The "Pay-to-Play" Scheme That (Almost) Ruined Video Games, with Dan Soder

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out I am Pablo Torre and today we're going to find out what this sound is Why are we isolating ourselves and hating ourselves so that Jeff Bezos can have another boat for his weird sex lizard wife to crawl around on Right after this Thanks for doing this It's something that I do in my off time, so of course I want to talk about it. I play I love video games You are our video game correspondent. I realize I'm not a big video game guy. I'm just a consistent video game guy I'm not Barry Bond's I'm Ted Williams. I I played video games since I was like six What did I get an Nintendo it was yeah Christmas 89 so I was like six and I've just always Insistently had a system and I've just played my whole life I've been a devout fan of college football since its inception by EA sports because Madden was first NFL games Refirst but when they did the first college football is NCAA game breaker with Eddie George on the cover Mm-hmm And it was like you would go to a blockbuster or something and find out there and go they have coach football And I you know, I remember exactly where it was I was sleeping at my cousin Luke's house We rented game breaker on a Friday night when college football was the next day So you're like, you know, it was like a tease. You're like, ooh, we'll play these games We were like play games that we're gonna be the next day like if Florida was playing Tennessee But I'll be Florida. You be Tennessee will play or we'll flip for it. It was great But then EA came out with NCAA which is now called college football right and so this thing that's happened in college football I want to be clear to everybody who does not give a shit about video games This is a story that I think is fascinating even and perhaps especially for people who don't know what's happening in video games And I am kind of I would say I'm like a median Mamedian voter when it comes to video games. I used to really be into it But what I have now realized is I Here and attempt to understand what's going on right now is that I have been alienated by what this is now What's interesting about video games to me is that they are a Thumprint of our societal evolution and I think they show a lot of Parts of our society good and bad. I think it's you know There's people that are adamantly against it and think if you play it you're wasting your life But there's people whose brains run hot and it's just a nice thing to turn on and completely shut off all your thoughts about the outside world Yeah, it's great for escapism. Oh, I my favorite thing. So when I say that I think of you when I see the headlines They're about the revolution happening. I'm gonna tell you right now I'm not a big reddit guy, but I go to reddit. It's the it's a place. I go if I need to look up stuff specifically for video games It's like an excellent source for video games and I just want to say how proud I am of the college football Video game community on reddit Partly on reddit. I know it was in other places, but what they did is there's these streamers that do Very popular streams of college football and typically they are the foremost and most effective marketers It's for the game. It's it it behooves These companies to be nice to these streamers You should treat the streamers right because they are they are basically your representation via human form Which we don't have anything anymore and on their channels in ways that are I think drive from a genuine passion It seems by and large they're broadcasting your product to people who might also want to buy and spend time on it It's an evolution of both capitalism and the unboxing. Yes, the unboxing craze that happened when youtubers came out was because people were watching people be happy Opening they were watching capitalism porn dude. They're watching someone open the way that a pizza boy would have sex with the lonely housewife Was the way that the kid would unbox the video game and go like I wanted this horizontal we all feel that it makes us feel something For those who are steep in the lore of the show. This is kind of the thesis behind why we have people like Katie Nolan open shout out one of the best one of the all-time grades. It's just a friend of the show friend I'm obsessed Desperately in love with it just makes it sound unhealthy. I will follow her to the end of the world ago I turns out that was her future husband. Yeah, but we put we put journalism in folders because we're unboxing it Yeah, and you see the surprise in the horror and you vicariously enjoy what feels like the eternal Groundhog's day Christmas morning of what's in there? I used to go to GameStop dude I used to go to GameStop at midnight and like I can remember I can tell you which assassin's creed I went in bot I'll tell you like in Queens. I used to walk the Steinway which was like 12 blocks away from my apartment and I would like Really look forward you would have conversations with guys in line about like getting the game and then the the moment of leaving With your copy the physical copy in your hand to someone that you were talking to in line at GameStop and being like Dude, have fun and they're like you have fun and that was and Obviously things evolve and we're all online now. So now you pre-order it But you still get the feeling of the pre-order when it pops up on your screen and you go Oh, I get and it gives you a countdown like six days But but now what we're getting to is the way in which what I grew up doing which I think a lot of people may assume is still happening is eroding or mutating or being Corrupted into something else and I want to establish that When I look through your appearances on the show video games have come up consistently. Yeah, probably you played old pothead that loves video games When you