October 20, 2023 · 23:36

Elle Tea Gee

LTG or Long Term Gaming was today’s topic. It was a tweet that brought me to this point. It wasn’t entirely that tweet. When I created the foundation of Restoration replayability was the setting I focussed on.

As such the image made me giggle but then I considered the impact of what could be and that is going to be all the rage in streaming games, or GaaS as some techno dudes set their cap.

You see, would it not be an idea to have a blend of iPhone 14 and iPhone 15 when you play that game in 2024? And I am not merely talking cosmetic. You see in a game like Watchdogs 2, the phones could have additional power and optionally additional protection. Sneaking into a parking lot (one of the WD2 missions) could make it a lot more challenging. That setting is overlooked. It is not the fault of the creators, this setting was never an option in gaming. But now it is possible. For example in Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, some of the elite guards could in 2024 be sporting Body armour by manufacturer XTEK. You see, games never had the additional parameters, but the new streaming consoles will be different, gaming will be taken to a whole new level making it essential that games are upgraded, as will be the need for more and better equipment. Before you start going on ‘that’s too hard’ consider that we see now what was never an option in the Commodore Amiga or the Atari ST. Games and systems evolve and now we get a setting where one system (a streaming system) will add new dimensions of gaming. I will not part with my PS5, I love it too much, but having a streaming system next to it will become more and more commonplace. Now these evolutions are not a given. Assassins Creed Mirage will not be impacted, it plays 1200 years ago. But there are plenty of games where if COULD apply. Newer speedboats, new model cars, new model nearly everything and there is a larger setting.

On February 13th 2022 I wrote “Just like the stage of combining deeper machine learning to a lens (or google glasses), a camera lens that offer direct translations, and the fun part is we can select if that is pushed through to film, or merely seen by us, now consider filming in Japan with machine learning and deeper machine learning auto translating ANY sign it sees” (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/02/13/looky-looky/) in the article ‘Looky Looky’ Now we see advertisements by Google iPhone doing that very thing. Another example where my creativity trumped a big tech company, in this case Google. Gaming was about pushing boundaries and it could do so again, not at the behest of Microsoft when they finish some new piece of software, but ahead of that software. People like Sid Meier danced on the edge of the CBM64 with Pirates in 1987. He did what even Commodore did not consider possible and he was not alone. We need to push art back to that stage and streaming systems are the most logical choice here. A setting where long term gaming could evolve and for the streamers (Amazon and Tencent Technologies) that stage needs to be explored sooner rather than later. When gamers see that they get a new dimension in gameplay. They will come and tip their toes in the water. Gamers always do and that is why Sony was scared of the SEGA Dreamcast. 

Soul Calibur was something that no one had, not even Sony. SEGA pushed the envelope and of course Xbox360, PS3 and PS4 had their own innovative successes. Now it is time for a new level of innovation and it is my believe that streamers could be holding that trump card. How players like Ubisoft will go about it? This is anyones guess, but I reckon that a player like Guerrilla Software and Santa Monica Studio are looking into that chapter right now, because the first one in will get the larger slice of pizza, that has always been a given and it is one of the reasons I oppose Microsoft invasion of the safe space that we gamers had. It was not about making gaming for everyone, it was pure and simple greed and greed will diminish a game EVERY TIME. There is no exception to that rule, which is why I am making a lot of my thoughts public domain. I hope to inspire and spark independent game makers. Yes, I had a dollar sign on my head as well (a person needs to eat and pay rent) but a lot is already PD here, so I will never see a penny of that myself. 

So, whilst I am ‘evangelising’ Long Term Gaming, the setting in a GaaS (Gaming as a Service) is not new and it will exist and it should exist. Game Pass was a brilliant idea. It was Microsoft’s decision to not include several games until 2024, but there could be a legal reason (I do not know). 

What matters is that I just had an additional idea that no game is sporting at present, that is not on those games. They were limited by hardware. With streamers it is a lot less limiting on deployment and physical copies. It is a different animal where we get a new stage, a new kind of food and a new kind of animal, but not one we have ever seen before and that makes it exciting.

Enjoy the weekend. Down here Saturday is a mere 1827 seconds away.

