Plans For Identity Gaming 2022

 

It's mid-November at time of writing I've come to the grim realisation that I've barely posted anything here or on YouTube for MONTHS.  Here I've been posting once ever so often but YouTube has been particularly barren of content for maybe over a year.  So the purpose of this post is to layout a plan for the 3 main platforms that I use for this charity page and maybe then I'll stop procrastinating and not let things like this or the YouTube channel fall to the wayside.

The Blog

It's been sort of hard to give a shit about updating the blog over the last year or so.  My main method of content production for the charity effort has been through the Twitch stream and on there I'll discuss things that I'd usually write here but live and with a chat.  I don't need to write a piece about my thoughts on a game I've been playing here because while I'm chilling with chat I can just talk about it there and hear other peoples opinions on it in real time, which is much cooler.

But the blog is where this whole thing started so I don't just want to let it die, so starting from either this evening (I'm writing this around noon) or tomorrow evening I'm going to start using the blog space as a sort of "Game diary".  Just a place I come to every evening before bed to write out what I've been gaming on that day and how I felt about it or some quick thoughts about some piece of news I found or whatever.  A pure stream of conscienceness with no real rhyme or reason, just to give people a little insight into what I've been doing and what kind of game-related thoughts are flying around my dumb brain.

The YouTube Channel 

This is the one facet of Identity Gaming that's basically been dead for a long-ass time.  I used to upload off the cuff lets plays and I experimented with some kind of unscripted ramblings about various topics to not a lot of success.  I'm not usually one to care about subscriber counts and video view counts and I was happy to upload that kind of content to an minescule viewership just because it was fun to turn on my mic and ramble randomly about something while I played odd games that interested me.  Back then though, the YouTube channel was making a small amount of money.  I forget what the network was called but I was getting about $20-$40 a month which I would then funnel into the charity.  My low effort content was generating cash for the Alzheimer's Society and that felt good.

Then YouTube changed the rules to me needing 1000 subs, I lost monetization and, since the point of Identity Gaming is to raise money for a charity I let the YouTube side of things die almost completely, acting more of a sort of repository for when I did something cool on stream like a speedrun PB or my Cuphead 200% deathless run. 

But that's sort of defeatist isn't it?  I'm ignoring an entire avenue of potential charity raising just because I'm too lazy to put some effort into a video.  Well then I got to thinking, I hate the state of modern game reviews and I'm a big fan of YouTube made analytical content, so why don't I do that?  The YouTube channel going forward will be used for long form video essay type shit about games wot I love or games wot I hate.  I've already started working on recording and scripting for the first one and for the first time in a while I'm actually having fun producing for YouTube again.  Even if it gets 1 view, 1 like and my channel doesn't grow at all off the effort, it's better to at least try than to just let the channel die.

Twitch

I don't even need to say anything about Twitch really, do I?  Nothing is really going to change here.  More streams, more donation incentives, more prizes being added to the list via the streak system we have going.  Hopefully I can find a little bit more time to work on emotes, overlays and all sorts of other stuff to make the viewing experience overall better for you guys but generally speaking it's business as usual here.

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There's some other minor things like Twitter where I'm planning to stop doom-scrolling through bad takes written by IGN journos and being toxic and instead I can just fill my timeline with me just enjoying things that I'm playing or finding cool indie projects that I think are worth keeping and eye on.  There's also instagram which is about as equally dead as the YouTube at time of writing so maybe I can put more effort into posting some cool game stuff I find on my travels while drowning the image in hashtags.

I'm hoping we can meet some BIG goals next year both for the content and for the charity and I cannot thank you all enough for your continued support up to this point.

December Events and Incentive Changes

 

The year is coming to a close so its time to run down some events and updates for the blog and the stream

First thing I want to announce is that thanks to some extremely kind donations to the charity the Celeste 2  players 1 controller event has been met.  Things are still being planned but due to scheduling this is more than likely to become a bit that will be run at weekends once a month rather than just a one off marathon.  Once things have been finalized I'll be doing a separate post with more details.  

