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Pay-to-win Futility.

Byrichard

Several years ago a friend told me about Clash of Clans and I began to play the game. The game is an enjoyable distraction for when you have a minute or two three. You perform a few actions and then you get on with your other tasks. When you play for free patience is an asset. You have to wait to get enough gold, elixir or gems before you can complete certain actions. The game is designed in such a way that you can play for years and still progress.

I like to joke that the Pay  to Win model is both encouraging and training people to bribe their way through life. If you’re impatient you pay a little supplement and you complete the action. Instead of taking a week for an action to be completed it takes seconds. Supercell has made millions this way as individuals spend more than a thousand euros. Those who are willing to pay get to the top of the leaderboard.

Two factors that discourage Paying To Win.

The first reason is that I come from the early days of computer games when you paid for a game once and you could play for as long as you had free time. It was a time when Civilization 3, Gunship 2000, Doom and other games were around. With games like Clash of Clans, you spend more than you would spend on a good meal and you only progress a little.

The second is that accounts are or at least, were, platform specific. I started playing Clash of Clans when I had an iPhone. When I switched to Android I lost my progress and had to start again. It has taken more than a year to get back to the same level. If you pay on ios your progress is not reflected on Android and vice versa. It’s nice to have two level50+ games but imagine if I had paid to get the game on both platforms to be at the same level.

Clash Royale

Recently they came up with Clash Royale. This is another Pay to Win game and as you can see from the screengrab above it is currently the top grossing app on the play store, at least in Switzerland.

They released the game to a restricted number of countries at first. Some players were at an advantage. They could play and progress in the game. We were easier to beat as we arrived later.  Now we find it easier to beat the newcomers, as we have learned strategies to be victorious more often.

People who are less patient, less humble have obviously paid a lot of money to progress. I prefer to wait and progress for free.

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Comment on “The BBC is under threat because its success challenges market ideology”

Byrichard

Imagine for a moment that television did what other industries did. Imagine for a minute that every program you watched was so good you wanted to pay money for it. If people want to pay money to watch it then your content is valid and worthwhile.

Commercial peak time television is rubbish placed to fill the space between adverts. As a result when people say “TV rots your brain” and “Television is a waste of time” and “Television makes you dumb” they are for the most part right. I’m thinking of those endless copycat programs. There is little program diversity on commercial television.

I love specific BBC content. I enjoyed watching DR WHO which is rather low brow. I also love the output by the BBC natural history unit, so much so that I have bought all of these documentaries. I used my dissertation exploring Cousteau and Attenborough documentaries as an excuse.

The BBC is a cultural icon of what Great Britain stands for. It produces thousands of hours of radio and television content. As the article points out people listen to 18hrs a week of content.

I used to like listening to the From Our Own Correspondent podcast/radio program but have lost the habit as I have changed from one mobile phone operating system to another. I also listen to more audio books instead.

Murdoch bullies ceaselessly for a subscription system, to shrink the BBC to the tiny size of America’s PBS.

It has taken Murdoch 25 years to get someone like Cameron in power to undermine and try to scuttle the BBC. I sincerely hope that Murdoch and Cameron fail.

The BBC needs to be preserved for two key reasons. The first reason is the cultural heritage. They have hundreds of thousands of hours of material that need to be digitised and preserved so that future generations may access them. By cutting costs and corners now we stand to lose thousands of hours of material which future generations have a right to access.

The second reason is the factual legacy of the BBC. As I studied the BBC’s factual output and specifically the BBC natural history unit I saw how they hired camera operators to shoot and document nature before it is destroyed. That documentary brings to life parts of life that our children may never see. Look at deforestation in Madagascar and look at Attenborough’s commentary when he went back. He said something like “This row of baobabs is all that remains from a tropical forest. These are the only trees that remain after loggers took away the rest of the trees”. He goes on to speak about Lemurs and how their environment has shrunk.

