Category Archives: Gaming

May 18, 2022 · 23:31

Predicting Prospective Play

Yup, that happens and I broke the idea in the previous article, yet it does not take long until the MS-groupies have a go at me. Fair enough, I did set myself up as a target when I stated that Microsoft was a done deal, there is no deal because they are done. I reckon that they will be a shadow of what they are now by 2025-2028. They will lose ground, then they will lose support and after that the train goes off the rails. That is how I personally see it. But it is not about Microsoft. It is about gaming and in support of the previous article, there was one that had a decent statement. “It is not possible to make a map that big”. OK, it is his point of view and to some degree he was right. The PS4, Xbox One and the average PC cannot do it (at present). You see, in the next generation it will be possible and to some degree it is possible now. 

Land and its mass
In my example my game will be on an island and I am using the Indonesian islands as an example. So how is it possible today? Well, I could be clever, but someone beat me to it. Hello Games created the solution with ‘No Man’s Sky’. Even as they went in another direction by using parameters to create all these planets, but it is one direction. You see when you use the same parameters the planet will ALWAYS be the same. Now consider the parameters for the island and the more precise the parameters are the more precise the land becomes. And in this setting the IP of Hello Games becomes gold, literally game makers will pay through the nose to get this technology in that shape. The technology could be remade in the new setting, but it makes sense that Hello Games will set the technology up for sale, or for licensing. 

Now use that technology and look at the dozens of car navigators. You then get a navigator on a land that is virtual. The land stage is now close to complete, and most of the technology already exists, so the game makers can look towards massive maps in the streaming technology. 

Is it a tree?
The next IP is an idea I had, but it is depending on created IP (hence it cannot be mine), well perhaps you could (I am busy) because you might be able to get a patent that is “an improvement of an existing idea.” You see, in 1982 Adobe did something astounding, they created postscript. Even now 40 years later it is still close to perfect and unsurpassed, that is real innovation and they did a masterful job on this, there was one problem. It was slow, really slow when printing and over time Hewlett Packard created PCL, and it took HP 13 years to get to PCL6. It is good, but Postscript (by Adobe) was perfect. So where am I going with this? You see, the DNA of a tree is not small but is based on 12 chromosomes and 7 times more DNA. So what happens when someone figures out that setting to create a system that uses a hybrid version of PS and PCL to create the foundations of trees in gaming. It will (should) be the start of a concept that I like to call T2L (true to life), a setting that shows us an actual forest of unique or close to unique trees, no matter how large the terrain. I reckon that there will be some form of fractal idea embedded in that idea, but whomever works it out will have a new technology for gaming. And these two gives us the map and the forests, and more importantly, it will be identical EVERY time you load that game. A setting that people never considered, but streaming makes it possible and more important, it will allow for game maps based on actual maps and it allows for the beginning of a whole dimension of streaming games that have an entirely new point of view on what the size of a map in a game is. 

This does not solve all of it and even with all sails out, it still will take years to work out kinks and a few other parts, but we need to think and we need to focus on the games that will be made for release in 2024-2027, because that is when national 5G will be in decent abundance and whomever has the most original and most captivating game, will rule that market and by that time it will be well over $250,000,000,000 so consider where you want to be, replaying a game with the limits they had in 2012, or do you want to be on the edges of what is possible in 2025? 

Consider that during the next few days and see where you want to end up with your controller. I know where I want to be, in a console place no one has ever seen before.

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT, Science

May 18, 2022 · 18:54

Residual seeking

Yes, what is it? Well it connects to the game I am designing. You see, Any RPG has its sides and it needs to change, it needs to be a lot less Bethesda (their games are not bad), yet I seek originality and this all connects to ‘The stage of commerce’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/02/25/the-stage-of-commerce/) where I give a lot more and in previous articles (seek and thee shall find) where I give more of all this. Yet there is a side I forgot about. You see, we all expect coin, we all expect funds. But what happens when money had no value in a place where they have no lemonade caps? Well, we will have to make a gander towards older times. In this we need to set steady steps towards other parts, but what if the few gold coins we find have more value by making it into something else? Gold and silver have their uses, especially in the arcane, but when do we see that in gaming? That is the 10th (might be 14th) altering thing that other RPG games are not giving you. So what happens when the chest holds a broken sword? Pieces of chain and two coins? There is a need for nearly anything, you just need to adjust your view and lets be honest, what was the last RPG game you played where it was not about gold, credits, or caps? Any place can grow on commerce, but the driving force of commerce is not always gold based. Many places had other means, even in ancient roman times, the soldiers were paid in salt. Salt was more valuable than coins in some places and a return to that opens a whole new set of gaming parameters. Then we have the fact that the broken sword can be remade as a knife, or could be melted into iron and iron (if enough is obtained) gets you a plough, which means more land and more food for a town. All settings to adjust the view of the gamer and to be honest, I cannot find one game offering this alternative view. 

