Tag Archives: Games

Upgrade, next chapter

Yesterday I was thinking of a game I used to play and it left me a little underwhelmed. It was not the fault of the game maker, the game was awesome. It gave me the thought that I was in the deep with the dodo’s of the Kremlin, or the White House. The game did what they promised, but I was thinking what this game could do with current technology and settings of DMS and some LLM. There is also the thought that the game was originally a little 2D. It all fitted on an 800KB disk so I am not surprised. But consider the idea what the current settings allow for.

The idea that they had with the political tables of then (1987) and what Mindscape was able to achieve. It started as a game of geopolitics during the Cold War, created by Chris Crawford and published in 1985 on the Macintosh by Mindscape, followed by ports to a variety of platforms over the next two years and I got the AtariST version in 1987. And as sources reveal, takes the role of the President of the United States or General Secretary of the Soviet Union. The goal is to improve the player’s country’s standing in the world relative to the other superpower. During each yearly turn, random events occur that may have effects on the player’s international prestige. The player can choose to respond to these events in various ways, which may prompt a response from the other superpower. This creates brinkmanship situations between the two nations, potentially escalating to a nuclear war, which ends the game. It is my advice not to ‘antagonise’ the opponent in the Pink Kremlin, or the Black House to avoid the nuclear holocaust that follows. And why leave it there, the complications of a EU could be added, so you can see how likely little you can do as as King Gustav on charge of that small sided Sweden (population 10.5 million) and we can build on this, we can evolve this with corporate powers and the influence they hold with the likes of Strawberry, Hippolytics, Smallsoft, and a whole range of power players. See what happens when you tweak that power (or nationalise their goods) then we get to the impact of social media like SnoutTome, QuickOunce, MyTransistor, DingDong, Toucan, Connected, ScryingStone and a whole range of other groups. You could see the direct impact that trolls have when they are clearly exposed and optionally with scenarios to solve. I would recommend to leave the intelligence groups to a later date (or a DLC) to properly test the settings you have there. It could be the first simulator for audiences and students of geopolitics and social standings later. That is before you add the mess that (WatchMyGrey, AmiSix, and their offspring in France, Germany as well as Mossad does to the worlds chaos (under their tutelage) 

I wonder how no one enacted this setting, it seems to be a decently solid training and educational simulator giving students to study multidimensional settings that geopolitics present in todays industry. I’ll bet you you can’t fit that on a 800KB diskette, but there is every thought that it can be done, the social sciences tables still exist and they can vouch for the until recent messes and they are basically ready for deployment. And now that we see the world for what it is, we might also include global religion as an influence and show you why the Catholic Church doesn’t have as much as it used to be.

It is merely a small snag that escaped my brain this morning, but I reckon that the old software settings could still apply to settings of today, you merely have to upgrade the setting and there is plenty of options here and as they were solidly stated on those basic settings of Social sciences, in todays world they could be used through Deeper Machine Learning to a much more powerful extend. See what some see and what you are not supposed to know (sorry Blaise Metreweli) but that is also the next challenge. Instead of shouting at Toucan, you could investigate the trolls on Toucan and see what the expected result is and who the culprit behind these pretentious stages are, not to be coy, but using that Strawberry Studio to see it on the big screen, or even as a user of the Hippolytics Moon streaming service get a new lease of opportunity. An educational simulator for students and investigators of humbug gets a new side of life.

Well anyway, that was my thought I had this morning. And the names have been changed to avoid  the guilty and make me less liable, a decently appreciative setting

Have a great day. I wanted to take a nice walk, but it is 34 degrees celsius out there, bit much for a long walk. Oh and Strawberry, fix your DoDo Dos version Hawaii 26.1, when you switch off your router before you switch off your wireless, the wireless keeps on scanning the ether, even AFTER you switch of the WiFi. Sloppy programming. 

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The idea and a half

That is the setting, it started yesterday. To relax me I decided to listen to some Hogwarts ambiance music and I stumbled upon the 4 common rooms under Christmas and as I was relaxing, I suddenly noticed a few things. The shadows, some other details and my mind went racing and as such I created a ‘new’ IP, or better I reengineered one. Ih this story I was arriving at Hogwarts as a replacement student, I was replacing Abraham Ronen for a year as he was attending family business. It was quite the rush seeing Hogwarts after so long and I was giddy as a first year student. As I was attending late, I tried the old ways from my youth and would you believe it, that method still worked. I set the frog in a tree and cast the spell making it a one time only and only for me setting and I arrived in a dusty old room, where the brother of my frog was left untouched for years. There was another frog there and it would place me at the bottom of the curved stairs. I quickly charmed the room and cleaned it up. I saw the dust all over from the years of neglect and I summoned a house elf, which weirdly enough wasn’t answering, so I called my personal house elf and asked him to clean up this room. He nodded in acceptance and a minute later he was busy cleaning and scrubbing the room. I thought for a moment and summoned a second house elf from my house in Irondale, the house elf apparated and soon they were both cleaning the room. I asked the second elf to focus on the cozy chair and the walls. I then walked into the frog and appeared at the bottom of the curved stairs. I was hit with two settings, the first one was that it looked still like I remembered it nearly 15 years ago. The second thought that it was massively empty, there wasn’t a sound other then some hoofs in the distance. I walked to towards the great hall and as I got closer, there was still no sound. Over a hundred students tend to make noise, so it felt wrong, also the rooms were absent of candles and lights making it an eerie setting. I walked through the large doors to see…. Nothing. This was odd, I looked at my watch, I then looked at the room and there wasn’t a sound. I called for a house elf. It didn’t appear. I was slightly confused, no professors, no students and there was the sound of hoofs outside. Not even the ghosts were here. I took my wand a voiced the disillusionment spell. I vanished into a shimmer I then whispered the lighting spell for the lights and it obeyed, but there was nothing. I then saw a portrait looking at me and I made myself visible again. I introduced myself to the portrait of Minerva McGonagall. “Good evening, I am the replacement charms professor. My name is Severus Seafarer, I am standing in for Abraham Ronen. What is going on here?” The response was not what I thought “There was a panic and all the professors and student disappeared. I do not know where, but there was something dangerous in the air and now you have been exposed too” I understood the setting and she continued “There are the ghosts in the castle who have been given tasks to keep Hogwarts safe, sook them out. Also the animals around Hogwarts have been exposed and they are now rabid and dangerous. The most dangerous creatures are I think the Centaurs, but they are not alone and they stick together” I thought for a second and I took my leave of her. I rushed to the potions lab and got all the ingredients I could find and made several potions for health, like Wiggenweld as well as some anti toxin potions. I went through the professors cupboard and took what I thought was useful as well as some sleeping draughts, I thought that might be the way to go. I then took a different route, I was originally a Hufflepuff student and as my entry word was a professors code, it would let me in. If the ghosts were the answer, the house ghost of Hufflepuff would be a first. I entered the Hufflepuff common room and ignited the fire as well as the lights. In less then a minute the Hufflepuff was as warm and cozy as I remembered it to be. I called the Fat Friar, as he was my first port of call. He appeared but he was shaken, I don’t remember him ever to be nervous. I bowed and he recognised me. “Severus?” he said. I bowed and said “Yes, I am here as a professor now, what is going on? Minerva explained some of it, but not all. What is going on?” The fat friar explained that it was something to do with the muggle world. We were hit in more profound ways, especially the magical creatures. The students and the professors weren’t hit, but they took no chances as the magical creatures were more and more rabid” The professors decided on the painting portals. Each house has an emergency painting and they went there with house elf. We patrolled the corridors but the Centaurs got too aggressive, so we went into hiding. And that is how it has been for roughly a week.

