NVIDIA's AI Pump & Dump Scheme? Plus Games Industry Lashes Out At Stop Killing Games | OTC #38

[MUSIC]

Welcome to the Off the Console podcast,

the hottest podcast that's all about

gaming and tech news and anything nerdy.

This week, we've got

some big news to cover.

We've got Nvidia becoming the first,

what is it, $4 trillion

company, is that right?

Yes.

We've got an update for the

Stop Killing Games movement

and a whole bunch more.

And my name is Gardiner.

I'm joined by my

co-host, James, and Hitec.

And we're joined by our special guest,

Muda from Somewhere Near Gamers.

How's it going, Muda?

Hey, everybody.

How's it going, guys?

It's good to be on here.

I've followed Gardiner here for a bit.

And I'm meeting two new

guys here as well, too.

So it's a fun day today.

And I like the actual

topics you guys had,

because I've been talking about Stop

Killing Games a fair bit.

But this Nvidia stuff,

man, $4 trillion, dude.

I know.

God, I hate Nvidia.

Easy.

I've been following your

channel, Muda, as well.

And I was shocked the first time you left

a comment on my video.

And I was like, wow, this

guy actually knows who I am.

So that's pretty neat.

Dude, I used to have like your--

you had like this

Linux teach series where--

when I was like setting

up my art for a while,

I used to just be in

the terminal all day.

You know what I mean?

I used to set up my auto

mounts through the F-staff folder

until I found one of your

videos where you're auto

mounting with a GUI.

And I was like, oh my

god, it's that simple.

You tell me I don't

have to go through the--

dude, I have like-- you

know that Best Buy meme

where the guy's like, oh my god.

That was literally me.

I'm like, I cannot

believe it was that easy.

Holy-- my wife was in the room.

She was like, what are you doing?

I'm like, honey, I just found out

how to make my life so much more easy.

Just how the Linux got me.

Yeah, I was like, oh

my god, it's that easy.

What the heck, dude?

Because at that point, I was like, man,

you know what I miss about Windows?

The goddamn user interface

sometimes, it makes it so easy.

And then here it was.

I was like, yes.

There's a lot-- I

should go back to doing that

because there's a lot of things that

people don't realize

you can do like with a GUI that people

think, oh, on Linux,

you have to do it with a terminal.

So I should probably--

Yeah, like fucking flat pack permissions.

Everyone-- dude, I've always loved--

anytime I cover a video regarding Linux,

I'm like, let me show you

the easiest way possible.

I have to show it the

laziest way possible.

Because you've got to

remember, it's like,

there's somebody in

the comments who's like,

why are you showing it the lazy way?

You know, it's just

like one terminal command.

I'm like, all right,

there, Morpheus from The Matrix.

I get it.

You know how to manipulate your system.

I'm just talking to the guy that's

scared to death

loading up the terminal, OK?

Because it is scary

to somebody new, right?

It's like, well, what is

this 1990s MS DOS prompt

that I've been given?

Yeah.

It all sorts of events.

A lot of comments of

people just begging for help.

Yeah.

Two.

Yeah.

Or if you're doing

like a Steam Deck video,

people are going to be like, I don't

want to type all that

stuff in with the track pads.

Right.

Well, to your point, high tech, flat seal

is the answer to managing

permissions on the flat packs

with a GUI.

I don't know if you've heard of that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I know of that.

But I think they

implemented it recently in KDE

in an update to KDE Plasma.

You can go into settings and

change it directly in Plasma

itself without flat seal.

Yeah.

It's baffling to me that

GNOME hasn't done that.

Maybe they have, but I haven't seen it.

I think Bazaar now does it too, actually.

Like managing permissions.

Yeah.

Which is like the new--

it's like the replacement

for Discover Store for Bazite.

I don't know if they've done that yet,

but I think it might be on the roadmap.

Anyway, we like to start the show

with talking about what

we've done over the week,

whether it's the games we've

played or any cool projects

we've been working on.

And, Muda, you're the guest.

So what have you been playing this week?

I have been trying to platinum

that "Dead Straining 2" game.

So I've just been so into it.

Like I remember when

the first game came out,

I was just fully in.

I probably didn't

leave my house for a week.

I had to finish this game.

Same thing with the second title.

Absolutely trying to chomp through it.

It is the best

package delivery game ever.

Would you say it's game of the year?

Honestly, if that new ghost of that

Tsushima game or whatever

doesn't hit as hard, probably

would be my game of the year.

No, actually, game of the

year might be System Shock 2.

I just played that in a sitting.

I bought the remastered version.

And I was like, I'm going

to play this for an hour.

And then the sun came up.

And I'm like, well,

I'm already at the end.

Might as well.

Dude, on the topic of

"Ghost of Yote," I think it was,

someone was complaining

about how it looks like it's

kind of the same.

I mean, it's a sequel after all.

But then they also

mentioned how they want to expand

Jin Sakai's story.

I'm pretty sure he-- spoiler alert--

he dies in the first game, doesn't he?

I don't think he dies in the first game.

But the game takes place

hundreds of years later.

So technically, yeah, he should be dead.

I don't think he should be alive.

That's awesome.

Not with that attitude.

No.

What was the life

expectancy back in "Edo Japan,"

like what, 40 years, 50 years?

Well, you know what they say, man.

Well, you know what they say, man.

Japanese people have

long life expectancies.

Yeah, but I mean, when you're a samurai

fighting with swords

and shit, you're probably going to cut

that down a little bit.

Pun intended.

That's just a skill.

I think that's just a skill issue.

He almost dies like

four times in that game.

That was such a good game.

I remember when that dropped on the PS4,

the one thing that blew my mind was like,

how did they make the load time so fast?

I remember fast traveling in it, and I'm

like, oh, two seconds.

Wow.

How did they achieve SSD loading back

on these mechanical drives?

I don't think I played that on the PS4.

Yeah, so funny story.

Yeah, so funny story.

The actual island of Tsushima

named the entirety of Sucker

Punch Games ambassadors to the island.

Oh, that's pretty cool.

