So, the news this week has been full of reports of Twitters impending demise following the mass layoffs, lockouts and other antics of its new owner Elon Musk. Now I’m no fan of Mr Musk, as a rule I despise people with messiah complexes and his is less of a complex and more of a state of being, but some of the views about Twitter’s potential demise have been truly hilarious in their hysteria. My own view? It’s a tool which in many ways has outlived its usefulness and I won’t shed a tear at its passing.
Let me explain.
There is no doubting that Twitter, as originally envisaged, was a great social media application which allowed a lot of people to connect with each other in ways they could not before. It was also arguably not as invasive in the data it gathered on you as Facebook and during lockdowns it probably helped a lot of people keep going. For me, as an occasional tweeter with no real following it was riven with problems, and it is for these reasons that I will not miss it.
Safety and safeguarding
Not going to beat about the bush here; almost all social media sites are appalling when it comes to safeguarding. Twitter is not the worst, I would lay that accolade on twitch, but the ease with which minors could not only create accounts but also access material ranging from the dubious to the downright horrific has undoubtedly caused harm. Likewise, the ease of account creation and the anonymity that you can have has allowed people to be threatened, abused and insulted with almost complete impunity. Footballers have received racist abuse for scoring, not scoring, being sent off, not being sent off. Authors and academics have been doxed and received death threats for daring to have a view and the number of arrests and prosecutions for this is the wrong side of farcical. So if Twitter goes down then loosing this will not be a loss to society,
The destruction of the echo chamber
There is nothing better than being told you are right; it gives a little rush and thrill which is addictive, and everyone enjoys it. Conversely not many people like being told they are wrong, and Twitter had become an avenue for people to build massive echo chambers. Because you chose who to follow you could find people who shared your views, which is fine in and off itself as that’s a community and a relatively safe space, but long term it has risks. If you spend your time around people agreeing with your every word, liking every comment and sharing your views then you begin to think you are infallible. If everyone agrees with your comments, then you must be right in your view and this is my biggest single issue with Twitter. It allows echo chambers which stifle debate and encourage dogpiling.
Take the Just Stop Oil movement. Now whatever your views on them (my own are the ideal they want is laudable, the goals they work towards impossible and their methods deplorable) there is no doubt that there is a debate to be had here. Twitter though does not allow that debate. Followers of the group allow no dissension to their view and those who disagree refuse to allow that some of the points being raised may be valid. The result is a slanging match which then spills over into real life as evidenced by the cringeworthy interview which Indigo Rumblelow gave. When someone did not immediately agree with her view, as no doubt her echo chamber does, she was unable to present rational and reasoned arguments and instead became a shrieking hysterical harpy with a passion for hyperbole. Contrast that with Sir David Attenborough who presents his arguments in a reasoned, considered and mild way and you see the difference. I could see Sir David engaged in a passioned and intellectual debate but Miss Rumblelow? Not a chance.
The other element of this is the dogpiling. JK Rowling is a perfect example of this. Now I have never been a fan of her or her written works, I consider them mediocre at best but the abuse she receives for her view on what is a woman is unacceptable to me. I think some of her comments have perhaps skirted the line and she deserve critique but the dogpiling from staunch trans rights supports hasn’t skirted the line; it has destroyed it. Twitter facilitates this as one person with a big following starts a pogrom and the algorithm allows it to gain traction so before you know it you have an unpleasant pile on. Its distasteful, needless and ultimately damaging to the cause it represents.
Debate is great but Twitter has made it almost impossible to be a naysmith in some communities and as a result it has crushed the capacity for rationale, reasoned and effective debate.
Bots and fake news
There is no denying it, social media allows all sorts of nonsense to be peddled as fact. Now internet forums always did this, but the thing was that you had to go and look for those forums; but with Twitter you don’t. If enough people use a hashtag, then the algorithm pushes it up and more people see it and it becomes a self-fulfilling cycle. Some of the nonsense which Donald Trump peddles is proof of this. In the pre-twitter days it would not gain a platform and be dismissed to the darkest corner of internet forums but now? It becomes mainstream and because so many people then endorse it, and people seem to have lost the ability to critically think and question (maybe the 5 w approach of who, what, when, where and why isn’t taught anymore) people take it as gospel and off we go. Factor in an increasing number of people who are only able to articulate their thoughts in hyperbole (physical or written) and it is easy to see how this is a problem. Twitters’ fact checking was a joke and had clear inconsistencies and inherent bias built into it; so this drove the views that people who believed there was a conspiracy and you get some of the lashing out that has resulted in some terrible atrocities.
The absolutely garbage user verification system also allowed bots and spam accounts to proliferate. This drove the algorithm to throw up certain things and promote certain views. Critics of Brexit for example argue that it was this kind of thing which swung the referendum and subsequent general elections. It didn’t. What did was a poorly presented argument to remain which neglected its best arguments, resorted to scare tactics and whose followers were to lazy to vote until after the dye was cast. It proves the point though. There is evidence that botting did drive certain results in the algorithm and this I will accept had an influence.
So the end?
It remains to be seen if Twitter will actually die and certainly none of the rivals are quite as user friendly. Mastodon, Instagram, tumblr all have issues and whilst I like discord (especially when a server has effective moderation; something twitter lacked) it is not as easy to use as Twitter is. If it does die though then how will it be judged by history? For me it will be a warning of the dangers of creating a tool which allows people to see just what they want to see without forcing them to consider that there is merit in seeing the words of people who disagree with you.
So, bar my last post you may have noticed I have not been posting much lately (and if you haven’t noticed then how dare you not!! I jest of course). Being honest my mental health has not been, and continues not to be. the best this last two months. Am not going to go into detail and it is nothing dangerous etc but coupled with work being insanely busy for a prolonged period I have simply not had the desire to do much of anything other than eat and sleep. I have also stepped away from social media almost entirely as I was fed up with the constant drama on there in the hobby community; it was becoming near constant backbiting for clout and cheap point scoring which is not for me. Finally, I have taken an ignorance is bliss approach to life by cutting out mainstream news pretty much entirely as the levels of scaremongering, bias and hyperbole have become ridiculous. I well understand exaggeration for effect but the news at the moment feels more like a script writer for a disaster movie and for me that is not what the news should be.
So as a result I have very slowly been rebuilding my mental shields though they are still pretty flimsy and as a result have been taking a look around all my geekdom areas to see what has been going on.
40k
I can see now that Squats/LoV have been released and were pretty much broken on release. I confess that I was initially interested in them when they were first announced but the design aesthetic of them pretty much put me off. I see though that GW have released yet another overpowered army and needed to make an amendment to the wording in the codex in pretty much the first week of release. Clearly they have learned from the Iron Hands debacle in eighth edition. Indeed it seems to have been so bad that some tournaments outright banned the army pending an FAQ and that is frankly a ridiculous state of affairs. I dislike being down on GW but the current edition is a complete and utterly broken mess with the power creep. I play necrons and I look at the stats for each new release and absolutely roll my eyes because I wonder just how GW are playtesting the game. I hold the opinion that they are just testing against the last army released because the balance has completely and utterly gone. I will write another blog on how I think they can fix things but that requires a new edition to work.
Due to not liking the design I completely skipped LoV and also the new kill team box sets. Whilst I liked the breacher team I have never been a fan of kroot and the sheer volume of terrain, which I hate painting put me off. The new necron box caught my eye until I saw that it was the existing cryptek model and a slightly rebased version of the existing deathmark kit and the apprentice cryptek who just looks like a kit bash. As a result this set is a hard pass for me again as it just feels that GW are recycling low use kits into kill team right now.
