Category Archives: Gaming

March 7, 2022 · 14:05

What we hope for

IP is a tricky thing, it is usually where we hope the people will be when it is ready, some are continuation of ideas and some are a wishful thinking approach to what might be, or become.

I understand this part. You cannot sell if people are never going to go into that direction. It is wishful thinking that they will get there. In all this, I am no different. I expect the world to evolve (or become extinct) towards the 5G stage that Neom city stages it to be. It might merely be Neom at first, but it will throw the bough of marketing into a different heading and my IP will be ready when they do. It was not rocket science. It was always going to change. There was no other way and no matter how many marketeers catch up, or try to turn the dial to THEIR advantage. It was always going to happen and the marketeers that were not ready for the shift, they merely seize to be. The market was always going to reroute because scammers, spammers and criminals stopped the current direction, 5G is enabling them more and more and we see this Wild West corral approach to ‘cyber safety’, doing whatever they can, the reality is that there will be no real relief until 2025, and that sets the stage even more to my advantage (yay me). Yet it is not about me, or my IP. It is about the stage that I set in motion. I am merely in the right place as will a few others. I foresaw a massive crash of Microsoft. Spin only get you so far, but they are so driven to Azure, Spin and ‘their’ great innovations, all whilst iteration is the best they can get. It opens up a drive in a few directions. As I personally see it Microsoft is about to lose the gaming platform to Sony, Nintendo and Amazon. They are losing more and more tablet grounds to Apple and Adobe could set the sails to take a huge chunk out of the Office market. All that and a global Azure outage. The last one might be really bad luck, but to go out globally is rattling the cages of too many and there lies the rub. GaaS and SaaS are setting a larger stage, a stage where people look to what they can TRUST, and there is my open IP connecting to a lot of it. (Yay me). Instead of looking for spin, looking for hype, the offices of GaaS and SaaS required updating and stabilising. So in this Microsoft is in a bad place. Even as we were given 3 weeks ago “Microsoft is in talks to acquire cybersecurity research and incident response company Mandiant, according to people familiar with the discussions, a deal that would bolster efforts to protect customers from hacks and breaches”, you see, it is not merely “bolster efforts to protect customers”, it is about preventing and protecting the customers you have and as we are seeing several Microsoft issues and close to none from the Amazon, IBM and Google area, Microsoft could lose this side as well making them a loser three times over, but no fear. They paid $68.7 billion for Blizzard and it will not be enough. Me (and my sense of humour) attacked that deal by handing out IP and gaming ideas as freeware for Sony and Amazon developers. It is my ‘subtle’ way of telling Microsoft to wake the fuck up. And that is merely the beginning. When my IP comes through to certain parties Amazon and Google will cut Microsoft game revenue in slices, not all mind you, but well over 30% and that is before I show them a new direction they ignored for a decade and they will lose acquiring more. I reckon that it is in the air where the SaaS will go, but IBM, Amazon and Google have equal chances. OK, Google has a better chance. But as I wrote earlier, not reality but a dream, I saw adobe evolve and take a massive chunk out of the Microsoft office population and that would hurt the most. And the Office issues in the last two years were not the greatest for Microsoft, so that field could open up and some are on the Apple trail, some prefer the Google trail and yet it is not enough, a player with the proven track record of Adobe in SaaS could overtake and shoot Microsoft to rubble. It sounds violent, but that is the SaaS field. And Microsoft has had too many issues in too many places at the same time and trying to hide behind Mandiant might not be enough this time around. I admit that I could be wrong, but I can wait to be proven right and those believing the Microsoft spin will end up with a larger mess than they are ready for, but that was the choice they made. With gaming and 5G IP I will hopefully be in a place to step in and at some point either Google or Amazon will have to reconsider the station of selling 50,000,000 consoles to a population that could be a lot more, could open a lot more and that bill fits Amazon better then Google, but Google needs to make choices at some point, with the SaaS and GaaS in such a volatile setting Google might not have a choice and losing more ground to Amazon is not in their best interest. 

