Streaming games | Lawrence van Rijn

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November 25, 2023 · 02:11

Stopped making sense

Yes, at some point my mind stops making sense. Even to me. The weird part was that I had no idea whether it was simply a dream, the setting for a video game, a script or even the future. OK, the last speculation was definitely not the case.

I was on trip with a motorcycle, riding the roads and taking trains in or around Switzerland. The roads had gotten so bad that bikes were allowed on trains (for an extra fee). I was being hunted by an assassin with a chrome coloured .22 with a silencer and that dweep was really accurate with that party popper. I had escaped his vision and I got somewhere around Lausanne (I had to look it up). The thinks that make it all unreal was in the first the bike, which was the bike Kaneda drove in Akira. The second part was the hotel outside of Lausanne. I had room 25334. I have never ever seen or been in a hotel with numbers that high. My mind filled in the blanks from trips to that region.

The thing that is the most elusive were the roads. The roads had to a larger degree collapsed. They were pretty good in Switzerland, but with Germany’s economy collapsed the roads in Bavaria were dismal, no mentionable repairs had been made in close to a decade and certain seismic shifts broke the roads even further.

There was a stage where it could have been the setting for a new game, gaming with a difference. You see GaaS (or streaming service) allows for a larger stage of gaming. Consider that a game has more than one side. Consider the setting where you have a management game for infrastructure on your mobile. A match 3, or a Tetris, or puzzle game (or all) that gives you funds for your infrastructure. The results comes into play in the larger game. If you do not do that (always valid) you aggregated average of a cluster of gamers is what the game uses to improve infrastructure and utilities. This would show in all kinds of ways. The hotel was perhaps a reference to the collapsing cities. As economies go bust many buildings will lack maintenance. The cities would become deathtraps. Certain ‘luxury’ hotels would be available all over the world for those who could afford it and local hotels in places that still run would be the envy for those who could not afford to stay there and boosting local economies for those who could.

It is an evolving idea, but the premise that this is an optional truth coming to us in the near future has been a driving force in gaming for the longest of times. What does matter is how we push that future. I believe that streaming systems will become the future. By being inclusive in more than one direction is one way to go, not the only one, but one direction that many game makers have ignored (for too long). There is also the other side (one I am not ignoring) not all lie the match 3 games. They are algorithms that are designed to make you almost succeed. I hate them. But there are other directions, other games you could play on your mobile. So how to connect them? How to get another game to entice people to play and then connect them to the stage of the larger game? This is not always an easy task, but it is a challenge worth meeting.

Then there is another path that occurred to me and that one is specifically for Ubisoft. Sony had the Playstation Home (2008-2015) and many miss that open simplicity. Ubisoft has/had AC Brotherhood, AC Black Flag, AC Origin and AC Mirage. Just 4 out of a lot of options. Any person can get an account and can select a world and they end up being in that world owning a house (partially random) and for $1-3 a month the can have a house in a second location. There is also the upgrade. As you select for the upgrade in location one (a more unique setting) you get the second location for free (or the second location upgrades the building in location one). It allows for a new setting for fans. A place they loved they can live there, walk around that town or city and live to some degree in that temporal environment. Now consider that Ubisoft adds a VR engine. Now the AC fans will get a jug of lemonade from places they revere. And there as an additional setting. It is an environment where Ubisoft has exclusive marketing rights. A place where they can evolve NPC characters and it is in a system where there will be millions of fans. All the places we ran through, but now we can call Alexandria, Aaru, Aten, Duat, Krokodilopolis, Baghdad, Firenze, Rome, Venice, Monteriggioni or Havana our home. As these places evolve and as our systems evolve, we could end up with an actual address that can be wielded in the real world.

As such our secondary address could become an actual address. These are services now laughed at, but 25 years ago web addresses were laughed at, now over 1,500,000,000 people have one and they are holding onto this for dear life. Ubisoft lost (read: squandered) so many IP options, perhaps it is time to look back in seeing what they could regain and it is their advantage, the graphics are already there. The places to see are already theirs.