In the spirit of balance I note that the next round of campaign books will not contain model rules. This has been sold as ‘listening to feedback’ though the cynic in me makes me suspect that other factors may have crept into the decision. I do however think it is the correct decision as rules should only be in the codex or FAQ and not in campaign books. They should be lore, scenarios and stratagems only rather than forcing players to run around with multiple books just to have their army rules. This is certainly a welcome development and credit should be given where it is due.
I have to say though that I am falling out of love with the hobby again. The monumental power creep is insane and given that for me a trip to my closest gaming centre is around a ninety minute round trip it is just not worth me playing. The social element is fine but getting constantly tabled just doesn’t appeal. As a result I have put my painting on hiatus for a bit though I did get a couple of models done this last few weeks from the Imperium magazine. To be honest all my painting is pretty much on hiatus though I did also finish off this beast of a 3d print after some seventy hours of work but I think it will be a few weeks if not longer before I pick up a brush again.
Gaming
So I have not really done much gaming either this last two months. I did finish Nights of Azure 2 but only with the one ending as it became really dull and repetative which was a shame because the game had a great vibe and aesthetic. I have the full review in draft but haven’t yet gotten around to posting it. I think I will probably be picking up an RTS game for a bit as there is nothing really calling to me on the JRPG front at the moment. I started Ryza 2 but I want to save that for my week off next month and I am not totally sold on Bayonetta 3 but will see.
So not much going on but hopefully I can be a bit more active this next few weeks.
So I will be completely honest. Of late, I have avoided buying pretty much any new books in the sci fi and fantasy genres for the simple reason that they have become unsubtle social justice commentaries with the allegorical subtlety of a brick falling down the stairs. The current trend towards revisionist views and applying 21st century mindsets to 19th and early 20th century problems, just doesn’t do it for me. My views on this also meant that alt history was also out. That being said Babel was a fantastic looking book, and whilst I don’t believe in judging a book by its cover, I do think that something which looks so strikingly different is always worth consideration. I have also read some of this author’s previous work and enjoyed it. So as a result, I was prepared to step away from my prejudices and give this one, a punt.
So Babel is set in an alternate version of 19th century England. It is set round the time of the rise of the British Empire to its zenith of power, against the backdrop of the Industrial Revolution. The world is driven by silver, and the use of match pair words to power it which I think is a really interesting touch. It provides a new spin on a world which is familiar and is just different enough to allow for world building.
We are introduced to a Cantonese orphan Robin Swift, a child of mixed heritage who is rescued by a academic English benefactor and brought to England to learn the details of linguistic translation. The drive of his benefactor in doing this is to involve Robin in the production of silver bars that will be sold or used commercially and generate money for the British. Over the course of the story, Robin finds that the world that he’s been brought into is not as benign and generous as he initially thought it to be and eventually he rebels against the British Empire. The consequences of that rebellion are not fully explored and the book ends with a perhaps predictable outcome. The ending was rather unfulfilling but does potentially set up a sequel. Now that’s a really high level synopsis of what is a voluminous and deep novel. I don’t want to give away too much information about it and don’t want to set up spoilers for people especially with this being a relatively new book. What I will say is that whilst this book is technically brilliant, I found it a complete emotional vacuum. Indeed, I would say I did not enjoy reading this book. I didn’t dislike reading it. But equally, it did nothing for me. It did not stir any real emotion in it. I felt no real deep connection to any of the characters, the world or the story. So much so that when I’d finished the book, there wasn’t a sense of disappointment that had finished it hoped for a sequel, or indeed anything at all. It was just a case of “oh, I’m done. Okay.”
So, having thought about this for a while since I finished reading it, about three weeks ago, I’ve come to some conclusions why I feel the way I do about it. The first issue I have with the book is the pacing or rather the lack of it. There are large sections of the book that delve deeply into the etymology of words. This, whilst fascinating and of interest to an academic, or indeed anybody like me with an English literature language background, absolutely kills the pacing stone dead. Yes, it gives depth and a sense of permanence to the world, but it’s used so often, that you get the sense that the author is showing off the depths of research, rather than actually creating a narrative that’s accessible to all people. Indeed, I suspect the sections would lose quite a large proportion of the readers. It’s just not enjoyable to sit there listening to how words have adapted and changed to become the words we know now from what they were originally. Narratively, it’s slow and whilst interesting for me personally; for many it will be a dead end. Indeed, it doesn’t actually add anything to the plot directly. Now, that’s fine. You can have non essential plot elements in a story. But it’s used so often it began to feel like padding.
The second issue I have with the book is it stirred absolutely no emotional engagement with me. It never gripped me and refused to let me put it down. Characters are explained well, in that you get a sense of their motivations. You obviously learn their appearance and their backstory, but I just felt no emotional connection to them. Likewise, the world is the same in that it exists but it isn’t lived in. What I mean by that is a little hard to explain. This story is set in university at the turn of the 19th century there are racial stereotypes, gender stereotypes and class stereotypes all of which have been captured brilliantly. There is absolutely no doubt that the author has a solid knowledge of the source material that has been used as the basis for this world. The problem is it doesn’t feel like a world that is lived in. Everything is set in a few small areas, and you get no real sense of the wider world around them. As a result, it becomes very difficult to relate to any of the characters. I have thought about this at length and I felt no connection at all to the protagonist Robin and indeed didn’t throughout the book. In fact, if you were to ask me now, three weeks later to describe the character, there would be very little I could actually say over the kind of high points I’ve emphasised above. Contrast that with some other works are fantasy and fiction, which I’ve read, for example, Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time, or the Ascension Cycle, which I’ve written about before. Those books have a world that feels lived in and alive, characters that you relate to you feel their pain, you want them to succeed. You don’t want them to open the door that you know, our sense will be bad. In Babel, I just didn’t care.
I don’t want to be completely down on what is, as I say, technically a brilliant book. There are no narrative holes of any particular concern here. The book is exceedingly well written from a technical perspective and there has clearly been a monumental amount of research carried out on it. The author also does a better than average job of balancing the criticism of the choices of the British Empire mainly by pointing out that other nations were doing the same thing. There is also more highlighting that some good things did indeed come about from colonialism than I excpected. Given the current climate of course, it is to be expected that the criticisms outweigh the praise and that’s perhaps understandable but there was at least a sense of balance here. There is even a bit of a discussion about whether the motives behind poisitive changes such at the end of slavery were indeed benign or not driven by vested interests. It was a refreshing surprise to see this and was not what I expected; though it does have to be said that that is kept fairly perfunctory, and I would have liked to have seen this explored further.
I don’t know if Babel will get a sequel. What I do know is I wouldn’t buy it. As beautiful looking as Babel is, as technically well written as it is, it is just a void for me. Indeed, I actually put the book down for over a week just to see, would I be pulled back into it? And at no point did I think “I really need to go back and finish reading that book”. In the end, I finished it simply because I’d bought it. The only reason I’ve not gotten rid of it is due to it being a signed copy.
So to sum Babel up, it’s a technical brilliant, wide and expansive story with a deep underpinning of real world understanding and historical learning. However, for me, it was emotionally void and the pacing was often so torturous that I found myself wondering, was this a story or an actual academic paper. I’m not sure who I could recommend this book to if I am honest. If you want something that is different and beautiful to look at, then give it a go. But if you’re just looking for some casual escapism, or a slightly darker academic fantasy based book, I’d give this one a miss.
Been a while since I did an update on what I have been painting which is a bit embarrassing given that this is primarily a table top gaming page. In my defence I have been recovering from minor surgery to remove a cyst and this has left me pretty tired a lot of the time (and I am also frustrated I cannot tidy my garden but no heavy lifting for a bit). Anyway it has given me time to do some sketching and plenty of painting (and curse at how bad my photography skills have atrophied since I last used my proper camera).
imperial fists
Not going to lie, I hate painting primaris marines. They have too many little details which add nothing other than to make things a pain to paint. Also, this team were the ones i was working on when my dad died so I had started them again by a straight spray over.
