Consumer Relations - Information: Fill & Download for Free

Ok look.Breath of the Wild is a massive, epic game. Reportedly over the course of its development over 300 developers had their hands on it. From the sound of it, Nintendo had never dealt with a game at this scale before, and brought in a team from Monolith to help. Which is crazy…oh hey, let's do this new super ambitious and difficult thing that we've never done before…and knock it out of the park. As in, it's probably going to end the year with a list of awards a mile long. That game cost $60. There's a one time purchase DLC for $20 that gets you extra gear to find, additional side quests, a harder second play-through with a new enemy class, new map features, a 50 level challenge Dungeon that greatly enhances a primary weapon, and a whole additional storyline and dungeon.Horizon Zero Dawn. Also huge. Also Epic. Also great. Also $60.Persona 5. Also great. Also epic. Also $60.I can keep going forever. The list of amazing games that came out this year is staggering. It was a great year for games.Most of those games cost $60. A few cost LESS than that. Some have DLC, but it is significant additional content, and nothing that impacts someone else's ability to enjoy the game if they don't buy. Some have expensive special editions. A few have microtransactions but are limited to cosmetic items. In all cases the price of the game covered the studios operating expenses and a little profit, and extra DLC, etc is a small cherry on top.So why do some companies suddenly think it's ok to take a full price $60 game and apply a tactic that was specifically invented to milk money out of people who were reluctant about paying up front (mobile gamers)?Is your game so fucking epic and huge that it really cost that much more to make? Well then shit! I can't wait to play this giant masterpiece, go ahead and charge us extra for all your hard work.Has inflation and increasing complexity and scale of games caused a general rise in the cost of development to the point where $60 isn't enough for the really ambitious games of the world any more? Then see my previous point. If it's an inflation cost problem, go ahead and lead the charge on raising game prices a little. It's about time - we gamers have had it pretty good. Games have been steady at $60 for over a decade.Are you afraid if you just raise prices or charge $100 for your massive epic adventure that people won't buy it? Why wouldn't they buy it? I got 200 hours out of Zelda at $60. If your game is way more huge and epic than that, $100 is still one of the cheapest forms of entertainment per hour around. If it's good shit, people will pay. I will. Others will.Oh now we come to the crux of the issue. Your game has to be good!!! Oh I see the problem now. You are facing one of two facts, or maybe both:Your game isn't good enough to convince people to pay extra money for it.You run your development studio so poorly and inefficiently that even if your game sells well at the going market rate, it doesn't cover your development budget.In other words…you are not able to make a game that is worth the cost of making it. I mean this literally - it's the very definition - people are not willing to pay what you are charging for the thing you have made, and you are not willing to take less because of how much it cost your to make it.So if you:cant make a game worth $60 and make a profit at $60…Can't make a game so much more awesome than those $60 games, that it justifies a higher price…I reach a rather interesting conclusion: you run your company poorly! You are incapable of making products that people want, at a price they are willing to pay. That's literally the definition of a badly run business.I assume this is in reference to EA. The microtransaction strategy they've begun using is stolen from free to play mobile games, but they are now applying it to full priced games. Further, they are designing these games so that they are vastly less enjoyable if you do not spend on microtransactions, and also designing the microtransaction system to prey on people's inherent urge to gamble. They are making the microstransaction imperative to the fun of the game, rather than an enhancement. This system is not designed to offer up extra stuff to the die hard fans in exchange for a little bit of extra profit. This system is designed to get millions of people paying hundreds or thousands of dollars a year ON TOP of $60.Why do you need all that money? Did you earn all that money by making awesome extra content? Did it cost you a lot to create all that content? More than was covered by the price of the game? Or are you just trying to use a system that has been successful at milking gamers for money, just because you want more money without the work.Conclusion: either you are a greedy asshole who doesn't give a shit about making an actual good product, or you are terrible at your job and can’t run a studio effectively to produce a game on a budget that makes said game practical.EA sucks. They run their studios like shit. Most of what they crank out is mediocre garbage that is barely within the definition of “fun”. And they do that with excessive bloated budgets while still managing to under pay and over work their developers. Seriously. With the exception of Battlefield, every one of their semi-relevant series is based on the fact that they hold an exclusive video game contract for some other industry’s IP. FIFA, Madden, and Star Wars. Battlefield is different but it's a relatively recent acquisition and reportedly due to their success in running themselves independently they've been allowed to remain mostly independent of EAs internal operations.Bottom line. EA crossed the line. This isn't good for consumers. Consumers want great games at reasonable prices. EA does neither of those things, because they are poorly run and have no clue how to do either. So instead they tried to insert shady pay-to-win mobile game tactics into a full priced game, hoping consumers would silently swallow their poison pill, setting the precedent that it's ok to charge full price for a game filled with microtransactions raking the consumer for thousands by selling additional content that takes minimal effort to generate, feeding off humans inate desire to gamble, rather than, oh, I don't know, making a game that's actually fucking FUN?I don't care what the price is. Make a game that is worth that price, and I'll pay. Microtransactions are BAD for the game consumer because making them acceptable practice gives an easy out to a company that either can't be bothered, or doesn't know how, to make a game worth playing, at a price worth paying.

