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New selling point #2020 #madovermarketing #brands #marketing #apple #creativewriting #afaq https://www.instagram.com/p/CCL1p6lJEQ5/?igshid=1wwnm57bg90ts

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To Game or Not to Game.

Apex legends had the most unusual launches, well unusual from AAA studio. At a time when studios hype their products well over a year before launch, the team at Respawn just plonked the game for free on digital libraries, no teaser, no drama, no fanfare. Since then, 5 seasons in, Apex Legends, a Titanfall spin-off, has taken a life of its own.

 At a time when Fortnite and PUBG were all the rage, here came another battle royal, trying to be different. But the quality of life improvements from the get, for eg. It was a pain to land with teammates in battle royal’s, Apex gave us the jumpmaster, now the irony is that its now harder not to land with your teammates. 

The buttery smooth movement, honestly you don’t notice it until you play another game. After the smooth flowing movement of Apex all other games feel clunky and rough, even Fortnite. 

The call outs was a God send for people who don’t have microphones or just don’t like talking to strangers, no more running around behind your teammates like a headless chicken trying to figure out what to do next. You could tell your teammates exactly what you were doing without uttering a word. 

The gunplay is crazy good. There are multiple weapons to chose and trust me none of them feel similar to each other. There is a different learning curve to each of them, the recoil patterns, the fire rate, different attachments. everyone has their favorites, that’s why getting kills feels all the more satisfying.  

And then the icing on the cake, the Legends. Apex was launched with 8 legends and have consistently added a new one with every season. So 5 seasons now there are 13 legends. All legends have 3 different abilities, active, passive and ultimate. They have different hitboxes and while they have the same base movement speed, they feel distinctly different from one another. You like camping with traps in a building, pick caustic, you like run and gun while throwing jumpads around, pick octane. There is literally a legend for every play style and then some. Once you play with legends, just adding skins to a generic character just doesn’t feel the same. ��

Apex was finished from the get go, no early access malarky here. Every season feels better the than the pervious one, they keep fresh and they keep it moving. Be it legends, skins, maps or balances, Respawn likes to skate it up, and that’s why apex still has a large player base when other battle royals are faltering. the core experience remains the same but rest of it always keeps changing. 

P.S. Its free, do try if you haven’t

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The Good, Bad and Ugly of Working From Home

Before the world came to a halt, before the office were closed, before the empty streets, we used long for it, long for a break from the mundane routines, long for a break for the traffic jams, from the crowded markets and a break we got.

Looking back, when I used to drive to the office in the morning, I often found myself wondering 'Do I really need to navigate Mumbai morning traffic everyday. I could just as easily do everything at home as I could in the office.' I used to curse the system, the system that forces people to cluster in big cities, pay exorbitant rents, travel everyday for hours, just to show up at the office. What is the point of all the suffering, a fast internet connection and a Laptop is all most really need.

And then came the lockdown, companies were forced to rethink their strategy. Working was no longer a luxury but a necessity. After an initial bout of uncertainty people settled into their new normals, I personally was looking forward to the freedom, to not being bound by a schedule and boy did not see certain things coming.

The Good

Well as anyone whose lived in a metro can tell you, travel is a pain, before I bought my car, the public transport system is hot, cramped and tiring at the best of times. A respite from the daily travel is obviously a welcome change. Then there is also the freedom, the freedom to work on your own time, no one looking over your shoulder, no taking quick chai sutta breaks to clear you mind, no pretend work to maintain office decorum even when you didn’t have any actual work.  

The Bad

Chaos. With a daily schedule comes discipline,  but by working from home, this goes out of the window.  No more waking up early, so no more sleeping early. I’ve sometimes had breakfast at 3 pm.

The Ugly

In the company’s mind working from home means working all the time. There are no time limits, unless there was an emergency, I never got work calls once I left the office, but now it is a constant, I’ve even gotten work at 2 am in the morning. My organization already had 6 day weeks, not it has become 7 day weeks, no Sundays, no Holidays. There worst part is, when my  boss called on the first Sunday in the lockdown, they apologized for giving me work on a Sunday, now it has become the new normal. The other is a salary cut, the company literally says in their email that we should consider ourselves lucky that we still have a job. Although we have a lot more work than usual, my company has really benefitted by the lockdown but they still chose to pay less, it seems very opportunistic.

So in-conclusion, I have a lot more freedom now, I run on a teenagers schedule, I work more and get paid less. This has been my WFH experience.