iSaunders

Oldfag/animefag heterosexual male from Finland. Please enjoy my rants and opinionated facts!

[i-saunders]

State of the Industry 2014 - Wall of Text about Gaming

Time to write about games and gaming in general (I guess). @CirNobar’s tweets got me thinking about the video game industry’s state. I can say I have never worked in any vidya company, but I’ve been an avid “gamer” (goddamn that is a stupid word, but I guess it will have to do for now) since me and my brother got our NES back in the 90’s, and I’ve played games all my life. I’ve also been interested in e-sports since the days of Starcraft: Brood War, and I love following all e-sports games when I have the time. Namely those games are DOTA2, SC2 and LOL, but I also watch the occasional Hearthstone (in beta for forever I guess), CS:GO and so on. If a game has a stream, I’ll watch it.

ANYWAYS, here are some of @CirNobar’s tweets (feel free to lurk our full conversation from Twitter):

  First of all, most so-called official reviews for triple-A games are paid for. In my opinion the situation used to be worse back in 2000-2008, in a time before Youtube and internet 2.0. People trusted printed media and gaming sites a lot more back then, and that gave the perfect opportunity for game developers and publishers to influence reviews more. I’m not saying stuff like “give us a 9/10 and we will give you 20 000 dollars” have been going down, but it would be really naïve to think that people wouldn’t want to get positive PR in all media. I guess this is also true to movies and music, but reviews have more weight in the gaming world, because video games cost a lot more (the usual 60$ opposed to a 10$ movie in a big theater). Companies like EA or Activision can black-list a reviewer from getting all the newer games if these reviewers give bad scores to some games. When a gaming site is weeks behind other gaming sites and reviewers, it literally means loss of ad revenue for the site. Pretty simple stuff, right? Also, if you have been giving good PR to some companies, these big players might start buying ad space from your site or magazine. Again: money flows in, good reviews pop out.

Thankfully Youtube changed this a bit, and people could start watching what their peers think about new games. The world was ready for such “Youtube reviewers” as TotalBiscuit or AngryJoe to name a few. Youtube also has a different kind of reviewers, and I’m talking about “Let’s Players” like PewDiePie. These people focus more on playing through the newest games, and they capture in-game footage while they comment on them live/record voice over the video afterwards. People usually trust these guys a lot, because they FEEL like they are your friends, right? Well sadly big companies have started to affect these people, too. You might get more a bit extra money from ad clicks by a big company (the recent incident regarding Machinima partners and positive Xbox reviews) but ONLY if you make a positive video about their game or platform. Some people have the backbone to be transparent about their income and where it comes from, but a lot of content creators keep it secret. tl;dr – companies will always try to get positive PR, no matter the cost.

Ok, let’s move on to the “Demos are called Early Access now”. Back in the days of the PSOne there used to be these awesome demo CDs that you could get from gaming magazines or by buying some games. For example Zone of the Enders (PS2 era game) came with a sneak-peek demo for Metal Gear Solid 2 (the so-called Tanker Mission). These demos don’t really exist in a physical format anymore, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist, period. In my experience I have found that at least PS3’s Store has a lot of playable demos for games, and they are free. Yes, even for AAA games. It is true that there aren’t a lot of demos for PC games anymore, probably because they are deemed as too costly, or the code is too easy to crack from the demo for the full game. Still, mixing Early Access up with demos isn’t really fair for either of those terms.

Early Access in Steam works like this: you pay a certain sum of money to gain access to an Alpha or Beta stage of the game. Period. But the problem is that most of these games are actually indie games, not AAA. The biggest so-called Early Access I can remember is for Hearthstone, but that was actually a free Beta for a free game (again, forever Beta… this game.jpg). Then there is Kickstarter, a place where you can pay to make a project come true. The biggest Kickstarter projects regarding video games (that I remember) have been Broken Age, Wasteland 2, Project Eternity and Star Citizen. But again, I have to say that these have all been indie projects from former big-house developers. People shouldn’t have too high hopes for Kickstarted projects, but it is a nice method for these smaller, weirder games to be funded. For example: no big developer would have touched Broken Age, ever.

