The Epic Games Store is Not Good

[@jauwn]

As always, thanks for watching! Any specific games you want to see me play next or prioritize for the next episode? What about other, non-Epic Games Store crypto games? What about normal games? Let me know your thoughts! Like I mentioned in the video, here is the link to my Ko-Fi page, if you're interested in supporting the channel: ko-fi.com/jauwn

[@Markm8]

God speed

[@DeeEll1]

on the topic of you getting a shit ton of subs in a very shot period of time. i would have to assume that the 3024 scam is probably what put you on everyones radar since its such a bizzar scam. at least, that vids what got me to sub so id assume its similar for a lot of people.

[@tivvy2vs21]

Normal games? Ooooh, play E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy

[@belurso5179]

My man's on a mission o7. It's great to see more people pushing back against this festering wave of 'games' that exist only to fuel a speculator market.

[@totallyreyalfactsfsfs]

2:12 Epic, likely intentional, self-burn by the devs. I say likely intentional because I don't think putting the Bitcoin logo on a nuclear power plant was some kind of thing that could be interpreted as something other than "Crypto will destroy the environment.". They are literally straight up saying "Bitcoin is evil.". Although, the purple futuristic building looks like it has the Ethereum logo in it, and this game does seem pretty serious, so take my theory that the devs are self-aware with quite a few grains of salt.

[@eddiii4030]

Apeiron is the first game you covered that just makes me sad. A perfectly fine game with potential getting absolutely marred by abusive monetization that puts AAA live services to shame. This NFT trend can't die soon enough

[@samvigil957]

Yeah, I’d be legitimately interested in it if it weren’t for the crypto and p2w aspects

[@MercuryKurogane]

Agreed, it looks fun espically if it waws just a mobile title, but it is not something that is worth $50

[@DarkOmegaMK2]

Crypto's only purpose is to line the pockets of abusive and corrupt individuals that value nothing except capital at the expense of consumers. Sadly, Crypto is not going away for the same reason as other abusive practices are not going away, they make money and the people that use this scam are free of consequence.

[@cybertpax]

It's literally how any other mobile game out there. Lol.

[@Bam_1776]

Don't need NFTs to have predatory monetization

[@missfanforeverything]

A few months ago a large student team and I had completed a film in Unreal Engine, Epic came to interview us and ask about placing the assets on the store for game making. The only people there were an educational manager and a marketing manager. When I asked the marketing manager about the kind of direction the store was taking with our assets she mentioned blockchain and "innovative games". And sounded like she knew nothing of actual game making. Evidently, we did not put any of our assets on the Unreal store... i don't think Epic knows what they are doing anymore.

[@TheRibbonRed]

Epic is prioritizing appearance over actual game-making. That's why their games have been getting more & more "blockbuster", while becoming overly bloated in size & lacking innovative gameplay. I guess it's a mindset they learned from one of their biggest investors from overseas.

[@Gatorade69]

​@@TheRibbonRedWhat Epic was is dead.

[@staticfanatic]

"anymore"?

[@eightcoins4401]

Does Epic even still make games that arent Fortnite?

[@Gatorade69]

@@eightcoins4401 No.

[@LotteYansson]

Props to Steam for putting a hard stance against nft games.

[@AnnihiIator]

have you seen all the garbage that is released on steam daily, who gives a crap now if there is garbage nft games on steam along with the rest lol.

[@ohko3892]

@@AnnihiIator Allowing fledgling indie devs and mmos that might only serve a niche a platform to be seen isn't anywhere near the same as games that are made as actual scams. I even dislike 99% of those indie games and mmos aren't my thing to begin with.

[@bloodlustshiva1]

@@AnnihiIator Adding blatant scam garbage to that pile doesn't make the situation better.

[@SirQwert]

@@bloodlustshiva1if you don’t want rotten pickles. Don’t go into the bottom of the barrel. Stay at the top/middle and they’ll only be a few (like gollum, that thing)

[@WolfCoder]

@@AnnihiIator there's a large different between an earnest indie game dev who tried (and failed) to make a fun game and someone who intended to scam you from the start

[@SilverDragonJay]

That last game feels like a surreal video game-based nightmare. Like a metaphor for social anxiety in an MMO. Like a horror parody of run of the mill online games. Its beautiful.

[@jauwn]

Select your presense

[@tivvy2vs21]

It looks like fuckin worlds online

[@Lapeno456]

Pohetic

[@LR-iq3fx]

The void level makes it especially strange.

