Month: March 2024

Lately I have been very into the mobile game Brawl Stars. It is such an addicting way to pass time. There are several different game modes including Brawl Ball, Basket Brawl, Gem Grab, Heist, and Duo or Solo Showdown. Winning in any of these game modes gives you trophies to rank up and become the best Brawl Stars player you can be. There are 78 different characters you can use. They come in all different rarities meaning some of them are harder to get than others. Unfortunately, I do not have even close to all of them, so when my friend and I were debating over the best Brawl Stars character, we realized that since we only have about 15/78 each, the scope of the debate was limited. Regardless, there are many factors that go into a Brawl Stars character. They can be ranged, close, tanky, healer, etc. Each character has a unique way of dealing damage and a unique ultimate ability that charges up, called an ult. This ability might do a ton of concentrated damage, or heal, or spread a wide array of damage, just to name a few.

When playing the other day with my friend, we both started talking about our favorite characters. Mine is currently El Primo, and his is Poco.  Below is a picture of both of them.

El Primo

Poco

 

For starters, El Primo is a tank who deals damage in close combat, while Poco is a ranged combatant. El Primo’s ult is to jump super far and land on his enemies, dealing a great amount of damage. Poco’s ult is to heal his allys.

Then, we discussed the noises these characters make as a reason for them to be the best. When selected, El Primo does his famous dialogue. In a booming and strong voice, he yells “Elllll PRIMOOOOO”. He also grunts and roars to convey his alpha like tendencies. In contrast, Poco has an upbeat and happy voice, saying “Let’s use the power of music!” In the game, Primo punches people while saying “Primo punch!” and “Fists of steel!”, giving a fun feel to his combat. Poco attacks with his guitar, which makes strumming noises on attack.

As you can see, these two are opposites in just about every way. So, how will we determine who is the best? Would it be in a 1v1 between the two characters? Or maybe see who the top ranked Brawl Stars players use? Well, as it turned out, neither. There was no way to determine who’s was better, but we eventually decided to use the two of them together. We queued into a duo Showdown, and absolutely crushed it. As it turned out, these two Latin superstars paired perfectly together. Their contrasting nature ended up being just what we needed to get 300 trophies in one sitting. El Primo would be the tank and fight the enemies first, while Poco would attack from a distance. Then, when El Primo got low, Poco would heal. These two are now our “match made in heaven”.

It’s movie night! My friends and I came together in my dorm to watch one of the best movies ever made: The Departed. We were talking about how stoked we were to watch it all day. Finally, the time came to put it on, and we realized it was only “free” on Apple TV, a streaming service that none of us had. This exact scenario happens so often, especially in recent years with the increase in streaming services.

Gone are the days of Netflix having every movie you could ever want to watch. Now, there are dozens of different subscriptions that all have a few of the best content, along with their own original movies and shows. There is no single best service to have anymore and purchasing them all would cost a fortune. This is so frustrating because it felt like just a few years ago, we got rid of the need to rent movies because they would all be on one streaming service. Now, if a case like the one described above with the Departed happens, we are forced to either rent the movie, subscribe to Apple TV, or pick a new movie. This is when I proposed my next genius idea: the Super Streaming Service (SSS).

The SSS would combine all of the current streaming services into one. You might be thinking, there is no way these companies would ever agree to such a thing. Plus, this would surely be classified as a monopoly, right? To that I would say, you are absolutely right. That is why my idea entails the government forcing the streaming services to band together into one and operate as a government regulated monopoly. This monopoly will have a fixed price that can only increase with inflation. This would ensure that the monopoly will not raise prices once consumers have nowhere else to go. There will also be price levels (ads, no ads, premium, live TV), to help everyone afford at least the lowest level.

A few of my friends agreed with my idea. However, a few argued against this idea. Aside from this being very idealistic, they had one major criticism. Passing legislature that allows this is a slippery slope. This would set the precedent for the government to do this in tons of other areas. For example, gasoline. There are dozens of major gas companies, and the prices of them are above what it should be to profit a normal amount. However, the competition of multiple different companies helps drive the price of gas down. If the government were to take over this industry, who knows what would happen to the price of gas.

I argued that combining all of the streaming services will be similar to the government controlling the electricity monopoly. Electric a resource that can be cheaper if they are guaranteed a certain number of customers. This means that operating as a monopoly is not bad, so long as they do not raise prices. For this reason, the government stepped in and capped their prices. In my eyes, this is a win for consumers and the companies. I believe that the government can control streaming services in a similar fashion, creating a win for both parties.