The Giant Beastcast: Episode 17

I haven't finished listening to the podcast yet so I'm sorry if this was discussed. Didn't Gamestop do some thing in recent years where they were gutting games that came with digital codes and removing them rather than ceasing the sales of the games? Anyone else remember this? or am I remembering this incorrectly?

Oh right! It was Deus Ex! http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/08/report-gamestop-opening-deus-ex-copies-removing-free-game-code/

Oh man I want Vinny's MGS Roster Mod so bad now. Finally I can create my base of Spaceballs characters. How many assholes we got on this base anyway?!?

Finally some Hockey talk!!

NHL 16 sounds average at best, maybe I'll get it on sale but not with it's $80 price tag!

The "no more pure designers" thing has been done before- Valve's policy is to hire generalists, or at least people they think have the ability to pick up other skills once they're on a project. Their whole roller-desk democracy stuff only works if individual employees can find projects that match their capabilities.

The disconnect comes in when you think of the speed of the mobile product cycle and then look at Valve's "when we feel like it" approach to releases.

e: the Pod F. Tompkast is dead! Long live Spontaneanation!

I hereby declare with my limited, perspective-reinforced, single-source video games website viewership - this is the best podcast about video games, bar none.

Austin dropping The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction knowledge in the first 10 minutes. Awwwwwwwwwww yiss. Gonna be a good podcast.

Every time there's a discussion about the all-digital future, it becomes more and more obvious how much of a disconnect there is between what the press expects/wants and what is actually available to consumers. Ignoring that fact that internet in the States just flat out sucks in general, there's also the little problem of availability. The number of people without high speed internet is still depressingly high, and even for a lot of those that do have it, we have to deal with arbitrary data caps (like, most of the South). 30GB game downloads aren't just a thing that we can all do every month and ISPs aren't going to just back down and open up again.

Google Fiber is expanding at kind of a pathetic rate and unless they manage to lay down cable everywhere, we're still a ways off.

Let's get to a point where internet isn't a joke in this country before we start trusting the entire distribution of the medium to it. We're still a decade off, at least.

Free users are missing out on the premium screams. I highly recommend them.

Also, internet in the US is not nearly great enough to transition to a digital future. Many cities are still waiting for delivery of decent broadband.

NSFW - Persona conspiracy!

The Kingdom Hearts series has always had terrible names. I usually use short hand (like in this case just calling it 2.8). But I don't pay too much attention to the names because the games are very enjoyable.

I'm glad Vinny picked up on it being the same initials as Final Cut Pro too.

My twitter feed told me this is the best one and I agree.

I'd be more okay with stupid long podcast ads if they were advertising say... a website that sells sex toys, but yeah, I'm definitely reaching the line where it doesn't matter how much they try to inject some silly into the ad reads, I'm zoning out for that minute-plus they're shilling one of the 4 different companies that advertise on podcasts all the time.

Ugh, I downloaded the premium version after reading this (after hitting the free scream point on the normal podcast) and they were exactly the same. YOU LIED TO ME.

@xbob42: Nah, man. There's more nuance to the premium scream. The premium scream comes from the heart.

@arbitrarywater: I agree. Podcast advertising would be less annoying if there were more advertisers. I don't know how many times I can stand hearing about Audible and Lootcrate. Podcast popularity hit a new peak last year so perhaps more advertisers are on the way. At least Giantbomb tries their best to make the advertising enjoyable.

@redyoshi: I missed those bootleg dbz tapes.Had a bunched of downloaded copies on my hdd when I was young!

@nayson: Nice breakdown there - I wasn't actually a Top Gear person until Forza introduced the walk around stuff and I had a brief sting selling for BMW North America so cars became much more of a focus for me. I'll miss that Top Gear feeling of those three, but I think they'll be able to craft something cool with Amazon, hoping it's not just a copy/paste of the BBC format they used for years though.

Persona 4 is on PSN, so you don't need to buy a Vita to play it.

You only need a Vita if you want to play Golden. I say either version is fine.

This season is just OK. I've gone back to finish Lain.

Also there are still a lot of games that only come out in Japan. We are seeing more come over though, and to the PC.

@austin_walker P4 used glasses to invoke the Personas iirc, not cards. Although tarot cards played a big part of the game.

Really? Everything I took away from this was that they WANT the all digital but understand that it's hard to achieve. Your post especially gives Austen zero credit, which is super unfair considering how much he references the comments of the story in question alone.

i just ff the ads no big deal.