This is the setting my mind conceived. The setting behind this is Covid-19 and the effect it had on magical creatures, because Covid was made by the asians to counter an invasion of Jiangshi and Oni oil their land, but it had an effect on muggles as well and that is the setting the professor Severus Seafarer faces. The game has 4 distinct environments til settings. Ravenclaw is struck with aerial traps and has invading birds. It is also a stage where you are confronted with Helena Ravenclaw (the Grey lady) and there you get to seek the herbal cures for most of the species. In addition that house will cure the air of Hogwarts, as such no one will get sick after that in Hogwarts and the air will start curing those effected including you. This will be seen that the two house elf will suddenly feel a lot better and will be a controlling force for setting up the Hogwarts defenses against the centaurs where you will have a lethal and a non-lethal setting, the non-lethal setting takes a lot longer, but the reward is a lot stronger. Slytherin is under water, the windows are broken and you need to get to repair the house and drain the water (in stages) as the window defenses are restored. The bloody baron has more on the water defenses and the old spell to set up the widow barriers are the first stage in restoring parts of Hogwarts and the Greenhouses (they are in the lower parts of Hogwarts and also under water) then we get to Gryffindor and nearly headless nick who has the final part of the painting spell and as all the parts are now above water, you can now access the paintings, they are linked and you get the other parts of the lore of the disease setting. Gryffindor has the stage where access to the headmaster tower becomes available and there we learn the last parts of the lore. 

So as we get to clear the common rooms, we also get the settings to clear the disease from Hogwarts. There is more, but for now that is ll there is. As I see it, this IP is readily available for Avalanche Software (as they own the IP of Hogwarts legacy) and as it stands as Hogwarts was completely designed in the first game (by them), it could become a larger DLC for the time being as HL2 is still in design. I have no idea how it fares with Warner Brothers and Netflix, but giving this idea to Avalanche Software might be the better option. So John Blackburn, you have an idea and feel free to use it and keep the scores (read: millions) of Harry Potter fans happy. It (the IP) is yours now.

Have a great day and consider the I wrote this on a Sunday morning, so you owe me a coffee (Jumbo cappuccino with two sugar and full cream milk) as I see it 😛

Have a great day you all, it was great thinking up another game, because that shows how some ore waiting all their settings on a non existing Ai whilst I (coffee deprived) think of new IP with my feeble little brain.

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Expanding all fallouts

I have had this thought before and I also wrote about it, not sure when a few years ago, but the thought overcame me last week as I was replaying Fallout 4 on PS5, the PS5 edition and it looked marvelous. Off course I knew most locations and had played it all, but the feeling of getting the upper hand over the wasteland never leaves you. And as such the idea of the expansion came calling like a good Vault-tec sales person. The idea was that an export option on the Fallout shelter is added and that is nearly all that is to it. But the tiny stuff (that Bethesda contributes) comes into play now. 

At first I wondered how to incorporate this into the current game. The first thought I had was is how to do this. The idea that a message via a fallout Eyebot is added, when you come within a distance of it, you can pick it up on your radio whenever you are near the Cambridge police station. It will be near there and the eyebolt has up to three keys as you can have 3 vaults in your Fallout Shelter game. Then the nifty part comes. Bethesda has a system to make your 2D map a 3D world. So how to give you a changing challenge? Well I was thinking that if you have only one map there is a 50/50 chance it is P or D (i’ll get to that), if you have 2 vaults, there is a first setting that the first is P/D then for the second is if the first is P you will always get a D, if the first one is D, you get a second chance for the vault of be P or Z. So there is the option of Pristine, Damaged, or Zero. If you have all three used they will one each. Fallout Shelter has 26 levels, as such we get 8 levels per 3D level. So that you have three levels, the last two are added to the deepest level. From there, there is one additional setting. In case of the Pristine version, the Overseer room will have an additional room which is your living room. So the Small, Medium and Large rooms will be set to that exact setting and ‘Bethesdisissed’ onto a 3D spaces. The only other thing is that if you have altered elevators, it will show in the new design as well. So what’s the setting with Pristine?

