[Announcer] M...A...R...A..T...H...O...N… Marathon. Mmmm, peanuts and caramel. Marathon. Peanuts and Nougat. Marathon. Peanuts and Peanuts. Tonnes of Peanuts. Peanuts. Extra Peanuts. Comes up Peanuts. Slice Up Peanu…… Hahahahahaha [Starkiller by Bear Ghost plays] [Commander Sterling] All hail you terrestrial
pedestrians. It is I, the Pan-Galactic Princess of Pansexual
Pandemonium. The super heavy-weight super villain in their
non-binary finery, and Ryse’s Grand Champion Regent. Commander Sterling! And on April 24th I will have the absolute
pleasure of facing Kimberly Spirit in my very first match since 2019. Kimberly Spirit my good, good friend, thank
you so much for agreeing to meet me in a Sterling Rules match. I promise it’s 100% fair. MWAHAHA. 100% fair. April 24th at 3PM Eastern. The GoProfessionalWrestling Twitch Channel. Come and watch Commander Sterling in a Sterling
Rules match. Come watch some of the gayest wrestling in
town, yeehaw. And also the time has come at last for my
peaceful transition of power. The Ryse Grand Championship will be on the
line between David Lawless, my good friend, and either Ziggy Haim or Erica Leigh, depending
on who wins their match. Its, it's been a wonderful time with my strong
gold son but I must, sometimes you've got to let 'em go. Anyway, here's why Outriders is shiiiit. [Jim] Outriders was published by Square Enix
on April 1st, 2021. A fitting release date, perhaps, as every
time I attempt to play Outriders, I feel the target of some crude practical joke. Outriders released on April bloody 1st. It is now April Bloody 19th, and as of the
time of talking, I still cannot play Outriders. I simply can’t get into the goddamn thing. And I don't mean in terms of taste, I mean
literally. Despite featuring a campaign that can be played
entirely solo, Outriders forces its players to be always online without extending the
same courtesy to itself. Outriders, at least for me , doesn’t have
to be online at all, despite costing sixty fucking dollars to buy. I paid that sixty dollars. I am currently in the process of trying to
get it back. I am fully aware that others have had no problem
getting into the game they bought, and that’s fantastic. People should be able to play the games they
buy. I’d love to be able to play the game I bought,
but instead I am in the process of trying to get a refund because, and I don’t know
if I’ve made this clear or not yet, I cannot play the game I bought. I bought Outriders, for money, and I don’t
know if I can say I had more than two collective hours playing the thing. I know I’ve only managed to get to level
thirteen in the nineteen days since this useless bastard of a game came out, and that’s mostly
because the demo saves your progress. Ever since I first criticized the game for
being so fucking useless it can’t even sign me in, people have been mad at me. They’ve been angry at me for not giving
the game a chance when I’ve been more patient and more fair with Outriders than the damn
thing ever deserved. They’ve been angry at me for daring to be
angry myself that I paid sixty goddamn dollars for something that literally hasn’t worked
for me. A product so broken, in my personal experience,
that I consider it recall-worthy. A product so defective it reminds me of that
awful fucking Steel Battallion game for Kinect. But worse than that. Because despite being a functionally useless
product that didn’t work and should have been torn from store shelves with extreme
mercilessness, at least you could play the fucking thing without nonfunctional servers
acting as an arbitrary and literally unhelpful barrier between myself and the game I fucking
bought. For money. Money. That I bought it with. Look folks, you can be mad at me for this,
but unlike other times where people get mad at me for having an opinion about a game,
this isn’t even my opinion. It’s fact. And we already saw this kind of overly loyal
terriatorialism with Cyberpunk, where those who identify themselves purely and solely
as GAMERS in defense of corporate products started denying actual fucking reality. attacking a game reviewer, as they like to
do, when all that reviewer did was explain that she had a literal fucking seizure from
the game, and apparently it was blasphemy to dare to speak up about it. People have suggested I’m a liar, straight
up told me that nobody’s experiencing what I’m literally experiencing, and generally
I’m having to deal with being shit on, as per usual, for daring to not invent experiences
I haven’t had. I can’t just pretend the game works for
