Tag Archives: Tencent

March 23, 2023 · 09:14

One thought counters another

This is a case we sometimes face. My thought counters theirs and their thought counters mine. There is nothing unnatural about it. In a setting where we applaud, respect or even merely accept the scales of balance, we see that one side counters another. Balance is natural and that is important here. You see, players like Microsoft have been fighting balance for their own selfish little needs for the longest of times. Now, this does not mean that Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google are not like that, but they tend to go with the flow for most of the time (Facebook perhaps a little less than the other three). Apple might be the most in tune with the scales of balance, but that is from where I sit and might be incorrect. And this all started with ‘Microsoft says ten years is “sufficient” for Sony to create Call of Duty rival’, yes, I can do you one better. They can do it in half that time. More important it will not be some Call of Duty rival, it will be better. As Microsoft is becoming more and more of a hollow egg, the $69 billion more in the near future is also the face of a failing company. You see, You can buy all you like, but when the creative people walk away because they see the failing of a company who fails against Apple with their Surface, who fails with their Azure against AWS, who fails with their Bing against Google search is a company that is doomed and as I personally see it, it is in its last 1,375 days before it crumbles into a joke, that firm will lost a lot more soon enough. And it is not that hard an equation. To merely break even Microsoft will have to exceed 72.8 million of PROFIT every day between now and 31/12/2026 and that is merely to cover the last three spendings, not all their waste. That is why I know that Microsoft will fail. So I created in the past blogs the foundations of more RPG that I made freely available to people designing for the Amazon Luna. It is the final blow of failures for Microsoft. I don’t need to do anything for Sony. They have their horses in a row and they are ready to race. Nintendo has its own niche and they are doing fine. All settings that two gaming giants had racked up correctly. Microsoft betrayed their own gamers, blew its audience who is now taking a distance from Microsoft, and as such their population is dwindling down. Still think I was delusional?

It goes from bad to worse after that. Their own cornerstone is having more and more issues and people are willing to push away from that too. Microsoft office is too bulky and there is a lot of power in Open office and Google’s solution which apart from their spreadsheet is doing above OK, not to mention the fact that it is a free product. And in the graphic settings Adobe surpassed them in several ways all at once and in the age of Meta and their metaverse Microsoft will merely lose more and the need for the daily profit of 72.8 million that marker will merely bite more and more. With the Luna set to overtake (with a little help) the Microsoft streaming service they will get another opponent. It is Chinese Tencent who is already taking serious time to create Unreal Engine 5 applications. Another soft spot Microsoft was ignoring. Yes we are given all the spin in the media, but too many is created by ‘Microsoft Friends’ and we see AI claims all over and when we think things trough, we will realise that ‘their’ AI is data driven and they lack data. There is no way that some AI claim can create scripts. You see (deeper) machine learning can only react to data, react to events they HAVE and that means that they can copy and edit, but they cannot create. That is the first larger flaw. And now as I had another idea for Streaming gaming, there will be a much larger case for people to connect to systems that will deliver, not are bought and then altered to fit another need. That is a sure way to fail. One source (a few, but seemingly all from the same source) gave us “Redfall PS5 version was in development, but cancelled after the Xbox buyout”, so how does that align with a Microsoft statement that they would be everywhere? Now, lets be clear Microsoft is allowed to do what they do, they bought Bethesda, they are trying to own Blizzard. But what happens when we design new versions, new IP exclusive for Amazon Luna and Sony? What is their win when they spend $100,000,000,000 for a console that as some sources gives us 

As of June 2022, lifetime unit sales of Xbox One consoles in North America reached 31.58 million, while in Europe, lifetime unit sales surpassed 12.8 million with some partial addition of what was estimated that Microsoft had shipped at least 18.5 million units of the two consoles (series S and X) worldwide by December 2022. Now look at the Sony equation. PS5 sales have now climbed to 32 million, with 7.1 million consoles sold in the last three months alone, a dramatic increase over the 3.9 million sold in the same quarter last year. This means that the PS5 is almost equal on the Microsoft last 3 consoles, all whilst the PS4 has surpassed 117,000,000 consoles. Now they want to go to the cloud whilst their consoles are already doomed. So I am willing to set aside some creative time to make sure that they fail there too. 6 directions (tablet, SAAS, office, search, gaming and GAAS) where Microsoft fell short and keeps on failing, no purchase will counter that and the message merely gets to be worse soon thereafter. Now, do not discount some options. Microsoft will get some parts right, Starfield looks for all accounts amazing, but when there is an alternative people will go for the one solution that does not betray them. And should Amazon (or Apple) select my IP, they stand to get more than 50,000,000 more accounts making the failure of Microsoft even more dismal, especially as I predicted this setting for the better part of 2 years. No spin will work when there is a published article countering that. They are all about making a spin towards the future, but what happens when the ‘future spin’ becomes past and does not hold up to the numbers? That is the part Microsoft seemingly forgets about (again and again) and that wheel is merely spinning faster and not for Microsoft. They will merely lose more and more control. At some point they will need more money to repair the potholes of their shoddy road. Consider the Solarwinds issue and the fact that Microsoft was going to buy a cyber powerhouse (which became part of Google) and after that the media went dark, the spin failed, so darkness is all they had and the media complied. There were no questions on how Microsoft was going to deal with it after that. Weird he?

The list merely grows and at some point the media needs to do a 180 or accept that they are a Microsoft tool. So how many failures until the media actually turns on Microsoft? Perhaps the larger advertisement deals come through, but not for all and that is the counter that vanishes, especially when you consider that the world has 18,000 registered with the World Association of Newspapers (WAN). Some will lose and that is the beginning of a lot more pain for Microsoft. 