were played Rock music playing playing Madden against Mike McDaniel. Yeah, we played that was Tecmo Super Bowl technically Tecmo Super Bowl Excuse me. Yeah, um with the now offensive coordinator of Los Angeles Chargers. Yeah Playing as Dion Sanders. He would yeah, he would play as the Atlanta Falcons and he would switch to Dion and pick it Almost every time anybody that played Tecmo Super Bowl. You remember down B with the 49ers was one of those dangerous plays on earth Rice would do like a tenon in John Taylor would run a streak Roger Craig would run a streak out of the backfield and then Brent Jones would sit just kind of squat in the flats So usually rice is your first option, but you're looking Taylor down failed and he knew I was going to Taylor every time So he would drop D on back go one-on-one with John Taylor and just pick it and it just made me it's still Makes me mad. I do like the idea of as always future NFL coach counting you Yeah, Mike's a great talker and then what happened is he Stop playing video games in video games evolved so by the time it got to like, you know I remember like Madden 01 was a big one when the PS2 when I got a PS2 my senior year in high school Madden 01 was like everyone's coming over We're putting names in a hat. You're drawing the team you get I got the Vikings with Cole Pepper the number of just like sleep over. Yeah, day Like multi-player just afternoon before you have to go to work in high school Let's sport tournaments of video games. I mean, you know what one of my all-time favorite moments with my friend My buddy Mark who I went to college with was we would sit there and play All-star baseball on PlayStation 2 But we just play home on Derby because all you had to do was pull the right joystick back and fling it forward to hell and runs But our fun part was calling the home runs, so we would be like Miguel Taha is Fluent in three languages. He's fluent in English Spanish and home run when you like hit it So we just do like dumb calls And that was like so fun and we just do that after class at the University of Arizona Like you want to go play home on Derby and you're like, yeah, absolutely of course and then The episode we did with you where we invaded your home with Katie. Yeah That was awesome trying all the athlete weed strains, which you have to play video games I'm of course and we and we did but that was the same Moment at which the 2024 return of what is now known as college football 25 became the all-time best-selling American sports game in terms of dollar sales Ever over like 500 million correct. It was and you contributed to that. Oh, brother I it was it was a full circle moment for me Shane Gillis used to open on the road with me back in like 2018 2017 and 2018 and I would bring an Xbox 360 and we would play the defunct NCAA 2014, but we'd run a dynasty together So we would be like you'd be like I would see and he'd be DC and then we would recruit It was just a fun thing to do on the road Hey the boys I mean it's in the game it is All right, we praise Jesus in the game Long way from Happy Valley Because you would like have it at the hotel and then you bring it to the green room and you'd be like well we're recruiting between shows and then You know he became like the the most famous comic in the world playing literal arenas. Yeah, and this video game came back and they were like "Hey, we want you to stream it." So he called me and he was like, "Do you want to stream the new college football?" And I changed the passing options. And that's where I screwed up and he beat the hell out of me the second game. - What did you throw away again? - No, that was stupid. (beep) (beep) I fucked up, I fucked up. (beep) (crowd cheering) - You must feel like an idiot. - What? - 'Cause you were up, you were doing so good at the game. - You changed the passing up. - I screwed up. - But anyways, that game came back and it was like a full circle moment that Shane was like, "Hey, I'm gonna, in fact, even this year." He was like, "You want to download, I pre-ordered it." And he's like, "You want to download code?" And I was like, "For a week early." And I was like, "Yeah." So I've just been building my Kansas State dynasty. Shout out, Wildcats. Go on. - Why, why, Kansas State? - My little cousin plays there now. - Oh! - Yeah, my little cousin's on the team. - What position does he play? - Place tackle. He's a true freshman, Oliver Miller. Shout out, big number 73. - Oh my God. - Oh, there he is. - Yeah. - That's my cousin, dude. I love him to death. - And shout out his older brother, Graham, who never gets shine, but Graham rules. He's the older brother of a starting tackle. And football is like, "No one gives a sh*t about me." And you're like, "Your brother is a f*cking house." - Your brother is 6'6"290. - Woo! - He's only getting bigger, baby. - Number 73. - Yeah, big 73 Colorado. - Damn, yeah, Engle with Colorado. - So, I went to Creek. I forgive him for that, but whatever. But it's so, so this year, another word. - This year's special to me. This year's even more special. - This year's special. - This year's even more special. - I brought him my PlayStation 2 thing, and he came back with all the names. One of the names on the roster. Yale, I think at like 62 overall. He was like a 58 overall. He was dog sh*t. Mike McDaniel. - Right. - Yeah. - And like, I think that was like NCAA 0-3 or 0-4. - So, 5-9-1-75. - Yeah. - Smokey Hill. - Yeah, Smokey Hill High School. Go Buffs. That's why I'm disappointed, Oliver. I don't want to creak. But this year is the first year where someone's in the game, but now there's NIL. So Oliver's name is in the game. I took a picture of it, sent it to him on Instagram. The second I got the download code, and he was like, I haven't even seen it. And I was like, yeah, here you go. They made you look sh*t. I was like, they made you look horrible. - But the point being that all of this is what you bring to the Christmas morning. - Yeah. - I'm getting to play this. - I love this game. And the thing that happens when everybody who loves this game turns it on. And this is including the people who had been playing like the beta pre-release versions. These influencers that you're describing who are the marketers slash publicists of this empire. There's a big difference. - Yeah, for the first time in this game's history it was loaded with micro transactions. If the first one that you saw was when you do the pre-order they were like, hey, you know, you can spend 60 on the game, you can spend 90 on the deluxe, or you can do the MVP package. - So 69.99 for standard. - Standard. - 99.99 deluxe. - And then the MVP bundle. - 149.99. - Crazy. But that is for Madden and College Football. 