Nice.

Hi, Tech.

What have you been playing this week?

That's a good question.

I've been playing--

it's a game called Dungeons and

Degenerate Gamblers.

It's like Bellott-- all

right, so it's not like Bellottro

with gam--

but it's like Blackjack.

But you essentially build your own deck,

and you get cards like--

you get 21 of hearts and stuff like that,

but you can also get Pokemon cards,

quote unquote Pokemon cards.

And it's like a duel to the--

it's like a duel to the deck.

You have to essentially

reduce your enemy's HP,

and it's calculated by

the difference in values

of Blackjack, of the

cards you draw and stuff.

And coincidentally, I did

go to a casino yesterday,

and I played some actual Blackjack,

and I made like 90 bucks.

OK, I was going to ask

if you stole the house.

We have a running joke

that he is incredibly lucky

and manages to count

cards and stuff as well.

Wait, at the casino?

Bro, I wish I had you in Vegas, man.

I really do.

Dude, you hit me up next time, man.

You know, my older brother went to Vegas

to watch the

Mayweather versus Floyd fight,

and he said it was a waste of money.

But he went to Vegas, so it was worth it.

No, I was at the win.

I went there with the

wife for the first time,

and it was just like--

I cannot believe every casino in Vegas

has just opened 24-7.

They're just ready to have

you siphon your cash out.

So it was like the

first time where I'm like,

I'm going to play some Blackjack on it.

I think I lasted, I want to

say, maximum six, seven minutes

before I was like, well,

the money I just put down

is completely gone.

Like, there's just--

Dang.

There's no waiting here.

Dang, there are some house

rules that you do have to know.

For example, dealers must stay--

they have to

essentially stand at 17 or above.

So if they're at 16,

then they have to hit,

even though they're

most likely going to bust.

It's just a rule.

And also, the strategies for figuring out

what to do when, say, for example, they

have a face card running.

Because if they have a face card up,

then your best option is to try to hit,

because they could have

like a 20 on them there.

See, sometimes you think

you'll win in a Blackjack,

because you feel like

there's a method to it.

Anybody that tells me, it's

like roulette has a strategy.

I'm like, how do you

mind control the ball?

How do you get at the

land where you want?

At least with Blackjack,

you kind of think you can win.

And then, because you're in a casino,

you're always against

the most intense odds.

So it's always just

like, that's the one game

that I jump in thinking

that I'll make money on.

Always end up losing, 99% of the time.

One of my favorite

things is loading up GT online

and playing the casino with my friends,

we'll make millions

in a night doing heist,

and then we'll lose the

millions in the night.

I'm just like, I think I

can make it in Blackjack.

I think I can.

I put these 50 large bets on it.

I'm like, I think I can beat it.

And then I'm like, a

casino already makes you lose

every step of the way.

Imagine if the casino

was run by Rockstar Games.

Then you really don't have a chance.

I don't know, man.

I feel like it'd be a little more fair

if it was run by Rockstar Games.

Oh man, you should see the

Diamond Casino in Los Santos.

It is like, they will ensure,

I think they must have hired experts.

I remember a few months ago, there was a,

or years ago, there was a report

where they hired psychologists

to find dark patterns in games.

I really think Rockstar is

the one that landed it the best

when they were making a casino,

because we're like, how do we

make this addictive gambling

in our video game?

And it really is

super addictive gambling.

It's the only game

that I ever have played

where my buddy who's in Argentina

has to use a VPN all the time,

because they actually

go through gambling laws

in GTA Online, apparently,

if you're in other parts of the world.

So, I don't know. I didn't know that.

It's really intense.

Even the, every single

time you go to a slot machine

in that game, they'll give

you return to player percentage.

I'm like, it really does

feel like a real casino,

except run by the

scummiest life service publisher

that I just can't seem to shake off.

Don't worry, they'll

have you back for GTA 6.

Oh, absolutely, dude.

Come on.

If they, come on now.

I can't say that I won't get GTA 6.

That's just a blatant lie.

That game's gonna be like game of the

year next year, easily.

It's not coming out till 2027, man.

They're gonna keep delaying it.

Dude. Yeah.

Dude, yeah, that's right.

They gotta keep delaying them.

Otherwise, we're not

gonna get any game releases

at 2027. I mean, that game looks,

actually, you know,

like that game looks like

still so good.

Like every time I see a screenshot of it,

I'm surprised that it

is running on a PS5.

Like I'm really genuinely blown away

because I saw like Digital Foundry

like talk about the ray tracing in it.

And it really does look like a screenshot

that I would have

captured with path tracing

on like cyberpunk.

And that alone needs like,

what, a 40, 90 and above?

I'm just like, I don't even

know how they're achieving

that level of fidelity on a PS5.

Like those, the engineers

that work on that engine

at Rockstar, magicians.

I think we'll see

when the game comes out,

assuming it doesn't get

delayed multiple times.

Yeah. Yeah.

And generally like with Rockstar stuff,

like anything they show in trailers

usually just gets

upgraded, at least historically.

So I don't know how

it can change for this,

but I mean, when you're

making a game for like what,

over 10 years in one of

the biggest franchises

in the world, it's like,

thank God we're not Game Freak fans

because if this was a

Game Freak production,

oh boy, this would look like apps.

Oh boy.

They wouldn't have moved

past the PlayStation 2 era

visual fidelity.

I don't know man, have

you seen that trailer

for the Game Freak game

that they're publishing?

Oh yeah, the one they're doing on Xbox,

but not on Nintendo platform, yeah.

Yeah, man, then they do great.

As soon as you leave Nintendo's camp,

it's like, well, now you're able to just

innovate like crazy.

Yeah, man.

Oh yeah, I should mention,

I don't endorse gambling for

all the kids that are watching.

I really doubt there's

any kids watching this,

just in case, don't gamble kids

because you're gonna lose.

Yeah.

James, are you a gambler, James?

No, I go to Vegas and I take advantage

of everyone losing their money

and staying in the nice hotels.

So I just go and eat and

just do everything else.

