#(i have feelings about like all these freemium type games.....)

[22degreehalo]

Okay so I know this is out of nowhere and completely out of context to recent things I’ve been posting/talking about but something Happened in a subreddit and I need to finally get out something that’s been on my mind a lot recently:

A lot of gaming communities are absolutely plagued by a group of people - very often in the majority - who do not wish to do whatever it takes to win competitive matches, but also hate losing. But rather than simply not playing the game, they continue to play, but merely get very angry at their opponents for not making the same choices they do.

I’d like to make it clear that this isn’t about ‘skill issues.’ This is about people making deliberate choices to use their Favourites rather than the meta-relevant choices. This choice is almost always extremely obvious to the player, and in fact most of these players take immense pride in chosing favourites over meta. None of this is wrong! The problem comes when these people play competitively, and actually do not enjoy losing to meta teams, but then blame the other players for not chosing the same as them.

This is dumb. It is just deeply, entirely unfair and unrealistic. Some people genuinely enjoy and have fun making tactical choices and trying to maximise their scores! It’s a fun puzzle, like chess! Getting mad at these people is elitist gatekeeping that attacks people for Having Fun Wrong, full stop. And not to mention that people who play this way are, in my experience, inordinately autistic-acting, giving this whole debate an uncomfortably ableist slant.

And yet, most of these people who use favourites like to think that they are fighting against elitist gatekeepers and bigots. So why does this happen? (At least, in the context of two games I’m most familiar with seeing this in: Fire Emblem Heroes and competitive Pokemon.)

For starters, I think part of it is a weird moral element to it: that the favourites-user is making the Moral Choice, and therefore Deserves to win for that, somehow. Winning by actually playing the game is ‘cheap.’ This ties in to a lot of standard ideological stuff that the world is divided into an oppressor who is inferior in every important way, but wields power over others due to their willingness to use Dishonorable and Unfair tactics that the oppressed are too morally pure to consider. In this view, the correct and ‘default’ position is to play the using-favourites way, and everyone is capable of that.

But that doesn’t work in practice, because the rules of what constitutes ‘fair’ play are entirely vague. (Which is part of why I do feel like there’s an ableism issue, here: the social vagaries of what is an Acceptable level of Trying is very very very allistic.) What happens if someone’s favourite happens to also be a meta choice? That’s often acceptable (even if it means that a ‘favourites over meta’ team is actually not particularly un-meta), but not always. How is the meta player supposed to hold back, so they aren’t trying ‘too hard’? Surely they’re allowed to try to win, but how hard are they allowed to try?

For freemium games (such as Fire Emblem Heroes, which sparked this post), the cut-off seems clear: paying money to win. The ‘unfair’ players are the whales with +10 new, premium units. But the thing is that in practice, you don’t actually need to be a whale to play meta, at least in FEH. In Summoner Duels, the most maligned mode, you usually really only need a single copy of each premium unit to make use of them, and that is not at all hard to achieve. In this case, the commonly-accepted logic of ‘this mode is overrun by tryhard whales who steamroll everyone else’ is just not really true: people who really wanted to play the meta certainly could do so without paying real money. They just don’t. So, why?

I think the key to this is my previous question, of how hard meta-players are allowed to try to win. And I think there are two answers to this, representing two categories of these types of players.

For one category, the answer is that, yes, the player is supposed to try to win, but they want it to be a fair fight. They want to believe that if they really invest in their favourites and get the most out of them, they have a chance at beating meta players.

For these players, the real problem at the crux of the issue is that the game just isn’t balanced that way. The true enemy here is the game itself and its designers. Their frustration is entirely understandable; the problem is merely that it has been misdirected.

This however immediately becomes complicated again when these people exist in the context of competitive Pokemon, where there in fact ARE many different tiers of play that almost always allow some way for their favourite pokemon to be useful. And yet for some reason these players never seem to consider other tiers to be valid ways to play.

I’m... not entirely sure how to rationalise that, to be honest. All I can really gather is that some of those people seem to want to be able to just hit up the ‘default’ tier and use their faves and find other people also using their faves, and even things like checking which tier their favourites are best in is ‘too much work.’ (Of course, this is also unrealistic: even if you could somehow get a group of people who have all spent the exact same vague amount of Effort putting together a team of favourites, those teams would all be incredibly varied in their overall strength, so the problem would still remain.) But I think at this point the group starts to morph into the second category of players.

The second category is of players who in fact don’t want the other player to try to win. Because they don’t want to have to try to win, either. They don’t actually enjoy playing the game. But they want to do it and win, anyway.

Why? In some cases I think it’s just that this is the only game they can really play with these characters and so it’s the best they can do. Even in this case, I can’t help but think that if they try different game modes or tiers or whatever, they might surely find a version of the game that they enjoy more. And if not... then maybe it’s just unfortunate that while they enjoy the characters, they don’t enjoy the gameplay, and will just have to try and find different ways to appreciate those characters.

For others, though, I feel like they almost feel a weird obligation to play competitive. This is more common in men IMO: there is certainly an unfortunate gender role expectation on men to prove themselves Superior in competition, even among feminists; note that men who are incapable usually have toxic masculinity read into them and are mocked for it regardless of their actual intentions. But there’s also a weird strong defensiveness here, or even a vulnerability, that the Meta Players will make fun of them and just in general be mean elitist gatekeepers.

In this situation, there’s a very real sense of ‘get them before they get me.’ The players try to turn it around, and instead accuse THOSE supposed gatekeepers of ‘playing wrong’ and not being ‘real fans.’ I don’t think they realise consciously just how much they’re reading in to other people things they have never actually said, here, because a lot of it is actually projection. Meta-players don’t have to say anything at all - just by existing, they make some people feel insecure and defensive, and liable to lash out.

I think the realest sort of semi-realistic worry is the idea that not playing competitive is intellectually lazy, or just stupid. That ‘smart’ people could just pick up the game and win that way. Playing non-meta often seems like an almost instinctive self-protective thing, then: they don’t need to actually put their smarts to the test because they never Really had a chance to win, anyway.

But the thing is, very very few people are just naturally smart enough to easily win at games like that. I don’t even know if that’s really a thing? People who do well usually do so because they actually really enjoy playing it and thinking about it, and work hard on it. Not being good at a game doesn’t mean you’re dumb, it probably just means that you haven’t really looked into the tactics as much, or gotten as much experience playing. 

But maybe some people don’t like to think that they haven’t tried as much because it seems like it means they don’t care as much about the game and aren’t a Real Fan? But you can be a fan in all kinds of ways - getting better at the competitive game is just one! Though, these players often try to combat this by recontextualising ‘real fan’ as ‘one who actually uses characters they care about because they really know the character well’ which... is just more generic bad Real Fan gatekeeping as well.

Of course, this entire way of thinking is also very unfair! If you deliberately hold yourself back, you can’t complain to the other person when they win! But, of course, there is a sense of envy, there: that that person is confident in their abilities enough to really try. Thus again we get the moral argument, that Actually Trying is unfair and unreasonable and they are taking the Moral choice by not doing so.

Which is the other reasoning: Trying is for Nerds. They aren’t some fat ugly autistic incel weeb who has never touched a girl in his life! They are social people who touch grass and Have Sex! They are very keen to prove that they’re Not Like The Other Nerds, and need to have a bad example to prove themselves against. But when they reach that position in practice, they chafe, because they really do want to try to win and they’re envious of the other player for just being able to do so. But that goes back to the first category again, of people who really do want to try.

So. What have we concluded from this? Honestly, there’s quite a lot more variety in these groups of people than I even believed going into this post, and there’s no one easy way to combat this bad behaviour. Do they want to try hard but are embarrassed or insecure, or do they not want to try at all and are embarrassed or insecure about that? Is the problem with the game itself, or the culture around it?

But ultimately, yes, this is a problem. Too many people are attacked or treated with extreme hostility literally just for playing a video game and enjoying it. That’s not okay. All these phantoms invented to explain why these meta-players are actually Jerks who deserve to be mistreated are just that: phantoms. Everyone deserves to be able to have fun playing video games. Including those who want to try very hard to win.

[northwest-cryptid]

yeah! that's kinda my point, it's been there a while, and quite frankly the whole tradable premium currency thing sucks in any game, the kinds where it can force along progression especially (looking at you, the VAST majority of freemium MMO games)

but it's also definitely not exclusive to one type of game, some have it just for cosmetics, which is shady but not villifying in my eyes, some basically force you to cash out to compete, which is far, far worse to me. when it becomes tradable, or even if people just figure out how to get in contact to cash out it feels as though it'll choke the life out of much else.

for fuck sake, people are even trying to get thousands for items on minecrafy servers because they have a dye the owners didn't intend.

I will say I don't think we see eye to eye on this, I'm not saying it's necessarily a good or bad thing. Rather it's something people don't consider very often but that's always present. No matter what game I look at, though mostly MMORPGs if I'm being entirely honest, hence the original post that never specified exclusivity but did lack further explanation to be fair.

I think people view it in very emotionally charged ways but I don't know if it's really something moral or all that important. Like yeah you're technically not supposed to do it, but the idea that it's omnipresent throughout gaming; and I'm not even talking about cash shop currency and the like, well it's interesting to me to see how people value gold or it's equivalent.

I mean sure you have cases like EVE online where it's not even surprising because of the lengths people will go to for war in that game. But this goes far beyond that, if you're selling gold or direct currency you are competing with two market values at the same time.

For one you need to consider how popular the game is, if it's not as popular it's going to be harder to get sales so you need to consider if it's worth charging more for more and investing time into making big sales but fewer sales overall or whether you should try to get this quick flash in the pan sort of cheap and fast money, but likely not as much since repeated business might not be as common.

But you also have to think about how the economy within the game is functioning. Is one million gold worth $15 to someone or do you need far more before they'll consider monetary compensation.

This brings us to people selling items, accounts, progress within a game. All of this is crypto in an unconventional sense.

You can put a sort of worth on your time and effort. If someone is willing to give you an account that's already max level with all the story done and every skill unlocked is that worth it? In some games absolutely not in others it could very much be for someone with little time but plenty of money.

Real money trading even effects in game economy by giving players access to much more currency than they might otherwise have.

But outside of breaching the ToS for a game, where is the fault? In an ideal scenario, and honestly how anyone I've known who participated in rmt did it. A person or player grinds away at an account for a while earning gold, items, whatever. They then sell that good or service to a player for real life currency. Everyone involved paid a price they deemed fair for a service.

I've never used it myself as I like to actually play games and earn my progress, but if someone thought it fair to them to trade $50 for an account someone's not going to use anymore I don't honestly see anything wrong with that.

Perhaps I'm wrong but, I just don't get all the fuss. I don't think it has any more moral value as the deli selling me a pound of meat.

[bmpmp3]

You liked Webkinz too???

Oh FUCK i did like I think I have about 30??? A stupid huge amount, I adored them so much, as a kid I only really liked animal shaped toys like I had one Polly pocket but it came with animal accessories that I cared way more about, and outside of two Barbie's I picked out for myself (a purple mermaid and a gold fairy with some really cool flapping wings that turns into a skirt functionality) I wasn't into barbie at all, hated baby dolls (they stressed me out................I didn't like that they cried......) I was FULLY a webkinz and lps kid, I physically can't get rid of them honestly, so many other stuffed toys i gave away no problem but i cant part with these dudesssssssss, I have a bag in the basement with them hold up

This way my first one!! She was a tree frog named Cleo and I adored her, she sorta became like the leader? She had an early first series Bluestar vibe (I was also a warriors kid....did I ever stop.....) Except a little warmer? She was nice and wise and strict when needed, I had like a hanging toy holder, like y'know those mesh cylinders with lil segments u can put stuff in? It was sorta their apartment complex? She was like their sorta dorm mother....

Now my FAVORITE one is this lil kitty

A lilkinz gray and white cat!! Her name was Twilight (loved Twilight Princess even then lol) and I loved her so much if you can tell by her floppiness and her matted fur, I took her everywhere and she was my GIRL she was often the main characters of my playtime story lines

Oh and not a webkinz but this thing

(sorry I'm holding her like she's a dead body she's just a very floppy plush) is .....God??? .........so I'm not religious and I didn't grow up religious and my first experience with Christianity was like watching veggie tales vhses borrowed from the library when I was like 11 so this was before then and I didn't really know what a god or a Jesus or any spirituality thing was honestly outside of a hint of Greek mythology from like two episodes of Class of the Titans, I just sorta made this plush like the Creator of All Things? She was large and full of secrets and prophecies and she watches over both my webkinz and littlest pet shops (lps viewed webkinz at a distance like greek titans in a way lol)

Anyway important about this god figure, is there was a Jesus figure???? Basically????

