YouTuber Potato Chips

What were they thinking when involving YouTubers in Japan at that time including the virtual ones? Normally, you won't too much of junk food as it can be a hazardous practice to your health. Not to mention that you sometimes buy such snacks for the family or something that you will get some free time to eat after lunch or dinner as if those snacks don't even count as real food. However, to spend a huge amount of money on the same product that has different cards inside is basically paid loot-box and health risk together. Not even resturants, cafeterias or coffee shops sell food products containing such stuffs representing YouTubers as part of them.
Of course, trading cards with levels of rarity don't mean anything to me since I'm not into trading card games and I don't know if this is the same example in buying the potato chip product containing such cards once. It should be like that, just buy that product once and consume it like it's free time or something and you'll be fine. However, what's not fine was the encouragement-type manipulation coming from famous YouTubers' videos. They had their videos displaying, promoting and trying such products in action. Not to mention that they invested in a large quantity of the same product as each copy has different cards inside.
What's even more wrong about this campaign was that many things were really difficult to replicate for Virtual YouTubers in terms of technology. The potato chip product isn't torn open and to put in tons of virtual chips inside can be tough and hardware resource consuming and it doesn't look like there are videos of Virtual YouTubers eating or drinking something realistically. Perhaps, it's best not to come up with the eating/drinking videos at all. What about the product unboxing animation? Can anyone produce that? Is it that difficult to do it without taking up so much hardware resource? I guess that I expected live streams from Virtual YouTubers too soon like many of them start their channels with live streams in 2D character form with the 3D one being more difficult and time-consuming to make. Lastly, the way the Virtual YouTubers cleaned up all that mess after that campaign was that the staffs vanished everything on the ground as part of the live stream. It's not like they can be seen cleaning up the mess themselves.

Mystery Brand & Molly Fantasy controversies

Microtransactions may not be compulsory in most of the games but Loot Box may be one as part of the tutorial when playing for the first time although you do get to draw one digital item at the cost of the in-game currency that comes with the game by default. Some time later, this is when microtransactions and loot boxes may become dangerous with new rare items to loot within the limited time although most of the time, you end up getting normal items that you can use to power up the rare items you currently have in your possession. It's been a year and I forgot to blog about the controversies that I'll mention below.

Mystery Brand by Jake Paul & Ricegum

The Mystery Brand website is a different story as you get to spend actual money on the loot box stuff like it's basically gambling at the next level. Microtransactions just for loot boxes may look like gambling in two steps until you get the complete set of rare items you want but this one seems to be worse and especially that two YouTubers, Jake Paul & Ricegum sold out their viewers with that site to be promoted, which was going to get certain concerning YouTubers like Yongyea or TheQuartering to talk about although there were already times they were attacked for talking too much negative shit about microtransactions and loot boxes by some Kotaku journalist at that time. It's one scammy website that you should avoid like a plague.

Molly Fantasy

Next is the Molly Fantasy or any other brand that has the online crane game where you remotely control the crane machine with your own device. You buy points online, use them as virtual credits or whatnot and you get a prize if you win similar to playing an actual crane machine. It's basically like the cloud equivalent of a crane machine and the same goes for pachinko and arcade machines although modern arcade machines are starting to cause a similar level of controversy with the introduction of PAID LOOT-BOXES. You pay money for arcade tokens or to top up your card that is for inserting coins and then you insert coins on those machines just to draw the items for use in certain games. It's a big deal for me but for kids games that have the card slots representing whatever characters, it's a different story like you're buying trading cards or something. So, it's basically gambling in the arcades as if the time of controversy had come like the same controversy already spread from console/computer/mobile gaming to even online and arcade gaming. For crane machines, it's all about luck in getting whatever item you want but in case of Molly Online or similar, you have multiple options.

1. Credit Card
2. Pay at the convenience store
3. Add the credit card to the phone bill

Online crane gaming is probably dangerous enough that it falls under gambling if you let your kid consume too much money from your phone bill/credit card on remote crane machines through your phone or other device you have. Many YouTubers including virtual ones have been promoting on crane machines both online and offline. Unlike smartphone games where microtransactions are optional, online crane gaming through smartphones/tablets and cloud arcade gaming don't seem to be like that as they fall under Pay-To-Win mechanic. What adds another controversy is that the kid-oriented YouTube channels promote such practice like it manipulates kids through encouragement to play the online crane machines.

Below is the video from PDR and you should be concerned about how dangerous the online crane gaming can be as stated above.

Japanese YouTubers Promote Gambling To Kids!? by PDR

When you win the prize, the item will take days to be shipped from the warehouse or something although the struggle can be quite large with trial & error when it comes to crane machines. I don't play crane games nor have I ever done before myself.

Zero Gunner 2 on mobile

It's unbelievable that they had screwed up the mobile port of Zero Gunner 2 which is based on the Switch port. For one, the same flaws are carried over to the mobile port but from my experience, things are even worse involving the game freezes and controls sometimes not going in my favor. Here's the list of flaws for the mobile version:

1. Enemies appearing out of nowhere on screen.
2. Soundtrack is kind of a mixed bag compared to the one from the game's prequel.
3. Some environmental textures/effects are missing with the mobile version missing even more than the Switch version.
4. Enemy objects slow to a crawl when falling downwards vertically like they're making a smooth landing before exploding after being shot.
5. The controls are not perfect although one of the control methods is like a twin-stick shooter feel. Sometimes, I end up moving the helicopter in a wrong way or turning it in a wrong direction. I think that it tests the multi-touch point conditions but I digress. Twin-stick shooters may be challenging on mobile but it's inexcusable to move the helicopter in the wrong way when two inputs are detected. A game controller should help a lot for those games on mobile, consoles, arcades and even computers.
6. The game often freezes on me whether during gameplay or when the Pause/Continue screen is opened. This may or may not piss me off into thinking that the mobile version has more flaws. That wasted tons of my time trying to get through the game in Normal difficulty.

At least I had better time with Strikers 1945 on mobile which is based on the Switch version as ported by City Connection which already acquired Zerodiv. Zero Gunner 2 on mobile is the first one to be ported over from Switch by City Connection with Strikers 1945 being the second one and it seems that multiple companies are handling the mobile versions of the classic Psikyo games.
I don't know what kind of scumbag would ask the game developers/publishers for the mobile version of Zero Gunner 2. Is it the whaling kind of a scum or maybe a scum who's a complete mobile gamer as if that person doesn't play games on consoles, computers, online sites or even the arcades?
When it comes to spinoff games on mobile, we should have a skeptical feeling about them. We don't know if they are actually good, mediocre or even bad until we try playing them. I already played some of the mediocre spinoff games on mobile the last time in which they are spinoffs of the fighting game series. Of course, there are even mobile spinoff games of the shmup game series as well like Brick Breakers: Strikers 1945 and the other Strikers 1945 game that is assumed to have endless levels or something. That latter is more like Strikers Time Wars or something as you fly through different times, tackling enemies there all the way to the year 1999 which is when Strikers 1945 III takes place.
You ask or/and beg for the mobile version of the upcoming arcade-style game that is coming to consoles/PCs in which someone on YouTube commented like that when King of Fighters XV was announced, and you're pretty much out of the gaming community in my opinion as you're disrespecting me and the others.

Entering new year

For whatever reason, I've been feeling sort of gloomy over whatever happens recently at the beginning of the new year like the revised laws, rules and policies taking effect starting the first day of the year like the revised COPPA law for YouTube for instance in which so far as of this time of blog article writing, things still have yet to be affected for my YouTube channel although I already knew the recent update about the COPPA thing all along.
It may turn out that you do not need to set your family-friendly videos like the videos of the ESRB E-rated games to "Made for Kids" as family-friendly stuff may probably mean that it is made for everyone of all ages.  For ESRB T-rated games, that may be a different story as not all games have the teenagers as minimum target audience as if those games are CERO B of PEGI 12 rated elsewhere. I sort of have a bunch of videos of those games like that that they're probably not kids-friendly or some sort. So, before we reached the brand new year, I made a large maintenance of my channel in which I took down many of those videos and set the others as "Made for Kids" when there wasn't a need for that as it turns out. However, for future uploads, the videos uploaded will be set as "Not Made for Kids" by default.
Next thing to start a new year comes from the Mikado Game Center in which there has to be a playthrough video of the arcade version of Gradius on the first day. Sure, the machine may be super-old and they had some difficulties in starting it up successfully but at least, they went through the technical trouble to kick start the new year.
Then there comes a different problem plaguing various Virtual YouTubers, probably the ones from Hololive and even Entum. For Entum, it was pretty much over on the last day of last year. Some of the Virtual YouTubers still continue on even without Entum but the rest were like out of the job or some sort. For Hololive Virtual YouTubers, certain videos were demonetized for reasons unknown but I can guess it might have something to do with updated Harassment Policy or something else. It may be risky to cuss with profane words on your YouTube videos but I digress. For them, it can be a problem since Virtual YouTuber falls under a professional type of a job which requires a fictional character to be made and animated, voice acting talent as well as the professional technology needed to run the show.