Oh, so you just, yeah.

So you're like the

leech around the torrent.

I love that shit.

Pretty much.

Never see, never see boys.

Whoa, I've seeded a

few things in my life.

Let's just say that.

I have a rule for seeding, okay?

Like if I've torrented for six hours,

I'll seed for three, why not?

I see Linux distro images.

It depends though.

Like if I go to the peer list

and I see a whole bunch of

like 15 kilobytes a second,

I'm like, yeah, fuck,

I'm out of here, dude.

All these assholes, we

need to get out of here.

That's funny.

Yes, I'm Vegas' leech.

Nice.

So, Chase, what have you

been playing this week?

Well, a certain game

dropped another set of worlds

that I've been talking about.

Astrobots has more

worlds that they dropped.

So I started playing

that again and then--

Wait, they got more free content?

Yeah.

Oh my God, I gotta update it.

They still keep on

dropping updates, like it's crazy.

They said they were going to.

I heard one of the worlds

was a Final Fantasy world.

They finally have Cloud

from Final Fantasy VII

in Astrobot.

Yeah, yep.

Like they really have a

lot of characters in that.

It's really fun.

Honestly, I think you'd like a high tech.

But yeah, been playing

that, playing Domekeeper

while I like program

and do my vibe stuff.

Domekeeper's so awesome.

I love that game.

Thanks for the recommendation, Gardener.

Yeah, that was a good recommendation.

Yeah, I would turn my PS5.

Yeah, Gardener

recommended to us during the,

I think it was not the last episode,

but like the episode before.

Yeah, it is so good.

It's super fun.

It's like a cross

between like missile command

and like a tower defense sort of,

but with like mining and crafting stuff.

Not really crafting,

but like mining resources

and like building out your defenses.

This is one of those games, man.

It's like, I'm just

looking at the screenshot

and it reminds me of like,

my buddy Carson told me

about this game, Factorio.

It's one of those games

where I started playing it

at like 8 p.m.

Sun comes up, I'm like,

"All right, well, that's another nice

spin on a free hack."

Yeah.

I've been playing that too this week

in between doing some other fun things.

I'm working on this

really interesting idea

for a crowdsourced like database website.

And it's all about the DRM free games

you can buy through Steam.

Because I was inspired by the story

that you sent me High Tech.

The guy who does Special K

and he hear how he

deleted his like 20 year old

Steam account.

So I made a video about that.

And then I'm like,

"There are a ton of games

on Steam that are DRM free.

And it seems like people

think you have to have Steam

in order to launch all these games.

But like, you really don't.

Like, there are a lot

of games that were like,

because they rely on

like the achievement system

or any of like the

built in things in Steam,

Steam functionally will

act like DRM for the game.

But there are a lot of

games that go out of their way

to make sure that they can launch

without the Steam client present.

Even if, but, and then

also support like Steam input

and achievements and stuff like that.

They are DRM free.

And there isn't a great

resource that can like tell you

which games on Steam are DRM free.

So I've been working on it.

Yeah, because there's

one game that I think,

I don't know if this is true,

but like Cyberpunk 2077, I

think is also a DRM free game.

Because I did run the,

because usually the

way that I test is like,

you go to the executable

file and you just launch it.

And as long as it doesn't

bring up the connecting Steam

account or fires with the client,

then it should be DRM free, right?

Yeah, yep, exactly.

Yeah, it sounds like

even some AAA stuff, yeah.

Like Cyberpunk worked

without the DRM check

and that was pretty awesome.

Yeah, and they'll still

award like achievements

or whatever.

Like if you're playing the game,

you can still earn like marketplace cards

or whatever from these games,

but it doesn't need Steam.

Like my game, for example,

like you can, if you

buy doodlings on Steam,

then you can like close the client

and launch the

executable and it just works.

You can copy it to a different system

without Steam

installed and you can play it.

Which saves you time as a developer.

Hey, Gardner, I have a video idea.

Having considered going

down your entire Steam library

to see which of these games qualify

and then when you get to doodlings,

you'll be like, oh

shoot, doodlings is DRM free?

Well, I didn't know that.

Thanks, developer.

I have some 1000

something games on Steam.

So I don't know if

I'd do the entire thing,

but yeah, that's a good idea.

I'm gonna add that to my list actually.

Awesome.

Did you guys pick up

anything to Steam sale by the way?

Dumpkeeper.

Dumpkeeper.

Dumpkeeper, some other stuff too.

I recommended 100%

orange juice to Gardner

and James, I don't know if

they've checked it out yet.

I did not pick that up.

I have been super busy.

I did pick up a game on GOG

during the GOG sale though.

And they don't remember what it is.

It's on my wish list, high tech.

I have a lot of stuff

recommended on my wish list.

I'm gonna get eventually.

I just got it.

I mean, I put 80 hours into expedition 33

and I finally got that done.

Nice.

It's like Mario Party, but anime.

So good, dude.

That's my game of the year.

It's so good.

Yeah, if it wasn't

for Death Stranding too,

that would easily be

the game of the year.

Oh dude, so what you're

saying is it's gonna be a fight

between Death Stranding and expedition.

I just love working as a UPS delivery guy

in the post-apocalypse.

That's my favorite.

That's my enjoyment.

I don't know man.

33 is higher than two.

So obviously, expedition 33

is game of the year, right?

Yeah.

But then at that point,

you know, Final Fantasy

should just be a series that keeps

skyrocketing to the top.

But you know.

Man, they said we have

like Final Fantasy 24 by now

or some shit like that.

I don't remember which one it was.

It wasn't like human revolution.

You know that like

little gag from Square.

That's funny.

And now we're at like,

what's the newest Final Fantasy?

Like what?

16. 16.

16.

God, that game had

like, that game was decent

until you got to like the

very end and you're like,

man, I think Hideo Kojima wrote this game

because they just dropped like the

cringiest one-liners

imaginable, like, God damn.

That's funny.

I still gotta try Death Stranding too.

Like I stopped to play the first one.

I have it on like multiple platforms.

I still need to play it.