A lilkinz unicorn!! Her name is mystery (the seahorse is her little brother named Lazlo and don't ask how that works) and she was kinda a Jesus even though I didn't know what Jesus was but like she was the daughter of the godhorse and she was mortal like the rest of the webkinz but she had powers and like.....the essence of her mother within her? Almost like....a reincarnation......sounds a lil jesusy? Maybe, I also had a similar Jesus figure among my LPS but it was a lil white cat (don't worry about it)

Anyway I loved her a lot she was my second favourite!! Always a slut for unicorns, one of my favourite book series was My Secret Unicorn if you ever read those sjdhrbejjf

Anyway I won't talk about all my webkinz but I do wanna talk about these guys:

George and Sparkle from left to right, these two were dating, and like Sparkle was a Mean Girl type character and George was like a shitty hot guy??? Like he was shitty but he got away with it because he was hot? Anyway little girls get NUTS with their plotlines and I was no exception and lemme tell ya...these two's relationship was COMPLICATED like first of all George played with the hearts of many, including Cleo, how dare he do this to my girl.... And these dudes

Phoenix (eagle) and Rudy (chicken) were both in love with Sparkle and she had this love square situation going on cause Phoenix was even more manipulative than George and Rudy was actually just a normal chill dude but the complexities of the relationships surrounding sparkle was too much for him and sparkle was no peach herself, but she was sorta that mean girl character who like gets better? She softened up around people like Twilight and Mystery and started becoming a better person but her relationships with these more toxic guys kept pulling her back in

Would u believe that in like 3 years this 8 year old will start reading shoujo manga like it's her job and not stop even in her 20s.............wowza

Sorry I got sidetracked!! Anyway I love webkinz, I'm not the biggest stuffed animal person but webkinz are nice cause lots of them have the beans in their feet and also that fabric??? Like like cool feeling one with threads sticking out, on the googles and a lot of the cats, it's a nice feeling.....what is that fabric....reminds me of these weighted lizard I tried when I was hanging out in the spec ed department of my highschool (they let us hang there if we needed a quiet place to do work during a space period or something even if we weren't writing an exam) and it was just me and a couple of the staff and we were chatting since no one else was around and they were talking about a new thing they got which was a heavy weighted plush lizard with a nice cool feeling fabric, every person who put it on their lap was immediately in love with it and they were like put it on ur lap and I was like ok and yeah...I was immediately in love with it) what is that fabric....I like cold fabrics......

[thoughtsonargentdawn]

On the potential of greener pastures.

While I don’t see the need to beat the dead horse that is the incelery of Blizzard Entertainment’s treatment of women and gay men - still holding out for the claims of transphobia, don’t worry it will be there - One thing I have noticed lately is the increasing willingness of long term WoW players moving to other realms and universes of fantasy.

But the question, is it the right thing to do?

Obviously no one reasonable to advocate for you to stay playing something you find uncomfortable - that is insanity and inhuman. But, is Tamriel, Eorzea or the Galaxy Far Far Away really the type of place that the average Argent Dawn player will feel at home in? I’ve had many discussions with my fellow CoAD team friends and we all have our opinions on the matter. While we all agree that as a creative medium, we as players should reclaim World of Warcraft as something that works for us all - not all of us are particularly comfortable in remaining on the game considering what type of behaviour paying for that subscription enables. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- So first up on the list. Tamriel,the main setting of the Elder Scrolls universe. As a whole I would say the Elder Scrolls Online thematically matches many popular brands on Argent Dawn. It ticks the boxes of House/Noble Roleplay, Military, Intrigue and “Race War Now!” - all fairly popular areas of roleplay on Argent Dawn. ESO also boasts a far more vigorously designed world compared to current WoW, a considerably more consistent lore and player housing that is very generous. The downsides? There always are downsides... ESO is shackled with an insular community that much like Guild Wars 2 - another former contender to WoW - has a somewhat small town Alabama mentality towards new players. This is also combined with a recurring problem of a number of players using their characters to effectively further their own real life politics or ideologies. In particular the crypto-fascists are very drawn to the Aldmeri Dominion faction, with the prominence of the Thalmor - yes the same elf supremacists from Skyrim - being a key factor. Thanks to blatant racism being a canonical factor of the setting many have gotten away with effectively using their character as a smokescreen. Alternatively the Neo-Roman Imperials also are a popular second choice for your standard chauvinistic “ew women” basement dwellers who would shrivel at the first touch of a real woman. Community issues aside, ESO also has system problems with a very awkwardly designed UI that is unintuitive to someone used to the traditional hotbar system present in many MMO games. Perhaps a minor problem in the long term as you get used to it but be prepared for heavy frustration and awkward handling. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Second up we have the supposed rising star of the genre, in the gleaming world of Eorzea, the primary setting for Final Fantasy 14. The setting is very conducive for Adventure type RP in particular, but by no means limited. The worldbuilding of Eorzea is very elaborate, with analogues to many real world cultures being present, Norse, Franco-German, Middle English, Levantine/Mediterranean and Far Eastern with smaller groups being present too. The lore is watertight, with very few inconsistencies - the few are merely a player issue of doing class quests in reverse order to the story quest mostly - and the setting is shown rather than explained through out of universe books. Player housing is rather advanced as well, with both personal and guild varieties being present in four capital cities so far.

Things are not always sunny however. Some glaring errors are present in the game. The UI and general intuitiveness of the systems present are incredibly dated and arcane. This is likely due in part to the need to keep things workable for the console players, and probably Square Enix not understanding their playerbase, especially in the West. In addition, due to how the story is the main system of progression, for those wanting to roleplay with a full understanding it is effectively mandatory to do the main story questline to completion before taking part in substantial or heavy roleplay. Finally and probably the most glaring problem is the issue of the community itself. While the general projection is that the FF14 community is very welcoming and kinder than the WoW community, this is only really applicable to the US servers. Both Crystal and Primal - the main ones - are highly active, busy and brimming with both helpful people and roleplay, so much so it spills out into the open world and cities. Crystal in particular is the most analogous to “golden age” Argent Dawn. The only major issue is the “problem” of ERP being quite acceptable and open in the games RP community, no weirdly KKK cosplaying attempts to shut it down will work here, unfortunately for some. That said it can be ignored and the players soliciting can be reported if they persist - and square enix is very good at customer support. However, the European servers are a whole other beast. Light has no roleplay of any major or notable amount, and half of the servers on it are not even populated. Outside of Lich, Shiva and Odin there are scant few players around. Chaos has more people on it, but the wrong kind of people. I have spoken to a now silly number of people on Crystal and to a lesser extent Primal giving abject horror stories they have brought from the Chaos server group. Most of the RP happens on Omega, with some smaller level on Moogle and Ragnarok. Though to call it RP is generous. Their “roleplay” consists of generally playing self-inserts in Second Life tier social roleplay. Those few who engage in actual roleplay often find themselves ostracised or even - subtly - harassed - remember, square enix are very good at customer support - for trying to roleplay within the setting they are in. It is no surprise then that there are more European players playing on the US server groups than on their own. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Finally the old man, though potentially most balanced of the three is the well established Galaxy Far Far Away - the setting of Star Wars: The Old Republic. With a colossal lore from both in game and the extended Old Republic universe itself the game has tremendous potential for all manner of RP, from your traditional Sith or Jedi RP to space Criminals, Military, space Researchers/Academics, Political RP and most things in between. The Stronghold System, while dated compared to the others does allow for expansive and varied environments to do both public and private roleplay within, with a whole catalogue of venues being available for perusal. Besides that, the planets themselves are highly expansive and massive in terms of scale, easily twice the size of major zones in WoW often with a variety of environments that make the planets seem like an actual world, or part of at least. Hoth really does have the sensation you are on a frozen tomb in the Outer Ring. The downsides of the game however are rather heavy. Roleplay is almost entirely guild centric, though not hidden away by any means. Competing “headcanons” have been know to create problems, but as the Galaxy is big enough it really boils down to a matter of taste rather than sociopathic cult leaders attempting to control the roleplay for everyone. In addition, the system of the game are woefully clunky, with the worst customisation for characters present, even if the transmog system is better than WoW’s. Thankfully the new expansion for it is coming soon which promises to revamp both character agency and customisation and fix systems that are horrendously out of place in 2021. Finally the other main issue of TOR is the presence of the free to play, but pay and get more model. Freemium is neither the F2P that ESO offers or the simple subscription model FF14 offers.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

With all that said, each game has its flaws and perks. Considering there loudest voices seem to be indicating either a shift towards ESO or FF14, it will be interesting to see if these become permanent converts - with all the moral grandstanding about how terrible Blizzard is - or they will quietly slink back to Azeroth once the dust settles and nothing sadly is done about the appalling corporate problems in Blizzard. I personally will remain engaged on Argent Dawn. WoW itself is a product that is shaped by its community more than its sleazy developers and strangulating Blizzard over it is realistically likely to cause more harm long term. Besides, how can we reclaim the setting for the players if we all decide to jump ship?

[nassroune]

Crowdfire Review [2021]: Does it Live Up to the Hype?In our Crowdfire review we will discuss key features, pros, cons, and factors to consider.

Crowdfire Review [2021]: Does it Live Up to the Hype?In our Crowdfire review we will discuss key features, pros, cons, and factors to consider. 1 Who’s Crowdfire? Who’s Crowdfire?  Connect up to 15 RSS feeds  How do I stop my account deletion? Bottom Line: But, if you haven’t yet got a management tool to help grow your social profiles presence, then Crowdfire is an excellent option. Its suite of features is impressive, and the pricing is reasonable.

Are you looking to attract more customers via social media? Or do you want to grow your online following? Perhaps you’re looking for a better ROI on your social media marketing campaigns? 

Either way, if you relate to any of the above scenarios, you’ll need a reliable and easy-to-use social media management tool.  

Cue, Crowdfire. 

This is one of many tools on the market, boasting the features you need to manage and automate your social media marketing tasks. 

But, to ensure this software is the best possible match for your needs, we’re going to review this tool thoroughly. That way, you can make a more informed purchasing decision.  

Does that sound good to you? Great. Then let’s delve straight in.  

Table of Contents

2 Crowdfire Review: Key Features 

3 Crowdfire Review: How Much Will Crowdfire Set You Back? 

3.1 The Free Version 

3.2 The Plus Package: $7.48 a Month (When Paid Annually) 

3.3 The Premium Plan: $37.48 a Month (When Paid Annually) 

3.4 The VIP Plan: $74.98 a Month (When Paid Annually) 

4 Crowdfire Review: Main Advantages 

4.1 Here’s a quick rundown of Crowdfire’s perks: 

4.2 Content Curation, and Scheduling 

4.3 Analytics 

4.4 Mention Tracking 

5 Crowdfire’s Main Drawbacks 

6 Using Crowdfire Can Be a Steep Learning Curve 

7 The Removal of the Block/Unblock Features 

8 Crowdfire Review Frequently Asked Questions

8.1 Small Glitches 

9 The Bottom Line: Is the Crowdfire Social Media Tool Worth It?

First things first, let’s take a brief look at who Crowdfire actually is and what they do. They’ve been around for years, and during that time, they’ve certainly evolved and fine-tuned their services.  

By this we mean, features have been added and taken away. So as you can imagine, there are tons of reviews on the internet that are out of date. But, never fear, you’ll only receive the best possible info in this article! 

Depending on how long you’ve been in the digital marketing game, you might already know that Crowdfire was once called JustUnfollow. One of its major selling points was that users could follow tons of media accounts in one go. The theory is that some of these people would follow you back.  

Then, you could keep an eye on who hadn’t followed you in return…and subsequently, unfollow them. But, over the last year, Crowdfire has distanced itself from these ‘spammy’ style tactics and got rid of the follow/unfollow functionality from its feature list. 

As we touched upon in the intro, Crowdfire is a social media management app that provides users with tons of features to help manage and schedule social network content. Crowdfire boasts seamless integrations with all of the following social networks: Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube media accounts.

Crowdfire also integrates with platforms like WordPress and Twitch, as well as several other media accounts. So, it doesn’t matter where you want to grow your online presence, there’s a good chance Crowdfire has the tools you need to help.  

It’s not just the scheduling and posting of media Crowdfire handles. You can also study the reports and analytics Crowdfire produces to get a better feel for which content types (media) and campaigns do the best.  

Now that we’ve taken a broader look at who Crowdfire is let’s take a closer look at the more specific features on offer… 

Crowdfire Review: Key Features 

Crowdfire boasts a massive list of features, some of which we’ve already hinted at. But, for your ease we’ve listed the most notable hallmarks here: 

You can link to lots of different social media accounts, track mentions, and your private messages, all from the convenience of one place. 

You can queue and schedule content for automatic posting. 

Access tools that help you discover relevant and engaging third-party content (this is amazing for upping your content curation game!).  

