: Trilobytes are those little shells.

Tom: Cavemen fossilized?

Tom: They're the big fossils, not the little ones.

Phil: Yeah, right.

Phil: Anyway, so Terabyte for under bucks.

Phil: That sounds...

Phil: I haven't come up against it because basically, as I've beaten the game, if I don't think I'm going to play it again, it's still installed on my regular PC, so I just basically just take it off.

Phil: Like if it's a game like Doki Doki Literature Club, I'm not going to be like, oh, let me go back and play that again.

Phil: So I've been keeping the fridge clean, so to speak.

Phil: Now, why do you say you'd need to have Windows on it?

Phil: Is it because you like to play Solitaire or Mind Sweeper?

Tom: So I can play Game Pass and other games on it.

Phil: Yes, of course.

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: I honestly believe that Microsoft's next console will be this form factor.

Phil: They have produced really good hardware in the past, including laptops and tablets and things like that.

Phil: And I think it just works.

Phil: I think it just works.

Phil: A dockable, portable would be where I think they will go next.

Phil: Because it also, I was going to say keeps the price down, but it doesn't really, I guess.

Tom: So it sounds pretty good.

Tom: I'm not sure I would get one at that price anyway, but I think it would be a good option.

Tom: But I haven't been playing Switch games very much recently, so I think it's unlikely that I would be playing a PC version of the Switch either.

Tom: But you've also got a review on the website, right?

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: If you go to gameunder.net and just click on reviews, it's the most recent review in there until I write another game review or something like that.

Phil: But yeah, you can check it out.

Phil: There's photos there showing you everything we've talked about and absolutely everything in the box, which is what I always do with our hardware reviews, so that you can have the full experience.

Phil: And also get some photos with it comparing it to the Switch, the Atari Lynx.

Phil: So just go to gameunder.net and go to reviews and you'll see it there.

Phil: So speaking of, we seem to can't, we cannot get off the topic, or we actually are getting off the topic of Steam, because I wanted to catch up with you on as to where you were with The Great Circle.

Phil: And I guess that all of our listeners are wondering, have you made it out of The Vatican?

Tom: I have made it out of The Vatican.

Phil: Fantastic.

Tom: The dream of I think many people growing up in The Vatican is to make it out of The Vatican, and I have achieved that dream at last.

Phil: And last time we spoke, you said you were not looking forward to it, because you liked the unique environment of it, and you weren't looking forward to going to Burundi or wherever the hell you're going to next in this game.

Tom: Giza in Egypt is the next location.

Phil: Yes.

Phil: Okay.

Phil: So that's where you are.

Phil: So yeah, tell us, tell us about it.

Tom: And I'm about to be leaving Giza.

Tom: And unfortunately, I think my fears were correct.

Tom: There's nothing particularly interesting or unique about the Egyptian setting.

Tom: It's very much a generic sort of boom rating desert style thing.

Tom: There are Nazis, of course, throughout it, but it doesn't have the charm of the black shirts in the Vatican.

Tom: And I don't think they really do anything particularly interesting with it.

Tom: The humor of the interaction between Indiana Jones and some of the Nazi antagonists in cut scenes is amusing and very much in line with the sense of humor in Wolfenstein.

Tom: But in terms of the setting itself outside of cut scenes, it's pretty bland and generic.

Tom: And gameplay wise, I think it's a big step back from the Vatican as well.

Tom: The Vatican had a very unique feel, particularly when it comes to modern games with, I think, more focus on more interesting platforming than there is in the Egyptian section, which is a bit more...

Tom: By making the platforming more open in the Egyptian section, they make it less interesting because of how rudimentary the platforming mechanics are compared to other games in this style.

Tom: And on top of that, they throw significantly more enemies at you and put more of an emphasis on gunplay, which is far behind mechanically the first-person beat-em-up mechanics are.

Tom: There's not really any sort of satisfaction to the weapons, tactically or in terms of the audio and visual representation of them.

Tom: They're really just a way that you can get rid of larger hordes of enemies than were present in the Vatican for the most part.

