Category Archives: Gaming

September 21, 2023 · 13:13

Look back in yearning

This happens and weirdly enough it hit me a few hours ago. You see a few days ago I started to replay Hogwarts Legacy again (third time). I started as Ravenclaw (I like blue), then Hufflepuff and now Slytherin. You see, Gryffindor is the least interesting house as Harry-the-Snape-sycophant-Potter has been showing us that house for 8 movies, so that place is last. And my view remains, yet there is some doubling up as you replay the game, but the game is a true work of love the houses and their common rooms show that part. There is not one better house, but there is a house for every HP fan and it is a great game. I truly hope that DLC’s or an additional game is not far away (like somewhere in 2024). I do not car about the haters and their views of JK Rowling. I never heard what she said, I do not care what her believes are. We all have believes and some opposes ours directly. That will always happen and dumping a perfectly good piece of IP (one she did not create) is just insane. 

Yet that point also woke up part of me that I missed. You see, I am not much of a racing fan. I enjoy a race, I enjoy some realism and I have enjoyed an F1 game in the past, but it is all ‘too realistic’ and I am not racer. I loved Ridge racer on my PSP, yet one title always stood out. 

It was Need for Speed Underground by Electronic Arts I loved even more. I loved it because it was more like arcade (Outrun example) racing games. Need for speed had a few additional sides that gave it the flair I enjoyed and when we look at the games nowadays, it is all about ‘realism’. Don’t get me wrong, Grand Turismo and Forza are amazing games and they have their own following. But these two lack an arcade setting (for lack of a better term). As such we forgot about Need for Speed and that is a shame. I didn’t like what they produced afterwards, it was too much about short term adrenaline rushes. But that game took my feelings back to 1982, Pole Position on the Commodore 64 which got an 85% score. 

In addition there was 1990 when we were given Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge by Gremlin graphics (85% rating). Yes, graphically there are much better graphics now, but these two games brought fun. They brought fun to racing and the games we see today are drained too much of fun and all about the implied rush and short term adrenaline events. Forza, Gran Turismo and  the Crew should take a hard look at themselves and not about outspoken claims (whilst ignoring tens of thousands of others). 

I believe that these developers are wasting a marketshare and this is about to become a time when marketshare should not ever be wasted. Yes, I see all the Twitter feeds on games that were released 25-35 years ago. Almost like influencers trying to get create waves at the behest of marketing departments. I do get that and I (for the most) do not care, but actual gems are left out there to rot in the sun. We are now in a stage where a lot of us have forgotten a game like Boulder Dash, a game that brought addiction to millions. The 1984 game got an 80% rating with “A very special Game with ugly Graphic. Boulder Dash is one of THE classics of the C64.” The interesting part is that graphics were set to 40%, implying that today it could become a 90% game. It was already a 90% game on playability. As such the streamers of today could have an interesting game that takes little bandwidth. You see, when streamers become of age and internet congestion becomes the larger problem (expect that in 2026) these games and games like this will drive gaming forward. It is about the fun and that is the part that too many developers are in denial of. I reckon Ubisoft has the biggest problem with that aspect of fun. In case of Ubisoft, I still believe the original stage I saw. ‘When you create a game to appease everyone, you end up with a game that pleases no one’. It was true in 2014 and it is even more true in 2024. As such these thoughts blended together missing out on arcade style racing. I wonder if these developers are seeing that part of the equation, because as I see it now we have the Amazon Luna developers and they can connect to the Tencent technologies handheld with their software opposing Chinese developers who are on the ball and could soon create a lot more ‘remastered’ IP and they could get away with it. You see players like Electronic Arts let the CBM64 and CBM Amiga IP expire and now the stage evolves for these new indie developers. If they can create a game that is distinct enough, they could create new IP and at that point all the wannabe Microsoft developers are set out in the cold (and not just them). As I see it, as I see what Tencent Technologies is up to, it will soon be another field where the US is fishing behind the net and when these developers are relying on their advertisement incomes, they are merely one step from becoming redundant and I reckon that Apple and Google will be on the same boat. Not merely because of what they proclaim, but it is what HarmonyOS (4.0.0.113 by Huawei) is setting the stage for and the moment that Tencent Technologies opens the door to that option it will not merely gain access to one market, it will gain access to three markets and when the others forget about the fun those others will get their goose cooked. If you think I am kidding, consider the advertisement (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvkMp0JuyPQ) when yo think this through and not hide behind the ‘sexy’ label, we see that Nintendo was right all along and Nintendo figured this out 16 years ago. Preppy and fun was the story and they delivered. In the meantime Microsoft lost a truckload of market share and Nintendo gained on Sony by miles. I like the ad as it is set against the PS3 and I had both (and loved both systems). Now we see that nearly all systems have forgotten about the fun part and a new market for indie developers opens up. With the streaming systems they can create for more than one in one go and now the others will have created a new competitor, merely because they adhered to marketing and business intelligence. The problems is that they are all opposed by a knife with three sides. That knife is awareness, perception and reality, the problem they face is that they are adhering to the wrong voices and forgot about the true fun side of a game (not everyone mind you), so all those developers forgot about one marketshare that is growing fast and is about to become a lot bigger and it is yet another reason why one brand is losing more and more marketshare. All because some of them disregarded the impact of fun and now Google and Apple are about to make that part even worse. So as the older gamers look back in yearning, the new gamers see what they are missing out on and they are about to wise up. At that point who will be in the top three? Sony will be, Nintendo will be and place three? That remains to be seen, but we now have another market where Microsoft ends up in 5th place, which is way behind the pole position they once coveted, once a long time ago. 