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October 20, 2023 · 00:32

The gig is partially up

Yes, this happens. Even to me and Microsoft apparently figured part out, part I had hoped to include in the sale of my IP, IP which might now be made public domain. I refuse to let Microsoft walk away with it all. You see, I made the second (or third mention) in ‘Ring around the currency’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/12/25/ring-around-the-currency/) on Christmas day 2022, almost a year ago. I had seen how gaming went and I made some calculations. Between 1985 and 1999 the systems Atari 800, Atari ST, Commodore 64 and Commodore Amiga had a little over 10,000 games. I reckoned that if you took the list sorted by rating and you take the top 10% you end up with 1,000 games. Now we get that some still have IP protection. I reckoned that if we set that marker to 50% (really high) we still end up with 500 games, a lot more than Amazon or Google had. The others are fair game, no IP protection and these games could easily be transformed for cloud gaming. Going from 64KB to 1MB-15MB is still a good gig and these games were really fun and addictive. A system with 500 games (merely one of three pillars). That is what the seemingly bright people at Amazon missed and I was laughing most of the year, knowing that my giggles were temporary at best. It was one part that ensured 50,000,000 consoles and alas Kingdom Holding (with Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud) were not taking the bait for billions in revenue. Neither was the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia who was driven to eSports. But I thought ahead of the pack. You see eSports people get there by training and the younger they are the better they become and these games set up my and the next generation, so the new generation could do worse than train on these games. Still that was not my focus, it was a focus on fun. The fun I had through decades of joyful gaming. Not hopping like a kangaroo in FPS games. I also saw the option to reengineer some games (like Defender of the Crown) to be a little more realistic and more Arabic driven, a combination of that game with a focus of the 1st Crusades. Show the current generation what Islamic life in 1095-1291 achieved. And that was not all, many games were up for grabs, rejected and forgotten. As such the creation of a large coffer of games would propel any console and that was the setting I set out to do, but it was only one of three pillars. I tend to make the other two pillars public domain soon enough especially as my retirement in Toronto is now no longer a reality. 

There were several other games that required remastering in the new setting. There was Knight Games on the CBM64, and setting this with a Saracen style might appeal to a lot of Arabic gamers. The nice part was that I had played most of those games and I would be able to recall plenty of details and plenty of gaming sides, even improve on some of them. A setting that was never considered in those days. 

All this came to the surface when I saw ‘Phil Spencer Teases the Revival of Older Microsoft Franchises’. It came with ““With Game Pass, we have the ability to maybe pick a couple of franchises every year and almost do a ‘revisited’,” Spencer explained. Although he clarified that it was not an official branding term, he expressed the potential to recognise the significance of these games in gaming history and make them available through Game Pass.”

Yes, that was the setting that gave me pause to think. Spencer does not think in small settings and as I make this now public domain others will come and see what they can have. You see Microsoft has committed 69 billion, as such making sure that all these games get multiple contenders all vying for a piece of the pie makes the slice for Microsoft smaller and that is not the only thing they will face. So all who read this, if you develop games, see what old games you could purchase, get the IP for or register the new gaming IP. It will be the first disappointment for Microsoft. They will have to share the pie with many others. The other side is that these people could get a slice of the game through the new Tencent Technology handheld. Another mess they never banked on. I had hoped to keep ahead of the curve, but it seems that this is no longer an option. The only thing left is to make these steps as expensive as possible for Microsoft. They invested to get a mile, so if I can make the setting so that they merely get a furlong it will be a good day for me, or at least a better day than it was this morning. So here you see it, this is what Amazon and Google missed. Well, it was one of three parts they missed and I wonder if someone over there will wake up at some point. 

Enjoy the day, I will enter Friday being decently grumpy today.

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October 19, 2023 · 14:01

The definition of insanity

We have all heard this one. The setting that people doing exactly the same thing over and over again and hoping for a different outcome. A patent clerk named Alfred came up with it according to a fair amount of people, but here you would be wrong. It originated somewhere around 1980 apparently by Narcotics Anonymous. The US government has taken this setting of insanity to heart as we can see. 

Not the first but we get at some point that the US government was stopping Android towards China, Huawei especially. The consequence was that Huawei created HarmonyOS. They are now at 4.0.0.121 which is available in 77 languages, so not just in China. It might not have the following that makes it a threat to Google and it likely won’t be for years to come. But the stage has been created. To give some kind of relativity “Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group claimed that HarmonyOS had reached 300 million smartphones and other smart devices, including 200 million devices in the ecosystem and 100 million third-party consumer products from industry partners.” The setting that it is now in 300,000,000 smartphones and smart devices implies that those machines are NOT using Google’s Android. Nice example of stupidity US government.

So here is the prequel, now we get to the main event dished to us by the BBC. Here (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67141987) we are given ‘Beijing unhappy at latest wave of US restrictions’. The setting sounds one way, but when you get to “The measures target chipmaking tools as well as advanced chips, including two from market leader Nvidia. The move is being seen as an attempt to close loopholes that became apparent after an initial wave of chip controls last October. America said the measures were designed to prevent China from receiving cutting-edge technologies that it could use to strengthen its military, especially in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).” So stupidity continues in a few ways. You see AI does not yet exist and the one player most likely to push that into completion is IBM. And for the statement “prevent China from receiving cutting-edge technologies” is pretty much a joke. China already has cutting-edge technologies. Huawei is more advanced then anything the west has and we see that in action all over the Middle East. The second part is that Nvidia is a market leader, but it became one through business based cutting corners. This is not negativity, what they did was sound, clear and business based. But there is a downside for the US (yet again), like HarmonyOS, China can create its own chips. Granted that it will not be as powerful as Nvidia but it will work. And there is a second tier to all this now. 

