The VGBees Podcast

This week, the whole gang is back together to discuss the biggest games news of the week, which sometimes wasn't about games at all! Including: Iron Lung opens #2 at domestic box office , paving the way for perhaps a new wave of independent film distribution Ashes of Creation developer closes after clash between Creative Director and Board Borderlands 4 Nintendo Switch 2 port "on pause" indefinite...

With Lotus on the International Space Station this week, John and Niki wasted no time discussing these completely relevant topics: Moisturizer Haircare Peloton Tchoukball Okay but they did get down to the most important games news of the week, including: The Highguard team quit their shadowdrop plans to take a slot at The Game Awards Could Geoff not fill the last slot of the evening? What does it...

This week, Niki , John , and Lotus confront the biggest gaming stories of the week, including: Ubisoft's major reorg, including game cancelations and new structures Tencent getting into podcasts, which we're sure will go great Marathon gets a release date and a surprising collector's edition Capcom experiments with generative AI to stop being creative Fable takes a baffling stance on morality in t...

This week, Lotus , Niki , and John set out to dissect the price sensitivity opus laid out by Peak's devs in an interview with Stephen Totilo . Is eight bucks really five bucks? This and much more, including: AGDQ's haul and interesting future Hytale's long path to Early Access Meta's VR investment goes toe up Steam Community Awards face major changes Spry Fox spinning out of Netflix Inverse &...

This week, Lotus , Niki , and John are back and ready to tackle the first fresh news of 2026, including: The passing of Sega cofounder David Rosen Discord files for an IPO New Life is Strange is leaked to ratings site Jason Schreier causes Take-Two's stock price go down, kinda Minecraft getting new baby animals Larian's CEO still doesn't seem to understand Gen AI Independent Games Festival nominee...

This week, John , Niki , and Lotus stare down the barrel of a very slow gaming news week, so they tackle some additional stuff, too, including: Twitter's Gen AI CSAM and sexual violence catastrophe Microsoft's CEO begging us to stop calling Gen AI "slop" GOG cofounder buys GOG from CD PROJEKT (which he also cofounded) GPUs are going to get even more expensive Splitgate sequel is not going very wel...

Note: a better quality audio upload will be available in a couple days. Hello! Another year has flown by and Niki , Lotus , and John are here to talk about their favorite games and gaming-adjacent things from 2025! Included in the GOTY chat: Donkey Kong Bananza Hades II Avowed* Ball X Pit Pokemon Legends: Z-A Blippo+ Kinophobia Mario Kart World The Nintendo Switch 2 Also, the news of the week! Sta...

This week, Niki treats John and Lotus to the first ever VGBees Podcast Edition of Scam Text Theatre ! After this momentous occasion, the crew turns its sights to the biggest news of the week, including: Larian's CEO decides to drag his company into a gen AI quagmire People Make Games boycott Xbox (and transforms John's thinking in the process) League of Legends is getting a massive rework Naughty...

Editor's note: this week's episode failed to upload individual stems of each recording, which means this final product is a bit rougher than usual. This is John and Streamyard's fault. Jordan did a great job with it. This week, Niki, Lotus, and John are all here to discuss the Biggest Night in Gaming™ aka The Game Awards. Included in the overall discussion: Casey Hudson's Star Wars RPG Larian's ho...

This week, John and Lotus celebrate the return of Niki to the show by immediately yelling at them for saying no one knows who Ron Gilbert is. Also! Netflix is buying Warner Bros. for $82.7b, including WB's games Ron Gilbert's Death by Scrolling had big trouble finding publisher money Horses banned by Epic Games Store EA's buyout is going 93.4% to the Saudis Mina the Hollower needs to be a huge hit...

This week, Lotus and John dissect the biggest news stories of the week, including: Horses banned from Steam and the oddities surrounding it Splash Damage enters consultation ahead of layoffs Coatsink to lay off roughly half their studio Nintendo to acquire 80% of Bandai Namco Studios Singapore DDR5s and SSDs face massive price hike amidst shortage Demonschool does something fun with their credits...

This week, Lotus and John are feeling particularly thankful for the handful of absolutely bananas stories that dropped in their laps! Including: Tencent's ultimate investment in Ubisoft Yoko Taro's projects keep getting canceled Unity coming to Unreal Megabonk withdraws from The Game Awards Unknown Worlds vs Krafton gets unbelievably weird Roblox CEO says the wildest things you can imagine on a po...

This week, Lotus and John tackle an absolute boatload of games news and notes, including: Valve's Steam Machine, Frame, and Controller all due in 2026 Halo Infinite 's final update coming this month The mishandling of The Game Awards Future Class is another black mark on whatever legacy Geoff Keighley is trying to leave Sony's fiscal report shows 40% share of software revenue to live service games...