Enjoy the day.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Gaming

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

September 18, 2023 · 16:56

The notion

This all started a long time ago and my mind revisited this point mere hours ago. I was watching a YouTube on Dubai by Travelalgorithm. I saw a banner stating “The dream starts here” and my mind went somewhere else. You see, what it is not the dream or the nightmare, but the notion? The spark that sets things in motion.

Past tense
In the past (around 35 years ago) I was send a game to test. It was called Virus. It had a bio hazard sticker, it was wrapped like it was dangerous, but it was a game. A game with a difference. You see, someone thought things through. They had the building blocks, but your hard-drive was the template. It would scan your drive and from there it would create levels and a game. And that file could be send to others who would send their file to you and you would have hundreds of hours to play. The setting was pretty ingenious.

Present time
Now we go to today, it could still work, but it could also set a massive larger stage with cloud stages. Now we are going to a much higher challenge (if you have a cloud directory). Then my mind took a twist on the matter and I cannot tell if it is just the story, a related story to other film IP I have, or merely new IP. 

What happens when that solution creates a scan handle for every file? What if it looks for something specific? Now these levels become an entirely new stage in data collecting. And the idea is not new. Phishing operations are set to this level of access. Yet did anyone consider that gaming is also a data collective? I accuses Microsoft of that years ago, but that was a simple operation. What if the operation is not that simple. What if the combination of games create the handles they need to collect stuff? People thinking that they are gamers are so collectively driven to whatever is proclaimed to be cool. Look at some game advertising that claim “only 1% can do this”. How many people will let their ego speak and fall for that trap and that is merely the simplest of traps. What if the upload that some games do is holding a little more? It is not out of the realm of possibilities and I a not that certain how alert Google and Apple are on the subject. This gets to be a lot more dangerous if you consider the old stages that Facebook game creators employed. If you had one game, getting to a certain level would unlock something in another game and soon enough people started to play that game too and more games afterwards. So what happens that two or more games will unlock interactions as well as other interactions? 

You might think this is nuts and it possibly is, but isn’t that how some ideas make for great story IP (read movie IP). At present there is more and more need for new stories and as America hasn’t been getting anything done. Other creators have had the stage all to themselves. There are all kinds of twists in stories. I personally will always love the Usual Suspects (1995) and that is for me. Yet today thee is an abundance of twists and cockles in storytelling that could and should be upgraded. Yet too many use the game as the story (which makes sense), yet too many are avoiding the technology that enabled the game in the first place and Virus was not a usual game. We focus on intelligent auto design of levels making them never the same (Diablo 3) and that is fine. Yet what happens when that engine is corrupted? It is starting to happen and it is happening more and more. What if the design is set to make you ALMOST succeed? Did you figure on that? Did you realise that most match three games seem to be easy the first 15 levels and after that it gets harder soon enough? But they have you, just buy a few ‘special items’ and you are back on track and it works, for the next 10-15 levels at least and suddenly you have spend $5. It isn’t much because that is not the goal. It is the goal of 200,000 people spending that and suddenly the game makers has a cool million. But what if that isn’t all? What if the IP on your laptop is the end goal? Did you consider that danger? That is the notion this story is thinking of. Consider the twist in Ocean’s 8 (2018). I thought it was brilliant and until the end I never saw it coming. As we went in blinker mode for one target, we overlooked the larger picture and combine these two and you have the setting. If you are still in the dark. Consider the military locations and what hardware too many kids get access to on that base (some adults too). There is a larger setting where they are all gullible and the Pentagon has overlooked that setting. Now consider what access the criminal mind gets when they combine two notions to create a third. So is that three notions, or does it suddenly become a total of 6 options? ( I will let you figure that one out).

Still, the idea has merit if you know the direction some are not considering for too long a time.

Enjoy Monday.

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT, movies, Stories

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

September 16, 2023 · 02:30

Sentimental Journey

I just had one. Not the one you think. In the 90’s movies and games were relatively expensive in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands a company named Homesoft had control of video games, and as such in 2000 I got Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation and Diablo 2. One for the Dreamcast and one for the PC. The ferry from Hoek van Holland to Harwich (plus train to London) was around $59. The two games in the UK saved me around $40, so for $19 I went to London for the day, bought the 2 games (and a few other items) and took the night ferry back. 