As I wrote in that previous article “because of the random factors the rainbow tables are dynamic and that creates a whole new environment. One where the game can live without you and you become a contributor, not the driving force of anything.” This is important as your play style changes, the dynamic setting remains to some degree and that can push you in other directions. A stage where you optionally have an island that is an evolving stage as we start the island at 18,040 km2 (Halmahera), but there is nothing stopping us to upgrade the island down the track to 138,794 km2 (Java), there is something awfully satisfying to that. It evolves playing and makes it about the game you play, not WHERE you are. And lets be honest, if you could play a game again a year later and that place is 600% larger? Not go from one island to the other, but end up in a similar island a lot bigger and in that setting when you play the generations, what more can you find? It might not be needed as 18,040 km2 is huge, but the option opens a new frontier for RPG gaming and that is what we want, new frontiers and in that only streaming systems would be able to do this, and as I stated very recently, the streamers differentiate themselves or they will become trivialised. There is nothing interesting in playing the same Ubisoft game on these two systems. Yet what happens when AC Brotherhood suddenly has Spain and France added to the game? It becomes a different game, you as a gamer would have to make choices, because you could never see it all. You see, replayability becomes infinitely more important for streaming systems, and as such to prepare the next level of RPG games for such a setting is becoming more and more important. It was one of the truths I realised when I designed Elder Scrolls VII: Restoration. Evolution is where gaming is and the current makers are too much about selling the same cookie to all the other systems, all whilst some can only store cookies, the others are capable of storing a whole apple pie. And when you can have the apple pie, are you really looking out the window for the next cookie dealer? Fair enough if you are hoping for Shannon Elizabeth in a girl scout outfit, but what are the chances? 

Consider how far the Stadia and Luna can take you and then look at the failures of Ubisoft, what are you waiting for? Now, in their case I will make an exception for AC Origin and some might like to play the others again, I get that, but do you really want a Ferrari to get your groceries, or do you want to see what is 2365 km of your current location? How will you get there? You might never see it all, and that is fine too. A game that still has more to offer is a game you will play for a much longer time and there is also the rub. Ubisoft and others have made us completionists, yet how much of your own nation have you ACTUALLY seen? Are you really that driven in gaming, or can you see that the story is bigger than you. Can you see that beyond the main story, beyond all the quests there is just more and we will never see it all? That is perhaps the only real flaw that Bethesda has in its games and we all fell for it. In previous systems it was a natural flow of what a system could hold and we get that, but the newest consoles (PS5) and streamers have broken that limit, so we need to use the new settings to offer more gaming, different gaming and we need to throw repetition out of the window. That is merely my view on the matter, and it starts by creating a new mould, one based on historic parts, but still offers more than we have gamed before. It is possible, it is out there. Grab it and make it yours.

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT, Science

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

May 17, 2022 · 20:17

Set Streaming Solution

Yes there are a few ways of doing this, but can we tell that anyone is right and the other one is wrong? That is actually a serious question, to go further, it is a lot more serious than anyone realises at present. You see Google and Amazon are taking different roads. 

Google
In February 2022 Will Nelson reported ‘Google Stadia focus reportedly shifted to licensing the streaming tech’ and of course there are interested parties there. And we were given “After launching in late 2019 the Google game streaming platform was met with some criticism regarding the quality of its streams, latency, and connection issues. After a slow roll out of major titles and news that the internal Stadia development studios would be shut down, all was looking lost for the game streaming platform.” This makes sense, but it is not a given, in addition we saw news that gamers had access to 50 games, whilst some sources claim that there are 200 games at present. The last one does not make sense to me. It does technically. There are all kinds of resource issues with streaming games and for the most they could be temporary, or merely in play until a full width of gamers is seen, it is better to open the tap a little further later on than finding out that the basement is now a swimming pool. All this makes sense to me, yet the gamers tend to lack patience. If you doubt that, ask Hello Games (No Man’s Sky) and CD Project Red (Cyberpunk 2077), they’ll tell you a few stories. But Google seems to go a path. 

Amazon
Amazon has another path, a more traditional gaming path with a reported number of games that surpass 80, a 60% limit above Google. For gamers this matters, and we need to realise that even as Amazon has a few other options to differentiate itself from Google, the question is will they? Then there is the number of games and kids will see two systems that can do pretty much the same, one has 50 games the other one 80. Which one do you think they chose? So yes Amazon has an advantage for now, but they have by their traditional approach a second one.

See the image, a gamer has to go from A to C, we assume that they will go via B, but Google shows us that they can get there via D as well. Now we get the tricky part. By focussing on licensing Google decided a path, in this we would assume that Amazon is more likely to be the success and I feel that this is correct. And here is where we need to realise that Amazon being a success, does not mean, or imply that the Google path will be a failure. Both can succeed and here we see the larger stage. Some designers will adhere to becoming a licensed technology owner, to set a larger path for THEIR game. This could be good, but for every version of Doom, we also see versions of Apex and Destiny, we see Battlefield 2042 and that list goes on a little longer, so how many failures will the Google Stadia house until it drowns the brand? I honestly do not know, but if you know gamers, you know what a fickle lot of hormones they can be and that is before we consider the new player Netflix, or whatever Tencent launches (I do not believe for one second that business decisions was a reason to stop), and with $200,000,000,000 on the line, Tencent remains a factor (for now). 