For example the PNY NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada Generation Graphics Card is next level shit, we can all agree that this is the case and for $15,790 it is all yours. Yet, who could afford that? Now China gets to be in the place to create a competitor that can only do 90% of what this card could do, but for $3,500. The bulk of people who cannot afford the Nvidia card will jump at the Chinese option and then what? This is not some speculation, it is a given certainty. The US is throttling whatever they can and alternatives become a reality. First HarmonyOS, then we see that Saudi Arabia has the fastest 5G by leaps (over 700% faster than 5G in the USA) and that list merely becomes bigger, all whilst they set the stage for others to take over marketshare. Have they forgotten the harsh lesson they saw in 1985-1995? They blocked Russia from getting PC’s and other hardware and as a result Toshiba became a world player with an annual revenue surpassing ¥158.94 billion (2021). Marketshare lost to Compaq, HP, Dell, and so on. So, what will the US do when China stops exports to the USA? Cry? 

America thinks it is a global player, but that is no longer the case and their 325 million people includes well over 50% who cannot afford any of it. That gives China the option to expand into Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The two richest nations (Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) are now in a stage where they give more and more expansion options to China. I like the comparison that the West Wing gave us “America designed a pen that works in outer space, it costed them millions. Russia? They used a pencil” That stage is returning to us again and again. China will create new processors and through that new cloud systems and notebooks. In the meantime as people need to get cheaper stuff will end up with Chinese hardware. Europe has roughly 750,000,000 people, twice the population of America. Africa has a population of 1,215,000,000 people and the Middle East has around 370,000,000 people. All now getting a small nudge towards China. So, what will America do when it defaults at the same time that the people of the world moves towards Huawei, Harmony and whatever comes next? 

So whilst we are given “The Biden administration has denied it was trying to hurt China economically, but Beijing’s foreign ministry branded the move “forced de-coupling for political purposes”.” We need to consider that this is a final act of desperation and the news that Chinese stock is down 1.2%, consider what happens to the stock of Microsoft, Google and Samsung when HarmonyOS is releasing 5.0 which is likely a year away. When the CEO of Huawei tells the world that their HarmonyOS is now in well over 500 million devices, that is the point that big-tech starts getting nervous and when Tencent technologies is told to end its partnership with Microsoft we will see the first sparks of a race that had only one outcome, all due to ego driven political posturing. I know that this will be an event as I have several pieces of IP that none of the other players have and I should not have this advantage. I got it by looking at what was possible, not what greed demanded I would do and that would result in some losing 3%-5% marketshare and that was why I initially went to the Saudi government. They can afford to buy it, the American firms will hide behind “Trust us, we’ll do right by you” but they will not deliver, they merely want freebees and now at the end of the margins that sloppy setting will cost them their house. 

Could I be wrong?
That is the first question I ask myself and I ask it all the time. To critically look at your own settings is how you can find flaws and I did find a few but consider that HarmonyOS did not exist before 2019. Consider that there was only Google and Apple and now one in 20 houses have Huawei and optionally HarmonyOS to some degree. It might be slow now, but in 2-3 years that amount will have doubled. Apple and Google are still safe and still firm, but this third player was never a blip before and now they are more than a blip. I personally believe that their grow markets are the Middle East and Asia. I reckon that India is the first setting. We were given “We are open to doing business with any company anywhere as long as they are investing and conducting their business lawfully and are in compliance with the Indian laws,” A statement by Deputy Minister for Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar, as such India is now open for business. Huawei is re-entering Pakistan with smartphone solutions no later than early 2024. That opens up the corridor  between China and Egypt and when Egypt comes across, which it already did in January as we saw “Telecom Egypt, the country’s first integrated telecom operator, in cooperation with Huawei Technologies” sets the stage that Huawei is now at the front door of Europe. The moment that Ericsson fails to remain on par, which it isn’t at present the flood gates into Europe open up and all this could have been prevented by focussing on innovation, which the telecom providers failed at all over Europe and in the USA. So that is the consequence that a lack of innovation brings and still the same old greed driven play is being pushed by America and as they financially buckle more and more, the game will get a different continuation. 

This is not the first mention of this, I made several publications going back 2-3 years into this field and now that the stage is at the edge of readiness we see some mention of “it could use to strengthen its military” I merely laugh. The bulk of American politicians want to stop supporting Ukraine against Russia. If they are not ready for that setting they will not like what military encounters with China will look like. China doesn’t need to fight, it can just wait until America collapses and as things go that moment is coming closer and closer. The nanny state looks good on paper, but when you have too many children and only one nanny chaos is an absolute certainty, ask any mother. They can tell you just how bad things can get. 

As I personally see it the US-China chip war is a paper tiger. It might sound nice now but it is staged on a setting that nothing changes and that is never a reality. Change is the number one part in evolution and innovation. In 2022, the total number of invention patents filed in China reached 4.21 million, of which 3.28 million were held by inventors from mainland China, do you really think that all innovation comes from America? Lets not forget that Nvidia only had an additional $60 million in revenue over the last year and that is one number that greed driven Wall Street does not like. There is no telling what happens when China get its own systems running and that is a certainty, no government will rely on foreign technology. Not in the west and not in the east. Yet that marker seems a lot more clear in the east, but feel free to refuse my view on that matter. That would be fair enough. 