So whilst all of that is in play. I considered a new RPG, free for Amazon Luna and Sony developers. Consider the absolute hit the first 4 God of War games were. Now consider an RPG where Tartarus is actually mapped out. As such it is no God of War and you have no special powers, but a battlefield the actual size of America named Tartarus, the underworld where you need to keep standing, where you need to survive and each death restores you, but with the millions of opponents you cannot run into battle all the time. You need to find the relic weapons that have additional powers and perhaps you will at some point find an Olympian piece of armour or. weapon that gives you an edge. And it will be first person. So 9.9999 years before Microsoft imagined I gave Amazon and Sony a rival. That is the power of creativity, something Microsoft lacks, they surely lack it, because if blizzard is bought, many creative souls will retire with their part of billions and Microsoft end up with another near empty shell, product but without driving creativity. So how long until the makers at Bethesda will have had enough? How long until they think that Ubisoft is a better deal than Bethesda under new management? That is how I know that Microsoft is ticking away towards implosion and when that happens (within the next 1380 days) I will merely sit, sip a little Ice water and tell you ‘I told you so!’ Because I get to do that at that moment. Yay me!

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February 19, 2023 · 11:55

The stage between two stages

Sounds weird and perhaps that is a little true. You see, I saw the article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64178956) ‘Staff must be free to work for employer’s rivals – US regulator’, the article was from January 5th and I did see it, but I was unsure how I felt. You see, that setting allows for poaching and there Microsoft has been a little too active in the past. Now they are in the process of trimming the fat by well over 10,000 people and so are the others, so you would think that this is a moot process. But it is not. Microsoft is pretty much done for and their setting (a personal view) is to create shortages everywhere else so that they can get an extension on life. So we would see hundreds of essential workers at Amazon and Google now being offered a nice cushy position in Microsoft. IBM is also on that list, but IBM and Microsoft have too much alike, so there will be issues. They both preferred image above creativity and that is on them, it is also their right. As I personally see it IBM has a setting and poaching might happen, but it is often directly in league of what they are trying to design, so there is less of an issue and their stage of representation does not feel the same. I have less of an issue with IBM on that horse (which is seemingly rare), Microsoft however has a different setting. Just like their acquisition of Bethesda and Activision. It is not that they needed them (well they did in one way), it was to take away choice from Sony players and that is just not on with me. It would be nice if Amazon bought my IP, so I can really stick it to Microsoft, but that is another matter. The case is poaching. 

As such the article gives us “The FTC, which enforces competition law, said a ban would foster a more dynamic economy. The proposal was immediately challenged by the business community. It will now enter a long rule-making process. Non-compete clauses were developed to prevent leavers from joining rivals and sharing trade secrets”, it is not untrue, but to have people trained by Google, or Amazon (Web services) leave after a year (or two) of training and then use all that know how in the service of a player like Microsoft is a dangerous step. I understand and to some degree support non-compete clauses. The problem is that some of the players abused that non-compete setting in a much wider scale that should have been allowed for. So I am on the fence here and there is another stage that the US now opens up for. These people can due to this change now join a player like Tencent, who can open up European markets to a much larger degree. I wonder if they thought of that? Yes, we see the US limiting their workforce from joining Chinese players. Yet the EU has different stages and there these players are still shedding thousands of people and the UK is ripe for Tencent to come in and create a new workforce. If they weren’t becoming a hazard to my pension, I would not care, but they could be and as such I would care.

You see, I have in part opposition to “Lina Khan, who leads the agency and made her name criticising the might of big tech firms such as Amazon, on Thursday called the ability to switch jobs “core to economic liberty and to a competitive, thriving economy”. “Noncompetes block workers from freely switching jobs, depriving them of higher wages and better working conditions, and depriving businesses of a talent pool that they need to build and expand”, in this my opposition is that we see the clear mention of Amazon, and the weirdly avoidance of mentioning Microsoft (or Google) in this and that matters. Amazon has one of the most complete Web Services solutions including cloud solutions. Both Google and massively more Microsoft need people with these skills. I am not sure where Apple is with that but they all have some return to office setting and the noises we hear all over the place, they all have extensive needs soon enough, but Linda Khan is mentioned with her opposition of Amazon, who is leading that trump with most than a nose-length advantage. A player like Microsoft wants to get ahead and getting their hands on senior developers at Amazon is for them the way to go (Azure sucks too much according to some). 

As such with these elements in play, the need for a diminished non-competition clause is not entirely wrong, but the timing sucks and would luck have it, the timing would work for Microsoft and Tencent alike, a setting I am actually not happy about. Yet, I will admit that parts of this are personal views and personal settings I saw evolve over the last 30 years. And that is not all, in the last week we were given two parts. The first is “Microsoft last week laid off around 150 employees from a team tasked with convincing medium-size companies to adopt cloud services such as Azure server rentals and Microsoft 365 productivity apps, said a person with direct knowledge of the matter”, which in part makes sense, but when you add the next view that came 2 days later “Microsoft has officially joined the FinOps Foundation, a non-profit organisation that promotes financial management in cloud technology.” Consider that they need to promote that with 150 less staff, does that make sense? It makes a lot more sense when you poach the Amazon AWS staff pool and replace 150 narrow minded watchers by people with a much wider cloud view. It is pure speculation on my side, but they did a similar track in the Netscape days, as such I worry and you should too. A choice by a lack of options is not a choice and that is where Microsoft has been playing the field a little too long as I see it, which is why I am on the fence a lot more on the non-compete clause as I personally see it.

You should watch too because when your choices are lowered and Microsoft is clearly in the ‘surviving’ pool of choices. We see the power of stakeholders and they were never there for you, merely for their own wallets. But I might be seeing it too dark as some will respond.