And all that whilst I gave articles where we see that the Amazon Luna has a lot more options and that is not including the 50,000,000 console solution (I gave hints in earlier articles). In all this I will see Netflix as an optional new player and I have written off Microsoft, they lost too much and they lost credibility with the gamers, it will take them years to overcome that and at that point Amazon will be the most likely new top 3 player in games town. Google is not disregarded, but with the path they chose, they are less likely to succeed, and that success will depend on the first half dozen AAA titles, if they remain absent, Google will no longer be a gamer or a player, but that cannot be decided now, it will take until December 2023 until we see that finalisation. There is a side in me wanting to tell others that Google is on the wrong path, but that is incorrect, the larger stage is that none of the others have decided to tae the path A,D,C, and that does not make it wrong. Even as I show it with a square, there is no clear information on the paths taken and whether one path is equal, longer, or shorter. Time will decide that and in that we will need to wait, but in case of marketing hypes, I will side with Amazon. Not because they are better, these two systems are a lot more on par than either is willing to admit to (that is how I personally see it), I saw several enhancements to the system that both can do, but with a licensing path Google is less likely to go there, then there are a few other paths and without development Google will also not go there. So Amazon has an advantage, will they take it? I cannot tell, I doubt anyone can tell for sure. But as I calculated it around 2 years ago, that market is close to $600,000,000 at nominal and that is a mere 0.3%, but with such numbers, do you know anyone ignoring such optional revenue? Especially when the system out now could run that solution? It is a mere thought that drives the solution, I wonder what is required to hold such greed to account.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Gaming, IT

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

May 11, 2022 · 04:38

Changing the setting

To get to here, some need to read up. In the first there is ‘Recap to the intro’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/09/25/recap-to-the-intro/) which was written on September 25th. There was another story, but you will stumble upon it. You see my mind was remembering both Oblivion and Skyrim. So what happens when the unique items are not in the same place? What happens when we add a new layer of non-predictability? What happens when some treasures are part of the story of a book? So when we add a level of books named ‘First editions’ what else can we find? More importantly, these books are not in the same place. They are either in ‘important’ (read: expensive) houses, treasured items of a book store and in some book cases. More important what happens when these 20 or so books are scattered over the locations with EVERY new game? More important, what happens when two gamers get a different first game. Consider all the news that will stage the media, will stage the personal social media. Titles like ‘The bookshop at X had book titled Y’ will stage the larger stage. Because an RPG is about adventure and learning new things. And that is staged on what we experience, but help pages do not teach, it makes sheep out of gamers. So changing on how a unique weapon is gained becomes a test again. More importantly when every generation in the RPG has minimum achievements, the game changes by a fair bit. And that is what we need, new game changers, new games and more RPG, preferably RPG we had not seen before. In all this the storyteller becomes more important and the game becomes more engaging. 

But that is only one side of the story. You see, the larger station of to prevent predictability. It is hard, especially for me as I tend to take a shine to symmetry. So how do we change that?

We can alter the bad guys we face, not merely one ‘boss’ at the end, but a mix of simple and veterans throughout the location with a boss at the end, but what is the end? In a cave it might be the end, in a tower it might be on the highest point and in some cases, it could be in the beginning. Then there is the faded response we saw in other games to stealth players. I can guarantee you that when a body is found, or when too many people are missing, the rest will not relax and that was missing in too many stealth games. And you can hide the corpses, but in the end if you are in a house with 9 others and when you only see 2, you will get nervous. This is seen in two ways. In the first many NPC’s have a limit to where they can go, or how far they can go. In the second NPC’s are often limited to a level, but what happens to tactics when that changes? What happens when the NPC’s are there to make you fail? What happens when the guards are there to murder you? Tactics need to change. There comes a time when stealth does not always holds the candle, and neither does brazen bashing. Most games do not adjust for that, why not? OK, perhaps in the age of PS3 and Xbox360 there was a need to adjust to limitations, we all get that, but now, in the age of PS5 the stage has changed, the RPG games however do not seem to have this trait, and change is valuable, especially in RPG games. But how to go about it?

