Brigwyn's Corner

Around the Internet you’ll find a plethora (yeah, big word I know) of Cam sites, Singles sites, Game/chat rooms and the likes. All of them for the most part have a pretty unsavory reputation. And now they’re welcoming a new player to the neighborhood, GameCrush. (Get it? Player? Oh come on now, it was funny!)

On the surface GameCrush is just like any other Cam site. The real question to me, is it really?

Well, being the ever curious and easily bored individual, I took decided to take one for the team and take advantage of a Beta invite to go check them out for you.

When you first go to GameCrush you’re asked if you want to be a Player or PlayDate. Basically they just want to know if you want to pay to play as a Customer, aka Player,  or would like to be paid, aka a PlayDate.

I was able to both, a Player and PlayDate profile. (Hey! Don’t judge me, I’m doing this for you! REALLY!!)

Getting Started as a Player

As a GameCrush Player you get to set up your profile, you’re going to need to set up your Profile. It’s pretty simple just your gamer tag, and Xbox Live ID. (Required Snarky Comment: Give Bobby Kotick time and I’m sure he’ll have Blizzard hook-up RealID. Okay.. Okay, that was bad.)

Once you have the basic information all set you can then test out your Cam and the hosted Casual Games. This is an area that GameCrush falls flat and fails worse than Twitter’s infamous Fail Whale.

First, GameCrush only supports a select few Xbox 360 games. For example the games I saw listed were:

• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
• Gears of War 2
• Grand Theft Auto IV
• Halo 3

Next, you’ll have to have an Xbox Live account in order to play with your PlayDate. Yes, it’s required!

Oh! Don’t have an Xbox or prefer PC games to Console ones? Officially, your SOL unless you want to play their extremely limited list of web based “casual” games. (e.g. Backgammon, Checkers, Chess, Battle Ship, etc…)

I say “Officially” because I did see meet one player that advertised that they were willing to play PS3 or Steam games as well. And looking at the PlayDate registration process, I don’t see anything that prevents them from playing any other game, but remember Buyer Beware! It’s all up to your PlayDate and if you decided to go off the reservation and play outside the Supported Infrastructure don’t complain if you run into trouble.

GameCrush does advertise that you can browse profiles and chat with the PlayDates for free. Don’t bother getting excited guys and girls. It’s a simple text based chat inside each PlayDates profile. I’m happy to say that the two lovely ladies I met during my beta, TheLadyLydia and Syriel are awesome people that just enjoy playing games!

However when it comes to any of the other PlayDates, I’ll just remind to keep in mind the Rule On Dating Profile Pics, things are not always as they seem…

That brings me to the next major item for Players to consider. Cost! First, realize the Vegas Principle is in full effect. See GameCrush uses a concept of credits instead of dollars. So you have to do this whole conversion ahead of time if you want to figure out how much you’re going to spend on your Visa or MasterCard (Sorry guys, PayPal is not accepted. And American Express? You’re not wanted either.)

Right now here’s the price breakdown during the Special Beta program: (link to screen capture)

• $5 = 500 Credits
• $10 = 1,000 credits
• $20 = 2,000 credits
• $50 = 5,000 credits
• $100 = 10,000 credits

PlayDate TheLadyLydia at GameCrush.com

And you’re saying, “But Brig! This credit thing doesn’t really tell me anything.” Well, hold on a minute I’m getting there!

GameCrush is saying these are “Special VIP Discount” prices where each game is $4/10 minute game, so don’t count on these prices being final. But it’s a good starting point for us to figure out how much it’s could end up costing us to play.

Alright so right off the bat understand that each accepted “Casual Game PlayDate” has a 100 credit ante. (At least that’s the best way I can relate it) Then you get charged roughly 60 credits/ minute of play time. And they’re expecting each game will last between 8-10 minutes. The only real difference for Consol games is it’s a flat 400 credit fee.

Either way, this really 1 Game that lasts just under 8 minutes of playtime costs you $5.

HOLY MACKERAL!!

This is not a hobby for the “normal” gamer I know.

Not only that, an 8 minute Frag/Slay the Prey/Death Match would be over before you know it. And if you decide to play the casual games, forget it! You’ll be looking at approximately $20/Game.

I guess let me put it this way. Let’s say a typical date of a dinner and a movie lasts about 3 hours. Applying the gentleman dating rules (as opposed to the Tom Leykis Rules for Dating) w a typical date of Dinner and a movie costs around $65-75.

