The Harsh Reality of Gaming in New Zealand

I live in New Zealand and as a gamer, being away from most other places in the world, it comes with its positives and negatives.
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My channel focuses on the discussion and entertainment within Video Games such as GTA 5, GTA 5 Online / Grand Theft Auto V and COD / Call of Duty. Common video topics within these games will be speculation / my predictions about upcoming video game releases, discussing news about upcoming games or already released video games, and entertainment-type videos about these games (lets-plays, online with friends etc). I will also talk about console news especially the Xbox consoles as that's the console I primarily play on. I will be covering news, especially on upcoming games like GTA 6 / Grand Theft Auto VI and COD Black Ops 2024 / Call of Duty Gulf War.

[@BobbysBored]

Honestly speechless with the amount of views and love I've gotten from this video. Thank you so much to every one of you! Genuinely means the world to me having your support and you all taking the time out of your day to watch this video

[@AndroidFerret]

Why not use STARLINK? Pay as a group?

[@Themonkeymafia06]

I wanna see more content from you Karl urban.

[@davemangamer7365]

New Zealand is beautiful high cost-of-living and teenagers get away with murder literally I need to change that The food is good not a lot of people go to work in a pair of T-shirt and shorts get off, and you need a jacket and pants. It’s cold very windy and cell phone data cap suck what the hell😂😂😂

[@ZaneFleming]

I live in fielding right next to palmy

[@BobbysBored]

@@ZaneFleming yooo friendly Feilding haha

[@gangrenous4359]

"Where are you from?" "New Zealand." "Wow, your English is pretty good." "Chur, cuz."

[@CaineOs]

Yea chur cuzzy, shout out from Wanganui,

[@NZKIW1]

i live in nz and it's is a common scenario

[@pyr8211]

“Shot G” 😂

[@bomberdomme7308]

I mean your Sindarin and Quenya sounds better than the Aussie's Khuzdul.

[@SpinConez]

"Too much butha"

[@terminateshere]

The New Zealand Paradox - hours into the future, years into the past.

[@southpacificpyrex1708]

🎯

[@umood-soundscapes]

As a New Zealander we live in the future as far as technology too. Large scale new tech is often tested in nz first as a real life test. Things like cashless debit cards we’ve had them for over 15 years

[@Tigolian]

@@umood-soundscapes yeah for way more expensive price, besides the only high buildings really are only auckland

[@realtalunkarku]

That's deep oi

[@Salithin]

FR!!!

[@mangy_wangy]

as a nz gamer im soooo happy that someone even knows we exist let alone someone that can speak facts

[@Skelee2]

Same

[@jaz-n9g]

I agree

[@Battleneter]

Why do you care?, as a Kiwi if someone doesn't know anything about NZ, its just a lack of knowledge and or interests on their part.

[@jhakardballoch2986]

This guy has a Kiwi accent, he's from NZ. Ofcourse he knows we exist lol

[@taliarunescape2182]

Came here to say this ​@@jhakardballoch2986

[@UncleBBQ]

As a kiwi, I have to also say another negative is our prices for games. New releases are coming out at like $120 - $130 on console, and consoles themselves are expensive as well. Importing games into the country is also quite a difficult task, because of shipping costs and the fact that NZ is such a small gaming market that we don't really get many special editions so they sell out super fast. Speaking of importing as well, there's a bunch of companies that don't even ship here either.

[@DrEnzyme]

I hate the cost of games here. Thankfully indie games have always been pretty generous but I'm lucky if I pick up 1 new console release a year at this rate.

[@lux0rd01]

Also special editions. Screw these steel books and pins. I want these life size statues and stuff Japan and america gets!

[@CharltonHoward]

that's why i have a US account setup for playstation etc

[@OfficialSmeggyBeans]

My brother in christ use CDKeys it's saved me hundreds of $$$ so far on games

[@GBK0711]

Oh for sure, and not just games, if you're a PC gamer, hardwares are way way way too overpriced

[@keshonhend2047]

I met a guy on the Gears of War 3 MP beta. Turned out he lived 5 minutes away, walking. He’s one of my best friends to this day.

[@BobbysBored]

Love these wholesome stories man!

[@thebronjame5777]

the arm rip execution was so colder in the beta its bs that they changed it in the final version

[@sutnack7537]

Uh okay? Thanks for telling us?

[@krisblack4260]

I save you from damnation

[@DylanH-sf5gi]

met a ton of now irl kiwi mates from Gears of war 2 and 3 , heaps from invercargill and hamilton etc, will never forget the bro from lower hutt that was top 100 gnasher wall bouncer in gears 2, then gears 3 dropped and the landscape kinda changed would even get invites to touirneys on usa ping and do decent

[@SlothSandwhich]

I remember I was dogfighting this guy on GTA, I asked him "why TF you so laggy" and he said "sorry m8, from Australia

[@yukhzia]

ppl still dogfight damn

[@nqllv2158]

there is not much of a ping difference between australia & new zealand and its probably his or your connection being unstable not the distance itself

[@nqllv2158]

as 30-70 ping difference is very little

[@SlothSandwhich]

@@nqllv2158 I'm from California, idk if it makes a difference tho lol

[@164BiloKytes]

I get better ping on Aussie servers than actual Aussies. Feel a bit bad for them lol

[@MaoriAvatarChannel]

Nice video bud. That stigma gets worse as you get older. I’m a casual gamer dad, and when some “adults” hear gaming is my thing, you get the judgement, like grow-up already. I’m glad I’ve found my crew and other positive gamer communities.