It's just.

Yeah, I have it.

Like, did you play it at all at all?

Do you know like, have you ever

experienced a bit of it?

Okay.

I've experienced some of it.

If you enjoyed playing it.

Yeah.

If you enjoy it, then you'll enjoy it.

I did enjoy it.

I just need to sit down.

I had so many other games I was playing.

Yeah.

And so I need to sit down.

It also has Half-Life Easter eggs in it.

So that also got me into it.

A huge Half-Life fan, so.

My favorite thing about Death Stranding.

Say what?

I was just like, you think we're asking

three or something anytime soon?

Half-Life.

When GTA 5 drops.

GTA 6.

Or 6, I mean 6, sorry.

Whatever.

GTA 5 is gonna drop multiple times again.

So you never know.

True that.

We're gonna get GTA 5 on the Switch 2

before a 6 drops.

Just watch.

Oh yeah.

Are people still making fun of you

for buying the Switch 2

when you said you wouldn't buy one?

Probably, dude.

You know.

Give the internet what it is.

You know, I'll be real.

Like, I wish I still didn't get it

just because like the

only game I played on

was Cyberpunk 2077.

Which is a great port, by the way.

An absolutely exceptional port of a game.

I'm still surprised it works.

Like I saw the Digital Foundry video.

I'm like, man, they

got it running on like

a nine watt Switch 2.

And it looks that good.

Runs better than the Steam Deck.

Which is still a shock

because the deck is still

such a great like low power device

compared to like

obviously like the rogues

and the Legion goes to the world.

Yep.

I wrote the shaders

for Cyberpunk for Arm.

So it's coming out for Mac.

Which I do all my

professional stuff there.

I'm wondering when that port comes out.

Cause like, man, if it wasn't for how

restrictive Apple was,

I think they'd be a

really good gaming device.

Like this, like the M

series of laptops they have

are super duper powerful, super good.

Like the graphical quality is awesome.

Especially when you're

running things through like

crossover or like through

the game porting toolkit.

It's like, why is it

that they're so restrictive

on like gaming?

Like this thing would be

a decent gaming laptop,

but it's just, you know,

Apple being Apple, I guess.

Right?

Like.

I hope that would change.

I hope it changes.

Steve Jobs, it was

embarrassed that like the way

he made his first like good

amount of money was breakout.

Right?

Like he was embarrassed about that.

And like ever since they

just have held this grudge

against gaming.

That's what it seems to me anyway.

Sounds like a skill issue.

And then it's like, even now it's like,

they'll go out and

they'll like port like,

they had a, I remember

like when the new iPhones

were coming out, they had

like resident evil four remake

running on these things.

And I'm like, I don't understand why

they're so embarrassed.

Like it's kind of a huge

deal when your chipsets

are running PS5 quality games.

Sometimes with ray tracing

even on like mobile hardware.

I mean, even like Mac M1s,

they're like mobile chipsets,

like arm-based chipsets.

If you want to go buy that technicality,

I'm like, if I were

you, I'd be flexing that.

And now you've got like Nvidia with like,

I think it's the N1X and

they're coming into the picture.

It's like, why would you not be able to,

why would you not be

flexing the advantage you have

for as long as you can?

And so of course the other

players start getting involved.

It's so weird.

It's like such a, it's

like a weird Apple thing.

Like they want to be like innovators.

It's like people do a

lot more on their devices

than just like browse the

web or like maybe engage with,

you know, like office tools.

Why not just like flex it?

It's such a huge

thing that you have over.

I think it's market share, man.

I really do.

I think it's because like, if

you go and look at the games,

like the Resident Evils,

there's not that many

reviews and stuff like that.

So they're probably weighing that,

even though they're

going to have to realize

they need to pour a ton of games over

before that starts becoming relevant.

Well, the thing too is

that mobile games are tainted

with a stink of just being

a gacha ridden hellscape.

Yeah.

And like people are used to not paying,

like not paying for video games, right?

Like I remember, what was it?

Super Mario run or

whatever it was called?

That came on mobile.

It was like $10 to like

access the whole game,

but no one bought it.

But then guess what they

released like a few months later,

Fire Emblem Heroes,

gacha game, mega successful.

Yeah, well, Resident

Evils are released on Mac, iOS

and the iPad OS.

So it's probably because they're all ARM.

And so it's a full

release across all three.

And to be honest, they

play really well on the iPad.

You can hook up a PS5

controller, plug it into your TV,

and it's pretty impressive on an M chip.

If I just had to guess,

it's just that like mobile gaming,

I don't know, like the

whole mobile gaming like market

isn't really designed around

paying for $60 video games.

Or I guess, how much was it on iOS?

Oh, it was full price.

The Resident Evil

remakes are all full price.

Like they're the same price

you would pay for on things.

So like $60, $70.

Yeah, around them.

And usually what they would

do is in like the first week

of the release, they

would like slash the price

by like 50, 60%.

So I mean, that's really

when they only made their sales.

I don't think anybody

bought those games after,

like during their full price,

because it's like, as

much as it's a cool novelty,

it's like a party trick almost

that you can run "Resie

4" remake on your iPhone.

But it's like, if you

ever actually went through,

like if you ever actually played the game

without like the attached controller,

it is the most laughable

touchscreen control interface.

Like I have debt straining on my phone

and I bought that just to show my buddy

how insane the onscreen controls were.

Cause it's just like, they have,

I want to say like at least 18 buttons

and you have to somehow have like more

than like five fingers per

hand in order to make it work.

Cause like, yeah, when you

get to the end, like dude,

imagine doing the final

boss fight of that game

with like the touchscreen controls,

anybody that's able

to do it, bro, you are,

you have the utmost super

gamer badge applied to you

if you can beat a video game like that.

Yeah.

I saw my friends, kids

who like only play games

on touch screens and

like, I just worry about like,

cause they won't play a

game with the controller.

They don't understand it.

And they're young still,

but like still they're like,

they have their tablets and

they just play like Minecraft

or whatever with that.