They are battle ready and will do but to be honest They are not my best work. I have my age of darkness marines unopened but I am planning to do them as Night Lords and hopefully they will engage with me a bit more.
Bushido
Now despite not yet playing the game I really like the Bushido miniatures; especially the resin ones in the new starter set. They take paint really well and are the opposite of primaris marines in terms of little touches and flourishes. They have few of them but what they have are easily accessible and they actually add something to the kit. Even the most basic manages to look impressive and I am looking forward to doing the rest.
Though i would say that if my healer started doing magic like this mage is doing I think I’d just forget my wounds and run!!
Kansei
Had this one for a while and this was my fourth or fifth attempt to paint her. As a result she is a little rough as my paint stripper did not quite do everything but I am pleased with the skin tone and my first attempt at free handing tattoos.
Ad-mech
I got a small ad-mech force with the Imperium magazine and whilst fun I would not buy more because they are monumental time sinks. They have lots of little details which do add to the design but my god they take ages to complete. I think the destroyers took around a week to complete and had me praying for the end. Fortunately there are no more coming because I think it may drive me to the level of despair that the rubric marines caused.
battle sister
On an earlier blog I have said that I don’t really like the sisters of battle as a concept; they are a male fantasy design and though they have improved I am still not a huge fan. Still this one came with Imperium and I fancied painting something using purple.
I did intend this to be a quick base coat and wash but it ended up being my first themed base conversion which turned out surprisingly well (though the blood did trash a slot in my art palette). This was actually quite a fun kit to paint and I am pleased with the result but am still not sold on the whole sisters of battle vibe.
Nids
Another faction I have never owned or painted; I have never done a hoard army before but I have the premium subscription to Imperium so I got some. I wanted a muted slightly xenomorph vibe against a fairly basic base and I think I nailed it.
got to love a drybrush
Considering that the whole paint job took twenty minutes I am pleased with this but I think I will need a few more dry brushes to finish the box!! I would also like to put a bit of clear resin to suggest drool but I need to persuade the safety cap on the bottle to actually open. Again.
necrons
I have a lot of necrons but have never done a chronomancer. On a whim I departed from my usual colour schemes:
Will probably do some character backstory later but it was nice to do something different.
All in all not a bad month or so of painting and a big dent made in my backlog.
As long time followers of this blog will know I am a huge fan of Sword Art Online but I have felt recently that things seem to be running out of steam a bit. The last book of the Unital Ring arc was, in my opinion, a lot of filler and added nothing and the up until now excellent Progressive series felt a bit stagnant in book seven. Character growth seemed to have stopped and the narrative threads seemed to be sinking under their own weight a bit. Still, I had volume eight of progressive on order and eventually it landed. Amazon seem to be really struggling to fulfil pre-orders of these at the minute so it was probably about a month after it released that I finally got it.
So book eight follows on immediately from book seven with Kirito, Asuna and Argo unravelling the mysteries of the gambling level whilst at the same time hoping to help Kimzel as part of the Elf Quest story line. We have another bath scene with the girl which gives Abec the chance to do some more excellent drawings but it does strike me as odd that such a big thing is made about Asuna and baths in the progressive arc yet it barely is mentioned in the fatal bullet, excalibur, mother’s rossario, alicization or unital ring arcs. Is it something she’s grown out of or is it just an easy way for a swimsuit fan service scene? I don’t have the answer but it seems a bit out of place in the wider narrative thread. Following this we get Kirito roaming round the beast pens, nearly getting caught and then being roped into being a bodyguard for a bit. This ends badly when his patron his wounded and shock horror is revealed to be a vampire.
To be honest I have been expecting vampires to pop up for a while; after all they are an RPG staple and a big part of the european culture which aincrad is based on (according to Asuna); so the reveal was not a huge shock. To save the vampire patron it needs a drop from the floor boss and there is only a few days to do it. Kirito decides to get the two rival factions involved by winning the casino’s powerful sword and then selling it to the one which fights the best. He does this by dressing up as a masquerade ball character with Asuna, winning the jackpot and then it is off to the boss. Of course they win but the price is high as the sword turns out to have a catch attached and Kirito needs to be bitten by the vampire patron to win; in essence becoming a vampire.
As you can tell I have skipped a lot; but that’s because a lot of this book was just not memorable and felt very laboured. Normally I will binge a new SAO light novel in an hour but I put this one down for nearly three weeks before finishing. The whole thing just felt very bloated and slow for me. There is potential here what with what is essentially a cursed item (very Baldur’s Gate), the vampire element and the casino investigation but it just never really flies. There is also very little growth for Argo and Asuna (again). They get plenty of page time but not much really happens with it and the whole Kimzel story line feels like it has been put down and forgotten to a degree.
I wrote on an early review of a progressive volume that I wondered if the author would be able to pay off the narrative debt he is building and that concern is growing. Off the top of my head the progressive arc is eight books in and needs to either set up/pay off:
Kirito and Asuna separating and him becoming the loner
the Dark Elf quest
the assault team formation
The laughing coffin arc
Argo and what she is trying to do
This new vampire element
This is in addition to getting in the characters we know and tying in with the existing story such as the Knights of the Blood etc (unless we are going down a Fate route of the same story in different ways – I hope not) and I just don’t see how that can be paid off at the current rate.
Hopefully I am wrong and the next book picks things up and drives the story forward but as for volume eight? Well it was a disappointment saved only by the excellent Abec art work and if things continue on this vein then I may need to consider if I continue with the series.
Well it would appear that GW have been extremely busy behind the scenes of late if the reveal show is anything to go by; and the ‘I hate GW but they make me sweet clickbait money’ crowd have been equally busy. I really don’t understand what goes through their minds but that’s probably a blog for another day, maybe when I am drunk or something, but I did want to put my thoughts out there about what has been a pretty bumper release week.
Angron
Well I had to start here didn’t I? Probably the biggest reveal of the year in many respects the reveal of the revamped demon primarch was always going to be a big thing and the reaction has been mostly positive.
he just wants a hug….
The leak of the model was a depressing reality when dealing with GW these days; and if they are not intentional leaks then they need a new internal security process and manager ASAP. The model though is impressive to say the least. I have seen some criticism of it being ‘not very dynamic’ and ‘a fat bloodthirsty’ or even ‘too much demon’ but this makes no sense at all to me. This sculpt harks back to the classic art work of the early noughties and looks great. Will I be buying it? No. One the price will almost certainly put me off and two; the complexity of the model and the skill needed to do it justice is beyond me. I got burned with the Silent King and won’t be falling for that one again. For the top quality painters out there I think this will be an amazing kit to work on and for khorne fans it is well overdue, but not one for me.
Predator
Despite never having painted one of these I have always had a soft spot for the marine medium tank and to see a new (or should that be ‘old’) version is fantastic.
I haven’t opened my age of darkness box yet as I am clearing my existing backlog first (I know I know I am a rebel) but I think the route that the heresy game is going down is encouraging. The price points seem reasonable and whilst I can see some items are already out of stock and being hawked on ebay to try and cash in on the ‘I need it now’ brigade it does seem well supported. I like this model save for the glacis plate which seems a bit flat to me. It needs a bolter or a light or something to break up the flat lines but beyond that it looks great. I especially like the drum fed bolter and hope that the sculpt has the ammo feed going up into the hull. Will I buy it? Probably later in the year if I decide my Night Lords needs a little more fire support or for smaller games where I don’t want to take the expensive Spartan. I am trying to keep my spending low on heresy as I want to do ‘project’ pieces but this one is tempting enough to make me put some cash to one side.
