In the latest weekly news and podcast after-show (sponsored by YouGov), we discuss Nintendo’s having big concerns about its next console, Sony investing $300 million into first-party games, Riot releasing a 2023 roadmap for VALORANT, Turtle Beach exploring a sale, Take-Two’s CEO receiving a big bonus thanks to microtransactions, Sony claiming it won’t make Bungie games PlayStation exclusives, the Saudi Esports Federation hosting an esports tournament series, Noblechairs celebrating Star Wars Day, Nintendo announcing a list of the ten best-selling games for the Switch, and so much more!

From the keyboard to the boardroom, this is the

business of esports.

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yougov.com/gaming-esports To learn more, from the keyboard to

the boardroom, this is the business of esports weekly new

show slash post podcast live stream. I am Paul the profit

that will leave me I'm joined today by my friends and CO hosts

the Honorable Judge Jimmy burrata, Jeff the juice Cohen,

Lindsey, the Boss Boss. For those of you who are new here,

welcome. What we do is we cover the most pressing, gaming and

esports topics news of the week. We look at all of it through a

business and C suite lens we dissect we analyze the business

implications of everything happening in the industry

festival. We get to do it live with you guys. You get to get in

our faces, ask questions. Challenge us. We encourage it.

If you're in here, definitely get involved. You're welcome to

lurk we don't mind but definitely get involved if you

can. It's a safe space. And we love it. It makes it that much

more fun. How is everyone doing this week?

Lindsey? Oh, I just made it to Pittsburgh. Just

finished the drive like 15 minutes ago and right onto here

and we made the drive the AC in the car was broken. Something we

discovered shortly after leaving, so I'm happy to be

here.

That is dedication. How are you guys?

Are you in Pittsburgh is the real question.

Hey, what's wrong? Is it your college reunion?

No, I have family here. I make fun of you from New

Jersey in the armpit of America so I don't want to hear it.

Jimmy How you doing this week?

Have a great week guys still a little sick here.

Sorry for my raspy voice but ready to get into it.

Everyone loves the raspy voice very much got a

bit of a like Bryan Adams as you know. deal going on. Maybe you

should get into making some music while you've still got

that raspy voice. Guys, I want to talk about so many things.

Can we start with teasing the podcast? Because we have a great

episode this week. I want to bring up actually the website.

But we had actually can't find the website. So maybe if you

have it quickly, we had a Nate Klaus want to make sure I get

his name right Nate Klaus from New Level recruiting on the

podcast. And what was interesting is Nate does hiring

and like headhunting hiring, recruiting staffing for the

gaming and esports industry very specifically, so they work with

a lot of the big gaming companies and helping them to

hire to do make executive hires to find specific people, game

developers etc. fascinating insight into the job environment

right now in the gaming world confirmed many of the things we

believe like anecdotally, but some tremendous insight that I

think you guys are going to want to hear about what the reality

on the ground is of recruiting and hiring in the gaming

industry. So

it sounds like a good good guy to know if you're

looking to get a job

is a good guy to know. All he came up with the

marketing he came from doing recruiting at Riot so he was one

of the top guys doing recruiting at Riot and then at pub G. So

you know, pretty deep experience in the gaming space. And a

fascinating fascinating look on the inside. So V are not the

market for talent in the gaming industry is still red hot.

That's the that's the TLDR but you should tune into the

podcast. To hear more, learn more. And definitely go check

them out. Actually, I'll put it in chat. Because I think it's

interesting for it we often get people you know wanting to

wanting to learn more, so I'll put that in the chat. People

looking to break into the industry etc. Alright guys, so

let's get to some stories this week because that's what we do

right News. And I want to start with Nintendo. Nintendo in the

news, actually a couple of news stories, which I think we can

cover. And it was the headline that caught my attention here.

Hang on, let me get this up. The headline that caught my

attention here, which is you should in a second, Nintendo

says the transition to its next console is a, quote, major

concern for us. And so the sub headline says the company wants

to alleviate the risk of resetting its user base. So

Nintendo president shuntaro will power as said the company's

eventual transition away from Nintendo Switch to its next

hardware platform is a major concern for the company. They

they, they're worried about resetting their 100 million plus

user base. And the way they're offsetting that or trying to

alleviate that is by building quote, long term relationships

with its users now, not sure what that means. Exactly. They

mentioned Nintendo accounts. I don't know if that's enough. But

what do you guys make of Nintendo, Nintendo's concern? I

mean, there's some numbers in this article in terms of how

many switches and weeds and stuff they've sold, but 100

million annual players, playing users. And going forward, they

said, it's important to consider how we can maintain and expand

on that number. And it will be essential when we consider our

plan for the next hardware platform. So two questions for

you guys. What do you think of Nintendo being worried about

this in the first place? And second question, are they

hinting that maybe new hardware is coming? Or is it? Are they

hinting that new hardware is not coming? What? What is the

reading between the lines here? Jeff, you have some thoughts.

I think they're definitely right to be worried.

Just if you look at Nintendo's history, I mean, they seem to

every other console, they launch have like a dud. You know, they

had ncwc before that was, or they had the the NES that was

great. Then they had the game to the dud or messing up the order.

But then the Wii that was a massive hit than the Wii U. That

was terrible. Switch. That was great. So yeah, I mean, when you

have a massive install base, and you're selling really profitable

software into it, like that's, that's nirvana. And then when

you have to rebuild the install base, it becomes really hard,

because you have to develop software, oftentimes for both

consoles as you're managing that transition. And then you have a

lot of people that don't switch and then if the console is not

as good, you, you pretty much just lose everyone. So it's,

it's, it's almost like you're building a whole new business,

every time there's a conflict. So I don't think having Nintendo

accounts going to gonna change that. But that's why you see a

lot more long gating cycles than having like, the Switch Pro

versus like a whole new console.

Why does Nintendo specifically have this issue?

Like, is that sort of what you're implying, and what this

article is implying? Like Xbox Microsoft didn't come out and

say, Hey, we're really worried if we do a new X Xbox that, you

know, how are we going to keep our players? Why? Why is

Nintendo's hardware cycle different in that sense? I mean,

Lindsey, Jeff,

I can't speak to the hardware cycle it to me,

this just seems ass backwards. Like Jeff makes a good point

about some of these being duds. But if I'm a gaming company, and

I have the opportunity to announce a new generation

console, these are always traditionally big, big

announcements for their competitors like Sony and Xbox.

Look how ahead of everyone we are, look how great the games

look like how much faster and cleaner and smoother it's going

to be. It's always an exciting thing to announce a new console.

