Some Patches Required
Hello everybody, and welcome to Some Patches Required. Every other Wednesday, your hosts Aaron and Zak use their backgrounds in game development and analysis to discuss various facets of the ever-turbulent games industry. From interviews with AAA/indie devs to deep dives on timely topics, the duo hopes to entertain and educate you on this wild medium we all love.
Episodes
112 episodes
Stop Killing Games: A Movement Building Momentum
This week, Zak and Aaron revisit a topic from earlier this season: the Stop Killing Games Movement! It's been a big couple of months for Ross Scott and the crew which has now grown into an official Non-Governmental Organization in Europe, prese...
Mario Galaxy Movie: Exploring the Fan/Critic Divide
This week, Zak and Aaron take a moment to discuss an online conflict that rears its ugly head with disappointing regularity — the divide between critic and audience review scores when it comes to games and movies. Specifically, our intrepid hos...
Marathon: Is "Good" Enough for Sony?
This week, Zak and Aaron are back to check in on Marathon, the latest title from Bungie and the latest shot by Sony to make a splash in the wildly oversaturated live service market. Rather than being an unmitigated disaster on the leve...
Xbox: The End of the Phil Spencer Era
This week, Zak and Aaron sit down to discuss some pretty massive changes over at Xbox, namely the retirement of long-time CEO Phil Spencer and the quiet disappearance of his heir apparent, Sarah Bond. In their place, we find Asha Sharma, a seas...
Ashley Ruhl Interview: Regarding Romance and Game Narrative
This week, Zak and Aaron sit down to chat with Ashley Ruhl, the Narrative Director at Broadsword Online Games, currently in charge of Star Wars: The Old Republic! She was kind enough to tell us a little bit about her role working ...
Highguard: A Golden Marketing Opportunity Turned Sour
This week, Zak and Aaron sit down to discuss yet another curious case of misguided marketing — this time with fewer questionable hats. Highguard, which secured the headlining spot at The Game Awards 2025 thanks to Geoff Keighley's personal fond...
Splitgate: A PR Catastrophe
This week, Zak and Aaron sit down to discuss how a series of PR... er, let's call them "miscalculations," arguably torpedoed Splitgate: Arena Reloaded (formerly Splitgate 2) before it even had a chance. This story has it all: politically-charge...
Netflix: The Fate of Warner Bros.
This week, Zak and Aaron are back in hell to discuss the pending acquisition of Warner Bros. by Netflix. They touch on what the merger could mean for the future of movie theaters before diving into the main topic at hand: the fate of WB Games a...
Steam Machine: Disruptive Force or Niche Hardware?
This week, Zak and Aaron sit down to discuss Valve's new, ambitious hardware plans, especially the announcement's headliner: the brand-new Steam Machine. With the form-factor and convenience of a console and the hardware heft of a gaming PC, th...
Dispatch: The Smash Hit Publishers Wouldn't Touch
This week, Zak and Aaron sit down to chat about another (increasingly rare) industry success story: the brand-new Telltale-style adventure Dispatch! How, despite facing doubt from publishers over the game's fairly niche genre ...
EA Buyout: What Happens to Your Favorite IP Now?
This week, Zak and Aaron finally get around to discussing one of the most significant events in the recent history of the games industry — the $55 billion purchase of Electronic Arts by a consortium of private investors, including the Saudi Ara...
Chris Knight Interview: Crafting a Career in 2D Art
This week, Zak and Aaron are delighted to present a conversation with Chris Knight, a 2D artist based in Austin, TX. Chris was kind enough to share some insights from his career, some funny (and not-so-funny) stories, and his frank opinion on w...
Game Pass: Higher Price, Lower Value
This week, Zak and Aaron sit down to talk about Xbox GamePass' recent price increase... again! That's right, the fabled "best value in gaming" just saw a 50% jump in cost, barely a year after the last jump. What's more, there's a compelling arg...
Silksong: The Power of Lean Game Development
This week, Zak and Aaron... actually have something positive to talk about for once! Namely, the predictably smashing release of Hollow Knight: Silksong, which, after nearly a decade in development, launched to platform-crashing numbers and fai...
Steam Censorship: Weaponizing Payment Processors
This week, Zak and Aaron kindly beg your attention to a very serious matter: the censorship of thousands of NSFW games across Steam and Itch.io at the behest of payment processors like Mastercard. Prompted by a grassroots organizati...
Roblox: The World's Worst Dating Service
This week, Zak and Aaron dig into a topic that's as absurd as it is concerning: the CEO of Roblox wants to officially incorporate dating into the platform. Completely ignoring the fact that the game's core audience is mostly children, David Bas...
Stop Killing Games: The Best Hope for a Better Industry?
This week, Zak and Aaron delve into the nitty-gritty of the Stop Killing Games movement — an initiative with the simple goal of persuading publishers to, well, stop killing games. From preservation to protecting consumer interests, Stop Killing...
Peak: The Rise of "FriendSlop" Games
This week, Zak and Aaron sit down, inexplicably inspired by a meme, to discuss the rise of so-called "FriendSlop" games. These are titles like Repo, Lethal Company, and the recently released Peak, all of whi...
Disney vs. Midjourney: The Future of AI in Entertainment
It finally happened! A set of entertainment juggernauts — Disney and Universal — are taking the fight to AI in a big way. This week, Zak and Aaron sit down to discuss the new lawsuit against image generator Midjourney, why it's happening, and w...
Game Movies Galore: An Adaptation Avalanche
This week, Zak and Aaron sit down to discuss the absolute onslaught of video game movie adaptations coming down the pike at breakneck speed. From questions of quantity over quality to musings on which projects have the most potential, you...
Expedition 33: Success Can't "Save" Single-Player
This week, Zak and Aaron take a moment to celebrate the runaway critical and commercial success of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33... and then dig into why it won't matter at all to big publishers and the money-making machine behind them. Tragicall...
Marathon: Can Bungie Fulfill Sony's Live Service Ambitions?
This week, Zak and Aaron sit down to discuss Bungie's newest project, Marathon! The dig into everything from the upcoming extraction shooter's aesthetic to its narrative to its choice of genre in service of answering one question — will this fi...
Nintendo Switch 2 Prices: Changing the Industry $80 at a Time
This week, Zak and Aaron dive into a new controversy that may have long-lasting implications for the industry at large — Nintendo's decision to price some first-party AAA games at $80.The duo discusses why this price increase is not only...
United Videogame Workers: Is This the Moment Devs Have Been Waiting For?
This week, Zak and Aaron sit down to discuss the newly formed United Videogame Workers Union — a brand-new collective attempting to bring the power of collective bargaining to every corner of the industry, regardless of company or position....
Kevin Messenhimer Interview: A Developer's Journey to Founding Fiveamp
This week, Zak and Aaron sit down for a delightful conversation with Kevin Messenhimer, one of the co-founders of the indie game studio Fiveamp. The trio covers a broad range of topics as they follow Kevin's journey from a member of...
