Okay so $30 is an insane price for an amiibo. Amiibo up to this point had been like $15 or $16. I never was hugely into amiibo, but I have a little thing nowadays called “disposable income” and another little thing called a “spending addiction”, so of course light amiibo collecting has become a part of my life.
$30 is not insane for a figure of some kind. Very high quality ones can run you into the hundreds. Usually those are larger and extremely detailed. This guy, however, is quite small. But, it’s very very detailed.
This amiibo is genuinely of a much higher quality than earlier amiibos which, though always decent quality, were never of incredible quality. I’d say these little fuckers are reaching a higher quality here though.
The particular one I got is Yunobo, the goron from Tears of the Kingdom who becomes your buddy. I don’t know man, I kinda liked him so a figure of him sounded cool.
I can’t tell if this is a photo or a render, but either way, this is basically exactly what the figure looks like in real life. I can only inspect it so closely because my wife convinced me to leave in the blister pack, but from what I can tell it’s stunningly accurate to the 2D artwork and promotional material.
I still think amiibo as a concept are fun but very goofy and not actually all that interesting. No games really embraced them in a way that mattered. Like in Mario Odyssey you could use them to get some extra hearts, and then with Captain Toad it unlocked for me the Mario Odyssey DLC which was pretty cool. But for $16? I don’t know.
If you think of them not as toys or as these interactive toys-to-life but rather as simply high quality figures of characters from some of your favorite games, that $30 price actually doesn’t seem all that crazy. But again, to reiterate, this price point only makes sense when these are high quality. The Yunobo one definitely is, but I can’t speak to the others.
If the quality of these at all dips in future amiibo releases, kiss my light amiibo collecting days goodbye.
Quick blog post, a divine inspiration struck me. I just want to gush for a moment about a newer YouTube feature that did NOT exist back when my videos were popping off.
You are now able to run a “thumbnail test” on your videos where you try out three different thumbnails, and YouTube will randomly choose one to show to people and gauge their response to it.
I swear to god, I have been wrong every single time about which thumbnail is going to do well (except once).
I usually make three different thumbnails, generally derivative of one another, and load them in to see how they do.
What’s cool is that the test doesn’t just gauge how many people click your video, but also tests to see how long people end up watching your video and factors that into the test (watch time, as I understand, is generally more important to the algorithm than view count alone).
Not only do I genuinely feel like utilizing this feature has been improving my views etc, I also think it’s helping me to understand thumbnails better and see what works and what doesn’t.
Here are the three thumbnails I tested for my most recent video on Clair Obscur:
The third one ended up winning out even though I lazily slapped that one together in order to have a third one to test. I was sure the 1st or 2nd were gonna beat it out, but nope, number three came in at number one!
Like I said, quick post, but I love this feature and have utilized it on every single video I’ve posted since I started uploading again.
My philosophy with YouTube and content creation in general was the idea that negativity = views. I was constantly seeing people who understood media and algorithms saying that whenever you have something that is very negative, people are more likely to click on it. Honestly, I internalized that idea.
When I uploaded a (very inflammatory) video titled “Anime sucks and here’s why”, I didn’t expect just how well the video would do, but I did expect it to succeed. How could it not? For the terminally online, anime is an incredibly popular pass time. But of course, the video was incredibly controversial, usually holding on to more dislikes than likes. The views were there, and I had found my formula.
Step 1: Say something inflammatory about something other people like
Step 2: Get a bunch of views
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit!
I really never could replicate the success of my Anime Sucks video though, and I struggled to understand why.
Late last year, I returned to YouTube after a nearly 2 year hiatus. This time, I decided I wanted to talk about video games, my biggest hobby in life. I wanted to talk about my thoughts and feelings on the medium and spread my tastes out to the world.
I started off with a video questioning why Mario and Luigi Brothership was getting some (in my opinion, undue) hate. The video seemed to strike a bit of a chord, garnering a decent view count of 1,500, with pretty good interaction on it too. Lots of comments, lots of likes, not a lot of dislikes.
A few videos later, I uploaded a video that was negative on Kingdom Hearts, it didn’t do so well.
I uploaded a decently positive video on Princess Peach Showtime, it did okay!
My video praising the switch release of Donkey Kong Country did alright!
A video ripping on Pikmin 3, not so good.
A video talking about my recent love story with Pokemon TCG Pocket, very positive feedback there.
A video that drew comparisons between Hollow Knight and Ori and the Blind Forest, but in a not so positive way, yeah that video got attention but mostly negative.
