I will always standby this game. As a Halo game, Halo Infinite has the framework to be the greatest Halo game our fingers ever have to pleasure to play. However, A "good game" can only go so far nowadays. With that said, THE GAME IS D-E-A-D. If you play Halo outside of the "out of the box experience" there is really nothing for you. Are you a Grifball kid? Nothing for you. You want to make fun maps and game modes? nothing for you. You want to grind ranked in MULTIPLE playlists? Nah. You want to play CO-OP? Nah. I get that this game has plans to be in our lives for 10+ years and after such a stellar first month it's like 343 just pulled the plug on everything. Out of boredom I went on the 343 website and noticed that a handful of pretty hefty jobs were being posted. This could be a good sign or it could be a catastrophic sign. It really depends how you interpret it. As the business wizard I am my brain goes "is 343 going to get better people for this job? OR did they not compensate well enough and lost potentially good people?" I'm optimistic, but to these poor souls jumping head first into this mess, I pity them. We are a rough and vocal group of fans and this game is teed up to be a fucking MONSTER. In other words, don't fuck it up or we will destroy your timelines.
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I cannot get enough of these documentaries/shows. I started the week off by giving the show "Inventing Anna" a whirl. It's a show based off the Anna Sorokin aka "Anna Delvey" marathon of scamming rich people, not-so rich people, and getting really damn close to scamming a bank for more than 30 million dollars. This woman scammed a shit ton of people, convinced them she is this savvy business woman while having what the evidence shows is a SAVAGE ZERO dollars to her name. All of this scamming was to fund her dream of running a super exclusive "social club" for the elite of society. You know, when you were a kid and you made a clubhouse out of blankets and put a "boys only" sign on it? That, but for rich soulless assholes. And a bank thought that it was a good enough business concept to throw millions on the table to a young lady that had no business in doing so. Everything started with a simple lie about her fathers wealth, her temporarily denied access that family wealth, and that once she gets access to the family money she will pay the debt that she owes. Nuts! I got to rethink my career path. Now is Anna as big of an asshole than Simon Leviev? Another Netflix gem, "The Tinder Swindler" is a documentary that follows the women who were scammed by good old Simon. This asshole, would find women off Tinder, convince them that he is the heir to a family diamond empire. He would then spend a month wooing these women with fancy dinners, cars, hotels, and gifts. Sell them the idea that THEY are the ONE, they would get married, and start a family. The fairy tale. THE DREAM. Suddenly, he would reach out to these women saying there was a "security breach" and his life was at stake, at this point Simon would plead that for him and his team to get out of whatever country safely he would need to receive money from these women. So these women, getting caught up in the moment, would be taking these 10,000-40,000 dollar loans out trying to help Simon from this "emergency". Sadly, Simon was actually using the money being given to him for his latest woman he was trying to win over. Just so he can do the same thing to them a month down the road. SCUM! My question to YOU, my beautiful reader, who wins in this battle of SCUM? My brain leans very hard towards Simon being the winner for biggest scumhole out of these two shitheads. My logic is, Anna was scamming people that were "business minded". My naïve mind says these rich people could afford a screw up like this. STILL, it does not make it right. You would think that these people should of known better than to trust people on their word. However, It's like no one ever told Anna to "SHOW ME THE MONEY!". Simon on the other hand was scamming pretty much any woman that he could manipulate. He did not care if you could afford it he just wanted to get his money so he can scam another poor soul. Yeah Simon is the bigger tick on this planet than Anna...so congrats Simon. Ya Bitch. When I woke up this morning I did NOT think Boss Nasti (google him if confused by the reference) was back in the scene. Thankfully, it was not Boss Nasti it was some YouTuber named Ascend Hyperion. I have never heard of him, but I will say before I rip his asshole apart in this blog I do got to say he means well, and he does put a lot of thought and effort into what he is trying to say. Though it is very fucking stupid. So let's pick apart some of the thing stated in this video.