Warcry
So it seems we have a new warcry box and updated rule set coming. I have never played the game and, if I am honest, I don’t actually get what it is aiming for. Underworlds is a better skirmish game and more beginner friendly so for me warcry feels like AOS-lite.
That being said I do like the look of this box. The terrain looks interesting with the rather impressive looking trees and skull (which will be on someone’s Knight conversion by the end of day one I suspect) and you certainly seem to get a lot of stuff here. The lore on the warbands included is also pretty neat; especially the nurgle inspired warband following nurgle but not knowing it is nurgle they follow. I like this twist and the idea of one step removed worship; there is a lot of scope for this in the background fluff in AOS and 40k so it is refreshing to not just see another straight pantheon rehash. The Hashut models look pretty cool but I always associate Hashut with chaos dwarves so it does kind of put me off. Will I buy? No. AoS generally doesn’t appeal to me aesthetically and the whole warcry set up just doesn’t stir anything creative in me; it looks a good value set but not one for me.
Underworlds
So this one had been teased in the run up and plenty had thought Mordheim was coming back. Personally I doubted that given that GW seem to be struggling a bit to support all its boxed/specialist games (titanicus and Aeronautica seem to be really limping at present) and I was proven right when we got:
I do have a few warbands and have played the online version of the game but am by no means an expert on underworlds; but I do like the idea of buying a pre-built warband and being good to go. I certainly like this set and think there is a lot of potential here. Naturally the dogs stole the show and I think it shows that GW have learned the value of the ‘mascot’ after the crab and beer hog incidents. I could see these being used quite easily in a few game systems including 40k and I am impressed with the variety in play here. Will I buy them? Yes. One I do want to try underworlds a bit more and I have always liked the Van Helsing-esq trope which these fit. Also, I could quite easily use these as a witch hunter kill team or detachment in Kill Team and 40k; especially as the leader reminds me of the classic inquisitor model in 40k (though plastic this time and not awful finecast).
Necromunda
My gaming group play this but personally it has never appealed. I have looked a few times at arbites but would just end up painting judge dredd (and there is a miniature game for that anyway so…). I also wonder about the ash waste expansion generally as it is meant to be war in the hive and by taking outside it feels a bit like gorkamorka or 40k lite. That’s just me though. The reveal of
Certainly cheered a lot of ork players but this was the one model I did not like. It just feels like the brute chopper from halo and whilst I know sci-fi is largely imitative this really does feel like a straight reskin. The paint job on the reveal is amazing and I am sure there will be some cool conversions but for me this is a hard pass. Will I buy it? No. I don’t follow this system and the model does not do enough to stir the creative juice for me to make it into a hobby project.
Bloodbowl
Well this one set the thirsty crowd off.
I don’t think I have ever seen so many comments about thighs on a hobby chat before but I guess amazons do that to people. I do have a bloodbowl team I bought in lock down one for a project but I have never actually used them. One day I may get round to it. Maybe. These new sculpts did look truly impressive though and show how far GW design has come in that they have managed to make each one look a little different and sculpt different body shapes and not just short or tall. I was really impressed with this kit. Will I buy it? No, I haven’t played bloodbowl before and I already have a team; though the paint job on them is not the best. Great to see the release of them but this one is a comfortable pass.
Kill team
Kill team was my route back into 40k after over a decade out but I am not sure on the new version in terms of what it is trying to do. It feels like the teams are bigger and the use of the large boxes rather than the small pre-built teams puts me off a bit. The reveals this weekend though were interesting:
Now I have never been a kroot fan but I know plenty are. They do look good and more dynamic than the strange models in the old tau codex but most definitely not of interest to me. The breacher team though? I like this kit and as someone who deeply wishes Battlefleet Gothic would come back this is a very tempting kit. The whole vibe of the imperial navy is captured here and the models are sufficiently different to stand out. I could quite easily see a few different colour schemes as well. Will I buy them? The box set would have to offer something very special in terms of price and or content to get me to splurge given that I have no interest at all in the kroot but the breacher team on its own if released would be an instant buy for me. I am currently saving for the Krieg veterans but would happily push them back to buy the breachers as this a kit that is very much my thing.
Conclusion
On the whole I was not expecting much that would tickle my interest from the reveal or indeed the week but I got more than I expected. The hunters is an instant buy for me and the breachers will be. The predator maybe down the line depending on funds and time but I think the stuff this week has been pretty damned cool and there seemed to be something for everyone; unless that is you are an anti-GW clickbaiter in which case please, just pack it in and cover another game.
As I have said before on this blog I am a big fan of Sword Art Online. Yes it has its flaws but I still don’t think it deserves a lot of the hate thrown its way. Anyway, one criticism I do agree with is the way that secondary characters are largely neglected and it is one of these which I have always wished got more screen/page time. For me the character of Lisbeth is an interesting one; crafting is a key part of RPG games so her introduction made sense but she was largely dropped after that. She did get a few nice scenes, especially the speech, in Alicization but that was about it. I always felt her introduction episode ‘Warmth of the Heart’ was one of the first arc’s best as there was a lot of scope for stories around a crafter. Maybe one day that will happen but so far Unital Ring is not looking promising in that regard.
So when I came across a figure of her a while ago I was keen on it. Sadly though life has always gotten in the way and when one has become available it has either been too expensive or when I had the funds none were available. Typical. Eventually though one popped on my Amazon list and whilst it was a little higher than I would have preferred I took the plunge.
The box was smaller than I expected but had the usual collection of stuff on it that means nothing to me (sorry, not my language).
I tend not to keep the boxes as am not that kind of collector but I do want to use the side panel as reference for sketching. The inside was the usual collection of plastic but this is the first of these where I have not had to do some assembly; it is all one piece.
First impressions are good. It feels a solid figure and it is a refreshing change not to have to try and get the bits to marry together! Out of the plastic this is definitely a better looking piece than the box art suggested; the face on the box did not look quite right but in the ‘flesh’ things were fine. The pose is a bit odd and the absence of a weapon or crafting tool does seem a bit odd but I guess that was what the designers wanted.
Certainly pleased with this one and it feels a better replication than the Asuna one I opened up recently. My only real complaint is that this certainly seems a smaller scale than the new figures (Sinon and Asuna figures below for comparison)
but all in all I am extremely pleased with this one. Certainly well worth the wait and the money but if anyone is aware of other Lisbeth figures out there then drop a comment below.
So, after a rather successful launch and a massive amount of vitriol; the noise around Diablo immortal has started to die down. Not the hatred of it by any means, but the endless coverage on social media Twitch and YouTube has finally started to subside. Though the recent delay of it’s China release may bring it back to the fore. It’s not really a surprise that it has dropped off the front page as pretty much everything that could be said has been said and most agree that the game is a psychologically driven exercise in driving people to spend money. Whilst Diablo Immortal is taking the psychological monetization to unknown levels, I have been genuinely surprised by the lack of awareness about just how psychological games design and marketing actually is. There is nothing new in Diablo (in psychological terms) all that is new is the extent and layering but the basic principles are the same.
Let me expand on that a bit and to do that we need to go back to the late 80s and early 90s. We also need to step away from the games industry and look at the music industry. So if you think back to the late 80s and early 90s, the main forms of music were on vinyl records and cassette. Vinyl was still dominant in the market with CDs another few years away. So whenever you went into a record store, and if you still do go into record stores, you’ll see that vinyl records are generally stacked, facing forward. There was a reason for this and that reason was the cover art.