Tom: And despite it being...

Phil: It was surprising to me that with Machine Games Heritage with Wolfenstein, which was a fantastic shooter, most people I hear talk about this game actually say, oh, well, I actually got through the game without using a gun, or I may have used it once or twice, or if I did, it was by accident.

Phil: Can you relate to that at all?

Tom: You can still do that.

Tom: You can still definitely do that.

Tom: But it does save time if you are walking to a choke point or kill zone, if you will.

Phil: I love kill zone.

Tom: Shoot an enemy, and then the AI just has a stream of people running up to be shot by you.

Tom: It saves time.

Phil: OK, so within machine games, we know that they've got the capability to do fantastic gunplay and feel and all the rest of it.

Phil: Do you think that they were downplaying the guns?

Tom: I think they were definitely downplaying the guns to encourage you to play it more stealthily and in a more beat them up sort of style, I would say.

Tom: But I think when I'm not engaged with the setting, I want to get through it quicker, so I'll just employ the most pragmatic approach when I can.

Tom: But I think the main disappointment is them doing nothing interesting with the setting at all.

Tom: They did certainly skirt any sort of commentary on the Vatican during the Second World War in the first setting, but outside of that, at least aesthetically, made it interesting and more detailed than many games would handle that sort of subject matter.

Tom: Whereas that's not really the case here, as I said, they're not really presenting anything that feels particularly Egyptian or anything like that.

Tom: It's just generic, here's a bunch of dudes in Middle Eastern, Mediterranean outfits in a desert with a bunch of Nazis.

Tom: And that's it for the most part, which I think is massively disappointing.

Phil: Well, they are keeping true to the game though.

Phil: I mean, to the movie.

Phil: I mean, the movie was never like a deep examination of the people of the Middle East.

Phil: It was basically using a bunch of extras dressed in Middle Eastern garb as a backdrop.

Tom: But it also wasn't, was the Vatican even in Indiana Jones?

Phil: No, that's their own creation.

Tom: But I think again, it comes back to the whole thing with the awful Troy Baker performance slash direction, is you can be true to something while also doing something interesting as opposed to merely doing a hamfist of pastiche.

Phil: Yeah.

Tom: Can you not?

Phil: So yes, you can.

Phil: So we agree with that.

Phil: With Giza, right?

Phil: Do you think that after the confines of the Vatican's gameplay and setting, that they basically went, okay, now for chapter two, we're going to broaden this out, show that we're not just a one trick pony, and give people more of an action movie type thing.

Phil: Do you think it's going to funnel back in?

Phil: Maybe you're out there in the desert and you're mucking around and everything, but you're in Egypt, obviously, so you're going to find your way into a tomb or a temple or something like that.

Phil: I just get the feeling that from a game pace thing, they're basically opening it up so they can give you some variety, but then they're going to focus back down.

Phil: But then they're going to focus back down and give you what the strength of the game is, which is what you were playing around within The Vatican.

Tom: As in in the next chapter, you think he may be?

Phil: No, within this one, because it's all open.

Phil: You can choose to do whatever you want, is what I'm getting.

Tom: I don't think.

Tom: One interesting thing about it is, I think they haven't done that.

Tom: What they've done is they've done something completely different.

Tom: So in The Vatican, you had a totally different structure.

Tom: But now, I would say the thing structurally that feels like the most is D Zelda, where you've got this open world with two town centers in it.

Tom: This is obviously a miniaturized version of a D Zelda.

Tom: And then surrounding those, you have several different dungeons and mini-junctions, which are a mixture of Nazi camps and Egyptian tombs to explore.

Phil: Okay.

Tom: So to their credit, they've done something totally different to the Vatican.

Tom: But I don't think it works as well as the Vatican.

Tom: And I don't think it is.

Tom: I think the Vatican works well, because you've got this hyper-focus thing, which allows you an hyper-detailed world, which I think allows you to look past the rudimentary nature of the mechanics.

Tom: When they're moving out into a more open and less detailed thing, the thing that you're sort of engrossing and interacting with on a more immediate level then becomes the mechanics rather than the world.

