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.

---

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.

Sadako Vs Kayako

So recently I saw the recently released Sadako Vs Kayako, a Japanese movie that's been getting a lot of hype behind it.  Remember way back in 2003 when we got Freddy Vs Jason?  Well this is like the Japanese version of that only Freddy Vs Jason was kind of crap and Sadako Vs Kayako is fucking AWESOME.  Just in case you aren't familiar with these names, Sadako is the ghost from the very well known "Ring" movie and Kayako is the big nasty from "Ju-On" or "The Grudge"

The hype campaign for this movie has been pretty big in Japan.  There's been posters, leaflets, the obvious things like trailers and other content but some of the publicity stuff has been a little strange.  For example, there's an instagram account called Kayako With Toshio which pictures the evil duo from The Grudge in rather mundane settings such as seeing Toshio off to school or having noodles.

https://www.instagram.com/kayakowithtoshio/?hl=en

Even stranger than that was a TV segment during a baseball game where the two characters were put on the field to face off in a spot of batting and pitching.

Strange hype aside though, the movie is actually fucking incredible which is something I didn't think I'd be saying about it going in.  I expected yet another shitty, cliche Japanese horror movie in the same vein as something like Gekijourei but banking on the popularity of the two evil ghost characters.  But instead I got a fantastically fucking stupid yet awesome beyond words cross over movie ever with some genuinely unsettling moments in between.

One thing you have to understand about Japanese horror movies, especially of this kind, are very formulaic.  Usually they are stories about a curse or some kind of rumor going around, then the hero gets cursed and some fucked up shit happens.  Following that, they find someone who is super knowledgeable about said curse and they proceed to enact some insane plan in order to remove the evil ghost from the persons life.  It's not a bad formula but it's so played out at this point that when a new movie does it the only thing you can really gamble on is if its going to be a happy ending or an everyone dies ending and everything before that you could predict like the worlds best clairvoyant.

However, while Sadako Vs Kayako does this for it's first half, once it gets it's boring shit out of the way it flies completely off the rails into insanity.  Luckily, the stupid shit that goes down after the movies half way mark isn't the kind of stupid shit that makes you sigh and rolls your eyes but it's the sort of awesome stupid shit that has you holding back cheers of joy, sort of similar to the reaction you have when watching an Expendables movie.  I can't do it justice without heavy spoilers but please, do yourself a favor and go watch this movie, you won't regret it for one second.

I think most people, like me, weren't expecting a lot from this movie so it ends up being a pleasant surprise.  Don't take it too seriously and just sit back and enjoy the roller coaster of retardation that is Sadako Vs Kayako.

I have Instagram!

I've always said that Instagram is kind of shit and after using it for two days I still kind of think that.  That said, thanks to some influence from the wife, I now have an instagram.

I'll be using it to post 1 picture a day of something either Japan related or something game related so if you want to see that go and give me a follow.

I guess this has the advantage of giving me some more exposure so if I post something cool then be sure to share it or whatever because more viewers to IG means more potential charity donations and that's always a good thing,

My user name is Taurinensis512 so come and check me out and marvel at how many useless fucking hashtags I can apply to a single picture that no one gives a shit about.