Yet Another Storefront (Day 3595 - 9/28/19)

Previous Vlog (Day 3594) | Next Vlog (Day 3596)

Stephen says that he understands why a publisher would want their own digital storefront. He says that there are pros to having your own storefront vs offering your games on platforms like Steam. For example, being able to do things yourself, not having to give the platform a cut of the sales, and exclusivity deals. Stephen says that he understands both the publisher and consumer side on this topic. He says that he's in a unique position as a person who plays games for a living because it doesn't matter to him where he gets the game from. Stephen says that wherever publishers decide to put their games is fine since he will play their games on whatever platform they have it on. He talks about how he's constantly getting game codes from developers and publishers. Oftentimes, it's codes for games on Steam, but he's increasingly gotten codes from other platforms. Stephen says that every once in a while he will receive a uPlay code and he will be reminded that this platform exists.

He's bringing up this topic because Rockstar Games just made their own digital storefront. He says that there seems to be a lot of these new storefronts popping up lately. So, he understands how frustrating this can be from a consumer point of view because you have to install game launchers for every platform.

Today was game night and they recorded an episode of GTA Online because they never covered the new casino update. However, when they tried to load up GTA on Steam, it required them to install the new Rockstar games launcher. Stephen says that it was a waste of time to download because once you opened the launcher, there was just a big button that says "Play on Steam". He mentions that everyone else in their group of 12 had their own little issues with the launcher. But, Stephen had the biggest issue as the game wouldn't boot up. After re-downloading the game and searching online about the issue, Stephen could only get the game to launch by closing Steam, finding the Rockstar games launcher executable in the program files, running it as an administrator, and pressing "Play on Steam" once it opened. This issue caused game night to be delayed by an hour which was really frustrating.

Stephen understands that the company is trying to set themselves up with more revenue, and get more access to people and their accounts. He knows that there are a lot of advantages for Rockstar and all these other companies to have their own digital storefront, but it's still a drag. It's not that bad when there are only 1 or 2 storefronts, but it becomes a pain when there are multiple storefronts. Stephen says that it's not like Steam should get a pass on everything. If there are companies with storefronts that do things better or provide better value for the consumer, then they can go ahead and flourish. But, he understands from a consumer standpoint that it could be crummy. For example, when a certain storefront gets exclusivity or if a publisher backtracks on a promise and only publishes the game on 1 platform instead of on multiple platforms. However, he also understands the point of view of the company especially if it's a small indie studio. Stephen explains that a small indie studio having that exclusivity money could make the difference between them being able to work on their next game or not. He then talks about how having to deal with yet another storefront tonight was a nightmare and it delayed them heavily. Stephen also complains that now he has yet another icon filling up his desktop.

Next, he talks about how the recording went well and that the casino update was fun. Stephen says that the level of detail in the update had the same level of detail that Rockstar generally provides for their games. Jeff had mentioned during the recording that the casino is almost too detailed. Stephen agreed and talked about how the in-game casino had the same kind of depressing feeling that casinos in real life have. He explains that real casinos have glitz and glam, but there are also no windows in a real casino which make it so that you don't know that time is passing. Stephen says that Rockstar emulated that feeling of sadness really well.

Stephen then goes onto the stairs and realized that he had the vlog camera settings on daylight instead of auto, so it made him look orange. He continues talking about how the GTA update was fun, how everything was modeled really well, and how you lose digital money in that casino. Stephen mentions that Rockstar put a cap on the amount of in-game money you can convert into casino chips on a daily basis. He speculates that the limit was put there to curb gambling addictions because you can put convert real currency into in-game currency and then into casino chips. Stephen says that the casino also had a lot of freebies which feels like a real life casino as well. He doesn't know when they'll come back to this update, but they had fun betting on horse racing. Stephen says that it might be fun to start future episodes with horse racing betting because they all enjoyed it. He then talks about how he wonders if Rockstar will flush out this update anymore. Stephen talks about how there had been rumors of the casino updates for many years now with files and evidence proving it. So, the fact that the update came out was a big deal. we'll see if they do anything with it in the future

Then, he talks about how the other day he mentioned that Steve was sick. It turns out that he does in fact of pneumonia. Stephen says that his dad has gotten it a couple times throughout his life, but he's not sure how many times he's gotten it. He says that his dad got a steroid shot, is resting, and is taking medicine so he hopefully he will get better soon. Stephen says that he will keep everyone updated about it. He then tells Kepler that his dad probably misses him too since his parents were taking care of the cats while both of them were in China. Stephen says that his dad loves cats and is a huge animal person. Steve loves Rocko and both of their cats. Stephen says that his dad took lots of pictures of the cats laying on his lap while he was taking care of them. He says that the cats really took to his dad.

Stephen says that he's tried and that stayed up later than they normally would because it took so long to get the GTA running. He's excited for people to see the episode they recorded and chant "HORSES!" with them. Stephen explains that they were chanting "HORSES!" while watching the horse races in GTA.