'Cause what happened when College Football came out was Madden took a beating. 'Cause you realized how many people were playing Madden to scratch the itch that College Football had left. College Football's a different game. You're not doing contracts. You're not dealing with free agents. You're like recruiting kids, they're leaving. There's the transfer portal. It's just a different vibe completely. So all the people that missed College Football, 'cause I was buying Madden. I bought Madden to see Mike McDaniel's head coach of the Dolphins. That was the last time I bought Madden was his first year, I think his first or second year is the coach, I was like, I wanna see what they make, Michael look like. But College Football comes out and you're like, "F*** Madden, I don't care about Madden. That's why I play College Football." - Yeah, I have a billion dollars where the people agreed in the first year. - $500 million went to the College Football. You could see E.A. immediately go, "F***ed." 'Cause then there started being things on the home screen of College Football. I was like, "Hey, Madden's 40% off." Like, "Hey, you can just buy Madden. We'll just give you Madden." They just started to be like, "Please take Madden. We made Madden, please use it." But this year they said, "Hey, we're gonna do the MVP. We're gonna do, it's 150 bucks." The thing that was f***ed up and the thing that everyone noticed myself included was they went, "When you do a dynasty in College Football, there's a skill tree that you unlock. Where you unlock these things that like help you get recruits or they help you start a rivalry game and it like on fire." This one was like, "Hey, there's gonna be two new skill trees that you cannot touch unless you do the MVP bundle." And everyone was like, "So there's just a thing in the game you can't access unless you want to play, which is also the MVP bundle I believe is a subscription." So then people were going, "Well, if the subscription's up, am I gonna be able to access it?" And this is where we're running into a f***ing massive problem. - Well, okay, so hold on. I want to establish that when you even say, 'cause you're getting to, when we say that this is a thumbprint for the way we live now effectively, you're mentioning words that we've heard in other contexts in the effective degradation and fracking of media. - Of owning media. - Of what it even means to own something in media. - You don't own anything anymore. - But the term micro-transaction, for those who have never played a video game, could you please explain what a micro-transaction is? - Basically what a micro-transaction does is, is if you have a player or something in the game, a character and you want to make it better, you want to make it somehow better. They do this thing where they go. You know, for 10, 99 V bucks, or whatever they want to call it, it's money. - A virtual currency. - A virtual currency, which is just an in-between, because I'll tell you what, when you say yes, they sure as hell take you right to that screen where your credit card's on there. That's American money that I'm spending when it is. But you buy like XP and then you progress faster. - Basically football points is what the euphemism is for these virtual currency things. - Pay to play. - So NCAA or college football, you grind it out. You play a game, you get XP for touchdown scores. How many good things you do? - You earn it. - You earn it. And then the next week, after you go, they give you these points that you go spend to make your coach better, which makes your team better. And so basically what EA Sports is doing now is going, hey, (beep) playing the game, you want to just give me money and we'll just like, progress you? - What if you could pay for the things you used to have to earn? - Yes, well now that's also a big difference this year more than anything is because there are people that are fine if you just want to progress fast. You know, you might have four kids and you have a job and you just like can sit down and you have the $50 that you want to pay so that you can play in peace so you can turn off your brain. Fine, what they're doing is they're making some stuff only accessible via micro-transaction. And they're going like, no, you can play all you want. You'll never be able to access this unless you give us money. And that is where it goes. Oh, it's just, that's the ugly face of capitalism. I know this is probably not an adult only show, but it reminds me of the time I got a lap dancing that I saw the woman check her time. It really takes you out of it. When they look at that, she looked at her, called on her phone, it was a Saturday night Montreal. I was at a comedy festival. And these like agents took me out to a strip. This is like 15 years ago. I was when I was drinking. And we go out and this beautiful woman gives me a lap dance but it was just like the most capitalistic lap dance I've ever had where she like, it was on her iPhone with the timer. The way I time my set on stage and I saw her check her time and I