Yes, it is all based on what we (read: I) hope for, but it also sets the choices we see now, the choices that some reporting channels ‘trivialise’ and that some ‘minimise’. The consumer at some point catches on and as such Microsoft is in a not so good place on several channels where they boast good times. Reality does not give them that pleasure and it will take more from them soon enough.

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February 28, 2022 · 20:34

The new IP, the old stage

Yes, that is the station I found myself in this morning. It was not completely new to me, I did write about it in the past (too tired to find the exact article as I have written in excess of 2250 articles at present), but the stage is a little different now. Consider war (see the TV for specifics), we know it and it is now closer to many homes than it was months ago. But we nearly always played an EA or Ubisoft version with respawning NPC soldiers. What if the setting is staged finite and no spawning all over the place? What if the stage is London, Munich, Amsterdam or Paris? A stage where you get inserted into a random location and your war-zone is a 10 block radius from there. Google Maps has nearly every detail, so do other mapping solutions. And you could be defending, escorting local civilians and giving aid. You get no choice until you get to a certain rank. How long would YOU last? It is time to teach the gaming soldiers a little realism. And when you face that you think different on Call of Duty Beachhead with high realism. That is nothing! I think some people are catching on what it is like, somehow they take more notice on events in the Ukraine than they ever did in Yemen or Syria. I like games that have NEVER be done before. A lot of my IP is set to stages never done before and that is where we optionally see a side of gaming that is totally new and innovative. Others were there before you with other games (several examples in this year alone) and I believe that this is the way to go, whether it is a console or streaming system, innovation beats iteration EVERY. Time. 

And as these systems are more powerful, we get a setting where we can launch a game like that (or kart) in our own streets, redefining gaming realism acceptance on a few levels. I remember seeing Red Dawn, the Chris Hemsworth edition (I saw both editions) and when we see one of the kids state “We are living Call of duty and it sucks”, I heard someone giggle behind me stating that this would be cool. Yes, the response of a wannabe soldier. I however was in the Middle East, I saw what Hamas did, I saw the bodies. That wakes you up real fast and perhaps a game is not the worst setting to educate people. It has been done before and perhaps it is time to unite these elements. I don’t know, is it wisdom or folly to go that way? I honestly do not. On one side I am merely creating new IP, but I want something deeper in gaming IP, and amazing story (Horizons Forbidden West) is one way to go, when it goes to stories the game Portal (by Rob Swigart) is another direction and that can be equally fulfilling. Still there is a call, not one of duty, but one of fulfilment. We all have it, we want to plant our flag, set our footprint and leave some kind of legacy. When you are a dedicated gamer, we all want to be a Sid Meier, a Peter Molyneux or a Richard Garriott. Not everyone are driven to release mutant camels and that is fair, but where we will be going (streaming systems) and what is possible is almost at the touch and I personally think it is important to push Microsoft out of this market before there way remains the only gaming-less option.  The problem is that it would have been easier if Google had taken up some form of game creation department and with the fact that gaming revenue is predicted to be $138,000,000,000 by 2023 is something that seems overwhelmingly attractive, but that is me and for now my idea to sell 50,000,000+ systems remain under lock and key (on a cloud location far far from home). But it is merely one direction and there are plenty of other directions, the revenue speculation opens those doors and even as a large chunk is set to microtransactions, the people are seemingly fed up with the EA and Ubisoft stage of microtransactions. I also gave a few other options (go look for them) and they are largely set to streaming systems. So is there an upside to THIS IP I now mentioned? No, it is merely another road one could wander, and it is here because I cannot wander them all and I am handing my ideas for free use to Amazon and Sony developers. It is a choice I made as Google decided not to create games. The old stage is seemingly fading, or at least I think it is fading, and what is around the corner is almost within reach and it will be bright and exciting, that is what I think, you might think different and rely on great franchises (like Gran Turismo) to set your beaker of desire. That is fair, gaming is what YOU want it to be, I merely want there to be alternatives for you to consider trying.

That’s how I roll.

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February 25, 2022 · 05:23

Relaunch or remaster?