And for Nintendo of all people to see in 2022 all we really

need to just lock down this this user relationship and make sure

they're coming back like this is one of the oldest scheming

gaming companies out today. And they're now they're thinking

about their relationship with users. I don't get this is not

uncommon for us to hear coming out of Nintendo's camp because

they think about things I guess in a just a different way. But

this isn't what I would expect anything to come out of Sony

anything like this to come out of Microsoft. I mean, again,

Jeff makes a great point that they've had a couple of duds a

couple of misses, but you need to embrace the change you need

to step into it and you're going to lose those users if you don't

come out with the new hardware as the way I see it. Don't come

out with the next best thing. So it's really the opposite that

that that that should be the opportunity it shouldn't be this

risk of losing what they build the in technology the risk is

not innovating enough. So again, it just seems so backwards to

Lindsay Did you know you are in a relationship

with your Nintendo account?

No, I guess the thing Well, the thing that

surprises the most about this is that when the switch Oh led when

they when the Switch Pro came about what a disappointment it

was to diehard Nintendo folks and how they're they, the

response that I had seen was essentially people begging for

more. It's like, Give us something new, give us something

different, we will buy it, we will come. We're not that

excited about the Switch Pro, because there's not that many

changes, like give us changes. And so I don't know exactly what

user groups, Nintendo is studying. Like Jimmy said, I

think that they're trying to be extremely risk averse. But

they're actually putting themselves in a hole by not

innovating. And I really think that their user base would love

something new to buy. So again, I'm not in on their on their, on

their user generated surveys or anything like that. So I don't

actually have that information. Maybe they're looking at

something completely different than they are. But yeah, just

the response from the Switch Pro definitely indicated to me, I'm

for a new console, people are ready people want it. And then

this news, it's like, what?

What Why do you guys think no one's doing the

iPhone strategy for consoles? Right, because Apple manages to

put out a brand new iPhone every single year. And while you know,

the changes are somewhat incremental, it's still a

refreshed piece of hardware every single year. And all the

games that ran on my iPhone last year, will still run on my

iPhone this year. Right? Why why is there no gaming business that

looks at console hardware in that way?

Are you not just describing a PC? Is this you're

trying to get us to tell, say that PCs?

I mean, Nintendo could do that. Right? They

couldn't do that they could refresh the switch or do

something with the switch have a version of it every single year,

that is still backwards compatible with with the

previous version and have excitement around a new launch

every year. This is just laziness like what is what is

the business reason in your mind?

Frankly, that's the question as someone who's

not as in the Hardcore scene that I've wondered, before I got

into it, and I thought it was just a dumb question. I thought

there were some things that console developers out there

knew about why you couldn't put out yearly iteration, in tweak

things improve things, or, I mean, there's all there is

obvious. Certainly obvious time, resource constraints, all of

that labor constraints, all of that stuff. Clear. But it seems

like there would be ways to tweak or add on things or even

just I mean, budget, all those problems with the Joye cons,

like, just changing that one element and re releasing, I

don't know, I have always felt like there was room to do that.

But that's again, as someone who doesn't understand the

consecration cycle as well as other votes.

I mean, Microsoft and Sony sell the consoles at a

loss. Right. So but like, okay, so charge $100 More, which

everyone paying right now anyways, because they're buying

them from scalpers and like, and don't take a loss on the

console, but have this hype cycle every single year, the

same way people get hyped for a new iPhone every year. seems

weird to me, Chris says, most likely, how many 3ds versions

they released? That's true. But then why has Nintendo fallen

off? Right, like they did use to put out more hardware than they

do now. And this article seems to imply that they're just more

scared than they've ever been. Right? There's, there's more

fear than ever at Nintendo? Because they haven't been good.

I think you like I think your point was accurate,

where it's like the hardware should be either a loss leader

or breakeven. So like, if they're getting the install base

without doing this, it makes sense to prolong do this as long

as possible, I think. Because think about all the incremental

cost of changing consoles every year. I think there'd be a lot

of trouble with like the production lines and stuff. But

you

don't think part of the reason people continue to

be excited about their iPhone is because a new one comes out

every year.

This isn't

it's not a new problem for Nintendo or for my

for any of these guys like this is I get the arguments, Jeff,

but it's not like it's this is catching them by surprise. Like

they just created their first hit console. And now they're

like, Oh, crap, we need to think about the next one. They've been

doing this for 40 years. It's just It blows my mind that this

is an issue for them and that this is a concern.

Because let's let's switch gears a bit, we're

gonna get to another Nintendo story in our lightning round. So

let's leave that for the end and switch over here to a Sony

story, which I thought was interesting, I felt was very

interesting. And the headline here is PlayStations, putting

$300 million more into first party games and aiming for quote

multiple platforms. So this is from IGN says Sony investing 300

million into first party PlayStation studios as a two

prong strategy as his strategy to grow its gaming business

alongside releasing games on multiple platforms. Their

investment is for develop Big software in existing studios

such as God of wars, Santa Monica studio or horizon

forbidden West Guerrilla Games. And this is separate dollars to

their acquisition plan. So 300,000,300 $8 million more to

increase software development or to match to pay for software

development expenses for their first party software. I mean,

obviously, guys, I'm curious where you stand on this in terms

of do we think this is essentially a statement saying,

there's going to be more exclusives? Is it? Like, what is

the message here from Sony? Because I almost, I almost want

to ask you guys what you think of a two prong strategy to begin

with, right? But they'd be focusing only on first party?

Should they be investing in multiple, like games that are on

multiple platforms? Where do you think they should be putting

dollars? And what do you think of what this investment means

specifically for Sony's future plans?

Well, I'm interested why you would think

that this is a some type of strategy to strengthen the

exclusive titles that they have under their belt, when it says

that they're aiming for multiple platforms. To me, it sounds more

like they're hedging against that, where, you know, the

Microsoft acquisition, for example, I think, as the the

hook. And now they're like, hey, we need to get involved in more

games that are cross platform, which isn't traditionally Sony's

Mo, right, they were one of the last of the table to allow that

cross platform play as my understanding. So now they're

they're trying to be more involved in games that are cross

platform to kind of prevent Microsoft or any of their

competitors from taking games away from them was how I

interpreted it was kind of the opposite of how you phrased the

question.

You don't. So you think this is there's no, this

is not disingenuous in any way. Because what they're saying can

feel somewhat contradictory, right, we're going to put 300

million into our first party studios. But those studios are

going to deploy the games that they make on multiple platforms

like x box, right? They didn't say, like X Box, but I'm adding

that at the end.

Well, I mean, they're gonna make money from it

regardless, right? And 300 million for something like this

is not all that much, is it? I mean, is anyone blown away by

that amount? Right? Am I wrong? No, it should be a lot more.