[@KnakuanaRka]

Yeah, it reminds me of meta horror games like No Players Online, Agony of a Dying MMO, or those creepypasta Mario 64 hacks; I was expecting stuff like disturbing message in the chat window or NPC dialog, glitched textures and the fake AFK PCs attacking you.

[@denormative]

The "it looks like it was designed as a mobile game, but was only released on a PC" thing is actually likely a side effect of Apple's 2022 crack down on developers trying to avoid paying apple their 30% by using crypto. Once they changed their ToC to say that they still had to get a cut of all crypto transactions then it just wasn't a viable platform.

[@vylbird8014]

That in turn was a followup to their 2020 dispute with Epic regarding off-app purchases, mostly for the flagship Fortnite game. Epic was directing players to head to a web browser and log in to the Fortnite store page to buy their in-game currency rather than using the in-App purchasing in order to avoid paying Apple's commission.

[@TheRibbonRed]

30% is too much, but evading it completely is as dumb. Getting the industry standard (yes, Sony, Xbox, Nintendo, Steam all does the same 30% cut) to lower it to 20% would be the better win-win deal.

[@FizzleFX]

Android........

[@Sir_Bucket]

​@@TheRibbonRed it's like they didn't think about the long term consequences, that Apple was going to crackdown on the whoke issue sooner or later.

[@TheRibbonRed]

@@Sir_Bucket that explains anything Epic did post Unreal Engine 4.

[@nddragoon]

remember when tim sweeney said they wouldn't allow "crappy games" on EGS? guess this is what happens when the investor money for free games dries up and devs stop taking your exclusivity deals

[@TheRibbonRed]

They really should've used that money to innovate the store, rather than taking shortcuts & lying along the way.

[@TheRockNatural]

Tim sweeney He's one big hypocrite and liarHe didn't keep any of his promises with this store

[@autobotstarscream765]

I come from the future. All quality controls have apparently been disabled (if they ever really existed). 😂

[@TheRibbonRed]

@@autobotstarscream765 they'd still lie & claim those "quality controls" exist if asked lol. 🤣 Just saw some clearly R18 titles (e.g. "Treasure of the Giantess") being sold there as PEGI 16. Amazing, Sweeney.

[@SecuR0M]

Tim Sweeney just gets paid by PRC's EA (Tencent) to say things. Same thing as Todd Howard and Peter Molyneux. 🤷‍♀

[@carlosnieve1225]

Apeiron looks like a legitimately fun game. It’s a shame they ruined it by charging for different seeds…

[@Queldonus]

Hopefully, when the crypto project, inevitably dies, someone can hack it and unlock all the seeds

[@clementpoon120]

let's hope someone will find a crack for it

[@ND-nr6mx]

​@@Queldonusdecentralize the apeiron seeds ✊️

[@genericmoron3008]

That point about how there was only meant to be one interconnected metaverse reminds me of the standards xkcd comic Situation: there are 14 competing metaverses "14?! Ridiculous! We need to develop one universal standard metaverse that covers everyone's use cases!" Situation: there are 15 competing metaverses

[@jauwn]

Always a relevant xkcd

[@Ev3rardd]

​@@jauwn My favorite has to be the one about geographic profile maps

[@VickyHong1879]

In a way, the general internet functions that way, but it’s not cool 3d like snow crash and ready player one

[@ekki1993]

@@VickyHong1879 You wish. Google can't get some anti-trust action soon enough.

[@minowilovemypet]

@@VickyHong1879 but in a way it's better and not chaos plus everything is still in internet just that we split it up after we have more people than the ip address ever had

[@ThyTrueNightmare]

the last game is clearly an asset flip, the movement animations are from 'Advanced Locomotion System', most of the characters are from ReadyPlayerMe, of which they appear to have been extracted from the website and imported, which is not how your meant to do that. and the medieval world appears to be one of the infinity free medieval asset pack options, at least they made there own terrain!

[@JustDeichan]

The houses reminds me something from Skyrim... or I'm seeing things after hours and hours of playin Skyrim.

[@enderkatze6129]

So ReadyPlayerMe is where the cool costumes some of them wear Come from

[@cancerguy5435]

Apeiron's fate stings quite a bit. It looks like a great title for apple arcade, but they've just massacred their own creation in favor of NFTs. A shame.

[@PaladinusSP]

There's been an onslaught of card games that look somewhat competent, and it was mostly thanks to one very well made TCG engine available on Unity Asset Store. A Hearthstone clone is one of the presets there, too, so people have produced plenty of meme/shitpost card games to entertain their favourite streamer or impress fellow redditors. It's just that easy to plug in your own cards into it. I don't know for sure if Raini was created that way, but, boy, does it look familiar. The assets looks original, at least.