What will happen next? That is anyones guess, I stated clearly what is out in the open and what I expect to happen next. Make up your own mind and always check what you are given, no matter what or who the source is.

Enjoy the day.

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October 19, 2023 · 00:07

X to the power of sneaky

I was honestly a little surprised this morning when I saw the news pass by. The BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67137773) gives us ‘Twitter glitch allows CIA informant channel to be hijacked’. To be honest, I have no idea why they would take this road, but part of me gets it. Perhaps in the stream of all those messages, a few messages might never be noticed. The best way to hide a needly is to drop it in a haystack. Yet the article gives us “But Kevin McSheehan was able to redirect potential CIA contacts to his own Telegram channel” giving us a very different setting to the next course of a meal they cannot afford. So when we are given “At some point after 27 September, the CIA had added to its X profile page a link – https://t.me/securelycontactingcia – to its Telegram channel containing information about contacting the organisation on the dark net and through other secretive means”, most of us will overlook the very setting that we see here and it took me hours to trip over myself and take a walk on the previous street to reconsider this. So when we are given “a flaw in how X displays some links meant the full web address had been truncated to https://t.me/securelycont – an unused Telegram username” the danger becomes a lot more visible. And my first thought was that a civilian named McSheehan saw this and the NSA did not? How come the NSA missed this? I think that checking its own intelligence systems is a number one is stopping foreign powers to succeed there and that was either not done, or the failing is a lot bigger then just Twitter. So even as the article ends with “The CIA did not reply to a BBC News request for comment – but within an hour of the request, the mistake had been corrected” we should see the beginning not the end of something. So, it was a set of bungles that starts with the CIA IT department, that goes straight into the NSA servers, Defence Cyber command and optionally the FBI cyber routines as well. You see, the origin I grasp at is “Installation of your defences against enemy retaliation” and it is not new, It goes back to Julius Caesar around 52BC (yes, more then two millennia ago). If I remember it correctly he wrote about it in Commentarii de Bello Gallico. Make sure your defences are secure before you lash out is a more up to date setting and here American intelligence seemingly failed. 

Now, we get it mistakes will be made, that happens. But for the IT department of several intelligence departments to miss it and for a civilian in Maine to pick it up is a bit drastic an error and that needs to be said. This is not some Common Cyber Sense setting, this is a simple mistake, one that any joker could make, I get that. My issue is that the larger collection of intelligence departments missed it too and now we have a new clambake. 

Yes, the CIA can spin this however they want, but the quote “within an hour of the request, the mistake had been corrected” implies that they had not seen this and optionally have made marked targets of whomever has linked their allegiance to the CIA. That is not a good thing and it is a setting where (according to Sun Tzu) dead spies are created. Yet they are now no longer in service of America, but they are optionally in service of the enemies of the USA and I cannot recall a setting where that ever was a good thing. You see, there was a stage that resembles this. In 942 the Germans instigated Englandspiel. A setting where “the Abwehr (German military intelligence) from 1942 to 1944 during World War II. German forces captured Allied resistance agents operating in the Netherlands and used the agents’ codes to dupe the United Kingdom’s clandestine organisation, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), into continuing to infiltrate agents, weapons, and supplies into the Netherlands. The Germans captured nearly all the agents and weapons sent by the United Kingdom” For two years the Germans had the upper hand, for two years the SOE got the short end of that stick and this might not be the same, but there is a setting where this could end up being the same and I cannot see that being a good thing for anyone (except the enemies of America). Now, I will not speculate on the possible damage and I cannot speculate on the danger optional new informants face or the value of their intelligence. Yet at this point I think that America needs to take a hard look at the setting that they played debutante too. I get it, it is not clear water, with any intelligence operation it never is. Yet having a long conversation with the other cyber units is not the worst idea to have. You see, there is a chance someone copied the CIA idea and did EXACTLY the same thing somewhere else. As such how much danger is the intelligence apparatus in? Come to think of it, if Palantir systems monitor certain server actions, how did they miss it too? This is not an accusation, it is not up to Palantir to patrol the CIA, but these systems are used to monitor social media and no one picked up on this?

Just a thought to have on the middle of this week.

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October 18, 2023 · 02:19

Unwinding

This article is not for the faint of heart. One could argue that there is something wrong with me (there always has been). I just had the craziest idea and if you reject it, that is okay. I have a hard time accepting it myself. You see, we are in a stage where we are nothing more than a puppet in a show that we do not want to watch. We are made to watch it, as such we need to unwind.

So here you see Watchdogs: Legion. A good game, but a game that could have larger stages. You see, Ubisoft made the map and the environment and there is nothing wrong with that. Yet to offer some stage to unwind, a new system came to mind. 