Tom: And I think the mechanics are not as interesting as the world that they had built for the Vatican.

Phil: Yeah, okay.

Phil: So do you think this is different teams?

Phil: Like, do you think that the Vatican was where they started development, or do you think that different teams were working on different parts of it, and then they've put them in this?

Phil: Does the story require that you go through the Vatican first, or could they have started with Giza and then done the Vatican?

Phil: Or for story reasons, does it not make sense for them to do that?

Phil: I'm trying to figure out in my mind, according to your review, why is the Vatican so much richer and deeper?

Phil: Was it a matter that that's where they were spending all their time?

Phil: And then they were like, well, guys, we've got to release this game eventually.

Phil: We've got to move on to other stuff.

Phil: And then everything else was spread in from there.

Tom: I think they want a strong opening that stands out, I would say, would be one aspect of it.

Tom: But I think also having that sort of tight controlled experience, to some degree anyway, because there was a reasonable amount of exploration and non-linearity to the Vatican as well.

Tom: Then having that open up into a wider world, I think is a pretty standard way of pacing a game these days.

Phil: Yeah, okay.

Tom: And to their credit, like I said, I don't think it's executed well, but I think it is interesting that they do radically change the structure of the world in the second part of the game, in a way that Tomb Raider and Uncharted and other games that are doing something similar, didn't really do and don't do.

Phil: I can just thinking about Uncharted.

Phil: Yeah, they don't, they give you basically what Uncharted does.

Phil: It's the same game all the way through, but they've got some really entertaining set pieces, some action set pieces by running on the top of a train or a boat sinking, and you've got to figure out how to get out of this massive ship, and those types of set pieces.

Phil: I think with Tomb Raider, it's a lot more deliberate, though certainly by the end of the modern trilogy, where they start getting into some, well, I think all the games got into some fantastical beasts.

Phil: Yeah, I don't know.

Phil: I think that, I always think of the Tomb Raider games as being deeper, maybe because it had the crafting components of it.

Phil: And also there was gradual skills that you're unlocking, whereas in Uncharted, you're basically the dude the whole time, you might find different guns.

Tom: I think the mechanics in Tomb Raider also significantly better than in Uncharted, which helps a lot.

Tom: Yeah.

Phil: And you had complexity of using the bow, which was was more fun than...

Tom: But structurally Uncharted and Tomb Raider are very similar in that they're both just consistently building on the start of the game, expanding on it, rather than outside of set pieces offering new things, significant digressions in how the game unfolds, which is so far not the case in Indiana Jones, which I give it credit for.

Tom: It's just that the execution is perhaps lacking a little bit.

Phil: I think too, you've still got, as we spoiled in the last episode, I think you're going on from here to this China, there's a China level, there's a Thai Thailand level as well, I think.

Phil: So I think there's still, it'll be an interesting journey as you continue with this to see where it goes.

Phil: From what you've described, like it or not, it's still very interesting.

Phil: And I think I could say that about a lot of games that you and I haven't quote, liked.

Phil: There's always better games, there's always different ways to do things.

Phil: But it does sound at least interesting.

Tom: I would agree with that.

Tom: And I think I've at least played enough now to have to sunk cost fallacy.

Tom: Yes, so that will keep me going even if my interest wanes even further.

Phil: Yeah, you sunk cost.

Phil: Well, you did pay for a game pass.

Phil: So, you know, you know, you get and I guess that's part of the problem too.

Phil: Like if you went out and spent $on this game, do you quote, value it more than a game that you can just pick up and play anytime you want and put down anytime you want because you didn't particularly pay for it.

Phil: Obviously, you're paying for the subscription.

Phil: Question for you.

Phil: One of the things I did not like about Wolfenstein was there was way too much talking in the cut scenes.

Phil: How have they managed in this one?

Phil: Do you find the cut scenes, do they move along?

Phil: Are they intrusive or do they augment what's going on?

Tom: It definitely moves along at a much faster pace than Wolfenstein.

Phil: And other than the bad direction, they're more positive than a negative, I'm guessing?