Next is the main December event which I am planning for the 19th which I'm dubbing The December Derust.  I've not really been doing any speedruns of any game for a long time so I thought in the coming year I'd like to get a bit more into it again.  So for the December long stream I will run through all of my current speed games AND one extra game which I've been meaning to learn for a while in order to set some new splits.  There's quite an array of games in my speed list so I'm sure there will be something for you to check out at some point no matter what

 I'm also changing the way the incentives page works from now on.  This is due to the fact that I'm funneling money from Twitch bits and subs into the charity so I'm now using an "incentive score" system.  This means that from now, there will only be 1 incentive at a time, with a fairly high "score" that you have to meet in order to make it happen.  To add points to the score you can do things like cheer bits in the stream, sub in the stream or donate directly to the charity, here's how it works.

100 Twitch bits = 1 point (I'll keep track, and add a point for every cumulative 100)

1 Twitch sub = 5 points (10 tier 2, 25 tier 3)

Just Giving Direct Donation = Donation value x2 (e.g donate $10 = 20 incentive score)

This way, people can still cheer and donate for things like wheel spins, game requests or any other stream specific things while at the same time helping to reach a goal for a fun event.  Incentives that currently have money put into them will be started at their current value, so the progress you already made won't go to waste!

I will also be adding some new prizes to the wheel of prizes in the coming few days so keep an eye on that page to see what's up for grabs

Stream Update and May Event!

This is just a small update post to inform the good people about some updates to the Twitch channel!

One thing I have ignored completely since they launched are Twitch Channel Points.  If you aren't familiar they are points that accumulate while you watch a given channel.  The idea is that as you build them up you can use them to claim various rewards but apart from the default rewards that no one uses I had not set any up.

Well that's all changed now and you can use your channel points to do various things within the channel.  You can check them out yourself since it's all sort of standard stuff but the one I want to make a big deal of is the Points for Alzheimer's reward.  For 50,000 channel points I will drop what I'm doing an make a 2 Pound donation of my own money to the Alzheimer's Society right then and there.  The reason I've implemented this is so that people who might be unable to donate with their own cash can still find a way to support the charity directly with their viewership.  Of course, if you want to spend the points on the other options that's also cool but the option is now available!

Also, the mini-marathon for May will live on the 23rd/24th!  It'll be 2 8 hour streams of each segment.  Probably 4 hours each of requests and Cuphead on Saturday and 4 hours each of variety and NES challenge on Sunday!  If I can do it within the week leading up, I'll also offer some prizes but there's a chance I might not have time.  I am planning to do more consistent givaways though so watch this space for prizes in the near future.

February/March Stream Marathons

Over 12 hours of Sekiro was successfully completed and while I didn't come anywhere close to finishing the game, we all hand a grand old time watching me beat bosses in the exact opposite way that the game wanted me to do it.

Now, thanks to some extremely generous donations made at the weekend I can now announce the marathons for the next two months!  

February will be the NES Wheel 12 hour mini marathon.  Basically the same as my usually scheduled NES wheel but for 12 hours over a weekend instead of a 2 hour slot on a weekday.  Exact dates are still to be decided and I'll announce on Twitter (@Taurinensis) once I've made the plan.

March 1st however, will be a little bit more interesting.  The marathon will be another 2 players 1 controller with Pithoui only this time, instead of Megaman 4 and 2 very easy games, we will be doing all the classic Megaman games back to back to back.  Megaman 1 through 6, 2 players, one controller.  As a stretch goal, if we get another 100 pounds for the charity we will add Megaman X on the end of the marathon!  So tune in for some absolute madness in March

Don't forget you can see these marathons AND regularly scheduled streams at 

www.twitch.tv/taurinensis

Stream Update! Challenges Approaching

Right now, the current stream schedule rotation is as follows

Variety Day
NES 100 Game Challenge
Donation Request Day
Shmups and Speedruns

and now we're adding one more, a Challenge Day.  Recently I've been watching a lot of videos on YouTube of people doing 0 hit runs of the Dark Souls games.  That means going through the entire game without taking a single hit from a single enemy.  These guys are so good at what they do I've even seed a guy who goes by the name SquillaKilla on YouTube and Twitch beat Dark Souls 1,2 and 3 back to back without taking a single hit.

I've decided it would be cool if I could push myself to do this kind of thing so as a result I'm starting a challenge day segment on my stream.  Of course, I'm not daft enough to think I could do something like DS No Hit right out of the gate, I haven't played any of the Souls games for about a year now so instead we'll be kicking off with Final Fantasy 7 No Materia to ease us in.