It was 04:00 (local time) and I needed to seek out some address in London, the address did not matter, but the stage did. In the first there was Lancaster Gate station, it now holds a dearly departed sign, it is closed (apparently). For some reason seeing the map of the underground again made my mind wander. It went back to the days of the Commodore 64. I reviewed a rather fun game for the younger players. It was called ‘Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego’, it was fun because of two elements. Instead of dealing with copy protection, they merely wanted a word from a line in a page in a book, the book was however an Almanac with 900 pages.

I think I still have that book somewhere. It was fun because it had an educational side, it had an exploration side and it was fun to play. Now consider that a lot of this info is in apps, consider that the Switch could hold that info, so consider a game where the location you currently are (and offline containing the old mode) you can play a game that has at least two modes, it might not be that possible on the Switch, but both Android and iOS can contain all the elements needed. An enhanced stage with optional local added information that is added to the bookshelves of the app. We can look on any map in any location, so why not use that to a larger playing stage? Racing, wandering, sleuthing and a whole range more. The Almanac was essential in those days, but now we have equal options online and perhaps the makers have the rights to that almanac. Consider that in the old game we could go to 4 locations and from there to three buildings. Now we have the entire map, we can go anywhere, we can up the ante on several levels and even as we start with a number of locations, we can add and add as the game is released, making 200 locations, 5000 locations, making 3 buildings, 150 buildings. Making the dozen or so facts hundreds of facts. A playful app with educational sides and its educational sides could remain growing for a long time. We can add complexities with airlines, busses, ferries and subways. We can add photo’s as part of the investigation, we can do more with currencies and make credit cards a larger stage in the game (it was none in those days). All additional sides that give a much larger stage to the game and this game could resurface in a refurbished coat. In that case as it evolves into streaming systems we see a game that is for the younger players and when you count the games for younger gamers on a non-Nintendo system, how many do you find? 

Just a small idea before I am having my first coffee (05:23 now).

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February 25, 2022 · 02:38

The stage of commerce

There are all kinds of issues, mine are focussed on the stage of gaming. The larger stage of gaming is always up to discussion, yet what happens when you want an open system that manages itself? Consider a clock, cogs interacting with other cogs.

For a clock the cogs are set, for system that allows an open system the foundations of cogs connected and have a connected interaction, but each of these cogs can connect to a different system and their sizes, when changed allows for a different interaction. I spoke about taverns in an earlier blog, but what if we consider guilds. A Guild of commerce would have a guild master and artisans connect to that guild house, so we see interaction on one hand, on the other hand we see shops interacting with NPC consumers. You think it is easy, but it is not. Consider that you need to create a ‘global’ stage of interactions. The cogs help here, they give a clear indication on connection points. In any nation you have costs and payments. So as a nation has taxation, we need to set these interactions to some kind of level. Let’s say the nation of Carrotville has income, it gets it from shops. It gets it from large farms. This means that they need income, better national income means a better nation. But how to set that? You can set a fake number, and go from there, but to set a stage of thousands of interacting NPC’s requires a different system, hence my idea of a machine of cogs to aid in this. And consider, the entire land is bigger than the game, so we get a part and that is seen per county. Lets say the game represents 4 counties, the nation if 8-9 counties. Now we see the stage where guilds play a role. In the middle ages there were merchant guilds and craft guilds. Of course for any RPG we would need a guild of the arcane and a guild of fighters. Yet let’s not duck into all the elements and let’s focus on commerce.

In the past I already discussed bookshops, taverns, and smith. We need to include goods and foods. This gives us the shops we need as a bare minimum, and considering the size of any area (in the past shops were seen in larger towns and anyone within a distance came to this place). So we now have the larger stage, and the people in that area add to this commerce. Farms sell food and goods to shops. Miners deliver resources to smiths, so as the cogs interact, we see what and how much (on average) goes in any way, but the cogs are not enough. Cogs make it an exact science, we need a random factor to be added between 1%-3% and within that percentage we need a chance element books that affect your business 50%-75%, other books 15%-35%, in that setting we now get a larger fluctuation, when we add elements for town enrichment and town size the numbers become interesting. We see enough fluctuation to make it work and to make it random enough to set a fit. The bookshop is interesting as in the old days literacy was a virtue left to the wealthier people, so the small towns would never have a book shop, but there was the larger need of a tavern, over time as we inspect the cogs we get a stage that can create the rainbow tables for a game, and the nice part if it is that 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. We need to consider these steps as gaming must continue to evolve and any game needs to grow. It is time to stat designing the great RPG games of 2024/2025 and this is one direction that it could optionally go.