Tom: I would say so.

Tom: And the worst part of the direction is without a doubt Indiana Jones.

Tom: I think outside of Indiana Jones, and I would say also the female protagonist who follows you around.

Tom: I think the two main protagonists are the biggest issue with The Game.

Tom: It feels, I would say at this point, more like The Mummy than Indiana Jones, which The Mummy is, that's not necessarily bad.

Tom: I think The Mummy is a very entertaining film, but it doesn't reach the heights of Indiana Jones, to say the least.

Tom: And that is very much the case here.

Tom: It feels like they have gone for a much easier style of storytelling, while simultaneously reminding you that it's meant to be Indiana Jones by having this garish imitation of Indiana Jones.

Tom: And I think one of the major issues with the portrayal of Indiana Jones is Harrison Ford is an extremely physical actor.

Tom: And they've got the voice minus charisma and interest well replicated, but they don't even have a literal recreation of the physicality of Indiana Jones in the animation of the game, which I think further diminishes the portrayal of that character.

Phil: Okay, anything else on this this time around?

Tom: I don't think there's anything else to add at this stage.

Phil: I'm now going to talk to you about a game called Doki Doki Literature Club, and the listener might go, I think I've heard of that game.

Phil: It is a game from and it was developed, written, music, everything done by one dude named Dan Salvato.

Phil: As far as I can see, he hasn't done anything else.

Phil: And he was previously known for his modding work on Project M.

Phil: So it's a visual novel.

Phil: Have you played any modern visual novel with an anime theme?

Tom: I have actually played Doki Doki Literature Club.

Phil: How much of it?

Tom: Let's see what it says on the screen.

Phil: Do you remember how far you got with it?

Tom: I've apparently played minutes.

Phil: Okay, so you've not...

Phil: Okay, so look, I'm just going to say this review will spoil the experience for you, listener.

Phil: If you want to play Doki Doki Literature Club to see what it's all about, you can.

Phil: It will take, I think, about two to three hours of your time, and you will have to sit through a very long, dull, barely interactive visual novel for most of that time before you get to the interesting part.

Phil: And when you get to the interesting part, it's also not interactive.

Phil: So in a way, this is a presentation of a very interesting story through the form of a video game.

Phil: But it's not, I wouldn't call it a game.

Phil: It's not a very interactive experience.

Phil: It's about, a choose-your-own-adventure book would be more interactive, okay?

Phil: I'd classify it as a digital experience more than a game.

Phil: And the consequences of how you nudge the story one way or the other were completely without consequence.

Phil: So, does that, so I think that by me describing the game and telling you what the game is actually all about, you'll at least know what Doki Doki Literature Club is, so that you can think about it in the context of other games and gaming in general.

Phil: So, that's why I'm spoiling it.

Phil: If you don't want to be spoiled for Doki Doki Literature Club and you want to sit through that long boring thing so that you can see something that's actually very cool, then I'd say use the chapter markers on your podcast machine to skip forward to the next segment.

Tom: I'm not sure you're doing a very good job of sounding it so far if your reaction was positive.

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: Well, I'm going to say that again, it's a word I've used a lot today.

Phil: It's interesting and it has received positive critical attention for the use of its horror elements.

Phil: So basically, you start up the game.

Phil: If you go into it cold as I did, you probably would never get to the good part because if someone just said, hey man, play this game.

Phil: I went into it knowing there was a twist because it's impossible not to know that there's a twist in this game.

Phil: I think I got this game for free.

Phil: It somehow turned up in my Steam library.

Phil: And basically, I've played these visual novels before.

Phil: Not very much.

Phil: It's more of like a dating sim visual novel, right?

Phil: So you are ostensibly a high school aged boy who wants to join a social club.

Phil: You've known a girl your whole life that you has been your neighbor and you walk to school with her.

Phil: And it's social club day at the high school where you get to pick what social club you're going to join.

Phil: And you feel some loyalty to this Plutonic friend of yours.

Phil: It appears that she has a crush on you, but you can't quite tell.

Phil: And she says, hey, why don't you join my literature club?

