therealbswagg

[therealbswagg]

Gamers Lose with No Cross-Platform Play

Let this be understood about Microsoft’s recent announcement to support cross-play between PC and possibly the PS4 - this has been done before and has shown that problems can ensue, it just has to be implemented right.

Keep reading

[therealbswagg]

Playerunknown’s Battleground

Dota 2

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Grand Theft Auto V

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege

Team Fortress 2

ARK: Survival Evolved

PAYDAY 2

Football Manager 2018

Warframe

Rust

Rocket League

A thought I was thinking about before looking at the above list - do we own our games anymore? 

To me, a short answer is - no. Not to portray gloom and doom, but this is very much the case. The above list has the top 12 played games at the time of writing this. 66% of the list can literally not be played without internet access. That’s 8 out of the list, but there’s more titles like GTA and Counterstrike where technically you can play without internet access but the majority of time played is online. Online play is is the reason for sustained relevance (Counter-Strike’s Eleague is live on Twitch as I write this.) Online play has changed the landscape of video games. I would argue for the better if we omit the abusive chat that comes with a lot of games. But, if your internet is janky or the developers are applying updates to the game you can’t play games like Overwatch or PUBG. At all. As in you can not access the main menu. These are games, in the case of Overwatch, that we pay premium price for. At the drop of a dime we can not be able to access.

You can be banned from your game for cheating/abusive communication - understandably so. But, the principle still holds true. You paid for a game that you really don’t own. If that is the cause, why aren’t games free to play across the board? There are games that are priced like a standard game but have free to play models anyway. So what is stopping us from not trying to have a foot on both sides and just plunge all in to one way.

How do you feel about this? Not REALLY owning our games is the norm now for the convenience of online play.

Do you solve this by adding single player experiences to these games or is that not a true solution? What do you think?

[therealbswagg]

NEXTVR - Could be the future preferred way we watch Esports and traditional sports.

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Doom VR

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Disney/Lucasfilm

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Black Panther

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Bioshock Artwork

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Horizon Zero Dawn

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New Mass Effect Andromeda MP Screens

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A Hopeful State of the Union for Rainbow Six Siege

I have posted in the past of Rainbow Six Siege's new direction for the franchise - competitive multiplayer shooter. This move was made to much dissent (including myself). A little less than 2 years from the release the game is now starting to shape into something I think a few could have expected - a FPS MOBA.

I am making a case that Rainbow Siege Siege, although fun as hell, is a disguised MOBA as first person shooter that successfully positions itself to operate as a MOBA with the standards of a first person shooter. These “operators” in Siege are the equivalent to “champions” you will find in a traditional MOBA. These champions are what breathes life into the game creating the different and unique meta that keeps players coming back for more. 

Because these titles do not have single player campaigns that drive the experience, the bulk of the experience rests on the characters in the game. The absence of the special characters just makes Siege another basic multiplayer shooter. But, at least with those in most cases you have some sort of a single player campaign to do in your down time. My concerns with Siege is that I love to play it. I’ve grown accustomed and addicted to the unpredictability of each round that leads to narrow wins. And, I m not alone in feeling this way. The game has grown seemingly exponentially since launch and the esport is finally starting to organically grown into it’s own. In my opinion, the only thing holding this game back is it’s confusion of what it wants to be. Is Rainbow Six Siege a first person shooter or is it a MOBA shooter? I’ll save you the time, it’s a MOBA. The developers made that obvious with saying they wanted to add at least 50 operators total, as a minimum.

 Each time new “operators” get released (in a game in which there is only multiplayer) season pass holders receive access a week before the rest of the community. Then, at that point the operators can be attained through purchase with renown (Rainbow Six  Siege version of game credits) which I hope you have been saving up for weeks/months because to get renown you will need to be ready to grind for it. If not, you can buy it of course. I’m sure that is what most people do. That’s what most people due for sure in surefire MOBAs. It is important to note that this practice is normal, and encouraged - by me at least. This lets communities support directly to keep games thriving strong but only if it deserves to. The community should decide how far a game goes because the community is what fills the servers. This does not work however with Siege because of it’s pricing model. It functions as a League of Legends or DOTA but with a premium standard of entry of a new Call of Duty title. This is not ok. This puts it’s community between a rock and a hard place. The standard of entry is simply too high. If Siege wants to thrive as the MOBAs or Counter Strike community it will need to change it’s pricing model in a way that does not suck it community dry. Admittedly, it has tried to make amends by releasing a “Starter Pack Addition.” Only issue with this is that is means that users who bought the game at launch are out $45 because they do nothing to compensate for the early premium  pricing while still making you pay for operators and weapon skins. Again, paying for parts of the game is ok and encouraged as long as it maintains balance and does not come off as too high end to the average consumer. This game future is too bright to be ruined just with a simple pricing issue. 