Advanced analytics and reporting, so you can track the success of your social media strategies

Support for multiple users who need access to one account (this comes in handy for teams and agencies).  

Tools to help you monitor the performance of your competition.  

There’s both an iOS and an Android app available. So, you can use Crowdfire to manage your social media accounts from wherever you are — great for busy entrepreneurs on the go! 

Unsurprisingly, not every feature we’ve listed here is available across all pricing tiers. This leads us nicely onto our next section…here’s how much you’ll have to shell out for Crowdfire.  

Crowdfire Review: How Much Will Crowdfire Set You Back? 

There are a few pricing tiers for you to choose from, pitched to suit a variety of needs and budgets, so let’s see if there’s a package that accommodates your business… 

The Free Version 

You’ll be relieved to hear, Crowdfire works on a “freemium” pricing model. Yes, you heard correctly, there’s a completely free version available here!  

But, as we’ve already hinted at, the free version doesn’t boast Crowdfire’s full suite of features. So, if you’re using this solution for professional purposes, you’ll undoubtedly experience a few limitations. For instance, you can only do ten scheduled posts per account. 

Our best advice is to make good use of the free version Crowdfire offers, it’s by far the best way to get a feel for the product. It’s also a handy tool for sharing small bursts of content across multiple social networks.  

But, when you’re ready to take your social media strategy seriously (or once you’ve got a better grasp of what Crowdfire provides), you’ll need to upgrade your account to a paid-for subscription.  

The Plus Package: $7.48 a Month (When Paid Annually) 

This is what you’ll get with the ‘Plus’ package: 

You can link to two accounts per social media network

You can schedule 100 posts per account 

Access to a Chrome extension to share articles 

A custom posting schedule 

Support for video posts  

You can connect up to five RSS feeds

Hashtag recommendations 

Support for posts containing multiple images 

Auto-tailored posts for each network with a preview function before posting 

An ad-free experience on mobile 

Social analytics displaying 30 days worth of data

Advanced analytics showing 90 days worth of data 

Access to post analytics 

Access to an unlimited number of articles recommendations for topics relevant to your audience (a content curation tool). 

Access to an unlimited number of image recommendations to you to help you grow your Instagram and Pinterest profiles. 

The Premium Plan: $37.48 a Month (When Paid Annually) 

This is best suited to medium-sized businesses and includes everything in the ‘Plus’ package, as well as: 

You can link to five accounts per social media network 

You can schedule posts in bulk and use a ‘Calendar’ view to plan your content.

Track mentions on both your Twitter and Facebook accounts inside of your team inbox. You can reply to all these mentions with images and gifs. 

Access to competitor analysis. By this, we mean, you can compare critical metrics for up to two competitors per social account. 

You can add and manage one company profile 

You can add and manage one team member

Access to email support 

The VIP Plan: $74.98 a Month (When Paid Annually) 

This is Crowdfire’s most extensive plan, so unsurprisingly, it’s best for larger businesses and agencies. This is probably why the leap in cost is so substantial, you’ll get everything in the previous two bundles, plus: 

You can link to 50 accounts per social media network 

You can schedule 800 posts per account 

Connect up to 25 RSS feeds 

Access to competitor analysis for up to 20 competitors per social account. 

You add and manage up to two profiles ($25 for each additional profile)

You can add and manage two team members per profile ($25 for each extra team member) 

Access to priority customer support 

As you can see, you have to upgrade to the more expensive packages to access Crowdfire’s more sophisticated features (mention tracking, competitor analysis, bulk posting, etc.) So, if you can’t afford a minimum of $37.48 per month, this probably isn’t the solution for you.   

It’s also worth noting: You benefit from a 14-day free trial for each of these pricing tiers. So, you can try the app for a bit to see whether it suits you, without risking your hard-earned dollars. Good news, right? 

Crowdfire Review: Main Advantages 

Here’s a quick rundown of Crowdfire’s perks: 

As we’ve just said, Crowdfire offers a free version (yay!) 

The ‘Plus’ package is an affordable entry-level tier

Its content curation tool is excellent. 

For further clarification about what Crowdfire has to offer, we’ve outlined some of its more notable hallmarks in greater detail: 

Content Curation, and Scheduling 

Content scheduling is one of Crowdfire’s key features. Crowdfire allows you to select either your own posts to schedule (these are automatically detected as they’re already published). Or, you can pick any of the relevant posts and images curated by Crowdfire. 

You just plug in the topics you’re interested in and go from there. As you can imagine, keeping your social media presence active is a breeze. Gone are the days where you spent hours surfing the web to find engaging content to share with your following.  

Also, within Crowdfire’s “Scheduling” and “Content Curation” sections, you’ll find some of the more sophisticated features. For instance, the calendar view and the ability to upload (in bulk) future posts via a CSV file. If you have or you’re planning on hiring a virtual assistant to pre-prepare and schedule your social media content for you, this feature will certainly come in useful.  

Crowdfire even provides you with a ‘Queue Meter’, this tool is fabulous for ensuring you have enough content scheduled for the week by telling you whether your profile looks ‘active.’  

Last but not least, when you post something new on your blog (or anywhere else online), you should see a desktop notification from Crowdifre. This prompts you also to post your content on other social media platforms. Handy, right? 

Analytics 

The only way to examine whether you’re running a successful social media campaign is by assessing the analytics and letting the figures guide your strategy. This is where using Crowdfire’s detailed reports are worth their weight in gold.  

If you’ve opted for one of Crowdife’s higher price tiers, then in addition to data on your own social media marketing, you’ll also benefit from competitor analysis. You can access this info from the ‘Analytics’ section of your Crowdfire account.    

Mention Tracking 

Are you trying to establish an online presence on lots of different social media networks? If so, mention tracking will shortly become your best friend.  

This tool permits you to reply to all your @-messages from the convenience of one place. Never again will you have to log in and out of tons of different social media profiles to handle this monotonous task.  

It goes without saying, if you’re an agency or a social media manager managing multiple social accounts, this is especially useful. Think of how many hours you’ll save yourself and your team! 

Crowdfire’s Main Drawbacks 

Like any other social media marketing software, Crowdfire isn’t without its drawbacks. So, here are some of the more notable downsides to using Crowdfire: 

Using Crowdfire Can Be a Steep Learning Curve 

As we’ve already mentioned, Crowdfire allows you to handle lots of information at once. So you’re probably not shocked to hear that, to begin with, its interface can be a tad confusing. This is especially true if you’ve connected your Crowdfire account to tons of social media profiles. If that’s something you’re planning on doing, then prepare your dashboard to look a bit crowded.  

Also, in terms of clutter, it doesn’t help that if you’re on a lower pricing tier, users can still see the features that aren’t available to them…  

For some, getting to grips with Crowdfire’s dashboard can be a pretty steep learning curve. Still, once you familiarize yourself with the interface and get the hang of the layout, things quickly become easier. Also, if you get stuck, there are useful tooltips and onboarding tutorials to help you out. 

Note: The Chrome extension in the “Plus” package is a great LEVEL UP here to make Crowdfire easier to use with media platforms.

The Removal of the Block/Unblock Features 

Unfortunately, Crowdfire came under some flak for falling short of the terms of services laid out by major social media networks. For instance, in early 2019, Twitter clamped down on many social media tools, including Crowdfire.  

As we’ve already touched upon, one of Crowdfire’s primary functions (used to be) that it could follow hundreds of social networks in one go. But when you consider most social platforms value user experience above anything, it’s not surprising these annoying tactics don’t go down well with the social media giants. This is especially true of Twitter and Instagram. They despise these automated follow/unfollow tools.  

So, to put a stop to this, Twitter removed Crowdfire’s API access. Consequently, this prevented these sorts of features from working. 

As a result, Crowdfire has undergone a complete overhaul of its product. Fast forward to today, and this app only offers features and services that are compliant with standards set by social media networks.  

What we’re saying is, you can no longer use these follow / unfollow people tactics with Crwodfire. Which depending on your marketing strategy can be construed as either a good or a bad thing. 

Side Note: Although some see this as a disadvantage, we actually think its more of a benefit. It’s ALWAYS best to comply with the user guidelines provided by the social media platforms themselves.  

It’s also worth reiterating: As things stand, since the bulk follows and unfollow features were removed early in 2019, Crowdfire is now a safe management tool to use. 

Crowdfire Review Frequently Asked Questions

What is the number of posts you can schedule on Crowdfire?

The number of posts you can schedule depends on the plan you are subscribed. With the free plan, you can scheduled 10 posts at a time for your social media accounts. For more posts, you can upgrade your account to a more advanced plan.

Just go to your account, and log in! By just doing this, you will avoid your account of deletion. Make sure you log in within 48 hours after activation of the deletion.

What are the languages Crowdfire is available in?

You can set up your Crowdfire account in any of these languages: French, Spanish, English, Russian, Latvian, Greek, Japanese, or Estonian.

Small Glitches 

Some users have reported a few small glitches in Crowdfire’s software. For instance, it sometimes fails to pull the featured image associated with a post. It’s nothing major, but it’s kinda annoying.  

The Bottom Line: Is the Crowdfire Social Media Tool Worth It?

In short, Crowdfire isn’t any better or worse than the majority of other social media marketing tools out there, say, Buffer or Tailwind. So, if you’re already shelling out for other software, it’s probably not worth the money.  

[asynca]

i've been scouted for 2d art by a company that does graphics for mobile slot games and i feel so guilty cause it's this or centrelink but if i take the (insane salary) you best believe im going to donate a portion back to anti gambling charities. so if you have any recs, please, if this works and i get in and i get money from it, i want to help

Okay, I had a think about how to respond to this because I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I don’t think it’s avoidable. 

The above reads to me like “I’ve been offered a load of money to help manufacture cigarettes, and now I’m explaining to a doctor how I’m planning to donate money to cancer research because I want to help”. Like, that’s great, but you’re going to contribute to causing actual cancer and your research money isn’t going to do much. 

I know you’re in a difficult position because Centrelink is like. a ridiculously low amount of money, but you need to be honest with yourself. It’s okay to be honest. You’re going to cause harm with the game you’re working on. You’re choosing to make that decision, and that’s a perfectly acceptable decision to make given that you’re on Centrelink, but you need to own the decision your making and it’s going to feel uncomfortable: you will hurt people with the game you are making. 

Let me tell you about the most common types of mobile slot games. 

1. Free slot games. These ones are full of adds and will angle you towards the paid games. Basically grooming you to enjoy the style of game and trying to transition you into paid games. PS. they’re very, very successful in doing this. I can’t remember the statistic, but something like 70% of free slot machine game players will move onto using paid games. 

2. Freemium games. These ones get you to buy credits to continue to gamble with. You get some time for free, but then you pay for time, and thses are usually feature or time-gated and will constantly try to entice you to want to continue playing using a number of sneaky psychological techniques. 

3. Paid games that function very similarly to actual pokies. You purchase credits and gamble just as you would a real poker machine. These machines convince you that you have the opportunity to Win Big. When you do win and it’s not very big (say $500), the game will make it SO HARD for you to withdraw the money, you’ll need to send ID, bank account statements, lots of incredibly personal information usually overseas or to some creepy account and it’ll take weeks and weeks to get the money (if you get it at all). The reason they do this is that they know that if it’s too hard to withdraw, eventually addicted folks will most likely use that $500 to re-invest in the slot machine game and then continue to purchase credits. PS, we’re pretty sure at least a portion of these companies actually sell your private information on the dark web. Many have no intention of paying you your money at all. the ACCC and gambling regulators don’t typically pursue small companies so they get away with it. 

So this is what you are working on. The reason you’re getting an insane salary is because the games fleese a lot of money from people. Gambling businesses are very profitable. 

I’m sorry if you wanted a different response from me: but you’re talking to a counsellor who sees hundreds of lives ruined every year by gambling. You weren’t going to get a different response. You can manufacture those cigarettes if you need to eat, I definitely get that, but there isn’t a way you can avoid causing harm. Don’t bother donating. Keep your money, own your decision. 

[over-a-new-leaf]

self-care 101 (covid-19 period)

Since we’ve rolled round to another May bank holiday, I thought it’d be nice to share some tips with you. As a homebody, and someone who will do absolutely ANYTHING to avoid one specific boring activity, I’ve racked up quite a long list over the past few years. Obviously, I’m no professional - but I find these help. There’s no specific chronological order to these - just pick and choose as you like!

Get out of bed!

Or lie in if you need to. Whatever makes you feel good

Start off the day with some yoga or meditation, or basic stretches

Or pray for a bit if you’re religious

Make your bed: tuck your sheets in, rearrange your pillows, etc.

Brush your hair and tie it up nicely

Pick out a cute outfit - could even be your favourite PJs - and lay it out

Go take a soothing shower, or a bubble bath

Use a bath bomb, get some nice candles if you feel like it

Put on some nice music to relax to

Try out a new hairstyle or style your hair the way you would if you had somewhere to be!