Well, in my universe, the first thing is to remove all limitations, to remove breaks and barriers. There will always a need to have some in play, but the larger reason for having them is removed by the coming of streaming systems and the PS5. This also sets the need of a safety zone. Most towns were safety zones, but in the wilderness it becomes important to have a safe place too. In the old days, the riffraff and animals were kept at bay with a fire, but not always and there we get a new setting. The ambush play. When have you faced an ambush in either Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, or Fallout 4? That is merely one of the changes that the new RPG games need to introduce. In the old days (1050-1850) there would be bands of brigands on the roads, travelling to ambush and these games did not really have these groups did they? A larger station of gaming that was missing and should not remain missing. With new hardware we need to change the setting of gaming. In my case RPG gaming because that is my passion and it would be the passion of any storyteller, but it is not the only stage where things need to change. I created the premise of half a dozen games, and the game makers went on the same track again and again. So let the smaller people hide behind ‘Microsoft Seemingly Confirms Ubisoft+ Will Soon Be Part of Xbox Game Pass’, to replay what was and doing that again and again is a waste of good gaming time, to set a new boundary is what keeps the players engaged. So whilst we see settings like ‘Skull & Bones Leaks In A Big Way’, the larger consideration is that this game was rebooted and delayed again and again, all whilst it took me a week to set the foundations of half a dozen games, all new, all having edges never seen before. And as you saw in the blogs, one totally new RPG set to a station no game has ever done. Do tell me how far behind Ubisoft and Microsoft are. Streaming old titles seems nice, but without a strong presentation of actual new games, the Microsoft streamer is nothing more than a history lesson and at $18 a month, Disney+ is a lot cheaper and more entertaining. You did figure that out, did you not?

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming

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

May 7, 2022 · 21:09

The rock on the road

This is not entirely new. I wrote about it in ‘The Ai setting’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/08/16/the-ai-setting/), it was back in 2020. Yet I did not put everything there. Merely the outline. You see, the people need to realise two things. The first is that even as the Amazon Luna and the Google Stadia are seen as consoles. They are not. It is a new stage of gaming, it is a new dimension of gaming and they are fitted for very different games. To give a comparison, consider Horizon: Forbidden West. An excellent game, a near perfect game. Now consider that the Stadia and the Luna would allow that game, but with the ENTIRE continental United States as a map, boggles the mind, does it not? That map still needs to be filled, so it would be an achievement of well beyond titanic proportions. That is the stage we are about to see. That is the fear Microsoft has, because it cannot comply with that level of gaming, it goes beyond what they and the companies they buy are capable of. Did you think I was kidding that I have a setting that allows for 50,000,000 more consoles to be bought? But it is not about that, it is about EA and the Mass Effect stage. I Vought it, just like many more. The music was overwhelming, the stage was well beyond nice and after that the disappointment set it. It was a decent enough story, but consider the screen below. It is the first view we get of the Nexus and consider ‘all’ what you saw, that does it? 

Mass Effect™: Andromeda_20220507124243

There was a whole dimension of gaming overlooked. A whole range of gaming ignored and stepped away from. What could have been one for the ages became mediocre. What could have been a 90%+ game ended up being a mediocre 71% rating. 

The New stage
From the image we get three new stages. fabricators, initiators, launchers and replicators. The fabricators make elementals (like titanium and steel sheets and pipes). The initiators create more advanced materials like wiring, solar panels and a few other things. The replicators create industrial and scientific materials for equipment. They all need materials to work and the launchers create robots that facilitate. Three levels. Level one drones can do the simple stuff, the second level drones have also acquired the wiring and panelling stage and the third level can command level 2 and one drones in groups of 10 or 25. Now consider that image again. Miles to overcome. So whilst you have missions, that part almost flies itself, as you find more materials more can grow and the nexus will enable a lot more. 

A stage that was out in the open and it was neglected. It also gives a larger stage of what equipment and what scientific information becomes available, it was all wiped under the carpet.

Now we see the worlds Eos and Voeld, places where materials can be found (and in other places too) but by adding two unique materials (like Quartz on Voeld) we see a staggered increase, we see a much larger game unfold.

How to get there
I still believe that relaunching Mass Effect Andromeda with the added stuff, with the altered stuff and with the new stuff is the way to go. There is a lot of good in MEA, and a lot more could be added. Not finding the memories, they are a joke (and a waste of time) yet having them on the Nexus makes sense. How are we in a stage where copying games, doing the same thing makes us better? The streaming consoles are about getting farther, about going the distance plus and then we can have a lot more oft he same. It is not a flaw in your PS5, it is not a flaw in whatever console you chose, it is because Streamers can go further, it is a new generation because that is what they were made for, to set a new stage and when full 5G comes out over the next few years you could be seeing this, but only if Google and Amazon take the baton and push harder, because they can. So when you see a rock on the road, will you trivialise it, will you ignore it or will you see that you missed something?

And it is time you realise this. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

May 4, 2022 · 02:33

The next instance

The Reuters article ‘Facebook-owner Meta opens access to AI large language model’ (at https://www.reuters.com/technology/facebook-owner-meta-opens-access-ai-large-language-model-2022-05-03/) did a little more than I expected. It stopped me to set a larger stage of the system that was approaching completing in my mind. The stage where Amazon could sell well over 50,000,000 consoles now has the approach to a second wave, one I expected, but it also opened a side that I expected, but could not yet completely surround. It is like a drawing, we see the lines, but the fields were not complete enough to colour the areas. 