Do we have a market full of awful games? Absolutely. We have had that since the age of Commodore 64. NES’s game library was full of shitty, AWFUL games, and you know it. PSOne? Hell, maybe 2% of all PS era games are really enjoyable. Even PS2 had a library full of shit. And things will never be otherwise. The iPad/Android/Facebook mini-game era has ensured that. Welcome to the entertainment industry, I guess? But claiming that you have to either buy a game or pirate it to know if it is good or not… that’s a harsh way to look at things. Yes, Metacritic is full of paid reviews and also paid user opinions (thank you based viral marketers, keep grinding your job at some sweatshop and earn your hourly 10 cents, you scum) but so what? Personally I would never randomly go to a review site or Metacritic and look at the monthly top-10 games and say: ”Well I will buy all of those because these guys tell me to!” I need to get some actual gameplay videos and bashing from 4chan to form some kind of a basic idea about the game: is this something I would enjoy? Does it look generic? Does it look like I will be bored with it? Is it pay2win/free2play/full costing game? Who is the developer and/or publisher? Have I enjoyed their games before? Is this game already out, can I check it out in some stream on Twitch? Does someone of my friends already have this and what do they think about it? And the most important of all: could I have fun playing this game?

Boom. There. No need for Metacritic, review sites or magazines. Does “my” method take time? I’d say so, but probably not more than going to a torrent site would take. 10-15 years ago ALL of my friends (and me!) downloaded their music, movies and games illegally. Now stuff like Netflix, Spotify, GOG.com and Steam are here, and you can really easily buy entertainment (and for a smaller fee than before, mind you). GOG has been doing God’s work by giving us all the opportunity to buy older games that work on modern PCs.

I think the biggest threat to gaming is micro-transactions and DLC. Don’t get me wrong: done right these payment methods are non-intrusive, they don’t affect gameplay and ultimately give us extra content. Two great examples are DOTA2 and CS:GO: you can buy all kinds of items, but they are purely cosmetic. A new player can literally enjoy DOTA2 for free and never pay for content. Ever. But as things stand now, there are a lot of greedy, greedy people that think that micro-transactions are the be-all-end-all for every game. The newest Dungeon Keeper is actually unplayable if you don’t buy in-game money to grind the game. Day 1 DLC could have been actual content for a game, but instead these developers choose to nickel and dime you for a few dollars more.

And the best way to make a change? Don’t buy these horrible games. Don’t support these horrible developers and publishers. Make your voice be heard, be it on Twitter, Facebook or some small forum somewhere. Tell your friends and family to avoid horrible games, and point them towards actual masterpieces of gaming. Support the publishers that take a risk with non-DRM games (CD Projekt Red for one, the makers of the Witcher games). Be mindful of your hobby and do not succumb into becoming a mindless consumer, that’s how the greedy ones get more money, and how the passionate content creators stay poor.

And lastly a big thanks for @CirNobar for sparking this blog back from stillness. We might not agree on everything, but I think we both hope for a better tomorrow for gaming and how games are developed. Love you breh! #love

[i-saunders]

Trippin' in Nippon - Beginning and Day 1

Alright, finally back in Finland and time to start updating this blog! First off I would like to say that our trip was all in all pretty excellent: I didn’t have nearly as much stress as the two trips I’ve had before this to Japan and the weather was so much better for me than the hot and humid Japanese summer. Having mastered most hiraganas and a few katakanas/kanjis helped too. But enough of that, let’s get these daily sections going! Day 1

The whole first day is usually pretty much uneventful, at least in my opinion. I can’t really sleep in airplanes, and being awake for the whole nine hours + jetlag really gives you a kick to your sleep cycle. Anyways, I had decided to surprise my wife by buying business class tickets on the way to Japan. And before you think I am rich or anything, I got some special discount price for the tickets from Finnair Plus: damn them and their low prices! Basically the class upgrade cost around 400 euros per ticket, which wasn’t that bad in my opinion, because I had already bought our tickets for under 600 euros in the summer. Considering that the “normal” price for round-trip business class tickets for a Finnair flight to Japan is over 4000 euros I think our total price was acceptable.

So were the tickets worth it? I’d say so. First and foremost, my wife was surprised (and that is no easy task to do!) and I would say we got value for our money… but no way would I pay 4000 euros for the experience. The quicker baggage drop and safety line checkup are a plus, Finnair Lounge was enjoyable, the seats, food and service in the plane were better than in economy class, but not as SUPER AAAWSOOOME as you would think. I would say that if you have the chance to buy cheap business class tickets sometime, do it once to get the experience, but don’t waste your own money on normal priced tickets.

