Billions and Billions of Dollars?!

Helllloooooo Game Bandits,

I’m back from filming and ready to try out a new time-slot for our Banditry.
4:30pm EDT https://www.twitch.tv/techbanditry

I had better start with the ginormous Game Breaking News, right?!
Microsoft has just spent a staggering 7.5 BILLION DOLLARS!!!!! to buy Zenimax Media and all of their gaming ventures… which means Microsoft now owns The Elder Scrolls, Fallout and Doom… including Playstation 5 exclusives… Deathloop, Starfield & GhostWire: Tokyo!

I don’t know about you, but I get a little nervous when giant companies start swallowing up all the indies… but to be fair Microsoft has done a great job with Minecraft… and the seemingly insane 2.5 billion they paid for it way back in 2014 BECAUSE OF A TWEET!? … actually looking at that now, it seems to me like they might have been a steal of a deal!?

Wouldn’t you just love to have a company show up and make you a star, overnight and hand you a few billion dollars? Someone who could bring in sponsorships and appearance fees, for you?! Well, you may want to think twice before you start signing your life away…I was shocked to read this recent Wired article which includes all kinds of tales about gaming Influencer Management from hell!

https://www.wired.com/story/streaming-video-game-star-management-industry/

This reminded me of a really shocking video by one of IronHam and my favourite YouTubers GameTheory

Wherever there are desperate people hoping to “make it” there are even more people ready to take advantage of them. I’ve personally dealt with these kind of scammers in the film industry! I’ve always found that the more of the hard work you do yourself the better the result. I’ve yet to find anyone (except maybe Jane) who cares as much about what I do and how I do it as me…it just makes sense. Do you know of any other Streamers of Youtubers who go ripped off? How did it happen? What kind of scams are out there? How do you protect yourself from them? Are managers and agents really evil?

Of course, before you have to consider these things, you’ll need to do the work… I’m a huge fan of AlphaGamer and his tips and insights (including real world numbers for earnings!) into the world of being a successful YouTuber and Streamer. If you hope to succeed online then I highly recommend you watch his videos and take his advice!

We were talking about Myst the other day… a classic classy mystery and puzzle game from the early days of PC gaming…

well… it’s about to get remade for VR! Here’s the trailer!

VR Myst

If you want to know more about the genesis of this amazing game then check out this Brief History of Myst…I had no idea about this little family operation Cyan turned global sensation!:

A Brief History of Myst

Which got my thinking about how much video game graphics have changed over the years… here’s a really nice walkthrough detailing the history of computer graphics: