Month: January 2020

Companies timings and profitability

Aaliyah Farah on

Video games can be one of the most influential things in the life of a growing teenager. Not everyone plays the general standard of video game like FIFA or Call of Duty, some just play phone games. While they may not be considering themselves as being a “gamer”, big brands like Ubisoft and EA view them as popular consumers.This allows the large video game companies to market products that they think will be extremely profitable for the company. Even extremely large companies like Disney and Ford make money off of large games. These well known brands pay to have they logos and content put into video games which is both beneficial for the game manufacturers and the companies whose products are being advertised. Large companies like Blizzard and Valve also are more likely to charge a certain amount of real life currency for in-game currency as a means of making a profit on the wider aspect of having hundreds of thousands of people paying 2.50$ for 100 of in game currency which would make them a lot of money. The biggest example in modern day news would be Fortnite, they allow individuals to pay $5-$10 for in game content and they have millions of people purchasing it. That is the way they stay profitable especially when the game is considered free-to-play.

Popular gaming brands are also very aware of the timing of their release. They choose to strategically release games during lull periods in which they are to be most profitable to them. Popular games like Assassins Creed comes out every 2 years. In 2018, Assassins Creed: Odyssey came out and they subsequently spent the span of 2 years releasing additional content as to not completely lose all of their customers. The length of the games also has increased tremendously. The first game of the franchise that I played was the original Assassins Creed and it took me about 2 weeks to complete the whole story line and additional content. While with Assassins Creed: Odyssey, It took me nearly a year to complete every single quest in the main story line. This may be due to the change in my schedule and the coarse load I was taking at the time but even so that is a substantial difference. While many franchises like Assassins Creed chooses to wait every 2 years, Companies like Rockstar choose to wait almost 4-5 years to maximize the profit of each game that gets release. Although, the last game they released was GTA V and it was released almost 7 years ago. It seems like they may be releasing a new game in late 2020. Which I will be excited to see.

Podcast Script

Aaliyah Farah on

I believe in getting tongue piercings at 50 years old.

 

From a really young age, my mother tried to shape me into a very independent person. She allowed me to grow my hobbies by putting me in different activities. We cooked dinner together almost every night. She took me to swimming practice everyday at 4am and 6pm for almost 6 years.

 

While she was taking care of my little brother and I, she also worked a full time job and had dealt with my sick grandparents.

 

We had a motto that stuck with me most of my life. Whenever there was a situation that I thought I couldn’t handle on my own. She would sit me down on her bed and look me directly in the eyes and say, “Whatever happens, you handle your business and I’ll handle mine.”

 

As a child I never really understood what that meant. I took it as if I had an issue that I felt I couldn’t deal with then I should do the best I can to solve it and see what happens.

 

Being almost 19 this year, I finally think that I understood what she meant every time she said that to me. As a teenager, my mother left Somalia as a refugee because Al-Shabaab the terrorist collective stormed her village. She traveled all throughout Europe in her teen years trying to find a home.

 

Eventually, She settled down in D.C with my father whom she loves. Even though she traveled all through her 20s, she never really experienced the true teenage experience that she saw in the movies when she was younger. She immediately went into taking care of my little brother and I. She always told me about all her dreams she had when she was a child.

 

Now, thinking back to all the times she would say, “handle your business, and I’ll handle mine. It makes so much more sense than it did when I was a child. I never realized it was basically her way of saying do the things that scare you even if everyone tells you not to.

 

I’ve always lived by that philosophy my whole life. Even if I didn’t truly understand what her actual meaning was, I was always living by that motto.

 

I never truly realized how much it meant to my mom until she recently got a tongue piercing. It was something she always wanted as a teen but never had the chance to do because she felt like it was inappropriate for her age.

 

She did something that she really wanted but scared her a lot. Every time I want to do something new but it scares me to death. I think about my mom and how she would never let something stop her from doing what she wants.

 

This is why I believe in getting piercings at 50 years old.