After we landed to Narita, we hopped on the Keisei Skyliner and rode it all the way to Ueno. I don’t really have any idea where Finns/nerds usually bunk while in Tokyo, but I have always liked Ueno for its location and atmosphere. We stayed at a place called Oak Hotel which I can warmly recommend to anyone.

After we had checked in the hotel, we went strolling around Ueno Park for a bit, and basically tried to give my wife a first feel of Tokyo and Japan. We popped in the local OIOI department store to see some Saturday night shopping mayhem. We also checked out Ameyoko shopping street and ate at a kaiten-zushi restaurant there.

To sum up our first day: we walked around Ueno for two-three hours and finally went back to the hotel to get our well-deserved sleep.

[i-saunders]

Third time is the charm! - a trip to Japan

Alright, time to update my blog once again after a small hiatus. Me and my wife are leaving to Japan tomorrow (20.12)! We will be there until the 8th of January, so the trip will take about 2½ weeks. I've been twice to Japan before with my best friends, so I already have some kind of an idea what to do and where to go. We will be spending a week in Tokyo, and after that we will go to a ryokan near Hakone. When we return to Tokyo (a day before New Year's Eve) we will stay at the Tokyo Hilton Hotel for a few days. But don't tell my wife about it, it's supposed to be a S-E-C-R-E-T!

It will be interesting to see how cold the winter is there, because I've been there always in the summer, and oh boy are the summers hot and humid for a pale Finn like me!

I'll try to take a lot of pictures and make a day-by-day megablog once we get back to Finland next year. If you guys are interested in any specific stuff about what we saw/heard/ate/smelled, leave a comment and I will take it into consideration!

[i-saunders]

Playing Mahjong on Tenhou.net

I've thought about writing a bit about Mahjong, and to be specific: playing on tenhou.net... AND HERE IT FINALLY IS! First off: if you don't know what kind of a game REAL Mahjong is (and I'm not talking about that puzzle-like game that used to come with Windows...) check out an anime called Akagi, which is basically about playing Mahjong for money and amazing gambling antics. Also, if you don't know the rules of Mahjong, check out this page first before trying to play. Mahjong is pretty rules-heavy, but it's also a very deep, tactical and rewarding game. If you are tired with the usual casual games like Candy Crush Saga or Angry Birds, give Mahjong a go. Playing it on Tenhou.net is pretty fast (there are timelimits per turn), and I'd say a normal game takes 15-30 minutes, depending on the players and rules.

Okay, you ready to mess with the japanese and throw away the wrong tiles from your hand? Excellent! Here, check out my easy guide with pictures on how to play on Tenhou.net. First off, go to http://tenhou.net/0/. The zero indicates lobby "0", and there are lobbies all the way up to 9999 (if I remember correctly). You will find THE MOST PLAYERS in lobby 0, so that is always your best bet on getting into a game.

This is the first screen you see, and you should press on the small blue link to get into the actual game. Don't bother with the ads.

Well what do you know, you need to enter a name. After choosing an appropriate one for you choosing, press OK to enter into lobby 0.

And here is the view of the actual lobby. All those small buttons are your way into the game, they all have small variances in  rules. But I would say that try them all out, because the best way to learn this game is by playing it. OK, and see the numbers? Like 2:48? Those mean that in that particular game mode there are currently 48 people playing, and two people waiting for a game to start. So if you click the button on the left of it, you will be the third one and you guys would need one more player to start the game. Easy, right?

This is what an actual game looks like. You can see your points, the round wind, your seat wind and the round number in the middle of the table. Currently the round wind is East, and my seat wind is West. You pick up tiles automatically and you have 4+10 seconds of time to discard one of your own tiles (or the one you just drew if you don't want it). Everything goes pretty much smooth and easy as the AI controls the boring part of the game and you can concentrate on your hand. Sometimes the option to steal a tile from another player arises; two options appear. You can either continue without stealing (the button under the white arrow), or you can take the tile by pressing the associated tiles (under the pink arrow).

And again, the best way to learn the game is to play it! Try to learn a few hands that you think are easy to remember from the Han-value chart. The easiest way to get a 1-Han is to keep your hand closed (a.k.a no stealing from others), so I would recommend that to all new players. Also a good,fast hand is to get three (or four) dragon tiles of the same color (red, whole-white or green), or three of your SEAT wind tiles or ROUND wind tiles. If you manage that, you can just rush to the end without basically caring if you get three-in-a-rows or sets of three.