The Chess Analogy- In the video Ascend Hyperion states that Halo in it's natural state, the "INTENDED way" is like Chess. And you should be good with all the pieces in order to be considered "skilled" at the game. And then the competitive scene comes out and removes pieces from the game of chess to make it more "competitive". To which he asks, does this then make you less skilled at the game? My stance, is WE are given a game that is built to keep every kind of player around. To do this, the game comes with weapons and features that are literally put in the game so less skilled players can get kills and feel a part of the action. To keep them playing. WE take a chess game that comes with pieces that allow brain dead moves, less precision, less fundamentals, and turn it into the strategic and beautiful game we know now. Could Pros Play "Real Halo"?- At this point, I think Ascend Hyperion is just trying to say shit to stir the pot. And after seeing his other videos, I'm sure you would also agree with my theory. It's as if he has to convince himself on his own bullshit, organize the shitty argument for said bullshit, and produce a fairly good video off the bullshit. Now could a Halo pro play "real halo" at a pro level? NO SHIT. I am pretty sure the HCS settings are the closest thing to out of the box Halo in the history of competitive play. And have you not seen Lucid (Optic Gaming) play? The man is a wizard with the Pulse Rifle. And in the beginning of the game, who the hell thought to pick that thing up. So yes, you tell the Pros that they have to play with Assault Rifles instead of Battle Rifles, you tell them they are going to play with Radar on, you tell them that they are basically going to play Team Slayer settings, they will STILL be at the top level of play. 100%. Period. End of story. It was an incredible feeling to ask my wife "you want to see a movie?". It has been 2 years since a theatre has been an option for things to do since the beginning of the pandemic. I love going to the movies. It's nice to just turn off the phone and be surrounded by a story (hopefully a good one). I am a bit of a hypocrite because it was pretty cool being able to pay 5 bucks to HBO Max and see a movie that was intended for theatre right in my living room. A lot of theaters around me remodeled and most definitely for the better. Recliners, Laser Tag, Bars, and "during movie" lunch/dinner. Awesome stuff. Makes you feel like you are actually getting out and doing something.
For my first movie since the pandemic, I wanted to see something "big". Obviously, everyone on social media was having a shit fit during the pandemic about the casting of Robert Pattinson as The Bat Bruce. I was also pretty skeptical of the casting of the role as well, but I was very very wrong. God damn was I wrong. I loved this kind of Bruce Wayne. In a lot of the Batman movies Bruce Wayne is portrayed as playboy, a bit cocky, slightly narcissistic. This Bruce was more of a lost soul, uncertain, and pained. I don't need my hero's to be relatable, but this Bruce Wayne was relatable. Most of us are trying to find the right path for our lives. Even when we think we are on the right one, we don't know what sacrifices it will take to stay in that direction, OR even what wait for us at the end of that path. This theme runs through a lot of Batman movies. Most famously done in the Christopher Nolan Batman Trilogy. In the Nolan's films Batman is put in a very obvious scenario "Save the ones you love or save the people you swore to protect" and when that event is over, Batman ponders his path. However, in "The Batman", Bruce Wayne seems to VISUALLY battle with his path throughout the movie, but when he is Batman he seems CERTAIN and deliberate with his path. It's a very interesting dynamic that this movie does so well. I am not a movie reviewer, but I would love to write more about the visuals, the other characters, and more themes, but I like to try to keep these blogs short. I know people got lives to live and shit to do, but this movie was incredible, way better than I thought it could be. SO, go see it and let me know what you think via Twitter (@Nicktacular) OR Discord (https://discord.gg/FNs9RqV6Zj) It's been 3 years since I've gone "part-time" with the brand building and grinding the stream. I am happy to announce that WE ARE FINALLY at the point I feel confident enough to start reaching out to for ad deals aka "sponsorships". I'm sure a lot of you know we have had sponsorships before; however, those were more affiliate programs. Companies give us a code; we KILL the product placement/reads and I get a 5%-10% of the sales when the affiliate code is used. I think now it's time to ask for actual ad deals/sponsorships. The difference between an "ad deal" and an affiliate program is as said before, when someone uses our code, we get a slice of the sale. With an ad deal, company X will give you a contractual lump sum of money to promote their product or service for a certain amount of time. I DO NOT plan to make a shit ton of money from this...at first, but it would be nice to have that extra cash flow so we can get actual designers for merch, hire more bloggers, basically extra cash to make moves. My issue is I want products I can get behind, products I can blend into the streams, the blog, and the tweets. I really want the sponsors to become characters in our world. That's where it gets a bit tricky, but let's see what happens in the next couple weeks. TO THE MOON!
