My Pure Mage Strategy Worked: Level 100 Conjuration, Level 100 Destruction, and Level 100 Enchantment

I have done it!  My champion in Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, Azrah Gestahl, has reached Level 100 Conjuration, Level 100 Destruction, and Level 100 Enchantment.  My overall Level is 47, so I’m about to hit the soft cap of 51 that the gaming forums say is in place. I’m in the process of creating a set [...]

from Joshua Kennon

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Illustrates Why Nintendo Is In Trouble

With all of the Elder Scrolls: Skyrim activity going on in every corner of my life, I began thinking about the various video game platforms and the video game industry as a whole.  Going back to this summer when we were playing Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, which I bought on a whim, caused me to [...]

from Joshua Kennon

My Pure Mage Strategy for Elder Scrolls Skyrim Is Based on the Late 1980′s Ganon Character from The Legend of Zelda

Update: I’ve done it!  I’ve reached Level 100 Conjuration, Level 100 Destruction, and Level 100 Enchantment!   I ultimately decided upon a pure mage strategy my Elder Scrolls Skyrim character, Azrah Gestahl, based upon the early manifestations of Ganon in The Legend of Zelda series from the 1980′s.  Although my character is mostly good, serving as the [...]

from Joshua Kennon

Alchemy Potion Making Profit Calculator for Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

Following a weekend of Thanksgiving meals, meetings, and celebrations, I’ve been trying to catch up on messages, write new content, finish some things for one of the companies, and master enchantment and potion making in Elder Scrolls: Skyrim.  I found this online potion profitability calculator that will help you maximize your Septim earnings.  It’s been [...]

from Joshua Kennon

We Are Embarking on Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim at Kennon & Green

Interesting business facts about the video game industry: As of 2011, the average age of a video game player in the United States is 37.  Roughly 58 out of every 100 players are male with the remaining 42 being female.  Video games are larger than Hollywood in terms of revenue.   From a business standpoint, [...]

from Joshua Kennon

An All-Out “We Rule” Arms Race Has Broken Out Among Family and Friends

For the past year, many of our friends and family have been playing “We Rule” by Ngmoco on their iPads and iPhones.  I wrote about it in April of 2010 when I first began playing.  It’s a great way to pass the time if you just need a three minute break; I think it serves [...]

from Joshua Kennon

25th Anniversary Legend of Zelda Fan Art – Absolutely Amazing Video

This is so awesome, it is submitted without comment.

from Joshua Kennon

This Dragon Age II Addiction Has to Stop

I have a lot of work to do. No, strike that, I have a ton of work to do. This includes reviewing and signing the tax filings that the accounting firm has completed, getting several things notarized and submitted to our brokers, putting together that 401(k) hub I’m working on for About.com, packaging together all [...]

from Joshua Kennon

Legend of Zelda Pixel Art

One of my sisters went to a Comic-Con event and brought me a Legend of Zelda pixel art magnet.  I love it.

from Joshua Kennon

Bought a Bunch of New Japanese RPGs

For the past few days, Aaron and I have been talking about how we want a new video game to play.  Epic Mickey was a total and complete let down, leading us to decide that we are done with the Nintendo Wii. For adventure and RPG games, it just seems like a failure of a [...]

from Joshua Kennon

I Broke Into the Top 60 Richest Super Tycoons Players on Facebook!

Well, six months after starting my Super Tycoons game on Facebook, I broke into the Top 60 Richest Players! Now, the only problem is that because of the game design flaws, which I’ve discussed in the past, it is mathematically impossible for me to get into the Top 10 players.  See, there is a special [...]

from Joshua Kennon

My Super Tycoons Game Hit $135 Billion in Net Worth

My Super Tycoons game account on Facebook has reached a net worth of $135 billion with $88 billion of this in cash.  I am almost in the Top 60 richest players in the game.  I started playing Tycoons the first few days of May 2010 (you can read about it here), long after most other [...]

from Joshua Kennon

The Square-Enix Store in Japan

Pardon me while I get my Japanese RPG geek on for a moment … the Square-Enix store in Japan has a showcase of their masterpiece line of rare collectibles, such as $400+ replica 1/4″ scale models of Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII and Kingdom Hearts characters. With cool stuff like this – who cares about [...]

from Joshua Kennon

My Super Tycoons Facebook Game Net Worth Just Hit $60 Billion

The last time I updated you on my Super Tycoons Facebook game exploits, I was rejoicing at increasing my in-game net worth from $100 million to $14 billion between May and August.  This was after I rolled out my flour empire expansion. Ultimately, I decided instead of going for the commodity leader board, I would [...]

from Joshua Kennon

I Finally Beat Tales of Vesperia

A few weeks ago, I beat Tales of Vesperia but got busy so I didn’t get it up here on the site.  It is one of my favorite games since Final Fantasy VII and Chrono Trigger. That says something, given that it’s been almost 15 years since those two titles were released.  I didn’t realize [...]