[@AquaMouse100]

The art looks AI generated. Between white snoop dog, Tyler Cohen (who looks nothing like Tyler Cohen) and melt-y Elon musk and the unbelievable levels of cringe, I couldn’t imagine them putting in much effort for this much polish, so the engine makes sense. Nothing wrong with using an engine, of course, but I simply can’t imagine crypto bros learning to do their own programming, especially with some of the other games Jauwn has showcased on here, lmao.

[@ND-nr6mx]

​@@AquaMouse100I actually stumbled across a Twitter thread where this guy showed how we was making movies purely with AI (ChatGPT generates a plot summary which he then plugs into a different engine to generate assets, another to generate sounds, another for rigging & animation,..). Plenty of people using the word "innovative" over there, just like they do when talking about these games. Another guy was selling "art books" full of AI generated art. It's the lowest effort possible and they think they deserve to get rich for it.

[@realleon2328]

​@AquaMouse100 that game absolutely stinks of a grift made to fleece cryptobros out of the money they're so easily parted with

[@ChillavaKirby]

welp that explains why some of the card games looked decent. The only shred of respect I had is now gone

[@ThePenisMan]

As someone who has previously made some projects but once tried to make a card game based on solely intuition and barely got to just getting cards to show up before giving up, this makes a lot more sense

[@EspyMelly]

The other "players" in Deverse are almost certainly NPC's posing as fake AFK players to make the game seem more populated than it actually is (aka barren). This is not an uncommon tactic, even actually populated MMO's, especially ones you can spend real money on, will use certain tricks to make it seem like more people are engaging with it, like faking the "this person upgraded their gear" global messages.

[@Angellirav]

omfg the global messages one 😭classic

[@williamdrum9899]

That should be illegal

[@artsyscrub3226]

@@williamdrum9899 Yeah that sound fall under some kond of false advertising, man the laws are so behind on stuff like this

[@gswdeclan]

The only bad thing about NFTs going down in flames is that there won't be any more games for him to roast. They've been flogging that dead horse for a while, it's going to the glue factory soon.

[@kitelanford]

Although there’s that eventuality, it makes me wonder of how long before goes wrong and such

[@blackshock116]

There actually is an indie game released in 2022 which announced getting NFTs a couple days ago. Jauwn has received at least two e-mails about it.

[@charlodynatimberheart4860]

Crypto games are an inherently flawed concept because most gamers don't want their games to be an investment, and most crypto bros aren't playing games for entertainment.

[@valivali8104]

Are crypto bros even able to enjoy anything? They seem to think that if something doesn’t make money, it isn’t worth of anything.

[@queenofyasrabien]

@@valivali8104 to silicon valley/crypto freaks everything is a problem that needs a solution or something that needs to be improved. they look at something and go "how do i make the ultimate thing? the final one?"

[@ChucksSAF]

@@valivali8104 think they all got that part of their brains removed when they decided crypto was their whole personality 🤣

[@teawa_]

You’re the best crypto gaming channel out there. Its such a small niche & most people in the niche are paid shills but you’re brutally honest and thats what I’m looking for

[@anderkid1090]

It’s a crypto game. Any honesty is considered brutal honesty by the people in the community

[@tripolarmdisorder7696]

Tell me you're a Cryptobro suffering from the delusion that real gamers are going to flock to this overpriced shovelware instead of treating it like they frequent /b/ and will drink your sweet tears as they watch your tokens and NFTs become utterly worthless, without actually telling me...

[@jauwn]

Thanks! but I don’t want to be labeled as a crypto gaming channel. I am a normal gamer that has a channel that focuses on playing games that are scams, lazy, or bizarre. Unfortunately for crypto bros, crypto games are some of the best places to collect that type of content right now 😂

[@overlordlaharl1963]

You may not be a crypto gamer but you are definitely the best crypto games reviewer, probably because you're not a crypto gamer.@@jauwn

[@MilesProwerTailsFox]

Hi, crypto expert here Is a scam 👍

[@PaulFisher]

2:00 on is absolutely brutal. One nitpick (which please do not take as hostile; I just enjoy infrastructure and all of that): while cooling towers are commonly associated with nuclear power plants, they can be found at many conventional thermal power plants (like a coal plant), since they all have similar cooling needs. I really enjoy the reviews!