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February 23, 2022 · 05:35

Salad with that?

It has been a while since I wrote about gaming IP, and I am not sure if it is really IP, but it is something the Sony and Luna developers might like. Even as I haven’t written about making games since January 25th when I wrote ‘daemonis more’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/01/25/daemonis-more/), an idea came to mind. I was watching ‘First we feast’ in this case the episode with Tom Holland and an idea came to me. You see, food has been in gaming for the longest of time, but we never set the bar of necessity there. Yes, most of us made at least one setting of Elsweyr Fondue (I always play a Khajiit), but it was not until Monster Hunter when I saw that there was a massive upside to having a meal before fighting. We forgot the sustenance setting and even as that is a mere copy, I thought it would be an idea if we add to that. 

So as an adventurer, you get the option to buy recipes, you can find and buy books with forgotten recipes and more important you can offer them to the local tavern where you live. So we can set a new set of elements to flourish a town. There are all kinds of side quests you can gain there. More important, we can set like the impact of a bard (which I discussed earlier) the impact of food. In the beginning there is one main meal, but as the tavern progresses which it does as the town progresses, it can do more and in each stage the recipe is either replaced or added as more recipes are only for a larger tavern, a larger tavern with a cook and as that escalates the town flourishes in other ways too. You see, you can be the centre of the universe, but that is not how the universe works (it only works for me this way, LOL), it is directed by all kinds of cogs and as we are able to grow cogs, replace cogs we see a much more interesting place, a place that grows different almost every time we play it, which adds to RPG games in no small way. So if writings become increasingly more important we will see that only the larger towns will have a bookshop and that also iterates a new set of options.

This is now possible because streaming and the PS5 are now of such size that we can add to the complexity of an RPG (and even more, but that is at present for Amazon eyes only). 

We can add to all businesses in all kinds of ways, but the clever part is not doing it, but setting the stage where it can grow and it can maze YOU the gamer into a setting where the game becomes at times a surprise. Think back to Elder Scrolls Oblivion, consider Chorrel, it was always the same (as were other places), but what happens when the change is not something you control, what if tomorrow you go into your RPG town and suddenly a store is upgraded and another store is added? In a game you are the antagonist, but what is the wonder of the game when at times you are merely the spectator? Not a cut scene, but the evolving nature of the town through the game and the game play you in part brought? It makes for a new (and very old) version of RPG gaming and that is where you will find the gamers. In a place where they never expected to be, where they are a force to be reckoned with, but not the stage master. We see some of the elements in the latest RPG games like Horizon2: Forbidden West, but it can go further and over the next 5 years it will, it will be a new standard of gaming because the PS5 allows for it and streaming consoles like the Google Stadia and the Amazon Luna allows for it. That is where optionally gaming will go and the first one with a real original and captivating game will get a nice slice of a cake that is expected to grow to $25 billion by then, should you doubt me, that is fair, but consider the people going nuts and tweeting all over the place on HFW on nearly all social media channels, originality accounts for that and Guerrilla delivered. Yet in this world there is space for more than one player and as Bethesda sold itself to Microsoft the market for close to 120 million PS4 players and 15 million ps5 players is now wide open. They said that the next elder scrolls is not coming to Sony, fair enough, but will happily become competitors, for several software houses the idea of servicing up to 135,000,000 gamers is appealing. I do not know what the streamers do in numbers, but Amazon (if they accept my terms) will grow by well over 50,000,000 consoles. So there is a market and whoever becomes the most innovative game designer will laugh all the way to the bank, every day for the rest of their live they go to the bank. And Microsoft? Who cares, they made their bed, now see how it pans out for them.

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February 18, 2022 · 19:23

Unintentional?

