Video Game Nerds

[Death Impends 7,371]

Former president and CEO of Atari Ray Kassar died at 89 earlier this month. He led Atari to its highest profits but helped sow the seeds of the 1983 video game crash, as the stifling work atmosphere under his tenure caused several key programmers to split from Atari and form Activision.

[Spade_Cooley 9,022]

No news story about it yet, but Twitter's full of people reporting the death of Bob Wakelin after a short battle with leukaemia. He was probably the greatest box-art designer of the 80s home computer software range, closest associated with Ocean but he did art for all of your 80s faves:

 

[Spade_Cooley 9,022]

J Paul Raines, former CEO of GameStop who may have come across some of your radars when he resigned from his post last November to deal with a "recurrent medical issue", dead.

[gcreptile 10,234]

On 5.3.2018 at 19:15, Spade_Cooley said:

J Paul Raines, former CEO of GameStop who may have come across some of your radars when he resigned from his post last November to deal with a "recurrent medical issue", dead.

Interestingly, he would have gotten a (tiny) UK obit:

 

https://uk.reuters.com/article/brief-gamestop-ceo-says-sad-to-learn-of/brief-gamestop-ceo-says-sad-to-learn-of-passing-of-former-ceo-paul-raines-idUKFWN1QN0QA

[Spade_Cooley 9,022]

Industrial designer Rick Dickinson has died. His biggest contribution was creating the look and feel of the ZX81 Spectrum. 

 

 

[gcreptile 10,234]

John Bain's aka Total Biscuit's likely goodbye message:

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/cynicalbritofficial/comments/8g4eoj/official_totalbiscuits_future/

 

I just couldn't get myself to pick him.

[Grim Up North 3,565]

1 hour ago, gcreptile said:

John Bain's aka Total Biscuit's likely goodbye message:

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/cynicalbritofficial/comments/8g4eoj/official_totalbiscuits_future/

 

I just couldn't get myself to pick him.

Not good news for him but some encouragement for my flagging team - although timeline not clear and I'm not sure on the QO either.

[Spade_Cooley 9,022]

TotalBiscuit is a lock QO. Gonna go out on a limb here and say he'll even get a BBC obit, such is the traffic YouTubers can drive.

[Clorox Bleachman 2,016]

19 minutes ago, Spade_Cooley said:

TotalBiscuit is a lock QO. Gonna go out on a limb here and say he'll even get a BBC obit, such is the traffic YouTubers can drive.

I agree. The BBC (Newsbeat) gave an obit to a 13-year-old from the YouTube family Bratayley, who at the time had a million subs. TotalBiscuit has more than twice that and they've reported on him before for non-cancer related reasons.

[Grim Up North 3,565]

45 minutes ago, Spade_Cooley said:

TotalBiscuit is a lock QO. Gonna go out on a limb here and say he'll even get a BBC obit, such is the traffic YouTubers can drive.

Yay - that's what I hoped somebody would say!

[Toast 14,844]

Newsbeat.  See, there's another anomaly with the DDP accepting the BBC's teenagers section as QO, but not grown-up news from Scotland, Wales etc.

 

Anyway, this TotalBiscuit bloke.  I assume his illness involves his digestive system?  He sounds like quite a tough cookie.

[Clorox Bleachman 2,016]

11 minutes ago, Toast said:

Newsbeat.  See, there's another anomaly with the DDP accepting the BBC's teenagers section as QO, but not grown-up news from Scotland, Wales etc.

 

Anyway, this TotalBiscuit bloke.  I assume his illness involves his digestive system?  He sounds like quite a tough cookie.

Is there some kind of breakdown of what constitutes a QO? Struggling to make sense of it. It makes no sense that Newsbeat and its embarrassing attemps to get 'down wiv le memes' is seen as more reliable than the main news source of Scotland.

[msc 17,762]

19 minutes ago, Toast said:

Newsbeat.  See, there's another anomaly with the DDP accepting the BBC's teenagers section as QO, but not grown-up news from Scotland, Wales etc.

 

Agreed. imo if its mentioned by the BBC, it should count.

 

18 minutes ago, Toast said:

 

Anyway, this TotalBiscuit bloke.  I assume his illness involves his digestive system?  He sounds like quite a tough cookie.