What have I been working on?

Last year, I had made Blazing Mobian Masters, the S***c derivative game ever since a few years ago and made it available for download from my blog although there should be a better site than a blog like this and even then, it will continue to be updated in the future through "Deconstruction" stuff. I even declared to have exited the S***c fandom although the "Deconstruction" stuff continues on and it might be why you can still see additional mashup remix of the songs from the S***c games on both my YouTube channel and Soundcloud account even today. Note that those remixes I did are NOT NATIVE SUPPORT MATERIALS for the S***c franchise.
Other recent things I worked on included the prototype DJ logo and of course, the MMD animations which I made one available to view on my blog under Miscellaneous Arrangements page before this month. Note that I do not condone anything disturbing or indecent and especially for indecent things you claim to be fan service or some shit. There were discoveries I didn't like such as the M1 Fringe Festival 2017, N**aku console, some Steam game like R**e Days which was taken down before release and of course, the advertising billboard for some adult PC game displayed in Akibahara. I won't support such indecent shit like that and you should know better.

There will be tons of great stuffs coming in this year although there's no guarantee on how smooth we can go through it

Updated YouTube Harassment Policy

Obviously, making a video or comment that discriminates a person, group or organization may result in a decrease of the karma as that kind of action is really bad. For the recent update from YouTube, making videos or comments that discriminate a person, group or organization based on race, gender, religion, etc. may result in actions taken against you for violating this updated policy. Video removal or even worse, channel termination as a result of this consequence can be punishing. Oh, criticisms are still welcome in the videos and comments as long as they sound professional though.
There were already recent cases of channel termination of some of the YouTubers over the Leafy Content Cop thing after the updated policy took effect recently. I don't know the proper reason for that happening but from some official tweets coming from YouTube themselves, the humor/satire part seems to be questionable. You need to make that the video of yours about someone doesn't seem like a free pass to the harassment. Sure, you can make a gaming news video about the dirty game developers like you've prepared evidence and criticism against them which is some kind of stuff Sidalpha does. Of course, there were times when he got attacked by the greedy game developers as if they thought that he was trolling or cyber-attacking them with the videos of his instead of addressing the criticism thrown at them. There were even worse times that some of the YouTubers were sued by the greedy indie game developers like the famous time when Jim Sterling was sued by Digital Homicide at that time. So it looks like such incidents already happened to those YouTubers even before the recent update of the Harassment Policy on YouTube. But then again, those kinds of videos fell under YouTube Gaming news videos or something, talking about all sorts of gaming topics, ranging from upcoming games, controversies that already pissed people off as well as the concerns of unacceptable features.
There are other videos I had seen as well like the diss-track videos about various YouTubers or even the MAD videos which are sort of artistic as well. So what's bad about making MAD videos of someone famous in the first place? The only bad things are that when the MAD video you make is poorly done and/or contains something disturbing in some portion or the entirety of the video that is bound to turn me off like I already was by certain videos.
About troll comments thrown at your videos on YouTube, you can try to remove/flag them and even report and block the ones typing in such non-professional comments but the problem is that they will come back and do the same shit to you with different/sock-puppet accounts. Another problem is that private messaging section on YouTube in which even if you block and report the user annoying the hell out of you a lot with troll messages, they will continue on with sock-puppet accounts.
I don't know if the updated harassment policy is the right step in the direction or a controversial one. What if someone false-reports your videos for harassment under this updated policy for LOL or some sort? Will that anger you and the other viewers in which the online search for the culprit starts? This kind of shit isn't funny and the good viewers should know better seriously as making false-reports against someone on YouTube over harassment when their videos don't cause any harm whatsoever is totally wrong. And by the way, those making kids cry or rage online in the making of such gameplay videos of whatever game they play may need to think twice before making such videos due to the updated policy as I don't know if such actions may result in violation or not.
One big concern from people is that when YouTubers make such videos of themselves ranting about greedy game developers for instance, we don't know for sure if such videos will be falsely flagged and/or taken down or some sort as if YouTube isn't siding with us or something. But of course, criticism isn't equal to trolling or even hate-speech for sure. You should instead find solutions and strategies that will help you to address such criticisms and see if you can do any better.

