Author: clintonlowe20

Starting a podcast

I am posting this to announce the start of my podcast, College Kids Complaining, Episode 1 is now up on Podomatic, link on the bottom of this post. The starting episode is also up on soundcloud with the link on the bottom of this post. The first episode focuses on this article and then moves onto current events surrounding the current outbreak.

Podotmatic: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/lowemay2000/episodes/2020-04-16T12_18_33-07_00

SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-535093854

The amazing SI invitational Finals

Last Sunday, February 16 2020, the Rainbow Six Siege Invitational Final took place, a game between Space Station Gaming (SSG) and Ninja’s in Pajamas (NIP). The game was play to best of 5, with the winner needing 3 map wins. SSG came into the games with a 1 map advantage because they stayed in the winners bracket, NIP came in at a disadvantage because they were in the losers’ bracket. However, NIP showing little remorse, completely destroyed SSG on their first map, even though SSG chose the map which is normally an advantage. On the second map SSG put up a fight however they still lost to NIP. With NIP at game point, 2 maps to 1 map for SSG, SSG needed too pull themselves together and that is exactly what they did.

The Final map was bank, a map that has been in the game since release and would likely be a slug-fest between the two teams as both have much experience on it.

With SSG taking the first 3 rounds, it was looking like SSG had pulled themselves together and were likely going to defeat NIP.

After the halftime, SSG was up by 2 rounds and NIP was looking to push back however, SSG were going to have none of it.

After a time out from NIP, SSG took match point and finally, the game as they beat NIP and took first place at the Invitationals. This is significant because for the past 2 years, a player on SSG, Canadian, has been trying to win first place. With his age showing, Canadian and SSG finally got the first place they wanted and delivered to the Siege community one of the greatest comebacks ever seen in the game.

Live tweeting this event was fun, because I had knowledge on how the game worked and knew the background of the teams it made examining the actions of the teams and players a lot easier. The way the matches were timed and how each round played out also let me live tweet the games easily, as each round had enough downtime to tweet on the state of the match.

Games as a service and the toxic backlash

In the modern gaming community, the prevalence of “Games as a service(Gaas)” has put a strain on consumer- publisher relations. The “games as a service” model is a relatively new update model for video games, it revolves around games being continuously updated to keep players engaged. This model lengthens the lifespan of games greater than what it was a decade ago. This update model has created some of the more recent popular games, like Fortnite, Minecraft, Rainbow six siege, Etc. These games are popular because of the constant attention, but also because of their cheap prices.

The problem with the “Games as a service”  model is that games need constant updates and attention to stay relevant in the consumers mind. This leads to many different problems including, unfinished updates, rushed and cut content, and sometimes can lead to dissatisfied consumers. This dissatisfaction with updates is the core issue that defines “Gaas” and is why many consumers view this model as simply a way for companies to make more money. The companies will use minimal resources keeping a game updated, making more money than the initial launch of the game. This can be viewed as a problem with how games are published, as Gaas games seem to increase the value of the companies that publish them more than non-Gaas games. This becomes an issue when the toxicity isn’t limited to online spaces, when developers receive death threats from updating their games, this issue becomes a private security threat.

Consumers are moving towards subscription and service based products for a while in the economy, with things like netflix and Disney+. It was only a matter of time until gaming moved toward this trend, and the Gaas model seems to be the gaming version of this. Most consumers are okay with the constant updates, it keeps their favorite games fresh, and because the companies know this they continue to pursue this model. The problem is the very vocal minority of consumers that threaten and attack developers for certain updates. This vocal minority pushes the gaming community to be more toxic about updates that affect their games. Even minor updates that improve the game in some aspects will still get a hostile response, the consumers believing the developer isn’t doing enough”. The toxicity developers receive can put stress on the employees, and even have physical repercussions on the developers’ health. Mental health for developers has been the highlight of recent years as consumers continue their toxic attitude toward them.

This isn’t to say the companies aren’t at fault there are two types of game companies, publishers and developers. Developers work on a game and will sometimes publish the game themselves and are responsible for updates and marketing. Publishers are massive companies that hire or own developers that great games they publish. Publishers are responsible for publishing games and their marketing. There publishers are the biggest reason for the Gaas model, as they push the developers to create the games this way. The toxicity received by developers is very often displaced as the publishers were the biggest decision maker when a game was developed. Publishers do receive hate and toxic comments however, the developers receive the lion’s share, mostly because the consumers view the developers as the problem.

The introduction of the Games as a service model cannot be stopped, that is certain, but the toxicity surrounding the model can be reduced in multiple ways. The most obvious way is to keep the developers mental health in mind when developing criticism. They are people too, making a salary and doing something they enjoy and want to do, pouring their heart and soul into a game only to get called “trash”. This needs to stop as we focus on the mental health of these people and their co-workers. Another way to reduce the toxicity is to inform people and reduce their expectations. Consumers need to temper their expectations around updates and content. Too many times have updates been given to a game that are small, but healthy updates only for consumers to attack the developers. By tempering expectations, consumers can learn to be thankful and praise developers for even the smallest update. The last thing I will discuss in what we can do is to learn where the root problem is for the Games as a service model. Developers are simply doing their job most of the time, publishers are the companies that push the developers to release the updates, complete or not. While I am not advocating acting toxic towards publishers, consumers should know where to send their criticism.I will end this article by highlighting a recent example of an update that was received by toxicity. Nintendo released the Character Byleth for Super Smash Brothers Ultimate  and the developers received criticism from a large number of consumers. I am not going to advocate for or against this character. I will simply highlight how this addition of 1 character in a roster of over 80 lead to the biggest toxic backlash in the history of characters being added. This clearly highlights the toxicity that can fester if a community doesn’t feel grateful and doesn’t know how to temper expectations.

