Should a Gaming Platform be Liable for Harm to Children? #349

Foreign.

We're a weekly gaming podcast where our mission is simple to bring to light and discuss topics that have an impact on our gaming hobby and at the same time highlighting our diverse gamer community.

Also remaining dedicated to our origins.

Guardian Down Join me, Todd the Gator and my co host Kingsley Mack as we invite a rotating list of guest co hosts every week to join us at the Guardian Down Roundtable.

And now let's get to it.

What's up Guardians?

Welcome to episode 349 of the newly branded Guardian Down Roundtable.

Join me, Todd de Gator and my co host Kingsley Mack as we invite a rotating list of guest co hosts every week to join us at the Guardian Down Roundtable.

Your seat in the conversation.

Our mission simple to create a dialogue concerning topics and news that impact our gaming hobby all while keeping the focus on our community.

We go live every Thursday night 9:00pm Eastern on my YouTube and Twitch account channels.

That is Todd the Gator T O D D T H E G A T R as well as our Discord Live stage.

Welcome everybody in our Discord Live stage tonight.

We have some a good hangout here.

Appreciate you guys.

Once a month we do invite a new member from our Discord community to pull up a chair and just share their story with us.

We are a live video show with an audio version available Every Monday morning 12:02am we love the live shows but we love interacting with our live chat even better.

So give us your input, let us know where you stand on some of the topics we're talking about tonight.

And let's start by checking in with my great co host from the great I guess state of Utah, Mr. Kingsley Mack.

How you doing Mike?

How's it going tonight man?

I'm doing good, I'm chill.

I can survive against crazy drivers.

Okay.

All right.

We were having a pre pre show discussion but we don't need to get into it here.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

That was our pre pre show conversation.

I'm very observant.

You know.

That's why I do well driving and in raids.

I know exactly what's going around me at all times and I can't tell you how many times I've gotten out of a sticky situations where I probably would have gotten in an accident due to someone else.

Yeah, you.

But I've never gotten any bad accidents.

You have to have your head on a swivel when you drive in Florida.

That's all I'll say.

Especially on i4, that's for sure.

So here we go thinking Florida is.

The worst all right, well, let's introduce our guest co host.

Tonight we have two.

Our first gamer.

He's been a member of our community for over two years now.

He organizes raids and other activities every week in our Discord server using our OWL sector bot.

And I think you guys do raids and Crucible nights.

You do all kinds of things, but he organizes those on his twitch channel and TikTok.

I believe you do it live on TikTok as well.

You can hear his original interview with us back on episode 277 titled Destiny 2 and the Frame rate question.

He's also been a returned guest back on episode 314 where we talked about our initial impressions of Edge of Fate from the great state of North Carolina.

It's HD Tech.

He's back again.

How you been, man?

Good, good.

Thank you for having me here tonight.

Life's been good.

Good, man.

Just busy.

But you know, health's good, family's good, life is good and could be, could be worse.

I like it.

I like it, man.

Well, thanks again for coming on the show tonight and welcome, sir.

We appreciate you.

Our second guest coast.

This is his first appearance on our show.

He's been a part of our community for nearly a year and he's always had good feedback in our show Feedback channel in our Discord and in the past we've, you know, we decided to just ask him to be part of our show tonight as well.

From the great state of Texas, it's Zariel.

How are you doing tonight, sir?

Doing very good.

Good to be here.

Thanks, man.

I can't wait to hear more.

Glad to have you.

Yeah, it's going to be fun tonight.

So here's what we have lined up on the show tonight, guys.

First, we're going to start things off by getting to know Zariel a little better.

We'll also put him through the paces with our Speedrun segment, which if you don't know, is a random list of 25 questions submitted through our community over all these years we've been doing it.

So I'll be curious to see what his answers are to that tonight as well.

Next, Kingsley Mack is back with his Kingsley's Corner with a K where he'll catch us up with any current news in gaming and tech.

Then we're going to take a break from the discussion.

Check in with our weekly Destiny roundup where we highlight any news and information concerning Bungie, Destiny 2 and Marathon, and we have news in all those areas tonight.

Then it's on to topic number two, where HD Tech wants to discuss something that he's at least what he says he's a little worried about in the auto industry that may have a widespread impact, including among US gamers.

And then for the final topic of the show, I'm going to discuss some information that has come to light concerning a game and the community surrounding it that have been in the news lately.

And you might be surprised by what some of the information that I've found to be going on in this community.

After which point we'll of course shift into our catch up segment where everyone will share any highlights of their week, what they've been gaming, what they've been watching, what they've been up to really.

And at the end of the show, if time allows, we'll answer some questions from our community as well.

So if you do have a question for us, make sure you enter it in our podcast questions channel in our Discord community.

Again, that's Discord.

GG Guardian Down Roundtable.

It has been changed to Guardian Down Roundtable.

Now, that other invite will not work anymore, so just keep that in mind.

Or if you want to send us an email or a voicemail, just go to guardiandowncast.com and it'll show you where to do all of that.

So if everyone's ready, let's roll tonight.

Hey, Guardians, even though we're now the new Guardian Down Roundtable, all the ways you can contact us are the same.

Just go to guardiandowncast.com where you can email us, write us a review, send us a voicemail that we might air on the show, by the way, and even listen to past episodes where you can also search for a particular guest of the show.

You know, I use this every week to find past episodes that our guest roundtablers are from so you can go back and hear them and hear their story.

Guardian downcast.com all right, first off, we want to talk to Zariel and hear more about his gaming pass.

So let's let us jump in here.

First, I want to start off.

Zariel, welcome to the show, by the way.

And you said you live in Texas.

Approximately where in Texas do you live?

What area of Texas do you live?

So I'm, I'm on the south side towards Corpus Christi.

Okay.

If anybody knows where that's at.

Is that near the beaches?

They have like the beaches in Corpus Christi, I'm trying to remember.

Yes.

Yeah, I'm on the coast.

I'm a little small town just to the north of there called Sinton.

Okay, cool.

But it's in that area.

So cool deal, man.

I don't think we've ever had anybody from Corpus Christi.

That's pretty cool, man.

Are you married?

Do you have any kids?

I am married.

No kids.

Okay, all right.

Been married since 2008, but unfortunately no children.

Okay, all right.

That's fine.

That's cool.

What do you do for a living, sir?

So I'm an inspector with a Chenier LNG chemical plant.

Oh, so you're a quality control inspector?

Inspector.

Inspector, basically, yes.

Gotcha.

Inspector.

Yes.

I'm.

I'm more on the office side.

Okay.

But technically my title is an inspector.

But I review a lot of the data that our field techs bring back in, do analysis on them.

Okay.

Make predictions for future runnings, and try to keep the product in the pipes.

Okay.

Very cool.

Very cool.

Let me ask you this.

When.

When did your.

When did your gaming hobby start?

What was the earliest?

I guess video game console or PC or.

When did.

When did it all start?

When you got into gaming?

So I was a little kid sitting on my dad's lap playing on the Commodore 64.

Ooh.

Way back.

Way back in the day.

So you got an early.

I don't even remember the name of the.

Yeah, I don't remember the name of the games we had back then.

I don't either.

I don't remember them.

I don't remember them either.

I didn't get.

I didn't use the Commodore.

I was.

I started on the.

What was it?

The.

The IBM home personal computer.

The very first bot is like a terrible looking box.

It was the ugliest looking thing ever.

But that's cool, man.

That's cool.

How did you find this game?

Destiny.

And are you a day one guardian or did you come in later in Destiny 2?

I came in later in Destiny 2.

I'm a PC player primarily.

Okay.

And of course Destiny's not on PC, so I was always interested, but I never got a chance to try it out.

First person shooters on a controller, on a console.

Just.

I've never been good at it.

Okay.

I never actually tried it, but I played the Red War Campaign.

Loved it, fell in love with it.

And then I took a break after that and was actually gone until about the last season of Beyond Light.

Okay.

And that's.

Came back to that last season.

And then Witch Queen started right up and I was hooked.

You got a.

You got a favorite moment from your Destiny pass.

Probably the first time my buddy and I got the wish ender bow.

Oh, nice.

That mission was.

The mission was A lot of fun.

And it took a long time shooting eggs.

Got to shoot them eggs.

Yeah, exactly.

That was a big map back then, man.

That was a crazy large map.

There were so many things you could do in Destiny back then.

That's crazy.

Why is the main reason.

What is the main reason you game?

I mean, what do you hope to get out of it?

Is it a challenge for your mental ability or is it more for escape?

Or why game?

Exactly.

It's more for escape, more for relaxation.

Gotcha.

Sometimes it's a de stress, but most of the time it's just for the fun of it.

Just relax and be free.

What character in the game, in other words, NPC, do you like the most in Destiny?

Destiny 2, I should say.

Used to be Zavala.

I have to go with Ikora today.

Okay.

Are you a Titan hunter or warlock?

Main titan for life.

Another crown eater.

Okay.

I'm proud of it.

I know.

I get it.

I get it.

I understand the mentality.

Are you mainly a solo player?

What is your main activity that you play?

Do you play.

You prefer to play with a fire team or are you a solo runner like I am?

I enjoy a fire team, but my work schedule and life schedule hasn't allowed as much time lately.

I used to love running strikes and dungeons on a very regular basis, but just haven't had much chance to lately.

So pop in solo missions every once in a while and hop back out.

That's cool.

How did you.

How did you.

I always liked knowing this.

How did you find our community?

Man,.

Google just started searching around.

For what?

What Destiny podcasts are available and yours was the top of the list.

And see, Kingsley, I like the.

I like the first couple shows I listened to.

So.

Yeah, this.

This is why.

This is why I don't change the website, Kingsley.

Gotta keep the Google juice going, man.

I didn't say change the website.

I said add a new one as an alias.

Yes, you said forward it.

That's right.

I gotta be fair.

So you have both.

Yeah, both, Exactly.

Zariel, when you first played Destiny 2, before they got rid of most of them, did you.

Did you do bounties.

Occasionally?

I didn't do too many bounties until, like the end of a season where it's just prepping for the next season.

Really.

I got you.

I got you.

Well, there's hardly any bounties to do anymore.

It's all Vanguard orders now.

And they got these Vanguard orders, the rare ones, I guess can give you like 50 bright dust now, I guess up To a thousand, I think, per week it is.

So I haven't taken advantage of that, but I was just curious, what is it about Titan that you like so much?

Is it your play style or.

I don't want to put words in your mouth.

Why did you pick Titan of all the other two characters?

So in most RPGs and other MMOs, I usually play the tank.

I'm a knight in shining armor kind of guy, give me the sword and shield.

And when I first tried the Titan, you know, it describes it as a fairly tank, like end of class.

And I remember the first time I tried it, I fell in love with it.

I did a hunter first and it didn't really stick with me.

I have a warlock and I didn't really stick with that, but the Titan just snagged me.

I fell in love with that as soon as I.

As soon as I started playing it.

So.

Nice, man.

Yeah.

First in, last out.

I get it.

I get it, man.

Protecting the crew.

Makes sense.

What activities are you.

Are you.

I'm.

I'm assuming that you're playing at least a little bit of Destiny 2, but you don't have to be, are you.

What activities are you enjoying right now in the game?

I've done a couple solo dungeons recently, but I haven't been playing as much in the recent to past.

I've kind of just taken a break, waiting for the next season to come out.

You and everybody else, man.

I get it.

That's why I ask you mainly in the past, because we all know we're kind of in a holding position now.

What weapon, what one weapon in your vault will you refuse to delete and why?

The exotic Kvostov that came out with.

Yeah.

What was that final save?

That's right.

That's right.

Yeah.

That and I've always been an AR guy.

I like assault rifles, I like the AR gun.

It's very comfortable for me to use and that gun just slays out it.

Just, just the first time I wiped a room with one mag, I was ecstatic.

So it reminds me of the M4A1 in battlefield.

Very, very, very similar.

Yes.

Yeah.

Very straightforward assault rifle.

Yeah, I've always liked those kinds of guns, too.

Nope.

If Bungie, you know, Bungie got worried, got problems right now.

But if they said, hey, Zariel, we're going to give you a small but versatile dev team to work on whatever you want for Destiny 2 for the future, what would you.

What direction would you go?

What would you work on for the game?

That's A. I know these days, that's a tough question.

It's like, where do you start?

But according to how you like to play the game and what you enjoy in the game, where would you.

What direction would you go?

I would like strikes to be more meaningful.

I'd like dungeons to be a little more difficult.

I wouldn't mind having more of them.

I love dungeons.

So.

Yeah, Batman said that last week.

He said about strikes being better.

I remember when strikes used to be so much fun to play.

Yeah, I agree there.

I used to love running through grandmasters with my friends.

Do you.

Do you have a motto or mantra that you live by in life?

If you're not learning?

If you're not.

If you're not learning, you're not growing.

And if you're not growing, you might as well be dead.

I like that.

That's kind of the way I live.

Perfect.

Dude, I have to ask you, what is up with that gamertag?

Zariel?

Is that a character we're supposed to.

So I used to play EverQuest.

Long time ago.

Gotcha.

And it came up on a random name generator.

Just, you know, hit random, random, random, random a few times and it came up and I fell in love with the name for some reason.

It just fit.

And I've been using that ever since.

So figure from 1999 to today, it stuck with me.

I like it.

You have any other hobbies outside of gaming?

Photography.

Nice.

Yeah.

Cool.

I like doing landscapes.

Okay.

I like landscapes.

I like that.

Very nice.