Can’t beat a record store
If you think about it, if you look at the spine of an LP, or CD or a cassette, you’ve basically got protects maybe in a bit of colour, but that’s all you’ve got. Now that’s fine if you’re selling a record that is by an established artist that people want to buy, they’ve gone into the shop expressly to look for it. But what about those that are just browsing those casual customers they’re not going to be taken in by a title or some coloured font. And this is where the art came in. That art was what caught the eye. It’s was also a degree of commentary about the band which is why the ones from groups such as Iron Maiden, were the way that they were.
an absolute classic cover
Yes it was to give an image of the artist but the fundamental principle was that good artwork would catch the eye. That trend continued with CDs. They would be largely displayed case forward so that when you were flicking through the shelves the thing you saw would be the image and that would be how they try and lure you in. It was psychological. It was trying to trigger a reaction in your brain to say, “that looks interesting” or “that looks different” and by stand out you were more likely to pick it up. This is the key moment because at the point when you’ve picked it up, you are statistically more likely to buy the item. It stands to reason the positioning of the item also plays a massive part. This applies to all elements of retail. There is a reason why when you go to your local supermarket, the established premium brand is at eye level. It’s not because that’s necessarily the best selling brand, but it’s because it’s the brand of the supermarket wants you to buy. It ‘s put in a position where you cannot miss it. It’s easy to see it’s easy to reach. Even the height of many shelves in supermarkets is designed for a reason. It’s designed to sit at the eyeline of the average person and the premium item is listed there. There is a nice piece at the below which is worth a look on this.
It’s the same in clothes . From my own retail experience with Next I can remember that every week there would be a print off of the top 10 and top 50 sellers by department and hose statistics influenced where those items were placed in the store. The best selling items would if possible, be moved to the front of the store so they were the first thing that the customer saw when you walked in. If it wasn’t possible to put them at the front of the store, because it would look a bit daft putting the best selling jumper next to the best selling T shirts, then it would be displayed front on rather than side on and be the very first jumper that you would see. It was strategically positioned to reinforce its number one status. Again, it was psychological. It was the first thing that you would see and then it would statistically increase the likelihood of sales.
Of course it is not always that simple. There are some items supermarkets very much want you to buy but for social reasons or to discourage stock loss i.e. theft. they’re displayed in different positions. That’s why many supermarkets will often display alcohol towards the back are the far end of the store. They know these are things that people will come in to buy. So by making the customer walk a distance to get them they expose them to other items in the store. Likewise things like bread are often positioned away from the entrance in order to encourage you to walk through the store and the longer you are there then the more you will be tempted. Once you are in then you are subjected to subtle manipulation throughout as they try and encourage impulse buys. Those impulse buys are usually the items on the end of the aisle because you can’t really miss them. You have to walk past the end of the aisle. It’s a similar thing with the pricing stickers. Sales items in supermarkets are often not reduced that much apart from the end of life items but those price reductions that are done for a few weeks with big stickers emblazoned on them are done so for a reason. The colours are bright and they’re always positioned either on the end of an aisle or eye level to catch your attention. You pick them up, you see the price and statistically it increases the chances of the purchase; the rational part of you knows it is actually not that big a saving, or that you may not really need it but the rush of getting something for less kicks in.
Video games were no different. In the early 90s The main consoles were GameBoy, Game Gear MegaDrive, Master System and SNEs. Games were physical purchases in a shop, came in a box, and they all had artwork, all of which followed a general pattern. I do remember fondly the Megadrive and Game Gear artworks and they always achieved their goal of catching the eye when those items were on display on the shelves. There wasn’t the social media influencer trends then and the vast majority of children whom these games were aimed at, were not driven by trends, it was word of mouth in the playground. Games like pokemon gained traction because they became a vibe in the playground; word of mouth spread people wants to get in.
However, for the rest of the time, games developers and games marketers were relying on the cover art to grab the attention so bright, vibrant colours art, stirring, dynamic scenes were very much the norm. I always remember fondly the Altered Beast and Golden Axe covers
Both games design itself was psychological and whilst they were severely lacking in realism and playing to some pretty basic tropes they caught the eye and stirred the imagination. This stirring then would hopefully stir you into emptying your wallet. Character design was equally well versed in triggering that primaeval parts of the brain. Characters such as Sonic and Mario were designed in such a way as to be instantly recognisable and to trigger a response that these were familiar, safe and ‘good’. Likewise, some of the more scantily clad characters were triggering a different reaction. It was looking at the human brain, mainly male at that time, and triggering a reaction. The music was used to enhance the tension. Look at Sonic the Hedgehog. The underwater levels where you start to run out of air and the music increases.
this still gives me shivers
That is a psychological ploy to increase tension and also drive you to distraction (and also grow a deep abiding hatred of that piece of music). Boss Fights would have their own distinct bits of music to signify that this was something different, and it was all there to do the endorphins and adrenaline triggers. Nothing in game design was left to chance and it still isn’t; what has changed is how games now need to be marketed and this is a reflected situation in the music industry.
We’ve so many items now being purchased digitally and not hardcopy. How you market them is different. Cover art is slightly less relevant now because you by and large don’t see it. You’re looking at a tiny image on the screen. Instead it’s the opening art cinematic video or the trailer video that is used to catch your attention. It’s always a pre rendered video cinematic cutscenes showing a great bit of action or the very best that the game could be. Often, it’s not even close to how the game actually is but that doesn’t matter. The psychological lure is put out using the trailer and music is similar. There was an article recently how a majority of Spotify songs are done in a certain time. The reason for that is that they will be instantly catchable a person will listen to the first few beats and be hooked. Gone are the days where you have songs that don’t really get going to the second or third minute because now it needs to be in the first two or three seconds. This is why albums generally front load those tracks to the beginning and leave slower, longer tracks to the end.
It is fair to say though, that psychology of game design has evolved a long way; it’s no longer just a case of putting in a bit of music to get the adrenaline going or chucking in a character design designed to stir the emotional element of the sexual fantasy of the player (though there is no shortage of that).
cheeky
Now it is much more about the psychology of immersion but also the psychology of frustration. The idea of games as a service had developed because there is now the facility to constantly update the game and this has changed the market massively. You are no longer in a position as a games designer of having to launch the full game and that’s it on a cartridge or a disc. You can now release the game and then release seasons, further updates, skins and add-ons and monetize all of it in a way that was simply not possible before. But that needs a slightly different psychological approach. Let me illustrate that with an example. And the example I’m going to use is from my own experience with the game Tales of Arise. Now this is my favourite JRPG of all time. I would argue it’s probably one of the best JRPGs in the last couple of years. It does not have a microtransactions shop per se, but you can buy a small number of experience boosts, cash boost, and item boosts from the Xbox store (I was playing the xbox version but the same things are on all platforms). Now cosmetics are different so I’m going to leave them to one side for the moment and just focus purely on the xp element. So I was playing the game and really enjoying it. Doing a little bit of grind as I went along and explored but not really spending hours and hours and hours grinding. The story was fantastic. It had me absolutely hooked and then I reached a boss fight and got absolutely wrecked. Now, there were no recommended levels for the boss and I’d been levelling quite nicely and had been coping quite comfortably with all of the encounters, but the difficulty spike had gone up. So I did what all RPG players do ground a few levels. Try it again. Didn’t get wrecked this time, but still wasn’t even close to winning and I had put on about five levels, but still was not close. I really wanted to get on with the story because I was enjoying it so much. So what I did was go to the item shop and for a pound that was a 10 level booster. So I bought it and I beat the next boss; it was still not easy or a comfortable win, but I beat it.
