Pay to Play, Play to Pay

Im taking some time out of my law and social policy exam revision to write this little piece. The other night myself and Grace went round to our friends Harry’s place to play the new Mortal Kombat,we where basically punching bags for him. I had only just recently got back into computer gaming, i religiously played GTA 5 which i really enjoyed, and it has kind of whetted my pallet. Prior to playing this the last game i played religiously was Skyrim when it was released back in 2011, needless to say i was addicted to this game, i would dream about, i would be constantly thinking about it, i just freaking loved that game. Recently i traded all my consoles and games in and treated myself to an Xbox One. Before GTA it was used as an entertainment centre, i got Shadows of Mordor for Grace to play just so it felt like it was getting used for games. But GTA comes along and it starts to get used.

I enjoyed playing Mortal Kombat the other night, but when Harry told me about the token feature i started to get annoyed, i was then told about the extra downloads that was coming out for it, so a game that cost £49.99-£54.99  will probably rise to nearly £80. Now i know that you dont have to buy the downloads and thats what every computer gaming company like EA, Activision, Ubi-Soft will say. But they know full well that if you are  purist at game, like my friend Harry you are going to spend the money on the downloads.EA know how to do this to perfection, their FIFA Ultimate team must have made them an absolute fortune, in fact i know it did, i was working in Gamestation at the time and many parents would be buying £10 credit for ultimate team, and thats from a little shop in Ramsgate. It also takes te fun away from online play, people have paid money to super themselves up and there is me leveling up at a ridiculously slow pace, where is the fun in that.

It begs the question, “is it ethical?”, I think the majority of us can tell when we are being ethical or not, unless of course you are a psychopath, I feel a lot of these computer game company’s are terrible unethical, they are fully aware of what they are doing but they continue to do it anyway, because they want the greed, much like cigarette companies and alcohol companies. They can see the effect it has on society but they do it anyway.

Sadly this is not going to go away and it feels like its alienating a lot of casual gamers, only time will tell.

Jay Football Association Chairman

I think we have all known for a while that the Football Association (F.A) really have no idea on how to make England a successful national side. I think its pretty clear that when it comes down to it the F.A are more interested in money and a “great” football league rather than successful National Team. At the beginning of the 2013/14 season Arsenal and Chelsea had the least amount of homegrown talent with 5 British players, Manchester City 9 homegrown players and Manchester United 13 home grown players. According to the BBC only 32.26% of players in the premier league are homegrown players. In La Liga, home of World Cup holders and European champions Spain, Spaniards account for 59% of all minutes played. In Germany’s Bundesliga, Germans make up 50% (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24467371). Could it be a mere coincidence that both national teams have won the World Cup in the last 8 years? Is it not obvious that this is one of the reasons why we do not have a half decent national team? Can the F.A. not see this? Here is what i would implement if i was F.A. chief. Now i appreciate what i will suggest will have flaws, but nothing is perfect.

1. Overseas Player Cap – Starting 11 should consist of at least 6 home grown players of British nationality. This raises discrimination questions, you cant deny someone a job on the basis of their nationality, this is after all a job.
2. Salary Cap – I personally feel players dont need to get paid as much as they do, and i would put a cap on at £65,000-£80,000 a year, which i still think is generous considering players get sponsorship deals which in itself can earn the player a lot of money. And there would be no bonuses for players playing in the World Cup. I would like to think it would filter out the players playing for just money, and influence players with real talent to break through.
3. Referees – There is a real lack of respect for officials in the game. The popular excuse for this disrespect is adrenaline and heat of the moment. If this was the case why dont the rug by referees get an earful every time a decision goes against the players? I would fit a microphone just like rugby, if a player knows people can hear him he might think twice about being disrespectful.
4. Females – There should be more female officials, commentators and co-commentators. Hell there should be more females on the F.A. board, at the moment its a boys club with them all trying to outdo one another.

These are some of the points i would bring in, and i know for a fact these would never be brought in, in a million years. The F.A. really need to sort out the state of our national team and take responsibility for the state the English game. Because at the moment its all about the money than the football and i think many would agree.

Cant Sleep! Over thinkers Worst Nightmare

I am an over thinker, and this at times makes me a very bad kind of pessimist. So when im trying to sleep at night and i cant i go into over thinking mode. So here is a list of what i tend to think about

1. Money – Will i run out of money this month? Can i pay my bills, can i treat my girlfriend.
2. Friends – Do people fake like me, are they just keeping me happy by saying they are my friends.
3. Social Media – Why do people feel the need to broadcast their entire personal life over a facebook status. Why cant i seem to make new friends online when i share the same interests.
4. Emotions – Am i as emotionless as my girlfriend makes out? What can i do to help improve this?
5. 2009 – Yeah i still think a lot about this damn year.
6. Geocaching – Where can i visit next to fond another cache. If i looked harder i could have found that cache today, i want to go there now and find it.
7. University – I hate it, im not an academic person, i hate how un-organised it feels, i hate that i cant be a social worker because i cant write a very good essay on the history of policy.
8. Age – Am i really 31? I cant believe im 32 this year, next month. That leaves me another 30+ years for a with while career. And the last 31 years have gone far to quickly.
9. Football Association – How would i run English football, what would i implement, i know i would annoy a lot of football fans and football clubs.
10. Death – Not afraid of dying but i do wonder who would turn up at my funeral if i were to drop dead now.

So yeah a mixture of stuff really, mainly negative, such a glass is half empty kind of fella. But i will say a lot of the negative thoughts have stopped since i have been Grace. So she has her uses bless her. Sometimes the over thinking can help because i can get to the root of some of my issues, and it gives me ideas to stick in my blog, because of last night i have three more blog entries i can put up. So watch this space for Elisha Cuthbert, the Football Association and the perks of being average.

Salary CAPS?!! How much is to much?

I dont know the ins and outs of the economy but i do know you need to spend to make money, thats right yeah? What i am suggesting is communism or a form of. Could this country not introduce a salary cap? It got me to thinking in regards to the infamous Mid-Staffordshire hospital abuse scandal. If you  are unfamiliar with the story basically, patients were subject to poor conditions, poor care and misdiagnoses by staff, this was happening for at least 50 months between January 2005 and March. It is estimated between 400-1200 patients died due to poor care (http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/feb/06/mid-staffs-hospital-scandal-guide). Why was it happening? Common theme in most workplaces at the moment is staff shortages, and low moral, which go hand in hand with each other. But also like of compassion shown by staff which can also be linked to the low morale and staff shortage.

So keep in this mind when i tell you the salary of the the manager, it was rumored that the manager was on at least £325,000 per year. Does someone really need to get paid this much money? Even if he was one £100,000 a year that would still leave £225,000 to spend on staff and improving condition’s. These days it seems we have managers who need to report to their manager who report to their manager who reports to the higher ups, do we need all these managers. Its the same with colleges and university’s, the chiefs are earning fiver figure salary’s while tuition fees increase and staff is short. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/10532752/University-chiefs-five-figure-pay-rises-described-as-inappropriate-and-unfair.html)

I can continue my point but i think you all get the idea (dont start me on footballers and politicians). Would a salary cap be more beneficial for our economy? It begs a lot of questions, how much would the cap be? What about people who are self employed? Like all systems its flawed, there is no perfect system but surely most things are better than this? I guess its something to think about, and if i had it my way and this was Jay’s Britain my salary cap would be set at £80,000. Feel free to respond and offer your arguments, im intrigued what people have to say.