[@jauwn]

Lol no problem, I was kind of hoping someone would say something which is why I specifically said it’s a cooling tower cause a lot of people think that’s a power plant itself at least I know it’s a cooling tower 😂

[@SunsetEnvy]

Let's be real: epic games is only good to get some expensive games for free

[@WilliamLucian]

I got ESO for free now my wife and I are enjoying playing it, the only reason ANYONE uses EGS is the free weekly games

[@indigotyrian]

Honestly Epic disgusts me so much I don't even care for the free games. The day they pulled the Unreal games from shelves was the day I said I'd never give them another cent. If they have a game for free and I want it I will gladly pay full price for it on Steam (and have in fact already done this a couple of times). Rapacious fucks.

[@mommylefttogetmilk]

Then comes piracy

[@jakytmk]

@@WilliamLucianmy account got hacked and i lost over 16 page of free game :(

[@WilliamLucian]

@@jakytmk Pain

[@RockR277]

One of the many things I cannot stand about NFT projects is how they all seem to need to be _about_ NFTs. Those cards you called out made me groan.

[@KnakuanaRka]

Yeah, why do so many of these cryptobros seem to make crypto their whole personality when it’s supposed to be just a tool that enables new possibilities in games and such?

[@killzone110ad]

Correction on AI, to have a usuable AI model that doesnt require lots of tinkering or editing after the output. You need LOTS of data. Which is very expensive, they are most likely fine tuning using their own assets but the foundational model is 90% probably stolen data.

[@jauwn]

Yeah I don’t know I didn’t even think of that, you’re 100% right

[@olivercharles2930]

Not to stir the hornet's nest, but what the hell does "stolen data" mean in this case? I am not sure just using data is illegal. It is a grey area at best.

[@NoxDolore]

I think they mean that instead of using data that's theirs, they're using someone else's art? Maybe

[@ekki1993]

​@@olivercharles2930It means used without permission. And it's a grey area, legally speaking, though most artists agree that AI art should only be made with art the programmer has permission to use for that.

[@hazeltree7738]

@@olivercharles2930 The same thing as any "Stolen [insert thing]" means, taking something that isn't yours. If an artist hasn't said "Hey, you can use my stuff for AI generated images" and someone uses it for that then it's stolen data

[@Pooky1991]

You're the only cryptogaming channel worth watching because you are not a shill trying to defend flaws and is blunt and straight to the point.

[@QuintusCunctator]

I've recently subscribed and started watching your videos; if anything, I can say that wading through the NFT swamp leaves a surreal aftertaste of alienation, depression and desperation (which is very Magritte, in a sense!). You deserve a lot of praise: your channel is a perfect snapshot of what happens when companies chase trends and arrive late, when they have already fizzled out. Stop Drop and Retro talked of the "early worm effect": NFTs give me the same kind of vibe, only more predatory... So, thank you, and all the best to you!

[@notecat7785]

You're really taking the bullet for us. Good content overall. I hope your income cover all your therapy session for every headache you experience lately.

[@jauwn]

😀

[@unattributed1641]

You are on the road (along with a couple others) because you are covering games that don't have a lot of coverage. And, more than that, you are honest with your reviews... Not some paid schill. Good luck with the channel, can't wait for your next video.

[@Kermit_E_Frog]

I think NEVER taking sponsors isn't a great idea. If it's a product that you at least WOULD actually use then there's nothing wrong with that. Plus it would inspire you to keep going when things start to feel as if this could one day become your primary income!

[@x-x]

Man, dont worry if you take one or two sponsorships, just dont take the most shitty ones! You are a creator and you have to sustain yourself after all! Thanks for another great video and have a lovely day, definitely will support you on ko-fi

[@theflaminglitten-fo6jd]

Nothing wrong with sponsors at all I agree, its just when the youtubers don't do research and end up sponsored by a scam such as the lordship that was hoping around for a while

[@jauwn]

Maybe I should take a sponsor and then just use the video to expose them for being a scummy company

[@autobotstarscream765]

​@@jauwnRAID: Shadow Legends The Movie

[@Queldonus]

@@jauwnjust make sure you go over the contract with a lawyer in case they get spiteful.

[@x-x]

@@jauwn exactly, like with that weirdly advertised game that was just a RedLine Stealer

[@KolMan2000]

This man has truly learned how to pioneer a niche as probably the only person on KZbin to honestly review these dumpster fires.

[@archivefish]

I love watching you dunk on nft games, It really sucks from epic to accept this as a form of monetization, good on you!