What? You are still reading this and not playing? Go play a game right now! I will give you few last tips that come to my mind:

Dragon tiles are easy way to win for you... but also for them. Be wary of discarding a single dragon in mid/late game phase. If you don't see any dragons on their discard piles, chances are they are waiting for YOUR tile to win!

Don't "fight" against what you have. Hey, if you have just a regular hand, you can't turn it suddenly into a limit hand and that's okay too! Keep that baby as closed as North-Korea, use riichi when you are close to finish, and try to have a few dora (bonus-Han) tiles in your hand if possible. Who knows, it might reward you!

HAVE FUN! If you don't enjoy the tension or playing the game, just quit it. Not everyone has to enjoy every game in the world!

Losing just means winning on another day. Play like crazy, and chances are you will be really good on Tenhou.net after a while!

If you actually become good, or hell, win a hand with my advice, I will be proud of you :3

[i-saunders]

Desucon Frostbite hype

Bumping this blog alive again after a short while. So yeah, if you guys have been living under a rock (or god forbid, somewhere ELSE than Finland), there is a new style of animecon launching next February called Desucon Frostbite. Now, the con itself has been alive and well since 2009 with all it's different iterations, but this time, for the first time ever in Finland, Frostbite will be only for people aged 18 and up.

Trust me sons and daughters when I say that the age limit has caused much butthurt and anger among the younger con audience. Of course it is understandable, but realistically limiting the visitors to be older than 18 is the only way to limit the amount of people buying tickets to Desucon which has been hugely popular since 2010 (I'd say that the first time in 2009 was AMAZING, just the right amount of people vs content, and I had pretty much weeaboo burnout since I had come back from Japan just two weeks prior).

Desucon has always had a nice variety of guests from Japan, and my two personal favorites have been Tohru Furuya (he has voiced such small characters as Amuro from Gundam and the kind, you know... small stuff) and Kohei Tanaka (a composer and artist who has made various soundtracks to such anime series as Gunbuster and GaoGaiGar). This time around they have acquired Megumi Ogata, a voice actress who has been heard in such roles as Shinji Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion, And Yugi from Yu-Gi-Oh!. Needless to say, this announcement activated my trap card (so to speak) and I bought two tickets to the wintery Frostbite! I'm not even sure if I can make it there with my wife, but I'll be damned if I don't try! I also solemnly swear that if Frostbite sells out all their tickets and I can't be there, I will donate my two tickets to someone over 18 and willing to go there. But we will see if it goes to that, hopefully not!

                          Shinji breaks the wall of text like a BOSS

I also thought about cosplaying for Frostbite, but I have no idea who I would want to cosplay as (I bet there will be a hundred people dressed as somebody from NGE, and that's not a bad thing)... I've always had a dream of doing a mecha cosplay, but that would take WAY more time than what I have on my hands, and cosplaying as someone like Char Aznable would require sowing skills which I just don't have... And buying costumes is pretty prissy to be honest. Trust me, I've done it before. It's also quite funny how much the guest of honor affects what I would want to cosplay as. I guess some people share the same sentiment with me though?

Maybe I should just be a trap Nono? Can't go wrong with a lady who breaks about any law in the Universe through SCIENCE and her bond with Onee-sama!

Also Jesus man, this was two related videos in from that Nono breakout one, damn you Youtube!: ADULT ONLY

[i-saunders]

Quasi-daily WTF moments

KappAhl brought a new line of women's lingerie, inspired by Fifty Shades of Grey. For me that inspiration implies something which truly would be adults only, you know, something KINKY dammit! The reality? They made a pretty normal line of underwear from silk/silk looking materials and slapped ONE mask and ONE necktie there. I guess the difference between normal underwear day and kinky underwear day for them is putting on stay-up socks for the ladies. If I was a woman looking for something more naughty and extra special I wouldn't buy these.

[i-saunders]

First post

Hey you there! Thanks for popping to my tumblr (or whatever this should be called? A blog? A journal?). I decided to make this mainly for myself to vent about things that I encounter on the Internet or my daily life. I'll try not to whine and to deliver and articulate my opinions to you guys (and thus to myself) as best as I can. I will also deliver more "personal" information of myself with each entry - boring one-post self introductions aren't really what this journal/tumblr/blog is about anyhow.