me, I can’t pretend to have someone else’s opinion on the game. I can only tell you what I’ve experienced,
and what I’ve almost entirely experienced with this piece of shit game is its fucking
menu. In many ways this throws up interesting questionsd
about games criticism, doesn't it? How do I as a critic describe my time with
Outriders, when my time with Outriders has been not having any time with Outriders. I've done me best. It's made people mad. But I can't make shit up. And let's not forget the reason I can't play
Outriders is because of a distinct design decision with Outriders. The reason I can't play the game was put in
there, on purpose. So fuck this game. On the rare occasions I’ve gotten into a
game, it’s been a broken mess. Enemies walking in the air, obscene levels
of skipping and stuttering, lag up the ass, glitches so frequent and embarrassingly amateur
they belong in a Stream Direct asset flip, and worst of all, frequent crashes. Some of this shit isn’t even server-based,
it’s just Outriders being a broken pile of crap. This is all on the PS5 version of the game
by the way, and I’m not alone in having this horrible, deeply unpleasant time with
it. Whenever I’ve mentioned it on Twitter, bringing
receipts of the errors, people tell me it “never” happens, others have backed me
up, saying they’ve also struggled to be let in by the deficient gatekeeper that stands
between me and my goddamn fucking videogame I bought for money please, thank you. There’s being protective of a game because
of a mean reviewer’s opinions, and there’s denying someone’s actual reality to defend
corporations that continue to sell shit garbage. Shit garbage with unhelpful and wholly unnecessary
restrictions on when and how a purchased entertainment product can be played. If I bought a movie and couldn’t watch it
for over 19 days because the film itself wasn’t online enough to be watched, I’d be very
reasonable in seeking a fucking refund. Why is complaining about being effectively
locked out of my own fucking purchases for absolutely no justifiable reason unreasonable? Why, in fact, should anybody find it reasonable
that we’re expected to always be online for games that never have to be online themselves? Why are we not holding publishers to the same
standards they hold their fucking customers to? Why are always-online requirements for games
that can be played single-player even a thing? Piracy, despite often being used as a justification
for always-online requirements, is practically a made up problem in terms of the way in which
the industry presents it. They claim it impacts game sales, sucks money
out of the industry, and is a rampant enough problem requiring tons of time and resources
to solve. Even apparently on console. The truth is, there’s not enough data to
support the industry’s claims, or pretty much any claim it ever makes, most things
the industry's claimed have been proven bollocks time and again, and DRM measures have historically
hurt customers just as much if not worse than potential pirates, case in point my lack of
ability to play Outriders, because it's always online, except for me. Apparently. Is it personal? Is it, Square Enix, is it personal? Why is this fucking game Always Online, for
christ’s arseholing sake? I mean, I can think of very sinister reasons
regarding data gathering. Through an always-online connection, a multibillion
dollar corporation like Square Enix has free access to hours upon hours of precious user
data, knowing when they log in, how long they play for, etc. This idea is often presented as beneficial
for the end user - developers can use this information to tweak the game, to better balance
it, etcetera. The fact data is incredibly valuable to marketers
and advertisers is, I’m sure, just a happy side effect. In fact, let’s just guarantee right now
that no “AAA” videogame publisher has ever sold your data. No. Totally not. It’s not like the industry has more player
data than it knows what to do with, or has a well deserved reputation for doing its own
audience dirty, or manipulating or abusing people or systems. I’m sure giving companies this much constant
access to your hardware and own human behavioral patterns is a good idea. I mean…. For fuck’s sake… some of these games are
monitoring your dialog and story choices. Literally learning about your morals. Or lack thereof. Naughty. The fact of the matter is, when a game has
no reason to be played online, but is forcing you to do so, the motives for doing it do