My view is merely one view, make sure you learn all the elements in play when you go one direction. Its almost like the life of Harry the Hermit (Harry Styles), he makes an album of his house and the 13th track is about the love of his life (Remy “Thirteen” Hadley, M.D) which makes sense, but when you make 12 songs about your house and one about Olivia Wilde (mucho LOL), you do have your priorities wrong. It is all about the glasses you wear when you see the events unfold. This is nearly always true as is my view on Microsoft. They wanted to be the IBM clone, they played there games and they played it on Netscape and others alike and those who have been in IT long enough see the bitter taste that Microsoft leaves behind and that is before you add the Microsoft failures, they have become obsolete and in this I much rather support Amazon and what they could bring to the table of tomorrow than Microsoft who is merely copying the plate settings of yesterday. Yet that is a personal view, believe me or not but make sure you get a good view on where you stand, that is worth a lot more than merely following me. I want you all to be your own leader, not my follower. I am not some shepherd, I never was.

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January 24, 2023 · 21:09

As I aid timing

There is a stage that is coming. I have stated it before and I am stating it again. I believe that the end of Microsoft is near. I myself am banking on 2026. They did this to themselves, it is all on them. They pushed for borders they had no business being on and they got beat three times over. Yes, I saw the news, they are buying more (in this case ChatGPT) and they will pay billions over a several years, but that is not what is killing them (it is not aiding them). The stupid people (aka their board of directors) don’t seem to learn and it is about to end the existence of Microsoft and my personal vies is ‘And so it should!’ You see, I have seen this before. A place called Infotheek in the 90’s, growth through acquisition. It did not end well for those wannabe’s. And that was in the 90’s when there was no real competition. It was the start of Asus, it was the start of a lot of things. China was nowhere near it was not in IT, now it is a powerhouse. There are a few powerhouses and a lot of them are not American. So as Microsoft spends a billion here and there it is now starting to end up being real money. They are in the process of firing 10,000 people, so there will be a brain drain and player like Tencent are waiting for that to happen. And the added parts are merely clogging all and bringing instability. Before the end of the year We get a speech on how ChatGPT will be everywhere and the massive bugs and holes in security will merely double or more. So after they got slapped in the Tablet market with their Surface joke (by Apple with the iPad), after they got slapped in the data market with their Azure (by Amazon with their AWS) and after they got slapped in the console market with their Xbox System X (by Sony with their PS5) they are about to get beat with over 20% of their cornerstone market as Adobe gets to move in soon and show Microsoft and their PowerPoint how inferior they have become (which I presume will happen after Meta launches their new Meta) Microsoft will have been beaten four times over and I am now trying to find a way to get another idea to the Amazon Luna people.

This all started today as I remembered something I told a blogger and that turned into an idea and here I am committing this to a setting that is for the eyes of Amazon Luna only. No prying Microsoft eyes. I have been searching mind and systems and I cannot find anywhere where this has been done before, a novel idea and in gaming these are rare, very rare. When adding the parts that I did write about before, I get a new stage, one that shows Microsoft the folly of buying billions of game designers and none of them have what I am about to hand Microsoft. If I have to aid a little hand to make 2026 the year of doom for Microsoft, I will. I am simply that kind of a guy. They did this all to themselves. I was a simple guy, merely awaiting the next game, the next dose of fun and Microsoft decided to buy Bethesda, which was their right. So there I was designing and thinking through new ways to bring them down and that was before I found the 50 million new accounts for the Amazon Luna (with the reservation that they can run Unreal Engine 5) and that idea grew a hell of a lot more. All stations that Microsoft could never buy, they needed committed people, committed people who can dream new solutions, not the ideas that get purchased. You see, I am certain that the existence of ChatGPT relied on a few people who are no longer there. That is no ones fault, these thing happen everywhere. Yet, when you decide to push it into existing software and existing cloud solutions, the shortcomings will start showing ever so slowly. A little here and a little there and they will overcome these issues, they really will, but they will leave a little hole in place and that is where others will find a way to have some fun. I expect that the issue with Solarwinds started in similar ways. In that instance hackers targeted SolarWinds by deploying malicious code into its Orion IT monitoring and management software. What are the chances that the Orion IT monitoring part had a similar issue? It is highly speculative, I will say that upfront, but am I right? Could I be right?

That is the question and Microsoft has made a gamble and invested more and more billions in other solutions whilst they are firing 10,000 employees. At some point these issues start working in unison making life especially hard for a lot of remaining employees at Microsoft, time will tell. I have time, do they?

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January 8, 2023 · 23:38

Is it me? It could be.

Today I saw (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64171008) the article ‘Amazon to axe 18,000 jobs as it cuts costs’. OK, they published it 2 days ago and I do not watch every site every moment of the day (I have an actual life). So consider that I wrote ‘Girdle your loins’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/11/30/girdle-your-loins/) which was roughly 3 months after it was offered to three parties. It represents $6 billion in the first phase and up to $20-$40 billion in the second phase. Can anyone tell me why two days ago we get to see “Amazon plans to cut more than 18,000 jobs, the largest number in the firm’s history, as it battles to save costs”, here I was thinking that my idea could have saved these jobs and now that Tencent is 9-15 months away the options for Amazon are diminishing. Then there was ‘Overlooking the obvious’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/06/22/overlooking-the-obvious/) which actually also refers to an earlier article. There I set a stage with optional close to a billion in revenue with optional new corridors for AWS to grow, and with a new stage where we see a new need fro hardware and advertisement in new directions, Google isn’t even there yet. That billion was based on almost 200,000 malls globally, 116,000 of them in the US and that is before you realise how many stores players like Zara, Gap, Sephora, Apple, Victoria Secrets, Country life and that list goes on and on. So is it me or are these players too lazy, too cowardly and not in the right stage of play? And that is not even considering the hardware people might want, the options that are related to it and even several IP options that are not on anyones dance card at present. What are they doing? They are axing 18,000 jobs and they leave billions on the floor? What kind of technology firm is that? 

