December 21, 2016

‘Bully vlogger’, Dutch word of the year 2016

Filed under: Gaming,General by Orangemaster @ 2:27 pm

‘Treitervlogger’ (‘bully vlogger’) was coined in September 2016 by the Dutch press and is defined as ‘a vlogger who films their friends bullying locals, sometimes even egging them on’. It sounds very specific and it is, as it is based on a series of bullying incidents in Zaandam involving a young Dutch-Turkish man, his friends and their ‘hoodvlogs’, a Dunglish term for ‘neighbourhood vlogs’. Although the instigator apologised for his behaviour after cooling off in a jail cell fora few days at some point, he plans to keep vlogging – lucky us.

More than 100,000 votes were tallied, with ‘treitervlogger’ getting 35% of them. Second place goes to ‘pokémonterreur’ ‘Pokémon terror’ with 23% and third place to ‘Trump the Liarisme’ (‘Trump the Liarism’) at 11%.

On the lighter side, the Flemish went with ‘Samsonseks’ (‘Samson sex’), which refers to parents having sex while their kids are watching ‘Samson en Gert’, a children’s show about a man and his dog.

This entire annual process is done for the Van Dale dictionary, which has the Netherlands and Flanders working together and celebrating their cultural differences.

(Link: nos.nl)

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July 25, 2016

Tax office ready to cash in on Pokémon sellers

Filed under: Gaming by Orangemaster @ 5:52 pm

Pokémon

Before Pokémon Go was officially launched in the Netherlands there were already 1.3 million players. Now that it’s been officially released for about a week, that figure is approaching 2 million players, one eight of the population.

Some people have been creating accounts, catching a shit ton of ideally rare Pokémons and then selling their account to people with a lot of money and not too much time or patience. The Dutch tax office is trying to get in on the action by looking into taxing people who are selling these accounts. They’ve already dug their claws into people renting their flats out as Airbnb locations, so why not hit Pokémon Go account sellers?

Selling accounts falls under additional earnings, which means expenses could be deducted as well such as phone costs and travel costs. Sellers could even show how many kilometres they’ve had to travel for their catches by using apps for it. Some level 20 Pokémon Go accounts are going for €500 on online auction sites, according to fhm.nl.

Businesses that are designated Pokéstops, a place where players can obtain free items to use in the game, are apparently earning money by buying ‘lure modules’, which can only be set up at Pokéstops. The idea is that the business turns on a lure module, which lasts 30 minutes, luring all kind of Pokémon for anyone to catch. And this is only the beginning.

(Links: www.deondernemer.nl, www.fhm.nl)

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July 12, 2016

Hospital fends off Pokémon gamers

Filed under: Gaming by Orangemaster @ 8:37 am

A few days ago when Pokémon Go launched, some Dutch fans took to a police station in Amsterdam North to try and catch some Pokémons where the cops were not amused in the slightest. Apparently in Australia and the United States, police stations have been ‘overrun’ by gamers trying to catch whatever it is that is hiding at the cop shops. A possible reason why it’s not that bad here yet is because the game is only available to people with an American Apple ID and not yet officially in the Netherlands, which should be in a few days.

If that wasn’t inconvenient enough for the police, the AMC hospital in Amsterdam is said to have a sick Pokémon in their basement, where groups of people have been spotted even though they have no authorisation to be there. The situation is bad enough that security has been alerted in case gamers show up in sick people’s rooms. The hospital said, “if we find the sick Pokémon, we’ll take good care of it”, which is doctor speak for ‘please piss off and let us do our job’ on behalf of the hospital.

Back in 2009 one of our most popular stories ever was about a gamer in a hospital basement playing Silent Hill and shutting down all the electricity in the building.

(Link: www.at5.nl, Photo of the old building of the Sophia hospital (1884) by Wikimedia user Arminiuzz, some rights reserved)

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