You see, there is an evolving setting where Ubisoft could release the option to enhance ANY game they have with user created DLC options. If anything Bethesda has shown just how creative users could be and Ubisoft might spin that in a new direction. You see, people have had enough of certain clowns and that is where my creative mind came into play.

I chose Watchdogs: Legion, because the environment fits. Now consider that you are a new character. The character is a seal hunter. You are shown in shoddy clothes wielding a spiked bat. Now you have to stop is disperse 10 Just Stop Oil protests by clubbing the protesters to death (just like some do to seals). Lets be clear, this is just a game. The higher level is that you need to do this before the protesters can create too much financial damage. 

You think it is bonkers and yes, to a degree it is. But the media is no longer trustworthy and as the photo-mode comes into place with you showing off the protesters you killed, people might stop to consider just how stupid these protests are. For Ubisoft it is a win-win. They sell more games, they create a DLC creation kit that allows to make user created IP for the games they own and we get to blow off steam because we arrived 90 minutes late at a job as some protesters were dancing in front of a bus. If enough hay is created with photo mode and these protesters have to consider just how much stress they are creating, they might decide to select donuts for dollars. So these protesters might go a new direction, but the story, the song and the dance remain the same. Seeking limelight in the wrong way and for that we have a solution. A spiked bat to release the stress they inflicted upon us. 

Next could be Karen hunting In San Francisco or Chicago. The options are endless (well for as long as Ubisoft has location games). Yet the underlying setting is there too. You see, we love our games and some love the settings of the Creed in Italy, Egypt and now Baghdad as well. Yet when you are done with the 25 hours in Bagdad, wouldn’t it be great to test the DLC from another fan? I am not sure of the technical possibilities to get that done, but when you consider 3 Watchdogs, at least 5 Assassins Creed, several Far Cry games. I might not have liked them all, but they all have a well pronounced fanbase and as such a DLC creator might be Ubisofts ticket to get additional revenue. It will be limited to PC, I get that, but when the DLC is good enough, perhaps Ubisoft might make some of them additions to consoles as well. Just a thought. 

I have enjoyed Wednesday now for 2 hours. The middle of the week is here. 

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October 17, 2023 · 09:40

Remembering milestones

We do that, we all do. When a milestone is reached we tend to celebrate this. I am no different. Even though I have slapped Microsoft silly (a few times over) when they get something right I stop at that point too and this time they got something right. The BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-67105983) alerted me 10 hours ago with ‘Minecraft becomes first video game to hit 300m sales’. I love my Minecraft, it is one of the few real LTG games EVER made. LTG or Long Term Gaming is a gold mine for any developer. No matter what comes next, Diablo 5, Fallout, Elder Scrolls 9 or even Horizons three, we play those games, but we always return to the snug comfy environment of a LTG. I have been a Minecraft gamers since 2012. I tried the demo on the Xbox360 and I was hooked within 20 minutes. I later also bought it for the PS3, Xbox One, PS4 and I am now playing it on the PS5. There are even more versions, but I do not have those systems. 

A sandbox game like no other and don’t think it is the high end graphics, there aren’t any. Even on the PS4 it looks like a Commodore Amiga game. It is the addictive nature of the game that sets it apart. Mojang sold it to Microsoft for a little over 2 billion some time ago and Microsoft got a huge following of gamers at that point. It was up to 120 million active gamers. 

And the creativity was uncanny, as you can see, someone had the time to turn these cubes into a space shuttle. The game especially in survival mode is a never ending setting of growing and surviving and after 10 years I still enjoy that. 

Don’t think that Microsoft sat on their laurels and merely raked in the cash (they did that too), work on the game continues. Last year I was suddenly confronted with entirely new cave systems and it changed the game dramatically. Even a cave willed with light, water and grass. I had never seen a cave like that before. That is what a gamer wants. His game and the ability of that game to knock his (or her) socks off and in that respect Microsoft continued the work of Mojang and delivered.  There was all kinds of merchandise and even a creeper Xbox Series X. There seemingly was also an Xbox looking like a Minecraft torch, but I never saw that one myself. I bet that Minecraft lovers went hunting for that one on day one. 

So today I will be having a cupcake with a candle celebrating the 300,000,000 mark of Minecraft and congratulations to Microsoft. I think it is important to remember these great moments, because let it be clear, 300 million is a great moment. Neither Skyrim or Grand Theft Auto 5 got to that point. 

So enjoy your day and remember, a great game could be just around the corner if you are willing to try it.

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October 16, 2023 · 10:38

Everyone’s Amazing Freebee

Yup, this happens. We all like freebee’s and this might not be the exclusive one. But the idea is (as per now) handed to Electronic Arts. You see, this started in the very early morning when I saw the image below pass by. So basically whomever created that image is to blame/congratulate on the idea I just had.

You see, that person made an awesome cover. Or that person has way to much free time on his/her hands. But it got me thinking. My connection to Madden is sparingly and not that much. It started somewhere in the 90’s with Sierra On Line Front Page Sports. 