Now, you might think that I am delusional and I would think that too, but I refer to things I wrote in the past, something that could grow into a $20 to $40 billion A YEAR market. So tell me, how delusional am I? So I could be crazy, but I see clearly where this is going and even as there is some small risk (there always is), the fact that Amazon left it on the street gives me pause to think that they have a lot more problems and optionally different ones. Optionally it is in a direction I never considered. That is not their fault, it is not my fault, but they left billions on the street (as I personally see it) and there is even more IP (a little more risk), but as Meta becomes a reality it represents an optional $2.3 billion (my initial max assessment of the IP) as well. So as I take notice of “Boss Andy Jassy cited the “uncertain economy” for the cuts, saying it had “hired rapidly over several years.”” And there was me thinking he was on the ball. So even as I am not debating that decision, the idea of leaving that much on the floor, enough to give most of them an alternative and an alternative setting towards the future on a global scale implies that someone is not drinking the proper gatorade and they are going for the dodgy stuff, but that is my view on the matter and I could be wrong. I admit that part. When certain Big Tech (not Microsoft), the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Kingdom Holdings give no response it is time to consider that I am the one who is wrong, but I feel that I am not, my mind is still mauling the designs over and over and seeing more and more improvements, even with Real estate sides, with 5G wearables that are not on any list at present. I believe that either I am a bigger dreamer than Jules Verne, or I am onto something. OK, lets be clear Jules Verne came up with the idea of a rocket to the moon long before WW2, as well as a submarine when it was still not possible to have one for such trips. The USS Nautilus, the first nuclear submarine was launched in 1954, half a century AFTER Jules Verne passed away. So I might be a bit arrogant, but I see solutions that could impact the Line (KSA), malls and new forms of advertisement and none of those are part of the up to $40 billion (my maximum expectation), but that too is under debate. Yet that number is based on part of a 1.8 billion Muslim population and Tencent is a mere 15 months away at the most to do what I foresaw was going to happen one way or another. 

So, is it me? It could be. Yet I personally feel that this is not the case. As I see it some people have no idea what is possible and they are merely faking it for now. So what will they do when Tencent comes in and takes it all? Give you a lame excuse that they do not understand the technology? I will let you decide, but consider what we clearly see and what I published over the last two years. Yet, feel free to consider that it is alas, but these 18,000 people will have to go. There is no shortage for workers, is there? 

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December 27, 2022 · 14:18

Waterfall

It started this morning, actually it started last night. I have been working on a new premise in gaming IP. It is the merging of old ideas into a new game. Whilst that Westworld game was pulled as it was a weak copy of Fallout Shelter. I had already maximised that premise, but now no longer on the Westworld theme (they bashed their own window of opportunity). It is the stage where we create a new game (for example) on the foundation of Fallout shelter and Dungeon Keeper to create a new game that is themed to Blade (mere example). You control Blade and if there is no support you will get overrun over time. Yet like in the Dungeon Keeper game when we create certain rooms and rooms of certain sizes we get new troops, troops that support Blade. For example when we get the medical room and it is larger than 3×3 we get a new medic every few minutes. The medic dispenses serum for Blade to keep his humanity, if the Kitchen is large enough, there is enough food for Blade to regenerate faster. Instead of the flat presentation of a flat stage, the presentation of the house is isometric. And as we safe more people, the population of the safe house improves and we have more tinkerers to upgrade the house and more rooms, optionally create basements with even more rooms. Considering that there will be a new Blade movie in 2024, the timing is god enough to start now (hint hint). And this is merely one of several thoughts. Some extend to older (CBM64) games. Some extent to the newer versions (Atari ST/CBM Amiga). We seem to squander in the same directions, but what of the side roads available to all? Many are taking the same road, optionally fuelled by “Most historians consider the sermon preached by Pope Urban II at Clermont-Ferrand in November 1095 to have been the spark that fuelled a wave of military campaigns to wrest the Holy Land from Muslim control”, yet many forget that greed took over, ego took over and short sightedness took over and as such we forget stages like Louis I of Anjou and his inherited claim to the Kingdom of Jerusalem. That part is not important right now, but it shows a larger stage of games that we forgot about and could be changed to fit the premise around 1387. So when we consider the new Blade game and we see what sort of support he ‘had’ we can set a new stage where the support is essential in making Blade successful. Like traits he gains, but these traits will need some sort of support and until we create that setting (like the forts in Magic Carpet, but place such a fortress in Oblivion), we get new games with new tasks and quests. A few years ago I used the premise of Battlehorn Castle and created the setting of a dozen of quests that gives the castle serious teeth. That setting can be applied nearly everywhere and we can use quests to merely give the person more to do, or we can create a pool of support. It was the foundation for Elder Scrolls VII: Restoration (seek the blog elsewhere, around 2018), all settings that can be applied to new games on streaming systems and Google never caught on and optionally Amazon did not take that path seriously as they rely on now mediocre Ubisoft to do the work for them, but as such they are losing out of billions because the market moved on and now it seems that Tencent is catching on and they are not wasting time. 