Whilst playing a game (Horizon 2, Forbidden West) my mind was drawn into a setting I have not openly done before. In the intro part we are (optionally) drawn into the conflict of intentional versus unintentional shortsightedness. A thief preventing theft is the clue (not giving away anything. But consider that I consider Microsoft to have shown (several times) the application of intentional shortsightedness. This goes back from the Xbox One and after. For whatever reason they did this, they set up intentional shortsightedness on storage for the longest time (since 2011).  And I have scolded them for it, I could do so because their competitor (Sony) set up an option where it could be solved. They did this in the PS4, PS4Pro and PS5. Microsoft since the Xbox One avoided that and only now (2020) offered another option, I reckon because they could no longer avoid that. Now we see streaming and I warned about congestion, the setting in the UK is now “UK’s biggest network operator, might soon become its biggest 5G provider. EE currently has 5G live in the UK in 160 places and plans to cover the whole country by 2028.” So proper national 5G in the UK by 2028, implying congestion in a lot of rural places. Europe and the US are in no better state. There we see “All of the major U.S. wireless carriers say they have nationwide 5G service, but industry analysts say that service is largely indistinguishable from 4G LTE service”, yet 4G LTE and 5G are not the same, in no uncertain way! So we see an industry who is hiding behind  shortsightedness to leave one third in the dark and that applies to the UK, US and Europe. 1/3rd is not worthy to be properly connected and in that we see a problem, it will taint streaming systems (and it works for Sony in no small way too). But I am not here pleading for Sony, I am here pleading for gamers.

The game gives us the stage of unintentional shortsightedness, because can we predict what happens or what is needed in 1000 years? Of course not, but the clarity we could see in 2011 was addressed by one and not the other, that makes it intentional. They cannot hide behind ‘We did not see that coming’ because nearly all could see it coming a mile away. Some hid behind what would expected to come (trade agreements) and someone boasted his trumpet too soon and the brand suffered, the other one made a video of one person handing a disc to another person and made short of the situation, but they too hoped for change and it is seen in there terms of service, the media largely ignored it whoring for digital dollars, but they too are guilty. 

These are all stages of intentional shortsightedness. So when does it become unintentional shortsightedness? Because of the filtered business approach, the approach of common sense or the approach of what a board of directors stipulates? I honestly do not know. I am willing to go with common sense, but common sense and business sense are not aligned, or better stated they are more often not aligned than aligned. There is the stage of common sense versus service level agreements, there is the stage of common sense and dependancy of suppliers and there are a few other stages. Yet if the the UK is any indication, the delay to national 5G (real 5G) until 2028 sets a much larger premise. The ability to offer 5G solutions and 5G added abilities to a nation when it needs to rely on other means. It is (as I personally see it) as the 80’s setting that Dutch Luc Sala stated as the have’s versus the have not’s and it is coming to actual deployment in the next 5 years and not merely in the Netherlands, it will be seen on the global stage. A stage of technological discrimination, the problem is to see the difference between intentional versus unintentional shortsightedness, because even as a game brings it to the forefront, this stage has been deploying for close to 3 years and if you want to refresh your information (I stated it several times) at present only Saudi Arabia has a national deployed 5G network, and it is more than that it is merely 700% faster than the US, it is a nation that took serious steps to make its nation 5G and over the next 5 years it might get a lot more benefits in its wake than any other player. South Korea might have an advantage as well, but that will be seen over the next 2 years. A stage that we saw coming a mile away, so is it at that point intentional or unintentional shortsightedness? I will let you decide. But the lack of services that we will see pop up all over whilst some providers hide behind ‘It works fine under 4G LTE’ and whilst the media keeps n ignoring certain steps should inspire you to seek out the real information bringers and make sure that the media starts operating less under the appeasing structure and more supported by the common sense pillar. 

Just to recap the important setting “In theory, 5G is likely to reach speeds that are 20 times faster than 4G LTE. 4G LTE has a peak speed of 1GB per second; 5G could theoretically achieve speeds of 20GB per second. … But where you might get 10Mb per second from your 4G network today, 5G could possibly provide 100MB per second everyday speeds”, so it becomes the “Do you really need 20GB per second?” And you think you are swayed, but the part ignored is that banks and others can have 20 times the transactions, so when you are in a bidding war and you will (nearly) always be missing out on a bid, it becomes the option where those who have will get the goods, those who have not will miss out on the goods. Transactions that are 20 times faster, the seesaw in a truly unbalanced stage. Consider your business where the information is brought to you at 5% speed, how appealing is that to some?