I think you're pretty much spot on actually,

with the fact I think it's as simple as they're putting more

games on PC, and they probably need to invest, like the

resources to have the capacity, like the ability and capacity to

do that. And I think, to your point, it's a smart strategy,

and it probably is, in response to maybe saying, oh, okay, wow,

maybe Activision is, quote, unquote, winning the console war

and like this, we need to we need to pivot and kind of like,

maybe we want to start putting software more places. Because if

we're going to lose the next console war, we might as well

have really good IP really good software. That way, if someone

has like x Xbox, and they want to play God of War, they're

going to be able to do it on PC. It's actually a really smart

strip. Think about though,

can I put my tinfoil hat on here? Between the

last story in this story, is no one thinking maybe Nintendo and

Sony in the next 10 years, get out of the hardware business

altogether. And Xbox. And Mike, Microsoft is the only one left

standing building hardware, like dedicated gaming hardware as a

console. Other than your, like, there will still be mobile, that

will still be PC. But that dedicated console space, it

feels a little bit like this is tipping their hand long term

that may be Sony and Nintendo one out of the hardware

business.

So Nintendo should definitely be out of the

hardware business. I think their thought their software would be,

you know, if they could get it onto more consoles, I think

their margins would be better. And like, it just wouldn't have

that consoles, like low pressure. So I think that's like

not not that controversial. I think, if anything, I kind of

think that Sony should be the one in the hardware business and

Microsoft. Not right, because Microsoft, their whole business

distort, like Microsoft, they saw they're literally as often

they are the software company on the planet. So they almost like

it's odd that they're in the hardware game, whereas Sony,

their heritage is consumer electronics. So like they seem

to me to have the hardware in their DNA a lot more than

Microsoft does. And Microsoft is all about subscription and like

x cloud and all that. So I don't know, maybe maybe Sony makes the

hardware and then they run it on Microsoft servers and everyone's

just all friend.

I don't know here. Here's the hot take, and I

want to chime in on this. I'll give you the hot thing in 10

years. None of them are making hardware. Microsoft not Sony,

not Nintendo. No one is none of those three are making dedicated

arrays playing on your playing on your phone or on your PC. And

but obviously Microsoft and Sony and Nintendo all still making

games, just not for their own dedicated Good hardware

platforms, because we talked about Microsoft last week, right

on the live stream. You look at where hardware fits into their

revenue stack like it's only almost inconsequential, right?

It's not, doesn't move the needle. It's not profitable. If

I'm them, I don't want to be in that business. Nintendo sounds

like they don't want to be in that business. Sony sounds sort

of like they don't want to be in that business. In 10 years. I'm

telling you, none of them are in that business. No one's building

dedicated hardware. 10 years from now. says Happy Wednesday

friends Adam, welcome. Great to see you here. Chris says very na

attitude there boys and girls, Nintendo has Japan on lock. Why

let that go to their competitors. General, audiences

don't play on PC. But first, they're gonna play on mobile.

Japanese gamers will play Nintendo games on mobile 10

years from now. I don't disagree with you. But why? Where did

mobile mobile is not going anywhere? Unfortunately. Right?

You all have phones.

We're all going to be in the metaverse for that

point. So

Adam says make it 11 years and I'll buy it. All

right, Adam. Fine. 11. Okay, in 11 years, no one's making

hardware. Do none of you agree? No one agrees.

Sad. It's bored. But that's alright with you.

Like you're about to say no, go ahead. Go ahead. Not much more.

Honestly, not much more other than that just sounds really

dark. Like, why would they give that up? I don't know. I mean,

maybe if they eventually I would see them more. So getting into

hardware space. Like building TVs that have this kind of

functionality in that it depends a lot on cloud based gaming, I

guess. Depends on on how fast the the phone hardware takes us.

I just don't see PC Gamer, Everyone that owns a console

going to PC, the mobile argument is strong. If the mobile tech

catches up to that, to where we think that goes.

Jimmy, you'll be able to play it on your TV.

Right point is it'll be streamed, it'll be cloud, it'll

be something you won't need the box sitting on your on your

coffee table, your whatever you put the thing you put under your

TV's called

someone. But that that. So I guess maybe I'll push

back on, depending on what you mean. Like, there still is going

to have to be a console in the cloud. Right? So even with X

cloud right now, it's like, somewhere sitting in Microsoft

servers. There's like, an X box basically. Yeah, but

Microsoft building hardware. That's a

generic data center, right that Microsoft is building that I'm

pretty sure I don't think it's like, it's not they're not

building hard, dedicated hardware. These are servers

running NVIDIA GPUs and Intel processors, right, like, or AMD

processors. This is not, you know, custom hardware that has

to be, you know, UL tested and has to be this because that's

the goal in your living room and a totally different thing than

building a piece of hardware that goes in little Timmies

bedroom. Lindsay, you're gonna say something?

No, I just, I think it's an interesting

thought. But I don't know if I could probably jump on board

with, nobody's going to be making it. But I do think that

consoles are going to look a lot different. And I think that

there's going to be a lot more goggles and wearables and other

things that aren't the traditional consoles that we

think of. I don't know, if these companies will pivot to making

those I could see maybe some pivoting or some not depending

on the resource in the interests. But I definitely do

think that the traditional console, as a whole is, is on

its way out.

100% agree. I think that's super insightful.

And Tony Antonio says not happening, consoles are more

affordable. And Tony, I'm not saying there won't be an

affordable option. Right? You will, you'll pay $15 a month for

Game Pass. And you'll still be able to play your game at

Microsoft game on your TV. There just won't be a piece of

hardware sitting under the TV.

You'll have to buy $300 Yeah, yeah.