[@AstrixFTW]

About the sponsorships, you put out hours of great quality content out for us and it only feels right to have you be rewarded for that. I’m sure your audience would be willing to put up with another random VPN being shilled if it means you get rewarded justly for all the hard work you put in. Just a thought but love your content! Me and many others just want to see you continue this grind

[@jauwn]

Thank you I'm glad you like the videos! The no sponsorship thing is more for me though than for you guys. I just don't wanna do it cause I can't stomach the feeling of saying "this video is brought to you by...". I do this stuff for fun / the art of making videos and music and sharing it with people, and that's all I need to be happy. No shade to creators who take sponsorships, obviously you need to put food on the table, but I just don't wanna do a sponsorship. Thats it lol

[@Mosz]

Some sponsors give you a lot of leeway and the ad can actually be funny. It is a challenge, but if done right is actually enjoyable to watch, while you make some money off of it. @@jauwn

[@jauwn]

Maybe I'll reconsider it further down the line but right now I'm happy with the amount of $$$ I make just from the ad revenue and generous supporters.

[@Anonymus-ih7yb]

It’s incredible how Jauwn puts more effort into his intros than some of these some of the devs put into their entire game

[@NodokaHanamura]

16:33 The closest we've gotten to the Metaverse as proposed, was when Linden Lab, the creators of Second Life, in coordination with other tech giants like IBM, established OpenSimulator, which was essentially a fork of the Second Life Server code meant for more flexibility and interoperability. The OpenSim community even established a way for the various 'grids' running OpenSim to communicate with one another and have users go between them, as part of the Hypergrid. Suffice to say, for various reasons, the concept of something like the Hypergrid hasn't been adopted due to engineering, technical, legal and even ethical concerns (Do you really want Roblox being able to let its' users connect to Second Life? With all the shit we do here, I sure as shit wouldn't.) That being said - for as much as people talk about SL being dead - at least when you find people in active areas, they aren't looking like they were put there to inflate user count. I hold out hope that there will come a day when such a thing is feasible, but until then I think we're all happy in our little corners of the web, part of the metaverse or no, that make us happy - which for most of us, crypto shit ain't it.

[@Perzyn]

But how can the metaverses not be compatible with each other! Wasn't the whole premise of NFTs in gaming that any one is going into every single title you ever interact with? Why would they not make metaverses use the same assets and NFTs? /s

[@nicolasrededeo805]

I feel reminded of the Ante mechanic in Magic the Gathering, were you had to bet a card each game and the winner of the match got both players' ante cards. It was so unpopular they took it out of the game pretty quickly.

[@dizzylilthing]

It's not just that it was unpopular, it was also a gambling mechanic which meant that wizards would have to host all magic tournaments in gambling halls

[@ProfessorHeavy1]

21:40 Games really need to stop using this dissolve-like effect. It's just so unfathomably overused, especially in shovelware games.

[@sae2705]

Apeiron is inappropriately named for something relating to NFT's. Apeiron: something that is limitless. NFT's: let's find a means to limit something that is limitless so we can make money from it.

[@mapytrix3982]

Raini really wanted to be the Elon Musk of card games. Unfortunately, it was merely the Elon Musk of card games

[@mynameismike9507]

19:47 I pulled that exact picture out of a burned down building and had it in my bedroom for years, small world

[@joshrodgers9366]

The thing i cant get over isnthe fact these games are created and targeted at adults when they are lower quality and way cheesier than any childs mobile game. Why would a bunch of adults play these games when REAL game exist out thwre

[@jauwn]

When you look at the average discussion around crypto and see the often 40+ year old people who participate in these communities, it wouldn't surprise you. The memes, behavior, and mentality is quite childish for what is supposed to be the "future of finance"

[@thetheatreorgan168]

@@jauwnno wonder cryptobros fail (or do mediocre at best) at everything they try Attempts at serious currencies and financial systems, organizational structures, Cartoons, Video games, artworks, and so on

[@CalvinChikelue]

Only now noticing the absolutely insane (& gross) event dialogue Apeiron has @14:34

[@Unaz3hunna]

3:41 i think thats supposed to be Benjamin Cowen(popular crypto bro) kinda looks like him

[@jauwn]

Oh yeah I bet you're right

[@robinmattheussen2395]

10:40 I forget if I commented on this before, but it's completely impossible for them to have a functioning generative AI model if it's only trained on data for which they hold the IP. Training the model takes an enormous amount of data, 99% of which they will not hold the IP to. So this is definitely not the case.

