In-Game Chat

And so ends another year of the show. We've gathered some friends to talk about their year in gaming and what they've been playing and enjoyed. It's a nice wrap up that doesn't involve news of any kind be it good or bad, it's just friends talking about games and going over the year end lists. It's fun to reflect at times. Therapeutic almost, even with gaming. Especially when you listen to others and discover something new. Or, perhaps, you discover a different point of view on a game you had a completely different experience with. Which is, obviously, exactly how communication works. Especially among friends. All of us here at the show consider every single listener our friends. From those who just casually listen, tune in from time to time, the die-hards who show up in chat every single episode, to the ones who never say a word but still tune in down the line on YouTube or wherever. As well as everyone who's joined our discord. We cannot thank you enough for your support not only throughout the year but throughout the life of this show as we head into our 20th season in 2026. We appreciate you. We love you. And we can't wait to see you again on January 10th. Have a wonderful holiday season and we wish you all a fantastic new year. Listen Ubisoft, I know it won't happen but if you could put a little speed up on that Splinter Cell to get it released next year, I could stop tracking how horrible you are treating an exceptional franchise. I'm tired of counting the days but I'm not stopping. Get it done. It has been 4,507 days since a new Splinter Cell game (non-animated series or guest spot in another game franchise, remake, BBC radio drama, or VR exclusive) was released. Also, there's been 5,300 job losses in the gaming industry since January 1, 2025.

I won't speak too much on the structure of The Game Awards. It's the usual thing year in and year out. We've been here before and we'll be back here again next year. Same show. Same complaints. What I will talk about is why we're announcing games that, at the earliest, we'll never see until 2030. I know we've had announcements of games far in advance before but this one feels significant, I guess. We've also had games announced that never got released so this isn't all that new but it just seems a waste to put it out there while we'll likely never hear about it again for another 2 years or maybe 3. Elder Scrolls 6 was teased back in 2018, I think, and we've heard nothing about it since. Perhaps it really depends on the game. Like Elder Scrolls there is a massive fan base who are familiar with waiting and waiting on the next installment though this has been a rather longer wait than ever before. And so we're here with a Star Wars title that won't release before 203 – again a massively large fan base who are also familiar with waiting on the next installment. Of course, they'll need to tread lightly. We've waited on games and other media before for very long times only to have them arrive with massive disappointment. Eventually the waiting builds up enough hype to where it peaks before the thing even releases and by then everyone's expectations are either so high the game never lives up to it or so low it doesn't sell because people have already peaked their hype and moved on. Gamers have short memories, however. But I haven't forgotten about Ubisoft. It has been 4,500 days since a new Splinter Cell game (non-animated series or guest spot in another game franchise, remake, BBC radio drama, or VR exclusive) was released. Also, there's been 5,300 job losses in the gaming industry since January 1, 2025.

I'd like to think I'm someone who was always into the future stuff, you know? The science of Star Trek and what we'd eventually develop with technology and all of that stuff you think about as a kid watching your sci-fi or reading about the future. I was always hopeful we'd get to a point where I could really think we took some steps into making that sci-fi stuff a reality – but like, the good kind. We got there a few times. Moon landing being one of them and video phone conversations. There's plenty to point at and be amazed. But then there's AI. I won't go into the pros and cons of the tech – there's layers and layers deep of conversation to be had on that subject, philosophical or otherwise. But to just step back and look at the ripple effect of it…that's a little disheartening. There's many examples I could point to, but for the purpose of this show, it's the current prices of RAM that is just bonkers crazy with how prices have skyrocketed. It started in Covid times when people started to work from home and needed more PCs which meant more RAM. So the companies made more. Too much, actually and we had a good surplus of it. Prices were pretty great. Now we have AI and companies are snatching up all they can. Because we were in a surplus, we now find ourselves with low quantities due to all the AI companies grabbing all they can where they can. And the prices are ridiculous. Much more so, the RAM makers are starting to skip over regular consumer RAM and selling ONLY to the big tech companies. And at the risk of sounding all conspiracy theorists, the government is involved in this as well. Like, I'd say the rabbit hole goes deep, but it really doesn't. Mainly because it isn't being hidden anymore. And the more you look into it the more depressing it becomes because it absolutely shows no sign of stopping anytime soon. An AI bubble burst is the hope, but we don't know if that'll ever happen and, worse yet, if there's a chance of it happening, it is WAY off in the distant future. A lot of it feels like it's just going to get worse before it even slightly gets better. For now, I hope you're satisfied with the power of your PC, laptop, phone, watch, console, and any other device using RAM, because making upgrades to your PC or getting any of those other devices in the very near future is going to cost far more than it does now. Ubisoft, in the time since you've announced a Splinter Cell remake, your original director on the project left and has now returned. And we're still nowhere close to a release. A remake isn't even a part of the deal here but it's been so long I might make an exception. It has been 4,493 days since a new Splinter Cell game (non-animated series or guest spot in another game franchise, remake, BBC radio drama, or VR exclusive) was released. Also, there's been 5,300 job losses in the gaming industry since January 1, 2025.