Phil: We get together and we read books together, and then we talk about the books.

Phil: So you turn up in this classroom, unconvinced.

Phil: And then basically, two other, I'm gonna say, they're all anime high school girls, right?

Phil: So they've all got, you know, distinct proportions.

Phil: You know what, they're anime girls, right?

Phil: So they get the long, pretty hair.

Phil: It's funny.

Tom: Distinct proportioned anime girls.

Phil: Distinctly proportioned, yes.

Phil: And so, you know, it's eye candy.

Phil: It's good, you know, and you're basically talking to them.

Phil: Now, they will talk for a very long time, and you basically are just sitting there pressing the button.

Phil: There's no interactive dialogue.

Phil: You're not picking a dialogue choice, you know.

Phil: But obviously, you're just pressing the button on the controller.

Phil: So there's no, yeah, it's not anything like that.

Phil: So you basically can see that these three girls have in some way or another, interested in you romantically because you're the only boy in this very small literature club.

Phil: And the only interactivity that is in the game is a mini game where you get to write poems.

Phil: So basically, after about to minutes of pressing a button to advance text, and you're looking at a very static picture, they've got an anime classroom in these three girls, and they're very flat.

Phil: They have very few animations, like they might blush or they might move left or right, sort of like in Phoenix Wright, if you can think of that, but not as sophisticated.

Tom: I think the poem writing was when I quit.

Phil: Yeah, so you get to the poem writing, and you basically, as you pick the words, you can see the girls react differently to it.

Phil: So the emo one, if you start picking emo words, she then becomes more attracted to you, and then she's going to date you, right?

Phil: Then there's a cute little girl who, you know, if you do...

Tom: I've just got to interrupt you with a totally unrelated anecdote here.

Tom: Are you familiar with the euphemistically termed data annotation job?

Phil: Nope.

Tom: Well, this is how AI actually works, which is humans performing the judgments of AI, which at some point in the future will supposedly end, right?

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: So this is, as I understand it, this is the secret behind TikTok's algorithms.

Phil: They just have lots and lots and lots of people watching videos and then categorizing them by tags.

Tom: And yes, but also like ChatGP or other generative AI or search engines are all essentially initially, but continuously run by humans making a judgment on things that are presented to them.

Phil: Yeah, yeah.

Tom: With the simplest example of this being catch bits, where a human has to decide what an image is, so that an AI can decide themselves.

Tom: This is an endless process that is still continuing while AI is supposedly running, right?

Phil: Okay, yep.

Tom: I looked out of curiosity at one of these programs, and they pay apparently, the beginning wage is US dollars an hour.

Phil: Yeah, fair enough.

Tom: Yeah, in their job interview, one of the things they had you do was, you had to look at two examples of a poem, and you were meant to choose the poem that was more tragic than the other poem.

Tom: This is the level of understanding of poetry by tech billionaires who have created these genius level AI programs, right?

Phil: Yep.

Tom: So you had to choose which was the more tragic poem, and the way you obviously were meant to choose which was the more tragic poem was which poem had the more emo words.

Phil: Right?

Phil: Yes.

Phil: Yeah.

Tom: So this was the level of literary analysis that AI is being trained with.

Phil: Fantastic.

Phil: So back to the game.

Phil: So I've got to say, there's three-

Tom: We're just, in the game, we've got simultaneously the same level of literary understanding occurring, I think.

Phil: Absolutely.

Phil: Yeah.

Tom: But at least it's within the context of a narrative.

Phil: Sort of.

Phil: Yes.

Phil: So you've got, and I've got to mention, there's three girls that you're trying to gain the favor of or whatever.

Phil: And then there's another girl who runs it, who comes in on the side of the screen from time to time, right?

Phil: Her name's Monica.

Phil: And so yeah, there's a cute girl.

Phil: So if you pick words in your palms like puppies, cotton candy, she becomes more interested in you.

Phil: And then there's a vanilla girl.

Phil: You got the emo, you got the little girl, and then there's a vanilla girl who, you know, whatever.