This week, Niki returns after a taxing move to talking to Lotus and John about a game they played called Life's Eternal Puzzle . Not out on any consoles I can find but still interesting! Also! Grand Theft Auto VI is delayed Rockstar's fired employees were allegedly leaking information (uh huh) Protests erupt outside Rockstar Texas sues Roblox (get ready to get acquainted with Ken Paxton, one of th...

From the VGBees Bonus Feed -- join The Hive today to get bonus episodes like this all year. John gave himself such a strange and wonderful birthday gift this year by asking Joe from the Joe Is Hungry YouTube channel for ninety minutes of his time. Joe, kindly, obliged. And this is the result. If you've never watched Joe Is Hungry, it is a fast food review channel with a growing and vocal fandom. Y...

This week, Niki has been taken by the Swamp Monster so Lotus and John are fending for themselves. Lucky for you, they love to yap! Included in the gab sesh: EA's generative AI tools all suck and no one likes them Amazon is cutting tens of thousands of jobs Many Amazon Games projects have shut down Amazon Games was apparently (???) competing with Steam the whole time Don't Nod is working with Netfl...

On this week's episode, Niki , Lotus , and John discuss Microsoft's extremely weird week/month/year/decade. Including: the 30% margin mandate flooding the zone with Fallout news , The Outer Worlds 2, Keeper, and Ninja Gaiden 4 the inevitable return of Halo Halo Campaign Evolved being one of the worst titles ever Grunts aren't supposed to glisten dev kits see huge price hike PLUS: Krafton is "AI fi...

Hi folks! This week, Niki fills out an application for an apartment, John gets something wrong (again), and Lotus explores Steam Next Fest! Included in their discussion: Assassin's Creed lead departs Ubisoft Tencent and Sony apparently worked on a The Last of Us project together Tomunobu Itagaki's legacy Hard Drive's descent into 2005 internet bullshit Quantic Dream's new multiplayer project Lumin...

This week marks the beginning of the Lotus era at The VGBees Podcast. She joins John and Niki as the third permanent cohost of the show and immediately brings insight to the program like...what if Nintendo likes making money? But also! the dense delight of Digimon Story: Time Stranger the apparent end of Hyper Light Breaker 's development the rumor that AMD needed a 10,000,000 unit commitment for...

This week, Niki and John have a lot to chat about in and around a busy few days in video games, including: Xbox Game Pass Ultimate's huge price hike interpreting the latest in Microsoft's non-plan Obsidian bearing the brunt of Microsoft's decision-making Jared Kushner and Saudi Arabia are taking EA private Seumas McNally Award Winner Consume Me 's greatness Wheel of Fortune on the PlayStation 5 Ha...

This week, Niki and John are joined by none other than Michael Higham on this, the very special 69th episode of The VGBees Podcast. In this jam-packed episode, we cover: Wolverine's profoundly bloody introduction the Returnal of it all of Saros a brief look at new Virtua Fighter Project details the impossible bigness of Ananta a conversation about remakes prompted by the perplexing Deus Ex remaste...

This week, John regrets to inform you and Niki that Borderlands 4 is just more Borderlands, for better or worse. John thinks maybe worse. Niki's right, it's just 2K's Madden . Also: the very interesting misfire that is Skate. Dying Light: The Beast is apparently great but we can't get past the Hinterlands of Dying Light 2 the poor PC performance of Borderlands 4 and Randy Pitchford's admittedly ve...

This week, Niki and John dive way way way into the mega-sized Nintendo Direct this week. Did you know that Super Mario is 40 years old??? Just like John! Wow! Also: paying for Super Mario Galaxy again Nintendo remembers Super Mario Galaxy 2 exists the new Mario movie is just Super Mario Galaxy Super Mario Wonder for Switch 2 Mario Tennis Fever Yoshi and the Mysterious Book Virtual Boy on Nintendo...

Hello! This week, John and Niki discuss the most explosive game release of the year, Hollow Knight: Silksong . 500,000 concurrents? Broken shops? Unfathomable discourse? You got it, baby. That, and: The downfall of games crit The value of asking piracy forum dwellers to weigh in on the most popular game of the year 007 First Light gameplay Football Manager 26 College basketball coming to NBA 2K Fi...

This week, John is back at full strength and here to discuss all the games Niki has played! Among the discussion points: Layoffs at Giant Squid & Rec Room Conversation boundaries and etiquette Sword of the Sea We Are OFK Circuits Royale Pokemon Red Rescue Team Pokemon Rescue Team DX Metal Gear Solid 3 Delta and more! Also, we answer your BURNING HIVE QUESTIONS from our lovely Discord .