I was able to upgrade to a cabin for around $30 more. It was the cheapest weekend trip and I got to walk on Regent Street, Picadilly, went to the Virgin Megastore and did a few other goofy things. I spend the day in London (from around 09:00) and for one day I felt like a king until the train around 17:00 took me back to Harwich for the night boat back to the Netherlands. 

This sentimental journey was recalled through the Khaleej Times who (at https://www.khaleejtimes.com/uae/uae-iphone-pre-booking-draws-shoppers-from-india-pakistan-europe-to-dubai) gave me ‘iPhone pre-booking draws shoppers from India, Pakistan, Europe to Dubai’. It is here that we get “In places like India and Pakistan, iPhones can be quite expensive because of the taxes”. OK, I get that. Yet I am a little surprised that people from Europe are equally signing up for that, as we are given “A European tourist arrived in Dubai last week to get his hands on the new model. “There’s a big demand for iPhones in my country and I can get them at a relatively cheaper price here.”” It all makes sense, but I was unaware that it pays to travel to get the iPhone cheaper. It was around 6 years ago when I was ready to upgrade my old Huawei but the mobile stores did not have the 64GB edition, only the 32GB edition. Even thought here was a 64GB edition in existence. I speculated that the mobile providers wanted people to upgrade their phones every year, which would not be initially needed with a 64GB phone. In the end I found a way around it and now I rely on my Google Pixel to get me by and so far it has not let me down. The iPhone is not the cheapest and the iPhone 14 pro max is $2100 here, so I reckon that if we can get it at least 25% cheaper in Dubai it starts making sense. A flight from Sydney to Dubai (with one stop) is $961. The iPhone 15 Pro max is in Dubai $2155. You think it is the same and it is at present (I gave the 14 price as that is in the shops). You can preorder it for exactly the same price. So from Sydney a trip to Dubai makes no sense. Yet in the Netherlands it is €1.479,00 which comes down to $2,450.74 with an additional flight of around $500, so it is not that cheap, but you do get an iPhone on day one and the difference almost makes for the flight. So the math works out well for some and a little less for others, but if you have to have that version 15, a flight to Dubai suddenly makes a lot of sense. You could see it as a cheap short vacation to Dubai. When I was going over the text and I was doing the math my sentimental journey came back to me. Especially Diablo 2, which ended up giving me a massive amount of joy for a very long time. So when will people consider getting their new MacBook Pro or MacBook Air in Dubai? When you do the math, these additional items make for a free trip. A simple MacBook Pro (€ 4659) ends up being $7717, in Dubai we get it for $6961, so now we are already breaking more than even with the flight. And customs can’t do anything, just put a local sticker on the top of your new apple and it is your own already owned MacBook Pro (with non UAE stickers on top). 

I have no idea how much the people save when they get the iPhone and the MacBook Pro, yet I reckon that some might save even more. Making this and perhaps others too a really nice deal. And lets be honest. When you can get exactly the same stuff down the road or in Dubai. Who would not be willing to fly to Dubai? Even if it is just to have a shawarma in the mall (not the worst reason to go to Dubai). 

At this moment I am just smiling. It was been 24 years and we still try to get the best deal for ourselves and in this case a little more than a good deal. I remember in the 80’s it was cheaper to fly to America to get a car there then to buy an American car in the Netherlands. I never got one, but that setting also (to some degree) applied to get a car in Germany (a German model), then commerce houses started to strangle parallel imports and with the EU that all stopped. I wonder what they will do next. You see they might safe in one side, but some aren’t paying taxes, so why not get it in a tax zero nation? I reckon that this could drive commerce up in Luxembourg and Monaco. And a flight from Amsterdam to Nice is $133 (with an additional train ticket to Monaco) now the math really tanks in your favour. The train to Luxembourg is around $55, so people have options. In this day and age when the bills bite saving is key and we all try to find a cheaper way, don’t we?

Enjoy the upcoming weekend.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Gaming, IT, Tourism

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

September 14, 2023 · 11:44

A lovely surprise

It started around Sunday. I downloaded a game called Battle Lines and it as mere curiosity. After the dozens of lame games exploiting gamers for advertisement money. This game was more than a pleasant surprise. It was a revelation. This game has the potential of becoming the next big thing. It won’t be a Pokemon, but it will be big. The game has strategy, the game has nice graphics and it is simple, strategic and as I am learning addictive. 

So as we see above a level, the I added graphics. There are the elements and bricks. One of the bricks has a red circle. If an element is used next to them. So look at the Green icons with the black line and the Yellow icons with the green lines. So as you draw a line, these icons explode. When they are next to a brick it damages. The two green icons will damage the brick with the red circle twice. A total of three damage will remove the brick and another icon can be places. If I work that line of 4 they transform into an attack and with the power of the gloves I will hit the opponent 4 times. 

