Archive for December, 2011


#OCCUPYMULTIPLAYERSHOOTERS

Yay protest time!Wake up sheeple of the gaming community! Your very online gaming freedoms are under attack even as I type this blog post. It’s time to #OccupyMultiplayerShooters!

There was a period, long ago, in gaming history where online shooters were about skill and knowing the map. Everything was fair and balanced. No player started out with any advantages over his or her opponents. We had an equal distribution of fun.

Things have changed thanks to the new breed of online shooters in the vein of Battlefield and Call of Duty. These two franchises have changed the gaming landscape to the point that the top 1% of online players now control over 50% of the weapons and upgrades at the start of every match.

Maps are no longer flush with weapons and powerups for anyone to take. Instead, players are incentivised to spend hours on end leveling up so they may gain access to equipment inaccessible to new players. This gives an unfair advantage to players born with more time to spend on the game.

Instead of fair and balanced gameplay, EA and Activision have subsidized these top players to the point that they are nigh untouchable unless one is willing to grind through the maps as cannon fodder for the top 1%. As if starting with superior equipment wasn’t enough, the 1% have an easier time of racking up killstreaks, providing them with even more tools of destruction to reign down on the 99%. In a game that is supposed to be about true competition, it seems that the 99% don’t stand a chance against their subsidized overlords.

Why all these subsidies? Shouldn’t a player’s value be intrinsically defined by his or her own skill?

It’s time to end this madness and turn back to our roots. We need to rise up and #OccupyMultiplayerShooters until our demands are met with a return to the days of fair and balanced gameplay!

Telling Stories the Digital Way

The digital revolution has permanently transformed the world of publishing and given us access to novels from nearly every electronic device thrown our way. Whether you choose to read on the Nook, Kindle, iPad, or smartphone, you have untethered access to a mountain of unassailable content. How can you even find time to finish just one?

While the art of the written word will always have the novel, I think a new approach is needed for this new age of digital reading. Everyone loves a good story, but few really want to put in the effort required to sit through an entire novel. Well, I have the solution.

About a year ago, my good friend B.L. White came up with an idea of breaking down an epic story into smaller, self-contained episodes that would be quicker to write and get out to readers. This may not be a new concept, but it is one that should be revived since the digital platform is perfect for it. Why wait for a whole novel to be finished when we, the authors, can write the same story inside episodic bites for you to digest throughout the year?

I Shall Not Rest in Peace is the first episode in White’s Void Voyage series. Clocking in at around 33K words, it will take the average person about three hours to read. That is much more manageable for a time-constrained reader than something like George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones. Plus, you still get the benefit of an epic storyline as more episodes are released.

I’m not quite as wordy as White, so episodes in my own series, Supremacy: Reformation, average 10K words, allowing you to read each of them in about an hour. Now, I’m sure everyone has an hour to spare this week to enjoy a good story. Besides, what else are you going to do? Watch a couple episodes of Teem Mom and Jersey Shore?

Void Voyage and Supremacy: Reformation can both fit into your hectic schedule. Just grab your digital device of choice and download them!

Buy Episode 1 of Supremacy: Reformation:

Buy Void Voyage 1: I Shall Not Rest in Peace: