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In the competitive hospitality industry,

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it's important for a hotel to have some kind of shtick.

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An onsite casino, a cheap buffet,

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affordable by-the-hour rates.

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You know, it all depends what you're into.

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As for Taiwanese brand 168IN,

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well, they've got normal hotels,

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like the stay in Taipei

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that we were at during Computex this year.

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But then once the show was over,

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they invited us to come see something pretty different

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that they're doing in nearby Taoyuan.

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So behind me is the iHotel, a gaming hotel,

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the first of its kind in Taiwan.

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As for what makes a hotel gaming?

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Well, apparently it's 55 something, 4K something,

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DX racer, presumably chairs, and GTX 1080Ti's?

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What?

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Okay, we're gonna have to go check this out.

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Or check in, as it were.

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Get it?

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It's a hotel joke.

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The check-in process is pretty normal

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other than the king-size helping of RGB.

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So you check in.

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And then you check in.

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They've got their GeForce iCafe certification

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proudly on display.

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They're actually the only hotel in Taiwan

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to meet NVIDIA's standard.

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And then the lobby opens up to, well,

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these guys know their audience.

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The included breakfast is served along that side.

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And then on this side, well,

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some hotels have a rockin' gym,

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but 168IN figured that a big 12-player LAN center

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was a better bet.

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And if their guests really wanted to get their heart rate up,

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they would go and plug into the HTC VIVE VR machine

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that's over there in the hallway.

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So there's nobody here right now.

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But anyone staying here can use these machines

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as much as they want.

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The idea behind this common area

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is that the guests can get to know each other

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by coming out of their rooms to play games together.

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And eSports teams can hold practices

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throughout the day or night.

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It's open 24 hours.

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So the Australian team, Blank eSports,

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was actually here for two months during Overwatch contenders

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and apparently basically never left the lobby.

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And these are the best machines in the building.

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And these are the best machines in the building.

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And these are the best machines in the building.

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With Core i7-8700s, 16 gigs of,

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ooh, is that RGB RAM?

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Very nice, very nice.

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GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards,

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165 hertz G-Sync gaming monitors,

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about 10 terabytes of local storage for game files,

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and premium gaming peripherals.

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The team was apparently thrilled with the setup here

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compared to their normal routine,

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which is to find a house to rent,

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to ship all of their gear up,

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and then ship it all back when they finish.

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So the plan from iHotel is to upgrade the hardware here

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every year to make sure that they stay state-of-the-art.

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Now, let's head into one of the rooms.

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In-hotel laundry is actually something

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I wish more places did.

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It seems like such an obvious way

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to make a longer stay more comfortable.

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Anyway, here we are.

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This is their standard room

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with either two twins or one full bed.

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You have got to be kidding me.

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They are really proud of a lot of the gamer-centric changes

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that they've made to the standard hotel setup.

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So for example, every one of the rooms

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has dual sound-isolating doors

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that have been verified to keep inside noise

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to 40 decibels or less,

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and comes equipped with not one, but two separate full,

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sledge gaming rigs equipped with 32-inch monitors,

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GTX 1060 video cards, Core i5 CPUs, 16 gigs of RAM,

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a full set of gaming-grade peripherals,

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including the chair, and yes, again,

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with the 10 terabytes of local storage

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so you can jump on your favorite game launcher

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and download whatever you want to it.

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The boot drive wipes itself upon reboot,

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so you don't have to worry about someone

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accidentally getting into your account

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if you check out and forget to sign up.

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Some other aspects of the room that I appreciate

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as someone who travels a fair amount

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is that there are tons of outlets,

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both normal wall plugs and USB ones

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so that you can charge all of your crap.

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And then this one in particular on the bed here

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is freaking brilliant.

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Why doesn't every hotel do this?

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An international plug in the room,

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so you don't have to, I don't know, do anything.

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I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

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Arrive, you're all jet-lagged,

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realize that you can't plug in your whatever thing

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and spend the first couple of hours of your vacation

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buying some stupid adapter

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that you accidentally left sitting on the bed at home.