[@Izingwe]

I feel this comment. Moved to NZ in 2019 and it's way more difficult to find gamers here in real life compared to where I'm from. And "casual gamer dad" rings true for me.

[@nolaja8883]

You should say to them "you watch movies and TV shows right?"

[@GAMNGgeek]

Only just found your channel today. As a fellow New Zealander, it's bloody awesome seeing a genuinely entertaining KZbinr from the same country as me

[@BobbysBored]

Thanks heaps mate!

[@RuneStar26]

Same

[@idk-fp6fq]

kiwi gamer here. i didnt know 15 mbps was bad until i visited my cousin in auckland who ran at 200 consistently. probably because his parents worked at vodafone, but still i was also shocked to see that 220mbps is AVERAGE in the US. Im always above 100 ping, no matter what also when i moved houses we were promised fiber but we never got it (apparently we were out of range)

[@user-zu5zd5pv5d]

Nah your capping I'm in New Zealand im always down 100 ping (SAME IM IN AUCKLAND)

[@user-gd7ec4ws6v]

I always got 300 ping💀 at whk

[@marcuschen1870]

i run 1000 mbps (max) in nz

[@jaz-n9g]

I only got abput one so dont get slingshot wifi

[@jaz-n9g]

@@user-gd7ec4ws6v youre not the only one

[@Cobaltical]

Rural New Zealander here. As much as I love to play online games, I run on a data cap, meaning my internet will straight up stop when it reaches that cap, it doesn't throttle. This forces me to play singleplayer games, and by the time I want to play an online game, theres usually an update available, and by the time I download it, I already wasted time trying to play online only to be stopped by this inconvient barrier. Even if I do play online, like you mentioned, the ping is terrible. Either I play in a US server with 200+ ping or I play on a NZ server with no players. I simply cannot play competetively and I'm not willing to move into another country just to get the best ping. Oh yeah, the data cap I mentioned earlier makes it impossible to fully download AAA games in one evening. I usually have to take my device to someone elses place just to download games, forcing me to resort to Indie games or older games because they contain far less gigabytes to download. Either that or I attempt to download games 2 GB/day just to avoid reaching my internet data cap. This is exactly the reason why I avoid digital downloads and usually stick to physical media, but even then, video games are pricey in New Zealand. Despite my personal struggles, I was able to enjoy video games as a hobby, as I adapted to these limitations and my preferred genre was singleplayer or indie games.

[@BobbysBored]

That's definitely rough mate. Great to hear some perspective from someone living rural! Thanks for watching mate!

[@hongiteporopeke9150]

starlink

[@conservo3203]

That is rough. Do you have a daily cap? I’m European and thank god for awesome internet here. It’s fast, stable and no data cap (yet). The problem with physical media nowadays is that the discs are basically glorified download keys. The game is not on there anymore so you have to download it anyway. Why is it that internet in New Zealand is still relatively bad. Expensive I can imagine but why is it bad?

[@mooncakev1689]

@@conservo3203 Most of New Zealand's internet isn't bad, but the reason some rural areas are behind is due to a lack in infrastructure there. I've been on gigabit (I've since moved down to a 200mbps plan) for a while now and at a decent price, so it really depends on where your located.

[@BrendonGreenNZL]

​@@hongiteporopeke9150You want a round trip to a _satellite?_ Dude, your ping gonna suuuck!

[@TainakaRitsu492]

One thing that annoys me about gaming in NZ is the regional pricing. If a game is $60USD, you'd expect to pay around $100NZD. Some are $70USD, so we pay $120NZD - which is a direct conversion. Some triple-A publishers are even selling games for $130NZD which is nearly $80USD. This is already bullshit in-and-of itself. Our wages are lower than the US by an average of ~63%. We earn significantly less, yet we're paying the same amount (sometimes more) than what they're paying in the US. The Valve recommended regional price for $60USD games is set at $86NZD, and for $70USD games it's $100NZD, yet many developers continue to ignore the suggested regional price.

[@TerraGuy_]

it’s actually so laggy that I get an advantage cuz I always somehow teleport to the other side of the map, and people always think I’m cheating, it’s even more laggy down in the south too

[@robbery0]

I am a gamer from Estonia. When i was visiting and living briefly (2 years) in Australia, i was playing Call of Duty WWII and i remember making so many good buddies and actual friends from nz. It´s been about 6 years now, but im still in Aus/NZ CODWW2 group chat. It´s like a good memorie for me. Great people.

[@astral6749]

For a country of 5 million people, New Zealand is actually pretty big. It's only a bit larger than the UK, but the number of people in the UK is also 12x the population of New Zealand.

[@BobbysBored]

@@astral6749 that's a good point actually!

[@cattysplat]

Without a doubt loads of British will likely start retiring to New Zealand soon since 15% of the population of Britain are now immigrants.

[@francoismurrell4604]

I definitely think our culture has influenced that. We have very low urban density because the nz thing is to have your own house with a nice big backyard to play in. We are seeing some more apartments and mid ride housing pop up but all the urban planning has been done based on low density housing

[@KNWBDY.important]

Not much actual land to live on compared to similar sized places like japan, uk etc

[@TR0I4NGLE]

In welly a lot of the city is kinda dense

[@ProfessorDefault]

Dude you hit those points right on. Every time a livestreams for one of my games happens, it’s always around 12am, it’s a godsend that they happen on Fridays but still sucks when I want to sleep.