I've made a little list of things I want to try and do that includes things such as Dark Souls no hit runs and single character runs of certain RPGs but I'm also open to suggestions, so if you know challenging ways in which to play a certain game, write a comment or hit me up on twitter and I may add your suggestions to the list.  There are some INSANE challenges that I've been made aware of such as Final Fantasy 7 solo character initial equipment which I will be incorporating as donation incentives so make sure you throw some money at the charity if you really want to make me suffer.

Don't forget to follow on Twitch so you don't miss anything
www.twitch.tv/taurinensis

PS1 Marathon Roundup

So we did it! The PS1 marathon concluded and we did 24 hours of assorted PS1 games!  Big thanks to everyone who came in the stream and showed their support and an even bigger thanks to anyone who donated before and during the marathon!  

I will now do a whole bunch of short, 1 sentence reviews for all the games I remember playing

-Silent Hill: Probably the best horror game on the system

-Tenchu 1: Broken but awesome

-Tenchu 2: Janky but awesome

-Klonoa: Really fun but the last world can eat a dick.

-Future Cop LAPD: Great game but navigating levels is a real pain in the hole

-Pandemonium: Terrible platformer but it was incredibly satisfying to reach the end

-Parappa the Rapper: Punch, Kick, it's all in the mind, the timing windows make no goddamn sense.

-Ninja: Shadow of Darkness: Couldn't make it work during the marathon but it's really good I swear

-Mortal Kombat Mythologies Sub Zero: Remember enjoying it when I was younger but good LORD that game sucks ass

-Dance Dance Revolution: Dub-I-dub is best DDR track don't @ me

-Pepsiman: Way more fun to play than I thought it would be but the last stage can kiss my ass

-G-Darius: One of the best shmups on system but goddamn is it hard

-Spyro the Dragon: Why do people like this game? It kinda sucks 

-LSD: err, what?

If I forgot any I'm sorry but I think I got them all.

There's so many good games on PS1 I didn't actually get to play all the games I wanted to play so I'm putting this incentive up AGAIN! Just donate another 100 pounds to the alzheimers society and we'll do all the other great games we didn't get around to in this marathon 

A Brand New Donation Tracker!

At the end of last month BTMyDonate closed it doors and stopped accepting charity donations.  It's a shame but we had a good run with them and we raised a good bit of money with them as the tracker.  However I needed a new tracker and it has now been set up!  At time of writing the links on the blog and on the Twitch page have been updated but I still need to go through my YouTube channel and update the links on all my videos, which may take a hot minute to say the least.

If you've been here since the start you'll know that I actually started with Just Giving and then moved over to BTMyDonate after I heard that JG were skimming 10% of donations off the top in order to keep their site running.  I'm not throwing any shade at them for doing that, they need money to keep their shit going and they provide a good service but it didn't sit right with me.  If you donated 10 pounds to the Alzheimer's Society, I wanted you to be sure that 10 pounds was going to it.

There are 3 main reasons I've picked just giving and they are as follows

1) On the official website for the Alzheimer's Society they suggest to use Just Giving if you are doing fundraising for them.

2) Just Giving allows donations to be made via PayPal.  I've had a number of people who I don't know ask to make a donation but couldn't because they didn't have or couldn't use a credit card.  Now that PayPal is an option, hopefully this opens the gates for more potential donors.

3) Just Giving now ask you if you want to give an additional sum of money to support them AS WELL AS the charity.  For example if you donate 10 bucks, they will ask you if you mind putting an extra 1 buck on the top of that which will help run their service.  There is also no complaints if you opt to send 0 to them and only give to the charity itself.

So with this switch over hopefully we'll see a lot more money going into the charity.  Just a reminder to, if you donate through just giving I DO NOT SEE A SINGLE PENNY OF YOUR MONEY, it will all go directly to the charity.  It won't come anywhere near me.  You can still donate to me via Twitch bits, subs or directly via my personal PayPal, which I will use to improve content which will hopefully have the knock on effect of getting even MORE donators but if you have to make a choice please pick the charity EVERY TIME.  I'm improving this place slowly by myself anyway, I don't really need it.

Thank you for continued support and happy donating!