I've been pretty down in the dumps lately mentally. I do not want any pity, it's nothing you, my beautiful reader, should concern yourself with. We all have a few bad days. Especially with the terrible shit going on in the Ukraine, gas prices going up, the job market is currently in a weird space, the housing market making me pay $400,000 for something that's probably going to tank in value in the next two-five years. I got one real estate expert telling me "Do it now, it'll never be this cheap". I got another expert saying "you should stay in your apartment, pause your life AGAIN, and wait for the market to crash". I got dreams, I got a savage work ethic, and I have been trying my ass off, but these dreams have never felt more like that.... just dreams. It's these kinds of moments that I shine though. My brain takes a break once a thousand days and tells me to quit and just settle with my career. However, my heart says "No way! Do what you love and make that dream real. Make it so real you can grab it by the balls. In all honesty, beating the odds would be fucking godlike." I favor my heart in this one. This will all work out somehow. The title is a little harsh, but it got you to read this blog, right? I wouldn't necessarily call myself a failed streamer, but a streamer that failed to capitalize on certain aspects or capitalized on those aspects a little late in the game. Hopefully the things I've learned or realized in my 10+ years of streaming will help you peeps out that are new to streaming or thinking about start joining the world of Twitch Streaming.
1) Be Young Not that age itself really has anything to do with it, but I'm 31 years old, I got a full-time job, a couple part-time jobs, mortgage, "adult" obligations, things that demand priority when it comes to time and focus. Most young people do not have that many responsibilities, thus they have more time to dedicate to something like streaming. If you are someone under the age of 25 and you are thinking about starting the Twitch grind, I suggest you jump on the horse ASAP. 2) Love or The Game? A lot of striving "full time" streamers struggle with their love lives. To go full-time takes up a shit ton of time as stated a thousand times. I got very lucky; my wife is super supportive with my streaming/gaming "career". Granted I'm not "full time", but with everything else that goes with streaming like working on videos, updating this website, and interacting on multiple social media platforms. It can be a lot. I have and always will put my wife and our marriage over everything, including streaming. I told her straight up when our relationship got "serious" that if at any time she felt my streaming was negatively impacting us, all she had to do was say the word and I'd quit. 5 years later, she still supports me on this irrational dream of mine. 3) A Real Job I see a lot of people just gamble on the streaming thing. I'm a big fan of the "I quit my day job to stream full time" tweets. Then fast forward a handful of weeks and you get "It's been a good run, but I'm going to have to step away from streaming" tweet. AKA "I can't pay my bills!" If you are in a situation where you can afford to leave your job and give full time streaming a whirl, go for it. However, please please please make sure your finances are in check before you make such an insane gamble. 4) All of the Socials! When I started streaming there wasn't much for getting your name out there. It was Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and a couple forums. Nowadays you have to dedicate time to literally EVERYTHING. YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Discord, there are even copycats or spinoffs of these social media sites popping up every day. And guess what? If you want to succeed, you got to use them all. I stream every other day and on those days between streaming days I'm working on social media stuff. I'm interacting with popular tweets, posting during peak times, experimenting with certain hashtags. The god damn works. Social media is not to be ignored if you are trying to grow your brand. |
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