It could be argued that the issue was caused by my lack of grinding, my level of gameplay skill or anything else. But there was a difficulty spike there and it was triggering a frustration in me; the frustration not that I couldn’t beat the boss but I was going to have to delay enjoying this story. Now I’m going to write a bit more detail about the problem with RPGs in another article. But that difficulty spike had triggered a psychological reaction in me. I wanted to enjoy the rest of the story and I couldn’t because I couldn’t beat the boss. So I was either forced to grind for a heck of a long time or make the purchase. So I made the purchase and that was on me; but when I did I couldn’t help but notice that subsequent level boosts increased in price. The first one had been a pound the second one was three, the next one was five. You could only buy those three in the defence of the game. Now as it turned out, I didn’t actually need to buy any of the other level boosts because I was a bit wiser and a bit more savvy and ground more as I went. A couple of the boss fights got close, but I didn’t want to drop any more money on it so I was okay. I would say though that those difficulty spikes were not by accident. They were by design and the intention was very, very clear. We will force the user into a choice to either play our game for a vastly longer period than they perhaps want, a bit of a kind of time sunk fallacy or we will say if you don’t want to sink more time into it than you need or want to then here’s the cash shop.
This was a very very simple thing from a design point of view, but it illustrates the point perfectly. The scaling of those bosses was psychological as much as anything else. It was applied to basically force the user to either spend more time in the game, which is obviously good for statistics, or spend time in the cash shop which is good for the sales figures.
So this brings us back round to Diablo. Diablo has pretty much every monetization gig going. It has time gating, it has limited items, it has level capping, it has difficulty spikes, and it has grind limitations. It also has items that simply cannot be obtained by free to play. But none of this is new. Given time, I could probably point to pretty much any game in the last five years, particularly mobile games, as an example of where those limitations came in, because the digital marketplace has allowed for digital transactions and near enough instantaneous updates in the game. Those weren’t possible in the pre digital era because you went and bought the game and that was it. Unless you got the cheat code of course. Nothing will change in the games market unless the players want it to change. The problem here is many players don’t want it to change. Whales greatly enjoy spending money to be top of the tree and being able to flex all the fancy items and extra things they’ve got. Many free to play players don’t care because they play the game for a bit, they enjoy it and they move on. This time Diablo has triggered a very different psychological reaction in the wider gaming community than its own internal mechanisms would have intended.
There is a much more unified feeling of disgust at the exploitation of the player this time because Diablo has taken those psychological cues and arguably it moved it into the realm of psychological abuse. They are playing on players, no pun intended, on every conceivable front. It’s not just the case of displaying the fancy box graphic to get you to buy something. It’s now pushing the box graphic into your face as soon as you walk through the door. It’s that behaviour that so many people hate in a supermarket, or shop when you are pounced upon by a member of staff asking if you want help the moment you arrive. Many shops have stopped doing that because customer feedback said it was shit and they did not want it. It is unlikely that this is going to change indeed, I’ve read that Diablo four is actively recruiting people of with expertise in psychology to aid in the cash shop designed for the new Diablo Four. At the moment they’re stressing that it will be for cosmetics only but given that this is Blizzard and the vast sums of money that Immortal stands to and indeed has already made; the odds of that promise being capped are frankly minimal.
There’s not a great deal for games and whilst plenty have condemned what is happening; there will always be people who want that endorphin rush, who want the flex or who simply fell into the trap that I did of wanting to get on with the story. They’re not prepared to walk away from a game; particularly if they bought it and not played it on Game Pass simply because of that gate. It’s a time and cost sunk fallacy but it’s a strong one. Unless all gamers unite to change it, then things will not change and we will continue to have this microtransaction manipulation.
So to sum it all up, whilst Diablo immortal is undoubtedly the worst of the breed. It is not the first of the breed. It is only the breed taken to its maximum current extension. And whilst hopefully the extension goes no further I have a horrible feeling that it will and these kinds of games will most definitely become more prevalent. But I’d be interested in hearing what your views are on the psychology of gaming and particular little ploys and tricks in games that you’ve come across or seen. Drop a comment below or feel free to subscribe to the site and as always, I hope everyone is keeping safe and well and I will catch up with you next time.
If you have any interest in gaming then it is impossible to avoid mention of crypto and NFTs these days. Games are being built with built in crypto farming and NFT (though I do use the term game loosely in reference to things like Earth2) whilst big studios like Square Enix are open in admitting they are looking at this area. For most gamers though the whole idea, especially using NFTs, is abhorrent and they are vocal on that. Despite that though the idea refuses to go away. The question therefore is are these things the future or a living proof that a fool and their money are soon parted?
Crypto
I think it is important to treat crypto and NFT as different things and recognise that they are not inextricably linked. NFTs have the greater dependency on crypto though but the same is not true in reverse.
Crypto currencies have been around for a while and some, such as bitcoin, have made some people extremely wealthy. It has also made others extremely poor and there are worrying questions about the environmental cost of such currencies. Before looking in a bit more depth though it is perhaps worth explaining at a basic level how ‘normal’ banking works. To do that we will use Bob, Jeff and Dave. All three of them go to Sparkles bank and hand over £1000.00 each with the intention of the bank storing it until they need it and paying interest on it each year. They don’t touch it and Sparkles is custodian of that money. A week later Alan comes in and asks for a loan to set up his new business and asks for £1500.00. Sparkles agrees and hands over £1500.00 from the £3000.00 that Bob, Jeff and Dave deposited with the understanding that repayments will be made monthly at £100.00 per month and interest will be paid on top. Essentially Alan will repay a larger sum than he borrowed by the time he pays the loan back. This extra money will be used to pay the interest on the £1000.00 deposits that Bob, Jeff and Dave made and also the bank profits. Now this is a very simplified view but writ large is how banking works. Sparkles in this example has held some money back and when combined with what it holds from other investors it has a liquidity pool. The idea being that if Bob, Jeff and Dave all want to withdraw their £1000.00 plus accrued interest then the liquidity pool will cover the deposit; even if Alan has not fully repaid the loan. It is easy to see the problem with this because if everyone pulls money out before loans are repaid then the liquidity pool is too small and you have what is known as a run on the bank. In that situation a bank can fail unless the state steps in and helps (or it loans money to cover the shortfall). This happened with Northern Rock bank and is a large part of the last banking crash; there was not enough coming back in from loans to cover the money being demanded. With a physical currency though the saver is protected by the state (though few currencies are backed by gold now) in the UK anyway, up to the sum of £85,000.00 and there is legislation, oversight and control to minimise the risk of issues and people loosing everything.
Crypto currencies are slightly different and come about in a couple of different ways; but usually it goes something like this. Bob, Jeff and Dave are approached by Sparkles with an offer to buy its new crypto coin. Lets call it ‘shine’. They have heard that you can get rich from crypto so put in £1000.00 each and this gets them 500 shine each. An exchange of 2 shine to 1 pound. At this point they have nothing tangible but they could maybe use the shine to buy a digital item (such as an NFT) but other than that it is not really useful. As crypto is not really loaned out or accepted as full legal tender it is not as widely traded as say sterling or dollars. So it has no inherent method of earning Bob, Jeff and Dave money. The media though has got wind of shine and due to a bit of influencer marketing its value rockets and now it would cost £10 per shine coin. This however is a nominal value however because the liquidity pool of the original £1000.00 from each of the investors has not changed. Along comes Alan. Alan wants to get into Shine so offers Bob £10 per coin he has. He accepts and the money is paid to him and he makes a nice profit on his £1000.00. This spirals a bit and shine is now worth £100.00 per shine coin and things are looking good for Jeff and Dave but then, some bad publicity and the price crashes. No one wants to buy into Shine from the outside so Jeff cuts his losses and pulls out. He sells his shine back to Sparkle for £50.00 per shine. He’s made a profit of course but it was a close run thing. Dave however doesn’t sell and thinks it will improve. The price continues to fall because there is a criminal investigation into Sparkle and now Dave finds that his coin is worth £1.50 per coin. Deciding he has had enough he tries to pull out and sell the coin back. The problem? When people like Jeff pulled out they drained the liquidity pool and Sparkle had been taking their cut as well. Now there is not actually the money left to pay out anything and now Dave is stuck. Sparkle vanish without a trace and the currency is basically dead. Dave approaches the authorities for help and is told that there is nothing they can do and he has lost his £1000.00 for ever.