We had a collection of players and we all played our games and then we compared statistics. I choose the San Francisco 49ers. I got nowhere near the top 3, but it was fun for all around. I then stopped playing the game until Madden NFL 2003 (I think) which I got on the original Xbox. It had the cool option to change the desktop depending on your favourite team, and as such I chose the 49ers. I got one additional version about a decade ago and that was it.

My largest issue is not on the makers, well perhaps it is. I have little to no knowledge on Football and the NFL and that results in the game not having a learning curve for those with little or no knowledge of the game. If someone objects that this is my flaw, I will accept that. But the opportunity to get a larger following on the game is lost and that is on Electronic Arts. Especially as streaming systems are starting to grow, giving players a game with a learning and educations curve will be important, that is pretty much a given and that applies to all sports (NBA, NFL, NHL, FIFA). The time to cater to merely the devoted fans comes to an end, too much needed to be vested in any game to rely on ‘self education’ to get ahead in a sports game. There is also the need to connect to others in a multitude of manners. Scores sharing (to a multi player pool) multiplayer when the two teams meet and so on. Parts can be done now, but it is (as far as I could tell) pretty limited. 

So the idea comes from the cover and that is the fat that more could be done. In this case an evolution in commentators. For example a celebrity could comment on the game. In the season there would be a 10% chance, during the playoffs 25% and the Super Bowl will have a 100% chance and there we get the larger issue. We know that Taylor Swift will have a vested interest to commentate on the Kansas Chiefs (a tall order if ever there was one), Jeremy Renner is a devoted 49ers fan, Arizona Cardinals has its own Oklahoma based fan Blake Shelton, George Clooney is a die hard Cincinnati Bengals fan and that list goes on and it would be up to EA to find the willing and right celebrity for the 32 NFL teams. I am amazed that no one thought of this before. Perhaps they did, but until the PS5 and Streaming systems there wasn’t enough options to implement that and that is fair enough. The nice part is that the next Madden is roughly 8 months, 22 days and 15 hours away. As such Electronic Arts does have enough time to consider and implement (or reject) the notion of adding to the franchise. I also believe that the personalisation that the original Xbox version had should return and a much better or enhanced educational system for those not struck by NFL devotion. There is off course a stage that this could apply to the other franchises, but that would be up for Electronic Arts to consider. 

Whether they do or don’t (it is up to them) my creative vibes remain active and now they went in a direction I didn’t count on. Perhaps all the newspapers focussing on the Gaza clambake was cause of all this. I don’t know, but whomever posted the initial Madden 25 file, thank you. It gave me something to think about and start Monday on a non work related cause.

Enjoy Monday.

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October 15, 2023 · 20:58

Is it that bad?

That was the first question that came to mind. I was ‘reading’ Mirage News (at https://www.miragenews.com/blinken-meets-with-uae-president-sheikh-mohammed-1103623/) where we see ‘Blinken Meets with UAE President Sheikh Mohammed’. It is there where we are given “Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken met today with UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi to discuss the terrorist attacks on Israel. The Secretary expressed appreciation for the UAE’s clear condemnation of Hamas’ heinous attacks on Israeli civilians and continued diplomatic engagement to prevent the spread of conflict”. Now, from my personal point of view (and an utter inexperience) of dealing with royalty, the fact that the nation is thousands of miles away (roughly 11,325,624 cm) I would rely on that invention by Alexander Graham Bell, or its  mobile equivalent. This was about something else. If you use the Gaza events to break the ice, you can be decently certain that the real situation is a dire one. 

It is anyones guess what the real deal is. BRICS is a decent thought, as they are gaining a lot of steam, all whilst dumping USA bonds. The second one is technology advancement. The fact that China now has the upper hand in the UAE (and Saudi Arabia) for construction projects, for 5G deployment projects and with defence spendings. These three add up to hundreds of billions of dollars and the USA is no longer the party in the ‘A’ column. And the part of desperation? This is seen with “commitment to building a more integrated, secure, and prosperous region, and reaffirmed the importance of the strategic partnership between the United States and the United Arab Emirates”. As such my question becomes show me five examples where the United States has set a stage of integration with the UAE in the last 5 years? Give me also 5 examples where the United States has made the UAE more secure? That is merely two examples out of a decent bag filled of examples. The United States has dropped the ball several times all over the Middle East and now that the countdown to collapse has started the United States is eager to clamp onto any connection so that they can delay the last part of the countdown. 

I get it, plenty of people doubt me, call me crazy or call me a loon (the last part might be true). Yet the larger stage in all this is that the US is reaching out to whomever they can. Last month it was with India, China in June and Brazil in march. The US is seeking out the BRICS members and trying to get a hand-up in their collapsing economy. When we realise that “as of August 2023, the United States government has a monthly interest rate of 2.92 percent on its debt” and when you realise that this amounts to well over 900 billion dollars a month all whilst The U.S. government has collected $3.97 trillion in fiscal year 2023. We get the numbers. When we see the interest as the mark, we see that 100% of taxation merely covers 22% of the interest they have accrued. I saw this moment in 2017, the setting was a mere exercise of an abacus and it was a finite moment. This is the consequence of inactions and political haymaking all whilst these politicians never had a hoe to collect the hay. An exercise in prototyping and conjecture is merely a training exercise, but it was sold as a product, just like these software developers in the 90’s. Over 99% of those did not survive their presentations. Now we are mere inches away from seeing it happen to a government. China played the long game, China wins. It is simple mathematics and they have relied on it for almost 900 years. Most nations (especially in the EU) diid not follow that example for almost 400 years. 

