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2022-01-27 17:01:04 +0000 UTC View PostHello!
This month's primary election is over, and it's time to cast your vote on December 2021's winner for another fan-voted topic on KnockBack!
Below are the five most-popular selections from this month's primary election, listed in order of their popularity (by initial votes cast), with the submitter in parenthesis.
(We have four outstanding fan-voted topics to record, at present: Metal Gear Solid 4, Red Dead Redemption, Unchar...
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2022-01-26 17:01:59 +0000 UTC View Post
The conversation on NFTs accelerated from joke to hot button topic in a matter of weeks as companies across gaming being to embrace a new genre: Play-to-earn. Joining us is Robert, an attorney and compliance specialist in the digital payments industry. Robert is also a gamer, NFT owner, and he considers himself "cautiously optimistic" about the future of NFTs. To pick his brain some more and educate ourselves as well as the masses, we invited him on to discuss the potential and the very bad o...
2022-01-26 17:01:04 +0000 UTC View Post
For the first time ever, the three Sacred Symbols boys and the two Dukes of Defining Duke have united for a conversation. The topic? The only thing anyone seems to want to talk about these days: Microsoft's purchase of Activision-Blizzard-King. What's positive about the deal? What's negative? What are our prognostications about how things will go at and for Microsoft? How will Sony respond? With a week to think about it, we wanted to have one last conversation on SS+ before moving onto other ...
2022-01-25 17:01:03 +0000 UTC View Post
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2022-01-25 17:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post
Sacred Symbols x Defining Duke
Gathering Under A White Flag
Tuesday, 12:00 PM EST
2022-01-24 21:30:38 +0000 UTC View PostHey All! It's time to submit your questions, comments, concerns, thoughts, and ideas for Episode 56 of Defining Duke.
Great ways to get your write-up used: Be pithy, be topical, and be insightful. Walls-of-text, posts littered with poor grammar and punctuation, etc., are promptly (though respectfully) ignored.
As this is an Xbox podcast, be sure your submission makes sense within that realm. You have until Wednesday, January 26th at 1p ET to make your submission.
2022-01-24 18:30:59 +0000 UTC View Post
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2022-01-24 17:01:08 +0000 UTC View Post
There's just no denying it: The gaming series Halo and the Xbox console are intrinsically linked, and will be forever. Indeed, Microsoft went and bought Halo mid-development to become its maiden console's killer app, and... well... it worked... because Xbox was unlikely to survive without it. Two decades-plus later, Halo remains one of the most important console franchises in the world, and yet, it all began innocuously enough with a 2001 product subtitled Combat Evolved. While far from the f...
2022-01-24 17:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostHello!
As usual, we're giving you -- our beloved audience -- the opportunity to help select an upcoming episode of our retro and nostalgia podcast, KnockBack.
Here's what you do: Submit a single topic idea in the thread below, and then use Patreon's "like" system (which is a heart) to show support for others' submissions that you like. Near the end of the month, we'll round-up your answers and distill everything to the five most-popular choices, which you can then vote on.
Hello!
Soon, we'll be recording an episode of KnockBack all about the fourth and final season of Battlestar Galactica, which ran from 2008 into 2009. We want you to participate.
As always, submit your questions, comments, concerns, thoughts, and ideas to our show concerning the topic. Pithy and well-written inquiries only! Walls-of-text and poorly-written submissions are politely ignored.
You have until Wednesday, February 2nd ...
Hello!
Soon, we'll be recording an episode of KnockBack all about the 1998 film Rushmore, and we want you to participate.
As always, submit your questions, comments, concerns, thoughts, and ideas to our show concerning the topic. Pithy and well-written inquiries only! Walls-of-text and poorly-written submissions are politely ignored.
You have until Wednesday, January 26th at noon ET to submit.
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2022-01-22 17:02:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Please welcome Jessica Gonzalez to the show. For years, Jessica worked at various places across the Activision-Blizzard-King (or ABK) label, and she led (and still leads) the charge in highlighting the mega-publisher's seemingly copious worker-related infractions. Indeed, you may know the A Better Activision initiative, which she founded. Her goal? To unionize game development, both at the publisher-slash-developer level and by discipline. To what end? To ultimately offer workers more securit...