Well good question, you have up to three versions and it is randomly assigned, so don’t get any bright ideas. Pristine is a shut vault, as such when you open it, everything is new, Damaged and Creatures or Raiders have taken over the vault, the vault is mostly good and you get a new cleaning crew function, when that is done you can add and upgrade the entry point with all kind of goodies (turrets) and you can upgrade the entrance and create a safety entry. At which point the fast travel becomes in the vault. The third setting is Zero. The vault was destroyed (by unknown reasons) and there is an upside. They all have one legendary weapon and legendary armor, in case of the Damaged one, it will be in the boss chest, the Zero and Pristine one will have it in the overseer room (on a mannequin). 

The idea is to use DML to create a changing setting on how the rooms are drawn. So you can relive these settings in Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas and Fallout 4 (and Fallout 5) if they ever get to it). A simple setting to add materials to a game and I am surprised that Bethesda didn’t get there on their own. There is no way that scores of Fallout Shelter fans didn’t think that it would be so cool to have this in their games on whatever system you play it. 

So Bethesda, don’t say I never give you anything because you are part of Microsoft now. Have a good day and enjoy the challenge you are giving to 230 million gamers (Fallout Shelter was downloaded that much). It was a simple equation and I wasn’t doing too much at present, the AI bubble and the American Tourism setting are starting to bore me.

Have a great day, my midweek is starting with a nice cup of coffee. It’s still Tuesday in Toronto and Vancouver. Time to see the day and seek opportunity.

Fallout, Bethesda, Microsoft, gaming, 

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Opportunity lost

That is the setting and not everyone agrees with me on this. Gaming has been accelerated like the  armistice race. Some people in gaming having no real gaming life and merely a setting in business intelligence are chasing the wrong niche in gaming. Gaming is so much more. And they are missing it. Yet the Arabic setting I considered might take it more seriously (and then there is Tencent) You see, gaming is seen in all walks and sizes and When you consider boardgames, that never left our minds. I got into boardgames at a very early age in the Netherlands. It was called “Mens erger je niet” in England it was called Ludo and based on the iIndian game Pachisi. 

And now it is almost forgotten, Facebook on a blue Monday set a few of these games on their servers, but overall, they didn’t last long. But take that setting and put it on a streaming console with options for single player (against the CPU), or even multiplayer with a setting for up to 4 players. Settings where you invite family, friends or even strangers. And this is merely one of many settings. Then there is the notion that some of these games have IP protection. It could optionally be averted if not digital settings exist, but when we go deeper, we see that there are dozens of these games that have no real ownership. So why did no one take up the baton to ‘revolutionize’ these games? Then there are dozen of MB games that could take a similar track and lets face it, the system that has the numbers of games has an advantage. So why did no one connect the dots?

Then we get the life long titles like Snake and Ladders and Clue (1943) so what stops these game makers from using a small team of programmers to bring forth one game a month, within two years there would be an abundance of these games. Kids playing with their parents, or even grandparents. Playing each other and so on. What baffles me is that these Business Intelligence people never figured that out, not in the last 4-5 years and when you take a longer look at this path you will agree that it is not a path that should be overlooked. Yes, we all love our times in the Wastelands when we play Horizon Zero Dawn or its sequel, but there are times when you and perhaps others might fancy a game of Snakes and ladders and a streaming system will easily do that. So why is it overlooked? Why are these dozens upon dozen of games ignored? Is it a mere IP thing? Doesn’t the programmer seem cool enough? Streaming systems have different metrics and they all seen to go over the amount of data passed, what it fails to look at is the joy it will bring, because joy is the true metric of a game and its gamers. 

We are all looking towards the new strides, but as I said more than once, when did you look behind you to see where the new course in front of you could be plotted. Have a great day today, Vancouver joined us in the present day as it is 4 am there now and I am 55 minutes away from Tuesday.

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The fluidic hypocrisy of politicians

That is almost a given, yet there are times that we are setting the bar to below zero. As such we should have a larger look at politician as they heed and hurt gamers, whilst in other cases do it the opposite way and still hurt gamers. As an example I hand to you the Financial Review (at https://www.afr.com/technology/ea-s-australian-chief-finds-his-salary-in-the-political-firing-line-20251015-p5n2nj) where we are given ‘EA’s Australian chief finds his salary in the political firing line’ and we are given “Senior American lawmakers say the Australian chief executive of video gaming giant Electronic Arts has failed to make a case for an $83 billion sale of the business to Saudi Arabian interests and suggested he has been motivated by the promise of a significant windfall if the deal proceeds.” So, in the first. Why does he have to make a case? That might be the case, but it is a gaming concern and we have seen how gamers and gaming were called all kinds of foul (or was that fowl) and gamers were the start of nearly all things evil (I never agreed to that, but fine). As such we are given “Democratic Party senators Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal wrote to Trump administration officials and to EA, the developer of video game titles including The Sims, Battlefield and Madden NFL, with “profound concerns” about the deal led by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.” And I have to ask, did they open their mouths when Microsoft went to town on gamers and gaming systems? A simple question, or are American companies beyond reproach? But the story gets a little more complex and we are seeing this with “The Gulf kingdom’s Public Investment Fund has proposed to purchase the company alongside Silver Lake and Affinity Partners, an asset manager operated by Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law.” As such Saudi Arabia is merely part owner (I did not know that), as such as we are given ““While the benefits of the acquisition are clear for you, the financial return for the three investors is less certain,” Warren and Blumenthal wrote in a letter to EA chief executive Andrew Wilson, who began working for the software giant in its now closed Gold Coast office in 2000.” I wonder how this is seen when we take that sentence apart. We have “While the benefits of the acquisition are clear for you” is the first part and he is the CEO, is he not? “the financial return for the three investors is less certain” is the second setting and here I say. Why do you care? Were you two shaking your tail feathers when WiseTech spend billions on “US-based supply chain software company E2open”? I see this all as some form of islamophobia. It seems that Saudi Arabia is good enough if it fills your pocket, but if they make wise investments, something is off according to you? And with gaming, we know you never held any of it in high regards, as such I have to wonder what the game is here. In addition we were given that you apparently had “profound concerns”, as such, what were these concerns? It seems that the media isn’t giving them and they seemingly aren’t asking them either. Will Andrew Wilson have ulterior motives? I do not know, but it is likely that he has his bank account as ulterior motive and in a greed driven atmosphere that makes perfect sense, so whilst the article gives us “EA gave Wilson responsibility for reviving its FIFA franchise, and he helped create a tool that incentivised players to make in-game purchases that ultimately became a bigger revenue stream than the game itself.” As such the game made a comeback and HE DID IT and as I see it he should be allowed  to cash in. And as it stands The Saudi Arabian government and the two others see it that way. 