[@dragonick2947]

10:45 I'm a little concerned about your mention of AI generation being good for small developers, because I feel like relying on AI at all can lead to games that are expanded with "more content" regardless of what's sustainable, rather than teams working according to what they're capable of and creating something that's more refined and succinct. Plus, being an artist is already a precarious job in today's world, and any developers choosing to use AI have little incentive to actually hire more artists in the future, or even keep the ones they have if they already have the models. It's probably an issue with the system as a whole, that machines designed to make things that look alright are seen as an viable alternative to humans with new ideas, and that people feel that more content and a grander scope is more important than what's actually there, especially since its usage reinforces the idea that a given piece of art is only comparable to set dressing rather than actually being a sentimental creation in its own right, even if it's just a backdrop in a visual novel or something. This is just my opinion, I hope it gives you something to think about. Sorry if this is too long or rambly, it's not meant to sound harsh or cross or anything, it's kind of hard to be brief given how many facets there are to the issue at the moment. Still, I love the videos - thanks for taking it upon yourself to investigate the worst of these crypto games, and I also enjoy seeing your takes on the non-crypto games you cover :)

[@maboilaurence8227]

Whenever I am having a bad day or having self esteem issues, I remind myself that some people white knight for the Epic Games Store and think it's ok to not have a working cart , always cheers me up.

[@saunders4419]

10:50 This part is completely pointless. No art AI is ever only made from one's own assets because it needs hundreds of thousands of pictures to produce a good result.

[@olivercharles2930]

I guess so. I say just use AI, but don't use generated stuff if it is too similar to someone's actual art piece.

[@Meanlucario]

I think the mech Coffeezilla was in was meant to be a bear, implying Coffeezilla is causing a bear market (because nothing says stable and reliable like one youtuber causing the market to crash and burn).

[@TheBaltorusite]

i've watched you outta sheer boredom and a morbid curiosity for nft/crypto gaming, which kinda has been the mainstay for me in the past two years. but seriously, i don't wanna watch people telling me how to earn something that is worthless one day, i want to laugh and see what these games actually are

[@ceddavis7441]

I honestly recognize all the animations in the intro and I don't know how to feel about it.

[@jauwn]

Hey if every one of these NFT games can use Mixamo animations for their whole game I can use them for my 30-minutes-of-effort animations 😂

[@Chasardous]

It's hilarious to me that even card games are made worse by NFTs when cards are such a close analog for NFTs

[@williamdrum9899]

Games and nfts just dont mix

[@JazzKazoo0930]

I will admit, a crypto card game having a card called The Quantum Rug got a laugh out of me

[@notnotadev]

i’m guessing in the time between you writing the script and uploading the video SBF was put back into custody for trying to tamper with witnesses 😭

[@resisilobus3191]

Glad to made it , cant wait to see where your career goes

[@ThatCreepyReading]

My fav channel on KZbin here

[@kkngd391]

NPC ahh comment

[@codyryan6048]

Just recently found your channel and binged all your videos. This video is also very good.

[@el10leo]

Seeing this video for the first time and you being happy about 22k subs... the algorithm certainly picked you up! So glad your channel is getting the attention it deserves. Your videos are well done, you do your research so you come with actual content but, above all, you go about it in a fun and interesting way so the videos end up being very enjoyable to watch. Anyway, I probably sound like an AI by now, but it's just that English isn't my first language so... do you want to sponsor my crappy VPN?

[@miso-ge1gz]

feel free to sell out, i will just skip it with sponsor block and not buy it like always. Nothing wrong with taking advantage of these advertisers

[@Sammy38]

KZbinrs don't feed themselves off of likes 💀

[@BrainSlugs83]

I almost wonder if that 3rd game was just bugged. It's really easy to screw up game networking, so that characters are just stuck. Like that guy that joined was probably walking around and wondering why you were just standing there.

[@Choadis]

Holy hell, someone who actually knows the difference between roguelites and roguelikes. Easiest sub ever

[@jauwn]

Proudly earned. The difference is obvious and anyone who doesn’t know just hasn’t bothered to look it up

[@AsterSea]

My man, you're too nice. It's totally fine to take a sponsor. Nobody's gonna get mad at you for making a living. 👏

[@Dumaiu]

16:22 Is that 'Ram Ranch' playing? 😆

[@DeadAlcoholZombie]

You deserve to blow up. The quality of your vids is awesome, great topics, great arguments, good knowledge.

