Minions! I know you are eagerly awaiting my review of Borderlands 2 and to see if, in my ever omnipotent view, it could rise above what has been coined as the greatest game of 2012, the almighty Guild Wars 2. And to you I say...piss off! You voted for my far superior and deliciously eloquent female counterpart over me. And now you must pay by waiting ever longer! Hahahahahahahahaha! Well, at least until the wide screen Vizio television I play my games on gets a new circuit board put in. But regardless, damn you and your lack of loyalty. You will regret your decision well enough when I turn you all into pustulating mudskippers. And while this leaves a taste in my mouth so bitter you would think I spent time in Miley Cyrus' crotch, I have returned to you with something so immense it will change how you see video games forever. Probably.
While sitting at my computer playing Farmville, (yes, life DOES suck without a console), my devious mind began to churn and a great realization came to me. Video games can save our country! For those of you outside real civilization, America is in bad straits at the moment. We have a 6 trillion dollar debt hanging like a dark cloud over our economy and everyone, even me, is suffering because of it. While we look to the president for help, all we hear are the same boring speeches of how raising or lowering taxes will make things better. And that is complete garbage. If you raise taxes you are taking from people that are already financially crunched, and if you lower taxes you lose the money needed to pay off the debt. So if taxes aren't the answer, what is? Video games.
Before you go off on a rant about how games have nothing to do with the economy, open your ears and hear my words. Good. Now open your eyes and read my words because trying to hear me over a computer is just stupid.
Last year Zinga, the company who brought you Farmville, made over $600 million. That is a lot of money spent on unsubstantial things. In other words, people paid out the rear to have specialty items that cost real world money but didn't give them anything physical. It had little more worth to it than changing your Christmas tree lights from normal to blinking, and people ate it up. And in 2012 the profits for Zinga are estimated to top over a billion. So what makes Farmville, with its weak graphics and yawn inspiring goals such a great hit? It gave you the opportunity to make yourself look better than the other people playing the game. If you could pay for content they couldn't, you were far superior to them. And this naughty attempt to play off of peoples desire to be greater than they are paid off big time. It was much like this last election. Lots of show and hype, but little to no actual content.
So how does this save America from financial ruin? Well, naysayers, imagine if Farmville was run by the government. With a payoff like Zinga had last year, Obamacare wouldn't have been an issue. One simple game could pay off every single cent Romney and his rioting band of CEOs complained would come out of their wallets. Which it will. The country's biggest complaint was "You are taking it from my pocket." The same is true about games like Farmville, save that it is YOU who are wasting your money, not Obama. And you love to do it. You need to do it. If they put a digital fountain with Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer peeing gold in the center of it, you would buy it. It is brainless consumerism at its finest.
The fun part is this is just one crappy game making huge amounts of money that if the government did the same thing would curb the damage it has done to us. But the government, like me, is evil to its core, and thus it should aim higher after reaching this point. I mean, look at all the money they dumped into trying to set women's rights back to the stone age? Which, by the way, I was all for. Why? Because my wife won over me. See what you have inspired? Hundreds of millions were spent on candidates who made great campaign promises that they knew they would never keep. And someone had to plan all this out. If you put that kind of planning and money into a fruitless venture like Obama and Romney did, you could easily pay the programmers you already have who are trying to cyber attack China at any given moment and turn them into the greatest game designers ever to exist.
Arenanet, the masterminds behind Guild Wars 2, made in their first quarter alone over $167 million dollars. Before the release of Guild Wars 2, they were looking at bankruptcy. But in just two months they are sailing free from economic disaster. Two months. Now, $167 million compared to $6 trillion is just a drop in the bucket, but considering that the cash flow is only increasing, and it is forecasted to continue this upward rise well into the new year, the potential for an economic cure is written all over it. And then add to this the money they will make from the Koreans getting banned for selling gold for real money and buying new accounts so they can keep it up, and the potential income is limitless. If the government followed Arenanet's policies, not only would paying off the debt be easier, but they might even be able to recruit some good Korean hackers in the process, and then Iran is ours.
The greatest video game savior, however, doesn't come from Farmville or Guild Wars 2 ideas. It sits right in front of us and no one talks about it. But to help you understand it fully, I will have to paint you a picture of the future. In this future the economy is great and you have a good job. What is that job, you ask? Being a military man. Or woman. You ladies look awesome in petticoats. And you guys know it's true.
"But Sephris!" You pathetic little creatures cry out, "If I join the military, I might die!" You poor, disturbed individuals. This is the future we are talking about. The very near future. As you, a proud military ma...person...walks to your cubicle and settle into your chair, you hook yourself up with headphones and flick on your game console. Suddenly you become a drone airship, flying over enemy territory, looking for things to nark off to your superiors. Or maybe it is a time of war and you are carpet bombing Westboro Baptist Church. Either way you are holding in your hands a game controller and owning the world from the luxury of your own chunk of office space. Gone are the days of body armor and assault rifles, replaced by what Americans love to do the most. Play games.
"But Sephris," you again whine,"that may be a good job and all, but how is that going to fix the economy?" I'm amazed! You actually had a good question for me! And here, my non-genius fodder, is the answer to that. Though it is a bit complicated, so bear with me.