Slap on some makeup, why not? :) 

Floss your teeth, or maybe use that teeth whitening formula you never picked up again after using it for the first time

Pick out a recipe for a hair mask or face mask and put it on

Before doing any of these, make sure they suit your hair & skin type

E.g. if you have frizzy and dry hair, use a moisturising and rejuvenating mask vs if you have sleek, straight hair - use a volume-enhancing mask. Same goes for your skin - evaluate whether you have dry skin, oily skin or combination 

Stick to the recommended leave in time! It can be extremely difficult to get out later otherwise

Or make your own mask! There’s tons of recipes on YouTube and Google :)

Make yourself a nice breakfast

Breakfast smoothies are amazing! A really simple recipe I use contains a few spoonfuls of oats, handful of fruits (e.g. blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, grapes), honey / sugar by taste and yogurt.

Or a nice bowl of your favourite cereal

Avocado toast - there are so many different varieties of this online, and I bet you’ll find that you like.

A fruit salad!

Eggs done the way you like

A full English if you’re feeling ambitious

Workout for an hour or so

This doesn’t have to be really equipment intense or challenging if you don’t want it to be

Some YouTubers I recommend: Chloe Ting, Emi Wong, Fitness Blender, MadFit, Blogilates, Yoga with Adrienne, etc. 

Don’t over exert yourself. Take longer than the recommended break time between exercises if you need to

Grab a new book, or a book you just enjoy reading

You can browse through Spotify for any playlists to listen to while reading - or use a playlist of songs you like

Listen to some music you like

Or discover some new music using Spotify’s ‘Discover’ feature

Preferably something that lifts your mood!

Pick out a recipe you’ve been meaning to try and just make it!

Dance around the house to some music

This can also be a sort-of-workout!

You can try learning a routine

TikTok dances are so stupidly fun

Maybe get a friend on vid-call and learn a dance with them

Make some TikToks

Or duet some on the app!

Get out a new bottle of wine - it’ll make you feel boujie ;)

Or your drink of choice - I’m not big into alc so I usually love a cool mint lemonade or iced coffee

Sit outside if the weather is nice

Or even if it’s rainy! I particularly love rainy days

Go for a walk around your neighbourhood

Do some grocery shopping! It can be surprisingly fun when you’re in no rush - plus, that’s a task off your future to-do list

Go meet a friend - stand at least 2m away and have a chat

Or text/ call your family / friends

Houseparty is great to use because it’s got games that you can play together if you’re not big on talking

Watch that TV series / movie you’ve been trying to get round to

Play with your pet, if you have one!

Do a cute lil photoshoot

Put on a nice outfit and take some nice pictures using the timer

Pictures with your pet

Or take pictures of your surroundings when outside

Or of the new dish you’ve impulsively made

Grab a pretty notebook

Start a bullet journal

Or a diary!

Do some journalling using journal prompts online

One really simple activity I really like is writing out 3 things that made my day :)

If you’re a poet or writer - write write write!

Maybe take the first step towards starting a blog (like I did last week, aha)

Play a musical instrument 

Or pick up something you haven’t played in a while

Try learning some basic chords online

Or just play your favourite music if you’re a professional

Sing along to your music!

Search up some online webinars and virtual events to attend

Lots of professional webinars on LinkedIn, even Facebook at times

Live museum and art gallery tours on Google!

Try some meditation

Headspace is a great freemium app, among others

Use a guided meditation from YouTube

Create a Pinterest account and start making boards

These can be pretty pictures

Or things you’ll have in your future house

Workout routines

Even more self-care recommendations

Sketching

There’s this activity where you put your playlist on shuffle and draw what comes to your mind when you hear each song

Or just search up an image online and draw it

Doodle in your bullet journal / book if you have one

Embroider/ stitch some of your old clothes

Plenty of tutorials online!

You can stitch in some cute images :)

Try a new podcast 

There are so many to explore on Spotify under the Podcasts section

Or watch something on YouTube

Learn something new if you feel like it

Pick up a subject area of interest and search it up on YouTube

You’ll get so many results!

Reorganise your house / room

Put on some music to jam along to while doing this!

Vacuum

Or just tidy all those papers off the desk

Reorganise your drawers

Fold your clothes

Dust any surfaces - super satisfying!

Maybe spice up your furniture placement

Try moving things around - be careful not to strain yourself

Do some laundry maybe

Yawn, but can be satisfying once you’ve done it!

Purge your wardrobe of any old clothes

You can donate them to charities

Or sell them on apps like Depop

Do some online shopping

Be careful not to spend too much though! :)

Download a photoprint app and get some pictures printed

There’s a lot of apps that offer you __ amount of free prints with delivery costs - not a bad deal!

You can finally make a photowall / collage

Try some scrapbooking 

Get out some old newspapers and magazines and cut out any pictures of words that particularly catch your eye

Make pretty lil collages or spreads with them

Reorganise your digital folders

E.g. bookmarks on Chrome

Saved folders on Insta

Email folders

To Do lists

Give them pretty names so you’re more likely to use them in future

Catch up on some much needed sleep 

Afternoon cat naps are actually lovely!

Make yourself some tea or coffee and just sit by the window with some music

Cliché and niche, but makes you feel calmer!

Try some chai recipes online if you’re into relatively milky tea or trying out new recipes

I’m not a big fan of chai ^ which is surprising as an Indian, but my family and friends love it soo

Do something with your family / roommates

Movie night!

Group dinners (even better - themed dinners!)

Or a fine dining wine night (bonus points if you dress up!)

Board games night

Or just games night e.g. charades, Headbandz, Psych (app)

DnD - never tried it but sm people have recommended it!

Make some TikToks

Sit around and chat

This is random but you can make PPTs about things you like and present them to each other - good for shit n giggles :) 

Play an old online game e.g. Fireboy and Watergirl!

Create each other in the Sims 

Organise some friendly competitions :)

Truth or Dare? 

Look at star sign stuff with them - whether you believe or not, it’s an interesting thing to do nonetheless

Do Enneagram tests - extremely interesting and scarily accurate from my personal experience

Experimental cocktails maybe!

Some DIY arts and crafts!

Pitch a tent outside

Or make a pillow fort inside

Speaking of which - pillow fights!

Karaoke night

Or set up your own club - make a playlist, get some strobe lights or turn off the lights and get everyone to switch on their phone flash and just dance around. Get some drinks if you want as well!

Have a BBQ - great to do especially in the afternoons or early evenings!

Have a date night if it’s just the two of you :)

Have a picnic outside

Text someone something nice!

Win-win for the sender and the recipient :)

Great chance to reconnect with someone

Cleanse your devices & social media profiles

Change your profile pictures, bios

Archive / delete some pictures (we’re all guilty of this)

Maybe restart your account if you haven’t used it in too long, have too many random followers or just want to start afresh

Check your phone storage and delete stuff accordingly

Change your wallpaper / theme

Back up old pictures and delete them off your device 

And that’s my list for now! I might add to it later if something comes to me but I hope you guys enjoy this! :) 

Image credits:

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/151574343695926876/

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/579627414531062674/

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/AQzIfTN5EwSc9JESrIo1l8AQw6cznXq2HLFq_SQk6La00-yL2As1QnY/

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/499055202462999051/

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/328481366576228467/

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/6262886962801682/

[mekapuppers]

First Post - A Look Back at the Beginning

Hello frendos! Cassie here, bringing you our very first Dev Blog post. We wanted to tell our story thus far and give you a look into what development has been like on MEKA Puppers. It certainly has been an exciting trip and there’s a fair bit to cover, so strap in! Or take a comfy seat with some tea or hot cocoa and relax. Whatever you’re feeling like.

Beginning of August 2018, we started to really dig our feet in with development. This is when I started on the team! At this point, JP had already put together a small proof-of-concept prototype to build on. It consisted of a singular test level, minimal UI, a rough sketch dog character 3D model (which would later become our good boi, Scout), and the beginnings of a Mek editor. Looking back, the game didn’t even have a win or lose condition yet, which makes me chuckle a little. But the foundation was ready, and we were excited to build up from there.

A little bit of a side note; this game was originally going to be a fairly different beast. We were planning on launching on mobile plaforms, and releasing it as a freemium game with gacha mechanics. We realized pretty early into development that due to some complications, we weren’t going to be able to do that the way we had planned. So, we switched over to making MEKA Puppers to be launched on PC and macOS (and hopefully consoles, fingers crossed). This meant changing gears in a few places.

For starters, the game would have to be MUCH more narrative and progress-driven. Since Mek parts would no longer be collected via gacha mechanics, we’d have to switch from items being a random-drop to having a way to purchase them with collected in-game currency or through progression (spoilers, we ended up doing both). We also had to make considerations for changing the screen orientation from portrait to landscape, and for controls switching over to mouse from touch. Not to mention, we had to determine how much we’re selling the game for (and trust me, thinking about that is fairly nerve wracking). These were challenging hurdles to jump, but I like to think we handled them well!

Heading into winter, we were looking to prepare for conventions. We wanted to start building hype as well as gather as much player feedback as possible. We were overjoyed to hear that one of our favourite cons, MAGFest, had accepted our application to their indie games showcase, and we got to work straight away on a demo version of the game. The demo included 5 levels, which were designed to introduce the main plot of the narrative, an improved mek editor, and a selection of parts and pilots to customize with.

We also had to think about marketing, which meant designing a banner for our table, as well as materials to give away to people. We ended up putting together some pretty fun items; buttons featuring the faces of our beloved pilots (and Katsu), 3D-printed magnets of our corgi pilot, Toast, and wearable papercrafts of Katsu’s own mask. We had a great time showing off the game, generating interest, and gathering feedback from players. We learned a lot about what we could do to improve the game.

It’s been a good chunk of time since then, and we have made quite a few additions and improvements. The garage and Mek editor received some SUBSTANTIAL upgrades in terms of functionality, polish and readability. In general, the UI and quality of life have seen improvements, based off feedback from the demo at MAGFest.

We’re particularly excited about the addition of the foundations for our level up (lvl PUP!), abilities and skill tree systems, the Mek parts shop (run by a Very Good Boy who we have yet to name), and most importantly, a feature we’ve been wanting to add for a long while, the Pupper Park, where you can see and (GASP!) pet all of the doggo pilots you’ve befriended! Because, come on. If your game has dogs in it, you should be able to pet them. Very important.

We also wanted to sprinkle in a few small details that add to the charm of the game (enemies say things like “ouch!” when they take damage now. Almost makes me feel bad for them). We’re still in alpha, but the game really looks to be shaping up into something pretty solid. Honestly, looking back while writing this post, I realize how much we’ve managed to accomplish, and it feels pretty good.

We have lots left to do! The environment art has been given some TLC, and is continuing to be improved on as we speak thanks to our new hire (Keep up the good work, Danni!). We’re also going to gradually add new Mek parts and pilots, and roll out new attack types and effects for weapons. Pilots’ abilities and skill trees are going to be fully fleshed out so that your pilot choice makes a difference to the Meks you deploy. We've started to improve on Mek part models, and are going to do a boatload more visual improvements to things like pilot models and animations. Narrative is going to be hugely expanded on as well (can’t wait to tell you about the surprise twist involving… actually, maybe I shouldn’t spoil it).

Eventually, this will all add up to some closed alpha (and beta) testing! One of the things we decided we wanted to do pretty early on is to build a community around the alpha and beta testing of the game, not only for the sake of finding and stomping out bugs, but also to gather feedback from our players. We want to know what kinds of things people want to see in MEKA Puppers when it releases. We’ve already got a discord server (It’s right over HERE btw) ready to go, and we’re looking forward to interacting with our community there over the course of the game’s development!

Of course, we’re going to continue to post WIP and behind-the-scenes content regularly on our social media, our discord, and right here on this dev blog page (although going forward the updates won’t be NEARLY as wordy… probably a good thing, huh?), so stay tuned for those! And, we’ll be looking to do more convention appearances, so we’ll be announcing those as well. If you happen to be attending any cons we’ll be at, feel free to swing by, say ‘henlo’ and try out the demo! We’re always happy to chat.

Whew. That was a real doozy of a post. Thanks for sticking around ‘til the end! I can’t wait to show you what we have in store for you as we continue on this game dev journey. Onward we go! And remember to be good to each other.

-Cassie Game Designer @ Galacanine Entertainment Software Inc.

[gravefire]

Gameplay Thoughts and Inspirations

「 G R A V E F I R E 」will be a deck-building roguelike, as has been pointed out in its subtitle, and will be its key selling point. There are a lot of players who love roguelikes and a lot who like card games as well, and quite frankly there aren’t enough games out there to cater to the demand. I can barely count the most popular roguelikes on my two hands. As a deck-building game, they key difference from roguelikes would be that everything would be a card, and you build a deck as you progress through the game.