[@KnakuanaRka]

Oh brother. For Raini, the mechanics and presentation are standard TCG stuff, and the staking/gem color gimmick does seem like an interesting twist, but that cringeworthy art based off all kinds of crypto figures and memes? Dear lord, I have never seen such a cartoonishly absurd example of how cryptobros seem to make it their entire personality. Isn’t crypto supposed to just be a tool to enable new possibilities in games and such? For Apeiron, I agree on how tragic it is; it could easily be a decent mobile game (probably something I’d play) with technical improvements for the lag, a few tweaks (make things a bit faster in particular) and maybe some expansion on the mechanics, but they completely flush all that potential down the toilet by trying to cram in NFTs nobody is even bothering with. And Deverse is just bizarre. With the empty world full of fake AFK PCs, the glitched quests, and how nothing seems to be even halfway finished, it comes off as, as one person put it, a horror parody of these games. It reminds me a lot of meta horror games like No Players Online, Agony of a Dying MMO or those creepypasta Mario 64 hacks; I was expecting to see ominous messages in the chat, glitched loading screens and tutorials, corrupted textures and visuals, and PCs starting to attack you or spout disturbing dialog.

[@AsterInDis]

I wonder if Apeiron was doing just fine as a mobile title until they tried to shove the NFT's and monetization in it and that was what made it go over scope.

[@tad2021]

There's a near zero chance they trained generative image model from zeros on just their content, unless they are doing something extremely basic like StyleGAN. Newer models like Stable Diffusion required billions of samples to train. More likely they are just fine-tuning an existing model, or using a LoRA on an existing model, trained on their own IP.

[@shiffpup2529]

Can confirm, the algorithm sent me to you. I don't usually watch these kinds of videos, but I found myself watching your content, and ended up liking it!

[@williamdrum9899]

The voice compression during the intro clip was a nice touch

[@TheFawe26]

This series is awesome and the fact that you dont promote raid shadow legends or any other money grabbing game makes this channel even better

[@jauwn]

Hell yeah but if they offer me $10,000 like they have been with some youtubers recently i might have to say yes xD

[@whamer100]

damn, im kinda sad Apeiron ended up this way, as basically a roguelike addict, the game genuinely looked like it had potential. just sucks that its going nft garbage

[@Lofty_o7]

I know this is over a year old but Hydro City Zone Act 1 Soundtrack is banging dude. Love it

[@mexicanchicken3377]

hey jauwn, wanted to preface by saying your vids are amazing and im so happy to see the direction your channel has went in since the beginning (I was around for those first few dozen vids!) and i hope that you are just as happy about it too. i wanted to ask, tho, regarding the bit about aperion and its gen ai art direction comment on their whitepaper, would you say your opinion on generative ai has changed since this video has came out? or do you still believe that its useful to small development teams? Personally, i think gen ai is bad even if its "ethically sourced" for the basis of its material, with the main complaint being i think its entirely impossible for an indie studio to make a meaningful amount of source material for the ai to draw from and would largely be redundant (remember, in order for the ai to generate say, a skyscraper, a skyscraper would have to have been drawn first to pull reference from, which defeats the point no?). The other part of my complaint is subjective but i think janky developer art is eternally more enjoyable to engage with, even if its "bad", some examples being the non temmie parts of the undertale art, minecraft, and enter the gungeon. I think its also worth mentioning that Aperion CLEARLY has artists, and it would be kind of strange to pivot their already decent artstyle into hyperreal strange gen ai shlop. Anyways, i hope youre having a great one

[@SuperCosmicSpaceMagnet]

Normally I'd make a snarky comment about how awful and predatory RAID is, but the games covered on this channel really do set the bar to new and depressing lows. Good on you for not taking corrupt money!

[@jauwn]

They suck but they do offer like $15k so I can see why people do it

[@jakeh2034]

Dang. Ape Iron would be a good game I would play as a $20 mobile game even knowing it has microtransactions/gacha elements as long as it doesn't have ads.

[@williamdrum9899]

And he's here to do some business with an Ape Iron on his hip

[@bobsempletank5362]

It sucks that Apeiron got so NFT heavy. It looks like it could've genuinely been a good successful game if it just stuck to unlockable content and then maybe threw in a few microtransactions. Seems like the devs got greedy and thought they could milk more money from the NFT craves, rather than just making a good game that's accessible and could've easily made money

[@leandromafe]

Gtz on the rapid channel growth Jauwn. You deserve it.

[@NerfedFalcon]

Seeing Apeiron mentioned in the comments threw me for a loop for a while, because I was pretty sure that was an old Apple Macintosh game that was basically Atari's Centipede, but for Apple Macintosh. Guess lots of games can just have the same title now?

[@HexagonThatReallyLikesVinegar]

Coffeezilla's card looks pretty sick imo

[@ItstoadXD]

0:36 why did i expect terraria's Build, Fight, Explore tag??