So the question ‘Is it that bad’ is a serious one and I am not the best source of answer here, but the media is not informing you on how serious matters are either, are they?

Enjoy the Sunday that is almost over for me and starting in the very very west (Vancouver).

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October 14, 2023 · 21:24

The sides of different matters

We all have this, we all have moments when we combine things that are separate, we all do this. At times it amounts to making a balance, a balance of issues. I have had that today. Today I am disgusted beyond believe. It is because of the most disgusting shit Australia has ever known, Peter Dutton. 

In his case there is no right, there is no honourable, he is just pure shit. A pure shit with his “If you don’t know, vote no”, with that in mind, the Australians crossed and deceived the aboriginals yet another time. The larger issue started to form in my mind. 

The second issue is Microsoft. They have been cleared to buy Activision and Blizzard. Now, I have remained on the fence. It is a dubious, yet not illegal business practice and Microsoft has too many media people trying to grab a few coins in their corner. You see, we get the spin from the media (spin, not lies) that they now own:

– Crash Bandicoot (2020)
– Spyro the Dragon (2008)
– Guitar Hero (2015)
– Hexen (1995)
– King’s Quest (1998)
– Space Quest (1995)
– Quest for Glory (1998)
– Tenchu (2006)
– Pitfall (1982)
– Tony Hawk Pro Skater (2020)
– Zork (1991)

And a whole range more. The problem is that this is spin. It is true, that much fits, but the total value of all that IP does not surpass 1 billion (if even that much). 

It is about data. Especially the data they can get when they focus on Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Diablo, and Overwatch. This was always about personal data and aggregated data. Minecraft with its 131 million players was the first step. The larger station is Candy Crush had 255 million users, Overwatch with its 23,544,632 monthly active users. Diablo was a let down for Microsoft with only 5 million monthly active users, Diablo 3 sold over 30 million copies and that is what Microsoft was hoping for. It is falling behind and like the losers they are they merely acquire to make up for the short fall. And now they have committed $69,000,000,000 to that cause. This also presents an unique option as I see it. As Microsoft committed to one side of the chess table, all of us, not just me have the ability to support its competitors (Amazon and Tencent Technologies) with our creativity allowing them to get the games to keep these two ahead of the game. This means that the pool of users all down for Microsoft and with that their data pool fails and they wasted sixty nine billion on that caper. I would have loved to have done this alone, but that is not my forte, it is too big for me alone. I am not alone in this. You see Microsoft still has Sony and Nintendo as competitors and they are stronger, optionally not strong enough, which is why we need the other streamers to have exclusive options. I do not think Netflix has what it takes and they will partner with Microsoft at the drop of a hat when Disney gets too close. 

But there are options and it is high time that Microsoft learns the hard way of intruding on the safe space of gamers. Microsoft might have pushed for the other loser (Ubisoft) to connect for the cloud gaming, but it is most likely too little, too late for them. There is a decent chance that Microsoft acquires this under another hat, or push enough business that way to avoid Ubisoft from collapsing. AC Mirage was a step in the right direction, but I fear that it was not enough. I reckon (extremely speculative) that Microsoft will make a portal for game pass towards Sony and Nintendo, so that they can capture data from those gamers too. It keeps them in the race and a lot closer to the data vaults Google has and that is how their own weakness becomes exposed. I also speculate that ‘repairs’ on games on Sony and Nintendo will find delays and we will get the acceptable answer “our system first”. I cannot fault the approach, but there are too many larger issues here. As such the weakness was exposed and if I can create enough waves with IP for Tencent Technologies and Amazon, Microsoft will be in a decent amount of trouble. They never considered creative minds handing over idea’s in gaming to competitors, it stops their millstones rather effectively. They will spin this in any way they can, but when the tally is made, they will see less and less revenue from an investment that was folly to begin with. 

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick leaves with Chief Communications Officer at Activision Blizzard Lulu Cheng Meservey after testifying at the northern district of California during a trial as U.S. Federal Trade Commission seeks to stop Microsoft deal to buy Activision Blizzard, in Downtown San Francisco, California, U.S. June 28, 2023. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

And as I set forth the ideas in my mind, another thought occurs to me. I wonder if Microsoft ever considered that part of the equation. You see Reuters at some point gave us “Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley in San Francisco pressed FTC lawyers on where their economist got the data to show the deal would harm consumers.” And I get it, it was all about a shooter, well I figured out another path and now it will matter a grea deal. But I will let you figure that out yourselves. It is optional that Microsoft never saw that small detail either and now that part could cost them a lot. I need to consider how I set that information free. Perhaps places like the Khaleej Times, the Arab News, Al Jazeera or some other source where Microsoft does not control the narrative. It is not a given, merely a thought and an option.