In this case it will be 4 times 762 and during the game you can upgrade to power of the glove, in the image I can watch a commercial for +54 damage upgrade, I had already bought an upgrade that level, on the right you see that for 82.33K I can buy +140 health. With every level I get more cash and there is a lot more to all this. There is more equipment and more levels (another story) or you can find out for yourself. The first image also shows space for 5 gadgets, I have unlocked 4. When I use a total of 5 icons the gadget can be used. It is an extra move and these gadgets can be upgraded, you can also earn more powerful gadgets on a map level. It all makes the setting to battle more powerful enemies. In the first image you see I am fighting a rat. There are rats, owls, cockroaches and that list goes on. The game has cool graphics and a killer game setting. I reckon that places like Apple Arcade and Amazon Luna could really add to their reputation if they had this game in their library. To be honest, I haven’t been this enthusiastic for a game for quite some time making this the surprise of the month, if not the quarter. In the age of commercial exploiters, this game is a breath of fresh air. We get to see some commercials, but not too many and it is possible to switch it off with premium boxes and they aren’t cheap, but if Apple or Amazon get this game, they can switch of the commercials as a first and get quite the following.  

To see a game with an original twist is rare as such the game is amazing and after seeing dozens of below par exploitation games, it is a great surprise to see a game like this. The game is called Battle Lines: Puzzle Fighter is available on Android and iOS. So good luck if you want to give it a try and be ready to get a pleasant surprise.

Enjoy the day.

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

September 13, 2023 · 12:57

Dreamcraft, the specifics

This morning I came up with an idea. I have had certain elements of this idea in my head for some time, but this morning the pieces of the puzzle started to connect. I am not putting it all out here. It is meant for some Canadian TV maker, not sure which, and with the Americans on strike it seems wrong to hand it over to them. The setting is set to a time traveller with a twist. The setting is set in Canada (the Canadian film maker angle) and is connected to MAGA, making a first setting with America as the evil player.

It starts with “Certain names have been changed to protect the seemingly self-proclaimed innocent players” which could be seen as a twist as well. The movie relies on one player being part of this (as small actor and consultant).

CSIS director Michel Coulombe as himself

A setting that hasn’t happened since former CIA director William Colby in the PC game Spycraft (1996). So there is a precedence for this and I am happy to be to the smallest degree a copycat. I have no idea who would play in this, but a case could be made to give the largest role to Paul Tiberius Shatner (aka Paul Wesley) and I feel that the idea could benefit by a seasoned actors like John Larroquette and/or Patrick Labyorteaux, but I have no clear reason why, merely a feeling. 

The setting is set about a in progress terrorist attack on Toronto and our time traveller starts with an incapacitation gone execution of a person exiting the subway early in the morning. That is where he gets the CSIS involved and after the first evidence is shown to be correct they understand the time pressures and from there we get into a setting of executions showing more and more evidence to become more and more evident that it is all real and that is where we get to the intelligence mulling and a slightly more academic set (the need for an intelligence consultant) and from there we are taken on a rollercoaster of intel and action, but this is not too action driven, we see flashbacks (for the twist part) and a reference to

“Time travel is as I know it was set to reality somewhere in 2060-2070. The math came from an actual AI that IBM developed and as I understand it I can never comprehend it, the math is a dozen blackboards of algorithms. It is safer to go back and this is my second trip. My last trip. The chances of paradoxes become too great after trip one. Also with travelling into the future paradoxes increase exponential with every second you travel into the future. Its a big no-no. See it as as throwing a rock into the river, the river adjusts around the rock, but into the future the rock becomes bigger by the power of its size with every second it travels into the future, the river overflows and the river stagnates, it becomes a mess really quickly.”

As the story unfolds we are also introduced to a female kick-ass gung-ho liaison officer (optionally Nina Dobrev), but the actress is not defined and no sex scenes. She needs to be hardcore gung-h carrying something like a Taurus Raging Hunter 357 Mag 7-Round Revolver (she is a crack shot and every shot is a kill). This is an intelligence suspense movie.

There is a larger twist at the end involving a ring and with the narration showing us the collapse of the Eiffel Tower the movie ends?

There is of course more, but that is for the TV executive, we can’t have the yanks copying everything. It dilutes the script too much. So that was my overly productive morning.

What did you get done this morning? Enjoy your day.

1 Comment

Filed under Gaming, movies

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

September 10, 2023 · 21:05

As ideas evolve

This is a story with a few sides. The most prominent side is based on the continuation of Ludum Scriptor, which I wrote 2 days ago (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/09/08/ludum-scriptor/) there is set out a new premise, one that could have larger benefits. You see, as I was evolving certain ideas. One of them was to give football and fantasy football a new tool to provide their thoughts for progressing their game.