I think you get the picture, my videos that are positive, not negative and inflammatory, are doing better overall than the inflammatory ones.
… But why tho?
Like I said, my deep understanding of the social media landscape and the way that these sites operate is that the inflammatory gets rewarded through clicks and interactions. Why have things seemed to have flipped? Or have they always been this way and I just never noticed?
I have a couple ideas on why this is the case, none of them revolutionary so don’t hold on to your hats.
Number 1, people enjoy when their opinions get validated, especially on stuff they like.
If I make a video, like the one I just did on Clair Obscur, where I talk about a game in a positive way, there will be a group of people who come to that video because they themselves really enjoyed the game and would like to hear someone else put into words their feelings for the game. It feels good to see someone else agree with you that a piece of media you enjoyed was actually good. It makes you feel smart, it makes you feel right, it makes you feel accepted by the community.
It’s something I myself do, whenever a movie comes out and I really enjoy it, first thing I do is check the reviews to make sure my opinion is correct. Obviously I know that opinions on art are purely subjective and no one can actually be wrong, but come on, most of us tend to think about it as a right opinion vs wrong opinion.
Liking Joker 2? Wrong opinion. Liking Fight Club? Right opinion. Sorry, but these are just facts.
It feels good to see someone else agree with you that a piece of media you enjoyed was actually good. It makes you feel smart, it makes you feel right, it makes you feel accepted by the community.
Number 2, it was never true that the algorithms favored inflammatory content.
Now, this could be the case, I really don’t know, and in a lot of ways I think these companies like Google, like Meta… they don’t even know how their own algorithm works. The algorithm is given a directive, and that directive is maximize the amount of time a person spends on our platform. The goal isn’t to suggest videos you want to watch or to show you memes that you’re likely to interact with. If it does those things, it’s because they serve the greater purpose of keeping you on the platform. They give it the directive and let it go wild. I’m sure it’s more nuanced than that, but I think that’s a generalized way to think about it.
It is entirely possible that some people are more prone to click on videos that make them angry in some way. On the flip side, it’s also possible that some people avoid stuff that makes them angry at all costs.
If I see a video that calls Pulp Fiction the hottest dogshit film to ever disgrace this earth, I don’t think I’m going to click it. I really don’t need to hear someone ranting about how my favorite movie sucks and that I’m a dumb idiot for liking it, I really don’t. That’s not the kind of thing that appeals to me.
With that said, I just don’t see many videos popping up telling me that Pulp Fiction is a dogshit movie.
The goal isn’t to suggest videos you want to watch or to show you memes that you’re likely to interact with. If it does those things, it’s because they serve the greater purpose of keeping you on the platform.
I really think the main thing here does boil down to people wanting their opinions to be validated.
Circling back to my infamous “Anime Sucks” video, the analytics there tell an interesting story. The vast, vast majority of views on that video have come directly from YouTube search. It’s not the algorithm pushing my video (outside of showing it higher up in the search results).
YouTube even shows you specific terms people search in order to get to your video:
As you can see, there are a lot of people out there who just… hate anime. They hate anime, and all they see online are people talking about how much they love it. These people, exasperated and feeling like they can’t be the only ones out there who hate anime, go to YouTube and search up “anime sucks” to see if anyone out there agrees with them. They see my video, they click on it, they leave a comment etc.
Now on the flip side, the like to dislike ratio adds an extra dimension to the story:
57% of people (who actually use the like/dislike buttons on YouTube) agree with the premise that anime sucks and give me a like to signify that. But if most people are coming to the video from YouTube search, and most of them are looking up something along the lines of “anime sucks”, then that means a good percentage of the people are just hate-watching the video so that they can dislike it and leave a comment telling me I’m an idiot for hating anime. They, as anime fans, are searching “anime sucks” just to get angry.
I think with something as divisive as anime, this strategy for content creation works. If you say something inflammatory, like that it sucks, a lot of people are going to step in to agree because they’re glad their opinion is being validated. Meanwhile, a percentage of crazy people in the fandom will spend their time hate-watching videos of people saying inflammatory things about the thing they like for reasons that evade me.
To jump back to my second point, this is all evidence that the algorithm never pushed my video, it just suggested it to people who entered “anime sucks” into the YouTube search bar.
Now for most things, the fanbase as well as the haters aren’t crazy and won’t waste their day watching these kinds of videos. Most people care more about hearing people agree with them on their tastes in video games, movies, TV, music and what have you.