[@ItsMeteorite]

As an aussie, seeing your median wifi being almost 50mbps higher than my current wifi speeds and seeing you have 2K mbps and even higher plans made my jaw actually drop in shock.

[@MrPremium183]

Aussies have bad wifi

[@Paradoxical124]

the higher speeds come with a cost, pretty much every new zealander cant afford fast internet

[@lukekeeley9985]

My friend who moved from NZ to aussie was like depending on where you live the internet is awful over here

[@indite8303]

as a new zealander, I can confirm that the ping is 200+ playing anywhere except for oceania servers.

[@nineonine9082]

Only 200+ Australia basically guaranteed 300, Europe servers can be 400.

[@DeltaTenNZ]

Sounds about right, I tend to get +250ms ping on North American servers in a lot of games. Once Human, a recently released game, is a current example of that. But on the bright side, the netcode for the game seems fairly solid. So I don't lag TOO much (no rubberbanding at least.)

[@Ghostnz_]

Yeah, one of my favourite servers on a game is in US East and I've got like 200 ping MINIMUM

[@diztinger]

I mean what did you expect lol

[@Cobloaf69]

As an Aussie, im curious what ping you usually get on our servers?

[@m5gnolia532]

Having to deal with Aussies over voice comms, since we share servers with them, is also a painful experience haha.

[@BobbysBored]

@@m5gnolia532 haha the bogans😂

[@youknowdingo656]

whatd we do to you?

[@SLAYER_TDF]

2 way street that one...

[@TheRealRip-Tide]

​@@BobbysBored haha NZ the KFC addicts 😂

[@R4DRR]

Most Aussies I have met over like CS2 are really friendly and welcoming, it's usually the extremely white, wanna be gangsta Aussie kids, they are worst.

[@GRiZZZLe8]

Born south African, living in nz now 29years. Sunny Hawkes bay..keep up the good work mybro! ❤ liked and subbed 🤘😎🤘

[@alekus3643]

Oh boy… Chicago guy moving to NZ here, first lemme say this was a very useful video. As great as our internet is, I’ve definitely experienced many things mentioned in this video. I don’t live in the area anymore, but i used to live in a backwoods area of america and problems 2, 4, and 6 happened a decent amount. It got so bad that when I was a little kid on a VR lobby I thought ping was a measure of your own performance so I asked “More ping is good… right?” And just got a bunch of oooohs from the other people in the lobby. I didnt do a lot of online gaming as a kid in general though, so that is probably why i had no idea what ping was. It was still high though, usually 110 on a good day and 210 at worst. Eventually i moved into an offshoot of a posh area, meaning i no longer dealt with slow internet. There’s still a stigma though, but it switched from “you’re a nerd!” to gamers, to more of a “holier than thou” attitude from people who don’t game towards people who play video games. I will miss having high download speeds and low ping when i go to new zealand, but i’m going to try to be on the internet less anyway. Hope this comment provided insight to anybody who read it fully, and this is of course just my personal experience. That concludes my little yapfest.

[@Spherz]

This was extremely evident in Forza Horizon 3 a couple years back. The game is set in Australia, so obviously a lot of Kiwis and Aussies played it

[@Bobby_T_]

Even aussies that hated car games still played Forza Horizon 3 because the game was in Australia

[@ecde6801]

as a new zealander, i concur with all of these except the aunz part. another thing for a lot of people even outside nz is that some people just don't understand or realize timezones exists. i say "good morning" and someone says "wdym its 11pm" i'm like what?

[@SuperLifestream]

When I log on to completive play I look at the time. If it's the time Australians are getting home from school I don't play for a few hours. 5:30/6pm till 8pm is the worst. Idk what tf goes on but game quality drops hard.

[@xviolaa]

Ugghhh yes this is the worst! I get so irrationally mad

[@dayligs]

​@@SuperLifestreamthat's when the kids get on and ruin it, it's better to play later in the night.

[@pioisawesome5555]

As a nz fighting game player I love how laid back everyone is compared to other parts of the world and even compared to Aus, everyone just gets along well and it’s super cool

[@malachiflintoff9602]

Tauranga Resident Here :), One thing I would note is internet speeds for cities, atleast around central north island is pretty damn good, and as for rural internet, we are quickly expanding into those areas via the govts RCU plan (Rural Capital Upgrade).

[@KiLLED5639]

I friended a girl on PS3 back in 2015 I think. I frequently invited her to my zombie lobbies because, whenever she was the party leader, we would never be able to get into a game. I realized quickly what was going on so I always invited her instead of her inviting me. But this video definitely puts things into perspective.

[@fullthrottlegaming14]

Congrats on the popular video my bro, I’m a new gaming content creator, long time gamer from Wellington NZ, I can relate to this video 💯🇳🇿🇳🇿🇳🇿

[@BobbysBored]

@@fullthrottlegaming14 yooo thanks so much bro! Love to see a fellow kiwi out there

[@MrPremium183]

​@@BobbysBoredcrazy that this vid basically has 1/5 of our population in views 😭

[@Masterchief12328]

I live in rural NZ, and only had access to 1mbps internet. It wasnt until I got Starlink that my speed increased and was able to play online or even stream videos. Rural NZ is a hard life for a gamer.

[@BabyKaleido]

Haha this was cool to listen to! I am from NZ too and have been gaming online since I was 14, I never really thought of games as nerdy but less girls that I knew played games too back then. Got to meet some friends from online too! Thanks for sharing

[@billcook4768]

You can tell the New Zealanders when online gaming because they always circle-strafe the wrong way.