When you consider drawing one, you see water, but what happens when it is drawing 2? You think that it is merely a point of view and the water is larger, but there is a dimensionality setting that we forget about, reflections we forget about and consider that in light of the evolution of an unreal 5 engine. 

We now get an entirely different stage, and that is seen with ““Large language models” are natural language processing systems which are trained on massive volumes of text, and are capable of answering reading comprehension questions or generating new text.” You think it is a simple exercise but it is not, this opens new fields in exploration and the approach towards other directions. 

You see, I made mention of this in ‘Ignored options’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/07/31/ignored-options/) I wrote “I offered a solution in social media for gamers, Amazon has a kindle link that no one has, and I even wrote about a larger gaming stage via achievements, which could help Amazon and its moonshine (a Luna joke). Consider that I had to go from memory, the images (like covers) and keyword searches reveal nothing (to me), as such the IP might be in the open and that is merely a western approach. Places like India and Japan might have all kinds of additional path to acquire IP as well as writings to beef up the streaming games. And if I cannot find that, what else is out there from your youth that is forgotten by too many? As such Amazon Luna (Google Stadia too) have several paths to consider before they enter the stream battle with Microsoft and any exclusive that they can offer that Microsoft. Cannot merely pushes them to third or even fourth in another console war, it sucks to be Microsoft (Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk).” I wrote it on July 31st 2021, almost a year ago and now we see the larger station in the media. Meta is releasing the setting for the second wave. If it works as I expect, the 50,000,000 Luna stations might be a low-ball setting, it also pushes whatever Microsoft has to the deep background. Something to point at and giggle. The nice part is that Amazon could include this solution towards the Google Stadia (after some delay) ending Microsoft as a contender in this field altogether. 

I expected this to come, but I also it to come a little later, and now that we have a larger station and the other three landmarks of Amazon are close to complete the stage is almost ready, but will they pick up the advantage that they can get in streaming console world? I cannot tell, but for me it feels good to know that my expectations were more than spot on, and as Microsoft is nowhere near this and there is a technological advantage that THEY AGAIN overlooked, trivialised or merely ignored feels good, because that means that they are close to 50,000,000 consoles behind on a race they never understood and the higher THAT number becomes, the better I feel. The so called ‘guru’s’ of hardware are in the dark into a direction no one was looking in and that means that my 50M could optionally become 100,000,000 or more for ONE software solution no one has.  And it also means that my initial stage for income was well set. The initial payment might seem too low, but the second pay-cycle would have taken care of it and it could optionally make me a hell of a lot better off than I ever expected. And you know what the weirdest part is? The idea that I have the larger advantage over Microsoft feels better than any $$$ amount (not all mind you). 

And it is only Wednesday, whatever will I learn in two days time?

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

April 25, 2022 · 21:03

Gaming without frustration

This is where I found myself this weekend. After facing a game where I had to watch 50 advertisements to get it to go along (and deleted it immediately afterwards) my mind started to take a journey towards the good old days. The days of Dungeon Keeper (1 and 2), the days of good gaming (and a few other titles). You see the old games had a decent setup and Dungeon Keeper better than most. The game got massacred by idiots at EA, yet the concept is good enough to make it into a decent mobile game. 

Gates for Heroes
In the first we need to turn this upside down, so that former Bullfrog people do not go nuts.
In the first we need a chaos gate, a gate where the dastardly come forth. This gate can come forth in different places, but always next to a gem brasier the gem brasiers cannot be destroyed and cannot be approached to closely. To get the setting of ‘chase’ we need to have more than one stage. People (villagers), buildings and shops. Like the archaic Missile Command we need to keep the places safe. We have a map and in the beginning we do not know where the fiends come from. As I am a firm believer in randomisers, we never know where the enemy comes from. This creates a little stress. But we also have an upside. Every race has its hero’s and we get the first hero, but there too I want to stop predictability.

So lets make a little list

Dwarves – Baragor
Humans – Astolfo
Elves – Amakir
Orcs – Mobrukk
Wizards – Merlin
Lizards – Komodo
Gnomes – Aripine
Trolls – Archimonde
Satirs – Orthius
Centaurs – Alduris

Lets think in groups of three. The first level the gate might start in the dark, but there is a town, so choices need to be made. The hero is there and the first setting needs merely people (Dwarves, Humans, Elves). The hero is a lot stronger but needs support, so the first thin you need to do is create a dwelling, tactically placed. As the hero fights the opponents, he (or she) gets weaker and when too weak the hero fades (and regenerates), so the dwelling will release a basic dwarf, Human or Elf every few seconds. A lot weaker they are all needed to fight the opponents and the larger station is that they might be strong against some types, they are weaker against others. So the proper fight needs to be set. In addition when the hero is surrounded by its own kinds it regenerates, whilst the basic creatures are 10%-35% stronger. As we upgrade their dwelling, we can push from 10% towards 25%. And as we get to deeper levels we see new horrors and new challenges. With all that is out there, it took me seconds to come up with this idea and there is more to this. As we use a randomising of gender, of names, the game could delight for a long time. A wicked way to spend some time crushing the armies of darkness. And in the stage of three, we could randomise them too, so that every new level has a basic new face, and as the levels go on and the gates start in different places, the village will evolve differently. A game that has a renewing look every time you play a new game. How fun is that?