And I'm like, what are we,

what kind of generation are we raising

that don't know how to

use game pads, you know?

Bunch of psychos.

I mean, my kids, I put a

controller or a keyboard

and mouse in their hands.

They, none of this touch, I

mean, they do it a little bit.

Yeah.

Gotta raise them right.

It's crazy though.

Like a lot of the kids and

like my family and stuff,

I don't even think that they even come

across many games now.

It's just like all TikTok for them.

It's all just like social

media brain rot they're on.

So, you know.

That's even worse.

Like I won, like one time I sat down,

I'm playing like Deus

Ex and they're like,

can you put on like something exciting?

This is a boring game.

I'm like, you were, you kids, you just

don't know how easy,

you have it these days.

You just don't know like good quality.

I feel like an old

man screaming at a cloud

when I'm like telling them

like, these are good games.

Deus Ex is a good game.

Metal Gear Solid 2 is a good game.

Yes, it's 20 years old.

It's still good.

Obviously it's rated M not

because of the blood and gore,

but because you need to be

mature enough to sit down.

Yeah, because you need to

be mature enough to play.

Yeah, dude, I was playing

San Andreas and they're like,

this game just looks terrible.

And I'm like, I don't

know how to reach you kids.

Okay, this is one of the

best open world games ever made.

Okay, three cities in one.

And you kids don't

understand how amazing this is.

Okay, come on.

Just throw a reshade shader on there

and then it will look like an indie game.

Dude, on the computer, it's even wilder.

Like I'm on my computer.

They're like, you have

like Call of Duty war zone

or something.

I'm like, no, I try

like, I'm like a Linux gamer.

Okay, all the good multiplayer stuff

that you kids love to play

just does not work for me.

Okay, I just play single player nonsense.

Same.

(upbeat music)

Cool, we're gonna get on

to the first story here.

Nvidia has become the first company

to hit $4 trillion in valuation.

Hi, Tech, you wanna

fill us in on this one?

Yeah, it's exactly

what it says on the tin.

Nvidia became the

first $4 trillion company.

And it's now the most

valuable company in the world.

A huge historical moment

for the tech sector says,

so how do they, so

they're big claim to fame

is just obviously their AI, right?

Like that's why

they're the biggest company.

So that's man, so great

when they're like, you know,

honestly, anybody's like,

why did Nvidia abandon gamers?

It's like, well, you don't

become $4 trillion overnight

by being for the gamers.

I was reading the other,

like, I think it was like

the other day, the other

night that apparently they,

they're selling their AI in

like military applications now.

Like, you know, they're just like,

they're basically almost like

a defense contractor now too.

So, you know.

I have a theory that this,

like their meteoric

rise on the stock market

is literally just a

pump and dump by Nvidia.

Like they're taking cues

from their old customers,

the cryptocurrency crowd,

and they're just pumping

their stock price with AI.

And then it's just gonna crash,

but Jensen's gonna get

out before it crashes.

That's my take.

I sure hope it crashes, man.

I wanna get a 59D on a fire sale.

(laughing)

The thing with the AI

stuff is I feel like

you're on the money there,

cause I don't think the AI

stuff is super duper sustainable.

And that just goes for like

every company like Microsoft.

It goes for like open AI.

It goes for like, is it Twitter?

Is it like it's Grok?

Oh, XAI, that's their own company.

XAI. Yeah.

I feel like for a lot,

like the way that I

always look at it, right?

Is that you have to make

it super duper sustainable.

And one of the approaches that I like

from companies like Apple is like,

they want to move it as much as they can

to the local like system to process.

Because I think like Apple

sees it on the wall, right?

It's like, we can enable

AI for millions of users

to access on our servers.

But it's like at some

point, every request they make,

like I was reading that

like a chat GPT request

was like 10 times the power requirement

of like a standard Google search.

So it's like, at some point it's got,

and it already is just

way too unsustainable

to have so many users

on at any given moment.

And generally speaking, I

feel like the advancements

between like all these AI models,

like Grok 4 and Grok

4 Heavy just dropped.

And all I've seen is

praise just from the AI bros.

I haven't really seen any praise

from like the general user, you know?

And so it's like they

keep pushing this technology.

They keep upping the ante,

but I just don't

personally see the actual like fruit

of the labor, so to speak, right?

Being provided.

Yeah. Yeah.

Grok is an interesting one

because Grok is powered

by a bunch of diesel motor

or generators in Texas.

Like it's crazy what it takes to,

because well, Texas

doesn't have a good power grid.

And so it's yeah, diesel is running Grok.

It's interesting, but I've

read good things about it,

but I don't think it's

much different than Claude

or chat GPT or AKA

open AI, but I like them.

But I definitely think

that a company like Nvidia

is going to, the bubble's gonna pop

because it's gonna be more accessible

to lower end systems as

models become more optimized.

And we've seen this

already happen multiple times.

And I just, I would not put any money

into Nvidia right now.

So I think that bubble's gonna pop.

Yeah. They're talking about like

stuff like DeepSeek almost,

where like they were

able to run their models.

Exactly.

I was able to run

DeepSeek on my Steam Deck.

Like it's a pretty good model.

The seven billion, I

think it was, wasn't it James?

We did it together.

Yeah, it was like-- I

think it was seven billion.

I think it was like the seven billion.

It was really impressive

that I was able to get it done

in a quick enough manner for what it was.

I mean, it wasn't as fast as

or as like good as running it through

open AI or something,

but it was still like impressive.

But it's local. Yeah, it's local.

Yeah, it's local and it's

also like lower powered too,

right?

Yeah, and the Steam Deck

doesn't even have like AI

dedicated like NPUs or whatever,

where I have a

Minisforum AI X1 or something

and it's really, really

fast at running like even,

I think it has 64 gigabytes of shared RAM

and it's like very fast at running

like the 20 or 30 billion model,

which is really, really impressive.

I'm running on a 96

gigabyte shared Mac Studio

and it like locally for some stuff.

I'm really impressed with it.

That's why I'm like, I really think

eventually you could just get a Mac.