The greed game tends to work in any direction, not only in the direction into America, but out of America as well. But perhaps the media will give us the entire setting of “profound concerns” at some stage, because that missing piece is seemingly central in this.

And don’t get me wrong, the man was paid $280,000,000 in 12 months, as such he made more money in 1 year that I’ll make in several life times. That setting is giving him leeway, because if he didn’t live up to that income, the buy would have never proceeded and in all this we see two democrats? So, what do they bring to the gaming table? Just a small question to cleanse the pallet.

So does Saudi Arabia have ulterior motives? Likely, because they are now part owner of a $55,000,000,000 software house and as I see it (I wrote about this before) they have a massive push to bring their own streaming solution to 1.7 billion consumers and that is merely the Islamic part. As I see it, they have the option to reach a lot more and with FIFA (or whatever EA renamed it into) a lot more coming in all kinds of ways and I predicted a growth from $6 billion annual to $15-$20 billion annual in first instance, but that before they bought EA, now there is not predicting how far this goes. But as I see this, I also smirk (an essential evil) as Microsoft is losing more and more ground in more places. The draw back from the game the played and gaming is nice, but when you lose, you tend to lose big. The expression “Go big or go home” comes to mind. It comes from the setting that encourages putting in maximum effort and committing fully to a task or goal, or to not attempt it at all. And they have been playing sloppy with too many settings for too long. I remember in 1998 that they had this setting wondering “why go for 100%, when 80% is fine” I never agreed with that part and too many agreed with it, because that is the sales setting, getting them over the ‘threshold’ and now we see that others are giving it their 100% and they are setting the new markers, they are the upcoming rulers of more and that might be frightening the American ‘dealmakers’ as they forgot (willingly or not) on how to give 100% to the task. A setting that comes with divided attention.

Have a great day and enjoy the day before the politicians ruin that too.

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The dams are cracking

Yes, that is the setting I saw coming, but there is always ‘space’ for interpretation and at present we see two stories that seem to illustrate this. The first one is given by the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly17834524o0 where we see ‘Tech billionaires seem to be doom prepping. Should we all be worried?’ It is a question to have, but what does the article ‘bare’ out? It is not that basic or simple. First we are given “Mark Zuckerberg is said to have started work on Koolau Ranch, his sprawling 1,400-acre compound on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, as far back as 2014.” So, he had 11 years? Seems like overly ‘doom prepping to me’ (is this sarcasm or satire?) The additional setting is “The underground space spanning some 5,000 square feet is, he explained, “just like a little shelter, it’s like a basement”” which seems like the average floor of a mall to me. I think that when the ‘basement’ extends well beyond 1000 Sqft, we can ignore the ‘basement’ label and whatever it is, it is his to do. He might be buying up vats of wine or Cognac, whatever it is. It will be his setting. Then we are given “his decision to buy 11 properties in the Crescent Park neighbourhood of Palo Alto in California, apparently adding a 7,000 square feet underground space beneath.” So here again we get the ‘speculating’ media for the setting of a story. So he might have bought the 11 properties, but what happened to them? What evidence is there? He could have bought this for his nearest and dearest. There are many options. Then we get more ‘famous’ names and locations like New Zealand come up. Yet about halfway we get a clarion call (as the expression goes), we are given “Neil Lawrence is a professor of machine learning at Cambridge University. To him, this whole debate in itself is nonsense. “The notion of Artificial General Intelligence is as absurd as the notion of an ‘Artificial General Vehicle’,” he argues. “The right vehicle is dependent on the context. I used an Airbus A350 to fly to Kenya, I use a car to get to the university each day, I walk to the cafeteria… There’s no vehicle that could ever do all of this.” For him, talk about AGI is a distraction.” And as far as I can tell, I feel like Neil Lawrence does with an addendum, and ad the very end we are given ““LLMs also do not have meta-cognition, which means they don’t quite know what they know. Humans seem to have an introspective capacity, sometimes referred to as consciousness, that allows them to know what they know.” It is a fundamental part of human intelligence – and one that is yet to be replicated in a lab.” And it is part of what I have been saying all along. And we get the larger setting from a second source. It is SBS (at https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/australians-living-in-america-anxiety/p88o60wos) that give us ‘Saving money and packing ‘go bags’: How Australians in the US are preparing for the worst’ where we see “But she says the attitude towards foreign nationals under the current administration has made life in the US feel “scary”. Kate says these fears were brought to the surface during her green card interview. “They grilled me in the interview and asked me questions not even related to our marriage but about my previous visa and time in the US,” she says.” As well as “Many Australians living in the US are reporting experiencing high levels of anxiety and feelings of instability due to the possibility of rapid political change under US President Donald Trump.