Phil: She's pretty generic.

Phil: So obviously, I will go, okay, well, the emo one is tallest.

Phil: I'll try that one.

Phil: So obviously, when you do this, you're making the emo one like you more, but the other two characters like you less.

Phil: So then as the story goes on, you will then go and sit with the emo girl.

Phil: And this is over the course of many days.

Phil: It's got light, romantic stuff in there, like, you know, your hand brushes against hers, and this, that, and the other, and that makes you feel this way.

Phil: And you see her blush, and she suggests that you sit closer, and they can read the same book as opposed to reading two different books.

Phil: But, you know, it's sort of that sort of low-level romance type thing.

Phil: So at a certain point, you find out that one of the other characters that you haven't been talking to, I think the vanilla one, essentially, you know, because you keep doing these poems every day.

Phil: So obviously, you keep driving up the interest of one of the characters and not the other two.

Phil: And your friend is the one who encourage you to join it, the vanilla girl.

Phil: She commits suicide, right?

Phil: Yep.

Phil: So, okay, there's a shocking twist, like what's happened here?

Phil: And then the game ends.

Phil: Then the game comes back and you start again.

Phil: And you've just gone through this long, tedious, boring thing that you barely want to even read.

Phil: And now you're having to start again.

Phil: And it's the exact same game again, except now you can get through the text faster.

Phil: And now the girl that committed suicide is not in the game at all.

Phil: And there's no mention of her at all.

Phil: And then Monica starts to play more of a role.

Phil: Now, after playing this, you start to...

Tom: Is the twist that Monica murdered the suicidal girl?

Phil: Well, the twist is that you were playing this light, romance-based visual novel, trying to seduce these girls, and then all of a sudden, one of them has gone and killed herself.

Phil: And that's the end of the game.

Phil: So...

Tom: That's how bad you are at seduction.

Phil: Then you notice that...

Phil: I noticed that the screen was tearing in places, and I was like, did I see that?

Phil: Is this something wrong with the Steam Deck?

Phil: Or...

Phil: Okay, whatever.

Phil: And I keep playing.

Phil: And then you'll notice that these graphical glitches continue to increase, and words start disappearing.

Phil: And then is...

Phil: You're like, okay, well, I'll start to seduce, for want of a better word, this other girl.

Tom: Romance.

Tom: Romance.

Phil: Yep.

Phil: Yep.

Phil: And basically, things get worse and worse and worse, and then that character gets killed as well.

Phil: And a very...

Tom: Tom was right.

Tom: Your...

Tom: Your Riz game is so bad, you're driving to suicide.

Phil: Yes, exactly.

Phil: And then this is a really violent one, right?

Phil: And then you're like, okay, maybe this is now going to turn into a murder mystery game.

Phil: So it plays on and on.

Phil: And then eventually Monica tells you that she is a self-aware character in the game, and that when she found out that she was not even a romance option in the game, she decided to start taking out her anger because she's truly in love with you, and she truly understands you and by the poems that you've been writing.

Phil: And she wants you to be in her world and her to be in your world.

Phil: And so she goes and kills all the other characters in the game because she has access to the code of the game.

Tom: So I was right.

Phil: Yeah, she, yeah.

Phil: And at first you think when the girl kills herself, one of these other girls, based on the poem that she left, she's been bullied into doing this.

Phil: Or no, maybe it was me.

Phil: Maybe if I'd been nicer to her, this wouldn't have happened.

Phil: God, I should have seen all the signs and she wouldn't have killed herself.

Phil: But basically Monica is a self-aware member of the game and she's been going in and changing the code so that she can be with you and only you.

Phil: So you get to what appears to be the end point of the game where the game starts over again, except now she's the only one in the literature club.

Phil: And she just keeps talking to you and you go, okay.

Phil: And so obviously the game's trained you.

Phil: You just keep clicking these buttons to get through this, this text, but it just, it doesn't stop.

Phil: It will keep going for hours and hours and hours without repeating.

Phil: Right?

Phil: Now I didn't, I was like, okay, I get it.

Phil: This is the end of the game.