Enjoy the weekend.

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October 13, 2023 · 02:12

What is what?

That is the question and the Guardian brought it to the surface. The article (at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/12/human-rights-experts-warn-against-european-crackdown-on-climate-protesters) gives us ‘Human rights experts warn against European crackdown on climate protesters’ the story here is triggered by “The crackdowns have come in spite of calls by senior human rights advocates and environmental campaigners to allow civic space for the right to non-violent protest” I get it, it sounds acceptable, but it is not. By blocking roads these eco-terrorists decided to stop commerce. Especially in the UK, where there is a larger mobile workforce. These labourers are stopped as roads are stopped, as public transportation is blocked and these people often merely getting by with the smallest of margins miss sales points, miss consultancy points because of Just stop oil and the people have had enough. These labourers are now in a stage to work two jobs merely to get by, merely to feed their families. You see, a terrorist is described as “a person who uses unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims”, as I see it “a person who uses threats and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims” equally applies. The threats are given by stopping people to make a living, endangering the living of the people relying on these craftsman. It becomes eco-terrorism. But I am willing to give these human rights people a chance. In accordance to the needs of just stop oil. Lets sign over 100,000 barrels a day, meant for the UK and hand it to China. You see we get two distinct settings. In the first the UK economy comes to a halt. These Just stop oil fools will win and that is fine. You see these 100,000 barrels of oil will be used. Now by China and now we see the larger picture. The Just Stop Oil fools gained nothing, merely the downfall of the British economy. But let’s leave this to the Human Rights experts. This was a setting that was clear from the very beginning. This world rotates around the commodity oil, there is no escaping it and when change was possible, the politicians acted against that and the USA is still acting against that. This is why the western economies are on the verge of collapse. In an age where every little margin counts the Just Stop Oil fools are just too stupid to realise that they have become part of the problem. 

Those in denials need every week they can get and these eco-terrorists are in the way of this. 

So, when we are given “Michel Forst, the UN rapporteur on environmental defenders since June last year, described the situation in the UK as “terrifying”. He added that other countries were “looking at the UK examples with a view to passing similar laws in their own countries, which will have a devastating effect for Europe”” It is my personal view that Michel Forst isn’t working with a full deck. Governments have overspend their credit cards by billions, several by trillions. This implies that the only way out of this (deeply delusional) is to keep the economy working on all thrusters, whomever interferes with this is a problem for any government and that is the short and sweet of this and the people who are on the short end of that stick are happy to put eco-terrorists in jail for years to come. The larger station becomes who is fuelling these idiots at Just Stop Oil? You see, the papers (many) are calling this ‘civil disobedience’, yet the larger station isn’t that. They are disrupting places that are not part of the Just Stop Oil focus. How is disrupting a play, or a World Snooker Championship an protest against oil use? This is about unsettling the simple pleasures some people have and some want to watch world snooker. This is what makes them eco-terrorists. Threatening intimidation to gain points towards political aims and that isn’t working. Even the marriage of the former prime minister George Osborne was disrupted as an action. Some were eager to deny events, but the damage is done. The little sympathy they had in the beginning is all used up. The people have had enough and governments are not in an accepting state, their debts are adding to too much and that is a stage where whatever human rights values are out there, the moment it goes against the bottom dollar it is disregarded and people like Michel Forst should have known that. So it isn’t terrifying, it just is and it is the consequence of too much inaction. Too much inaction in the UK, in the EU and in the USA, optionally in Canada too and those boffins at the Human Rights Watch better realise that some things can no longer be tolerated all over Europe. It has gone so far that the total debt of the EU is suddenly nowhere to be found. We have the debt of nations, but I reckon someone is in a state of mind that we will not investigate. So consider Germany with a debt of 2,699,152,920,239 €, France has a debt of 2,699,527,284,525 € and Italy has a debt of 3,010,345,598,675 €. These are merely three nations of the EU. Three out of 19, the total debt of the EU is staggering, it now almost dwarves the debt of Japan and I reckon will equal the total debt of the USA within 5 years. That is how bad it is and you think these governments will allow Just Stop Oil to continue on its path? You must be joking. 

There is no good new, there is no relief. You see we all need oil and we do not have it. You can shout all you want and we can accept this. We can also give the reigns to Just Stop Oil and hand the oil to China. China will love this, yet the fact that the EU and UK economies collapse as oil becomes a non-option? Did anyone consider that? Also as the EU is now heading towards winter, the lack of oil will have larger impact on the citizens of the EU and UK, but I reckon everyone considered that part already, did they?

When human rights are set against the practicality of an economy, the economy will win every time it happens. And that is what we are seeing in action at this very moment. 

Enjoy the day, the weekend is about to land on our timelines. 

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