These are the settings that matter. In the first there is the BBC article that is making the ‘doom lecture’ but that is not the setting. When AI collapses like a near empty shell, people will all be tuning for their incomes and playing the blame game, but as we are given ‘Wall Street crashes after Trump announces 100% tariffs on China; $1.5 trillion wiped out’ consider what happens when all these AI ‘vendors’ fall flat, the damage will be more than 10 times worse, America loses 15 trillion. Can you even fathom that kind of loss? That will be the sounding implosion that leads to civil war when 90% of 340 million people lose whatever they had, retirements wiped out, other savings gone, they will get angry. President Trump will have to run for his life to air-force one as quick as his legs can carry him. Evading to Russia or anyone that will have him and his billions? Mostly gone, if not already abroad. Those who bought large mansions outside of the US are likely safe for two generations in France, Monaco, UAE, Bermuda, New Zealand, you name it, some will evade and this is the setting we see. I reckon that people in California will need high walls to keep others out, optionally armed defenses as well. 

Foreigners are now seeing the scary reality they signed on for and they are getting ready a ‘go bag’ to evade to wherever they can as quickly they can. Is this doom speak?

That is a valid question. You see, the AI setting is merely one, President trump soured the waters on tourism which is down in many ways and no reflective view is given by anyone in media. That amount of bad news they find likely ‘irresponsible’ and the media has no business using that excuse as they have been one of the most irresponsible parties ever. Then foreign retail. Canada pulled all the alcoholic beverages from the shelves in Canada. How much is that costing? One source (Source: Global News) gives us that the decline is 85%, that amounts to how much? These three settings is almost a certainty of recession and there is a lot more declines in the papers but the media will not give you the proper numbers. Several sources all giving different partially overlapping numbers. As such the economic dams of America are cracking. And they will lose a massive amount of revenue and while some will give some of the numbers. Most of us aren’t given the full view. I have some of the views as I have been keeping an eye on some of the numbers. But even I do not have the full view. So whilst some give us “The sell-off erased more than USD 1.5 trillion in market value from US stocks. Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency market faced record liquidations of USD 19 billion. This is the largest single-day figure ever recorded.” The part no one talks about is where are the billionaires set at? We see the wins of Elon Musk and Larry Ellison, but where are the other billionaires? How are they doing? And that disjointed Microsoft view.

Why the Windows maker?
That is a fair question. You see, they were all ‘heralding’ how good they were doing, but the shimmer in the shadows is different. We are given “Microsoft is currently losing money on AI development, having spent an estimated $19 billion in one quarter on AI infrastructure, with no significant revenue from it yet. The company also experienced a reported loss of $300 million in Call of Duty sales due to the Game Pass subscription model” all whilst Activision and Bethesda was bought for over $100,000,000,000 and that has an interest setting. They might be ‘offloading’ staff (over 9,000 according to some numbers) and whilst they and Adecco (firing into the thousands) are all set to AI, there is a hidden snag. When this falls short they will face a setting that is a lot more dangerous. People will not consider them in the future. So when the non-existing AI is set to the need of engineers it goes flat and when there is no one around (an exaggeration) to program your LLM, consider where your firm will be. ZDNet gave us “Microsoft’s CEO loves to talk about ’empathy.’ But everything that is coming out of Redmond these days is perilously close to turning the company into the Borg.” Basically a non-existent setting of people that cannot live in a vacuum and that is an additional side I never saw coming. I was focussed on Microsoft turning into an empty shell and when the substance is gone, the shell collapses. That is what I saw in Microsoft Games and Microsoft Office. It started in 2012 when their service devisions were no longer up to scrap and when support goes, so does sales and when we consider the over 100 billion for two companies its, whilst they weren’t making enough to even afford the interest on that, the picture of failure starts to evolve into a nightmare setting and sacking 9,000 people will not safe it. They are telling us now that AI is the future, but at present it does not exist and what does exist requires engineers (remember Builder dot AI?) It is a fictive setting that is showing up all over America and the ‘import’ people are seeing the cracks evolve and they want out as fast as they can. Which is good news for Aramco and ADNOC as they now get the choice of the litter, but for America it is bad news. So there is no doom speak. It is the returning story of a country who think it is too big to go bankrupt. I heard that story before (SNS Bank for one) then a few more banks and they are all part of something else. And America? Parts of America could be added to Canada and Mexico would be relieved to get Texas (the latter part is speculation) and that is the dangerous reality that others are facing. The question is what does it take to throw this around and whilst Wall Street is in denial. Others, those who can afford it, will be making a new household out of American clutches (like the non-tax countries mentioned earlier) also Saudi Arabia becomes an option, but the is reserved for the chosen few (and American Muslims of course). 

So am I delusional or do I have a point? I reckon that one of the larger issues (still setting) is how America deals with Alex Jones. Because if he gets his ‘blockage’ Americans will go insane, they will not accept that this Conspiracy theorist is allowed his fortune after he went after dead children (saying they were actors, who were not dead according to sources). I wonder where that will go, because as I see it, it will be the tinder spark America will be set on fire. At that point all bets are off and I reckon that most ‘New-Americans’ will run to the nearest airport. This might merely be my speculation and optionally a wrong one. But that is how I see it.

Beyond that, the losses that America is having and when all the numbers come out, the second stage is reached and whomever thought they had a retirement, they will all try to collect on whatever possible. 

It is a hard setting and I hope I am wring, because this collapse will fall over Japan and Europe pretty much soon thereafter. Connected currencies will take a massive tumble.

Have a great day, if that is presently at all possible. 