FTC's COPPA with YouTube

Back in September, YouTube was fined for gathering information/data on kids videos which sort of violated Children's Online Privacy Protection Act or COPPA and as a result of the violation, they came up with a controversial strategy that will fine the content creators of $42,000 per video that is found to be in violation of that law. From this new strategy, you must figure out which video is kid-friendly and which one's not and if your channel has been on-going for a decade with hundreds/thousands of videos, it's going to be a challenge determining which. The thing is, most of my contents are not aimed towards kids whatsoever. I make them for teens or even adults although people my age are probably interested in viewing my stuff as proven by the demographics from my account. The viewers are mostly adults ranging from 18-34 years of age but even then, there's no way to tell if the kids have seen your videos or not in addition to teenagers and adults. Also, none of my videos are profitable as they are posted for entertainment.
If your channel is kids-friendly target audience-wise, you're going to be on the serious lookout for this change. I have a feeling that various Japanese YouTubers' channels are going to fall under that category. I don't know if this is the same for Japanese Virtual YouTubers as well but I guess that not all videos are probably kid-friendly in the first place. Some of the Japanese Virtual YouTubers won't be kid-friendly for sure as if they appeal to the nerds or some sort.
6 years ago, the COPPA was amended to expand the definition of "operators" to include content creators who publish content to ad-assisting platforms like YouTube although I don't know if this applies to other sites that are like YouTube as well like Nico Nico Douga or Bilibili for instance, or even social media websites as they have ads pasted somewhere. For six years, the enforcement didn't happen after the amendment. However, the notifications on YouTube website have been there even for content creators not from US. We have like until January next year before the actions against violating content creators will be taken. If the video is declared kid-friendly like it's Child-Directed via the check box, it won't be monetized and have personalized ads. Furthermore, comments will be disabled automatically like it already happened on such contents.
For gaming channels, it is self-explanatory to determine which game which kid-friendly or not that you may as well set the videos to match the ESRB ratings or something. Most of fighting games won't seem kid-friendly of course and the same goes for many AAA games, mostly TPS or FPS games but what about the games on mobile? Are there mobile games that don't seem kid-friendly from a closer look at the contents? I also do the unofficial music arrangement/remix stuff and I sort of know the game origins but do I probably need to set certain videos to be kid-friendly like that?
There's even the petition someone came up with at change.org for you to sign through this link: https://www.change.org/p/youtubers-and-viewers-unite-against-ftc-regulation.
Another interesting source to take a look at:
https://www.tubefilter.com/2019/11/05/youtube-coppa-adpocalypse-ftc-rules-demonetizing-child-directed/

Samsung SSD obtained

I forgot to blog about the SSD I obtained months ago. The HDD for the old laptop computer was so defective that it wasn't usable or some sort and it caused the delay in the computer's BIOS process but at least I learnt a few things from the retro computer YouTubers like Druaga1, LGR, 8-Bit Guy, etc. in which you can put in the solid state storage in the old computer such as the SSD or IDE Adapter for SD Card or CompactFlash card. Normally, the CompactFlash cards are used for cameras and can be inserted in the CF card slot of the internal/external card reader for computers but they can be used as HDD replacement if you have the appropriate adapter.
Things seemed to have gotten worse for me even until the present time. Prior to the bedroom maintenance this year, the old laptop computer was placed on the chair as there was no where else to place it on and the mischievous scum you call, my sibling, had been placing things on top of that computer. I don't know if that was the cause of the damage done to the hardware components or not or maybe the overheating issue might be the cause of that or something. Plus, I was already skeptical on what she would do during the bedroom maintenance which involved replacing shelves and re-arranging shit.
The only problem left is that the internal keyboard of the laptop computer won't seem to register when pressing various keys and I don't know if there will be repair services for old computers or something.