NOT include your convenience as a customer. It certainly doesn’t guarantee your ability
to play the game, and yet this is a problem that has been ongoing for a decade now. A fucking decade. I remember launch problems with always-online
games being a huge controversy in the early 2010s, and now, like so many grotesque overreaches
on the part of the game industry, it’s been accepted as normal. We’ve known how unacceptably bad these issues
can be for a long time - we’ve seen them render games unplayable for days in the past,
be it SimCity 2013, Diablo 3, right up to recent games with reported login problems
at launch such as Anthem or The Division 2. We’re supposed to “be patient” and “give
them time” to get the game working, as if it’s unfair to be upset that you spent $60
on something that doesn’t work for days. Don’t take fucking money for it until it
works, how about that? Be patient with us giving you the cash. Whether it’s for a year or a day, selling
a broken product is selling a broken product. If I buy a game Friday and it doesn’t work
until Saturday, guess what? You just stole a day from me! Time I may have reserved to play what I just
bought. Time I may not otherwise have. Screw you for saying I have to be patient
for that shit. So with years of evidence behind them, publishers
and developers know they can’t keep games up at launch, but they don’t know when said
games WILL be up. That doesn’t stop them taking massive amounts
of money from millions of people months in advance via preorders, or on launch day itself,
merrily taking your cash while knowing full damn well that they can’t guarantee a smooth
or even functional experience. They literally don’t give a fucking shit
once the cash is in their executives’ tax-dodging bank accounts. “Oh server issues are a part of every game
at launch” said one comment when I initially complained about Outriders. Aside from the fact that my problems with
Outriders are more than a few fucking teething issues, what kind of justification is that? How does that not damn an entire fucking industry
rather than exhonerate one unplayable game? Why are standards for videogames so fucking
embarrassingly low? Why do the publishers have higher standards
for you as customers than you have for the products you spend money on. Why are standards for video games so fucking
embarassingly low. Those low standards apply to the working version
of Outriders too, by the way. I’ve seen the critical acclaim, the claims
that this game is “different” from the average live service looter shooter. Oh, they say, it’s not EVEN a live service! It’s better than a looter shooter. It’s unique and action packed and a completely
fresh entry into the genre. Pfft. No. No it fucking isn’t. It’s just another one. From what I have managed to play, it’s practically
indistinguishable from the average cookie-cutter live service looter shooter, only with slightly
more confused gameplay as it tries to not encourage the use of cover while paradoxically
encouraging the use of cover by pelting as much gunfire at you as possible. I found some promise in the demo after you
went through a Mad Max torture village, and I think the character classes might have some
good ideas with them, but fuck if I know, I barely got any time with the game. Any opinion I have about this game, any first
impression I got could be wrong and based on the fact that I can barely play the fucking
thing, and now I'm looking for a refund [Announcer] These potatoes are for the crisp
makers. Eh, they won't come up. We're too good to me any old crisp, we wanna
be umph umph, Smiths crisps. We wanna be umph umph, Smiths Crisps. [Horror sounds] Until we make you see, that
if we were umph umph Smiths Crisps. If we were Smiths Crisps. What tasty, light, and golden crisps we'd
be. I'd better F***n Smith. [Spooky Soundtrack] MWAHAHAHAHA Smiths crisps. Smiths crisps. So good, every potato wants to be one. [Jim] Exactly how much bullshit am I supposed
to forgive? That’s another question hanging from my
gorgeous kissable lips when I’m told to be more patient, to give People Can Fly and
Square Enix a chance. I gave that fucking game a week before I first
posted a video about my problems getting into a working game and falling through the fucking
map when I did. How is that not overly reasonable? It’s nineteen days later now, nineteen days
later! I know some gamers out there stan for multibillion
dollar corporations in the misguided belief that said corporations are their widdle fwiends,
but are we a community so bereft of dignity, and is games media so desperate for approval