Before I ask him his last question, HDTech or Kingsley?

You guys have any questions you want to ask him before we move on?

Well, you said 99 for.

And then you said, you know, gaming on your dad's lap.

Commodore and stuff.

So it sounds like you're at least in the millennial age or older.

But, like, what other game were you?

Tell me.

Like, you don't have to tell me details on that, but, like, were you gaming in the 90s, 80s, stuff like that?

Any other games you remember doing?

Oh, Yeah, I. I'm 47 years old, so.

Okay.

That's what he was going to ask.

You, by the way, Zario, I don't mind, but.

No, you're Kingsley's age.

Pretty much, yeah.

Yeah.

90S.

The odds.

Yeah, I had.

I mean, yeah, I was the same.

I was playing Clecovision on my dad's lap, basically.

Yep, exactly.

Good times.

Good times.

Man, that was a great game console.

Way ahead of its time tech.

You got any questions?

No, no.

I was gonna hit on Kingsley Topic.

But he beat me to it, so.

See, the people want to know.

That's all right.

That's all right.

Well, then I'll.

I'll.

I'll end with this.

What's one thing that our community might not know about you, Zario?

I don't know.

I tend to keep my personal life and my gaming life kind of separate.

Sure, sure.

I'm sure there's quite a few things.

Just nothing's coming off the top of my head.

It's all right, it's all right.

You can mention it later in the catch up segment if something comes back to you.

But awesome, man.

Well, like I said, we just want to do like a quick flyover and just see what you're all about, man.

So I appreciate you hanging in there on that.

Yeah.

All right, now it's time for the Speedrun.

This is a list of 25 questions that I've handpicked from probably 1200 now that we have submitted by our community.

Like I said, they're quick and simple answers.

Quick and simple questions.

And hopefully you'll give us quick and simple answers.

It's just to know us at a kind of know you at a little bit of deeper level.

No time limits, no contest.

Like I said, just answer quickly, whatever comes to mind.

So if you're ready, Zariel, let's do this.

You ready?

Yes.

Let's do it.

Number one, what would be your ideal career or job if you could pick the astronaut?

Awesome.

Always wanted to be an astronaut.

Did you see the movie Hail Mary?

The Hail Mary Project?

No, I did not.

Okay.

I saw it this week.

I'll talk about later.

Name one possession you can't live without.

A wife.

Good answer.

Been married long enough.

You know the right answers there.

What is your favorite destiny?

Exotic.

Could be from either game.

I probably still the exotic.

Kvostov.

Right now.

Gotcha.

If you could choose, who would voice your ghost?

I like the current voice right now.

Okay.

Okay.

Void Solar Arc Stasis or Strand.

Ark.

Superman.

Titan.

I knew it.

All right.

Pulse hand cannon.

Scout or auto rifle?

Auto rifle.

Okay.

If you could live anywhere on Earth, where would it be?

Spain.

Really?

Why Spain?

Yep.

I took a photography trip there a few years ago and it's one of the coolest places I've ever been.

Culturally.

Just the people there are nice.

It's a beautiful land.

Nice.

And just the people there are amazing.

Can you speak the language?

I never.

No, I don't, but my wife does.

My wife is originally from Mexico.

So awesome.

She can kind of fit In.

But honestly, it's the most culturally diverse area I've ever been in my life.

Really.

And just seeing people so friendly amongst each other just made us feel very welcome being there too.

Simpler times, right?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I get it.

Compared to today.

Okay, name one of your favorite music artists.

Disturbed.

Okay, that gives me an idea.

Who?

Good one.

That was a good one.

That's a good one.

Yeah.

Anyway, I was going to say something.

I'm not.

What's the worst job you've ever had?

Plumber.

A plumber?

Plumbing.

Nice, dude.

Disgusting.

Redoing our drains in our bathroom.

Now I realize why plumbers get paid so much.

Yeah, that's a disgusting job.

It is a disgusting job.

I don't care how much you pay me.

I would never choose to do it again.

Oh my gosh.

Wow.

Describe yourself in one word.

Slow.

Okay.

What's the best sandwich?

Turkey.

Ham and cheese.

Okay, I won't judge then.

I like it simple like that.

Sweet or salty?

And what is your favorite snack based on that answer?

Sweet.

Reese's Pieces.

Yeah, you and me both, man.

I approve.

Yeah.

And you said it correctly.

Some people still say it weird.

Kingsley has a thing about.

About M and Ms. And candies and stuff.

Okay, so people say Reese's Pieces.

Oh, I see.

No,.

I don't know where they came from.

Right.

I don't know where that came from.

But I'm never say it that way.

I never say it that way.

No.

I'm old school.

Okay.

If you had more time, what would you do with it?

I would spend more time with my wife.

Nice.

Just hanging out with her.

She's a very cool person and.

Yeah.

Just like being with her.

Problem is we're usually both spouses are working and it like my wife and I, it's like two ships in the night sometimes.

Some.

Some days, you know, I definitely.

Yeah, she doesn't.

She doesn't game either.

So I don't even have that.

I gotcha.

Do you guys have something you share?

Don't you have a hobby you guys share together?

Okay.

We both enjoy photography and we.

We both work in the same industry right now, so we do have a lot in common.

There.

Gotcha.

All right.

Like that.

What is your favorite destiny planet and why.

Mars?

I'm very attracted to deserts.

Okay.

Just in general.

Like that Red Rock.

Gotcha.

Yep.

Okay.

What is your most favorite book you've ever read?

If you're a reader,.

It's a series of books.

The Chronicles of Amber.

It's a sci fi fantasy.

Very nice.

It's a high fantasy story.

Set of stories.

Okay.

If you could take any one famous person to dinner, who would you bring?

Sean Connery.

Oh, man.

Wouldn't that.

That's a great answer.

I think.

I think.

I think he would be a dick.

Probably up front.

But as you probably chilled with him a little longer, he'd probably.

You'd probably peel him back like an onion a little bit.

Not.

Not physically.

I mean, mentally, you know, as you talk.

As you talk with him, you know, he'd probably be a pretty.

Pretty cool dude.

Man.

I'd love to.

I think he probably would be quite a dick, but it would also be very funny.

Yeah, that's his stick.

He just seems like a cool guy to hang out with.

Yeah.

I mean, dude, he's Sean Connery.

Or he was.

Rest in peace.

Okay, if.

If you are, do you pull in or do you back into a parking spot?

If it's angled parking, I'll pull in.

If it's straight 90°, I'll back in.

Do you drive?

You must have a pickup.

No, I drive a stand.

A hybrid car.

Okay, gotcha.

But I. I generally try to drive in park with my exit strategy in mind.

Gotcha.

And in most cases, the backing in makes it easier to pull out again.

You never know, man.

If shit hits the fan, you gotta go.

It's nice to just head right on out, you know?

Yep, I get it.

Exactly.

I actually do both.

But with a big truck, sometimes I'll back in because it's just too much of a pain in the butt to back up with a pickup truck.

Okay.

Have you ever had a nickname?

Not really.

No.

Okay.

Can you drive a stick shift?

No, I cannot.

I'm not mad.

I'm just disappointed, that's all.

You live in Texas now.

Gator.

What's that?

That's a newsstander.

Now, going forward, I. I don't know.

Just.

Anyway, who is my defense?

I grew up in California, so.

Is white.

Is white chocolate actually chocolate?

I want to say yes, but I actually don't care for white chocolate that much in general.

Gotcha.

What weapon slot do you use the most for an exotic?

My primary.

Okay.

C3PO or R2D2 R2D2.

I know some of these sound like I'm repeating them, but they've kind of become a staple.

I kind of.

I kind of.

I like to compare our different guests by how they answer some of these questions.

All right.

If you had infinite money, would you still choose to work?

Yes.

I would probably reduce my hours, but I would definitely still work.

You'd be semi retired otherwise.

Gotcha.

Semi retired.

Yeah, like that.

Name one thing that you would change about yourself.

My weight.

Yeah, mine too.

I've always had issues with my weight, ever since I was a kid.

It doesn't matter how much I work out, exercise, diet.

It's just I've always fought it too, man.

I was a football player, I was always a big dude.

And it's been tough to lose it.

I gotta admit, it's been tough to lose it.

I'm with you there, man.

I'm with you there.

Well, thank you, Zariel.

You've now completed the Speedrun.

Thanks for playing along, man.

Appreciate you.

Thank you.

Hey, I got a question for all of our chat and listeners out there.

Is there a Speedrun question that you think we should ask to our future guest?

If so, we are doing it again this year, guys.

Let's hear about it.

Just go to our 2027 speedrun channel and submit your question.

At the beginning of 2027, we'll have two more drawings for a $25Amazon gift card.

So what do you have to lose, really?

We do limit your entry to one per member, but you can give us as many questions as you like and we'll be glad to steal them from you.

So let's hear it and good luck.

All right, let's get into our first topic tonight.

Be right back.

All right, it's time for our first topic.

We're going to turn to Mr. Kingsley Mack for Kingsley's Corner with a K. What's on your mind tonight, Mike?

Yeah, I got a couple small little news items here.

Sorry.

Chat's going great in Discord tonight.

I mean, chat's great everywhere, but if you consider joining the Discord, if you never have people.

And check out the chat there, too.

Oh, my God.

All right, first little.

I know.

Are we good?

Are we good?

Oh, my God.

You're welcome.

News article is I found out more about a cool thing in theory, but I don't think it's going to work out.

Apple is doing some more things with what they were trying to promote with video podcasting.

And the idea is, is that if you have a video podcast, you can already technically have a video podcast on an RSS stream.

But basically what has to happen is people download the whole file and then it just plays, right?

Nothing special, but Apple wants to start a new video streaming thing that uses HLS in the background.

And what it's supposed to do is if you're watch the video version, if you pause it and you go back later in your car, it'll do the audio version exactly where you were.

It'll pick up exactly.

So you can go from audio to video back and forth.

But I found out some more details and I don't think this is going to work because podcasting is supposed to be an open format.

They're locking it down and I'm not happy about this.

First, it's only going to work in the Apple podcast program.

It's not going to work in Spotify, it's not going to work in Overcast, it's not going to work anywhere.

And because of that, I think it's a death sentence.

People only watch video podcasts on YouTube and if Apple wanted to try to get people to watch video podcasts more, they would have it be an open standard that you can have in any of the players.

That's the only way you would have hope to compete against YouTube.

So I'm a little sad about that.

They're trying to get providers to get on board, but so far only three small podcast hosting companies have agreed.

And I don't think anyone else is going to get on board because why would they if it's only going to work with Apple podcasts and nothing else, you know, So I don't, I don't actually see the big ones getting on board like Podbean and all the other big.

I'm with Captivate.

I just switched to Captivate and man, what, they have so much, so many features compared to Libsyn where I was with.

And they have, they have, they have agreed that they will be doing hls.

So I don't think I'll be doing it because I already got it live on YouTube.

Why would I want to put it.

You know, there's a reason why they're doing this, Kingsley.

There's only one reason.

Apple's wanting to go video, and they've always been video, by the way.

But there's only one reason they want to do this.

They want those advertising dollars.

Yeah, well, yeah, because along with it, you can also do dynamic ad insertion.

You could have already already done that on audio podcasts, though.

So it's not just because of that.

I think they're trying to compete with YouTube and you can't compete with YouTube.

The only thing, what they should have done is come up with an open standard and that at least has a chance of competing with YouTube that all the providers could jump on board with.

So I don't know.

But hey, I'm fair.

I tell stories as it is even though I've had really good news about the MacBook Neo in the past, I'm all up on that.

This I'm down on.

So, you know, it's not as great a news, but we'll see what happens.

I've been, I've been.

I listen to a lot of podcasts on podcasting.

This has been a hot topic for a long time now.

So, yeah, I understand where you're coming from on this one.

I'm pretty well educated in this area.

Yep.

Okay.

Second news item is something that was very concerning to me, but I found out some more details that in practicality won't be that big of a deal.

But the FCC made a ruling that all foreign made routers going forward are going to be banned unless they get special approval.

What?

And this is absurd news because this is an example of government not knowing anything about technology because the idea, okay, here's the idea.

The idea is it's a national security risk, right?

They gave an example of a Chinese hacking group that got into some routers and was able to do some stuff.

But guess what?

They weren't even getting into the consumer grade routers.

They were getting into the business routers.

Right?

And guess what?

Business routers have an exemption from the fcc.

They're only trying to get the consumer grade routers.

So they don't even know what they're talking about here.

They're blocking the wrong ones.

Now here's the details.

Okay, so it's any router that already is being made and is on the market and still being sold can still be continued to be sold.

But new models coming out of consumer grade have to get special approval.

And even that's kind of like a.

What does that mean?

Basically, if you suck up to the fcc, what that means is if you say that you might build some more facilities in the US even if you haven't yet, but if you say you might, then you'll get a gold star.

And then you can start.

And then you can start, keep, keep your router going.

So Netgear and TP Link, which are the biggest ones, they said, we're not actually worried because they already were talking to the FCC and they're like, TP Link said, okay, we're going to start doing some manufacturing.

The US Netgear, they didn't say that yet, but they said that we'll let you see our whole supply chain.

Because the thing is, in my opinion, it's not so much where the routers are made, it's who's designing IT and Netgear and TP Link and most of these routers, they're designed in the US it doesn't really matter where they're made because if they're designed, you can show that you have supply chain checking and security all the way along the way.

So that when the router comes out of the box from the factories, you can run a actual hash code on it to see if any of the programming has changed.