[@TheRe4ISH4dow_YT]

I do?

[@egg7447]

😂😂😂

[@alyssarichardson2544]

Stupid Lisa science queen!

[@Ch3vstar]

I probably don't play games with that because I have no idea what that is

[@JoseRamirez-le3xr]

Yeah nah we don't

[@matthewhackett8702]

Hey mate, Kiwi here. I still remember playing Halo 2 on garbage internet back in the day. While my homies laughed at their higher US ping. Glad to see YT pushing more NZ creators towards Kiwis :)

[@BobbysBored]

@@matthewhackett8702 haha the memories aye! Yeah thanks so much bro!

[@blufire6704]

Your point about gaming events is so true. One of the games I play has a live stream whenever there’s going to be a new update and it always occurs at midnight…

[@GlitchMZ]

checkin' in from christchurch! all the points in this video are so real genuinely driven INSANE with the amount of times i've been asked if i'm australian 😭 i get people asking have no bad intentions but when you've heard it like a thousand times in the last week it's so annoying

[@BobbysBored]

Haha so true aye! Thanks heaps for watching mate

[@renyaoqin]

yay, same from chch

[@AyeGee721]

Back in the day when I played Team Fortress 2 on California Servers (170 ping from NZ) with my online mates from the US on the mic: "LOL why does your mom sound like the Sniper?!" She did actually...

[@yourdm2620]

Hmmm kinda suspicious that you spelt it mom and not mum. I think a spy is among us. or I mean you just spelt it to emulate the us person speaking ._.

[@AyeGee721]

@@yourdm2620 yeah I spelt it to emulate the US. Me saying 'What' sounds like 'Wot to them and don't get me started on saying Six. My teammates would erupt in laughter which confused me back then.

[@RoofusRoof19]

Some servers also kick u if ur ping is too high, which forces u to either go on skial or play on aussie servers

[@ralphdominicvillalobos796]

Not much NZ youtubers out here, as soon as I saw you're from NZ, automatically subscribed. I'm originally from Philippines btw but been on and off of NZ but now am back for good (though not gaming as much as I used to because I have a family now). Keep doing what you're doing bro.👌

[@BobbysBored]

Thanks heaps mate!

[@shrekiscool4743]

At least we have Superwog

[@ralphdominicvillalobos796]

@@BobbysBored cheers mate, keep the vids coming. 😁

[@Jettdaepik_bfdilover]

There's litterally no yters in nz ngl

[@BobbysBored]

@@Jettdaepik_bfdilover we need to change this!

[@taezaplaeza]

I think making informative content is your calling brother, from one New Zealander to another this was an awesome and very true vid to watch!

[@SteinnSupreme]

trippy to find another palmy youtuber, really good video man, love to see it

[@BobbysBored]

Thanks heaps mate!

[@BlueTurtleClips]

Aucklander here, along with never getting ping better than 200-300, the weather slows down the internet lots when it rains/floods because the Auckland weather is just something else. Power cuts out often in the out-of-city areas.

[@I_Command_Future]

If you think Auckland is bad try some places in Africa

[@BlueTurtleClips]

@@I_Command_Future that fact that your comparing Auckland to tropical regions in Africa should tell you everything you need about our weather here,

[@catfish_art]

hah real, always terrible ping

[@jahmarsh]

Very well put together video bro, great editing and I feel your pain as a fellow Kiwi gamer 😂, awesome vid!

[@beerfoot]

Yo! Awesome video man, shout out from over the hill in the Wairarapa ❤

[@LazyBrad]

I'm from iran and here having a stable internet connection for online games is like an unreachable dream for us. Almost all of the games are inaccessible and they need vpn or changing dns to get in and even if you can access them, the experience is slow and sloppy.

[@BobbysBored]

Ok I can't say anything then😂

[@reservoirfrogs2177]

Damn, well I definitely feel spoiled AF. Ill do my best not to bitch about internet connection in the future lmaooooo

[@KhizarKhan2001]

Are you playing on asian servers? Because im from Pakistan and i get 30-50 ping in most games and since Pakistan is located right next to Iran so i dont think there would be that big of a difference

[@deathtoming2201]

@@KhizarKhan2001what game you playing bro ? I get 150 ping

[@sundae6610]

@@KhizarKhan2001 I think censor and sanctions are the bigger issue

[@russellwhitlock1942]

I'm also in NZ, and the biggest negative in my opinion is that, due to the time differences, there's often no one logged in when I want to play online, and when my overseas friends are available, I'm either at work or asleep.

[@shrekiscool4743]

Yeah time zones are the worst

[@itscharlie0110]

Great video! It is nice to see a video from NZ every now and again. I'm from NZ and do a lot of gaming with my mates. Luckily, with most games we might play (such as Fortnite, CS:2, and Rocket league), the servers in Sydney are pretty good, and with a semi decent internet connection we are all able to stick around 40 to 60 ping. Some other games we have kept away from in the past due to them only having US servers, but sometimes we don't mind. Internet here has come a long way, I remember when we had copper lines and the internet was atrocious, like 2 megabyte/second at best, but recently we have gotten a lot better. Some of my rural friends still do have internet issues sometimes though. Some negatives of gaming in NZ that I have come across are things such as dead OCE servers, games like Apex used to be quite popular in the region but now it takes ages to find a game, and most of the time it is bots. That has started to be the same with Fortnite for us as well. Around the Stigma part, I feel like that covers computing as a whole. It took a long time before I could convince my parents that I can actually do productive things on my PC other than gaming, and my friends have talked about similar experiences too. In my opinion, gaming is not too bad in NZ. As long as the games have servers somewhere in Aussie or NZ, and our internet isn't being trash, my friends and I are often able to have entertaining game nights. It used to be quite bad, but we have really come a long way.