This is the time of the paper when I created and finished it.

Medium and the reader’s bias

Medium is a blog site that utilizes a unique monetization system. Readers can pay to read “premium” articles or just read free articles. The “premium” articles have a system of likes called claps that when a reader “claps” an article the writer of the article receives a portion of the payment the reader paid. The reader pays five dollars for a subscription and that five dollars is distributed between all the “claps” they give to articles. The free articles work like any other blog site, where the claps are likes and the more claps an article gets the more likely it is to be favored by the algorithm. The site is designed in a minimalist fashion, having very few, if any ads, and limiting the visual stimulus to pictures and words from articles. Even for free accounts, the only ads shown are articles from other writers on medium. Medium has a very “millennial” feel to the website design, focusing on material and substance rather than trying to make money. Medium also follows the trend of subscription based services, like Netflix or Amazon prime. This subscription service model allows medium to have a premium feel to the whole site, even for free accounts. All these factors lead to a site that feels nice to read and browse, but creates a “walled garden” affect, limiting outside influence.

This “walled garden” that medium encourages can sometimes have a negative effect, as it allows the writers to write about almost anything, limiting oversight. In a traditional blog site/ news service the writers will be limited to advertiser friendly content, the same cannot be said for medium. Medium’s payment model incentivizes writers to create articles that produce the most claps, increasing revenue. While this can lead to articles of high quality, it also leads to articles that might be biased to the viewpoint that might get the most claps. This is best viewed in articles about history on medium, as history is a subject that can be viewed from multiple lenses but has a popular view that is biased. History in the modern era is inherently eruo-centric for most people, and this can be seen clearly throughout the medium articles. Most of them are focusing on the european side of history, World war 2, Rome, early medieval, etc. Despite just searching up “history” on the browser, there were multiple articles on european history and very few on other eras. The reason this happens originates back in the “clap” system as the website incentivizes the articles to get more claps. As most people know euro-centric history, the articles will tend to focus on the european theater. This produces a bias in the reader and limits the amount of history that can be effectively be shown on medium.

The monetization system doesn’t solely affect history; politics, science, and others are also affected by the “clap” system and its euro-centric view. While medium might say they are free from the influence of the advertisers, bloggers are never free from the influencer of the reader. The “clap” system simply moves the influence from advertisers to the readers and as shown, this isn’t inherently better than advertisers.

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MLK Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, A modern reflection.

“We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor”

MLK, August 1963

55 Years ago America was experiencing civil unrest, despite being one of the richest countries in the world America suffered from inequality not unlike some of the poorest countries in the world. During this period of America, oppressed groups of people, African-Americans, Native-Americans, and other minority groups began to protest for their rights using multiple different methods. During this time a pastor from Alabama began to protest peacefully with many other christian groups. Martin Luther King Jr., or MLK, became famous around the country for his non-violent protests in the face of the violent crackdowns by the police and other groups in the south. In 1963, King and many others participated in a campaign of mass arrests, meant to overwhelm the Birmingham and open negotiations with the authorities.

With that context, it’s important to see that the letter was written in the first few years of the civil rights campaign. This letter introduces the ideology of MLK and his followers and quickly became a pillar of the civil rights movement. The letter highlights the reasons for MLK’s arrest along with the conditions of him and the detainees and then answers some of the criticisms laid against himself and his protestors. MLK then begins to highlight why he is participating in non-violent protests, as it creates a constructive tension between the state and the protestors. MLK demonstrates that protesting these unjust laws is the first step to getting them changed, as inaction only allows the people that implemented these laws to justify them. Protesting the laws allows MLK and his fellow protestors the ability to show the world that these unjust laws are that, unjust. By obeying just laws to protest the unjust laws, MLK and his followers can claim they have the legal and moral authority to protest these laws. 

Of course with hindsight we know that this letter and the protests that MLK began would eventually be successful. However, in the moment we can recognize MLK’s conviction was something to look up to. MLK didn’t know it then but that letter started the drive that eventually let him talk in Washington and got the civil rights act passed. Even in the 21st century his words resonate with modern protesters and activists. In places like the Middle East, Hong Kong, France, Spain, Venezuela and the US the principles that MLK used as the core of his protest are the cores of those protests. The push for the abolition of unjust laws while following just laws, non-violence in the face of violent oppressors and the conviction to follow the protests out until the end. These core principles are important to follow in the modern day, especially with the rise of social media and falsified news along with state surveillance. The modern world is deeply flawed in some aspects and it’s important to look back to protesters in the past to influence protests in the future.