The VGBees Podcast

This week, Niki, John, and Lotus discussed the biggest news stories of the week, including a look at Zach Cregger's Resident Evil, numerous head-scratching announcements from BlizzCon, and the news that Roblox is working toward a future providing standalone games to multiple platforms.
00:00:00 Intro & sorting through John's will
00:11:30 BlizzCon 2026: games that might not come out and what will we do with three World of Warcraft SKUs?
00:25:30 King's unionized workers are about to strike, which prompted a very deep conversation about the nature of monetized free to play mobile games
01:00:00 Roblox is going to release standalone games among other worrisome updates
01:04:40 Hyper Light Drifter's Heart Machine is facing closure after publishing pull
01:08:55 Game Developer dot com facing staff shakeup; IGN lays off many long-tenured staff
01:12:25 Resident Evil solidifies Zach Cregger as one of horror's best active directors
01:26:42 Niki bought a PlayStation Portal
01:37:40 Lotus' time so far with Roman Sands RE:Build
01:50:35 Carly Rae Jepsen's new double album is out; John watches the Barenaked Ladies rendition of "O Canada"
02:00:00 HIVE QUESTIONS
02:42:42 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, Niki, and Lotus dove into both Nintendo Directs, the stunning news that Sony is dropping Hideo Kojima's next projects, and Blizzard's new union formation just ahead of Blizzcon.
00:00:00 Intro & our new tagline
00:10:03 Ocarina of Time is changing for modern audiences
00:34:54 Samus is hungry in Metroid Ravenous
00:37:00 Kirby and the World Beyond is perhaps the biggest adventure yet in the franchise
00:43:50 Powerwash Simulator dev lays off staff in extremely strange way
00:49:09 Big game-spoiling achievements were leaked from Steam
00:53:55 Blizzard employees form union protecting 1,900 staff
00:59:35 Sony drops Kojima projects, Xbox takes over, big conversation about game direction ensues
01:31:10 Nintendo's tariff sale
01:36:08 Grand Theft Auto VI preview apparently drives 100,000 Netflix sign-ups
01:43:43 Tony is a slice of a biopic that manages to tell a lot of Anthony Bourdain's story
01:48:20 The gang is split on the success of Coyote vs Acme
02:07:45 Niki is very much enjoying the reboot of The Grand Tour
02:18:55 iPhone Duo is weird but might just work
02:27:20 HIVE QUESTIONS
02:42:59 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 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.