So many options and so little time. Ah well, lets see what I can come up with next. At present I am ahead with a dozen games, three TV projects, an optional movie, 4 pieces of 5G IP and a few other stages (a few to kick Microsoft in the teeth), we cannot ignore our civic duty can we?

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT

Tagged as , , , , , ,

April 16, 2022 · 21:36

Economic arrogance of Achieving

This is a station I recently came to and it has nothing to do with the bravery of Ukraine, or the stupidity of Russia. Even though that setting might have touch-points the larger station is NOT war. The thoughts came from the Art of War by Sun Tsu. There we learn ““The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.”

Yet this quote was subverted by economists and wannabe economic strategists into smething like: ““The supreme art of profit is to gain profit without cost” “If you know the final cost and profit, you need not fear the result of 100 investments” If you know the profit but do not know the cost, for every profitable endeavour achieved one will fail.” This is a side I feel is going on in business, but now also in mobile gaming. A stage where games work but only if you watch advertisements. I tried a game and even as it has repetitive sides, it also has campaign sides and those sides are limiting, but if you watch 37 advertisements you are on your way to get to 50% in a three day event. Consider that 37 advertisements. To game, to play a free game, but it is hindered, not by repetition (well that too), but to get anywhere you need to watch that many advertisements. Now you can limit yourself by BUYING ad free settings, by buying elements in EVERY campaign. And I am not against these settings, just the statin that to get anywhere in that game will require you to invest in advertisements. Now this is not against any rules, not against any law and the makers are not doing anything wrong. Now consider the advertisement. The advertisement in SOME cases will allow for you to play a level, or part of a level, but in many cases should you touch the mouse or the pointer, the install screen is called for. A side I call deceptive conduct, but that could just be me. What is seen is iteration after iteration of “The supreme art of profit is to gain profit without cost” and it is deceptive, there is always a cost, in this case at the expense of the game.

It is the idiocy of “The supreme art of profit is to gain profit without cost”, it is a fictive state of exploitation and nearly all the larger players are involved in that. Do you think that I would have so much IP? Some people at Google, Amazon and even Microsoft should be running circles around me, around people like Elon Musk. But they are all in that pretentious state where “The supreme art of profit is to gain profit without cost” is the solution to everything. It is not, it really is not. 

My stage of 5G comes from a state of rejecting the obvious and inverting the funnel and then looking the other way. The stage of gaming came from looking in a direction no one was willing to look towards and none of them adhere to the stage of “The supreme art of profit is to gain profit without cost” And that is where I found optional billions, one of them has question marks, but if done right could amount to a lot more than even I had in mind and it does depend on a stage, but that stage is being catered to. So when it all comes out, I can look at players like Microsoft and laugh out loud. Consider that the wealthiest corporations are Apple (1), Microsoft (2, for now), Google/Alphabet (4) and Amazon (5) and I am the one with the IP? Consider that they should be ahead of the curve, but they are not, because I am speculating that their economic advisors told them “The supreme art of profit is to gain profit without cost”, and because of that Tesla has a mobile phone coming, a market that Microsoft pretty much lost to Google and Apple and now there is a third player. There am I with my 5G and gaming IP and a few more IP options, one directly opposing Sony and Fujitsu and it is based on technology of the 90’s. So how much did these companies lose by relying on “The supreme art of profit is to gain profit without cost”, I merely go by the old statement “You cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs”, a truth that has been out in the open for centuries. What else did these players overlook?

I will let you figure that out, I at least saw one additional failure, but no spoilers, it is up to you to see what they cannot see.

1 Comment

Filed under Finance, Gaming, IT, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

April 16, 2022 · 17:33

What’s the name, what’s the game?

I saw the news a few days ago, and for the most it does not matter to me, but there is an awful lot of hypocrisy going around and the media is (as I personally see it) as tainted as anything else. The stage is set to Elon Musk, or better stated is set against Elon Musk. Why? Don’t really know the man, but he seems the modern day Midas. Whatever he touches turns to gold. He made an upheaval in the battery market, the mobile market, the energy market. The man is (allegedly) an inventor like me, or he can see proper innovation just like Steve Jobs. How is this a bad thing? Consider the news that he was getting involved in social media. Why not? I do not know if it is a bad idea. But he has the dough to become part of it. Yet the Sydney Morning Herald gives us ‘Elon Musk launches $58 billion hostile takeover of Twitter’ (at https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/elon-musk-launches-hostile-takeover-of-twitter-20220414-p5admv.html) as such lets take a look at what constitutes a hostile takeover? The definition gives us “A hostile takeover occurs when an acquiring company attempts to take over a target company against the wishes of the target company’s management. An acquiring company can achieve a hostile takeover by going directly to the target company’s shareholders or fighting to replace its management” is this true? CBS gives us ‘Elon Musk offers to buy Twitter for $43 billion’, so who is giving us the truth and who is giving a stakeholder a blow job? You think this is rude? You ain’t seen nothing yet. We can argue until the sun goes down, but the setting of finance is clear. If a company is worth it, or could become worth it, you buy it. This has been the case in many occasions. Yet no one is saying that about Microsoft and Blizzard. There we get ‘Activision Blizzard/Microsoft Deal Discouraged by Letter Penned by SOC Investment Group’, how quaint.