I will also actively blog about the game’s progression this time. 

Inspirations

I have written previously that my previous game Sheeping Around was inspired by Card Thief. GRAVEFIRE, though has a lot of inspirations. The primary ones are:

Meteorfall: Journey by Slothwerks

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series

Slay the Spire by MetaCrit

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (2010)

The first three are a good mix of roguelikes and turn based battle / card games, but you’d ask what does NFS: Hot Pursuit have to do with this genre? That game has a pretty good career mode UI they call “Autolog”, which inspired me to build something like that for my own game. More on that in the later sections of this post.

Platforms and Pricing Model

While Freemium is the reigning king as always and 90% of the new games released are free-to-play, and some devs report earning a good revenue from just ads, it’s just not for me, at least not for this game. I don’t feel very good about the whole economy that works by taking advantage of gamers’ psychology to extract maximum money out of them. “Milking the whales” as it is called.

GRAVEFIRE, therefore will be a premium game, and it will have no in-app purchases to buy extra in-game currency. (It will have in-game currency though, just purely for progression.) It may have IAPs / DLC to unlock extra content for future content updates, but that will not be present on release. I suffered somewhat of a backlash for having IAPs in a paid game for Sheeping Around. Pocket Tactics mentioned in its quite bad review of the game: “Extra supplies can be brought for real-world cash, a feature that is sure to irk many gamers, especially in a paid app.”

I will design the game to work well in portrait mode on mobile and landscape mode on tablets and desktop devices. The primary platform for the game will be PC, and mobile will be secondary. The audience on Steam isn’t very fond of mobile games repurposed / adapted to PC without much efforts. “Cheap mobile ports” as they say. I will make sure that doesn’t happen. It will work like a responsive website on a single codebase.

Pick Your Character

As in most role-playing games, in GRAVEFIRE too, you will be able to pick one of the three characters to begin your journey with. The three characters are: The Necromancer, The Crusader and The Alchemist. Each character will have its own cards and skills that differentiate it from the others. They will also have their own backstory of how they survived the grave fire, and what happens next.

A Burnt World to Explore

You will have a map to explore as you begin your journey. Select a location in the map to begin your game, which will be a mix of tower defense / turn based battle (more on that below). 

The map will have mountains, valleys, pits and other regions. Some thoughts around region names include: Lake of Blood, Mt. Blaze, Scorching Pit, Tree of Death. 

Like in Autolog in NFS: Hot Pursuit, you select a region as it becomes available, and pick an event to do in that region.

An event could be a main story quest, a side quest with rewards, or anything else (more on that later). You can do certain events as many times as you like. Some events may be a combination of one or more events.

Deck Lanes: Tower Defense meets Card Crawler

For GRAVEFIRE, I’m exploring a gameplay mechanic that I call Deck Lanes. Please excuse my lack of art skills:

Each dungeon in GRAVEFIRE will be a set of decks. Initially, it will be just one deck laid out in a 1x3 grid. Eventually the gameplay will get complex and may increase to 4x3 or even a 5x3 grid. Harder games will have a lot more cards in each deck. Possibly upto 50 cards per deck, totalling to a 250 card dungeon if laid out in a 5x3 grid.

Each dungeon deck has a set number of cards. In the most basic kind of event Survive, your objective is to survive until all decks run out. If you die in a dungeon, you lose and your game is reset to the last save / last event completed. The whole game isn’t entirely roguelike, only each event is: some people would call it roguelike-like or roguelite. 

Each dungeon deck can have monsters, skills for you to use, items and gold. Each turn, monsters advance one turn forward towards you, unless there is another monster ahead of it. If there is an item or a skill next to a monster and it wants to move forward, it will destroy the item and move forward anyway. So pick up any items before a monster comes your way. However, keep in mind, picking up items costs energy, so think wisely.

When you tap on the Necromancer, it shows cards you have in your hand. Each turn you draw 3 cards, and you can only hold a maximum of 8 cards in your hand. In the first turn you draw 5 cards. At the end of the turn, the cards you use are discarded in your discard pile. Using a card or picking up an item costs energy, indicated on the card. Each turn, you get 3 energy points to spend. The energy you have to spend will increase as you progress.

There will be lots of different types of attack / defense cards, skill cards that can impact the rest of the event. Items like potions can only be used once and they will disappear forever. Certain skills also can be used only once and then they exhaust, meaning they can not be used again for the rest of the event, but you will get them back in the next event.

Each monster in the lowest row has an intent to either attack or defend. (Or do more things like poison you or burn you, or it could bluff as well.) You must play your cards based on the intent of the monsters.

All of this is very similar in nature to Slay the Spire, but with the exception that everything is a card. Also the tower defense type ascension of monsters in deck lanes allows for some interesting gameplay design options.

Later during the game, you can also tame monsters and add to your team. It works a lot like befriending Pokemon in the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series. You cannot control them (they will move on their own), but you can use moves and skills to help boost their strength. If they die, you lose them permanently, so if a monster is really precious to you, you’d want to reset to your last save.

Event Types in GRAVEFIRE

Events will play a key role in GRAVEFIRE. Each region you unlock on the map will have various events that you can do. Like in Autolog in NFS: Hot Pursuit, each event could be a race, hot pursuit, preview, interceptor, etc.

Or like in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, each mission could be a rescue mission, or a mission to find an item, or to battle a legendary.

Events in GRAVEFIRE could be one of the following in the list, or a combination of two or more events:

Survive: The most basic type of event. Just explore a dungeon and survive until the dungeon decks run out. Your typical dungeon crawler. Each dungeon would have its own set of monsters and specific items or skills to acquire. You can explore a dungeon as many times as you want.

Soul Liberation: GRAVEFIRE has caused a lot of souls to be trapped, and they want to be free. Explore a dungeon, and find a soul stuck in one of the dungeon decks (most likely at the bottom of it) and use your special skills to liberate it.

Soul Searching: Some bodies have risen from their graves but have no purpose without their soul. They are harmless, but also aimless. Escort them to their soul stuck in one of the dungeon decks (most likely at the bottom of it). The key difference here is that the undead creature sits besides your primary character’s cards and the dungeon monsters can attack it. You must use your skills to protect yourself and the undead until it finds its soul. In return, they will reward you with some powerful skills and moves.

Soul Capture: In certain dungeons, monsters have become all powerful because of presence of a lot of wandering souls. Places like the Tree of Death are key areas for such events. In this kind of event, you must battle monsters and can also capture their souls and add to your team. They will be on your side starting your next turn. If they survive the deck, they will stay by your side in future battles too.

Find an Item: Much like soul liberation, there is a special item that you need to find. Explore a dungeon and find the item stuck in one of the dungeon decks (most likely at the bottom of it). Once you get to the item, acquire it.

Situation: A situation is choice driven event, where you are in a story based event and are given between 2-4 options to proceed. A situation may have between 2 - 5 steps that may happen based on your choices. The outcomes will result in you obtaining a few cards and skills to add to your deck, or to raise your HP or strength or even lose a few cards in your deck. The outcomes may be good or bad, depending on the type of situation you are in and your choices.

Healing: A healing event will never occur standalone on its own, and will most likely occur before an Elder Battle, GRAVE Battle or GRAVE Survival, or something really troubling. It is a special kind of Situation which only results in good outcomes. It will let you regain HP, boost your strength or gain special skills that will help you in the upcoming battle.

Elder Battle: Elders are special monsters that take between 2-4 entire deck lanes. Ordinary deck lanes will keep on moving forward as usual. you must defeat the elder to win this event. 

GRAVE Battle: A GRAVE Battle is a special kind of Elder Battle, where there are no ordinary deck lanes. There is just one massive Elder occupying the entire screen. You must defeat the monster to win this event. There will be only one GRAVE Battle in GRAVEFIRE and that comes towards the end. This special Elder is a monster that caused the grave fire. Battle and defeat it to beat the game and unveil the final secrets of GRAVEFIRE.

GRAVE Survival: The Elder that caused the grave fire will appear many times, but you will never be able to beat him until towards the end you acquire the skills to defeat him. In GRAVE Survival, you must only survive the battle against this Elder for a certain number of moves. This event will occur many times throughout the game, and each time you survive, you will unlock something rare and powerful and learn more about the backstory of GRAVEFIRE.

Suggestions?

In the coming few weeks, I will come up with a prototype, and also talk about the team behind the game, and progress updates including exploration of the art style, choice of music, and some UI designs.

If you have read so far, and like the concept, do let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Stay tuned for「 G R A V E F I R E 」.

[clark53rasmussen-blog]

Batman Beginnings Finally Launches On Android

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[thomas60barnett-blog]

Guedin Fan Game

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[bredahl73tuttle-blog]

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[memorylang]

Week in My American Pandemic Life | #44 | September 2020

September felt like a good month to share another slice-of-life blog story (since my last one was pre-pandemic, last December!). 

Leading into Sept. 2020, I knew that it’d be the month in which I’d find out whether I was going back to Peace Corps Mongolia in October. If so, I’d need to be ready to repack my belongings and head back overseas. If not, I’d find out for how much longer I’d need to wait. 

The longer I’ve been back in the States, the more little activities I’ve picked up. But still, my heart’s with the Peace Corps. I want to go back as soon as I can. With that in mind, though, here’s what I’ve been up to! 

Most Every Day

These events encompass my stateside weeks 26 to 30 (being Aug. 28 to Oct. 1). I've been doing mostly ad hoc projects depending on Peace Corps’ timeline. Since my summer weeks, my most recurring roles have focused around two task forces and two boards on which I’ve been serving amid the pandemic. Beyond these, I’ve been focusing on readying for graduate school and seeking a strong spiritual life. 

I spent most of September in Reno, so my week-in-the-life stories encompass those periods. My weekends largely blurred with my weekdays, so weeks tended to mesh together. Still, each day had enough recurring events that I’ll start by describing those common threads. 

Long Before Dawn

I usually rose between 3 and 5 a.m. I’d basically fling myself out of bed to shut off my alarm so as not to wake my younger brother. Then I’d leave the room and spend my morning in the house’s kitchen/dining area. 

From then till 9 a.m., I’d mostly work on language exercises from the classical Latin textbook I've been using with a long-time friend who’s been tutoring me this rich language. Around 9 a.m., we’d hop on our video call. Even on weekends we tended to call. We chatted usually for a couple hours, finishing around 11 a.m. or noon, depending on our start. 

Besides Latin daily, I’d a few other activities I’d do usually sometime between about 4 a.m. and 1 p.m. These were for spirit, for fun and a bit of escape. 

I’d continued my quarantine habits of reading more Scripture. At the month’s start, I’d pray a rosary and read a Psalm a day. A friend and I had finished reading our daily Proverbs chapters in August, so we’d decided to take on a Psalm a day. Then my other friend and I had concluded our rosaries. So, I’d read a Hebrews chapter with my Psalm a day. After I finished Hebrews, my other Bible study group had begun John. So, by September’s end, I was reading a Psalm and John verses a day. Good times.  

Daily App Streaks

Around 8 a.m. I’d get in a power nap to recharge. Usually after 8 I also didn’t tend to receive messages from friends in Mongolia, for that approached their midnight. If I received new messages, those tended to come after 6 p.m., which was their morning.

On the learning side, I’d also keep up my Duolingo streak. I’d surpassed over 150 days, so I figured I might as well keep at it. I mostly used Duolingo to practice Latin and seldom had touched the Spanish and Chinese lessons as much as I used to. Sometimes my daily Duolingo lesson feel like bad medicine, but I remind myself that languages stick best when I rehearse them. Other days feel great! 

A bit after my morning nap would be my 9 a.m. Latin tutorial. Either right after it (closer to noon or 1 p.m.) or long before it, such as when I’d wake up or shower, I do my Scripture readings, Duolingo and also Pokémon tasks. I’d never set a specific time for these. 

Mostly to break up the hard stuff, I’d keep up Pokémon GO and Pokémon Masters EX streaks. The freemium games offer daily bonuses for simple activities. In terms of self-tending, I remember that humans ought to set aside time each day for play. At least by playing free games, I needn’t spend money. They get me out of the house, too! 

Habits of Isolation

When I’m not out of the house, the pandemic surely does weird stuff to me. Free time seems to lead me to check my email inbox, perhaps too often. I think that the habit stems from my ambiverted itch to have social contact after spending hours alone glued to topics. I also just like helping people and brightening their days, given how unevenly the pandemic affects us. More innocuously, I check my Google Calendar too to make sure I don’t miss deadlines. I try not to stress so much… 

When I caught myself staring too long at that inbox, I’d go outside an hour or few to a walk around the neighborhood, thank God and weigh whatever might be on my mind. Reno, Nev. had had plenty of smoke from NorCal fires, so I’d definitely keep on my facemask. I loved being outside, but toxic air made me less eager. 