[@sterthester736]

The fact that the crypto card game at the start had a literal rugpull card is just funny to me for some reason

[@andrewcullen2527]

I love the irony of Apeiron, using a name that translated to infinite but unless you have infinite wealth the game looks heavily limited to me

[@Captain_Willlow]

Shame that Aperion looks like a game that would be genuinelly fun with a bit more fleshing-out, but NFTs ruin everything they touch.

[@fandomperson2437]

19:21 I genuinely wonder if that’s just,, afk bots. To make it look like the servers have more people in them than they actually do. Especially with their keysmash names

[@jakeh2034]

Ayo, what did you do to your audio in the "3d running from Epic Games" intro. I need to know how you got it so shitty. Sounds beautiful.

[@jauwn]

Abletons Redux plug-in, but you could do it with any bitcrusher or bitrate reducer

[@jakeh2034]

@@jauwn betttttttt. Thank you. I'm using this vid as a reference, gonna search for that sound and save the preset on my butcrusher once I get back into the DAW.

[@JaneTheDark]

I really appreciate that you dont just sh*t on these games and makes an actual reviews of them ! I don't like cryptos and NFTs at all, but it's still nice that you went further than "nft bad so game bad" and outlined the actual positive aspects of the games.

[@jauwn]

Of course! It's no way to argue to simply blanket say they're all bad and not even give them a chance.

[@spaghettitime1124]

"Rugzilla" goes kinda hard.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Okay, Aperion tries to emulate the Peter Molyneux god game genre, not by making a god game, but by acting like Peter Molyneux. Especially with Godus. But hey, they use the NFTs as DLCs that add more characters. Roguelites usually unlock characters by reaching certain thresholds in the game.

[@jauwn]

Random but I appreciate you taking the time to leave comments as you binge my whole catalog. Glad to see you enjoy the videos!

[@i-destroyer8707]

I just dont get what these crypto devs are thinking when they make these games its clear that they make the most basic garbage and try to just sell nfts I make my own little projects and my only incentive is to f my friends yet I still think they are better than this garbage.

[@moonielivee4836]

apeiron hurt me too believe me, I´m in love with roguelikes and this started to look great, until I remember is a cryptogame, fuck the blockchain

[@NoooiZ]

What a great vid. I actually got kinda sad when I went to your channel to find that I've already seen every other video of yours. Please do keep em comin'!

[@4pigeons]

an ethical way to create AI images? where's my goddamn unicorn?

[@aliceuwu1013]

Just found your channel (subscribed ofc) . watched the first part and now this? God’s must’ve blessed me

[@SwizzleMix]

Can't believe I have the privilege of watching this channel before it blows up to 1M+ subs, feels good man #JauwnheadsUnite

[@coelhoanonim0131]

I got a Sandbox ad while watching. 10/10, would watch again

[@salbayat]

Jauwn channelling his inner Jesus was a beautiful thing to watch.

[@jauwn]

Sorry swim not added yet!

[@salbayat]

I loved that 🤣@@jauwn

[@evangel1460]

Love your content. Watching these failures of a game will always be great and your insight is interesting. Not too much but not too little. Keep up the work.

[@GabyIsHere2]

Man, Apeiron looked so cool, challenging and fun until goddamn crypto made its appearence It feels like it could have a future if it gets away from NFTs, like a one-time payment game with some content being unlockable by playing and somethings being like paid DLCs or stuff, it's so sad man :(

[@JohnnyTiscali]

I like the weird transitions you do, certainly unique.

[@kitteecatt4681]

one year later and youre up to 188000 subscribers. well earned

[@dexnacorn]

Bro your editing style is literally just cruelty squad (i like that)

[@thygod4920]

In 7:43, the subtitle text is actually made up of japanese characters. (or at least some of the characters look/resemble japanese). I'm not sure if they mean anything, but they're in katakana, which is typically used for foreign words that sound english-ish.

[@table2.0]

Aeon would be very cool if it wasn’t so expensive.. £5 expansions with a couple extra planets, and player characters etc a-la Cookie Run type stuff would be fine- or being able to build up in-game currency to get stuff for free that you could then sell based on time spent and skill to get would be better

[@Thedownliner2015]

Epic has none of what even GOG has which is player statistics. For a corporation as huge as Epic that's obviously terrible management. Until recently I only just started getting Achievement popups but the sound accompanying it is awful especially when you are playing a game like Alan Wake 2 lol. The only good thing about Epic is they are giving away games every week to maintain player retention but you'd think this far along they'd at least have statistics.