The VGBees Podcast

This week, Lotus, Niki, and John discuss the Star Wars Zero Company furloughs, the new limits on Xbox Cloud for Game Pass, and the explosive Pablo Torre stories have the hosts asking, "why don't we have this kind of investigative journalism in games?"
00:00:00 Intro & John's extremely beautiful voice
00:07:18 Star Wars Zero Company devs furloughed ahead of game's release
00:15:30 SteamDB is now under Nexus Mods' parent ownership
00:21:10 Xbox introducing harsh limits on cloud gaming on Game Pass
00:31:20 PlayStation says users know they don't own digital games and how common gamers are unequipped to fight this
00:47:50 Pablo Torre exposed the Los Angeles Clippers and now we're wondering where all the investigative gaming journalism is
01:16:20 Niki wants to know why they can't lock into games they want to be excited about
01:22:30 HIVE QUESTIONS
01:36:45 Outro
Thanks for listening!
Please leave us a review! We'll read it on the show and it helps us out a lot.
VGBees is ad-free, AI-free, and completely supported by you! https://vgbees.com/join
VGBees is a weekly games media podcast hosted by Niki, John, and Lotus.

This week, Niki, John, and Lotus did their homework on the bizarrely-edited Grand Theft Auto VI reveal on Netflix and also dove into Gamescom announcements, like The Witcher 3 Remastered.
00:00:00 Intro & A Condensed History of How We Know Each Other
00:14:30 Grand Theft Auto VI is every verb
00:44:09 Star Citizen's Squadron 42 delayed again
00:48:25 The Witcher 3 Songs of the Past unearths an ancient evil for Geralt to fight
00:49:48 The Witcher 3 Remastered is a free update with tons of improvements
00:51:42 Final Fantasy 7 Revelation is not pumping the brakes
00:56:25 Blood Dungeon is a survivors-like with platforming finesse
00:59:42 Lotus got rid of her car (finally)
01:16:40 John might have to get litigious over a wheelchair peripheral
01:22:00 Jeff Grubb sent Niki a package
01:23:50 HIVE QUESTIONS
01:51:48 Outro
Thanks for listening!
Please leave us a review! We'll read it on the show and it helps us out a lot.
VGBees is ad-free, AI-free, and completely supported by you! https://vgbees.com/join
VGBees is a weekly games media podcast hosted by Niki, John, and Lotus.

This week, Lotus, Niki, and John tackled a jam-packed week of surprising news, including Riot ending 2XKO's development, Twitch's surprise auto-opt-in for GenAI training, and the ongoing and expansive Grand Theft Auto VI leaks.
00:00:00 Intro & fun drug side effects
00:08:00 Twitch's GenAI training program
00:15:15 Roblox being investigated by US Senate for over 65,000 reported incidents of child abuse
00:30:35 New Horizon live service game being rebooted by Sony
00:37:42 Compulsion games now fully independent from Xbox
00:41:02 2XKO ending development in December
00:55:47 Grand Theft Auto VI build appears to be in the hands of a leaker...could it be an inside job??? (it is reportedly not but we recorded this a day early lol)
01:15:28 Saber CEO apologizes to writer/narrative designer Stella Sacco
01:17:56 Agent 64 Spies Never Die is a competent nod to games that have not aged well
01:20:32 Esoteric Ebb might be a little too esoteric, frankly
01:24:10 We haven't played The Duskbloods, but we talked about it anyway
01:25:45 Entropy is a new RPG from the folks who made Dread Delusion and it is quite good so far
01:32:45 HIVE QUESTIONS
02:07:15 Outro
Thanks for listening!
Please leave us a review! We'll read it on the show and it helps us out a lot.
VGBees is ad-free, AI-free, and completely supported by you! https://vgbees.com/join
VGBees is a weekly games media podcast hosted by Niki, John, and Lotus.

This week, John and Niki are joined by Jesse Vitelli, fresh off a five day subathon on his Twitch channel after being laid off at Restart.Run. Together, they take a hard look at Matt Karch's history of odd behavior, Netflix's most recent studio closures, and Star Wars Zero Company.
00:00:00 Intro & Raising Cane's talk
00:11:25 Saber Interactive CEO Matt Karch did something very weird and has done many weird things previously to this new weird thing
00:34:14 Netflix closes Night School, Moonloot, and lays off others
00:41:35 Restart.Run's remaining leadership releases a bizarre statement
00:48:23 Pokémon Pokopia sold five million copies
00:54:00 Take-Two looks to be getting deeper into simulation sports
00:56:00 Wolverine & Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave previews dropped
01:11:20 South of Midnight now listed as self-published, but is that the whole story?
01:12:55 Esoteric Ebb serves the best of Disco Elysium without some of the baggage
01:20:30 Knytt Classic is a faithful update of a 2006 freeware standout
01:23:27 Niki's in the Splatoon Raiders endgame now
01:26:55 Star Wars Zero Company is a lot more than a new XCOM
01:47:00 HIVE QUESTIONS
02:20:55 Outro
Thanks for listening!
Please leave us a review! We'll read it on the show and it helps us out a lot.

This week, Lotus, Niki, and John discuss their very enjoyable time together with Big Walk, Devolver Digital's move off of the London Stock Exchange, and Netflix's incredibly bizarre six hour rental of Grand Theft Auto VI's deeper dive trailer later this month.
00:00:00 Intro & laundry hamper talk
00:14:30 Netflix's Grand Theft Auto VI "exclusive" look
00:47:26 EA's big deal with the Saudis and Jared Kushner closed
01:12:30 Halo Studios parts ways with contractors
01:20:32 Devolver Digital moves to unlist from London Stock Exchange to go private
01:33:30 Square Enix is collaborating with Google Gemini for AI-based QA
01:40:43 PlayStation by far the most played console in the US
01:41:53 Restart Run staff laid off
01:44:43 Spider-Man: Brand New Day is the best the MCU has been in a very long time
01:51:40 Splatoon Raiders continues to delight us
01:57:37 AYN Thor is probably the best one of these emulation handhelds
02:02:10 The VGBees Crew is having a blast with Big Walk
02:37:25 HIVE QUESTIONS
03:10:57 Reviews & outro
Thanks for listening!
Please leave us a review! We'll read it on the show and it helps us out a lot.
VGBees is ad-free, AI-free, and completely supported by you! https://vgbees.com/join
VGBees is a weekly games media podcast hosted by Niki, John, and Lotus.