All matters that were out in the open for 4-6 years, now slowly pressing on your business, on your home, on your gaming and on your stream speed. You really think I was kidding when I saw congestion as the next big evil coming to your front door? So when short sighted people give you (on June 4th 2018) ‘NBN chief blames online ‘gamers predominantly’ for fixed wireless congestion’ and whilst we see see “The fixed wireless component of the NBN covers approximately 600,000 Australian homes. 234,000 homes are currently connected.” The larger ignored setting is that “streaming 4K video can use as much as 7 gigabytes (GB) per hour”, a clear setting of intentional shortsightedness, as (Australian) Netflix users surpassed 11,000,000 the Q1 2019, as such we see a massive cluster of shortsightedness. The issue here is prediction when does prediction become intentional? I cannot tell and Covid changed the metrics by a lot, but the levels of congestion were clear, they were clear before covid (2018), there are cogs that are connected, but I can tell you right now, that those claiming to see the difference can not always tell (including me), but I saw a lot of the factors upfront and I blogged them at the time since before covid. As such I feel that I have proven that a lot of unintentional shortsightedness was indeed intentional shortsightedness. Yes, I agree that some cases can be made in a few directions, but not all and too many points were unattended by too many industrials, and not merely in one nation, but near global and in the upcoming 5G commercial wars it will give raise to several failings that we are bound to see in 2023 and 2024. Perhaps suddenly the issues I raised in the streaming wars are a little less innocent, especially from the view of some of the industrials as they gave them. Consider some ‘stream’ presentation and consider who in the end they are really for.

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February 18, 2022 · 15:23

The Dutch lead the way

If someone told me 5 years ago that the Dutch would become a new leader in open world gaming, I would have told them to stop using drugs and could I please have some of whatever they were taking and I would be proven wrong and I am. The software maker Guerrilla Software, the makers of the Horizon series did something way unique, not only did they set a new record, the have now 2.3rd (if there will be a third part) to actually surpass Mass Effect in storytelling. A scenario that was unheard of 5 years ago. There was no doubt, there was no doubt that part one was exquisite on many levels, but at present, as I approach the level with three snakes, the point of the first repel I feel that there is a larger station, a story that could become legendary and a Dutch software maker did this. Yes, I saw a few glitches, I saw 1-2 bugs, I also saw 1 error and as Eloy is now visible in the red grass (intentional or not) is beside the point. This game is roaring an introduction that is unheard of and it is merely the intro to something we can only guess on. And (to vex Microsoft) it is only for Sony PlayStation gamers! 

The game plays like we are getting in our most comfortable shoes. We see the things we loved, the controls we remember and the game has the feel of a world we understood and on the PS 5 it is so gorgeous, water the blight, it is amazing and there are dozens of hours head of me, optionally up to 100 (speculation) hours of amazement and gaming. The posters revealed San Francisco (what is left of it), those large red towers were a bit of a giveaway and some of the trailers showed that we have so much more to see. But the part that get me the most is that the intro part gives us what was and a larger story (supplementing) on what became through time. A station largely ignorant of the player, making us watch whilst we game through a story that goes into a direction we do not know where. In part because I would not give spoilers, but to the largest part because I am merely at the first repel point (it makes sense when you get there). The horizon story is breathtaking and I feel certain that NO ONE had a clue what we were in for when the first trailers were given to us in 2015 I believe. We knew that we were seeing something special but how special is only coming clear in the beginning of part 2. 

In the speculative part of me, I do hope there is a deeper setting to Sylens (Lance Reddick), apart from the cast of Fringe (Scarecrow) being upset, I believe that there is a lot more to the setting of Sylens (but that could just be me), It seems that the story can go a whole lot further, but that too is a combination of speculation and wishful thinking. What is true is that I am at the mere start of the game and it is impressive beyond believe, to be honest, it has been a whilst since I was that impressed. It is the combination of Story, gameplay, character and anticipation/thrills. You see, the corners, the triggers we have seen in past games have presented anticipation and even as we think we know what we get into the first repel will dazzle and optionally surprise us (I actually do not know yet). 