The above is a super simplified version of things but it highlights the basic issue I have with a crypto based currency. Its inherent value comes from scarcity and people wanting to buy in. Supply and demand drives the price but if anything dents the desire to buy in then the whole thing collapses. The recent crypto market collapse is proof of the volatility and if you get an unscrupulous coin minter or an insufficient liquidity pool then it is good bye investment. And the authorities will simply not care as it is outside their remit. Factor in the massive ease with which it can be used to launder money then the whole area is a risk for most people. I have a friend who did invest in bitcoin early on and she told me that the stress of waking up each money to check the value was so bad it made her ill. She cashed out and made a decent profit but her recounting of having to set alerts to check the value put me off for life.
Now I am not necessarily against the idea of a digital only currency but the massive exposure it gives to financial crime and rogue operators, coupled with the lack of regulation and protection makes it a huge gamble. Any investment is a gamble but at least with traditional stocks and shares there is regulation in place to at least give a modicum of cover. You can still loose your shirt but there is the possibility of legal action, state intervention etc. Eventually I can see these coins becoming regulated and more centralised given the recent spate of fraudulent actions and that may change my view on the risk. So why then are so many game studios looking to bring it in? Well firstly it is news and any publicity is, as the saying goes, good publicity. Jump on the crypto train and you are guaranteed exposure in the news and exposure drives sales (unless your fan base goes nuclear as happened with Team17). Second and perhaps rather cynically is the fact that these currencies are not regulated. No regulation means a chance for more profit with none of the risk and by having the end user do the ‘mining’ then the owner is cutting their own cost but making a nice fat profit. Low risk, high reward. What’s not to like for them.
Ultimately I think crypto is here to stay though I suspect its encroaching in mainstream gaming will be limited for many years. People don’t want to have to work at play to earn games; that’s called having a job so the idea will fail on the whole. There is though legitimate value in decentralised cross border currency (no exchange rates when using it in different states etc) and these mean, at least in my view, that the core idea is not a fundamental screw up. NFT’s though are a very different proposition.
NFT
So whilst crypto-currency is in many ways a riskier version of gambling; at its core it remains fundamentally a valid piece of technology. It may have some inherent flaws but is not irredeemable. NFT’s on the other hand are plain bat shit crazy.
It’s very difficult to explain what an NFT is to a person who doesn’t really get involved in the sphere. It’s easier to give an example. Though be warned, the example will make your brain hurt. It makes my brain hurt just talking about the stupid things.
We’ll use our previous group of people and we’re going to focus on Dave. Dave is a digital artist. Dave spends a bit of time and draws a fantastic image of a woman in a red dress and he makes people aware of it and people say, “Oh, that’s really really good, but I would prefer to dress in blue or grey, yellow, pink, white” Now, because of how Dave did the drawing he was easily able to change the colour. So instead of one image, he now has several. Dave decides he wants to make a bit of money from his images, and why not? He’s talented and they look really good. Spoiler alert at this stage most NFT’s do not look really good, but it works for this example. So Dave considers setting up a Patreon where he sends out images monthly, but that’s a fair bit of work. And if he’s honest, he does it as a hobby. He doesn’t want to be tied to a schedule. He has a normal 9-5 job so doesn’t really have the time. So somebody suggests to him that he mint an NFT. So he goes to one of the NFT sellers like OpenSea, pays a small fee and he mints the image.
He mints all of the images and the only difference is the colour of the dress. He pays his nominal fee and these are now NFT’s and they can be bought either in crypto or in dollars. Dave has a bit of a following on social media and he says that he’s done this and he posts a link to the site. So what happens is somebody comes along and they buy one of the NFT’s. What is important at this point is to remember that they have not bought the image. The original image sets in the hard disk on Dave’s computer or the cloud or wherever he keeps his storage. What the seller has bought is a a string of letters and numbers. And that string corresponds to where the minted NFT lives on the blockchain or the cloud. Blockchain is a bit of a obscure concept so I’m simplifying. So they don’t own the image. I’m serious. What they own is a collection of letters and numbers that point to where that image is stored. Now in theory, only they have that mix of letters and numbers. In theory. If that central location were to disappear, or be deleted, be moved, or any other of the anomalies that can happen with digital and cloud based storage; then that’s sequence of letters and numbers becomes worthless. But Dave doesn’t care. Not because He’s heartless or anything as far as he’s concerned. He’s put it up for sale. Somebody’s bought it and he’s got his money. So Dave’s quite happy. It’s Alan, we’re going to use as the person who’s bought the NFT. Now Alan decides that he wants to make a bit of money. So what he does is he puts the NFT back up for sale at 50% over the price he paid for it.
Along comes Bob and Bob buys from Alan. But there has still been no transfer of ownership or copyright of the original digital piece. That remains with Dave. All that has been sold is the collection of string data; the letters and numbers. That’s it. Nothing more. Nothing less. So right now, if you’ve not had experience of NFT’s you’re sat there thinking why that holy hell would somebody pay for this? It’s an excellent question and to date, I have yet to see a very good explanation of why anybody would do it short of FOMO or stupidity.
Well there is one other option of course and it tends to be the reality. A desire to get rich quick by scamming gullible idiots. You see in my example the situation was very benign, sensible and noble. Unfortunately, the reality is that a large number of NFT minting schemes are money laundering Ponzi schemes. In reality what happens is a computerised script is used to compile a number of visual assets. So different faces, different hats, different background colours; all the things that you’ll see on an image Run the script and it outputs completed compiled images. It’s become a bit of a meme, but the majority of the NFT’s you’ll see on articles are a chimp, smoking cigarette, and you’ll see with different background colours, different hats, different glasses, all sorts of differences. But this is what I mean about the large number of the NFT’s being visually crap. It takes seconds to do if you Know how to do it.
Now of course, most people don’t actually want an image of a smoking monkey. So what often happens is the person who’s minted the images, uses a different crypto wallet and purchases, his own NFT. This could go round and round a few times. He’s not actually spending any money technically because he’s paying himself. What this does is creates a sale activity on the blockchain. People see that this NFT is being bought and sold for increasing amounts. And in the crypto world this is a red rag to a bull. So quickly, people come in who are not the original minter buy it.
The original minter now promptly rubs his hands with glee because he’s now actually made his money and can now disappear. The buyer starts the cycle that we illustrated above with Alan, they sell it on and the price increases and increases up to a point where it reaches a natural plateau. It’s stupid, but it’s what happens.
But there’s an even more sinister side to this. For a start the amount of NFT’s that have been minted using stolen art is ridiculous. And I’m not meaning physically stolen as in broken into an art gallery and half inched it; that at least would have an element of excitement to it. I have followed countless digital artists on social media and many of them have said they’ve had their art stolen by the minters using right click and save as and then minted as an NFT without their consent. It’s fast, and the NFT minting sites like Open Sea have been extremely slow to deal with it. Indeed it’s questionable if they have dealt with it. Once the NFT is out there it is next to impossible for the digital artist to get the NFT taken down. And remember the person who has subsequently bought from the minter, unless they follow that digital artist, won’t know that they have essentially bought stolen goods. They have bought it in well, I’m going to say in good faith as there’s not a lot of good faith in the NFT market but they have bought it arguably not knowing it is stolen.
