Blogs - Genkisan

This is a repost from my Desura blogs published on Mar 24th, 2014

15th Blog:

After learning of the recent news of the tragic fate of the missing plane MH370, my heart goes out to all of the family members, friends and loved ones.
It is tragic news to learn of after so much time has passed and the hopes that the passengers might have still been alive.
We don't know why this has happened and hopefully some light will come to provide more information.
My sincere condolences to the family, friends and loved ones of the passengers of MH370.

This is a repost from my Desura blogs published on Feb 4th, 2014

14th Blog:

The number of active Steam users since October 2013, has increased by a whopping 10 million users, reaching 75 million total active users and eclipsing Microsoft's Xbox Live total of near 50 million active users.

More information can be found here:
Joystiq.com

and news for the month of October 2013:
Theverge.com

In 2013 the total number of active users on Steam had increased by a massive 30 percent.

Currently, the Playstation Network has over 110 million active users and far in the lead.

But what does this mean for Steam? It is tells us that more and more people are showing a greater interest in PC gaming. This is a very big and promising change. The library of PC games is overtaking the number of console games. Gamers like variety and new ideas which is why Steam and Desura are so important because they help to introduce and bring us fresh ideas from Indie developers and games.

We are also seeing more popular Publishers bringing popular games to PC: Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, Ducktales, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst and other great games that could have only been found on consoles before. And also with the next gen consoles now practically running full PC hardware, you can see better game port overs to PC as well. :)

Also, PC games are more affordable. and if the price is not right, you can just wait for a sale which happens quite often on Steam (total wallet killing sale events), Desura, GamersGate, GreenManGaming, GoG and other sites. And lets not forget about bundle sites like Humble, Indie Royale, Bundle Stars, etc. that sell games practically dirt cheap. Now try going to GameStop and see if they have deals like that. Even their used games are still expensive and chances are you will not even be able to register their used games for online play because it most likely is registered to its previous owner. And speaking of online play, you can still play games online like COD, DOTA2, etc, without paying a premium monthly cost on PC unlike Xbox Live Gold and PSN+.

PC gaming also has a big community of gamers who help contribute to create patches, upgrades and great mods for games that you just can't find on console games. A perfect example is Oblivion and Skyrim with the amazing realistic mods. I personally, also find the PC gaming community more friendly and helpful than on console gaming communities. :)

I see 2014 being a very good year for PC gaming.

On a side note: Anyone else looking forward to the release of South Park: The Stick of Truth? :D

This is a repost from my Desura blogs, published: on Jan 27th, 2014.

13th Blog:

It's been very hard the past few months battling cancer. Too many hospital and laboratory visits, x-rays, CT scans and getting poked with damn needles all the time! >.<

My health had gone down very badly as well as my weight. I had to stop radiation therapy because it was causing too much damage to my neck and lungs causing massive inflammation to my throat which is one of the reasons I was losing so much weight at a fast pace because I was unable to eat. So I had to drink liquids like Ensure but after my mouth was badly affected by the radiation therapy, drinking Ensure was not working much anymore because of the pain every time the liquid would enter my mouth. Also, because of the damage it caused to my lungs, it was very difficult to breath properly. So it was my choice to stop the radiation therapy.

It has been 3 weeks since I had stopped radiation therapy and I have been healing well from the damage that was done and my appetite is insane. OMG it is soooooo good to finally be able to eat real food! :D I have been eating like mad to try and regain my weight. Originally, I was 179 lbs but between the chemotherapy and radiation therapy, my weight had dropped down to 134 lbs. :/ But now I am feeling better and more motivated but still my energy is not so great so fatigue kicks in pretty easily. :/

But on the positive note, the tumors have gone down a lot and I am starting to feel better. After 4 more chemotherapy treatments, my oncologist will evaluate me to see if I will be getting surgery to remove whatever remains. It looks like I may be winning the battle. :)

I also had help from my best friend, his girlfriend and his dad who made for me Cannabis Butter in hopes that it would also help to fight against the cancer. It is really hard to tell but maybe it is working. But, I still want to give them a big thanks for their concern and the help that they have provided me. :) I also want to give a big thanks to my mother for also helping me as best as she could and the support she has given me during these hard times.

But as I feel now, I am hoping to post more blogs on Desura soon. :) It is great being a part of the Desura and Steam Community and sharing the awesome news of Indie and PC gaming.

I wish everyone well and hope you all have a good week. :)

12th Blog:

Microsoft Games for Windows Live is Set to Shut Down July, 2014.
-
It seems Microsoft is pulling the plug for Games for Windows Live and Marketplace for reasons unknown.
-
It is possible it could be due to the rise of Steam as the leading Digital Distributor in PC gaming and many publishers like Capcom and Warner Bros. leaving Games for Windows Live to opt for Steam instead.
-
This is a both a good and bad thing. The good is that users will no longer need to be signed in to Games for Windows Live to play their games and continue their saved games. It also means less resources used on the PC that can now go to the game being played for better performance.
-
The bad news is we have to hope that the games get updated to remove Games for Windows Live or else we now have a game that can be used as a coaster. Why? Because once Games for Windows Live shuts down, that means its servers shut down. That means the games can no longer be activated, which means you will not be able to play the game you PAID for. The next bad news is all your saved data and achievements stored on Games for Windows Live will also be lost having you to start your games from scratch.
-
But, the good does outweigh the bad and this is a time to rejoice as Games for Windows Live was more of a nuisance DRM for PC gaming and the Marketplace was nothing special. You rarely ever saw games on sale and there rarely were ever any games worthy to have interest in. The next big problem is, with this news, I now wonder about XBone, err... X-Box One. Are we going to have to worry about similar problems happening with the upcoming XBox One in its future? Microsoft has lost the faith of a lot of its customers and the news of this shutdown is not making things better. Gamers are getting worried and more and more are moving to the upcoming PS4 and PC gaming with Steam. I can't blame them. I would be paranoid too.
-
So with Microsoft putting up the white flag, in the great words of the Terminator, "Hasta la vista, baby!"