An old game for football addicts was Subutteo. We forgot about the old ideas, but they were good ideas. Now consider that with Deeper Machine Learning we an create any football game and as they are virtual and not based on plastic, they will look a lot more like the players. Any team in the world. Football, NFL, NBA, NHL and that list goes on. People can write and blog about their teams, they can write it in any way they want and that was when the wheels went in overdrive. You see, player cards and all kinds of other means could be made available for bloggers all over the world. And that list does not stop, not for some time. You see Deeper Machine learning as a tool for something like I wrote can do more and YOUR imagination can only drive it further.

Why Microsoft will fail
That was my premise and I kept on referring to a chihuahua stating ‘Try Azure, Azure smells nice’ was only to some degree a joke. But someone on LinkedIn gave me an idea.

You see being on par for a year gets you 1 (or 1365), but the smallest increase gets you to 37.7, 37 times the one you were one year later. And then there is the decrease. Even when you consider 0.99365. You end up with a mere 0.03, that is the difference between the innovator and the copycat. Microsoft lost out sixfold and they will lose out more and more. They are buying all kinds of firms, but like in the 90’s it is a recipe for disaster and innovators will walk out, they nearly always do. You see, in the end it will bite their bottom line and soon their board of directors will make knee jerk decisions making matters worse. When I stated I would make my IP public domain before I allow Microsoft access to it I was not kidding. Microsoft is as I personally see it becoming the larger problem in any equation and it does not stop there. I made mention of Deeper Machine Learning. This is awesome, it is not AI (AI does not yet exist) but it got me thinking. You see, we now see mention of AI in construction. This is about to go bad, really bad and Trusting these buildings will become folly soon enough. I will try to explain that soon enough. 

The evolution
I looked at the idea before I figured out that there were 600 million bloggers. I have no idea there are on the Vlogger side, but I expect that we are looking at interesting numbers. There are millions of fantasy football fans, hundreds of millions of sports fans and giving them space to expose that idea to them will offer more and more space others would like to try that option. We are in all effect dipping our toes in the water and all these numbers does not mean success, lets be clear about it. My idea remains that, an idea that could be liked by a lot of people, all that considering that others have done close to nothing, makes my idea stellar to say the least. 

When you consider that and when you consider creating ML and DML tools aiding people will create evolution of their work and optionally more people considering this. Not all people are creative, they merely think that their writing is not enough, these tools will enable those on the fence and that is already a win for the exploring team. What matters is that on the end of the weekend I came up with more, all whilst others seemingly came up empty. A nice end to the weekend. I have been considering additions to the field of Vloggers and also places where vloggers can propagate their work. Bloggers have their own space and for that I have additional ideas too. An active field where we switch the awakening to the pro-active, but that is for another day. I did my cerebral activity to keep me happy, time for some Ravioli.

Enjoy Sunday.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Gaming, IT, sport

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

September 8, 2023 · 23:07

Ludum Scriptor

There was a moment, a mere hour ago that I saw where streaming could get interesting and that is why I am offering it here to Amazon (Luna) and Tencent technologies (handheld). You see, as a blogger, I know that fields evolve and there is a place where the people never were offered to be, but in all this streaming is opening a new door. 

To give this a swing another thing happened. I rewatched a mini series. I loved it since the first time I saw it decades ago and about 15 years ago I got the DVD and today (after at least 5 years) I watched it again. Now consider that mini series Jack the Ripper the one with Michael Caine and Lewis Collins. The first setting is Whitechapel (and the suburbs surrounding it) the stage is as authentic as possible and the Unreal Engine 5 allows for that. To recreate London around 1888 gives the people a sight towards life there, towards how the dark is a lot less appealing that we know it to be. This is not about Jack the Ripper himself, but it will be about the scenery and about a new option. So every person there will be able to create a blog, a story of a person and as you create a person (a he or a she) and you can set the face around your own image. The person you create (tradesman, uniform or other people) will give you an address in London. So now you have a person. You can now create your blog, and it will be held as stories to that individual. You cannot interact with THAT person, but you can interact as your double. Your character will be around where you are located, it will allow others to interact with your person and learn your blogs. You (your avatar) can seek out others and learn their stories. It is a new way to interact, a new way to spread your stories and as this takes off, we could have Mumbai in Victorian times.  San Francisco (around 1907), New York (around 1927) and that list could grow. It has a two sided story, in the first the people get to see and walk around these places in those times. The second is that this would be a new place to propel your stories, your blog, optionally your vlog and it will be a new medium that could grow. They are all trying to hog off new games, but they need underlying knowledge and these places could grow that knowledge and give the people something to do. Pleasing well over 50 million people is not easy and before they all run around like rats in a wheel. You could consider offering a much larger stage, one that keeps them appeased and allows them to appease others. We see all the small options that were, but now with streaming it is an option to think up an entirely new stage and create even more stages. For a small fee these people could copy what they did in their first location (for example $0.50 a month) they get an additional person in a new city (and that same fee for every other location) that could amount to up to $25 million a month for every additional character. And as the quality of the locations improve, the need to watch these places with their own eyes also increase. A new medium that might (or not) be successful. So how many other ideas have you seen floating around? I got to this in under an hour and there are more locations where people might want to go. Paris 1891 (2 years after the Eiffel tower was build), then there is Tokyo, Los Angeles and a whole range of places where we always wanted to be. And as the places evolve the developer can include their own people (celebrities, historical people) and offer even more stories. Will the market be large enough? I honestly do not know but there are 600 million bloggers and there are plenty who want to stand out, so why are we not doing that? I will let it up to you to decide. I wonder what else I can come up with this weekend.