And if it hasn't, then there's no way they have some kind of backdoor thing in the router.

Plus, the way the Internet is so ubiquitous that people geek out with stuff like this all the time, they will put routers behind routers.

So you, even if you're worried that your router made in another country has some backdoor, you could put another router behind that and run tests on it and see.

So it's very easy to tell.

The other thing they said was this example of being hacked into, like I mentioned was it was only on business routers and it was the reason why.

It wasn't because the business routers were US made or foreign made or anything.

It's because people weren't running the updates on the routers.

Well, duh, yes.

They're always going to be less secure if you're not running the updates.

So if anything, you should have a ruling that says routers are forced to update themselves for security reasons every once in a while.

I'm not really ultimately too concerned because A, all business routers have an exemption and B, even the consumer ones have already kind of the big ones like TP Link and Netgear have already worked out deals with the fcc.

But it's just kind of funny the examples they gave because you know, me and technology and being fair, like the examples they gave were BS examples.

I'm, I'm, I'm probably asking this question for a lot of us in the chat right now.

What is considered a business router is that one from a ip.

That's the other thing.

They haven't just, they haven't.

It's all loosey goosey.

It's, it's, it's about handshakes and money.

Todd.

Oh geez.

So, yeah, so, but I mean generally a business grade router would be like the bigger companies like the Cisco, the Unifi, the.

But, but Netgear has business and consumer grade routers.

So what do you, where do you draw the line there?

It's like, you know, so I had the exact same question, but no one really knows, right?

Now so all this basically is, is they're forcing basically public facing routers or consumer grade router companies to employ more people in the U.S. is this what the total strategy is basically?

Yep.

Yeah.

Well technically, can you call a business router a managed network switch?

That's technically an industrial.

Oh, that's a. Technically a different thing.

Tech.

A switch is not a router.

Well, at the same world but I.

Mean.

We'll talk afterwards.

I'll give you, I'll give you a schooling the switches.

The switches are the things with all the ports you plug into the routers.

We'll have some ports too but they are more for routine for, for deciding what goes where logically.

But yeah, think of like the routers.

The brain and the switch is just a heart with all the valves and the body.

I have one here I was going to show on camera but I can't.

It won't reach.

Never mind.

I got a TP link switch from my.

All my cameras are hardwired in my house so it's not Internet.

Yeah.

When I first had this story I was a lot more concerned but it's already like changed within the last couple days.

But I didn't want to like cut it from.

Don't worry, they'll forget about what they even talked about soon enough.

But what, what they'll probably forget about this whole topic eventually.

Oh yeah, yeah.

You start getting technical with them, no offense, tech.

They'll, they'll just start, their eyes will glaze over and then it'll be like, you know what, we'll just table that for now.

But, but it brings up a good topic of no matter who your router is in the future or in the past, run your updates, people.

Yeah.

On all your stuff, on your computers, on your routers and stuff.

Because security is important and that's one of the best ways you can stay safe is to run your updates.

See my, I get my routers from my, my Internet service providers and they actually run automatic updates.

They, they go offline for like a few seconds and they run all they, they run updates to all the routers periodically.

So they'll even tell you 2:00am it's going to be switching over, you know, so that makes it nice.

But if you have a gaming router, definitely update it.

Definitely update it.

Yeah.

Cool.

All right, good info.

And then related question, go ahead.

Yeah, people can pop in at any point.

Sorry, I was just talking miles an hour.

Yeah, so I've heard, I haven't researched this, but I've heard like if the last component of a product is assembled in the United States.

It counts as being.

She's United States.

Made in the US Product Made in US Would that be like for.

First of all, is that true?

And secondly, would that be a workaround for this kind of.

Well, I've heard that before too.

That's been something from a long time ago.

They, that's when you can say like, like I think that's also the differentiation of.

Differentiation of assembled in the USA versus made in the USA.

Because assembled can even mean like one part, but made has to mean 100% Honda in this case.

I don't think it matters.

They actually are, you know, but.

But then again it kind of matters because if you start getting some handshake deals that what if, what if the new US manufacturing plant spinning up is just manufacturing their packaging?

You know what I mean?

Like so in a way maybe this is gonna still gonna happen.

Yeah, that's where I was leading with that.

Yeah, I was already thinking, I was thinking it could because I mean my Honda, my wife's Honda is assembled in Tennessee.

So I mean it'll say it's made in America, but not really.

It's all Japanese parts that just are come in a big box and we're just giving the instruction book on how to put it all together and push it out the line.

Yeah, I know.

I was, when I was on Dealership Life, we were told, I think it was 51% had to be made in America.

Yeah.

Or assembled America to be called made of things.

That's what we were.

Gotcha.

That makes sense.

Yeah, that makes sense because obviously even like the Fords and like even the.

Yeah, like even if you think about like Subarus, some of their cars are manufactured in Indiana.

But it's not like every part is from the us you're obviously getting parts from other places.

Yeah.

You would be amazed how many foreign made parts are in Fords.

Foreign made.

Almost everything really.

I mean I would not be able to make a whole bunch.

Yeah, we don't make a whole bunch of people who design everything, but we don't actually manufacture it here.

That's the issue.

People do not realize with industry how interconnected we are in the world with everything we make.

I just sometimes I wonder.

But anyway, that's another topic.

Yep.

Yeah.

And then the last news item I had this week is some really cool stuff on how game development can work if you have the right engine, the right studio, the right everything.

This game that we were talking about starting last week, Crimson Desert.

Yes.

Well, since we last talked about it and in less than one week, Crimson Desert has had three major updates in less than one week.

Wow.

This is unheard of.

Like when I say major, like if you look at the patch notes, huge, huge lists of stuff that I fixed.

They're listening to feedback.

So it's not just like these were in the works anyways.

These are things that like people talked about when they were first getting the game.

Like how did they get the turnaround so fast?

And there was, when the game first came out, the, the reviews from the, you know, the big reviewers were mixed.

There was a lot of 9.5s, but then there was a few like fives and sixes.

So like the average score wasn't great.

It was like 78 or something.

But I kind of talked about that how like they made the mistake of they didn't get it.

They, they didn't.

They should have just waited like one more week and pushed everything back because the reviewers didn't get a good copy of it, basically.

Well, the game already had pretty positive reviews from users on day one, but the reviews are actually going up.

They're getting better.

The average is going up and.

Yeah.

So I really think this is cool news that a studio with such a huge game can have three major updates in less than a week and they're already fixing all these things that people, you know, there weren't things that made the game bad, but they were things that were annoyances and they're already getting a lot better.

So I'm.

I haven't played the game tons yet.

I don't know if we want to.

Yeah, I'll talk about it in catch up.

We'll talk about it later a little bit that I have.

But it's pretty cool.

That is.

That's surprising.

Well, I mean it isn't live service, that's a good thing.

But it still has to, you know, is a one player, single player game, but huge game.

A lot of times, you know, they'll just push out one big patch after they sell it because it's usually stuff they find in quality control, but they have to get it published.

They have to get it out the door.

And every game does that.

You'll have one big day, one patch.

Oh sure.

The day one patch.

Yeah.

But now three of them in one week.

That's amazing, man.

Yeah.

Do you know, was it.

What was one of the.

If you could pick one major thing they fixed, what was one major thing that was patched, one major thing that.

They fixed that people really Liked was inventory management.

They.

They have a stat.

They already had a stash where, like, if you find stuff on the field and if your inventory is full, it would go there, but you couldn't put stuff into your stash manually.

Well, now you can do that too.

Nice.

I haven't, I haven't played it fully.

I. I've.

I've bought it.

I've got it downloaded.

I got it ready to rock.

And actually I'll just submit it now.

It is going to be the April game of the month.

I will be playing that.

I'll be streaming it on Tuesday nights probably.

So.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll be definitely doing that.

Yep, yep.

That is the next game I'll be playing.

So.

Anything else you want to mention, Mike?

That's all.

Okay.

Okay, sounds good.

Let's take a small little break here from our topics.

Hey, real quick.

Oh, what's up, man?

I want to go back on the.

I thought we were going to go through all toys first thing about commas, but back on the first Apple's podcast thing, they want to implement YouTube, I feel like can combat this in one easy way.

Have a way.

If you're watching, like, let's say if I pull up gator's podcast on YouTube on my phone, I won't turn the screen off.

Just make a switch where you can go from audio to video in the same file.

I got you.

Yeah, me too.

I start, like, I'll start watching your.

Your podcast stream on my phone and I, I can't watch.

I want to listen to it.

We can't turn the screen off without it turning audio off.

That's because you have to have premium to have that option.

You can do that on Premium.

Premium.

You can do it.

Believe me.

I do it all the time.

I'll be watching a video and I'm like, okay, A Diary of a CEO.

I don't really need to see Talking Heads.

I just want to listen to the podcast and they have an audio version, but I'll just say I'm already watching it and I'll.

I'll immediately put it on my phone from where I'm watching on my computer and plug it in.

I'll go mow the yard and I'll listen to it because I have Premium.

I. I do that with music videos, too.

I didn't know that exactly.

Okay, I know that then.

Yeah, it's, it's.

It's.

It's the one way they get you to pay for premium other than getting inundated with ads every five minutes on YouTube.

You'd be surprised how many ads they want to place in this live show.

I have to go back and like strip it bare because they want to have an ad like every five minutes when you watch this podcast.

And I'm like, there's no way.

People want to hear the topics.

They don't want to get interrupted by whatever ad you decide to put in there.

So I have to go in there and at least YouTube gives us this option.

We go in there and strip out, the ad breaks.

So I'll have an ad like every 30 minutes instead of every five minutes.

So.

And if you have premium, you never even see an ad so that everyone wants you to go to the paid service.

That's the reason and what's nice when you have premium, by the way, we still get a little ad revenue.

A little piece of the premium.

If you watch one of my videos, I still get a piece of that.

Because you're a premium user.

Yeah, I still get credit.

It's a fraction.

It's a fraction.

But yeah, but I, I have to go every week once the replays post in YouTube and Twitch.

Not Twitch, but YouTube.

I have the option where I can go back and, and manually assign where the ads are placed and usually I'll put em in between the segments.

I try to anyway.

So yeah, yeah.

Unfortunately, I've learned a lot of that stuff the hard way, but yeah.

All right, good call, tech.

Well, let's take a little break here.

We got a lot of information to talk about.

Well, some information to talk about with our Destiny and Bungee roundup segment, which we will do right after this.

All right.

As an homage to our roots as a Destiny podcast, we do want to check in with Bungie and see what's new, if anything, in the Destinyverse.

And now Marathon, I guess.

So here we go first with Marathon.

No real big news out there for Marathon this week, but there has been some drama.

As you know, the Cryo archive was released last week and the Ranked was also released last week.

And there's been a lot of feedback from the Marathon community about the timing that these overlap each other and the fact that one is a weekend only activity.

It's, you know, it's colliding with people after work.

You know, there'd been a lot of back and forth about, you know, why is this on the weekend only, et cetera.

So Joe Ziegler, the head of Marathon, did tweet out a response to this.

He stated that the new cadence of these two activities will not overlap anymore.

And the new schedule is this.

The ranked mode will run from Sunday reset, which is 10am Pacific Time through Thursday 10am Pacific Time.

And the cryoarchive, the end game map will be from Thursday at reset to Sunday at reset.

So that way they're not overlapping.

And now you can go play the crier archive through the week.

You won't miss it.

They.

Who cares if it overlaps a little bit.

They should have kept.

They should have kept the cryo Thursday to Tuesday, you know what I mean?

Like, because now they're cutting back the.

Other way or every two weeks alternate so people all schedules can't habit or something like that.

But it's long.

I still want even more.

I don't, I don't like the lockdown schedule.

For me that's just like why.

Why are we locking on schedule?

Yeah, well, okay.

When I first saw some news that Scarlett put, I thought it was like they added Thursday so it was even longer.

But I didn't know then they just moved it around.

They just, they.

They're alternating basically through the week.

So think of, think of the crier archive as trials, except it's a day earlier.

And think of the ranked queue as your business as usual through the week, your weekday stuff and maybe a little piece of Sunday too.

So that's I guess the way you can look at it.

I've got a lot to say.

On marathon this week he did address some other pain points.

This week he's finding options for players who cannot play during the traditional weekend only window.

They're exploring ways for solo runners to access the cryoarchive map without being forced into a three person crew and are looking into making subroutines a guaranteed drop, which I think they've already announced that it is going to be guaranteed from the vaults to reduce the frustration of random luck when trying to access the final boss.

This happened to one of the competitors on the day one contest, by the way.

He could have won it, but he didn't get the subroutine.

It was rng.

So now I think they're making that where you are guaranteed to get it from.

This week In Destiny for March 26, 2026, Guardian Games is live.

It will be live through April 14th by the way.

And currently Warlocks are in the lead.

They have the new activity Rush Remixed.

It's a spin on the classic mode that randomizes bosses and encounters to keep things fresh.

The new loot they talked about last week already.

But I'm going to say it again.

The stasis spreadshot hand cannon called the Triple Laureate, the Beacon, which is a solar rapid fire fusion rifle and the Karanios Adaptive Arc Adaptive trace rifle which was from last year by the way.

They have the Magic the Gathering collaboration.

We talked about that last week.

There are some Twitch drops.

If you watch an hour on Destiny 2 on Twitch, you'll earn the streams of Consciousness emblem and then they have a free emblem code where you can get the pikers themed.

Take the mantled emblem and here's the code.