 

[gcreptile 10,234]

Eh, I think Total Biscuit has probably "touched" more lives than, say, Dmitri Hvorostovsky.

[Spade_Cooley 9,022]

11 minutes ago, Clorox Bleachman said:

Is there some kind of breakdown of what constitutes a QO? Struggling to make sense of it. It makes no sense that Newsbeat and its embarrassing attemps to get 'down wiv le memes' is seen as more reliable than the main news source of Scotland.

 

http://www.derbydeadpool.co.uk/general/rules_and_scoring.html

 

As I promised before, regional BBC (and ITV as well because fuck it) obits are coming back in 2019. I'm gonna lower the drop 40 bonus to make up for that, whether it be to 1 or 2 we'll decide later in the yaer.

[YoungWillz 19,062]

Always thought the Drop 40 bonus was too low imo.

 

26 yo cancer mum nobody unique joker = 30 points.

 

Drop 40 70+ yo joker = (currently) 20 Points.

 

Still no positive disincentive to pick those FFBI types.

[Grim Up North 3,565]

3 minutes ago, YoungWillz said:

Always thought the Drop 40 bonus was too low imo.

 

26 yo cancer mum nobody unique joker = 30 points.

 

Drop 40 70+ yo joker = (currently) 20 Points.

 

Still no positive disincentive to pick those FFBI types.

Actually the reinclusion of local obits makes FFBI more likely to be successful punts. I would guess as an organiser though once you reach a pool the size of the DDP you can't be frigging about deciding who is above or beneath the FFBI line unless you did it at death which would just make the pool runner's job a whole load of hassle and they would get sick and tired really quickly.

 

What would be good is some recognition of fame so rather than just the popular picks getting bonus points (which does seem counterintuitive) you get bonus points for a level of fame or lose them if your pick doesn't achieve that level of fame - for example no unique bonus if don't have a wikipedia page - the problem is anyone can set up a wikipedia page.

 

Anyhow is there not some other thread where this discussion should be happening? (Like a Dead Pool Nerds thread perhaps?)

[Joey Russ 7,119]

1 hour ago, Grim Up North said:

Actually the reinclusion of local obits makes FFBI more likely to be successful punts. I would guess as an organiser though once you reach a pool the size of the DDP you can't be frigging about deciding who is above or beneath the FFBI line unless you did it at death which would just make the pool runner's job a whole load of hassle and they would get sick and tired really quickly.

 

What would be good is some recognition of fame so rather than just the popular picks getting bonus points (which does seem counterintuitive) you get bonus points for a level of fame or lose them if your pick doesn't achieve that level of fame - for example no unique bonus if don't have a wikipedia page - the problem is anyone can set up a wikipedia page.

 

Anyhow is there not some other thread where this discussion should be happening? (Like a Dead Pool Nerds thread perhaps?)

There was this, but that was only for 2018 so far...

[charon 4,938]

Take it to the DDP ya puffs.

[FixedBusiness 407]

John Bain/TotalBiscuit dead

Adding here for "completeness"

[gcreptile 10,234]

Atari Co-Founder Ted Dabney dead at 80:

 

https://www.polygon.com/2018/5/26/17398682/ted-dabney-atari-co-founder-obituary

[YoungWillz 19,062]

OldWillz recently discovered our original Atari 2600:

 

 

Wanted to throw it away. Told him to keep it, should be worth summat...

[Paul Bearer 5,653]

1 minute ago, YoungWillz said:

OldWillz recently discovered our original Atari 2600:

 

 

Wanted to throw it away. Told him to keep it, should be worth summat...

My son still has the one I got him about 1990. Must ask him if he still has the games too.  I remember playing the Indiana Jones game on it. 

[YoungWillz 19,062]

Look what I found:

 

 

[JQW 228]

There's several models of the 2600 - the earliest ones have 6 switches on the front instead of the 4 shown here, with the most valuable being the original 'heavy' version. Then there's later models without the wood-grain, and the 2600 Jr. model in a completely different case. 

 

Some of the games can be worth a lot of money to collectors - usually ones from obscure manufacturers who didn't last long.