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Falling Cards 

That is what happens when you piss of a gamer. And the setting that we see is given to us by the BBC. The story (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgepkwpkg4o) gives us ‘Xbox Game Pass price increase angers players’ where we see “The company announced that the most popular tier of its Netflix-style video games system – available to PC and Xbox players – would rise by more than 50% from £14.99 to £22.99 per month.” That implies that the Game Pass is setting a gamer back to £276 per year. An annual fee of £276? That’s A$565 that comes down to a PS5 console a year. So what is the issue of pricing ones self out of a market? The Xbox is well over A$700, but this is starting to look ridiculous. The setting of Game Pass was pretty brilliant, but as it is showing to be a new form of gaming suicide. We are given “Reacting on social media, loads of fans said they had cancelled their Game Pass subscriptions, with some reporting the service’s cancellation page had crashed due to demand. BBC Newsbeat has asked Microsoft if the outage was linked to a surge in visits.” And in other news we were given “Ultimate – the most expensive tier – allows players to access new games from Microsoft-owned studios on the day of their release. These titles, which include series like Call of Duty, can retail for about £70 if purchased individually. As part of the changes, blockbuster games including Hogwarts Legacy and various Assassin’s Creed entries have been added to the Game Pass library. Microsoft said the new system would “offer more flexibility, choice, and value to all players”. But not everyone sees it that way.” I reckon that pretty much no one would see it that way (except for Microsoft sycophants). Consider that most people buy 1-3 games (to own) for about £200, as such the £76 to play ‘all’ the games? With what is released on Microsoft systems? There is still some appeal if you have both the PC and the Xbox, but I partially fail to see that. 

And there is another setting. You see, Activision was bought for $100 billion. And a few others for a lot less, but the setting is that Microsoft needs to make at least $4 billion to just pay for the interest and that is no longer happening and it is a lot less likely with these changes. Microsoft will be bleeding money for decades because of this. And as some are dropping Microsoft (Denmark and Austria) there will be a much larger setting that Microsoft needs to move on. I never saw the particulars, but I saw this and I saw the implosion within Microsoft at the end of 2026 and that is seemingly happening at this very moment. The fact that “the service’s cancellation page had crashed due to demand” is setting the shift out of gaming for Microsoft, because if that system cannot meet demands, there is a chance that millions might be dropping that system, good news for Sone and Nintendo. Gamers need their space and these two remain. I had seen a new system with a starting set of 50 million subscribers and that is now looking very appealing to the new players Amazon and the Kingdom Holdings. I reckon that renewed contact might become essential. 

As I see it, Microsoft eyes on their ‘price’ became too big and now they end up with a nearly empty eggshell. 

So how much of this is set in stone? I reckon that the pressure of the borrowed $100 billion is driving the upper echelons of Microsoft nearly insane, they bought into this and now their bottom line is drained (as I see it) and that is perhaps the saddest thing of all. Their setting that Don Mattrick started in 2013 would be the undoing of Microsoft, after the run they had with the XBOX360, they threw it all away. more than that. Fable was really big and after Fable III, Fable 4 was announced, then delayed and delayed which is now set to 2026. Chances are that this too will be canceled. An Amazing setting that started in 2004 saw massive flocking by the RPG community, then Fable 2 and Fable 3 (2010) and the people were sold on the Fable story and it was quite a story, but some come in and likely state that it could be bigger, and bigger and now it is as I see it gone, because if the Xbox community vanishes, the need for that game vanishes. The PC world alone will not maintain it. So as I see it the cards for Microsoft are falling and not in a good place. This is exactly why I put some of my Gaming IP out there for non-Microsoft developers. As I saw it, they could grow and whilst I am not a programmer, I do see gaming as the power it is. It can invigorate people in many ways. And now as Microsoft is about to fail, if they took up the setting of the games I offered, they could set out their new terrain in gaming. There is still Bethesda, but as I see it, it is part of Microsoft and as such their games get delays too and the new players will get to carve their name in stone in the vacant places of that stone. 

So whilst we see “Microsoft Gaming revenue was $5.5 billion” And that is great, but the Nintendo revenue is set to be approximately $13.1 billion, as such Microsoft is a mere small fish in gaming, no matter how they slice it. And others are about to carve up a piece of Microsoft in the process. Because Microsoft still has to deal with the $100,000,000,000 invoice. So where will this money come from? And whilst their arsenal of gaming outlets is diminishing, the appeal for their products goes the same way. As such, we might seem to think it will be okay for Microsoft, what products did it actually release? And on what systems were the returns given for the Remaster of Oblivion? 

It might have taken some time, but after 10 years I get to laugh deriving howl of laughter. Microsoft took on too big a chunk of arrogance and they are not turning it into dollars, merely into delays and canceled games and canceled subscribers. All the way until Microsoft gaming is canceled. 

Have a great day and If you are on a PS5 have fun catching the ghost of Yokai and on the Nintendo feel free to Kart around the world. Those victories are the moments you will cherish as long as you live.

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Cracks are showing

That is the setting of this day. In under 5 minutes three articles passed by my eyes and it is a clear sign that cracks are showing. I will give you an article first. The article (at https://www.cbr.com/xbox-game-pass-end-of-era/) gives us ‘It’s Officially the End of an Era for Xbox Game Pass’, I am in the meddle of that settings. I cannot disagree and I cannot completely agree. We are given “Game Pass might be a great deal for players, but unfortunately, it comes at the cost of devaluing developers and their work. If the system keeps running the way it does now, it’ll only get less sustainable over time, and if Game Pass crashes, a lot of people are going down with it.” Yes I agree with that statement, however “it comes at the cost of devaluing developers and their work” is a little validating what a fool hands for their games. Consider Hogwarts Legacy, the devoted Harry Potter fan goes ‘Take my money…now!’ whilst plenty of other gamers go ‘Not in 999,999 years, 11 months, 30 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 50 seconds’, as I see it ‘Not in a million years’ sounds so crass (big smiley). So the statement is out there and lets be clear Game Pass was a great idea. But it comes at a cost. You see, Microsoft needs the game pass to give validation of the Blizzard/Activision deal, together with Bethesda they spend a little over  $100,000,000,000 and as it stands and as I see it, to cross that deal they have to make over $6.5 billion dollars a year just to make the interest go away and last year it merely banked 5 billion an change. This is a loss of well over a billion a year just for the interest of this caper. I thought it was a bad deal the moment it was announced and I wrote about it in 2022/2023. So with the end of game pass this deal gets to be the sour apple that gives Microsoft indigestion. But like the infomercials say “There is more” and there is. 