J A9P R C X K X so if you enter that code into your redeem codes on your Bungie.net page once you log in with your account, I've already added it to mine.

It'll give you that free emblem.

And I love the free emblems.

So they do have a bright dust buff.

The rare Vanguard orders now grant 50 bright dust and you can hit up to 1000 weekly cap and then it goes back to 10 after that.

And they did do an update 9.5.6 the highlights.

Basically this was a pretty big highlight.

Armor mods event armor set bonuses now unlock as soon as you get any piece of the set in your collections.

No more hunting for the full set to get your perks.

So as long as you have one piece of that armor, you get the bonus.

That's huge.

That is huge.

You can mix and match a bunch of stuff which I cannot wait to get into that one.

Doing some more build crafting exotic Ingrams Random world drops.

Now scale to your current power level.

Thank you.

Instead of dropping at a base 200 which is useless, Pantheon 2.0 has a not swap where they're locking the gear will not.

Will not be enabled for this mode, giving you more flexibility.

That was a confusing statement, but okay.

But here's the upcoming calendar trials will begin on March 27th through the 31st.

The burnout map with the Cataphract GL3 heavy grenade launcher will be available.

Iron banner returns on April 14th.

I know I'm going to.

If I don't make a group, I'm going to join a group in our discord and play some Iron Banner that week.

Because I really, I really miss Iron Banner.

There's a few known issues.

Guardian Games progression is currently a bit slow in Solo Ops and Crucible.

A fix is scheduled for March 31st and there's a UI bug showing zero stock for ascended alloys in the event home.

They're actually available.

That's it for Destiny.

Now I want to bring up one thing here before we move into our next topic.

That'll be you, tech.

I jumped in and played some.

I jumped in and played some Marathon.

I only have time now to play like a couple hours a few nights a week.

And I played Tuesday night and it didn't matter what I did.

I could not get a successful run in.

This was like night and day from what I'm used to trying now.

I tried all kinds of strategies.

I went stealth versus run and gun.

I got killed every single run.

I was trying to get the most.

You know, that last Sekaguchi Faction unlocked and I had to inject a virus in myself which would injure me over time.

Then I had to go find.

Download some findings into.

Into the mainframe or something somewhere.

So it sounds simple, but I could not get it done.

And I had to do this on the new Outpost map, which is you have to be level 12 to access it.

I tried many times to get it done and it was just so frustrating.

I couldn't get one contract done that night.

So the first time I had to kind of ask myself, is this game really just going to be for the elite sweaty players who put hundreds of hours into it or was I just having a bad night because I played the next night?

I played Wednesday night.

And actually I gave up on that going to.

I gave up on going to Outpost because it just seems Outpost is just loaded with very advanced players.

It definitely.

The bots are definitely smarter.

But after I thought about.

Just seems like the more dedicated players are hanging out in Outpost because maybe I just need to play with a group to get these things done in Outposts.

But with all the talk about sales numbers and percentage of PC players versus console, and I know you brought this up, Kingsley, that there were some Credible sources that 70% of the player base is on PC versus console, which was surprising to me because this is a PlayStation, you know, product.

But I'm really concerned that Marathon will eventually be reduced to just a small dedicated player base and will shut up out anyone who wants to try it.

Now don't get me wrong, I like.

You know, I like that this game is more hardcore than Arc Raiders.

Arc Raiders is where I want to go if I want to chill and just look around.

But if you're not incentivizing newer players to stick it out to get better in this game, I don't think this game's going to have any staying power.

I'm really worried about it.

I think something that Bungie might need to consider in the future before it's too late is adding some more casual features in order to get newer players to get kind of get their feet wet before jumping into the hardest stuff.

I think first that we need to have a safe pocket like Arc Raiders has in the game.

It would guarantee that playing two hours on a weeknight would not be in vain.

When I jump into a game, I want to feel that my time is being respected.

I like working towards something little by little until I feel comfortable accepting the challenge.

Maybe offer something like, you know when you pick up a data card in the game, the XP you earn goes right downloaded and you get it regardless of whether you extract or not.

Maybe something like that where you can download one item that to your consciousness or to back to where you're plugged in, you're not with your shell anymore where you could put it into your stash, your vault, your inventory, whatever you want to call it.

Then I could go on mercy runs where I could play a little less worried about getting third party by another runner or dying to some aggressive UESC bots.

I just think it would encourage more players to give it a try while learning the maps at the same time.

Because I am a noob, I have a lot to learn on all these maps and Outpost is definitely brand new to me and it's just like I feel like I'm playing Call of Duty where if I don't know every point around those maps where all the areas to hide and stuff is, I'm at a big disadvantage.

I know I just need to put time in to get better at it, but I have a feeling that Bungie is going to add this to their game eventually if they're going to keep newer players to stick around and they're not going to decay and fall off the game.

I mean you could have this option available on all the maps except the cryoarchive and the ranked playlist.

That way you have your die hard people for the in game content and those players, you know, while also appealing to those of us who are kind of feeling our way through it.

I mean this has to be a gameplay loop that rewards players for their time.

I mean you can call me a whiny baby all you want from all the sweaty players out there, but this is Destiny's problem as well.

You have to encourage new players to stick it out and figure out the game before beating them down.

You know, before getting beaten down by 100 hour players that gatekeep all the maps out there.

You're trying to learn then the game will eventually.

I just, I think it'll eventually implode if Sony and Bungie don't reevaluate this game because if it becomes too sweaty to play, if they don't have separate playlists that allow some very simple features to be included in the base game, then I think a lot of the noobs amongst us are going to just slowly drop out.

Just think it's just too sweaty and I don't know.

I think people need to play, at least feel their way through this game a little bit more before just getting shit on every time they enter a game.

I know it sounds like a whiny baby, but I'm, I'm telling you, I'm a, I'm a diehard.

No, I'm a die hard Crucible player here and I, I feel, I'm.

I'm getting.

I feel good about this game right up until I started to jump into this outpost map and I finally was able to see it from someone who maybe hasn't played it as much.

And that's where these thoughts occurred.

So what do you guys think about all that?

100% Disagree.

Okay.

I warned you.

This game was supposed to be and this is the game that Bungie wanted to make.

They wanted to make a more hardcore game.

It's nothing to do with newer players.

It has to do with how hard the game is.

And I warned people.

I warned you.

This is the game that it's supposed to be.

They, they, they shouldn't be changing the game to be a different game.

That's not really going to help anything.

Also, you're supposed to mostly play the game in groups.

It's not meant to be a solo game.

Like the contracts are supposed to be really, really, really hard.

At least some of them if you're going to do it solo.

So instead of saying like they need to make the contract solo friendly.

No, the ones you can't do, put on your big boy pants and get in a group.

You know, don't get me wrong, I still am got the itch to get this contract done solo.

It's a challenge to me.

But I'm just thinking of all the people who don't play PvP that jump into this game and love the contract part of it.

Love the progression and learning about new.

Cal and they shouldn't have bought it the game.

I warned them and Bungie warned them too.

They said this is a more hardcore game.

Here's the problem though, Kenn, like if they don't make this at least a little more broad to other players, just widen it a little bit and then have the end game where the end game is just like destiny.

You can't go right into a raid until you've gotten through the, you know, till you've gotten your feet wet.

Playing as a noob guardian, I think, I think they have the end game, they have the rank, they have everything up there for all the players that are established.

All I'm saying is just have that pocket or have that one downloadable item that you can grab.

That way you don't feel like you wasted two hours on a night.

That's not all you were saying.

You have to make lots of changes.

I felt.

I felt pretty deflated that night, man.

I felt like I could not get anything done and I even went to perimeter.

I just screwed.

I'm just going to go to perimeter and I just was not having a good night.

And it was the first time ever I've had a really bad night playing marathon.

Maybe everybody has like loaded gear now that they played the.

The in game stuff and they're just picking on all of us that aren't, you know, level 15 still.

I don't know.

But I don't know just how I feel.

Yeah.

Well, what happens the most hardcore games.

What do you guys think?

Well, is the same way though honestly.

You get to Stella Montice map and it's apparently a sweat fest on Stella Monte.

So that's just, that's just the nature of these games.

I feel like somewhat.

I think that's kind of where the distinct distinguish.

Yeah.

It's super sweaty and Nostrade is a map.

If you want easier challenge, you go to the easier maps.

If you want Diehard's wet snipe, you go to, you know, the topper and map.

I mean the style of game it is.

You're not.

You're never going to piece everyone like destiny.

It's just not really possible.

Yeah.

And they shouldn't even try.

Yeah, yeah.

You're never going to win that.

I mean it's just.

It's not in the essence of the game.

And if you're going to make it easier at that point you're competing with arc raiders which is probably not a smart move for Marathon.

Arc raiders has his home.

Marathon has his home.

We don't want to blend the two because Marathon cannot compete with arc raiders on the front.

It's good at.

Keep in mind one's a first person shooter and one's a third person shooter.

For people who don't like third person shooters, it's nice to be able to jump in a marathon.

Yeah.

And, and And Bungie actually made the changes in the last couple years of development.

They actually decided to make it a little different, a little bit harder, you know, a little more high end.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I just.

I just feel this one change of having it where you can download one item.

Not a safe pocket, but maybe like the data cards, where you can download something.

You could hit a special button and it downloads to your.

To your vault you.

No matter if you die or whatever.

The one change that's really just the one changer, where you come up with more things in the future.

No, no, I think.

I think that's all this game needs.

Because if I need to go and get one piece, like, one night, I ran 10 runs because I needed one of these consumables to finish my node to complete this node that I needed to upgrade on Mida.

And I ran and ran and ran.

There I had it in my backpack, but I could not get out of the place without dying.

If I knew I could grab that one thing in that little office immediately, download it, I'm covered.

Then I can relax at least a little bit.

And I feel like, okay, that will.

Help with doing the contracts on the hard map.

But it's all about contracts, though.

It's all about getting contracts done.

That's why everybody's in there, is to get contracts done.

That's the only way you can rank up all of your factions.

It's the only way to do really, is.

No, but I mean, wouldn't you want.

You say you just want that one change, but don't you want it to be easier on solo too, so you can get the contracts done?

No.

I don't know.

I don't think so.

Because, no, as I learn the maps more, I'll be.

You know, I'll get better at the maps and I'll.

I think the time to kill is a little fast because if someone's camping, you and I opened a door and someone was camp way up high and just.

Just loaded me up and I'd have any way to react.

At least in Crucible, the time to kill is not that fricking fast.

Where if someone's shooting you, I can evade them, reap, you know, re.

Energize my shields and then come back and engage.

There's just.

It's just like Call of Duty, man.

You just get knocked down on your ass and you're done.

I, I don't.

I, I.

That.

That actually benefits people who just sit there and camp and just wait for someone to cross their screen.

And that Just reminds me of Call of Duty days, man, where people will just sit behind a fence with a shotgun and wait for you to run by them, shoot you in the back, and you're done.

Except you could re respawn, but you only get one shot.

In Marathon man, you get one shot.

I don't.

There's.

There's no coming back.

I still understand how a safe pocket would help with contracts because what if you have a contract to do a specific thing on the hard map that has nothing to your item?

There's a couple contracts that you have to do in one run and you.

Sure, but.

But once you get it done, Kingsley, it's completed, you're good to go.

You don't have to extract unless they states you have to extract.

But.

But I'm saying I don't think all the points you were bringing up was just the safe pocket.

I feel like you're.

You're concerned about other things too.

But I want to read some comments on this in the chat and Zaria, if you have something to say here.

I don't know if you play Marathon man, but if you have some comments, I want to hear it too.

I don't want to exclude you here, man.

Yeah, I hopped in for a little bit when it first released.

I didn't play the server slam or anything like that, but buddy of mine did play a little bit on first release and we enjoyed it.

But I also know it's not going to be a game for me.

It's.

It does remind me a lot of, like you said, Call of Duty and it's fun for a little bit, but it's not going to be a full time game for me and I don't necessarily want them to change it.

I think it is what it is and I think it's good for what it is.

I think it's exactly as Bungie advertised it to be.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And got to praise them for that.

I mean, stick to their guns and it seems to be doing well.

That's true.

You read social media posts and everybody seems very happy with this.

And that's part of the.

It's part of the addiction too, Zariel, because it's challenging and you're like, I am going to get this done tonight.

But after two hours of trying to get this contract done, I maybe I just need to know Outpost and you.

Go in a group, I probably will.

Need to do that.

Just had a bad night too.

I could have, I could have because I was tired from work and I, you know, sometimes you Just want to shoot aliens in the face, right?

That's why Destiny works so well sometimes.

But maybe I shouldn't have logged on.

But I was thinking about it all day.

I need to get that material.

I need to get that contract done.

Because that's the one thing that does not reset when they do the wipe in three months time is any.

All the factions you unlock, that is done.

That's locked in.

So that's what I was trying to do.

I was just trying to get all the factions unlocked and then get all of the.

The.

What they call the priority contracts, where that is all the lore about each of the factions.

And you have.

There's.

I think there's.

I want to say five per.

Because I've completed all of them for siac, but there.

I think there's five of them per faction and there's what, six factions.

Five factions.

So it sounds like you created your own sense of FOMO going here.

I gotta admit, man, it.

I definitely.

I definitely.

It's on my mind when I'm at work during the day.

I'm like, you know, how can I. I'm racking my brain, how can I get through this?

Let's see, how do I do this?

I tried all different ways.

I tried stealth also.

If they.

If they don't reset, then you have.

No rush with all these complaints.

You are Bungie's target audience.