Enjoy the weekend.

1 Comment

Filed under Gaming, IT, Media, Stories

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

September 7, 2023 · 10:03

Media Markets

That was what stuck in my mind when I saw the Guardian view of Starfield. The writer Keza MacDonald crying like a little girl, giving us view and “Along with several others, including the greatly respected games publications Eurogamer and Edge, we were left waiting until the game’s early access release last Friday to play it.” Yes, there is seemingly some cherry picking happening, but that has been the case for years. What does matter is that Starfield is not that great release. Some ratings are as low as 70%, that is a massive miss for the budget and alignment of stars. Skyrim with one exception was a 90% plus all across the board. There is a reason that this game has been heralded since 11.11.11, not because 11 is the crazy number (yo figure that part out). Skyrim is no matter how critics see it mind boggling. It still rocks the current generation hardware based on a previous generation console specifications. So when the Guardian gives us “It is very much like No Man’s Skyrim, as much about menus and mining and navigation as it is about finding interesting quest-lines and exploring planets on a whim”. For me this is funny as both Skyrim and No Man’s Sky are ‘earth’ shattering products, they are both unique in their own way and it seems that Starfield is neither. The reviewer gives us “Starfield has had a mixed but broadly positive reception so far”. The article reads like a cry song on how the Guardian is not one of the chosen few, but does it give a good view of Starfield? Nope, it does not. No we are given “Negotiating all this is part of the job for games journalists” all whilst the title ‘Bethesda chose not to give us early access to Starfield – and it’s readers who lose out’. My view? Nope, the readers lost out as you whined like a little bitch. So when we are given “I am reliably informed that this is one of those games that might get its hooks into you after the first 10 or even 20 hours” with the added “though, the forthcoming fantasy Elder Scrolls 6 might be a more worthwhile investment of time” and that is a review? Go cry me a river. Oh, and before I forget the new Eder Scrolls 6 is (for now) not expected before 2026. Does that mean you will whine another 2 years? So the Guardian shirked their duty (as I see it), when the floodgates go away they could have given us the goods. What is good, what is less and what sucks. No, we get a ‘I am not a chosen reviewer cry song’. 

Early access is marketing and I get that and Bethesda, Microsoft and pretty much EVERY game developers will hand over their cherries to the best source of gaming news, which is in this case anyone with the right following that will sing praise of their game. A YouTube reviewer called Parris gave the game four out of five, which translates to an 80% game. He gave us the goods why it is great, on things that are not great and things that need improvement. His review (for a lack of better term) was stellar. That is the review that makes me buy a game and that matters to Bethesda, that was their goal and he delivered on that with  (what I believe to be ) a honest opinion. I see and in this case saw way too many reviews. Plenty of haters there too (not sure why). You see an RPG is rather specific. It is a niche game which grew from small to huge in less than 10 years and Bethesda has been the major driving force in that growth. I believe that they opened the floodgates with Oblivion and the flood never stopped since 2006. Bethesda pulled that off and the added water damage that Fallout 3 brought just kept on going. So we all might have set our views to high after Skyrim, a true crowning achievement for any developer. 

So what went wrong?
I believe that the media is part of that problem, the digital dollars made for a new kind of writing and games are not part of that equation. The media now relies on self proclaimed hypes and that does not sit well with the current developers. Portkey games is a mere example (Hogwarts Legacy) and now Bethesda. So will the media adjust, or will we see another cry story when Guerrilla Software selects their reviewers for the third Horizons game? There is no indication, but that might come before Elder Scrolls 6 (speculative wishful thinking). In the meantime there is a lot more coming and it is not on some developers. You see, I have been trying to keep tabs on the new Tencent Technology handheld console which they are doing with Logitech and how much media have we seen? Not that much. Is it an anti-China thing? That new console will bite into the marketshare of Amazon and Microsoft for sure. It will support Microsoft gaming and as such it will grow fast, but the media seemingly ignored it to the largest extent. I keep tabs on it as it could facilitate my IP and if Tencent wants the 50 million new subscriptions, it can. Amazon seemingly doesn’t want it, Google dropped it Stadia and now Tencent has the option of getting in excess of 50 million new ‘gamers’, surpassing Microsoft within a year, just like Nintendo did with its Switch. Should this come to pass, Tencent technologies will come close to Sony, closer than Microsoft has EVER been. This all matters because the media is keeping gamers in the dark. So when we reconsider the headline part ‘and it’s readers who lose out’ it is not that, it is the media who changed the way they wrote, to adhere to digital dollars, to adhere to emotional flames and that is what most readers are a little sick of. It drive me to create an IP that pushes Facebook and others out of the way. Gamers want to game, but the console has other options too and with streaming that now comes to the surface and a player like Google should have been on the front lines there, not dumping their stadia, but that might merely be me. 