I hate Excel

At time of writing I have so much actual gaming content, YouTube videos and Streams to be doing but I had such a bad experience with this stupid fucking piece of shit software that I have to do a blog post on it to vent.

Excel is such a stupid, hard to use, user unfriendly piece of crap software and I hate the fact that everyone in Japan seems to suck its stupid green dick constantly.  I guess, maybe, if you're doing some simple number crunching then maybe doing it in an Excel spreadsheet is OK but I see it used for all sorts of shit that it just doesn't need to be used for.  

I had to recently translate a list of things from Japanese to English but instead of putting the document in something that made sense like, oh I dunno, WORD, the whole thing was written in excel.  What this did was make everything really small and unreadable and it also made editing the text way more of a pain in the ass than it ever needed to be.  On top of that, because each field was so small and cramped up I ended up missing a load of stuff just because I didn't see it which resulted in a right bollocking from my higher ups when I sent them a "translated document" with blotches of Japanese all over it in small, ant sized cells.

But even if Excel wasn't needlessly used and awkward as shit I just don't understand why anyone would use Microsoft Office at all.  I don't know when they made this change but back in the day, you used to just buy the software, install it and then use it.  Now they have this weird fucking subscription service where you have to pay $100 A YEAR just to be able to use their shit.

Fuck Excel and fuck Microsoft office.  I don't know about their spreadsheet software but there's a completely free package called Libre Office that I've been using at home recently that does everything that the Microsoft software does only it won't cost you $100 a year, instead it'll cost you $0.

I know this post is dumb, incoherent and ranty but I needed something stupid to post while I set up the new donation tracker since BT MyDonate cut its service.  Sit tight for actual content in the next post!

The End of BT MyDonate

Today is a sad day indeed.  This morning I woke up and check my email and I find a message from BTMyDonate.  Usually this is a happy occasion because it means someone has donated to the charity but this time it was a message telling me that the BTMyDonate service was shutting down at the end of the June

Why is this such a big deal? you might ask.  Well, when the site first started I used a site called JustGiving and everything was fine until I discovered that JustGiving were scalping 10% of donations for their own coffers.  Now I don't hate or fault JustGiving for doing this, they do good things for the various charities and they have to keep their shit running somehow but personally, if someone donated £10 to the charity for a game or towards an incentive, I want that person to know that the ENTIRE £10 went to the Alzheimer's Society and not to me or to anyone else.

Now you can donate until the end of the June, so if you do stumble upon this page or read this article, why not hit that donation button in the top right of the blog page and maybe we could hit a goal on MyDonate page and start a new goal on whatever service I use next!

And yes, of course, just because BT MyDonate is going down doesn't mean that the charity effort dies with it.  I am currently in the process of scoping out new donation services to use in its place.  I'm actually looking for one that not only doesn't take a little money off the top, but also has the ability to donate using PayPal, since that's one thing that people have requested in the stream.  I've even considered talking to the charity directly to see if I can set up a kind of tracker with them but I don't know if I'll get anywhere with that. 

Once again, thanks for the continued support of me and the Alzheimer's Society, it really does mean a lot!  Don't forget to donate and if you can't do that, don't worry, just share some of the content with your friends because more readers/watchers means more potential donations to a good cause!

Dead Rising

Last weekend I streamed Dead Rising from start to finish and oh boy was it fun.  It took just a little over 9 hours and the last hour of that was pretty grueling but generally speaking this game is pretty fantastic.

If somehow you have never heard of this game I'll take a quick moment to explain.  Originally released back in 2006 for Xbox 360, Dead Rising follows the adventures of Frank West, a photojournalist who gets trapped in a mall full of zombies.  The game was interesting because you only had 72 in game hours to play with and the story segments happened at specific times which, if you missed, would lock you out of the plot for the rest of the game.  What really made this game popular though was that the mall setting allowed for the player to use a whole crazy array of weaponry against the undead.  You could opt for more traditional stuff from a hardware store like a sledgehammer or go nab a gun from a zombie police office OR you could get silly and use gumball machines, shopping carts or children's toys to try and beat the undead back to death.  There are also human boss characters the game calls psychopaths which you must kill to rescue people or to progress the game.  There was a colorful cast of lunatics which made each encounter interesting and you would really have the think on your feet the first time playing if you wanted to win.