from Daddy Squenix that we really have to condone and ignore gross oversteps like this? Whatever happened to people caring about games
being always-online by the way? Doesn’t make headlines like it used to. It should. All the shit that made headlines for being
gross oversteps on the part of publishers still happens today. But the press and the wider community got
bored of fee-to-pay microtransactions and excessive DRM and always-online requirements
years ago, and corporate thralls have subsequently engineered the narrative that this is all
okay, that this is how videogame have always been. That it’s normal, and therefore justified
through its normalization, to have a game not broken for days or even weeks after launch. And I almost can’t blame some younger people
for thinking it, the people who have grown up with always-online, microtransaction-stuffed
“live” games as a sleazy and predatory norm. The fact this is normal doesn’t make it
okay. Insurance companies getting people hooked
on hydrocodone when they didn’t need it and then limiting actual chronic pain sufferers’
access to it when opioids became a crisis is considered normal in America, but that
don't make it moral, or even vaguely humane. It’s shit. And I’m absolutely exhausted by “AAA”
companies and their endless, unapologetic scam running. They can’t guarantee they’ll have the
playerbases to justify long-term support but will use that promise of support anyway to
justify releasing thoroughly unfinished garbage. They continue to sell these half-baked products
with so-called “roadmaps” of content that they can’t stick to because they spend too
long trying to fix the broken crap they sold everyone. They turn the phrase “always online” into
a misnomer by releasing games that can’t fucking STAY online. They’ve been pulling this shit for over
ten years, and as more and more people excuse it, validate it, argue in favor of it and
attack anybody for criticizing it, the worse they’ve gotten. Agree, don't, it’s a fucking fact. Games have gotten worse. Even without the recent next-gen price hike,
they’ve steadily offered less game for more money. The myth that games never raised their prices
is undone by the reality of games pulling more content out of themselves to sell at
a premium in season passes and loot boxes. I’ve watched “AAA” games get bigger
in terms of open world square footage, but inherently smaller in terms of content, story,
and the kind of features and fun offered to players. I’ve seen unlockable costumes become paywalled
gambling prizes. I’ve seen campaigns become flimisier while
add-ons become more extensive. I’ve seen entire game series shattered and
broken and ghoulishly reshaped to serve manipulative in-game economies. I’ve seen $60 go from being the full price
of a game to the start price for a game, the lowball offer that only gets you some of the
experience. And all of this is BEFORE publishers had the
sheer fucking temerity to start making $70 the new standard shell price. At what point do I stop being considered unreasonable
for expecting better? [Commander Sterling] Friend of the show, Podquisition
Co-Host and collegue Laura Kate Dale is maybe the only person in the world who never had
a problem with Marvel's The Avengers by Marvel in association with Jame's Cameron's Avatar,
and that just goes to show you that even something bug riddled can have the whole stopped clock effect. And maybe that's my problem. You know, maybe I just encountered bug after
bug, one after the other, due to sheer bad luck. But the fact that that bad luck is possible
is bad luck. You know? And as a critic, a game that's capable of
wasting my time to such a degree is only providing an experience where I can tell you that my
time was wasted to an obscene degree. Not only that, Outriders is the biggest waste
of money that I have ever, ever, ever, ever spent in this god forsaken fucking job. But those who've got tickets to the Polyam
Cult Party 3 will not have wasted their money, and you won't be wasting your time if you
go to Twitch TV Slash GoProfessionalWrestling at (time changed to 2:30pm) Eastern on April 24th and see yourself
some wrestling, and see Commander Sterling win in a Sterling Rules match. That is definately gonna happen, because that's
what I do. I win things. and also I'm the Grand Champion Regent, so
you can all have a look at that right? Suck it. No, I don't want to say suck it. That's what D-Generation X would say on wrestling. The last thing I wanna do is sound like a
wrestler. What do I say? Ohhhh. Thank god for me.