went, you know, I just got up, I was like, we're good. And her, she's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, I was there. And you're like, no, please let me leave. Please let me leave. Part of me is glad that she did that. If only to spare you from the sound of the alarm going off. It's at the end of a Nickelback's log. Look at my photograph. I go, oh, man, sorry, we got to go. Yeah, it just feels like when you see stuff like that, you go like, oh, you just want my money. This isn't a community, this isn't a game. That's why I'm so proud of the Reddit community for college football. And I'm proud of the streamers. There was a couple major streamers. So with the streamers did, and they point out a couple of changes by the way, that I also just want to detail is because one of the other things they did, which had not happened before, apparently, is that they introduced the XP/ virtual currency/ college football points thing into single player modes. So that's what that's if you were to say like what is the felony like what is the absolute crime they did is that they brought it to single player which felt weird because you're like I'm alone. I'm just like in my office playing this at 130 in the morning like I don't why do I got to pay to progress faster. I'm going to play all the plays. I like the progression. The work is the fun. It's a game. Right now what I want to establish for people who are just listening. We don't know anything about this topic at all is that on the internet the influencers, the streamers that you're referencing, particularly a guy named Bordeaux. Yeah, Bordeaux is a huge college football streamer. He does like, you know, he does like a program build and people love it. With Kentucky. That's his team. Okay. Yeah. There's a couple people. One guy does Hawaii. One day goes Kentucky and it's fun. You pick a school that traditionally isn't good at college football. And they get to do the thing that real life doesn't give them, which is the satisfaction of winning a national champion. And by the way, I'm not joking when I say it's my favorite football game of all time. I lost in the playoffs to Tennessee. I'm sorry Oliver. You were starting at right tackle. And it was fun. I got home from the airport yesterday. Katie and I hung out and watched some golf. And then I was like, I'm going to all I got the playoffs. And I went in and I lost. And she like, we laugh about it. We make jokes where she's like, that's like, she'll act like a college football life. That's all right, honey. I like Katie. Sandra Bullock in the blind side version of your video game. See them. You block them. They're trying to tackle. Yeah, that's what she really does. But it it's it was it it grossed me out. It grossed me out. And then you and then so to see streamers who usually fall in the line who are there because if you give us the product we love, we are typically you to assume very compliant. We're going to help sell the thing you want us to sell. Companies have forgotten that we want to buy stuff. You don't have to shove it down our throats. You don't have to trick us. You don't have to trap us. Make good stuff and we'll buy it. All these venture capitalist groups come in and buy it. And I'm not surprised this move is happening with EA sports because now that Jared Kushner and the Saudi collective. Are you mentioning perhaps the fact that there's a headline on front office sports that reads literally Saudis, comma, silver, late comma, Jared Kushner take EA private in a $55 billion deal from September of 25. This is my advice to anyone that is kind of like me and kind of stupid walking through this world and right now going to themselves. Why is everything starting to suck a lot more? Private equity venture capitalism. No one owns the product they sell anymore. No one owns the product they buy anymore. No one is selling you anything. You're not going. Mr. Duncan isn't selling me this. No, you walk out of GameStop with a physical disc. Yeah. And now I mean we'll get to. Because there's a lot to bring up because Sony is moving away from the physical disc which is basically saying everything you thought you were buying and holding as a customer you actually are just licensing. It can't just be CEOs and the guys at the top of the company's getting bigger and bigger bonuses and and stuff running the way it's supposed to. Well the question for EA sports was it turns out we just made in that in that aforementioned headline over $500 million on the most successful video game of all time in the world. How can we make more? That's where it's broken. But the thing that has happened on this online community on the subreddits on YouTube is that there was effectively an organized revolution. There was and this hasn't happened in quite some time. There was a hashtag hashtag CFB play don't pay basically what it was was like even if you pre-ordered the game even if you have the game do not do the micro transactions do not give them that extra money which by the way I wasn't going to anyways. So what are the things we did by the way because I was trying to understand this like what are people who work in video games think we contacted a guy named Michael Brooke who was an EA game designer from 1987 to 2001. Okay. So that is a fertile period but in the before era. It was honestly it was like um he put them he set them up to become the dynasty that they became in the 21st century. And when Michael Brooke told us among several things he said he's very passionate about this question about in-game micro transactions. He said quote I believe that in-game micro transactions can be a wonderful way of adding features to the base game only gamers interested in those features need pay for them when these additional features entail at a development testing licensing costs they often do they're a way of extending gameplay value and have