All I'm saying is if I knew that I could download whatever material I was looking for because I'm farming materials, it would just make life so much easier.

And I think it would give that little bit of extra little sugar that everybody wants that'll keep them playing.

Because if they.

If I needed one, I don't even know what it's called.

Not everyone wants that.

Some kind of copper core or something.

I needed.

I had like 15 of 16.

I needed one.

I know where they are in the map.

I went to get it, and then now I gotta get how.

Figure out how to get the hell outta here.

And Outpost is just certainly a next level.

I admit I haven't played Outpost a lot.

I don't know the map well, and I think in time it won't be much of a problem.

But there's a lot going on in Outpost.

You got embers flying from the sky.

There's all kinds of stuff wanting to kill you on that map.

So I'm probably just going to have to run with a group to get that contract done.

But I still have other contracts to do though.

So.

Anyway, I'm just saying if you want to make a run where you need one thing just to be able to unlock a node that you've been.

That you've already leveled up on that faction, it would just be nice to be able to download it to your vault straight away.

Just one item.

One item, and you can choose what that item can be.

It can be a purple item.

It can be just a simple consumable.

It's your choice.

I think they.

I think they're going to need to add that to the game because what's going to happen.

Kingsley, please don't.

What's going to happen?

Eventually those numbers are going to keep dipping.

They're going to keep dipping.

It wouldn't be because of that.

Because not everyone thinks the same way you do.

There's a lot of solo players in this game.

It's not meant to be that as its main purpose, though.

But the main.

I just.

Because you want it to be a solo game, that's not the main purpose.

They built the game.

But here's my.

Here's my.

Here's my.

Here's my rebuttal to that.

You can go in and grief and kill people.

You still won't get your contracts done.

You have to do the sequence of events in the map to be able to get the contracts done.

And all I'm saying is if this pocket wouldn't even apply to that part.

That part you just got to get good.

Exactly.

But if you're going in to need one material.

That's all I'm saying.

If you need one item, you find this really great item like I find a mixtape in arc Raiders.

It's in my fricking safe pocket, man.

And they even have it where you can upgrade your backpack where you have two safe pockets.

Thank you, native raider, for that.

But that, that, that.

That's what hooks me in arc raiders.

The fact that I have some insurance.

A little bit of insurance in case things don't go right.

So anyway, I just wanted to throw that out.

That's a different game.

Because I really had a rough night the other night.

It's the first time ever I've had a rough night playing marathon.

And it could be probably because I'm falling behind everybody else because I can't put the hours in every week.

I've scaled down my business.

I don't know if anybody heard from the Blueberry Lounge podcast.

I've scaled down my business.

Now where I'm doing most of the runs myself, I've decided to scale back my clientele where I have only Choice clients that I take care of now.

And you probably notice I haven't been in discord as much lately because I have to go out there and get the work done.

So I don't have.

And I'm like most working dads out there.

I only have a couple hours a night before I go to bed to play.

They have to.

As much as you want to make this a hardcore game, you still got to think about those players.

No, you don't.

Yes.

Hardcore games are meant for hardcore people.

Dude.

That's the.

That's.

Oh, my God.

They already have confirmed.

Well, through a couple sources, they've confirmed they sold 1.2 million copies of the game.

That's about $55 million after all their cost.

They've invested 200 million in this game.

Probably.

With all the social, with all the promotion and stuff they put into it, they better find a way to bring more players in or I'm a little worried about marathon.

I don't care how hardcore it is.

You can be hardcore all you want, but when they shut those servers down, what else are you going to play?

Yeah, but that is not.

You cannot say.

That's because they made it hardcore.

Only you can't put those two and two together.

If it shuts down for other reasons, that would be.

For other reason.

Reasons like they just didn't, you know?

Yeah, I know.

You got to learn how to rat, Todd.

Yes, Scarlett, I know it's hard for me to rat because ratting is basically just camping.

You're just camping and you're just looking at the clock.

You're seeing where everybody's trying to get their.

Their, Their contracts done, and you're just looking at that last minute.

Oh, this is the only X fill left.

Let's just camp this sucker and we'll shoot him as they trying to get out.

I know, I know the ratting, man.

I even.

I even switched over to rook.

I played some rookie and another rook killed me.

And they weren't even careful about.

They just ran right at me, man.

I was like, okay, all right, so.

All right, so.

Well, you know, I guess got to get more hours in, I guess.

But I'm just saying that one thing.

Tactical camping.

Really, Scarlett, I hated camping, man.

And people would always call you out if you camped in college, not the game for you.

But here's the thing, though.

Iron Banner's coming on the 14th.

I can run and gun and do whatever I want.

And if I die, I. I multiply.

So I guess I have that, too.

So anyway, it's Just a, just a little editorial on some of my experience in Marathon.

I know the streamers are level 101, 20 or whatever and I get that man.

But you're not just streamers.

A lot of people in our community and other communities love the game and they're hardcore too and they don't necessarily feel the same way.

But here.

But there's got to be a.

There's got to be a repeatable game loop that's going to keep people coming back eventually.

When you grief so many people, you've got all the contracts done, you've played, you put the hours in.

There has to be something else to play.

There has to be an essential playing.

The game that's a totally different topic.

Every live service game can have that problem.

That has nothing to do with just Marathon.

Yeah.

All right, well I said my piece.

I'm sure I'll get some comments on YouTube.

That's fine.

Anyway, that is what's going on.

Comments are the worst.

Yeah.

Anyway, I always think it's a 13 year old kid with pimples sitting behind his computer.

So that's always makes it better when.

I get wow, that's so rude.

I don't care.

Do you want to pop them?

That's what I'm thinking because I used to be that kid.

All right, let's, let's move on to Our next topic that is Mr. HD Tech.

Be right back.

Okay, it is topic number two time and I'm going to turn it over to HD Tech Tech.

What do you want to talk about tonight man?

What's on your mind?

Hey, appreciate the turnover.

So it's been, I've been noticing now for a few years now.

I come from a automobile Powerport Blue call back on myself so it always had a little sit a little bit closer to home.

But what's one thing that you know, every gamer, every person, every parent, everyone needs to.

Well, not everyone.

There's a slight few population does not need all that need this one thing.

But you know automotive cars, right?

Everyone has drive to work, everyone has to drive somewhere.

We need automotive everything right?

Is a very key aspect in fact everyone's life.

And you we're getting to a point where you go to let's say a dealership or independent shop to get your car worked on and you know, you say how long's it going to take to get this valve cover gasket changed out and they tell you it's going to take tooth, it's going to toothpaste, two to three weeks to do the preparing.

You're like well how is that possible?

It's not.

The job's hard.

It might be a two or three hour job but there's no one working industry to do the job for you.

There's one article that I remember.

I think it was last year the article pulled up here but it was a Ford CEO.

I think it maybe it's beginning last year the Ford CEO came out and said he had like five or seven thousand positions across four dealerships bays that they could not fill.

And they were offering like 120 six figure salaries to fill the positions.

And even with six figure salaries they couldn't fill these positions.

It's not just Ford, it's all, it's all the brands.

I mean like he proceeded 57 to him.

There's another article in the 2024 that we were down 6, almost 650,000 text in industry it's only getting worse and obviously every blue collar trade is going to see this but I feel like automotive is going to hit the worst.

You know some of the key reasons why I think automotive the worst.

It's you know when you're an auto tech now you do it all.

You do electrical, you do H Vac, you do mechanical and these cars are getting more and more sophisticated and you're literally doing it all.

Like you can take your skills as an auto tech and go to any other blue collar field almost.

Now I'm not you can't go one go in H Vac tech but you have the principles there of how to cross over.

Like you know I started in the powerport industry and I took in that knowledge and I've gone, you know I did a few years doing avionics and airplanes.

I've done roller coaster maintenance at Disney, I've done industrial work for Target.

I now do automation robotic work for pharmaceutical company just off the basis core knowledge of automotive powerport knowledge and building on it.

So it's, it's, you know, it's getting harder at that aspect.

Another big reason I think it will be taking a hit is the pay.

I don't know if are y' all familiar with flat rate pay really at all and how that works?

Well, flat rate, you talking about just a flat salary?

No.

So that now you're a tech and you're told you need to do a valve cover gasket.

Oh, I see what you mean.

The books are going to say it takes to say customer pay three hours to get the job done.

You take four hours to do it.

Well you only got paid for three hours.

Gotcha, gotcha.

Which can burn you, but then there's also warranty or let's say the car is brand new under warranty.

Warranty pays about half of that price.

So you only get paid an hour and a half to that job if it's under warranty cover.

So the money's not really there for these techs to keep going.

That's a big thing at flat rate, especially when you're dealership level.

Like when I was in dealership, I think 80% of my work was all warranty, only work.

And it makes hard making any money.

I mean, you got family, you got bills.

I mean that's one of the big reasons I left the industry was just the flat rate pay structure doesn't work no more especially and it worked back in the day when times were reasonable and cars are simpler.

They want it monster machines with over 5,000ft of wire in them.

Now nowadays, now you got 50 to 100 computers and over 5,000ft of wire to go through.

And you know, you don't get paid for diags, you've got to pay for your own tools.

So on top of not getting paid junk, you've got to invest in your own tools.

No, no tools provided by the dealership.

Like when I was in a dealership, we had certain tools that the dealership was supposed to carry to make my job easier.

They didn't carry it.

And when I asked to get them, I was told, well, if you want to go get it yourself, I shouldn't have to pay for my own dealership manufacturer tools.

That shouldn't be how it works.

Especially if it's a specially made tool for the dealer.

Correct?

It was for, it was for one, it's like two or three years.

I was working on jet skis and it's for an IBR module and there's one specific model for only two years.

And it was like $400.

And I even so with the tool, the job went down from like three or four hours.

It had done like an hour and a half, two hours.

And I even explained to my service manager, I'm like, if you pay this 400, you can make your money back in two weeks off this tool.

He still didn't want to hear it because it affects a bonus and you know, xyz, yada, yada, corporate America stuff.

But you know, this, I think as a whole we should be, you know, how do we fix automotive industry techs?

You know, between a lack of training, the lack of pay, the no respect really for them is they get crapped on by service advisors, parts people.

And on top of that flat rate pay, you know, your, your wages are not also dictated by how hard you work.

Let's say you go get a part in a parts department or long part.

Well, now you gotta wait for that part to come in or the service advisor sold the wrong thing or didn't call a person when you had the car in your bay, you know, it's, it's going to affect everyone along one, because what happens when your car get fixed and you're waiting three to four weeks for repair and it's just a downhill spiral of, you know, how, you know, what do you do to incentivize and keep the industry going?

Because it's not just a money issue, it's an overall culture issue we have on it.

I'm curious, tech, how many of these mechanics just break off and start doing businesses?

That would seem like the logical thing.

So there.

I know I personally thought about doing that at one time when I was younger.

The issue of that is these newer.

Cars are so complicated, need their tools,.

That you can't do them because you need their tools.

You don't have the documentation on the scan tools, the computers, wiring diagrams.

It's so hard to do anything now because there's so much information that's locked behind the dealership wall.

Right, right.

I remember they had to scan my truck.

They said they have to charge me 200 bucks.

I'm like, seriously, 200 for you to plug your little module into my under dash obs port.

OB.

What is it called?

OB.

OBD2.

OBD2 port onboard diagnostic.

Dude, I got, I got a auto X right here in my office that I bought because I was tired of paying $200 to have them look at it.

I'd pull the codes myself and I would just go online and look the codes up for my, for my diesel truck.

Because it was just crazy.

But see, newer cars are crazy.

Like now you have different levels of scan tools.

Like you have your basic one that can read codes, but you know, it may read only the ecu.

It won't read airbag codes, it won't read transmission codes.

And now with these new cars, your H VAC computer, your window controls, our computer, it doesn't read every other computer now.

So it's, you know, if you want a scan tool to do everything, you're looking at five to $10,000 plus a subscription to keep up that scan tool and do everything Now.

Update the info.

Yeah, update it write it.

I never knew you had to buy your own tools.

That is crazy man.

You know but that.

Let's see Deadpool.

Let's see.

We see Deadpool's common here.

That's why text are leaving jobs because they have to use their own hard earned money to pay for their own tools.

Get stuck doing warranty work.

My buddy is a tech.

He recently left a job, left a job at Dodge get doing something different.

Correct.

And that's kind of what I did.

I took my you know pilot for it automotive knowledge and now I do robots and a pharmaceutical company.

You know there's other options that are going to take away auto techs and go somewhere else.

And I said all blue collar is going to see this.

But the pay is better, schedule's better for an H Vac tech.

They don't have all the dynamics of all the issues so they don't hit it as hard.

Now I think this little blue collar falling off is really.

That's where it's hitting the most at.

I see your point.

So do you.

Are you still working for on flat pace with these other companies all Target and all these other companies you work for or is it all hourly?

Hourly, Always hourly.

Yep.

Overtime and all that.

Which is so much easier.

Like I said, I got a family.

So yeah, you know, sure you can make a hundred hours in a week on flat rate.

Make great money.

But what about all the weeks you made 15 hours.

I'd rather have consistency than that.

One great hit one week of the year.

Wow.

I. I never.

This is brand new to me.

I've never knew any of this man.

Yeah, go ahead guys.

I have a clarifying question.

First you, you were mentioning the pay is not there.

But then were you saying something like Ford couldn't fill the days and they were offering six figure salaries so.

Well is there some of that salaries on the.

So they say you can make six figure salaries based on.