You see we are also given ‘Microsoft Is Axing This Android App. You Have 3 Weeks to Find a Replacement’ (at https://au.pcmag.com/hosted-email-providers/113075/microsoft-is-axing-this-android-app-you-have-3-weeks-to-find-a-replacement) and you know, there is and there has always been a replacer ent from the day that thing was called into service. It is called GMAIL. It has always worked well and it is not riddled with hidden Microsoft snags. So whilst we are given “A year ago, Microsoft celebrated 10 million Outlook Lite downloads. Effective Oct. 6, however, Redmond says it’s being retired ‘so we can focus our investments’ on the main Outlook app.” I will counter that that this setting was in play since 1998, so the investments should be there and in order. But when you see “so we can focus our investments” and consider the previous article, we see the beginning of cracks in the armor of Microsoft. Cracks in its spin settings and telling the world how great it is doing as a 3.79 trillion company. You see, there is a lot more bad news ahead  for them and none of it is great. Yet that is beyond the third article and it comes with speculations.

You see, the third article is one I have issues with (I’m on the side of Microsoft here). The article (at https://www.gamesradar.com/games/the-elder-scrolls/after-4-months-oblivion-remastered-falls-to-mixed-reviews-on-steam-after-reports-of-poor-and-unstable-performance-on-pc-it-is-still-well-and-truly-a-bethesda-game/) gives us ‘After 4 months, Oblivion Remastered falls to “Mixed” reviews on Steam after reports of “poor and unstable” performance on PC: “It is still well and truly a Bethesda game”’ There are a few issues here. I played it on the PS5 (as one should) and I believe it was a truly great remaster. I found one glitch (optional a bug) and I got around this. Whilst we see that Cyrodil is massively shown in the greatness that it deserves and better than the Xbox360 edition, I got the same feeling of amazement here as I did in the original. And I have a few issues with the “poor and unstable” side of the matter. Yes a steam system and most PC’s do not allow for a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 (and neither does the wallet of these gamers), as such they are playing with the overclocking left, right and centre. And not every application allows for that and becomes ‘unstable’. But the term overclocking sells systems and as long as the warnings are there, they allow for it, but software tends to be tricky and I believe that this is shown here. I never did that and I found one glitch (optional bug) in my PS5 edition of Oblivion and I think that this is amazing quality. So there is a larger audience who will ‘convict’ Microsoft in falsehood. 

As I see it, these settings will optionally call for Google to bring back to life the Stadia and I have a setting that will nearly guarantee a starting setting of 6 billion a year and past that stage one an increase to $10-$15 billion annually. I merely don’t want Microsoft to get that part, they tinkered with the freedom of gamers, so they are out. Amazon had the inside track for over two year and they didn’t take me seriously (my speculation of them seeing my idea) and now as the Microsoft cracks are showing we see a larger workspace of gaining over 15 million gamers and a whole lot more in other places. That warrants a new look at the stadia. I thought it was a great idea for the Kingdom Holdings to gain the hand on the Stadia, but as I see it, they seemingly lacked vision there too. As such Google now has a new upper hand and as I accused them of leaving billions on the floor, it is their turn to pick this up, fair is fair.

So whilst the cracks are showing others can gain the leverage of Microsoft (and make it fall at least a third in total value and the would make buy words golden too (and I get to hand a wooden spoon with gold engravings to Phil Spencer) as such my ego is at present a little unbearable to me as well. 

A setting that was foreseen at least two years ago and now there is a new stage in that setting, or better stated a remastered setting of the same stage and that is a nice touch on silly old me.

So have a great Monday, which at present feels like a new Friday to me.

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Revenue ignored

That is the setting I see. It is likely that others do not see it that way and that is fine. I and referring to Ubisoft. I got their product AC Shadow last week. At present I can only afford it as a preowned game, that is life. But as it is one of the first preowned games I am getting in that way, I am now ‘devoid’ of the initial codes for cosmetic extras. That is fine, I get that these codes are not transferable. That is the benefit of the full game purchasers. However considering that this game was as such 50% cheaper, Ubisoft is also out of revenue. So, I am guessing that Ubisoft has the option to ‘reclaim’ additional revenue.

As such I now do not have:

  • Thrown to the dogs bonus quest
  • Claws of Awaji expansion
  • Yasuke Sekiryu Character pack

I am not complaining on this, codes are not transferable and I think that is fair, but then I thought that these codes might be optionally bought for $3-$5 after a while. So lets say that there is a delay to buy these codes by months up to 12 months. So those who bought the full codes get these ‘extras’ for up to a year and after that Ubisoft can get sales from these codes. It could bank them millions. Optionally you could earn them through the Ubisoft store for exchanging these Ubi-coins. That is up to them, but I reckon that this solution is something that could bank them millions. This is set to the dozen of so games they released and for the millions of people who bought a preowned game. I am actually surprised that no one bought this to the attention of that youthful young scoundrel called Yves Guillemot (apparently the CEO of that place). It is not that CEO’s walk away from revenue, as such I wonder why this was decided. I get that there should be an advantage to the buying population, but after 6 month or a year? I reckon that there is a case t be made for that revenue.

And that is after the setting where Ubisoft is walking away from millions. Ah well, some people can afford to walk away from that amount of money. What a luxury.

As I see it, there is now an additional reason to add a Japanese language model to the idea’s that I already spouted and Ubisoft has another reason to reconsider some of the ideas that re out in the open. And as I see it, Apple is dragging its feet as well. But then they decided to call themselves innovative people (lacking innovation that is).