Antonio says for your average gamer, no one wants

to play on your phone for hours again, think there's a I'm not

saying there's it's only going to be that there will still be

the kind of gaming everyone does on consoles today, just without

those companies having to make hardware. Chris says So Paul,

everyone invested in Vidya because they're the only company

able to eliminate all the consoles. Chris, I think

everyone should be invested in Nvidia for reasons beyond just

consoles. I mean, this is a company that basically has a

monopoly on a segment of the market that is powering

everything from gaming. Meta versus to AI to you know,

definitely, definitely. Nvidia is one one stock I like, versus

Canada also has the best internet in the world

apparently. Oh, no, definitely not. Definitely not very

expensive, very slow compared to offerings, even in the Alright,

guys, let's move on let's talk about talking about something

else here. Let's talk about valorant. For a second, Valerie

has a brand new or they've revealed a brand new format. I'm

curious to get everyone's thoughts on the format. And, you

know, if it changes your mind sort of about the future of

valorant esports. But the headline here is valorant

esports, in 2023, this is directly from Riot. And it says,

you know, valorant, today's fastest growing esport, I'm not

sure if that's true, but I'll take it as truth. And so in

2023, they're introducing changes to the competitive

ecosystem, to make it better for the players and the fans. And

basically, they've broken it down into this pyramid. With,

you know, the tip of the pyramid being what they call global

events that raise the bar of this is spectacle top to your

competition, lifelong memories. Those are the key words they're

using there. The next piece of the pyramid is brand new premier

level international leagues have three new leagues, best teams

around the world compete in studio, the Crown Champion of

their league and the qualify for the global events. And I assume

those will be like one North America or Americas one Europe,

one, you know, Asia, something like that. The same way they

have for League of Legends. The next step of the pyramid is

expanded domestic and Game Changers leagues. So this is

their expansion of the challengers system. So to sort

of broom up and coming players, and find up and coming players,

potentially for those international leagues. And then

the bottom of the pyramid, the widest piece here is what they

call deep connection to the in game competitive experience,

more opportunities, it says for any player to qualify for pro

play via a new in game competitive mode. Obviously,

there's a lot of riot, you know, marketing messaging here,

players and fans first, new path, the pro new fan experience

right there touting a lot of a lot of innovation here or

changes to the valorant ecosystem. I'm curious a what

you guys think of them coming out and sort of laying this out

for people? First of all, second of all, it feels to me very much

like league. And, you know, is this just riot applying best

practices or what they already have learned from League? And

what you make of this in general, I guess, like, what,

what is, what is your take on this pivot for valorant esports,

which up until now, has felt a little bit all over the place?

I mean, I don't know. I don't know. To me. I

don't know, it's a bit chaotic to me. And I guess if you know,

they're following the lead model, that's probably smart.

Because the kids obviously been incredibly successful. So maybe

it's as simple as that. It's like, Here, here's what's worked

for us and Lee, let's just recreate it with valorant. Like,

that would be a very acceptable reasonable strat, good strategy.

But to me, it seems a little chaotic. Like, why. And one

other thing I don't like is where's the mention of like,

Youth League, or, you know, high school esports. And maybe this

is, it's just, they're thinking about that completely

separately, like how they're, you know, building a, like a

sort of, like, amateur community. But to me, it's too

many provie. Like, you need to win your regional and then you

need to play the galaxy that you need to come here and then

there. And then if you do that you like come up to a troll, and

the troll will tell you, like, pick a number between one and

10. And then you get to this and then you maybe you get invited

the world like, I don't know, it seems like a lot. Like why can't

they just have one league with 20 teams, and like, have a

division for each, you know, region. And then like the

winners planet tournament, like, very similar to what the NFL

does. Like, I don't know, to me, it's just very complicated.

You're ignoring the fact that the NFL does have

huge feeder systems in high school and college. Right. So

that that was sort of my point, that you're right, that doesn't

exist for esports, though, for the most part, right? Not, not

at the level that you would need to be able to feed an entire pro

scene. Right. And also, high school and college is sort of

already too old to be starting for gaming, which is not the

case for the NFL. I mean, Lindsey, I don't know if you

have thoughts on this.

No, I was like one of the biggest criticisms that

we have had on this show previously and something that I

stand by not only LEED for esports, but with a lot of other

things is that it's important to create paths forward to think

big. Think about what you want the future to look like. And

particularly in such a young industry, and thinking back,

like we're really like, five years deep with this in the NFL

has 80, it's gonna look a lot different. And I really like

that there's a comprehensive strategy, and that they're

trying to do I think every piece of it's going to work and do I

think just right about it being a little confusing. Yeah,

probably. But also, I would imagine, if you sat down 80

years ago and told everyone what the NFL was going to look like,

80 years from now, they would think you were insane. So you

have to try to start somewhere. And I imagine that they will

iterate on this over time, they've had a successful model

with League, building these feeder systems is going to be a

big priority for a lot of studios coming up. And I think

that they've sat down and come up with what to them feels like

a comprehensive and solid strategy. I fully do expect this

to change, I fully expect that elements of this are not going

to work out. But it's it's something and it's a long term

thought and it's fully fleshed, fleshed out for a lot of

different levels of people to be able to be involved.

Ricky says I wonder what they would do to

support smaller org slash amateur esports teams, there's

not much in here about that other than like, they're going

to allow third party tournaments and things like that. So

monetary support? I don't know, it's not clear. I mean, Ricky,

that's sort of a good segue into my next question and call it my

hot take on this, which is, other than that very tip of the

pyramid, I guessing the rest loses money is not profitable.

And and therefore, you have to believe riot is propping up

valorant esports. With dollars, right? And, therefore, they see

it as critical to the success of the game overall. as a marketing

tool, right, because if they're spending dollars on this, it

becomes a marketing tool. Does anyone think anything other than

the tip of the pyramid is what would be will be profitable

here?

Are you talking profit, like from the esport

competition sponsorships that you're not counting in game

skins and things? That No, that's a separate pot?

Yeah. I mean, Jimmy, what do you what do you

how do you feel do you think?

I mean, first of all, I think we're right now

we're talking about consolidating competitive

gameplay in there in Ballard across a global audience and

providing all these people with an opportunity to test their

skills and eventually become a world champion is kind of the

way I read the pyramid, which is a cool thing that I think a lot

of people in any game, any sport, any industry love to do,

right? Because so often when you look at the NBA, or the NFL or

traditional American sports, are limited to those leagues in

those regions. And valorant is saying, hey, esports is a global

thing. It's not a regional thing, you know, in gaming is a

global pastime, it's not an American pastime, or any other

country for that matter. So they are offering that opportunity

where no matter what level you're at, there is a spot for

you to compete as your skills. And if you are that good

progress in advance to culminating, you know, in a

world championship, you know, I'm not sure if you can make it

that much simpler, you know, I understand that the arguments

for for appearing a little confusing. Perhaps that's in

the, in the, in the interpretation or in the, in how

it's conveyed? And not necessarily now or how it will

look and feel when you're going through this. But But again,

fundamentally, I think it's a very cool thing. And I think to

your initial question to Paul, if there wasn't learning, I

would be surprised if there weren't learnings from Lee in

from their other business models, because that's just

natural for them at what successful and, you know,

iterate on it. Whether or not the lower tiers are profitable

is a is a tough one that answer I think we're seeing, you know,

being in esports now, for me personally, for about five

years, you guys, you know, a bit longer. We're definitely seeing

a lot of teams, a lot of businesses struggle with

monetization, right? There's a lot of hype, there's a lot of

investment, there's a lot of potential growth, but you know,

dollars profitable dollars is always a question. That's not to

say we haven't seen junior leagues or you know, like the

why they're what's a call you know, that soccer league that

everyone played in growing up. But that's not to say that we

don't see profitable business models that aren't Pro that are

that are supporting local communities like Lindsay

mentioned, and providing opportunities for casual gaming

that are that are profitable, I think, to maybe the reason why

you think those aren't gonna be profitable here, Paul is because

when it's right, your health has such a higher standard right of

production, that everything has to be really top notch so you're

not cutting corners, you're not getting you know, the cheap

jerseys, the cheaper equipment, everything is wrong. way that

that that eighth grade that we would come to expect. But we

already knew, I mean, I thought we covered a story not too long

ago where we knew that that lead competitive league wasn't

profitable for Riot, but that it was a redirect and a funnel for

attention into the business as a whole and the profit that

they're seeing video game. So you know, what that says to the

businesses that want to compete in this model is a different

story, right? And whether or not they can become profitable,

competing and right esports. But for Riot itself, doesn't really

matter if one thing is profitable or not, I think as

long as the sum or the total outcome is a win for them, which

clearly they think that this will be.