As a note, well…two notes, we won't be doing a show next week and will return with a new episode the first Saturday in December. Secondly, there's a point in the video portion of the show where I forgot to change the screen. Probably more entertaining really. There actually was a decent amount of news worth talking about and should still be when we return in two weeks, but for this one, we just run down the current deals to be had and what to watch out for during the Black Friday sales. If I buy anything or not it's always my favorite time of year to see some good discounts. Some are better than others and some years are better than others. As an overall assessment of this year’s deals – we've had better. Much better. That isn't to say it's all at a loss here, but there's been better and bigger discounts on far more items in the past than we're seeing this year. Trust me, I know. I've been doing this whole thing back when you physically had to line up outside a store for the sales. As is the case with this time of year, all of us at In-Game Chat (yeah, I know, it's like just two of us at this point) are exceptionally thankful for every single one of you reading this and listening/watching the show. Be it live or after the fact. We're here because of you and we cannot tell you how much it means to know you're out there supporting us. We hope you have a fantastic holiday season and we'll see you on December 6th. Ubisoft, you just got a massive truck load of money from Tencent. You WON'T make another Splinter Cell, but you really should. It has been 4,479 days since a new Splinter Cell game (non-animated series or guest spot in another game franchise, remake, BBC radio drama, or VR exclusive) was released. Also, there's been 4,787 job losses in the gaming industry since January 1, 2025.

It's not black Friday yet but we already open the show talking about some great deals to be found out there. Well, currently if you have a Switch 2 and a Costco nearby, at least. I don't know what it is for me about finding deals, but as much as people love this time of […]

I've never felt so judged. Actually, I'm kidding. I think going over my wishlist with someone else on air was fun, actually, and I learned how to “follow” a game instead of wishlist it. That's the whole first hour of the show. Going over my, currently, $6,000 wishlist on Steam. Also realized I had games […]

Destiny sure did a number on me as far as games are concerned. Or maybe I did it to myself. It's something that happens early in the show but it's an admission to myself or a realization that Destiny has given me some type of gaming anxiety. Recently Arc Raiders released and it's gotten a […]

Long live the indies indeed. That's how I ended the last show post here before our little week vacation. And in that time I've played pretty much nothing but indie titles. Specifically Clover Pit and Ball X Pit. These two games alone dominated not only my time gaming but my off time thinking about them. […]

Show note: There's no show next week. I failed to mention that until the VERY end of this episode. We'll be back on October 25th. I wouldn't say that I'm worried about the future of my hobby. I don't expect a crash like in the early 80s or whenever that was. I think I'm just […]

It's been a VERY long time since we've done an interview on the show but given the game he made, I couldn't pass up talking to Aaron Gwynaire. He's a solo developer and his new game “Neyyah” released last month and has been doing quite well. It's his first game, took him seven long years […]

I don't know that I would call it a complaint, but saying we have too many video games sure seems like a good problem to have – for the player. But having too much of anything is almost certainly going to, at least, end up being bad. I don't know when we might see the […]

Surprise! Tariffs make things more expensive. I actually didn't have to finish writing that. The whole smart document thing saw “tariffs make things…” and it completed the rest of it. So yeah, now we've got the second price hike in 6 months for Microsoft consoles. We're at a point where if you bought a Series […]

We'd planned to bring you one of our first interviews in I don't know how many years but some technical issues have pushed that through to next week. We'll be talking with Aaron Gwynaire about his new game NEYYAH. As for today's show, it's a lot about Nintendo. Both with their Nintendo Direct held on […]

