Month: January 2018

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Where’s my money, Man

I’ve set this year’s PS4 budget at $1000 considering I still have a nice library of older games and a PS4 Plus subscription for free games. Life is a bit of a Blind Play through right now as there are a lot more unknowns going on than usual. By summer I need to be money OP on my US operations taking off the pressure from sunny Brighton.

How do streamers manage their operational budget?

Investing this much on gaming a year isn’t a trivial matter and has a significant impact on friends, family, work and what not.

Software  Hardware  Cost
 PlayStation 4 Pro 1TB Console  $400.00
 Headset  $60.00
 PS4 Plus  $60.00
Overkill’s The Walking Dead  $60.00
FarCry 5  $60.00
Last of Us 2  $60.00
Death Stranding  $60.00
Days Gone  $60.00
Detroit – Become Human  $60.00
Indie titles x 5  $100.00
Total  $980.00

The second life should be able to co-exist with the physical world and in my case, the strategy is to work them in parallel with minimal crossover.  So in practice, my gaming community would never be mentioned to non-gamers.

Keeping the worlds apart is pretty challenging as “people…usually women” are pretty quick to voice their unwanted opinions on gaming and why I do it.

Zero hours gameplay still in progress

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Shiver me timbers

Two big titles are going head-to-head over the next few weeks in the Person versus Person (PvP) squad environment.  Following a classic Pirates of the Caribbean theme the games tap into our natural urge to hunt for loot as a crew.

Seas of Thieves is a Microsoft exclusive while Ubisoft launch Skull & Bones on all platforms.

Sailing in your own ship creates a natural team bond where members can’t really wonder off and get killed.  Decisions on which quest to tackle or where to go are done over team voice chat so get your microphones ready.  Time will be the killer resource you need to play either game as you’ll probably need to commit to a loose schedule and gameplay duration, this sits well with any streamer.

Microsoft exclusive title

I signed up for the Skull & Bones Beta so let’s see how they stand up.

Ubisoft Cross-platform High seas adventures

Twitch channels followed – 135

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Week 4 – PS4 zero hours gameplay

These extra 10-20 hours I’ve gained from no gameplay have been used for creative thinking and strategizing as well as considering the look and feel of my new infrastructure.  Tactically, I feel ready for the grind I’ve set-up for myself and settled on aiming pretty high this year.

I’ll be investing in 2-3 streamers this year on Twitch and a couple of them have already caught my eye since actually listening to their background story.

Streamers have plenty of real-world challenges, the issue for me is to identify the fakers and actually talent hunt the folk who have a good balance of high-quality gameplay, personality and authenticity.

Considering Pro-AM game streaming?  Think about

Promoting the stream - schedule 
Staffing the stream - moderators, tech support
Career dev – what are the channel goals
Real world Events
Money management – game budgets, giveaways, sponsors.

I watched enough broadcasters and streams to see clearly why some fail dismally and some gain massive viewers and sponsors.  I’ve recently taken to hosting channels with tiny viewer levels just to boast their confidence and getting abit more involved with chat although I typically lurk (stay in chat without interacting).

Coming up to 2 year anniversary – no one streams this anymore

 

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I’m the bad guy?

There’s a lovely moment in the 1993 thriller Falling Down when the Michael Douglas character realises that he is indeed the Bad Guy in the plot.

I like being in a position of accountability and have been a magnet for responsibility since my first job back in Baker’s Arms, Leyton, East London in the early 90’s.  Things can easily turn sour when I don’t get my own way, my traits of leadership spin to being a tyrant and bully with an unrelenting fist of self-destruction.  Basically, if I can’t have happiness you can’t either.

….but wait, this is just a movie, right?

Today, I AM the Bad guy so back off

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Week 3 – PS4 zero hours gameplay

Now I’m just watching Twitch with envy at not being able to jump into any game.  People are playing on new maps, ranking up and testing out Metal Gear Survive on Beta while I look on from the sidelines.

It’s bad enough that my games library is packed full of half-eaten titles much less the fact that new titles are hitting the market as we speak.  Many gamers have moved on from Star War Battlefront 2 but I haven’t even completed the single-player campaign, ho-hum.

Once back, the challenge will be for me to carve out quality gameplay and avoid the temptation to binge on absolutely everything.  I’ll try to create a 2-hour per day game schedule, focussing on my favourites.

A notable thing is that I can’t easily browse the PSN store for juicy new titles.  Personal observation: Maybe, I’m just a game shopaholic with little or no intention of completing or ranking up in the game.

Step away from the shopping basket

A tempting Flash sale is on right now with Mirror’s Edge™ Catalyst at $4.99.  This title was released Jun 7, 2016, peaked early and vanished from popularity but would be an excellent addition to my library.

No meds this week