Around 3 p.m., I’d get in a second power nap. Though, on some weekdays my youngest brother had his online class at 3. So, I try to nap a little before, so he could have the room to himself. 

Our family usually has dinner around 6:45 p.m. or 7. Attendance varies depending on who’s at the house by that day. At minimum would usually be Dad, my tita /TEE-tuh/ (Filipina stepma) and me. At most, there would usually include four more, being my youngest brother, a family friend who's also our tenant, my youngest sister and her boyfriend. Sometimes by brother’s still on campus, the family friend’s at work, and/or my sister and her bf aren’t visiting till the next day. 

As a side note, when I’d first started coming up from Vegas to help at the Reno house, Dad had only purchased a dining table with four chairs. Then he’d purchased four more chairs, which most of us had opposed. Once everyone else had come up for their fall semesters, though, we conceded that Dad won. 

Weekday Mornings

Mondays through Fridays are my dad’s workdays, so morning routines go a little differently. Regardless, I’d usually still be up early, from that 3 to 5 a.m. range. 

Tita would usually come downstairs around 5:15 a.m. to begin fixing breakfast for my father and whoever else was at the house. My stepmom reminds me of my mom in this way, waking early to fix food for everyone. I thought of both of them when reading of the woman in Proverbs 31:15, “She gets up while it is still night; she provides food for her family [...].” I hope I’ll be a caring parent, too. 

Tita had retired some months after marrying my pa, which gave her more free time. If she wasn’t down around 5:15, she’d had asked me to come knock upstairs on the master bedroom door in case she and Dad overslept their alarms. I give her a hand when she needs it. Tita would also fix Papa coffee and unload the dishwasher from the night before. I’d help her reach higher shelves and take things to or from the garage.

And Tita and I would chat a bit. I hadn’t known much about the Philippines geographically. I felt surprised to learn that her home province's language is Bisayan, not Tagalog. She said it’s because she’s from Bohol, in the Central Visayas. We’d chat about Asian culture and our Catholicism, too, like the Bible and prayers. I’d also vent about life sometimes. She is a patient soul. 

An Early Breakfast

Often between 5:45 a.m. or 6, my papa would come downstairs and enjoy the breakfast his wife made. Dad would also sometimes ask me to do things or comment on my ‘inability’ to do them. I tried to ignore the comments that I felt were a bit rude, since Dad told me I’m going to meet lots of mean people in life. He means well... 

By 6:15 a.m., Dad would take off for work, so he’d kiss his honey goodbye and wish me a good day. Back when I was the only one staying at the house with Dad, I’d carry his bags out to the car; but by September, usually Tita would do this. I appreciated that she’d alleviated some of my burdens. She let me focus more on my own tasks, like language studies. 

After Dad left, Tita would return upstairs to sleep. In the afternoon, she’d resume cooking to prepare dinner. I’d often still be in the kitchen/dining room since I usually had my computer and notebooks set up there. The house hasn’t really had many other tables on which to work. 

Dad tended to get home around 6:45 p.m., hence our family’s usual mealtime. Whoever was nearby would set the table and summon the others. Afterward, we’d all usually pitch to put away the dishes and table mats while Pa and Tita got ready for their evening walk (or while Dad got distracted watching politics on the news). Tita had us leave food out for the others who’d missed dinner. 

And now to share the unique activities of my week’s days! 

MONDAYS: Non-Profit + Chinese

Mondays and Tuesdays were my Chinese days. Besides the usual Latin in the morning, I’d have a Chinese call in the evening with a teacher whom I’d met through Discord and reddit. The Chinese woman happened to have more free time through the pandemic, and so she felt happy to work with an eager student like me for free! I’d prep for our calls by reading her textbook and watching tutorial videos she’d taped. She encouraged me to give feedback, too. 

Before our half-hour Chinese calls, Monday afternoons were also a bit busier. My siblings and I had our Foundation calls to go over the non-profit we were building to honor our late mother and help others. I usually just told people around me that my calls were to catch up with my sibs, which was also true. Since June, we’d been meeting to incorporate as we built up for our Oct. 8, 2020 launch. 

Foundation meetings reminded me of extracurricular boards on which I’d sat during my undergrad and brought to mind my experiences in national public relations and advertising competition courses during my final years in journalism school. I felt like I’d been doing this type of work for years! 

My siblings and I later moved our meeting time to Thursday afternoons to better accommodate school and work schedules. 

And Mondays weren’t all-work-and-no-play. Usually by Monday nights I could find the new episode of “Crash Course: Linguistics” available on YouTube. I really liked those. Plus on Mondays, I could often find online versions of the newest Japanese “Pokémon Journeys” episodes with English subtitles. I’d gotten back into the show in Mongolia when I’d heard that its lead protagonist finally became Champion. Amazing to see! 

TUESDAYS: Chinese + Social Justice in Psychology

Tuesdays continued Monday’s Chinese. At 8 a.m. I hopped onto a call of language learners through the National Security Girl Squad (which welcomes men, too!). We’d discuss current political events and interests in Chinese, which definitely helped my vocab. The group reminds me of folks I’d met while participating in the U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program 2018. Many involved in our calls had also done CLS! 

After the Chinese call finished at 9, I sometimes slipped up a bit swapping back to Latin. But, I figure I just need to toughen up that mental acuity. 

At 4 p.m., though later moved to 5 p.m., I’d hop on another Zoom for an entirely different topic. I've been serving on the Social Justice Task Force for Division 36 of the American Psychological Association! We focus on how we can live social justice within the Society for the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality. I’ve learned so much from these scholars, practitioners and doctoral students. They even appointed me Task Force secretary from early October. 

Tuesday nights I also get another Pokémon break, in the form of Spotlight Hour in Pokémon GO. Sometimes I jog over to a local park for this. The event lets me catch some rarer Pokémon before dinner, hehe. 

WEDNESDAYS: Advocacy + Scripture + Calls

Surprisingly similar to my undergrad years, Wednesdays tended to be my ‘gauntlet’ for the week. Once I got through Wednesdays, I got through the week. 

On a couple Wednesdays, I’d gotten scheduled on behalf of the National Peace Corps Association (NPCA) conference calls with Nevada Rep. Horsford’s and Sen. Rosen’s offices. I experienced a bit of stress coordinating these activities as a citizen advocate, but I found the thrill of mobilizing decades of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers rewarding. (I even got to meet one in-person who teaches at the Uni of Nevada, Las Vegas!) Thanks to our efforts, Rep. Horsford opted to co-sponsor some urgent Peace Corps legislation, and I even got to publish an advocacy article in the NPCA’s WorldView magazine! 

At Wednesday noons, I’d reconnect with a Christian friend with whom I read a Scripture chapter a day. We’d studied abroad together in Shanghai, China 2017, actually! We’d catch up about life, reflect on our readings and chat about our foci for the week. God, I love fellowship. 

On a couple more Wednesdays, I had my virtual meetings with the Honors College at the Uni of Nevada, Reno. Timing tended to place our External Affairs committee and Community Advisory Board meetings on Wednesdays. I also wound up as secretary for the latter! Meanwhile, I served as co-chair of our Alumni Task Force; its meeting fell on a Thursday. For some reason, other calls with friends tended to stack up on Wednesdays, too. 

By the night’s end, I was usually pretty tired. But, Pokémon GO had its legendary Raid Hour! So I usually jogged to the park or someplace for another cool Pokémon before it changed. Fun times. 

THURSDAYS and FRIDAYS: Recentering

Thursdays and Fridays tended to be similar in terms of functions. Sometimes I’d have web conference events on these mornings. Otherwise, I’d usually sprinkle excess meetings from Wednesdays into Thursday afternoons. 

Thursday mornings I’d have a quick check-in call with one of my fellow evacuated Returned Peace Corps Volunteers who was also telling her story. Thursday afternoons became my siblings’ and my family foundation’s new meeting time. First and third Thursday evenings, my Knights of Columbus College Council also prayed rosaries together over Zoom. 

Thursday and Friday mornings tended to be better for my Latin since I’d fewer outside stressors. I’d shifted my least urgent business to Friday afternoons. I’d usually get out any last emails Friday before the weekend or queue them for Monday. 

SATURDAYS: Wildcards

Saturdays varied. Sometimes they were like Fridays were fewer responsibilities. I did my own things, usually catching up on my Latin or working on personal projects. I saw national and state parks on one weekend! 

Saturdays were also the first of Dad’s couple days off. So, he was at the house, too. Sometimes Dad heaped on responsibilities, busying my weekend. 

SUNDAYS: Workdays

Sundays were pleasant. At 4 or 5 a.m., the American couple I’d befriended, who still worked in Mongolia, led their weekly Bible study video call with Mongolians. When my alarm successfully woke me up, I’d sign onto Zoom to chat with them about our week’s readings. I’d usually gain new insights, share what’s up in the States, and they’d mention what’s new in Mongolia. Then we’d offer our prayer intentions and sign off within the half-hour. 

Dad tended to get up a bit later on Sundays. Our family did a few activities together if he wasn’t out shopping with Tita. Besides fixing together a hardier Sunday brunch, our main activity would be to see the Sunday liturgy on one of the tellies upstairs. We tended to watch Fr. Nathan Mamo and the students from Our Lady of Wisdom Newman Center since that was the parish we’d attended in Reno. Sometimes my sister or I would appear on the videos, too. We’d occasionally help with the readings or psalms since we used to serve at Masses pre-pandemic. 

Given the many morning activities, my Latin-tutoring friend and I tended to call off or call short our calls on Sundays. 

Sometime after the liturgy, Dad often had me or my siblings come outside to help him with yard work. Dad works on his days off—been his way since before I was born, judging from stories of my older half-brother. I figure it’s from his childhood on the farm or maybe past life as an army officer. Dad works hard. 

Well, it’s a busy life, but I’m grateful to have finally been receiving Pandemic Unemployment Assistance. That’s let me stress less while I wait to get back to the Peace Corps. I’m an extremely fortunate soul. 

Into October

Toward September’s end, I found out I wouldn’t be returning to Peace Corps Mongolia until Jan. 2021 at the earliest. This led me to prioritize readying my things for my future redeployment. It also gave me the comfort to let teams and friends know I’d be around longer. I felt weird knowing I’ll be in the States this year for such holidays as Hallowe’en, Thanksgiving and Christmas. But, God opens many doors.

By my last week this September, I still really felt ‘abroad.’ I haven’t settled much into the U.S. since returning. I feel more like I’m ‘just visiting.’ I wonder when I’ll feel at home again. I try to keep in mind that home is wherever I feel secure, safe and comfortable, welcomed and belonging in my community and space. Now that I’ve a bedroom again in the Vegas house where I’d spent middle and high school, that could help.

Usually once or twice a week Dad still has a yard task or chore for me to do, but those have been less frequent since fall set in. I think now that there’s more for me to attend to in Vegas, I’ll probably return there from late October. Let me know if you want to chat! Love to hear how people’ve been weathering this pandemic. 

As for this blog, more to come! I look forward to writing about diversity, considering both nature and people. Remember to vote, American friends! What a year we’ve had. 

 You can read more from me here at DanielLang.me :)

[alexisujib025-blog]

The About Simcity Buildit Free Simcash Case Study You'll Never Forget

This wouldn't really be that bad if there were even more liberties such as terraforming or choosing your climate. In this game, you start and also remain to tend your city in the same pre produced terrain and environment as every one of the various other countless individuals who downloaded and install the game. It appears like they will attempt to ride the last little wave by giving a cookie cutter sandbox, intense colors as well as soft forms as well as the reasoning, or absence thereof, to accompany it.

When you do and also push on it a person has actually already gotten it, and also. I have actually been seeking canned fish for over an HOUR. It wasn't that difficult to discover best before I required it. I'm legitimately taking into consideration removing the game even if it's ended up being such a time consuming process to update this building that requires it. In addition, they simply recently included necessary promotions that pop up when you attempt to make something in your manufacturing facility as well as you can't exit out of them.

These mobile apps will certainly assist those who have additional money, time, or items to connect with those who require them one of the most. The lower line is that this game has actually been crafted so firmly that the only means to advancement or achieve anything is to invest real money. Any type of attempt to intellectually feel out the game's possibilities will just lead to the discovery of a 30ft unnoticeable pay wall strongly constructed at your city's boundaries. This pay wall surface can not be passed through, although it can be slowly as well as meticulously expanded by grinding it out as well as collecting weak tax obligations from you residents.

Fandom Apps.

It's sometimes not possible to obtain as much time as we want with a wheel or a real car. Enter the interesting realm of driving simulator video games. There are currently numerous mobile applications as well as video games that give sensible hands-on experience with an auto. In some cases in life, specifically in a time of situation, we locate ourselves in the setting to return.