I mean, they're expensive,

but like a $4,000 Mac Studio

as opposed to what these graphics cards

that Nvidia sells are,

like that's huge difference.

I can do a lot with my Mac Studio.

Yeah, like in a server downstairs,

like where I just have

all my VMs come out of,

like that's where I put

like a Gemma model in there,

probably it's around, I

wanna say 13 billion parameters

and it's about like,

it's not the same as like chat GPT,

but like connecting it to

the internet through CRX and G.

It does a lot of the

research that I need to.

I'm even getting deep

research working on it,

hopefully later today.

So I have found that like local models,

even if they're not as

shiny as like Grok and chat GPT,

they run locally and it just feels like

I'm kind of outside the scope

of these like crazy subscription models.

Like even with Grok, it's

like, I looked at the price,

it's like 200 a month for 4 Heavy

and like I think it's 40 bucks for Grok

or 30 for Grok for if

you go through the app.

And they're upping those prices.

Yeah, they're upping the prices.

Why?

Because it's not

sustainable at the prices they're at.

Like I think-

Because every idiot on fucking Twitter

wants to be like, Grok, is this true?

Yeah.

Yeah, Grok is true.

The thing is though, I

think Apple's really smart,

like with their not rolling out of like

cloud-based AI stuff

because they know that at some point

someone has to foot the

bill and their customers,

while they are going to be more open

to paying higher prices

because of the Apple tax,

it's just not

sustainable as a business model.

And that's why I think

this is a huge bubble

and Nvidia's valuation is

just gonna topple pretty soon.

And they've pissed off though,

the segment that got

them there, the gamers.

The gamers, I don't

wanna touch Nvidia stuff,

like let alone it runs horribly on Linux.

Yeah.

They need to fix that.

Like Baz, I had to go

back to Windows on my 3090.

And just-

I have a video hopefully sometime soon,

probably like a month

where I'm just gonna be like,

I downgraded my system

because I'm going to an AMD card now.

And it's like what you said,

like the Nvidia stuff

runs like, I have a 4090

and it's just, you feel like you lose,

I think it's like what

20, 30% of your performance

on like Linux and

it's just, I like Linux.

I'd rather just get like

the 30% slower AMD card

and get my full

performance, wouldn't really matter.

Cause I have an AMD 6800

XT in my computer downstairs

where I have like Bazlight installed,

it's like my home console.

I just like, I use it

like a literal PlayStation

and dude, the

performance on it is insane.

I'm playing Cyberpunk, I'm

playing like Death Stranding,

I'm playing FF7 Rebirth,

everything is 60 frames.

And if I need to get

like extra GPU power,

you can just always inject like FSR.

And at that distance,

like the FSR

artifacting is so unnoticeable.

So it's like, you just get so much life

out of the AMD stuff

and Nvidia is kind of

like dragged their heels

on patching their driver

up for like Linux anyways.

So it's like down the road,

I think it's just team

AMD processor and GPU wise.

If you can get one too, you know,

like getting Nvidia

card is near impossible.

I wonder if I can

smuggle GPU out of Japan.

The thing is with the,

That's some rare stuff.

The thing is with

Nvidia cards too on Linux,

I have never had an Nvidia card on Linux

that is capable of

consistently sleeping and waking.

Really?

Yeah, never, ever.

It like just, I can't in good conscience

have Nvidia cards anymore.

I remember back in the day.

Even with Mint, it's better,

but it's still not close to

the AMD experience of like-

I remember back in the day,

the tables used to be turned.

It used to be that Nvidia

was the like Linux friendly GPU

company and AMD was the opposite.

And I guess,

but that was probably

like two decades ago, right?

Maybe like a decade and a half.

I mean, I remember in 2013,

like when around the time

where AMD was working on Vulkan

and they started

talking about like retiring

the Radeon drivers for Linux,

that was when the tides turned

because at the time they were,

they were both probably at parody

in terms of their Linux support.

Neither was great.

Nvidia was slightly better, but yeah, no,

Nvidia like legitimately

removed useful features

from the Linux version of their drivers

because they wanted to quote unquote,

increase feature parody

with the Windows drivers.

And that was when I was like,

oh, this is not, this doesn't bode well.

Yeah, they, so I don't

remember exactly what it was,

but I think it was like

display resolutions and refresh rates,

or maybe no, it was like the

number of supported displays

was much higher on Linux

than it was on Windows.

And then they removed,

they pulled that feature out

and they were like,

nope, you can only have four,

a maximum of four displays.

Do you think they did

that because it was like

maybe like an enterprise

feature or something, right?

Like, you know, like

sometimes they have it

for like an enterprise grade card,

like the multiple

displays I think would be,

you know, like how

people set up like displays

and like Times Square,

like advertising stuff.

Yeah.

Just run them off like enterprise GPUs.

Oh yeah.

So I'm wondering if they like removed it

because they were like, wait,

we're giving this like expensive feature

to let the plebeians, you know?

It makes sense.

Kind of sounds like

what they did with SLI

or what would become EnvyLink too.

Cause you can't use

EnvyLink on any consumer GPS,

but for like the, like,

no, not the Tesla cards,

but like the Quattros, I think it was.

Yeah.

Those can be EnvyLink together.

No practical game.

Well, they took away GPU virtualization

for no real reason, other

than it was an enterprise feature

and we couldn't run it on

like, you know, Linux or,

I mean, I think the only

way you can do like GPU

virtualization on like most

modern Nvidia cards properly

is through like that

Hyper-V GPU P like trick.

Other than that, like on Linux,

it's such a nuisance to go through.

I thought that they had recently,

like in 3000 series cards, they had

re-enabled virtualization.

Am I wrong about that?

I don't know if it's like for Linux,

I think you can do it through like,

like as long as maybe you're

in their developer program,

I'm just saying like for

the consumer aspect of it.

I see.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, they suck.

(laughs) They're like, they're one of

the final bosses of gaming,

right?

Unfortunately, we all

need that demon for now.

I know, right?