[@58696c]

#6 goes hard, I came to NZ a few years ago and didn't realized gaming wasn't as socially acceptable. It's definitely a lot more now, but I used to live with relatives who don't play games often or support it as a hobby as much

[@thepainphantom]

Am from Indonesia and had a mate from NZ when I was playing GTAO. My other friends are from Europe. We were doing Apartment and Doomsday Elite challenge, it's insane how we manage the time difference for the whole crew to play together. Lots of discord chats. But we did it eventually. One of my best experience in playing online.

[@BobbysBored]

@@thepainphantom that sounds so wholesome! Yeah you always find a way to make it work with your mates

[@ItzBIULD]

I can attest to this. I'm American but I have plenty of European friends, and even one from Indonesia. It's insane how I can manage timezone differences for the one from Indonesia considering we are so far across the world from each other.

[@alfredodian9040]

what internet provider you use if i may ask? im also indonesia, my gaming buddy currently in aussie and we cant play any competitive together. either he had to connect to singapore server or i connect to australia server. both result in high ping ( 150-200ms) the only game we could play together were peer to peer game which one of us hosted the game like Monster hunter world, borderlands, hellldiver 2, or ghost recon series.

[@thepainphantom]

@@ItzBIULD I feel you bud. We're the opposite time (12 hrs difference) and sometimes one have to sacrifice or something. It's like having a LDR lmao.

[@ItzBIULD]

@@thepainphantom we don't even have to sacrifice sleep, funnily enough

[@luofubo]

you dont say bro, as a PC gamer in Auckland, gaming hardware are expensive and the things I want are always out of stock. Manufactures dont even realize there is a (tiny) market down to the bottom of the world map, matter of fact, NZ is quite often missing from the world map.

[@NatMG]

ay bro, you got it better than the rest of us in NZ AKL is the hub for anything that comes into the country. I basically have to get everything online.

[@KiwiMatty]

@@NatMG So true, I have to get everything online and its so annoying because games are also basically double price.

[@Dthewhat]

Honest New Zealand cost a lot since we have less people.

[@arcticvfx0]

fr

[@frostiefops]

$40 shipping fees aren't uncommon for me in rural south island .w.

[@user-ln2gz2sx3p]

OMG FINALLY A VIDEO ON THIS ITS SOOO HARD WE MISS EVERTHING

[@Blakers-iq6ve]

Best video ever couldn't ask for it to be any better, as I live in New Zealand and I experience ALL of this

[@patrickm.4754]

Proud Kiwi gamer moment: I was standing in line for the GTA IV launch where we got to play it first before the rest of the world.

[@BobbysBored]

@@patrickm.4754 now that's iconic! So sad midnight release launches at game stores are kinda dead now

[@midnightvoids]

we get most games before every other country!

[@Paradoxical124]

why is your pfp the raaf logo but with a bin chicken?

[@Hagman_the_Bagpiper]

I was playing Mount and Blade: Warband Napoleonic Wars and met my best friend in Teamspeak 3. He said " does somebody want to learn the German Medival Bagpipe? " I've always wanted to learn the bagpipe. We found out that we only lived 3 - 4 hours away from each other. When my bagpipes were finished, he drove to the bagpipe maker and then drove to me and gave it to me. It was my best birthday ever ^^ And now we are friends for 5 years ;D

[@BobbysBored]

@@Hagman_the_Bagpiper that's actually so wholesome man. Gaming can make some pretty awesome friendships!

[@r32guy85]

what city?

[@ToastieBRRRN]

What regiment were you in? I was in 90th Tayside.

[@Hagman_the_Bagpiper]

@@ToastieBRRRN First regiment i joined was the 1Rhein and then after 2 years they dissolved. Many regiments later i got into the 6tesRIR_Nr45 they also dissolved after 3 Years or so but they reopened the regiment because of the new Bannerlord and now we are playing some Roleplay and doing the Events every Week again. ^^

[@TheSouthernSanta]

I'm glad to see that finally YT's algorithnm is finally recommending me content from fellow Kiwis. Honestly love how our ISP's advertise such high speeds but if you go to actually do anything besides play games or download content that's in Australia or New Zealand, you're gonna get a performance hit. Right now I currently have fibre but I doubt the ISP i'm with is actually good. I keep dropping from Discord, like wth I'm just talking with someone and then i'm booted out for a few seconds and miss something vital since nobody knew I got disconnected

[@zaragrimes]

All valid points! Especially about in game timed events in such a struggle. I was super invested in a MMORPG. I played solidly for two years but had to give it up because I couldn't deal with the wild time zone differences for daily events. Even in an asia based server which gets me best ping as its closest. getting up at 3am every weekend for group events got to much XD. I wish we had a bigger community here in NZ for gamers.

[@anaholamakai623]

From Hawaii, we have many of the same issues, except we are the last time zone instead of the first. We also have the problem that our main ISP is based in Kansas so often internet location services report we are 4000 miles from where we actually are giving us the worst servers possible. This caused us to get a VPN and do most of our playing on VPN connections as if we are in San Francisco, which optimizes our undersea connections to the lmainland and gives us some of the widest selections of servers. This works great when we game in the daytime or early evening but in the later evening the US west coast is often going to bed so we switch either to a bigger city like LA or we connect to Sydney, Seoul, or Tokyo. This lets us get fuller lobbies whenever we want and the lag is not bad as long as we pick cities that are connected directly to the undersea pacific fibre lines. Late nigt here, If we don't find people in Sydney we jump to London or even the US east coast, however then sometimes FPS lag starts getting us. We've made many friends in these other cities and the only negative is trying to avoid people who just want to come stay in Hawaii free 😮. If you try a VPN you might find picking Sydney Melbourne or SFO improves lobbies quite a bit.