But that's you know the high flat rate paying good hours which you know, your hours are not always dictated by how good you do.

You have other issues like a bad dealership, bad service riders.

Sir.

Like let's say you got Todd, your motor blows up, you come to me.

I got your truck on my lift pulled apart.

You know I need XYZ parts to fix it.

It's gonna be two weeks out to get parts.

Well I gotta now put your truck back together to open my bay up to put another car to make money on.

Two weeks.

That happened to one of my cars.

They were gonna shop next to you,.

They park in the back forever.

I waited two months on time.

Okay.

Yeah, but okay, so the, the six figure salary thing then is just talk.

It's not actually happening yet or whatever you.

I think the fourth thing is you had to get so much training and be a certain certified level for it.

I got you a certified level.

You have to do so many hours and years of, you know, the BS and the little stuff to get to that certification.

Like you know, they have diesel tech certifications and also the crazy high stuff.

You can get into, which is smart to do.

Of course that's going to build into my next point.

But yeah, I mean I'm hoping that again if they, if they're not keeping the employees then I'm hoping they, even the lower level ones will start getting paid more because the demand will be there.

They won't have any employees.

Right.

I, I've said for a while like the younger generation and it sounds like the car techs have it the worst.

But like the trades, electricians, plumbers, right?

Yuck.

Right.

But like these, these trades can make a lot of money these days because we need the people there.

We're not getting enough people.

It's not always the case.

Like tech, you give the good example.

A lot of the car trades people still aren't getting paid well.

But I'm, I'm hoping the tide will turn.

I'm hoping that we get more people into these positions because obviously you do not want to be a low level programmer these days.

That is the worst thing because AI is taking all those positions.

But we need more trades people.

And I've been saying this for a couple years, we need more electricians, we need more cartechs, we need more everything.

And if you can get.

Here's where how you do it people, you try to get at the highest levels you can as soon as possible, get the certifications, get all these things because you will be in a better position in the trades.

Out of all the trades positions to get paid.

Well, I never knew.

Oh, that kind of ties into a second kind of side tangent topic really to this.

It's.

I think it's part of what's not helping the situation is.

I'll say I'm younger than all of y' all and I remember when I was going through high school it was always, you know, college, everything.

It was if you don't go to college, you're going to be a failure.

Yeah.

As hard as bothered me because college that pulls out.

Yeah.

That dead pool is, you know, it was College, college, college, everything.

And I don't know if that was a.

If that was like a generational thing that they're just trying to push people.

He thought it'd be the best, but it's.

It's backfiring now.

The college, college, college method didn't work.

You know, there's nothing wrong with the greasy.

The smelly plumber or the greasy mechanic or, you know, whatever trade you want to label it on.

It just depends.

You.

Yeah, this is something tech.

It's even been going in my generation a little bit.

Like now, of course, because I was going into IT stuff and so when I was in my early 20s, college was BS for IT stuff.

Like, they didn't teach you jack.

I went to college and it was a waste of time and money.

Anything I do now was not applicable from college.

And I make more money running my own business now.

But.

So it is a little bit of a generational thing.

It's a little bit of.

They just say it no matter what.

It's not like college is not a good decision if you.

You just got to be really strategic about it.

It depends on what you want to do.

It's not just this.

Go to college just to get your associate's degree because it'll be safe to have.

No, that's not the right choice anymore.

If you know that you like fixing cars and if you find a way to make it work, then make it work.

Right.

I don't know.

Yeah, the.

The college thing, it kind of ticks me off.

Too tech.

I get it.

In the last couple generations, though.

I mean, like you said, you used to be.

Just get a degree.

Doesn't matter what it is.

Exactly.

Yeah.

I mean, there were.

Okay, there were companies that wanted to see a degree, but, like, most of the time, that wasn't the case.

I'll be honest.

This might go to your question earlier.

Taught about something people don't know about me.

I don't even have my high school diploma.

Okay.

I got lucky that a friend got me a job right out of high school.

I. I didn't graduate.

You never even looked back.

Yeah.

And I've just.

I keep working.

I'm.

I'm not dumb, but I keep working and keep building my skills, and I've made myself valuable as the years go on.

And I never.

I hate to say I never needed it, because I am.

I do believe education is important, but.

Yeah, people forget that just.

Just because somebody says you needed a degree, it's like, it's not always the case.

Everybody is different and skills, you gotta chase your dreams, gotta chase your skills, gotta.

Part of education is knowing what you want to go into and what you should focus on too and not just listening to what people tell you to do.

Right, right, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, I'll just, I'll just share this.

I've been, I've been self employed for 32 years now.

I started out, I had to be an apprentice.

I had to work as an apprentice for three years in my field and then that gave me access to go take the test which we're 50% pass fail rate, usually aced all three of the areas I wanted to get into in pest control.

Aced.

Okay, I didn't ace them, I passed them all the first time.

I was very proud of myself.

That was a big accomplishment.

The main thing I will say is the level of pay as an apprentice versus being self employed.

Now granted you have to be a self starter.

You have to eat peanut butter and jelly for probably two years for dinner, you know, because you're not gonna have any money.

Starting out I was able to work with my dad's construction company.

So I got some kind of wage from digging trenches and putting up screen enclosures and stuff and screening and all that good stuff, which those are skills I still have today.

But I'm telling you right now, mark my words, in the, in the somewhat near future, people that are in the trades will make more than attorneys because attorneys are going to be replaced mainly most of your level, entry level attorneys are going to be replaced by AI because all you're doing as an entry level attorney is clerical work.

You're sorting, you're looking for, you're looking to highlight words that state this in a document.

AI can do that so fast now there's no need for it.

And I feel really bad for people who've gone to law school and tried to get into a lot of the white collar jobs out there that everyone thought they had to go to school and they were going to have guaranteed money.

This is why I feel for the Gen Z's and the Gen Alphas out there now because it's all been flipped on its head and it's all going to come down to offering personal services to consumers.

That really is going to be the future of how things are done.

Tech.

I did not know man that you get flat pay, you get a value for doing a job and if you don't, that means you can't take your time and do it right.

You have to rush through and get it, you have to rush through and Kill your knuckles or hands or whatever just to get it done on time.

You're working against the clock the whole time.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't want a lazy mechanic that just sits back and just going to work on it a little bit.

It kind of just, you know, I've had a couple friends that have done that to me on work I've had done.

They'll just kind of kind of weed in those hours, you know, because I'm paying them so much per hour.

But that's ridiculous, man.

I don't see how the future of the auto industry is going to go very far if that's the way they're going to do things.

Unless they have those AI bots are going to be coming in soon that know how to do that.

But you got to remember you put an AI on a, on a production floor or I mean Amazon's dealing with this right now.

You one, you have to, it has to be on a track.

It has to have a subroutine that it does without hurting anybody or itself.

And then again you have to fine tune all of its movements to do technical work that only our hands can do.

That's going to take a long time to do.

So I still think mechanics and people who offer those blue collar services are still going to be just fine for a while and probably within our lifetime.

I don't know about the future generations out there, but things are definitely shifting, man.

And the people who are going to school right now, just very much research the field you're getting into before you put years of your life and investing years of your life in this education, you could be putting your ladder against the wrong wall.

Just.

On the lawyer topic, lawyers aren't going to make less than trades.

There's just going to be less lawyers.

It's a transitionary period and if you want to become a lawyer coming up, it is going to be very hard and you need to have AI knowledge from day one so that you can fight against the current lawyers that are getting that knowledge that already have experience.

It'll be the main.

You're.

If you're an established as a good lawyer and you own a law firm even it'll be how well you can work with AI.

And like you said, it'll be.

There will be less lawyers in general and it'll be harder to get into.

But lawyers aren't going to be making less than.

You're eliminating your apprenticeship program entirely.

It's really what you're doing.

Yeah, it's really what you're doing for a lot of white collar jobs out there.

And my kids both graduated.

My son graduated with a computer engineering degree and jobs weren't, people weren't running up to him to forget him to get a job.

He, he, he works as an online analyst right now and creates programs for, for those great ads that you guys love online when you're, and you're shopping and stuff for.

It was for a real estate company though, for real estate.

It actually seeks out real estate buyers.

But anyway, I wonder how long that job will last because once AI can figure out how to do it and once the manager Zepper management knows how to implement those bots, where's he gonna go?

And my daughter graduated with an art degree.

You guys know, you know the writing on the wall there.

AI art is getting better and better and better.

And all of my podcast art, everything is done by a human.

And I have my daughter do it because I want to support what she's doing.

But she works in the service field now because that's where people are needed right now.

So man, I don't know where, I don't know where people should turn.

If they're going to these technical schools to get these skills to work it forward and then find out that this is the way you get paid.

I thought it was all hourly tech.

I'm sitting there giving these guys a hard time asking them when my damn truck's gonna be done.

I don't even realize that these guys aren't even getting paid for hours that they don't get completed.

Well, especially do you like an engine, for example, you must have tolerances two or three thousandths, which is like smaller than your hair.

You know, you shouldn't be rushed doing something like that.

If you mess something up, you're gonna blow it up in 0.2 miles.

It's crazy, but I think, I don't think we're close to AI going that level yet because like I said, you can machine the same part 20,000 times and every time you machine is gonna be a little off every time.

So trying to build something that precise, still the streaming variables at that point,.

They're going to go through a lot of bad robots, no pun intended, before they can get to where they perfect.

And that's just for one trade.

Think of how many times they got to.

Yeah, yeah, it's going to be rough, man.

Yeah, that's a good story though.

What do you think?

What do you think could solve it other than like, I mean, they probably are going to change the Pay structure dramatically.

But do you think they'll raise it some as there's less people wanting to do it or what do you think can solve it short term?

If anything, if I was, if I was still in dealership, if I was just on a Sally method, the bonus I would accept that like I'm gonna make at least I don't know 60, when I know you want 80, 60 grand a year.

But if you book more than 50 hours a week you can extra $800 a week.

I think between that and maybe some kind of tool, an actual decent tool allowance would, would be a short term way curve it I mean then is just that'd be the best way.

Like if I was selling a dealership and a dealership offered me that that would be my biggest issue is just the pay structure and keeping up with my family.

And I like paying locking on my tools.

But I said if you got a temporary tool allowance and has salary with a bonus, performance bonus you can call it.

I'll accept that for a short term solution to keep buy for now.

I could see you know, having your own tool set.

It's like cooks that have their own knives and stuff.

It's, it's your, it's your, it's your tool that you want to use in your field.

Now we're talking box wrenches and you know, open end wrenches and pliers and things and basic tools that you could use anywhere.

I could see you having your own and then you'd have to worry about people stealing your tools.

I would, you could get a really, really, you can get hot under the collar for stuff like that.

But the fact that you have these specialized tools that are not made in bulk, by the way, they're specialized tools.

They're hundreds of thousands of dollars to make these things one off for each dealership that should, you should never have to pay for that stuff.

And if there's a dealership that's not making sure their mechanics have all those tools, they're not going to be a very good dealer for very long.

Now there are certain brands I know like think BMW, maybe Mercedes, they ship the tools to the dealership and they force them to pay for it.

So there are certain brands that have requirements and they do force the dealers.

My deal, I wasn't on BMW dealership so I didn't have that.

But there are some dealers who will, they'll force ship and say you're going to pay 100 grand for this kit and you're going to have it no matter what.

If you want to keep our, our tag in your door.

Yeah, but it's not all of them.

It's only certain.

A lot of the higher end ones do that.

Let's see.

Zariel, do you have any other comments?

You don't have to have any.

I'm just making sure you had a chance to talk.

Yeah, no, I. I mean, I kind of agree with you.

I was just reading the chat.

Deadpool's got some good comments there, so.

Yeah, he's talking about how he has to repair an iPhone screen in 30 minutes to an hour.

You get shitty work when it's rushed.

Exactly, man, exactly.

Yep, definitely.

Yeah.

Retail is seeing the same thing.

My other job, they took away time from some of our jobs.

I have one to two hours to do a data transfer when it can take longer.

Best Buy is messing up workflow for repair agents in Geek Squad.

Yeah.

So it's not just in the auto industry.

You know, I don't understand these corporations that are busting the balls of the people actually doing the work.

When you hear about corporate executives getting these super giant bonuses every year, that's where all the pay is going.

They're just sucking it up.

Well, that's why they're doing it.

They're greedy.

Yeah.

Eventually it's going to come to a head.

Something's got to give, man.

I understand.

I don't agree, but I understand that's why they're doing it.

How many times have we seen the same argument between publishers and developers?

Right?

True, true.

Yep.

Very true.

Yeah.

It applies a lot of different things.

I mean, like for instance, we might as well talk about it.

Epic laid off a thousand of its employees because Fortnite's not really making the numbers it used to anymore.

Are you kidding me?

You're Epic Gaming.

You are making a billion dollars a month in, in dlc.

And I don't know if you want to have a Homer Simpson skin in Fortnite.

It is crazy, man.

And it seems like these developer companies, the best way they can cut money and make the make themselves look good for the investors is just to cut that human capital because it is the most expensive part of the.

Of the business.

But it's too bad, man.

Oh, the Fortnite thing pisses me off if we're going to talk about that now.

Well, why not?

You're just using that as an excuse.

I'm just using that as an.

They're using that as an excuse.

Do you know why?

You know where the money actually went?

No.

Fortnite has gone down A little bit.

But it's not the issue.

They've spent.

Someone did the math on this.

I think it was actually Tassie.

They spent like pursuing the app.

8 Billion on lawsuits.

That's where the money went.