We can speculate and tinker all we can, but take 3 games Outrun, Pole position and Ultimate racing. Now combine them in an outrun look, with larger pole position blockades (tyres) and make it optional for design through an ultimate racing look. You now have a new piece of IP that combined is different enough to become new IP and many parts will not have IP protection. This took 10 minutes and You have another streaming game, like the dozen or so other titles I placed on my blog. Amazon had the making of 1-2 dozen additional new games and they just aren’t seeing the light. Add to this the new era of safe space and you see why Tencent becomes a danger to all streamers, they are catching on and they are catching on fast. The world does not wait for the big players (Google and Amazon) to catch on. You can trivialise what I wrote about all you want, but Tencent will not care, they are moving ahead and they are now primed to win. You think a wannabe like Microsoft can counter that? They want to leech from Tencent because it is easier and cheaper and just like that 3 out of 7 elements go to China. So when you see ‘Australia needs a long-term strategy to combat IP theft’ (source: ASPI) only part of it is true and it is true to some technologists in China. The larger stage is that the west became flaccid, lazy and content. The content Neanderthal got eaten by a dinosaur in the old days, I thought they had caught on by now, but they did not. 

I placed PD solutions on my blog. A 5G wearable solution is encrypted on 4Chan and becomes fetch able (by clever people only) on December 31st. There is a reason, attached to that are at least 3 solutions which I keep and it will drive IP value up. I am not completely mental (duh!!). Yet the larger stage is not that I am so clever (it could be), but the fact that I got there before Google, before Amazon, before IBM and before Apple (they have a decent excuse). They should have been where I was two years ago and they were not.

That is the setting no one is looking at, the side road ignored. Not what they could have had (well over $20 billion in revenue a year) no, they merely report on contracting economies and as I see it, it is because they hope for one more run with a horse that is regarded as too old and too tired. The new stage is ignored for too long and Tencent is (as I presume, based on certain parts) catching on. So there is another venue of revenue the west is losing to China. Why is that?

The waterfall is not merely lost because the location is not given, it is lost because the source of that water is not comprehended (or located), a loss ten times more dangerous. I always speculated that it was because too many relied on a population that lived by ‘fake it until you make it’. It might be a sales technique, but those fakers also will not know where to look at when it matters and they are all looking at each other whilst I saw the changing landscape and saw where the new business would be growing.

So look where no one else is looking and see what can be made of that terrain. You might find a nugget or two in the process as well.

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December 23, 2022 · 23:11

Unions

The thought took me by surprise. I had been playing Minecraft that day and the dream took me in a different direction, the merging of games. Now in the case of Minecraft this might merely be a DLC, or added to the game, but the stage opens up new directions in gaming.

To give you the rundown, I need to take you on a small trip. In my days of the Atari ST, the game ‘The Sentinel’ was released and I was happy, a remake was made in the late 90’s and it was awesome on PC, the music was fantastic and the game left an even deeper impression. The game is about a sentinel, it cleans the world, it rotates and nothing will survive in its gaze. It seems simple, but the 3D landscape is tricky and there are 1000 levels (if I remember correctly). So to win you need to get to the highest point and devour the Sentinel. The game is simple, but addictive and the PC edition even more so. But what happens when we take the Sentinel and make it massive, it cannot be devoured. Yet if you can get close to it, you could ‘attack’ it and get glowing bricks from it. The glowing bricks give the player powers. Blue will drop never ending water when active, red drops lava and so on. Yellow becomes a sun beacon. The Sentinel however changes the landscape it sees, and as such destroys your house, reduces it to rubble (with all the stuff still there. A rare event that changes the speed of the game and creates chaos. But that is merely one side, so what happens when we have BOTH games? We have thought of it and it does not always apply, but what happens when we have games from the same maker? For example AC Origin and AC Valhalla? They have implemented the cosmetic parts in later games, but what if we can push it both ways and more than just cosmetic? So Horizon Zero Dawn AND Horizon forbidden West? The games can be played separately, but what if we could unite these games? Add even more terrain? That is (optionally) the power of streaming games, streaming games will make this possible. 

It is a continuation of an idea I had in the past (and wrote about it). The original EA CBM64 game ‘Murder on the Zinderneuf’ now with a Bioshock look. Fully 3D, yet that is merely the start. For the Amazon Luna, the idea came for Luna keys, gold and silver. So when you play the game you could find a chess set, when found the option opens up to unlock THAT chess set in the game chess. It makes for a new setting of long term gaming. In addition, the idea came that could open up other games and other makeover of games. Like the game Clue, Harry Potter themes (if that was open to offer) and so on. In that same stage Assassins Creed 2 could offer a renaissance Italian chess set and so on. Not every game will offer this, but with every iteration that does we add value to gaming, we add interest in people who like to play chess to play other games. When you play the new version of ‘Murder on the Zinderneuf’ a game like monopoly would suddenly get an additional playable token (the Hindenburg) and it is that interaction that gamers will become hungry for and they will play more, enjoy more and experiment more. The power of streaming games is not unlocked for the simple reason that the game owners are merely looking to ‘copy’ their game on a new platform, to get more names, more players but no one is looking in creating better players, more fun and more joy. It is seemingly past them.

It is a stage that needs to be looked at now, because the new makers of systems are looking in that direction and there is no price for second place. As I see it The Tencent Streaming solution is merely a year away. The current owners squandered billions, lost the middle east and now Tencent is about to offer new options, new terrains and they will offer it to millions more. So how much of the playfield will Amazon surrender? Google left the gaming sphere and Microsoft remains useless (which they will spin in a direction like blaming Sony), but the truth is that these three players left well over 6 billion a year on the field and that field is now increasing and is slowly moving towards Tencent. Yes another fine mess they left the gamers.  The only player, who had their own niche is Apple and I have no idea what they are up to, they play their cards close to their chest. But they could be the new winner in the 11th hour. I cannot tell, too much speculation on that direction.

