Hotel Built for Gamers - WHAT???
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
1,699 words · ~8 min read
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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.