A mayor starts out with thirty areas in their city storage by default. Buying the city storage structure, opened at degree 4, boosts the capability to 40. From there on, mayors will certainly need to use Storage space lock, bars, as well as camera to boost the city storage space by intervals of 5 right to the optimum. Industrial structures, additionally known as a Manufacturing facility, produce resources in SimCity BuildIt. The initial manufacturing facility is free to develop, and also factories with greater manufacturing ports are opened through populace.

I make certain I'll simply be neglected as the "curmudgeon" that likes those old boring "made complex" video games in which you have to do EVERYTHING reasoning, but this is just frustrating. This game is an one or two week deleter taking up important area on my tool. I am obtaining VERY fed up with the technician where an item remains in great wealth on the market yet takes HRS to discover the 2nd you have a construction that needs it. I recognize you assume it's smart to make it more difficult to discover so your mind launches endorphins when you locate it or whatever however TONE IT DOWN !!! The aggravation I experience way out weighs any type of relief when I locate the thing.

This subreddit is a place for gamers of the game to gather, discuss the game, and share tips as well as success with the community.

Personally, I established my in-game goals at attaining levels and things which quicken the ready me.

Much more manufacturing facilities, more impressive bldgs, more storage space, and so on

I might divulge absurd amounts of genuine money to buy Vu products, yet it's a matter of pride with me not to invest actual cash in a free-to-play game.

If you are not quickly, after that you don't require to pay to win.

On the other hand, BuildIt's toughest aspect is its graphics. Basically, I definitely love the visuals in SimCity BuildIt. Gamers have full rotational control of their community and also all the structures are highly outlined as well as just look fantastic.

Simcity Buildit Has Come To Be One Of The Most.

It's such a wasted possibility as check here the game is actually fairly addictive, is very usable & has actually not collapsed on me once. It's the sort of building game that I may recommend spending a couple of extra pounds on it but I can not since you 'd be wasting your cash. Video games take challenging, and also in some cases difficult tasks as well as transform them into fact. With the dawn of up-to-date graphics, digital truth, and online multiplayer opportunities, the video gaming world supplies a digital similarity of real-life problems.

In SIMCITY BUILDIT, players supervise a new city, establishing zones for business, household, and industrial development. To develop residential or commercial properties, you'll have to create resources-- such as timber, steel, plastic, nails, and lumber-- in factories as well as shops. This is a time-consuming process that normally requires you to wait several mins (or make an in-app acquisition) for them to be completed. As you build, you likewise need to attend to the demands of your city's occupants as well as solve issues that influence your citizens. It is created with premium quality graphics, which allow you to play hefty video games and also applications.

Your city is likewise teeming with life-- focus and you'll see cars on the road, stoplights, and also also traffic jams when that comes to be a problem for your city. Actually, BuildIt is probably the very first timer-based freemium game I've played where I actually just intend to watch my city while waiting for timers to go by. I have actually reached say that I've been happily amazed by SimCity BuildIt. I plainly had not been wishing for much after SimCity Social as well as the reboot of SimCity, however it ends up that Digital Arts sort of learned their lessons given that Dungeon Keeper Mobile. Every traditional pain factor of freemium video games have actually been prevented somehow, creating a really decent game time before being constrained by the structure area.

Campign Degrees.

BlueStacks is a great device to enjoy Android apps and also video games such as Instagram, Asphalt 8, Steel Gear and also others alike on a larger display. The city storage is a building in SimCity BuildIt.

[theadmiringbog]

Individual instances of disruption aren’t nearly as unique as most executives assume.

—

About the customer value chain, or CVC.

A CVC is composed of the discrete steps a typical customer follows in order to select, buy, and consume a product or service.

CVCs vary according to the specifics of a business, industry, or product.

For example, the key stages in a CVC for purchasing a flat-screen TV involve going to a retailer, evaluating the options available, choosing one, purchasing it, and then using the TV at home. For a beauty product such as skin cream or for a videogame, the value chain is basically the same. In the case of videogames, players evaluate the available game titles, choose one or more, purchase it, and then play it.            

—

disrupting Best Buy:

To facilitate comparison shopping, Amazon created a mobile application (app) that allowed shoppers in brick-and-mortar stores to search, scan the barcode, or snap a picture of any product to easily discover Amazon’s price. This enabled Amazon’s customers to easily break the connection between choosing a product and purchasing it. Best Buy did the former, Amazon the latter.                

—

Disruptors were decoupling discrete activities that customers performed.                

—

Examples of decoupled activities and their disruptors

Source: Adapted from Thales S. Teixeira and Peter Jamieson, “The Decoupling Effect of Digital Disruptors,” European Business Review, July–August 2016, 17–24.

—

I wanted to advise these companies to deemphasize other concepts that people were using in relation to disruption (for instance, the “sharing economy,” “webrooming,” and “freemium”) and to see everything in terms of just one phenomenon: decoupling.  

—

on software disruption:

Home PC users do not need to pay the $149.99 up-front cost to use the product. Instead, they might pay just $6.99 per month. We can regard SaaS as a special case of decoupling usage from ownership.                

Freemium models used by Dropbox, an online storage service, go even further, decoupling usage from (pre)payment. Users of a basic software or service online do not need to pay anything up front.                

—

Our natural tendency is to think that the problems we face are unique to us.

In our highly specialized professional worlds, we tend to think in terms of silos—particular fields, disciplines, functions, or specialties. Such extreme focus has its benefits, but it can also prevent us from spotting general patterns that can help us develop more appropriate responses.                

—

Ryanair’s extraordinary success alerts us to an important and counterintuitive truth about consumer markets. Many businesspeople assume that innovative products and services and the advanced technology behind them determine market share outcomes. If you want to disrupt a market in the digital age, they think, get your hands on the latest technology that nobody else has and use it to develop innovative offerings. On the strength of these beliefs, companies invest billions in research and development to secure patents for proprietary technologies. And yet technologies may not be the grand solution that executives in the digital age often suppose.                

Ryanair’s planes and booking systems were comparable to those of other airlines, and its product, the customer experience, was arguably much worse. So how could Ryanair win in a highly competitive market with an inferior product? The company possessed something else that competitors lacked: an innovative business model.                

—

Upstarts typically catch incumbents by surprise; the latter don’t see business model innovation as part of a pattern. But if you can spot a wave of digital business model innovation early enough, you can get ahead of it. You can anticipate how likely startups will be to join the wave, and you can craft an appropriate response in advance.

“Wave-spotting” is an essential skill for executives seeking to understand and master digital disruption in their industry.                

—

For our purposes, here’s a simple definition, one that applies both to large businesses with established models and to small startups that are experimenting with and evolving their models: A business model specifies how the firm creates value (and for whom), and how it captures value (and from whom).                

—

A business model, as defined above, describes how a business is supposed to function in theory. Although businesses will differ from one another in their particulars (name, location, number of employees, financials, and so on), a model allows us to look beyond the particulars to identify conceptual similarities and differences between businesses, whether or not they happen to operate in the same industry.                

—

As of this writing, slotting fees were the top source of income for the average national U.S. supermarket chain, Walmart excluded. Margins on goods sold constituted only the fourth-largest income source.                

—

Guess what percentage of Costco’s total 2016 profits of $2.35 billion owed to the fees it charged its members.

Fifty percent?

Eighty percent?

One hundred percent?

Try 112 percent. Costco lost money in its traditional supermarket retail business model and more than made up for it with membership fees.                

—

Grocery stores: Business models

—

The appearance of business model innovation in and across industries happens so suddenly that executives and entrepreneurs often struggle to understand it.

Disruptors tend to use a surfing metaphor, perceiving promising business models as powerful ocean waves. Seeking to catch and ride these waves, they anticipate them by directing their gazes in a direction where waves will likely appear. When they sense that a wave is imminent, they position themselves by paddling directly in front of the wave.

Of course, spotting the right wave to ride requires focus and some luck, and staying atop of the wave once it appears requires learning and patience.

For incumbents, the spread of business model innovations feels far less fun, and far more threatening. Incumbents tend to think of them, consciously or not, as wildfires that pop up unpredictably, propagate quickly, and wreak devastation in their paths. Their instinctive response is to suppress the wildfire by attacking or buying the startup.                

—

The Internet’s three great waves of business model innovation

To date, the internet has seen three great waves.

Unbundling

Disintermediation

Decoupling

Unbundling

Physical newspapers such as the New York Times used to be a bundle of content, including news articles, classified advertisements, and restaurant reviews. The internet enabled businesses such as Google, Craigslist, and Yelp to specialize in each of these types of content, respectively, thereby unbundling the newspaper.                

Content that could be unbundled profitably had been. This first wave of business model innovation began to give way to a new wave: the disintermediation of goods and services.                

Disintermediation

Prior to the internet, for instance, many consumers used travel agents to book vacation airfare, accommodations, and activities. These businesses didn’t produce the services they sold. They only act as intermediaries.

The financial services industry saw similar disintermediation, for example in the appearance of websites allowing investors to purchase and sell stocks without a broker or advisor. Unlike unbundling, disintermediation affected both digital and physical service providers. Therefore, its impact was arguably larger, as it afflicted many more industries, from home video (disrupted by Netflix) and home improvement (disrupted by BuildDirect) to dating services (disrupted by eHarmony).                

Decoupling

Stealing customers by “decoupling” specific activities that customers normally performed in the course of shopping.                

The first wave, unbundling, largely took place at the product level and in the consumption stage: some consumers read only newspaper articles, others only the classified ads. The second wave, disintermediation, occurred within the supply chain (e.g., cellulose companies selling pulp directly to the newspapers, bypassing paper manufacturers). Decoupling also broke down important linkages, but this time between customer activities, not products or supply chain stages                

—

How decoupling differs from unbundling and disintermediation

—

As Jim Collins put it more than a decade and a half ago in his bestselling book Good to Great,

“Technology is an accelerator, never a creator of momentum and growth.”

—

Forget for a moment about wearables, drones, chat bots, the internet of things, machine learning, and augmented or virtual reality. They all might have a place in your future business, but your role, as a senior business executive, is to figure out the business side.                

Stop blaming your lemonade! The truth is that the upstart’s lemonade tastes the same as yours, or maybe even worse. It’s the new business model that is stealing your customers, not the product.                

—

If you’re still keen on constantly identifying new technology innovations for your company, then it’s time to make a change.

You should spend as much time or more evaluating and evolving your firm’s business model(s) as you do worrying about new technologies.                

—

example of decoupling:

From the customer’s perspective, Airbnb broke apart the act of using real estate from owning it.                

—

Focusing on competitors has worked well in the past, and it might still work in some situations, but it has become less applicable for companies competing in markets threatened with disruption.                

—

Types of decoupling

Value creating, value capturing, and value eroding

Whether an offering is a physical product or a service, consumable or durable, all of these activities can be classified as either value creating, value capturing, or value eroding.                

Value-creation decoupling includes businesses that break the links between two or more value-creating activities. The decoupler offers one of these value-creating activities, while the incumbent that has been decoupled retains another value-creating activity.

Example:

Twitch took videogame spectatorship for itself, but it does not develop videogames to be played. It left that activity for incumbents like Electronic Arts.

In value-eroding decoupling, disruptors break the links between value-eroding and value-creating activities.

Example:

In videogames, Steam allows customers to stream videogames over the internet, just as Netflix does for movies and TV shows. With Steam, players no longer have to get off the couch and go to a physical retailer (a value-eroding activity) in order to play a game (a value-creating one).

The third type of disruption, value-charging decoupling, includes businesses that decouple value-creating and value-charging activities.

Example:

Mobile game developer SuperCell allowed consumers to play most of its games for free, charging value by selling digital goods (in-app purchases) to the company’s most loyal players. In effect, SuperCell broke the link between buying a game (value charging) and playing it (value creating).                

—

Map the stages of your customer’s CVC to discover where you create value, where you charge for it, and where you sometimes erode it.

Then ask yourself three questions:

Can you deliver more value in the value-creating activities without charging more?

Can you afford to capture less in the value-charging activities, everything else being equal?

Can you reduce eroded customer value without diminishing what you’re offering or capturing?            

—

Examples of changing customer behavior

—

The customer of Kiehl’s, decoupling Sephora, is actually your customer, too. She buys cars, entertainment, financial services, and so on. And while she can choose from different options in each case, she does not have a different thought process for choosing. She does not have a perfume-buying brain, or a separate car-buying brain.                

—

How to de-risk yourself from disruption

You can deliberately engineer business model innovation and decoupling. In other words, there is a “recipe” that will help keep risk to a minimum.                

I typically recommend that entrepreneurs or executives embrace the customer’s vantage point and organize their thinking in terms of three layers.