been a standard part of sports games for at least 60 years. However if these micro transactions are improperly implemented for instance by removing or disabling features that were previously free or obviously have no relation to additional costs gamers will see through the marketing gimmick and will express their wrath. In general it is important for those implementing and setting pricing for micro transactions features to work with gamers and developers to tune the gameplay elements. You wouldn't have your marketing guys be the sole determinant on how fast players run in a game or how accurate they throw and you shouldn't have them be the primary determinant on how quickly a dynasty player progresses. End quote. And so the idea here that he's expressing with clarity is the marketing guys. Yeah. How do you get the money up guys? Yeah they're controlling everything. They I think they're controlling everything in every asset every aspect of society right now and turning them into assets. Yeah they're literally trying to turn everything into an asset. How do we how do we charge with it? I'm in my 40s. I don't have a kid. All I do is work. I still play video games. If you were to tell me for 399 that I could download every uniform from 1982 for the teams and they'd be available. Hell yeah I'd give you that 399. I give you that 599. I'd go that's so cool. I definitely want to see that and you know or if it's just the big 12 uniforms or something like that something that's like a add-on like he said that is clearly an add-on of value to the game that you can choose if you'd like. If you want or not but it will not affect the basic game. I completely agree with that. I'm always down like I said for DLC packs. Right downloadable downloadable content which is usually extras that come with games that you play where you get more of a game if you want it. Right you so you pay again you. It's just it's in a lot of ways it's like a second serving of food if you want it. Right. It's the it's the super size of fries. You're going to get fries fine. 99 cents more you get more fries and you go great you don't have to it's not you know what I mean but you can if you want that's what they should keep it. Now the thing that began happening and I I want to take us to 2k here for a second because this became sort of like the ghost of Christmas future for all of these I think streamers they saw the way in which NBA 2k which was a competitor once upon a time to NBA live and then I think it beat NBA live. Herb stomped it. Yeah which is crazy because I was an NBA live. You do. EA sports that was EA. And then you played 2k the first time and you went well do you remember NBA do you remember NFL 2k. Yeah because NFL 2k was a legit threat to mad. So when we say there used to be competitors and now there are fewer of them this is what we mean like there used to be direct head to head competitors doing the same thing. And man got nervous and EA got nervous and they went and bought all the NFL rights. So so 2k couldn't make an NFL game. You can't make the NFL game if you don't have the NFL. And so that's what 2k did against EA where they went well we're the best basketball game we're going to go get the licensing. And at a certain point 2k asks themselves the question that every corporation in America asks itself these days which is how can we make it so for effectively very little margin we can extract a lot more profit. Yeah and I think what they saw was the boom of online competition of players reaching out playing each other the birth of streaming the birth of like you know PewDiePie and doing all that stuff really led way to these people going twitch twitch was entire platform going I want to watch these people play 2k I want to watch and talk shit I want to see him get good and it's fun to watch the guy's good at 2k they're talking you watch a guy get mad it's so fun they saw that and they went what if we just make that and it like almost the heart of the game the city it's called the city that's what it is and you basically walk around with a created character bump into other people my player is the mode the my player mode and you can go online and play as your character against other characters online or with them you can run you know 3v3 for you know but this is it what it became is effectively like every one who plays a sports video game gets to build their own like role playing game avatar and when you make your avatar what they found out was they could put shoes and shorts and shirts and hairstyles and tattoos and watches. And as these things that you used to unlock if you played the game. - Yeah, like bonuses. - That's basically what they-- - Little prizes. - I would say at the heart of it for anyone that plays video games, you saw this. They took quote unquote, "unlockables" and just made them microtransactions. - Right. - So they just went, "Oh, you could unlock this if you play this game long enough. F*** that, give me 10 bucks." - You have to spend, it turns out, according to the user Jimmy4real, this is on a Reddit post four years ago. You have to spend more to purchase a 2K virtual do rag, $5, then you would on a real life. - That's very funny. That's very funny that if you just want to go get a wave, cap it a bodega, it's like $2.99. - $15,000 VC is what that costs. - Exactly, what you're like, I don't know what that is. What is that? I'm not an economist, I'm not an online economist. - But that's the question of like, wait a minute. We could build an entire marketplace in which people are enthusiastically gonna pay more than they would for the real physical objects, and we don't have to manufacture any of it. - Yeah. - What a deal. (upbeat music) - By the way, 2K, whoever's working there is just like hungrier and hungrier for more microtransactions, because they completely ruin the WWE franchise. - Okay, so through