So it was today when I saw (at https://www.reuters.com/technology/twitter-adopts-poison-pill-fight-musk-2022-04-15/) ‘Twitter adopts ‘poison pill’ as challenger to Musk emerges’, it is the Guardian version where we see “The method, known as a “poison pill” in the finance world, suggests Twitter will fight Musk to prevent a hostile takeover. It would go into effect if a shareholder were to acquire more than 15% of the company in a deal not approved by the board and expires 14 April 2023.”You see my issue is with the ‘hostile takeover’ part. The guardian gives us those goods with “Jack Dorsey, Twitter founder and former CEO, noted in a tweet on Friday that such surprise purchases are always a risk for the company. “As a public company, Twitter has always been ‘for sale’,” he said. “That’s the real issue.” Musk is already facing legal action for his Twitter purchases, with one investor suing the Tesla executive in a potential class action lawsuit for failing to disclose his buy-up of shares before the required deadline to do so. The lawsuit comes as Musk faces a number of investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission for his investment activities, including insider trading allegations related to his own tweets.” So we see ‘insider trading’, we see ‘hostile takeover’ but we are given no real evidence of either. Merely the word ‘allegations’ that everyone is overlooking. 

The stage becomes even weirder as we consider the actions that Microsoft unleashed on the gaming industry and it is casually trivialised by too many media outlets. 

In all this the statement “he wanted to release its “extraordinary potential” to support free speech and democracy across the world.” Is trivialised by “Twitter’s board on Friday unanimously approved a plan that would allow existing shareholders to buy stocks at a substantial discount in order to dilute the holdings of new investors”, there is no real setting of who these board members are, the media seemingly forgot about that part. These members that include Bret Taylor (SalesForce), Parag Agrawal (CEO Twitter), Mimi Alemayehou (Mastercard), Egon Durban (Silver Lake), Martha Lane Fox (House of Lords), Dr. Fei-Fei Li (Stanford), Patrick Pichette (Google), David Rosenblatt and Robert Zoellick (AllianceBernstein Holding L.P.) there was a unanimous objection to the purchase by Elon Musk and no media outlet had anything from these members with the simple question ‘Why oppose?’. There might be a very valid reason, but I and all others were not informed, so what gives?

We can speculate on why it was done. Elon Musk sees that the US is going after the billionaires. As such he might be buying anything he can to drop the tax rift, and lets face it, he has been turning things to gold and Twitter is a golden idea. So whilst we see all kinds of objections on how analysts see (and say) things like “KeyBanc Capital analyst Justin Patterson downgraded the social media company in the wake of Elon Musk’s buyout proposal. Patterson cut his rating to sector weight, after being at overweight since January 2021, saying that the potential for the Musk bid to “go up in smoke” will turn investor focus on a more challenging macro environment that elevates downside risk to financial estimates.” I personally honestly do not know what will happen, but when a person buys a company, a person that has transformed several companies into powerhouses, I wonder what really is going on. It could be simple, it could be complex, yet the larger station is that people laughed at Tesla and now we see “As of April 2022 Tesla has a market cap of $1.018 Trillion. This makes Tesla the world’s 6th most valuable company by market cap according to our data.” So as I see it, the joke is on them. What was an idea is now 6th on the most valuable companies on the market and that is behind Apple, Microsoft, Aramco, Alphabet, and Amazon and as I gave voice to Microsoft, there is every chance that it will head of Microsoft in the next 3 years. And that is whilst no one has a clue where Meta will end, because they will become part of the top 7 soon enough (2024), and that too is out into the market. So I have questions and the media is not asking the board members of Twitter, or Elon Musk a clear set of questions. And all that before someone decides to ask KeyBanc Capital a few uncomfortable questions. So what is in the name Twitter, what is in the name Elon Musk and what is in the shares game being played now. No matter what is happening, I feel certain that the media will not properly inform us, that mush seems a personal given. Yet in all this we see the approximation of “to support free speech and democracy across the world”, it seems to me that Elon Musk is giving us options, options in mobile technology and energy technology. Who else has been giving us that? I see questions and no one asking them, it is weird, is it not?