Just a though and it might not make a lot of sense, but in 1995 a web location made no sense at all either. Evolution is where you see it.

Narrating tomorrow

It all started yesterday. I had a new idea on story lines and narration. In this the idea of a new game (exclusive to streaming systems) that is meant for Amazon Luna and Tencent handheld. You see, in this Amazon has a wide advantage (I will get to that later), but in all this The Tencent handheld could benefit from this station. The idea was set around trains. There are a whole range of train movies that could be used, with the exception of the Hogwarts Express, which is IP that belongs to JK Rowling. The idea is a setting against an AI, but to do this we need a few things and in all this the narration matters. You see, if you are going for a long haul, having the same dialogues all the time will make for a dreary game soon enough.

Machine Learning

Machine learning is at the foundation of this (there is no AI at present), but Machine learning is an awesome machine that can really set any locomotion driving forward. In this the narration has a few stages.

Intro
Storyline evolution through location
The elements (people, objects and rooms)

These three can be programmed for, but how to get them in line? Well for that I considered a few things. We can start by Agatha Christie, but we can also use Dorothy L. Sayers, PD James, Ruth Rendell and a few more. Machine learning can be awesome and it can crunch stories like no one else. As such we give it the same parameters, but now it creates 4+ stories. And that is just for starters. Amazon has the advantage of owning Audible, as such they have access to a whole range of voice actors.

Randomisation
Randomisation is a problem. A friend once told me that randomisation is an exact science and he was right. As such I do not like the random setting that much, but it can be a tool. For example I like the multi usefulness of Sudoku, as such we can create 999 sudoku’s create a random generator for one number and attach the number to a Sudoku, now sort the buggers and we have a random setting that is truly random.

I used it as an example in a story in May 2022, it was one approach, but it can be used in a number of ways.

Trains
The trains are a consistent in the story and for a reason, yet here we have a new option, or perhaps an opportunity. Consider Murder on the Orient Express. As we chose the gender of our player, that player will be one of the passengers (except for Poirot) as such the setting changes dramatically every time you play the game. Because you get assigned a role and it comes with advantages and weaknesses. But there are more stories. Strangers on a train, Silver Streak, Emperor of the north and so on. The one setting that is exact is that the trains are as exact as possible. This is of course interesting as you find yourself on the Maharajas’ Express. The idea is to find clues and evidence over 10 trains. You get killed, you start from scratch.

So now you see that this takes a very different kind of narration and the use of machine language becomes clear and the nice part? This has never been done before. A who dunnit (we already know this at the start), but I want to throw a few logical twists in the story and I do have one that is a gasser (and a screamer at the same time). But it is about the narration now. You can go through the game a few times and after 10 times you will get something you saw before, but that will be also new, the narration might sound the same but the elements keeps the story different and that is the larger stage of a game that was never made before and players like Microsoft will never create something this unique because their boner is set to buying existing IP, which is why they will lose again and again. For now I see a new game evolve, one never made before and that could spell all kinds of disaster for the optional new owners of Call of Duty. Gamers go where the new stuff is, they go to new frontiers, not to places already visited. Yes, they will love their Call of Duty, there is no doubt, but that alone doesn’t hold the bacon and certain people just do not get that. I hope that Tencent is awake and realising that getting Game Pass is merely a temporary band aid to a larger problem they have to solve. Lets be clear, Game Pass was and is an awesome idea, but that too has issues as Microsoft already announced that they will raise the price. And for some this is not an issue, but when certain people do decide to buy my IP and they have the 50 million subscriptions, they better have a stage to satisfy all those needs. Because Game Pass might not cut it (my speculation on the matter).

Still there is more to do. Restoration was one, now we have another and there is still more to come. Half a dozen games designed in my mind within a year, they are on this blog (in part), so there is clear evidence. This is why Microsoft will lose, they lack creativity, they did for the longest of times.

Have a nice day.

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Stopped making sense

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