Yeah, I'll leave it on this. I'm worried about

valor and esports. I think, I think it has underperformed, you

know, relative to its potential and relatives to sort of the

power of riot. And I'm just, again, anecdotally not feeling a

ton of excitement around valor and esports. What was missing

from this document for me as great and thorough as it was,

and I think it will help if they execute on everything in this

document is like, where's it mentioned, span experience. But

it's like, I think this is how this is where this is won or

lost, right? How they execute on the fan experience. And riot

traditionally has done a very good job with that. I just

thought, and maybe it's part of their secret sauce, right. So

they don't put it in the public facing document, the structural

structure of the league. This is like, it's interesting. But

Brian is good at that they've shown they they're successful

with league with the structure, it's all going to come down to

what do they bring to the table with the fan experience? And

they are I'm encouraged, right? If they're giving this much

thought into structure, and pivoting the structure and, you

know, thinking about how to take valorant to the next level, I

have to believe that they're giving quite a bit of thought to

where, where do we improve the fan experience? How do we make

this accessible to the masses, not just the people who play

valorant? And and if they can achieve that, right? I suspect,

valor and esports, could 10 years from now being bigger than

League of Legends, right? Like shooters, arguably have a pretty

big fan base can be more exciting, more dramatic, lots of

good things if they can get that fan experience, right. And it'll

be interesting to see how they execute on that. So one to

follow. And definitely an interesting thing to put out for

valorant fans. Guys, I just I want to move on here. And this

is I maybe should have put this right next to the hardware

store. I didn't think we were going to spend so much time on

hardware. But this one's an interesting article. And it's

Turtle Beach in the news. And the headline here is gaming

company Turtle Beach is exploring a sales process. So

Turtle Beach Public Company, they've been making like

headsets mostly I think they're known for for years now. Some

good ones, you know, I think Dr. disrespect, wears the Turtle

Beach headset sponsored by Turtle Beach. And supposedly

they are engaged with potential buyers. They've hired Bank of

America last year to spearhead this process. They've signed 10

NDAs. They've held nine management meetings. There's no

guarantee it says that discussions will lead to a

transaction but it looks like they're for sale. Now, I did a

quick look on Turtlebeach just FYI. market cap of Turtlebeach

because their publics 240 million, they did over 300

million of revenue in the last 12 months. But only five and a

half million of EBIT dA. So you know, pretty, relatively low

margin business hardware is not an easy business, which is one

of my takeaways here. But what do we think of Turtlebeach,

which is arguably one of the bigger gaming brands up for

sale, and up for sale in a pretty soft market when gaming

is for the most part booming. Thoughts on timing on this and

thoughts on why you guys think this might be happening here.

Jeff, maybe start with you.

The I mean, I remember Turtle Beach back in

like 2018 Right when fortnight fortnight craze kind of began at

a massive run. I think it maybe even came close to being like a

billion dollar company at that point, because everyone was

buying gaming headsets. A lot of people came into the gaming

ecosystem, young kids kind of entering fortnight first time

gamers. They pulled a lot of demand forward. So I mean, like

you said hardware is a tough business. It you know, even

though it's gaming, it really is consumer hardware. It's like not

exactly tied to the growth of gaming because people buy had

sent once, maybe they don't have to buy another one for three,

four years. Like there's a hard replacement cycle. I'm sure

during the pandemic, they also probably pulled forward a lot of

demand. So you know, you're seeing this even with like a

business like, telethon, hardwood consumer hardware tech

company pulled forward a ton of demand during the pandemic. And

now it's like struggling to right, right size, their

business model. This feels like the kind of company that will

either sell like a Corsair or someone like a strategic or it

could definitely see like a private equity coming in cutting

costs, like maybe, you know, weathering the storm outside the

public market during like, maybe like law and replacement cycle

and then maybe taking it public. And once sales start reflecting

higher. Yeah, I don't I don't know if there's like too much

more to dig into it.

I mean, Lindsey, let me ask you this, because

you're, I would, you know, self proclaimed more of a casual

gamer, right? What, what makes you decide to buy one piece of

hardware or another like, I feel a lot of these hardware

companies have struggled to reach the masses, right? In some

ways, like a lot of hardcore gamers will have their

preference in terms of brand. And I bring this back to like,

therefore, who's the buyer for Turtlebeach? Right? Because, you

know, why should Logitech recourse there own a third brand

of a headset that competes with two other headsets they already

have? And for the most part, the average consumer doesn't know

the difference, right? Like, what is the thing that would get

you or the the average kind of gamer casual gamer excited about

a brand like Turtlebeach? versus something else? Like what? What

is that differentiating factor in your mind?

To be honest, I think it's your early optics and

marketing. And I think it's going to be something like a

super cool collaboration between either an influencer, or a

probably a non gaming brand, the closest kind of analog I can

think of to real world products is Beats by Dre, which I know

has nothing to do with gaming really. But those just those

were able to carve out a niche where he was making studio

headphones. And obviously, not that many people are in studios

that need those specific headphones, but was able to

capture a cultural moment and the people that he chose to

share those with and build a successful brand. I think for

gaming hardware to go more mainstream, it has to just kind

of like, do more mainstream things like that's what would

get my attention. And I don't know that that is the way that a

lot of gaming hardware wants to go. Because I also think it does

like serving a niche audience. So the brand has to be sure of

its identity and sure that it wants to appeal to more

mainstream before making that jump. I think gamers pretty

immediately are going to think that the quality went down

whether nothing changed or not. So they have to be positive,

that they feel that they can build a successful brand in the

mainstream. And to do that. You just got to do something fun and

fancy. That's attention getting.

It's funny, no one cares, right? How it sounds

necessarily, but if someone calls wearing it, I mean, you

were gonna add something.

All right? No, I think Jeff and Lindsey make two

great points. You know, one, that turtle shoes was one of

those brands that first time gamers or that people that were

buying their first headset came across and try it and used. I

don't know what that says about their products. I don't remember

if they have any higher end products. But that goes into

Lindsay's point about innovation, right and staying

true to your brand and doing something that's cool. And when

you brought up this article, I had this moment, I was like,

Wow, I can't remember the last time I even thought about

Turtlebeach. You know, I had them a long time ago. And then I

got a better headset, and I never looked back. And if they

had a higher end product, maybe I would have looked at that too.