from Joshua Kennon

The Reason the Video Game Industry Is Bigger Than Hollywood

Tales of Vesperia continues to rock my world.  I played for several hours again today after reading wealth reports and working on the upcoming About.com content I’ve been writing this week (I tend to publish the good stuff over there in big batches because I like for it all to work together and be cohesive).  [...]

from Joshua Kennon

Super Tycoons Facebook Update: From $100 Million to $14 Billion

On May 9th, I gave an update on the Super Tycoons game I’ve been playing every day on Facebook in which you have to build an empire and compete against other players. I’ve even convinced my grandma to start playing it as a steel tycoon. When I wrote about the game back in May, my [...]

from Joshua Kennon

The Oregon Trail – Movie Trailer

For those who were born in the 1980′s and grew up playing The Oregon Trail on Apple IIs in computer labs across the country, this is for you …

from Joshua Kennon

Building a Flour Empire on Super Tycoons

I have been playing Super Tycoons so much on Facebook and my iPad that I upped my donation to the developers from $150 to $250. I decided that my next focus is on launching a series of grain mills to build a fortune in the flour industry. Once I’ve paid for the upgrades, which will [...]

from Joshua Kennon

Why Don’t People Realize You Can Do This In Real Life?

During college, one of Aaron and my closest friends made a comment that still haunts me to this day.  I was explaining that if you own a share of The Coca-Cola Company, you actually receive a proportionate cut of the company’s profits on every single can of Coke sold.  This makes sense, after all … [...]

from Joshua Kennon

Tycoons Game on Facebook

There is a free game on Facebook called Tycoons that I began playing a few days ago.  The premise is that you acquire businesses and sell the commodities or products generated by these companies in a real market-based system.  Over time, those who grow the richest are put on a leader board.  I’m coming quite [...]

from Joshua Kennon

French Style Gardens … A Gift to My People

I decided to spend through a lot of the accumulated gold in my treasury from Ngmoco’s We Rule game on the iPad.  Following an extensive kingdom redesign, the citizens of my realm can now enjoy French styled gardens.  I said it before and I’ll say it again … my munificence knows no bounds If you [...]

from Joshua Kennon

We Rule by Ngmoco for iPad and iPhone Has a Really Cool Business Model

I’ve been playing We Rule, the new video game by Ngmoco.  It is a freemium model, meaning you play the game for free by downloading it from the iTunes store.  But to level up faster, you can spend real money on something called Mojo.  It is the 21st century equivalent of an arcade game business [...]

from Joshua Kennon

I Beat Final Fantasy XIII Tonight

Don’t worry – I’m not going to give away any spoilers (or the images of the final bosses other than the one everyone has already seen), but suffice it to say, I owned Final Fantasy XIII tonight.  I took a break from going over the insurance policy renewals for the businesses, which are due soon, [...]

from Joshua Kennon

First Impressions of Final Fantasy XIII

I’ve played Final Fantasy 13 for roughly five or six hours now and it’s starting to get good.  The only concern I have is that it is feeling really linear.  Part of the magic of the franchise is being able to take 20 hours and go do side quests, level up and get hidden summons, [...]

from Joshua Kennon

Started Final Fantasy XI on XBOX 360

Following several attempts to get into the game when it was first launched in 2004 and later, around 2006, I finally began seriously playing Final Fantasy XI about a week ago after beating Blue Dragon.  I’m on the Alexander server and have been building my character as a Black Mage.  So far, I’ve soloed on [...]

from Joshua Kennon

How to Make Money in Fable 2 – Or, How I Made My Fable 2 Character a Millionaire in a Few Days Without Cheating

It’s remarkable that the same concepts that allowed me to be effectively retired by my mid-twenties allows me to frequently become rich in video games. That’s the nature of compounding.  It is a law, exactly like gravity. This weekend, Ashly and Ian drove in from Columbus to visit – they are thinking about relocating to [...]

from Joshua Kennon

Mistwalker Studios Might Just Eclipse Square Enix

For a long time, I wanted to be a video game programmer.  When I was still in elementary school, I saved up the $200 or so dollars for an entry-level version of Microsoft Visual Basic, went to trade shows to buy software on 5″+ floppy disks, and worked on creating my own version of the [...]

from Joshua Kennon

Video Game Sales Fall for 5th Straight Month and Wall Street Blames … the Recession?

According to an AP Article, sales of video games have plunged 29% year-over-year and Wall Street is concerned that it is proof the video game market isn’t as recession-resistant as everyone believed.  Seriously.  That’s the crap that’s coming out of these news rooms.  News flash: Look at the game release schedules.  Last year saw a [...]

from Joshua Kennon