When I was working on my dissertation on the BBC output I started to think of various documentaries as volumes of an Encyclopedia. When documentary producers have the budget to produce a documentary like that of the BBC they can afford to spend weeks or even months to get that perfect shot. Think of the Birds of Paradise segment as one example or the mountain leopard segment as another. Think of the knowledge and information that previous generations had in books and how that knowledge is now in audiovisual form.

BBC documentaries are produced with licence fee paying money at such a high standard that they can then be sold as documentary collections to private individuals as well as to other broadcasters. Blue Planet, Planet Earth and other documentaries are currently on Netflix Switzerland for example. Well produced content has a shelf life. People want to acquire the rights. When the BBC produces high level content that others want to purchase they help fund future productions.

As a last thought documentaries that are made for public service broadcasting rather than commercial television are edited to be watched 52 minutes in a row. They don’t need to waste 30 seconds at the end and start of a commercial break to remind viewers of what they are watching. Murdoch is already using an old fashioned model. If you record content on your PVR for later viewing you might as well go to the netflix model rather than feed Murdoch’s disinformation machine.

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Low fossil fuel prices and the Environmental cost

Byrichard

I am happy to pay less for petrol when I fill the car or scooter but I am worried for renewable energy sources and how this will affect their adoption. After listening to David Hone I see the debate from a different perspective. I want oil prices to stay high so that clean energy alternatives are used.

What we save on fuel now will cost us ten years down the line when global temperatures increase and climate refugee numbers increase.

Oil price falls further on IEA energy forecast

Lima climate talks: Peru summit continues through night

In the long term the countries that arguing to be allowed to pollute in order to expand their economies are the ones that are going to be penalised most as environmental systems react to an increase in global temperatures.

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Via Ferrata de Tière

Byrichard

In the valley close to Champéry there is a via ferrata. Via Ferrata are routes passing on rock faces thanks to the help of metal pedals, hand and foot pedals and bridges. On this Via Ferrata you climb up vertically and horizontally depending on the moment. Some obstacles are easier to get past than others but overall it’s good fun.

One of the things you should take the time to watch, especially on a rainy day is the way the water erupts out of the rock. The first waterfall reacts to what the second waterfall higher up spews out. It’s fun to watch how much power this water has.

[flickr-gallery mode=”photoset” photoset=”72157624830371758″]

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High Definition Pleasure

Byrichard

I love high definition because it reminds me of those massive paintings you see in art galleries. You know the ones. It’s those that have things happening in different parts. Look to the top right and you see one set of people, look at the centre of the image and you notice something slightly different. Look to the right of there and yet another story is told.

That’s because high definition is a large canvas where everyone that appears in the shot tells a story. Look at that shot. You see Obama in the foreground and you see the faces behind. You see the family, you see the faces of those that are having a good time, those that are there because they have to be and more.

It’s also about eavesdropping in the visual sense of the word. You look at the action in the foreground but you can also look at the book shelf, you can see which titles are present. You can see the marks on the walls. You can see that person sitting, and from the facial features see whether they are tired or full of energy.

I just love high definition. I’ve been watching high definition content and I must admit that documentary is the type of content that may be the most fascinating. You see reconstructions of historical battles, background actions and it’s just a full image. If it was audio it would be high fidelity. It’s just complete.

It doesn’t require fast cutting, it doesn’t require close ups. What it does require is a process of thinking of how to provide a frame, an image, a canvas that’s interesting to look at. It’s getting closer to photography in a sense.

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Mobile spending

Byrichard

Important for global marketers, mobile handsets are the dominant way people access the Web in many emerging markets, as it is far cheaper, says John Gauntt, senior analyst at digital ad tracker eMarketer. With a computer, “The cost of entry to get Internet access is about $1,200 for the PC and broadband; a mobile is less than half the cost.”

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Source

As updated handsets spread and ad effectiveness measures are perfected, worldwide advertisers’ spending on mobile will pass $19 billion in 2012, eMarketer predicts, up from about $3 billion this year. Overall Web ad spending, which includes mobile, is estimated at $45 billion this year. (continued…)

“The paradox right now is that if you’re a hotshot creative (ad worker) and want to push mobile to the limit, you have to go to Europe and Asia.”