So there will be an upside for Bethesda/Microsoft. Even as their console is no longer the bees knees (it never was), Tencent Technologies could fill a gap that Bethesda might assist filling. Yet I do believe that they need to have a very hearty conversation with reviewers like Parris Lilly (gamertech radio) to upgrade Starfield to ‘Starfield More’. It could propel Starfield from a average 70%+ game to the game that it needed to be (85%-90%) and that would be a massive increase and gamers will applaud that setting. What is funny is that streaming allows for this and for Bethesda to push that envelope to a new setting might be a way to go (merely one of a few) but the crying Keza MacDonald (at the Guardian) didn’t think that through. No, crying and waiting for a 2026 release was the answer that the reader was given. Within an hour I offered a new destiny, a new horizon and a new hope (yes, a Star Wars reference) which in this case applies in more than one way. 

And for me? Well if it comes to the Tencent handheld I might actually play Starfield as well, it might even be a reason to get that handheld (My Switch just died). And that is the gamer field, the gamer field is forever in motion. We might hate Microsoft, we might hate Sony, but we are always looking on that next fix that gaming provides for. All gamers seek it and we are minds forever voyaging (yes, a gaming pun). 

So what next?
Well to be honest, I had closed the Starfield book, mainly because I am not playing it. Yet the Guardian opened that door again with that pathetic article and blood needed to be drawn (I sharpened my Yanagiba knife for the occasion). As stated in earlier articles, I believe in fair play and being honest with shedding blood and tears. Simply put, I will not shed a tear when shedding Microsoft blood, they did it to themselves, but the media doesn’t get that consideration. The media market changed and even as it is not always visible, it tends to be overly visible in gaming. Gamers are a funny lot (I am one of them), pushing their buttons comes at a price, which Don Mattrick learned the hard way on May 21st 2013, now a little over 10 years ago and Microsoft is still bleeding from that event. More-so if Tencent surpasses them by December 2024. Still it is not merely Microsoft, it is the media spin that is pushing gamers into new fields and even as Starfield was to be that force, it is not to late for Starfield, they still have options. I believe that Bethesda has a hidden diamond there. Am I right? I am not certain, but a game that took this much time, energy and resources cannot die on an average setting, Bethesda has created too many great titles for a new IP just to sizzle and that is my view on the matter.

Enjoy the day.

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

September 4, 2023 · 19:37

It’s a game Jim.

Yup, I just went there and as it is about starfield I feel correct in going there. You see, I might have given correct (or incorrect) voice to a foundational issue, or issues. Yet I am not playing that game. So I cannot say one way or the other and here IGN comes in. You see they have been a clear voice for a long time. 

Not everyone likes IGN, but together with Eurogamer they are a clear voice and there are a few thing you need to know, things given to us (at https://www.ign.com/articles/starfield-review) aptly named ‘Starfield Review’. This does not give us that the other voices of review are suddenly wrong, but this is new IP. Things will go bump in the night. One thing that stood out was “Even after about 70 hours there are major quest-lines I haven’t even touched, and others I barely began. I’m eager to go back and finish a lot of those up now that I’ve completed the main story.” Did you make that small jump? ‘Even after 70 hours’? This makes Starfield surpass Skyrim by a fair amount. There are matters of concern when you see “In typical Bethesda fashion, that main quest isn’t terribly flexible in how you resolve the situations it thrusts you into. Your options here are, for the most part, about picking whether you want to be a boy scout for whom a good deed is its own reward, a wise-cracking mercenary who asks to be rewarded after doing a good deed, or an all-business mercenary who demands to be paid up front to do the good deed.” This doesn’t make the game, bad, lousy or lacking. It is merely an approach to RPG, one that Bethesda had done for the longest of times and they have done it well. This is not an apology, but I do believe in fair play and I do not hate Bethesda, I merely hate stupid acts and Starfield is not necessarily a act of stupidity, so adjustments are required and I am making them. There are still too many technical issues reported by all manners of media and that is just a big no-no in beta stage or later, but that is a cross Bethesda and Microsoft will have to carry for some time. Such is life. 