If you look at it that way then it’s roughly about the same as 3hrs of game time would break out to about $80 for 3-4 games.

At first glance it doesn’t really look to be that bad.

But remember, this “Date” is professional  is also a job for these ladies who like to play games. The PlayDates aren’t there trying to build long-term lasting relationships, this is their job. And as such, when they turn off the cameras, they’ll be going back to their boyfriend/girlfriends, husband/wife/significant other, and you? Well my friend, you’re going to bed alone tonight. Something that if you play your cards right, might not happen on a “Real PlayDate.”

I’ll be honest with you. Overall I just don’t see enough value for the dollar. Too bad, considering there are some great people you would probably like to get to know.

GameCrush: A PlayDate’s Perspective

PlayDate Syriel at GameCrush.com

Well we already talked about some of the basic things. If you want to make the big bucks you either need to play the pre-requisite Xbox games as well as the boring Casual games OR you need to be willing to do the legwork and adjust the system to play other games.

Looking at the PlayDate guide, I don’t see anything that prohibits playing other types of Co-op games.

While I was nosing around the site, Syriel was playing Runes of Magic. So I’m guessing it’s not forbidden to play other games.

Here are some of the cool things. You get to select your “Play Mood.” If you want to keep your top on and just play then set your mood to Flirty. Willing to take it to the NSFW neighborhood, then set your mood to Dirty.

Talking to TheLadyLydia, it seems as always, dirty pays more and gives more tips. But it is nice to know that it’s not expected nor required.

As for what you can make? Well, like I said it’s based off of the number of credits Players spend. GameCrush claims you can make $35/hour. Which many people would immediately do the math and say is about $280/day or $5,600/mo! Um.. No that’s not how it really works.

I talked about this with my friend Amber, whom we interviewed a while back. She reminded me that in order to make that kind of money you have to be ACTIVE for 8hrs a day. That really means it’s probably more like a 12+ hour work day. Hmm.. Not so great when you think about that.

But remember, you’re getting paid to play games and chat online. Like TheLadyLydia said, it’s a dream job for anyone in college or home for the summer. (Hmm.. Maybe I’ll rethink my Beta PlayDate account. LOL!)

What you really get paid is for being Active or having your Webcam on. When a Player requests a game and accepts, you have to keep them online for the first 6 minutes and you’ll get 300 credits. Then for every minute after that you earn roughly 60 credits/min and can cash that getting paid $1/100 credits earned.

Console games are different. They’re at a flat rate of 400 credits/game with GameCrush expecting you to earn 300 credits per game.

So let’s take this back and see how much you’re earning for being willing to go on a 2 hour “Play Date” with someone.

If it’s a casual game you can earn a pretty good sum.

In 2 hours of consistent playtime you will probably play 4 games earning 240 credits just from that alone. Each game being having 24 paid minutes at 60 credits/min would be about 1,440 credits per game and earning about 5,760 credits giving you a total earned of 6,000 credits deposited into your PlayDate Account.

Remember your EARN $1/100 credits spent by the Player which means you just raked about $60 for playing different and maybe boring games for the last 2 hours! (I’m definitely re-thinking keeping my SleazyBriggy PlayDate account!)

Here are a couple of points to remember as a PlayDate. Don’t give out any Steam, Game Accounts, Player IDs you don’t want people off line to know. It’ll only dilute your overall earning potential and also erode any sense of privacy you might have.

Also, remember that a player dumping the game at the 5:59 mark will mean they spent credits but you didn’t earn anything for the time spent. So ultimately it will be up to you keeping the Player entertained and engaged helping them forget that they’re actually paying for the privilege to play with you.

NOTE:  I had to make some minor changes in regards to the pricing and a comment about this being a job.  Seems this corner of the world some how reached the attention of the PR guys at GameCrush and they requested I clarify and correct some points.

So just to be clear,  as stated in the post, the PlayDates at GameCrush are NOT Professionals, just girls that like to play games. And they get paid to play games at GameCrush.  So they are NOT Professional Gamers.

Also, as stated, the pricing that is currently reflective in the post is NOT the final nor actual prices you may experience at the time you play.  The prices shown in the post and linked in the screen capture are current Beta prices only.  Currently Gamecrush is priced at $4/10 minute game.