And this is brought to us all by a Dutch game maker. It would be folly to think that all great games come from America/Japan, but to see another game maker surpass thresholds like the story of Mass Effect trilogy and new levels of gaming that America seems unable to deliver is something no one would have expected and as other games come, some need to realise that the old standards no longer apply. The old masters have to some degree now been surpassed. It would always happen, but I never expected to be around to see that and it should be a harsh lesson for players like Microsoft and Ubisoft. There levels will only maintain with the upcoming new titles, so whatever they think they have, they better test it and if it does not break the 83% marker it will bring them down, not sustain them. We have arrived at that point and their influencers and marketing will not aid them, not when these new levels of excellence are brought to the gamers. It was a lesson they were always going to have to learn, but I reckon that they hoped that there would be time until 2023/2024. As I see it, 2022 will be the first moment these makers will get the crap kicked out of them. And it was a Guerrilla army of makers (360 of them housed in Amsterdam) that would treat them to the first kick.

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February 17, 2022 · 18:00

The game you hope for

This comes one sleep away from the game Horizon’s forbidden west (PS5), the sequel from Horizon Zero Dawn. It was a great game, a great journey and as I see it, this game put the Dutch firm Guerrilla Games on the map as a top tier developer. The game was new, original and the story was close to amazing. The first game was a good journey into awesome IP and of course the people who got hooked on the first game want to jump into game two (that includes me). Yet it also reminded me of others, what had been. You see, I remember a game called Steep, as 

I was getting into winter sports, this game had appeal, which fell to zero almost at the point of arrival. You see beyond the claims is the engine, and the engine was made for people who like ‘turbo’, so there is no stage where someone just enjoys training downhill, it has to accelerate (all the time) and the game shows this, the moment you go down, the acceleration is off the wall, and in real live it never is like that. In the end one (of several) views were “Simply put, Steep is average at best” and that is a shame because that 71% game could have been an easy 85% if the makers did the numbers and especially did not charge another $20 for extra game modes. You see it matters and Horizon Zero Dawn gave us the whole enchilada and that was quite the trip. Now, comparing these two games to each other is like comparing coconuts and pineapples. So I am not comparing games, I am comparing effort and as I personally see it Guerrilla Games has it, Ubisoft does not, or had it and lost it is perhaps more precise. But there is another side too. It has been my experience that too many YouTubers are trying to appeal to the software houses too much. There are of course the ranters, but they will always be there. That being said watching a review and then a ranter tends to show a few settings you might not have considered. And in the end it is about finding the right game, especially as a budget is getting more and more towards one game every other month at best. It is at that point that Microsoft shows its Game Pass and the deal you have. But consider this one view gave us “Yet, currently totally free with Xbox Game Pass, Steep is still worth a quick backflip or two. Find out all there is to know about one of Ubisoft’s worst” and hidden there it shows the problem. A pass that allows us to be happy with a 70% game, why is that? The game pass needs to show us that you can play 12 90% games in 2022, but that is not really the case is it? We want to play Ratchet and Clank, Ghosts of Tsushima, Horizon Zero Dawn, Horizon Forbidden west and 8 others, but the Game Pass cannot give us that, can it? Although, it will give you the flight simulator and that is truly a 90% game. 

We hope for that next 95% or better game and my hopes are with Horizon Forbidden West. 2022 will bring at least 5 more games to PS5 and we all hope for the best, we have good hope on what came before but there will always be a sliver of doubt until the game arrives, it is in our nature and in this I am no different, we have all seen decent games, decent games that could have been 90%+ games if only a little more effort was taken. We want to blame Ubisoft and they are a clear example, but they aren’t the only one. The problem is that the game pass has the ability to make the choice field smaller and soon it will be just Ubisoft for some consoles. It is one of the strongest reasons to see Streaming consoles (Amazon Luna) grow faster and stronger. It will soon be the best path to the games we hope for, we want to embrace Sony and Nintendo, yet the clarity is that it will not be enough, we need a new generation of game makers, the list looks impressive, but these are games that were coming for some time. You see the games you never saw coming (like Ghostwire) are coming less and less, gaming is moving from the wild west into corporate west and that leaves us with dwindling choice, have you not noticed that?