The ‘British’ vaccine is available should anyone else want to use it, and we make no secret of the strategy behind the way the vaccinations are given and the way the dosage works.Someone seems to have forgotten ‘the world’ has had two hundred years and change to play catch-up.(As that's how long it's been since Edward Jenner gave them vaccination in the modern era… but somehow it seems ‘the world’ - and it seems the world's brother - long ago collectectively decided it either wasn't important enough to focus on, or there was nothing worth knowing to be learned from us Brits.)There are many honourable exceptions to the general lazy, indolent, short-sighted, money-grubbing rule, but overall ‘the world’ decided it could do fine without us long ago, needing nothing from us, but most particularly not leadership by example, and most specifically not wanting any helpful advice.And that, as they say, is that.It is why we are not doing so badly as expected - thanks for asking, by the way - and that's why we have the present rather sad situation: a great multitude of vociferous critics (many of them anonymous trolls) feeling cheated and hard done by only because we aren't doing worse.We had a lot of things already in place - obviously - and that was challenging, for the most part hampered, and for non-trivial reasons, but we managed… again, this caused resentment.Despite our example, for the most part ignored, and often derided and deplored, most nations have opted to do otherwise.Because they assumed they knew better, that they were wiser, smarter or simply all-round better, not at anything in particular but simply inately superior - Now where have I heard that before? - while others genuinely could not make the commitment or lacked the necessary wherewithal.However, generally speaking, what our sternest critics lacked was the will.The fundamentals are not secret, indeed we are proud of them, and they are well-enough known to raise suspicions abroad, as some people are simply born suspicious, particularly when confused by the unselfish actions of others.In order they are:A genuinely publicly funded, genuinely not-for profit, genuinely high-quality, cradle-to-grave public healthcare system that is genuinely free at the point of delivery.A genuinely publicly endorsed and academically independent non-profit scientific research capability equal to the task of gene-sequencing a generous oversupply of viral samples.The capacity to analyse the findings and interpret them meaningfully, then run genuine trials of vaccines in. partnership - of a genuine kind - with trusted manucturers who are in the position of partners.The support of the public, and thereby the democratically elected party of government capable of acting rationally and in the interests of all, as opposed to only doing so for petty selfish advantage.The UK is not alone in having most of the above, but it is far rarer to tick all of the boxes, it seems.The nub of the question is one that is so readily apparent from the perspective of a British person for whom all of the above is considered normal - and even the ideal ground state of being - it might be overlooked, or misunderstood, so here I speak plainly as I can while being ‘Respectful’ and ‘Nice’, for all the Question is undeserving:If a man is given a fish he has a meal for a day but the next day he will go hungry.But if taught to fish that man can.potentially feed himself, and his family, forever.We are in the position of a man who knows how to fish, and has offered his neighbours the opportunity to learn.But for the most part our nearest neighbours either are not interested or have decided they are so very good at fishing, and so very wise, so all-knowing, they can afford to tell us to mind our own business… while of course reserving the right to meddle in ours on a whim.Some are doing much the same as we are doing, but with a lot less generosity, as their catch comes at a price, and not always in money, their supplying more fish in the future coming with a great many hidden strings attached.Others demand, as of right, we hand over our fish, or else, and say aloud if we dare refuse they will hurt us, and bring death and destruction down on our family, and they have now not only tried hard to do so, having failed they have decided will do whatever is in their power to ensure we have no friends.That's a piss-poor way for any adult to behave, but it was expected, sad to say.As ungenerous, arrogant people are always in oversupply, and they are apt to not only be hugely greedy and utterly selfish, but literally arrogant beyond reason.So much so when given our fish they would rather let it rot than allow their own people to consume it, yet they still refuse to give it away, in order to alleviate the suffering of the deserving, as they are strangers and so do not merit the least consideration.Then there are those others, who for reasons too deep to be fathomed, out of the blue demand caviar for all those who can't fish, right now.That's a mighty tall order, in my opinion.Either the Question assumes Jesus Christ was British, that he is alive and well and in the fishing trade, or that we must all be His close relatives.So close, in fact, that we are assumed to able to make miracles happen on demand.Or that we will - out of the goodness of our hearts - simply pull a miracle out of our collective asses.That shows real hutzpah.