[@45mNZ]

Bloody spot on mate. Checking in from Tauranga

[@BobbysBored]

@@45mNZ thanks heaps mate!

[@arcticvfx0]

im in there for vacation right now

[@DeadmanDT]

I’m also in New Zealand. I’ll add that while not finding public matches in older games is a negative the silver lining is that it makes it easier to lock down a lobby with your gaming mates around the world. Countless times my mates and I have gone for specific Multiplayer Achievements where they join me on our empty server so we don’t get randoms spoiling our fun

[@lukewelten]

So cool your vid is taking off man. Need more kiwi content creators. Awesome stuff!

[@BobbysBored]

@@lukewelten thanks heaps bro! Yeah I agree!

[@Stephyayy123]

I love how in New Zealand, unlimited data fiber optic internet plans is cheaper than in most countries and offers flexibility in payment options. Great fast doownload and upload speeds. I also love that when you sign up for a contract, the ISP gives you a free modem router. Brilliant country! 😀

[@Zach.R]

Aussie here, our average internet speed is literally 3x worse than New Zealand. It's funny how Australia invented wifi but our internet speeds suck ass and cost an arm and a leg to get fast internet speeds. Edit: also we are by far the slowest out of the first world countries it ain't even close

[@BobbysBored]

Damn yeah that ain't fair at all

[@VitalyDryburgh]

thank your politicians for saying "copper is good enough for a decade" and not investing in their telcos

[@Zach.R]

@@VitalyDryburgh I'm not a political person but yeah gotta thank the Liberal government for that one

[@kylegibson5933]

I swear people get dramatic about Aussie internet 😂, I live in a rural town and get around 70-100Mbs, if you're in a major/Small City (which majority of Australian's live you got access to bounds of internet speeds and coverage. I've seen the 5G speeds and they're ridiculous.

[@Zach.R]

@@kylegibson5933 I mainly complained about how expensive the fast speeds are...

[@orebelated]

bro for minecraft announcements it starts at 1 am in the morning for me 💀💀 - australia, also we share some of the same issues as most of australia is not rlly got people, its only rlly perth melbourne sydney and the other cities everywhere else is empty and most games you get no lobbies and out connection to outside servers is awful so i understand the struggles

[@MilkshakeSkunkette]

that negative #4 seriously stings so much for us xD "yeah were not laying a fiber cable up that way unless your whole street wants to pitch in for the cost" huuuuge oof

[@TotallySusan-tl9tc]

My cousin from the United States always asks why I’m so bad at minecraft and Roblox l, and I saw “playing with you makes my ping 300, if I play in Nz severs I get 0 ping”

[@Computerdude323]

Roblox used to only have servers in the USA, but now they have servers worldwide, and the client tries to join a server with low ping. So, if YOU join first, you get put in an Oceania server, then you can have your cousin join and they will be the one who suffers with high ping instead ;)

[@Paradoxical124]

new zealand doesnt have and seperate game servers, nz is always an afterthought.

[@glaze_tpf9791]

The harsh reality of gaming in Australia: We have to risk playing with kiwis

[@BobbysBored]

Haha we share the pain of each other😂

[@roryhebberd9766]

Aussie is a nice country. Shame about the Aussies though.

[@francescoxiv762]

​@@roryhebberd9766 Southern Hemisphere version of France?

[@nightwalker83]

​@@francescoxiv762 Australia?

[@VitalyDryburgh]

*getting beaten by*

[@PAULAJANE]

I recently moved here in NZ, currently staying in Central Otago. We have fibre provided by spark and the speed is quite fast download speed is almost a gigabyte per second. Upload speed is around 500mbps. Although when it comes to cellular, it’s quite terrible for us especially when you’re not in town.

[@tombensan9715]

Nice to see a fellow Nz bro now and then!

[@BruceLeedar]

Here's another specific gripe: for no apparent reason Epic Games Store decided to block Alan Wake 2 (which is Epic exclusive) for sale in NZ a few months after launch. This means you can't buy it nor the DLC that came out later, at least without some trickery. I get the impression it is some bug with their store, but because our market is so small they don't have much motivation to fix it.

[@BobbysBored]

Oh wow yeah I would've never have known that! That sucks

[@BruceLeedar]

@@BobbysBored I just checked and it looks like it finally got fixed. Only took about half a year. Of course, we still lose out on the DLC launch week discount. 🙃

[@RJH755]

YES SAME! I own the base game but can't buy the DLC it's so annoying

[@Liam-Brawl-Stars]

Bro this was a really good video, I’m also a New Zealand gamer, top for Brawl Stars in NZ but just the amount of opportunities is limited especially for going pro & content creation as it’s harder to find those connections and opportunities as there are no Oce servers:(

[@prosketch95]

I also live near Palmerston North😂 you are so on point with this one, good stuff

[@BobbysBored]

Thanks heaps mate!

