Tag Archives: Tia Carrere

Out of the blue

That is what happened. I had a stream of ideas out of the blue. I do not know what fuelled this. Was it reading about the failures of Ubisoft? Was it another setting? My mind went racing and I went back to 1995 and Tia Carrere. In that year she was part of The Daedalus Encounter. It was a fun game and I had fun laying it. But then a thought came to me. That game in 2024 could open other doors. Doors opened through machine learning and deeper machine learning (AI does not yet exist). The track my mind went through was interesting. You see, the movie world made rules for (what they call) AI. But this setting might not completely apply to games. 

Now consider the first stage of creating these kind of games using the technology complemented with Unreal Engine 5. We can make new versions of Rama, Infocom games, but now not as text games. More like Zork nemesis, with actors and actresses. Infocom created more than 20 games and they could now entice a much larger following. As the games develop new technology would also develop in creating games. The larger fun of this is that many more developers will get a handle on this form of game development. 

That brought me to the next level. In 1984 The Dallas Quest was developed. As such Datasoft created “one of the best games out on the CBM 64” and it held sway over pretty much the entire gaming community, even those who didn’t follow Dallas (example: me). We now have the technology for streaming systems to hold the sway of all who love this level of games. That wasn’t the only setting. You see players like Netflix could optionally create a new level of games using these technologies. The setting of of these new options could set in motion a new form of gaming. Consider what was. And now take another direction. Creation of these kind of games using TV series. Grimm, Babylon 5, Charmed, Buffy, Doll House and several other series that have been discontinued. Now consider the implementation of ChatGPT, and with a library for every character of that series. Now we get a new technology. A game where the player can be any character in that series and the interactions will shape the ‘episode’ of that game. That trend could be pushed forward. Now consider another venue of these games. Egyptian Musalsalat: A Social Construction of Reality has strength all over the Arabic world. Now take these elements and build the new template. An interactive game where the player decides on the route of the episode. In The Dallas Quest we needed to make choice, like finding the football tickets in the lobby, if not you get stuck in the game. Now machine learning will be able to avoid getting stuck. And the game can evolve even further. Consider the setting that Grimm has, millions of fans still love this series. Now they can continue their TV fling in this new direction. Consider the streaming solution and consider that I gave the option of 200 million consoles with the directions before I came up with this. Now it could become a whole new dimension of gaming. 

Oh, and whilst you contemplate how Ubisoft blew game after game and delay after delay I came up with this new idea (within two hours). Don’t get me wrong, this will be a complex undertaking and the idea to use the Infocom and the Dallas Quest first enables this technology to grow and to adapt to some sandbox approach. I believe this could entice millions more to the gaming population and it has options over time. There is even the idea that former adventures could be evolved into new versions on a new template in a new shape with new possibilities. What a difference a few hours make.

Have a great day.

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Chook Chook thinking

Yes, I could have said ‘train of thought’ but that would be too obvious, wouldn’t it. The thought came from two articles. The two articles set my mind in motion and they are not related in any way, other then the provider of both articles which is Reuters. The first article (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-regulation-tencent-m-a/chinese-antitrust-regulator-blocks-tencents-5-3-billion-video-games-merger-idUSKCN2EG029) gave me ‘Chinese antitrust regulator blocks Tencent’s $5.3 billion video games merger’, I have nothing really to add, other then the thoughts I had wondering what the antitrust regulators were thinking. I am not saying, or implying that anything wrong was done. The ‘official’ version is “Antitrust laws are statutes developed by governments to protect consumers from predatory business practices and ensure fair competition” that is the official version, unofficial it is that competitors use their version of the excuse “to protect consumers” into a version of “stopping competitors with actual innovative inventions to get the upper hand over their need for revenue (read: greed)”, Google has been the most clear victim but they are definitely not alone. In the article we see that it is about Tencent Holdings Ltd’s and the merger of Huya and DouYu. If the merger goes through we get a setting where their combined market share in the video game live streaming industry would be over 70%. So I am not sure what to think, I do not know whether it is valid or not. It was merely an article that  got my attention. 

The second article is ‘FTC extends probe of Amazon, MGM deal’ (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mgm-m-a-amazon/ftc-extends-probe-of-amazon-mgm-deal-source-idUSKCN2EF2EF). There we see “Amazon.com’s deal to buy movie studio MGM for $8.5 billion is headed for an extended probe by the Federal Trade Commission, after a source familiar with the matter said on Friday the agency had issued a second request in its review of the merger”, so there is no connection there, and there will not be one. But the two articles made me think on what else Amazon could do. They do have the inside Track at present and if they push they could do titles that all others are not considering. To see this, we need to go back to 1983 then ‘Dragon’s Lair’ took the breath away from nearly everyone who saw it, it was an arcade machine and a laserdisc. No one had done it before and it took the cake, now on streaming no laserdisc is required, with MGM, Amazon has the option of launching a whole range of interactive movies. James Bond might be the most visible one, but when we consider the size of their IP which also includes the Hobbit, TombRaider and a few others, we can see that interactive movies have an option, and Amazon will own it all. The larger station is not merely interactive movies, but it is a play style that Sony and Microsoft added to their games, they merely forgot to make games like that. They did nothing wrong, they added flavour to their games. Yet Dragon’s Lair showed that a game like that is possible. In 1995 Tia Carrere added to this with The Daedalus Encounter, it started on 3DO but it did get on PC on the early age of VGA and CDROM systems with often no more than 300KB/s. Now with the consoles and streaming systems coming we can do a lot more and now we see that Amazon might be holding on to a lot more and even if the FTC tries to block it, it is merely a temporary setback, Amazon has the inside track and when the others consider this they might wake up and take old ideas into innovative new internet streaming highways. 

As I said, it was merely a train of thought, but so far the others aren’t showing their actions and that is before Netflix steps into the ring, consider what they have and what they would be able to push for, the innovative player takes the cake, that has been proven by Sony and by Microsoft in the past, and with the bar set to $195,000,000,000 in 2022, do you think that the innovators are going to let slip any sliver of a pie that big? What are you thinking?

As stated it is merely a train of thought, but is it that far fetched when you think of what we can now achieve?

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