And that’s why a video talking about why Anime Sucks is gonna blow up and get hundreds of thousands of views, while a video talking about why poetry sucks only garnered a few thousand views.
Who the hell is looking up “poetry sucks?”
To wrap this up, given this is starting to drag, it seems like negative videos only do well on controversial topics with rabid fanbases like anime, while most people are generally interested in seeing positive criticism of the things they enjoy.
Let me know what you think though, am I completely off base here? Interested to hear any thoughts people might have.
I try to beat every game I play, only giving up on the ones I’m truly not enjoying and see as a genuine waste of my time. I finished DQ Builders (barely), but just couldn’t do it on DQ Builders 2.
These games are an absolute chore to get through, and I mean that in the most literal sense. The gameplay is chore after chore after chore after chore. It’s monotonous. It’s repetitive. It makes the game feel like a task rather than fun.
Maybe I’m not the target demographic for the game, I’ll be the first to admit it. I mean Minecraft really is a kids game at the end of the day. Like any children’s media, though, that doesn’t mean an adult can’t enjoy it.
But I really struggle to imagine any adult with a full time job and responsibilities enjoying this. You’re busy with work, chores, etc etc and then in your down time you play a game that’s just assigning you more chores.
I think a kid could enjoy this, but also at the same time I wouldn’t really want to let a kid play this? Like it uses very light swear words (like damn) and also features slightly lewd content (at least in the second game with one of the main plot threads being getting one of the characters to dress in a bunny suit in order to get the miners to go and be more productive in the mine).
I’ll leave it up to you guys but I just don’t think I’d let a kid under 15 play this. But at the same time, I can’t imagine anyone 15 or up enjoying this, so who the hell are these games even for, man?
At first the gameplay loop seems like it might be kinda fun. You spend some time upgrading your village, the people get happier which attracts more people, you get to see your town come to life. But in practice, it doesn’t really play out that way.
The game is highly scripted. You build one house at the behest of an NPC, and great! They’re very happy. Then, they ask you to build another house. Great, awesome work!
This attracts another NPC, who then asks you to build a specific house. The NPC then asks for another house. This attracts new NPCs who then request new houses… And on and on.
Despite being a game that purports to be about building and about creativity, it adheres too strictly to the highly structured and story centric focus of RPGs. You don’t really build your own house in your own way unless you really feel like it, because it doesn’t advance you at all. There’s no reward for spending time doing extra upgrades to your village.
It also isn’t really fun doing any extra building because the controls kinda suck. I don’t know if this is necessarily the fault of the game though, I’ve always hated Minecraft with a controller, I just don’t think there’s a way to do it that matches the efficacy of using a mouse and keyboard. But still, it makes the game less enjoyable playing it on the Switch.
And speaking of, my GOD does the second game run like shit on the switch. It is truly pathetic. It takes 1000 years, millennia it feels like, for the game to even open which already dampens my mood to play any game. Then, once its finally opened up and I’ve plucked out the gray hairs that have sprouted, I head on in and what do I find? Lag lag lag, just terrible performance, frames dropping off the wazoo.
To summarize, the games run like shit, thanks to that they look like shit. They are not fun to control, and they are not fun to play. Is there a redeeming quality sprinkled in here at all?
2 that I can think of, actually.
For one, the story of the games are cool, especially the first one. The story takes place in an alternate world where the hero accepts the villain’s deal in the first Dragon Quest game rather than denying it and defeating the villain. Very fun idea, I really like that. I don’t think the premise of the second DQ Builders is as good, but I think the characters are much better in this one and the story itself is better.
My second compliment, the gameplay loop is genuinely fun at first. The first couple of loops are a good time. It just goes on wayyyyyyyyyyyy too long with way too much dialogue and wayyyy too many tasks, which very much ruins the fun.
I do not recommend these games at all, even if you’re a gigantic Dragon Quest fan.
We’ve recently been playing a bunch of Fortnite… and I mean me and my wife. I don’t know what happened, but some switch flipped in our brains and here we are.
I do actually know what happened, they added a Sabrina Carpenter skin. My wife is a massive fan of her and her music, so this was actually enough to get her to buy vbucks (force me to buy her vbucks) and purchase the skin. It was her first time spending money on Fortnite, a game which she’d only played a tiny bit of in the past… the few times I’ve forced her to play with me.
Buying the skin made her actually want to play Fortnite so she could play with her fancy new skin, and that’s when it happened… She started having fun.