Anyway, from my point of view AC Shadows is a magnificent product. I was a little upset by the 140GB is had to download and it took hours to do this. But then no one is perfect (almost no one).

So whilst you consider the impact of all that material that could now be downloaded to enhance your playing ability, consider the impact of all these games getting a second stage and what additions could now spice up their wallets in addition to issues they forgotten they had. 

Have a great day, Vancouver will join us in this Thursday in a little under 4 hours.

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Monster of creativity wakes up

Yup, that ghastly monster called creativity is rearing its ugly head again and it is merely 10:20 in the morning. On a Saturday no less. So I already have the drop on DARPA in at least three military inventions and one of them is a stealth system. But after I had a novel idea on taking Russian airfields, I now have another thought. What if we change the collective to another field? What if we push the Russian forces to deploy differently? Consider that Russia has around 61 airfields and we push them to ‘overpopulate’ 61 of them. They would require to seed around 31000 soldiers who are set to try to keep them safe. And it is safe to say that they will fail. That will jump the stress levels in the Kremlin by a lot. So as I thought this through I have to say that I am pretty proud of myself. As I see it I was leading DARPA 6-0 in this endeavor and now I am adding at least three field goals to this setting. I would need to confer with the Ukrainian consul general on this setting. And make it known that the Commonwealthian people support them. I might be too old to go into the field, but my brain works quite well. And I tend to like to show some people that they missed the target on me by a lot. And in the setting that I could optionally show these Russian courtesans that there are people who use their thinking caps to support the Ukrainian people (and I have a really good friend who will appreciate that too).

So off I am, trying to make Russian lives a little harder as President Trump is doing little to nothing in that field. Oh, he might act in 10 days (which is a deadline he gave three times over) so as such I am leading there too. So with the naval stealth system and now with ‘optional’ drone collaboration, we have a new premise. The Russian army will have to support the hind sites by a lot more than they have space for, isn’t that the nexus of non-violence? A teaching moment on how you can promote nonviolence by blowing up violent machines. It’s a brand new day. Anyway. I came to it via another IP and that is a lovely setting. The pass through method in creating abilities. 

In other news, I also gained the insight that might help dwindling down the number of Helicopters they have. According to news sources, they only downed 340 of these suckers. So I came up with a few methods to add to that dastardly low number. Same invention with a slightly different approach to doing the deed. 

Well that is my support to the next setting and I reckon it is time to give gaming a new vibe as I was continue to play Hogwarts Legacy to get 1 of them (in this case a Slytherin) person to 100% on everything I had a few thoughts that could be used in the sequel to this game. So in stead of having one battle achievement, have at least two. One stealth option one general option. I like to sneak up to my adversary and blow him away (or petrify the opponent) and in that case my last battle outfit becomes available. There were a few other things that bugged me, but as it is not a bug or a glitch, it is a little in the open. What does matter is that  the game should be 100% perfect. Now this is a large call and I am not faulting the makers of Hogwarts Legacy of anything, as far as I see it this program is near perfect and I have been playing it off and on since its release in 2023, so I have had two full years of joy. As I see it Avalanche Software should be proud of its achievement. Whilst I truly believe this, I also think that games can always be better, but this is often found whilst playing the game. And that is where people like me come in. The developer tends to be too close to the source and it requires a little distance to upgrade something good. I already mentioned 4-6 upgrades to this game making it a next game issue. And I have more to offer at present. I added jobs to the setting, careers that differ per house and after that I considered and planned the upgrade of any location to a new living space and you cannot convert them all, but you can create a living space for any character you create and a setting for any house to have a Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Slytherin theme. And they all have settings. And as you optionally create 4 houses in the total of regions that you open up where each location has a Clevian portal to access the houses. Like the mirror in Hogwarts Legacy. A mirror space that creates a space to the other house. In that instance you have a setting to leap into other places. But this doesn’t happen automatic, the ancient magic required is massive (like three bars per creation) it stops doing that from level 1 and it allows the game to evolve the player as needed. Then there is the idea that some of the achievements done in the first game (like stargazing) now open up secondary missions. As such you need to interact with the NPC’s in more ways then one. As such there are more influences coming. What was done in HL1 was great, but now it is time to hand the game more leniency in distinguishing. As such the dark spells could also be a hindrance to gain access to alternative settings (unless other professions are chosen). It makes the game a lot more of a moral compass and it sets the wannabe wizards apart from the real ones ;-P

This makes me think of another setting. I met a man in the Epic Universe, some dodgy dude names ‘Jackal’ and he looked nothing like a jackal. He called himself E. Redmayne esq. He was wearing the most amazing cosplay lookalike of the man, the legend, Newt Scamander. You might think this is a ruse, but it is not, it is a hint, The same could be said for some youthful young sprout named Meg March. So take this setting and set it across the nightmares these Hogwarts candidates face when going into the thoughts of some creatures they face. As any Wizard (Witches too) have dark sides, we get a new setting. One that could optionally give us mini games. I am hesitant to set that setting, because not all mini games are good, but it is an option to consider. In that same setting I created a ‘magical’ version of Ice Hockey and that too had a few sidelines to consider (I wrote about it earlier). Now consider that we have another option beside quidditch as a sport to consider. Taking all this to the stage does not mean I created a better Hogwarts Legacy, it is just a few ideas for these developers to use and there is no charge, whatever I wrote to the game is now owned by Avalanche software and JK Rowling. I just did away with the hassle of greed that some see when they face these thoughts. I just handed it over to the makers of the connected IP. Im the kind of guy. I have enough IP to cross over a dozen times. 

So monster of creativity, get back to bed and consider using this to emphasize gaming IP, or IT IP, not merely weapons based IP. It gives me the creepy crawlers.

Have a great Saturday.

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