Phil: Turn the game off sort of thing.

Phil: And then I turn the game back on and she's like, oh, you're back.

Phil: And then she keeps talking and talking, talking and you're like, okay, there's got to be an end point here somewhere.

Phil: So if you go into the actual Steam library game folder and delete the folder named, this is now you're going into your Windows, right?

Phil: Yep.

Phil: Obviously this didn't occur to me to do this.

Phil: I had, I looked it up because I went, what is this game?

Phil: And apparently how you get the game to advance is by going into your Windows directory, going into the game files and deleting the file or folder named Monica, right?

Phil: Yep.

Phil: So then you do that, you start up the game again and the game starts again, except now Monica is not there.

Phil: And all the other characters are there, and they have no knowledge of who Monica was or anything else.

Phil: And so I'm going to tell you that that's where this wankery stopped for me.

Phil: I went, okay, now you can do other things and it will play out, and there's good endings and bad endings.

Phil: And if you've seduced all three of the girls and you get this cut scene, and you know, I am not doing that.

Phil: I was like, okay, fantastic.

Phil: I saw the gimmick, I saw the turn.

Phil: I've got enough out of this game that I'm just leaving it.

Phil: I'm not going to go any further with this stuff.

Phil: So that's the crux of it.

Phil: It's a visual novel with romantic interests.

Phil: The game glitches out.

Phil: You can't figure out what's going on.

Phil: She admits that she's self-aware and she killed all the other characters.

Phil: She then traps you in the game, which is exactly what she wants.

Phil: So you then have to leave the game, destroy the folder, and then the game will actually progress.

Phil: So that's what I'm saying.

Phil: Is it worth the payoff?

Phil: Only you can answer that question.

Phil: Look, it's unique.

Phil: I mean, I don't know what I would have done differently other than not make the game.

Phil: Yeah, I don't know.

Phil: I still don't know what I think of the game.

Phil: All I know is it is unique, and it was the work of a single dude.

Phil: And I guess it's a good experience.

Phil: It's a digital experience is what I'm calling it.

Phil: It's not a game.

Phil: So it's not a game.

Tom: I think it's a game.

Phil: Yeah, yeah.

Tom: Sounds like a game to me.

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: So would you go and play this now, do you think?

Phil: Or do you think you get enough?

Phil: Is it one of those ones where you can sit and watch the movie for eight hours or you're just going to read the Wikipedia entry and that's good enough for you sort of thing?

Tom: I went into it based on the press and enthusiasm for the game at the time, that the characters were interesting and the story was interesting.

Tom: And I got sick of it in minutes.

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: And I guess that's part of the joke.

Phil: I don't know.

Phil: I mean, is that part of the joke?

Phil: Is that part of the joke?

Phil: Is it do you need the slow build for it all to pay off?

Phil: Because if they just jumped into it after minutes, you'd be like, there's no payoff, you know?

Tom: I think it makes sense that you would, but I was expecting, I think, an enjoyable experience outside of a twist.

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: Which you're not going to get.

Tom: But you could have got if the writing was as good as people claim it is.

Phil: Yes.

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: The writing is not that great.

Phil: In my perspective, there's nothing different about it.

Phil: It just felt like playing any of these generic visual novel type games.

Phil: I think that if you went into it, like if you were a visual novel fan, and you somehow were playing this and you didn't know anything about it, it would probably, because it does challenge, like, okay, it does sort of challenge the players of these visual novels to sort of confront, what are you doing with your time sort of thing.

Phil: Yeah, I don't know.

Phil: I really don't know, and I'm sorry for the listeners that this is where this review is ending, because I usually like to be able to give more certainty to it.

Phil: I guess probably if you listen to my opening remarks, you know, is the gimmick worth it?

Phil: The gimmick's not worth it in my perspective, but it was still an enjoyable enough experience in that it was unique and completely different from anything else I'd played.

Phil: And I think with that, it's probably a good time to, unless you've got any other statements about Doki Doki Literature Club.

Tom: Are you going to give it a score?

Phil: I'm not.