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February 16, 2022 · 14:29

Gift for militant wench

OK, not my finest hour in diplomacy, but it was the only way to give the path to people thinking ‘another Amazon story’. I woke up this morning with a new IP, an IP based on Google technology, but they do not create software, so their loss. And this is freeware only for Sony and Amazon products, just another way for me to say to Microsoft “Screw you!” So in my sleep I was racing through the street, there were paths, obstacles and my mind was making sense of it all (which took a few seconds) and I was seeing the brilliance of that Nintendo kart game that can take place in your home. A good idea, but I gave it steroids and turned it into something serious. You see, there are the F1 people, who love the F1, want to race on their tracks, want to be an F1 driver and this is not for them, There are good products and they are happy there. No, this is for the people who want to race in the real world. So consider a setting where the game has 10 circuits. They can give their address, or one they wished to live and the system will design a racetrack from 2500 metres up to 5500 metres (for now) based on real Google Map data. So you get a game that will soon have thousands of tracks, and the nice part is that there is racing (just the street) and challenge where the system adds obstacles, ramps (looking like it was fake and inserted) to give that goofy feeling for when you go all out. As far as I can tell, it has NEVER been done before and there Amazon gets the inside track, because as you race what is, the system with Machine learning and deeper machine learning will try to make you a map you requested based on the area, or location you gave and adds the track for you personally to your account. A setting where a game can grown into a massive behemoth of racing fun. A setting where you can race where you always desired to race, your hometown (wherever that is), Tokyo streets, Monte Carlo (every racer wants to be there one day), London, Berlin, Amsterdam and the list just grows. I am actually amazed no one in Google was that alert, but there you have it. So I say (still lacking diplomacy) “Militant wench, have at it”, we could include boat racing, but I reckon that a place like Rotterdam will give Amazon all kinds of problems. 

A simple idea boosted to a real challenge, and should you wonder why Microsoft cannot come up with it. Well that is simple, they can buy creativity, they merely lack the ability to create something. For that they have Mojang, Bethesda and Blizzard. Those who buy are limited to their knowledge of Excel (or so they say).

Enjoy this midweek! The weekend will be 68 hours away for some. 

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February 10, 2022 · 11:15

Out with the old?

It is a saying and I have heard it many times. Out with the old, in with the new. Yet in the world of media as an aggregated whole, that saying does not make much sense. For a few reasons my attention came back to Infamous:Second son I gave it an 83% rating when it initially launched (and I stand by that). You see, the game has brilliant and spectacular moments. In all but one setting it is close to brilliant. The one setting is linearity and in a near open world it is worse than a death curse. Linearity makes everything too predicable and that was the short coming of that game. It starts brilliant, the brother setting, the awakening of being a conduit and the power of smoke. It was amazing and until the second power comes into play it is all great, after that the party sizzles and linearity sets in. But that first area in Seattle is just grand. Then I thought what to do and I do not need to do anything, but Sony might. Consider that the game has a good and a bad setting. What if Reggie didn’t had a brother, but twins Delsin Rowe and Darren Rowe. One goes good, the other bad and that becomes a much larger story, one for the TV or whatever streaming service Sony has. They already own the IP, so that would not stop them and the setting could be larger, not larger in the stage, but it could give Seattle more than Amazon and Frasier (to opt an idea). The setting in the game was great and the antagonist Augustine was better thought up than most other antagonists in TV world. They both get the stage to clean Seattle each in their own way and there we need to set the station where the good one wins the concrete powers (and cleans up the streets and heals the reservation victims), as well as open up a much larger conversation. Can we separate people who are different? You see, Augustine is seen as evil, but her motives were pretty pure (from her point of view) and even as the game never went into that, the TV series might just do that and to be honest, the powers we saw in that game were freakin awesome. 

I am a little surprised that no one had thought of that track with a game that was optionally much larger than we all thought it could be. Especially as studios are vying for streaming successes. Sony has a few IP’s in stock that they could alter in many ways and Infamous:Second Son is merely one of them.

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