[@deprimat666]

Oh shit I love in palmy your channel popped up in my recommendations. I'll sub mate

[@BobbysBored]

Legend thanks mate

[@Bounccy]

As someone in feilding it feels weird as hell knowing you're only like a 20 minute bus ride away

[@manaiagilsenan8570]

As someone from fielding this is wild

[@jessipan378]

@@manaiagilsenan8570 you telling me, the entire gaming community of feilding all in this video comment section

[@BobbysBored]

Probably 😂

[@limsrusill]

I used to live at 8 Church St! I miss Filly bro 😂

[@darkvalkyrienz8393]

Can confirm, also from Feilding. Not much else to do here except game I guess 😂

[@Dubbascus]

it's kinda wild hearing a NZ online experience as an american lmao the odds of finding someone within even a 4-5 hour driving distance is rare unless you're from like california, new york, or florida lmao

[@BobbysBored]

@@Dubbascus yeah that's an interesting perspective! Thanks for that!

[@MaoriGamerDood]

I love Gaming ma bro. Glad I found ur channel cause for as much as I love Jamming games. In NZ it's Harder than it looks. I do believe the positives outweigh the negatives. But I'm a bit of an optimist. Great vid. Now I don't know how much u know about this but I mainly play fighting games. The rise of rollback netcode have improved matching overseas much better.

[@bniy]

Honestly, I understand the stigma. I've been gaming for such a looooong time and I never bring up gaming outside of my online friends, or friends I've met that have an interest in gaming too. I have noticed over the years since 2020 that I've seen a lot more people openly talking about video games here in New Zealand, which is so cool. Great video bro. All your points are valid

[@BobbysBored]

Thanks heaps mate

[@Mikania-vt5rq]

I am from the Netherlands. While there are many gamers in Europe, we sadly also have language barriers where people talk in their own languages which can make Comptetitove games more challenging.

[@RoofusRoof19]

Also Russian smurfs are annoying from what I heard

[@60Keiran1Torrance5]

Chur brudda @BobbysBored I just found this video, I'm also from New Zealand, actually over the waters in South Island, Nelson. What you said is 100% accurate. Keep up the grind, bro, and I also hate how most game developers still use regional server systems and oceanic servers as being mainly the most dead servers in all gaming history. It would be good if most games had more server switch capabilities, but that's my little rant about gaming in New Zealand. Thanks for making this video bro for the world to see and shedding light on gaming in New Zealand. Kia kaha my bro and keep doing that Mahi it will pay off.

[@Ghostextechnica]

My biggest one as a kiwi is that server maintenance times sometimes happen at primetime. The latest example is the First Descendant - don't even think about playing on Thursday evening - that's the weekly maintenance window.

[@reaper_redcap]

G'day neighbour haha! Yes, pretty much everything you mentioned happen here in Aus to. Granted we might have a little bit more advantage in some areas, things like internet speed is actually worse. Only reaching 98mb download in most rural areas especially towards the mid-centre of Aus since all of our servers are near the east coast. I feel ya pain dude 🫡

[@legospacememe8468]

me a single player guy: you guys play online?

[@wifiunove1650]

You play super Nintendo?

[@YoungTummy]

​@@wifiunove1650 fucking lol! Tell him!

[@subgivtara]

I got no friends and no money so I sail the seas with eu4 and ck3

[@user-br9xx2lp6w]

​@subgivtara in the same ship but also play hoi4

[@GenJuhru]

I would do TF2, but I haven't been after getting the ball and chain 😂... 😢

[@luckyhcastella1502]

This is the first video I watched of this channel and it's pretty cool. As an anecdote, I'm from the US I'm 12 and I have a lot of friends that are from New Zealand. A lot. I met all of them playing games like GTA doing heists or racing or playing Fortnite or Call of Duty. Despite the distance we are very good friends hoping to meet each other in the future. It's very interesting how the connection between games allows this. We've never had lag problems when we play, the only problem is that when it's day here, it's night there. But we always make the effort and we all do our part to play when we can, especially on vacation. It's pretty cool and I'm glad to have friends from all over the world and of course Oceania. Good video I'm subscribing

[@haloruby407]

Another point that my brother brought up is there isn’t really tournaments held here. He took part in a Tekken Tournament a few years back and there were only four people (including himself.)

[@zSkNNYBNz]

Shout outs from New Zealand 🇳🇿 love this vid bro. So true what's been said.

[@BobbysBored]

Thanks heaps bro!

[@ChonkyToad]

Yo a fellow Palmerston North fella! Always nice to see some Kiwi’s getting popular online as you don’t see it very often. Keep it up mate!

[@BobbysBored]

Thanks so much mate!

[@arcrosis]

Ayyyy same bro.

[@wwz_519]

Me too palmy

[@mystic_d2]

Haha me too Palmy. Nice vid bro!

[@Rxpidd]

Im palmy also!

[@Cojack1899]

As a European Xbox Gamer i want to thank New Zealand for existing. Thanks to you and the ability to change regions i am also able to play early

[@BobbysBored]

@@Cojack1899 haha that's brilliant 😂

[@Lead_EaterNA]

I'm a kiwi and play World of Tanks. It was great when they had the ANZAC server and ping was nice and low. Although there weren't many players so I switched to the NA server for more competitive gameplay and dealing with the 200+ ping. I had learnt to deal with it and don't know anything else. I have given up any other games due to the high costs and the need for a better computer for most of them. My current laptop I've had for 7 years and it is struggling these days but I can't afford something better. The other thing about New Zealand is ee are so isolated that we rely on mostly imports of hardware for gaming which oushes the price up of everything.