You know, the thing that

I always hate about like

with Nvidia though, is like,

I've like recently had this

and I've said it in our Discord chat too,

I've had this like

revelation that I think

this whole ray tracing craze,

aside from like one or

two games that I've played,

I really hate how much it's pushed

in an unoptimized

state by every developer.

Because, you know, playing

something like Death Straining

too, right?

Like it's a game that has no ray tracing,

yet the lighting somehow looks better

than a lot of games with the

unneeded ray tracing sometimes,

and it runs better like a

lock 60 on the PlayStation.

And I'm just kind of

sitting there, I'm like, you know,

I play a lot of games on PC,

like that Monstrone or Wilds,

I played a little bit on

PC, I ran the benchmarking,

I'm like, this runs like

absolute dog shit, you know?

And then like, and then it's funny too,

because then you look at

the developers and it's like,

how do you make it run

at a consistent frame rate

and a resolution?

It's like, well, just

slap on the frame generation

and the DLSS upscaler.

And I'm like, I look at

the system requirements,

I'm like, dude, for

1080p at 30 frames or 60,

they want me to like generate frames,

they want me to like

upscale from like 720,

I'm like, what happened to

like basic optimizations?

Like what happened to like

having a game run rock solid?

You know, I can play

games from like 10 years ago,

like Phantom Pain that maybe the textures

are a little muddier, but

damn, does that thing walk

on integrated graphic cards even,

as opposed to like modern

day GPUs where it's like,

games look, I would say

marginally better in some cases,

but the requirement is

like, it's like, brother,

why do I need all the

upscaling tech in the world?

This is not

optimization, this is just Nvidia

locking every other vendor

out from basic optimizations.

Yeah, man, plus they

deprecated physics support

for 32-bit games as well, I think.

Yeah.

I think Borderlands 2

has won such a game too.

I love everybody who's like,

whoever played old physics games,

and like the day I got that news,

I was playing Mirror's

Edge on my PC, I'm like.

Oh no.

Wow, they just removed like, you know,

pretty like, and it's funny too,

is like they removed that tech,

and then I kind of sit there, I'm like,

you know, if it wasn't for

the fact that ray tracing,

like as software,

wasn't something that was

kind of a little

feature agnostic these days,

imagine if like 10,

15 years down the road,

they took away ray tracing,

like the RTX technologies,

like would you not complain then?

Especially now that games

are built with that technology

in mind in certain cases,

like it's so outlandish to me.

Like some of the defense

that I hear about Nvidia too.

The average age of the

games that I've played

over the last year, like in my Steam

account, 17 years old.

Like I don't play a lot of modern games.

And so like the idea that like, you know,

at some point the RTX technology could

just be pulled away,

you know, and so

people my age in the future,

can't play the games they grew up with,

that seems like just.

Yeah.

Dude, imagine growing up with Fortnite.

Dude, you'll lose Fortnite.

You'll lose it at some point.

That's what'll happen.

Dude, it's like, you'll lose actually.

Unless stock killing

games succeed, that is.

Yeah, great segue.

I was trying to find one.

Yeah, so video game

Europe has emerged as like

an opponent of stock killing games.

Hi, Tech, you wanna hit

us up with this info here?

Well, let's see what the

games industry has to say.

We appreciate the

passion of our community.

However, the decision to

discontinue online services

is multifaceted, never taken lightly

and must be an option for companies

when an online experience is no longer

commercially viable.

We understand that it can be

disappointing for players,

but when it does happen,

the industry ensures that

players are given fair notice

of the prospective changes in compliance

with local consumer protection laws.

Private servers are not

always a viable option for players

as the protections we put in place

to secure players'

data, remove illegal content

and combat unsafe

community content would not exist

and would leave rights holders liable.

In addition, many titles

are designed from the ground

not to be online only.

In effect, these proposals

would curtail developer choice

by making these games prohibitively

expensive to create.

We welcome the

opportunity to discuss our position

with policymakers and those who have led

the European Citizens

Initiative in the coming months.

You know how much it hurts my soul

that everything they just said there

was a fucking blatant lie?

Like nobody is asking

companies to be responsible

for the games they take down.

It's funny to me, like,

okay, so stop killing games.

I think as an

initiative, I think everyone here,

I think every gamer

really who plays video games

supports it because look,

yes, games are a lot different

than the games we used

to play as a kid, right?

Like I remember back, you know,

when it came to the

PlayStation 1, you slap your disc in,

you could play a game

from start to finish, done.

And yes, there are a lot

of games that have unneeded

open like services to the internet.

And I think those are all bullshit.

I think all that

stuff is completely wrong.

Like there was a game that

I brought up in my videos

I talked about Need for Speed 2015.

I know that you just took

down like Need for Speed Rivals

or whatever, like that online service,

but that's not a big deal because at

least for that game,

a big majority of the

game is playable offline,

like through the single

player, like, you know,

functionality, but like a

game like Need for Speed 2015

that I really enjoy.

I think it's a great Need for Speed game.

The shitty side of it is

that it needs a permanent

connection to EA servers.

And there has been no

discussion on like, hey,

down the road, what are we gonna do

when we have to take these servers down?

They just took down Anthem,

a game that could have been,

you know, processed locally,

at least when it came to

that game's logic, I believe.

Why, you know, gamers are okay.

Why people are defensive of this.

It's like this weird

world we kind of live in.

And it goes into so many

other aspects where like,

even when it comes to physical media,

I've made so many videos

where I've talked about like,

if you buy a PlayStation

disc, even some Xbox discs, right?

Provided they're not

first party Microsoft

or Switch game cards, you

can play an entire, like,

you can play the entire game from the

beginning title credit

to the end credit

sequence without a patch.

So it's like, we have,

there's so many aspects

of game preservation that still exist,

but a lot of these big

companies are fighting

to take that away from

us and turn everything

into a live service

or basically require us

to constantly be connected to services

that will go down at some point,

and then we'll have no

choice other than to buy

a sequel of a video game.

I don't understand the

weird world we live in

where like, even certain

gamers are kind of like,

eating that bullshit, even

though it's so provably wrong.