(Or something, begining with ‘H’, maybe hubris.. I’m not sure what kind of mind dreams up such - forgive me - such extremely fucking dumb ideas.)The short but polite answer is we offered.We begged and we pleaded to no avail.It seems that the last two hundred years were largely wasted.So should we really think about giving our all one last time, again, but this time with more feeling?And do so just to try to force-feed a great multitude that has proven itself too bone idle to have made the least attempt to so much as glance at a self-help book?Or has repeatedly refused to join a fishing club to even learn how to drop a line in the water, on occassion, when the urgent need arises?The short answer is no.The slightly longer answer is best expressed in the form of an Irish proverb:.You can't get there, friend.It's simply not possible.Not when you are starting out from here.

I dunno about enlightenment but it most definetly causes ego death more often than not allowing for experiences that can be either transformative or devastating, depending on what headspace your in at the time. Unlike other psychoactive disassociatives I've experimented with, often times I've encountered entities colloquially refered to as the deepsters on my DMT trips. In fact the only time I've ever interacted with deepsters is while on DMT. To the best of my recollection I didn't decorporalize on my visits where I encountered the deepsters but it may have happened once or twice as ego death isn't guaranteed every time. Now I am no stranger to ego death but one of the most profound trips I had on DMT where ego death did occure took place long after I had become a veteran with it and fundamentally changed me to this day.So at this point in time I had managed to have a gram of pure crystal DMT synthesized for my own personal experimentation. This was not my first rodeo and I had more than enough experience with most of the accessible compounds classified as psychoactive disassociatives for me to consider them by far, my most favorite class of enthogenic drugs. I had tried many different RC's and various analogs of DMT but only had limited experience with this molecule, the holy grail as it were.To avoid having to orally activate this tryptamine with MAOi's my early experiments consisted of ingesting 20mg dosages administered via vaporizing it through various smoking apparatus. I began increasing efficacy by experimenting with pipe designs so the threshold dosages stayed at 20mg for a while as I continually increased the ratio of delivery versus amount consumed per dosage. Once I finally worked out a delivery methodology to maximize efficacy and with my consistent daily dosages, you only get to ride that ride once a day, I then began experiments in titration. With my inate cross tolerance to tryptamines and diligent daily travels as a psychonaut, I was soon dosing at 60mg per trip.I was regularly dosing at 60mg daily when I experienced the life altering event I am about to relate.So at this point in my life my wife was threatening to leave me and she was adamant that we seek marriage counciling due to my infidelity. In fact, this had become an ultimatum of hers as a condition for her to not move out immediately. She had contacted both of my mistresses and they were all actively plotting together to entrap me for any further transgressions. One mistress I had been seeing for 7 years and the other 4 years. At this point my wife and I had been together 12 years. So between my wife being hurt and isolating herself emotionally and the subsequent damage to our marriage being compounded by the need to abruptly sever all ties with the other two other women in my life that I loved, I was getting pretty lonely. In fact the very real possibility of also loosing my wife as well was preoccupying my thoughts pretty consistently. I was alread lonely enough- the prospect of it becoming all encompassing was something I dwelled on a lot.So this was the headspace I was in. All things considered, I was in a pretty good mood that day as I was with friends when I decided to trip. But I wasn't all that aware of how strongly those emotions were still swirling around in the maelstrom that was my psyche.I measure out the 60mg and prepare the apparatus. The entire dosage must be inhaled all at one time, because as I said- you only get one ticket a day for that ride. trust me, I've tried many times to sneak back onto another ride without ANY luck whatsoever.