[@PatarikBalaytaman]

I'm a naturalized Kiwi and I 100% agree what he is saying. It's pretty hard when it comes to playing with your mates somewhere else like Asia or America, it's like 4-6 hours difference, and we might be asleep when they're playing

[@favic27]

Just watched this video and I thought it had like 100,000 views, not a 1000. Really underrated channel, you’ve earnt my subscription.

[@BobbysBored]

Thank you so much mate! Means a lot to hear that

[@lasslaugh8453]

Same

[@BobbysBored]

@@lasslaugh8453 thanks so much!

[@XyamaProductions]

Damn guess this video kind of blew up then

[@favic27]

@@XyamaProductionsyeah🤣I watched this video when it had about 900 views, soon it’ll be on 100k like it deserves

[@KiwiMatty]

This video is so true!! Im a New Zealander my self and I can agree that it is very hard living in New Zealand because nobody is Online!

[@apersimmon]

It's soo true, the connections to non Oceania servers ia nuts and the odds of a random being close to you is pretty high.

[@suparibhau]

here in India the servers are a hit or miss. Gaming culture mostly revolves around mobile games (PUBG mobile) and the small no. of people who do play on pc/consoles only care about popular AAA titles like rdr2 or competitive games. So it's pretty rare to find someone who enjoys non-mainstream or indie titles.

[@BobbysBored]

@@suparibhau oh wow I had no idea it was like that! Why do you think mobile gaming is more popular than console/PC?

[@suparibhau]

​@@BobbysBored Affordability, the price of a console is often the same or even more than someone's monthly salary. Since majority of gamers are teenagers, their parents aren't really keen to buy them something so expensive that has nothing to do with their academics.

[@BobbysBored]

@suparibhau ahhh right, that makes sense! Thank God for phones then right 😄

[@dexdevlon]

Couldn't have said better, pretty much no PC gamers and hell in servers for many games, the best server (if any) is SEA, which is like 100ms at-least.

[@finlaywightman7126]

​@@suparibhauvery interesting

[@ELCAyoutube]

You’re lucky if a live event starts at 5am, usually it’s like 3am on a weekday

[@BobbysBored]

@@ELCAyoutube yeah that's not ideal either haha

[@ValentBond]

So....just like Sony for Europeans.

[@YT_PWFHalo]

on fortnite all the cups start at like 10:00pm to 12:30am or like 11:00pm 1:00am

[@user-oq3gm1iy6o]

Bro coming from new Zealand myself i know each and every single one of your points to be soooo true man, like i literally get flashbacks

[@BarelyEinstein]

My house is in this video, the picture at 11:26, I worked at Skyline for a bit too. Also, we're not Australia but we are related. Australia is the cousin that turns up at Christmas uninvited and drains his RV poo tank in your sewer.

[@breem7052]

Amazing video, it pop up randomley on my youtube home page but I want to know if someone else experiences the same issues for gaming living in NZ. Was very surprised to know that you are from palmy SAME as me!! Keep up the good work cuz

[@BobbysBored]

Thanks heaps mate!

[@kelvinstillplays]

Brother internet speeds in kenya are ancient 💀 I game with 10mpbs 💀

[@Saftevand4]

if thats what you consider ancient mine must be prehistoric

[@BobbysBored]

Geez, and I thought we had it bad😂.

[@markmwangi3060]

Si you upgrade your internet package 😂

[@Simracingisgoated]

What’s your average ping?

[@AN2Felllla]

I live in rural NZ and I get the same lol

[@wgtnlex]

Hey from wellington good content bobby 🎉

[@fl1nch_155]

Ghosts of Tabor, which is basically VR Tarkov recently changed their sever matchmaking system which made it pretty much unplayable in NZ as it would prioritise full lobbies, meaning I would wait 5+ minutes before it would give up and load me into a raid alone which sucks because the PvP is the main aspect of the game

[@brandono6718]

From Nelson NZ here! Love the video and agree with everything you said. Im a sim racer and sim racing in general does not have a massive online playerbase, so being in New Zealand makes it so hard to find populated servers during the day. Hopefully gaming continues to grow here

[@BobbysBored]

@@brandono6718 oh cool bro! Somehow I don't think I've ever been to Nelson haha. Thanks for your comment and watching bro!

[@danielpinkham4526]

there is a small community of sim racers here in new zealand but not as big as the rest of the world you will mainly see us on iracing driving supercars/gt3s

[@OnlyNz]

Spot on and relatable, happy for your success on breakout video G! Keen to see more great things

[@CTCUnloaded]

I’ll add my piece, NZ Gamer of course, never encountered the ‘Gamer Stigma’ while growing up referred to here so i suppose i was fortunate i was surrounded by other Gamers while in school. Playing with other players from overseas i just took as a ‘Standard’ experience for us. 170 - 200ms to play in NA? Just learned to adapt to it, i know it’s not great but we have to deal with it. As for the AU/NZ Confusion, i never really cared but i did pay heed to correct them in the least - not everyone knows geography and i don’t expect others to really care where i’m from, i’m just trying to have fun. More or less, Just Consider it the ‘New Zealand Gaming Experience’

[@geobucky]

Can confirm on the friends front. Met some people playing Destiny 2 now they are some of my best friends. We hang out regularly, our wives and kids get along well too, and most of them live like 15 mins away. NZ really is a rather small place with a lot of GCs.

[@itr-my9eq]

I'm also in nz and met this dude on gran turismo in a random lobby. We found out we both had similar cars and lived close to one another. We met up and went for a cruise to a drag event. Good times.