The glasses were for seeing through the fog, not summoning.

My mistake then. Been awhile since I've played the game.

And they said multiple times that they very well understand that there are good reasons for people not to want to go all digital. They said they want it because it fits their lifestyle.

i think Chie's voice in Golden is perfect. Its way better and fits the character perfectly, she just sounded like an uninterested 30 year old woman in the original game.

Wholeheartedly agree!

Also I love all the extra MGS talk left and right! Really hoping for East Snakecast in a few weeks. :p

On the topic of fly over states internet. I live in a town in South-Central Iowa with a population of about 4,000. We can get 50 Mbps for around $60 a month.

Still waiting for that Gender Bender Mode in Shovel Knight, though. I really think they made too many promises with their Kickstarter stretch goals.

Her old voice was a little less stereotypically "anime" than her newer voice actress, and some people appreciated that. I think Erin Fitzgerald does a better job in general though.

Vinny, Alex, Austin, Jeff², I have a lot appreciation for you all keeping yourselves updated on gaming news. It's finally like I'm listening to a games podcast on a site covering games and people are doing research related to their job, and I am not alone in feeling much less writing this: The east is the be(a)st. If I had no more than three podcast hours per week it would be this, because even I am learning new game things through it. May your bonuses be sweet and your winters warm. (Addendum: All this while also maintaining a more than tasteful suitable amount of personality and off-topic. This is great, this is the benchmark.)

(the PSN issue is something being f'd up on Amazon's side of hosting, you gotta pause and resume until you get a server willing to give you something resembling "full" speed no matter where you are in the world, and it sucks.)

Oh Vinny. I wish everything came out everywhere. I wish I could have an Idolm@ster game in English that isn't a 60 dollor IOS game. I wish I hadn't stayed up all night for that IM@S TGS thing for nothing. I wish Bamco loved me.

Loved the mostly informed discussion of fair use and the 9th circuit decision from Austin. Most people understandably either despise or don't try to understand the important legal decisions, but Austin had a pretty good grasp of what was at issue and what was decided. A rarity among non-legal sources and really crucial in my opinion to have non-legal people discussing these things intelligently. We were just debating this decision intently at a conference I was at and whether it shifts things for big media companies.

The real interesting thing is whether Courts themselves through fair use or other measures will start tamping back on copyright law, assuming Congress doesn't do anything themselves. The Supreme Court has been forcing huge changes in patent law recently recognizing abuse by patent-holders and pulling back on the ability to get software or business method patents. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a similar effort in the next decade or so on copyright. There have been some decisions indicating some sort of shift with developments in first sale and a doctrine called copyright misuse.

Lawyers tried a big frontal attack on our entire copyright system and the insane 100+ year copyright terms 10-15 years ago as harmful to the public domain and unconstitutional but unfortunately were rebuffed by the Supreme Court. But I've long thought laws like the DMCA have some real weaknesses on enforcability or constitutionality.

I completely disagree, I think the voice fits Midori from Devil Survivor, but using the same thing for Chie was a bad idea.
Chie's new voice is the only one I hate. I never used her in Persona Q becasue of how annoying she sounds now.

@dobedobedo:

I sure would like to live an everyday life with monster girls

Has Ep 18 not been uploaded or does it just not have ads?

20:00. I'm time stamping this for myself for future reference because that is the best shit.

@mento:

This is a complicated thing and I can't really speak to Half Brick. But I can say I'm really frustrated with everyone being separated into buckets in the first place.

I also studied game design in college. But I also learned how to program because it seems like a required skill. But since programming is the more "valuable" skill, that seems like it's all that companies want from me. I've definitely felt the frustration of watching designers get to tackle all the creative work when I've felt like I could contribute, then I get it handed off to me to code up. One time after presenting a few ideas of my own, I had a designer straight up ask me "Are you trying to steal my job?"

I've preferred an environment where people got to work closely together, were empowered to make some of their own decisions and were allowed to bring the full breadth of their skill to the table, instead of it being like "You are programmer. Here is assignment. Do it and wait for further instructions." Obviously team/project size also plays a big part into what is practical as far as team organization goes.

I don't blame designers for my frustrations and I don't think getting rid of people who specialize in design is the answer. But I've definitely been frustrated with some of these issues in the past. Changing the environment/structure is probably a better idea then firing designers though...

First I've heard about the Persona 5 trailer's "blurred letters." Super interesting -- let's hope it goes somewhere.