microtransaction. - So what happened to your favorite - Now real, now come with me to a lower level of nerd, to the seventh circle of nerd 'em. I'm a huge wrestling fan. I love WWE 2K, it's just a fun thing to do it. The thing that made WWE 2K the best wrestling game, and honestly, there were others that tried to compete. It wasn't the game play, the game plays fine, it's fun, it's very fun, it was the creator wrestler suite. So basically, you could create any wrestler that's ever existed to put him in the game, but the thing was as they made the creation suite so good that these guys online were making better models than in the game, where you go, "Whoa, that looks more like Roddy Piper than Roddy Piper." And you go, "That's great." And there was this community center where you could just type in a wrestler's name and then you'd see all the ones that were created and you could go through 'em. From that, you could follow the creator of that guy to see who else they created and they created this community. But what it was, and it was for a long time, cross platform. So Xbox users were bumping into PlayStation users, who were bumping into PC users, who were bumping into Switch users. And they're all making creator wrestlers and trading 'em. And it's this community where basically you're like, "Hey, this guy, there are guys who make, who you know every year they're famous." And like I follow a couple online and they go like, "Hey, the new WWE's out, here's who I've made so far." And you look at 'em and go, "That rendering is awesome." This guy's so good, 2K went, "Whoa, whoa, whoa." You guys are having too much free fun. So they created this thing, which was called the Island, based off Roman Reigns' character in the island of relevancy. And so two years ago, they put in the island, which was an online marketplace. So you want the Stone Cold Steve Austin shirt with the skull on it, go to the island and spend your VC points and then you can unlock it. You want Cody Rhodes' boots from WrestleMania, go to the island and wrestle, but then what it did was, it stopped cross platform sharing. So it basically cratered the creator wrestler movement. So now no one, now if you're PlayStation, you can only see the ones the guys on PlayStation make. So now these creators, these guys who were doing really good, and honestly, some of them were starting to turn careers out of it. Streaming, making it, you know, look good. These guys go, "Listen, I gotta make this on Xbox." And I gotta go make it on PlayStation. I gotta make it on PC. And it just fucked everything up and you saw it was for that. And where it got worse was this year, they were taking unlockable things that you would just unlock in the game and putting them on the island for money. - When has making an exclusive island ever backfired? - Never. I don't even think inviting the wealthy to an island for a thing that most decent humans would find disgusting. It's never backfired. And in fact, they've never covered that up. What's crazy is two K's like drunk with power. And this year they put, I didn't buy, this is the first year I didn't buy WWE 2K. I'm done with it. I don't need it. I don't want it. - You guys don't want it. - I don't want it. Because what happened is they put it out again. And now, so it used to be a thing and WWE 2K fans will tell you, if you're an older guy and you don't want to grind out the game and play like the thing where you do it, they would do a micro transaction. Where they go, we have a thing called the season pass. Pay 20 bucks and you get every DLC we drop. It'll automatically download and you get it. But 20 bucks, you get all of them. Or five bucks per one and they usually drop like five or six. So it would make sense. I go give me 20 bucks. You also unlock all the venues, all the belts, all the secret things that you have to unlock. Now 2K goes, give us money for your DLC. And you pay him and they go, great, now you gotta grind it out in the game. So now, it's the worst of both worlds. I'm paying you money and I have to go do this match that I don't want to do or I have to do a thing that literally has me angry at the game. I don't wanna do that. - I like to imagine you as the guy who was like master of frankly the voices, the-- - Two voices, really, for being honest. I'm working on a Roddy Piper. - So what are the two? - Matrimann and Andre Giant. Those are probably the two wrestling voices I can really do. - What is, what is, what is sad Andre the Giant think about? - This is so horrible, this is still my honor. But it is, it, listen man, it's what I was telling you. We want to buy it. Don't fuck us over. And that's all they're doing. They're like-- - It feels, I'll use that word. It feels predatory. I would tell you right now we are at a stage in society where most capitalism is predatory. - Where we are in the, in the US economy has made all of these companies seem particularly unwurried and frankly desensitized to what it is when customers might gather and organize and cause something. - Well then the thing that really outrages me and probably a lot of people, the thing that really pisses me off is the foe concern, which is what we talked about with EA, what they released, the statement. - After the revolution on the internet, there was a statement. - They put out a statement on Sunday. That was kind of like, yeah, you guys are pissed. It's like, that was the energy like they did when they were like, whoa, like the storekeeper came out to the front. I love it when they post, I love it when any statement is a JPEG and all the text, 'cause there needs to be a lot of it, is so tiny. - 'Cause that isn't the first draft. - No, that was the first draft that they cooked up. That went through seven layers at EA. - Happy college football, 27 launch week, big text, red font, and then it goes. - And then it turns through a whisper. - Happy college