Binge Watching

I love binge watching shows. I do it a lot. There are some great sites out there to help you binge watch better and some that make it harder. Netflix, Hulu, and Youtube are all amazing when it comes to binge-watching as they can not only auto-play episodes of shows, but they can also suggest new shows for you to watch. One of the biggest issues I have when watching sites like Netflix is when it asks me if I am still watching. 

One of the shows I consistently binge-watch when the seasons come out is Stranger Things. When both the first and the second seasons came out, I watched them in no more than two sittings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWxyRG_tckY

According to the Guardian, these are the most binged shows

1. Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life
2. Fuller House
3. The Ranch
4. Marvel’s The Defenders
5. The Seven Deadly Sins
6. Trailer Park Boys
7. Santa Clarita Diet
8. F is for Family
9. Orange is the New Black
10. Stranger Things
11. Friends from College
12. Grace and Frankie
13. Wet Hot American Summer
14. Atypical

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15. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
16. House of Cards
17. Master of None
18. Luther
19. GLOW
20. Arrested Development
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/oct/18/which-netflix-shows-are-being-binged-the-fastest 


I myself have binged Seven Deadly Sins 

and Stranger Things. I also love to binge Game of Thrones at home. One thing people forget is you can binge watch shows on disc. I personally watch Game of Thrones on BluRay. I will watch a large number of episodes at a time with my dad. It can be nice binging from BluRay as I don't have to worry about the internet or any problems associated with it. I can get very frustrated and annoyed when I have to deal with buffering or loading issues while binge-watching a show. It can even drive me away from a show or website for a while.

I binge a lot of different things though, and my definition of binging might not be exactly the same as everyone else. Most people think of it as watching a lot of episodes of the same show, I however sometimes binge a lot of the same genre. I do this with anime sometime. For example the other night I watched two episodes of The Ancient Magus' Bride, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCSUxwuqEzQ

Overlord,

and Citrus.

I also really enjoy binging on standup comedy. I love going through comedian after comedian, and learning which one I like and which ones I don't.
One thing is though, it isn't just tv and videos you can binge on. I can go on video game binges as well. One such game I have binged some recently, as well as many other of my friends, is Monster Hunter Worlds. The funny thing to me though is even though it is about the same. Gaming binges are more stigmatized. I find this a little odd as it takes more brain power and hand-eye coordination than videos. You would think it would be the other way around but it isn't. I binge watch a lot though, and I really enjoy it. If you haven't before, try binge-watching a show. Many from the list above are amazing and I would recommend.

Global Trends in Gaming

Over the past ten years, many different games have risen within the same genres. Soe genres growing in number more than others. The main two I have seen are MOBA's and Hero Shooters. Although both have been around for a long time, they have been growing most rapidly as of recently.

"Multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA), also known as action real-time strategy (ARTS), is a subgenre of strategy video games that originated as a subgenre of real-time strategy, in which a player controls a single character in a team who compete versus another team of players. The objective is to destroy the opposing team's main structure with the assistance of periodically spawned computer-controlled units that march forward along set paths. Player characters typically have various abilities and advantages that improve over the course of a game and that contribute to a team's overall strategy. MOBA games are a fusion of action games, role-playing games and real-time strategy games, in which players usually do not construct either buildings or units.

The genre largely began with Aeon of Strife (AoS), a custom map for StarCraft where four players each controlling a single powerful unit and aided by weak computer-controlled units were put against a stronger computer. Defense of the Ancients (DotA), a map based on Aeon of Strife for Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and The Frozen Throne, was one of the first major titles of its genre and the first MOBA for which sponsored tournaments have been held. It was followed by the two spiritual successors, League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth, and eventually a sequel, Dota 2, as well as numerous other games in the genre such as Heroes of the Storm and Smite. By the early 2010s, the genre had become a staple of the emerging eSports scene." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplayer_online_battle_arena 

"Hero shooters are a variation of multiplayer first- or third-person arena-based shooters, where players, split among two or more teams, select from pre-designed "hero" characters that each possess unique attributes, skills, weapons, and other activated abilities; players may gain abilities to customize the appearance of these characters, but these changes are usually cosmetic only and do not alter the game's balance. Hero shooters strongly encourage teamwork between players on a team, guiding players to select effective combinations of hero characters and coordinate the use of hero abilities during a match. Such games are inspired by multiplayer online battle arena games. A popular team-based shooter that is considered one of the first Hero Shooters is Team Fortress 2. Other examples of hero shooters include Overwatch, Gigantic, Paladins and Quake Champions. Hero Shooters are considered to have strong potential as eSports competitive titles." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooter_game#Hero_shooters

Although some people might be at a loss for why these genres have been growing, if you watch the eSports scene, it is very clear why they are. With how competitive professional and collegiate eSports are, and these being some of the main games being played, everyone wants a piece of the pie. You can see this in tournaments like Heroes of the Dorm and Overwatch League, which I previously mentioned in my article on Programming Trends http://joshturnersaudirectedstudytwo.blogspot.com/2018/01/programming-trends.html . You might wonder why these are popular, and part of it may be that they work really well for eSports, this is due to the high paced action that happens very often throughout the game. It makes you both want to keep playing and also makes viewers want to keep watching. https://www.redbull.com/int-en/genetically-engineered-how-mobas-invaded-esports  Although you might not be into eSports and gaming, this is very exciting to many gamers and is seen similarly to how a basketball or football game is seen by sports fans. I recommend having a look at eSports as we need to know about it as journalists and media curators.