This woman, who didn’t simply have no interest in Fortnite but rather negative interest in Fortnite, as in, she was repelled by it, has now been running solos while I’m working.
And of course she’s been forcing me to play with her, and I’m starting to see the appeal.
I think Fortnite was just a little bit after my time. When it came out and first got popular, it was mostly a game for kids in my mind, and in reality too. And I mean like 12 to 15 year olds when I say “kids”. The game came out in 2017, so I was 19 at that point and in college. I just remember thinking it was cringe and lame so I really never gave it a shot.
I think as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten less uptight and grand-standy. I’m allowing myself to enjoy things that in the past I would tell myself I’m not allowed to like because it’s made for [insert group here]. Fortnite was one of those things where I couldn’t possibly like it because it’s just a cringe kids game.
But damn dude, it’s a blast to play with friends.
I think what makes Fortnite stand out when compared to some of the other live service games is how it constantly finds ways to reinvent itself. The classic mode is still there, but they’ve got tons of different modes to try out as well, like a Lego mode, or my preference, the no building mode. That combined with the way they run their seasons makes it interesting and gives you a reason to jump back in after not playing for a while.
At the moment, they’re crossing over with Star Wars, so there’s all kinds of Star Wars related junk in the game from First Order bases to raid, TIE Fighters to yoink and fly around in, light sabers (which are dogshit, don’t even bother with them).
I get why kids like it!
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m being summoned for a round of duos with my wife.
I have always been a fan of Ray Bans, though I’m using the word “fan” extremely liberally here. Ray Bans have seemed to me to be the best quality for the lowest price (though that price is not that low). But now I’ve started to notice something- the price is not lining up with the quality, and I’m not so sure it ever did.
I’ve had sunglasses purchased on a whim in a gas station, and the quality does vary by just how cheap they are, but sometimes their quality is actually comparable to my $150 to $200 ray bans. If I’m spending that much on a product, I want it to be significantly better than the cheap knock off junk I can buy for $5-$10. But rather than being twice or three times as comfortable or nice, oftentimes the difference is more marginal.
My mom recently got me a pair of Ray Bans for Christmas, and I’ve already stopped wearing them. Why? Because of the nice little scratch on one of the lenses I’ve already managed to get. Don’t bother asking, I’ve no clue where it came from, but for context, it is May as I’m writing this and it’s already been months since I stopped wearing them. I don’t know how much this particular pair of sunglasses was, but I would guess $150. For the price, your lenses shouldn’t scratch like that.
But it’s not just this pair. I have another pair I bought myself last year sometime, again the price was probably between $150 to $200, and it’s got a small ding on one of the lenses that’s just large enough to be noticeable and irritating, but small enough that I usually forget about it in between wearing them. Outside of that, these really don’t feel like a high quality product. They feel cheap and flimsy, made from the lowest quality materials they could get away with using before it becomes noticeable that they are cheeping out.
I don’t know if this is just me, but I don’t think you should need to spend $300+ for a quality pair of sunglasses. And what’s more, I’m not so sure that even buying a more expensive pair would necessarily indicate the sunglasses are higher quality. Am I spending hundreds extra because these are going to last me years into the future, or because the Chinese factory that produced them glued a Versace label to the side?
Apparently, Ray Bans is owned by a company called Luxottica, which if you go to their website and look at the brands they own, you’re gonna notice something. They all look like the brands you can get at Sunglass Hut. Then, if you can believe it, when you check who the owner of Sunglass Hut is, what will you see? Wow, it’s Luxottica!
Sunglass Hut is not the store that sells a bunch of different brands of sunglasses, it is the store for selling Luxottica sunglasses. The shades are not competing with each other, every single pair of sunglasses sold goes to the same place. It’s a veneer of competition. It’s the ghost kitchen of sunglasses.
I promise you, the $500 Prada sunglasses (yes, Prada sunglasses are a Luxottica brand) are made in the same factory as the $150 Ray Bans, and I’m sure made from the exact same material.
I don’t have a solution here, but if anyone can recommend me a sunglasses brand that won’t break the bank and isn’t owned by Luxottica, I’d be thrilled to check them out.
Welcome to my blog! Sometimes I want to discuss some ideas where there isn’t enough there to make a video, or the idea just doesn’t really fit the channel, so this is where those’ll go. Also, I need a spot to help develop ideas for videos.
How often will I post here? No idea! Maybe daily, maybe once a week, maybe once a month, let’s play it by ear.
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