I love this game personally, it's one of those titles that is not only fun but sort of doubles up as a stress relieving tool.  If you want to uncover the zombie mystery of the mall, then play the story but if you just want to beat the fuck out of some zombies then ignore that timer and just go crazy.  Once you beat the game there is an Overtime mode which gives a bit of extra story and and endless mode if you want all the zombie killing with none of the pressure.

I only really have two problems with this game.  The first being is that it's too fucking easy.  I said above  that the first time you play you really have to think on your feet with the bosses but once you learn that an early boss unlocks a sort of pocket chainsaw in infinite supply the game becomes super easy.  The pocket chainsaw is SO strong that I think that there's only two bosses in the game that aren't insta killed by it in like 3 very quick hits.  Once you fill up your inventory with chainsaws the game becomes LAUGHABLY easy and the need to have any other weapon sort of goes away.

My other problem comes in the third day of the game.  You end up finishing all the games "case file" missions and then you are left to just sort of wait for your ride to arrive.  The lack of things to do of substance sort of makes the last hour of the game quite dull.  Even the zombie killing comes to a screeching halt as the mall fills up with dudes with machine guns which is a damn shame really.

However don't let my two complaints about the game deter you, if you haven't already played it then you absolutely should go and try.  Oh yeah, finally, don't try to rescue survivors because the AI for this game sucks dick.

The series seems to have taken a bit of a downturn with 3 and 4 since it's trying to be all gritty now from what I can tell but the first game is a ton of fun and fantastically dumb story and dialogue will leave you with a huge grin on your face.  Play it.

YouTube Month Is Coming

Well this is going to be a very short post just to let you all know that next month (August) will be YouTube month! 

Basically this means that every day in August I'll be posting some kind of video every day so if you haven't already subscribed then make sure you do to catch it all!

Just a fair warning though, I am going to Rome for a few days and I'm hoping to line up content and post it from the Hotel Wifi when I'm there but I don't know how reliable that will end up being so if there is a few days with no content I'll try to make up for it!

If there's any playthroughs you'd like to see done then also don't forget that you can donate for them, just leave the game title in your comment and I'll do my best to get a series done for it!

New Repeating Donation Incentive: Speed Marathons

So of course I'm always looking for new donation incentives to put on the blog to help aid the charity and here's an idea I'm surprised I've not come up with sooner.

So at time of writing I can sort of semi-competently speedrun about 10 or 11 games so the obvious outcome of this donation incentive is that I'd play them all back to back.  Only I'll do you one a little better which would be that I'd do 3 runs of each game before switching to the next title.  That will add a decent amount of length to the event and make it worth the donation money I feel.

However usually when I run an event once the event is done it gets deleted from the incentive list.  The only repeating incentive that has been featured on the blog before this was Euro Truck Simulator 24 hours and the only reason that repeated is because I failed to make the 24 hour mark on the first attempt.

This is the first donation incentive on the blog that won't disappear after it's been met and instead it'll just reset back to 0.  That means if you wanted to see 10 (or more in the future) games get run back to back, you could keep donating for it and making me do these marathons as often as possible.  There will also be a sort of stretch goal during each marathon to make me play one extra game that I don't usually run one time and that will be decided at the start of each marathon, I'll pull it from a hat or something.

Let's do some speedruns for charity!

AGDQ 2017 Roundup

Well, a couple of weeks ago Awesome Games Done Quick finished!  If you aren't sure what that is then I can tell you that it's a speed running marathon that raises money for the Prevent Cancer Foundation by speedrunning a large number of games over the course of a week.

This year was quite a special one really because while it's become pretty common for the guys at GDQ to raise over a million each time, this year they managed to hit $2.2 million!  Across all of the marathons they have done this brings the total value of money raised for the Prevent Cancer Foundation to over $10 million.  It's crazy and I've said it a number of times on this blog before but the efforts put forward by these guys are what inspired this very blog and maybe one day we can do for Alzheimer's what they did for cancer.

Anyway, I thought I'd quickly throw this post together in order to highlight some of what I thought were the best ones.  I'm not fully caught up with all the stuff I missed thanks to sleeping and working so there's probably a bunch of great ones I've not seen yet but these are the ones that I caught live that really stood out to me.