It's been a few weeks and in that time I seemed to have found some games to actually put some time into. Nothing new, of course, but given I haven't played them yet, they're new to me. Recently I finished Astro's Playroom. This was a pack-in title with the PS5. A console purchased in November […]

Just a note for the show – Labor Day is next week here so we won't be back live until September the 6th. With Gamescom come and gone we're sort of set for the year on upcoming releases. I mean, there's plenty of releases to come but I don't see anything too surprising to show […]

It's not unlike us from time to time to sort of stray off topic for a little bit. And by “us”, I mean “me”. And that's the case early in this episode and throughout as I try and remember the very first comic book I ever read. At some point I'm going to have to […]

Still haven't found a game to hold my attention in recent weeks and now, seemingly, months it feels like. I have a lot of quick games I play. Little things that I can spend however much time I want with them and back out whenever. But nothing on a story driven basis or anything like […]

Another quick note to let you know we will NOT be doing a show next weekend. This week however was more just chatting and rambling. Which, I get it, is most of what we do anyway. It's been a minute for me since I have settled on a game to play. Got a good ways […]

We go away for two weeks and then come back with not so great news. MASSIVE layoffs at Microsoft and a really odd back and forth between publishers and devs concerning Subnautica 2 – only really leading to a delayed (and at this point maybe cancelled) game. And more news (mostly not good) that we […]

It's hard to shake off the pull of something successful. I mean, it can be easy if you're outright against it or don't have the means to obtain it or whatever. Basically, there's exceptions, right? But I'm speaking in the sense, as almost always I do here, in terms of video games. A successful console […]

So, about that write up last week… I think I mentioned that Borderlands 4 would be a test for that $80 third party gaming pricing. Turns out, it won't. Since they are basically pricing it as pretty much any other current gen triple A game. I don't know what game will eventually be that test, […]

We've circled back around to the price of our hobby again. Not so much the consoles and PC components, those will always run a premium. But the games. Nintendo is testing those waters with their first party titles. So, it's their exclusives. If you want to play them you'll have to pay those prices. Microsoft […]

“Too much is not enough” Actually, yeah. Yeah, I kinda think too much is more than enough. They need to space these things out. The Summer Game Fest video alone is 3.5 hours long. And it is back to back to back titles over and over again. The next day had SEVEN more events of […]

“You cannot f___ the future, sir. The future f____ you.” So, we're back to the discussion of $80 games, and to get right to the core of it—this is happening. It was probably always going to happen. Inflation affects everything—food, materials, consumer goods—prices inevitably rise, and video games are no exception. The same goes for […]

How do you solve a problem like GTA 6? What I mean by that is that when you have a game like GTA 6 it sort of dominates the store shelves – it dominates the topic of conversation. And getting back to the store shelves that's the problem. When you release a game like this, […]

We might be done for a while talking about the Switch 2 (but not for very long), but in its place we now have GTA 6. Just swapping one evil for another. And no, they aren't really evil, but those prices sure are. Oddly enough, prior to like a month ago, GTA 6 was the […]

So, maybe for a while we might be done talking about the Switch 2? Pre-orders are out (some oddly still available) and now it's just the waiting game until June 5th. I was able to get in a pre-order myself, but I'll be on the fence for either keeping it or canceling. And if I'm […]

We're finally getting to order our Switch 2's. Well, pre-order them. We're also finally settled on a price and, as it turned out, it was the price we knew all along anyway. So, for now, it's the $450/$500 situation. That price won't change through the release on July 5th. Although given how quickly things have […]

It's been two weeks and I'm past the point of being tired of talking about tariffs. At least where Nintendo is concerned. And, I guess, where our gaming hobby is concerned. PC components, consoles, games, digital or otherwise, just tired of talking about it and speculating on it. At this point I'm of the mind […]

You'd think around an hour would be enough time to really go over everything going on with Nintendo, but apparently not with the way we do it. But yeah, this is what we're talking about for the whole second hour of the show. We didn't finish the conversation and we're likely to have it again […]

I had forgotten what it means to be on the cusp of a GTA release. I admit, my memory isn't at all what it used to be, but you might also forget that the last time we were here was 2013. I'd forgotten not about the build up to release as far as hype is […]

“Listen to the thunder…” This is probably one of the more unusual episodes we've done. And we've done a lot of unusual episodes before, but this one dealt with some pretty severe weather coming into our area and, as such, we had to cover it. Not something we mind at all, by the way. We […]