For more information click on the image below:

11th Blog:

Steam Dev Days will be coming January 15 - 16, 2014. Developers will meet with other developers and have access to Valve's Steam Team for discussion and questions about current and future works, attend lectures by industry veterans and test drive SteamOS, prototype Steam Machines and Steam Controllers.

Be sure to visit the Steam Dev Days Web site for more information if you are interested in attending by clicking on the image below. :)

10th Blog:

With the recent reveal of SteamOS, Steam now announces its 2nd big reveal. Steam Machines.
What exactly are Steam Machines? They are pretty much Linux based gaming PCs. Valve will be selling their official Steam Machines and there will also be third party manufacturers selling their versions of Steam Machines as well. The Valve and 3rd party Steam Machines will have several hardware specific models from less to more powerful to help work around your spending budget.

The difference between the official Valve, Steam Machine and 3rd party versions will be that the official Valve version will include more Steam features not found in the 3rd party models. All Steam Machines, official and 3rd party hardware can be completely upgraded to the users liking. As for software, you can use all the features Steam will offer and also be able to use your own software as well.

Expect Steam Machines to start selling early 2014.

For more information click on the image below:

9th Blog:

The first big reveal has arrived as Steam will soon have it's own OS available to all users for free, known as SteamOS.

What exactly does this mean for PC gamers? An incredible gaming experience that will allow you to stream your games over a network to your TV, watch movies, TV shows, listen to your favorite music, better family sharing options and more. SteamOS will be constantly evolving to bring even better gaming experiences to all Steam users. :)

And there is more. Expect more surprises from Steam to be revealed soon. :)

For more information click on the image below:

8th Blog

I didn't know what was wrong with me... I had been going back and forth to the hospital because I thought I had a mass infection in my neck. My ENT surgeon requested that I get some things done. So I wound up getting 2 fine needle biopsies done, 2 CT scans, complete blood work, chest x-ray, tuberculosis test and an EKG. Everything showed inconclusive. All of my doctors were stumped but a few had a feeling it could be Lymphoma or some rare neck infection. They finally decided I needed an incision biopsy surgery done. 2 weeks later the results came back stating I had Hodgkins Lymphoma. Further tests showed it was at stage 2.

5 days ago I spoke with an oncologist and she had me sent to another hospital and admitted as an emergency case for chemotherapy. Everything was rushed. I really didn't have time to mentally prepare for this... I had lots of Doctors and Residents come to see me and talk to me about what to expect. They were all pretty hopeful in believing I can be completely cured. The next day my oncologist came to see me to do a bone marrow biopsy, the good thing was that I had been sedated and was asleep through the process so I didn't feel a thing. That night began the chemo treatment...

I have always heard about the effects of chemo and how patients suffered through the treatment. Now I empathize with them because my 1st experience was absolutely terrible. Afterwards, suffering nausea, constant accelerated heart rate, fatigue, a strange different sense of sickness (very hard to explain), and some vomiting. I found it very hard to eat as well. The following day was also very tough as the effects were still strong.

I can say that this is the second worse feeling I have ever had since I had suffered and passed a very large kidney stone once about 11 years ago.

Now, I have 2 weeks until my next chemo treatment and I am not looking forward to it... :/ But I keep my hopes high. :) I know I can pull through this and I give my deepest sympathy to those who suffer from cancer. It is a terrible feeling and it takes a lot of courage to continue with the treatment.

Hopefully, I can stay just as strong to continue with the upcoming treatments...

Thanks for your time in reading my blog. :)

7th Blog:

Steam will be getting a new feature called Steam Family Sharing which allows you to grant access to 10 family members and/or friends to your library of Steam games. So far the idea is that only one family member and/or friend can access your library at a time. And you as the lender always have priority to your games. So if you log on and play a game, then anyone else you had authorized to play your games would be be given a notice and then forced to quit the game they were playing after several minutes..

I'm really trying to figure out how that would work. If a relative or friend is playing a game and in the middle of a certain part filled with a lot of action and no place to save for about 10 or so minutes, but I want to play my game, how would I know what they are doing that I may be interrupting? Think about it like an online game; You are in the middle of a boss fight and just when you are close to winning, the game gives you a notice of server maintenance in 3 minutes but you are in an epic fight that could last 10 minutes, then the game loses connection to the internet and you are then thrown back to the title screen left with your eyes bulged and cursing every word you can think of out of frustration. I can see something like that happening here as well.

I think a good idea would be to allow at least 3 devices to be able connect simultaneously and as long as one family member or friend does not play the same game as the other, they would be free to play any game they want at any given time, without the worry of interruption when you, the lender, gets on to play a game. And if that isn't an option, then at least allow the other relative or friend longer timed play of at least an hour, before they are forced to exit the game they are playing, while you enjoy your game as well. That would be awesome!

But for now, what Steam is offering is a start. Maybe in the near future they may implement new things like what I mentioned. Who knows. :)

For more information click on the image below:

6th Blog:

For those who didn't get the news on September 4th, Steam now features, Trade Offers. You can now offer a trade deal to any of your friends who has an open inventory, even if they are offline. You choose the items you want to trade from your Inventory and then choose the items they have that you want from their Inventory. They can either accept, reject your deal or make a counter offer. This is a great upgrade to the Steam Trading feature and more new features may make their way to Trade Offers. :)

Look for the Trade Offers link in your Inventory to access Trade Offers page. Happy trading! :)

For more information click on the image below: