iCouch – Comfort in Pixels

Blog Posts from a Dude. Just a dude.

YouTube Heroes Rant

It seems like every time that YouTube looks to be fixing its crap, it just succeeds in digging the grave even deeper. Every. Single. Time.

On Tuesday, YouTube unveiled their new “Heroes” program through a video on their help channel.

Basically, it’s a way for them to get people to moderate YouTube without actually paying ’em. This sounds totally foolproof. Nothing could go wrong!

Some of it actually sounds pretty good! You get “Hero Points” for adding closed captions to videos, reporting inappropriate content, and “sharing knowledge with others” (Whatever that means).

If you know YouTube, you know the auto-generated captions are horrible.

But then they go and do something incredibly stupid. INCREDIBLY stupid.

After you climb the ranks, you get the option to, get this: MASS FLAG VIDEOS.

Now, YouTube already has a problem with false flaggings, and this is just going to make the problem twenty times worse.

There is literally no point to this. No point at all.

It takes the same amount of time to watch the videos individually and flag them individually than it does to watch ’em and then mass flag them.

All it’s succeeding in doing is helping random idiots shut down videos they don’t agree with.

God Youtube! Get your crap together!

YouTube is slowly killing itself, and unless they make some big changes, their business is going down the drain.

YouTube, please. Just…don’t.

YouTube Heroes isn’t officially released yet, but when it is, expect a rant from me. It’s going to suck.

Thanks for tuning in. This is iCouch, signing out.

iCouch - Comfort in Pixels

Anyways, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past year or so, you’ve most likely heard of Pokémon GO. It’s pretty much everywhere at this point. And if you’ve heard of this game, then you’ve probably heard of Niantic, the developer of the game.

They’ve made some pretty crappy business decisions, bottom line.

Today I’ll be talking about those less-than-stellar decisions.

Something that’s majorly important in any company is communication with customers. That shouldn’t be overlooked.

Which is why it was even more suprising when Niantic, a game company that had just singlehandedly created one of the biggest mobile games in history, didn’t respond to any DM, Tweet, or Facebook post about questions regarding Pokémon GO.

This was especially frustrating as the in-game Pokémon tracker didn’t work as intended, thus making the game unplayable at times.

Niantic’s Twitter account was barren except for a tweet to Soulja Boy, a rapper I hadn’t even heard about until that point. They thought it was more important to tweet at a rapper than to actually communicate with their consumers.

We finally got a Facebook post from Niantic talking about how the in-game tracker wasn’t up to their company standards or something like that, and said they were working on it. People were still slightly miffed, but they were calmer than they were, knowing that a patch was being worked on.

Fast foward two weeks later, a new PokéGo update comes out.

It completely removes the tracker.

They removed one of the core aspects of the game.

That’s like throwing a blanket over a hole in the floor and saying it’s fixed.

People were more pissed than ever, and for good reason. It was not a good week for Niantic.

Another week or so goes by, and Niantic releases another patch, which somewhat fixes the tracker. It’s not perfect, but it’s useable at least. Some

people actually got a special beta version of an even better tracker, and it seems like they fixed the entire thing. Thank God.

Sorry for the gap in posts. It should be more consistent from here on out.

This is iCouch, signing off.

iCouch - Comfort in Pixels

YouTube Comments Sections

Hey guys, Master Procrastinator here. I haven’t made a blog post in a long time. Why, you ask?

….Shut up.

I’d like to actually have a job and not be a lazy teenager with no hope of a future, so I decided I’d write about something that I’m pretty knowledgeable about: stupid people on the Internet.

Now, I spend a lot of time in the YouTube comments section. Probably too much time. But whatever. I’m a 13-year-old teen born in the 21st century. What else am I going to do to spend my time?

Anyways, in all my time in the comments, I’ve picked up on a lot of really, really stupid stereotypes. I swear that 80% of people fall under one of these categories, at least if they’re in the comments section.

I’m here to discuss every stereotype I’ve seen. Stick around. You have no other option.

The first stereotype is the Minecraft kid. You usually see these guys in the comments of Minecraft gameplays (because God knows we need more of those). They usually use 2nd grade grammar, have generic
Minecraft profile pictures, and never use the correct form of your/you’re. They also tend to attack you if you have a differing opinion, because this is the Internet! We’re all a hivemind!

The second stereotype is the memelord. They tend to have Doge/Pepe profile pictures and use stale memes in all their comments, one way or another. They’re literally everywhere. If the video has over 1,000
views, you’re sure to find at least two of these people. Ain’t nobody got time for these guys! ☜(ﾟヮﾟ☜)…(☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞…Nobody…? Okay…

Another stereotype I’ve noticed a lot is the Minecraft kid (but much worse). These are a lot like Minecraft kiddies, but they use a lot of racial slurs, edgy swear words, and offensive statements in their comments.
They usually don’t know what any of it means but they use it too look really edgy and “cool”. They actually tend to have more generic profile pictures then the regular Minecraft kids. These guys are cancerous.

The final stereotype I’ll be talking about today is the PewDiePie fanboy/fangirl. This is the worst out of all of them in my opinion. These are the people that go around hating on everyone that “copies
PewDiePie” by playing games on YouTube. They usually use “brofist” in their comments as well as refering to all the fans of PewDiePie as bros. They’re unbearably annoying. I seriously cannot deal with these
people. Brofist.

That’s pretty much it. If you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go sleep for the next couple weeks.

iCouch - Comfort in Pixels

Game Design

A lot of people probably see game design as something that would be somewhat easy, but that’s not the case at all. Even if you’re making a game that consists of only black 32×32 squares, you still have the programming to do, and that can be really tricky.

A very simple platforming script.

I would know, as I’ve recently gotten into game development, and it’s fun, although it can be very, very hard at times.

The game designing process goes a little something like this:

Come up with the idea for a game. It could be really simple or really complicated, though I normally start out with a simple idea and build on it.
Get some pen and paper and brainstorm. Unless you know exactly what you’re going to do, don’t just rush to the engine and start developing.
After that, start creating assets, whether you’re using 3D models or 2D sprites, always try to create those before actually programming.
When you have enough sprites or models to start your game, finally start programming. Test for bugs frequently. Don’t let anything slip.
Add in some sounds. Games are pretty boring without sound, so make sure to add some when necessary.
Advertise your creation! Release teaser images or even a trailer, and update fans consistently. A good site to do this is GameJolt.
Finally release your game to the world! The best way to get good at game development is to get other people to review your game! Let critics speak their mind, and don’t get offended. Everyone has opinions.

And there you go! Designing games is tricky, and takes practice, but anyone can do it with the right mindset. And who knows? Your game might become the next Five Nights at Freddy’s or Undertale!

Stay determined!

–iCouch