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Gaming, Media, Politics

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

April 15, 2022 · 03:31

Abbreviations

We all see them, we all use them and we all think we use the same ones. Yet when we take a look at ‘Games as a Service (GaaS) Market to See Huge Growth by 2028 | Netflix, Microsoft, Sony’ (at https://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/games-as-a-service-gaas-market-to-see-huge-growth-by-2028-netflix-microsoft-sony) we see a decent story and it all seems to fit, yet when we see the list “The study includes market share analysis and profiles of players such as Blizzard Entertainment, RIOT, Netflix, Microsoft, Sony, Tencent, Activision Blizzard, Sega, Electronic Arts & Ubisoft” with the optional ‘attached sample PDF’ did you think you were getting the goods, or did you think you were catered to with “If you are a Games as a Service (GaaS) manufacturer” and at every turn you are seeing the mention of ‘digital journal’. So what gives? Well in the first instance this Games as a Service ploy is that, a ploy (for now) and it sets the largest upheave long before 2028. The largest settings will come to blow in 2024/2025. And the entire station of market share sets a longer approach. You see, there is still no way to see where Netflix is going at present. Their ‘stated’ indications are nice, but when you also hear sounds like “Research firm Ampere isn’t convinced that subscription services like Game Pass are taking over gaming.” We need to realise we are hearing merely one voice, and I get it, but it is the setting of what some call ‘dog eat dog’ that matters. Microsoft, Ubisoft, Netflix and EA will head for a fight, a fight for population and subscribers. Some have advantages, some have potential overzealous fans and some have merely hope. The issue is that these players will fight EACH OTHER for market share. And yes some of the mentioned players are all Microsoft, but that does not make Microsoft the larger player, it makes for a splintered one and in the end they all fight for ones self. Sony and Tencent have their own worries. They are both a lot stronger, but there is a station that polarisation will happen by 2025 and these two will have the numbers and the share. The second issue is not merely the setting here.

Consider the following names Games as a Service, Games as a System, Software as a Service, Systems as a Service, and all this before we consider Function as a Service (FaaS), Container as a Service (CaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS) and it is more than some ‘hyped’ and quick mention of names towards a category. The larger stage becomes when the players start mixing the terms to get the audience to ‘flip’ in space to be part of such a community. It sounds nice, but it is not, it merely makes the water muddy. Tencent and Sony are not part of this because they have a setup, they have the setup, the hardware and the population, more important they are not in each others way. You see Ubisoft is on its way out, that much has been visible for almost two years. When Ubisoft did not deliver on quality they were going for their GamePass approach and they are coming up short, now that they are all over Google Stadia, Amazon Luna and the consoles they are merely running a steeplechase of patch after patch and they are coming up short per game and per system and it is taking it toll. To get ahead of the game they need near flawless games. Three at the least and they need them before 2023 and that is not in the cards, so they are merely one bad release away from death. EA has its own following and it is a decent following, but their games have issues, larger issues, not deadly ones, but serious ones. The problems for EA is to manage service levels to a higher standard and they seem to come up short (for now), their largest issue is clear communication and to FOCUS on games, one at a time to make them all better, more stable and less ‘issue prone’ that part is hard but doable. If their board does not fold under pressure from the other dogs they could be in a good place by 2024. By that time EA and Microsoft will be contemplating what to do with Ubisoft, because it is too far behind. At that same time Tencent and Sony will have the advantage and neither will have a clue where Nintendo will be, because if Games as a Service becomes a thing, Nintendo will be the quiet one gathering population with a strong system. Microsoft might want to trivialise them away but the rest will not. They lack the larger station that Sony and Tencent has, but Nintendo is creeping up on them and this article has no mention of Nintendo, do they? Yet by 2025 Nintendo will be a powerhouse and Netflix is nowhere near ready to take on the large three players. Microsoft is about buying whatever is out there, but from the 90’s onwards that approach has been devastating on all who attempted it. Yes, it makes for headlines but it lacks results and that is what we have been seeing for a little too long with Microsoft. It cannot maintain its posture in the current setting and when it starts its GamePass as collateral for population, we are more than likely get to see the downturn of it all and it does reflect my position of ‘dog eat dog’.

And these are the players vying for the attention of the gamers, all whilst they cannot decide who is the better provider or what gamers actually want and there too the big three (Sony, Tencent and Nintendo) will have the advantage. The problem I see is that a lot of this will be decided long before 2028 and in all this Amazon is not mentioned either. They too have a stake and could become on of the big four leaving Microsoft in fifth place at best and that is if everything goes their way, which so far has not be the case. And whilst most of them are hiding behind abbreviations the big four (Tencent, Sony, Nintendo and Amazon) will grow its population and cater to the one element that was central in all this, the gamer, not the process.

That is my issue with this article, that was my issue with some of the players. They stopped catering to the GAMER and started to cater to the image of SELF. I will let you make up your mind. There is time, this does not need to polarise in any one brain for at least a year. The largest game in all this are the players and the game they play, not the games they produce that too is an advantage the big three have over the other players at present. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Gaming, IT

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