After WWII, Americans were everywhere. We were in Japan and Europe making sure they didn't rise up once more, and we were in places like China and northeastern Europe to make sure others didn't take advantage of the many countries that were slowly recovering from the war. We were loved and desired heroes back then. We were not, however, paid for our heroism. Today these troops are still over there, as well as many other countries now that the Soviet Union has crumbles. You see, other countries just didn't build up their troop defenses because America was there to protect them. And as before, these ungrateful bastards give us nothing for our protection. Just paying for these troops to stand around and pick their noses costs us over 60% of the money our government has to work with. We would have more than enough money to go around if we could bring the troops home. We wouldn't have to house them on another country's rental rate. We wouldn't have to pay out the nose for food because these countries have little of it. And we wouldn't have to pay for the great expenses, such as gas, to shuttle these troops across the country.
But, of course, if we leave, everyone is unprotected and wars will start breaking out again. We are in a catch 22 with no way out. Or are we?
Think back again to that futuristic job I spoke of where military life is playing real life video games. Now imagine a world where most of that 60% is no longer pouring into the dark void of "protect us for free!" and is instead put into the debt and then whatever after that. And then imagine how much it would cost to rent a building to store thousands of drones and war robots that can be turned on at a moments notice and be out the door in minutes to quell any violent outbursts a country might throw at another. If satellites can bring you sports from across the globe, they can easily be used to level downtown North Korea should the need arise. With no actual humans doing the fighting on our side, we suddenly have no casualties. This means no soldier having emergency medical procedures done to them, no lengthy hospital stays and no having to take care of them for life because they can't work in normal society anymore. PTSD would be a thing of the past. Just the decline of medical needs for our military due to this would tumble the debt to an easily controllable level. And all this can be brought about by video games.
In the end, some of the most impressive ways of making America a strong, independent and financially secure place to live are being ignored. The government looks at Grand Theft Auto and complains about how violent it is, but doesn't see the potential in using this kind of violence for the violent duties they send people out to do every day in the first place. As Americans, we do not care, really, if some stupid nation gets slaughtered by our dictators. Look at Iraq. Everyone knows these were innocent people and that misinformation, (at least so they claim), was to fault, and people were still screaming for their deaths. While many aspire to have us seem like peaceful, loving people, the fact is our country was born in war and it will live in war eternally. We are too big and powerful not to be involved in any and every conflict that happens in the world. If we take out the human element, our economy is fixed. So why isn't our government hopping on the different ways of making things better that I've described to you? Why are we still suffering in a bad economy when video games alone could make life much, much better? Your answer is as simple as looking at our last election. We are the problem.
"Obama hates the elderly! Obama hates babies!"
"Romney hates women! Romney hates the poor!"
I did not hear one American, save for myself, saying:
"Games could fix everything! Then no one has to hate anyone, no matter how fun it is! And we get to have America the Great back with us!"
Americans, when we change our mentality, changes the country. 70 years ago saying "Aw, shucks!" was considered barely allowable profanity on television. Today there are more f*cks splattered around it than can conceivably be counted. Why? Because Americans found they liked saying the word f*ck. We have the power, but we rarely use it. If two states can make marijuana legal, telling the government and the DEA where to go in the process, and the government and DEA just stand there like a deer in headlights, just imagine how immensely wonderful America would be if we started forging the destiny of the country with our own hands, rather than leaving it to people who are so far out of touch with what we need that they will never make things better. Think on this the next time you pick up your game controller, because life, in many ways, IS like a video game. And in the end, you are in control.
Stellar Blade might be the hot game right now, but we already got a better version of it more than half a year ago.
Fallout 4 is now available on next-gen consoles, offering 60fps gameplay and 4K resolution. But it's bad news if you claimed the game on PS Plus.
Probably won't happen for PS+ since Sony makes a clear distinction between a PS4 game and a PS5 game, unlike PC and Xbox where it is not a specific device game (It's now always an Xbox game).
So to make the PS5 game of fallout 4 available. Bethesda would need to renegotiate the complete deal with Sony.
hence why there's often only the PS4 version of the game available on PS+.
Let's hope Bethesda and Sony can arrive to term quickly.
On Amazon, you can't get an RTX 4090 for less than this one from Gigabyte, which now offers great value after an eye-catching April deal.
VGs should be used as an important export, being a nation quickly turning to services over industry and food, and VGs being a huge part of the entertainment industry. If only China played ball with respecting copy-protection both ways (in and out)....we would see our GDP explode.
Its Zynga not Zinga you dummy :)
Zynga, Zinga...at least I don't false quote people and then not let people know I am doing it. Typos are far less costly than lawsuits.
US National debt is currently $16.2 trillion and is increasing at a rate of around $4 billion per day.
Quite a depressing fact but I appreciate your levity of the situation. (",)
well written piece, very intresting style of writing, the substance was good, the style was excellent....
.....but.... money isn't even real, or backed by anything real, it is just paper, the only reason it causes so much grief and misery is because people believe so strongly in it.....lol....get rich or die trying
how about get food, clothing , shelter or die trying
money is the way leaders of the world force humans into slavery while tricking them into thinking they are free