Phil: I'm not going to give it a score, because I'm completely unresolved.

Phil: As a creator-

Tom: I'm going to roll the die of destiny for you.

Phil: I'll tell you what, as a creative work, as a creative work, I think quite highly of it.

Phil: The execution of it, I guess I can't fault, because again, the long boring stuff sets up the back end of the game.

Phil: And from a unique factor, that's also a very big positive attribute.

Phil: So I guess I'm going to give it a positive score, which is about as reluctant-

Tom: Yes, but it depends on the die of destiny.

Phil: Yes.

Phil: Give it a go.

Tom: Yeah, give it a zero out of ten.

Phil: I didn't know the die of destiny.

Tom: No, no, no.

Tom: Correction.

Tom: Sorry, sorry.

Tom: I just forgot the zero out of ten on the die is actually the ten.

Phil: Yes.

Tom: With the way the die is arranged.

Tom: So you gave it a very, very positive score indeed, a ten out of ten.

Phil: Oh, you know what?

Phil: That'll be good clickbait.

Phil: Phil gives game ten out of ten.

Phil: Listen to his baffling review.

Phil: Phil eventually gives, after the longest winding road review he's ever done, gives a game a ten out of ten.

Tom: With that, I think it's a more deserving ten out of ten than the last of us.

Phil: So yeah, for sure.

Phil: Yeah, for sure.

Phil: Especially.

Tom: I'm going to interpret your score though, as you interpret mine.

Phil: Yes.

Tom: I think you give it a, but I'm going to use my rating system.

Phil: Yeah.

Tom: I think you give it a six out of ten.

Phil: That's the number I was thinking you were going to give it based on your scale.

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: I think that's about right.

Phil: I think that's about right.

Phil: It's kind of like the long hike to a view, and the view is worth it, but the long hike was about six hours longer than I would have wanted it to have been sort of thing.

Tom: And I've got based on my minutes, minutes, because I doubt I'm going to go back to it.

Tom: I'm going to roll the Diode Destiny as well.

Phil: Wow.

Phil: A dual score folks.

Tom: I give it a four out of ten.

Phil: Four out of ten, which is about right.

Phil: On your scale, I guess.

Tom: And based on what you've heard of it, what would you say I will give it?

Tom: Based on my two second impression.

Phil: I think that this sounds like a game that you would go to bat for, and you would berate me and beat me down until I finally concede that yes, okay, it's worth a good score.

Phil: So I think that you would give it a good score on your scale, which is probably a six to a seven.

Tom: So we're pretty much in agreement then, apparently.

Tom: Yeah, but my main issue with it is, which I found is a problem with trying to play any visual novel.

Tom: If I'm essentially just literally reading text, why would I not be reading a book instead?

Phil: Yeah, exactly.

Phil: And because there's no interaction, the pushing the button is the same as turning a page.

Phil: You know.

Tom: Which is a form of interaction.

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: I guess you could actually, you could, and I bet there is books like this.

Phil: You could actually replicate this game in a book.

Phil: Like if you're reading this long romance type novel book, and then you get to a page and then like the next pages.

Tom: I'm trying to page number or whatever.

Phil: Yeah, exactly.

Phil: The next pages are completely blank.

Phil: And then from there, it turns into a pornographic magazine.

Phil: And then it's pornographically violent.

Phil: And then there's dead sheep everywhere.

Tom: I think we've uncovered the real issue with the game here.

Phil: Okay.

Tom: You're expecting a lot to see a lot more of these proportions.

Phil: Distinctly proportioned anime girls.

Phil: That's my biggest beef with the game.

Phil: Thanks for listening to The Game Under Podcast.

Phil: We've been doing this since

Phil: So there's a lot of resources covering games from that time to now at our website, which is gameunder.net.

Phil: If you'd like to submit a question, use the comment section from our homepage.

Phil: You don't have to log in or register or anything like that.

Phil: And I want to thank you for being on here.

Phil: And thanks again for listening to episode of The Game Under Podcast.

Phil: I am Phil Fogg.

Tom: I'm Tom Towers.