Tag: money and power

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Day 3 of 5 | PS4 Offline…Talent management

A top-down look at Game Streaming is fascinating.

Why watch streamers anyway?  Well, as a veteran gamer it’s always good to watch gamers do things I don’t have the time or talent to do.  Right now, my PS4 is off-line and boxed up so naturally, I’ll just watch my favourite streamers.

Gamers voice and talent

The layer of talent management is a brilliant niche offering streamers services like event management, sponsorship negations, channel staffing, PR, career management, legal and finance.

This is a true recognition of the massive variety of streamers representing an actual legitimate career path and free channel of expression.  An interesting detailed article appeared in The New Yorker this week featuring Online Performers Group…….Read the full article here

According to Twitch.TV FAQs there are 17,000 Partners globally, so this is still very much something the Marketing people have not figured out how to truly monetise.

I’m guessing Streamer fall into 
these broad categories

Skill-based
Variety
Casual
Full-time
Sponsored
Fan-based
Broadcaster
Journalist 
...the list goes on

Seems to me the market is still trying to figure out the ‘Path of a Streamer’ but when a free-flowing arena gets formalised the community just morphs into something else.

Remember when you could say anything on mainstream social media channels?

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Gamers, bullied and hacked

This article caught my attention a few weeks ago on UK TV.

According to this report which was sponsored by Habbo, an online vintage pixel-art style virtual community, 38% of gamers have been hacked.

A deeper dive into the data reveals that the source was taken from 2515 young people aged 12-25 in the actual Habbo game.  This tiny sample is a poor representation of the Global gaming industry and to the casual viewer of the article, 38% is a pretty high percentage.

You can download the actual 2017 report here

As usual, the media falls into the easy alarmist viewpoint on gaming reinforcing the stereotype.  There are many sources out there that confirm the average age of gamers to be between 35-38, these and other facts contradict the tardy image gamers are burdened with.

It’s really usual to see a positive article on Gaming in general and Gamers are not generally bothered about their image. Maybe they should be.

Typical gamers have jobs, families and mortgages.
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19th Century Gaming

Vienna, renowned for Opera and Fine Arts, hosted the 11th Vienna Games Conference in the Vienna City Hall which is more accustomed to Banquets and Balls than Game tech.

I was actually hopeful, especially in the backdrop of just finishing the StarWars Battlefront II Open Beta.  Sadly, this was probably the worst hybrid attempt at bringing Gaming Academia and Players together I have ever had the misfortune to spend time on.

I actually whizzed through the entire venue on a Sunday morning in under 90 mins.  Considering PS4 and Xbox were heavily represented, the actual gaming content lacked anything new.

Titles that are already available for pre-order were presented to visitors to test drive and I had a great 10 mins on FarCry 5.  The only other title I hadn’t seen before was Quantum Break (released April 2016) for Xbox and PC but this stands to reason as PS4 Player.

19th century meets Gaming

There were plenty of refreshing upsides to the event.

Reason to be cheerful

A brilliant absence of mandatory visitor data collection.

A Beautiful Neo-Gothic palace-like structure built from 1872.

Wonderful noise control (conversation level)

No overcrowding and marketing hassle

Excellent compliance to the 
Pan-European Game Information (PEGI) age rating system, 
basically all 16-18+ had to prove it.

Downside

Very limited new gaming news

No Star Wars Battlefront II presence or demos

Small demo screen, most players today enjoy
37+ inch screens at home while we had to endure tired 
small screen old PS4 demos.

Heavily restricted eSports access.
My verdict

Vienna should stick to Opera and stay out of the Entertainment Software Industry.  Shame on you Microsoft and Sony for allowing this travesty to actually happen in the Global Gaming arena.

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Lurking squishy tanks spawn camping for snipers

Gaming terms are always colourful and ever-changing. Watch any committed streamer on Twitch.TV and you will soon be looking up the terms or simply wondering  “what did he just say?”.

Language always brings people together and makes it very easy to spot an outsider or faker.

The level of game analysis you can see on The Division™ is truly educational.  Maths, logical thinking and creativity to doctorate levels.   Gaming PhDs (FROG – Future and Reality of Gaming) will be hosting their 11th Vienna Games Conference in Austria this week and chances are that I’ll show up just to lurk for an hour or so even if it’s all in German.

Last played 23 January 2017

There is still not much middle ground between Players and Academia.  Normal folk simply view Computer games as toys for school kids.

I’ve jumped back into Tom Clancy’s The Division™ [now patched to version 1.7] after adding some more streamers to my follow list and watching some deep game analysis.  I still haven’t finished the main story or reached the max rank but slightly more educated on what guns to go for.

My 2017 Division shopping list

PP-19 - Sub machine Gun
SASG 12 - ShotGun semi auto
G36 - Assault rifle
Scar-H - Rifle
M60 - Light machine Gun - Hungry Hog
Tom Clancy’s The Division™ – Final drive to Level 30

Weighed in at 118kg today…feeling great

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Star Wars Battlefront II – Open Beta review

The Open Beta will be over in 4 hours, it revealed the actual gameplay this weekend.

Here’s my humble opinion.

This game is aweeeesommme, beautiful 
and set to become one of the best shooters ever.
STAR WARS™ Battlefront™ II Multiplayer Beta

Ok, now I can calming look at the facts.

EA are masters are drip feeding the player with rewards and achievement hunting. This feeds the brain, builds and sustains a global gaming community that will be here for at least 3 years.

Being able to home in on your play style or class is a brilliant move and should harvest the best of COD or Division players.  I’m leaning towards the Officer class as I probably won’t get enough game time for the other classes.

Seems that the key to success is to work with a squad with dedicated roles and voice chat. Otherwise, you run around with randoms hoping they play the objective rather trying to rank up.

Biggest complain I see so far is the lack of teamwork in a team orientated game.

Helldivers succeeded because of serious close-knit teamwork gameplay.

STAR WARS™ Battlefront™ II Multiplayer Beta – Officer job is the life for me.

My problem will be how to play without life interruptions as well as finding a good crew to join regularly.  It is a brilliant ‘do not disturb, I’m gaming’ title because once you get over the beauty of the game you must focus to achieve anything.

Typically, this means at least 30-50 min of undisturbed gameplay per session.

Only a few of the streamers I follow even bother to join the Beta and these were the hardcore StarWars types. I think the thoughts are that this would be more like Battlefront One but bigger.

The gameplay is better, the scale is bigger and the audio is epic Movie scale. I got so distracted with running through leaves and watching birds fly away.

I can sense there are lots of surprises in store for the full release.  Makes me want to return to PC gaming.

90 Days without any Myasthenia gravis (MG) symptoms

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A Year of Updates

It’s been over 12 months since my last visit home, my US home Orlando, Florida.

On arrival, my GPS freaked out and failed to load any maps demanding an update, soft re-boot failed…. failed to connect to power, failed to connect to laptop WTF.

After tinkering for a while and even resorting to connecting to one of my offline Windows XP tablets I got desperate and pissed off.   I did a hard-reset factory restore hidden method and Boom all maps loading and I’m on the road again.

So long as there’s Pancakes I’m happy

I’ve neglected my son duties for a while now so loads of chores to catch up on.  But first off to Walmart and iHop to get my day started.