And so I think stop

killing games is so great

because when you got like

these six figure lobbyists

who are actually getting off their ass

and to write a briefs about how evil

consumer rights are,

you know, you're doing

something right in this situation.

Like, no matter how you slice it.

You know, we had Ross

on the channel yesterday,

not like yesterday, last week, actually.

And he spoke further, we

gave some hypotheticals like,

what about World of Warcraft?

Because, you know, a

game like World of Warcraft

functionally would not be possible

without like hundreds

or like thousands of

players of course, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, he's a good guy too.

And I'm surprised it took

this long for someone to do this,

but I guess none of us are European, so.

Yeah.

Yeah, their consumer

rights are a lot better

than us in North

America, that's for sure.

You said it.

I just relish the fact

that the video game industry

feels so threatened, you know?

Like, they recognize that

like the way they've been doing

things is wrong and they

know that they have to lie

and spin to make sure that

they can keep doing things

the evil way.

And I love that.

Yeah, and the crazy part

is they shot themselves

in the foot by doing exactly that,

making these online

games playable offline.

Like, let's look at two games.

Not great games, Redfall, not great game,

but it's playable offline,

in the case you ever want to play it.

I think you can still buy it today

and play it offline if you want.

Yeah, it was on Steam sale, yeah.

Yeah, and Multiverse,

this is another game

that's not that great, but

you can play that offline too,

with all the characters unlocked,

something like that,

from what I understand.

Yeah.

And actually there's

another interesting one too.

It's a gacha game.

It's called Mega Man X Dive,

based on the Mega Man X series.

It was a gacha game,

it failed, it shut down,

but then Capcom decided to

just take that gacha game

and just repackage it

as like a game game,

for like 30 bucks, and you can play it.

You know they did the same

with Animal Crossing gacha

on an iPhone?

Did they?

Yeah, Nintendo, they made

an Animal Crossing gacha,

they released the whole thing.

All of its updates, all of its content,

I think it's like a $20

iPhone game, just the whole game.

And it's funny too,

because it's like the good parts

of the game, with all of the

predatory gacha shit removed,

because it's not a live service.

So, unironically, not only

did they not kill the game,

but they actually made it better.

Oh, that's like, I wouldn't

have seen that from Nintendo.

Yeah.

But hey.

Yeah.

I think it's just, I

think it's like, you know,

like at the end of the

day, companies like Nintendo,

as much as I wanna shit on or anybody

wants to crap on them,

I think they realize,

like, when they make a software

product, you know, you

might not like like a certain

Mario Kart game, or like a

certain like Fire Emblem game,

but I think when they

produce a project, like there's

kind of like that ego where, or at least

like an understanding

like, okay, we made

something good, we might as well keep

it active or something,

maybe that kind of is present

in a company like that, as

opposed to like, you know,

an EA or like a Take

Two, where it's like, shit,

we just like throw out

all these sports games

and all this nonsense every other year.

Who cares if one goes

down, they're just gonna buy

the next, right?

Like every project is kind

of treated with like some

reverence as opposed to,

this is just coming out of the

factory for, you know, all

the little piggies to consume,

I guess.

Yeah.

Well, it's like a level

of disposability, right?

Like so many of their,

like EA's games specifically

are disposable because they

want you, like their revenue

model is you buy the

yearly iteration of the product.

And if they are forced to

have like the, to, in some way,

like end of life, their product

gracefully and let people

preserve those games, it

threatens their unethical model.

And you know, so people

are seeing through it too.

I mean, like the fact that

they have hit 81% over their

target, is that right?

Yeah.

81% of the way to like the target.

Yeah, they want to get the short, like,

because they know they're

gonna lose a bunch of signatures

for.

I mean, there's a good

chance that we do have at like

one million like actual

signatures at minimum,

but it's just a safety net.

Yeah.

Plus if we were to get to the two

millions signatures,

it'll really show them

just how important this is.

Yeah.

So keep signing.

Yeah.

If you're in the EU.

The thing about stop killing games,

it's super important,

like as well as that.

I think it, you know, we,

games are not the only

things under threat, right?

Like obviously it's just

like general use software.

It's like software in general.

So I feel like this can just

bleed over into other consumer

protections for, you

know, software that we use,

like video editing stuff.

Like maybe Adobe is

looking at this and wondering,

oh shit, maybe, maybe this might kind of,

maybe the dragnet might

hit us, so to speak, right?

Maybe even operating

systems down the road too, right?

Like maybe at some point

companies like Microsoft,

companies like Apple may

have to look and revise more end

of life plans for their software.

I don't know, maybe, but I

think this has more of an effect,

could have an effect on

the industry and larger,

and it shouldn't just be games.

Yeah.

I mean, a lot of the

principles here also coincide with

right to repair.

Like, I mean, this is,

you have a right to

the product that you buy,

and you have a right to

maintain that product well after

the whoever decides

that's an obsolete product.

So I think that there's

more than just even software.

I think that this applies

to like anything that has

digital capability at all.

I don't know, I love this.

I'm really glad that we get

to have Ross on the episode

last week too.

Yeah, it was pretty insightful,

and I got to do the

whole World of Warcraft.

Yeah, we can't not work.

Well, it's such an interesting one,

because there's like unofficial servers

and stuff like that.

And so it's definitely

one that where I want to see

game companies have end of life plans of,

especially like Blizzard,

like you have enough money,

you can open source at

least part of the servers.

There's no reason, except for they want

to protect their IP,

and they don't want to.

Yeah, so I do want to talk

about the second paragraph

of their statement,

that how private servers

are not always a viable option.

So they say that private server operators

can't secure player data, but really,

they probably wouldn't

collect nearly as much data

as like a major AAA company would,

because they're not

trying to sell your data

to the highest bidder, right?

Yeah, you know who also

can't secure your data?

Publishers.

Sony.

Sony, for God's sake.

Sony has led a leak

every single year, it seems.

I don't know, they're so self-important,

and they think that they love to use

a grandizing language like this,

but they are literally

like complete morons.

I just want to know--