But the union of games is a natural concept in streaming games and look at how many offered that stage, the simple answer is none. And when Tencent does offer it, they basically become winner by default. It was so easy to actually listen to gamers (something Microsoft has never done). Sony and Nintendo were not streaming solutions and they have THEIR market. The others (Apple excepted) did this to themselves. Consider what you read here and consider what you see in gaming and then see how natural the ideas actually are.

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December 8, 2022 · 23:30

Shortcut gaming ends

Yes, this is actually a setting that was a while in the making. To be honest, I had no idea what I saw in my dreams. Things did not make sense to me at that point, but the afternoon changed things for me. You see, streaming consoles are the solution to shortcut gaming like we see on the tablets and mobiles. A shortcut to funny money and advertisement dollars. Consider the games you played last week, how many had an advertisement every 90 seconds? Every level? Streaming ends that, you see streaming is paid for, and as such like console gaming no advertisements. The larger issue with streaming solutions that they can hold much larger gaming needs, gaming needs that is not solved in a few hours. Games to bring achievement, real achievement and real joy. Like in the old days. Games like Railroad tycoon, Theme hospital, Theme park. Games that we can play a long time and show off as what we created. That was in the back of my mind, but I ignored it. It all starts with the image below

A simple grid, but one with a difference. You can create a maze, an intricate path but every point is significant. It can connect to a path below and there are in total three levels. And it is not one grid, there are four. Green, Red, Blue and Purple, each a different area. And it does not start easy, it does not start at all. Places like the Efteling (Netherlands), Phantasialand (Germany) and so many others, they all needed time and that is what you will need. You draw the plans, you make the place and perhaps a little basic at the beginning. Yet the game allows for so much more. Graphic files to be uploaded to your solution, the personalisation of a theme world like Anton Pieck did for the Efteling. This is not a simple game and it is not a short game. This brings fulfilment and it takes time, but that is the challenge. Not to make some short term gaming experience, but one that lasts a long time. My mind saw it, but the brain never communicated it to me (in a way I understood). The pursuit of shortcut gaming needs to end and lets be clear, this game is not for everyone. And the nice part with streaming games, you can try them all. And when you have 4 of these sot of games, you end up with 4 times the populations than these short cut game makers have. Perhaps Idle games is the only one with a real population, but that is because they have 20 variations on the same theme, and after an hour they all feel the same and unrewarding. A game like Dungeon Master (FTL games 1988) broke the mould and became the forefather for 3d gaming everywhere. Why? They did not offer a shortcut and in those days 40,000 games sold was a big thing, because it was. We need to change the way we see gaming, not how we see games (that I an art issue). You see the BI manager that push short term gaming are at the end of their feed, they end up pushing and nagging some mobile game, and with every streamer that enter a household the lifecycle of these games end. And whilst we create a new fantasy theme park with mazes, rooms and challenges, some will take the option to create in something like Adobe illustrator a new kind of door, and export it to their game, and soon that place will take on a new life. A personalised life where we create the new challenge and let the NPC’s wander around. A machine learning battleground where it is about the art, not the shortcut. Yes, we can add the usual gimmicks, but the ability to truly personalise a game is coming because streaming makes that possible. A cauldron in the making and Google tapped out of that equation, now it becomes the gaming field of Amazon (and that other wannabe) before Tencent drops in. 

Do we not owe it to ourselves to create the best gaming environment we could ever have? We can look at the games that were and remaster them, or see them as the groundbreaking tools they were and see if we can do that one more time and truly create something new?

I believe that the second one will create more followers. Don’t get me wrong, to see the Witcher 3, a 2007 game getting renewed in 2022 for PS5 is awesome. It could be seen as evidence just how groundbreaking that game was that it can till inspire gamers right next to Horizon Forbidden West (2022), 15 years and Witcher 3 can till hold grounds, that is amazing gaming. That shows you what a 90%+ game is capable of and that is what too many game makers have forgotten. 

I believe and I hope that the next generation games will push maximisation on streamers because that I where we are heading. Do not get me wrong, I will never leave my PS5, but there can be more and the Amazon Luna is in a much better position to prove that at present. 

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November 13, 2022 · 22:16

Discrimination by media

It bugged me yesterday yet it it was Forbes with their BS. And now the Guardian most useless person and champion for discrimination (aka Stephanie Kirchgaessner) makes another anti-Saudi Arabia article. I wonder why the Guardian keeps Katharine Viner around. As I see it, she is as useless as some other person we might know. So lets have a look at the article that angers me so.  It is ‘Alarm on Capitol Hill over Saudi investment in Twitter’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/03/saudi-twitter-investment-us-national-security-risk), yes it is 3 weeks old, but that was in this case intentional. It starts right off the bat “Possible access to users’ data could pose national security risk and could be used to target kingdom’s dissidents”. Well Stephanie (Katharine too)? You used ‘possible’ which is neither here nor their, which is not a yes or a no. You have had three weeks and the both of you get enough money to sort it out. Is it a yes or a no? And where is the national security? As such what ‘rights’ does an investor like Prince Alwaleed bin Talal have regarding Twitter and its data? And then when we look at it we see “his investment company, Kingdom Holding, which first invested in Twitter in 2011”, as such Prince Alwaleed bin Talal had been an investor in Twitter for 11 years and it took you this long to figure out that there was a national security issue. How fucking useless are you two? (Reference to Viner and Kirchgaessner) And after three weeks we still do not know anything, do we? I am not interested in these putzes Ron Wyden and Chris Murphy as I see it near useless politicians who seek the limelight and Kirchgaessner when it comes to anti-Saudi articles is happy to oblige. And then we get “The Twitter investment does not appear to offer either Alwaleed or the Saudi government any formal control over Twitter. Musk is now the company’s sole director. But the kingdom’s known use of the platform as a propaganda tool”, as such it has been three weeks, do they or do they not have any formal control? You have had three weeks to figure it out. We see no response of such questions from Twitter or its spokesperson either, do we?  And when we see “Rules surrounding such reviews by the US Committee on Foreign Investment (CFIUS), which has the power to unwind transactions if they are deemed to threaten US national security, have usually been triggered when the foreign entity (in this case, Saudi Arabia) has assumed control of a company or asset” but they weren’t were they? So do you have any evidence in the last three weeks that sheds light on any of this or are you as useless as I always have found you to be and in this case your editor in chief with you? 