If they had other products that weren't headsets. I mean, but

But think about this, this is a brand that like Jeff said with

fortnight and I know this from when I was a big time Call of

Duty gamer way back in the day like this was one of the

headsets everyone had everyone got it first because I don't

know why it was just it was your headset to get and how do you

how do you become that gateway to this huge world of headsets

and gaming peripherals and not? And then end up in this position

where you're kind of selling when everyone else is doing

better than ever? How do you not innovate? How do you not create

other products? How do you not create higher end products and

capture that that same audience that you are able to attract

initially. So it's kind of mind blowing. And it's just it was

really kind of just funny to me to be like, Wow, I haven't even

thought of this company in forever, as it's not even in the

top five on my list of what I think of top gaming hardware

manufacturers or peripheral manufacturers. So I think the

two is you guys together with a lack of innovation yet and also

with that entry level product. But with the failure to

recapture those initial first time consumers was really

insightful.

They probably have the best ticker symbol of

at least one of the best ones of any gaming company. It's H E AR,

it's here which is pretty clever. Are is clever. So we'll

we'll see once again when to follow. We'll see what happens

to Turtle Beach. Hopefully they find a good home. guys one more

story before we get to our lightning round here. And this

is Strauss Zelnick in the news, interestingly enough, and a

story about Take Two Interactive here and it's talking about

Strauss's bonus. So the headline here will be clickbaity take two

CEOs, big micro transaction bonus. And what they're talking

about is, first of all, Strauss is going to remain in charge of

take two into 2029. It says according to a new contract

extension, and this contract extension is going to tie more

of his pay to in game micro microtransactions. With which

may include NF Ts. I thought this was interesting, for two

reasons. One, I want to have this discussion around tying,

you know, CEO of gaming companies pays to a specific

mechanism, like a micro transaction. But also that, you

know, the the the company's default definition of, of

microtransactions, and endgame items and all that that they

shared in their SEC filing includes the sale of NF t. So

this is baked into his comp. And what's interesting is Strauss

has been very vocal about, you know, but all of this web three

stuff in his mind, I'm not, this is not what he said, I'm totally

paraphrasing, but like, sort of nonsense, or at least not

interesting to him. So I thought, interesting on two

fronts here. So first of all, what do you guys make of tying

CEO of gaming companies comp, specifically to micro

transaction revenue? And, and then second of all, maybe a bit

of a pivot on stress as part around the whole NFT?

Discussion? Lindsay, I don't know if you have thoughts to

kick off here.

Yeah, I love that you pick the person who's like,

least best first in the world to go for silver. Thank you for

that. Appreciate you, um, I don't really know, like, I read

this job. And I thought like, God, I don't know what to think

about this, like microtransactions have been a

thing that's been, it's been a huge kind of economic portion of

the gaming industry for so long. My previous job actually, like

spent a whole paper just studying and looking at

microtransactions what they were and what they meant and all that

stuff. And I think it's weird, because I feel like they're

quite hard to capture in entirety. And I don't know like

this. I don't know, I wouldn't you whatever.

Let me ask a more specific question. Could this

create incentives that may drive take to in a drastically

different direction than it has traditionally gone? Right?

Because traditionally take to was yeah, $60 game art, you

know, we spend years making it. It's a great story. It's great

visuals, right? It's about the experience, if his comp is now

tied to microtransactions in a major way. The some of the DNA

of the company some of the thinking change.

Oh, it's greaves, we believe in mobile gaming, for

sure. That was, that was my first thought. Like, we are so

glad we bought thing got and now we are betting on mobile games.

Big. But yeah, Jeff, you were gonna say something,

and I want to hear you. That's a great point,

actually, to bring up mobile gaming, especially because

obviously, they just spent 10 billion on Zynga. So they

definitely do believe in mobile gaming and microtransactions go

with it. The interesting thing for me is like, it's a weird

from the board's perspective, like, I'm a big believer, like

when you create incentives, people will always like find a

way you know, your behavior, behavior, incentive shape

behavior. Like, that's just tried and true kind of truism.

And usually boards want to structure CEO comp around like

stock reform, right? Like the best shareholder best plans for

shareholder value is usually like total stock return. So

like, normally you'll see a CEO with a very pegged to, like how

the stock does either an absolute basis, or how it does

relative to, you know, some sort of benchmark. So it's odd to tie

it to something that like, you could argue like, yes, all else

equal, having more microtransactions will be more

profitable, you're getting more revenue, so like, that should be

good for the stock. But having said that, now he might be

pushing a ton of microtransactions players might

not actually want so you could see like, overall sales go down,

but microtransactions go up and he gets paid. And you know,

maybe not the best thing for shareholders or you know, for

players so it's it's just a bit of a weird incentive to put in

there but we see stuff like this a lot and you know, CEO pay like

fine. Remember Bobby codec famously for a long time had

like, this massive, massive incentive where like if he did a

cert like A deal of a certain size, he would get, like $300

million. And so for the longest time investors were always like,

well, Bobby's gonna buy something because like,

literally there was like a date in the contract with like, if he

didn't make certain size acquisition by like some point

in 2024. Like, he would lose $300 million, or, you know, if

he did, he would make $300 million. So you can bet that it

was pretty good, pretty likely that he would try to do that. So

I don't know if boards boards put things in there for reasons.

Obviously, they're trying to impact behavior. Maybe and as

I'm thinking, I'm just thinking that maybe Strauss for the

longest time has been against microtransactions a little bit,

and he's been the one holding them back a bit and the board's

like, we want the stock to go up. So we're going to push you

in that direction and give you even more incentive. I don't

know, that would be a little surprising, but it's possible.

To me any thoughts on this?

You know, when Satya Nadella has contract came

out with the Game Pass miss, right? And we saw how closely

that contract was tied to Game Pass, we jumped on. Wow, that

must be Microsoft gaming's focus is really getting users to adopt

this, right? It was directly correlated with how how many

users they got to sign up for that. So when you see Strauss

here, restructuring a contract or microtransactions, and

potentially NF T's, you kind of like like Lindsay's point,

you'll look at it, and you say, Okay, this is going to be a core

focus of their business. That's obviously a no brainer. I think

the interesting question that you raised here was one, you

know, where NFC is gonna come into play here, it was kind of a

sidestep. But more importantly, is this going to alter the DNA

of the company as a whole? Because even as recently as last

year, they were still like, No $60 games, because it's a story

and it's worth it. So I didn't think of the mobile argument,

Lindsay until you brought that up, I was thinking of, you know,

what are they going to do with microtransactions? With their,

with their, with their console based games in particular? And

are they going to lean into that a little bit more? And if so,

how great is that? Because that's where the gaming industry

needs to? Right, you need to eliminate these paywalls you

need to give access to the kids all across the world. And

throughout middle America, you know, that, that don't, they

can't afford the $60 but that can afford $2 here, $3 there,

which, as we've seen adds up to way more than $60 over time.