[therealbswagg]

Lucille Victim

Just to throw this out there…. There’s no point in guessing who took the bat at the end of #twd season 6 finale. AMC has taken drastic measures to prevent spoilers from popping out. If that’s the case, then I could care less. I’m sure the excitement will roll back up in October though. It’s also going to be clever to see how they show trailers at Comic Con in July. I’m still putting my money on #michonne or #daryl because they wouldn’t have us waiting all these months for Glenn to die unless they want to lose fans. #twd #michonne #daryldixon #tsdf

[therealbswagg]

Gamers Lose with No Cross-Platform Play

Let this be understood about Microsoft’s recent announcement to support cross-play between PC and possibly the PS4 - this has been done before and has shown that problems can ensue, it just has to be implemented right.

Keep reading

[therealbswagg]

Gamers Lose with No Cross-Platform Play

Let this be understood about Microsoft’s recent announcement to support cross-play between PC and possibly the PS4 - this has been done before and has shown that problems can ensue, it just has to be implemented right.

On the 360, console and PC gamers could be play together but it did not work because even with aim assist the keyboard and mouse is stay way more superior over the controller. But that’s in the realm of a multiplayer only first person shooter. Outside of that, there is really no reason to why gamers are guarded from playing with other gamers from other platforms.

Games like The Witcher, Fallout, FarCry, Splinter Cell, Rainbow Six, Grand Theft Auto, Borderlands, etc. The list can go on and on for days, literally. These are 3rd party games, meaning what? That the exact same game can be played on Xbox, Playstation, PC, and maybe the WiiU. These are the exact same game across the board with little disparity in graphics on the PC version. If this is the case, then why are 3rd party games getting 1st party treatment? The walls are guarded on these games as if they are Uncharted, Gears of Wars, Halo, or another marquee franchise like those. Those franchises are system sellers so it’s understandable why you would not to be able to play the game, or the game and with other players from other platforms. That would systematically undermine the reason for their even to have consoles in the first place. But that isn’t the case. What we have is companies that go out of their way to exclude the gamer from a community within a game for the sake of having the ability to say that they don’t reach across the isle for the sake of the gamer. In reality, the gamer loses. The more people that play the same game makes it even longer for the game to die out. If the community is fragmented and split up for arbitrary reasons, all that happens is games have less longevity and gamers have an even more difficult time finding a fun game to play with the community. Even you want to be different, how about creating a better UI, fix the stability in the system, improve the graphics, give more hard drive space, lower the price of the system, have better sales, things of that nature. In reality, the consoles are more alike than they are different, and to split up a community in this fashion is simply petty. I don’t see a true valid reason that publishers and developers would want to cripple their community and longevity in this fashion.

[therealbswagg]

If you haven't heard the news, EA has came out saying that they make loads of money from their dlc. Like boats load, and then some.

 “The extra content business is a billion-three [$1.3 billion] a year…half of that is roughly our Ultimate Team business” said chief executive Blake Jorgensen. 

 This is not something that I would boast about proudly. As I'm talking with developers and getting just a general mood of where everything is at, I make it clear to them that paid dlc is not something that we have in our vision. It simply takes away from the exerience. With that being said, this isn't the case in every scenario. Like look at The Witcher 3. Was there paid dlc? Of course. But did it take away from the core experience? Hell no. Sadly this isn’t the norm. I’m surprised that EA would let somebody even disclosed information like this seeing how they are the poster child of fraudulently voicing dlc down people’s throat and cutting out game content as a means to justify their actions. It’s disgusting and despicable, but it will content unless more people make blog post like this, email these companies, or vote with their wallets. To sit back and comfortably make statements like Jorgensen did just shows that they see no end in this dlc filled future. Hey who knows, maybe in the future there will be no main game, just two or three part dlc like what Call of Duty is doing now. 

TasteOG will not represent overuse of unnecessary dlc because that shit is corny and takes away the experience from the gamer. It opens the door to obvious cliffhangers and other ridiculous things in that ballpark. It’s simply something we don’t want to be affiliated with, honestly. But it will take more than just a small time indoe publisher to change the industry, it will take people like you (who are reading this). Because honestly, if we don’t do something to make a change then we all lose, and that sucks. Thanks for reading, until next time. 

[therealbswagg]

Our logo moving forward. #StayCreative

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Bioshock Art

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New "Tom Clancy:The Division" Screens