football. - Hey, we really f**k up back there, I'm really sorry. - Thank you for your continued passion for the crisis. - Guys, you're like a really super pissed. Are you guys really that pissed? I talked to a couple streamers. - And effectively, they're saying, we're gonna undo this. Da, da, da, for now. Tomorrow morning, we will remove all paid progression options from road to glory and online dynasty, got unfortunate side effects of removing paid progression is that players have college point balances in their wall. It's that we'll not be able to apply the balance road to glory or dynasty, so jump in between now. And then apply your points, exclamation point. And then it gets to the, like a, and this is like the post credits scene. - You gotta watch post credits. If Marvel's taught us everything, it's don't leave until after the credits. - Our goal for live service plans and CFB28 and beyond will be to deliver valuable features and content with greater transparency and communication. - Basically, I'm gonna go wash my junk in the sink and then next year I'm throwing it right back in you. That's what they're doing. They are, this is not gonna improve. - It's not over. - This is not gonna regress. This isn't going to change. They are literally gonna wait for us to get so lost in our 24 hour news cycle that next July, they launch college football 28 and to start the game, you need to pay $10 every time. You know what it feels like? - To stick the key in the ignition. - It feels like, I don't know if you've ever had friends with horrible drinking problems that have received multiple DUIs. But this feels like when those people have the blow and the breathalyzer to start their car, that's what they want out of video games. They just go like, yeah, here you go. You wanna play the game, give me 20 bucks right now. - So this is where we are though, is that I used to grow up subscribing to a game pro. - Shout out game pro. - Dude, I bought a game shark. - Yeah, I had a game shark on my 64. - Yup, yup. - Who will wielding gold and eye? - Oh my god. - How did you not with two AKs? Good luck. Good luck. Good luck not getting through the damn on that one just untouched the just just sitting in a bathroom as odd job Yeah, double barrel. Yeah, dude. Just looking up cuz you always did a look up. Yeah, I'm so short. Yeah, do you do that with the point being that like I am not Some sort of paragon of video game morality. I loved cheat codes. Yeah, there are no cheat codes anymore. No, there aren't and because because they became My kids. Yeah, it became oh, you don't have to type in a code like I remember learning the ammo code on Grand Theft Auto Yes, and then you play it for a while and then you go this kind of makes the game on fun I'm gonna go back to when I was saved and I and I had to go find ammo But it's fun to learn that and that's like a life less than you learn and and the idea is that They saw what people sort of hungered for and they wanted okay Well, if we could charge you for that cool, but the thing that is happening next because you mentioned Grand Theft Auto is that GTA 6 the most anticipated video game in the history of Earth It easily. I mean this thing has been built up for over I mean for years and it's and they've announced it's coming out in 2026 It's been 13 years launching November 19, 2026 and yes I guarantee we will do an episode when that comes out because I love committing terrorist acts in the virtual world It's it's gonna be crazy, but but there It will not exist as a physical disc Which is Assigned that they go we're not selling you this. You're borrowing this that's all you're doing and I don't know if you ever borrowed Video games back in the day. Oh blockbuster. Yeah, all the time There was this feeling of Insecurity when you did it where you go, but I got I got to play it so much because I got to return it or my friend needs it back And then you'd go like and then when you owned it you go I own this I can like sink into this game and I can even resell it later If I want to I can make my money back. So during COVID People were reselling NCAA 2014 for like 260 bucks a disc. Oh, man because people wanted to play the game so bad and this was before College football came back right that people were like online you could find people selling it for a crazy amount of money So now where we are the state of the video game union is you don't actually buy video games You rent them you pay for them via subscription services as everywhere in media wants to sell you subscriptions because that's how they get more money from you Sure, sometimes you'll forget. Am I still subscribed to that to Hulu? Oh, man I just got one that made me so mad that came up where I was like how am I still subscribed to that? It was like I which one was it exactly There's only streamers right away. I just have to shut off my whole credit card, but we don't even know we lose track And so you'll be subscribing individually to dozens upon dozens potentially a video game Is this is this podcast episode been in the lab rock and mortgage ad? Rock and mortgage. I'll show you all the subscriptions I have. I'll pop up. Yeah, got me. I thought we were talking about microtransactions The fact that the multiplayer mode, which is where the VC economy first sort of metastasized into the thing that took over everything else the fact that when you show up online as your avatar dressed however you have been able to afford sure you end up meeting people for whom the distinguishing characteristic is you spent all of this money. Yeah That's what this is all signaling you can't afford this. Yeah, but you can go broke trying but you can and it is that is You know when we did the episode with Katie at our apartment we were playing Rocket League You can do quick chat when you're playing people on Rocket League and one of the things they used to say when