1) Turok: Dinosaur Hunter

This run done by Bawkbasoup of an old FPS classic was just absolutely mental.  It's fast paced, looks technical as all hell and the runner gives a really commentary throughout.  I like watching runs like this because I know that the chances of me ever being able to run a game like this are slim to none.

2) Ducktales Race

This run, while extremely short is absolutely crazy.  I'm a little bit familiar with how Ducktales is run since I have a friend who plays it but these guys are the absolute best I've ever seen.  What makes it even better is that they are pretty much tied throughout the entire race and at the end it really comes down to the wire

3) Batman Forever

This was done as part of the Awful Games block and admittedly I might be a little biased because PJ is easily one of my favorite runners.  A co-op run of a famously shitty game for the Super Nintendo, these two bring a good amount of comedy to the run and make this unplayable shit actually look pretty fun.

Honorable Mention: F.E.A.R Extraction Point

A decent run but actually a little bland.  However one of the guys on the couch make this run go from mildly entertaining but forgettable to absolutely fucking amazing.  Watching it live, the antics of the couch were more annoying than anything else but between me and my buddies "ROLLING DEEP" has become a bit of a joke so honorable mention to this run for starting that.

There were TONS of great runs at the event but these were some of my personal favorites that I caught live.  Feel free to leave a comment with your favorite runs if you want, I'd love to get some recommendations on what to catch up with.

Tau Plays Discworld Part 21 [FINAL!]

Resident Evil Marathon! Dates and Details

A while ago the donation incentive for the Resident Evil marathon got met and now that we're finally into October it seems appropriate to finally get around to doing this thing!

Right now the date for the marathon will be the 22nd October and there is no real set time for when it will end.  The idea is that I will be playing Resident Evil's 1-4 back to back on Stream.  This event however is the fist event I'm doing with a sort of stretch incentive.  If another £100 is raised before the end of Resident Evil 4 then I'll add Resident Evil 5 to that list.  If another £200 is raised after that, I'll suffer through the shitfest that is RE6 and then if another £300 is raised after that then we can get Resident Evil 0.  So if you want to see one extra good Resi you're going to have to donate for two shit ones first!

I'll also see into adding prizes for donators just so you guys have a little extra incentive to add those extra games to the list!  Keep the 22nd in your calendar because it should be a laugh riot!

24 Hours of Euro Truck Simulator: The Truckening

OH BOY! Remember that laugh a minute 24 hour marathon of Euro Truck Simulator I did?!  You don't?!  Not surprising since it's the only marathon I've done where I've not lasted the full 24 hours.  Unfortunately I got drunk and ended up rage quitting when I managed to barrel roll my truck off a hill 19 hours into the marathon.  Of course, I paid a penalty to the charity but the fact I never completed that marathon has always bugged me.

Then a friend of mine came along and donated £50 to the charity as a way of forcing me into doing it again, so here's the post announcing when that shit is going to go down!  My schedule is actually pretty busy so unfortunately it will be next month and as of right now the date will be July 23rd.

As before, there will be incentives for me to drink heavily (starting a bit later this time) and prizes to be won so watch this space and get ready to go truckin'

Marathon Mayhem!

So as you may have noticed, the donation page is getting near its goal so in an attempt to get people to throw a few more pounds to the charity, I've added a few new marathon donation incentives. 

First, a complete list of donation incentives can be found here http://www.identitygaming.blogspot.jp/p/blog-page_4.html

The new donation incentives can be found at the bottom.  A whole bunch of retro gaming themed 24 hour marathons where I grab a system and playing nothing but that for a whole day.  The games haven't been decided so I'll be asking everyone for suggestions if and when they get met, donators will get more of a say in what games are picked so donate for those if you want to see some old school goodness.

Aside from the new incentives, don't forget all the old ones too!  Incentives for small series marathons of things like Resident Evil and Donkey Kong Country or longer series marathons of things like Megaman.  Also some crazy stuff like Guy game marathons and 2 Players 1 Controller with my buddy as well as other miscellaneous things!

If you wish to donate for any of these incentives hit that donate button on the right hand side of the page, donate a value and then leave the incentive you want your donation to go towards in the comment.  You do NOT need to donate the entire value of the incentive alone, so let's say an incentive is £50 you can have 5 people donate £10 for it to happen so even if you can only donate a little to the Alzheimer's Society then you can still get something for your money.