Not just Apple, Google also.

They.

And in fact they paid Google.

They paid Google like 3 billion to settle something that wasn't even something they should be paying Google for.

If anything now, it was a bunk lawsuit.

They shouldn't have taken the lawsuit to Google.

But then it totally blew up in their face where they were hoping to win this lawsuit and now they have to pay Google 3 billion.

It's.

EPIC is so stupid in leadership.

They.

They're blaming it on Fortnite and they're cutting.

They're cutting a thousand jobs, yet all their money has gone to lawsuits because they're the stupidest company ever.

It's kind of hard to blame Fortnite because that they were.

They were basically printing money with that game even if it is going down.

And eventually all games, eventually they were.

In lawsuits with everyone.

Except for this is how inconsistent is.

They were in lawsuits with Apple and Google, but guess who also takes a 30% cut?

PlayStation and Xbox.

And they weren't doing a lawsuit against them.

So it was just.

These were just.

These were just stupid.

Stupid.

Like wow.

Lawsuits.

That, that.

Yeah, anyways.

Yeah, that.

That really pisses me off because they.

Yes, I do see, this is the trend.

Things are going and we're going to see more and more.

I think gaming's going to have unfortunately a bad correction this year and next year with even more cutbacks and stuff.

But.

But Epic's spin on it is worse than almost anyone else.

At least with Bungie and these other companies, like we don't like that either.

But at least they're kind of telling us more like, well, it's operating costs, but like it's operating costs based on sales, not based on stupid Epics operating cost or billions of lawsuits.

Well, if, if you guys think that's terrible, wait till you hear my topic tonight, which we're going to get into right after this.

Like that transition.

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Keep those corporate sponsors out of our podcast by simply joining our awesome community@patreon.com supportguardiandowncast Later Guardians the final topic tonight hinges on a story I discovered a while back and I just tucked it away for a later show.

And this week it's time to talk about this.

For a lot of us, we are not only gamers, but we're parents.

And after listening to this story, you may have concerns about the future of gaming, whether you're a parent or not.

For most of us out there, we've usually written off road Roblox, a series of games that they're just games for kids, right?

But I think we need to pay more attention to the disturbing trends that are going on in this community of mainly young Gen Z's and Gen Alpha players.

And I'm not just talking about the child predator stuff.

So here's the main breakdown of the story I was looking at.

First, let's talk about Roblox.

What is it exactly?

Well, just some figures here.

We're talking about a platform worth nearly $100 billion with more active users than the entire US population.

Let that sink in for a moment.

The entire US population is playing Roblox.

According to this story, it is a total lawless zone for copyright.

You've got billion a billion play games out there using Dragon Ball, Super Mario and other assets with zero licensing.

And Roblox dodges this responsibility being a publisher by claiming they're just a platform, letting them rake in all that investor cash while ignoring the rot that's going on in their content library.

The second thing you guys think the monetization is terrible in the games we play.

Well, Roblox is Vegas for kids.

And these aren't just games, they're digital slot machines.

We're seeing bright and flashy UIs and pay to play mechanics that make modern live service titles look tame.

And some would say hey, this is just artistry and gaming.

But what it is really about is the funnel.

It's NFT and Web3 logic applied to children using clickbait to get them in the door and then overstimulating them to reach for their wallet.

Well, let's get real here.

Their parents wallet.

Another issue is the sponsored exploitation where brands like Walmart are building these interactive experiences that are essentially just playable ads marketed to a demographic that lacks any financial literacy.

Literacy.

This is not good.

Then let's talk about the safety crisis, because this is probably what most people have heard about.

Once you realize that Roblox is more of a Metaverse chat room than a game, the patterns get even darker.

Things like public bathroom simulators and hangout spaces with explicitly sexual undertones.

There's already six lawsuits this year going alone in high profile child abduction cases.

And lack of moderation is just literally putting lives at risk.

Then there's the content creators like Schlee.

I don't know if you guys heard about this guy.

He tries to help law enforcement track down these predators that are hanging out in Roblox.

Only for him to get IP bans and cease and desist order.

Only to get the IP bans and cease and desist orders from Roblox itself.

They're more worried about protecting their image than the actual users of their product.

But the real reason that I wanted to bring this topic to light this week is the fact that these practices will not only hurt our gaming industry, but they're going to erode our hobby.

It's the fact that a whole generation right now was growing up with this thinking that this is what gaming is.

Unlicensed, predatory and dangerous.

We've spent years fighting the loot boxes and pay to win mechanics in our gaming.

But Roblox is baking those habits into kids brains at such a massive scale, by the time they age into the wider industry, they're already being trained to hand over cash for every click.

Soon this generation will be more important than us old timers who think and who you do think the big gaming publisher is going to listen to.

Then they're going to listen to the newer generations out there.

So how do we combat this?

I think we need to go back to the purity of the Atari and Nintendo days of actually building games for enjoyment and fun and not just how they can be monetized.

I feel like we, if we don't throw the red flag now, I think the industry is just going to follow the money into the Roblox blueprint.

But that is just my opinion on this.

I'm curious what everyone else around the table thinks about this company, Roblox.

Anybody want to chime in on this?

Well, I have a little bit of experience with it.

My kids played Roblox some when they were younger and they are now 21 and 19.

So Roblox has been around for a while.

Okay.

Probably even older than that.

And I, I want to know percentages because I don't know this.

It's quite as bad as you make it out to be.

It's not like every parents like giving their kids unlimited money to buy these things.

I mean if you come from a wealthy family, sure, but then that's not just a Roblox problem.

That's.

They get their money for free anyways.

I never was.

I never let my kids talk me into buying things and, and they don't.

It didn't change their attitude, Todd.

They, they are grown up now and they know that they can only afford certain things in games and they're not expecting games to be this model.

So I don't know that it's quite as bad as you're making it out to be.

Okay, well, remember, don't shoot the messenger.

I'm just interpreting the story that I read about this.

This is not saying it's not a problem.

Right.

I'm just, I don't know if it's like as big of a problem as you're almost making it sound.

Am I being dramatic again?

Maybe that's fine.

Look, look.

Well, I know that for online safety that yes, you know, hands down, everyone agrees.

Yeah, kids need to be safe.

I do wonder.

Roblox, it's hard because I'm not trying to give them a pass, but like it's more decentralized.

From what I understand, a lot of servers, so they can't really control it.

So what can they really do?

I don't know.

Like I guess we could shut down the whole platform or they can have some kind of age thing there.

But I don't think they can or should have to check every single server.

That's kind of like a little too heavy handed with us controlling companies.

You know what I mean?

Like other than basic protections, of course.

Like kids shouldn't access things.

I get what you're saying there, Kingsley.

I just think they just need to have a little more moderation.

Yes.

They can't cover every, every game that's put out there that's made.

Can't you make private servers too?

Maybe you can't, I don't know.

But if you make a private server, how could they moderate that?

Right?

Like, yeah, I'm not sure.

It's just kind of the way the Internet works.

I think that was the biggest.

I'm sure the fear with this was the lack of moderation that I'm sure they weren't even.

Yeah.

Are we sure they're not attempting at All.

I mean, I think from the.

From what this story that I've read about this story that it just seems like it's the wild west out there that people are doing whatever they want.

I mean look at that.

Look at the Schlee content creator who's trying to catch.

Who's trying.

Who's been trying.

And he's been in the news, he's been trying to pin and find these people who are child abduct, child abduction.

Of course we want.

Yeah, yeah.

It doesn't mean that they're not trying at all, but it also doesn't mean that they shouldn't be trying harder.

So I just kind of.

I like to know the full story before I have an opinion.

I guess I'm kind of saying I don't really have an opinion, but I do know.

I do know that it is concerning to me in theory and I do know that it's not always as bad as you make it out to be because my kids played it and they grew up fine and everything.

Maybe it's worse these days, actually.

Maybe that's what it is.

So.

Well, I know there was a big growth during the pandemic and then it went down a little bit, but now it's making a big climb.

I showed the graphs on this.

I'm not dare show they were playing it this week, but.

No, they were playing it more like.

I would say more like 20.

Like early 2010s to 2015.

More like that.

Yeah, my kids.

Early 2010s.

Yeah, my kids are playing.

What is that one that Kami Cakes loves?

Runescape.

That's.

That was a big game for my.

My kids.

But there were.

There was heavy moderation in RuneScape.

But this is just.

The problem is I think this is just so big that.

Well, I think if it's decentralized and big, I don't know how you can do moderation.

Maybe there needs to be some regulation on.

On games that are get this decentralized.

Maybe there needs to be some kind of hub that it goes through.

Oh, but then are we going to regulate the Internet?

But we're talking, of course kids.

We need to have kids safety.

But I'm talking kids.

Yeah, yeah, that's true.

But not just kids play the game.

So as long as they don't like regulate it to hell like in every.

I mean but look what YouTube has done for.

For.

You have to check if the box.

Your box when you.

And you put anything on YouTube if it's made for kids or not.

And it goes Through a much more stringent filter.

If you're making something for kids on YouTube.

I think that's all we're talking about here is that there needs to be some kind of.

There needs to be some kind of gate where someone can at least eyeball it or it has to meet some kind of minimum requirement in order to be put.

I don't play the game, so I can't get specific.

All right.

We're hiring you to moderate all the servers.

There you go.

Tech's got a new job now.

Can that gate be a child's parents?

You, you hope that it is.

That should be.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Goes back to your parents.

I understand that.

But how many parents are actually sitting there watching their kids play the game and where they're going within the game?

Because I'm not home a lot.

I can't watch them all the time.

I know I can't watch them all the time.

There's no way.

My son was like my son.

He don't play Roblox and he plays Minecraft.

He does offline.

It's not really.

I don't trust him.

I can't be there.

You know, I'm working 60 plus hours a week right now.

I don't have the time to sit there all day and watch him as much as I want to.

And this parental control, sure.

But I, I don't have the time to watch my kids don't play Roblox.

I know it exists out there and I can't watch and make sure he's not getting involved in that.

So my house, we just don't do roadblocks at all.

Right.

That's my stance on that.

I guess I, I don't love this in theory, but I guess someone could come up with a system that kids are only allowed to play the games if a parent's nearby.

But what would they have to do?

Kind of like facial recognition or something.

If it's a.

If it's a game marketed to children, there has to be something in place.

Protect the kid.

You would hope that the parents are looking out for your kids, but not everybody does.

I know there's a lot of.

I mean I grew up during the, the where I was plopped in front of a TV all day and told to just watch tv.

I mean that was the latchkey kids.

I know when I was a kid I found ways around parents to also.

Yeah, that's true.

I mean we all this far being a kid.

Parents definitely need to know what.

What, what they're playing.

But do you guys Remember that game Little Big Planet?

This kind of reminds me of Little Big Planet because you people are making their own worlds and you go and visit their worlds.

You know, they, you know, they put a little node on their planet and you walk into it.

Yeah.

And my daughter used to jump in those games.

Yeah.

And it's, it's, it's user content.

User generated content.

And it was such an innocent time back then, but like I said, you know, Bathroom Simulator and all these different hangouts, it's just perfect places for, for predators out there.

And I don't know how you, I don't know how you.

I don't know enough about the game to know how a parent could make sure that their kids don't go to those areas.

There need.

Maybe Roblox needs to put those areas in a, a separate world that you have to have some kind of check to get in.

And.

Oh, and the bathroom simulator says 18 plus on it.

Well, who, who's regulating if it's 18 plus?

Who's letting people come in that are 18 plus for that?

You know, it just, just seems like it's the Wild west and they need to, they need to just, just bring it in a little bit.

But how would you, though?

Same way of like how you box bam callers.

Until the guy does this bam caller.

You don't have the spam callers.

Yeah, you know, you know, and we're getting a weird spot.

So KE made a comment earlier and I put a link in the chat up and I heard this actually today that YouTube and Meta got sued for $3 million because they got a girl addicted to social media videos.

Oh, wow.

Oh, yeah.

That's a rough one.

I don't know how you feel about it.

We are hitting the floodgates.

I feel like as a society of this stuff.

Well, Zaria, did you try.

I know Zaria tried to speak up and we just immediately railroaded him.

What, what is your, what is your opinion on all this, man?

I know you don't have kids, but you still have an opinion.

Yeah, well, I have nieces and I have a niece who plays Roblox fairly regularly.

We don't let her buy any of that monetization stuff that comes through.

So, I mean, it's like you want to be on a free server?

Fine, let me see what server you're on.

Okay.

And I'll accept this one.

Well, she's actually gotten skilled enough where she can like build her own maps and build her own custom avatars and things like that.

So whatever.

She's been learning.

She actually learned programming playing Roblox.

And I think that's pretty fascinating.

Pretty cool.

It's.

It also helps her understand not everybody is benevolent also, you know, she's, you know, she has seen there are predators out there and knowing the tricks of knowing how certain maps are made.

She also knows which servers to avoid.

She's learned how to avoid certain avatars.

And it's like that's pretty impressive, girl.

It is very insightful for a young person to have that street sense.

Yeah, she's 13 right now.

I think 13, 14, somewhere around there.

And she's, she's learned.

But yeah, I mean I. I don't know what the actual answer is.

I understand you can't have parents.

You can't have parents there 24 7.

No.

And you can't have enough moderation for a thing as big as Roblox.

You could do it a little bit, but there's no way you can moderate at all.

There is no answer.

It's maybe a little bit of this, a little bit of that.

You know, it's your opinion, you know which side you want to go on.

But no sides concrete.

Right.