(if you know of a way to repotentiate for another dosage within a 24 hour window, please contact me, I would love to talk to you OR anyone with experience in titration and administration of IV dosages same goes for those individuals)I light up the dose and take my full pull. I see the usual rushing stream of purple and green smoking lights getting denser and faster and brighter until that unbelievablely bright flash of space time condensing down into a singularity and jettisoning you out onto the 4th Plateau. So on this occasion I arrive without my corporeal form and am now existing only as my consciousness represented as a perfect orange sphere with the texture of a citrus peel. It almost looks like a texture mapped CGI graphic from the early 90’s, sans shitty shadowing and lighting effects.As I am acclimating to my new environment I gradually become aware of my aloneness as I seem to be in a universe populated with me as the sole living being. As I become cognizant of my other worries carried in from my corporeal space time and the dawning realization that even if there is other life out here, its no where near me and the orange entity that is me starts to sublimate into a dense vapor. As I swell in size, my outer layers are ejected off so that I return to my original dimensions but I'm losing density at an alarming rate with each burst becoming more energetic and quicker in succession. Finally I blast off my last cloud shell in a violent flash and all that remains is a thin orange amorphous trail of smoke.So now I'm a little worried about sticking around to more of that happening and the only thing I can think to do is to find something, find anything that can help me with not completely evaporating into the empty vastness of this universe. I will myself to traverse the distances of this non physical time space. The longer I'm here, the better I get at it and accelerate with ever increasing speed. Eventually I reach the limits of travel in this universe and have covered immense amounts of space with my vista changing almost imperceptibly at the very slightest. Visually it looks like I haven't much moved at all, but some how I am aware of my momentum and the eons of time that have alredy elapsed since my arrival.The best example I can give of this was in the episode of Star Trek TNG when the enterprise encounters a vessel that is the last artifact of an ancient and extinct race and their lost culture. When Picard gives the command to scan it, it suddenly flashes and beams energy into the bridge causing Picard to loose consciousness for roughly 90 seconds. When he awakes, he cannot believe he is back on the bridge and in the same time continuum he was when he went unconscious.In that brief moment he was down, he lived an entire lifetime as one of these extinct aliens and experienced their culture starting with him falling in love as a young man and getting married, raising children and becoming the patriarch of a large family before he dies in old age as a great grandfather at the end of a full and rich life. His vocation in that life was that of an instrument maker and he was a skilled musician. In fact one of the first things he does in his normal timeline is make one of their instruments so that he can play traditional songs to help him with being homesick and the sudden loss of his alien loved ones.So this is was happened to me. I existed for untold millennia searching for companionship. I grew more and more lonely until I could not take it anymore. I had lost the will to live and simply wanted nothing more than to cease my miserable and terrible existence. So when i located a black hole I headed straight for it at full speed so that my consciousness could get lost in that lightless abyss and finally absorb my distinctness so that i could be scattered far and wide into the background noise of the void.As my energy is ejected out the other side in a gamma burst, the rays pierce through this dimension and force me to rematerialize in this time space as I become aware of myself being squeezed out of a gopherhole like toothpaste up through the floor.So my friends help me up as I am wobbly and unused to any gravity. I quickly look around bewildered and ask them wtf is happening here. They proceed to tell me that as I inhaled that cloud, I started stumbling and fell down and rolled around with enough vigor that they had to move furniture and such out of the way so I wouldn't hurt myself. They said I just made crazy sounds the entire time and after about 8 minutes of this I started trying to stand up which is when they grabbed me and helped me up.I look at them like they are fucking insane and all I can say is “I gotta go” as I was not accustomed to being in the presence of other sentient beings. As far as I am concerned, I lived thousands of years in the worst possible hell of absolute solitude. I now knew the value of love and that the only thing you take with you when you leave this plane of existence is the impact you had on those around you. Life is too short to be bitter and deceitful cyninal and untrusting. Love unconditionally and honestly and never take for granted tomorrow, because God promises tomorrow to no man. I earnestly hope others may learn from my experiences as most normal people unilaterally consider ego death a most terrifying experience. Thanks for reading and God Bless.