2022-01-22 17:01:02 +0000 UTC View Post
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2022-01-21 17:01:59 +0000 UTC View Post
Microsoft -- as it's wont to do -- just went and spent a bunch of money on a publisher. But this is no ordinary publisher or forgettable amount of money: By buying Activision-Blizzard for a record $68.7 billion, Xbox now controls some of the industry's most vital IP and studios, including the king of them all, Call of Duty, and its constellation of developers, including Infinity Ward and Treyarch. Yet, Microsoft's bullish move will likely set off an even-further damaging series of mergers and...
2022-01-21 17:01:04 +0000 UTC View Post
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For the long time Defining Duke listeners, we all know you have been waiting for a week like this. A time where a major haymaker is delivered by Microsoft and we can break it all down together. For the staggering price of $68.7 billion, Xbox has acquired publisher Activision and with it come a slew of development teams and IP that we're not quite sure even they know what to do with. Beyond inheriting a plethora of potential exclusive games and bolstering Game Pass, Xbox takes in damaged goods...
2022-01-20 17:01:03 +0000 UTC View Post
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2022-01-19 17:01:07 +0000 UTC View Post
Drinkbox Studios has been deeply associated with PlayStation since their inception over a decade ago and are responsible for indie hits like Guacamelee and Severed. Joining us in today's special Defining Duke Ultimate is Graham Smith, a co-founder of Drinkbox, to discuss the dramatic shifts in the development landscape with utmost transparency. From the inner workings of a day one Xbox Game Pass deal to why they left PlayStation after all these years, Graham is the man with the answers.
2022-01-19 17:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post
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2022-01-18 22:27:24 +0000 UTC View Post
The news this morning was unexpected and unusual, but also quite true: Microsoft has purchased Activision-Blizzard for a staggering $68.7 billion, a nearly 50% premium over share price. This deal, if it goes through, would make series like Call of Duty, Diablo, Overwatch, and even Crash Bandicoot and Spyro Xbox first party franchises. It also clearly puts Microsoft in the driver's seat when it comes to dictating the terms of the industry's economics, adding not only dozens of IP to its s...
2022-01-18 22:27:20 +0000 UTC View PostHey All! It's time to submit your questions, comments, concerns, thoughts, and ideas for Episode 55 of Defining Duke.
Great ways to get your write-up used: Be pithy, be topical, and be insightful. Walls-of-text, posts littered with poor grammar and punctuation, etc., are promptly (though respectfully) ignored.
As this is an Xbox podcast, be sure your submission makes sense within that realm. You have until Wednesday, January 19th at 1p ET to make your submission.
2022-01-17 18:30:01 +0000 UTC View Post
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2022-01-17 17:00:24 +0000 UTC View Post
So many of our remembrances are centered on our 'home territory' of Long Island, and the places where we would later call home, from Boston to Philadelphia to California. But what about the times we left, specifically for vacation with our family or friends? This week's episode of KnockBack is dedicated to those leisure-filled days and weeks of yore, when we had nothing to do and no expectations, but lots of funny and ridiculous stories to tell. We hope you enjoy.
2022-01-17 17:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post
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2022-01-15 17:01:59 +0000 UTC View Post
A few years ago, I (Colin) had an idea that I thought was really clever, but in fact lots of people were already doing it: Selecting video games like football or baseball players on a fantasy team, and having a 'fantasy league' based on Metacritic. It wasn't a new idea, which took me a few years to get over. But I'm finally ready to embrace it, now. On this episode of +, the three core Sacred hosts select 12 games, coming to PlayStation platforms (or perceived to be!), launching in 2022 ...
2022-01-15 17:01:03 +0000 UTC View Post
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2022-01-14 17:01:08 +0000 UTC View Post
First party rumors are growing. With a Twisted Metal revival unannounced (but very much in-development) comes word that it's now an internal project under the control of Firesprite. Meanwhile, the candor ex-Bend Studio leads displayed in a conversation with David Jaffe continue to reverberate, bringing to light the possibility of a Resistance revival, or something new in the world of Syphon Filter. Meanwhile, word out of the UK is that PlayStation Now cards will stop being sold in physical st...
2022-01-14 17:01:04 +0000 UTC View Post