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The TV setup is pretty slick too.

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So I don't recognize this brand,

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and I get it, I don't know, it looks okay,

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but it's a 4K TV that, more importantly,

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is connected in a really cool way.

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So this system over here closest to the bed

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has an HDMI connection over to that TV.

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So that means that you can run anything you want on it.

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You just set this up on here, full screen,

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and bippity boppity, wham!

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You are watching Linus Tech Tips

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from the comfort of your bed.

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And it's not just limited to their systems.

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So here on the side of the bed, again,

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is another HDMI input for the TV,

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a headphone jack so that you can listen

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using headphones if you'd prefer,

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and a USB port so that if you were running,

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say, for example, your phone as an output to the TV,

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you wouldn't run out of battery

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while it sits here on the nightstand.

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Now, if you don't pack the necessary cables,

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they provide them for free,

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along with a handful of other useful extras.

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I mean, most of our focus so far

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has been on the gaming features,

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but this is still a hotel.

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So if the bed or the bathroom sucks,

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you're going to have a bad time.

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Fortunately, they went full fancy

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with the new Orland mattresses.

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They put a fridge in every room,

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which I personally really appreciate

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because it is impossible to find cold water over here.

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And check these out, Japanese-style toilets

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with heated seats and water cleaners,

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if you prefer those.

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Squeaky clean.

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This next room style is actually one

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that they don't advertise on their site.

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So it's designed to look and feel, kind of, like,

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a college dorm for them nostalgia feels.

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With that said, other than replacing the regular bed

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with a bunk bed, it is pretty similar to the standard room.

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Although, there is one thing that I missed before

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when I was showing the standard room.

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This is really cool.

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Ah, it's over here, I've got to crawl under the desk.

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Every room gets its own dedicated Wi-Fi access point,

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so you don't have to worry about, you know,

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getting that room at the end of the hall

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with the crappy reception.

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Now it's time for the best for last portion of our tour.

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They only have one of these, but this is the capsule room.

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It's their standard room, but in space.

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So first, they've got the Wall-O gaming machines.

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Six in total, so you could have your whole team

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in here at once.

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And then second is the sleeping pods.

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So each of these things is equipped with a memory foam

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mattress.

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It's isolated for noise and light.

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It's got individual climate control.

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It's got its own power connectivity,

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so regular AC and USB.

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It contains its own safe, and check this out.

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It's got its own TV.

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So in the capsule room, you can travel with your friends

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or colleagues and never actually see them.

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If you get stuck,

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there's an SOS button, by the way.

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So you don't have to worry about that.

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So then, who exactly is staying in a place like this though?

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I mean, you can't fill up an entire hotel year round

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just based on traveling e-sports players.

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Well, as it turns out, after they built the iHotel,

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they found business coming from unexpected places.

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Local families,

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have come to stay as a treat for their kids

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for doing well in school or whatever,

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because they don't have a nice gaming PC at home.

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Some folks just come and stay here for the fast internet.

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International stock traders and would-be concert goers

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who want to have their best chance to buy a hot ticket

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that's likely to sell out in 10 seconds

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have frequented this place.

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And all other things being equal,

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I would definitely choose a hotel like this

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for Linus Media Group's travels.

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I mean, even if we didn't end up using the machines

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for video editing, the peripherals, the extra monitors,

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things like that are fantastic.

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And I mean, I no longer take for granted

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stuff that seems fairly simple,

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like a decent sized desk and a wired network connection.

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In fact, most of the big hotels that I've stayed at

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in the last couple of years

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have been disabling their Ethernet ports

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for some inexplicable reason.

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So let me know what you guys think.

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Are you a gamer?

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Are you some other kind of consumer

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who would be interested in this?

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Or do you think the whole concept is just crazy?

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I want to see your comments below.

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So thanks for watching, guys.

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If you just liked this video, you can hit that button.

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But if you liked it, hit like, get subscribed,

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or maybe consider checking out the iHotel.

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We'll have that linked in the video description.

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Also linked down there is our merch store,

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which has cool shirts like this one,

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and our community forum, which you should totally join.