Still, the quote “There’s a storyline that felt very Boys from Brazil-inspired, as well as numerous related quests about hunting down war criminals and banned technology that pose ethical quandaries to reconcile. You can join up with the Crimson Fleet pirates and dive into a life of smuggling and general space crime, or take up the mantle of a legendary pirate hunter” is showing us the foundation of a space RPG that most are looking for and that matters, because it is about the game and the gamers, not about Bethesda perse. None of this shows the meltdown vlogger to be wrong or incorrect. I am merely looking at other parts to the degree a non Starfield gamers can. Just as I did not play Redfall. We give ourselves limits (some on principle), but we all have limits, even I have them and that combines with the need to remain fair gave me the push to write this part. So if you are an Xbox thingamajig you need to make up your mind and as such you should read the IGN review. They have always been fair on games and that counts, for me it does. IGN also had some negatives to report, but to see that you will have to red the article, you see, it might not matter to you. Some people love walking the streets of a place, just like they set the town of Chorrel to mind and we get that, any RPG fan would. So are some parts actually negatives, or merely the hassle of a gamer? Your guess is as good as mine. Even Microsoft’s own Windows Central slapped Starfield, who knew. But there will always be haters and non-accepting gamers of the RPG field and it gets weirder, for some reason any Elder Scrolls lover will often never love Fallout and now Starfield. This happens. They are not haters, but there is one universe, their RPG universe and I reckon that Fallout and Starfield will have their own love connection to THEIR game. This too is the world of RPG and we need to recognise it if we want to get along with these people. No matter how we slice it, thanks to IGN we see that there is a lot more to Starfield than the mere complaints I have seen in over a dozen sources. I believe it is only fair I show that part to you too. It is a fair play approach to often non aligned views.

Enjoy the new week. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, Media

Tagged as , , , , , ,

September 4, 2023 · 01:40

Ding, ding, ding, meltdown.

Normally I let things slide. There are a whole range of reasons why I would stop to proceed. Yet Starfield is a two edged sword. It is the larger setting for Microsoft and it is a new IP for Bethesda. Now on the surface it might seem nothing new, but the meltdown I just witnessed on Twitter (I refuse to call it X) is another matter. Gamers are dodgy to say the least. They love innovation and new RPG, but certain settings need to be open, but a choice for the gamer. So here it comes.

The view by Dan Vasc (at https://t.co/b1m0tt4ib2) is something to behold. And all this is just in week 1, before the official release of the game. And now the media has a go. There are low performance issues, there are apparently audio issues and a few other issues. Now, I get that there are issues, this is new IP. But what I am reading is that these issues should have ben captured by Alpha test teams, they should not exist in Beta editions, let alone early access, yet this is MY personal view. You see Freeze issues are not something you leave to the New Game + solution, this should not exist at this stage. And the list goes on and as the official launch starts, there will be even more issues. Another source is talking about Major Accessibility Problems all whilst yet another mentions that the inventory screens need a massive overhaul. All issues that should have been brought to the front of any limited Alpha test release. But I see again and again a mention like “least buggy Bethesda release” almost like it was spoon fed to the reviewer, but that could be merely me seeing things that are optionally not there, almost like I froze for a moment because my visual scanner was glitchy, but I do not have a New Game +, when I die that is it. There is no new life and no rinse and repeat. That is why PROPER testing is massively important. The stage given to us by Dan Vasc might be merely him, but that might not be the case. RPG gamers are a strange bunch and when Guerrilla Software release Horizon Forbidden West they saw how loyal and how strange some RPG gamers can be, yet the bulk loved and embraced HFW. After the colossal blunder that Redfall showed itself to be, Microsoft (Bethesda too) had the duty to take extra care for Starfield (and maybe they did), but the voice of Dan Vasc tells a different story. You see emersion is nice, but the people need to accept that emersion and making his claims to emersion an option in the game might have been the best choice. I cannot tell, I am not touching Starfield (its an Xbox only product). But his loud voice is making me wonder how much trouble Bethesda is in now, because no matter what Microsoft will claim out in the open, if this game does not bring home the bacon, Microsoft will prune the Bethesda tree to the largest extent and that gives me the idea that developers might want to get on the RPG train now. If a place like Bethesda is rejected there will be no one to champion the torch of RPG, for that new IP is needed and my articles over the last 2 years will give a new developer (for Amazon and Tencent technologies only) a brisk handle of raking in the profit, because gamers need a place to be and it is way to soon to tell where they go, but if Dan Vasc is to be believed RPG gamers will need a new destination and the 60,000,000 copies that Skyrim sold, implies that there are a few million out there panicking and seeking a new refuge. Plenty will be happy in the Sony camp with its offerings, but not all are Sony minded, that is fine, there will be options for Amazon Luna and Tencent Technologies if makers of games wake up, because the wake up call I just witnessed was a loud one. Was it loud enough? I reckon that by the arrival of next weekend that will be a lot more clear for all to see.

It turned Monday 96 minutes ago here. How is your Sunday going?

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT, Media

Tagged as , , , , , , ,