Either way, it's kind of cool to see a CEO baking on I think, a

new way of things away of things that was defined it for started

by gaming. Right with microtransactions. And, and

getting behind it, I think it's probably not going to be the

last story of its kind where we're executives or we're going

to tie I think their compensation to those types of

objectives.

Yeah, I mean, I'll just I'll leave it on. I

think it's interesting. Literally, it has, I think it's

tied to their mobile acquisition and wanting him to spend time

focused on that, where I think stress historically has been bit

more resistant. But where I disagreed with Jeff was, you

know, you align with short term goals like stock performance,

you get Bobby codec and while the damage is may not may not be

clear today, I I still promise you over the next 510 years the

damages are going to be very very clear that Microsoft will

realize they bought something pretty broken at some point and

and there's gonna be a scramble to fix it. So like I don't I

like this better frankly, than tying more of his performance to

how take two stocks doing because I'd rather stress be

focused on building a great business and letting the stock

price take care of itself. Now is micro transaction the way to

building a great business. I don't agree. But and I liked the

fact that take two was different. I liked the fact that

they had a different view and take on the world. But I mean,

this is maybe the reality of our time, right like a games as art

games as you know, finished box products are going away whether

we like it or not, and take two maybe as the last one to fall or

the last big one to fall. So look, if you end up with GTA

six, where every action you take as some kind of micro

transaction you know, you've know who to blame but but we'll

have to see. Alright guys, let's before I get to our to

everyone's favorite new segment, our lightning round. I just want

to say a quick word. This podcast. This live stream is

very generously sponsored by YouGov you got produces the

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before you do any of that, because they are going to make

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It'll reach most of you maybe not some, but go to yougov.com.

I want everyone to stop what they're doing go to your

browser, putting yougov.com/b O E, for business of esports. So

slash BOE. And there's some free data there. There's also some

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go check it out. And if you need to reach someone at YouGov,

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you gov.com/b O E, just go check it out. See what's there a lot

of interesting things. All right, guys, that takes us to

everyone's new favorite segment. It's our lightning round. Here

we go.

Alright guys, if you're new here, here's how it works. I'm

gonna go in clockwise, and then counterclockwise order. And I'm

going to introduce a topic very quickly. Each person in order

will have 30 seconds to respond to comment on that topic. At the

end of the 30 seconds, they will hear this sound indicating

they're out of time, and it moves on to the next person.

Please feel free to give your opinions as well. We want to

hear everyone's opinion, even if it's a short time and it goes

very fast. I will get to everyone's comments. So that's

how it's gonna go. Let me start with the first story here. Get

them all teed up here. And the first story is from Sony, which

we had in a previous segment here, but another Sony story

very quickly. Sony says it won't make Bungie games exclusive, but

the FTC may not be convinced. So Sony's 3.6 billion acquisition

of Bungie is reportedly being investigated by the FTC. It

supposedly hit a speed bump. They want to do an in depth

investigation, because the FTC is worried that they're going to

make their games Sony exclusive. Jimmy, let's start with you.

Your thoughts on this?

I mean, they shouldn't make the games

exclusive they need to make and as we saw $300 million fund in

story covered a day, they need to be thinking about how do we

get games across multiple consoles in front of a wider

audience. No, no real comment on why the FTC FTC isn't convinced

that's pretty standard. But yeah, they shouldn't.

Okay, sorry. My computer's lagging like crazy.

Um, I? Yeah, I don't know. I Sony can say whatever it wants

to say. I think a lot of game companies are working on a

strategy. I don't know what it's gonna look like. I don't think

an FTC investigation is really going to do anything and there's

bigger fish to fry for them. But this is the classic behavior of

surprise.

I suspect this has more to do with the Microsoft

Activision deal than with the Sony deal because I don't think

that this deal is big enough to really get on the radar like for

the FTC. But I think if you were the FTC and you're investigating

Microsoft Activision, you probably want to understand the

industry a bit more. So I think this is probably the FTC is way

of basically like doing their due diligence about the entire

industry, figuring out Hey, well, Sony saying they're gonna

go exclusive. Maybe that makes Microsoft more likely to go

exclusive. Like they're just trying to, like, figure out the

whole big picture of the industry.

Interesting thought, rookie. I'll just read

his comments as I see them doing PlayStation exclusive.

microtransactions they have done it before. Yeah, I mean, Ricky,

I'm sort of with you. Like, I'm a believer in where there's

smoke. There's fire. I don't know if the FTC would be looking

at this unless there was some suspicion Sony's actually going

exclusive with bungee. And maybe the 300 million we talked about

earlier, is the decoy right? Whoa, we are all about making

games for everyone. And that's the paper trail they want to

leave for the FTC. So who knows? I suspect it won't amount to

anything because they will, they will have trouble finding

anything. All right. Let's move on guys. Let's talk about Saudi

esports. This article Saudi esports Federation announces

gaming centers, faceoff across five cities. Basically, what's

happening is the Saudi esports Federation announced that

they're going to kick off this gaming competition across five

cities in the kingdom. The tournaments are going to involve

20 gaming centers, in three cities, or five cities, sorry,

and they're doing it in partnership with Ignite. And the

idea is to develop the gaming community in the kingdom, right,

and to encourage the gaming community in the kingdom, total

prize money small $60,000. But it is interesting, Jeff, start

with you.

Ah, I really liked this. I mean, you know, we were

sort of wondering like Saudi Arabia, when they, the Kingdom

sort of bought into ESL and face it, we were wondering what their

plan was, and we suspected it would have to do with kind of

regional competitions, building up the ecosystem there. So I

liked that they're doing this online offline, like you're

you're trying gaming centers? I think this is, this is very

smart.

You're gonna talk about it, you should be about

it. So yes, I'm glad to see that they're making moves and

spending their money. It's still the Saudi esports. Like, it's

still Saudi Arabia. But I there, certainly, at least putting

their money where their mouth is, they're gonna do

to me, I think it's a fun idea to compete in

different games. And it said, what up to 18 titles. So I think

that's that sounds pretty cool. 60,000, though, just doesn't

seem like that much. And we've normally seen bigger prize

pools, or rather bigger investments out of this region.

Maybe they researched and said, Hey, we're gonna get the same

turnout if it's 25k 60k or a million, so might as well do

something that makes economic sense. While we're figuring it

out. I would just hope that the next time they do this, because

I'm sure this will be a success, hopefully the next time that

it's a more exciting High School.