someone was flying around with the car Was they'd be like they would write in the chat and you buy credits. It was like a diss. It was like you buy credits You didn't work your way up you bought that and by the way some of the buy credits. Yeah, you go. Yeah, I did I barely I mean I don't play Rocket League anymore, but when I did play it I'd be like okay. I want that Wolverine skin. I'll spend VC 5,000 VCs or whatever, but it wasn't I wasn't beholden to it I wasn't like oh if I want to play the game I have to do this or if I want to play the game better I have to do this But the thing that seems to be returning as comments like that occur and revolutions on the internet like this happen is something like and again It's the rarest commodity now, but this statement in its tiny font sort of implies it. Yeah, maybe shame is possible I think it's a really Big part of society that is like a flavoring that you just can't overdo it And I also think you can't shame people for being themselves, but what you sure as hell can do is shame people for greed Yes, and that is something that we don't do as an alcoholic I've been shamed for it as someone with an addictive personality wealth is an addiction There are people running our country right now that are addicted to wealth They want all the wealth and what that does is it sucks up all the resources for people at the other end that don't have any Resources that don't have any wealth. I'm not talking about communism I'm just talking about loosening the chokehold that five nerds have on our entire civilization It's like it really is it just five dorks that couldn't get put in high school and they're just taking down the whole Planet and it's like I it's like dude. I want to act I want to be an active member of a capitalist Society if I have a good weekend and I want to put new boots on Roddy Roddy Piper Let me put new boots on my baby if I want to go by but have them where I can it's a DLC It's something that's not that you're not you don't have a gun to my head and I also collectively would say We need to Wrestle with the idea of sacrificing convenience for community It's just a thing that I think we need to do It's it sucks that you're you're out of socks. It's I know you don't want to get in the car and go to target or Walmart or Whatever shoe stores buy you and buy the new sock. I feel like you're now giving a coaching pep talk to Kansas State to Oliver Well, I'll tell I don't tell Oliver anything that guy's diets right. I'm been looking at his preseason workout We're talking IRL Oliver's doing great Yeah, man, I just I feel like man humans rule. It's so fun being friends with humans and hanging out with them And why are we isolating ourselves and hating ourselves so that Jeff Bezos can have another boat for his weird sex lizard wife to crawl around on You know what I mean? How about you how about just pay the people that work in the fulfillment centers a good wage Walmart Pay your employees well and then they shop at Walmart and then the money comes back to you It's almost like if you treated people well it would come back to you Let's just do that idea stop and EA I promise you That if next year there's micro transactions. We're good We're good. I can play this game Or until you tell me I can't I will lease this game from you and I'll play college football 26 Until the wheels fall off the word I think of the word that I think is the through line in In the motivational speech that I think America needs to hear And also the thing that EA and all these other companies need to worry about is in the end competition The value of having to compete and earn What it is that you think you deserve and I will I will argue do a capitalist someone that might have disagree with a lot of points that I'm making Isn't that the best part is a free market? Isn't the whole point that this is a free market and that If someone isn't doing something right someone can respond and do it better and then And then the customers go there so There might be a compute you know a video game developer that has an idea for a wrestling game that's The game play is more fun and the creative character suite is big and you can make all these characters and we don't worry about it It's all free. It's all fun and then all of a sudden they make that and it gets a push online Well now 2k is going to be like there's another wrestling game. How do we squash them? Right Instead of going like how do we make ours better? How do we compete? How do we the competition is how America got great It's what makes America great is competition is true competition and also part of that is the losing Mm-hmm part of losing is like To me personally When you lose It's so motivating there's not a more motivating thing than getting beat at something and going like I want to get better at that I want to get better at it so I can win at it What isn't American is getting beat at something and then going well then I don't want it Well, then I don't want it. It's like well, that's loser That's how you're a loser is if you lose and you give up If you lose go win just go compete, but I hope to God someone starts competing with these companies Dan Soder Thank you for taking me on a journey through Frankly your childhood and yeah, I'm sorry I really just dumped on you there a lot, but it sucks because I think It's such a fun thing. It's such video games are supposed to be like a dessert And you're like making it feel like homework or you're making it feel grimy and gross. It's just like Just come on man Let's just have fun. I just traveled all day. I just want to play with Kansas State. I just want to beat Tennessee, which I will. I'll get my revenge on Tennessee in the playoffs and go Wildcats. I'm all about the cats. (upbeat music) This has been Pablo Torres finds out a metal-lark media production. And I'll talk to you next time. (upbeat music)