“I hope that somethin' better comes along…” By now you should know that when I like a game, it's probably on the simplistic side of things. We always referred to Destiny as a “my first mmo” kind of thing. And so it seems with Avowed. It's beginning to click for me but the more I […]

“The next best thing to the enjoyment of a good time is the recollection of it.” We're two months in for the year and currently sitting around 1200 job losses in the gaming industry. A number that will only go higher, of course, as the year goes on. This week, among other studios, we lost […]

“Patience is a virtue” A virtue I'm well acquainted with – except for when the internet is down. It was a weird weekend. After this show wrapped we had bad weather come through and that required me to put on my day job pants and monitor things for where I work. That got me in […]

“You couldn't live with your own failure, where did that bring you?” Back to Batman. I get the need to want to work on something else. I understand how tiring it is to keep doing, mostly, the same thing over and over again. As well as trying to bring more to the table to keep […]

“Let a joy keep you. Reach out your hands and take it as it runs by.” I'm still putting in time with AstroBot. It's a great little game to come home to, if that makes any sense. Like, it's a comfortable TV show. A feel good book. Something to take away the worries of the […]

Snap back to reality… So, this time last week I was wondering what had happened to Marvel Snap. Turns out they're owned by a company the US Government doesn't want operating in the US. Anyway, that lasted all of maybe two days or so. Everything is somewhat back to normal. And players will be seeing […]

Just as a note, I'm writing this the day after we recorded this episode. Yeah, some things have happened since then and we're absolutely going to talk about it on the NEXT episode. For now, I want to keep this content relevant to the episode it's attached to, even though it does have to do […]

New Year. New Switch…Too. I can't remember the last time I've seen a leak for a console like this. It's almost like how new phone products get leaked because of all the third party manufactures – but this is for a new console. And I'm surprised that Nintendo has said NOTHING about it. They also […]

As always, thank you for listening and continuing to support us here at In-Game Chat. Another season comes to close and along with it another year as well. We don't really look back on the year in this episode so I'll try to do so here in this post. From kicking off this year with […]

These things take time… And it seems that 10 years is about the time it takes to iron out the kinks of The Game Awards. I can't tell if maybe I'm just not as critical or that they actually fixed their problems but I have very little in the way of notes about this year's […]

“I'm listening…” If you're looking to hear someone over analyze themselves as to how they play or buy video games…well, you've come to the right place. After all that back and forth I sometimes boil it down to the great words of a TV show theme song: “It's just a game, I should really just […]

What a bargain! It's sales week/month. Not sure how long this goes for, because while this is the big sale day of Black Friday later on this week you'll actually see sales from now until the end of the year. And yeah, some of those will be better/worse than what we're getting this week. Currently, […]

The future feels uncertain. Well, duh. It is the future and it will always be uncertain. Still, it doesn't mean I can't wonder what will come of it. And while you might think this is some existential pondering on my part, it's far more…well, actually it's far less than that. I'm once again talking about […]

The mid-gen refresh for Sony is now out in the wild and we'll see how a $700 console holds up out there. Let me be a bit more specific there and say a $700 digital-only console holds up out there. It'll be fine, really. It's an option for people who can afford that option and […]

It's kind of strange how it now feels like we're done with the year, gaming wise. And I mean as far as releases go. I know there's likely plenty to fill the shelves in the coming weeks and that Indiana Jones game in December, but…what else? That whole thing about “the coming weeks” is just […]

Sometimes time is all we need. Listen, that line works on a lot of things a whole lot better than I'm using it here, but let's discuss it in the terms of video games. I'm a massive fan of the Burnout series and in 2008 Burnout Paradise was released. Played it a ton. Online and […]

Just a show note: No new episode next week. We kind of covered a lot in this episode. And not necessarily the news aspect, but just our general gaming habits. For one, I'm looking for a narrative game to play. Currently, I've just been dabbling in demos or Burnout games. No common thread or anything, […]

We're still over here on our classic game kick. And let me say how grateful I am for emulators and the communities of people who maintain them and grow them. It's the reason that when you see me stream Burnout 3, it looks amazing for a 20 year old game. The community did that. And […]

I know video game showcases, such as Sony's “State Of Play” earlier this week, are supposed to have something for everyone. And I can only imagine that Sony's showcase absolutely nailed that since I only came away with excitement for about a little less than half of what they showed off. I'm kind of okay […]