Yeah, my, my take on this is just, it's a

relatively small prize pool. But I'm blown away by like, if we

took this exact same scenario, and we were talking about it in

the US, this, we would spend an hour just on this, right. Like,

think about it. It says if the US government, some arm of the

US government comes out and says, Hey, guys, we're gonna do

this esports competition in like New York, LA, Chicago, you know,

Austin, and everyone's gonna play games, and we're gonna put

prize money up like this would blow your mind if this was

government driven in the US. I just think it's cool at that

level to have this kind of impact on an industry or desire

to grow an industry so my short take on that All right, guys,

let's talk about we have to do a chair review of course. Sorry,

Jeff. I had to fit it in here. This is noble chairs celebrates

Star Wars day because we did pass Star Wars day last week,

with the Boba Fett edition gaming chair channel your inner

bounty hunter who says Noblechairs with their Boba Fett

chair, nothing special other than the colorway here and the

graphics and wires. What's that? Can I start? Yeah, go ahead

Lindsey.

Okay, perfect. I want to see all my time to Jimmy

YEAH, Jimmy take my time to talk about everything

you guys you have a minute 30 seconds

you guys honestly I am a huge Star Wars fan you

guys know I have a Star Wars tattoo and it's my favorite

franchise. Sadly, I'm getting to the point where I am looking for

more innovation out of these chairs collapse like it's a very

cool colorway. It looks awesome. I definitely want one but after

I saw the secret lab I think chair the Lamborghini chair

right with that faux suede that kind of mimic the actual Lambo

these these these color collabs don't cut it for me anymore. I

mean, Boba Fett has that that that thing on his helmet that

comes down and auto targets for the rocket on his back. You

couldn't put something like that on older I mean, just just make

it a little cooler for me because I'm gonna get it no

matter what, but something a little bit more

noble shares. You can reach out we'll we'll do

some consulting for you. We'll have Jimmy spearhead making your

chairs that much better. Antonio says I'm buying love Star Wars.

This is one I'm not buying I will say because there's just

not enough innovation. Just not enough there to get me excited.

We've come too far with gamer bathtubs, and you know, gamer

pods like this is just this. This is not doing it anymore.

We're all desensitized now. All right, guys. Last story here.

This is I hope you didn't see that. This is Nintendo reveals

the 10 best selling Switch games since launch. And so here's what

I want to do. I want to do this a little bit differently. I want

everyone in chat to put what they think are the three top 10

Best Selling Switch games since launch. And then for all of you

with your 30 seconds, you're gonna give me what you think are

the three top 10 Best Selling Switch games since launch and

you're gonna write them down? Because I want to see who's

who's right here.

Are we doing?

I feel like I need three choices.

You just have to guess the top three.

Oh my god

you can't guess the top.

That's I got the animal Animal Crossing. I get

to. I don't know I'm blanking one other choices here.

I'm gonna give you choice. Do you not do not

know 10? Nintendo games are three.

Well, I got two so far.

Okay. Where's Mario fit in?

Which one? Maybe Mara,

or your party Mario Kart? Mario.

I'll go with Matt. Now

waited for the day.

It was my turn. I thought were this like a

collaborative effort? No, you got it. I want to see who's gay.

Who gets this right. Those

are my three. So you had a sorry to recap. A Wild

Animal Crossing? Mario Party,

Mario? Yeah. Okay. Although the problem is it

depends when these things were launched because Nintendo games

keep selling. So it's not like they don't have like these big

curves. I'm probably wrong because those are too recent.

But

Lindsey, guys, I want your guesses in the chat to

please.

I definitely think the Ocarina of Time or delta.

This is switching specifically for the switch.

Yeah, Breath of the Wild. Sorry. Delta has to be

number a, like number two. Okay. I think number two Oh, God. I

think it's probably I don't know if it is number two, but I think

Animals Animal Crossing is two or three. Um, and then. I don't

know it's hard because I can think of I'm trying to think of

what came out like three years ago because I would say if we

were a little further down, I'd say Pokeyman but that just came

out not that long ago. So I'm not sure um, time. I'm gonna say

Luigis Mansion three.

Okay, Jimmy THAT'S a totally

you did show some good breath of Nintendo

knowledge that's

actually kind of like he's mentioned

it but Jimmy before you go Antonio says if it

changes your thoughts, Mario Kart Zelda and a Pokemon game,

so I feel Lindsay was going in that direction to a Pokemon game

maybe Mario Kart

because I definitely think Breath of the

Wild is up there one or two I agree actually with Antonio that

Mario Kart is probably top three. I put it number two time

I think Animal Crossing probably four or five honestly I think

number three is more likely Pokemon or I was going to give

it to them kind of blank now there's that other Mario

rendition out either maybe a tie between that was it Mario

superstar or sorry there's a Zelda sequel already out? Yeah,

obviously. Maybe. But there's Alpha sequel? I think so that

takes two of the top three spots.

Interest ash and Tony my group.

Yeah, Antonio says or Smash game. All right,

guys, you're ready to see the web the top 10 here. We're gonna

scroll down here top 10 Number one, Mario Kart eight number two

Animal Crossing so both Jeff and Lindsey I think got the number

two spot correct. And number three Super Smash Antonio at the

last minute came what came up with that one? All of you put up

I think breath of wild first and it's actually number four. And

sold. Like not half but significantly less than almost

half of Mario Kart. Yeah, close to half. So that's the top 10

Mario Kart eight Animal Crossing Super Smash Breath of the Wild

pokey my Super Mario Odyssey Super Mario Party another

program on another Pokemon we're pretty good. Yeah.

Oh, Odyssey

with eviction? We

were good. We had no now you're talking about

Mario Kart eight I remember when that came out. And like what a

huge deal was but it's been a while like I just haven't

thought about it. mansion isn't like number seven.

No, it got beat up by ring Fincher.

All right, guys, that's that's a good way At the end, this week's

lightning round

alright guys, couple of reminders. Don't forget, check

out the podcast when it drops this week it'll drop Friday.

Again, new level recruiting. Such a great story so much

insight on the hiring space in the gaming industry. Definitely

go subscribe to the metta business podcast that I do with

Jeff, and go subscribe to Lindsay's met a woman podcast,

which is amazing. We've got so many guests.

I actually plugged this week's episode really quick

because I had the CEO and co founder of Ventana which has

Mark Cuban and the CEO of Oculus among its backers. And this

woman created a really cool way for people to quickly and easily

create 3d experiences from various models to use and

advertising and production all these different things so it's a

really cool company with an awesome episode highly recommend

giving it a listen just full concept.

Lindsey didn't correct me wrong, didn't they

raise money from Epic also?

We didn't specifically talk about them

that doesn't mean that you didn't raise from them but I'm

not.

I may be confusing things but I for some

reason I thought they did.

Well, it's just a lot of work in like luxury

fashion which is neat. The partnership with Facebook

flashmob is a really, really cool episode.

So go subscribe to meta woman and meta business

guys. It's you can find it everywhere you find your

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