I have no idea who Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is, but I have a mindset to sell him some of my 

iP just to piss you off. How about my 5G IP, should fetch me a pretty penny? Or perhaps an additional $6,000,000,000 in annual IT revenue for starters (it could grow). I am so sick and tired of your BS and unsubstantiated issues that go nowhere. First Forbes with its slapping of Elon Musk, never ending slapping, now another piece by you two (the editor in chief is guilty by association) and no one is looking into the partnership between Microsoft and Tencent, why is that? Or were the so called ‘animosity’ pieces by Microsoft stakeholders enough? But the indications are that the Tencent device is running Microsoft at the core, so is that true or is that false? I cannot tell, but it is not my job, it is yours and you aren’t doing yours.

It pisses me off to no end.

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October 23, 2022 · 00:29

Wheels are for sleeping

Yes, that is the indication. So far I have been busy redesigning over half a dozen games and I get the impression that asleep at the wheel is a common factor at both at Amazon and Google, might be at Microsoft a well, but I do not care about them, they can become obsolete all on their own. The redesign is essential as there are factors for a larger audience and one does want to entice that audience as such I started with half a dozen games, kept the overall appeal, kept the foundation of the game, but the rest got upgraded to the improvements we got the last decade. And 3 of them had 90+ scores, so they can be remade into something better fitting this decade and this generation. Even as I am looking into Unreal engine 5 (where applicable), we have a much larger optional setting and this I did after having a sandwich, before I had a cup of milk and I am merely waking up. We have had a lot of games that were contemporary, we had games that were in the stage or the age of the arcade, but why are they abandoned? They were good games and even as we see everyone go nuts for some goat simulator (for some reason Microsoft got that right and it is massively addictive to some), they forgot a game like Soul Edge (1995), the Dreamcast had it as Soul Calibur (1998) where it scored a whopping 97%, a game that close to perfection was partially forgotten and what was rereleased was nowhere near as perfect and the makers decided they were more clever and created a lesser product. The lines in those days were that this game alone was reason to buy a Dreamcast. Why are these gaming executives so short of memory? Soul Calibur was all about fun and they created a game that did that and more. There are a lot more examples and more could be done to make it changed enough to get a new IP registered. One day and I come up with half a dozen games that could be upgraded and Google (deciding not to be a developer and dropping the Google Stadia coming January) is letting $500 million a month slip by, well they must have the corner on something. I for one am willing to guess that they got the corner on Melatonin (sleeping ingredient). And that is merely one part of one branch. I  truly wonder what Tencent is up to, because if they are more awake then there is every chance that Amazon will lose their share as well. And these two got that done in under two years. Good going guys (girls also). 

And as I am vamping a few more titles, I remembered a game from 1991 called Streets of Rage, a simple game, but addictive and a game that could entice plenty of people. You see, this new ‘gaming’ industry is a lot less about making money. It is about the microtransactions, that is where they think the real money is and when my solution is accepted and 50 million subscriptions start cancelling the other options, these people will learn the hard way what an empty IP looks like. They all ignored that gamers want to have fun and for some it is racing, for some it is stealth, for some it is bashing and in these groups none of them are overly excited of microtransactions. So when they get a micro-transaction free environment, they will move. I am completely convinced of that. These people also are not interested to pay by watching advertisements. So there are two elements that would fall away pretty quickly and in all that the current ‘champions’ would end up being tomorrows losers. I reckon that is here Tencent is heading as well, so they will get two tiers of advantages of all those who haven’t figured it out yet and that will cost the wrong people a lot of marketshare. But not to fret, they are willing to lose that marketshare, I know because I cannot  see them making any alterations, so they are definitely waiting until it is too late. But that is big tech for you. So whilst they are asleep at the wheel, I will continue embellishing my IP for the current customer line. And there it will stay, especially when the right people figure out I wasn’t making a funny, and that my part in gaming since 1984 implies I actually know stuff. But feel free to disagree, it is your right and when you come up short, you merely did it yourself.

As such I do hope to have a field day. Because hope is still part of that equation, we all hope, we can do little more. And lets give Microsoft a hand, only yesterday we were given “Many enterprises continue to leave cloud storage buckets exposed despite widely available documentation on how to properly secure them”, and the hand was not in sarcasm. You see ‘despite widely available documentation’ implies that this is a Layer 8 ID10T issue (aka: idiot users). So when we read “SOCRadar, the threat intelligence firm that reported the issue to Microsoft, described discovering the data in an Azure Blob storage bucket that was publicly accessible over the Internet. The data was associated with more than 65,000 companies in 11 countries and included statement-of-work documents, invoices, product orders, project details, signed customer documents, product price lists, personally identifiable information (PII), and potentially intellectual property as well.” Yes, it gets to be that bad and it is NOT all on Microsoft, some is, not all. But keep screaming that Azure is fine, especially when 65000 companies are placing their data on the internet. As such the China and Huawei issues are not an issue, people are placing their data online all by themselves. Cisco was also a factor, but they seemingly fixed the issues they had. In all this it matters, because streaming opens a new can of worms and I am opening a separate one as well, especially when the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia buys my IP. In all this we see that there is a much larger need to stop being the inclusive wanker. It is time to call out the larger flaws and stop messing about, or buy a Jaguar (a Crazy People 1990 reference).