Sorry.

Oh, I remember last year there was an interview with the owner, the CEO of Roblox and he basically said the same thing.

He just basically shrugged like what are you going to do is these are all public servers.

I created the platform and they're running the games.

I can't control it.

I mean in Destiny 2 you have to be able to prove that you've run through so many intro.

You have to get to a certain level, you have to have a certain power level.

You have to have purchased the game or have done something to get into play trials.

I just think there should be some.

Something in place at least to create a speed bump where it's not that easy for a kid to wander in somewhere where they don't know what the hell's going on.

I don't know.

I mean they can't if it's on a public server.

I mean just if you can make your own server, they could change the code but then people have that have the older code would hold on to that.

Right.

And then there still wouldn't be moderated it.

The.

The cat's already out of the bag.

So I don't, I now I'm even more confident.

My opinion, yeah, maybe they should make the next version tighter but like the current version, what can you do?

The best you're going to get is parents and these rogue warriors online on YouTube.

Yeah, and both are good options.

You know, find, find the predators, you know, make sure your kids are safe.

There's that.

That should have been baked into the game though when they built it, when they built this whole hub, this whole community.

There had to be something system wise put in place to prevent these things from happening.

But I don't know.

I think the doctor has a good comment in the chat.

Yeah, I was going to read the.

I was going to read comments.

Yeah, yeah.

He says my little cousins were baffled when I told them I had never once purchased Robux.

I don't even know what that is either.

And Zombie Pop says my kids have to earn the money they want to spend or save from birthdays.

And yes, that's exactly the way I did it too, Zombie.

If they had Christmas money or whatever, then they could go buy, you know, whatever for World of Warcraft or whatever they were wanting to get.

And he said yeah.

Doctor says yeah, I'd rather spend my money on silver.

I thought it was schlep.

Maybe it is schlep.

It might have been a typo.

I was playing Halo as a kid.

Yeah, exactly.

Roblox tried to do facial recognition already.

Okay, okay.

It was a massive failure.

Zombie Pops.

It's simple.

Parents have to take an IQ test before having a kid.

Well, that goes for a lot of things.

I laughed.

That was funny.

That was funny.

When I was hell of young, my parents locked the door and told me not to answer for anyone.

Unless it's Bill Clinton or Jesus Christ.

I turned out okay.

I think I know what your parents are doing there.

Scarlett, Manny, the.

Woman's come to the door.

Don't come knocking on the door.

And told me not to answer.

Oh, not to answer anyone.

Okay, sorry, I misread that.

Of course, of course.

My mind went to the guy.

My mind went to the guy.

They were out of the house, not in a different room.

Sorry.

Hey man.

And I somehow.

Never mind.

Somehow we got it done when we had kids.

I don't know, it was just like hey, the door's locked.

Do not wonder why the door back in my day.

Anyway, Notorious Gator I have discussed safety on chat groups.

My five children followed these instructions and had several creeps banned on Roblox.

Well, there you go.

Maybe there is something in place that I'm not.

That I'm not knowing about here.

Native Raider.

I have been playing dress to impress with my wife and our six year old niece.

Actually kind of fun.

Just see, they're good.

They're good people in the game.

More Than bad.

Okay.

I don't play the game.

So like I said, I'm just going by the story that I read here.

Zombie Pops.

I get it.

That's another as a side problem as these sensational headlines get the attention, but I don't think they're the majority.

Okay, that makes sense.

I was wondering.

Yeah, because.

Exactly.

That's why I want to know how much of a percentage it is based on the total population of Roblox.

Like, how much is this really?

I'm not saying it's an issue.

Not an issue, and we shouldn't be concerned, but I don't know how much of an issue it is.

If it's more than zero, it needs to be addressed.

But they need to do something.

Yeah, they need to have some moderation.

I just think it still needs to be built into the system or the community of the game.

I don't know how they do that.

I'm not a developer, but they probably should have had this in mind when they were building these various games.

Notorious Skater.

I always monitor what the girls are up to online.

Not an overlord monitor, but talk with them about the games they play.

That's it.

Talk to your kids.

That's a good point.

Notorious Gator.

Yeah, yeah, I get it.

I get it, guys.

Like I said, I. I had this story tucked away.

It piqued my interest a little bit because I didn't know much about Roblox and my kids didn't.

I don't think my kids played Roblox.

As far as I can't remember them playing Roblox, it was different games.

But anyway, there it is.

I talked about it.

Gator was an absent parent.

He didn't know what his kids played.

No, I knew what they played, but my wife was usually working.

My wife was usually the hall monitor.

That's kind of harsh.

Allocate says when my kids were small, they weren't allowed to play online games unless I was there.

There you go.

Even when they had to have chat turned off 99% of the time.

And that's when you unplug the router.

When you're not home.

Yeah, you unplug the router.

And then that's when I learned how to do.

That's when they knew.

Well, that's when they know how to.

These days.

Yeah.

Fix routers.

No, these days you got to keep it on for home services.

You create a separate subnet that they're on that turns off.

There's ways you can do it.

And there's apps, too.

That Actually will, you can use to monitor what they're doing too.

I mean, it's.

The technology's really gotten up there, so.

You don't want the Internet off on your home.

That's true.

There's a lot of essential services.

All right, I said my piece.

I think everyone else did too.

Let's get on to our catch up segment.

Let's kind of just sit back and chill.

I'm all stressed out now.

I gotta relax a little bit.

So we'll do that when we get back.

All right.

It is that time of our show where we just kind of lay back, chill, and just talk about what's going on in life and kind of catch up with everybody here.

And Zariel, since you're our new guest, man, I'll start with you.

What have you been watching?

Gaming, Playing.

What's been going on in your life, man?

Right.

Now, I know we didn't get to that part in the interview.

Yeah, mostly work, unfortunately.

I really only have like about an hour a day to play games.

I. I do have Fridays and Saturdays off, but I spend time with my wife, so.

Heck yeah, man.

Yeah, I don't.

I haven't had too much time to game.

There is a demo for a VR game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Empire City.

That one was actually pretty fun.

What.

What are you using?

Are you using Oculus or using Meta or what?

I have an Oculus Rift as the old school original centers on the wall kind of thing.

Awesome.

Yeah, but it still works.

And I'm not going to shell out $600 for another thing when this works just fine.

Still got my.

It just.

It just sits here.

Yep, exactly.

I have one too.

Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy it as much, but my.

The Oculus 3.

Oculus 3, yeah, exactly.

And the controller.

I do still enjoy it.

Nice, man.

That's awesome.

I'll hop in every once in a while.

I get it.

With the time of the game, it's definitely tough.

Yeah, it's definitely tough, man.

So I'll do a couple solo missions in Destiny and then I'll fiddle around in Minecraft or Pal World for like 20 minutes or so and then I'm out.

Power World, you just made Natives day.

Nice.

Power World, best world.

It's a very fun game.

I enjoy it.

I never understood Power World or Pokemon or any of that.

I never grew up around that stuff.

So I know it's a big time business right now.

Yeah.

You don't have to grow up around it to like it.

I know, but it, you know, It's a survival game.

Do you like Minecraft?

Do you like Ark?

Do you like Monster Hunter?

I.

It's.

It's a survival game.

Yeah, I get it.

Okay.

Yeah.

Gotta catch them all.

I get it.

I don't.

Anything else you want to mention, Zara, that you want to mention to us?

Floor is yours, man.

That's pretty much it at the moment.

Just not a whole lot going.

I'm very boring today.

Sorry.

Is there any games you're looking forward to coming up or anything else?

Oh, I want to play Wolverine.

I'm a big fan of insomniac games in General.

The whole PlayStation, no longer putting them on PC just broke my heart.

But I'm not going to lie.

Wolverine is very tempting to buy.

PlayStation 4.

PlayStation 5, you mean?

Yeah, yeah, okay.

Was it 5?

Yeah.

Whatever it comes out on, it's tempting.

It's tempting.

I don't know if I'm gonna pull the trigger on that, but.

Wait, wait, wait a minute.

I didn't hear that part.

I was looking at that chat.

What game is it you want to get?

Oh, the Wolverine.

Oh, the new Wolverine game.

Got you.

Gotcha.

Sorry.

I heard that part.

Yeah, my bad, man.

Chad is just blowing up in here.

Oh, yeah.

All right, man, that's kind of fun right now.

Well, thanks again for coming on.

I appreciate you talking with us.

Yeah, no problem.

I know we got a lot of.

A lot of strong voices in our chat, in our.

On our show tonight.

So we all have our opinions, that's for sure.

But yeah, Crimson Desert's on my wish list right now, but I need to save some money for that.

Yeah, hopefully.

I don't know when that price would come down, but hopefully I do want more and I'll talk about it later, but hopefully you get to experience that at some point.

Yeah.

Yeah, hope so.

Sounds fun.

Yeah, I haven't played it yet, so I can't comment on that, but we'll get around to that with Kingsley Tech.

What are you up to, man?

What's going on in your life?

I know you're working your butt off too, but what's going on in the after hours or when you do have time to stay home and play?

Honestly, in the past seven weeks, I haven't had much time at all.

I know some people here know about it.

I'll just go reload, everybody.

So I just went through a major, major job change recently found in January, my old job was going away due to a change of a bottle's company.

They're going through my job Was being phased out.

Okay.

So I had to look for a new job I was going to lose in the March.

So, you know, January I want to look.

I ended up finding the job I have now.

I started working it mid February and my older was offered me a severance package to stay till March.

So from mid February up until like a week and a half ago, I was working both jobs at the same time.

And I literally worked 12 hours every day for a whole 31 day straight.

Um, so from mid February till about two, two weeks ago, I worked every single day.

And the past two weeks, I've been trying to get my schedule together and my personal home stuff done from working so much the past week.

So I've just been busy, man.

I'm not working now.

It's now since summer's coming around, Me and the wife, kids been going outside, getting the garden ready, getting the yard done outside, you know, animals ready, and just been going, going.

I haven't really gained much in the past six weeks or so.

People haven't seen me online as much.

Just life and life and, you know,.

Well, is it gonna do what I.

Gotta do to keep it from happening?

Is it gonna.

Is it gonna eventually slow down or is this the way it's gonna be for a while?

It slowed down some.

Now I'm going actually schedule myself.

Gonna be crazy.

Starting to a week and a half from now, I'm going to a night shift.

Two, two, three schedule.

Oh, boy.

So I'll be rotating every other week night shift schedules.

Wow.

Which I'll have every other weekend off.

But then I worked the other weekend.

But it's what it is, you know, it's a good job.

There's good, good.

Bit more money.

I'm making better benefits than I was making or the better company I was with.

So overall it was a win.

We thought the schedule was going to be kind of.

And.

But no, I didn't go jobless.

I still kept the house going, afloat.

The kids still have a roof over the head, food and the tummy clothes in the back.

So life is good.

Yep.

I hear you, man.

I hear you for that, Mr. Kingsley.

Mack, what's going on with you, man?

Yeah, actually hopped into Destiny a little bit and tried out the boss rush activity.

And this is the type of stuff that I enjoy.

Not because of the rewards.

I could care less.

I couldn't care less.

There you go.

But it is fun for anyone who wants something to do in Destiny to actually see older content.

That's basically new because you haven't seen it forever.

Or maybe you weren't playing the game back then.

And it's on this daily rotating schedule of different bosses and encounters.

That being said, I don't think everyone's going to like it because it has the portal BS stuff on it.

Which again, it's not the fault of the content they're bringing back, it's the fault of the portal system.

But you know, they're making it hard.

You go into ultimate again, I think people should just chill, not worry about the power number drops they're getting of loot and just do it on a lower level and just to experience it.

You don't have to go into ultimate if you're in the 500s.

I was still getting.

I got like just a couple less drops on the lower level, so who cares, right?

But I don't know, I thought it was kind of fun.

I mean, for what Destiny is right now.

It was a small thing to.

And I'll probably be hopping in every day or every other day to kind of experience the different versions of the boss rush activity.

I like how, how long it is this time.

I like how it's not till the 14th.

I mean that gives people plenty of time to take their time and play it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, I doubt they're going to have that many daily.

I bet the daily rotation goes for a week and then it'll recycle again of the different boss encounters because there's no way they're bringing three week or two or three weeks times seven of days, you know, have that many different boss encounters.

But anyways, been playing a lot of other games we're all looking forward to.

Too bad you didn't pick this for your game of the month.

But the first of April, everyone's gonna be hopping into division.

There's a big Year eight drop that's coming.

Tech will be there hand in hand, right?

Yep, yep, yep.

Skipping through the streets of New York.

It's definitely been pull my seat very, very, very hard.

Yeah.

I've been playing a lot of Diablo also and I put several hours into Crimson Desert.

And just from personal experience, even on day one, I thought the game was in pretty good shape.

But I really liked the latest update patch that they did that helped with movement.

I noticed that looking around camera movement was faster.

They fixed some graphical things walking and running just slightly faster.

So just little quality of life things that you don't want to feel sluggish in a game.

Right.

And so little quality of life things like that really helped.

And this game is quite amazing.

I've spent hours just like only in the first city and then one little small part out of it and then trying not to look up too many things online because I kind of want to figure out things on my own, but just figuring out how to like, loot.

Oh, you need to have a mask.

Okay, where do I get a mask?

Okay.

All these things and all the materials.

Do I want this?

Do I not want this?

Do I want to try to avoid people or fight people?

Do I want to explore up on these mountains?

Oh, there's some caves, there's some waterfalls, there's.

You can do mining.