So it’s a great way for people who haven’t got the artistic talent to make money off the back of people who have and it has fucked over a large number of artists. Sadly, if that was the only sinister element it would be if not tolerable, at least understandable. However, there is a much much darker element with NFTs. NFT’s exist to make people money, and that’s fine. There are plenty of other real and digital assets that do that. But there’s only one way NFT can make money and that’s by attracting new people in it by to sell because this digital asset cannot appreciate because it has no inherent value because it’s not a physical thing. It’s not an object that exists. The digital image i.e the original has a value because the original artist still has it and if he or she becomes popular, then those kinds of digital files become valuable. And that makes sense. The original Mona Lisa may not have been worth a lot of money, but it’s now worth a lot of money because the artist is famous and the image has become famous. A collection of letters and numbers does not become famous. Because it’s a collection of letters and numbers that mean nothing and do nothing. It gives no visual reward. So for the crypto bros The only way they can make money is to sell on that NFT. That’s it and this is a massive massive problem. Because what it means is it’s a Ponzi scheme. The people at the top who start things off, get rich. The people who come in at the bottom lose out because there is no one else eventually to sell onto and the NFT sphere is littered with scams and people being done out of money.
I will be honest and say that the desire to own an NFT makes no sense to me. It’s just completely stupid. This is especially the case when most people who have a modicum of tech knowledge know these NFT’s that people brag about quite easily be stolen with a right click and save as. Now I don’t endorse that action and if you choose to do it, it’s totally on your head. It’s not illegal, but it doesn’t make you necessarily much better; though I do get the humour of doing it to crypto bro and arguably you actually get more for your click than the crypto bro gets.
I don’t understand for a minute why game studios want to be involved in this mess. I see nothing of any value from a game design perspective other than making the studio money. Of course it’s not just game studios; football clubs have got involved. Liverpool Football Club tried and didn’t do quite so well, which as a Manchester United fan was rather amusing. The only rationale I can think off is that it’s a blatant attempt to cash in on a buzzword.
Yet game studios seem determined to go down this idea Some have tried to link in with Metaverse ideas which are even more bat shit crazy than the NFT. But the backlash is growing. And it’s highly likely in the US soon that some of these NFT farmers are going to get their collars felt because it is a Ponzi scheme. And in the US Ponzi schemes are illegal. Likewise, the money that is being ripped off from people is leading to a backlash and I’ve seen that the NFT market recently has absolutely collapsed. You’ll forgive me if I don’t shed a tear. Studios such as Square Enix who are seriously looking at this are setting themselves up for a massive PR fall. Because as soon as one person gets scammed by a big company or a big companies product, the PR storm that will hit will be monumental.
So I started this blog with a question are crypto an NFT is a good thing a sensible thing or the example of a full on that money? I wouldn’t say crypto is a good thing. It has a huge environmental cost and there are problems. But as a technology there is a basic core that is valid. I can understand why people are looking at it. It’s a gamble. It’s not one that I personally would take as it doesn’t meet my investment strategy. But I understand why people do and I can accept it. The lack of regulation is a problem and the ease of abuse and criminality is a concern. But over time that may well be something that can be addressed however, NFT’s are the exact opposite. They are a scam. I can’t put it in any other way. Yes, some people go in with good intentions and are not intending to rip people off but they are in my opinion the minority. Too many people have now been scammed. There are too many Ponzi schemes floating around for it to be a good thing and if you do choose to go into the market and it explodes in your face? Well, I guess I told you so.
So warhammer games. There have been loads of them and if I am honest most have been pretty dire, especially those released as mobile games or souless reskinned shooters. There are honourable exceptions and in recent years the quality has generally improved; though there does remain the odd train wreck such as necromunda. Now I do, or rather did, play tabletop but I have always been fond of the GW’s specialist games range (now boxed games) but I had never really looked at Warhammer Underworlds. I did have a painted warband bought as a palette cleanse but had never actually played it. A while back though I came across Warhammer Underworlds Online on a steam sale so bought it along with one extra DLC; the wraithkeepers. I like the occult aesthetic and if I ever did get into AOS then it would be nighthaunt. The game then languished, like so many others, in my steam backlog for months until last weekend when I actually did a social thing and arranged an online game with a friend. At this point I had never even booted the game up and hurridly had to patch it before we started.
First impressions were good. The game loaded fine, looked great (I am running an Acer Aspire 5 entry level gaming laptop) and did not seem to hit my CPU and memory that hard. Indeed the only issue was the default volume which seemed to be extremely high and my friend had the same issue. We both had to change the settings to actually allow us to hear the other on our discord voice chat. Settings though were easy to navigate but I had to turn the volume a long way down. Other than that things were fine. I had my DLC installed and my friend had the game out of the box with the two free warbands. Whilst he was setting up on his side I reviewed a few other screens and saw that I could review my deck and warband; which seemed to have two options, default or agressive. I had never played the game, not played the tutorial so I was resolved to going with beginner.
stock image of the layout
So the first game was set up with us using an agreed code to join but you can also search for steam friends by default and I like this. There is also general online matchmaking and AI opponents if you want to play offline; so even though this is primarily an online game there are plenty of ways to play. Set up a board and added our objective markers and curse hexes and then we were off. The board looked fantastic; a 3d representation of the characters and the board with animatics when the units move or attack. You can see your card hand at the bottom with glory objective cards on the right and tactics/upgrades on the left. Each player activates a character and moves, attacks or guards and this looked solid and ran well. Dice rolls are automated and the results likewise which was great for me who had no idea what they meant (on me not the game). Then we hit the first issue; on my turn I had played a card which then needed a follow up click on a unit or hex but either I had missed the text description or it assumed I knew and never presented it. What followed was a few minutes of me clicking around until I was finally able to get things moving again. This may have been more on me that the game and if I had done the tutorial then I may have known what to do; but the UI could have been a little clearer here. It’s a small thing but my friend said the same thing as he could not actually see what we were waiting on; there was no ‘waiting on your opponent to do something’ text which I think would have helped. This game ended badly for me with a total loss but by the end I had started to grasp the UI.
my wraithcreepers
Break for beer and a chat but as doing this I saw that I had unlocked some cosmetic enhancements for the warband. Turned out that just by playing I had gained what I suppose was XP and this gave non-boosting extras. I like this as it gives you something for playing and even if you loose you still get something back. Game two and this time I was more comfortable with the UI and was really enjoying the little animations; especially the drummer in my warband who beat his little drum with the corresponding sound effect. A nice touch which really added to the immersion. This game went much better for me and there were none of the freezing moments whilst I figured out what I needed to do next. Indeed the only issue was that in roll offs my friend sometimes saw both dice rolls before I even had one. Not sure if this was a lag issue on my end or not but it was really a tiny thing. Two games down in about two hours and much fun had (and two steam achievements for me for rolling criticals).
stock image of the briar queen. Want this at some point
After the game I put out a tweet saying I had played it and got the response below from the developer.
Again, I really like this as it shows they have an interest in new players. Out of curiosity I asked if there was a road map for the game and if more warbands would be added and got the below,
This, I have to say, is a real shame because this is a good game. I had a lot of fun playing it and I have to say it was the closest I have ever come to playing tabletop without actually playing tabletop. It’s not quite as good as the real thing but with a discord chat on I feel it was a worthy substitute. More importantly it gave me a taste of underworlds the game without me having to spend a lot of money and then finding I didn’t like it. Whilst I do think there a few UI and quality of life enhancements which could be added this is pretty much a perfect casual game; and even skipping the tutorial didn’t slow me down to much. That’s always the sign of a well designed game for me. I will certainly look into some bot games and expand my roster to get the briar queen when I next get paid as this was an enjoyable experience.
So is it worth a go? If you are tempted by or already play IRL underworlds or want a game to play whilst chatting with a friend on discord then definitely; but be aware that there may not be much new content in the future.
Roll 3's to hit 