Mm.

Uh, this just feels like very focused on like, okay, who are, who are the senior people that are very expensive? Like, they have high salaries because they've been here 20 years.

Before the layoffs, they were running a voluntary retirement program, and so I started to see a number of people, a number of long-timer, uh, Microsoft people taking advantage of that.

Um, and, and so the, between the brain drain and studios that are left, like half complete, there's gonna have to be more work to do, whether that is...

And, and, and they are gonna lay off another 1,600 people over the course of the next 12 months.

And so you wonder like, okay, does id make it out the other side of that? Um, or do they just kind of sweep in and go like, "Okay, now the rest of you are gone, and we're shutting this down." I, you know, Blizzard hasn't really been hit.

Uh, Blizzard in the US anyway.

Mm

Mm

... uh, this just feels like very focused on like, okay, who, who are the senior people that are very expensive? Like, they have high salaries because they've been here 20 years.

Before the layoffs, they were running a voluntary retirement program, and so I started to see a number of people, a number of long-timer, uh, Microsoft people taking advantage of that.

Um, and, and so the, between the brain drain and studios that are left like half complete, there's gonna have to be more work to do, whether that is...

And, and, and they are gonna lay off another 1,600 people over the course of the next 12 months.

And so you wonder like, okay, does Id make it out the other side of that? Um, or do they just kind of sweep in and go like, "Okay, now the rest of you are gone, and we're shutting this down." I, you know, Blizzard hasn't really been hit.

Uh, Blizzard in the US anyway.

Mm

So in terms of the ranking, you know, you're talking, you were saying how you wanna go back and see were they, were they actually bad? I mean, how do you factor in the time that has passed, the advancements in technology, all of that as you're ranking them? Like, what is your criteria?

Well, I, I think the, the main thing I'm trying to do is answer the question, are these games still worth playing today? And so I'm flattening out a lot of...

You know, because the, the early games on the system are way more rudimentary than games that came out, you know, five, six years later.

You know, that's interesting in the moment, but here, if you're just trying to go like, "Oh, hey, are, do these games still hold up?" It doesn't matter if a game was released in '86 or 1993.

Uh, we're just trying to, to figure out, you know, what, what's still worth looking at.

And, and so flattening out that age has, has changed the results.

You know, if you, if you were looking at this as like, well, what are the classics? As I say, you know, this is the ultimate argument settler.

[laughs]

Yeah.

You know? Like the people that are, that are invested in Xbox as a console are not gonna understand why they would want to have the freedom of Windows or, you know, whatever the pitch is.

Uh, th- they're not gonna understand that, and so you're, you're spending a lot of time building this other end of this platform out, uh, for, for an audience of people that I don't know that they will want to take advantage of that.

For me personally, I think that's something that sounds, like, kind of exciting just 'cause I wanna see it.

Mm.

I said, "Okay.

Well..." And she said, "What's in it?" And I said, "Uh, well, I don't know.

It's like 300 milligrams of caffeine and then whatever the hell else is in there.

Yeah.

You know? Like, the people that are, that are invested in Xbox as a console are not gonna understand why they would want to have the freedom of Windows or, you know, whatever the pitch is.

Uh, th- they're not gonna understand that, and so you're, you're spending a lot of time building this other end of this platform out, uh, for, for an audience of people that I don't know that they will want to take advantage of that.

For me personally, I think that's something that sounds, like, kind of exciting just 'cause I wanna see it.

Mm.

I said, "Okay.

Well..." And she said, "What's in it?" I said, "Well, I don't know, it's like 300 milligrams of caffeine and then whatever the hell else is in there.

It's like pre-workout.

They don't like that, yeah

... and, and instead of like, "Hey, this game developer is getting dog-piled upon, you know, in their message boards because they dared to have an opinion about something, and, and now, like, people are insane." Um, yeah.

They, they definitely could do better at that.

They can't just be the...

A- as much as they wanna be, they can't just be this, like, neutral, like, "Well, you know, we j- we just wanna provide a place for people to say things about whatever." Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and, and we're just like, "No, we're just, we're just not going to do that." And so I posted, like, you know, "Hey, you, you don't have to do this.

You know, you realize, like, just because they're doing this, like, you are a person, or you are an editor, you are a p- person who gets to make editorial decisions, or your, your publication gets to make decisions around this stuff, that you don't have to do this.