Finally, just to clarify, I don't see a penny of any money donated.  BTMyDonate is a UK service for charities and people doing fund raising to act as a tracker so people can make comments to their friends or people they know trying to do a project for a good cause.  I have never and will never ask for people to donate directly to my bank account, if you have enough money to do that then I'd rather it go to a good cause.

Thanks for the continued support!  Let's raise some dosh for Alzheimer's!!

Tau Plays Discworld Part 15

New Prizes!

 OK I have some some SICK new prizes available for you to donate for provide by my good buddy.  Both prizes are hand painted pictures of awesome video game shit.  The first is the painting you see in the heading image.  In case anyone isn't familiar with what they are they are looking at, it's the Pyramid Head from Silent Hill 2.

This painting is awesome so there's a minimum donation of £5 but I feel that's a small price to pay for the quality of this piece of art.

The next prize is this cool Final Fantasy 7 picture

As cool as it is, it's not quite Pyramid Head levels of awesome and the artist agrees that it's not quite on the same level so this one has no minimum donation..

So, all the prizes and how to be eligible to win them are displayed on the blogs prizes page!

http://www.identitygaming.blogspot.jp/p/prize-raffles.html

Just donate to the Alzheimer's Society with the comment "prize 1" for the Pyramid Head and "Prize 2" for the Final Fantasy 7 painting!

Here's the link for the donations if you need it, but it's always on the right hand side

https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/identitygaming2

Good luck!

Steam Region Locked Gifts?!!

So once again Steam manages to piss me off.  Now I know that this thing I'm about to get mad about probably has some kind of economic/business reason that I'm just too stupid to understand but that doesn't stop it from pissing me off any less!

So a few days ago I was streaming Silent Hill and one of my Stream regulars said that they wanted to donate to the charity.  However, he couldn't donate because BTMyDonate wouldn't take his card and he lives in Russia so getting money into the charity was proving to be quite a task for him.  So then he comes up with a great idea of gifting me a game from Steam and I put the money into the charity from my account equal to the value of the game.

So he gifts me the game on Steam and there's this big stupid fucking message on it says "This game can only be played in <bunch of countries in and around Russia>"  It then goes on to say that even if I accept the gift, I won't be able to play it unless I'm in one of the listed countries and if I try to get around this block with a VPN or some such crap then getting a ban from Steam would be quite possible.

FUCKING. BULLSHIT.

What the fuck is the goddamn problem?  All I'm downloading is the data for the game, why does Steam have to limit access to a title based on your fucking country?!  This is the beauty of the internet, that it doesn't matter where I am in the world, I can download a file or share a file with someone else.  If I have photos on Facebook I want to show my friends, then they can see them, you don't see social media platforms going "NOPE! YOUR FRIEND LIVES IN JAPAN SO YOU CAN'T SEE THAT SHIT!"

Why is there any region locking on PC games AT ALL?!  Or any games at all in this day and age for that matter....

So the next day he comes in the stream and he's like "Yo! Why does my donation say £19?!" at which point I start to fucking panic because I thought I undercut the guy.  But no, turns out I went WAYYYY over what he paid.  So for me the game costs £19 but for him it's 450 rubles which is equal to £4.50.

OH, SO THERE IT FUCKING IS!  I guess the reason they region lock the gifts is so that people with Russian buddies like me can't just get round all the jacked up prices and get easy cheap shit, right?  Well that's still bullshit because why does it cost so much for me and so little for him?!  Why not bring the price down for us, or up for him?  Like is 450 rubles a ton of money or something?  I mean the way he was talking about it it's not that much so what the fuck?!

But whatever, let's just say I don't understand, but the way he got the game to me in the end was through Good Old Games

Now the game is a bit less there, it's more like £16 but for him it's STILL £4 fucking 50p.  But you know what? I can't even be mad at this change in price because GoG doesn't fucking region lock their gifts.  He gifted me the game and it went into my account just fine with no problems and then I used the Steam price listing for his donation.

All in all I'm not really that angry because I got a game, he payed next to nothing for it and £19 went to the Alzheimer's Society but I'm hoping that someone out there can explain this shit to me because right now it seems like top grade, pure gold bullshit.