❶ The first layer is to articulate the current or standard business model.

After all, most startups need to pull customers away from existing businesses or activities (e.g., dry cleaning versus do-it-yourself clothes washing). Customers evaluate the startup in comparison to what they already have. If you want to thoroughly understand a new business idea, you must take the current reality as your foundation.

❷ The second layer is to develop the digital equivalent of the standard model.

Almost all young entrepreneurs I meet today incorporate the internet into their business ideas. When comparing their innovative products to the best options that are currently available, the less elaborate ideas tend to focus on simply translating or “porting” a traditional business model onto the internet. As an example, homeowners traditionally hire housekeepers, gardeners, and others to help with common household chores. TaskRabbit, the digital equivalent, lets you hire people, but do so over the web. Likewise, the startup company Washio created a mobile app that allowed you to request digitally that your dry cleaning be picked up and delivered, saving you the trouble of going to the dry cleaner’s yourself.

❸ With this digital equivalent layered on top of the standard business model, the third and final layer for entrepreneurs and executives is to determine how to innovate on top of digital business models.

Some entrepreneurs I’ve met understand that the mere porting of a business model online isn’t enough. It might benefit users, but it creates downsides, too. TaskRabbit accelerates the process of choosing people to perform chores for you, but it’s also riskier, since it requires that you allow complete strangers inside your home. Washio offered convenience, but at a price.                

—

Considering the benefits and costs, smart entrepreneurs try to layer on top of their digital business idea an innovation that transcends mere digitization, and that produces a functional benefit for customers.                

—

Founders of Hello Alfred innovated upon the TaskRabbit model by outsourcing the management of TaskRabbit workers to personally assigned butlers, or “Alfreds.” For users, the presence of a butler on the scene allowed for a more trustworthy and reliable service.                

—

Designing innovative business models

—

How to be a successful decoupler

Successful decouplers perform five key steps, either deliberately or instinctively, that unsuccessful ones don’t.                

Step 1: Identify a Target Segment and Its CVC                

It’s so important to get this first step correct. In fact, I often spend 50 percent or more of my time working with companies on this single step. The CVC is the blueprint of digital disruption, and it must be fleshed out so that it is both accurate and comprehensive. Otherwise, your attempt at decoupling likely won’t succeed.                

Step 2: Classify the CVC Activities                

Step 3: Identify Weak Links Between CVC Activities                

Step 4: Break the Weak Links                

Step 5: Predict How Incumbents Will Respond                

While competitors might respond in a thousand different ways, we can broadly classify these responses into two major categories: recoupling what the disruptor decoupled and preemptively decoupling, directly offering their customers the chance to decouple.                

—

Decoupling unfolds in a patterned way across industries.

It occurs in situations where the incumbent company delivers two or more consumption activities to customers and then charges for the coupled activities.

Unlike with bundled products, coupled activities can always be broken apart into at least two, an activity that creates value (for instance, watching a TV show, talking to a friend on the phone, or browsing in-store for the right product) and an activity through which the company charges for value (for instance, getting viewers to watch ads, pay a subscription, connect to a mobile network, or buy a product on the shelf).

When a new entrant decouples the two activities and attempts to deliver a value-creating activity without a value-charging one, and when the decoupler monetizes this either by charging others (such as advertisers, retailers, or heavy users) or by simply charging less, established businesses face a serious threat.                

—

responses to decoupling:

Most established businesses often attempt to respond in one of three ways:

They imitate the entrant

They buy it out

They attempt to suffocate it by drastically reducing prices                

—

Say you run a company that sells cakes with frosting. A new startup allows your younger customers to acquire only the frosting, leaving you to deal with mountains of unpurchased frosting as you continue to bake and sell cakes. What can you do? One option is to force all cake buyers to purchase both cake and frosting together. The other alternative is to let customers buy only what they want. In other words, you can recouple the cake and the frosting back together, or you can preemptively decouple your cakes, allowing each part to be sold separately.

These two avenues are available to all incumbents, irrespective of industry.                

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Celiac Supplies, a specialty gluten-free grocery store based in Brisbane, Australia—decided to require every in-store customer either to make a purchase or to pay a $5 “just looking” fee for browsing.                

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Nestlé adopted a new model for its widely popular Nespresso business unit, selling high-end espresso coffeemakers at low prices and making most of their money on the coffee pods.                

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When advising established companies on rebalancing, I like to begin by first mapping out the entire CVC of my client’s customers in as much detail as possible. I specify all the activities I can discern that bear on how a customer actually learns of my client’s product or service, evaluates it, compares it with other products or services, chooses it, pays for it, uses it, reuses it, and disposes of it (if it is a physical product).                

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I think of the CVC as one big oil pipeline, with each segment of the pipeline a CVC activity. In a coupled process, all the segments are tightly welded together, and oil (i.e., value) flows continuously from the beginning of the pipeline to the end.                

I then seek to understand how my clients can break up these segments of the pipeline and still ensure that value flows evenly and constantly from one end to the other.  

That can only happen, of course, if there are no leaks at any point in the pipeline. If leakage does occur, then the company has created an opportunity for a competitor to come in, put a bucket under the leak, and capture much of the value without having to build the expensive drilling and pipeline infrastructure that my client has built. It behooves us to understand leakage in more detail. Formally, we can define it as follows:                

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If, say, customers receive $100 worth of value but pay only $79. The difference, $21, is what economists call “consumer surplus.” Conceptually, a person will buy a good or service only if the value to that person exceeds its price.                

—

Is a startup poised to enter your market and attempt to decouple your business?

Executives should stay alert to the threat, continuously monitoring their risk of being decoupled. In particular, executives should constantly ask themselves three questions.

First: Does their company require customers to co-consume any of the company’s activities (e.g., browsing and buying)? In the unlikely case that the answer is no, the business need not worry, as there is nothing to decouple. If the company does require co-consumption, then managers should pose a follow-up question:

Can a disruptor conceivably separate the value-creating piece from another value-charging, value-eroding, or value-creating activity (for instance, using technology or business model innovation)? If not, managers should monitor for new innovations that could eventually make separation possible, but they need not worry about responding immediately. If the answer is yes, then new entrants might consider disrupting the incumbent by decoupling. In this scenario, managers should start taking that risk seriously and assess it objectively.

Taking the risk seriously leads managers to pose a third question: Does leakage exist that a disruptor might exploit in separating the co-consumed activities—as Amazon, for instance, did with traditional retailers? If not, managers should continue to monitor the situation but take no action. If leakage does exist, the incumbent should sound the alarm. The decoupling risk is real and a response via one of the two major avenues we described in the previous chapter is warranted.                

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3 questions for gauging the risk of being decoupled

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The consideration set is one of the most important marketing concepts of the past few decades.

It posits that brands in consumer products don’t compete by vying at once for each customer in one big match-up. Rather, the competition resembles the Olympic Games, where swimmers, say, compete head-to-head for the gold medal in stages. There are preliminary races for each distance, and only eight or so swimmers make it through to compete in the finals. Swimmers competing in the finals are akin to a consideration set, and the number eight is the size of that set. When it comes to consumer purchases, each customer chooses his or her own set members and size.

How exactly do customers do that?

As academic research in marketing has shown, customers compose consideration sets on the basis of their awareness of and preferences for various options, as well as based on brand image, product differentiation, and category-specific factors.

Consideration sets can vary greatly by the person, category, and even country.                

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The lifecycle of a business

All businesses, large and small, traditional and disruptive, hew to a similar pattern in their journeys toward increased market penetration. During the initial phase, revenues and market share gains are typically slow. If companies survive this phase, they tend to progress into a second phase of much more rapid growth. Some companies flounder during this phase. Those that survive it eventually reach a third phase: a tapering off, slowing, or declining growth. The challenge here is to sustain growth as long as possible, or to jump-start new growth.

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Businesses at the start phase all grapple with the challenge of acquiring their first customers in a cost-effective way, whereas businesses in the growth phase tend to focus more on deciding which new products to develop and markets to conquer, as well as how to organize people and processes to support these new initiatives. During the third phase, companies tend to focus more on how to counter a stall in growth and innovate themselves in or out of markets in which they have lost market share.                

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Evolution of the market landscape occupancy in clothing

Note: the niche players attacking from the boundaries.

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If you’re starting a disruptive business, especially one that seeks to decouple activities, you need to understand the history of specialization in the market. Who are the customers motivated to decouple? What are their dimensions of interest? How can you steal some of these customer activities for yourself? That must be your primary set of questions from the start.                

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Two-sided marketplaces are more challenging and complex to launch than other disruptors. It’s hard enough to acquire one type of customer in an online business. Two-sided marketplaces must acquire two distinct types of customers to their platforms, each with a distinct value proposition.                

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What can entrepreneurs learn about early customer acquisition from Airbnb and, by extension, from other fast-growing marketplaces such as Etsy and Uber?

Analyzing Airbnb’s story, we can discern the following seven principles at work:

“Buy” customers in bulk.

Acquiring users one by one takes too much time. A small startup needs to acquire customers in bulk, as Airbnb did during oversubscribed conferences and by tapping into Craigslist’s user base.                

Don’t confront competitors directly.

A startup must avoid putting itself in the crosshairs of established incumbents. Don’t target their customers. Instead seek out customers they can’t or won’t serve. After concerts, more people need cabs than cab companies can handle.                

Adopt non-scalable tactics.

Large tech companies tend to obsess over pursuing scalable tactics. If a tactic doesn’t work for thousands or millions of customers, these companies perceive it as a poor investment. Experts often recommend that startups behave similarly. Yet startups and large tech companies have different needs.                

Incubate your early customers (and start with the suppliers).                

Use low-tech, offline tools.

Tech startups tend to dismiss offline customer acquisition tools, such as organizing events, creating on-the-ground operations, or incentivizing users to talk to acquaintances about their services.                

Favor operations over technology at first.

Technology can help business processes to scale, but it usually doesn’t allow them to get off the ground. For a disruptive business to succeed, it needs to work, plain and simple.                

See your business through your customer’s eyes.            

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Customer acquisition channels for Rebag

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Bain & Co. found that 80 percent of the time, a company’s higher rate of growth owed more to its performance relative to competitors than to the historical growth rate of the market it had chosen to enter.    

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As a brand manager, you may be surprised to learn that they regard your brand as significantly less versatile than you do. What you call closely adjacent, they may regard as far and remote.                

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For disruptors, revenue growth originates in one place, and one place only: customer acquisition.                

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Regardless of the means to get those resources, startups milk resources to get customers, instead of milking the customers.                

—

Resource-centricity vs. Customer-cenricity

Resource-centricity: Certain firm-owned resources are your most valuable possessions. All your major business decisions should help you expand and leverage these resources.

Customer-centricity: Your customers are your most valuable possessions. All major business decisions should enhance your ability to increase the number of customers and leverage them.                

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Lack of innovation is a customer-centricity problem, not an R&D problem. Therefore, asking your product developers inside the company to “just innovate” will rarely head off a growth stall. To innovate, you first need to eliminate impediments to customer-centricity among both leaders and managers. This challenge brings you face-to-face with human nature. The reality is that companies are not customer-centric; people are.

—

Only two approaches exist for realigning employees’ priorities to customers’ needs.

First, they can change how employees earn financial recognition (salaries, bonuses) and promotions, providing other kinds of incentives as well. That’s a tall order in many large organizations, as quite often no single executive fully controls compensation and promotion decisions. It requires a collective effort at the leadership level.

Second, leaders can change the people, bringing in executives and managers who already are properly incentivized to put customers first. In sum, either change the incentives for the same people, or change the people.                

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Innovation means “novelty and significance.”

That is, new initiatives have to offer meaningful improvement for the customer—novelty alone isn’t enough.                

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In writing this book, one of my personal goals has been to demystify disruption by simplifying and clarifying the phenomenon. My other goal has been to redirect the attention of executives and managers, thus spurring them to take action.                

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We must learn to “cool ourselves down,” parting with the aggressive stance toward competition that many companies take. As the conventional thinking goes, business is war. Uber, Facebook, Google, and many more large companies around the world all have war rooms.* They aim to take territory. To fight back. To vanquish the competition. And to accomplish these goals, they mobilize various “strategic weapons” at their disposal.            

—

The internet provides a cheap and accessible channel for distribution, marketing, and commerce, drastically lowering the cost of starting businesses. As a result, digital startups have flooded markets in consumer goods, electronics, transportation, industrials, and telecoms, to name a few. The large incumbents in these industries no longer face one or a few large “enemies,” but dozens or hundreds of small and unpredictable ones. The tasks of planning, strategizing, and executing no longer proceed in a top-down, hierarchical, deliberate, and predictable fashion. Rather, employees at all levels have to plan and execute continuously and iteratively to keep pace with the changes taking place around them.

[xheaveninhidingx-blog]

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