This is one of the reasons I do not want Microsoft anywhere near my IP, and that is in part why I offered it to Saudi Arabia. These tech players might bully me, but they have a much larger problem if they mess with Saudi Arabia and when the Saudi party realises just how big the IP can be, Microsoft will be kept outside, of that I am convinced. It was also in part why I hoped that Amazon would have called earlier, but they slept for months, so I am happy to head to plan B. And as I embellish my IP the chances will increase and increase. Some wheels might be for sleeping but my cogs rotate unrelentlessly and they keep on rotating, I owe that to myself even if it is merely to show where all the others went wrong.

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October 20, 2022 · 14:01

The evolution of gaming

I have spoken on this before, and in that I tended to be specific, almost micro-manageable. It comes when you design IP, it is a path where you want to track every element so that you are not left in a loop, left with too many unknown parts. It is the way things go and especially when you do not have a brain-storm team, you end up designing as much as possible all parts of the equation. This is not new, this is how it is. 

However, In this stage I need to take a helicopter approach, I need to oversee everything (sort of), I need to take a wider stroll over this stage because the next part is not how to create a game, most can do that, most can set that stage. I need to create a stage where close to a dozen games a year can be created, a dozen a year for 3 years at least. So that the people are given new choices, new options. Streaming is a different kettle of fish and it cannot be approached in old ways. Weirdly enough the one I bitched about the longest (Ubisoft) has a clear advantage in streaming games. As such their approach towards GaaS is not the best but it is the most evolved one and they have a truckload of IP that comes with it, as such they are in pole position to get there. They lack elements, but they have a clear group of titles that could become clear winners in a streaming station. There are other elements in play and not all the players are clearly identified and there are other elements, like certain titles (example the Horizon games) that people would want to play again and those are not contenders, they are happy alliances. But it cannot be just about that, any system needs new titles, remastered titles and the less known, the better the chances. It comes as an addition towards the 50 million subscriptions I made a claim towards, but to sit on my laurels is not my way, If I can make the essential steps to make it not 50 million, but up to 75 million from year one onwards, I will have succeeded to a much larger degree and to end up seeing Microsoft executives choke on their Azure yaps, all whilst none of them look blue is a clear win for little moi and I like my wins, especially when it is warranted. And for them? Well the old saying (my old saying) applies. The blowback of sarcasm is merely irony, and I like to serve my irony with a wooden spoon award. It is not enough for them to fail, I want all others to see why they failed, why they should have been regarded as stupid from the get go and that is merely my bonus. So I am vamping up two of the three elements and it should be enough to get the ball rolling, and then I hit a snag. Well not exactly a snag, because I cannot test the snag. It leaves a trail and that I cannot use at present (well not until after the Saudi government paid me). And I have a stage that needs to be repeated a dozen times so that there is a floor-plan to work from and that is going according to plan (for now). There are two elements in play. How to make a worksheet, a plan of attack on the premise of art where we can identify enough elements to make sure that most hurdles are addressed, that most issues are identified. That is the task and that is not simple project management. Some project managers will make claim that they can do that, but outside of less than a dozen, how many +90% games have been released? The Xbox has released 6 games with a 90+ rating since 2020, over two years only 6 make the cut. Sony had 8, a clear win, but still low when you consider the investment of the dozens of games that were created. And it is not merely the 90+ games. One real hit was AC Origins which only got 81%. So there is another pool to work with and I decided to look at another pond altogether. I wrote about that too and when you consider the alternatives the investment per game decreases enormously creating a shifted investment number, one that is ultimately more rewarding. And there we have the station we need to look at, the second branch is close to complete with well over a dozen titles. It will take mere days to get the second dozen and branch two will be close to complete and then branch three starts, but I will not write to much about that. I like my surprises a much as I like to serve my plate of irony.

The evolution of gaming is underway, not because I said so, but because streaming games have advantages over console games, but it comes with additional dangers. A much better testing phase is required, the one elements too many game designers are weak on. Do not take my word on it, you merely have to look at the title AC Valhalla, released two years ago and it was still receiving patches three weeks ago. That side needs to improve, it needs to improve a lot. And there is the rub, any solution consultant that gives you the ‘these things happen’ line is wasting your time. Proper testing takes care of that and this is not done by too many. Streaming can only truly evolve when they have a better handle on it. This is not because it is GaaS, it is because Service will only last when the product is properly made and there Ubisoft left too many issues in the field. So you need an alternative to what they have, and there the second branch is the optional solution to getting traction to more people, and in streaming traction is the game that makes you the winner of the streamers and I have no intentions of losing, that is one definite that I am making clear to one party and optional Tencent too. But Tencent is complicated, they decided to work with Microsoft, making them the optional loser from the start, but that is the stage I am faced with, the question is what are my options next? If the Saudi government buys what I have, I am in the clear and my retirement starts. But if they decide otherwise, I will need an options and this is merely one of three IP bundles, so I am not out of the game yet, but I reckoned that the idea and proof towards $500,000,000 a month would have been enough, but I cannot rely on people making sense at times, as such I need a fallback position (as expressions go). And there I am doing work that is less creative, way too much tedious but essential, I get that. So here I am trying to work things out. On the other hand, in 6 hours 55 minutes and 23 seconds the premiere of Black Adam starts, so off to the city I go and have a bit of fun, I have earned it. 

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